"You're So Brave" That's Not A Compliment.

This post is brought to you by the good and kind people at Aetna International. Thanks, Aetna, for supporting my blog and allowing me to write honestly about a topic that is so close to my heart.

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You sure are brave! 

I get that a lot. From Indonesians, from foreigners, from strangers and from friends. This utterance usually follows tales of journeys great and small that I’ve embarked upon with my kid. Be it a short jaunt across town on the bus, or a several-days-long journey around Central Java via train, bus, and donkey cart, the response is almost always the same: a raised eyebrow, slight shock and a “Wow. You’re so brave!”

You’d think that I’d take it as a compliment. But that phrase, “you’re so brave”? Well, it gets my goat. 

Implicit in that statement is the suggestion that experiencing this country as the vast majority of its residents do, as well as being in close proximity to its people, is somehow dangerous. You’re so brave! This phrase insinuates that experiencing real life puts me at great personal risk. That the choices I make to see this country, to get to know its people somehow brings my parental judgment into question. To which, I declare, CHICKEN SCRATCH!

 

Hi. We're in Beijing. 

Many expats (and let’s be honest, many middle and upper-class Indonesians) take great pains to avoid contact with all but their own. As I've written before, walking is not a thing in Jakarta. If you have more than two coins to rub together, you drive. Or, better yet, you hire someone to drive you around. Buses, trains and bajaj are all reserved for those who are down at the heel: the other, the lower, the dangerous. What a terrible, menacing risk to have to stand next to a stranger on the bus! In the middle of the day! Or sit in a train car full of other people! Who might jump out at any second to cut your throat! Or something.

 If I never traveled by train, I'd never see a vista this lovely.

To fear that which we don't know is a natural response. Fear of out-groups, of cultures different and indecipherable kept our ancestors alive while we were all hunched on the savannah. This fear is still lodged somewhere deep in our reptile brain. And that’s cool. I get it. But to live an expat life governed by this fear of difference, well, that kind of defeats the entire purpose of moving abroad, don't you think?

It took me a while to get to this realization; I'll admit to plenty of fear and revulsion at otherness, plus an outright refusal to ride buses in Shanghai. And I regret that. But after many years of practice I've gotten better at quelling this fear. And that’s made all the difference.

 

Travel by becak turned out to be my preferred method of short-distance transport. Ever see a city from the front of a bike taxi while the sun set pink and the call to prayer drifted through the evening? Then, my friends, you haven't lived.

When I was new to the expat game, fresh off of a disastrous Indian posting, Mr. Chef and I arrived in China. After a short period of "whoa! This place is big and awesome and look: I'm eating street food!" I started acting like the proverbial expat jerk. I turned my nose up at women washing pork tripe in a plastic basin by the side of the street. I fumed at the sound of nail clippers in the subway, at the parents of rosy bottomed children in traditional split-crotch pants, at the week-long fireworks onslaught that was Chinese New Year. I couldn't see the beauty of it all, because I was so transfixed by the otherness, the potential danger (of nail clippings? I dunno.) 

 

I traveled back to China after my kid was born. I think she gave me bravery muscles, or something. With her, we went from Beijing to Shanghai by train. Solo. And it was NBD. Also, she got manhandled by strangers a lot. And didn't mind a bit.

As a result, I barely got to know my adopted country. I didn’t travel. I made few Chinese friends, sampled only but a handful of dishes in the Chinese culinary cannon, and spent a lot of my time being unnecessarily annoyed. 

I'm not doing that this time around. 

And you know what? This time I'm a much happier expat. 

Some evenings I ride home on the back of an ojek. Real life is all around me; men in flip-flops pulling handcarts laden with rambutan; women by the side of the street carrying babies in slings while offering small spoons of rice porridge to their wee ones; boys barefoot and bold darting in and out of traffic; the sun so low that it makes everything golden. On the back of an ojek I can orientate myself to this city, its and its rhythm. I see things I'd miss from inside a leather-seated taxi. “Wow, you're so brave,” people say when the see me disembarking from a motorcycle. Not really. The vast majority of Indonesians travel this way. I bought a helmet. We don't travel very fast. NBD.

Similarly, getting out of Jakarta lifts me up. I'm reminded that there's real life outside of shopping malls and luxury hotels. People smile at me. We sit on the train and make friends with a grandmother and her little grandson. A woman hears my girl crying and makes her way down the carriage with a handful of mandarins. I can see through these small acts of kindness that people, mostly, are good. A man passes by, stops for a moment, then taps my girl's cheek and ask her name. Hardly the picture of danger. 

