We're having a ...

I haven't been able to get onto this page for the past few days ... in fact, I still can't view my own page (so to those of you who left comments, I'm not ignoring you, I just can't see my page!), but even if I can't see anything that I write, I can still write it!

I wanted to announce to those of you who hadn't heard the news that we found out on Monday that we're having a little boy in October. My husband is one of three sons, and he's been saying all along that boys run in his family, so he wasn't surprised at all, but I was! Somehow I didn't really believe him, and thought there was a good chance it might be a girl.

I had been wondering for months now whether or not we'd be able to find out the gender, and had pretty much resigned myself to it being a surprise. In China, because of problems with people wanting to select for gender, you're normally not allowed to find out at your ultrasound whether the baby is a boy or a girl. I had a very nice doctor who agreed to tell me in English so that the patients nearby wouldn't understand what he was saying. He seemed very pleased to have the opportunity to not only give me the happy news, but also use his English with a patient. I'm sure he, as well as I, had a story to tell at dinner that night.

Now we have to start the arduous process of picking out Chinese and English names for the little guy. I get to choose the English, he gets to choose the Chinese. If you have any good suggestions, feel free to toss them my way!

Y is for Yak

This is what we're learning today in kindergarten class. The kids will finally be finishing the alphabet, and great rejoicing will be heard throughout the school.

My 4-6 year olds are really bright, and they learn quickly. Luckily, they also have a stellar group of parents who are supportive without being pushy. They wait patiently while their kids stay after class to make sure they're satisfied, personally satisfied, I should say (I could give two hoots as to whether they color within the lines or not), with their work. They dutifully tally up their stars for the day, and encourage the kids to accumulate even more next time. They are, all in all, good parents, the kind of parents every teacher loves.

So, good job parents. You've managed to break the Chinese parent mold, you're not pushy and you're not demanding. Your kids enjoy learning and have accomplished a lot. I know you'll probably never see this, but I'm giving you a "shout out" just the same. To all parents out there with kids and school, try to remember first and foremost that your kids are there to learn and to take joy and pride in learning. Encourage that joy, that curiosity inherent in all children, and never, ever, let learning become just another chore. Your children (and their teachers) will someday thank you!

Would you like some cheez whiz with your rice?

My dad, apparently, has decided that I'm not an American anymore.

I was talking to him online last night, and he made several comments that sort of amused and surprised me at the same time. We were talking about him and mom wanting to learn Chinese. Now, I think this is great. Learning a foreign language is very rewarding, and if they want to take up Chinese as a hobby, more power to them. However, my dad's reasoning is that he'll need Chinese in order to communicate with his grandchildren.

This sort of shocked me. Of course we'll be teaching our children English. Won't we? My husband doesn't speak English besides a few words here and there, and we use Chinese together, but English is my native language. I don't want to spend my entire life communicating to my children in a second language. We also don't plan on spending our lives in China.

This comes as a surprise to some people. After all, I've been here for four years, which might as well be a lifetime, right? It seems that some people take my extended stay in China as a conscious rejection of America, which it isn't really. During the same conversation yesterday, my dad said to me "we love your country." When I told this to Wang Yao, he just about died laughing. How could China be MY country? In China, I'm reminded of my foreign-ness every day. There is not a single person in this country who would ever call me Chinese, ever include me in their mental "one of us," and yet my own family and friends often seem eager to strip me of my citizenship, and proclaim that I've "gone native." I should clarify that they never say this in a bad way -- the attitude is almost always amused, and a bit proud, as if, by association, they too can claim a bit of international blood, a little bit of China for themselves.

Of course, this puts me in an awkward position. My countrymen back home are quick to announce that I'm Chinese now, but the Chinese people themselves aren't so eager to accept me. To them, being Chinese is not about how long you've lived here. It isn't about how much you love Chinese culture, how well you speak the language. It's about blood, and that's something I'll never ever have. While Wang Yao can go to America and literally become American, I can never become Chinese. My children can be Chinese, but I can't. In Chinese eyes, I'll always be an outsider, a foreigner, and, by the same token, Wang Yao, even if we go to America, buy a Suburban and raise our children on Taco Bell and Mountain Dew, and never set foot in China again, will always be Chinese. Even our kids will always be able to lay claim to China, but not me.

Of course, I tend to agree with them. I'm not Chinese and I never will be. As much as the folks back home might delight in announcing that I'm living a totally Chinese lifestyle, I'm not. I'll sit on a curb, or in the grass, without being worried about dirt. I don't like my bread sweet. I don't see anything wrong with wearing flip flops outside the house. I like coffee, not just because drinking it makes me look cool. I hate Mandarin pop music. My cell phone doesn't have stickers all over it. I don't feel the need to have rice at every meal. I want my kids to go to school and enjoy it and enjoy learning and not grow up to be robots. I don't think it's really that tragic if a woman never gets married or has kids. I didn't consider my husband's income or ability to buy me a house and car when I married him. I didn't get rid of my cat or stop using the computer when I got pregnant. I don't have a drop of Chinese blood in me. I'm not Chinese.

