Authentically Disney, Uniquely Chinese, and Wonderfully Magical!

As a 90s baby who grew up during the Disney Renaissance and can quote just about any of their movies without hesitation, an exciting part of moving to Shanghai was the promise of being able to visit Shanghai Disneyland. Until now, I’d only ever been to Disney World in Orlando and so I was very excited to hit my second park. We were encouraged not to leave Shanghai over our winter breaks due to COVID restrictions, so I happily took that opportunity to buy some Mickey ears and explore my new local Disney park. (And yes, you will see both Christmas and Chinese New Year decorations throughout these pictures because I will never be a good influencer and it took me five months to write this blog, OKAY?! I am two years and five countries behind in editing my travel videos… I’m working on it… )

In front of the Enchanted Storybook Castle

Of the six Disneyland parks around the world, Shanghai Disneyland is the newest – it first opened its gates to the public just 5 years ago, in the summer of 2016! (For those wondering, the other parks are located in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.) In addition to being the newest park, Shanghai also boasts the tallest castle. At 197 feet (60 meters) tall, the Enchanted Storybook Castle towers above the park! For comparison, the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Anaheim only reaches 77 feet. Shanghai’s castle is also the first not to be dedicated to just one character – this castle features multiple princesses, and showcases them equally!

Not only does it have the tallest tower; Shanghai Disneyland is also the second largest park, second only to Disney World in Orlando! When it was being built, Disney’s chief executive at the time, Bob Iger, said the park would be “authentically Disney but distinctly Chinese,” and it’s cool to see how they worked to accomplish that. It is estimated that 330 million people live within a 3 hour drive or train ride from the park, and the fact that it is so easy to reach via Shanghai’s metro system makes it extremely accessible. For this reason, it is great to see the effort that was made to include Chinese culture and traditions in the layout and design of the park.

There are seven different areas, or “lands,” within Shanghai Disneyland. In an attempt to keep this organized, I’ll go through each of these and share some highlights from my visits! Disclaimer: I am not a hardcore Disney blogger. I will not go into painstaking detail about every single ride and attraction. I have not taste tested every food in the park. If that’s the blog you are looking for, I am positive that exists (elsewhere) on the internet.

MICKEY AVENUE
Though you won’t find Main Street USA here in China, this is the Shanghai equivalent. A fun little street just inside the park entrance lined with shops (some real and some just for show) selling pins, clothes, toys, and, of course, Mickey ears. (I will admit: I never had the desire to buy Mickey ears until I moved here. But I have to say, they are pretty cute…) Additionally, this is where you’ll find your first spots to take pictures with the characters! I didn’t spend too much time here, but I did wander through all of the shops to look at the various merchandise. It’s fun to see which products remain generically Disney-themed, and which really get a Chinese makeover!

GARDENS OF IMAGINATION
Located in the center of the park, the Gardens of Imagination are inspired by traditional Chinese gardens. Though there are a few rides in the area (namely, the Carousel and the Dumbo ride), it mostly serves as a beautiful centerpiece to the park where you can relax and take a break from the chaos. My favorite part was easily the Garden of the Twelve Friends. This garden features amazingly intricate mosaics featuring twelve Disney characters inspired by the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac! I, of course, had to get a picture with my zodiac animal: Abu, the monkey! According to the Chinese zodiac, monkeys are witty, curious, mischievous, and clever. They have outgoing personalities, big dreams, and are sometimes a bit naughty. (Who me? Never.)

ADVENTURE ISLE
Ah yes, the area of the park where I start running around like the Wilderness Explorer I am… Though there isn’t a big roller coaster in this part of the park, there’s plenty to fill you with the spirit of adventure! This land features the Roarin’ Rapids and Soarin’ Over the Horizon, a ride similar to the attraction of the same name in the other parks. To those for whom the ride has no sentimental value, Soarin’ may not seem like the most exciting (you’re sitting in a swing “flying” through different landscapes on a giant screen in front of you) but here in Shanghai it can often be one of the rides with the longest wait time – we’re talking multiple hour waits! I always head to get this one out of the way first – a 45 minute wait, I can handle. A three hour wait, I cannot. But, impatience aside, I would be lying if I said I didn’t tear up a bit when, on my first time riding it, we “flew” over Shanghai at the end. After having moved across the world to be here, it made me a bit emotional to reach the finale – flying over the Oriental Pearl Tower and through the skyscrapers of my new city.

Perhaps my favorite part of Adventure Isle, however, is Camp Discovery. This ropes course may seem like it’s just a fun playground-type attraction for families, but it is actually more intense than it looks! With “choose your own adventure” style challenges, you can customize the course to your own preferences – are you going to walk across the gorge along the log, the moving rocks, or the rope ladder? Are you going to take the route behind the waterfall, through the cave, or along the edge of the cliff? Either way, I was living out ALL of my Lara Croft fantasies.

TREASURE COVE
Alright, time for a Too Much Information Fun Fact About Madison: the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie (Curse of the Black Pearl, for anyone who lives under a rock and somehow hasn’t seen it) came out when I was in 5th grade. Why do I remember this? Because, after sweet sweet puberty smacked me with my first period during my 5th grade holiday band concert, my mom gave me a “welcome to being a teenager” care package full of chocolate, cozy socks, and the golden treasure itself: the Pirates of the Caribbean DVD. (Sorry, little bros – that DVD is MINE! Even if you didn’t understand why at the time!!) I loved that movie. I used to recreate Elizabeth’s first scene alone in my room over and over again. You know the one – she wakes up, dramatically looks in the mirror and puts on her cursed necklace, hears a knock at the door, and rushes to put on her robe while hiding the necklace? My red fleece penguin bathrobe worked as a great substitute for her dressing gown. I also have that movie to thank for the reason I play piano; though I had been taking piano lessons from my mom for a few years, I dramatically quit in 4th grade because I didn’t like being told what to practice. (I know, shocker. Me, stubborn?!) Enter: Klaus Badelt’s rockstar score and the piano selections from our local Music & Arts, and the rest is history. ANYWAYS, suffice it to say that when I found out there was an entire section of Shanghai Disneyland inspired by the Pirates movies, I was a bit excited.

Though there are some fun smaller things here and there, the highlight of Treasure Cove (and, honestly, one of the highlights of the entire park) is Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure. This ride is SO COOL. When revamping attractions while designing this park, Disney knew they couldn’t just do a copy-paste of the original Pirates ride. Without the nostalgia many people feel towards the classic ride (which first opened at Disneyland in 1967, and was the last attraction that Walt himself helped design), guests here would find it to be a bit outdated and, well, kind of boring. So they based this new ride off of the movie series and OH BOY IT IS AMAZING. I don’t have pictures because I was too busy giggling madly with my mouth agape, but y’all: just trust me. I am sometimes skeptical of attractions that use screens and projections and the like – the Crotchety Old Grandpa living deep within my soul doesn’t want “any of this damn new age technology getting in the way of good old-fashioned fun,” he says, shaking his fist at the heavens. The Battle for the Sunken Treasure shut Grandpa up real quick. Riding a boat in between two pirate ships as they blast each other with cannons will do that to you, I suppose.

  • Halloween, 12 years old. And yes, I cut hair off the wig and attached it to my chin using a glue stick.

Fantasyland
As could be expected, this is the part of the park that remains closest to its original counterpart. With tributes to the Disney princesses and animated classics, here is where you’ll find rides like Peter Pan’s Flight, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Voyage to the Crystal Grotto, and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – one of only two roller coasters in the park. Something that I found quite fun was the Once Upon a Time Adventure walkthrough of the Enchanted Storybook Castle. After walking up a beautiful winding staircase (featuring little sculptures of each of the princesses in the order that their movies were released), the attraction follows the story of Snow White as the guests step through the Magic Mirror and explore the world of the movie. The little kids in my group were amazed and delighted by it!

Toy Story Land
After leaving Fantasyland, you’ll find yourself in Toy Story Land! What I most enjoyed about this land was the atmosphere; I felt like I was in an old state fair rather than a big amusement park. Between Rex’s Racers, Slinky Dog Spin, and Woody’s Round-Up, the rides in this section all make me feel like I should be walking around with a corndog, a funnel cake, and a gigantic stuffed animal made out of that weird thin shiny material (you know the kind I’m talking about, don’t lie). There’s also a gigantic Al’s Toy Barn gift shop which, admittedly, hit me with a giant wave of nostalgia. “I despise that chicken…”

Tomorrowland
Though Tomorrowland has never been my favorite area in the park, Shanghai’s Tomorrowland contains one big reason why I will always come back: TRON!! (Okay, sure, yes, there are other rides here, there’s some stuff for Stitch and Buzz Lightyear and the Avengers, but let’s be honest: Tron is the reason we are all here.) Have I ever seen the movie? Not even a little bit. Does that matter? NOPE! Tron Lightcycle Power Run is one of the best roller coasters I’ve ever ridden, hands down. Rather than being seated or strapped into a typical roller coaster car, each rider climbs in to their own motorcycle shaped “lightcycle” before being launched into a ride that goes nearly 60 miles per hour – the fastest of any of the Disney roller coasters! Racing through the dark with all sorts of lights and projections appearing around you, it’s the kind of ride where your eyes start involuntarily crying just because of how fast you are going. (That happens to other people too, right? That’s not just me?) If you ride only one ride at Shanghai Disneyland, let it be this one. Yes, it will be a LOOOONG line for a ride that only lasts a few minutes. It is worth it.

  • Disney days = random awkward candids.

So there you have it! The magic of Disney, alive and well and in its most innovative form right here in Shanghai. Door to door, it takes me about an hour by metro to get to Disney, so I have a feeling I’ll be back a few more times over the next couple of years… And hopefully, one of those times, some of my friends and family from back home will be able to join me! Until then, I’ll have to just keep taking pictures and sharing my stories here. I will try to be better about actually updating this as I go. Goal: get caught up here with posts from the past few months before leaving for my 6 weeks of summer traveling… Wish me luck!

I live HOW close to Disneyland??!

