Baci Abroad Blog
10 Thinks I Love About You
As an English teacher, I am working with 10th-grade learners to write analytical essays about various books that they have been reading. In the spirit of some of their essays, I will begin with a quote. Like some of my budding writers are doing, I will place it here, without context, and then walk away. You decide what it means to you, or to me, after reading today's post.
“I know you can be underwhelmed, and you can be overwhelmed, but can you ever just be, like, whelmed?” ~10 Things I Hate About You
10. I love you, Patacon, for your cuddles and company. But I have like one rule in this house, and I hate it when you break it. Please take your paws off of my pillow.
9. I love you, Sun, for rising in the east. And I love you, Shenzhen, for keeping so many factories closed so that we can see the hills of Hong Kong through a clear sky, rather than through the smog.
8. I love you, Hobbs Household, for bringing the fun.
7. I love you, Ann, for being the friend and collaborator that you are. Thank you for recording audio for "The Handsomest Drowned Man" -- I think that our SIS students are fortunate to have teachers sending all the love with all sorts of gestures. Craig, thank you in advance for understanding this office is more ours than yours. The future is female. The present is the future.
6. I love you, Brother Tom, for sending me the Vitamix. This is my first creation. I'm sorry that I couldn't have you over for dessert.
5. I love you, Cass, for cutting and coloring my hair. Getting my haircut was a little scary today, and I wished that I could have been sitting in your chair. The stylist did say, "Highlights very good!"
4. I love you, self-quarantiners, for choosing to stay inside. I am an introvert living in a city of over 13 million people, and now I feel like Goldilocks when she sleeps in brother's bed.
3. I love you, Silvie, for believing that you should come to the beach with me. While you are currently barred from leaving China, I am not, and so I must go, and you must stay.
2. I love you, Beck and Stone, for taking in my screaming orange and white cat. She does not realize that I have not sent her to get more teeth pulled, but rather that she will be at the kitty spa. She'll settle in after some time. Or maybe she won't.
1. I love you, Shenzhen, for putting all sorts of restrictions in place. I cannot see my friends much since we cannot enter one another's homes (unless we sneak). We cannot eat inside of most restaurants. But we can celebrate that in the past three days, the city has not reported any new cases of COVID-19.
So, as you can see, there is underwhelming stuff, overwhelming stuff, and then just the whelming. And that's my essay. I mean my blog post. K, ttys.
Buttery, the Story of a Neighborhood Café
It's Sunday afternoon. Lulu, the owner of my favorite neighborhood café, Buttery, moves about her open concept kitchen space gracefully. She's making lattes and delivering them in small artsy mugs to the few of us here working today. As Lulu moves over to the stove to check on her chili, Mary Wells' words Nothing you can say can tear me away from my guy/ Nothing you could do 'cause I'm stuck like glue to my guy softly float into the air from a tiny iPod placed underneath the table with hand-crafted jewelry that Lulu sells in the cafe.
Those of us enjoying this warm space today are breathing in the aroma of blueberry, raspberry and blackberry jams simmering on the stovetop. Fresh pumpkin spice and blueberry scones are propped up in front of me, deservingly elevated on a cake stand -- the flavors from Buttery have been raising the community's spirits for the past three weeks, the same amount of time fears and restrictions from the novel coronavirus have been spreading.
Lulu opened Buttery in May of 2019. I remember catching a glimpse of the café as I descended Nanshan Mountain in the spring. I peaked in a couple of times, but it wasn't until this fall that I opened the door and ventured inside her haven.
"This is so much of my love," Lulu told me as we sat down to talk last week, a lull in the afternoon business opening up space for some storytelling. When you walk into Buttery, you feel the love, the warmth, the sense of community that emanates outwards from Lulu into the space surrounding her.
Lulu at her industrial-sized mixer. She bakes bread daily.
The set-up of the café is an open-concept kitchen with a horseshoe of small tables and chairs surrounding one end of the cooking space. The decor is eclectic: carved gnomes stand on a shelf along with hand-crafted pottery and other knick-knacks; it's not kitschy, nor does it exude sophistication. The entire space works together to embrace you; you have the warm feeling of having just eaten your grandmother's best comfort food even before you've sunk your fork into Lulu's homemade dishes.
