These few days at Shanghai Jiao Tong University has been pretty bad. If I had thought that Zhejiang University's math dept isn't very child-friendly, the school atmosphere here is even worse. Apparently the mathematicians here work until midnight or so and most of the ones with wives and kids don't really see them much. In fact, their families tend to live elsewhere. Like Hong Kong or the U.S. Yesterday, I was basically alone with my child for 12+ hours and no break. And by alone, I mean nobody else to talk or interact with except my child, save the random people on campus or hotel staff that gave me annoyed looks for having a child with me.
It made me wonder if I could really handle having another kid, if I have to do it all alone by myself here.
Today, I went to the other side of the lake I visited yesterday, and I stumbled upon a plethora of other moms (not just grandparents!) with their children. They were running around, chasing birds, snacking together picnic-style. It was awesome. My son naturally attracted a lot of attention, since he looks so obviously mixed. But this time my conversations with the moms didn't automatically fall into the critiquing me for still nursing him, not dressing him warm enough in 70 degree weather, etc. Two of the moms actually cited along with me the stats I read on WHO's site for why I care for my son the way I do. It was so refreshing. And then I saw that we were fairly close to the east entrance/exit of the school, and the city itself looks a lot different than things in general on campus.
So, even though my time on campus has been pretty much crap, I think I would like being in Shanghai, the city itself, a lot better. I actually found like-minded moms here. And even if I could only hang out with just my son all over again for the rest of today, I feel recharged and sane enough again to be content about that. I think my extrovert side is starting to revive itself one year after my son's birth. There is a group of expat moms in Hangzhou that I recently emailed with, and we're scheduled to meet after I return from Shanghai. I really really hope that this could be a mothers' group I could belong to.