No Place Like Home (Away From Home) for the Holidays

Growing up in a military family, we moved around a lot – every few years we found ourselves in a new home, in a new state, surrounded by new people. As such, we became very dedicated to our holiday traditions. Because there was no consistency in where we spent the holidays, what we did during the holidays became the special part. And so, the traditions grew and grew – to the point where I know exactly what we will be doing at any given point during the three days surrounding Christmas. When I left home, I was still able to return each year for Christmas, but took to creating some of my own holiday traditions in the month of December – I needed to find ways of keeping the Christmas cheer alive before I was able to get home to our regular traditions. It got…excessive, some may say, but it is my favorite time of year! I start making ornaments and decorations in October (it takes a long time to cut out as many snowflakes as I am looking for). I make a Christmas movie schedule and watch a movie each day in December leading up to the 25th. I host a big holiday party, and a stage a Christmas-movie-themed card that I still send out via snail mail. I walk through Christmas markets, and take myself on a date to see The Nutcracker. I get people together to sing Christmas carols. I start making my lists of what gifts I want to give months before December comes, and I carefully coordinate my wrapping theme each year. I go see light shows, and go ice skating, and find a production of A Christmas Carol to attend. And none of the above even begins to scratch the family traditions.

Suffice it to say, my first holiday season away from home was going to be different. I’ve never missed a family Christmas. (One year I flew back from Bulgaria on Christmas Eve, and one year I flew out for London the afternoon of Christmas Day. Slight deviations, but not nearly as dramatic as living in China.) So this year was all about finding ways to maintain old traditions while creating new traditions as well!

Thanksgiving, for me, is about two things: seeing Santa at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and mashed potatoes. It’s really as simple as that. My favorite part of the holiday is waking up, putting on the parade, seeing all of the floats, watching the Broadway performances, and trying not to cry when Santa shows up at the end. (I…am never successful. I have cried every year for as long as I can remember.) I spent a whole lunch hour at school trying to explain the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to my non-American colleagues; they were riddled with (very valid and sometimes unanswerable) questions: “Are there big parades that everyone watches for every holiday in the States?” No, this is the biggest. “Why is there a parade for Thanksgiving?” I…don’t know. “What happens for Christmas?” We all sort of hermit in our own homes and do our own thing. “Why would Santa come during a Thanksgiving day parade? Shouldn’t he come during a Christmas parade??” IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE NOW I CAN OFFICIALLY START BEING EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS AND NO ONE CAN PROTEST ANYMORE, DAMNIT!

Being half a day ahead in time from the States meant that while the Parade would air at 9:00 am back home, the parade started for me at 10:00 pm. However, with a VPN that makes my computer think I live in California, the parade for ME began at about 1:00 am. Perhaps a normal person would think to themselves, “Ah, much too late to begin a parade when you have to wake up for work at 5:00 am the next day. Just watch it tomorrow!” However, my brain does not work like that. Did I wake myself up on and off all night to check in with two different livestreams of the parade? Yes, yes I did. Was it worth it? Absolutely. (And yes. I did cry when Santa appeared.) Over the following weekend, a few other teachers and I got together for a Thanksgiving potluck. We each brought something to contribute and forged ourselves a little holiday family. It’s a really lovely perk about being an expat – right away, you adopt each other as your substitute family. We talked, and laughed, and enjoyed each other’s company – and don’t worry, there were plenty of mashed potatoes.

As you may have guessed, I am someone who likes to go all out with decorations for Christmas. (I have some decorations back in the States that I spent 40+ hours making, and no, that is not an exaggeration.) Though I’d been cutting snowflakes and making paper chains, after Thanksgiving it was time to put up the most important part of holiday decorating: the Christmas tree. My friend and I set out to the Hongqiao Flower Market with the goal of finding trees for each of our apartments. At first, I was set on getting a real tree. I have always had real trees, and much prefer them to fake ones. However, as I was walking through the market, I saw the largest (fake) tree I’d ever seen. At least 3 meters (about 10 feet) tall, regal, and HUGE. As I may never again live in another house where I would have the room for a tree this large, I couldn’t resist. The ceiling in my living room was begging for a massive tree, and who am I to say no?!

When I brought the shopkeeper over to point at the tree I wanted, he looked at me skeptically. He waved his hand, and pointed instead at a more manageably sized tree next to it. “No, no,” I assured him. “That one,” I said, pointing at the Ent that stood before me. He again shook his head, pointing at the other trees around him, thinking I could not be serious. After a few more back and forths, in which I tried (through gesturing) to assure him I had the space for it, he shrugged and went to pack it up for me. At this point, most people would have asked to have the tree delivered – its box stood almost as tall as me, and I couldn’t even wrap my arms around it. But I’ve always been more of a “do-it-yourself” sort of girl, so into a taxi my tree and I went.

When the taxi dropped me off in front of my house and I managed to get the box out of the car and onto the pavement, I had a moment of “Huh. I didn’t think this part through.” I live on the 3rd floor. I live alone. I could not carry the box, could not even lift it off of the ground. Huh. Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, must go through it, eh? I reached under two of the corners and used all of my strength to lift one end of the box up, then gently bring it down on the opposite end. Score! (I was already sweating.) Only an entire entry way, a rounded staircase, and the crazy steep stairs to get into my apartment to go!

When I’d up-and-downed my tree into the building and started attempting to make my way up the first staircase (much trickier – no flat surface to flip it over onto, so all of the weight just kept trying to come back down on me…) a few of my neighbors came out to see what kind of trouble that new weird white girl was getting into now. I should mention: I don’t think any of my neighbors are under the age of 85. Age doesn’t seem to slow people down over here – every day, I see elderly people riding their bikes, performing amazing acts of contortion to get their laundry hung out of their windows, and climbing the staircases in my building like champions. When they saw me struggling to lift the tree up the first few stairs, one of my neighbors immediately came over to help me. She is the neighbor I see most often, always wearing her pink bathrobe as she shuffles around the apartment building – I say hi to her almost every morning as I head off to work, while the rest of the house is still sleeping. Pink Lady came up and tried to squat down and help me lift. Though her support was more of the moral rather than muscular kind, she stayed with me, arms up to catch me if I or the box fell, until I managed to finally get the tree up into my front door. Workout done for the day, I then began the process of assembling and decorating.

Having only ever had real trees in the past, the puzzle of trying to figure out how to attach the branches and where to put them and how to fluff them all out took quite some time. I couldn’t even pretend to reach the top of the tree if I tried, so when I got to the upper half I had to drag in a chair from my dining room and shift it around the tree as I went. Hours passed (6, to be exact), but then I’d finally assembled, lit, and decorated my giant tree. I put on one of my family’s traditional Christmas albums – Weihnachten mit Heintje – and sat down to appreciate my day’s work.

  • Facetiming with Mom while putting up the lights – she didn’t want to hang up because she “wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to fall off the chair and die.” I was fine.

Though Christmas is not really a Chinese holiday, Shanghai is not without Christmas spirit. Because there are so many expats (and businesses trying to draw expats in), you can certainly find your fair share of festive decorations, lights, and trees put up outside of businesses. One thing I am very happy I was able to find here were the German-ish Christmas markets! Though I still wasn’t able to find a pickle ornament (if you know, you know), I WAS able to satisfy my desire for a brat and some glühwein. Plus, this was a great way to discover even more local artists and small businesses! I’ve slowly been gathering more and more local treasures, and it makes me so happy to see my house slowly starting to fill with color and character.

This year, I decided to try out a new Christmas tradition I’ve been wanting to do: a live reading of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Though it’s a story I know backwards and forwards, and there are at least 3 movie adaptations I watch every year, I had never actually read the book before this year. However, I knew that Dickens himself used to do public readings of it, so I decided it would be fun to give it a go. I lit candles throughout my living room, invited friends over, and we took turns reading aloud, chapter by chapter. Though it took about 3 hours to read, I found I was captivated the entire time. There’s something special about unplugging from your phone and taking the time to immerse yourself in a story. (It certainly helps that this is a very good story!) For the record – I only teared up once or twice, so, really, I’m making great progress!

After the reading, I set up my makeshift bed under the Christmas tree. For as long as I can remember, on the night of December 23rd (or “Christmas Adam,” as we call it in my family) my brothers and I have set up sleeping bags and slept beneath the tree. I am told this originated because we’d originally wanted to sleep under the tree on Christmas Eve but couldn’t (our parents didn’t want us to be there when Santa arrived), so we settled on sleeping there the night before instead. It’s a silly tradition, and even when I am back home I am the only sibling that still sleeps under the tree for the full night (my brothers have taken to maybe sleeping on the couch, and then going in to bed), but I wasn’t about to let this be the first year I don’t do it! The next morning, I FaceTimed with my family back home while they carried out our other big Christmas Adam tradition – driving around with milkshakes and looking for Christmas lights. (And listening to our old Veggie Tales Christmas Party cd. Tradition is tradition!) Through my phone screen, I sang along with Bob and Larry and watched as we drove by house after decorated house back in Pennsylvania.

  • All bundled up for Christmas Adam!
  • “Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that . . .”
  • Bratwurst and glühwein at the Christmas market!

Surprisingly enough, being 13 hours ahead of home was not as complicated as it could have been for the remainder of our holiday festivities. Where we usually celebrate on the evening of Christmas Eve and the morning of Christmas Day, I was able to tune in both morning and evening on the 25th. My family looped me in via Zoom (thankful for modern technology!) so I was able to be a part of all of the usual events – including a Christmas Eve holiday skit, which this year featured one of its actors (me) over a screen, on a laptop, placed on top of a chair. My mom had sent me some Christmas gifts earlier in November, and so after a few hours at customs with a friend who speaks more Mandarin than I do, I too had some gifts to unwrap. They set me up on a Lazy Susan in the living room, rotating my screen around so I could see everyone as they opened their gifts, and it actually felt, surprisingly, normal. Family gathering together (though somewhat virtually) to laugh and catch up and tease each other and reminisce – that’s what the holidays are all about. Moving across the world doesn’t have to change that.

In between my morning and evening family Zoom calls, I set out to make our classic Christmas meal: fleischkuekle. (For anyone trying to sound that out: fleish-keek-luh.) A German meal that basically consists of a meatball in a little pocket of fried dough, fleischkuekle has been my family’s Christmas meal for as long as I can remember, and we have an efficient system: Dad makes the dough, I roll the meatballs, then the two of us roll, fold, and pinch each of the fleischkuekle until they are ready to be fried – that’s where my brother steps in and helps Dad with the rest. Though I had to get a bit creative without a fryer and hadn’t ever made them on my own before, I still managed to whip up a (significantly smaller than usual) batch. Christmas dinner for one!

