Pollution

Ah yes, it's that time of year when the pollution in Chengdu is at an all-time high and we all hunker down in our apartments with air purifiers, movies, and comfy blankets. But, one can only take that for so long and eventually the toilet paper runs out. So out you go, armed with a surgical mask rated for 2.5 PMI (teeny, tiny particles in the air that settle deep in your lungs) and hope for the best.

Beijing is making the headlines this year with its record levels of pollution and the canned air coming in from Canada. The upside is that Beijing can shut down a bunch of factories and ban all driving and that usually drops the PMI to a healthy level. Chengdu, on the other hand, is located in the Sichuan Basin, a humid bowl-like area with lush growth, but very little wind and rainfall this time of year. So, once the haze is upon us, it takes something like seeding the clouds to clear things out.

We do the best we can with air filters, face filters, staying indoors, etc. and dream of sunny days and better air quality. It is a time when we could use extra thoughts/prayers of encouragement! We still love our Chengdu home, but definitely dream of (and many actually go to) greener pastures until the worst has passed.

Today the sun is actually visible and there are blue portions of the sky visible! Wow! Time to go outside and have some fun! It's only "unhealthy" at 174 PMI and not "hazardous," so let's breathe it up while the breathing is somewhat good!

Three Years In

Here we are, closing in on 3 years in Chengdu and it’s been quite an experience. It would be impossible to summarize what it’s like living here in a blog entry, but I guess I could say that it is exciting, disturbing, delicious, frustrating, good and bad, and it now feels like home.

I’m still from the good old USA and have grown in my appreciation for so many things we are accustomed to (dare I say take for granted?) there. But I think I’ve grown accustomed to a lot here and probably now take those things for granted and will really miss them one day when we return to the US. Some things are still shocking and disgusting like all the hocking of lugies and spitting everywhere, including inside buildings, though that is not as common as it used to be. Also the dead animal carcasses hanging on hooks. But, you just sort of get used to it after a while and learn to sidestep and just keep on moving. And personal space/property is different here, but once you get used to people sitting at tables in restaurants with you unannounced (it’s a crowded country…you can’t sit two people at a big table during the lunch rush and expect all that space to remain yours!) it is quite social and not weird at all.

There are certainly bouts of homesickness, May and June being the height of expat upheaval. This is the time of year when everyone shifts; some leave permanently while others go for summer vacation or 6 months of home leave. I’m seeing everyone’s summer fun pictures from America and feeling pangs of “I wish I were there!” but also realizing that we have some neat things going on here as well. We are having our summer fun as there is a swimming pool in our complex and we have gone almost every day since it opened. Birthday packages from home certainly helped the sad feelings dissipate a bit (who can be down when eating Trader Joe’s dark chocolate with hazelnuts?) and reading Chronicles of Narnia to a certain enthusiastic 5 year old have made for some pleasant daily activities. There is a group of college students organizing a 4-day sports/Bible/Chinese day camp for kids, and we are planning to visit friends in Yunnan, the province just south of Sichuan where we live. We've got a young lady soon to be 9 years old, anxiously awaiting her sleepover/pool party with friends and someone has loaned us a car for the summer giving us the push we needed to go ahead and get our drivers licenses so we can take some trips outside the city. (After 3 years we are finally brave enough to attempt driving here...it is really a wild experience) So, there's quite a bit to look forward to these next few months!

Justus and Laurel on the way to church

Violet, the model

On our way to a marriage conference

Jason preaching on Sunday morning

We routinely run into Chinese friends from our neighborhood and surrounding areas when we are out in the market, at restaurants, or just walking down the street. We have more than just “smile relationships” with the shopkeepers in the stores we frequent and can communicate on a more complex level. I even made a little joke with my landlady during a recent home appliance repair! We are still obviously foreigners and always will be, but now we are much more incorporated into daily life here in our little section of the city and that makes us feel at home.

We miss all of you and are so thankful for updates on what is going on in your lives. Facebook is truly a lifesaver for us and helps us feel like we are not totally out of the loop on what is going on with all of you. We hope to make another visit to the USA in summer 2016 if all works out.

