last rant about being illiterate

I really wish that I had been more studious about learning Hebrew before we came to Israel. I keep saying and thinking this thought that it's getting a bit boring, so this shall be the last time. Now that I'm here, and discovering that the daily circles I interact with (mostly working-class) aren't that keen on English, I've been asking random Anglos who've lived here for a while where I might be able to learn Hebrew, either by getting a tutor (expensive) or signing up for an ulpan class. Sadly, the expensive factor of a private tutor is a bit of a hindrance--Daniel doesn't get paid that much to be a post-doc and we're already stretching our budget by renting out a three-bedroom apartment, and another baby on the way when we have given away or were unable to bring most of our saved baby items. Plus, in Israel, even renters need to pay property tax for the property in which they currently reside. As for the ulpan class, those are mainly reserved for people who're actually making aliyah. I could register or audit a Hebrew course at the Technion, but that doesn't start until winter term, which means I would most likely have to drop out midway through to give birth and care for a newborn plus a two-year-old.

My illiteracy makes grocery shopping, trying to find the library, trying to find books or events provided by the library and/or the city, traveling around by bus, looking up bus routes, finding essential ingredients for recipes... all very overwhelming.  I really hope that, despite this major language barrier, the resourcefulness my dad claims I have a strong reservoir of will in fact assert itself and help me, by the grace of God, to eventually make an okay life here.  For now, I feel very much alone and struggling to stay afloat. It's not as bad as China, because the fresh fruits and vegetables here--the essentials of life, especially while raising children--are abundant here. Yesterday, Declan and I rode the Carmelit (Israel's sole subway system) and found a small produce/fruit store at Paris Square (after much walking around and searching in the noon day heat). Today, I finally made it to the Talplot shuk via bus number 37 and then bus number 3. It reminded me of the traditional markets my grandmother and mother took me along during their weekly grocery shoppings in Taipei and Kaohsiung. A bit chaotic, messy, and loud...just the way I remembered it as a child.

It really is much better shopping for better quality and more affordable produce and fruit at the shuk than at the usual Western-style grocery stores here. Daniel and I invested in a dolly for 50 shekels for future shuk visits. Still, I've been itching to bake so Declan can eat healthier cookies, etc, but I don't know how to decipher between the various differently powders with Hebrew labels or ask for, say, vanilla extract. I don't think my friends back in the States understand this demoralizing climate of cluelessness... One of my Pittsburgh friends suggested, in response to my doubt about how to secure such ingredients, that I make my own extract. Well, yes... except now I need to ask for vanilla bean and vodka instead. In Hebrew. Still clueless, and even more bizarre to the supermarket people.  I'm going to make an ingredient list, google translate it, and copy the info down with my atrocious Hebrew handwriting, then make the best of it at the store next week.

Or rather next next week, when we return from Italy. I'm going there this coming Tuesday for a wedding, and I cannot express how much I'm looking forward to not being alone all day with a child during the weekdays, seeing friends, and feeling cool weather. I vow never to complain about the cold ever again, as it is still really hot where I live. Before flying to Italy, our little family needs to traipse downtown to change our visa status so that we're allowed to return to Israel and my first prenatal checkup in Israel is also coming up.

an extrovert after all

This past weekend has been one of the best couple of days (despite the occasional breakdowns, per usual, of my feeling overwhelmed by trying to navigate the bus company and library websites without understanding Hebrew). I realized, with a spark of surprise, that it's because I got to hang out with friendly people. Not necessarily Americans, but Anglos who've lived all around the world as well so I didn't experience the usual language or cultural barriers.  Friday Shabbat dinner consisted of cooking for two hours, catching an hour-long car ride with our friends Kirsten and Or to the Messianic congregation they attend, and spending the next three hours sharing food, conversation, and play (in Declan's case) with really welcoming people. In Declan's case especially, he had a thrill following a couple of big kids around. I worry sometimes that he doesn't socialize enough with other kids, and he definitely had a good time at Shabbat dinner. The food I made turned out well, despite my using some unfamiliar spices found in the pantry, so that also made me really glad.