One of my biggest takeaways from this holiday season was the way in which things can be both different and the same, all at the same time. I spent Christmas over 7,000 miles away from my family; I spent Christmas with my family. I rushed to finish up my holiday shopping by October to allow for enough delivery time; I was able to see my everyone’s reactions as they opened the gifts I bought them. I put up a fake tree and decorated it alone; I squinted my eyes to see what shapes I could find in the tree lights just after putting up the last ornament. I had to hunt for old Christmas albums on Apple music and Youtube rather than playing our well-loved CDs; I cozied up with a hot chocolate while listening to a young Heintje singing “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.” I used a metal water bottle to roll dough because I don’t have a rolling pin; I ate fleischkuekle on Christmas Day. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that things can change in an instant. But change doesn’t have to be bad. The month leading up to Christmas was hard for me – there was a lot of spontaneous crying. I missed my friends and my family, I missed the things I would be doing with them back in the States, I worried that spending Christmas alone would be really hard, or that I wouldn’t feel the holiday magic like I usually do. I worried it would be so different that it wouldn’t feel like Christmas anymore. And yet, as a jolly muppet reminds me every year, “wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.” Love over a Zoom call feels like Christmas. Love through a Facebook message feels like Christmas. Love baked into cookies and dropped on a doorstep feels like Christmas. Love sent through emailed pictures feels like Christmas. This holiday season may have felt very different for a lot of us, but look for those places you find love and you’ll see that it wasn’t so different, not really. Happy (belated, because I can never seem to get these posted within a reasonable time frame) Holidays, with love, from Shanghai.

The Wilderness (and Shanghai) Must Be Explored!

你好 from Shanghai!! Did you miss me?? (I know, I know, I have not been good about regular blog posts. My future as an influencer is RUINED.)

Much has happened in the time since I last wrote (…in early October….I am SORRY) so I cannot write in my usual Madison fashion and include every tiny detail – even my mother would get sick of reading a post that long. Instead, I’ll try to give a highlights reel of my last few months getting settled into my new home in China. And then I’ll set myself reminders on my phone to actually write new blog posts every two weeks or so, rather than waiting three months in between each one…

First up: exploring Shanghai! This city is HUGE, and there is so much to see and do. I’ve been here almost three months, and still have only just started to scratch the surface of what Shanghai has to offer. While I was still living in my temporary housing in Hongqiao, my friends and I would often walk over to Lao Wai Jie – or “Foreigners Street” – for dinner and drinks. This narrow street used to be a train station; in the 1970s, the Mao Zedong 101 trains stopped here after Nanjing on their way back to Beijing. Nowadays, however, this long alley features restaurants with many different cuisines: Thai, German, Greek, Italian, Mexican, American, French, Indian, Japanese… Signs outside each restaurant advertise special deals and discounts as they all compete for expats’ attention: Happy Hour every night from 4:00-11:00! 20% off tacos on Wednesdays! BOGO burgers on Mondays! Though I personally started to tire of going over there (I didn’t move across the planet to eat burgers, after all) if you ever want to grab a meal somewhere you know there will be a menu written in English and foods that you recognize, Lao Wai Jie is a solid choice.

  • (Most of) our online expat crew!

The next big step in my exploring became exploring my way into my new apartment! For many of my colleagues, finding an apartment was a long and exhausting experience. They saw dozens of apartments all along the Line 10 metro stops and were struggling to find the right place that really felt like home. For one reason or another, the stars aligned for me and I found my dream apartment on my second day of looking. There are many things to consider when looking for a place: convenience of the location, how long the commute to work will be, the size of the apartment, how many flights of stairs you need to climb to reach your front door, which metro stop you are closest to… When speaking with my agent, I told him the things that were important to me: I wanted a home with character and color, an active neighborhood with lots of things to experience, and (in a perfect world) space to store some art supplies and have people over. I did not want to live on the 20th floor of a high rise apartment building, and I cannot stand houses that are all white and modern looking. (Give me something quirky, please!!) I looked at four apartments on my first day hunting, and definitely could have been happy in a few of them, but then on the second day, as we were walking into the building, my agent turned to me and said, “I think you’re really going to like this one.” I walked into the door and immediately said, “Yep. This is it.”

I live on the 3rd floor of an old lane house that was built in the 1920s; you can clearly see that all electrical appliances and lighting were added in after the apartment was built. The stairs are steep, the floors are creaky, you can hear absolutely every sound coming from the construction company underneath the living room, and I love every single thing about it. In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined myself a place like this to live in. I am the only expat living in my building, but I’ve met a few of the little old ladies who live below me. Though we’ve only been able to exchange basic hellos thus far (my Mandarin needs a lot of work…), I am excited to continue getting to know them. Because of the high turnaround of people moving to and from Shanghai, many apartments come furnished; when I moved in, there was already a bed, table, couch, tv, dresser, and a few shelves ready and waiting. (This was very strange for me – in the States, every place I’ve ever moved in to has been completely empty.) The past few weeks have been about slowly starting to make this home my own, bringing in some color and starting to really make it feel like me. I’m not in a rush; I have no desire to just go buy a bunch of stuff from IKEA for the sake of having the apartment filled. I’ve slowly been collecting pillows or art or little pieces from small markets and local businesses as I find them, and though it has been stressful at times, this process of starting to fill a home completely from scratch has been exciting. Stay tuned to see what else I end up collecting from my travels that finds its way into my house!

  • The outside of my building — that’s my bathroom window up top!
  • The view out my front door. I love seeing all of the laundry hanging up to dry.

Since moving in, I’ve been able to continue getting to know my way around the city. Though Shanghai LOVES its delivery services (we have Taobao, Baopals, Epermarket, Sherpa’s, etc etc etc — basically, you needn’t ever leave your house if you don’t want to, anything and everything can be delivered to your front door) I have been actively making a point of going out somewhere when I want to get something. In doing so, I’ve found some really cool places! A few arts & crafts stores, an awesome English bookstore, multiple stands within the Hongqiao Flower Market where I have become a regular… One of my favorite activities has been to go out for a Wander. Wanders are different from Walks in that Walks have a purpose, a Point B to reach from Point A. On a Wander, I can end up anywhere – I just let my feet carry me wherever they choose. Though I could probably write an entire blog post dedicated to the cool things I’ve observed on my Wanders, for now, a small assortment of pictures will have to do.

  • People have these little bike coats to keep their hands/arms warm while they’re riding. I find them wonderful and hilarious.
  • These men were painting Chinese calligraphy on the sidewalk with water – it reminded me of Bert’s chalk drawings in Mary Poppins!
  • This little pup lives outside my friend’s apartment building, and it is the sweetest little pup.

Next up on the highlights reel: school! Though I’ve technically been teaching there (albeit online) since March, these past few months in person have been SO much better. I could brag about my students all day (and I often do) but the short version is this: I am inspired daily by their creativity, their willingness to jump in and take risks, and their enthusiasm. I’m currently finishing up a Mask unit with my Year 7s and a Musical Theatre unit with my Year 8s, and I am amazed by the work that they’re doing. For many of them, what we do in my class is very out of their comfort zone. My underlying intention for both of these units is, yes, to teach them about this style of performance and give them experience working in this way, blah blah blah, but really these units are about embracing vulnerability and jumping headfirst into the unknown. Putting themselves in situations where they feel uncomfortable, and giving it their all anyways. As I’ve told them many times, there is no failure in my class – the only failure is to not even try. We celebrate and cheer when someone’s voice cracks while they’re singing because that means they went for a note they weren’t sure they could hit. After we celebrate the risk-taking, we work towards building the skills to overcome the challenge. My drama classes would have terrified me in middle school. Shy, awkward, self-conscious Madison would have been mortified being asked to risk a voice crack while singing in front of the entire class. But this is why I teach this way – if I can help even one of them to challenge that self-judgement and fear of failure before it really locks itself in, it makes all the difference.

Another aspect of working in the school in person that I have enjoyed has been getting to participate in all of the extra activities – homeroom competitions, special events, and fun school-wide activities. Two of my favorites so far have been the costume day for Halloween and our Global Perspectives Week. Though I only had about a week and a half outside of quarantine to prepare my Halloween costume (which, as some of you may know, is not NEARLY as much time as I usually allow myself), as it was my first in-person event at school I was determined to go all in. Using some clothing I already had, and my handy dandy craft supplies I had brought along, I threw together a costume of Russell from the Disney Pixar movie Up. In true Madison fashion, I walked around school all day with a small notebook, reading out “Good afternoon. My name is Russell, and I am a Wilderness Explorer in Tribe 54, Sweat Lodge 12. Are you in need of any assistance today, sir?” (My offers to “assist the elderly” didn’t get me far, but I kept trying!) I was not the only one who took the costume contest seriously – we had students coming in wearing all sorts of creative costumes! Inflatable Pikachu suits, handmade Peppa Pig heads, a huge variety of anime characters… one of my students spent months sewing a dress and constructing an intricate creepy mask and clawed gloves! Because we are a private school and the students are usually required to wear uniforms, it was fun to have a day where they were able to really express themselves and their own creativity through their costumes. During Global Perspectives Week, each homeroom was given a country to represent. We researched the country, learned about their culture and history, and then decorated our classroom with games, activities, and food! We had an entire afternoon where the students were able to wander the halls with their “passports” to visit the different countries throughout the school. My Year 7 homeroom chose Egypt as their country, and we decided to turn our classroom into the inside of a pyramid, an eery pharaoh’s tomb. We put purple gels over the windows and lights, brought in some lanterns, pulled up an underground pyramid tour video on the screen, and constructed an Egyptian mythology photo booth. It was really fun to see all of the hard work everyone put in to their classrooms!

  • The wilderness must be explored!!

As I begin to pass the three month mark, my life here has started to feel less like a trip and more like I actually live here, which still surprises me sometimes. I have a favorite bakery, and a go-to train car to stand in during my metro rides. I have a group of friends that know me enough to say “that’s so you” when choosing home decorations, and have found various new classes around the city to sign up for. I’ve started using road names to give directions to my apartment, and can (sort of) say “hello,” “thank you,” “excuse me,” “I don’t understand,” “want/do not want,” and count to 10 in Mandarin. I finally have a bank account! Though there are certainly times when I feel a bit homesick (after decorating my Christmas tree alone I immediately started crying, so this next week may be interesting), I really am so happy to be here. It feels a bit like a dream when I talk to my friends back in the States still in quarantine. [FOR GOOD REASON. WEAR YOUR MASKS AND STOP SEEING PEOPLE, DAMN IT. I WANT PEOPLE TO BE ABLE TO COME VISIT ME!!] I do not take for granted that I am able to go out to bars, see live music and go dancing, explore Christmas markets, give hugs and pile on a couch snuggled up with friends. But in what could have been a very hard, very lonely transition from one side of the planet to the other, I am very happy to have found such a warm and welcoming home 7,419 miles away from home. And now, for good measure, some food pictures. Everyone always likes food pictures.

