I was talking with one of the teachers about families and children the other day. It seems that Niels & I are getting the "When are you having a baby?" question a lot more recently, which sometimes annoys me, but then I realize I'm an anomaly to many people here so I just usually let it go, but more on that in a moment.

In discussing families and family planning differences between the States and China I asked my teacher friend if teachers who want to start a family need to get permission from the school leaders, I already had an idea of what she'd say but I wanted to get confirmation. Not surprisingly she said yes, teachers do. Then she went on to state that the school's was given a quota on how many teachers could be pregnant a year, and it's 10. The quota didn't surprise me, but the quota size did, considering there are  probably over 300 teachers, so the quota coupled with the number of teachers doesn't seem to make the odds of a teacher being allowed to have a child high. But then I look out my kitchen window, wander around campus and it's baby central. I'm constantly amazed how many children there are under the age of 5 who live here. It's a little overwhelming and a little scary because it's just not isolated to campus but when I am out and about in the area it's like this as well. There are babies everywhere and I feel like they're taking over the city.

One of the big things we talked about was how the responsibility of raising a child doesn't fall to the parents, but to the grandparents. For many young children (this is also true of most of my students) their primary caregiver has never been Mom and Dad. It's something that I've not grown used to, which I attributed to a cultural difference. For me it's always been if you have a child it's your duty to raise them not someone else's. I'm all for Mom & Dad asking for help, god knows I'm going to need it. But there's a part of me that's bothered when all, not some, of the parental duties are given to someone else. But then when I hear how people often have children not because they want them but because their parents want grandchildren then I understand more. I don't agree with it, but I understand more why the duties fall the to grandparents.

She then asked when Niels & I are going to have kids. When asked this question, I always respond with "if" because we're still on the fence. We're so not in any financial situation to bring a child into the world right now. We really like it just being the two of us, enjoying each other's company. When I mentioned this my friend was really surprised, because but for many couples not having a child is not an option, they are coerced into it by family and cultural tradition, even if they can't really afford to have a child. She told me I was brave for waiting to have kids, I don't think I'm brave by any means but I am aware of my limitations. What I didn't tell her is that if one has a pregnancy scare and cries not tears of joy but tears of freaked outness, that is a telltale sign that you're not ready for kids.

I like talking with this teacher about cultural differences between China and the States, I get very honest answers from her and it really is a cultural exchange. Plus, she doesn't cringe and tell me that at 36 I'll be too old to start a family or think I'm a bad person if I don't have children. Conversations with her a breath of fresh air. (I had an acquaintance tell me that I better start RIGHT NOW because I'm already getting up there in years, at the ripe old age of 32. I'm always too flabbergasted at these sorts of interactions to come up with a sarcastic response.) 

Niels found this on his daily readings.

Things in Sichuan Province are pretty grim, and the weather situation isn't helping things.

Please go to the Red Cross' International Services site and give what you can. I've students who lost friends and family in this tragedy and they along with countless others could use all the help they can get.

A big thanks goes out to Jennifer for letting you all know in the blogworld that I'm OK. It's been a strange few days.

Saturday night the power went out on campus, it seems as if the engine for the campus' (coal) power plant exploded, and it didn't go back online until Monday morning. It was strange being with out electricity for such a long time, we were totally at a loss on what to do, not fully realizing how dependent we were on the Internet until we were without it for almost 35 hours.

We got a few updates from our foreign affairs person telling us the power would be back on Sunday afternoon, well that came & went and when we talked with one of the other foreigners around 8pm that night she said that there's no way that it'll be on tonight because the workers stop working at 6pm, What?? We've not had power, at this point, for over 19 hours, doesn't this situation constitute an instance where they should be working on it until it's fixed? Another instance of China just making me shake my head in confusion.

When the power came back on Niels and I were overjoyed that we could be connected to the outside world once again. So after going to lunch we sat down to watch an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (season 7) and as we're sitting there all happy we could once again get our geek on when I turned to him and said "Do you feel that?" He was all "It's just you... no... it's an earthquake." We jumped up, stood in the doorway between the living room & dining room to figure out a game plan, which was get out of the apartment... FAST. I grabbed the keys, and we ran out and stood in the big clearing in front of our apartment, with most of our neighbors for about 15 minutes until things settled down.

It was freaky, the first (and hopefully the last) earthquake I've experienced. We realized after the fact that we probably should have made our way to the clearing in front of the library, since the way the power lines are set up near our building we were surrounded by them and had the earthquake been worse we would have been in trouble. We made a note to ourselves to remember this in case there's a next time. (I hope there's not a next time)

Things in Sichuan Province are pretty bad so if you can please send some good thoughts that way, they really could use it.

I've not talked much about the primaries here, even though there's been a lot of discussion at chez figcookies. I've been supporting Hilliary Clinton, quietly, from the sidelines the past few months because I believe she is the better candidate. I however do not agree with the tone her campaign has taken of late (same goes for the Obama campaign). Do I think she should pull out? No, this is democracy in action. The New York Times has a wonderful editorial that I wish I had written.

