Chaotic Day 8

More loud noises!  I've learned that these renovations happen frequently and our friends here in Beijing even had to live through one set of renovations lasting four months!  They had cracks running up their walls after it was done!  Please no!  I can already see Jude losing his sanity.  Aiyi has taught them a coping mechanism where they put their hands to their cheeks or tear out their hair and "pretend" to go crazy.  Unfortunately when I got home yesterday, Jude was so exhausted from "pretending" to go crazy that he was sweating.  He threw himself at me like a suction cup and wouldn't stop screaming hysterically.  Again we had to go out for supper just to leave the house.  I cooked today and tomorrow's supper yesterday after the workers were gone.  This is getting very stressful!

That all took place after the crazy afternoon events.  Just before leaving for my class, Aiyi arrived and promptly dragged me down to the front gate of our section of the complex.  There she and the guard proceeded to start up a furious discussion in rapid fire Chinese that I had been supposedly brought there to solve.  It was all I could do not to let my mouth drop to the pavement as they became more and more hostile to each other (hand gestures, face-making and the whole deal).  Kathi (our MCC rep) came to help me figure it out.  It turns out that one of the guard's cars was stolen and they are watching anyone closely who enters, wanting everyone to sign in.  But Aiyi apparently cannot write characters and he didn't believe that she works for us.

I got a late start for class, and I took advantage of the bus ride to zone out... so well that I didn't get off the bus.  Alarmed I got off as soon as a I realized and hailed a chuzuche (taxi).  "Anjialou, ma?"  I said, asking brokenly if he could take me there.  I jumped in the front seat and we started out.  I became alarmed when I saw no sign of him stopping where I had asked and gestured to the side of the road.  His response was to drive even further and proceed to drive down into a deep dark parkade where he continued to drive deeper and deeper around the winding parkade.  Realizing that he had no intent to stop (even though I had no idea where I was) I said "Zai zher!"  (Right here!)  He looked at me, bewildered that I wanted to get out in the parkade.  I looked at him bewildered that he would have brought me down here in the first place.  Turning on the light because it was so dark, he promptly charged me 10 kwai and I hopped out, trying to find my bearings. 

I'm not saying he had bad intentions, since it is possible that my directions were too vague, but I wasn't about to find out.   

I managed to get to class, where I had to explain to my teacher all the events.  Thankfully she has been very sympathetic to my hectic existence since James left.  Because of the one child policy, I find that most Chinese people who know I'm alone with two boys are very sympathetic because of how busy they think it would be with two kids.  Somehow, I then had to focus so that I could learn the Chinese Perfect Progressive Tense.

So now we are at Day 9 and who knows what it holds.  The corner of my left eye has been hurting the last few days, and this morning when I woke up it was swollen.  I've never had a sty before, but I'm wondering if that is what it is.

So far we really have been doing well, but at this moment, James can't get home soon enough for me!

Days 6 and 7

Day Six went by fairly uneventfully.  I ventured to bus with the boys by myself (no small endeavor when it involves crossing eight lane crazy highways with two jumpy boys) so that we could go to church. It was certainly nice to see other humans again!

Day Seven dawned with the return of the renovating crew who burst onto the day with such zeal (8:00am) that we were deafened by their feverish pitch of air guns, cement drilling machines, saws, wrecking balls and the infamous "flatulence machine" (I might have added wrecking balls).  We were calmly eating breakfast when right underneath the table the most ear splitting machine possible sent the boys into a fray of screams, and me jumping to the roof.  I am not kidding when I say that these are the kinds of construction noises that a requires North American construction companies to provide their workers with protective ear equipment.  At my parent's suggestion (who got to hear the whole thing on skype), we stuffed our ears with the cotton from the boys' vitamin bottle.  

It really was sad.  The boys had started the morning so happy, but when the noises started Jude in particular spent the morning shaking like a leaf and clinging to me.  When we moved to a new part of the house it followed us.  Normally I would have taken them outside, but I had to study for my exam this afternoon.  Eventually I just put on Robin Hood for the boys and sat closely huddled with them so that they finally relaxed (Jude even slept for half an hour through the fray, as long as he was curled up on top of my chest with my arms wrapped tightly around him). 

 Yes I did manage to study!  I had my exam, and managed to score a 96%!  This launched me into the next textbook, having finished the first.  My teacher also told me that my pronuciation has really been improving.  Hurray!  

When learning new vocabulary after the exam, one of the new vocabulary was the word for "body" or "health" - shenti.  My teacher asked me to make a sentence with this word.  So I said  "Zai Jianada wo xue shenti" meaning "In Canada I studied health".  From the way that she almost spit out her water laughing, I'm sure my sentence came out sounding extremely crass and vulgar.  Later in the lesson, I had my turn to keep my laughter in.  My teacher was trying to describe just how fat her husband is.  She spread her arms wide and said over and over again "He's so fat!  He eats huge mounds of noodles in under three minutes!  He is fat!"  I couldn't tell if this was a bad thing or a good thing, but whatever it was, she seemed to be extremely energetic about it.  

5 more sleeps!     

Day 5

Today a blessed change occurred.  I relaxed!  So far I have been fairly tense, planning each day carefully to make it go by faster, entertaining the boys nonstop to keep their conflicts down etc, etc, etc.  But today, I decided not to plan.  I read while the boys played.  I baked bread.  I talked to my sister on the phone and I napped while they napped (no renovations today!).  And then just 30 minutes ago, I was delivered a short half page note from James, by one his traveling companions who has returned a week early.  He does not have phone or internet access, so this note is probably the only thing we'll hear from him.  Thank you Jesus!

