Aug 22, 2009 Housing History Tour

As Hainan passes through China’s scorching ‘09 Summer, I walk from room to room in my comfortable Sanya apartment. I read awhile in my spacious air conditioned bedroom, look up at white crown moldings and remind myself that, as recently as late 1980s, entire families lived in a two-meter-squared room. No wonder my Chinese friends can’t fathom me living alone in all this space. “A warm home’s like a small shell,” they intone, and my shell’s too big for their comfort.  Foreign Affairs offices, knowing foreigners expect space, cheerfully placed me in three similar places in as many years. I seemed the only one who noticed the inequality involved.

I smooth the duvet on my queen-sized guestroom bed. A bachelor, living with his married brothers and sisters in a room this size, would consider this space for a dignified, happy life in 1989. At that, he would remember the days and nights before the 1950s when real estate first became a concept in China. Dorms for men or women only was the rule back then; I heard more than one story of a pregnant wife secretly moving from her family’s home to the men’s dorm while the husband waited years for his work unit to issue a spot in married dorms.  

Teachers didn’t have it easy back then either; like everyone else, they kept moving between work units. Once accepted to teach at a university, they were sent keys to share a family’s home. In Beijing, prior to 1980s, that was a two-meter-squared room on one side of a hall which shared kitchen and toilet with room-after-room home like theirs. They often walked on bricks to avoid sewer water on the floor. By 1986, home removal companies formed to raze, then build apartment blocks across cities. It’s still happening in every Chinese city I’ve visited; cranes and bamboo scaffolding dot city scapes. Sounds of jack hammers and heavy equipment are common sounds day and night.

I cross my gleaming tile floor to computer-stream in Piano Jazz or flip to a Channel 15 classical concert and think how 20 friends filled up my living room with Chinese banter last evening. They toasted my birthday, sampled microwave popcorn and dark chocolate around my glass-topped table, and asked for the recipe to chicken salad, before asking the inevitable, “Aren’t you lonely here?”

I’m just as amazed that they speak fondly of their identical-to-my concrete box on the ninth floor across Fenshang Gardens development. Eight women live in three bedrooms with a common living room, a sea of shoes tossed around two bicycles. The young principal claims one room, seven teachers share the other two. Free meals are eaten at school or (weekends) in street shops, so the kitchen is a place to brush teeth. A squattie-potty and shower at the end of a clothes-drying entry is identical to mine, except I have an egg-shaped washing machine. No wonder they usually respond to, “What are your weekend plans?” with “Washing clothes.”

One recent week, they used my shower when their landlord suddenly turned off water with no warning. At least they didn’t have to do what Shanghai families did in 1986, brushing teeth around a family tap where they also washed chamber pots.
I shrug off their “It’s so clean!” comments and refrain from telling them of the scrubbing, bleaching, and rearranging it took to make each place I’ve lived my own. This apartment had eight student teachers’ mattresses on the floor, no broom or mop, one faucet that worked, and two working light bulbs when I moved here. A wet mop had left mud-streaked paths; sinks were crusty; toilet smelled like an outdoor privy. Disinfectant and detergent changed the face of things with a half day of elbow grease. Owner Helen, invited to have iced coffee recently, walked from room to room and announced, “I want to live in my apartment again!” The appliances, plants, and decorations I’ve added will stay for the next occupant when I move.

My kitchen has a handy fridge, water purifier, microwave, blender, rice cooker, wok, tea kettle, and silverware and plates–more than enough for weekend cooking. I invite a co-workers to watch CCTV9’s documentary on Real Estate and ladle Western-style vegetable soup into their bowls. Accepting seconds, they try to refrain from smacking and slurping in deference to my Western way of eating. We learn that, in 1991, Beijing listed China’s first real estate sale as people quit relying solely on the government to improve their lives.