 This image of a toddler climbing over ancient and forgotten ruins is brought to you by level-headed adventure, not bravery. 

Certainly we do come across hotel rooms that we must share with geckos or train toilets of dubious sanitation. We’re occasionally over-charged for a taxi ride, and perhaps I look at a plate of nasi goring and wonder if it will send me to a days-long holiday in the WC. But usually, I put on my big girl pants, think about how geckos eat bugs, cross my fingers and dig into my fried rice. 

All of which is to say that while I step out of my comfort zone, I don’t take traveling with my two-year-old lightly. There are risks. I recognize that pick-pocketing can happen, so I carry small amounts of cash, and hide my cards in the deepest reaches of my pack. I always bring a first-aid kit, basic medicine and a thermometer. I use sunscreen and mosquito repellant. We don't go anywhere without expat health insurance. 

You know, there are also risks to living. I might get my heart broken or I might break my leg. Something unspeakable could happen, regardless of whether I'm on an economy class train on the way to Yogyakarta or holed up in a five-star hotel. 

There's just too much wonder out there, too much beauty, too many smiles to deny these experiences to myself or my child. So we travel, I let her eat street food, and we'll ride trains and busses together. We'll talk to strangers. We'll use sound judgement, and we'll see all the good that there is to see.

We're BAAAAACK!

Phew! What a week! (Or rahter five days? Was it really only five days? I was just cursing through my photos {which, PS, turned out to be all rather meh, as landscape photography with a 50 mm lens is basically highly sub-optimal} and I was like, wait how can that have been only yesterday, it feels like half a lifetime ago???)

Here we are, three traveling bandits, discovering the great joy that comes from combining a two-year-old with an unguarded historical ruin and a camera remote. Seriously. Does it get any better than this???

So we're back, and we ticked most of the adventure boxes: last minute plans and a mad rush to the train station; a madcap ride through the jungle on a bus that can only be classified as extraordinarily sketchy, piloted by a driver whose perception of risk caused me, on more than one occasion, to contemplate the end of my life; geckos and dinosaur bugs aplenty; street food that made me offer devotions to the diarrhea gods, but was also kind of sublime; green green green vistas that would not let me close my eyes, note even for a moment for fear I miss a heard of sheep or the span of a bridge or the arc of a bundle of rice seedlings as it sails through the air; random (good natured) kidnappings of my child; sleepless nights; kindness and joy, the likes of which I'll not soon forget.

Anyway, we're back. We're exhausted. But also (at least I speak for my self here) reinvigorated, energized, and totally charmed by this amazing country. I'm already dreaming up our next trip. Really. I've had a taste of adventure, and now, please look away while I gorge myself on wanderlust, and also stand by for roughly a billion (poor quality) images of our trip and tales of roaming hither and tither through Central Java with a two-year-old in tow. 

Merry Tropical Christmas

Oh, Christmas. What can I say about you that hasn't been said before. 

Not much, probably. 

So maybe I'll just show you some pictures.

Lame. Lazy blogger cop out.

Okay, a charming preamble first, perhaps? Fine.

And we're off.

Christmas this year was wonderful, but with a touch of melancholy. My whole family was back in my home town for Christmas. Like everyone. All of them. This is something that NEVER happens any more.

As is tradition, they all gathered at my Auntie's farm house, just like like so many Christmases past. There was a 32 pound turkey, (if you're metric, that's basically gigantic), tractor sleigh rides of questionable safety, a house full of children, and three very empty (figurative) seats.

I really wanted to be back there, feeling the shock of cold in my lungs, and the warmth of family around the huge farmhouse table.

But I also wanted to be here, in my new home, with my husband.

So.

Expat dichotomy.

The only solution to this situation? Do the hell out of Christmas.

See. Doing the hell out of Christmas. I mean, COME ON!, I even made my own crackers. To balance my (imagined) domestic goddessness, please note that there are toddler finger holes in the pie, and none of my glassware matched. That's Real life.

I decided to host Christmas Eve dinner. I have never hosted Christmas dinner. Nor cooked a turkey. (Thank goodness for Mr. Chef.) The last time I was home for Christmas at my Aunt's farmhouse, I was seated at the children's table. This time I was the host. Believe me, the irony was not lost.

