My Beijing Olympics working for the Chinese media: Eye exercises, lip-synching and squatter loos

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On top of the world: Josephine at Beijing's 'Bird's Nest' stadium in 2008

I remember thinking on my first day at the newspaper office where I was going to be for the Beijing Olympics, that I never imagined I would encounter the risk of peeing on myself at work.

For there in the new China Daily website office with its break-out zones, potted plants and brightly coloured ergonomic furniture, traditional squatter loos had been installed in the Ladies.

We may have been forging ahead with web pages, text alerts, and online broadcasting at our desks, but in the loos we were only a few porcelain steps up the evolutionary ladder from hitching up our skirts and going by the side of the road, or so it felt.

For the Beijing Games in 2008 I was called up from the Shanghai bureau to live and work at the main office of China’s state-run English national newspaper. I was to help edit stories for the China Daily website. It was a dream gig. Every expat living in China was trying to get themselves to the capital for the big event.

In the tradition of Communist work units, my accommodation was in a block of workers’ flats within the office compound. It took a bit of getting used to bumping into my boss in the lift when I was hungover on a Sunday morning. Three subsidised meals a day were served in the canteen.

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Shanghai state of mind: The battle for total recall

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Shanghai street names are starting to evade my memory

“I can’t remember our address!”, I told my friend in a panic the other day.

 

I had completed a familiar roll call of the Shanghai knowledge in my mind.

 

Everything was present and correct except the address details we used to give taxi drivers for the last apartment block we shared.

 

Like someone with Alzheimer’s in the family I find myself testing my Shanghai memory to check nothing is escaping my recall.

 

My fear is that the day I can’t remember the pin number of my Chinese bank card or my Chinese mobile number, my reality living abroad will have died.

 

If you can’t remember the road junctions of the places you lived, you’ve probably moved onto another juncture in your life, but I’m not ready to forget.

 

Six months after leaving I find myself struggling to remember the names of all my Chinese colleagues and chatting to one in Mandarin last week, the words I used to have at my disposal have been disposed of, mothballed.

 

When my friends tell me of places they’ve been recently I rack my brains. Is Changle Lu near Changde Lu? Did I ever know that at the time?

 

Of course, it worked the other way too. I remember freaking out when I was living  in Shanghai talking about London and couldn’t remember what changes I would need to make to get to Marble Arch on the underground. Bus numbers were familiar friends whose names I had temporarily forgotten.

 

I also felt like a geriatric once when confronted with my first ticket turnstile at the Heathrow underground. Did you take the ticket out before you walked? The difference was I knew I would reclaim my London knowledge one day. My Shanghai knowledge could remain in Lost Property.

 

But just for the record, Zhenning Lu, Dongzhuanbang Lu. Phew.

Latest BBC feature: The Olympics missile base with sun deck, pool and bar

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It has underground parking, 24-hour security, a gym, swimming pool, residents-only bar, water features and a sun deck overlooking the Olympic Park.

And soon it could be home to a Ministry of Defence surface-to-air missile post.

“I wish the media would stop calling it a block of flats,” a suited man says to another as he stands in the sun beside a koi carp-filled pond, surrounded by a growing melee of Army personnel and reporters.

“We don’t pay extortionate service charges and mortgages for it to be called a block of flats. It’s a gated community,” insurance worker Richard Piatt replies when asked what people should be calling it.

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Latest BBC feature: London mayoral candidates battle for branding supremacy

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Boris Johnson’s image has formed a key part of the London race for mayor – from the blue, floppy-haired profile on Back Boris 2012 merchandise to the hairy cartoon character depicted as a thief in Ken Livingstone’s campaign literature.

But is it wise to reduce the election to caricatures, what are the messages behind some of the most distinctive designs and how well are the parties reaching their audience?

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What’s Chinese for Colposcopy?

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When you take a job in China, you don’t think about the day you’ll find your feet in Chinese stirrups. Guest expat blogger, Violet Tame, shares her trip to the gynaecologist in China. 

 

This week I had to go for a follow-up appointment at the OBGYN. I had a couple of pap smears come back irregular so it was time to go under the scope. I arrived a little nervous with the word biopsy ringing in my head. I checked in and sat down next to a middle-aged man coming from work. I wished in a way that I was sitting next to him to chew the fat to at least take my mind off the looming exam. I did not make a move as figured I would definitely put my foot in my mouth and rather than discussing the up and coming US election, I would discuss blood clots and the risk we women take with every birth control pill we take.

