i can't tell you how much better it's been since the landlord thing blew over. i can finally breathe again. my chi, although over-worked and exhausted, is on its way to getting pure again...

so it ends up i will stay in SH til at least the end of april. i promised my bosses i would even stay til june if needed. hopefully it won't be needed. at least my rent is free. soon, i hope i will be too. :)

babies

i really enjoy playing with babies:
watching how 5 micro-expressions flash on their faces in 5 seconds
their pudgy fingers and thighs
how they lay there peacefully as they are bathed
how their arms and legs are always in motion
how they are so proud when they discover a new skill, like rolling over
how they stare at you endlessly because your face is so interesting to them
how watchful they are of the things around them
how they drink from the bottle but are still looking around the room
how they are fussy if they are in one position only because they are not in another position
how they giggle so much and their smiles are so wide
their unmistakable baby smell
their soft body parts
how they barely have toenails
how pink and white they are.

i love spending time with hannah mae. she makes me love babies oh so much.

what will i miss most about china?

~sichuan food-the shiznit is pretty sweeeeeet. especially the numbing water-cooked beef, my fave.
~gokohai shabu shabu. the best shabu ever.
~my awesome, kind and loyal local friends.
~cheap and accessible public transport.
~cheapness in general.
~its air accessibility to many asian countries.
~the interesting expat kids i meet and get to spend time with each week. and their gnarly names.
~my coworkers and bosses are really good people. the company has its heart in the right place.
~contract work. contract work. contract work.
~lots of opportunities you don't get elsewhere due to loose regulations of sorts. u can do all sorts of diverse stuff here. and i have, and i loved it.

what won't i miss:
everything else.

korea, sweden or canada?

after the debacle with psychobitch from hell, the phone rings and i say to dkf, it's the landlord or cop, i know it, and i won't answer it! I am so conditioned to my phone ringing and it being bad news or harassment after this whole incident I am sorta traumatized by my ringtone. I think I will change it. But i look at the phone and it appears to be an int'l call. dkf figures out that it is from korea so i pick up.

so i got a salaried job offer from the position in seoul today. i spoke with them a couple weeks ago and they weren't sure if they could offer me that, but would contact me again later. today they did. i wasn't happy with their offer and less than enchanted about having to make our next home still in asia. to be honest, i need a break from asia. i have dreamed of living in europe for a while now but would settle even for n. america. being able to speak english freely would be a nice breath of fresh air. dkf has two potentials, one from sweden, one from canada. at this point, i would take either. but it's all about timing. we have to move out by mid-april, seoul wants me to start mid-april and we are trying to balance this with when we will get news from either of dkf's prospects. and dkf needs to leave the country by may 1 due to his visa situation.

there is a light at the end of this tunnel. i know that. i need to get out of china. asia, if possible. but the prospect of at least making seoul our new home brightens up my dreary china sky. the people there are helpful and seem kind. i know bad landlords come in many colors. let's hope our next one is the color of kindness.

The Hazards of Being a Shanghai Expat: Dangerous and Abusive Landlords

That will be the title of an article I hope to eventually write for a local SH magazine.

Many expats don't get the local Chinese flavor of life because they are quite insulated with their company packages, ayis, drivers, unlimited budgets, nice apartments they don't have to search and bargain for, English-speaking reps and never having to deal with sociopathic and assholey locals here who scam and bully you left and right. But one thing I am grateful for in our time here in SH is that we did get an authentic Chinese experience and this will make one fine chapter of my autobio someday. I have seen the depravity that exists in humankind, and let me tell you, it is not pretty.

I am at the tail-end of a 30+days debacle with the landlord from hell. Mind you, I have had some pretty bad landlords in the past, as I was recalling yesterday while reflecting on the situation. The question is, do I attract bad landlords, do they attract me, or do I just do very poor screening of landlords when I look for places to live? Most likely the third, I would say. But perhaps a little bit of the first 2 too.

As anyone I spoke with knows when I was apartment hunting, when I first saw the apartment, I loved it. dkf and I had just broken up and I wanted a calm, soothing place to come home to, to do my work, to enjoy the nice Fall weather. I wanted a nice feminine apartment in the French Concession, which was my favorite area in SH. When I met Jessica Wen, I knew something wasn't quite right, that she was extremely inflexible, almost OCD, picky, neurotic, overbearing, bossy, not open to any negotiation and cheaper than hell. But I ignored that instinct, or those judgment calls and decided I liked the apartment enough to tolerate her on an occasional basis. That was, until my washer broke over a month ago.

