I thought I would take you for a stroll around my neighbourhood. It is what I see when I leave the hotel to go to where all the action is!

Seaworld is not the Seaworld as we know it. No Shamu here!  The Seaworld Plaza is an entertainment/restaurant/bar area all based around a dry-docked luxury liner in the area of Shekou. (Shekou is the area where all the expats live.) The ship was originally built by the French in 1962 and known as the Anceevilla. In 1973, China bought the ship and renamed it the ‘Minghua’. It was rebuilt in 1983 as hotel and also served as a sea-based tourist centre. Today it houses a restaurant where you can enjoy your meal on the ship’s deck and watch the lovely water/light/music show that happens every half hour at night. There is always lots going on at the Plaza and it feels like we are on an extended vacation…well, maybe not for David!

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Our youngest child, Cameron, also lives in Tokyo and he honoured us with his presence this past weekend. I am not sure where his liking for Japan started but he did spend a year working in Tokyo as part of the University of Victoria’s Co-op program. Or maybe it was just because he figured if Holly could do it, so could he.  Anyhow, it was great to spend some time with him as we haven’t seen him since July when he went off to start his new career as a software engineer for Goldman Sachs.

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We decided to take Cam to one of the malls we haven’t visited yet. In a city of 17 million people, there lots of malls we haven’t visited yet. Coco Park is a multi level inside/outside type of mall offering something for everyone. There is a multitude of women’s shops that offer beautiful clothing in a lovely setting. Most of the shop names I have never heard of before and they all have out their winter wear of heavy sweaters and beautiful full length wool coats. I have no idea when they would wear them here but I have heard the temperature goes down to 10c in the winter so maybe then. Winter here only lasts a month.

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Alongside these lovely ladies stores were American brand stores as well including Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Hardy, Guess and The Gap. Starbucks is alive and well here in China and it is state owned. 

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Lots of activities for the kids to do!

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So a mall, is a mall, is a mall all over the world. The only thing different about this particular mall on this particular day is that we were pretty much the only caucasians there. David and I are getting used to being looked at twice, especially David because of his height but having Cameron along adds a new dimension. He attracts a whole different audience. We were having quite good fun teasing Cam about the looks he was getting while we were walking around, not to mention the service he got if we went into a store. Then out of nowhere, a girl with a selfie stick and a serious looking microphone stopped Cameron and started asking him questions. She was live-streaming her day. The conversation went something like this:

Girl:  Hi can I talk to you?  Cam: Yes

Girl:  Where are you from?  Cam: I’m from Japan.

Girl:  Wait! What? You don’t look Japanese.  Cam: I know! Crazy right? I’m from Canada.

Girl:  What are you doing tonight?  Cam:  Shopping with my parents.

Girl: You should go out and drink. It’s a Saturday, maybe you can find a girlfriend you know.  Cam:  I have too many already.

Girl:  Do you want to out with me?  Cam:  No thank you?

Girl:  Are you going to reject me in front of 200 people?  Cam:  Yes

Girl: Ok. Bye.

We are so proud. She seemed to take rejection well. David and I had a really good laugh. This is something that will be ‘poem worthy’ whenever Cam decides to get married.

KBye!

 

As many of you know, two of our three kids live in Tokyo. People have commented that we moved to China to be closer to our children. Not true. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever live in Asia. Our third child, Courtney, lives in Toronto and she  says she is going to put herself up for adoption citing sibling and parental abandonment. If you are interested in adopting her, please take a number and get in line. I have it on good authority that Uncle Steve is busy preparing his application.

It was a stroke of good luck that our oldest daughter Holly was in Hong Kong for meetings last week so she took the ferry over to Shenzhen to join us for the weekend. Holly is well versed in all things Asian having lived in Japan for almost eight years, so we let her take over. Holly’s fascination with Japan began when she was eight years old and my friend Bernie Hartman gave her an authentic Japanese fan for her birthday. Bernie had taught English in Japan for a bit and was the French teacher at our school in Lloydminster. We also share the same birthday.

We took a taxi to one of the malls and had a delicious lunch at Yunnancuisine. Dave and I had wanted to try this restaurant before but were concerned that there was no English. The sign above the door should have been our first clue plus we should be braver. It turns out there was a colourful menu with lots of pictures that had descriptions in English. Holly could read a little of the menu so that was helpful too.