Each to-be-displaced household was given 60 yuan (<$9US) and one year to find a new place during mass relocation. 1993 brought a south-north road plan, and 100,000 residents quit climbing ladders (no stairs) to reach their room-on-room homes and moved to Beijing’s suburbs. It was disappointing; there was no lighting and only one bus route into workplaces. “Real Estate Takes You to Paradise” slogans changed to “You won’t reach the sky in a single step.” Folks had nine-meter homes and no running water, but they had real estate. Developers began buying up land and building 32-square-meter homes. Hopefuls pitched tents in front of real estate offices so they wouldn’t miss a chance to buy. People pooled resources and formed cooperatives, responsible for their development’s management, in 1997. Security, always an issue in welfare housing, began to reform. 1989 brought the first guards, now at every development’s gate around the clock.The half-century system of Welfare Allocation was abolished in 1998.

“Happy Housewarming!” is now a common greeting, accompanied by strings of firecrackers lit to drive away any mischevious spirits. My own door opens under a lucky red longevity and prosperity banner. China’s housing comodities reported 130% growth in the five years prior to 2003; per capita income increased 55%. Tonight, August 23, 2009, TV news showed an impressive space shuttle planning to probe a Mars moon within the next year. Even “The sky’s the limit!” is taking on new possibilities. Who knows? If housing development opens up on another planet, China’s one child policy may become a thing of the past.

August 16, 2009, The Almost Birthday

Back in June, in Kansas to wish Mom a happy 90th year, my brother took great delight in saying, “I can handle a mother who’s 90, but I don’t know what to do with a sister who’s 70!” He got a lot of laughs, and I started facing the fact that I’d be in Sanya for a significant birthday. My kids e-mailed a web list of experiences they’d like me to choose–balloon ride (over Guilin, actually several hours away by plane), a hike in the rain forest (I took Philippino Ami hiking there on her birthday for 1/9th the web price August 2), or scuba diving. I called Hilton’s rec guy, Wilbur, and set up August 8, figuring I’d have my next-day birthday to recover, if needed. 

Plans for a birthday beach bar-b-que were scrapped; most of my friends on staff had finished their contracts and moved on to hometowns/teaching at English training centers/bigger city kindergartens. The remainder teach every-other-week while Golden Sun combines classrooms as summer enrollment drops. Private school parents take families to cooler mainland homes during these hot tropical months. I decided I wouldn’t spend big Chinese yuan for a hotel-supplied seafood bar-b-que and overpriced drinks for folks I hardly knew chattering in Chinese. I had my invitation translated to Chinese for a “drop-in” refreshment in my apartment after their school-supplied dinner August 7. 

Friday morning, the children greeted me with spontaneously sung “Happy birthday to you…” and 17 people came that evening. In spite of “No Gifts!” on the invitation, I was given an assortment– earrings (Summer–English teacher I’d trained–and Xiao–I’d taken one sunrise bike ride to the beach with her); necklace (Shirley, who’ll assist English with my replacement); pearls (Chinese-Canadian business owners Bo and Annie); a can of spring water topped by a golf ball (Mr. Li, Caretaker); Chinese pencils (cook and his pre-school son); tiger eye bracelet (Kelly, principal and non-English speaker, who came after everyone else had gone); friendship bracelet (Alice, in training now); jade cell phone ornament (bus driver and wife, our Auntie who keeps classroom fed/clean/safe); pink shell bracelet (Darys, with whom I’ve spent hours doing visualization/verbalization to organize her thoughts in both Chinese and English); and a hand-cut papercut for long life and prosperity with birthday wish in Chinese (Mark, new teacher). I wore or happily displayed them, along with books and CDs from two US friends. Leo (not invited), 4-year-old who’s learning English as a tutoree, knocked–”Open the door, please!”–with a big box of Nestle’s coffee, threw it in and fled with his dad.

They tried tentatively, then ate with gusto: chicken salad on crackers; popcorn (from US WalMart; it’s all sweetened here); sweets (brought by Philippino sisters); watermelon; and a dark chocolate Terra Cotta Warrior made by Hilton chef. Chilean merlot (Hilton manager, June’s gift), peppermint tea (my concoction); orange drink (favorite of young Chinese women); green apple pop (has a bite to it) and strawberry wine (gift of expat and book lender, Robert, and his ex-student, Linda) led to a lot of sampling.I felt valued, and no one asked my age.
 Saturday, I watched clouds gather–there’s a typhoon in Philippines and Taiwan–and couldn’t get anyone to answer English at the Hilton. I took books to trade, my umbrella, and–sure enough–they’d cancelled all water activities. Wilbur took me to “The Kitchen,” decked out with bamboo ceiling and baozi (dumpling) basket chandeliers, where I read Freud’s little book on Forgetting, ate a small salad, drank a “fresh coffee,” and paid 106 yuan ($15US). Russians were having steak, big salads, and lots of drinks with little umbrellas while it poured rain into a frothy ocean beyond the palms. They must’ve not been living on teachers’ salaries.

