The Birthday Day

Today Louis and Ali are 4 years old. They both needed to go to the dentist (bumps and bashes – Ali has a front tooth chipped a long time ago which has steadily turned greyer and Louis has a lower left gap where he knocked one clean out last month). Cindy didn’t want two days off work, so today was dentist day too. Boys are wearing their new watches, plan is dentist, cinema, meet Daddy for lunch, home, sleep, rest of presents and cake & & all that Cindy had booked a dentist online – we got there, no dentist, no building even at the address, this is fast-change Shanghai. No phone answering either – what next?

Louis examininghis birthday watch - Ali looks at his too.

Kind doorkeeper points us towards another address where there is a dentist. Half an hour walk later, we find it. Now, this is China, where appointments systems and walk-in are much the same, block booking from 8am, so if you arrive at 9.21 – new Lightning Mcqueen and Spiderman watches – you get number 44 !! Hurray on the day two boys are 4! (though 4 is china’s unlucky number, we do not count that) It was only a half hour wait, then 5 minutes for teeth checking and, it happened that we were on the way to the cinema – at Gateway, Xujiahui – so we walked another half-hour and having missed the early show we had time for birthday ice-cream.Now, everyone is home, having afternoon naps as is the chinese habit. We have seen Cars 2 at the cinema, and had lunch, and collected the cake. More presents are expected by the adults later, the boys are incredibly happy and pleased with very little which is rather nice to see.

The family - 4th birthday morning

 

Feeling political

It is difficult to do anything about anything here but over and over again I find I am feeling political and wish I had the ability or confidence to find a way to act. Even within the family I feel ‘wrong’ but mother-in-laws and grandmothers learn fast that speaking out is never a way forward. (‘Transference’ rules, and ‘counter-transference’ ends up giving one far too much information, though does keep one sane.)

Yesterday and today we spent time at the running track. On arriving at the sand-pit yesterday, a fairly disturbed/disturbing little chinese boy – maybe about 3 years old from his speech, but as tall as a 5 year old – was pushing his face into strange scowls, and into other’s faces. As soon as my boys stepped into the play space, he was on them, so I did my teachery thing and smiled at him, shrugged shoulders and generally invited him my way by joky body language, and he responded. He became more natural, and played well enough, there were 4/5 kids there and they all shared well. But, the inappropriateness and neediness was always there – Asbergers-ish – not that I know too much about this or other syndromes. He did latch on to me, giving me the feeling that very few people have much time for him. Louis and Ali were friendly too, and when they went off round the running track, they accepted that he just joined them, and did not object to his being much too close and his odd facial expressions, they just took off and ran round him. He and his grandmother were there again today and she was very friendly and obviously glad to see us. So, how is this political? It isn’t, but I would like to know what the knowledge and provision is, whether it is the same or different from the west, and of course, provision for many things is patchy there anyway, and getting so much worse under Gove and Cameron… hence politics.

And, there is a contrast here which is both personal and political. The ‘running track’ is actually a local recreation ground, freely provided, kept tidy and clean but not snazzy, and the people there tend to be poor/ordinary rather than rich. Very different from Sunday, when Cindy had brought our boys to Fastrack Kids free morning. I, in my ignorance, thought it was just another outing… a morning of fun for us… but of course I forgot how much Cindy wants the boys to have advantages. They are now signed up to attend every Sunday morning. It is a world wide business from USA supposedly offering the ‘edge’ in learning to the kids who attend. I very much approved of the teacher-kid ratio of 1-8 (though these are 3-5 year olds, it ought to be this kind of ratio, I have already become used to Chinese expectation where there are about 30 kids in the kindergarten class, two adults.) And, no doubt the boys enjoyed their first taste, but, it was just good child-friendly chinese teaching. At least we were allowed to watch, which has not been the case anywhere else in China. Fastrack also did a presentation for accompanying adults, in chinese, so I relied on the powerpoints and body language, and was reminded of the guy who once tried to sell me a holiday share in Ibiza or somewhere. They promised all sorts of good words – on their website too – like child-centered, teamwork, knowledge integration, leadership, etc etc.Well, they were child friendly, but not not not child-centered and I am so fed up with people taking these words and misusing them. Everything the four children present at Sunday’s event did was teacher-centered, even the so-called creative work with glue and cotton wool. The teachers worked very hard indeed for an hour with all the focus on them, getting answers to their questions, responses to their programme, etc etc. My question is, if they do not know what child-centered means, do they know what teamwork etc means? Or is it jargon to get the parents to spend? Sorry, I should be more honest, my assumption is that it is business, and education is incidental, though it may well be quite good. By the way, I do not know what knowledge integration is – integration of what to or with what? Oh sometime I may stop being judgmental, but then I expect I’ll be dead.

