OCTOBER 29, 2007

I will continue with the saga of Randy's efforts to obtain a proper visa for his trip to Brazil. Once he obtained the new visa pages for his passport, he was back to dealing with the Brazilians to obtain the proper visa. Apparently, he was OK without the immunizations (HUGE relief for him) as the immunizations are only necessary when traveling to Brazil from certain areas of the planet (apparently we're healthy enough here for Brazil). The next step in the process was the procurement of a letter of invitation from Visteon, the client Randy was slated to visit in Sao Paulo. By this time, it's Friday, and Randy was ticketed to travel on Wednesday .... coming down to the wire.

Randy did receive the invitation letter on Saturday which he faxed and emailed to the consulate general at the Brazilian embassy here in Shanghai immediately. OK, step in the right direction. Randy was needed at work on Monday, so Tuesday was the day planned for getting his visa and paperwork in order for his travel on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Randy asked me if I'd like to keep him company while he went into the French Concession where the Brazilian consulate was located. I quickly agreed as I figured if I played my cards right, I'd get a nice lunch as part of the deal. The consulate opens at 9:30, so we planned to be there at opening keeping our fingers crossed that we could get this accomplished yet that day. We took the subway to the station nearest the consulate, and walked the remainder of the way, arriving at about 9:45. When we arrived, we were told that they had not received the letter of invitation. Randy explained that it had indeed been sent both via fax and email, but it was necessary to wait for the consulate general to arrive which would be approximately 10:00. OK, we sat down to wait.

The Brazilian consulate is on the 10th floor of a building overlooking a very busy intersection, and we amused ourselves by watching the activity of this intersection. Many busy intersections in Shanghai are manned by traffic guards whose job it is to keep traffic and pedestrians behaving in an orderly fashion (an extremely formidable job in this city!!!). This particular guard at this particular intersection took his job VERY seriously!! He tried desperately (and often in vain) to keep the bike and scooter traffic to the right of the street in order to make room for the vehicular traffic. As this was being attempted, he would also make grand gestures in an attempt to keep ALL traffic behind the line in order to prevent traffic from being too far into the intersection (which is the usual way for Chinese to drive .... if you happen to drift too far out into the intersection, you simply have to go through the intersection even after the light turns red in order not to obstruct traffic). We stifled giggles watching this guard drive himself crazy in a futile attempt to create some kind of order out of the chaos which is Shanghai traffic.

He would fling his arms wide and drive back the bikes and scooters until the light turned green at which point he would almost get run over by the traffic trying to get a jump on everyone else (and in the course of one red light, the number of bikes and scooters accumulated might number 25 or 30). Add to this mixture, the pedestrians who indeed make jaywalking a CAREER in this city, and this guy had to be living on Advil for tension headaches. Every red light included constant, frantic waving and gesturing, then a furious scurry back to the sidewalk to avoid being run over when the light turned green, at which point his attention turned to the pedestrians who might attempt to walk cattywampus through the intersection (over HIS DEAD BODY!!). It truly was an amusing display!!

Luckily, we had this entertainment until the consulate general arrived for his day's work at 10:30. My Brazilian friend, Suely, tells me this is a way of life for most Brazilians .... arrival time is normally an hour past the appointed time. While we were waiting (and watching "traffic guard extraordinaire"), Randy remembered that he had a copy of the letter of invitation on his laptop, so we indeed were in possession of the required document.

After reviewing the document, and claiming it adequate, we were instructed to go to the bank down the street to pay the visa bill (Randy had had the forethought to stop at an ATM and pick up more cash just in case). OK, down the elevator, a short walk down the street to the bank, and incredibly, no one was in line at the bank. Randy was able to step right up and make the transaction. Receipt in hand, we headed back to the consulate, overconfident in our status to actually achieve the receipt of the visa at this point.

Randy said to me on the way back to the consulate, "What do you bet that we cannot get the visa today?" I was much more optimistic. "They said they only needed the letter. You have provided the letter, and made payment. We should be all set!!" We presented the receipt for payment at the consulate when we arrived. The clerk said to Randy, "When do you fly to Brazil?" My heart started to sink. "Tomorrow," Randy replied. "OK," she said, "It will be ready tomorrow!" Randy's smug glance at me was the appropriate, "I told you so!!" Yep, this is China!! By the way, the good news is that this all took long enough that I did indeed get a nice lunch in a lovely cafe with my husband before shipping him off to work for the remainder of the day.

