Sheryl Sandberg, China & Me

by J. T. Gilhool

  When I said no, the reaction was swift and deafening. It reaffirmed what I already knew. I was the dependable cog in the wheel. “No” was not in my repertoire. Pile it on and she will get it done. Someone once wrote in my “360 review” that I have an amazing capacity for work. What this person was saying is that I am a workaholic, a mule. I am a fool. In some ways, I feel taken advantage of but I let it happen. I am responsible because I allowed it. We teach people how to treat us.

  I am trying to use this break as a means of altering expectations. How? I don’t have that figured out yet. My first goal is to have dinner three times a week (not including Saturday and Sunday) with my children and husband. Can you believe that I had to make that a goal? Pathetic, truly.

  So, what comes next? Only time will tell . . .

  The Expat Amble . . .

  October 2012

  Shanghai

  On one of my last mornings off before returning to the office from my “leave,” I met the “guy-tais” (trailing spouses of working women — a rare breed in China) for coffee. It was a real eye-opener!

  Jack and I walked our children to the bus stop, kissed the girls and I pretended that I had never seen Henry before in my life. I mean, how uncool to have your mother walk you to the bus stop and try to kiss you, especially when you are a full grown man of 11.

  “Come on, woman, what are you thinking?” was the look he gave me from under his baseball cap. “Seriously!”

  The bus is not your typical yellow school bus. This is the Tour Group Bus. Plush seats, seat belts, nice windows with curtains in case the sun is too strong. There may even be video for all I know. This is not the bus in which I rode to school. There’s a bus Ayi who checks them on board, assures they are secured and confirms the afternoon return plan — are they coming home on the 3:30 bus or the 4:15 extra-curricular activity bus? Very organized.

  We stand there for a few minutes and I start to feel antsy. Why are we standing here? They are on the bus. The chances that they stage some sort of bus coup seem remote. Can’t we go for coffee now? I am literally tapping my foot at this point. Jack is smirking at me. He knows that in my head I am ticking off the list:

  Task #1: Kids on bus. Check.

  Task #2: Walk to Baker & Spice. Delayed.

  Task #3: Order coffee. On standby due to delay of Task #2.

  Task #4: Chat with friends. See above.

  Task #5: Check email. See above.

  And so on . . .

  Jack is not in this mode at all. He is in no hurry. There is no reason to rush. “I usually wait until the bus leaves but I can see that is hard for you, so we can walk now,” he says to me almost mockingly. Whatever, I think to myself.

  A few minutes later I realize that I am standing at the corner and Jack is not standing next to me. No, he is a good block behind me. We are going to miss the light. Get a move on. What is taking him so long? I am literally going crazy but I am being very cool about it. Not!

  “Come on!” I say just loudly enough. And he keeps plodding along. Nothing gets under his skin. He just moves at his own pace, which happens to be the pace of a freakin’ glacier. Finally, after a near ice-age, we arrive at Baker & Spice (it takes all of 6 minutes). I secure the table, enough seats for the group (5), and send Jack off to place our order. I even ask him to place the others’ orders so we won’t have to wait. He shakes his head. He won’t be placing any other orders, I can just tell.

  After a millennium (maybe 8 minutes), the others arrive. First is Nigel, followed about 2 minutes later by Sue and Scott. Just as I am about to ask what took them so long, Sue asks Nigel how he beat them. Nigel’s response “I power walked.” Before I can say a word, Jack says he’d love to see that and Nigel says it wasn’t hard, “just a bit quicker than the usual expat amble.”

  “Expat amble?” I ask. Everyone laughs.

  After the kids are on the bus, there isn’t any reason to rush around anymore. So, the expats amble through their day. Or rather, the trailing-spouse expats take their time walking to coffee, take even longer drinking their coffee, and sit and talk for a bit. You get the picture. They have ‘a lot’ to do but they aren’t in a hurry to do it. They’ll get to it, eventually.

  Some of the pressing issues for these expats:

  Expat cooking classs with Nigel, Ayis & Georgia.