Back home, I played “8″ games with Leo for a half hour, ate left over fried rice, and took a bus to tutor fourth grade Ricky, walking a long way under my umbrella in brisk rain. Ricky worked well toward his goal of winning the CCTV English speaking contest, then tantrumed at his mother during break. I strolled home along Sanya River to shed my distaste for the way young boys and mothers bark at one another, climbed to my flat, and couldn’t find my key! I called Helen, four hours away in Haikou.

“Virginia, my key is in my bag. I will send it tomorrow morning by way of the bus to Sanya.”  My options were to go to a hotel or beg Venes’ wooden couch. Venes’ new suite-mate, the only one home, tried to make me welcome with his limited English. His high-pitched giggling, insisting that I sleep on the lower bunk in his room, and downloading Nicholas Cage in Knowing diverted my attention from wondering what would happen Sunday when my kids called my empty apartment. 

Birthday morning, I bought breads from our market and my cell phone rang. Kent had set up a conference call with Janet; I even talked with Grant and Ethan. My first US-initiated call in China was a great birthday present–CA Fortner’s had a great HI trip (RJ’s birthday); all kids are healthy and thriving; Janet’s school and jewelry business is busy; both families now have dogs.I floated inside to have Ami’s coffee before we went to house church. Mike’s message was on forgiveness, and I pondered what I hadn’t forgotten/given myself that I left my key. Freud would say it had to do with something deeper than overload. Korean-born preacher, Jay Li invited me to lunch with the group (after I answered his “How old are you?” with “My father would say, “Old enough to know better.”) It was delicious–duck, fish, eggplant, and broccoli with our rice bowl. Venes joined us, then we caught a bus to YaLong Bay’s Bikini Party.

Cover-up and swimsuit were back in my locked apartment, and they ran out of give-away bikinis (to my relief and Venes’ consternation), so we watched the frantic girations to ear-splitting music, then walked the surf. No one ventured out in the high waves just offshore. We left early, enjoyed the 45-minute double decker bus ride to Sanya Bus Station, and spent another half hour trying to find the proper desk and person to recover my key. The girls presented me with chocolate milk tea with soy bean pearls, a birthday treat. 
 
Our beach party entitled us to a ticket to an evening Crown Beauty Center’s Superstar show, which we approached with high spirits. Thirty minutes later, we were squashed flat, clutching our valuables, in a mass of Chinese humanity. Several hundred seemed to hold tickets; folks wandered about in the box office; police stood just inside iron fences and occasionally let a small group through to stand in yet another blob–I dared not call it a line. I didn’t see anyone going into the show. We walked home, disappointed, until Mark opened Venes’ apartment door to wonderful aromas. He had cooked us dinner, deliciously seasoned vegetables, rice, onion with scrambled egg, and fresh plums. As I unlocked my door, I thought it wasn’t the birthday I envisioned, but it was warm and full of surprises. 

During the week, between lots of teaching while Chinese teachers held staff trainings, I thought about the diving advice I’d received: dive-certified expat Robert told me how he panicked on the ocean floor; Kent said he’d be more comfortable if I got certified; Janet said she thought training took several hours; Helen said she “would not let her life be dependent on one other person,” and I wondered what I had gotten myself into!  As if on cue, the rains stopped and sunshine ushered in August 15.

