Shenyang's best and worst

Because I want to be cool like everyone else, I'm going to write my top 10 favorite and bottom 10 least favorite things about our post here in Shenyang. Many of them shouldn't come as a surprise, but then again, I am writing this before even writing the list, so perhaps I will even surprise myself.
Best things about Shenyang, China:
Um.....
Okay, Worst things about Shenyang, China:
10. It's very dirty. There's dust everywhere (thank you, Gobi Desert!). The rain just makes the dust stick to stuff.
9. It's very polluted. The sky is hardly ever clear (exception: a few days in the spring), and when it's cloudy, the haze is trapped even lower to the ground. If we go out for walks, the girls and I cough for a while afterwards. But we have air purifiers in our home, so that helps a lot.

It's worse in the winter, and this was the worst of the winter.

8. People hack loogies and spit them all over the streets, sidewalks, front steps of buildings, drainage holes, etc. Everywhere. I've taught Penny well, though. We passed our neighbor's apartment and heard him hacking a loogie. She turned to me, wrinkled her nose, and said, "That's GROSS!" Amen!
7. The food isn't anything special. The one specialty dish of the area is essentially sauerkraut and pork ribs. It's good about once or twice a year. Besides that, people just eat rather bland, oily stir-fried veggies and meat. The street food isn't at all exciting, though I do like some dan-dan mian (cold noodles with sesame sauce and cucumber).
6. Shenyang is not a tourist destination. Even though it was once the imperial capital, I think the Manchurians had the right idea to keep heading south. There is an old imperial tomb and an old imperial palace in town, but I haven't even been to the palace yet.
5. There are no trees. The trees that do exist have only been planted in the last year or two, and they're struggling for life. Once a tree establishes itself and flourishes, they chop it down. We finally bought a ton of houseplants to compensate for the lack of outdoor greenery.

A scenic view from our apartment

4. Constant construction. This leaves the sidewalks (what sidewalks?) in very poor walking conditions. Broken sidewalk tiles, muddy cement dried into ruts. Random holes open up, sometimes with signs, sometimes without. Maybe once the buildings are finished they'll repair the sidewalks, but that's sometime in the distant future. Until then, we weave in and out and around the construction mess.

I'm glad this giant pit was so well-marked!

3. The traffic. You have to jump across the street lane by lane dodging traffic. The other day someone turned right in front of us, coming VERY close to Penny. They slowed down to wait for more cars to go by, and I went and yelled in the window at the driver. I said, "Didn't you see this little child? You need to be more careful!" I sure told him!
I think the whole nation and future generations could have benefitted from playing "Frogger" while growing up.
2. The noise. We live above a shopping center. There's a lamb kebab place whose employees all wear headsets connected to some speakers cranked TO THE MAX. We're on the 20+ floor of our apartment building, and we can hear their constant babble. (I speak Chinese and respect that it's an awesome language. But these guys just mumble into their stupid headsets all day long. You can't understand them close up, and it's even more garbled-- but more annoying-- from our apartment windows.) And the McDonald's next door plays a short ditty over and over ad nauseum to advertise its ice cream (Think ice cream truck parked outside your house every day all day-- summer and winter.) And they're having a sale this weekend. I saw a stage being erected, and there will be constant music, performances, and announcers all weekend. And in China, if it's not cranked up TO THE MAX, it is not okay. Speakers are (apparently) made to be cranked up TO THE MAX.
1. Oh yeah, the winter. It's hard to remember it now that we're enjoying summer, but it's REALLY cold here all winter. REALLY cold.

Ha ha ha, there ARE some awesome things about living in China. I really enjoy it here, and I could easily list more than 10.

10. The summer. It's warm but not hot. It's humid but not sticky. (I'm from New Mexico, so everything is humid to me.) I really love the weather from about March/April to October/November.

Sometimes it's just so warm you have to roll your shirt up to your armpits.

9. I love that I'm too big to wear any of the clothes and shoes for sale here. (What? Just keep reading.) If I dig around and find an XL or ask for the largest size of shoes they carry, sometimes they might have my size. But usually not. (And I'm not HUGE. I'm 5'7" and usually wear a 10 or 12 in America. Not tiny, not huge. Except in China.) But this has helped my style immensely, keeping me from buying some truly atrocious fashions.

I may not fit the clothes, but I can still accessorize!!

8. I love that we're local celebrities. Everyone stops, points, and then exclaims something about how cute, beautiful, and amazing my children are. People pull out their phones and take pictures. If we stop for more than a few seconds, a crowd forms. If I go to the store with just one child, people I swear I've never seen before ask me how the other one is doing. People run along side us and call to their friends to come look. Now I know how it must feel to be Angelina Jolie.

Just jumping rope in the plaza.

7. My Chinese is improving in leaps and bounds. I have friends who all speak Chinese. Penny goes to a Chinese preschool. Kevin gets to practice his Chinese at work. And I also started studying with a tutor this month. I'll never be "finished" learning Chinese, but it's so fun to be able to use it in so many situations.
6. Everything's really cheap. Fruits and vegetables cost close to nothing. (Considering how much the Chinese farmer makes, this is easy to believe.) I can have clothes made for a very low price. We go eat street food all the time-- even though it's not great. We can afford to have a housekeeper.
5. We have a housekeeper. This deserves a number of its own. She helps keep my house clean, and she also loves to play with Naomi. She's teaching me that it's okay not to feel like I have to do everything myself, that it's okay to rely on other people. For me that's a big lesson. And I'm also becoming lazier than I ever thought possible.
4. There are some fun things to do around town.

Playing with the old people at the park

Collecting pine cones with friends at the Ancient Tombs Park (Beiling)

 

3. Public transportation is really convenient. Taxis are everywhere, and they're very inexpensive (rarely over $2 or $3 within the city). There's also a subway and bus system. Most people don't have cars but still have to get around the city, and the infrastructure is built to support that.
2. We live in an amazing apartment. They serve us breakfast every morning and change the sheets on our beds when we need them to. (Ahem, laziest person in the world right here.) The area might be noisy, but it's very convenient. There are 4 grocery stores within a short walk and 7 McDonald's restaurants. There are even more KFC's, though I haven't counted because we don't go there often. If I need to go shopping, I can run downstairs to H&M.

We eat here more in China than we ever do in the States!

1. The city is just very Chinese. It's not showy or pretty, and it doesn't have a ton of tourist attractions. But it's growing. It's building up. It's becoming more and more international. People are getting more education. The communist-era apartment blocks are being torn down and replaced with high-rise shopping malls and apartment buildings. The generation wearing Mao suits and riding their bikes is aging, while the younger hipsters wearing their sparkly shirts, black tights, and high-heels are taking center stage. China's 5000 years of history and culture have been pretty scrambled in the last 50 years or so, and it's amazing to be here as she's starting to redefine herself.