Tuesday was my day to tour two preschools for John, and to see how well I could get around on my own. No translator, no colleagues -- just some money and a printout of the addresses. My goals were pretty simple:
-- Don't get lost
-- Don't get mugged
-- Don't call for help
-- Don't get hit by a car
Tommy left pretty early, so I took my time getting ready and headed out the door at 8:15. First stop was Starbucks for breakfast and coffee, like all the other "trailing spouses". I got to talk to a woman from Kentucky whose husband works for Dow Corning. Then I walked over to the Carrefour to get a taxi. It was a beautiful day -- probably high 50s, clear and sunny skies, very rare for Shanghai.
A quick note about the taxi hierarchy here, because it will be important later. It matters what color taxi you take. Green is considered the best -- owned by a reputable company and generally safe from scams. After that, it's a toss up among the light colors (white, turquoise, yellow). Blue taxis are hit or miss, and then there are the red taxis. A red taxi is independent, may or may not be a criminal, and routes are almost never direct. The license plates are even marked with an X as if to warn you that if you get in, you're on your own. Tony warned me several times in our first day to avoid the red ones unless absolutely necessary.
So I get to Carrefour, and there are no taxis. None. A whole line of Buick minivans waiting to pick up the expat wives, but nothing that would get me out to ZhangJiang, the site of the first school. At last, one green taxi came by. I flagged him down, jumped in, and pointed to the address on the map. We were off.
The first school I visited was SMIC Private Kindergarten. This school was set up by the SMIC company for the children of employees, and it is not an international school. (International schools here -- like the ones down the street from our hotel -- are very highly regarded and roughly 20K USD a year for preschool tuition.) Instead, it's a Chinese school that has a highly regarded English program. So the kindergarten classes are all in Mandarin except for one 45 minute English class each day. And it's a fraction of the cost of the others. :-)
SMIC is a very interesting company. The founder was born in China but educated in the US, and after making tons of money in the US decided that he wanted to return to China and share the blessings that he had received there. So he built this huge high tech company to create lots of jobs, founded a church, set up a living quarters compound for employees, and then built the school. The school is not a Christian school, but many of the teachers are Christian.
I met with the principal first, and as it turned out, I was there on Open House day, where all the parents tour with their children. I sat in on the English class, which was precious. There was one Caucasion kid in the room, and she was German. They were learning phrases like "going to bed" and "reading a book", and worked on conversation like "May I play a video game?" with the response "Sure, go ahead!"
I also sat in on a little bit of the "homeroom" class, where they have little play kitchens and learn about different foods (at least I think that was what they were talking about; it was all in Mandarin) and also where they take their naps.
Then I visited again with the principal and filled out forms to get on the waiting list. However, the school is pretty far from where we'll be living, and the program is all day, 5 days a week, and we don't think we're ready to have John away from us that much. But we want to keep the option open.
From there, I took a taxi back to Carrefour, where I bought a hairdryer and had lunch. This was the first test of my resolve to not call for help. I ate in the food court, but honestly couldn't tell you what I ate. I pointed to a dish that looked good, and even picked the piece of meat (duck?) that I wanted cut into the rice. The poor girls working at the counter where trying to pantomime to me, and I just kept pointing, and eventually I got to eat.
After that adventure, I walked back to the hotel to rest and check email, and to get ready for Round 2. I didn't have a printout for the next school, so I went down to the business center in the hotel and pulled up the website so that the clerk could write me a taxi card. I should have panicked when the clerk didn't recognize the address, or where it was on the map. But instead I just sat there and smiled and nodded while she called the school to get directions. She wrote down the name of the school and the street address in Mandarin, with a side note to the driver that it was near the Science and Technology Museum. Oh good, I thought -- I've been there to catch the metro, so I'll at least recognize the part of town when we get there. I went outside, found a taxi and showed him my little piece of paper. He looked at me funny and gestured to the road behind us. I nodded and pointed, and he shrugged a little, then made a u-turn and we went down the road.
