Beginning again (for good this time!)

T minus 20 days.

Hello again. I figured I would reboot the blog with a sort of pre-moving FAQ for those people who I don’t talk to on a regular basis (so basically everyone but Mom and Grandma). The goal after this is to update regularly, since I think I might actually have things to write about now that our lives are changing rather spectacularly. Here’s the things people generally want to know:

Where are you going again?
Shenyang, China. It’s a major city in the northeastern part of China, about 100 miles northwest of the North Korean border. Fun, right? There’s around 5 million people in the city, and it’s a major industrial hub. It’s also closer than I ever wanted to be to Siberia. I’m told the winters are cold and long. I plan on hibernating.

How many Americans are there in Shenyang?
There’s around 40 Americans who work in the consulate, plus their families. I don’t know if there are any other expats in the city, but I imagine there are a few.

Do you know anyone there?
We’ve met about a dozen people who will be working there with us. Most of them arrived in Shenyang at the beginning of August, so by the time we get there they’ll be able to show us around. Everyone has been really friendly, and I’m glad to see there’s already a great sense of community. One of the ladies and I have already decided we’ll have to start a ping pong club when we get there.

Will you live on an army base?
Nope. I don’t even know if the US has an army base there. But we will be living in the same building as most of the Marine guards. The US government is basically leasing a couple floors in a couple of hotels in downtown Shenyang and remodeled the rooms into American-style apartments. That’s where Mike and I will be living. It’s right in the middle of downtown, close to the shopping district, and Mike can either take a shuttle to work or walk. Also, the apartment is a furnished 3-bed 3-bath, so we will have plenty of room for visitors. And my loom.

Are you taking your loom to China?
Duh. It is the best toy ever. Unfortunately, it has to go on the slow boat with the bulk of our stuff so it probably won’t get there until January or something. I intend to have a long list of projects planned so I can have things to make as soon as I can start weaving again. Get your requests in soon, people.

People are coming to move you, right?
Yes, and I love them for it. I just have to make sure that all the stuff gets in the right piles. We will have four piles: going with us on the plane in our suitcases (two 50 pound bags each), going by air freight (450 pounds max, and hopefully arriving in China a few weeks after we do), going by sea (the rest of our stuff), and consumables (peanut butter and chocolate chips and brownie mix, oh my!). There may be a lot of brightly colored sticky notes in my near future.

What about church?
We’ve been told that since Shenyang doesn’t have enough expat members to make a branch, we will be part of an international call-in branch. Basically all the people out in the boonies like us do a massive conference call on Sunday and have our meetings via phone. There’s a branch president in charge, and for the sacrament he will apparently authorize the priesthood holders to administer the sacrament where they are and the call gets muted for about 10 minutes. I don’t really know much more than that.

Will you have internet?
To my knowledge, yes. Probably slow and crappy sometimes, but we won’t be completely cut off from the outside world.

Can we send you stuff?
Always. I will post the DPO address as soon as we get a real one assigned to us, but in the meantime, here’s the pouch address:
Michael Haws
4110 Shenyang Place
Dulles, VA 20189-4100
There seems to be a morass of rules and regulations about what can and cannot be sent, but I don’t know how to decipher them, so this is the best I can give you: http://pe.usps.com/text/imm/ce_009.htm

How long will you be in Shenyang?
Two years, after which we will be sent off to a different part of the world. And no, not to somewhere in the US. We’re in the FOREIGN Service, and as much as the deep South feels like a foreign country, it has not yet seceded from the Union.

How long is your flight there?
Way longer than I ever want to be on a plane. Like 14 hours or something? All I really know is that we leave on Tuesday the 13th, switch planes in Seoul, and arrive in Shenyang Wednesday night. Pray that I’m not homicidal and Mike still has kneecaps by the time we get there.

Do you know any Chinese?
我会说一点儿中文，可是我常常乱说话，因为我觉得说中文很难。
I know just enough to be sure that I am slaughtering the grammar with extreme prejudice. People tell me that immersion will be good for my skills. I just hope to be functional. My Chinese/English picture dictionary will be my closest companion for a long time.

Are you excited?
I think there’s a very thin line between excitement and terror, and I use it as a metaphorical jump rope multiple times a day. I’m trying to stay focused on the exciting parts and not be nervous about the things I have no control over. I do know that this is what we’re supposed to be doing, and there is a solid support system out there for us, so we won’t be doing this alone. I have to remind myself of that often.  I think it will be an adventure, and some parts will be really amazing and some parts will be really hard, and sometimes those things will happen at the same time.

Let me know if there are any other questions you want answered, and I’ll do my best.

再见！

This blogging thing is hard.

***This post was supposed to go up two weeks ago, but Blogger was being stupid and wouldn't let me post. And then I was busy doing other things.***


Sorry. The blog went the way of no motivation and inability to think of things to write about. And also I would occasionally forget it existed and I should be writing about stuff. So. There's that.

So. Here's some of the things that have been going on:

• language training
• bands, all sorts
• springtime (cold hot cold hot cold but mostly windy)
• language training
• team teaching youth sunday school
• visitors
• language training
• meeting friends and influencing people (with food)
• weaving!
• did I mention language training?

