Sorry for the delay in blogging. I feel like there is simultaneously too much and too little to write about. I mean, I could talk about how everything is different--food, smells, customs, traffic (the insanity that is Chinese driving habits could be a post on its own, starting with the spectacular nonchalance of the jaywalking Chinese grandmothers). But, as I tell people here when they ask, “What do you do all day?” it’s really not too different from what I did before. I do my best to keep the house tidy and the laundry caught up. I spend hours grumbling over menu planning, with the added bonus of trying to find recipes that don’t involve cheese (literally everything I know how to make involves cheese. *Sob*). I go to the grocery store once I finally have a grocery list and spend lots of time wandering in circles because I can’t find green onions, only to discover I’ve passed them three times already. I crave Mexican food. I spend a lot of time cooking and cleaning up after cooking, and I work on my new embroidery project. When Mike is home we chill and play video games and I still spend a lot of time cooking. We are homebodies, and that’s ok. People keep telling us to go see stuff and travel! And we will, but I think it will only be after we’ve fully adjusted to the adventure of daily living here. Going to the store is still enough adventure for me, thanks.
I feel like I have an “adventure” meter. I’m pretty good with the new and adventurous up to a point, and then I need to go home and recharge with familiar things. That set point varies from day to day. Sometimes I can go to new restaurants and try new foods and meet new people, all in the same day, and sometimes one trip outside the apartment is enough for me. And sometimes even being in the apartment is enough. Cooking is an adventure all on its own. Learning how to use a new oven is always unnecessarily exciting, especially when it stops working for a few days for no apparent reason. I haven’t memorized a conversion formula so quickly since high school chemistry, but now knowing how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius is a must. Plus, the oven is a tiny thing--my largest cookie sheet won’t fit but fortunately my smaller ones do--and has about 12 settings that are only labeled with pictograms and no words, so I honestly have no idea what any of them really do. I just make my best guess and hope.
And some ingredients are just hard to find. I wouldn’t be able to do 80% of what I’ve done so far if it hadn’t been for the kindness of friends who showed up with bags of spices about 30 seconds after I bemoaned my lack of things to cook with (Note to self: pack a spice kit next time you move. Do you know how much you can cook with just salt and pepper? Nothing. You can cook nothing.). China doesn’t really do yeast breads much, and the stuff you can get in the store tastes like cardboard. Tomato sauce is virtually non-existent, except at some specialty imported food stores. Cheese is likewise hard to find, although milk and butter are easier. And even when you can find stuff like that, there’s no guarantee that it will taste like the same things in the States. I didn’t notice how much the difference in taste affected me until every thing I ate tasted just a little off. It wears on you. Which is why I’m increasingly grateful for the ability to make things at home. I can make bread. I can make tomato sauce. I can make yogurt and mayonnaise and salsa and tortillas and egg noodles and all kinds of stuff you would usually buy in a store in the States but are really hard to find here. It makes me feel pretty awesome, both because it’s something familiar and comforting and because I really enjoy being self sufficient in that way. I’m so grateful that I have that kind of heritage, both from my upbringing (thanks Mom!) and from the Church. I think about my pioneer ancestors a lot these days. I wonder if they felt the same sense of dislocation and the desire for something familiar when they moved to the West. I wonder if they found the same satisfaction in making things work. I wonder if the community around them was as kind and as giving as the one around me. I hope so. I really hope so.
I’ve been coping with this move exponentially better than I expected I would, and I think it’s due to the people here. Everyone we’ve met has been unfailingly kind and welcoming. I get asked at least once a day how I’m doing and if there’s anything people can do to help. We’ve been taken to dinner and lunch and the park and more grocery stores than I thought possible. The people here are great. When we arrived I started a mental list of “people who need fresh bread as a thank you gift”, but I gave that up within three days and just decided on “everyone”. There are still some harder moments, but they are few and far between for now. This is definitely not the life I would have chosen for myself (my plan was more along the lines of “settle somewhere and never move ever again because moving sucks”), but I think it’s a good one.
P.S.--I promise I will start adding pictures soon. I haven’t taken many because I wanted to get more comfortable with my surroundings first. And I didn’t want to look like a complete yokel. I stand out enough as it is. But watching people watch Mike on the street is hilarious. One poor 6 foot tall guy gave him the most terrified side-eye I’ve ever seen in my life.
