Features 2010

From the Editor: Living in Shanghai

A Squash and a Squeeze: Decluttering for the Big Move

What to Expect When You’re Going to Expo

Digital Art: Not Just Eye Candy

Eveline Chao Reviews Fiction for Tweens with Half-Asian Characters

Features 2009

Community Theatre: Kung Fu Revelations

Recruitment Companies and the Expat –Friend or Foe?

Raising Third Culture Kids Finding your way

Emergency--Handling a medical emergency in Shanghai

Student Achiever: Natasha Weaser

A Conversation about Learning for the Future

From the Editors: Firecrackers

The Monkey King and other Mischievous Friends

Easy Crafts to Celebrate Chinese New Year

Features 2008

Create Your Holiday Tree in Shanghai

Shanghai Riding for the Disabled

How Does She Do It: Expatriate Women Who Work And Why

Doing Good: Social Venture Group Cultivating Responsible Philanthropy

Doing Good: The World Wildlife Fund

Saving the Planet Starts at Home

From the Editors: Welcome Home

What is Repatriation?

June 2010
By Lindsey Salatka

REPATRIATION is a hazy delirium of sleep deprivation, without the possibility of an ayi stepping in to man your three small hyenas so you can you catch up on much needed rest. Repatriation is accepting that you have no remote chance of finding tasty cheap dumplings or fresh uiger noodles at a moment’s notice. Repatriation is wrestling on the grass at a public park and feeling fairly confident that you’re not going to get whistled at by a park attendant.

Repatriation is lonely. Once home, you will go to parties where acquaintances who knew you’d been living abroad ask how you liked living in Singapore or Hong Kong or even Guam, because unless you’ve been to Asia or spun your decorative globe around to examine the other side, it’s all the same place.

Repatriation is not having anyone to commiserate with about life without an ayi, because understandably, no one wants to hear you whine about not having enough help. Only to you dear readers will I confess - life with three small children and no help really bites the big one.

Even if you and your spouse are the main act and your helpers are the back-up band. Even if you are the A team and they are the sniveling benchwarmers with pulled hamstrings. With no one waiting to take the baton, you never stop running.

In simple terms, repatriation is dishes and laundry, and more laundry and then some dishes, right before you change the laundry and put away the dishes. It’s chapped hands and bad hair while the kids swing pots and pans at each other as you think of a five minute dinner plan that complies with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.

If you are repatriating, I wish you all the best. Before you leave Shanghai, make time to visit all those places you’ve meant to, shop like mad, say goodbye to the city and the pieces of life that are so unique to Shanghai. Also, spend time with your spouse and family before the move. Your family members may not be changing, but you’ll be surprised at the differences you’ll notice in them when the setting of your life switches.

And be sure to remember the moments upon your return, when nothing is taken for granted just yet. On my oldest daughter’s first day of school in the U.S., all the kids stood up to say the Pledge of Allegiance. She swung around in panic and gave me the look to say, “What are these life forms chanting, Mommy?” Then came her quiz on American money. Isn’t it odd that a dime is smaller than a nickel yet worth more, and why is a penny a different color than the other coins? All valid questions that I would answer if only I knew the answers.

During my second daughter’s first week of preschool, I learned a new way of learning letters. “Who let the A out? A, A, A, A. Who let the B out? B, B, B, B.” You get the picture. I guess the classic alphabet song is a little boring. And this new version, while horrifying, actually works. Kids love it. For daughter number three, I could use some whistle training. At 16 months, shouldn’t she be about ready for a toilet? She was born in China after all. The diapers are getting tedious but something tells me the split pants would not catch on here. Not yet anyway.

It may sound like I hate being home, but actually, I love it. After seven years abroad, I love the feeling of dropping roots. I love watching my kids play with their cousins. I like eating off of dishes not from Ikea and wearing t-shirts not from H&M. I like seeing my childhood friends in our childhood settings. At the same time, I miss the crazy times in Shanghai when every day would bring something completely unexpected.

The ballroom dancers in the park. The street sweepers who make those twig brooms that look hopeless but actually work. The really large underwear that hung over my lane and somehow fit on the frame of a very small person. Watching my kids interact in a culture that felt like home to them.

But for all that I miss about Shanghai, I am happy my family and I are back home. It feels good to re-learn our land, even with the fatigue, and piles upon piles of laundry. True, home won’t bring you the elements of interest you’d find in any back alley in Shanghai. But even for all of its sameness, you can still learn the alphabet in a new way.

What's Inside June

A Squash and a Squeeze: Decluttering for the Big Move
Shanghai’s Graduates
When To Move Back?
SF Extra - web exclusive articles:
Playlist for Parents

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