It’s Been a Long Week

DISCLAIMER:  This story is NOT funny in any way; it’s not intended to be.  This is the account of my dealings with the Canadian embassy (Consular office) in Beijing as I attempted to renew my passport.  I decided to post this instead of a light-hearted tale this week for two reasons:  first, I frankly don’t feel like writing anything amusing at this point in time, and second, I wanted to let others know of the difficulties I encountered so that maybe I can save someone else from having to go through what I am dealing with.  I’ve tried to be as objective as I can during the actual account, but it is certainly difficult to keep my emotions out of it when it is such a thoroughly frustrating situation.

Here it is…

I applied to renew my passport at the Canadian embassy in Beijing on January 26, 2012. I had to sign a form stating that I needed to retain my old passport, because the Chinese government implemented ID-linked train tickets over Chinese New Year, and I may have had to show my passport in order to board the train home later that day. I also wanted to avoid having to make another trip to Beijing to pick up my new passport, so arranged for them to send the new passport to me by courier & paid the fee for that (this is a service they offer, so it is nothing special or unusual).  I didn’t have my current mailing address in Chinese (they would need this to forward my new passport) at that time, so was asked to email it to them as soon as possible.  I was given a business card showing the address of the Canadian embassy in Chinese characters (I would need this to mail my old passport to them).

When I arrived home the evening of January 26, 2012, I immediately had my current mailing address translated and emailed it to them.  I received confirmation that they received this address via email on January 27, 2012.

I received a call from the embassy on February 6, 2012, saying that my new passport had arrived, and that I needed to send them my old passport and once they received it and cut it to cancel it, they would send out my new passport. The following day, February 7, 2012, I had someone at the school I work at help me to do this (since the address form had to be written in Chinese and I cannot read or write Chinese characters) using the business card the embassy gave me.

By February 16, 2012, I had not received my new passport and my workplace was starting to get concerned about the lack of time to process my work and residency permit renewal.

That day, February 16, 2012, I called the embassy in the morning to ask when they had sent the new passport out. They claimed not to have received the old one yet. Using the bill and tracking number, a worker from my school’s office talked to the courier company and found out that they claimed it was delivered on February 9, 2012 – this meant it had been at the embassy for a week. I made another call to the embassy later that morning (at approximately 11:30, but they close for lunch at 11:00) and had to leave a message asking them to return my call.  At approximately 2:30 the same afternoon, they called me and I told them the information from the courier company.  Their response was to ask if I had addressed the package properly (I cannot read or write Chinese, so a worker from the school I work at did this, following the address on the business card that the embassy provided).  They then requested the tracking number so they could check it themselves (the impression I got was that they did not believe me).  Just before ending the call, I requested that the embassy call me immediately if/when they located my passport.  I was told they would do this.  I did not receive any call from them that afternoon.

The morning of February 17, 2012, I made two calls to the passport office at the embassy – one at approximately 9:30am and one at approximately 10:55am.  Both times there was no answer and I was required to leave a message asking the office to return my call.

Some Chinese friends who are trying to help me were in touch with the courier company to try to get more details.  They found out that no one was required to sign for the parcel, but that the courier company insists it was delivered.  Somehow, they also found information that seemed to indicate it was sent to the “Immigration” section of the embassy, rather than the “Consular” section.

At just after 2:00pm on February 17, 2012, I finally received a call from the embassy in Beijing, after leaving a third message approximately 10 minutes prior (which they hadn’t listened to, the woman informed me; they were finally responding to my first message, left at approximately 9:30am).  When I asked her name, she gave me her English name (I could tell from her pronunciation that she was Chinese), but refused to give her family name, saying it was not required and that there was only one person by that name working in the office.

She informed me that the worker from my school had called the office the day before and that they discovered she had not included “Consular Section” on the address label (which she informed me very curtly that she had specifically instructed me to do), so it was not delivered there.  She did not know where my passport currently was, but claimed that a worker was looking for it.  She did not know how long this would take, as “the embassy is very large”.

I passed along the information about it perhaps being delivered to the “Immigration” section and was again curtly informed that if I did not write “Consular Section” on the address label then I couldn’t expect it to be delivered there.

After nearly 20 minutes of inquiring about a timeline and being repeatedly informed that I should have written “Consular Section” on the address label, I asked to be informed of what the next step would be in the event that they cannot find my passport (after all, it had already been at the embassy for over a week and still had not been taken to the proper section).  I was told that another employee would contact me shortly to discuss this.

At approximately 2:40pm, I received another call from the same embassy employee.  She informed me that she had spoken to her colleague and they had decided that this colleague should not call me to discuss my options in the event that my passport is never located, because I would probably feel confused and more frustrated.  She claimed that they had now sent more than one person to the various sections to try to locate my passport (“even though we normally only have one person to do this job,” I was told in a sharp voice).  She claimed that they would contact me by the end of the workday to update me (I asked, and their workday ends at 4:30pm).

At 3:40pm on February 17, 2012, the embassy employee called again.  She claimed that they located my passport in “Immigration” at the embassy, but because that office was closed, they were unable to retrieve it until Monday February 20, 2012, at the earliest.  She claimed that their postman would be going to retrieve it on Monday and that someone would contact me when they had it in the “Consular” office.  When I asked how long the processing time would be between the time they received it and the time all the documents (old and new passports, application, birth certificate, etc.) would be ready to pick up, she said there would be no delay and that I could pick it up anytime their office is open (Monday to Friday between 8:30 and 11:00am).

