The Push-Pull - LIFE IN AMOY

I had been meaning to write a post for awhile but felt like I didn’t have much to say. I realized it’s because we’ve fallen into our weekly routine- it’s amazing how quickly a foreign place can start to feel like your new normal and also how quickly you can go from actively observing or reflecting on the details of your days to just going about them. It’s like we’ve transitioned from a crazy trip and are now home (I use this term loosely).

Our days are now scheduled, and even more so starting this past week as Julia began Chinese school in the mornings. Gabe leaves to catch the bus to work around 7, Julia and I walk to school at 8:30, I run errands or come home or go to a coffee shop to do work, pick up Julia at 11:15, eat lunch, then its nap time and more work/cleaning/etc, play, go to the store for dinner (if we’re cooking that night), Gabe comes home, dinner, bath time, bed, wake up and do it again. Of course there’s some variation in there, video calls with family, coffee or a walk with fellow expats (incredibly helpful and welcoming women from all over), dinner out with friends or ordering in from one of the hundreds of restaurants on our convenient food delivery phone app (although if we try somewhere new we have to order food based on tiny little thumbnail photos. It can be a bit of a crapshoot.) On many levels I welcome the routine as it feels good to be settled in this way, but when you’re in it so to speak, it’s easy to forget to stop and smell the roses. This blog has a been a good reminder to do just that.

Nothing screams routine like laundry. Julia likes to help, I swear. We don’t have a dryer so we dry everything on our balcony.

Julia’s first week at a part time Chinese Montessori school. One staff person speaks some English. So far she loves it. There are four kids in Julia’s class – Sofia who is Iranian and Portuguese, Elijah who is Japanese and Tanta who is Russian – all in Chinese class. Best of luck to the teacher.

A few photos of Gabe’s school. It’s quite the campus. They had an open house and picnic this weekend for parents, students, and teachers.

There’s this interesting push-pull or dichotomy that creeps into life here, where one minute I want something familiar and the next I’m curious and itching for the next new sight, food, or experience. The craving might come after a few failed attempts to communicate or when the heat gets to be too much, or when I’ve spent the day without in-person adult interaction (in English). Thankfully emails, messages and phone calls with loved ones back home, Western foods and some time spent with new friends are quick to satisfy. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I was to visit a French bakery or how good a can of tuna tasted last week or how much we looked forward to our trip to Sam’s Club Sunday (it was the anticipation really, what culinary favorite from back home might we find? There weren’t as many as we hoped but a massive container of mixed nuts and frozen sockeye salmon were notable finds).

Julia was also psyched to be at Sam’s Club.

French bakery on “bar street” in the Marco Polo (expat) neighborhood. There’s bar street, which is lined mostly with, you guessed it, bars, and also cafe street with coffee shops, though I have yet to find one, other than Starbucks, that actually opens early. A lot of things here open late I’ve noticed, and also stay open late.

On the flip side, there’s so much that we want to see and explore in the city, and each new experience or pleasant interaction (involving more than my pathetic repertoire of ok, hello, goodbye, thank you, and I don’t speak Chinese) is energizing and sometimes even reinvigorating, especially if it comes in a moment of frustration or exhaustion. For example, the very sweet young woman who spoke just enough English to help me track down a taxi at 9 pm that was delivering a pressure cooker and salad spinner I bought from someone in a WeChat used goods group. I realize there’s a lot to unpack in that sentence. Or our first trip to the beach with the new teachers and families with whom we are forever bonded after our first week in China. Or venturing to the tiny, very local noodle shop that we’ve been hesitant to step foot in with our friend Wenhao from the convenience store. Or exploring a different part of the city or checking out a new park. And of course there’s always food. We love food.

There are a lot of these ups and much more to see and do, with I’m sure many stops along the way to satisfy those cravings for home.

Noodles from the shop below our place. That’s a bean sauce on top. There are dry noodles, like this, and wet noodles, served in a broth.

Street view from our walk in a new area of the city just south of us.

For a Chinese city of 3.5 plus million people, Xiamen has some nice green spaces and we’ve barely scratched the service. Huweishan Park’s perfectly manicured paths behind our apartment are a quiet refuge in the mornings, though there are some “regulars” playing badminton, doing tai chi and having tea. And Haiwan Park with its endless palm trees is close by and a nice place to walk.

Baozi (steamed buns that I love) for breakfast – made of soft, light and fluffy dough and filled with sweet tangy pork filling that’s somewhat reminiscent of BBQ. It takes a lot of willpower to not pop into the tiny shop that’s a one minute walk from home every morning to pick up a couple of these 30 cent morsels of goodness.

And lastly a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother Chris and also this…

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