  • Japanese buffet!
  • A wonderful little Thai place
  • My favorite lovely brilliant beautiful bakery – only 5 minutes from my house!

Next up on the blog: Christmas in Shanghai! Finding decorations, getting a tree, venturing out to various markets around town, attempting to track down Christmas packages from home, and finding ways to blend old and new traditions. Bonus features: my 90-something-year-old neighbor lady trying to help me lift this tree up 3 flights of stairs to my apartment. Stay tuned…

Week I in Shanghai!

Hello from the Shanghai beyond quarantine! (WOW does it feel good to say that!) I’ve now been out of quarantine for a little over a week, and what a week it’s been! I meant to write sooner but A) I’ve hardly spent any time at home and so haven’t had time to write, and B) the WiFi in my apartment is not working yet. (Big thanks to my friend Haneen for letting me come to her place to use hers almost every day!) But I’m making myself carve out some time to write – and forcing myself to give my legs at least an hour of rest – so here we go!

  • All packed up and ready to leave quarantine!
  • My “for now” apartment complex
  • My new, temporary apartment – a significant upgrade, don’t you think?

I was released from my quarantine at 11:30 pm on a Thursday night. The hotel I was staying in kindly helped me call a taxi, and I was brought to my temporary apartment. (My school is putting me up in a place that’s a 10 minute walk from the campus until I’m able to find a place of my own. There are a few things that need to happen – health check, work permit, bank account – before I will be able to sign a lease.) The apartment is up on the 7th floor in a lovely apartment complex, and the biggest highlight of that first night was that it took me more than ten steps to reach from one end of the apartment to the other! The next morning, I woke up bright and early, determined to make the most of the three free days I had before school began again!

On my first day, I decided to walk around the area near my school – I wanted to get a feel for the neighborhood, breathe in some fresh non-hotel air, and get my legs moving. I didn’t have WiFi or a Chinese SIM card – which meant that I could not contact anyone or use my phone for anything – so I set out blindly, picked a direction to walk, and said “okay!” Immediately, I was struck by how green everything was – there are trees everywhere! I found my way over to look at my campus, and then just started walking. I always say that I can’t know a place until I’ve walked it; I let my feet take me wherever they want to go, and I follow. It’s my favorite way to learn about a new place. I found an ATM to take out some cash, bought some snacks at a mini-market (each time I go in, I try to buy something that I’ve never heard of before – it’s a fun little mystery game!), and eventually made my way down to the Hongqiao Flower Market. I was expecting a few cute stands with some flowers and plants, but what I found instead was a massive indoor/outdoor market where you could buy antique furniture, jewelry, art, plants, flowers, animals, and just about anything else you could ever want. Local artisans were set up in their stands, crafting away as I walked by. I will definitely be returning when I have an apartment of my own and can fill it with art and plants…

  • I found a little kitty friend who jumped right up in my lap to say hi!
  • First time out exploring Shanghai!
  • SO many motorbikes – they are everywhere!

The next day, a colleague of mine had reached out to ask if I wanted to join her on a trip out to Sheshan National Forest Park, on the outskirts of Shanghai. (Because it is technically still part of the city, we wouldn’t be required to quarantine or take a COVID test again upon our return.) For those of you who don’t know, sometimes my anxiety acts up when it comes to taking public transportation, especially by myself. The prospect of having my first experience riding the Shanghai metro be an hour long journey, changing to three different lines, on my own, without a working phone was a daunting one. There was a moment where I considered declining her invitation, and putting off riding the metro until I could go with someone who knew what they were doing. And then I said “NOPE, you moved to China alone during a pandemic, you can ride a metro, no excuses, let’s go!” So I went to use my friend’s WiFi at her apartment, wrote down all of the subway stops I needed to know on the back of a bookmark, put it in my pocket for safekeeping, and headed out.

Here’s the thing about the Shanghai metro system: it is massive. There are 414 stations spread out across 16 lines. And if you hit it during rush hour, there will be thousands of other people riding it at the same time. Apparently, a Saturday morning was rush hour. I bought my pass, went through security (the workers take your temperature and you have to slide your bag through a security machine, like you would at an airport!), consulted my notes to make sure I was headed in the right direction, and waited for the train to arrive. I didn’t have to wait long – trains come something like every 3-4 minutes here. Within a stop or two, I was sandwiched between so many people I could barely see in front of me. When I left the first train to transfer to the next line, I didn’t really have to think – the wave of people all moving at once meant I could sort of just let the tide take me where I needed to go. I felt like I was riding the East Australian Current along with Marlin, Dory, and the turtles. (“Righteous! Righteous!”) Something I had read about ahead of time, but witnessed very quickly on this journey: people in China don’t really do lines. Or waiting patiently. It’s sort of a general “push yourself through to the front at all costs” mentality when it comes to boarding a train at rush hour. (Understandably so. If you don’t, you’ll never make it on a train.) When in China, do as the Chinese do, right? Eventually, I found myself on my third train, and after some time had passed and I headed further out of the city, the train finally cleared out to what felt like a more “normal” level of capacity. Though it was a bit overwhelming, I have to say, overall it was a relatively painless experience. The metros are all SUPER easy to navigate, and each one makes it very clear which direction they are going and the stops they are passing. Additionally, all signs in the metros and their stations have English written in addition to Mandarin! That certainly helps quite a bit.

After I met my friend at the Sheshan station, we caught a bus that took us to Sheshan National Forest Park. Called the “only mountain range in Shanghai” (I think mountain is a very generous term… I’d go with large hill?), Sheshan is a beautiful nature getaway when you need a break from the hustle and bustle of the city. There are bamboo forests to walk through, plenty of beautifully designed pavilions, approximately 8,000 stairs (okay, I don’t know this to be true, but there were a lot of stairs), a Catholic church… what more could you want?! We spent a few hours walking up and down the (many) steps, and taking in the views. First time hiking through a bamboo forest: check!

The next day, my final day before classes picked back up again, I decided I had to do the tourist thing and go see Nanjing Road and The Bund. The Bund is a stretch of waterfront about a mile long along the Huangpu River; you know that classic Shanghai skyline image? That’s what you see from The Bund. Nanjing Road leads you right up to The Bund, and is one of the busiest and most famous and shopping streets in the world. (Think the Times Square of Shanghai.) It is a pedestrian street, so though it was busy it was nice not to have to worry about cars! Because I went on a Sunday morning it wasn’t too crowded, but even an hour or so later after I had walked The Bund and was getting ready to leave, it had filled up significantly. Though I doubt I’ll ever be doing much actual shopping there, it was nice to see this side of Shanghai as well.

After that, I took the metro over to the French Concession. As I begin my house hunting search, this is one of the neighborhoods I am interested in potentially living in, so I wanted to have a look around and get a feel for the energy. (Spoiler alert: I loved it. Now to find an apartment!) This part of the city is filled with little shops, restaurants, and parks, and there are trees lining all of the streets. Additionally, this neighborhood is very much an expat hub, so there are a lot of cool coffee shops, opportunities to take classes, gyms, and social activities – my little extrovert heart is thrilled. I spent about an hour roaming the streets and being generally charmed. After walking over 25 miles in 3 days, however, my poor legs were not thrilled with me. Especially after the stagnancy of quarantine, my body needed a bit more time to reacquaint itself with my usual walking tendencies. (Sorry, body. But I’m also not sorry at all.) I headed back to my apartment, pleased with what I’d been able to accomplish in my first three days, and got ready for the week ahead.

Walking on to my school’s campus on Monday and meeting my colleagues and students in person was a bit surreal, to be honest. I’ve been teaching online since March 1st, and so to finally be here, in person, still doesn’t feel like it can actually be happening. My campus is absolutely beautiful. Newly renovated this past summer, the whole building is stunning and the facilities are crazy amazing. I have an OFFICE with my own DESK! (As a freelance theatre artist, this is something I have never had before! It is quite exciting!) The clear highlight of the week, though, was meeting my students. My first time walking through the hallways, I felt like a mythical creature that had suddenly been proven real – students would walk by, do a double take, and then I’d hear whispers of “It’s Miss Madison!!” echoing through the hallways. I don’t blame them – after only having seen my face on a screen for months and months and months, it must be quite strange to finally have me here in person! Even the students that I had last spring who I am not currently teaching found their way up to me in the hallways to say hi. It felt SO GOOD to be able to have class in person, to get up on our feet and jump around and play games and move and do all of the things that I couldn’t do over a screen. I even got permission for my Year 8s to wear their PE uniforms to class because of all of the movement we’re doing — I think I earned quite a few brownie points with them for that. 😉

After a week of classes that felt both very long and very short at the same time, another Saturday came around! To be able to check the adventure box that resets itself in my soul every few days, I decided to head back downtown and explore the Yuyuan Garden and Market. Admittedly, another fairly touristy area, but seeing as I’ve only been here a little over a week, I think I get a free pass on still exploring the touristy sections of the city. Though we were not yet able to actually get in to the Yu Garden or the City God Temple (it’s a long story, but basically WeChat is everything here, and it’s not fully functional until your bank account is attached which still can’t happen for another few weeks for me) we spent a few hours exploring the bazaar, wandering around the market. It felt a bit like walking through a Chinese Diagon Alley – little alleyways, lanterns hanging above, all sort of intriguing sounds and smells coming out of each new doorway. I definitely ended up paying a bit too much for a big bag of loose leaf herbal tea (blueberry!) but oh well – it’s the first real thing I’ve bought since being here (besides food) so I’ll let it slide. One part of the market that we were able to see was the Jiu Qu Bridge; this zig zag bridge leads you across the Lotus Pool on the way to the Huxin Ting Tea House. It is said that ghosts can only walk straight, so walking across a zig zag bridge is thought to help you avoid evil spirits. Crossing the Jiu Qu Bridge is meant to enable you to leave behind the twists and turns of life, and to lead you to peace and happiness. I will be excited to go back when I am actually able to see the garden and the temple!