"A tune-up is just a different dipstick away from a colposcopy"

I waited and waited and finally was called by the nurse after waiting over 40 minutes. She took my blood pressure and then asked me to sit in another waiting room where I could gaze for 20 minutes at a wall of baby photographs. I sometimes think that the OBGYN offices should have pictures of females with their great accomplishments and inspirational quotes including the strange species of the single independent woman, or just any random person from the non-procreating race. Is it not enough that I do not have anyone besides my OBGYN doing anything down there, I have to be reminded every six months “No, you do not have kids, and you are doing maintenance on an organ that only bleeds”.

 

As I am sitting there staring at the baby pictures with happy couples, thinking about my inactive vagina and fallopian tubes that are still in training I remind myself of past OBGYN appointments where one gynaecologist told me that I had a beautiful womb. This in a strange way is comforting. Then a line swoops in like a stork from the play For Whom the Southern Bell Tolls, “I have a womb, a womb for went, as Elmer Fudd would say”. What do I do with this beautiful womb? Will I ever be able to rent it out for nine months, or will I continue to carry the vacancy sign on my forehead to each dinner, Christmas or OBGYN appointment?

 

A dear friend rang me to check in and I immediately lost it making a puddle of tears on my baby yellow skirt. The nurse called me into the office before the conversation even started. Walking into the appointment I messaged two friends saying that I was having a meltdown and would like someone there when I was done.

 

The doctor had diagrams of women with see through legs so I could see where the microscope would be put. I was warned that it might hurt and given a packet that outlined what I needed to be aware of and activities that I needed to stay away from for the next 24 hours…. A girl could be so lucky to have the option to stay away from one of the three letter words.

 

Through the whole process massive drops were catapulting from my eyes. I was taken through an office to a room with a massive chair with stir-ups. I put on a backless blue gown that brought out my swollen eyes and lay on the table. The doctor was Chinese and so was her assistant. There were four lights above me, which meant I could see the reflection of the different tools she was putting into me. After that the doctor said “I tell you about this later, I have to clean off your cervix first”. Seriously, there has to be a technical term for that, though now I know why they name cars after women: a tune-up is just a different dipstick away from a colposcopy.

 

The exam continued and I was still unsure if I was passing or failing. The doctor and the assistant were speaking to each other in Chinese and all I could pick up was “Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, biopsy. Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, biopsy”…. Now for China claiming to be one of the oldest cultures and Mandarin being a difficult language with an extensive vocabulary, they honestly could not come up with their own word for biopsy? That was the one word that I could have waited to hear until the tune-up was finished and I was sitting respectably in a chair fully clothed on all sides.

 

After who knows how many swabs, metal dipsticks and hearing “Chinese, Chinese Chinese, biopsy. Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, biopsy,” they left me to change and closed a steel sliding door, which I later would not be able to open, and resorted to banging on like a captive mental patient. The doctor explained everything shortly after telling me that she was retiring… Upon leaving the office I found my friends that responded to my distress signal to enjoy a cold four-letter word that thankfully was not on the list of things I could not enjoy post tune-up.

Latest BBC story: St Paul’s Cathedral ‘more than a big white building’

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Its dome is internationally recognisable. It has hosted some of the most important moments in British history, from the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill to the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.

But despite its 1,400 years of history, it is the four-month period when protesters pitched tents outside in the name of subverting corporate greed that most recently shoved St Paul’s Cathedral into the public glare.

Images of Occupy London campers outside the vast white Portland stone Baroque frontage were beamed around the world.

“People think it is just a nice big white building”, says Graham Way, 52, a volunteer.

“It is, but there’s a lot more going on. It’s not a great white elephant by any manner of means.”

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Save me from flip-flops and fake tan: My hot isn’t their hot any more

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The other day I was wearing my winter coat buttoned up to my neck when I walked past a girl in orange fake tan, a vest and flip-flops. We gave each other a look which said, “Seriously?”.

 

Indeed, the thing that has most publicly betrayed my recent expat status in the last few weeks has been my attachment to my coat while other Brits strip off, desperately keen to use their summer clothes for whatever limited period of availability there may be.

 

So while newspapers have screamed about heat waves, I’ve been the one walking around in at least two extra layers.

