Stage 2: Crazy Hard and Settling In

Life for the last few months has been a roller coaster of highs and lows, it’s been a lot of stretching and adjusting, learning and changing things, and fighting to find a new normal. Back in August, there was a lesson in our church congregation here in Beijing about culture shock.  I know it is a real thing, because that has been the story of our first few months.  I knew that sermon was just for me.  Culture shock hits all of us.  You think you’re doing fine one day, and then the next day your head hurts because you don’t know how to do the simplest tasks anymore.  Every mode is different, and you don’t know which way is up anymore.  It’s easy to feel angry, frustrated, and depressed.  

The teacher that day talked about how with culture shock you progress and regress between 4 stages.  This was all fascinating to me because it was so spot on.  Stage 1 is the vacation stage where things are interesting and fun. You soak in the new experiences and find novelty and enjoyment in all the things you come across in this new place.  Stage 2 is when the honeymoon ends and the reality of hard life hits you in the face.  That’s the stage when your bank turns your debit card off so you can’t get cash out of the ATM, or when you’ve had it with being mobbed by every Chinese tourist who wants to take a picture with your redheads.  It’s when you do something new that you don’t know how to do here, and being utterly frustrated that there isn’t an easy solution. This is where the anger and frustration can hit- or in my case the immobilizing confusion of not knowing what to do at all.  Stage 3  is feeling like you can survive and learning enough that you figure out how to do the basics of life.  Everything doesn’t feel so difficult.  You feel like you are finding solutions and you feel like you are going to make it.  A lot of August felt like stage 2.  I was overwhelmed by all of the things I couldn’t find, we didn’t have a routine for so long that starting school was awesome, but also felt chaotic.  We would battle out conversations in Chinese, but it would take so much effort, that the best solution felt like giving up.  I felt like everything was mixing together in my head, and I just couldn’t get it all sorted.

I can take you back to days we lived in a little apartment downtown in Wangfujing, right next to Tiananmen Square.  Every sign around us is a blur of Chinese characters that I can’t decipher at all.  I think I can pick out less than 10.  Old men spit in the street almost missing my shoe, and everyone turns and gawks at me because I am obviously a foreigner and stick out.  I keep asking people at the hotel, random taxi drivers, anyone who will listen in my caveman Chinese where a grocery store is located. It seems that there is not a decent one anywhere near us.  Do people eat tortillas here?  Am I ever going to find some remotely western products here so my kids don’t starve?  Maybe this sounds dramatic, but I couldn’t find anything at first!

One Saturday Hallie and I walked for miles around the mall by our house, we walked alleyways, and turned corners hoping for anything promising.  My gps was searching for grocery stores, but every time I followed it, the map wasn’t accurate.  Finally, we saw a lady walking with groceries and saw that we were close to something.  We found a small supermarket with fruit, rice, oil, frozen dumplings, some oatmeal and milk.  The next day was Sunday and we didn’t want to eat out if we could help it- and that little store was a miracle.  A week or two later, I found a much better store about 20 minutes away in a cab but this whole process gave me perspective.  It made me feel grateful.  It made me realize that a new situation always feel impossible at first, but there is always a better solution that is coming; you just haven’t found it yet. Now I have found a large grocery store that has just about everything I need, and a large bulk shop that is the closest thing to Costco I have found here.  Now, I can look back and laugh at how hard grocery shopping felt at first.

I know you’ve been waiting for it….  Stage 4: Victorious enjoyment: really loving the experience and feeling confidence in your ability to adapt and thrive living in this once foreign space. It is the truly settled in feeling that makes an originally hard place to live really feel like home.  We will get there, and I am trying to patient in the process.   

Moving to a foreign place is a hyperbole in exciting and terrifying, lovely and repulsive, survivable and one second impossible.  I am getting more comfortable with that pendulum swing back and forth.  Many people I meet here talk about this romantic lovely notion of all Beijing has to offer, but there is also an honest acknowledgement of a China grind where you are frustrated by the somewhat hostile environment.  When I remember to count the good, it really can see this place with the mystique and excitement I first had.  

I feel like most days I am in stage 3 now. I have found stores, routines, and good people to ask questions.  Many times, I feel like pinching myself because in a lot of ways this is the life I have always imagined for myself.  I get to live in a big city where there is no shortage of new restaurants, cultural events, and museums to explore.  I get to interact with families who come from so many different nations and backgrounds.  I get to develop new talents and solve new problems.  I get to be a welcoming landing pad for anyone who comes to Beijing.  I get to build, learn, and grow.

I wouldn’t change this experience for the world.  It is teaching all of us new things and helping us expand our worldview in ways we never would.   This is where we are supposed to be.  

A few weeks ago, we visited the Temple of Heaven with some family friends.  It was a beautiful day and we wove through the east gate and enjoyed beautiful trees, an impromptu choir of old people singing, and lots of sunshine.  The kids scootered around and wove circles around me as we made our way to the circular tower with spiraling carvings of clouds and vibrant colors dancing together to point upward to the sky.  It was a breathtaking day to be there and is probably my favorite place in Beijing so far.  I loved to experience it with new friends, with locals who could tell me things they loved and knew about this city.  

Shock or not, I still feel like Beijing has some magic for me.