Photo courtesy of Lulu
The menu at Buttery is inspired by Lulu's memories of watching her grandmother cook homemade recipes for the Chinese New Year. As Lulu and I continued to sit and talk, her tone becoming more animated, she told me of how she wants people to understand that wholesome eating is achievable.
Soup Joumou, steaming with pumpkin, chunks of savory beef, squash carrots and fragrant herbs. Photo courtesy of Lulu.
In 2006, Lulu met her husband, Kodiak, at a wellness center in Harbin Hot Springs, California. Lulu's friends brought her to the retreat after she volunteered at an event for Obama's campaign in the Bay Area. Kodiak was helping to build a temple at the hot springs.
As the two were getting to know each other, Lulu shared with Kodiak her dream to open a café someday. "What will you sell there," he laughed, "frozen food from Trader Joe's?" Lulu stubbornly told him that living her younger years in Shanghai and Shenzhen, she knew about cooking fresh food. When he asked her to make something, she didn't have any recipes at her fingertips ... yet.
Kodiak and Lulu's relationship deepened, and the two moved to Mendocino County in 2007. They were surrounded by people who were growing their own vegetables and Lulu's consciousness of the impact of whole foods on our health deepened. She began spending time with new friends who taught her about growing her own food. She began to read and watch videos about food science. She began to experiment with making her own bread. She noticed how she felt when she ate such fresh foods.
You can dine in or out at Buttery. It is placed on a quiet corner, so it offers the perfect nook for some reading. Photo courtesy of Lulu.
After spending five years in Mendocino County, Lulu and Kodiak made the move to China. In 1983, when Lulu was four years old, she had moved to Shenzhen with her family from Shanghai. Over 30 years later, her return to Shenzhen would see the realization of the dream that she had shared with Kodiak, though not for some years still.
Lulu and Kodiak opened a language center once they had settled into Shenzhen. In a small space at the learning center, Lulu began to bake fresh goods such as bread and scones. In time, two food bloggers stumbled upon the space and wrote about her "mysterious confidence."
Over time, Lulu and her husband grew tired of teaching English at the center they had opened. Their vision did not always match what parents who sent their children wanted. When Lulu and Kodiak received a strong offer for the space, they sold the center, serendipitously drawing Lulu even closer to the location that would become Buttery.
On Sundays, Lulu, Kodiak and their son, four-year-old Atticus, came to Shekou to walk Nanshan Mountain. One day, as they were dining on their favorite dumplings after a hike, they noticed that there was a vacant storefront nearby. In January of 2019, Lulu and Kodiak began renovations and five months later Buttery opened to the public.
The public includes the neighborhood cats. When Lulu saw this sweet one outside, she rushed to her refrigerator to get fresh, organic chicken to serve her.
"I remember the day that you first came in," Lulu told me. "You were the first foreigner to order my chicken." I feel special in this moment, that I have somehow made a mark on Lulu. The truth is, I have, but so has everyone else that has entered Buttery. Lulu has a knack for names, and for remembering others' stories. It is, in part, the reason why, even after a lull in business from July until October, the café is now thriving. At Buttery, you are at home.
Most days, during this coronavirus outbreak, I have snuggled right into a chair here, feeling safe and cozy. While many restaurants have remained closed, Lulu has kept Buttery open, becoming a haven for the community.
Lulu uses her calligraphy to communicate to café visitors that we all live under the same sky and the same moon. We are one, she reminds us as she paints this Buddhist message.
As we close our conversation today, I am getting ready to go cuddle with the cats, and Lulu is getting ready to return home to Kodiak and Atticus, she leans towards me, and says, "Life just kind of takes you ... you plan ... but what's inside of you drives you. You will say verbally what you want to do, but in the end, you will be driven to where your heart is."
Update, May 5, 2022
The pandemic has brought so much change to the world, on global and community scales. Not so long after this article was first posted, Lulu and her family left China for Japan. Since Kodiak does not have a Chinese passport, the family was locked out of China long term. Due to these circumstances, Lulu and her family moved to the United States where they have extended family. Last we spoke, her spirits were high and she was doing well.