Wilbur met me, Alex determined that I was healthy; David interpreted what the instructor said as I learned hand signals, and I did what pro nephew Ben and niece Coleen told me, “Relax and stay calm.” The wet suit fit, so did the shoes. I had no trouble breathing deeply, clearing my goggles, ears, and air supply, and we sped across the bay to a rocky area. They put a weighted belt on me, I floated down toward a wonderland of coral colors, undulating sea plants, caverns, occasional fish, and sandy ocean floor. Currents of cold and warmer water surprised me as we descended. When signaled that it was OK, I touched spiny, corrugated, smooth, and rubbery formations. My thirty minute dive was over far too soon. I e-mailed the kids, “FANtastic!” Why had I waited this long to try it?

July 31

Yes, it’s great news today, July 31!  I bike early to breakfast with an expat with whom I trade English books, hoping he’ll lead me to somebody interested in filling my spot as Golden Sun’s next “native English speaker,” along with Venes’ Philippino sister, Amy. An urgent call comes from Chinese teacher, Cherry, and I pedal hurriedly to school. You’d laugh, seeing me try to engage the entire school in a “copy me” bear hunt while waiting on reporters to arrive with their cameras today for “an activity” (All I know).The 2-5 year olds do pretty well in their huge circle of chairs, so we try an action song; then Venes leads one.
 
We line up, follow teachers into the courtyard of my next-door apartments and ”pick up rubbish” (with only two small plastic bags to put it in)–a much-needed activity for this entire year, in my estimation. Problem is, the rubbish had all been cleaned up by workers over the past few days; the kids mostly pick up decaying leaves. Teachers wield new brooms for sweeping grass clean. Go figure!  This will go on TV as an example of devotion to the motherland on Sanya channels, no doubt.  It makes me wonder at the veracity of CCTV9’s pictures of rockslide damage to a bridge I’d crossed near Chengdu in 2006 and Shanghai’s flood waters receding today. I’ll live two hours’ trainride from Shanghai by September.

At noon online, I get Lila’s good news that she has a clean bill of health and predictions of a normal future. I’m an unexpressibly grateful grandmother, thankful also for cool days during three-day rainy sprinkles in Sanya. I imagine she’s back to her big grin as she zooms down the slide she navigated at 12 months. Put her in a helmet and watch her go…

Time Wrinkles 7-2009 7-20

 ”It’s daughter Janet’s birthday, starting 13 hours earlier in Kansas.” I tell expat Clinton as he drives to Sanya airport to meet teachers Mary Jane and Elaine at the intercontinent building (they come from Hong Kong). We talk of their tours–Great Wall, Terra Cotta Warriors, Yantzee Cruise–over their first salad since the U.S. at Casa Mama’s. They ooh and aah at Sanya Bay spread out to the west. We catch up on Kansas City students we’ve known in common, Clinton laughs at Western girl talk, and I tell them of my June Kansas reunion trip.

 ”Thirty-five relatives fill up Janet and Brian’s Wichita acres pretty well. Brian’s bicep surgery seems to be healing. Grant’s as tall, at 12, as I am. Ethan’s into sports and soon enters third grade. They’re thinking of getting a dog.” They ask of Kent and RJ’s kids. I picture Owen, chattering and purposeful at four, running his trains. I see Lila after she feeds herself–fistfulls of spaghetti in her red hair, on her face, and down her pink dress, quite pleased with her world. I try to tell them of her robust personality, this 16-month-old girl among a portfolio of grandboys.

We unpack, scout out towels and boiled water cups in my minimalist concrete-box apartment, then nap in the best Chinese tradition. I’m grateful they’ll share a queen-size bed and floor fan. Buses to TianFuYuan Hotel work out smoothly, their first public rides, where we swim until Cheryl and Arnie’s “Tennessee Waltz” wafts over the pool.  We sit with small kissing fish nibbling our feet in a small pool, emerge to Carpenter’s sound-alikes and dine on the patio.

Singers Cheryl and Arnie sit with us on breaks, and the women are captivated by my Philippino friends. I do Natalie to his Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” and get happy applause from diners. We rattle happily home on Bus 6, then 11; I’m happy when the driver tosses his cigarette away at my faltering Chinese request. 7-21: Up at 6:00, they try out Tai Chi sans English instruction. It’s a three-ring circus with workmen sledge-hammering down the wall-seats and basketball goals to placid music and graceful (?) movements.

