Episode 3

One of the things that I was oblivious to was the “expat package.” A “package” is basically the money that your company gives you to live this foreign country. Truth-be-told, it’s probably one of the main reasons why people become expats in the first place. Well, that and your job may depend on it. Even us, as adventure seeking people, we would never have up and moved our family to China because we simply couldn’t afford to do it on our own.

The kids’ annual education alone cost more than a Mercedes coup. Our pathetic, run down, tiny apartment with a nice view cost us three times what our mortgage was back home in Colorado.

Lucky for us Rob’s brother had been an expat in the UK for a multinational company and we were privy to his package. Another stroke of luck was that his little sister was an editor at a well known publishing house and had just finished working on a Human Resources textbook. It was a little unnerving that there was an entire chapter dedicated to handling expatriates. Finally, Rob’s best friend had been an expat in China way back in the day for a multinational company and he gave us access to his company’s software program that calculates expat packages.

In an effort to manage my expectations (that, on occasion, could sometimes get carried away) Rob urged me not to read any of this information. He didn’t work for a multinational company. He worked for a small company that was opening its first overseas factory as a last ditch effort to stay competitive. We were the first and only expats and were a bit of an experiment, to say the least.

I didn’t listen. I read every last word just to be informed. I wished I hadn’t.

“Did you know I’m supposed to get a spousal bonus?” I said, with a chuckle. I’d been sitting at the kitchen table. Papers and books about all-things China were strewn about.

“A what?” he said, not looking up from the TV.

“A spousal bonus. You know, for quitting my job. Most companies give the ‘trailing spouse’ a bonus if they had to quit their job in order to move to China.”

I hate that term, trailing spouse. It sounds so 1950’s; so degrading.

“No. I didn’t know that and you’re not getting one. I told you not to read all that crap and fill your head with fantasies.”

“I know. I just find it interesting how much stuff people who work for real companies get. It’s kind of amazing. I mean, look at this…up to $12,000 a month for a housing allowance. That’s insane, right?”

“Totally.”

One of the things expats “typically” roll into their leases is a membership to the compound clubhouse. A typical expatriate clubhouse will have a workout facility, an indoor pool (sometimes an outdoor pool), a restaurant (or two), and a little area for the kids to play. Kind of like a country club, I guess.

Luckily we were able to negotiate this into our package, too. What we didn’t realize, though, is that since we were in a quasi-local apartment complex, the clubhouse was also quasi-local. Of course, we didn’t know what that meant until the oppressive heat drove us to the pool one day.

The Sunday before Rob had to report to work, we decided to do something fun for the kids, but we all still had jetlag we didn’t want to venture too far from home. Since our apartment was across the street from Century Park,the largest park in Shanghai, we decided to check it out.

We walked across the street and along the canal. I made the mental note that I hadn’t seen the sun since we’d arrived in China. It had only been three days, but still. No sun. Oppressive heat, but no sun.

Weeping willows lined the sidewalk. I guess it would have been charming, but the perpetual smell of sewage coupled with the garbage and debris that littered the sidewalks kind of detracted from the charm. I made another mental note that although there seemed to be garbage everywhere; a street sweeper was never more than a stone’s throw away.

We paid our 10 RMB per person at the gate and were thrilled to see a bunch of those multi-person, canopied bikes they have at the Jersey Shore for rent. The kids ran ahead, staked their claim on a bike and shouted at us to hurry up.

“I guess were going for a bike ride,” said Rob.

“Looks like it. Hey, is it me, or is it really hot?” I said. I wiped the pouring sweat from my forehead.

“It’s really fucking hot,” he replied. Rob took his shirt off and tied it around his head like a turban. Everyone in the park stopped to stare at his blazing tattoos.

We biked around for a spell but it was simply too hot. Within minutes our clothes were soaked through with sweat. The kids were disappointed so we promised them we would take them swimming. After all, we had a gym membership and it had a pool.

Aside: We found out later that that day was the hottest day on record in Shanghai in the last fifty years or something like that. I thought I remembered it being 43 degrees Celsius, but that would have made it like 110 degrees F and that seems impossible. Either way, it was really HOT!

We walked into the clubhouse and the first thing I noticed was people smoking cigarettes in the lobby. After all, this was a workout facility.

Do these people ever stop smoking?

Rob took Willy through the men’s room and I took Grace through the ladies. The floor was covered in so much black hair one may have mistaken it for shag carpeting. It reeked of mold (It didn’t take long to learn that if there’s water, there’s mold.)