I filled our little apartment with lovely new friends, and little babies (which thrilled Stella to no end). We watched a children's choir sing Christmas carols in the hotel lobby (Stella danced her little heart out). We ate our faces off. And the kids tore around the house until they all passed out somewhere around 11 pm. 

 

Sadly Mr. Chef was working on Christmas Eve (such is the life of chefery), but he did come up to our apartment to cook the turkey, supervise the carving (not a single person in the room knew how to put knife to bird), and then, I'm embarrassed to admit, did the dishes for a meal that he did not even eat while I went to bed. 

The next morning we opened stockings socks (sadly our stockings did not make it in the move, a fact which I discovered only at midnight Christmas Eve. I considered {briefly} sewing some tropical festive batik present sacks, and then thought about my soft pillow.)

In addition to our very non-traditional fishmas stockings, it should also be noted that my child wore this "pwincess" dress for two days straight. I tried to take it off while she slept, but she shot awake and abruptly reprimanded me. 

There was room service breakfast (what a treat!!). Chocolate. Chocolate. Chocolate. Diabetic coma. More presents. And then naps all around. We rounded out the day with chocolate milkshakes, aannnnnnnd salads for dinner.

Waffles. Pastries. Tropical fruits, that like, COME FROM THE TROPICS!! I have yet to stop counting my lucky stars. 

  Stella made out like a bandit in the art supply department. 

Not that I really condone weaponry as a preferred category of toy, but this bubble gun is about the coolest thing ever. Okay. Fine. Whatever. I also want a nurf gun. For me. Santa did not deliver. Jerk.

 Nine out of ten presents are for Miss Stella Bella.

On Christmas all of the usual restrictions go out the window: chocolate for breakfast; party dress pajamas; iPad viewing in the stroller in the living room. Because. I have no idea.

A lazy Christmas afternoon brought to you by a tropical rainstorm.

Testing out her new poster paints. On wrapping paper. Because. 

So there you have it. Our little Christmas. We missed our family, but made the most of this amazing tropical life. New friends. Good food. Christmas carols. Poster paint. What more could one ask for?

 

320 / 366 {play cook}

Oh, look! Another image of my child playing, taking from floor level, which suggests that despite my confession that sometimes I'd rather scrub toilets than play babies, I do engage in imaginative play with my kid. 

One of Stella's favourite games is to "play cook", and she prefers to do this not on the living room floor, but rather, she loads up her mini grocery cart, and pushes it out into the hotel and down the hallway where there's a big window overlooking the main traffic circle in Jakarta. So that way she can "see cars" while she "play cook!".

The only trouble with this set up is when she thinks that it's totally rad to do this at 7:10 in the morning. Naked. Oy.

PS, that's a thing that actually happened. 

:::

I've been kind of lax in promoting my blog on Top Baby Blogs, but if you have a second I'd love it if you could offer a vote. I am activly trying to grow my audience and ever time we get a bump in the TBB listings, we see an increase in traffic. So. Terima Kasih!!

You have a cute son who is actually a daughter. #NaBloPoMo

My girl and I got into a taxi this morning on the way to pre-school. She went through her usual routine, saying "Good-bye new one house! See you way-ter new one house!" before breaking into a rousing rendition of the Wheels On the Bus, and the taxi driver looked back in the mirror and asked me, "How old is your son?"

Boy outfit.

After so many years in Asia, gender mix-ups no longer catch me off guard. Many languages do not have gendered pronouns like in English, and so learning to differentiate between him and her, his and hers, he and she is not that simple a task. But this driver had a great grasp of English, and he said "son." The driver obviously thought that my "she" was a "he."

Which I mean, is totally ridiculous, right? She was wearing a dress! Albeit a white and blue dress, but a dress nonetheless. 

Again with the boy outfits!

I've had a fair few conversations with Stella's nanny about this. Nanny laughs at me, and my strange, semi-feminist, 'progressive', anti-pink ways. I don't think Nanny appreciates my disdain for ruffles and pink. I suspect that for her, it's just part of the weird foreigner package, along with not eating rice, or being a wee sacredy kitten who can not handle fiery burning spice. 

You see, here in Asia, notions of gender are much more codified than they are in the West. Girls wear pink, boys wear blue. NBD. Oh, and PS, seven-year-old girls also wear high heals. 