I called her to let her know the washer broke and the war began. She refused to fix it, would not let me deduct repair fees from my rent, accused me of breaking it on purpose, said it was not her responsibility as a landlord to fix it, did not fix and deal with the situation for over 30 days and mentally and verbally abused me and any of my friends that advocated for me. She was a nightmare. So 30 days later, the Whirlpool guy finally comes and decides the washer is unfixable. This angers her and she becomes more abusive and then threatening and dangerous. She verbally makes an agreement with me that if I move out at the end of the month, she will deduct one month's rent from my huge security deposit and refund the balance to me. She leaves.

But it wasn't over. An hour later, the real nightmare begins. Without warning, she comes back with 4 thugs to intimidate me and threaten me in order to get her rent money. I took the advice of my SH-nese colleague to withhold this month's rent until she resolved the washer issue; that was what sent her over the edge. She wanted her money BAD. She responded alright. Stupid me, I let them in thinking the group of people were perhaps the neighbor's friends. After I opened the door, I realized it was a throng of people including the landlord and they began following me to my front door and surrounding me. I began shouting, What do you want? Why are you here? Jessica then said she wanted her rent money. I said, didn't we already agree to that earlier? She said, well I change my mind. I told dkf who was inside the apartment what was happening. He then ran out, to where they were standing and shouted, "Go away! I will call the police!" and we both called 110. The police eventually came but were totally ineffective and scolded me and told me to pay rent. I tried to explain the situation but they were all Shanghainese and I wasn't and my Chinese just isn't elaborate enough to advocate or argue effectively. The arguing continued, the thugs continued to berate me, and eventually the cops told me I had to go down to the police station to file a report. I knew I needed a native Chinese speaker to go down there with me b/c I would not be able to explain my situation well. I frantically called my friend's lawyer friend, and my other 2 Chinese friends. I stalled as long as I could but the cops were becoming impatient. The cops eventually left and the thugs were outside waiting for me to go to the police station with them. Eventually, my dear friend's bro and his gf show up and I quickly explain the situation to him as we walk to the station. My other friend meets us at the station. And much later in the evening, my dear friend shows up to support me. It was the worst 7 hours of my life. The way disputes are dealt with in China is that police don't really do anything or mediate, they allow the two disputing parties to hash it out til both people agree, even if it takes all day. The one that is worn down quicker gives in. Though I was still in my pj's, had not eaten ALL day, was tired, worn out and traumatized, I was not willing to give up. We were at that station for 7 hours and bless my friends' hearts, they stuck by me the whole time. The main cop, Lt. Zhu, this asshole who clearly had a thing for my flirty landlord, wrote out a revised contract that would supercede the original one. By the time we signed it, it was around 8pm. I think I left my house around noon that day. My head hurt for 2 days thereafter.

But it wasn't over. I would return the house within 7 days so I had to find a place to live asap. My dear friend of course offered her house but it was way too far from work. We found a place and moved in in 3 days. I just wanted to get the hell out of that bad chi house. I could feel my energy getting so negative. We were also living in fear of the thugs coming back and breaking in and dkf had to stay in the apartment night and day to prevent that from happening. I was also fearful for his safety as he was there alone when I went to work and could not speak Chinese. It was so nice to move out to our larger, more modern apartment. But it was not over yet. On Friday we had to meet with the landlord and cop to return the apartment and for her inspection. This is where it got ugly..again. She brought her "property manager," an evil Chinese lady who spoke really good English. Together, she and Jessica picked at every imperfection in the apartment, really ridiculous shit. But there was no winning. The same cop was on her side. dkf got feisty. He said in English to Jessica, "you are a f---in cunt and need to die." Her prop manager, "Noko" translated to Jessica then started fighting with dkf in English. Then I had it in with her. I told her there was something called freedom of speech in America, and she said this is not America. I said that people can say whatever the hell they want. I told dkf to take a picture of Noko, then she threatened to sue saying one could not take a picture of a nonconsenting person. She said she would have her lawyer friend sue him. She tried to convince the cop to "teach dkf a lesson about respecting chinese law." Total psychobitch. Eventually we made dkf delete the photo of her but thanks to his awesome file recovery program, we were able to recover the deleted photo. We will be posting her foto and her wrongdoings on the SH expat forums forevermore. After a couple hours of arguing and BS, we signed another document then left.