Reporting from China: Another Call for Higher Love
I've just returned from a date with the Denson's. Dinner "out on the (ghost) town" felt like a real event given the way we've been laying so low this week. We first went to a Hong Kong-style eatery named Gaga Garden, only to walk in and find that it was closing for the night. It felt like this ...
I don't know how to smize very well, but I think it's clear that I can pout with my eyes. This look did nothing to convince Gaga to stay open an extra hour. Ho Hum.
We ventured a bit further into Seaworld and this led us to Baia, a restaurant owned by a couple of European men that serves "upper-scale" food. I had the best meal that I have had in three weeks, the amount of time that I been Candida cleansing. Alli, Charles and I had the entire restaurant to ourselves -- we did choose to eat outside in the open fresh air.
I'm ever so grateful to be a third wheel with this duo. These two are my kind of happy hour.
The fine dining dinner did feel well-deserved after finishing our first week of online teaching and learning -- as an online educator now, I am definitely learning about how to reach all of my students through various modes. Altogether, though, it seems the instruction has generally been effective this week, and I do feel connected to my students, even from a distance.
While I have worked to separate church and state, for the most part, going to school and to Buttery to type out lesson plans and send audio feedback to my kids, yesterday I decided to work from home in the afternoon. .
Mom has always said, watch your children when they are sleeping (because when they are being pills while awake you'll be able to remember that they have sweet moments).
While my new routine has begun to feel quite comfortable, my heart feels weighted with how some of the world continues to respond to the new virus that came out of a city in China that was hardly on most people's maps until last week.
My friend and her family decided to fly home while we are not physically in school. The neighbors caught wind of my friend's family's arrival and interrogated her mother about where my friend and her family had been exactly. The neighbor was worried that her child, with a more compromised immune system, might catch the virus from the family just home from China. While I think we can empathize with a mother's fears for her child, her call to my friend's mother wreaked of ignorance.
My sense of the world's perception of the virus is that it has gotten the stigma it seems to have because it came out of a wet market in a country that doesn't have "great relations" with the US. A wet market is particularly foreign in a way that incites disgust, perhaps, and misunderstanding along cultural lines.
John Pomfret, for The Washington Post, writes, "At a middle school a few blocks from my house, a rumor circulated among the children that all Asian kids have the coronavirus and should be quarantined. Misinformation has also reached higher education: In college campuses across the United States, some non-Asian students have acknowledged avoiding Asian classmates for no other reason than, well, the coronavirus came from Asia."
This is rough stuff: xenophobia, ignorance, and baseless assumptions. To look at someone as a walking virus is to deny a person the very humanity that should lead us to care more deeply for one another.
I know, though, that it's not the whole story. I know there are communities of us working to share truth and love and open our arms to one another.
And here is when I put in another plug for you to join the #internationalhigherlovedanceteam. I have a handful of videos so far from friends and family, and it would be amazing to muster up more, of everyone dancing to Higher Love. Do whatever your soul moves you to do as Whitney belts out:
Think about it, there must be a higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, and I'll look inside mine
Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk the line and try to see
Falling behind in what could be, oh
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love, oh
Bring me a higher love
Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?
Reporting from Shenzhen, China: Back to School ... Online
It is nearly 4 o'clock in Shenzhen. I am just wrapping up my school day -- a very quiet, but productive day of delivering curriculum and feedback to my students on online platforms.
Because with Google and China #itscomplicated, Shekou International School uses Microsoft Office as our collaborative learning space. I have spent a good part of my day monitoring and dropping into book club discussions happening in Microsoft TEAMS.
I would prefer to be conversing with my students in person, but what was cool about today is that I could drop into multiple book clubs in the same hour; generally, during class time I can only sit with one book club each day.
I did start the day with some yoga, and then made it to a cafe near school in time to catch the halftime show.
This is the only part of the Superbowl that I understand. All hail Shakira and J. Lo!