Then on Sunday night (yesterday), I ventured to Gan Ha'em around 8pm to meet the improv group that just started in Haifa, as a copy of the one that meets regularly in Tel Aviv. Feeling pregnant and fat and tired, I kind of wanted to stay home and be lonely as usual, but Daniel encouraged me by walking to the meeting place with me. It turned out that the four other people who showed up were waiting for me at the park benches, so it's a good thing I showed up, even if I was 20 minutes late. Improv turned out to be a refreshing challenge, and we stood around and chatted for half an hour more after the two-hour session ended. Everyone came from such diverse backgrounds! This may be the biggest plus to living in Israel, for me: meeting people from all over because of the international emphasis in this small country that's surrounded by enemies. Kind of like why Taiwan's such a mix of foreign influences as well.

The thing is, it wasn't just being in China or Israel that had made me increasingly depressed for the last two years... It was more because as I got pregnant and stopped official work, and then needing to stay home a lot more to care for the baby.... I became more and more estranged from people I usually hang out with, and being cloistered frankly sucks. Moving to four different regions in the world within a year's span didn't help the situation either.

Now that Declan's more and more able to be cared for by not just me, I've had a little more freedom and can make more of an effort to, basically, rejoin human society, I'm trying to put out of my head the worries of needing to go through such a lonely time again when the second baby comes.

a nice friday afternoon

Right now, my son is playing by himself (for about 10 minutes now!) with wooden train tracks and miniature magnetic trains--toys courtesy of the boys in the family that we're currently subletting our Israeli apartment from. He's making little babbling conversation noises and train sounds while he's pushing the pieces around. Most of the time, I seriously regret having a child and making life 1000% harder and more exhausting for myself, but right now...right now I wish I could set up a webcam to capture his playtime for his grandmothers to see, because maybe they would be able to appreciate how almost unbearably cute he is being.

In about two minutes, I need to start making food for Shabbat dinner.  Our friends Kirsten and Or had invited us to the monthly potluck gathering at the Messianic congregation they attend. Because most every place, including the grocery store, closes by sundown Friday and stay closed for all of Saturday, the lines at the grocery store were super long. Additionally, I had not brought enough shekels and needed to take items out.  Additionally on top of that, I had missed seeing the 10 items express sign (written in Hebrew, decipherable by me via the Arabic number 10) until after I'd unloaded all my items and only then registered the dirty look the cashier was casting towards me. It was nice of the man behind me to gesture for me to stay in the line, but I loaded everything back in my cart and got in line behind two giant grocery carts in the other lane. It is, I think, more important for me--who already don't speak much Hebrew and thus require everyone else to satisfy my English needs--to be as courteous as possible and not risk feeding the legend of Ugly Americans.

It was still really nice to go somewhere without having a kid around though. Despite the above mortifications, this grocery trip I had to make during the Shabbat-prep rush was still so much easier than when I go with Declan. A reassuring thought that the reason why life seems so much harder for me now could be because of motherhood, not simply because I've somehow became a really incompetent person.

Oops, times up. I'll hopefully be able to describe the family morning outing to Dado Beach at some later time.

a brief interlude upon the past before I move forward from it forever

So it's official. Finally settled in my mind. A little over a month ago, about the time when I turned 30, I had decided to attempt at repairing as many broken relationships as I can remember. To my (pleasant) surprise, the one person that I thought would never forgive me seemed to have put his grudge against me finally to an end. At least, that's what I interpret the acceptance to my Facebook request and the friendly response to my birthday wish for him to be. To my (very sad) surprise, one other person--who I really don't know why I care as much as I do--did not. J.G. had broken up with me via email after a (disastrous) eight-months dating relationship while he was playing with his Pittsburgh church friends during the summer I was interning for a radio station in Asia.

His reason was that he didn't think our friendship was strong enough as a foundation for our relationship, so he would like us to break up in order to better strengthen our friendship first.  Our hanging-out remained cordially enough after I returned to the States--we even drove to Michigan and back together for two mutual friends' wedding as soon as I returned from Hong Kong (for which he still has not paid me his half of the car rental fee, oh well). For some reason, though, it all went sour. Maybe because I started dating another guy. Maybe because all the unhealthy things we did together during our dating relationship caught up with him and conflicted with his high idea of himself, and he could no longer acknowledge my existence. The latter is most likely the reason, since the last time we really talked, he had said, "It makes me feel bad to see you. Seeing you makes me feel bad."

