Sometimes I picture my children's funeral. Morbid, yes. Paranoid, for sure. I've probably been to one to many funerals myself, and perhaps I have somehow assimilated tragic freakish deaths as a normal part of life. More likely it's a defense mechanism, like some kind of pre-emptive strike on your own civilians to prevent an enemy victory. "You thought you would capture our city? Ha! Too bad we BURNED IT TO THE GROUND!" (Maniacal laughter ensues). In order to avoid being blindsided by tragedy, I have anticipated countless gruesome demises for my husband and children and played them out in my head in harrowing detail. 
(she has no idea what dangers are out there...)
(she has no idea what dangers are out there...)The thing about China is, there is no way to anticipate everything. Statistically, I'm sure it's safer. We don't drive, we no longer live by a pool, or a 55 mph speed zone on a blind curve, or by redneck neighbors who hunt in our woods with high powered rifles. Violent crime is nearly nonexistent, nobody even owns a gun, and traffic is too bad for anyone to drive at more than 25 mph. It's safe, it's just an unpredictable sort of safe. In the US, after you've commuted 30 miles on the highway a thousand times, you sort of assume the thousand and first time will be the same. Never mind that you're careening across concrete at 70 mph in a combustible steel cage, if you do it often enough, it's like a kind of exposure therapy. Then you try to cross the road in China. Like I said before, I know it's safe. My rational brain has recognized that China does have very effective "rules of the road". They operate on the principle of "offensive" driving (due to a shortage of weird, single, middle aged, white guys willing to preach "defensive driving"?) which is actually very effective as people assume that everyone, everywhere is about to step into oncoming traffic, cut them off, drive the wrong way, or park their "meimbou che" in the middle of the road to sell vegetables and knockoff sunglasses. You could, theoretically, send your children darting out in front of a bus 
(or use the train tracks as a walking path)and they'd probably be a lot safer than in your SUV with a five point harness, because the bus driver has never had the luxury of predictability to lull him into a sense of safety. So says my rational brain. Unfortunately, my rational brain can engage just long enough to recognize that four lanes of traffic has suddenly morphed into 5 (or 6, or 7), that there are a horde of electric bikes driving down the road the wrong way, and that the old man elbowing me out of the way to cross the road first is holding a live chicken. This is when I shift into primal fight or flight mode.
(or use the train tracks as a walking path)And this is where my apology to homeowners associations comes in. I get it. I understand why you want to establish predictability, sameness. Why it feels good to know that when you get up and walk your leashed labradoodle that everyone's grass will be the same height. If I could speak more Chinese I would gladly head up a homeowners association in our complex if only to enforce elevator inspections BEFORE I got stuck in one and to tell everyone's kids that they need to stop peeing in our courtyard. It's ok to do that on a farm in Tennessee, just like it's ok to burn your trash there, but it is definitely not ok to burn your trash in our apartment stairwell. That being said, it's probably a great exercise for our whole family to not have control (or the illusion of control) over everything. If we want to go somewhere, I can't tell my kids when (or if) our bus is coming, I can't guarantee it will go where it's supposed to, I frequently don't even know exactly where we're going in the first place, and I certainly don't know what a chicken is apt to do when squeezed onto a crowded bus. Chances are though, even in my morbid imagination, that death by rabid chicken on a Chinese bus is very unlikely. In fact, the majority of the unpredictability isn't a life or death issue, it just shakes us up enough to ponder the possibility.
Cohen likes to listen to stories while he falls asleep and, recently, we played Pinocchio for him. I know that Disney usually puts a spin on fairy tales, but Pinocchio was one that I hadn't heard the real version of yet. In the real version, Pinocchio smashes Jiminy Cricket (who actually doesn't have a cute name like Jiminy) with a hammer in the second chapter, the blue fairy (who is actually the "azure" fairy) dies of grief when Pinocchio abandons her, and Geppetto gets eaten by a shark. Apparently in other cultures and other times, people didn't have the same illusion of safety that we do, and there was no such thing as Disney to further foster the illusion. The funny thing is, coming from the person who usually didn't entertain such illusions, the unpredictability is rather freeing. It's no longer possible to imagine every possible scenario, so there's no way I can imagine I'll be prepared enough to cheat death. Because no one can.
(I can't embed this due to the great firewall, but this if for Thomas and Anthony. I hope you're reading) http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TV9WmWLka_w&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DTV9WmWLka_w
So I can go ahead and replace paranoia with acceptance and my reliance in my own preparedness for future tragedy with a perpetual engagement in the present moment
and a trust that I will cope with the future when I come to it.
Because predicting it is no longer an option.
We are ready to take you on, China.