And now, for the topic that everyone is always interested in: FOOD! Thus far I’ve been going out to eat every evening — I know eventually I will settle in and cook at home, but for now there are way too many new places to try! Some nights I’ve been out to get Western food (everyone keeps wanting to take me to the Western restaurants – I’m not craving foods I know yet, I want to try new places!), and there are quite a few options. We’ve discovered a great burger joint, a pizza shop, a halal place, a Caribbean restaurant… but the most exciting dinners so far have been the dumplings. If I do not turn into a dumpling by the time I leave China, I have not done it right. There are so many different kinds, and they are all incredibly cheap — at one little hole in the wall dumpling shop, I was able to order 20 dumplings for what ended up being under $3.00. It’s amazing. I haven’t tried anything incredibly adventurous yet as my stomach is still adjusting (I wasn’t eating much meat back in the States, and so all of this pork has been throwing my body for a bit of a loop) but I promise that soon I’ll be at least trying just about anything. Might as well, right?

  • Some kind of dragonfruit juice slushy – made right on the spot for me!

Above all else, one of the main things I’ve noticed during this first week is the kindness of the people here. Sure they push on the metro, and ride by on their motorbikes without caring if they’re not supposed to be one the sidewalk or not, but each and every time I have looked lost or confused (which…is often) someone has been willing to try to help. Though very few people speak English, and I speak no Mandarin beyond “hello” and “thank you” yet – there’s a lot of gesturing, pointing, and using a translator app – people look out for each other. It’s one of my favorite things about traveling abroad – you really notice how people are the same, everywhere. A grandma at the forest park playing peekaboo with her young grandchild. A mother helping her son with his homework at the front table when she has a break from making dumplings. Two young teenagers finding an excuse to stand next to each other in class so their shoulders can touch. An otherwise serious security guard who brightens up and smiles when I wave each morning. 7th grade boys making “Your Mama” jokes on the school bus. There is no “us” and “them.” We are all the same, everywhere. I wish I could make everyone see that. As there is always someone who can put into words what I am thinking much better than I ever could, a favorite quote from a favorite book, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: “All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so.”

The M̶a̶n̶ Bunny in the Moon

10 days of quarantine down, 4 to go! (But who’s counting?)

I started last week off with 3 days of classes. Though the experience of teaching online while they are all in the classroom is certainly not new to me, the experience of doing so while the sun was out was a wonderfully welcome change! I’m now falling asleep at 9:30 pm and waking up around 6:00 am each day — no more need for an eye mask and noise canceller, and no fear that I’ll wake up to go to the bathroom, see the sun, and be unable to fall back asleep! I am so thrilled and thankful. The night shift was not a good look for me.

In drama classes, my kiddos had their final performances of their monologues – their first time really getting up and acting in front of the class. To say I am proud of them would be a gross understatement. They are rockstars. If this is where we are after just finishing our first unit for the year, I cannot wait to see what else they will be able to do – it’s going to be a fun year. Last week, we also had our first rehearsal for our fall play: The Odyssey. We’ve got a cast of 28, a tech team of 12, and only about 15 hours of rehearsal total to put up a show… wish me luck! (Taking bets now – how many hours outside of rehearsal do we think I will spend building puppets for the cyclops and sea monsters?? My guess is… 35?) On Thursday we went on holiday break, so I didn’t (and don’t) have school to keep me occupied any longer in my quarantine prison cell. So I had to get a bit creative and tackle other projects…

My first adventure was: laundry! As I didn’t pack very many clothes, and a majority of what I did pack are my “teacher outfits” (which aren’t quite comfortable enough to lounge around in all day), I pulled out my Wilderness Wash and prepared to wash up my comfy clothes. First obstacle? The stopper in the sink wouldn’t go all the way down. Nice try, Sink – as though I could be defeated by something as small as that. I grabbed my collapsible camping bowl, warmed up some water in the kettle, and set about washing my clothes one tiny bowl at a time! Did my pants fit into that tiny bowl? Not even a little bit! But after a half hour of sloshing around in my sink, I managed to get everything cleaned. My shower was already equipped with a retractable laundry line (truly, the only thing that shower gets points for…) so after my makeshift wash-scrub-rinse conglomeration of bowls and glasses near the sink, I was able to hang everything up to dry. Are my clothes the cleanest they’ve ever been? Certainly not. But when the only other human contact I get is with someone in a hazmat suit taking my temperature twice a day, I think this will do just fine.

  • Making It Work: 2020. The chipped nail polish really adds to the underlying vibe here.
  • The lady across the way hangs her clothes up to dry outside every day.
    Wish I could do that!
  • It is finished.

Though I haven’t had school the past few days, I have had something new and exciting to learn about here in China: October 1st began the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival) and October 1st-7th is China’s National Day/Golden Week. National Day commemorates the day that the People’s Republic of China was formally established – October 1st, 1949. (Sort of like the 4th of July, for my readers from the States!) The National Day celebrations last a full week, and millions of people travel home or go on a vacation for the holidays.

Mid-Autumn Festival does not always fall on the same date as National Day, though it happened to this year. The festival traditionally falls on the 15th day of the 8th month in the Chinese lunar calendar – around the day of the harvest moon – so there is some variation year to year. (It’s “mid-autumn” in the lunar calendar!) This holiday is over 3,000 years old, and began as a ceremony to worship the moon, hoping for a good harvest the following year. It is a time to be with family, and, for some, to honor the moon goddess. Though not necessarily believed to be true anymore, the story of Cháng’é and her journey to the moon is a classic Chinese legend associated with this holiday. So, me being me, I spent approximately 3 hours researching the many different versions of this story that exist. Here’s my best attempt at putting them together for you:

Once every thousand years, the Jade Emperor and the other immortals living up in the heavens must drink an elixir of immortality that grants them their youth for the next thousand years. It is the role of one being to make this medicine for all of the immortals, and so, is a very important job. After being disappointed by the previous elixir maker (long story short, he was caught giving out the elixir to some humans, which was super not cool) the Jade Emperor decided that next to fill the role would not be a human – way too selfish and corrupt – but an animal. He disguised himself as an old beggar and flew down to Earth in search of the most deserving animal. When he landed in a forest, he called out, “Help! Someone, please! I haven’t eaten in days, and I am so hungry.”

A monkey, a fox, and a rabbit heard the (disguised) Jade Emperor’s call, and set out to find him some food. The monkey grabbed fruit from the trees, and brought it to the Jade Emperor. The fox managed to snatch some fish from the river, and gave the Jade Emperor his gift as well. The rabbit, however, was not as lucky. All he could find was grass, and he knew that would not be suitable for a man to eat. (Poor little guy was STRESSED, y’all.) When he came back to the fire that the Jade Emperor and the two other animals were sitting around, the rabbit confessed that he had not been able to find any food to offer. “Because I could not bring you back any food,” the stressed little rabbit said, “please, take my meat and fill your stomach!” With that, the rabbit jumped into the fire and died.

The Jade Emperor was so touched by the rabbit’s selflessness that he revived the rabbit and brought him up to the heavens. The Jade Emperor gave the rabbit a beautiful, white coat, like that of white jade, and so the Jade Rabbit began his new life as an immortal, making the special elixir for the gods. (Talk about an upgrade, eh? )

Meanwhile, down on Earth, a bit of a problem had sprung up. Ten of the Jade Emperor’s sons had decided to turn themselves into suns (typical) and now the Earth was being scorched by the heat of ten suns in the sky all at once. Rivers and oceans dried up, crops were dying, and things were not looking great for our friends the humans. When it seemed like all hope was lost, Hòu Yì, a skilled archer, stepped forward. “Something must be done,” he proclaimed. He strung his bow and, with great skill, shot down sun after sun (or should I say, son after son?) until there was only one sun left in the sky. The people rejoiced, and news spread far and wide of Hòu Yì’s heroic act. One day, news reached the Queen Mother of the West, an ancient and renowned goddess. She wanted to reward Hòu Yì for his bravery, and it was then that the Jade Rabbit received a very important visitor.

The Queen Mother asked the Jade Rabbit for an extra elixir of immortality, as a favor to her. “I’m sorry, but gods and goddesses are only allowed one elixir every thousand years, and so I cannot give you another,” the Jade Rabbit dutifully responded. The Queen Mother was… not thrilled with this answer. After what we can only assume was a show of “do you know who you are speaking to?!” and “refuse me again and see what happens,” the Jade Rabbit finally succumbed and handed over an elixir to the Queen Mother. She thanked him, and left.

When the Queen Mother presented Hòu Yì with her gift, she told him that if he drank this elixir, he would become immortal and live forever in the heavens with the gods. A tempting offer, certainly. But as Hòu Yì returned home, considering what the Queen Mother had said, he knew he could never be happy living somewhere without his wife, Cháng’é. His love for her was greater than his desire to be immortal, and she felt the same way about him, and so Hòu Yì and Cháng’é decided to hide the elixir in their home where no one would ever know about it. No one, that is, except for Féng Méng, a student of Hòu Yì’s who happened to overhear their conversation. (Cue dramatic reveal.)

One day soon after, when Hòu Yì was out hunting, Féng Méng broke into the house and threatened Cháng’é with his sword, demanding that she hand the elixir of immortality over to him. She refused, and Féng Méng charged after her. Cháng’é understood that if she did not act she would be killed, and so, realizing it was her only other option, grabbed the elixir and drank it herself. Immediately, her body grew light and began to float toward the heavens. Just as Hòu Yì was about to make his way home, he looked up to the sky to see his wife being pulled away, and cried out to her in grief. In an attempt to remain as close to Hòu Yì as she could, Cháng’é landed on the moon. If he looked closely, Hòu Yì could just make out her outline as he gazed up at the moon, and each year would bring mooncakes and round fruits to her altar as tokens of his love and devotion.

Meanwhile, the Jade Emperor was not pleased with the Jade Rabbit’s disobedience. (“What part of ‘no more mortals get immortality elixirs don’t you understand?!”) He asked the Jade Rabbit to think of a punishment befitting his mistake. After much thought, the Jade Rabbit replied: since he was ultimately the one responsible for Cháng’é’s being sent to live alone on the moon for eternity, perhaps he could serve a similar sentence and join her there on the moon as her companion. Pleased with this answer, and glad to know that no more immortals would be able to go seeking extra medicine, the Jade Emperor agreed and sent the Jade Rabbit off to join Cháng’é. The two of them live there on the moon together, as they have for the past 4,000 years, and as they will for the rest of time.