For those of you unfamiliar with how things work here, a summary of the difficult situation I am in:  In order to remain in this country legally, I need to have valid work papers and a residency permit.  I cannot get these without having my yearly medical check done.  I cannot have this check done (nor can my employers even start the paperwork for the permits) until I have my new passport. The embassy will not give me my new passport until they receive and cancel my old passport.

I also cannot declare my passport lost or stolen; I’ve considered this and looked up the process. In order to do this, I have to file a report with my local police and obtain a bilingual police report (something that could take substantial time in the small city I live in). I then have to report it to the embassy and apply for a temporary passport. They then have to conduct an investigation into the situation before they will issue my temporary passport. All this would take time that I do not have. And the nail in the coffin is that I cannot apply for a temporary OR replacement passport because the embassy has my birth certificate in the file with my new passport, and this is required with any application in order to prove my citizenship.

My personal comments: Firstly, I cannot understand how something so crucial to living overseas as a passport can be misplaced at an embassy office for over a week.  Even if the parcel was delivered to the “Immigration” section, it should not take over a week for someone to forward it to the correct, “Consular” section.  Passport are crucial documents to those living in foreign countries, and it is the embassy’s job to deal with passports every day – it is unacceptable for one to become so “lost” in their offices.

Secondly, I find it frustrating that no embassy staff members followed up to inquire when they did not receive my old passport within the 3 to 5 day window they tell everyone the mail system should take.  I did not follow up until it had been approximately 10 days (5 days to travel there and 5 days to travel back) because that was the longest I should have had to wait to receive it back here, according to them.  Had they simply followed up, nearly a week of time could have been saved (and yes, I am aware that the embassy is a busy place and they have work to do, but again, feel that it is completely unacceptable to hold such a hands-off, unconscientious attitude towards people’s passports).

Finally, I have found several of these phone calls to be not only unhelpful, but also berating.  I will admit to being quite frustrated and short with the employee on the phone, but I do not believe I deserved to be spoken to in the manner in which I was.  Some degree of customer service should be upheld, and solutions provided, rather than just repeatedly reminding me that it was all my own fault because the parcel was not addressed properly.

Update as of Saturday evening:  I have talked with my employers and husband and we have decided that I am not going to trust the mail system to return my passport to me after all this, but instead will travel to Beijing to pick it up in person.  I plan to start calling the embassy early Monday morning to try to get confirmation that they have retrieved my passport and that all documents are ready for pick up (because although the employee I spoke to on Friday told me this would happen, she happens to not work on Monday, so I don’t know if the work will actually get accomplished unless I remind someone).  I want to wait for this confirmation before making any plans to travel there because I am still confused as to how they can know that my passport is in an office that was locked and that they did not have access to.

If and when I have it confirmed, then my husband and I will purchase train tickets for Monday afternoon or evening (hopefully I can board the train using only a photocopy of my passport) so that we can be at the embassy on Tuesday morning when they open (because again, the office is only open from 8:30 to 11:00am during the week).

LESSONS:  A few lessons can be taken from this ordeal (and yes, I feel justified in calling it an ordeal).

Firstly, if you use the mail service, call and inquire about the status of your passport every day after you send it to be sure that they receive it and so that if they do not, you can immediately begin tracing the parcel.

Secondly, if you use the mail service, be sure the address is written correctly and completely (although again, if you don’t read or write characters, I’m not sure how you can confirm this).

Finally, always do everything in person – do not use the mail service (not because the service didn’t do their job, but because you are then without your passport for at least several days).

How Do I Love Thee…

First off this week, I want to thank everyone who voted for Tales From Hebei over at My New Chinese Love for the Lotus Blossom Award.  If you haven’t heard already, Jocelyn’s Speaking of China won the award this year, and I send my congratulations to her.  I was honoured to be nominated after only a year of blogging and appreciate people taking the time to vote for me!

Next…the post.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and in the spirit of the season, this week I present to you, my ode to my husband.

Yep, this guy!

He’s honestly the best husband I could ask for, for so many reasons.  I’m sure your husbands are pretty good, but mine is far and away the best.

When he’s not making me laugh and providing me with fodder for this blog (speaking of which, just yesterday he confused the words “cucumber” and “barbeque” – there’s not really a story behind it, but I sure laughed!), he’s busy working at providing us the best life he can.  He took care of arranging the majority of our wedding himself, since the language barrier made it nearly impossible for me to contribute much more than opinions.  He is patiently trying to help me learn more Chinese and trying to find a way for us to purchase our own home.  He is a loving son and grandson, and I’m thankful to his family for raising him so well.  He has a great smile and a kind heart.

But my husband’s best features just might be his ears.

I know, you might think it’s weird, but one of the things I love about him the most is that he listens.  I’ve lost count of the number of times I have mentioned something once, only to find him taking care of it just as soon as he has the time.  Here are a few:

If something is in need of repair in our house, all I have to do is tell him and he will either try to fix it himself or track down a worker to come and fix it.  From dripping faucets, to washing machines that don’t spin, to lights that have shorted out, he takes care of it all.  And he even cleans the hair clumps out of the shower drain without me even having to ask!

The instant I mention feeling even a tiny bit under the weather, he interrogates me about my symptoms and comes home laden with medicine for me to take.  He dispenses advice (no spicy food if I have a sore throat, drink more hot water, have some ‘easy’ food like porridge if my stomach is upset) and chats with me online from work to see how I’m feeling and make sure I’ve taken my medicine ‘on time’.