So I am political again. These kids will meet other well-off kids, they will learn what the establishment wants them to learn, they may forget how to question what they are offered, let alone question their own prejudices and assumption of rights. They may grow up to be very responsible, but will they ever know how to choose what to be responsible for?

Here the devil does take the hindmost, society is a collection of individual families determined to get ahead as far and as fast as their money can take them.

So, I have become political again. What the something will I end up doing about it? I looked up a couple of the China poems and posted them. Fat lot of change agency there.

Contrasts

Another Saturday and I have not written all week. This is down to being unwell for a while – Ali brought a bug home from school and of course as a healthy nearly-4 year old he recovered in half a day sitting on Granny and getting cuddles, while Granny got the bug and takes aaaages to get feeling normal again.

Wildflowers in Donegal

 

George emailed a picture of his wildfower meadow in Donegal, made me very homesick espcially as I could almost conjure up the clean smell and breeze. I went for a walk yesterday, started out fine, then when I was half an hour away from home, it rained, luckily I found a little store which sold umbrellas, even then I needed to stand under a shelter about twenty minutes until the drops stopped bouncing knee high. However, I discovered yet another market which will be on the way home from the boys new school. They start next Thursday, the day after their birthday.

Another Monday

The time goes by without much happening – which is down to me as I am not doing very much. I was supposed to go to an “Internations” event on thursday (an expat organisation – look them up online) and then I cancelled as I just did not want to head all the way off to People’s Square and stand around in a bar eating canapes and wondering who to talk to.

Ali, in red, making friends

I prefer staying home! However, on Saturday we all went to a very nice dim sum restaurant in Chang Le Street  长乐路 – a well known part of the French Concession bit of Shanghai. It was very good, though being indoors means I can’t say much about the district. The streets around looked interesting, so I have it down as somewhere to return to and explore when cooler. It was fun watching Ali make friends with the children at the next table. Then on Sunday I took them to the small park to skate and Ali made friends with ‘a baby’, that is, a one-year old toddler. Ali is a very friendly engaging little boy and needless to say was just as big a hit with the respective parents as with the children. Louis looks on and decides whether or not he will join in, or continue reading/drawing/skating.

Learning to skate

Rainy day

Yesterday was a rainy day – so taking photos of the swarm of bikes outside was a non-starter. I just took these as we set out for school. Only a few bikes!

The pavement outside on a wet morning

Going to kindergarten in the rain

Edinburgh is far away

I have all the newspaper apps on my iphone – that is New York Time, Guardian, Independent, Shanghai Daily, and the BI Times and I really had to stop there though I sometimes look at the New Zealand stuff as well and others to see how different the reports are. It is unbelievable how different – well no actually utterly believable – especially when it is something like the riots in Tottenham being reported by the Telegraph or Guardian or New York Times. I get BBC too, so think I am like one London reporter said – there I was going from screen to screen getting live updates and I forgot I could look out the window or even go outside. The best I read was from David Lammy, the Tottenham MP. I also heard that Gordon Brown had put in a brief appearance at the Edinburgh book festival, which is what made me realise [again] how far away I am. I would love to be heading out to the Book festival… with a congenial friend or two…

Can't get on my computer

Well, I can’t go outside to see the UK happenings and to be honest there is not a lot exciting here. Ali has noted that we are in an ‘apartment building’ which is not a house like in New Zealand and it goes right up to the sky. Yes, when you stand just outside and look up, it does. It is 24 floors, we are on the 1st, or Ground, to UK people, number 6 of about 8 on each floor. There are only 3 such blocks at this address 999 Pubei Road and although most apartments are residential, there are also several which are home to companies of one kind or another. One or two of the ground floor flats are being re-modelled, so daytime is even more noisy than most chinese places and that is saying something. The drill scream is now normal and for some reason, today is utterly quiet. Maybe they have finished!!! Could it be possible?

This floor, just opposite to us, is also home to an internet distribution company – the lorries and vans arrive at all times of the day and night, and the boxes are trundled up a ramp into the building.

