MY TURN

I guess it's my turn to add to the blog, and give the perspective of a non-chinese speaking person in Nanjing.  Here are the things that I've found are different.

Very few people speak English. (Which basically means no one.)  So, we are learning a few Chinese words here and there and doing a lot of hand gestures and pointing.  We are going to have our first Chinese tutoring session today.

There are a minimal number of foreigners. (Which means very very very ........... few.  You can go days without seeing a non-Chinese face.  Not a bad thing, just different.)  Most of the foreigners have gone home for the summer.  There are Chinese people everywhere (go figure :)).  You never realize what a melting pot America is until you're somewhere like here.

Our Ayi (helper) and our driver do not speak English.  Fine for Boyd, not so fine for me.  We're figuring it out though.  We spend a lot of time on my i-phone trying to translate what each other is saying.  I don't know what I'd do without my i-phone.

Not only is not much English spoken, but all of my appliances have Chinese characters on them.  So, it can be difficult to know how to work things.  My friends, Becca and Naomi, came over on Monday and helped me translate the functions on my appliances so I don't have to guess anymore.  Naomi is Japanese and recognizes a lot of the characters, and Becca has an awesome translating app on her phone (which I now have).

The food is completely different.  I don't recognize over half the fruits and vegetables at the market.  There are tons of different rices and soy sauces to choose from.  We didn't pick a good soy sauce the first time we went shopping.  Our Ayi let me know and bought a different kind of soy sauce.  I still don't know what the difference is.  It's hard to find dairy products.  We drink milk out of a box.  I miss my fresh milk.

It's different having an Ayi in the house.  She works from 10-5 Mon.-Fri.  She makes lunch and dinner which is a blessing because I don't recognize most of the foods and wouldn't even know where to start preparing a meal with the foods in the store.  She also does about 1/3 of the wash which is helpful and she keeps all the floors clean.

All of the labels in the store are in Chinese characters.  Sometimes there will be English as well, but not always.  So, it's hard to determine even what the box foods are at times.  It can be difficult to tell between sugar and salt.  It's also hard to determine which beauty supplies are which.  (Like if a bottle contains shampoo or conditioner.)  Also, a lot of beauty supplies contain whiteners.  So, we have to be really careful of what we buy.

When we go to the grocery store we have to carry home what we buy.  That can get pretty crazy when you're buying for 8 people.  The other day the kids and I all rode our bikes to the market and filled all of our baskets with groceries.  We do have a driver.  So, I save the big trips for when he's working.  He works Tues. - Sat. during the day.

There is a shopping center just a couple of blocks away.  There is a McDonald's in this shopping center.  McDonald's has little shops everywhere in Nanjing that are devoted just to selling ice cream. So, my kids ride their bikes almost everyday to get an ice cream cone.

The church only has 4 rooms available in the hotel we meet in.  There are 2 small multi-purpose rooms, a small classroom, and a small storage/utility closet room.  We have sacrament meeting in one of the multi-purpose rooms.  Then Sunday School and R.S. and Y.W. meet in this room.  (They bring in dividers for R.S. and Y.W.)  The men meet in the other small multi-purpose room.  The primary gets the small classroom.  We have nursery in one corner, class in another corner, and everything else in another corner.  (The 4th corner is where the door is.)  The utility closet is the bishop's office/storage for all the ward's supplies.  We have 2 (maybe 3) small cabinets to store everything for the ward in.

All of the floors in our house are tile or marble, even the stairs, except the upper level bedrooms.  The bedrooms have wood floors.  I miss the softness of carpet.  My legs get really tired and sore after walking on tile all day.

It is much more humid. (That's actually an understatement.)  I have no control of my hair and have competely given up.

We are quite an attraction here.  I feel like we are animals in a zoo at times.  Everyone stops and stares and points.  In fact, the other day we passed a guard on the street.  He was suppose to be looking straight ahead at all times, but every time we'd pass his eyes would follow us.  I actually saw his head turn a bit at one point.  Another time, when I took the kids on the subway, I saw people actually change where they were sitting so they could have a better view of us.

Overall, things are going well.  I miss all of my friends and family.  And I miss being able to speak English and be understood.  The family is doing well though.  I think we are starting to adjust.

Alauna