OK, my husband didn't get me this particular medicine, but just LOOK at the colour! It reminded me of a cleaning product!!

While out shopping one day and walking past a cell phone accessory stall, I said (half to myself) that I wanted to remember to look online for a case for my e-reader so I could carry it with me in a bag and not scratch it.  A week or so later, a parcel arrived from his mother, containing a little hand-knit pouch just the right size for my e-reader!  Gee, I wonder how she knew…

One day as I was cooking lunch and coughing up a storm in our kitchen, I happened to get grumpy and rant a bit about the mould that grows there (I happen to think that living in a mouldy house doesn’t exactly help my respiratory system’s health – crazy, I know).  Just as soon as we finished eating lunch, he locked himself in our cold, unheated kitchen for the next hour to scrub as much of the mould as he could off the ceiling and from behind and underneath the cookstand.

After racking my brains trying to think of something that I could get for his mother and grandmother as gifts at Spring Festival, I finally asked him one evening if he thought they would like a small piece of needlepoint if I made them one (hey, I used to do the odd cross-stitch kit when I was a kid and it’s like riding a bicycle).  Although he doubted my ability to actually do this, he agreed and a couple of days later came home with all I needed to make a couple of pieces.  Granted, they are gigantic pieces and unfortunately I didn’t manage to finish even one of them in time for Spring Festival this year, but it’s the thought that counts, right?!

Like two peas in a pod!

And just in case you need one more example of why my husband is awesome, here it is.  One evening, about a week ago, we were watching a TV show or movie online that mentioned “bubble wrap” and how awesome it is to just sit and pop the bubbles.  I had to explain to him just what “bubble wrap” was, but once he knew, he understood and agreed that there is something inexplicably great about popping bubble wrap (some things are just universal, you know!).

Neither of us mentioned this conversation again, but then he came home from work the other day and announced that he had a present for me.  I felt terrible, as I had nothing for him, although it wasn’t a holiday, it was just a regular old Friday evening.  I told him so and he just shook his head, saying it wasn’t a big deal.

With crinkles at the corners of his eyes, he led me to the living room and started digging around in his backpack.  Then he presented me with perhaps the best present ever:  a piece of bubble wrap!

Just in case you’re wondering ladies, no, he doesn’t have a brother (China’s one-child policy and all).

Renewing My Passport or, When 差不多 Isn’t Good Enough

One of the things I dislike most in this world (and I don’t think I am alone) is dealing with the government.  For example, filing taxes was always like torture to me – every year I thought how much easier it might be to just store my money in mayonnaise jars buried in the backyard.  Unfortunately for me, living overseas means a passport is necessary, so every five years I pull my hair out over the process of getting one.

Canadian passports are only valid for five year blocks (even Chinese passports are good for 10 years – come on, Canada!), and a person cannot add pages to a Canadian passport either.  Also, the application form and requirements are the same whether you are applying for your first passport or your eighth – no special renewal procedure here.  I understand it is all to do with security and confirming identities and all that, but it sure is a pain!

My current, trusty Canadian passport!

It can be a stressful process to complete in Canada.  One can think they have everything prepared, send the application away, and wait for a couple of months, only to have it all returned because his signature touched the blue area around the signature box.

But now I’m experiencing the pleasure (ahem, sarcasm) of completing this process in China, and let me tell you, it’s even less enjoyable in a small city in a foreign, non-English speaking country.  And that lack of enjoyment can come down (in my case) to three little Chinese words:  差不多.

“Cha bu duo” means ‘almost’, ‘about the same’, or (in my interpretation) ‘good enough’, and is clearly one of the national mottos of the People’s Republic of China.  I dislike it almost as much as “China has a long history…” (and if you’ve read this blog, you know that’s a lot!).  Everything is 差不多 – the way your hair is cut, the fit of windows into window frames, the fit of pants, the adherence to laws…差不多!

The problem with 差不多 is that for many Chinese, when they say it, they really mean it and it’s true!  A lot of things in China that aren’t completely correct can be smoothed over with a meal, some drinking, and some 红包 (gifts of red envelopes containing money).  But when we’re talking dealings with a foreign government agency, somehow I doubt that the problem is going to go away just because I say it is close enough.

I know, I know, I’m rambling.  But you need to know all this (if you didn’t already) in order to fully appreciate the saga of my passport renewal.  Here we go…

My current Canadian passport is due to expire in early March, so in late November I went to visit my Chinese boss (a lovely man, but perhaps the most scatter-brained guy I’ve ever met – why he is in charge of all our paperwork is certainly a testament to his schmoozing skills and not his organization!) to ask him about finding my guarantor to sign my application and pictures.  We had a confusing conversation, but the gist of it was that he advised me to wait until after Spring Festival to go to Beijing to apply, since I would need my current passport in order to travel over the holiday (and with my husband and I being obligated to visit his family and the new identification-linked train tickets, he was correct).

Knowing that time would then be short, I wanted to get everything ready before Spring Festival so that I could make the trip as soon as possible afterward.

Step one – pictures.