  • Talking to the staff (telling their Ayi what they need done that day from laundry to dinner)

  • Making tee times for golf

  • Scheduling the next wine tasting event

  • Struggling through a Pilate’s class or, at least, considering the possibility of struggling through a Pilate’s class

  • Going for a massage — foot massage, full-body massage, stone massage (decisions, decisions)

  • Going to Chinese class, doing Chinese homework, going for more coffee or a beer to practice Chinese or — my personal favorite — going on a field trip to a restaurant to practice ordering food in Chinese

  • Going to photography class, doing photography homework, planning an outing to do more photography homework

  • Taking the kids to football, baseball, soccer, cricket or swim practice where there always seems to be a bar nearby

  • Thinking about doing any of the above

  • Napping due to the exhaustion caused by thinking about doing any of the above

  It can be so overwhelming for these poor fellows and Sue — the honorary guy-tai. Nigel even sets his alarm for 2:45 p.m. each day. He is worried he might nap through school pick-up time. Pressure.

  This explains why Jack isn’t planning our vacations, doing any of the research on Cambodia, Vietnam or anywhere else. He is far too busy already with his guy-tai duties.

  Truth be told, none of this is possible without him or Nigel or Sue or the other “trailing spouses” who make “home” run. It is a bit easier here for them in Shanghai because they have help: their Ayi, their driver and incredible delivery services. I am jealous. They are enjoying the expat experience far more than me.

  Jack and his “crew” are still ambling their way through Shanghai and other parts of China but soon they will be strutting. As I understand it, there is a hierarchy in the tai-tai (wives) and guy-tai world. And, you move from the expat amble to the expat strut once you’ve been in China for a year or so.

  The strutters are superior to the amblers, or so I am told. I had no idea that the life of a guy-tai was so hierarchical, politically charged and stressful. Just hearing about it made me want to take a nap.

  Competitive Fires

  November 2012

  Shanghai

  I want to sleep until I’m not tired anymore. That isn’t my line. I think it belongs to Kid Rock. The sentiment, however, is mine. Tired. I am tired.

  Thing is, I really can’t sleep. Haven’t been able to sleep for months now. I even have pills to help me sleep, which they did for the first few weeks, but then time passed and I went back to not sleeping. So, the alarm doesn’t go off but I still get out of bed.

  It’s an odd feeling to be truly tired and yet have an urgent need to do something — all at the same time. I think this might have something to do with why I feel like I am going crazy. To silence the competing needs, I get into the water — the pool, actually. I swim. Swimming makes me tired, physically tired. My arms, my legs, my core — all of me. It also focuses my mind in a way that forces it to shut out all the extraneous crap. In the muted blue, cool liquid, it all falls away. It is just me and the water. Clarity. Silence. Peace.

  But, you knew it couldn’t last . . . this is my life we’re investigating in this blog after all. My peace and tranquility were interrupted by a man with a whistle.

  A woman was swimming in the “fast lane.” He was pacing alongside with a whistle and a stopwatch. An actual whistle. He was actually blowing a whistle. It was loud. Very loud, in fact. It wasn’t even 6 a.m. My muted blue, cool liquid was whistling. As I walked from the shower to the pool, the whistle taunted me.

  There i
t was — right there in front me. My first test.

  I stepped into the shower and let the warm water rush over me. I put on my swim cap, walked to the “slow lane,” and jumped into the pool. Goggles in place. I splashed the water over me and then started. I have a routine. Actually, I have several versions of the routine. Still, it is a routine and as I submerged myself into the water, I said aloud to myself, “Just do your swim.”

  I swim several laps at a very even and relaxing pace to warm up. This is where the world starts to fall away. Slowly, I catch the water in my hand and pull it back to move myself forward. Kicking at a moderate, even pace. I even count 1-2-3-4-5-6. Repeat.

  When I begin to feel the water — actually feel it, the texture and weight of it — I’m ready to increase the work. I might grab a kick board and kick for several laps, working just my legs at a quicker pace until they feel a bit like Jello. Next, I move to the pull buoy and it’s all arms. I may or may not add paddles or web gloves to work my shoulders and arms harder. Each morning depends on the night before, the day ahead, the demons to be exorcised.

