Ups and Downs

Although Chris was away on business for 3 days again this week, the remaining two days were holidays in honor of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.  This is a lunar holiday that changes dates annually depending on the full moon, but is similar to Thanksgiving, in that we are basically giving thanks for the harvest and the end of the growing season.  Part of the celebration is to give and eat Moon Cakes.  I'm not exactly sure what they taste like, nor what's in them, so I didn't try any because no one is able to tell me if they have nuts or seeds in them.  There are many different flavors including apricot, caramel, chocolate, red bean, and green tea. 

We started our celebration by attending a party at the Clubhouse of Peter & Nickle's subdivision on Wednesday evening.

Then, on Thursday, we celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival with a day of playing at the health club with Peter, Nickle and the kids.  We all belong to Mega-Fit, a nearby health club, so Peter reserved a badminton court for us.  We played many variations on teams and everyone got a chance to try their hand at badminton, although our games didn't look anything like the serious, and seriously fast, games of the Chinese people around us.

The badminton courts are right next to the room that the ping pong tables are in.  Fortunately, Peter bought ping pong paddles and balls, so we all played some ping pong as well.  The health club also has tennis courts, where we saw some serious tennis lessons going on, outside, in mid-80 degree temperatures with easily 250% humidity. In addition to a room filled with weight-lifting machines and a free-weight area, the club also has a pool, hot tub, kiddie pool, spin class room, aerobics class room, karate class room, and a kids' play area.  All in all, it's a pretty good facility, unless you want to get a drink of cold water.  If you want water, you can get hot or lukewarm, no problem.  But if you want cold water, you have to go to the front desk and buy a bottle from the cooler, which I'm sure they keep only for Western expats.  The Chinese don't drink cold water, even in the continuing heat and incredible humidity here.  I was told that they believe that it takes energy away from the other functions in your body to make cold water come up to your regular body temperature, so it's healthier, and more refreshing, to drink hot or, at least, lukewarm water.  I don't know about the energy used in my body, but I want a cold drink, really almost all the time, but definitely when it's hot.  And so far, it's always hot and very humid here, so I drink a lot of water.

While the day spent with Peter, Nickle & the kids on Thursday was fun, as was talking to my daughters and my best friend Jane on the newly-installed Vonage phone, the other side of the emotional roller coaster that is expat life is also knocking soundly on my mental door.  It is hard to adjust to everything that changes when you pick up and move 7,000+ miles away.  Mostly, I've been feeling pretty good about how I approach these changes.  I like my Chinese (Mandarin) language class and am making some progress on a language that is mind-bogglingly difficult.  I am finding my way around, at least in the JinQiao area where we live, and have found most of the items on my "to-buy" list.  I have a couple of classes and tours scheduled in the next few weeks with women I've met, so that should be fun.  But, I find that I am feeling desperate and down about the status of our apartment.  

When Chris and Nickle saw it in July, they mentioned the obvious water damage and mold problem and were told it would be repaired before we moved in.  It wasn't.

When we toured the apartment on August 30th, we saw that the wallpaper in many areas was coming up and/or stained with mold and specifically asked about the mold problem and were told it would be fixed immediately.  It hasn't been.

We have written and spoken to the management company repeatedly over the past 3 weeks.  Now, we're into our 4th week in the apartment and I have a headache all day every day and the mold is still here.  The problem is even bigger than we originally realized, as Chris found standing water under the floor tiles, and the amount of work that would need to be done to fix it is incredible.  I've been here long enough at this point to believe that this apartment cannot be repaired in such a way that I will not continue to have mold allergy issues.

Today, Chris wrote to the management staff of our property management company informing them that they either have to move us to a hotel, and store all of our belongings and the apartment furniture, while repairs are done (which will likely take most of the rest of the time I'm in Shanghai during this visit), or they have to find us another, acceptable apartment in this complex that we can move into instead of this one.  Given that the Chinese had Thursday off for the holiday, most will be working tomorrow (Sunday), so we may have a visit from them tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday.  But, Chris is off to Thailand in the morning and won't be here for any of this.  I am overwhelmed at the idea of dealing with this on my own, as an expat housewife does not get the respect in China that her husband would get and, so far, whenever we ask for someone to come who speaks English, we get someone here with whom I cannot really communicate.  I fly to Bangkok on Thursday to join Chris there for 5 days, the start of the next Chinese holiday, Golden Week.  While that sounds like it would give time for work to be done while we're gone, Golden Week is the 2nd biggest holiday, after Chinese New Year, so the mold-removing repairmen, whomever they might be, definitely won't be working that week either.

I am leaving Shanghai on November 15 to visit Samantha in Vienna for a couple of weeks before returning to Elmhurst on December 2 for a couple of months.  I won't be back here until the end of January.  I just can't wrap my mind around the idea of either moving to a hotel for an extended period of time, or moving to a new apartment, after just having gotten settled here.  Not that I want to stay here breathing in mold and dealing with a non-stop allergy-related headache, sinus pressure, and sore throat, but I just am exhausted at the idea of dealing with all of this, here, mostly alone, and partially in Chinese.  In the U.S., I'd know my rights and have no problem flexing my Attorney Barbara Deane muscles.  In China, I can't adequately communicate and don't understand the culture or the effect the concept of "saving face" has on the truth in this setting.   I'm not good with uncertainty, even though I guess I'm flexible enough to have accepted our 2nd expat assignment. It may go smoothly, but I'm skeptical.  Time will tell.