My quarantine mooncake – included in my breakfast on the first day of Mid-Autumn Festival!

In keeping with the traditions of this myth, during the Mid-Autumn Festival people now gift each other mooncakes and round fruits (the shape of the moon!), just as Hòu Yì first started doing for Cháng’é. In Chinese culture, a round shape symbolizes togetherness, completeness, and reunion; this is a time for families to come together and spend time with one another. (Like Thanksgiving!) Additionally, beautiful lanterns of all shapes and sizes are displayed and released – as beacons to light the way towards good fortune, and, some may say, to let Cháng’é know that we still honor her.

Though my celebrations in quarantine have been limited to my solitary breakfast mooncake (I continue to keep looking out my window for lanterns each evening, but alas, no luck – I’m like freaking Rapunzel over here) I have so enjoyed taking these past few days to learn about this holiday and the traditions surrounding it. And while it may be a bummer that I have to miss out on the festivities this year, I’m closer than I’ve ever been to diving in to my life over here. 4 more days, and I begin. Who knows, maybe next year I’ll be able to light my own lantern and send it off into the night sky, along with a wish for good fortune and a message of gratitude for the goddess and the bunny in the moon.

Bird Tweets and Mystery Meats

Hello, outside world! I’m finishing up Day 3 of 14 in my quarantine here in Shanghai, and am starting to settle into a pattern. Will this pattern change 18 times over the remaining 11 days I am in here? Probably. But for now, in an attempt to settle into some kind of normalcy after the whirlwind that was last week (getting my visa, booking a flight, taking a COVID test, saying limited goodbyes to those I was near, racing the clock, flying to China, being put in quarantine — you know, just a typical week) it has been nice to have some calm after the storm.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to let the sun wake me up in the morning. I’m happy to have mornings back.

My first day here, I spent the entire day sleeping. Other than to answer the knocks at my door for meal deliveries and temperature checks, I was out. I didn’t unpack anything, I didn’t get out of my pajamas – I sent a few messages to friends and family back home letting them know I’d made it, FaceTimed my parents, and passed out. Yesterday, when I was slightly more functional, I unpacked a few things and decided to organize my room a bit; though I know I will be leaving in 2 weeks and don’t want to have to repack everything again, if I’m going to be trapped in this room for 336 hours straight, I may as well make it feel like somewhere that I don’t mind being. I pulled out a few books, some art supplies, the snacks I had packed, my fitness bands — just enough to give me something to do all day.

One of the main struggles I’m going to be coming up against, if the past few days have been any indication, is the lack of ability for movement. In my “normal life” (pre-pandemic, if you can remember back that far) I am very much a walker – it is not uncommon for me to spend at least 3 hours of my day walking. Walking to work, walking to run errands, walking so I can have dedicated time to listen to an audiobook… In this room I can get in about ten paces, if I walk from the very edge of the back wall up to the front door. (I counted. Then walked it back and forth about 150 times today. Had to get in some audiobook time!) Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a nice lazy day, and this king size bed is fulfilling all of my sideways sleeper dreams, but… let’s just say I would not be mad if there were a human sized hamster wheel in here. (Otherwise known as a treadmill; I guess that’s already a thing… Come on, Madison…)

To try to fight the aches and pains that come with being stagnant all day, I’ve been starting my day by doing some bed yoga. What’s bed yoga, you ask? Well, bed yoga is a weebly wobbly attempt at waking my body up with some movement, but here’s the thing: the floor is lava. (And also, there is not really any floor space big enough/clean enough to lay down and stretch out on. Small, dirty lava.) Sure, I can’t stand all the way up without knocking into the ceiling, and attempting to find balance while on a mattress is a bonus challenge, but it could be worse – I could still be stuck back in the States! Besides, it gives the “namaste in bed” joke a whole new meaning!

  • Jumping on the bed counts as movement, right??

In true Madison fashion, another way I’ve been occupying my time is by… researching random things! (Who me? With my notebooks full of random facts about random things? Never!) Each new meal sends me off on a Google spiral trying to figure out what I’m eating, how it’s made, any cultural traditions surrounding it. Looking down at the bushes beneath my window, I’ve noticed the strange leaf pattern and tried to discover what kind of plant it could be. (So far, no luck. Anyone know anything about Chinese plants?) While flipping through TV channels, I stumbled on some cool fantasy movie, which then sent me into a Chinese mythology rabbit hole. Perhaps one of the most surprising things I found myself looking up information for today was: birds. All day long, I hear birds chirping outside my window, but I’m not able to see them. Suddenly, I realized something — I am on the opposite side of the planet from everything I’ve ever known! These birds could be some completely new kind of bird that I’ve never even heard of before!! My strange, obsessive Ravenclaw brain kicked in and suddenly I HAD to know what kind of birds these could be. I spent about 2 hours on Google looking up birds local to Shanghai and then set out to find recordings of their calls so that I could compare and contrast. I was a (bored, quarantined) woman on a mission. So… it’s Day 3 of isolation, and I’ve already reached the “birding” phase. All bets are off on where else my brain will take me before all of this is over.

(For what it’s worth, I eventually settled on the light-vented bulbul and the long-tailed shrike.)

Now, to answer the question I’ve been most asked about: what’s the food like? Three times a day, a small bag of food is dropped off outside my door. (I don’t have any say in what I receive, it just appears – like magic!) Breakfast comes between 7:30-9:00 am, and usually consists of: some type of congee (rice porridge!), a warm soy milk-based drink, a hard boiled egg, and an extra treat – so far, that’s included a brown sugar steamed bun (I think), a rice-filled dumpling, and a veggie-filled bao bun. Breakfast has been my favorite meal thus far… so many fun surprises! I’ve had millet congee, pumpkin congee, and babao congee, and they all come in plastic cups with a big straw – before I knew what they were, I assumed it was going to be some kind of smoothie or bubble tea based on the way it was packaged! I was also initially surprised that all of the milk drinks came warm. Certainly not what I was expecting!

Yummy breakfast deliveries!!

Lunches and dinners follow a similar formula: a big serving of white rice, a serving of meat, greens (usually bok choy), a soup, a spicy side dish that usually involves peppers and more meat, a piece of fruit, and a warm yogurt. Admittedly, these meals have been a bit harder for me; I lean mostly vegetarian at home, so opening my lunch the first day to see a whole pig’s foot sitting on my plate was a bit of a jolt! I am taking bites of the meat here and there, and I will definitely work myself up to eventually eating meat more regularly – when in Shanghai, eh? – but for now I’ve mostly been filling up on the rice, fruits, and veggies. Even though I’m not eating all of it yet, it’s been kind of cool getting all of these new foods delivered to me without my having a choice in what I’m receiving; where I normally might have wanted to lean more towards comforts of home as I adjust to this new country, I don’t get that option here. 3 of the 4 foods included in my first meal were things I had never heard of or tried before – and maybe never would have ordered right away! And while that can feel a bit intimidating as I push myself towards being a more adventurous eater, I’m really happy that I’ve been shoved off into the deep end. Sometimes you’ve just got to go for it!

Yesterday, while I was video chatting with some friends, my breakfast was delivered in the middle of the conversation so I brought my phone to the door with me to pick up my food. I started opening my meal and showing them what I’d been given, joking that I felt like one of those 12-year old YouTube kids who has thousands of followers and does “unboxing” videos. (If you haven’t heard of that, look it up! Or don’t… it’s a strange rabbit hole to fall into, and one that I don’t entirely understand the appeal of…) My friends, however, were delighted – they wanted to hear all about what I had been given and what it tasted like! So now, each time I get a new meal, I send them a short video “unboxing” my food and tasting it for the first time, and they respond with their questions and reactions to the foods I’m eating. It’s a silly little thing, but I think silly little things are going to be what get me through this – a way of feeling some sense of normalcy, a way of still feeling connected with my friends who are thousands of miles away, something to look forward to when these days alone in this room can feel endless. Sometimes silly little things can make all of the difference.

  • To be honest, I have no idea what that is. But it was good!
  • “Grain flavored soy milk,” according to my translator app. Served warm!

Doing the Impossible

You know those big events, good or bad (or both!), that pitch camp in your brain so that they’re all you can think about for weeks/months? And they throw all-night parties with Anxiety (because Anxiety likes to invite itself along to everything, insistent bugger ) so even at night you’re not safe from thinking about them? Maybe it’s a wedding, or knowing you need to break up with your partner, or the first day of school, or meeting someone on a blind date… As you get closer and closer to The Big Event, you start to get that countdown going: “A week from now, this will all be over.” “In three days, I won’t need to worry about this anymore.” “By this time tomorrow, I’ll have done it.” Well, as I write this, sitting in my hotel room in Shanghai, China, I can finally say: I did it.

So let’s hop back in time a few days and go over everything, shall we?

Love a good list. Or five. Or a notebook full of them.

After the wonderful women in my HR department found me a flight, I spent the majority of last Friday night looking for a COVID test appointment. Here’s the thing about international travel right now, or at least international travel to many countries: in order to board the plane, you must have negative COVID test results from a test taken within 3 days of your flight. In my case, in addition to those results, you must also have a stamped and authenticated Health Declaration Form from your embassy, verifying that you are, in fact, COVID-free and safe to travel. No exceptions. Which meant, on Friday night at around 2:00 am, while processing the shock that I would be leaving in the next few days, I was frantically looking for somewhere to get a test that Sunday. Long story short, harder than it looks. First, most places that provide testing (that I found) only had appointments available Monday-Friday, and I had to have my test done on Sunday. Second, many testing sites required a doctor’s note and health insurance, neither of which I had. Third, there were next to no available appointments; understandably, many people are getting tested, and so looking only one day in advance was challenging. Finally, I was able to book one of the three available appointments left at a CVS near my parents’ house. Check.

Let’s revisit that “3 days before” rule, shall we? Test MUST be taken no more than 3 days before the flight or it will be considered invalid. However, upon getting my test done, CVS said the results would be back within 2-5 days. Once I received the results, I would have to email them to my consulate to have them authenticated, sent back to me, and then printed; the consulate said to allow 24 hours for this to be completed. Okay. So….2-5 days for results, plus ~24 hours for authentication, and all of this HAS to be done within 3 days or I can’t get on the plane. Now I’m no math whiz, but those numbers were not adding up very nicely. (And no, to answer your question, I have not slept much in the past week, thank you for asking.)