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The next day we hopped on the Metro and went to the OCT Loft Complex. OCT is short for ‘Overseas Chinese Town’. OCT used to be an industrial area and the low warehouses started life as home to a Chinese TV manufacturer. It now houses a variety of art galleries, coffee shops, some live music and trendy restaurants. On the first and third weekend of every month there are a variety of artisans and crafters selling their one of a kind articles or vintage items. Score! We will definitely be back.

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We also had lunch at a restaurant called The Magpie, one of top trendy places in Shenzhen to eat because you know, that’s our style! This was a happy accident and was by no means planned 0n our part. The atmosphere was cool and the food was great…if only it had a bathroom.

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Sadly we had to sad goodbye to Holly but luckily for us Cameron is coming this weekend!

The last piece of the puzzle to complete the requirements for the Residence Permit is a trip to the police station. I am not sure if I have ever been to a police station in Canada, not even on a school field trip, let alone China. Thankfully Christie is once again in charge. First we go and pick up the results from the medical, everything came back normal by the way and then off we go to the police station. This is a very busy place with lots of people doing lots of things and that adds up to lots of noise. Since I am an expat I get taken upstairs to a special section and avoid the lineups downstairs.

This is serious business and my file is given to the first officer who goes through everything with a fine tooth comb. There are a couple of places where my signature has been missed, I sign and then my file is passed to the next constable who also goes through everything with a fine tooth comb. There is a little kerfluffle because my names do not match on the certificates. They do not know that a woman can change her name to her husband’s name when they get married. Luckily, because we have provided my birth certificate and the actual original marrriage certificate (good thing we keep it) and a Authentication Certificate that states that the marriage certificate is original, it is accepted. Just a note about the Authentication Certificate. David has to go to Edmonton to get this certificate. He had to take a notarized copy of the marriage certificate to Edmonton to get it validated by the provincial government. This involved checking the records, confirming that the notary was registered in Alberta and in return he got a certificate sealed with wax and a red seal.  Then David took these documents to the Chinese Visa Office in Calgary to have our validation validated. All very official!

Alas, I was not quite done yet. I had to have my picture taken again, oh yay, and then I was  asked a few questions. David did not have to answer any questions by the way.  It went something like this…was I working? No. So you are a housewife? Yes (I cringed a little at that one) and the last one…what does your husband do? He’s an engineer. That seemed to please them immensely and my file was quickly stamped. I had to give up my passport and will get it back in about ten days along with my Residence Permit. I am not sure how I will fill my time now that all these appointments are done!

 

If you are coming to China to live, you are required by the Chinese government to complete a medical exam. So, after one day to recover from the Vancouver/Hong Kong flight I am picked up by Christie, an Immigration Administrator, and her driver to complete this task.  Christie’s job is to assist me in fulfilling the requirements for a Residence Visa. She is about thirty years old and very efficient at her job. First up, she says, are pictures that need to be taken for various files.  The driver drops us off very close to the photography studio and we jump out of the van before other vehicles start honking at us. Traffic here is best described as aggressive. Lines on the roads are merely suggestions, turn signals are rarely used and scooters are everywhere…but more on that in another post.

Having my picture taken is not my forte and they never turn out well in my mind. The ones taken this morning are no exception and with the jet lag factored in, I look especially pale and haggard. Plus they always make me take off my glasses which doesn’t help my case either because I can’t see what’s going on and I always have a weird expression on my face.  But no matter, they are done and we proceeded to the clinic where the worst is yet to come.

With Christie’s help I filled out the appropriate forms and the woman behind the desk entered my information into her computer with Christie translating. The newly taken photograph is attached to my forms. I take my forms and I am sent down a hallway where first up is the abdominal ultrasound.  My husband had failed to mention this part of the medical to me until that morning so I was ill prepared and quite apprehensive about this.  The technician did nothing to help ease my feelings of anxiety.  She just issued curt instructions about what to do and we were done in record time. Then with military like precision I was sent from room to room for an EKG, an eye exam, a blood pressure test (which was a little high given the circumstances) listening to my heart and a chest X-ray.