It was really the last straw for me at that time. After all that he had done, somehow he made it sound like everything bad was all my fault. I distanced myself from then on, and he didn't stop me.

So, yeah, he definitely came to mind when I thought about burying all hatchets on my birthday.  It was not the first time I had reached out since that period of cooling-off, and I had received radio silence when I informed him of my engagement as well as being completely ignored when he sat across from me during a mutual friends' lunch gathering and other people expressed, well, emotions upon the news of my first pregnancy. So I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised to find out that he's decided to cut me from his life forever, if all of his Facebook activity sans any attention to my Facebook request is any indication. I shouldn't have been so surprised except for the factors: (1) it's been more than three years, (2) we'd been friends for far longer than we've been significant others, and (3) he's for all appearances involved finally in a dating relationship with a girl that's clearly more attuned with his personality and culture and who absolutely adores him, so why would he still be blasé about me?

Then I came upon, by serendipity, an internet article about letting friendships go, and it's really clear to me that that's a very specific case applicable to him. So, okay. Farewell, my former friend. I do wish you all the best in your future, and I hope one day you will truly forgive me for all the wrongs, real of imagined, that I did you. And also come to recognize me for who I really am, not some demonic being that pulled you down for a while, as you seem to see me.

first attempt at connection with local civilization

Today is our first experience with Shabbat in the Holy Land. Strangely, it doesn't feel much different from weekends in Paris during the two weeks I was there, aside from the everything shutting down around Friday dusk and all of Saturday here instead of Sunday in Paris. Last night, I fell asleep on the living room couch while waiting for my husband to put our son to bed and woke up around 11:30pm by young-sounding guys and gals yelling while partying outside. I turned off all the lights and went to our bedroom, to discover that our son's sleeping with one leg slung over the side of the bed so that if he were to roll over by a little more degrees, he would have most certainly fell to the hard floor and conked his head. Close call.

Daniel has stumbled upon a Messianic congregation online that appears to be half an hour by foot from our place, so we set out walking to there this morning under the blazing sun. Twenty minutes later, we found ourselves on the top of the famed Bahai Garden. Turns out the map Daniel was relying on required us to walk through the Garden to the bottom of the hill into downtown. Unfortunately, one could only do so via a guided tour through the Garden. Plan change-- we hailed a taxi instead... and discovered that the driver had no idea where he was going or could barely understand what we were trying to convey. He asked for our destination at least four times, and each previous time seemed to remember the information incorrectly. We ended up riding down the hill to downtown and then up the hill to somewhere that he was sure was where we said we wanted to go. It was a very strange experience to be pointed to a place that's obviously not where we said we wanted to go and being refuted over and over again that, yes, in fact, that was the place. I finally said, NO IT'S REALLY NOT. WHAT SHOULD WE PAY YOU TO JUST LEAVE US ALONE? as we got out of the cab and waited for him to leave. The thing is, he had not turned on the cab meter, so he said, "What do you want to pay me for driving you all over the city?"

Like, WHAT.

Anyway, we ended up paying him the price he named, even though I think we were supposed to haggle a bit but I was too disgusted to care by then.  And, 45 minutes later, we found another 100% more competent cab driver to take us to the Messianic congregation after we got a map that shows explicit directions from a hotel we stumbled upon. I am very grateful that our son was pretty calm and quiet through all this traveling, despite the heat and going in and out of his stroller.  We actually made it to service fairly on time (five minutes late).

The service was interesting... I really appreciated being able to worship with other believers. The congregation consists of Hebrew, Russian, and English speakers. So everything was in Hebrew, and Russian and English speakers get earpieces that we can hear instantaneous translations from the professional translators sitting in the back. Kind of like worshiping at the U.N. I'm starting to discern some Hebrew alphabets via the hymns we sang, and I really hope I'll be able to learn a lot more Hebrew while I'm here. I'd been lazy about picking this language up since a lot of people assured us that most Israelis speak English, but I'm discovering that a lot of them don't speak it very well, or don't like to speak it. And 90% of street signs are only in Hebrew, which really drove home to me a feeling of being shut out literacy-wise. I've never felt so disconnected with words, which is usually my one lifeline. I wasn't that intimidated while traveling in Japan, since I've studied Japanese,  simplified characters in China were fairly easy to adapt to, and most European languages are honestly not that daunting. This is an entirely different story, with a completely foreign script.