But it still was not over. On Sunday we were to meet with the landlord and cop at the cop station to tally up the grand total and for her to refund my balance. As I predicted, things again did not go smoothly. dkf stood across the street to try to take discreet fotos of Jessica so we could post her fotos online. Except she saw him. We spent another few hours at the station, from her nickeling and diming me on my utility bills to her demanding dkf delete her fotos. He eventually did and showed his camera fotos to the cop to verify they were deleted. But then she began speaking SH-nese to the cop and it seemed like she was going to ask the cop to do something more drastic. We hurriedly left to avoid further confrontation.

But it wasn't over. Notice a theme? Minutes later, the cop calls me and demands I go back to the station b/c Jessica wanted to verify the photos were deleted, not just the cop. I insisted to the cop that the fotos were gone as he had seen but he said we had to go back, or I was on my own with the sec. deposit. He threatened me. Then we began to get paranoid about whether they could do something to dkf, prosecute him, confiscate his stuff, etc and dkf didn't want to go back. But I was just hoping she would verify the photos were gone then we leave. dkf made me call the cop back to give him a hard time, to insist Jessica pay for the taxi ride because we were only heading back there b/c of her. The cop yelled at me pretty distastefully, saying it's all OUR fault for causing this, not hers, I was not respecting him, I was being unreasonable, you can't take pics without people's consent, I have to go back. So we did. She checked the fotos but before we left, she and I got into another yelling match. She said something about me not trusting the cop, and I said, I don't trust you! And she said she didn't trust me. She said, I can't believe it has come to this. I said I couldn't believe it either all b/c of a washer. Then she said, yah I will buy you some new clothes and I said I don't see any new clothes on me! The cop then put his arm around her and took her away. He even called her an endearing name. I totally think they're sleeping together. Anyways, she is supposed to wire me my money within the next 3 days but chances are, I will never see it. At this point, it isn't even about the money. It's about reclaiming my peace of mind and positive chi.

God, I hope it's over.

This past month, I've been nervous, anxious, low energy, cranky, depressed, worried and unhappy and my chi is black. All because of having to deal with this sociopathic, mentally ill woman named Jessica Wen. I'm actually more angry at her posse, the ones that enable her to do such horrible things to expats. She can only do the things she does because there are people who support her and people who don't fight against her. We found info on her online and she has done this to other expats before. I know we can't stop her from continuing to do this to future expats, but at the very least, she didn't get everything she wanted out of me. And I made her work a little for her money. I have been emailing her info and part of our story to different expat groups hoping people can spread the word. Expats here often take this kind of abuse, thinking, oh, it's just China. NO! One thing I have learned about myself since I've moved to SH is how much I detest passivity. People need to stand up against what is wrong, even if it has always been that way.

Let's hope our next landlord is kind. I hope yours is too.

Peace out.

Seoul.

the depressing Gyeongbokgung Palace. 100% fake because the japanese pretty much burned it to ashes

i thought this was too funny

one of my favorite seoul moments, don't know why

chillin kids at the animation center. just pop in a vid and watch..

seoul tower

myeong dong-shopping epi center

floating man

love the bowls of grass

don't ask, don't tell

he has the same exact infinity scarf as i do!

i never mentioned how our trip went to seoul. it was a blast. my favorite parts were:

