Times Square, Silent Train, and a Secret... Reflections on my 9/11

My favorite view of the Twin Towers pre-9/11 that I never tired of... from Hoboken.

Twelve years ago now, after watching two beautiful buildings crumble to the ground on a small TV in the cafeteria of my New York City office building, I was sent home from work, and not knowing where to go or what to do next, I went back to the company apartment that I was staying at and turned on the TV again. What was I looking for? The images were the same over and over. I had to get out of New York, but I was stuck, so that would have to wait until tomorrow. I decided to go for a walk and went a couple of blocks over to Times Square. It was still and quiet. A ghost city. The image from "Vanilla Sky" where Tom Cruise runs through an empty Times Square filled my head. I shivered. All the stores and kiosks were boarded up, there were no taxis or cars honking through the streets, no bus fumes. It was quiet enough that I could hear the sound of the jet fighters making their rounds overhead and the ambulances in the distance racing south on the West Side Highway. I was alone, but not really. I had a secret.

Sleep would not come for me that night. So, at first light, I headed for the train station to see if I could get to the Jersey side where my parents and siblings were. The station was packed, but people were quiet and orderly. Everyone had suitcases. It was a mass exodus from the city, like refugees. Transit Authority workers were directing people along and filling up the trains as fast as they could. No charge. I stood on the packed train among silent people. It was like the sound turned off on the TV. No one spoke. The train pulled away from the station and went through its underground stretch under the Hudson River. After a few minutes, daylight and a bright blue sky. And as we pulled away from the train tunnel and turned to be parallel with the river, the city loomed on the other side of it, with smoke still pluming from downtown. And people gasped. A woman sitting by the window sobbed. I felt sick. 

I arrived at my parents' home. They were happy to see me and gave me big hugs. We didn't say much to each other. I  went outside and lied on the grass in their front yard and stared up at the blue sky with puffy white clouds. A carbon copy of the sky that brought disaster 24 hours earlier. When things were much different and seemingly "more normal."

I had big news to tell that night in the kitchen. About the new little person that was to join our family in about 9 months time. And though my husband wasn't there with me to share the news with them, we felt it was the right time to share our news with our families - about their first grandchild. To bring a little bit of joy to a day when there was so much sadness.

This summer, my sons and I visited the WTC Memorial Site. To be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed. The grounds, underground arcade and those two tall buildings I'd always admired seemed so massive to me when I worked and played among them in my 20s. The site today seems so small. But it is beautiful and serene and it's nice to have a special place to say hello to old friends and acquaintances who rest there forever. Never forget 9/11.

A "forever young" friend.

Thoughts on a Volatile Year in Shanghai... Part 1: Superstorm Sandy

I admit I was out of commission for our "last year" in Shanghai. I pretty much had checked out, as they say. We thought we were repatriating, you know in layman's terms, leaving or blowing this taco stand (er, I mean jiao zi stand). 

I didn't make much of an effort to meet newbies to Shanghai my last year. I still had some friends here, I didn't need any more for my last year. I wanted to spend my last months in Shanghai with familiar faces - people whose names I could remember. 

Then, Superstorm Sandy struck. October 30, 2012. She made a direct hit on my hometown of Manasquan, New Jersey (her girth was wide, so technically we were part of that direct hit). I watched CNN International helplessly from China all night while the familiar faces of American newscasters reported live from my town as the hours crept closer to high tide. The water from the storm surge came into our house, uninvited. And that b**ch Sandy, well, she made a mess and never cleaned up after she left. I can count on one hand the number of houses that didn't have a flood breach in a 5-block radius of our house. 

They said you didn't want to be there for the storm. And I am thankful that my boys didn't have to live through it. It must have been scary as hell. I've been in my Jersey Shore home during "almost hurricanes", big nor'easters and mild nor'easters, and it scares me to death - and those little storms are nothing compared to this. Mother Nature, she can be real mean! 

I made the 14-1/2 hour flight home two weeks after the storm to assess the damage and get the tedious paperwork started, knowing that I was going to be one of thousands in line for getting a contractor to rebuild our house and fighting for insurance money. 

The smell was something I'd never experienced before. Not like anything remotely familiar. If I ever smelled it again, I would recognize it immediately, and I hope that never happens because it was the smell of disaster. 