About 45 seconds later he pulled into the Chinese Internationl Business School and motioned for me to get out. I pointed again to the address and, started saying things like "preschool" and "kindergarten" on the off-chance that these were among the 2-3 English phrases he might know. The doorman for the business school is holding open the door for me, and I'm shaking my head and pointing at the paper. Two or three other older gentleman wander over, motioning for me to get out of the car. Exasperated, I pointed to my card to take me to the metro station, but they were still trying to convince me that I was where I needed to be. By now I had seven Chinese gentleman staring at me and looking at the address on the paper. I knew enough that I was absolutely not near the museum, that I was very much still in Jin Qiao, and that I was starting to panic.
Just then, a man who must have been a student wandered over near the car, and then others waved him over. He spoke some Engish! I explained where I was trying to go, and he looked at me funny and said "There's no kindergarten here." At this point I was counting it a moral victory that I was not in tears. I showed him the phone number on the paper, and he called the school. He must have talked to them for 5 minutes before handing the phone to my driver. They talked for another few minutes, and then there was much laughter and all the men smiled at me, patted me on the shoulder, and walked away -- I'm sure they are still telling stories about the laowi (foreigner) who thought there was a kindergarten at the business school.
When I finally arrived at the school, the director told me that the road was brand new (it was in an area kind of like the Domain, and many of the shops were still under construction) and that the street name had actually changed 2 months ago. Fabulous. The school was fine, but also all day/all week, far away, and more expensive.
Are you tired yet from reading all this? Because by this point, I was pretty tired too. Tommy was sitting in the office, pretty much oblivious to what I was doing.
I walked through the museum to get to the metro station. We have little prepaid cards that we bought when we first arrived, and I knew where I was going, so this part was pretty easy. I rode out to Luijazui to go by the mall, since I wanted to get a closer look at the stores and prices there, especially for kids clothes.
Finally got to the mall, exhausted but still meeting my goals for the day. I wanted a reward, a little pick me up to get me through the next hurdle. And that's when I realized, with sudden desperation and despair, that there will be no fountain cokes in China. No safe water means no ice cubes. After all the adventures so far, this was the first time I felt truly overwhelmed.
Finished the mall, went back to the metro, and realized that I didn't actually know where to get OFF the metro -- we had only gone one-way with Tony on Sunday, and then taken cabs back. So I figured I'd get off at Century Park, and find my way to Thumb Plaza, and then get a cab from there. Except that the Century Park metro station has about 5 exit gates, and I picked the completely wrong one. I walked and walked for blocks, further and further away from where I was supposed to be. People started to look at me funny, like, this poor girl is in the wrong part of town. (Laowi.) The only cabs going by were red. And it was starting to get dark. I stood on a street corner debating what to do, and just then, a green taxi saw me and pulled over. I didn't even have to flag it down -- it was that obvious that I needed help.
Arrived back at the hotel and collapsed, but happily, because I had made it through the day. Tommy and some colleagues arrived to pick me up for dinner.
We were going out to Puxi, or east of the river, or "real" Shanghai. In a general sense, Puxi is central/south Austin compared to the north Austin/CP/RR feel of Pudong. Many people don't think you actually experience Shanghai unless you live in Puxi. It's very busy, very urban, and lots of fun -- just not that great for two little kids, and not as convenient to the office.
Our host for the evening was Tommy's colleague Josieanne, who I know has a taste for very spicy food. Tommy still talks about the restaurant she took him to the last time he was here, and when she's in Austin, Josieanne can't find food hot enough for her tastes.
The restaurant specialized in food from Josianne's province, and she picked some great choices for us. (The food is all ordered family style and served on a lazy susan.) The main dish was roasted frog. I saw grown men weep over the spiciness of the frog -- so delicious, and yet so very painful. (I tasted just enough to know that I was not tough enough for the frog.) We also had fish soup, but not before the waiter brought the live fish to the table in a bag of water to make sure we approved of the selection. We were told that the way to avoid a bait-and-switch (ha :-)) between the fish you see and the one you get is to pour some of your beer into the bag, because then they can't put the fish back in the tank or it will kill all the others.
Finally, finally, we were headed back to the hotel. And I slept very well.
Wednesday is apartment day!
