Are We Happy? (Possibly Part the First of I Don't Know How Many)

A very brave bloggy girlfriend of mine (no, sorry, won't link to her because not everyone who reads my blog LIKES BLOGS) recently wrote about how she's been at post for a while now and whether or not she's happy there. She answered yes. And no. And maybe. And how things at post are WAY different than what she and her husband had expected before they got there. Not different *bad*, just... different. 


It got me to thinking. About expectations pre-arrival and realities post-arrival. 


Pre-arrival, James had many high hopes for his first overseas assignment. Somehow, he had envisioned that he would be using his trained-for-a-long-time-language skills (2/2 in Mandarin, baby!) Every. Single. Day, and that he would be sharpening them to utter Mandarin perfection, leaving post with a higher language score upon departure, just from the sheer awesome immersion language-y experience of it all.

Neither of those has happened, nor will they. 


He also dreamed of our family traveling around frequently on breaks or weekends (actually, I'm not specifically sure when exactly he planned on traveling) around China or Asia or the EAP area or... something. You know: travel. Seeing stuff. That was another one of his major goals. Another thing that he specifically looked forward to.


Which hasn't happened, either. Nor will it.


It's hard when your children are older and you don't want to pull them out of AP classes in order to go look at some random something somewhere. Or when they're always either sick or injured, as is the case with our two sons. So the traveling thing hasn't really happened. Oh, sure, we have DS friends on Facebook who literally seem to be jetting off to Lord only knows where every freaking weekend (hate you people! You know who you are!!), but that's... not what's been going on with us. 


It's just... reality. It's not bad, it's just...life. It's different than what we expected.


The other weekend, even though one of our sons was ill (of course) and the other was injured (of course), James and I left the house via taxi to go to a local tourist-y place that we had not visited yet. Because, let's face it: the boys wouldn't have wanted to have gone with us even if they had been feeling 100% fantabulous, that's why.


It's spring!  A smallish tree across the street from the Consulate burst out in bloom recently:






The flowers only lasted for a few days at the most. But they were pretty. And in a city filled with 15 million people, you sorta hafta grab the beauty when the grabbin's good. You know?


On the way to the touristy spot, we passed an excellent reminder of why we don't own a car/drive here:





I snapped that above photo from the back of our cab, and it made the cab driver reallllllllly nervous. 


What you're looking at in that picture is a tiny portion of a HUGE, rowdy crowd that had gathered literally in the middle of the street after an electric scooter and a car collided. People were yelling at each other in Mandarin, police officers were at the scene yelling at the yelling people, injured folks were there, as well, and as we drove by I was all Oh hell no, I am SO GLAD we don't own a car. Because when wrecks happen here, from what I understand money changes hands before people depart the scene. So the crowd gets involved in who did what wrong and whose fault it was, advocating for this and that for one person or another. Can you even IMAGINE?  


::shudder::
 

We got to the touristy spot and found the solution to one of life's MYSTERIES:





Namely: Who the HELL has been selling teenaged and young adult Chinese girls eyeglass frames WITHOUT ANY GLASS OR LENSES WHATSOEVER INSIDE THEM and convinced said girls that wearing empty, plastic eyeglass frames on their faces was a good fashion choice?!


That street vendor, for one.


Craziest thing I have ever seen, I kid you not, and it's all over the place here... girls will wear those empty eyeglass frames on their faces. Out in public. Like those colorful, plastic, COMPLETELY EMPTY eyeglass frames are some kind of face bling or something.


We went into the touristy spot, and I'll say this: it was quite lovely. Which is why it had to be touristy. Just saying. No offense, Chengdu. But there were no green or yellow spat-out-phlegm-globs on the sidewalks or baby/toddler poo on the sidewalks (or baby/toddler puddles of urine on the sidewalks), and the stores all looked something like this on the outside:




 
The stores sold touristy sorts of things, such as Mao bags:

And t-shirts that were, um, ODD:





:::speechless:::


And there was food EVERYWHERE.


I've said it before and I'll say it again: Chengdu, China has the best food of any post anywhere on this planet. Kid you not. Don't even approach me to try to challenge me on this. YOU ARE WRONG.






I loved the buildings. So much character! Touristy character, of course, but HEY, I'LL TAKE IT:





and




And just in case you were wondering, HELLS YEAH Chengdu has Starbucks. It has them all the heck over the place. There's even one within a one minute walk of the Consulate. 