First things first, I took a weaving class at the beginning of the year and I LOVED IT. If a passion is measured by your enjoyment of the drugery involved in a task then I was born to be a weaver. The only thing I disliked about the class was it was only one night a week and I couldn't go every day and work on stuff. I'm now seriously planning on getting a loom of my own and making ALL THE THINGS. Donations to my loom fund are appreciated. :)

I also joined a community band in January. It's fun, the people are nice, and we play a lot fewer marches than the last community band I was in, for which I am eternally grateful. We've played two concerts so far, one at a retirement home in Arlington (they had a woodshop in the basement and a disco ball in the big meeting room! Hippest assisted living place I've ever been) and one just yesterday at the airport for two Honor Flights. The Honor Flight Network is a nonprofit group that brings WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam vets to DC to visit the memorials and honor them for their service. We in the band got to serenade them as they got off the plane at the airport. It was pretty awesome to see all the cheering crowds and help let the veterans know that we are grateful. 

I'm also back in the DC Temple Orchestra. Our spring concert is next Sunday, and we're playing lots of cool arrangements of Restoration Hymns. And one arrangement that is probably supposed to be cool but at the moment is just giving everyone fits. Hopefully we can pull it together by Sunday.

Back in March the Sisters Haws came to visit. It was fun to see everyone, though the weather didn't quite cooperate. They went sightseeing, I got to cook fun food, and a good time was had by all. Even if my GPS decided that Mount Vernon didn't exist and tried to direct us to a gas station instead. My GPS is a little possessed.

But the thing that's really taken over our lives is language training. We get to spend 8 hours a day trying to pack our brains full of Mandarin. It's less like drinking from a fire hose and more like drinking from a fire hydrant. Don't get me wrong, I'm really really grateful that I have the chance to learn the language before we get to China, but that doesn't keep it from obliterating my brain on a regular basis. 

The training class we're in has about 30 people, divided into groups of 3 or 4 plus a teacher. Mike and I are not in the same class, as that apparently leads to marital strife. The teachers are all native Chinese speakers, which exposes us to lots of different accents and funny regional stuff. So far I've had teachers from Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and one from Shenyang (when I told her that I was going to Shenyang she said, "Oh, I just got back from there! The sky was the same color as the road.")

Tomorrow starts the eighth week of the class, which is just crazy. It's hard to believe that two months ago we were just starting to learn how to say hello (你好）and now we can (theoretically) carry on a conversation about what we did on the weekend and how we feel about our schooling. On the days when I feel like I'm forgetting everything I've ever known about Chinese and most of what I know about English, it's nice to look back and recognize the progress I've made (I know how to say "siblings" now, even though I thought getting it to stick in my head was going to kill me AND my teachers). Now I know enough to respond in Mandarin to my sisters' texts and actually say something pertinent to the conversation. Just not anything intelligible to anyone else. :)

So, here's to hoping that I can actually keep this blog thing going this time. Wish me luck.

再见！

We're not dead, I promise...

I'm just really, really behind on blogging. I'm going to try and play catch-up over the next few days. Here's the news from just after Thanksgiving:

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were mostly a mad dash to get presents ordered and bought and sent off. Christmas as an adult is not as much fun as it is as a child, but I think it might be more satisfying. It's certainly more challenging. I think I made five different lists to try and keep track of what went where and when it needed to be sent off. But I think I got everything straightened out and all the things in the mail that need to be there. Every day I blessed the fact that the nearest post office is on the first floor of our apartment building--and the UPS store is just the next building over. Shipping things doesn't get any easier than this.

In my hunt for presents I went to Eastern Market in DC. It's one of the oldest market buildings in the country, built specifically for that purpose in 1873, and has been in continuous operation for 137 years. It's got all kinds of produce and flowers and meats to choose from, and the day I went they were selling Christmas trees outside, which smelled divine. The variety of meat products there was kind of bewildering (as was the veritable army of mothers and nannies armed with strollers and small children that were milling around outside the entrance). I think I saw a dozen different kinds of fish and everything from pigs feet to tripe (eww!). I didn't end up buying anything, but I want to go back on a weekend when the arts and crafts vendors are there. I did, however, find my way down to the Eastern Market Pottery, which is in the basement of the building. They sell pieces made by the instructors and offer classes most weeknights and I think it would be super cool to take a class there. Alas, it's expensive and there's a waiting list, and if I get into the Mandarin class I want to take in the spring I won't have time. But it still looked super cool.

I also found a used bookstore across the street from the market and wandered around in there for a while. It's in this tiny old row house and books are stacked up to the ceiling and packed into every available space, including the windows. The filing system is archaic and snarky and there were all sorts of odd nooks and corners. I loved it. If my living space looked like that it would drive me crazy in minutes, but it's sure fun to visit.

I think they used books both as commodities and architectural supplies

Hahahahahaha

This was in the stairwell down to the basement. The sign on the
 right reads: "WARNING: Theft from the Troll's Hole may
 result in, among other things: crooked wall hangings,
 lost keys, bad cell phone reception, impotence,
broken underwire, passive aggressive email forwards
 from Republican family members, vegans, baby theft,
 and ill-fitting shoes."