My husband and I made our way to one of the local photo shops to try to get my passport photos taken.  We had gone over the requirements for the photos from the instruction page together to ensure he understood them clearly so that he would be able to translate them clearly to the shop assistant.  We even took the paper along for reference.  My lovely husband got approximately four words of explanation out of his mouth before the assistant interrupted him, saying, “Oh yes, I know, I know.  We’ve done passport photos before” (note:  This is another thing prevalent in China, it seems – claiming you know how to do something that you really don’t…sigh).  We both did our best to re-interrupt her and continue explaining what the specifications were and how important it was that they be correct (the guarantor has to sign one of the photos – if I travel all the way to Beijing and they reject my photo, I have to travel all the way home, have new photos taken, get my guarantor to sign the new ones, and return to Beijing to try again), but she continued to insist that they had taken Canadian passport photos before and understood what was needed.

(Add to this the fact that I had recently read an article online about how Passport Canada is even more strictly enforcing the photo requirements recently and you can understand my uneasiness.)

I sat down and we took the photos (to their credit, they did re-shoot when my hair was in my face or my head was not straight).  So far, so good, right?

We arranged for them to print the photos, but since they didn’t have a stamp with the business name and address on it (this also has to be included on the back of one photo), the only thing to do was to hope that it would be acceptable for someone to write this information on by hand and then have them use the business “chop” (official red-ink stamp) to show it was valid.  Since the chop was locked up in an upper office and the person with the key wouldn’t be at work until the following day, my husband agreed to return to pick everything up when it was ready.

My hopes were dashed when I opened the envelope and saw that the pictures were approximately half the size required by Passport Canada.  差不多?  Probably not in the eyes of the embassy!

On the left, the proper size. On the right, the size they printed the first time. So yeah, pretty much the same, right?

We returned to the photo shop with everything to try to explain why the pictures weren’t acceptable and to get new prints made.  As expected, I was met with cries of 差不多, and much scrutinizing of the original order paper to attempt to prove that this was what we had asked for in the first place.  Finally, it was agreed that they would reprint the photos in the proper size.  How many did I want?  One set, so I could measure them myself with a ruler, and then give the approval for further copies to be printed.  Once this was accomplished, we again discovered that the chop was locked away and we had to return a fourth time to pick up the completed photos.

Now it was time to tackle the application form.  I sat down one evening and painstakingly filled out each section, reading and rereading instructions (dark blue or black ink, all capital letters, which forms of ID qualify, etc.).  I called my Chinese boss again to reiterate that I really would appreciate having everything finished before Spring Festival, so if he could track down my guarantor, that would be great (you see, the guarantor has to be someone who works in a specific field, has known me for over 2 years, AND understands the language of the form – English – a pretty narrow field of candidates here in my tiny little city!).  My boss seemed to understand and asked me to give him the form and photo (note the singular form of this word, it will become important later).  I did, and he called me a couple of days later to tell me that my guarantor was on his way to my boss’ office and could I stop by?  Sure, I’m on my way.

I arrived, greeted my guarantor, and we set to work completing his section of the form.  (Oh, did I mention that my boss temporarily lost my picture?  It turned out that it had been picked up with a pile of papers he sent to the accountant’s office and was returned, but there were several tense moments as we searched his desk.)  Mr. Guarantor nervously scratched out his name and occupation in English block letters, stopping to check spelling with me.  All was well until we came to his place of employment – his large block letters ran outside of the given box!

My boss looked at me and asked, “Is that OK?” (差不多?)  I had no idea, though I sort of doubted it.  Luckily for everyone, another empty passport form was located and all the information was reprinted, inside the lines.  Again, so far, so good (I really need to stop thinking that!).

Necessary, but such a pain.

Ironically, at this point, my boss and I were having a discussion about the very thing I mentioned earlier – that he is in charge of all our official paperwork and knows the Chinese forms and applications like the back of his hand, as well as knowing all the police and government officials he has to deal with to get our legalities approved here, so that if something does happen to be amiss, he can almost always smooth-talk his way out of it and everything will be 差不多.  I half-joked that I didn’t think I’d be able to pull the same trick with the Canadian embassy.

Time for signing the declaration on the back of the photo (“I certify this to be a true likeness of…”).  I wrote it out clearly for him on a scrap paper, since the example on the instruction form is very small and the letters can be unclear for someone whose first language is not English (ahem, Passport Canada), and he set to work.  Success!!  And then…

My boss picked up the photo to hand it to me, smudging the not-yet-dry ink with his thumb.

Yep.  Thaaaaat’s right.  (For my family, this is when the phrase “Sandor luck” ran through my head.)

Remember how I said I had only given my boss one picture (so that he wouldn’t lose all of them, you see – scatter-brain, remember)?  Stupid girl!

It was at this point that Chinese problem-solving kicked into high gear.  They had paper, they had liquid – this was an issue they could fix.

So the two of them set to work dabbing the smudged ink off the back of my passport photo with a wad of paper soaked in the tea they’d been sharing.

I could do nothing at this point but watch them do their best CSI impression to remove the smudges, and my guarantor rewrote the missing words.  After he finished, my boss (carefully) picked up the photo, held it under the breeze blowing from his heater for a few seconds, took a look and delightfully exclaimed,

“差不多!”

I forced a smile, collected my papers and picture (carefully) and made my way to my desk in the teacher’s office, where I examined the photo more closely.  Upon inspection, it was still pretty apparent to me that something had happened to the writing, that the back of the photo was stained a light tan colour, and that the image on the front now had a mark from the wetness seeping through.  Sigh.

Was I going to have to risk a trip to the embassy based on 差不多?

In the middle of teaching class that evening, it hit me.  I did have extra pictures, but they were just at home.  My guarantor had told me he lived in a residential zone near mine.  He had included his cell phone number on the application form.  My husband speaks perfect Chinese to explain everything.  I crossed my fingers that Mr. Guarantor would understand and agree to meet me near his home to sign a new picture.  Thankfully, he is the nicest man alive, and he did.