If anything, living in China for so long has made me feel more American. While there are certain aspects of my native land that I'd love to disown, I can't deny the fact that she made me who I am. I'm the product of Montessori schools, summers at Folly beach, hippy relatives, building forts in the backyard, swimming pools, learners permits, keggers, Nintendo, free thinking, a multicultural environment, hating Bush, Tex-mex, Indy rock, and a liberal arts degree. These aren't things you can get in China, and even though my four years here have been delightful and informative and person building, they have nothing on the 23 years, the formulative years, that I spent in the USA.

So, in answer to my father, and to all the others out there who might have, at one point, wondered just what "label" fits on me, just keep in mind that there are some things that are easier said than done, and renouncing one's nationality is one of them. Furthermore, as frustrated as I get with America sometimes, I don't think that China is "better," and my choice to be here has nothing to do with picking sides, or becoming something that I'm not. I think anyone who has spent an extended time in another country, particularly us Westerners in Asian countries, realize that often our experiences here serve not to sever us from that home culture, but to tie us more strongly to it. We crave things we would never touch back home, like Cheez Whiz (a fellow American expat, a slim, pretty, California lady, picked up a can of the stuff in the market today and told me that THIS was how pathetic she'd gotten. Her boyfriend, for his part, had taken to eating tater tots every night before bed). We watch TV shows that we'd otherwise skip (like The OC). We get excited when the cafe has a 2 month old issue of People magazine because we can "catch up" on celebrity gossip that we wouldn't otherwise care about (Britney Spears had another flip-out). The folks back home might imagine that we're distainfully shedding our Western skins, but in reality, we're embracing our own cultures all the more because we're not within them, not able to take them for granted.

Many Chinese people ask me "which country is better, China or America?" My answer is always the same. It isn't a contest. There are things about both countries which I love, and things about both countries that I detest. While both sides seem eager to make me choose, I'm content with being in the middle. My kids will learn Chinese AND English. We'll eat macaroni and cheese tomorrow, and ginger pork the next day. We live in China now, but we might live in America in 5 years. My husband will always be Chinese, and I'll always be American, and our children will be a product of both of us. We didn't choose it this way, but I know that we most certainly wouldn't change it either.

My little school is growing up

In a week, my first class will graduate from Level 1 to Level 2. This is our inaugural class, the class that started the school, the class that has stuck with us for a whole school year, and has served as our guinea pig class as well as our model class.

This is a big milestone for the kids. They've finished a whole book, they're on to Book 2. While they're still at the beginner stage, they've accomplished something a lot of kids never will. These kids, 7 girls and 1 boy, aged 8-11, have gone from speaking barely any English to being able to introduce themselves, able to make requests, able to say what they're doing and what they like doing, name the rooms in a house and what happens in each room, name clothes and what you wear in hot and cold weather, name the body parts, and a whole lot more. They have a vocabulary of probably 500 or so words, not too bad for eight months! A lot of them have taken a real interest in English, and in their own primary schools have gone from being so-so English students to the top of their class, examples for others.

I'm proud of this class. Their graduation is a milestone not just for the kids, but for our school as well. When this class started, they were our first and only students. We now have over 100 students, kindergarten, primary school, high school and adults. We now have not one, but 12 classes of varying levels. We have new students signing up every day. Our school is, slowly but surely, growing, and this first graduating class was there from the start.

I hope these kids stick with us until they all go off to college, but even if they don't, they'll always have a special place in my heart. I couldn't have made this school what it is without them, and for that, they deserve my thanks.

So who's the genius that named this place "chun cheng"?

Kunming is grey. It's been grey for days now and this means that even in the middle of May, the weather is damp, cool, and dreary.

Last year I returned from Laos to sunny skies. May is generally a nice season in the Spring City. Not quite as hot as the later summer months, but warm enough to go out without a jacket. Warm enough to wear skirts and sandals. Usually the monsoon hits around July, and rain falls throughout late summer. Fall offers a brief glimpse of sunshine, and then the winter rains start, cold and miserable.

Perhaps you're noticing a trend here. It rains a lot in Kunming. Perhaps not as much as it might in, say, Seattle, a city famous for rain, but certainly more than you'd expect from a city touted as having "spring-like weather, all year round." Migrants like myself can't help but feel a bit cheated as year after year we seem to experience more rainy than non-rainy days.

This year's Spring rain is particularly unwelcome, then, if only because it comes at a time when it should not be raining. We accept monsoon season, and we accept the cold winter rain, but we feel entitled to those few weeks in April and May when the Spring City should live up to its name, bask us in glorious sunshine, treat us to mild temperatures, and show off the beauty of the city. This year's rain is, we feel, unfair. It is bound to rain in July and August, so will we have to suffer through 4 straight months of this?

Of course, we still have time, and all is not yet lost, but if I'm still wearing my winter boots and heavy coat come June, and Kunming is denied even a few weeks of it's namesake season, then I think we need to seriously consider renaming this place. Enough is enough. The gigs up. There's no Spring in the Spring City.

Mei Tais. How to carry your baby like a Chinese farmer.