I make Hainan coffee, leave them writing postcards. I have noodles with teachers before leading a Colors and Shapes lesson in Golden Sun. The remainder of the day is ours: We bus to DaDongHai (BigEastBay), bargain for a camera chip, walk the beach, snap photos, try papaya smoothies and Rainbow One burgers and fries. The typhoon, discussed on CCTV9, seems to have waves churned up, but weather’s actually cooler than expected. My giggling friends pose at the waves’ south edge, hoping the almost-black nude guys with psoriasis show up in the background. A frozen Magnum mocha bar goes down easily at an outdoor table. Corner Deli offers cheeses, nuts for a wine-on-the-beach time they’ve requested for supper.

A supermarket stop lets Mary Jane people watch while Elaine and I replenish Hainan coffee (heavenly aroma, ground on site) and crackers. Too late for a facial, we go home. Too tired to reboard a bus for a beach, we eat party fare around my glass table and go to sleep early.

7-22: I awaken with sinus-blocked headache and blame Chinese tanins. Or typhoons? Sometimes this happens when weather or political shifts happen to my world. I check internet and find nothing amiss, beyond the usual economic depression talk. My guests ply me with decongestants and Tylenol, breakfast bars, disposable razors, mouthwash, vitamins, calcium–all needed in my dwindling stash.

I assist Venes’ lesson with 2-5-year-olds, bring my friends to admire one helper’s baby grandson’s dimpled hips and fat thighs. A red embroidered apron covers his front side, the latest in Chinese baby fashion.Then we’re off to lunch along the river before YaLong Bay, Hainan’s Riviera. We miss the double decker bus and join workers on rattly Bus 15. I hear “If we’d have stayed with the tours, we’d never have known the real China!” 

Culture shock comes with the faux-Egyptian sculptures and blue pools at Pullman Resort. My sinuses clear as we swim under waterfalls, down slides, and sit in bubbly jets until they say, “Let’s go to the nicest place here for your birthday dinner tonight!” I call June, Hilton manager, and–what else? He suggests their Ize (he says “Ice”) restaurant. Chef Charles gives us a special price–300 yuan, personally taking our orders, waterside: Tenderloin and king prawns after a crab salad and crab bisque, side dishes of white asparagus, broccoli, artichokes, and mashed potatoes. We pour Argentinian wine.

An edible birthday package arrives, with thin opera layers and sides of white/dark chocolate around chopped mango. Even the lemon water tastes divine! Chinese-accented, “Happy birthday, Virginia” brings an arm full of red roses and a bottle of Chilean VistaMar merlot with bicyclist in shadow on the label. I make a note to ask Kent if it’s good. As June sits down, Charles brings a foot-high chocolate Warrior in full battle dress. I’m speechless, but June regales us with stories of managing hotels in Manila, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Hainan. Just before midnight, he makes a 50-yuan deal, probably half-price, for our cab return.

7-23: (Unknown to me 16 hours earlier, 8:51pm, 7-22, son Kent writes on his i-phone, hurrying home to CA from Seattle:”Lila has been sick. Throwing up, and then she seemed to have a little pain.” UCSF doctors thought it stomach virus, then urinary tract, then did ultrasound for appendicitis, found a 5cm dermoid tumor on her ovary…) In Sanya, we plan to hike Yanoda rain forest. I skip out early from teaching, answer a Chinese friend’s call. “It is too late for bus to Yanoda, Virginia.” They take it philosophically, and we cross the undulating bridge across LinChunHe (Spring River?) and spend an hour getting thoroughly shampooed, massaged, and blown dry. The ear cleaning tickles.

 (A half-continent away, Kent is writing e-mail updates: “Subject: Re: Lila in hospital Things have really accelerated. I got to the hospital and they were prepping Lila for surgery. They are worried the growth has twisted the ovary and if so, they have a better chance of saving the ovary the sooner they go in. The doc prepped us in all the worst case scenario stuff, but assured us the high probability is simply removal of the tumor and no further issues the rest of her life. We just handed Lila over to the anesthesiologist.”)