Some highlights from the last day include:

- Ari pulling his hood on and asking me "Do I look Germanic?"

- baking 7-grain bread for the first time since arriving in Beijing, with the whole grains my parents sent out from Canada - biting into that first warm, buttered slice was even more enjoyable than the Cadburry Creme Eggs that also arrived (sweet bliss!)

-   A particularly hilarious noise being made by the renovating crew yesterday.  I promise I'm not a crass person, but it sounded like extreme flatulence on top of a wooden box and it was shaking our entire apartment!  I was laughing so hard I couldn't stop!  The boys were terrified!  Ari thought it was funny when he realized what it sounded like, but Jude in particular held on to me like a Koala bear.  Knowing that they usually work until about 7:00pm, and that there was no way Jude would let go of me to make supper, I figured my best bet was to leave the apartment with the boys and go out for supper.  I include a video of the humorous noise, but I promise it doesn't nearly compare with the way it ricochets through your very bones and brain!

Days 3 and 4

Well, I felt the verdict for these last two days yesterday when we woke up to heavy skies, heavy rain and heavy smog.  Stay inside!  Shoot!  My plan relied entirely on keeping the boys outside and having them expend all their energy that way.  The gavel came down even harder when Aiyi called to say she was not coming.  Apparently it was raining to hard on the west end of the city.  I must admit to feeling slightly irritable at the weak excuse for not coming (thereby depriving me of my only human contact other than the boys - Chinese lessons!).   

I found myself thinking of Ma Ingalls, my new hero.  In On the Banks of Plum Creek, she valiantly holds up the fort with four children, stuck in the cabin through a three day snowstorm, with the knowledge that her husband is somewhere out in the storm, possibly dead.  But instead of loosing her cool, she spends those three days playing Pea Porridge Hot, making paper dolls for the girls and singing.  Honestly that sounds hellish to me.  But she did it and many other mothers have been trapped in the house with children to feed and entertain.

Well, if I were to make paper dolls for the boys, they would no sooner be created than be headless, armless and legless.  So I settled for solid, sturdy, dinosaurs folded from sturdy construction paper and heavily taped.  These babies are not ripping.  Besides, I let them take out their destructive tendencies on the paper scraps with child-safe scissors.  But I expect that the boys will soon discover that they can rip the tape off.  

This morning looks the same, but we might brave the weather to go find some cheap picture frames.  This video clip is more of an experiment than anything and it demonstrates a little of how silly the boys are during a dreary, somewhat tired and grey breakfast.  I think the most humor is in the music playing from iTunes in the background.  I apologize for the heavy glare of grey light off of our favorite piece of furniture: the glass table.  Again, I feel obliged to point out as many times before... we did not decorate this apartment! 

The sound of banging in the background is our new best friends, the work crew renovating the apartment below us.  They started the day James left and the noise is overwhelming.  You can tell where they are hitting things by tracing the floor vibrations to its source and standing over top.  Without fail, everyday, they have waited until the boys go down for their nap to start sledge hammering right underneath the place where their heads are laying.  Sigh...    

Day 2

There is nothing quite like an evening snack of fresh green beans from the market to finish off the day.  They are super cheap, extremely crunchy and fresh and refreshing.  The boys and I are munching away.

I've been reading a lot despite limited time since we've arrived.  Amidst all the studying and general  crazyness I have so far finished ROOTS and Wild Swans.  I am currently working on three others: a biography of Mao Zedong, The Jungle and another called The China Road.  James, for some reason, seems to be irritated by the fact that I never read one book at a time.  I guess I just like having a good mix of fiction/non-fiction, lighthearted/serious etc.

ROOTS was excellent despite the controversy surrounding Alex Haley's possible plagiarism.   

Wild Swans is the true story of three generations of Chinese women from 1909 to 1979.  It is written by the third generation woman and the story spans the overthrow of imperialism, the rise and fall of the Kuomintang, the Communist reforms, the famine, the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao.  I feel very privileged to read it while being among the people whose lives these events impacted.  I find myself studying people on the bus wondering who they are.  There is a an old man who regularly sits on the side walk close by.  He looks like Confucious, but very, very old with dark leathery skin and a thin, wispy, white beard.  He alternately plays a Chinese instrument that looks like a violin coming out of a tin can (sorry James, I'm sure you know what it is called!) or sleeps.  I want to know who he is.

I haven't had any moments of hating our transition, by contrast I find myself becoming more and more fascinated by such a dynamic country.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of China than just Beijing.  I've read nutritional reports from rural Chinese provinces where mothers are selling their highly nutritious eggs so that they can buy chocolate for their children because they think it is better for them.  I want to meet those mothers.  James really wants to get out west and see the herders and the Gobi Desert.  

The China Road is written by a British journalist who lived in China for many years and wrote about his experiences traveling from one end of the country to the other.  His intent was to see from all angles of the country what modern China is like.  So far its very interesting.

I'm sure you didn't check in for a book review, but the point is, I'm really enjoying educating myself about our home for the next three years.  I've always loved history, but there is something even more fascinating about it when you are on location.  I'm sure those who are more widely traveled than I am have an even greater appreciation for it.