To condense what was an incredibly stressful few days into a paragraph (so we can get to the good stuff without this blog turning into a short novel) — my COVID results (negative!) came back around midnight the night before my flight. I immediately emailed them to the Chinese consulate in NYC with the subject line “URGENT – FLIGHT TODAY!!” (didn’t want to seem desperate, right?) as well as emailing every other contact within the consulate I had spoken with up to this point. After three hours of sleep, I woke up the next morning and we packed the car to drive up to NY for my flight, still not knowing if I’d actually be getting on the plane. At 9:00 am when the consulate opened, I called to see if there was anything to be done. “You have to email them, I can’t help you. You’re supposed to allow 24 hours.” T-minus 7 hours to the flight, still no document. I readied myself to email the consulate every hour to stay at the top of their inbox. Then finally – contact! After about an hour of back and forth emails, I received my stamped Health Declaration Form. We pulled over at the next Staples to print it out, and I was on my way!

When we reached JFK Airport, we (my parents insisted on staying for as much of the process as they could) got into a long line to check in for the flight. My passport, visa, and freshly printed Health Declaration Form were checked, and I was given a QR code to scan. (This story will involve many QR codes. Just warning you now.) I filled out another health declaration form, and was given my own QR code to say that I was healthy and cleared to fly. Checked in my luggage (miraculously managed to keep everything under 50 lbs) and received my boarding pass – it was time to go! Said my goodbyes to my parents, and headed off into security, very thankful that the anti-anxiety meds had started kicking in.

Getting on the flight was pretty easy; the first thing I noticed that screamed “hey remember, you’re traveling during a pandemic?!” was that as we walked up to the entry to the plane, we were greeted by the staff of flight attendants all wearing hazmat suits. (To me, all wrapped up in white puffy suits with blue tape and goggles, they looked like silly astronauts.) The astronauts gave us hand sanitizer and took our temperatures, then we were able to board. I found myself in an aisle seat, with an empty seat next to me. Not too bad!

For being an almost 15 hour flight, it really wasn’t bad at all. By this point, I think I was still just processing the fact that this was all finally happening, so my brain/body finally took this as a chance to rest for a bit. That’s really all I did for most of the flight. I never truly slept (I will never understand people who can sleep on planes – how do you get comfortable??) but I closed my eyes and let myself just be, which, after the past few days, was glorious. We flew way up north, up through the northernmost tips of Canada and through the Arctic, then back down through the northeastern tip of Russia. (I found great joy in thinking about the fact that we were probably flying over walruses in their natural habitat. It’s the little things, you know?)

  • Quick astronaut doodle.

When we got close to landing, the astronauts made sure we all had our health declaration QR codes ready to go. We had our temperatures checked once again, then we were off to the complicated arrival process that followed. Luckily, there were many more astronauts stationed throughout the airport, all helping to shuttle us where we needed to go. It felt a bit like being queued up for a ride at a theme park. Each station involved a passport check, a temperature check, and a QR code check, so just insert that in with each new step so I don’t sound like a broken record. I’ve probably had my temperature checked 30 times in the past 24 hours.

First stop after exiting the plane was a desk where we all (once again) filled out a form saying we had no COVID symptoms or exposure to it, then were given a little test tube to take to our next station: the COVID test. The astronaut giving me my test didn’t speak any English, but had a document with her questions written in English so I could respond: had I ever had reconstructive surgery on my nose? Any kind of alterations that would affect my nasal passages? After gesturing I had not, she gave me my COVID test. Not an enjoyable experience, but, I can handle a minute of discomfort if it means that I am not risking anyone’s life or potentially spreading the virus.

Next stop: immigration. While this would normally be the point where I would be nervous about having something go wrong with my visa, by this point, I doubt anything could phase me. My passport was stamped, and I went to pick up my luggage and move through customs. Following that, a new astronaut gave me a new QR code to scan to fill out a form indicating which part of Shanghai I was headed to, so they could begin the process of finding me somewhere to quarantine. Through a combination of a few astronauts’ limited English and my gesturing, I received my new QR code and was directed to another area of the airport. It felt like a college welcome fair – tables and posters set up along either side of the hall with a few astronauts at each table, and various people checking out each table, but instead of advertising a sorority or after school film club, each “booth” correlated with a district of Shanghai. I found the section for the Changning district, scanned my code/got my temperature checked/showed my passport, then took a seat while I and the other people headed to my region waited to be told what to do next. After about 45 minutes, one of the astronauts told us that a bus was on its way to pick us up, and it would be about an hour’s ride to our hotel. (He very kindly typed his message into a translator app in his phone so I could read it in English.)

After another code/temp/passport check by a new table of astronauts, we were led to our bus and ushered aboard. I really tried to stay awake – my first time driving through Shanghai! – but all I remember is a cool garden sculpture, noticing that they drive in the same side of the vehicle as we do in the States, and then…I must have been rocked to sleep.

Goodbye, friendly astronauts! Thank you for all your help!
I don’t remember taking this picture, but I guess I got a snapshot of the bus. Good job, Delirious Madison.

When we reached the quarantine hotel, we got off the bus and all of our luggage was sprayed with disinfectant by a new set of astronauts. We then were led down a long bumpy ramp to the basement of the building to check in. This was almost my breaking point, if we’re being honest. I was so exhausted (physically, mentally, emotionally) that trying to get my luggage down that ramp was just about the end of me. A very nice astronaut saw my struggle and grabbed two of my suitcases for me, saving me the embarrassment of bursting into tears, which was probably about 30 seconds away from happening. Down in the basement, we were each given a packet of paperwork to fill out – where had we been for the past 14 days? Did we have any COVID symptoms? Name, birthday, phone number, contact in China, their address, their phone number… My Very Nice Astronaut knew a bit of English, and so helped me with my forms. I was given a room key, and a few more papers (all written in Mandarin, thank goodness for the translate feature on WeChat) explaining how the quarantine process would work, then the Very Nice Astronaut helped me with my bags and brought me to my room. After having landed in the airport about 6 hours earlier, I was finally in my home for the next 14 days.

Home, sweet quarantine home.

Today was Day I in quarantine. Each day, I will get 5 knocks on the door: breakfast, temperature check, lunch, temperature check, and dinner. My meals are left in a little bag outside my door – I am to wait 5 minutes after hearing the knock to collect the bag. So far, it’s been a fun little surprise: what food are they going to bring me this time? Will I know what it is, or will it be something I’ve never tried before? (I am sure that, two weeks from now, this will no longer be such a fun little surprise. But I’m enjoying the excitement while it’s still here!)

I have one little window in my room that I have enjoyed being able to look out. I eat my meals on the floor by the window so I can people watch. Across the way is an apartment building, and it’s been fun seeing people out on their balconies watering their plants or hanging out their laundry to dry. I hear lots of birds chirping, and I wonder what kinds of birds they are. The sounds of frogs and bugs sang me to sleep last night. (And today. I’ve mostly just slept today. And am about to go to bed for the night. My body and brain are TIRED, okay?!)

  • Breakfast!
  • Lunch!
  • Food pick-up: the only time I can leave my room.
  • Dinner!

Over the past few days, to make it through all of the stress and chaos and anxiety and uncertainty, at first I tried to think of someone brave and confident and adventurous to try to emulate. What would ________ do? (I like having characters to root myself to when I need a boost, maybe it’s the actor in me.) But at some point I realized: I didn’t need to think of a character who would do all of this, because I was doing this. I didn’t need to picture someone who was able to get on this flight, to go through this complicated airport pandemic saga, to figure out how to get to her hotel room without speaking the language – I already was that person. What would Madison do?? Madison was already doing it. I don’t say any of this to try to pump myself up or make it seem like I am anything special, but rather because this discovery really opened my eyes. How many times do we doubt ourselves, question our abilities, over things we have already proven ourselves to be capable of? Keep an eye out. Chances are you are doing things you never thought would be possible.

The Dive

When I first started my Chinese visa application process (10 months ago, at this point) I had no idea what to expect. The only other time I’d needed a visa to travel was on my trip to Zimbabwe in 2014 – however, unlike this current process, I did not have to apply ahead of time. Upon landing in Harare, we simply paid for the visa (something like $30?) and it was stamped, then we were good to go. The process of receiving a Chinese visa has been… a bit more challenging.

The first hurdle ended up being the season during which I started the process. I was offered the job in November, and began collecting what was needed to accomplish the first step. (I promise I will do a separate blog post with details on the visa application, for anyone else who has no idea how to go about it.) While November is a lovely month in general, with November comes Thanksgiving. And soon after, with December comes a long holiday break. So, if you need to receive a document from, say, your university, and they’ve shut down for 3 weeks for the holiday break, it becomes rather complicated to move forward. But never fear, next comes January, and with that things will open up again, right?

In a normal year, perhaps. But as those of us desperately dragging ourselves through 2020 know, this has not been a normal year. And you all know what was happening in China come January of 2020 – ding ding, COVID-19 started spreading. So then, all of the Chinese schools and government offices closed down. A few months later, surprise surprise, incredibly intense travel restrictions were established. No one was getting in or out. (I can’t blame them. The States haven’t exactly proven themselves up to the task of handling or containing this. I wouldn’t want to let us in either. Looking at you, people who still refuse to wear masks….)

See how easy it is? Doesn’t it look cool to know that you are doing your part to keep everyone safe? You can be your own masked superhero! It’s really not that complicated!

But, after a loooooooong few months (half a year?) of playing Hurry Up and Wait – rushing to get the next document in, waiting a few weeks for a response, rushing to collect all the materials needed and booking the next available appointment, waiting a few months for an office to open up – I’ve reached a significantly new moment in the process. The game is no longer Hurry Up and Wait; it’s become simply Hurry Up!

3 days ago, I finally received my visa. Because the Chinese consulate in NYC is currently closed due to the pandemic, the final step in the process was entirely done by mail. (Thank you, USPS!!) I woke up to a large envelope taped to the hallway wall outside of my door so it was the first thing I saw when I left my bedroom. As of today, I also have my flight booked – I will be getting on a plane and moving across the world this upcoming Wednesday, September 23rd. In 3 days. Which is wild to comprehend.