Sen. Clinton and the Campaign

Two nights ago dreamt that Leo McGarry was a Trill and had died, but before he died told me that he wanted me to be host to his symbiont.

Read into it what you will.

I think I'm watching too much Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and West Wing, and need to find some new shows to watch.

The woman who runs the school I teach at Tuesday mornings is looking for a foreign teacher or two for her school. Details about the school can be found here. The school's great, she's an awesome boss and the teachers are wicked friendly. I wish I had known about it last year at this time when I was looking for new employment. Working at her school is one of the things I'm going to miss about living in China. You can also contact me if you're interested.

An couple interestings pieces in this week's Newsweek.

Tibet Through China's Eye

Chinese Nationalism and Tibet

Yes, I know I'm linking to a lot of China related articles recently. But I'm trying to come to terms with my love/hate relationship with this country and reading articles is helping. Plus if I can share what I find to help give perspective on China's perspective then it's all good. Right?

It's been 10 years, this week, since I moved away from Buffalo. I still miss it terribly but it was a necessary move. I still try to read the Buffalo News online once or twice a week. More often than not I get depressed by the headlines, but the headline today made me all teary-eyed, in the good way.

Animal Lover Gives Buffalo Police Dogs Their Own Body Armor

It's so hot, too hot for the beginning of May. It's 82 and is supposed to reach 85 at some point today. We only have AC in the bedroom and I'm trying my best not to turn it on and hide in there all day. But it is tempting. It's supposed to cool off a bit tomorrow and I'm hoping it does. I can't stand this weather, it's too hot, too soon. All I want to do is nap, but I can't, I've a list of things I need to do and since Niels is in Qingdao for the weekend I really should get my butt moving, instead I'm reading this week's Economist.

Dear Party Leaders,

Are you really surprised by this? Do you not realize that if you ban something when people stumble upon it they'll be clueless to its meaning, and when they get caught with it are befuddled why they're in trouble? And then a whole new set of problems is created for you in trying to explain the situation.

Also, if you want students living overseas to help bolster China's image you may want to let them know that throwing things at people or harassing them won't help. 

figcookies

P.S. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop interfering in my email. I do like being able to read, write and send emails and you've been making things difficult for me the past month and a half. You know I'm leaving soon and never was a threat to your hegemony, so cut it out.

Niels and I have been talking about going to Qingdao. Ok, I've been talking to Niels about how I really want to go to Qingdao, but after reading this article, not so much anymore.

Passenger Trains Collide in Eastern China

I didn't realize human rights had a sliding scale. The Bush Administration and the Justice Department make me sick.

Just got back from our outing to Carrefour, where there were lots of "policemen" and few customers. I've to say the boycotts have made my grocery shopping experience much more enjoyable. Although I will be avoiding it this Thursday (May 1) due to the scheduled protests.

We bought chicken, spinach, cauliflower, red cabbage, tea, sugar, milk, red pens, and oatmeal. All of which are Chinese made products, except for the oatmeal which is from Australia. So really, who are the boycotts hurting? Not the French, that's for sure.

There's an interesting article in this week's Time Magazine about Chinese nationalism, go check it out.

The foreign teachers had a meeting with the vice-president (who once again called me fat, I found this out afterwards because none of the teachers translating would translate his meanness) about our experiences here as well as our suggestions for improvements. Lots of notes were taken by the Chinese staff, but nothing's going to come of any of our input, so it was a big waste of time. Although it did get me out of having to go to the New Campus for English Corner, so that was a bonus.

Towards the end of the meeting Niels brought up safety concerns because of the Carrefour protests and if they could please let us know of places to avoid because of the ant-foreign sentiment that's going on. The Chinese teachers all laughed and said there was nothing to worry about. Needless to say we all got annoyed and Niels called them out, in a very polite way, and informed them that we as foreigners are nervous and they should take that seriously. But they brushed him off and said that the protests are over so there was nothing else to worry about. One of the other foreign teachers asked if someone could talk to the security guards and tell them they shouldn't tell people where we live because she's tired of having random people knock on her door. That got their attention, but will they act on it, doubt it, not unless something happens to one of us, then they'll still someone brush it off.

There are more protests scheduled for next week, I doubt we're going to be told about them.

On the upside of all of this, we did have a nice dinner with some friends last night and were able to have a really good discussion about the current mood in China and the difference between their reactions to that of our school's was like night and day.

I've been on a reading kick which is bad, since our selection of books is very small and I've read pretty much all of them except for the two law school related books Niels wants me to read and the Lovecraft book, which I won't read because I don't need more things for my imagination to latch on to.

I did however finish reading The Time Traveler's Wife, which was really quite lovely. It did take me a bit to get into it, I had tried reading it a few months ago but couldn't get into it, but once I did I couldn't put it down. I'm excited it's being turned into a movie and am looking forward to seeing it when it comes out later this year.