Before you go telling me about systemised gender stereotypes and inequalities, let me just state that I've seen this girls = pink boys = blue pattern equally in places like China where women hold a good deal of power as in places like Japan where women are sidelined almost completely.  

Boy.

Now, let's be clear. I do adore a tasteful hair bow, and a pair of sparely shoes as much as the next person. And I fully intend to enrol my girl in ballet solely for the purpose of getting her into a tutu. I just believe in moderation. Balance. A bit of blue for every bit of pink. It's not that I ban ruffles and dolls outright, but I am mindful of hoisting artificial notions about gender expectations on tiny, innocent child, who has yet to form her own ideas about what she wants out of life, and the possibilities that are open to her.

So, in this vein, she wears a lot of blue and green, and not a lot of pink. 

This, coupled with her tendency for wild hair, refusal to bow down to a clip or a barrette, and instance on wearing boy shoes, is apparently the source of the problem. 

Nanny, unfortunately bears the brunt of inquiring comments, fielding off remarks of "cute boy!" When it is relived that Nanny's charge is actually a girl, she's judged for her inability to dress her take-care-kid in appropriately pink and sparkly attire. People outright ask Nanny why she doesn't put a clip in her hair? Why she dresses her kid in shorts?

Ummm, okay. This is sufficiently girl.

So, not wanting to reveal the fact that neither one of us can hold this baby down and clip a little tiny bow on her head (because let's face it, for all my posturing, that is the real reason behind wild hair it's lack of adornments) she blames me, and my strange, feminist, foreign ways.

I don't need your cheap flights home any more. I bought a coffee table instead.

I bought some furniture today. A side table made of teak upcycled from old fishing boats, and a bookshelf. No big deal, right? I mean, people buy places to put their drinks and store their books. It's normal. It's part of being a grown up. 

But this is, like, totally maj.

Not only can I stop storing my books in tottering piles on our windowsill, but it also signifies a state of mind: a cozy sense of permanence (insofar as one can expect permanence when one moves every three years.)

Before we begin, let's just put aside my conflicted feelings about consumerism, privilege, and the acquisition of more stuff for just a moment. Let's also shake off my vast discomfort with my own dearth of meaningful monetary contributions and subsequent relative economic disempowerment. Let's just focus on the fact that for the first time in this history of our Great Asian Adventure, I'm slowly setting down roots. I'm buying boxes and baskets, tables and shelves. I'm organising toiletries and toys, and slowly finding places for many sundry tchotchkes we've collected along our great trans-continental trek. 

These roots, they'll likely be dug up and replanted in three years time. We'll find another pot, administer the right amounts of sunlight and rain, and cross our fingers, hopping that we flourish. 

Yet, for now, I'm not thinking about that eventuality .  

I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. 

My man is here. My girl is here. 

We're here together, and that's just where I want to be.

***

Three years ago, the picture was an exact negative of my current state of mind. My hormones raging with new life, and feet barely planted on Japanese soil, I was wilting. 

I said to my husband, in the way that only a profoundly unhappy pregnant woman can, "If we're still in this city in 2012, it'll cost you. A rock on my finger. A big one. I need to be out of here before 2012."

Midway through the deadline year, there were still no escape plans afoot. 

I spent a lot of time on airplanes during those three years in Japan. My husband sent hours scouring the internet for cheap flights, and sometimes for expensive ones, so that I could get home just as often as our bank account would allow.

My parents recently said to me, "We liked it so much better when you were miserable." They were joking, of course. But only a bit. Back then, I only wanted home. Now, home is here.

Three years ago, I wanted nothing to do with the cozyification our little apartment. For two years, we boiled water for tea in a sauce pan because I didn't want to buy a kettle. 

My husband told me it was because I wanted out. If I bought picture frames for our walls or a kettle for tea, it signified that we'd stay in that apartment; we'd be stuck in that city with no sun to warm me and roots too wet.

Now, with the advantage of time and hindsight, I suppose, he was right.  In Japan, I wanted nothing to do with any sort signifier of a long-term sojourn. I wanted nothing to do with tea kettles or picture frames that would lock me in and tie me down.

***

So here we are, in this new city, on a new island where car horns blare, and chaos reigns. I understand nothing, yet somehow everything makes sense. It fits here. I feel like this could last. 

