Arrived

Ah, the glamor!

We have arrived. Here's my office, still in need of great attention (you think?), but I'm up and working. (Note tea cup, bags of electronics on shelves behind. Essentials to living and working in China.

The girls are sleeping late. It no longer can be attributed to jet lag; it is, instead, I believe, recovery, on a daily basis from sensory overload. A simple walk down the street involves dodging workers sleeping on cots, stacks of recycled cardboard eleven feet high, motor scooters, bicycles, taxis and cars. You see more in a five minute stroll than in a week back home. Storey (and mom) got caught crossing the street yesterday, trapped between two seas of movement of every kind of vehicle. They were never in danger; this is China. But Storey is the one sleeping late today, and I think she's purging that experience. Or savoring it.

I don't want to say that things are getting to normal. That isn't going to happen here. Not ever. That is the beauty of the place: its abnormality. We wouldn't be here if we could get to normal. But we're finding a routine, and that will solidify once the girls are in school.

There are SO MANY stories to tell, and I'll work on checking in here each day, because I've already been lax on reporting so many. Buying the steamed buns from the corner -- our family of four eats for $2; the visit to the US Consulate (incredible!); the meal with the professors at Fudan University where I will lecture (a feast and wonderful conversation; I am SO looking forward to my time there). There's the leaking roof story: rain coursing down the wall of the girls' room, and how four workers showed up the next morning and tore the roof apart and rebuilt it in ONE day! The fact that the postman will arrive this morning, a Saturday, to be paid for our subscription to the local English newspaper -- the Chinese are so efficient; everyone does three to five jobs, or at least as three to five responsibilities within their job; this is NOT a Communist country in the sense of people on the take from the government, it is hard, often backbreaking work, 14-18 hours a day by everyone. Inspirational, actually. It may be quite different when you wear a tie, but on our lane, all workers, it is place of industry and endless energies. By example: to pay our bills, we actually pay our household helper. She then goes to the corner market and pays them there. All the neighborhoods have little shops that sell a million things and also accept payment for all your bills. There are no checques used here; it's all cash, so a system has been created to walk your cash a half block and pay everyone you owe. It's fascinating.

I'm up early and working most days. I now hear the family awakening below (I'm working from a staircase landing on the third floor of our lane house. I look out at a tile roof--the one they tore apart and replaced in a single day.) I'll sign off for now. Clear skies (5th day of PERFECT summer weather) a faint breeze. The sound of someone laying tile or banging on stone, the clank of metal, and behind me, my 80 year old neighbor doing her morning exercises, like an aging ballerina.
This is China.
(Ridley)