Wow, It's Been A Long Time!

I've not gotten around to updating the blog in a long time so I am sure my readership of a few family members and some friends are all relieved that a new post has finally come out! Ha ha!

The Chrumas continue to survive and thrive in China, though we do have the cyclical ups and downs of expat life where some days we are tired of all the challenges. Example: We currently have a rat living in our apartment. Our efforts to locate him this evening resulted in disassembling a huge wardrobe (which we had to empty onto our bed), discovering a huge moldy area on the wall behind said wardrobe, and then just getting mentally overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to hire quality workmanship to fix the problem figured out. In the meantime, we will be sleeping on the couch and bunkbed with the kids until further notice. But, overall, we are glad to be here and feel like we are "home" despite these strange setbacks. The expat and homeschooling communities here really make life doable in this different place. I'm so glad to  have a friend to text with over the challenges of rats in the apartment. She's going to loan me two traps! The future is hopeful! The neighbors downstairs helped disassemble the wardrobe when we realized we were in over our heads. We are not alone!

The highlight of 2014 was our first trip back to the US! We did not have reverse culture shock though we prepared mentally for that possibility. Perhaps if we had been away longer than 2 years it would have been more obvious, but I had absolutely no trouble going to Kroger (or The Museum Of Modern American Marvels, as I liked to call it) and shopping down the wall of cheese and the aisle of cereal! We loved seeing family and friends and were truly sad to have to say goodbye, but we also felt happy to be heading home to China. So, I'm thankful we are in that place now. Another highlight was the 3-month visit from cousin Liz and the trip she and Laurel took to sunny Yunnan province. We were sad to see her leave mid-January, but we have high hopes that she will want to come again soon.

At the moment we are excitedly awaiting the arrival of Oma and Papa Denniston who will stay for a month over Chinese New Year, the big holiday time here in China. Jason will have time off from work and we are suspending most of our homeschooling for the month so we can see the sites and relax. And, ummm, Dad, we might need help assembling a gigantic wardrobe.....

Violet (3rd grade) and Justus (K) have enjoyed maintaining an ongoing "snail mail" correspondence with Granny O, their great grandmother on Jason's side. It is such a blessing to have that generational connection. Both Granny O and Violet are fairly artistic, musical types so they have a lot to discuss in their letters. Justus does more with drawing smiley faces and writing his name in all caps, but Granny O was a school teacher for years and she can discern the messages behind it all with ease. Justus has been attending a Chinese Montessori school in the mornings and that has been very nice for him though we aren't sure he's learning much Chinese. His school did a Year of the Sheep show this year and he looked so cute in his sheep bonnet.

Jason's work is going along nicely. He feels it was definitely the right decision professionally and personally to move here and his students are doing good work and so forth. Recently there was a rat living in the lab and the students were able to catch it in a wire cage trap, so Jason brought that home today so we could attempt a similar success at home. Yes, rats are something of a theme...everyone here has a rat story. We are not overrun, but this is our second house rat in 2 years. So, you know, not as bad as you might be imagining. And, they aren't big, NYC sewer-sized rats...larger than a hamster, smaller than a guinea pig, so, there's that somewhat smallish comfort, perhaps.

Laurel continues to organize homeschool and other events. It's something she enjoys and keeping moving was one of those tricks she learned in the army to stave off malaise and depression. One of the hardest things is the spotty/slow internet access. Yes, 1st world problem, but when you are used to having those connections with friends and family, it is hard when they get cut off and can cause an expat to head for a downward spiral emotionally. For the most part, communication is still possible with the WeChat smartphone app (consider joining so you can talk to her!!) and that has been a lot of fun, especially when messaging with Ivy Jane, her niece.

Looks like this turned into a letter instead of just a short update! But, when you haven't written letters in 2 years, it's time to step it up a notch. Love to all and perhaps we will see you in Dec '15 when we hope our travels will bring us to the US once again for vacation.