Then came the ‘fun’ surprise.

Now a urine sample is no surprise in a medical examination but it is a surprise when they hand you what looks like a quarter cup measuring cup – you know the ones with the handle. An even bigger surprise is walking into the woman’s washroom and you are confronted with a squat toilet. Another name for them is a ‘squatty potty’ which I find rather endearing. Maybe it’s because I taught K/Grade 1 for a lot of years and we rhymed a lot. If you are not familiar with these ‘squatty potties’ click here to be enlightened.

My sister, Darlene, can tell you that I am not very good at this squatting thing. There is a certain incident along HWY 36 on a trip to Lethbridge when we were kids that only she and I know about, that attests to this fact. This incident is what I thought of when I was getting down to business and given the fact that I was jet lagged and a bit stressed, I started to laugh. I was very glad my sister was not with me, as invariably when we start to laugh about something, we laugh so hard we cry. I did, however, manage to pull myself together to finish the job.  When you are finished, you put your little measuring cup, that has no lid, on a big silver tray alongside other little measuring cups, that also have no lids and walk away shaking your head in disbelief.  I must say that my sample looked pretty good compared to the other ones sitting there.

Last up was the taking of blood samples where you stick your arm through a hole in a window and the technician takes your blood. Did you know your veins get bigger when they slap them?  I get my results on Friday.

While we are waiting to go apartment hunting we are living in a serviced two bedroom/two bathroom condo apartment type thing. It is actually quite nice, fairly compact and everything is clean. The bedding is nice but the beds are quite hard, I know, first world problems. A serviced apartment is like a hotel with cleaning and a bedding change twice a week. Buffet breakfast and dinner can be had in the onsite restaurant. Can you guess what’s cooking in the pan in the last picture?

 

How does a small town girl from Hanna, Alberta end up in Shenzhen, China you ask? You follow your husband, of course, because I would never have the courage to do this on my own.  After making the fateful decision that would turn our average Canadian suburban life upside down we went through a mountain of preparation including Visa applications, medicals, inoculations, psychological testing (could have been dicey here) and cultural training. My husband, David, went a month before I did and started his new job right away and really did not miss beat. Good for him!

My month at home by myself was quite a change since I haven’t lived on my own since before we were married. It was kind of a nice and I think I was beginning to like living on my own…not much laundry, no meals to be made on time, house didn’t get messy, that sort of thing. I was kind of thinking that maybe I would tell David “Just kidding, I’m not coming” but sanity prevailed and we got a ticket booked.

Packing and organizing for this move had been ongoing for about a month, making countless lists and revising the countless lists. I finally got to a point where I stopped analyzing what to pack and just packed.  Hopefully I made a few right decisions about what I will need here.  I have travelled quite a bit but never much on my own and never on a long haul flight solo. Getting to Vancouver was no problem and I was delighted to run into Liz and Shannon Hawrylak from Lloydminster, AB. while waiting to board the flight to Hong Kong. Liz and I taught at the same school for awhile when we lived in Lloyd and was Holly’s Grade 2 teacher. Shannon was our ever faithful babysitter and our kids loved her.

The flight was smooth and very pleasant but now I had to do the hard part on my own…immigration and finding David. Thankfully, Hong Kong immigration was a breeze as was finding my bags. Loading them on a baggage cart proved somewhat of a challenge but mission accomplished with the help of gravity.  David was outside the gate, patiently waiting for me with James, our relocation specialist. James took over and loaded us and my luggage into a gull wing Tesla for an hour drive to the Hong Kong/China border. Here we had to bring in my bags to go through China immigration. This was all automatically done by inserting your passport into the machine and then getting your fingerprints done. You then filled out a card and proceeded to the man behind the glass, who was very efficient and a little bit scary. Everything was in order and they let me in! Next up was the x-raying of my luggage. This was just a basic free for all where everyone stuffed their bags onto  the very small conveyor belt and pushed each other out of the way to get them on the other side. Welcome to China!

So my first blog post is complete. It reads a lot like the letters I used to send to my Mom when I was away at university. I wonder what she would think of this new adventure in my life? Well, actually I know, and she would be horrified!

Kbye!

 

 

 

Thanks for joining me!