Daily Life

Beijing. Why Beijing?

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A Question we are asked often, is: Why Beijing?

I was explaining to one of my new co-workers about this today. I realized that it felt like the right thing to write about. Some of the topics below may come off as complaining. I want to assure you that is in no way the case. Most of the decisions we made, especially the family related ones, we would make again in a heartbeat. This is just to explain how we got where we are, and are in the position we are in.

When Irish and I got married, I was working in Korea. I have this dumb tendency to think things will just work out if you are patient enough. In this case it did not. Korea would not give my new wife a visa without a notarized marriage contract. The Philippine government takes around 6 months to do this.

So almost immediately after we got married, I had to leave my wife. I returned to work, and she stayed with her family.

Shortly after that I quit that job and moved to the Philippines. Together, we looked for work in a country that would take both of us. China agreed. We moved up to Harbin, a northern city in China. They had some beautiful old Russian architecture. We stayed there for a year. During that year 2 things happened: We lost Irish’s father to medical conditions, and Irish got pregnant.

The school at Harbin was not paying very much. This is especially true compared to what I get now. But, they had brought us over, and for that we appreciate them. Of our little savings, we sent money back to the Philippines for her father’s funeral and medical bills. Then we paid out of pocket for Irish to give birth in a Chinese hospital. The school did not offer insurance for us.

We then realized we would need to move to improve our lifestyle for our son. We also needed to earn more to increase our savings. I got a job offer from Beijing. We were supposed to stay for 2 years while working on paperwork for returning to Korea or Japan.

Again, nope. In Beijing, my first company had me teaching all around the city. My Harbin company had delayed paperwork. I was late arriving and would not get the position I was promised with them. As a result, I got all the odd-jobs. I worked in 2 different universities, 2 different language school campuses (Same school, different locations), and an elementary school. Each of these were on different corners of the city.

So I had little time to do paperwork for Japan, and Korea. And then we got pregnant with our first daughter.

So 2 years after We had my son, we were expecting our daughter. We went to an English speaking hospital downtown for our prenatal check ups. They rushed us through as fast as was possible. but when it came time, a few things happened. 1) The city center shut down for parade practice. That was China’s 60th anniversary, and we could not get to our hospital. 2) So we found an International hospital. We also discovered that the Chinese hospital had screwed up somehow. Irish’s C-section cut was reopening with this new pregnancy. We had to rush her into emergency to deliver our daughter, or we were told she would die. This cut still bothers her to this day periodically.

I had to borrow money from my boss to pay for this. Once again, I did not have insurance for my wife. It took me 5 years to pay that bill off. During that time, My mother-in-law passed away, and we had to deal with that. We paid for the funeral with the help of my family in Canada. But this left Irish and I as the financial sponsors for her two sisters, who became like our daughters. High-school, and university for one, High-school for the other, and living expenses.

We moved from the 2nd company to a 3rd, a school I was at for about 13 years in total. I had done work for them while working for the 2nd company, and moved over. They were very good to me for many years. I became management for a short while. Then politics happened, and I was replaced by a manipulative man, with many issues. I believe he used my autism against me, but I am not sure.

We were helping my brother out with a place to stay in Canada. We paid half his rent. We also paid the university fees for my sister-in-law and her survival fees.

Then we reached our point, My son was in middle school. School 3 had no High-school. We had to move.

We moved up to the school I’m at now. and not 2 months into my 1st year there, my mother was in a car accident that nearly killed her. When she recovered from that she was diagnosed with Cancer, and given 6 months to live. All our plans of paying for my further education to get me licensed over the last decade kept falling apart. I was stressed about family, We started sending mom money when we were able.

For years we kept saying we would move out of Beijing. It has been 15 years now, although it was supposed to be a 2-year trip. Now my son is graduating from Highschool, and I am determined to finally move out of this city.

Many good things happened here, but many harsh things happened while we were here as well. And many, many times we felt trapped like we would never get to leave. From the Harbin year to school 3, we only left Beijing three times. Each departure was due to a family crisis. Luckily, since moving to School 4, we have been able to spend some time visiting family, for actual visits.