1a. the expensive but delicious galbi and bulgogi.
1b. unlimited, free kimchi
1c. koreans make damn good roasted and baked chicken. one word: hof!
1d. cheap 24 hour fast food places consisting of korean food. much better than McD.
2. my interview and potential job offer.
3. the helpful helpful people when we needed directions or help, esp. on a snowy day.
4. outback steakhouse. no prime rib but pretty decent steak. i think i was just happy to see some thing i haven't seen in almost a year!
5. general politeness and courtesy. coming from china, u really miss and notice this elsewhere.
6. great public transport. the metro was easy to navigate. in english. clean. people get in line and wait their turn. generally. they don't always stand to the right though.
7. people will speak english to you if u don't speak korean to them. signs were in english too. the whole "koreans don't speak english" was a busted myth!
8. ventilation. it was amazing how little we stank after coming out of a korean bbq restaurant with tons of smokers inside.
9. clean cabs, polite cabbies. not terribly expensive compared to U.S. prices at least.
10. samcheong-dong. reminded me of a small and quaint beach town, with tons of class and trend, sorta like sausalito. if i made seoul my home, samcheong would be it.
11. cheap museum admission and late hours. some closed at 7 or 9pm!
12. the seoul animation center, though not all that impressive, was still interesting enough for me.
13. hotel elle inn. i dug our hotel. although our room computer didn't always work, they gave good complimentary green tea/brown rice tea bags and housekeeping was quite efficient! the jacuzzi tub was sorta cool too. rates weren't bad. location was great!
14. Lotte mart. the closest thing to walmart there. they had tons of korean side dishes in vats and even raw galbi. i didn't check for my tampons of choice but if they had that, i would be set! they had great food samples too. yum!
15. the drunk people that come out at night. we saw a drunk guy in a business suit who hurt himself and was talking to himself on the street corner. we saw a drunk girl being manhandled by a dude. then the finale was a mentally ill man with his pants down at the metro station. this made me sad and i told the staff there to go check up on him. this is what prompted me to google psych jobs in seoul and resulted in the interview.
16. free, unlimited, cold and refreshing drinking water carafes at each table. again, coming from china this is a biggie.
17. public toilets. it's so nice not to even have the possibility of opening a stall door and finding a squattie.
18. cute, fashionably dressed children.
19. being mistakened for korean or japanese but never chinese. it was nice not being chinese for one week. :)
20. cute men and women bathroom icons.
21. it was fun to check out korean women's fashion sense. it was even nicer to see that there were heavy chicks in seoul, not all were anorexic ones that we typically see in the states.
22. korean isn't the hardest language in the world to learn. although i still only know a few words and like 2 phrases. dkf did a pretty good job using some common phrases.

what was less than impressive:
1. their imperial palaces. depressing, stark, plain and mostly renovated with little antiquity.
2. korean food overall. i think my biggest disappointment as i was truly a korean food fan. i honestly think the korean chow in the states is much better, and cheaper too!
3. overall sorta doom and gloom atmosphere of buildings and city. this may be a by product of it being winter time.
4. no or non functional escalators. we were convinced this was part of a national health plan. although some metros have escalators, they invariably never worked. most metros had only stairs and pretty damn steep too!
5. i could not find the korean barley tea i loved. i went to the famous tea area and all i found was overpriced non-korean tea. sad.
6. seoul tower. keep walking. not worth it. it was also the most expensive attraction. no outside deck to take non-glarey pictures of the city.
7. people liked to stare at my white bf, especially on the subway. especially older korean men who thought i was a korean dating outside of my race.
8. food generally quite expensive there.

so the verdict is, seoul was pretty spiffy. at first i thought i could live there, then i realized i just wanted to leave shanghai that bad. we probably won't end up moving there but it's always fun to dream..

i definitely left a part of my 'soul' in seoul..

in need of positive chi...

i have concluded that my chi is in dire need of some re-setting and positivity. with all that's been going on lately, i have developed negative chi running through my body causing fatigue, a lack of a sense of a humor, grumpiness, some sadness, and unproductivity. it's time to get zen or get out! the first step is to move out of this apartment because my evil landlord is the largest bringer of the negative chi. i truly believe that in her past life, she was a horrible, horrible creature and this is her payback. after we move out, then we will have more time to make some decisions based on thorough thinking-through. we are once again at a cross-road and will soon decide whether we are leaving china once and for all. being in china reminds me of the hotel in The Shining. you just can't seem to leave! well, i know at the end the mother and child did survive, but that was after much trauma and horror and death! another thing i need to tend to is my health. sometimes i am not sure if my low metabolism and energy is just related to my thyroid or also to my head. plus there is the issue of my high platelet count. i still have no idea what could cause that. i am pretty sure getting into a regular exercise regimen would help me alot. i have neglected the healthy lifestyle for quite sometime now but truly want to get back into that. that means exercise and eating less and healthier. it can be quite a challenge here in china because things tend to be of lower quality and health but it can be done! then there are the little things i still have left to tackle. the headaches such as my tax situation and my meddlesome teeth. i would really like to try some acupuncture but the prices are unbelievable! you would think being in china that wouldn't be a problem but you want to stay safe so you don't want to go to just any acupuncturist! the whole negative chi thing came into mind because i recently went to a training about Mindfulness. it was the most eye opening training because it reminded me of how unmindful i am about everything in my life. i don't stop and smell the roses (or pollution if you're in china). i take things too fast, don't enjoy the small things in life, get lost in the mundaneness and don't see the bigger picture. mindfulness teaches u to slow down and and enjoy each moment. it blends relaxation and breathing and borrows from buddhism. i would like to give it a try. if anyone is interested, i have some slides i can share. just leave a comment.

here's to mindfulness and positive chi.