Fast forward to October 2011 and the only thing that differed from that show and my life was that I didn't have to kill the animal myself and we had a washing machine. Okay, that might be an exaggeration but that's what it felt like. We hand wash all of our dishes, our laundry machine is 1/2 the size of our one at home and takes three times as long to do a cycle, and acquiring food for a meal requires me to stop at the fruit and vegetable market, the German butcher, and generally the imported food store. So maybe instead of the frontier days it's more like 1950.
There are no such convenience things like frozen pizza or minced garlic in a jar and cleaning supplies that I am used to using like Swiffers, bleach, and 409 are not things used by our Chinese counterparts. And as someone who survived on deli sandwiches, canned veggies, and already-cooked rotisserie chickens from Hy-Vee, I am more than way out of my league in this new world.
Yes, there are two imported food stores where for a mere $12 you can buy a box of Cheerios and other such highly priced American essentials, but it is not economically feasible to live off that food alone and even if it were, it doesn't solve the meat crisis. I didn't know what parts of the animal I was buying, if I even knew what animal it was, and seafood doesn't come in a nice filet, you buy the whole animal, and it's usually alive when you pick it out. It's a culinary person's wonderland, where fresh veggies cost next to nothing and all the meat is fresh, but I was lost.
Add on to this that every night when I wiped down the kitchen countertops the rag was dark from the smog dust that had settled onto it that day...which meant everything else was covered in it too. Ugh.
But before you fear for our livelyhood...
Enter the maid. I held off for exactly two weeks before calling in for backup from a person affectionally referenced as "ayi" by the Chinese. This wonderful person is hired by almost all expat families to assist with, well...life. In the three and a half hours ours works each day she mops the floors, dusts, irons, cooks dinner, and serves as a babysitter when needed. Her salary of $200 a month (crazy huh!) more than pays for itself in what she saves us on food costs. Oh, and her food is amazing.
As with everything in life, having an ayi has come with its own set of unique challenges. Besides the obvious language difference, she initially used the same rag to clean everything in our apartment, and bathrooms were always what she cleaned first! And then there's this odd aversion to using cleaning liquids (I've heard this is a common issue among ayis). For example she cleans the toilet but won't use toilet bowl cleaner, she mopped the floor but wouldn't use floor cleaner (she finally compromised and now uses laundry detergent...hmm), and I still catch her only using water to wash the dishes at times. But it's all worth it...after all, a frontier wife has to do whatever is necessary to survive... right? :-)
And I may just be sneaking in time to go to the gym and grab afternoon cocktails with the ladies now too. This stay at home mom gig just started looking pretty good!
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| A light pink rag at the end of a nightly kitchen counter wipe down. |
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| Dong Mei and Maeve cleaning the floors together. The two-foot tall machine you see sitting against the wall on the left is one of four air purifiers we purchased to try and help filter out the smog dust in our apartment. |
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| Me at the vegetable vendor I go to at the market. Fruit and meat are in a different area. Notice the ginormous carrots and footlong green beans? And they wonder why people think pesticide use is out of control in China... |
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| This picture is blurry but it does a good job showing how the vendors are lined up. Each little stand area is a different vendor, each selling the same thing, one after another. |
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| More views of the vendors. |
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| The meat section at the market. I don't buy my meat here, for what I would like to believe are obvious reasons. |
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| A meat vendor. Does anyone see that meat sitting on ice? Neither do I... |
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| A poultry stand. |
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| How the fish come. Looks like too much work for me. And P.S. if I'm not supposed to even brush my teeth with the water why is it okay to eat fish that have been living in that same water? |
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| There are two imported food stores that cater to all foreigners so the food variety covers a few necessities for each culture from Europeans to the Dutch, Koreans, Latin Americans, as well as Americans. All in three tiny rows. You can see 1/3 of the store in this picture. |
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| You have now seen 2/3rds of the store... To give you an idea of what things cost... Bag of Doritos $10 Bottle of vinaigrette dressing $10 Small jar of mayo $8 Jug of bleach $7 Normal sized tub of Huggies baby wipes $11 Box of 10 individual packets of oatmeal $13 Regular sized can of corn, peas, or green beans $6 Jar of spaghetti sauce $7 |
