After being nudged along by my wife to post a little something (just kidding, it was my turn), I decided to pre-emptively answer (just for fun...for me) what I'm sure will be some of the most common questions we will be asked when we get back to the US later this year.
Question #1 "So what was it like in China?"
Really? Please. Think of something more creative, unless you have a couple hundred hours for me to explain, and you're gonna be buying the drinks.
I'll indulge you anyway. China is a big, big place. 1.3 billion people and lots and lots of big cities and lots and lots of tiny, rural farms. Why people think it is all the same is beyond me. Just think of America: how similar are the cities and lives of people living in the hills of Tennessee with those living in Seattle? Well, Beijing or Shanghai are quite a bit different than Kunming. Among other things, the sun shines here. Think that's funny? It's not if you live in one of the enormous industrial cities like Chongqing. We visited CQ and it is miserable. If you can barely make out your shadow on the ground, its a sunny day.
Kunming on the other hand, is about 10-15 years behind the rest of China in terms of development. For example, stoplights have been around this city of seven million for about six years but if you are on a bike or scooter, you can often simply ignore a red light. My kids are terribly confused. There are a lot of foreigners here and the year-round Spring-like weather makes it easy to stay. I've come to love it here and the people-foreigner and local alike-are so helpful. The wealth-poverty gap is simply gargantuan (picture a brand new Ferrari driving down the road next to a foot-pedaled garbage collecting bicycle ridden by a 50 year-old woman). I've never gotten used to that here. The guy outside my window right now collecting our community garbage looks 60. But nobody bats an eyelash.
Question #2 "Is learning Chinese (Mandarin) hard?"
Hmmm. Let me think about that one for a sec...
Yes. It is. But you had better start counting your lucky stars because learning Mandarin is EASY compared to learning English. I've met so many bilingual people here it is amazing, and every time I remember how fortunate I am to be a native English speaker. I've done some English teaching here and as soon as you open that can of worms you realize how hard it is to explain when and why to use I, me, or mine or to teach a junior high kid how to use the correct verb tense in her second language. Even as you are teaching a given grammar rule, you are already thinking about all the ways you break that rule. English is endlessly confusing--even to Americans.
But yes, I can speak a little Mandarin. Enough to make locals laugh at me.
Question #3 "What did you eat/What was the food like?"
Once you eat local food in Kunming, American food seems disgusting, bland, and completely unimaginative (aside from the corn dog, that is pretty creative, and delicious). Granted, there are a lot of things I will never eat: worms, maggots, pigs feet, chicken feet, etc. though they are all readily available. Most food here is spicy, the vegetables are fresh, and it is simply amazing. Lots of rice? Yes. But you need it to tone down the hot peppers. Mexican food would be somewhat comparable in the sense that it is spicy and has a lot of vegetables, but the flavor is definitely unique. Most people here in Kunming eat boiled greens and rice or noodles with some veggies, often three times a day. Our helper makes the most delicious spicy noodle dish I've ever had. I really could eat it for breakfast. We think it is annoying to go out and buy food fresh from the market everyday. But Chinese people think it is disgusting to buy food and let it sit in your fridge for days or weeks. Hmmm...good point.
Question #4 "Living in Southeast Asia sounds amazing. Tell me about traveling there?"
Sure, no problem. Imagine you want to go on vacation: Florida, California, whatever. So you have a friend take you and your family to the airport. So far so good. Same here. You are arrive at your destination after a two hour flight. Same here. You get off the plane and find your driver to pick you up and take you to your hotel...but now your driver doesn't speak English and is holding a piece of paper with your name (incorrectly) written on it. You whisper a quick prayer that this guy is legit before helping your wife and three kids into his minivan. You really hope he knows how to get you to your hotel because its 7pm and time for your kids to go to bed and your hotel is a two hour drive away. He does. I feel relieved. After you safely arrive and enjoy a week or so at your hotel on the beach (not so bad, I admit), its time to go back home. So again, time to schedule a driver to take us to the airport. Again, barely any English. Again, two hours. But this time, the driver takes us to the wrong airport in Bangkok. We obviously miss our once-a-day flight from BKK to KM. That is how traveling goes, at least sometimes.
Question #5 "But seriously, what was it like to live abroad with three kids under five?"
Well, when we got here, a simple thing like going to get food was about all we could get done in a single day. When we got off the plane I could count the words I could say in Chinese on just my fingers. A few months in and after we were both working and had made friends with a couple of expats and their families, in a lot of ways it was just like living in the US. You work, you eat, you change diapers. With kids, you just aren't off hiking trails and taking night trains to Shangri-la all the time. Most of the time you are up all night because someone is sick, not because you are looking at the stars from some mountaintop in some far-flung paradise.
One of the best things about being here is that we live so close to our friends and can walk over and just let our kids play. In the US, just seeing people you care about often involves a 20 minute trip in the van plus prep time. Here, its a text and shoes and the diaper bag and we are there. Its made me rethink urban living. I can walk five minutes out my door and have just about anything essential to life, and I'm in China.
Yes, I said W-A-L-K. We've done a lot of that here. My kids are champs. My kids walk more in a day here than I walked in a month in the US. Even the old folks here can walk farther than Americans in the flower of youth. When we first arrived in KM and had to fend for ourselves and didn't know where to get food to make complete meals, it was like fat camp. We ate fruit, vegetables, and oatmeal because that was all we could wrap our heads around in a foreign place with some weird food. But now I love it. Can't even imagine driving again. We walk or bike or I take the electric scooter if one of the kids wants to come with me. Taxis are available of course, but buses are the preferred way of traveling if its just one parent for three kids.
Living in Kunming has been an adventure as a family. Something we will always be able to remember and talk about and laugh every time. So many little things happened and so many places were visited that I am sad to think I will forget some of them. We've come a long way in a year from when we got on a plane in San Francisco. Eve and I look at each other all the time and say, "wow, we live in China." It's true, and its been amazing.
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