 

I know it's unBritish to ooze enthusiasm for your surroundings but I can't help it

I didn’t find the recent spell of warmth hot. Hot to me is now 40 degree heat and 80 percent humidity.

 

Hot is having to have rugby training drills explained indoors in the air conditioning before going outdoors to complete them to save people from standing in the heat and running the risk of hyperthermia.

 

Hot is having to wait inside in the air conditioning while you sacrifice someone to man the barbecue outside.

 

Hot is leaving your office at 10pm at night and being hit by a mist of delicious warm, clammy air as you hear the cicadas clattering and start working out how soon you can locate a glass of gin and tonic to enjoy outside.

 

A friend who moved to England after spending his early childhood in Hong Kong told me that he needed a hot water bottle every night for his first year.

 

I moved back in November and a lot of people said, “What a shame you’re arriving back in the winter”. It may have seemed a bad time, but if you are moving back from China I can’t recommend it enough.

 

For a start, it didn’t feel like Britain really had a winter now that I’m used to what Shanghai gets thrown at it-  temperatures around 0 degrees and humidity which makes it feel much colder. It doesn’t really feel like we get weather here at all to be honest now, just middling clement temperatures with the odd bit of extra drizzle or extra sun here and there.

 

It doesn’t even rain properly. I asked a friend of mine to send me a poncho from Shanghai for riding my bike in the rain but I haven’t yet had cause to break it out. We are technically in a drought- a world away from the plum season in Shanghai when it can rain torrentially every day for weeks and you don’t leave the house without wellies and a poncho.

 

I spent the winter wearing my thick Shanghai duvet coat on the days it was closest to 0 degrees while Brits wore thin coats and jackets and complained of being cold. I revelled in the fact that my office and home had central heating- most Shanghai buildings do not. And I felt the warmest I have in the winter for years, recalling days when I went to bed in Shanghai in a woolly hat and gloves and with heat patches imported from Korea stuck to my pyjamas.

 

I am enjoying the spring with a renewed appreciation. I don’t think I ever truly took on board how beautiful London looks with its blossoms. In Shanghai, people take day trips out of town to line up and look at the spring flowers alongside thousands of others, posing Romantically next to blooms. Here, they are on every street and every corner and people just walk past them. I have taken pictures of them as a tourist would.

 

I can’t help it. I know it’s weird to appreciate your home town. I also know it will be weird if I don’t lose my winter coat at some stage this summer. After all, nothing says “outsider” in Britain more than being positive and  keeping your clothes on when the sun comes out.

Will six months in spell a repatriation meltdown?

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“How are you adjusting?” is something I am being asked a lot at the moment. I’m four months into my re-entry in England and approaching the psychologically critical six-month point expats talk of. Tales of repatriation meltdowns always tend to begin, “Well, she was fine for the first six months and then she…”

a) Realised she had changed too much to ever be able to live in England again,

b) Realised England hadn’t changed at all

or

c) Remembered she had left the gas on.

I tell people that I was lucky I started a new job two days after I came back. I tell them I am loving the job and that I am enjoying the simple pleasure of not having to miss my oldest friends and my family.

 

Is there a re-pat time bomb set for six months?

Oddly, I have felt the most vindicated in my decision to return home when moments come around that are now everyday.

 

When I was in Shanghai last summer on a warm evening sitting on my balcony 25 storeys up chatting to my friends about my reasons for leaving, I never could have pinpointed the moments that would truly reward my decision.

 

I knew that Shanghai and I had reached the type of juncture that you come to with a man when you have to decide to either get married or break up. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with Shanghai, but I still love it.

 

I knew that I wanted to put down roots for a while in England, be near my loved ones and move on to better career prospects.

 

But since I have been home, I have been made acutely aware of what I was missing. When you have a one-hour Skype call home each week, you miss spending a few post-dinner hours chatting about what your grandparents did during the war or your mother’s first boyfriend. You miss teaching your sister how to perform a London emergency three-point turn ahead of her driving test. You miss the afternoon you spend trying on hats for a wedding you will actually be able to attend. And you weren’t even aware these moments were there to be missed.

 

There are things I miss about Shanghai but they are not serious enough for me to feel that I will need to run away in two months’ time. Perhaps your first few months home are the most precious, when you have a unique new perspective on things you previously took for granted. Perhaps I’m just still blinkered by the range of lunch options I now have and the fact that shoes in England actually fit me. Who knows? But at the moment I may be the only person in London who can safely say they feel well-adjusted.