All of this was simply the prelude to the fiasco which was Randy's trip to Brazil. He managed to take off timely on Wednesday evening (after a successful retrieval of the visa at the Brazilian consulate) on a flight to Paris where he was ticketed to continue to Sao Paulo after a four hour layover. He called me from Paris to say he'd made it there OK on Thursday morning. During choir practice that evening, I heard my cell phone beeping to alert me of a missed call. I checked it ... Randy! I said to my friend, Toni, "I have missed a call from Randy! How can that be? He should be somewhere over the Atlantic at this point." She replied that they may have needed to make an unexpected stop. I replied that he'd be swimming if they did. I don't believe there is anywhere to land a 747 between Paris and Sao Paulo except the deep blue sea. I decided to step out and try a return call to him. Yep, he was there .... still in Paris. Seems after the aforementioned 4 hour layover, they were told that due to a strike of Air France personnel, the flight to Sao Paulo was delayed indefinitely. And they weren't just awhistling Dixie .... it took over 12 hours to finally get into the air again.

Originally, Randy was to arrive in Sao Paulo Thursday in time for a leisurely dinner, a good night's sleep, and depart for work on Friday morning. In actuality, he had time to throw his luggage in the room, grab a quick shower, and his driver awaited to transport him to the plant. His arrival at the plant was only another in this series of unfortunate events related to this trip (with apologies for plagiarism to Lemony Snicket). The parts which were to have already arrived at the Visteon plant in Sao Paulo were found to be delayed until next Tuesday. I'm sure Randy wondered if he were still in China at that point!!!

Back in Shanghai, I found many things to keep me busy in Randy's absence. My friend, Ali, and I spent a day shopping, lunching, and general yakking it up on Friday. I am in LOVE with the fabric market, and continue to find more and more reasons to go there and have things made rather than buy the ready made items at the stores. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch at a Japanese restaurant, and later, her husband, Mike, escorted us to a lovely Shanghai-style house that had been converted to a restaurant serving food in the style of Yunnan province ... a mountainous region specializing in folk-style food. This restaurant is called "Lost Heaven" and I believe it's aptly named. It is a three story house with beautiful dark hardwood floors and trims over pale plaster walls decorated with flowers and softly glowing lit candles and red Chinese lanterns. The friendly staff wore lovely, flowing black silk pajama style outfits with knee lengths tops. Most of the tables are situated adjacent to large windows overlooking gorgeous Chinese gardens which are also beautifully lit. The food was excellent and abundant, the service was outstanding, and the ambiance was mysterious and romantic. The only thing missing was my husband!!

I have previously mentioned the choir and our meetings for rehearsals. The big performance was looming on Sunday, and the activities in preparation for this performance were building to a crescendo in more ways than just musically. We were given instructions about standing perfectly still, about not fussing, fidgeting, or playing with our hair during the performance, smiling was very important, and nothing short of pouring our whole heart into this performance would be acceptable. I was beginning to wonder what I'd gotten myself into. In their attempt to show off the "laowei," Suely and I were both recruited to stand in the front row, and both of us staunchly refused. It does become irksome and tedious to be the "caged animal in the zoo" for everyone's amusement. We felt that it was enough that we were there and participating, so, much to the chagrin of the Chinese "Beverly Sills" who was running the show, we firmly rejected her attempts to put us on display. And as Toni was basically miming her performance (I think I've mentioned her affliction of tone deafness), there was no attempt made to change her location from the near the back of the group until they decided to group us by height. At that point, she and I ended up side by side.

I don't know. Maybe I was cranky, maybe I had just had enough of Chinese drama, or maybe it was full moon. When I picked up my dress on Friday afternoon, I was about ready to quit the whole thing. The dress selected was an off-the-shoulder, two-toned purple silk creation. Rhinestones and fake roses adorned a sweeping train below a fitted waist. Definitely something from an impressive 80's wedding party and much more suited to a twenty something than a nearly fifty something. I have YEARS AGO matured beyond the "off the shoulder" type body (I'm more of a "mother of the groom" type body now), and was not in the least thrilled about this turn of events. Oh, yes, I was told "How beautifuh you rook!!!" But I felt more like a fullback in drag preparing for a transvestite wedding!!! I was further instructed to be at the rehearsal area at 9:00 Sunday morning wearing black shoes, and prepared to have our make-up done as we all needed to look alike (and I thought they liked the fact that I looked different!!).

