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Moving to Beijing, and how we stayed sane

I’m often asked how I managed to keep my brain from imploding after packing up a two-year-old, 4-year-old and two 30-something-year-olds and moving from Adelaide to Beijing. I mean, you couldn’t possibly live in more polar-opposite places on the planet. Quiet v calamitous. Pristine v grubby. Settled v uprising.

We had been living on post in sleepy, suburban Adelaide when we received the 95 per cent horrifying news we would be moving to China for four years. Why horrifying? I honestly look back in wonder at this initial reaction because, of course, living in China was anything but horrifying (well, actually, it was sometimes horrifying).

I think it was perhaps due to the fact that I knew nothing about China. I didn’t even know how to say hello or count to ten. I knew the capital was Beijing and I knew there was a great wall and I knew there were lots and lots of people, but––despite a lifetime of extensive travel and living overseas––China just hadn’t attracted me like so many other countries around the globe.

Along with packing up our lives and entering an unknown world, I not only faced a daunting vaccination schedule for our family, but also a deep concern over the availability of nappies, yoghurt and good chocolate, a dearth of English language books and toys (that wouldn’t impale or poison the children), a horrifying lack of good coffee, television and clothing for people bigger than a large doll, and years of sticky, pineapply, sesame-seed-studded cuisine for breakfast.

Oh yes, it was daunting stuff, alright.

Preparing well was the only way I could cope with the reality of what lie before us, and so preparing well I did.

The thing, however, with preparing for an Unknown Place is that you end up not really knowing how to prepare. It’s like putting makeup on in the dark. No amount of previously-honed organisational skills apply when you’re slicking lippie on your eyebrows and mascara on your chin.

So, most of my ‘preparation’ was centred in what I could do here in Australia – preparation that mainly consisted ‘amassing’ and ‘stocking-up’. From baby panadol to nappies, yogurt-makers and Weetbix, I gathered and amassed, I bulk-bought, I asked for discount, I even negotiated with the local chemist over filling scripts. I also packed every single children’s toy and book we owned (much the removalists’ disdain) and bought out the underwear department at Myer (when you’re a size 10 – 12 yet your butt is considered XXXXXL in China, you’ll understand why).

Of course, there were the usual bill and post office and banking issues to sort through, renting our Melbourne house out, suspending Australian health insurance and whatnot, but there were also the ‘where to live, where to send the kids to school, husband’s transport to work, can I work as well?’ dramas at the other end. Even the clear and succinct answers from those already living in China seemed muffled and incomprehensible to me. Through the foggy stress, one small thing, at least, was becoming clear––I had to focus on the here and now, and deal with that mysterious place across the sea, and all its associated fears . . . when we got there.

Eeep.

We had just 8 weeks to pack our lives up for China. I distinctly remember finishing the packing. I somehow didn’t feel packed. It’s hard to pack thoroughly when you are an eight-armed being composed of a man, a woman, a girl and a boy. The man part needs razors and ties, the woman part needs gargantuan undies and face creams that don’t contain sheep placenta, the girl part needs Barbies and sparkly pens and the boy part needs guitars and soccer balls.

Not only that, we had to pack in four separate genres.

Packing for storage in Australia (the things we could go without for four years).

Packing for our interim period en route––serviced apartments in Adelaide, stopping off in Melbourne, our temporary apartment in Beijing.

Packing for the move into our refurbished apartment in Beijing, when the kids would start school, husband would start work and I would start shopping.

Packing for our sea-bound shipment––the items we could do without for a few months, that would eventually arrive in Beijing.

I can still remember standing in a room of our Adelaide house, surrounded by boxes and head-fracturing ‘things to remember’, completely immobilised, holding several items in my hands and being utterly unable to decide which item belonged in which of the four packing genres. I think I threw my head back and screamed to the heavens, complete with camera pulling back to a wide-shot, showcasing the packing box chaos around me.

The stress, strain and mind-numbing decision-making, what-ifs and unknowns of our moving to China. . . for a woman who is normally superlatively organised . . . it was one of my greatest life challenges. But what was even more challenging was the eventual realisation that all that organisational angst had been for naught.

Other than Napisan and hair colour a lighter shade than ‘ebony’, every single item (or something close enough to pass for it) I stressed over was available in Beijing. Every food fear, every filth fear, every nappy fear, every language fear, every will-we-fit-in fear was almost immediately washed away the moment we ventured into that smoky, hazy, deeply fragrant Beijing night.

Basically, we tripped and fell head over heels in love with China. And the moment our family arrived, I realised something. I realised that while there’s much to be said about preparing and being organised, especially where two kids under the age of five are concerned, there’s something wonderful in the notion of ‘winging it’. Of going with the flow. Of allowing life to wash over us rather than attempting to control it. Of trusting that things will unfold and that we’ll be . . . okay.

Sure, sometimes it wasn’t easy. Sometimes it was downright frustrating and even maddening. But for the most part, our four years in China was an incredible ride that needed no Weetbix or yoghurt-maker safety net. All it needed was a willingness to embrace the new, the unknown, the ‘different’.

And boy did we embrace it.

Whilst we didn’t resort to split pants (as opposed to nappies), there is plenty we did resort to, plenty we did embrace – so much so, that when it was time to go home to the familiar, the known, the everyday of Australia . . . yes, that’s right––I was ninety-five per cent horrified.

Tania McCartney is an editor, presenter and book-obsessed author of both children’s and adult books. As an ACT Ambassador for the National Year of Reading 2012, she is passionate about literacy and children’s literature. Tania runs literary site Kids Book Review, writes for several online sites and loves paper, travel, marshmallows and laughing. Beijing Tai Tai, $24.99, is available from Exisle Publishing Tania blogs at www.taniamccartney.com