Thanksgiving Overseas

Well, we had our first holiday overseas. While we are extremely thankful for the overseas family we do have here, and we had such a wonderful time with them, its hard to know that you are on the other side of the world from your famliy during a time when most families are coming together. 

I find myself clinging to the things which are familiar. Like having canned cranberry sauce, not because everyone loves it, but because thats what we've had every year on Thanksgiving. I'm sure its partly my obsessive compulsive tendencies that drive me to do things or have things that we have every year, and send me into panic mode when it doesn't work out that way.

So you can imagine how I felt (or maybe you can't unless you have the same problem) when I signed up to bring the pumpkin pie and couldn't find any. We searched seven stores, and searching seven stores in Shanghai is no small task. We looked for pumpkin pie or ingredients to make pumpkin pie, but, no success. Can I jut tell you, I actually had nightmares that I ruined everyone's Thanksgiving because I had no pumpkin pie to bring!

Sigh, oh the holidays...then there was the tree decorating. I had to do my best to make it just like it was growing up, but my mom wasn't here to do it all for me :(  And our tree doesn't lean to one side like our tree always did grwoing up (okay, maybe I don't miss that part).  And my dad wasn't there to eat all the cookies. And we didn't have "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" on tv. And I didn't have a sister to fight with over hanging up certain ornaments. 

I know this is only the start of figuring out how holidays will be without family like we've had, and we have quite a few more to go, but its made me especially grateful for the times we did have. And it makes me look forward to the time we will have in the future, and spending a holiday together again.  

Tower of Babel

So, after 6 weeks of living in another country I have come to find that language is one of those things I have taken for granted my entire life. Maybe its even more frustrating to me since I have a degree in Communications :) What at first we thought would be "an adventure" has turned into being 27 and feeling like an infant. Not being able to read, write, or talk, is to say the least very frustrating. Our lives have resorted to a big game of charades and pictionary.

Example 1: Hungry and looking for a quick bite to eat we stopped by a little bakery where I purchased a little pastry that I thought was filled with chocolate. Instead it was bean curd.

Example 2: Picture menues!!! Our saving grace - sometimes. Pictures can be very misleaidng, especially when you'e hungry things look like what they are not. For instance what looked like green beans turned out to be an extremely HOT pepper. Realized that AFTER we took a couple bites. The heat takes a few seconds to hit. We are both pretty sure we now have ulcers.

Example 3: Bought an oven! Besides the fact it brings back childhood memories of baking in an Easy Bake Oven, because thats what it looks like, we were so excited to be able to start baking! However ALL directions are in Chinese. As of right now it takes 2 hours to bake one tray of cookies. Yes, you read that correctly 2 HOURS! Maybe someday I can figure out how to put it on the correct setting....

Example 4: We experienced a small victory in that we are now able to say the address of our school and our home to the taxi driver. We no longer depend on somehting to show with the address written on it in Chinese. However, we are still trying to learn the correct way to say "stop here". The other day as the driver was approaching our desired destination Michael told him "keting, keting!" which is translated "living room, living room!"

Example 5: Our first day of class we were learning pronunciation and tones. One of our excercises was she would say a word and we would say which tone it was -1,2,3 or 4. Well, we had evidently moved onto another excercise and I was the only one in class who did not realize that. She wrote two columns of words on the board and she would say a word and we would say which column it was in, either 1 or 2. I thought we were still doing the other excercise. So when she said a word I yelled out "4" in Chinese. I actually did this a few times and Michael leaned over and asked what I was doing. It turned out she was calling on another student, and I kept answering. On top of that, I kept yelling out "4" which wasn't an option for what we were doing. To make matters worse, 4 in Chinese is the same word for "death". So I figure it was somewhat concerning to my teacher that I kept randomly yelling out "die, die!" to her in class.

Example 6: Michael decided it was time for a haircut. There's a small place next door and we decided to try it. We went in, he sat down and the guy looked at him and raised his hands as if to say "so what do you want?" Michael looked at me, I walked over and pretended to buzz his head with a razor, complete with sound effects. Then I pretended to snip the top of his hair with scissors, also with sound effects. It worked, The guy's eyes lit up and Michael got a great haircut all for 5 kuai, which is less than a US dollar!

In our short time here, we have gained many more stories of language mishaps. Trying to buy flour and buying cornstarch. Making a man in the market mad because I said the wrong thing when he tried to sell me something, ordering a certain dish and getting other things with it that we didn't want, etc., etc. But afterwards we are, for the most part, able to laugh at it. And we both look forward to the day when we will be able to not just say a phrase or two, but actually hold a meaningful conversation about the Good News with someone in their heart language!

Six Week Recap

We've actually been here six weeks already. In some ways time has flown, in other ways it feels like time is standing still. I will do my best to recap these past few life changing weeks. 

Life in VA was amazing. They say they are preparing you for transition into a new culture and way of life, but in some ways it made it harder. Waking up in the morning to the beautiful peaceful scenery that surrounded us. The perfect place to spend time with Dad and prepare for the task we have been called to. The many like-minded frineds we spent two months getting to know. And of course the three meals a day provided for you, no cooking, no cleanup.....  :)

Then reality hits. After a whirlwind three days of shopping for last minute necessities, packing and the painful goodbyes to family and friends, we landed in our new home of 23 million people. Buildings, lights, pollution, noise, traffic. Gone was the peaceful tranquility of two months in the beautiful hills of VA, instead trying to survive the chaotic city life in a new country. 

After a 19 hour flight, we arrived, dropped off our bags at a hotel and began apartment hunting. We looked at three total, and decided on the first one we saw. Evidently the idea that the apartment should be cleaned after the last tennant to be ready for the new one is one that only the US holds. Instead of being excited about what we had accomplished in our few short hours

of  arrival, I was overwhelmed to say the least with the task of making the apartment clean enough to live in.

That night we collapsed from exhaustion, only to wake a few hours later in the middle of the night from jet lag. That morning it was off to register at language school as we would be starting class the next day. Then setting up bank accounts, cell phones, negotiating for the apartment, moving in, setting up our new home, all while trying to learn our way around and of course we don't yet speak the language. 

Needless to say, it's easy to loose sight of why we came. It didn't take long to start seeing the people as obstacles in my way to keep me from getting the daily life things done that I needed to do, instead of seeing them as the whole reason I'm here.

So, here we are, living in the grace of the One we are here for, Who allows us to see and accomplish way more than we ever deserve. And we daily try to balance between learning to live in a completely new place with the main thing we are here to do.