Culture Shock

Now that we’ve been here in China almost 2 years, a new wave of culture shock has (temporarily, I hope!) washed over me. In our initial months here, there was the obvious: not speaking the language, different level of public hygiene, squattie potties, different foods and smells, different driving/biking road rules, getting started at work, not knowing the social cues and expectations, etc.

Though there is still a lot to learn in all of those areas, we have become much more accustomed to the things that bothered us so much when we first arrived. We have been studying Chinese and can have simple conversations with neighbors and business people and we know where to shop for the foods we like to have. We’ve made friends and gotten involved in various homeschooling co-ops, our church community, small group, and neighbors. The children have a lot of friends to play with and that has made all the difference for the whole family.

I would say that overall we are faring well and looking forward with hope. But, from what we have read and heard, culture shock comes in different phases and hits harder at times. I, Laurel, am currently struggling with some of those emotions despite still feeling optimistic about living in China.

We are planning to come home to the US for the summer and are all very excited about seeing everyone and being surrounded by our countrymen and native language. But, I do hold some sadness in my heart that we are just visiting. Our home is here in China, though we are not from here. We have made it home and know that we will likely remain here for a number of years, but it isn’t exactly “ours.” America birthed me and I grew up digging in her soil, running across her suburban yards, and biking through her streets. My family, friends, and neighbors taught me my mother tongue and gave me my culture. In adulthood I served in America’s armed forces in her defense against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

This summer we will return, visitors to our homeland, not really “home,” but living out of suitcases. We will soak up all we can of Benjamin Franklin’s library legacy and regular visits to a good deli for pastrami on rye, but there won’t be time to sign up for ballet lessons or baseball as we are only there a short time, traveling from place to place, visiting our loved ones. I have realized that my children’s experience growing up will be so very different from “back home,” and while that is inevitable, there are times when I am saddened by it even though they get to learn Chinese from a very young age.

The daily experience of living in China is also quite different. Though I have gotten used to hang-drying our laundry, our loud and temperamental washing machine has begun to grate on my nerves. Some neighbors complained about the noise it made during the 12 noon to 3 pm “resting time,” so if I don’t get the load in early enough, I am off track for the day with planning ahead how much I can wash and hang dry in time to get the next load done and put away. Calling a repairman is an option, but after my experience with calling in professionals to “fix” things, I am quite leery. Duct tape and other jury-rigging tends to be the way most things are handled here and I’m just not satisfied with that type of “help” in some situations. So, for now I am working on keeping the laundry schedule going so as not to interrupt rest time. And, Jason is an emerging handy man and proud new owner of a soldering iron, which we needed to fix our big transformer that we use to run our US Kitchen Aid mixer. I’m thankful for that transformer not just because it lets me mix in style, but also because it sits atop our refrigerator that is missing a front foot and leans forward when you open the door. That transformer is a nice, heavy counterweight that keeps the fridge from doing that annoying tip! Win win!

In the past 4 weeks, internet connectivity has been quite awful, preventing us from streaming much of anything and generally being a nuisance when trying to check email or get any sort of work done on a website that does not originate within China. (Example: Can't get any pictures uploaded to put with this post, so all text this time around) For a number of weeks, even the in-country sites were terribly slow. Though connectivity has improved bit by bit, it is very spotty and unreliable and has been a source of distress for me. Realizing how much we depend on the internet for so many things (banking, communication, work, homeschooling, entertainment) is a bit distressing, but the added discomfort of feeling “stuck” in a strange land without that connection makes it all the more poignant. Chinese sites have begun to resume at a regular pace and we have been able to keep up with episodes of US shows on the not-concerned-about-copyright websites that post entire seasons, so that’s the upside!

Jason remarked to me that our lives as expats who only visit the homeland reminds us even more clearly that our citizenship is not here on earth, but above. This truly is my ultimate comfort, and for now I am thankful for the friends the Lord has put into our lives here in Chengdu to be a temporal connection that reminds us we are not alone here on Earth or above in Heaven.