Across Sanya River, we wander First Market. Mary Jane takes pictures–fishmongers in rubber boots, tall pyramids of jackfruit/lichee/apples/mangosteen, stalls with papaya and coconut candy, parts of pig/goat/sheep/duck/chicken. I wish I could send odors home with their souvenir snapshots. A nice Coffee Diary fish cooked in coconut milk, green vegetables, and rice outfits us for a return to YaLong Bay. I’m feeling beat. My guests seem fine. We slum it a few minutes at the crowded public beach, then retreat like British colonial ladies, with lemon tea or milk tea with pearls on the wide Holiday Inn veranda to outwait overhead sun. I slump and fall asleep as we admire off-shore islands and turquoise waters below. At sun down, surf laps at our feet. A bride’s veil billows wonderfully in the wind as her satin shoes sink in sand, posing for wedding book photographs. No shells here today. Maybe the typhoon claims them from afar.

At ShiWei bus stop, we go to Rainbow Two’s riverside table and eat junkfood–potato skins, chicken fingers, and nachos. Two contented women pack while I retire early, unused to Western foods, unaware Kent was writing an e-mail: (Date: “23 Jul 2009 08:15:58 Well, that wasn’t a very fun night. Lila’s got more dope in her than the Tour De France riders … and nobody offered us a thing. They’ve taken about half the tubes out. Nurses come in and put a blood pressure cuff on her every hour; Lila isn’t a fan. The chair for the adult in here is about as comfortable as my middle seat on that Southwest flight. Hopefully by noon she’ll be coming around a bit, and they said they could take the catheter out and perhaps let her drink and eat a little bit. The Doc stopped by with his young entourage–UCSF is a “teaching hospital”== and said this was all normal. Gonna be a long couple days. Thanks to cousin Karen, Sara the super-sitter, and grandpa Gary for taking on the Owenator.”)

7-24: Cellphone alarm awakens us at 4:30 a.m. I call the sleepy cabbie (first such call for me in China), lug suitcases down four flights, hug my friends good-bye at 5:15 at the apartments’ gate. We don’t know then that they’d arrive at a dark airport building, unintelligible Chinese directions, and a hurried walk to another building before successfully boarding their 8:30 a.m. Hong Kong flight. Mary Jane goes home to a newly-painted and polished house, compliments of her retired husband.

I sleep, until 8:00 a.m., then check e-mail and encounter all of Kent’s updates amidst a wall of emotions. Clueless, I open the most recent one first: (written 7-23 pm) “Lila is light years better than yesterday, but it does still seem like she has light years to go. She now wants to be in our laps, and is quite content and actually occassionally smiles when there.” (He and RJ trade off 12 hour shifts. Owen has fun with a whole stream of relatives and friends. He puts Lila in the context of “Curious George Visits the Hospital,” thinking Lila swallowed a puzzle piece, the doctor is talking to the man in the yellow hat while the mayor is visiting to dedicate a new hospital wing.) “Lila still has little interest in drinking anything, and no interest whatsoever in eating. These are prerequisites for getting the heck out of here (that and pooping).” Docs all seem to think she’s doing well. She’s herself now–not delirious–and even will smile and play peek-a-boo a bit. I think she’s bored. I know I am. Once the Tour de France ended this morning (streamed on computer) we both have been sort of mentally casting about for something to do from this chair. Her last morphine was at 3am, and before that, 7pm. The day before we were morphine on the hour, heavy doses. While she stiffens with pain if you try and hold her upright, her general abdominal pain seems to have lessened considerably from before. Her skin, temperature, and general spirit seem back to normal. I hope we can get out of here tomorrow. I’m sure she’d like to be in her own crib. I’d sure like to be in mine. No word from doc on biopsy. I’m assuming that’ll be next week before we get the all clear. We’re going to get the all clear. We’re going to get the all clear. Everybody chant it with me now…”)

I take the guitar for Friday’s “Songs and Games Day” with pre-kindergarteners. During cut-and-paste seatwork, I pat sweaty, black heads tenderly and wish I could touch Lila’s red hair. What feels palpable is gratitude for folks sending prayers and good wishes from several continents as we await positive biopsy results. Virginia Fortner