Ok, so the title is sort of flippant, but I was truly surprised when, a couple of months ago, browsing on some websites about parenting and stuff, I noticed that there seemed to be a new trend in baby-carrying, that trend being strapping the baby to the mother's back, Asian peasant style, with the aid of a beautifully embroidered rectangle of fabric and belts that go under the baby's butt, making a seat out of the fabric and giving the baby a comfy piggy back ride, all while leaving the parent's hands free to do other things (which, in China, would be things like planting rice seedlings. The US equivalent would be shopping at Whole Foods). In SouthWest China, where I live, these contraptions are called "bei" (pronounced "bay") and just by looking at one, you'd have no idea how this thing would secure a child to your back, but they do, and have been in use for thousands of years.

Anyhow, some marketing genius seemed realized that these "bei" had the makings of a major parenting trend, and voila, the "Mei Tai" was born (I have no idea who came up with the name, but it sounds prettier than "bei" I suppose). Google Mei Tai and you can find many examples of the good old Chinese peasant baby carrier, fancied up with a few extra bells and whistles, being marketed to well-intentioned parents everywhere, for prices as high as 160 US dollars.

I showed a couple of these sites to my husband, and he was intrigued. We live in China, the land of the Mei Tai. We can get Mei Tai, and we can offer real, authentic Mei Tai to everyone out there who is sick of the commodification of native cultures and would like to support the continuation of a genuine Chinese tradition, which is, ironically, dying out in China. Upper class Chinese wouldn't be caught dead wearing a Mei Tai, because doing so would basically be the same as announcing to the world that you work in the fields -- not that there's anything wrong with working in the fields, but this is not a misconception that city-bred folks are willing to risk. The bottom line is that, as China modernizes and develops, the practice of carrying babies on the back, of embroidering elaborate "bei" with symbols meant to bring good luck and prosperity for this purpose, is, like so many other traditional customs, is dying out. Which I think is kind of sad. But not sad enough that I feel like the Mei Tai market should be commodified and taken over by Western manufacturers who can charge customers an arm and a leg for them. Instead, I think it would be great if people who wanted Mei Tai would buy Chinese "bei" instead. Of course, not everyone has relatives and friends in China who can get "bei" so easily, and so, friends of this blog, I have a proposition to make ...

I'm not trying to make a lot of money off of this, but if anyone is interested in getting a "bei" from China, contact me at jesslarsonwang@gmail.com. Here are a few pictures of some "bei" we picked up in my husband's native village over the May Holiday:

I know the pictures aren't that great, but "bei" are pretty basic. This one is a velvety fabric, red on a black background. The reverse side is a plain deep blue cotton. The straps are thicker, woven blue striped cotton. It's fairly large and could easily carry either a new born or a 2 year old, if said 2 year old was cooperative enough! Anyhow, I don't have a completely unlimited supply of these things, but if you contact me and let me know what you're looking for, I'll do my best to find a "bei" that suits you.

A new blog, a new beginning

After many half-hearted attempts at blogging in the past, I've decided to give it another go. Sure, I could have taken up an old blog, last updated sometime circa 2004, but that somehow didn't seem appropriate. It wouldn't feel "right" placing this new life next to the old one. No, a fresh beginning seems the best for a fresh start.

To update those friends, new and old, who don't know what I've been up to lately, here's a quick rundown.

Last May (yes, a whole year ago), after returning from a much-needed trip to Laos, I started seeing the man who is now my husband. Wang Yao was, at the time, a guitarist and singer, working days at a local musical instrument shop, and performing nightly at a lounge club aimed at the trendy new Chinese upper-middle class (the menu featuring an astouding number of coffee drinks with names like The Black Nebula, as well as about 40 flavors of bubble tea. And, of course, Budweiser). We met when I went to see a friend perform drums at the same lounge club -- my friend was accompanying Wang Yao, who, as it turns out, I'd actually met once, two years earlier, under similar circumstances. After our reintroduction, our romance progressed steadily, and within a month we were a serious item. By the end of four months, we'd processed our marriage paperwork, and at the end of 2006, 2 days after Christmas, we held a wedding celebration in his hometown of Zhushan (110 kilometers from Kunming), attended by my parents, who flew in from America, a dear American friend who acted as my bridesmaid, and many of mine and Wang Yao's mutual friends from all-over Kunming. Although far from the fairy-tale wedding that most American girls seem to imagine for themselves, my wedding was a perfect blend of Chinese and American traditions, and I could not have been more happy with the results.

Fast forward five months later, and Wang Yao and I are expecting our first child, due on October 17th. Although our relationship has progressed quickly over the course of a year, we are absolutely committed to each other and to building a family together. Last July I became an investor in a startup foreign language center in Kunming (Pathways International Education Center), and Wang Yao is now helping me to run it. He still performs in clubs from time to time, but for now our main project is our school and our family. Being from two different cultures obviously presents some challenges for us, and we tackle those head on, as they come. And of course, even though I've lived in China for almost four years now, this country still manages to surprise me, these days in all new ways as a wife and soon-to-be mother, rather than a single woman. So, I look forward to sharing my observations with all of you, and hope to learn a little something myself by putting it all down in writing.