  I break down the stroke into bits. Focus on the bits. Fingertips dancing across the water as I lift my arm into the air, keeping the elbow high through the stroke. I count the strokes on each lap, finding the rhythm, clearing my head so there is nothing but the stroke, the water, the catch and the pull. Consistency. Pace. Rhythm.

  It isn’t until I’ve been through almost 40 minutes of breaking down and rebuilding the stroke that I am ready to actually swim. My muscles tired, the stroke requires more focus and discipline. And with the stroke put back together, I begin to glide through the water. Easy and smooth at first. Peacefully.

  But on this morning, there was a woman next to me in the “fast lane.” She was easily 15 years younger than me. Her workout followed a similar pattern. Her “coach” was pressing her to go harder, to keep moving, to push herself as hard as she could and he used his whistle to move her along. I tried to push it out of my head and focus on my routine.

  “Just do your swim.” I said it over and over in my head but as I came out of the flip turn I caught sight of her. She was just ahead of me. She was increasing her pace.

  The whistle blew.

  I can catch her. Just do your swim. I can catch her. Just do your swim.

  Each of my workouts ends with laps that increase in speed until I can’t swim any farther. I swim to the point of exhaustion — even if exhaustion strikes in the middle of the lane. I stop. I slow my pace, change my stroke and cool down. I stop.

  But at the turn, I heard the whistle. I moved to the left side of the lane and felt the surge of adrenaline. I can do maybe 200 meters before I start to falter. I picked up the pace. I was making up ground. At the next turn, I came off the wall with more force than I expected — she was mine. She had age on her side. She had a coach on her side. She had time and distance on her side. But I was not going to let her win. No freakin’ way.

  I overtook her at the wall and, when we came to the next turn, her coach blew his whistle. I kept going until I was exhausted. Finished my cool down and left the pool. She was still in the water when I hit the shower.

  I returned to work last week with the goal of pacing myself and focusing more on our family. Seems I haven’t quite figured out how to ignore the pull of competition in whatever form it may take. Pace. Balance. Call it what you want, I haven’t figured it out.

  It will be a challenge to keep to my pace in the slow lane when the fast lane is still moving . . . well, fast.

  Are You Ready . . . For Some Football

  November 2012

  Shanghai

  Football, futbol or footy . . . to be ready in China you had better plan ahead because you can’t just play a pick-up game. No, you gotta plan it.

  Henry plays American football at the Shanghai Rugby Club, where they also play futbol — aka soccer, Aussie Rules, footy or Australian Rules football. Call it what you will — it all involves a ball and your feet. They share the playing fields with baseball, cricket and rugby teams, so you have to plan ahead.

  A dedicated group of Dads organizes leagues, runs practices, forms teams, teaches skills, schedules fields, orders uniforms, and arranges for an expat to buy replacement mouth guards when on a trip to the States. Shoulder pads, baseball gloves, batting helmets all have to be purchased over the summer and lugged back to Shanghai along with cleats, bats, hockey sticks, pucks and even Girl Scout badges.

  On Sunday, after we’ve finished watching college football, we all get in the ‘bus’ and head to the Shanghai Rugby Club for some American-style football. The “stadium” is first class with a bar on the sideline complete with all the usual concessions — hot dogs, burgers, chicken tenders and even ice cream. We get two games — the Senior Dragons and the Junior Dragons. It feels a bit like college ball given the tailgate atmosphere and all the college sweatshirts walking around.

  We had an “away” game a couple weeks ago at one of the local American International Schools and our sideline concession was there — grill and all. Our Dragon lost that week but he didn’t seem to care — he loved playing. Last week his team tied. Equally happy.

  I love football. I love baseball. I really love watching our son play. The effort it takes to organize these sporting opportunities for the children is tremendous. The Dads are coaches, teachers and referees. They move the chains, pop shoulders back into place, and pull jammed fingers out of their jam. From 12 until 4, it’s Sunday afternoon in America — right here in Shanghai.