Only two weeks after the storm my appliances looked like they were left out in the rain for 20 years. The demolition company had already stripped the house of floors, carpets and half of the walls. Any belongings still remaining were put in the garage. My immediate thought was to just dispose of everything. I didn't want anything that touched that disgusting Category 3 flood water with the sick smell. Some local volunteers came and helped me move everything to the street. Our things joined the  piles of debris and years and years worth of neighbors' belongings out there. A large FEMA truck came by and picked up everything, crushing my doomed appliances as if they were made of paper. 

The giant FEMA debris trucks.

A father and son volunteer team - these guys and many other teams of volunteers, went around the neighborhood looking for ways to help and encourage homeowners whose homes were destroyed. God bless them!

As I continued to clean out and organize, both neighbors and strangers came by. I got more hugs that week than I think I ever had in my life. Everyone was sharing stories. I cried often and a lot. And I do think it was more for them than for me. You see, I was lucky... I didn't have to live in the 2nd floor of my house with no heat for two weeks, I didn't have to live without a kitchen for several months. I didn't have to have contractors in and out of my house 15 hours a day and live with the sounds of construction all around me day in and day out all winter and spring. I live in Shanghai, 1/2 a world away. 

But that wasn't without its problems. Managing a rebuild 1/2 a world away wasn't easy. I was stressed out, very unhappy, and hence turning blue. Because it was hard to make choices, to communicate on a 12-hour time difference with no reliable phone service, to deposit insurance money, to argue my case with the insurance company, and on top of it, I had no one to talk to that could relate to me, including my husband. It was me who was carrying the burden and I felt really lonely. But as I look back upon that time, I am thankful that my family didn't feel the burden because it was painful in ways that I can't describe. 

So, by Spring, I felt a strange, strong pull from the homeland. I couldn't wait to blow this jiao zi (dumpling) stand and GO HOME - I wanted OUT of Shanghai and I was ready to repatriate. I was done. I wanted to clean up our nest and make it right for my family. I couldn't wait to settle back into the easy life in the USA.

And then, we got THE OFFER. The offer TO STAY...  

Buzzer No Work

While we were away on summer home leave, we've had some things break around our Shanghai house. So now that I'm back, I've got a short list of things that need to be fixed. One of them is the house buzzer at our garden gate, which poses a big problem. Because when the workers come to fix things, they buzz the non-working buzzer and then leave, because I don't answer... because I don't know they are there. So I call the management office and tell them to come back and they say, "You no home," to which I reply, "I am home, my buzzer no work. If you fix it then you will see I am home". It then takes another week for me to get them to come back. And the vicious cycle continues...

Well, now I taped a sign OVER the buzzer itself. But unfortunately I can't write Chinese characters. So I wrote: "BUZZER NO WORK. COME TO DOOR" with an arrow. I figured that even though the workers can't read it they will get the basic idea from the arrow and the fact that the sign covers the buzzer. So now I got them to my front door. But instead of knocking, they start yelling. I don't respond to yelling in Chinese because there is a lot of yelling around here already and I've learned to block out loud Chinese yelling.

Finally, I look out the window and sure enough they were calling to me. I showed them how to knock to get me to answer. Hopefully, they will knock the next time. Sigh... I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow and ruin my sign...

From the Back of a Van

One of our favorite things about living in China is being able to buy copy DVDs of newly released theater movies before they are even released on DVD in the U.S. Oftentimes, the descriptions on these copy DVDs are not proofread, just poorly translated by some guy who speaks a little English, we presume. Would it take that much time and effort to have an English translator do it correctly is always the question on everyone's mind here.

This DVD was even funnier to us, because not only is the description on the back poor Chinglish, but the visual on the front is "hilarious" (according to my husband). Angelina Jolie is not an actress in this movie, she is the writer-director. I hardly think she would approve of this ridiculous photo of herself looking like some kind of vixen. This is a war movie, not a porno flick. We are constantly amused and it never gets old!

The real one from the U.S.:

The cover of the copy DVD in China:

Sh*t Happens

On Friday morning I was looking forward to going on a tour and talk at the American Consulate in Shanghai through the American Women's Club. It had taken a week to get clearance, and I had made arrangements for the boys to be picked up at the bus stop since I wasn't going to be home before school let out. Well, the best laid plans don't always work...