Several naked ladies were sitting on the soaked wooden benches having a hoot of a time like birds lined up on a telephone wire — kind of like the crows in the movie Dumbo. They took one look at us, though, and stopped mid-sentence to stare. Un-phased, I stared right back and was amazed at how hairless their bodies were.

We continued through the locker room and came upon a 6 inch deep pool that appeared to be a foot bath. Ironically, the foot bath meant to cleanse the feet before entering the pool area was so dirty it made my skin crawl.

There’s no way we’re walking through that filth.

I picked Grace up and did a tight rope walk along the ledge of the foot bath. Already on the pool deck and waiting at the entrance, Robby just laughed and grabbed me under the arm to assist a safe landing.

We took one look at the pools (of which there were two — a lap pool and a kiddie pool) and shared a quick heavy sigh because there were about as many people in this pool as there would be at the subway station during rush hour.

Not sure why I expected any different.

To make matters worse, there was no rhyme or reason to the way these oodles of people were swimming. People were everywhere. Some swam diagonally and some swam straight ahead. Some bobbed up and down in place and others just stood there staring at us.

There was an interesting technique shared by most of the swimmers. It was kind of a cross between breast stroke and the dead man’s float with little to no forward movement — like Gollum from the cartoon version of The Hobbit when he came to greet Bilbo Baggins on the shores of his lair for the first time.

Already feeling slightly defeated, we guided the children to the overcrowded kiddie pool and plopped down along the edge. We sat in silence for a few moments. As we sat there watching the kids I couldn’t help thinking about how hard the simplest of tasks had become. We just wanted to take the kids out and about on a fun family excursion and two hours later were finally having “fun”, but there was nothing fun about it — at all.

It was awful.

“Why don’t you go swim a few laps?” Robby said. “I’ll stay here and lifeguard.”

I turned to look at the chaos, wrinkled my nose and shook my head. “Nah, I’m not up for it.”

“Go on, Honey. It’ll make you feel better…Think of it as…as an adventure.” He put his hand on my inner thigh and gave it a gentle squeeze.

In theory, he was right. Swimming was one activity that did make me feel better. Having spent more than half of my life in a pool, swimming was something that typically had a cathartic effect on me.

“OK. If nothing else, it’ll be an adventure.”

I sat on the ledge of the pool. Cap on and goggles down, I eased myself into the water, submerged — paused for just a moment realizing that he was right, I already felt more relaxed — then I pushed off the wall.

WHAM!

I smacked right into someone mid survival stroke.

“Sorry,” I said to deaf ears then took a deep breath and went for it again. This time I kept my head above water and took about three strokes before someone slammed into me.

At least it was him this time and not me.

The culprit didn’t even pause. He just swam right over my legs. Lucky for him I wasn’t kicking.

By now I was half-way down the pool and had already collided into yet another person. I looked around and couldn’t find an opening to continue moving forward. Resigned, I made my way to the side of the pool and climbed out. As I sulked back to the kiddie pool, I looked behind me in awe at the pool. No one else was running into anyone. It was just me. The weird thing was that there was no pattern to their swimming. It appeared to be just random movement.

Organized chaos.

“That was fast,” Robby said.

“Yeah. I’ve had enough adventure for one day, you?”

He looked around to make sure Grace and Will weren’t in earshot, lowered his voice then said, “Let’s get outta here.”

“No complaints from me.”

Surprisingly, the kids didn’t utter a single complaint. Not a, “But Mom, we just got here.” Nothing. Not a peep.

***

Later that night, as I lay there listening to Rob’s snores trying in vain to fall asleep, I tried to figure out what the hell was happening. Here we were on our big adventure and all I wanted to do was move back home. To quit. To forget it. To admit defeat. I was ill-prepared and ill-equipped to live in China. I couldn’t manage life here. It was too hot, too difficult, too much of a struggle, too uncomfortable, too confusing. Too foreign.

Wait? Is this culture shock?

That’s what it was. It was culture shock — all these feelings of self-doubt and loathing were normal. And I wasn’t even in denial. Was it possible to skip right over the first stage of grief and move right into the second — anger?

Maybe I’d experienced denial before we even moved to China in the months leading up to the move. I was in denial then, though I was angry, too.

The thought of this precocity made me feel a little special. It was like I was in the AP culture shock class.

Hardly. I was actually thinking what a scared, pathetic little person I was for craving the safety of home. I was mad.

I was angry.

Pleased at least that I’d identified the problem, though I had no way of solving it, I was able to sleep knowing that these feelings would subside and I would be able to embrace our new life — eventually.

***

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