(By now, I have been to the embassy in Beijing and dropped off my application.  They accepted everything, so hopefully that means there are no problems and that in a couple of weeks I will receive my brand new passport and not have to go through this for another five years!)

How to Roast a Turkey in China in 15 Easy Steps

*This may or may not be based on a real story.  Your experiences may differ slightly.

Step 1:  Obtain an oven.  These appliances are not common in China, as many dishes can be cooked in a wok on a burner.  You’ll have to be prepared to shell out more than a few yuan, though, so save up.  Some stores do sell them, with incredible mark-ups, but your husband might be able to find one online for less than half of that price.  He’ll also have to have a little cupboard built to house the oven, which you’ll worry won’t fit through the kitchen doorway in your apartment if it is fully assembled, but eventually your oven will be installed and usable.  Cook a few things with it to familiarize yourself with how it works and so that you are aware of its tendency to blow out the extensions cords used to plug it in.

Necessary appliance. Note that it is not as "full-sized" as its western cousins!

Step 2:  Find whipping cream in your local supermarket.  Think to yourself, “Wow, we can never buy whipping cream here, so I should definitely buy it.  What can I make to use whipping cream?  Pumpkin pie.  Mmmm, I love pumpkin pie.  What goes with pumpkin pie?  Turkey.  Hey, I have an oven, I could make a turkey dinner!”  Realize later that, as with so many other things, these ideas are much harder to carry out in practice.

Step 3:  Barrage your mother with emails requesting recipes for her pies, stuffing, and turkey preparation (because your mother’s turkey always tastes better than anyone else’s, right?!).  Start making a list of ingredients and utensils you need to track down in order to successfully make this meal.

Step 4:  Send your husband on a wild turkey chase (it’s a lot like a wild goose chase but, you know, with turkeys) in China, land of pork, mutton, duck, and chicken.

Step 5:  Talk up your upcoming turkey dinner to a couple of friends and even invite them, despite not actually having confirmed that you can get a turkey (and, in fact, never having made a turkey dinner before…ever).

Step 6:  Have your wonderful mother supply you with some key items you require to actually pull off this feat.  This may include a roaster, rack, baster, skewers, a pie pastry mix, and a couple of spices.

Step 7:  Breathe a huge sigh of relief when your husband reports home that he has found someone with a turkey on their farm that they will sell to you for a good price.  Slap your forehead with your hand later when you discover that you can actually order frozen turkeys on Taobao (THE online shopping site in China).

Step 8:  Answer the following questions that your husband then asks you regarding the turkey:  Alive or dead?  (Dead.)  Male or female?  (Uh…not sure, but probably female because they are smaller.)  Any other requests?  (Um, yes.  No feathers, no head, no feet, and no insides. Oh, and please weigh it after all this is removed so I can establish a cooking time.)  Feel proud of yourself for remembering to specify those things because this is China and they eat everything!

Step 9:  Set the date for your dinner, tell the friends you’ve already invited that it is confirmed, and continue gathering the items you need for the dinner.  Make desserts, including pumpkin (which you’ve never made before and are worried won’t set properly or cook through because it is really runny) and apple pies (hey, a girl’s got to find some way to use up all those apples from her students for Christmas!), and chocolate fudge.  Feel relieved that even if the turkey is a failure, at least you can all gorge on desserts.

The dessert table. On the bottom - apple pie, pumpkin pie, and chocolate fudge. On top - the bowl of whipping cream that started the insanity!

Step 10:  Panic one day before your scheduled dinner when you receive the following text message from your husband, who has gone to the farm to pick up the turkey and take it to be slaughtered and prepared:  “I got the turkey done.  It is about 15kg or 33 pounds heavy.  Now I’m on the way home.”  Know that there is no way a 33 pound turkey will ever fit into your oven.

Step 11:  Return home at lunch to be greeted by two stiff, curled turkey feet sticking out of the bag holding said bird.  Decide to temporarily bypass asking why the feet are still attached when you had clearly asked for them to be removed in order to assess the size of the turkey.  Pick up the bag and try to get a feel for the weight.  Think to yourself that the bird doesn’t actually appear to be that large, but continue to worry nonetheless about just how long it is going to take to cook the thing.

Husband displaying one of the gigantic turkey feet post-removal.

Step 12:  After teaching classes all day and attending a friend’s birthday dinner, return home and begin cleaning the turkey.  Ask for your husband’s assistance to cut the feet and more of the neck off and shake your head a bit when he tells you that the man at the slaughterhouse thought you were nuts to not want such a “good, thick neck” and “big feet” for your dinner.  Tell your husband that if you ever decide to do this again, that the guy can keep the neck and feet for himself.  Your husband will just chuckle when you say this.  Watch as he puts the feet and neck into a bag into the freezer so he can eat them later.

Ick alert! The feet, neck & extras my husband is saving to eat (alone!) at a later date.

Place the turkey in your sink with cold water and clean it.  Call your husband for help again when you realize that the insides are still present.  Help him gut the turkey.  Finish thoroughly cleaning it and try to pat it dry with toilet paper (because you forgot to buy paper towels and don’t want to use a real towel on a raw turkey) but give up because the paper flakes off onto the skin.  Remember that you have nothing large enough to hold it until the following day, nor will it fit in your refrigerator, so help your husband wrap it in cling wrap and place it in an empty box to leave in your unheated kitchen overnight, hoping that the room will be cold enough to prevent you from giving anyone food poisoning the next day.  Continue wondering about the weight of the turkey the entire time you are cleaning it, since it doesn’t seem overly large or heavy, but know that you have no scale to verify the weight, so keep stressing.

