There is no place like home….

DISCLAIMER: I am good I am really really good but sometimes I just miss home!

This last week was a great week. I am settling into routines, expanding my radius, discovering and uncovering things. I am more confident and comfortable with the uncomfortable. I spent time at the Canadian Embassy, an NHL game and rocked yoga in the park. All things that made my heart happy but sometimes I get frustrated and struggle when I do not know how to solve problems efficiently.

This week has brought a few frustrations without easy fixes!

Shoes: Most of you probably know that I am a fairly tall person and I have big feet. Buying shoes is something I like because let’s face it when nothing else fits or looks right a good pair of shoes will always make me happy! I knew that finding shoes in China for the big footed women of the world was going to be a challenge. My big footed friends warned me about it so I did what any wise person would do I packed lots of shoes for my new adventure. Well….I thought I did! Ughhhh…..never enough shoes! Changing from summer into fall I find that I never have the right pair of shoes and I am very very tired of wearing the ones I brought. I also have a serious case of shoe envy because my VP Bri who is a gorgeous fashionista with beautiful little ballerina feet ALWAYS has nice shoes! Gorgeous shoes in fact to go with her gorgeous clothes! So I set out on a quest at the large mall behind the school to look for a pair of shoes. How hard could it be, there must be at least a dozen places to find shoes, some are even Western stores like H & M, Gap, Zara and Clarks? Well the answer is IMPOSSIBLE. I returned defeated and concerned I would soon be wearing boxes or sandals until Harrison arrives in November with my new shoes. To temporarily solve the problem I have attempted to navigate the online world of Taobao to see if I can find anything that will work. Stay tuned I will let you know if and when they arrive, the shoes I mean not the boxes!

Bank cards: Last Saturday I was standing in the lobby of our school running to see my AMAZING Chinese doctor who is working miracles at fixing all things wrong with me inside and out and I stopped to get cash out of the bank machine to pay him. I inserted my card, immediately it said Out of Order and ate my bank card. F#$%! F#$%! I wanted to scream in the lobby of the school! Normally this would not be an issue because I would just call or go to the bank and explain my situation but this was not the case because:

1. getting a bank account set up in China is very challenging and everything is tied to your passport
2. I do not speak Chinese so communicating with anyone at the bank in the emergency situation I found myself in was impossible
3. I had no cash and no way to get it. I knew I could use my WeChat pay but where would I get cash! My Chinese doctor only takes cash!

I called the number on the machine and the operator told me I would have to travel to the headquarters to get the card. AWESOME except Beijing is HUGE and I know about 1 centimetre of it, speak no Chinese, have never taken a cab, subway or bus on my own so what was I going to do? CRY! Yep there I was on the brink of tears in the lobby of the school I was supposed to be leading with no bank card. Then came Sunny…..she is one of our AMAZING Chinese staff who talked me off the ledge, helped me navigate the bank and found the answer to my dilemma. The bank cards get retrieved out of our school machine and given to finance. All we had to do is call and all I had to do was survive without cash for 3 days. No problem I had WeChat pay!

Hospitals: This is not my experience but one I shared with a friend. Sunday morning started with yoga in the park, followed by brunch with my friend Kate. We parted ways, I went on a few errands and Kate was off to get a piece of glass out of her foot. Something simple you would think….NOPE! She WeChated me about 1 hour later to ask if I would pop down to the clinic to accompany her to the hospital to have her foot cut open and glass extracted. I gathered my things and headed down. 5 hours, 2 hospitals, 1 ultrasound, 1 X-ray, 2 doses of freezing and a lot of pain later they found the sliver of glass in her foot. They could however not figure out how to extract it so after many exchanges in Chinese, many questions and many blank stares they sent us on our way and told us Kate would have to come back on Thursday to see the “specialist” to have it extracted! SO FRUSTRATING! Something so simple that could be fixed in an instant took 5 hours, 2 hospitals, 1 ultrasound, 1 X-ray, 2 doses of freezing and a lot of pain and STILL is not fixed. For the time being she is letting it go as we are flying to Thailand on Friday for a week and goodness knows what state she would be in for our vacation if they were to take it out on Thursday!

Some things are AMAZING in China: vegetables delivered to your door, buying anything you can imagine online, WeChat, WeChat pay, food delivery, restaurants, my CISB family, my job, the students and families but some days when you can’t find shoes, your bank card is eaten and you spend 5 hours and hundreds of blank stares trying to figure something out, it is frustrating and you miss the convenience and familiarity of home! This feeling soon passes, you learn a bit more of what you are made of and you have another story to tell about your Beijing Adventure!

Ahhhhh China! I am learning to love your unpredictability!

2 thoughts on “There is no place like home….

  1. Annmarie,
    Thank you for your enlightening and honest personal experiences. This posting alone is worthy of an ASCD publication. Educational leaders worldwide dream of visiting other countries. You bring a humorous, genuine perspective of a brave, strong and capable school leader.
    As for me, glad to hear your reactions and perseverance are similar to what I might do, thus either common to our leadership profession or to those of a strong woman. Thank you for sharing.
    Marge

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