Our master bathroom toilet had been running slow, and that morning, it clogged, and overflowed. I called the management office and told them the problem, explaining that this wasn't a "plunger job," knowing that they would send a guy with a plunger. (See, the Chinese think we're stupid and that we wouldn't have tried using a plunger before calling them. This is typical of most problems. Just because we don't speak their language means that we are stupid.). So, at 9am, the maintenance man shows up, yup, with a plunger. I rolled my eyes at Matt as I opened the door for him and let him in. Five minutes later, he was convinced that it was more serious that a plunger job, so he left. The management office called me and said that they would be sending over a "professional" at 10am. At 10am, the doorbell rings, and I opened the door to find "the professional" - the same guy from before, only this time he was armed with a wrench!

Eventually, the professional did show up with an electronic vibrating "snake" that shook the whole house and sprayed nasty toilet water all over the bathroom. After a half hour of this, and a lot of discussion and yelling back and forth in Chinese, they finally gave up, said "bu hao" and went to lunch. Well, I know what that means... "very bad." By this time, I had kind of figured that out.

After lunch, some guys came back and started digging up my side yard. The sh*t really hit the fan when the pipe burst in two places and literally covered the Chinese guy with sewage. He laughed and went back to work. Only in China!

Before the explosion... thankfully it didn't happen while I was taking this photo!

Needless to say, this was a whole day affair, so I missed my chance to go to the American Consulate, but at least my toilets are working, my garage is clean and organized (as this was going on, I decided to organize my garage!) and my bathroom is disinfected and spotless - I put my new can of Comet to good use!

Just Another Ordinary Day in Shanghai

This woman is very comfortable walking around the neighborhood in the middle of the day in her PJ's.

We never get tired seeing how much junk one can fit on his bicycle...

Tyler chased this guy down the street to try to get this shot...

Every man gets a job, even if it's spraying toxic chemicals all over the place.

Chinese girls love wearing short, short skirts... Tyler and Gavin always notice because that is eye level to them. T took this photo.

Back in Time to Yangshuo, China... Karsts and Farmland

The boys and I took our first trip to the China countryside at the end of February. We went with two other families, with kids of similar ages. It was a great trip, because while the kids kept each other busy playing tag and cards, I was able to take in the beautiful scenery of Yangshuo.

The draw of this area of the country are the mountains called "karsts," which is landscape or terrain that results from the weathering of bedrock that is soluble in water (in this case, limestone). This type of landscape develops slowly over tens of thousands of years or longer. An interesting feature of these types of landscape are the caves that are formed beneath. We were able to go into one, and although it was lit up like the glitzy Vegas strip, it was quite impressionable!

Among the karsts, there is plenty of flat land. Farmers grow miles and miles of crops. I was so overwhelmed by the hard work that these people do each day. Old men digging up huge parcels of land with just a shovel, no farming machines in sight. Women carrying heavy loads of materials in buckets balanced on bamboo poles on their shoulders, no trucks in sight. Small children too young to go to school, out weeding in the fields; shouldn't they be playing?

We stayed in a nice little inn by the Li River called the Snow Lion Mountain Inn. It was rustic, but clean, and had modern Western bathrooms (no squatty potties, phew!). We were the only guests in the whole inn, so we had the run of the place, which was fantastic! The food was delicious and really cheap. The forecast was for rain all weekend, but happily, we didn't see a drop all weekend. To top it off, Sunday was sunny and quite warm.

The charming Snow Lion Mountain Inn.

Breath-taking karst scenery. This is the Li River near our inn.

Inside Silver Cave with its psychedelic color-changing lights. This cave was accidentally discovered about a decade ago by some children who were playing in the area.

Taking a break... being a world traveler is tough work.

The town of Yangshou with its karst background. Beautiful!

The Chinese 20-yuan note has a scene from the Li River on the back of it.

Here it is... the scene from the 20-yuan note. But it's not as peaceful as it looks on the note because of the loud motors on the many boats which go up and down the Li River with sightseers, which I guess would include us.

The boys on our Li River boat cruise.

Impressions Sanjie Liu show. The stage is the Li River and lights light up the karst landscape beyond. The 600+ actors in the show are local farmers and fishermen. They perform in this show every night of the week!

Here we all are on the bamboo rafting trip. It was peaceful, quiet and beautiful (no motorized boats in this area).

One of the crazy Chinese rafters. As usual, a cigarette dangling precariously out of his mouth...

On top of Moon Hill, one of the karsts that is famous because it has a half-moon shape carved out of its top.

Our little world travelers with Ding, our local guide.