Presumably they are then sorted, as they are trundled down again, especially first thing in the morning, and loaded on to motor-bikes, about 20 of them which park on the pavement outside the block with their

A good slide?

red-logo-ed riders. Some of the bikes have 2-wheeled trailers, but most just have a carrier and the loading skill, let alone riding skill. has to be seen. I will take photos tomorrow morning. When we go to school, all of this has to be negotiated, which Louis and Ali enjoy very much. The ramp is actually a large piece of plyboarding laid on the steps up to the building – good for running down, or up, instead of going up and dowm the 4 steps in any ordinary way. Louis is very indignant about the delivery lorries though, because he can quite clearly read the entrance notice which has the lorry picture and the red bar across the circle. This says NO LORRIES. Louis is very alert to all NO notices, we have to stop frequently to read the no horns, no over 5mph, and on buses, in lifts etc, there are always so many: no spitting, no jumping no no … there is one on the way to school which appears to say No people – we still have not worked out what exactly is forbidden.

No Lorries

So in general it is a bit noisy here… there is also recycling… I will maybe get some photos and do another post on this, but photos won’t indicate the smells. Life in Shanghai, or any of the chinese cities I have lived in,  is not like home. I do indeed understand how Cindy and especially her parents, were gobsmacked when we went to New Zealand [in September 2008]. So empty, so clean, where are the people?

Blogspot

I thought I had the China stuff sorted as I have been able to get in to my own blog all week. However having noticed this great world with lots of anything in it, I was looking up other people’s contacts. Blogspot is impossible to get here – the “server resets” every time I try to access a blogspot site.

I know there are ways round this – everyone who wants Facebook or Youtube says get a VPN … aaaghh… I really really do not want to know what a VPN is (virtual private network) or how to get one. Why are authorities’ response to stuff always along the lines of prevent all the ordinary people doing things and then we might just get the baddies caught in the net? See immigration policy, stop-and-search etc etc… Don’t they know its the baddies who need to know how to get around the net and who will manage to do so, the rest of us have lives to lead that we enjoy.

More rain today.

 

Storms

Last Sunday we had a typhoon warning for Shanghai – and then it was downgraded so we just had fairly strong wind and rain.

The patio tree fell over

The little tree on our outside patio – only about my height – tossed about telling us how strong the wind was, then it fell over.  I forgot about it until this afternoon when the rain and lightning started up again and see that it looks still alive but needing replanted. I will try to remember but it is always so hot outside that I am unlikely to be passing by and will probably forget. There have been more storms since Thursday which we have not noticed much. The Shanghai Daily has been reporting however, and it looks as though the area I visited on Monday, the Wu Jiao Chang [Pentagon], has been flooded.
Not a surprise that it is now thundery again, it has been very hot and opressive. this morning Donal and I took the boys to the running track, but we were all soaking sweaty even before we did any running, so we did not stay long and came home to the showers and airconditioning.

Day by day

Daily life in shanghai continues day by day. Since Cindy arrived on Tuesday, we are three adults and Zhou Ayi in the evening so not much looking after boys is required of me. I intended to do a bit of getting out and about but have managed to develop a stinking cold – crowded Metro I suppose. So I am not going anywhere for now.

Last summer on Block Island

What I have done is play around with the blogging process and have put the beginning of my poetry blog online! And, I got one comment from someone in Ohio almost straight away, so maybe blogs are not as anonymous as I imagine they are. I also started the blog I really want to put up – one which replaces “work” now that I am retired and my mind still wants to think, but it turns out to have the same difficulties as writing papers used to have. Too many thoughts, not enough willingness to search out the references they came from…I much prefer to talk, or just write, though do miss the listening part of talking and conversation when I am writing.

 

 

This summer football at PuBei Lu recreation ground. Note the Hibs shirts!

I am also looking for good photos to put up, and that is a trip to nostalgia land. I think my computer is like most people’s, or worse, full of unsorted digital wonders. Another job to do there when I get around to it.

Love to everyone, xxx E

Cindy arrived in Shanghai

Today Cindy arrived back in Shanghai on a three week trip from New Zealand. Louis and Ali woke very early when Donal’s alarm went off. He was going to Pudong airport to meet her – about two hours journey from where we live. We followed the plan that they would go to school as usual, even though Cindy and Donal would arrive back here about 9am. This of course meant that by the time the boys saw their Mum, she had had a chance to rest, settle in and spend at least a little time with Donal – who had to go to work.

Later Matthew and Wei Wei came round – tomorrow they return to Xi’an. Donal, Cindy, Matthew and Wei Wei were relaxing when it was time to collect the boys from school, so I went for them. They never walked home so well! Ali planned to give Mummy a big surprise, which meant hiding behind me and then jumping out ar her. Louis said he was just going to give her a big big kiss. All very well, all happy.