Cleaning the bird. Sure doesn't seem like a 33-pounder...

D'oh! Insides still present, too! Guess I'm gutting a turkey tonight.

Step 13:  While researching turkey cooking times on the internet, begin to worry when the largest bird any site has listed is 24 pounds.  Start to wonder if you should be putting the bird in the oven immediately.  Panic internally, but say nothing to your husband, who has worked very hard to get you this turkey and you don’t want to seem ungrateful.

Step 14:  When your husband out of nowhere suddenly says, “Wait, not 15kg.  15 jin, 15 jin!  So that’s only about 8 or 8.5 kg, so maybe 15 pounds,” breathe a huge sigh of relief and calculate that you should be able to put the bird in the oven around noon the following day to have it ready for dinner.

Step 15:  The next day, get up and make the stuffing, stuff, close, and roast the turkey as you would in any other country, all the while worrying that your oven may short out the circuit and cause you to end up with a raw turkey at dinner time.  Relax as the day wears on, the bird starts smelling oh-so-good, and the oven continues to work.

For my mom, who demanded proof - the bird, ready to hop in the roaster and into the oven!

Cooking away...tight fit, eh?

Cooked! Now...who knows how to carve a turkey?

Dinner is served: turkey (light and dark), potatoes, veggies, stuffing, cranberry jelly and buns (gravy on the table)!

Prepare the other food, take out the turkey, make the gravy, and set the table.  Sit down with good friends and enjoy the first turkey dinner you’ve ever made, and your first in several years.  Bon apetit!

The baby didn't have any, but everyone else loved it!

The English Judge

First off, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year – today is the first day of the Year of the Dragon.  My husband and I are in his hometown, celebrating with his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, making and eating too many dumplings and listening to fireworks.

新年快乐！

Now, onto the story for the week…

Well, it finally happened.  My moment of fame and fortune in China.  The time when all my “connections” here paid off.

OK, not really.  Not at all, in fact.

But I was asked to be a judge at an English speech competition at my husband’s workplace.  Basically, they knew he was married to a foreigner and they wanted to know if I would be there to judge so it would look good to the leaders who were attending.  So they asked him to ask me.  And I agreed, because you never know what will supply you with blog post fodder in this country.

Being asked to judge an English competition is not rare for foreigners in China, nor is being asked to be a “white face” in attendance at something to improve someone’s status.  This just happened to be the first time I’d been explicitly asked, and not in conjunction with my workplace.  They asked for me, specifically (again, because my husband works there, but it always feels kind of nice to be chosen for something, right?).  And hey, they also scheduled the competition on my day off so that I could attend – that’s a sign that I’ve got some sort of influence!

The view from my seat at the judges' table.

As the date drew closer, my husband started coming home with bits and pieces of information about what I had agreed to.

The first tidbit he told me was that all the speeches were going to be based on a single topic – How to Increase Efficiency and Decrease Costs at my husband’s factory.  Oh boy, riveting, I know.  However, this reassured me that I probably wouldn’t be listening to canned speeches that people had simply found on the internet and memorized.  They actually had to write these speeches themselves, something I think is somewhat rare here.

The second interesting part was that he arrived home one night a couple of days before the competition with a flash drive containing copies of all the speeches.  Apparently, I was allowed to read them beforehand!  Took some of the surprise out of it, but I ended up being very thankful for this, as I got all the chuckling at poor grammar, bizarre idioms, and communist-speak (that’s the best term I can think of for it) out at home so that I wasn’t laughing at them during the actual competition.

For example, one contestant modified a quote by President John F. Kennedy:  “Ask not what your company can do for you; ask what you can do for your company.”

Another concluded the speech by saying that the company’s “future will be the same as the morning sun, full of hope and vitality!”

Many contestants referred to innovation as being key, one going so far as to say, “Innovation is like fresh blood pouring into the general of our enterprise, which become a magic weapon of survival” for the company.

Finally, a very committed young man quoted Chuang-tzu, who said “life is like fire”.  He then went on to say that the fire of their company “shall not go out if we immediately add a new piece of firewood into it before the previous one burnt out.  Whatever firewood I am, it’s the faith and responsibility of my youth to burn all out for the glory of” the company.  My guess is that he is not familiar with the more negative connotation of “burn out” in regards to one’s job.

If all of this seems a bit corny and over-the-top to you, you’re probably right.  I suspect that many of them wrote their speeches in Chinese (their first language) and then simply translated them into English, using the longest and most complicated-sounding words they could find in the thesaurus of Google Translate, hence all the rah-rah, “we all breathe together in our company” talk, because from what I can gather, Chinese is a lot more flowery and metaphor-filled than English.

My husband later used the phrase “rallying cries” to describe them, and I think he’s right.  These speeches weren’t so much about giving solutions as they were about praising the company and reminding all the workers that they weren’t individuals, but instead were simply a part of the larger company and that it was key to serve the company’s purpose (not that we don’t hear that in western countries too, but that it was just so bluntly stated here).  The speeches all ended up sounding like political speeches – containing many words, but no substance.  Most of the contestants’ solutions to reducing costs and improving efficiency were to reduce costs and improve the efficiency.  Not a lot of actual implementable ideas.

