I definitely miss parts of China. We made some incredible friends that became our family in Shanghai and I know even though we live all over the globe, we will stay in touch and celebrate the family things (weddings, babies, etc :) ).
I miss the food a lot. The family style eating is my favorite way to eat at restaurants. Order a bunch of dishes and share. My favorite foods in China were: Hot Pot, Xiaolongbao, Lajiazi, and beef noodles.
Our last week we stayed in one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai-Jin Mao Tower . We stayed on the 79th floor and the views were incredible. Only at these heights can you begin to see past Shanghai. Just barely though. As you can see, it is just a sea of tall buildings in Shanghai, makes for quite a different view than the ones you get in Northern Wisconsin. The concrete jungle is a little stifling. And often even in the parks with grass, you are just supposed to stay on the concrete paths, no nature for you!
Don't look down!
One morning we woke up in the clouds, you couldn't see anything all day besides the building I was in:
Our last morning in Shanghai! From above!
The move to London had been planned since before I moved to Shanghai so it made it difficult to get settled into Shanghai knowing I was leaving soon. Of course, it ended up being a lot longer than anticipated but it made it hard to dig in.
The absolute hardest part about living in Shanghai for me was not speaking the language fluently. Linguistics is not a talent I possess. I learned some Mandarin words so I could buy vegetables or take a taxi but that's it. Being unable to speak or ask questions and not read the signs or labels is so debilitating. It's making me anxious just writing about it. Needless to say, my anxiety and depression sky rocketed in Shanghai. It makes me feel so helpless to not be able to speak to anyone. I am grateful to my friends who would often translate for me!
I will not miss cars honking every .5 seconds -I jumped almost every time. Many of the issues I struggled with (besides the language barrier) were big city issues and not necessarily "China" issues. I think we, as Americans, can learn from a society that's been around thousands of years and not just write them all off because they are supposedly Communist. I say supposedly because really it's a Capitalistic Dictatorship country. If anyone in the Chinese Communist Party has read Marx's writings they conveniently skipped over the rules about shared wealth.
As an outsider, you can see the wounds of General Mao's leadership-namely, people don't speak up or say their own opinions, they are happy to just exist in the box they are supposed to so they don't get killed or disappear. Of course, some people do and get arrested.
I am writing this from the comfort of my new home in London. In China, I hesitated to write anything too negative because there is a real fear of the government. Don't believe me? See the news recently about the Human Rights lawyers all detained? Way to go IOC for supporting a country that has so much censorship and human rights abuses.
Anyway, the censorship in China is almost unbelievable to an American like me. The government there seems so afraid they keep trying to control every little detail. I think it will backfire on them at some point, but as long as the common man continues to make money and better their life, people don't have a big reason to riot. I did speak to some local Chinese that said the censorship doesn't matter because they all have VPN's and can get around the Chinese Firewall, everyone is a member of the Communist Party but that doesn't mean they support it.
We did some pretty incredible vacations in China. Harbin -awesome Ice and Snow festival, Great Wall hikes, Huangshan Mountain, Hong Kong, etc. And we barely saw the country. China is HUGE! So much regional history and culture as well, it's truly a fascinating place. There is natural beauty, it just takes time to get out of the big city to find it.
And now we've moved to another center of society: London. It's a big, loud city as well but we've managed to find a house that's not downtown and is so quiet at night our ears ring. There are been some unforeseen hiccups but we are finally starting to settle in and buy some furniture.
I'm auditioning for some choirs in the next few weeks so I'm excited about the music opportunities here. We've already been to two shows: The Book of Mormon and 1984. Those shows couldn't be more opposite.
Patrick wrote a fantastic blog post about life in China: http://trick.vanstaveren.us/wp/
xo, Sarah
ps. I've had a few moments over the past few weeks that have confirmed that this is where we are supposed to be. One happened last night when there was a double rainbow directly over our house:
Genesis 9:16 "Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