Rehearsal Sunday morning was quite the chaotic event. Women fussing with skirts, shoes, hair, and make up. Men fussing with polishing shoes and adjusting black bow ties. We were further instructed about standing up straight, smiling, etc. Suely had been talked into making the introduction of "My Motherland" (in Mandarin) and was busy practicing her little speech with the help of Phil. Some of the ladies brought along their Ayis and ironing boards to iron the wrinkles out of our trains, and anyone who was unfortunate enough to have presented herself sans pearl necklace was given one for the day. I couldn't help but get swept up in the whirlwind of activity.

We boarded a bus for a movie theater a few blocks from the complex on Tianshan Lu. Toni, Suely, and I had to laugh about the handful of women who chose to ride their bikes. There they were with their sweeping purple confections flowing behind in the breeze like the wicked witches of the east!! We wished we'd had a camera available.

Upon arrival at the theater, we realized that this was actually a choral competition (you know, I'm really at a disadvantage when it comes to communication here due to the language barrier, but sometimes I think it just might be a good thing NOT to know what is going on ... or what they are saying about me!)!! There were dozens of groups assembled warming up, adjusting costumes, and generally becoming quite giddy about the upcoming event. Each group had an opportunity to get onstage prior to the commencement of the competition so that we understood our positions and were able to sing a few bars to acclimate ourselves acoustically. The director of the event was surprised and impressed that our group included a handful of "laowei" (four to be exact, one each American, Aussie, Brazilian, and French), and suggested that we all be put in the front for display (sigh!!!). Luckily, it was explained that we "laowei" are a stubborn bunch and would be left in our current spots (thank you).

We were fifth on the program, and I have to admit, I was SO proud of Suely!! She did a great job with her introduction (several years of Mandarin language classes at university have not gone to waste on her). And our performance was quite excellent. I even had to admit that once we were properly dressed and preened, we looked quite lovely ... much better than most of the other groups. Most of them had silk or velvet sheaths made that were simply worn over their street clothes which looked OK, but a little shabby compared to us. We sang our hearts out, smiled, stood straight (and I never touched my hair or fidgeted), and kept our eyes on the director. OK, I might be crowing a bit now, but we had the audience eating out of our hands!! They were awestruck by the fact that we had "laowei" in the group and watched us with jaws agape. Flashbulbs went off like fireworks! Took my breath away! I couldn't help but smile.

There were so many groups in this event that many of our group opted to leave before the competition was finished. Toni, Suely, and I sat through many performances just out of curiosity. One group sang a truly moving version of Swanee River in Mandarin which actually brought a tear to my eye (yes, I'm honestly a sentimental sap at heart). Finally, after about an hour and a half, and the realization that there was no end in sight, we decided to head home on foot and not wait for the bus. We changed into our street clothes so we could turn in the dresses immediately as they were rented only for the day, and departed having not seen many groups yet to perform or heard the result of the competition.

I received an email from Phil this morning which included photos and congratulations for winning the competition!! I couldn't believe it .... we actually WON!!! OK, maybe it was worth it after all. Phil seems to think that the fact that we managed to actually "train those monkeys" made all the difference. So now I guess I have a Chinese feather to add to my cap! Yes, after all that belly aching about the dress, not knowing the language (yes, I did really memorize it), and all, I guess it was worth it! And those of us without pearl necklaces were told we could have them as a keepsake.

Happy Anniversary to us!! Eight years and going strong .... OK, maybe just still going (and usually just to the bathroom at night!!!). No, seriously, eight years ago today, Randall and I took our vows beneath a brilliant yellow-leafed maple tree in Toledo, Ohio with our youngest kids, Kelli and Jake, as our witnesses. It was sunny and 80 degrees that day, and we hit the McD's for burgers on the way home ... our kind of wedding reception!! Who'd have thought this is where we'd be today .... me in Shanghai, Randy in Brazil. Very romantic!! I'll light a candle tonight and have a glass of red with my leftover pasta for dinner.