Extreme Fireworks That Will Never Happen In The USA

It was the ultimate fireworks experience! No pyrotechnics show I've ever seen comes close to the awesomeness that is a Chinese New Year fireworks extravaganza. And from what we are told, it was actually tame compared to last year. The little tents on the street corners that sell the fireworks have only sold about 30% of their inventory from news reports. Last year they sold 70-80% of their inventory. It's hard to imagine what last year must have been like with this year being so impressive.

Justus enjoys waving a sparkler around

on our porch for Chinese New Year.
It is now the Year of the Snake!

Like so many things we have experienced here, I've spent time wondering why we don't have similar events in the US and the conclusion I've reached is that due to many factors, we never will. Fun as it is, I can't imagine regular citizens being allowed to purchase, let alone set off, professional-grade fireworks all around the city for weeks on end. The clean-up alone is a huge issue, but the lawsuits that would come from people getting hurt or being traumatized by the explosions have basically prevented this from ever being a possibility in the United States.

We checked the online pollute-o-meter the day after the big show and saw a huge spike in pollution right around midnight on Chinese New Year! Everyone is obsessed with checking the air quality here as it is often heavily polluted due to lack of enforcement of environmental regulations and the fact that we basically live in a big bowl surrounded by mountains with not a whole lot of wind or rain to clean things out.

First Christmas Eve in China

Christmas Eve has been a lot of fun so far. We started a Pajama Hunt tradition a few years back during which the kids search for their new pajamas to sleep in for Christmas. We upped the ante this year by adding in a new movie to the Christmas Eve festivities, though I wasn't able to make it as Pinterest-worthy as I'd hoped. Maybe next year I'll get the whimsical basket put together with the PJs, movie, hot chocolate, and popcorn! But, the end result is still pretty much the same...kids laid out on the couch, hopefully getting droopy-eyed, while they watch Charlie and Lola in their new, Judy-Chruma-sent PJs. (Notice the U of AZ blanket...)

Earlier in the evening, we went to a Christmas Eve party across our neighborhood with a bunch of the other expats who live in our complex. The hosts organized all the children to act out the Christmas story while one of the dads narrated. Violet was too scared to participate, but Justus jumped right into his role as a shepherd dressed in a striped men's polo shirt and carrying a stuffed lamb to come see the Holy Family in the stable. It was good to be together with others celebrating the coming of our Lord.

(What isn't obvious in this picture is the absolute excitement Justus had over getting these pajamas! He was jumping around and screaming with delight when he got them on!)

We are getting ready to turn in for the night as many of you in the US are just getting ready for lunch and maybe some last-minute shopping. Much love to all of you and a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas In Chengdu

We are getting ready for our first Christmas here in China and I'm guessing some of you might like to know what it's like here. It is quite surprising how many Christmas trees are actually around town in businesses and outside restaurants. There are also a lot of Santa-themed things, but no obvious representation of the birth of Christ. So, you know, it's just like America! Of course I'm joking...sort of. It has been nice to see the different decorations, but I walked into Sabrina's Country Store (US imports) and right when I came through the door I smelled Christmas!! It is amazing how much the sense of smell triggers emotions and thoughts because I immediately started searching the store for whatever was giving off that heavenly scent of Christmas and home. Soon I found it...a candle! Not any fancy brand name that I recognized, but I grabbed it and kept sniffing it with this silly grin on my face as I walked around the store. At that moment, it didn't matter how much it cost, I would have that candle no matter what!

It was 29 kuai ($5 US) and I doubt I'd pay that back home for a rather generic candle, but this was like finding a diamond to me. There are a lot of different smells here...some wonderful, some downright deathly. The scent immediately transported me back to a "home" at Christmas with visions of hot chocolate and a cozy fire on Christmas Eve.

And then there was this guy! Our living room window looks out over a big plaza where there is always something going on. Today there was a dance troupe dressed in these amazing red costumes that probably had nothing to do with Christmas but everything to do with awesome! This man was really graceful and neat to watch. So, we are pretty excited about Tuesday and are buying/wrapping presents for each other. Violet bought presents for us and she remarked how excited she was that this was the first time she's gotten presents for us so she must be growing up. We have been blessed with new friends who love the Lord and we've been able to celebrate this Advent season with them.