  For the first time in the league’s history, a game is scheduled to be played under the lights. I will be in Thailand, but on Friday night, November 2nd, it will be Friday Night Lights Football in Shanghai. I hate to miss it but that is also part of my experience as an expat in China. You miss a few things now and again.

  I am going to miss this one, but I’ll catch him next Sunday . . .

  TMI . . . Times 50

  November 2012

  Bangkok, Thailand

  Living in China, I don’t know which song is at the top of the American music charts, or which book everyone is talking about. I don’t even know who made the cast for this season’s “Dancing with the Stars.” I could know this last one but, frankly, I don’t really care. I am at a point where I just simply don’t recognize the people on TV or in the movies anymore, unless it’s Matt Damon or George Clooney.

  Still, I’m not completely out of touch. So, last spring, while at our son’s baseball game, my curiosity was peeked when I kept hearing the other Moms talk about some guy named Grey. You know exactly where this is going, don’t you?! Of course, this is me, so you can expect we don’t get there easily.

  Christian Grey. For a good two weeks, I thought he was an expat living in Shanghai. I did. Thankfully, I didn’t ask around about him — can you just imagine? “Excuse me, but do you know this Christian Grey fellow? I’m dying to meet him.” Yes, as if I wasn’t already a complete embarrassment to my children, this would certainly have done the trick, so to speak.

  It took about a month — yes, I have a job, so it took about a month - to figure out that Christian Grey was a character in a book titled Fifty Shades of Grey. The mothers at baseball couldn’t stop talking about this book. Since there isn’t a Borders store around the corner (heck, I’m not sure there’s a Borders around your corner any more), I had Jack download it to the Kindle. Yep, I asked my husband to download Fifty Shades of Grey to our daughter’s Kindle.

  I had no idea what the book was about, but I was getting on a plane to Thailand and I wanted something to read that wasn’t work related. “Sure you do,” was the coy response from my husband of 20 years. I looked at him not quite understanding the remark . . .

  “I struggle to keep up with him because my wits have been thoroughly and royally scattered all over the floor and walls of elevator three in the Heathman Hotel.”— E.L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey

  I didn’t know about Elevator Three when I asked Jack to download the
book, I really didn’t. He gave me the Kindle a few hours later and told me the book was under “ZZZZ” — it was hidden. “Why is it hidden?” I asked. He smiled. Oh, this was clearly too much fun for him. “You don’t want your daughter to read this book, nor do you want her to know that you are reading it.” It was dripping now — his sarcasm was so thick it bordered on arrogance. I had no idea what was so damn funny.

  “Whatever,” I said.

  Somewhere over the wilds of China on the way to Bangkok, I got it. I felt flush. Who was sitting next to me? Did he know what I was reading or, worse, what I was thinking?

  I looked around business class, expecting the fasten seat belt sign to be illuminated saying “Yep, she’s reading Fifty Shades of Grey!” Fortunately, when reading a book on a Kindle no one can see the jacket cover.

  I got it now. I asked my husband to download my porn and hide it on our daughter’s Kindle. Seriously. I was at once mortified and simultaneously desperate for a connection to Google. I needed a dictionary of sorts.

  “There’s a very fine line between pleasure and pain. They are two sides of the same coin, one not existing without the other.” — E.L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey

  I really didn’t need Mr. Grey to explain to me the fine line between pleasure and pain. I did, however, need a phone line so I could call my husband and ask him if “fisting” was really what I thought it was . . . He couldn’t stop laughing either. Look, I gave birth three times — and I’m just saying that those heads were, well, the size of fists — at least the size of my husband’s fist!

  So, there I was in Thailand. Not just anywhere in Thailand either but in Pattaya. “Walking Street,” the place where you can find and have anything and almost anyone you desire.

  Opportunity rarely knocks twice and, at this point in my life, what did I have to lose? I took my daughter’s Kindle, my Google definitions and hit the Street. After all, if I needed instruction, I could certainly get it here. And, if I just wanted some toys, I could get those too. Mostly, I was curious.