This one was very.... touristy and pretty:





It even had the Chinese name for Starbucks on a separate sign that lined up with its English Starbucks name, allowing me to get a shot of both of the signs at once:




Which is fun, but probably only for those of us who tortured ourselves in Mandarin and thus care about these sorts of geeky language things.


All in all, it was nice to get out and about a little, even if everything we saw WAS just touristy, and even if we stayed within downtown Chengdu the whole entire time, basically just minutes away from where we live or where James works or where our kids go to school, etc. Not so much... travel. And not so much as a family. And we didn't even use our wicked Mandarin skillz (kidding! A 2/2 gets you pretty much nowhere here!) at all.


So... yeah.  Differences in expectations pre-arrival-at-post and realities post-arrival-at-post. 


Interesting to ponder, especially since we've just passed our six month mark here in Chengdu. Meaning that our assignment is now officially more than a quarter over.  And did I mention that we bid this summer/fall?


Crazy.

Comments

[brooke]

Thanks for the great post (and great pics). I have started thinking of this as the first tour blues, but truly, we will probably have this feeling a lot over the course of our crazy lives. Sure it's interesting to live somewhere else, but it's not an extended vacation and you have to figure out how to fit in and grow temporary roots and plug back into the things that are important to you.

It's a bit hard for me to describe, but I know what you are talking about. This lifestyle has really made made me think about what actually makes people happy. Money? Adventure? New Experiences? Or is it routine family, consistancy? I think there are tradeoffs and everyone has to figure out if there "sweet spots" are possible overseas.

Take care and know that you are not alone!

[Diplogeek]

I think my mom and I actually went to that place on our trip; the Starbucks looks very familiar. And while it was definitely touristy (and crowded, at least when we went), it was really nice.

And seriously, even if the Husbandly Unit can't make it, you should try to pack the kids up and take them to Hong Kong for a long weekend or something. They'll love it, I swear. And even if they don't love Hong Kong, I'll bet they'll love Outback steak houses, great, legit pizza (brick oven, baby) and movie theaters where people are actually quiet and not talking on their cell phones the whole time. I mean, Hong Kong even has an Apple store. And multiple Mexican restaurants. That's how off the chain it is.

[Kelly]

Great post! I know next to nothing about China, so I always enjoy your blog--especially the photos.

I get the teenage boy thing, too. You think they are going to be all into seeing stuff, and well, no, they aren't. At all. Ever. But they are at least old enough to leave at home while YOU go see stuff, right? So, there's that.

[Chelsea]

HA HA HA HA HA HA!! I literally just bought a pair of those Hello Kitty empty plastic glasses (you know, the ones with the little bow on the corner and wiskers down on the sides?) THIS AFTERNOON! Ha ha ha! I bought them for my 2-year-old's dress-up box, though, .... which is an amazing thing to shop for in China. :)
We're jealous of your food.

[Matt]

When packing for an overseas assignment, expectations and preconceived notions should be left in storage. They never turn out to be realistic or accurate, and you're invariably disappointed. My mom always said to go through life expecting the worst; that way, you're pleasantly surprised if it's better than that. In my experience -- which mirrors yours here -- the key to thriving in this lifestyle is to actively seek out the beauty and uniqueness of each post. Don't demand of it what it is incapable of delivering, but appreciate what it does offer. When we're sitting on our rockers thirty years from now, with that approach, we'll have a mental treasure chest of memories and images that will be the envy of 99% of our earthly co-habitants.

[kristin]

The food is EXACTLY what I am so looking forward to when we make our Chengdu move! Yum!!!!!!

[shannon]

Our first tour was in Jakarta. I was so completely unhappy that for most of that first year that David seriously thought he was going to have to quit the FS. Yes I was that bad, I cried EVERY SINGLE DAY. Somewhere in the second year I fell in love with Jakarta and then of course we had to leave.

The "OMG I hate this place why are you doing this to me" stage was much shorter, maybe only 6 months.

I am not in love with Malawi, although I am thankful to be here if only for the boys. I am happy most of the time, of course I stay at home most of time. I do have difficulty dealing with (self-imposed) guilt at how much I have and take for granted compared with the average Malwian, electricity anyone?

BTW the way you have Starbuck I may have to hate you just a little for that but only in the most loving way.