How am I feeling about all of this? Great question, faceless hypothetical reader. The easiest response is that I am feeling every possible feeling on full blast at all times. I currently have 3 modes of being: Shock, Chaos, and Puddle of Emotion. (All 3 involve crying. Are you sensing a theme yet?) Words cannot describe how excited I am that this adventure is finally about to begin. My anxiety is having a fit trying to prepare for the reality of a 15 hour flight amidst a global pandemic. I cannot wait to meet my colleagues and my students, after having only seen them through a screen for months. I think about the fact that I won’t get to say goodbye to just about anyone here and my throat clamps up. The fact that I am about to leave behind everything I have ever known and create a life somewhere entirely new is both thrilling and terrifying to me. For my musical theatre-loving readers, I’m feeling excited and scared.

This will likely be my final post in the States. The next few days are going to be a whirlwind of COVID testing, packing, organizing sub lesson plans, and reminding myself to breathe. Upon my arrival, I will immediately be put into a 14-day quarantine in a hotel in Shanghai. It will be nice to spend a full day awake when the sun is out, a luxury I haven’t had since last February! I won’t even mind the fact that I won’t be allowed to leave my room – just being in China after all this time will be a wonder in and of itself. I’ve been mentally preparing for this moment for almost a year now, but it still feels impossible that it’s actually happening.

Months ago, I described this process to my therapist as being like that of getting on a roller coaster. The minute or so in the very beginning, as you click-click-click your way up the first incline, noticing how high you are getting and waiting with a bubble in your stomach to reach the top and dive. Knowing something big is coming, and it may be scary, but it will also be amazing. Seeing the peak there and slowly approaching it, anxiety and excitement building inside of you. Well folks, I’m finally about to reach the top. To take the dive. Miles Morales’ first leap of faith off the top of a building. Frodo and Sam taking their first steps out of The Shire. Harry Potter about to run at the wall between Platforms 9 and 10.

Wish me luck. Take bets on how many times I’ll cry between now and arriving at my hotel in Shanghai. I’ll see you on the other side (of the planet)!

Alone Together

A few weeks ago, my mother informed me that I should write a new blog post because “there are people who are wondering what you’re up to.” I don’t necessarily believe that to be true; unless you’re a fancypants travel influencer who happened to be spending their quarantine somewhere in Bali while wearing maxi dresses and sipping cocktails on the beach (spoiler alert: I am not), a travel blog is not so exciting when you’re not allowed to travel. But anyways…

When last I wrote, in early March, I had just been given the opportunity to start teaching my classes online while my school in Shanghai was closed due to COVID-19. (It’s strange, isn’t it – March feels like it was a lifetime ago, and yet also as though it was yesterday. This is the year that never existed and also will not end.) For the next few months, I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning navigating the vibe of my new school, learning how to use all of these new educational programs, and teaching my grade 6 and grade 7 drama classes. Though it was a far stretch from how I thought my first few months of teaching would be, and I had to make some major rewrites on lesson plans (funnily enough, a subject focused on in-person collaboration, physical group work, and human interaction does not necessarily translate easily into a virtual format) I was thrilled to start doing something, to start working with my students. And y’all, my students are rockstars. Their creativity, their questions, their passion, their middle school angst, their deep and all-encompassing love for the Percy Jackson series!! Oh, to be 13 again… (I take it back. Never again. NEVER AGAIN.)

  • Curriculum planning. It’s a shame my brain can’t think on a laptop as well as it can on the floor with a pen. Quoth Captain America: whatever it takes!

The end of the school year came and went. I moved back in with my parents (something I had sworn I would NEVER do) and went through the same “how much do I unpack from the luggage I had already packed” process I’d experienced when temporarily moving in with a friend back in February. Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with the nomad lifestyle, but it really helps when you’re at least nomad-ing on the correct continent… Luckily, my parents live out in rural Pennsylvania, so the access to nature and ability to walk out the front door without being convinced I would immediately catch COVID from a mask-less passing bro was a nice change from quarantining in Philly. Fresh air and sunshine, y’all. Highly recommended.

  • This was taken before my parents decided they did not want me to climb the house anymore. Lame.

When August came, we started our new teacher orientation. Though a majority of the new teachers were either already living in China or had been able to get over to Shanghai, there were about 7 other teachers who were in a similar situation to mine: temporarily stranded somewhere else and had yet to get their visas. But, misery loves company – I was thrilled to have some new people to talk to! (A downside of this nocturnal schedule: a majority of my day is spent very, very alone when it is very, very dark outside. Not great circumstances for an extrovert to find herself in.) We were scattered across the globe – Ireland! Dubai! Korea! Indonesia! – and tuning in to our online orientation from whatever time zone we were in. Though under less than ideal circumstances, and not able to participate in many of the icebreaker activities the campus leadership team had put together to welcome us all to the school, we formed our own little band of misfits, desperately trying to find some semblance of normalcy in what would be a very unique start to the school year.

Having these other “online expats” to bond and commiserate with has been a tremendous blessing for me. Not only have we all been able to touch base on the various complications of obtaining a Chinese visa during a global pandemic, and share tips and tricks of what has been successful in making the process go faster, but we’ve been able to share an experience that can feel enormously isolating. I was more alone than I had ever been – hours away from any of my friends, operating on a completely different sleep schedule than everyone around me, having to sit and watch through a screen as all of my new colleagues got to meet each other and form new relationships – and yet, with these other “virtual teachers,” we found a way to be alone, together.

So now, here we are, September. We started classes two weeks ago, and I am desperately trying to put 180 names along with 180 faces that I can only see from a laptop camera at the front of a classroom 7,400 miles away. I eat my “lunch” at about 1:00 am every night. I’ve found that using a fitness ball instead of a chair does wonders for my back when I’m forced to sit for this many hours a night. (Is this what getting old feels like? I’m going to just blame it on pandemic stagnancy.) It’s not ideal, but it could be so much worse. I remain optimistic, for the most part. (Every few weeks I have a nice emotional meltdown, but at this point, I think that just comes with the territory, right?)

Of the 8 of us who were not in China during orientation, there are only three of us left still waiting on our visas/flights. Someday it may be funny to me – I was the first of the group to be in this situation, and may be the last one out. I’m like the dog who sits at the pound for years watching all of the other newer dogs get adopted. It figures. We online expats have made ourselves a promise: once the last of us gets out of quarantine (required 14 days in a private room upon arrival in China) we are all going to take ourselves out, pop some champagne, and celebrate the end of what has been a long, arduous, and unexpected journey. We MORE than deserve some bubbly after the headaches and nightmares this experience has caused. But, we’ve made it this far, and we’ll somehow make it through. Together. For real, this time.

The In-Between

“You got the job! So… now what?” This period of time between finishing the interview process and actually moving to Shanghai to start my life there has been intense, complicated, and full of ups and downs. As soon as I read the email with the job offer (and then reread it sixteen more times just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it) I thought, “Holy sh*t. I’m moving to China.” And then, “HOLY SH*T. I’M MOVING TO CHINA!” And then, immediately burst into tears, alone, in my craft room. (No one is surprised. I cry often, both when I am happy and sad. And overwhelmed. And excited. I’ve cried a lot these past few months.)

I called my parents, in a state of shock, and it was a very calm, collected conversation. (I don’t think any of us could really believe it.) I had been mentally preparing myself (unsuccessfully) throughout the interview process to be okay with either option – either I get the job, move to Shanghai, and my life changes completely OR I stay in Philly for the rest of the year and go out of my way to do things that excite me, make me feel like I am still moving forward. If I didn’t get the job, I would create a show I’ve been dreaming about for a while. I had already done all the research to plan a two-week mythology tour adventure around Athens, Greece. I would take up a new hobby, or find a class, or join a book club. (Joke’s on you, Four-Months-Ago-Madison: now you can create a show, plan a Chinese mythology tour, find classes, and join a book club in SHANGHAI!)

But, as you can imagine, there is a lot that goes into preparing to move across the world with three months notice, especially to a country with a very complicated visa application process. (I promise I will be writing a whole separate blog post about the visa process – I’m still in the midst of it and want to wait until I can speak to all of it. But I will say this: if you are able, avoid starting a three month visa application process when you have only three months before you are supposed to be there, especially if those three months fall over three major holidays during which many businesses shut down. It…complicates things.) On top of the visa process, there was all of the paperwork for the school I would be working for. Doctor visits to make sure I was up to date with my shots/vaccinations. Finding someone to take over my lease with very little notice. Quitting my jobs here in Philly. Packing in four separate categories: stuff for storage (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for letting me keep stuff in your basement!! Thanks, Tori, for babysitting some of my furniture and art while I’m away!!), stuff for China (things for work, for traveling, for hiking, for beaches, for going out, for cold weather, for hot weather, for everything!), stuff to give away, and stuff to get rid of. Mentally preparing for what feels like the biggest thing I have ever done in my life (shout out to my therapist!).

Throughout this process, there’s been a lot of doubt and fear that has presented itself. What if I’m not good enough, and they wish they’d never hired me? What if living alone makes me feel really lonely? What if living alone across the planet from all of my friends and family pushes me down into a dark hole? What if all of my friends get used to their lives without me, and don’t need me anymore? What if they replace me with new friends? What if I’m not brave enough, strong enough, courageous enough to do this? Who do I think I am?

When these thoughts feel overwhelming, I have to remind myself: it is okay to be unsure. It is okay to be afraid. More than okay, it is normal. As a friend of mine so generously told me, I am not brave because I am about to do this without any fear. I am brave because I am doing this in spite of my fear. I have never traveled alone. I have never been to Asia. I’ve never lived alone. But I know that the person that I can be, the person inside that I am waiting to evolve into, can do all of that and more. This anxiety is the fire I will walk through to become the me that is waiting to emerge. Mother of dragons, and all that jazz.

Has the fear gone away? No, not completely. But the closer I get to leaving, and the more research I do into the history, the culture, the food, the mythology, the architecture, the language (I’m a Ravenclaw, knowledge brings me comfort) the more excited I get. As I pack my suitcases this week, it’s not been a sad or scary process. It’s been “Ooh, this will come in handy when I go to Indonesia,” or “I can’t wait to share this with my 7th graders, that will be a fun class,” or “Will this coat be thick enough to wear in Russia in December?” My notebook is filled with notes about restaurants I want to try, information about neighborhoods throughout Shanghai, new apps I want to download, art markets I want to check out… There is much still to be done, and a few weeks yet before I get on the plane, but lately all I can think is: “Holy sh*t. I’m moving to China.” And what a wonderful adventure that will be.