It’s Not the Mountain Ahead that Wears Me Out...

Where did all these people come from?

And why do they all seem to be at the New Town Plaza at 8:30 on a Wednesday night? If I didn’t know better, I’d say there are more people living in China than in any other country on earth.

Of course everything is brand new and different to us and therefore takes twice the effort. But there is also a set of urban survival skills that we haven’t mastered yet. Everyone keeps telling us that it takes about a month to get comfortable. Nothing is routine yet. Almost everything we do these days is still for the first time and therefore requires our undivided attention. It’s exhausting.

We have made multiple hunting/gathering excursions together, but because she doesn’t work until 1:00 every afternoon, Julie has become our Chief Acquisition Officer. Saturday, after we had been on a six-hour foray to IKEA with the girls, Julie stayed on the train to go in search of pillow cases. By Julie’s own admission, it’s the weaving and dodging that does her in. Everywhere she goes, there seems to be throngs of people which means that she has to dodge the crowds. Step to the left. Step to the right. Halt. Squeeze in. Press forward.

Obviously we don’t have a car, so everything is on foot, by train, or bus –with the occasional taxi ride thrown in. In theory, it’s a great (and environmentally friendly) way to live, but it just takes some getting used to. Instead of going to the supermarket every seven to ten days with the Grocery Getter (i.e. the minivan) and loading up, Julie will be taking the train to the store every three or four days.

Wednesday -after their first day of school- the girls had their lists of needed class materials. So after a full day of work and school, the four of us set out to find a box of HB pencils, a twelve pack of markers, A4 lined paper, an English-Mandarin dictionary (not a standard one, but one using simplified Chinese), two spiral notebooks with rigid plastic covers, lined 3x5 cards with a single hole punched in them, two boxes of tissue, and five two-inch metal rings that open and close.

A colleague was kind enough to take us to an office supply store that she knew of. But –and here is the recurring theme- it was small and crowded. We spent over 90 minutes in a twenty-by-twenty foot space with about two dozen other back-to-school shoppers combing through the jammed-pack shelves.

Some days, life in Hong Kong seems like one big scavenger hunt on a sprawling, oversized obstacle course.

It’s not the mountain ahead that wears me out; it’s the pebble in my sandal.

As a family, one of our favorite books is titled “Do Hard Things.” It won’t always be this way. Things will get easier. But right now, everything just seems hard.

-Jack & Julie