I don't know if we will stick with going to this congregation. We met some nice people, but that's always the case when going to a new church. Somehow, I'm having a hard time shaking this stale feeling of "here we go again." I must confess that I'm afraid... I'm afraid I'll be as unhappy here as I was in China, that maybe I'm just an unhappy person no matter where I go. So of course nobody will want to be friends with me.

Somehow I feel like I've failed so many times in the past to fit into a new place, to build a life in which I feel truly purposeful. And throwing a tantrum-prone toddler and another impending birth into the mix basically finishes off any shred of optimism and self-confidence left for me.

Well, we'll see what happens. Day by day.

we're here

Impressions so far:

- EL AL Israel Airline is kind of ridiculous about how they handle infant car seats.
- I have never been on a plane with so many children. I have also never been so glad that Daniel spent US$300 to buy a noise-cancellation headphone that I used to block out all the crying children and airplane droning.
- Kosher airplane food is delicious.
- Jet lag seriously takes days from my life. I'm tired of traveling such long distances.
- Cheeses in Israel tend to be white, tastes differently from the ones found in the US, goes really well with sliced raw cucumbers for breakfast, and are also delicious.
- The ultra-orthodox Jews who favor riding on EL AL Airline are kind of rude and pushy...
- Apparently there's a lot of tension between the religious Jews and the secular and Messianic Jews. I have to say, given all the stories I heard from Kirsten, the friend of a friend who welcomed us to Haifa with open arms and her and her husband's apartment at 3:30 in the morning, I'm on the latter's side. There're some horrendous things being done in the name of rabbinical studies.
- Israeli grandmothers who kept chattering to me in Hebrew and then feed my son alongside their grandchildren are adorable.
- I should really learn Hebrew so that I can at least read bus information and simple conversation with other playground caretakers.
- Haifa's just as hot as Taiwan during the summer, except the former has much cooler breeze due to the Mediterranean.
- This everything closing down for Sabbath and then working on Sunday may take some additional adjustment for me. Kirsten's so kind to do some grocery shopping for us so that we'll have things to cook over the weekend.

I hope Daniel's research will go really well here, and that our little family may thrive.

final (most likely...not having writing mojo lately) reflection on taipei/hsinchu trip

Since I'm feeling lazy, let's do this in numbered form:

1. Taipei has delicious food everywhere. My most favorite place to eat while there - Din Tai Fung. I almost feel a pang of "poor you" feeling towards all who have not been able to experience this wonderland of the most delicately-skinned, richly-brothed, Shanghai dumplings served by one of the most courteous waitstaff in the world. Speaking of Shanghai, I found one of Din Tai Fung's international stores in this huge made-for-rich-people mall while in Shanghai. This was shortly after I was recovering from my most recent and worst case of food poisoning ever, and Din Tai Fung's shrimp fried rice turned out to be the only thing I could stomach for the remaining five days of that visit. The Taipei store, where this wonderful franchise first began, is still the best one to visit for dumplings that I could always eat more of.

2. The north is where to be during summertime in Taiwan. Because the south is mercilessly hot. Taipei was even breezy and cool enough at night that I actually wanted to go cruise the night markets rather than hunker down in the A/C-ed hotel room. And the typhoon that recently came and went? Didn't touch Kaohsiung whatsoever. I kind of like being in the heart of the drama (provided I had a safe shelter to observe all the mayhem of the flooding and crashing tree branches), so the cabin fever and lack of proper food we had to experience for one day was worth it.

3. Hsinchu is a surprisingly pleasant city to live in. Ok, its food is not so great. In fact, vastly subpar compared to the usual fare found in Kaohsiung and Taipei (and apparently other Taiwanese cities as well). However, it has a zoo that was founded in 1936, lots of great schools and science parks, the biggest mall on the island, and a well-structured city layout that makes riding the bus to get around quite manageable.

Uh oh, the toddler's home with his dad and he's crying for me. Time to go.