I'm comfortable. I'm putting down my roots, allowing myself to stretch out.  These varied sundries, the vacuums, pillows, blankets and charming Indonesian handicrafts, they're fertilising this soil, fine-tuning  my little microclimate for optimum growth. 

 

After three years in Japan, I never did get my big rock. But I got something better. Landing here, on this island, where the sun shines and so do strangers' eyes, I'm finally extending my limbs upwards and outwards. I'm finally in a place where I know this little family will burgeon. 

A Raging Case of Post-Colonial Guilt With A Side of Socialism

This following sentence is only going to make sense if you are a Rolls Royce douchebag or you live in Asia.

I'm a stay-at-home parent and I hired a nanny.

I know. I know. I know. It sounds ridiculous. And truth be told, I'm kind of embarrassed about the whole thing. Honestly, who do I think I am, some sort of Rolls Royce douchebag?

If you're new around these parts (Hi Deanna's readers!!), I live in Indonesia, in Jakarta to be precise. And here, nannies are ubiquitous. On Saturdays and Sundays, they fill up malls and restaurants, wearing cheap polyester uniforms, a salandang slung over their shoulder. They push strollers, carry sleeping babies, lug bags full of infant accoutrements, and chase children around, forcing them to have just one more bite of food.

Seemingly everyone has a nanny. Or three. Many families have one nanny per child. It's an expectation: in our first weeks here, small-talk would almost always contain an inquiry into our personal staffing situation: "have you found a nanny yet?"  To not employ one would  be unthinkable, irresponsible, cheap. Just as after school activities, enriching kindermusik  classes, and play dates are markers of "good parenting" in North America, in Jakarta so is employing a nanny to wash, dress, and feed your child. 

I wavered on the nanny question. Initially I was gung-ho about the idea. Yoga! Work! Writing! Finished projects! Productivity! The ability to cook a meal or wash a sink of dishes without my child totally losing her shit at the fact that I was not paying 100 percent attention to her 100 percent of the time! Yes! Sign me up! Let's live here forever! 

And then the sight of a nanny wiping the ass of an overweight 6 year-old forced me to change my tune.

I questioned the morality of descending on another person's country, and paying the locals to do the grunt work that I don't want to do. A lot of expats, and rich Indonesians alike, develop a world view wherein they imagine that their money and objects and privilege of birth owes them respect, deference, and the right to never have to scrub a toilet. An accident of birth gave me white skin, money, and privilege, but there's nothing about me that makes me more worthy of this privilege. (I have a lot of post-colonial guilt, you see). 

I worried about my child becoming spoiled, and entitled. I worried about her own sense of superiority and privilege. I fretted about her ordering someone to, "Get me a glass of water! Carry my backpack!" and thinking that this is the way the world works, that it is her birthright to dole out orders, and have her every whim catered for.

I though about my own self becoming spoiled and entitled, comfortable with someone doing all of my own dirty work. I imagined myself totally unable to cope when we eventually one day move back to a place where labour is scarce and wages unpayabale. And even more than that, I worried that I'd develop an inflated sense of value, closing my heart to the humanity of the people who scrub my toilet or drive me to the grocery store.

But I also want my girl to have a relationship to Indonesian culture. I wanted her to learn to speak Basha Indonesia. I wanted her to know and love real people who are from here. A nanny is the fastest ticket to all of these aspirations.

I want to work. Not full time, but I do want some measure of professional achievement, even if my goals are modest. I want to contribute to this family in some monetary fashion, even if in just in a nominal way. I want to take pictures and practice yoga. I want to fill up the parts of myself that were by my time in Japan. 

All of this would be impossible, given the hours my husband works, without child care.

I tell myself that we live here, a million miles from family, without any close friends, or even acquaintances whom we've known for more than two months. We're faced with the stress of moving, cultural adjustment, and lack of community. Having a helper around would be a brace that carries the extra stress. 

I tell myself that I'd be a good employer. I'd take care of my staff, encourage their development, raise their skill level, pay them well, and in some small way, contribute to a greater good. 

But realistically most of this is bullshit. The bottom line is that I can afford to pay for a nanny, and in so doing, improve my quality of life.

Anyway, I agonised about this, I worried about it, and to be honest, I'm still feeling quite guilty. But I hired someone. A lovely girl, who colours with my kid, makes her paper cranes, and tells me about Indonesian folklore. 

I think this is the right thing, but, Internet, I'm still plagued with post-colonial guilt. So excuse me while I work this out in public.