I was getting sweet updates from Minnesota while I watched the halftime show, and I was excited to see that my two youngest nieces are working on being in the show in a few short years. #justaquickheadbang
After working for a bit at school, a few of my friends and I ventured out for lunch. There were two other individuals eating at a restaurant, Les 5, on what we call The Strip, the long line of massage places, restaurants, bars and pet stores that runs for several blocks adjacent to SIS.
Today's new norms: temperature checks when you walk into a restaurant and complimentary (read: mandatory) hand sanitizer at the same time. Later, when I walked into my apartment building, I stepped into the elevator to find that a box of tissues had been taped to the elevator wall. Convenient, I thought.
After school, I was blessed with almond cookies and almond bread baked by Alli, time to get down with my #wholebowls routine in my kitchen, and space to meditate.
Stepping away from devices now so that I can turn back to Ronan Farrow's Catch and Kill.
Good night, or good morning, certainly have a good day from me and the kitty who loves to live on my air purifier.
Reporting from Shenzhen, China, in the midst of #coronavirus fears, rumors, and new norms
Hello, dear friends and family,
I am snuggled up in my apartment tonight, writing as my second batch of chicken bone broth cooks in my instant pot, and the cats lounge at my feet.
I am pretty tuckered out tonight, largely because I ran a kick-ass 10k along the boardwalk with my friend Ann. This weekend I was supposed to be in Hong Kong for the 9Dragons race -- Alli was going to run the 50k, and I was slated to run the 10k. Understandably, the race was canceled, but my runner's lungs were still craving a little race pace. As Ann and I ran, masks (mostly) on, the scene was quiet and quite lovely. Along the boardwalk, instrumental music plays out of speakers in the bushes. Guards were posted regularly along the boardwalk to ensure runners, walkers and those strolling along were indeed following the mandate that everyone wears masks outside.
Some of the new protocols set in place this week have been strange to get used to. Just today my building stopped allowing visitors in, so my friend Katie, who came by for a bit, was not allowed to enter. This is disappointing, but we still were able to head out on our favorite hike nearby and enjoy coffee at our favorite cafe.
Altogether, I appreciate the measures that China is taking to prevent the virus from spreading further. I now get my temperature checked some 3 or 4 times a day as I enter and re-enter my apartment. Every time they put the temperature gun to my head, the apartment security is very kind. Honestly, I am thankful these are the only kinds of guns hanging around here. The biggest gripe in my day was actually the fact that when I blew my electricity yesterday, I forgot to turn on the water heater again ... the water was running mighty cold after that run.
This is a time it is especially useful to be inclined towards the introvert end of the spectrum. I love my solitude. I have many books, podcasts, Netflix shows, and a Shutterfly book that I started three years ago to attend to.
Earlier today I met with my colleague and friend Clayton to collaborate about how we will work on online platforms to deliver curriculum to the students. As of right now, we will be working online until February 17th.
I am largely ignoring much of the media. If you want to hear more raw truth, I encourage you to drop CNN and FoxNews, and tune in to Harvard Health and NPR. I logged in to Twitter tonight to find that what was trending for me was #coronavirus. Not surprising. Just below that, though, was the #NoMeatNoCoronaVirus and I was like I just cannot with you opportunists right now.
I am fortunate to be part of a community here that is one to offer support, outreach and just some laughs to one another. My principal and director have been close at hand when I have needed to offset some anxiety with a conversation. Those of us who stayed in Shenzhen rather than opting for Thailand, or other destinations, have formed a group chat. Only honest and useful updates are posted to the chat, which was started by an elementary teacher who has continued to offer family hikes to look for bugs and enjoy nature. My friend Megan, also an administrator, has arranged for a viewing of the SuperBowl tomorrow. We are #shekoustrong because of this caring community. I feel so blessed to feed off of this community, and also give back to it.
I plan to offer daily updates here at lettersfromasojournista. No fake news, no bullshit, just what is happening from here in the bubble of Shekou in Shenzhen, China.
For tonight, I sign off with a picture of Ms. Silvermoon Free Solo, shortly, Silvie.
Be well, everyone. Sending love from Shenzhen.