Finally, on the eve of the competition, my husband came home with information to give me about scoring.  As it turned out, there were to be three parts to this competition, and the English speech was only one part.  It was to be scored out of 40 points, and he gave me a breakdown of those 40 points (for example, 8 points for content, 5 points for poise, 5 points for staying within the time limit, 5 points for having a neat, clean appearance, etc.).  I looked it over and then waited for what I knew was coming – I was not to mark anyone any lower than 30, because they wanted everyone to look good for the leaders (this is not uncommon in China, either.  In fact, when I test the students in my class at a local primary school, I am told not to score any of them lower than 90 on a 100 point scale – even if they cannot answer a single question I ask them).

On the morning of the competition, we got up bright and early and headed to my husband’s factory.  It was all set to start at 9am, and would be finished by lunch – there were only 10 contestants.  I made my way to the judges’ table (I even got my own name sign!) and waited for it to begin.  The hired host took the stage, welcomed everyone, and introduced the judges (I was “the very important and well-known foreign teacher”).

During the English speech, all the contestants stood stiffly behind the microphone on the right. They were much more at ease during the Chinese speeches, moving around and gesturing.

When the competition finally started, I very quickly found out what the other two parts of the competition were.  Each contestant ascended the stage, very nervously stammered out his or her English speech (fair enough – I’d be nervous if I had to give a speech in Chinese!), and then proceeded to much more comfortably give a speech in Chinese on the same topic.  From what I could gather from the length of the Chinese speeches, the accompanying PowerPoint slides being shown, and the little bits the judge next to me translated in a whisper, these speeches were where the actual specific ideas for reducing costs and increasing efficiency came out.  There were a lot of diagrams and mathematical breakdowns of cost and energy savings.  Thank goodness I was only required to judge the English portion!

Following their two speeches, the contestant headed out of the room and the next took the stage.  After this set of speeches, the first would return (having changed clothes) for the third part, you guessed it (or maybe you didn’t)…the physical endurance part of the competition!  Each person was timed as they tried to do as many sit-ups and arm extensions as they could… in front of everyone!

Sit-ups on the stage...

...and arm extensions. Oh, and did I mention the whole thing was filmed to be put on the company TV station?

As the morning wore on, the leaders in the first couple of rows slowly started falling asleep, with the contestants continuing on (I had to admire them; I would have been very upset to look out and see the most important leaders of my workplace in the first two rows of the audience sawing logs!).  We finally finished, the leaders woke up and left, and the organizers tallied up the scores, congratulating the winner briefly.

After the competition ended, I learned my lesson for the day.  Because it was only at this point, as we were putting on our coats to leave, that the judge beside me (the one who had been whispering into my ear the whole time) informed me of something that I hadn’t even thought of up until then – that the other judges were getting paid – 300 yuan – for doing this!  I wisely kept my surprise in check and laughed with my husband later about being the sucker foreigner who just worked a whole morning for free!  Note to self:  Start asking about being paid for things, rather than just assuming one way or the other.

Update:  I never breathed a word about not getting paid to anyone, but my husband apparently mentioned it lightheartedly to one of his coworkers who helped organize the competition.  In less time than it probably took to have the conversation, 300 yuan was coughed up to pay me for my time and help!

Happy 2012!

Yes, I know that it is now more than two weeks into this new year so I’m late with those greetings, and I know that I have been seriously slacking on the blog front, but please don’t get all cranky with me.  I’ve been cranky enough for both of us lately.  Honestly, I haven’t had much time to do more than check my email recently, as my employers have scheduled extra classes and promotions to take advantage of the Christmas/New Year/Spring Festival trifecta of holiday wonderfulness that is happening right now.  And that hasn’t made me particularly happy, but you didn’t come here to hear about that, now did you?

So…back to the blog.

January 1^st was my one-year blog-iversary, so congratulations to me!  It also marks the first time in my life I’ve ever successfully kept a New Year’s resolution, so huzzah to that as well.

With it being early in the New Year, and celebrating my blog’s one-year mark, it seems fitting that I reflect a little bit on the past year.

From a personal standpoint, the biggest event of the year was our wedding in May, and my family’s visit to attend.  It was a crazy event to plan, and certainly had some strange moments, but I will always remember it and am so thankful to my mother, father and brother for traveling so far to be a part of our special day.

Thanks, family!

As for the blog, I started it on January 1^st of last year, with the idea that it would be a platform for me to share funny stories with family and friends and save me typing the same thing over and over!  Throughout the year, I was amazed to see the number of readers grow and to hear that people really enjoyed the site and looked forward to new stories each week.  I received, and survived, my first truly hateful comment, and started feeling like a part of the blogging community when I was invited to be a part of the 7 Links project and the Versatile Blogger project.

I was also lucky to be invited to do a few interviews (with youcanteachEnglish.com, Jetsettlers magazine, and China Travel Blog), to be included in a blog series that Nomadic Chick did called Summer Chick Tales, where I told the story of how my husband and I met, and to play a part in an article that Shanghai Novice posted about some of the quirks that newcomers to China can expect.

Quirks like...Koosh ball shoes!

I didn’t start this blog to become rich and famous (although if that were to happen, I wouldn’t decline!).  I’m still blown away that anyone outside of family members reads what I write, and felt even more so when I received a message the other day from the editor of My New Chinese Love telling me that this little blog has been nominated (not by me, if that’s what you’re thinking) for the first ever Lotus Blossom Award for being a ‘favourite Chinese Love blog’!  I’m honoured to be included with Speaking of China and Life Behind the Wall, since those are two blogs run by wonderful women whom I admire a lot.

