Little House on the Mekong
(or the obligatory apartment post)We've left most of our books in storage (a loss I'm beginning to feel keenly, let me tell you), but we did bring along a handful for the girls. Among the volumes that accompanied us was Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. You've probably all read it. If you haven't (all you Americans, that is), turn off the computer right now, go to the library and get a copy. Your education has been deficient.
Anyway, I don't know exactly why this book is sitting on our shelf here in China. I'm tempted to think it's providential. It's been a near perfect book to read after just having picked up the family and moving to unfamiliar territory. Not that we've had to build our own house in the middle of the open prairie or anything. The college has provided us with a rather nice apartment. But there's enough that's unfamiliar that settling in has taken some effort.
When we arrived, we schlepped our bags up to our second floor flat. (I'm going to start calling it a flat. I keep dropping the second "a" when I type "apartment".) We didn't have any specific expectations, but since we had focused on all the challenges of overseas life during our training, we were sort of expecting something poorer. We've got three main rooms--set up as two bedrooms and a living/dining room. The girls bedroom was furnished with a set of bunk beds, a wardrobe, a vanity/dresser and a desk. The furniture seems to have been used, but it's all in very good condition. Our room had what looked to be a new queen size bed and a couple of night stands and a small, two shelf bookcase. There was brand new bedding provided for all the beds. Neither room had a closet, which proved to be one of our early adjustments. We ended up buying an inexpensive metal and canvas wardrobe and a plastic set of drawers to contain all of our clothes. (All I have to say is that it better get cold enough in the winter to justify my shlepping along heavy winter clothes.)
The living room came with a couch, coffee table, TV, DVD player, TV stand, dining room table and 4 chairs. This is where we start to feel the pinch for space, as we have to keep the table (it looks like a gaming table with the leaves placed in) against the wall in order to have easy access to the kitchen. For meals, we pull it out and set the chairs all around, then shuttle everything back when we're done. Not a great hardship but not as easy as back home where all we had to do was clear all of Ga Dai's junk off of the dining room table. (Then again, maybe we don't have it so bad after all.)
TV, to go off on a side note, has been somewhat frustrating. The supplied equipment is nice--better than what we left at home. However, it's all been in Chinese. The programs, the controls--everything. (Apparently we can't get the signal for China's English language station, CCTV9, in these parts.) We've borrowed some DVDs from fellow teachers, but haven't been able to play most of them on the DVD player. Either I can't work the controls to change to the English language track, or the vocal track fails to play completely. (Watching a bit of The Princess Bride with only the music track was interesting...) For some reason, the only DVDs that seem to work are older programs like The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mouse that Roared. Fortunately, the laptop is equipped with an A/V out port that lets us use it as DVD player. Weird.
Now I've been saving the fun rooms for last. In case we're tempted to think that we're still in America, we've been provided with a bathroom, kitchen and laundry room to remind us otherwise. Actually, I shouldn't dis the laundry room, as none of the apartments I ever had stateside even had individual laundry rooms. Our laundry room is actually our balcony. It's equipped with a washing machine, a drain in the floor and two metal poles in which to hang your clothes to dry. Actually, I'm told that's the status quo in these parts. Everybody has to hang out their clothes to dry. It's been kind of cool, figuring out the best way to hang things out and learning which bits of clothing will require more air-time.
The bathroom has been cool, too. The hot water only seems to run in the evenings... usually. It seems that the hot water is actually piped in from a hot spring. Why it's not hot in the mornings, I don't know. I've started to change my habits and have taken some showers in the evening. Some nights, however, I've been too tired and chose to brave the morning chill instead. Another odd thing about the shower is that there's no stall. (Oh, and also no bathtub. Which is ironic, considering that I spent most of the last 10 years in a house with a tub but no shower.) On one wall of the bathroom, there hangs a shower fixture and directly beneath is a drain in the floor. While I enjoy the roominess of the setup, I hate it when the whole bathroom floor gets wet. We ended up buying a bath mat and putting it outside the bathroom door.
And at last we come to the kitchen. Back home, we've bemoaned our small kitchen, with it's lack of counter space. Here in Yunnan, we're lucky if the kitchen is half of the size of our old one. Of course, our appliances are likewise smaller. We've got a small fridge, a microwave oven, a hot plate and a gas burner for those moments when the electricity is unreliable. (So far the whole electricity thing has sounded worse than we've actually experienced.) The sink is likewise smaller, and shorter. When doing dishes, I've switched from washing to drying because bending over to do the washing makes my back ache. I've tried sitting down to wash, but, it's only slightly less awkward. Probably the biggest adjustment has been the lack of storage space, refrigerated or otherwise. We've gotten in the habit of shopping almost every day, in part because there's no space to put a week's worth of groceries. But that's really part of the culture here, where the trip to the market is just one of the daily chores.
Anyway, it's been interesting--sometimes fun, sometimes annoying--to make some changes in the daily lifestyle. When I read Little House, I'm reminded that I don't nearly have it so bad. But I'm also reminded that folks have survived "so bad" and that it is possible to break the status quo and adapt to something new. I'm hoping that in years to come, I can look back on these days with a bit of fondness and thankfulness.
posted by John @ 2:09 AM
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