Now the part where you help out; you see, you can vote for this award.  So if you have a spare minute, and enjoy this blog, you can VISIT THIS PAGE AND VOTE for me!

Thank you for all the comments, kind words, laughs and support over the past year.  I hope you continue to enjoy this site (and hey, tell two friends, and tell them to tell two friends, etc.)!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time Of the Year!

Ah, the Christmas season.  That time of year filled with good food, good friends, family, and traditions.  Reminiscing while decorating the tree.  Sipping hot chocolate or eggnog and listening to carols.  Home-cooked meals.  The snowy roofs of houses gleaming with lights.

Christmas at my parents' house

As an expat living in a country where Christmas is not really the “big” holiday, I miss a lot of those things.  I don’t get time off at Christmas, so I don’t get to travel home to be with my family (I actually have to work on Christmas day).  I don’t get to eat my mom’s fabulous cooking and baking.  I don’t get to dangle over the edge of the roof to help my dad put up the outdoor lights in a blizzard.  I don’t get to laugh and remember the stories behind all the old, hand-made tree decorations my brother and I made that my parents still have.  I don’t get to listen to my dad lecture us every year about how to properly align the tree stand so that if it falls over, it will fall into the wall and not out into the living room.  I don’t get to gag as my mom cooks the turkey giblets on Christmas Eve to feed to our farm cats, or laugh as my brother is asked, for something like the 15^thyear straight, to please get the basket down off the shelf for the buns during Christmas dinner.  Heck, I don’t even get to eat candy canes!

Mom-cooked turkey…drool!

But for all that I don’t get to do, I have been lucky to “get” to do some other lovely things instead, thanks to my husband.  Before he met and started dating me, my husband had never celebrated Christmas before, so his only knowledge of the holiday was the fractured and half-altered customs that Chinese people have picked up from movies and television.  He knew there were decorated trees involved, and songs, and winter, and an old man with a white beard, and presents, but that was almost the extent of what he knew of Christmas.  So on that first Christmas, I got to explain everything about the holiday to him, smile at his child-like excitement about it all, and start making new traditions.

Santa Claus, who goes by only his first name in China

In the weeks leading up to the holiday, he bombarded me with questions about what Christmas is like in a foreign country (What do you do?  How do you know when to put up the tree?  What do you eat?  Why is there sometimes a star but sometimes an angel on top of the tree?).  I got to reminisce about my childhood Christmases as I told him that every family celebrates a little differently and explained my family’s traditions to him (we would leave all the presents in a spare bedroom and then my brother and I would bring them into the living room and put them under the tree on Christmas Eve night, then we hung our stockings and put out milk and cookies and went to bed.  In the morning, we were allowed to look in our stockings at the gifts from Santa there, but had to wait until my parents woke up and we all ate breakfast before we could all sit down to exchange and open the gifts from each other that were under the tree and then we would wait all day, smelling the turkey cooking, before stuffing ourselves at dinner.)

Carrying the presents out to put under the tree on Christmas Eve

He listened intently to stories about bundling up and going for a walk out in an area near my family’s home to cut down our own tree and salivated when I described all the baking and cooking my mom would do.  He seemed baffled when I explained to him that foreigners don’t actually give apples for Christmas gifts (at least not to the extent that they do here – apples are 苹果or Píngguǒ and I’m told the first character/word also means safe or peaceful, so apples are given to wish someone a safe and peaceful upcoming year).  I searched the internet to find sites where we could watch my favourite Christmas classics – A Charlie Brown Christmas, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Elf, and the old, animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Christmas 2010 in China

We bought presents for each other and I found a few make-shift decorations (we have since gotten a little miniature tree and decorations for it, and a couple of stockings – thanks mom!).  I made Christmas dinner, with Chinese characteristics – chicken breasts (no oven for roasting at that time) fried in the wok, mashed potatoes, gravy from a mix sent from home, and some vegetables (a package of Stovetop Stuffing was added last year).  For another little taste of home, we even went ice-skating for an hour or two with a friend on Christmas Eve.

Our first Christmas dinner together - 2009

All this newness built up in him, and he enjoyed every minute of these new experiences.  By the time we went to bed on Christmas Eve, he was just like a little kid (he had a hard time falling asleep).  His excitement over everything Christmas definitely made it a little bit easier to be so far from home and family during this time of year.

But the moment I will always remember from his first Christmas, the one when I knew my work had paid off and that he had truly taken in and understood everything we’d talked about was when, in the middle of the night, we both awoke to a loud crash that caused us both to sit straight up in bed (I found out later it was one of the sliding doors of our TV cabinet falling out of its tracks and onto the floor).  My husband didn’t miss a beat.  He just looked at me in the dark, said, “Santa,” rolled over and fell back asleep!

Update:  My husband’s understanding of Christmas continues to grow, although just like any little kid, the magic is wearing off a bit as the years pass.  The other weekend, as we sat in a restaurant listening to Christmas carols play over the loudspeakers, we began talking about various songs.  I mentioned “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” and my ever-practical husband made sure to ask if Santa paid for the accident, since he was at fault.  When I replied that he didn’t, because he didn’t stop the sleigh, he matter-of-factly stated, “Oh.  So just like Chinese drivers then.”

Wherever you are and whatever you celebrate, Happy Holidays from my husband and I!