So yeah, I have raised 3 kids, all 3 of them the hospital costs came out of pocket. same time financially cared for 4 family members and 2 funerals.

A fresh start somewhere might be nice.

Why is “Everyone’s a little Autistic” so painful?

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This is a phrase I heard about online, and I thought it was silly. I saw Autistic Influencers talking about this. (Yes I just took a 2 minute break to remember the term Influencer). Then earlier this year, while talking about my family and some of the struggles we have had, someone said it.

I was talking about my children, specifically my daughter. About how the struggles I see her going through reminded me of some of the things I went through. I was talking to them about some of the struggles, that they did not see, and then the aftermath when we got home. I talked about my daughter melting down after school, when she got home and felt safe. About how she’s starting to feel the itchiness of her clothing fabric, and her blankets. About her smell sensitivity.

Then the words came through, “I believe everyone is a bit autistic.” It felt like being hit with a brick. I was sure the person who said it was trying to be reassuring, but it did not feel like it. I just stopped talking and looked at them, confused and lost. “It’s a spectrum, right? so everyone is on that spectrum.”

My heart sank. I did not know how to explain this to them, and probably could not even now. Not face to face.

The Autistic spectrum, is not the same type of thing as the LGBTQ+ rainbow. The Sexual preference rainbow does include hetrosexuality (I believe, let me know if I am wrong). All types of love between consenting adults, or no physical love, fit on their rainbow. it is designed to include everyone in an all encompassing beautiful spectrum of color.

The Autistic spectrum is not referencing a rainbow in the same way. The Autistic Spectrum references the millions of light-waves that make it up. Some struggles are easy to see, like Red, Orange and Yellow. Some of our difficulties are not easy to see like Ultraviolet, and infrared. They are part of the light spectrum, but are not visible to the naked eye. Some of our struggles are so hidden, like x-rays, that you only know they are there by their effect on other parts of our life.

To say that everyone is a little autistic, is to tell an autistic person that their struggles are so minor, that everyone has them. Some of us cannot talk, or can only talk in very specific situations. But hey, that’s OK because cousin Bob can’t speak in Germany, he doesn’t speak German. Not the same.

Some of us cannot identify faces unless we are extremely familiar with them. I am like this. But that’s ok, Your sister Jane only remembers actors by their most famous character. It’s not the same.

Some of us cannot go outside because of light sensitivity or sound sensitivity, or smell sensitivity. My own mother passes out if she is near certain colognes or perfumes due to her sensitivity. I get massive headaches from flower scents, and perfumes. But it’s the same as your neighbor Jack who just doesn’t like modern music, right? No.

There is a lot of struggles we have that, believe it or not, we fight hard to keep to ourselves. Many of us older generation, have been taught from childhood, that inconveniencing others is the biggest sin. So we have it ingrained into our very psyche to keep these hidden. It is terrifying for many of us to let people see what we experience.

I am glad that I did not fly off the deep end, as my mother would say. The person who told me that they believed this then opened up about how their children, while not autistic, do have developmental difficulties. I guess, as parents, you always wish for your children to have as easy a life as you can. And if you are trying to normalize developmental difficulties to help your child not feel like an outsider, I applaud you. I, too, am trying to normalize this for the sake of my children.

While I want my children to understand that many people will not experience the things they do. We cannot judge their difficulties, or actions. While, yes, everyone has difficulties, they are different. Not all of them fall on the spectrum. Not all of them fall on the rainbow. And for some, these difficulties may seem insurmountable. The best we can do, is try. Be there for people, and let our close friends and family know what struggles we have.

I have spent many years hiding this aspect of myself. It has only been the last 2 years I have started to open up about Autism. I tried to talk to a very good friend about it 10 years ago, and was met with the comments about not appearing autistic, and how I must be “High functioning.” It did hurt to hear this, and it made it impossible to tell anyone again for years.

The next time I brought it up, was to correct misinformation in a topic we were teaching at that school. My coworker then used the information to convince my department head that I was unsuitable for being Head Teacher, and I was replaced. I had been doing the job well for years at that point, but it made no difference. That man then spent two years purposefully making life difficult for me. I had nightmares about him for 2 years after I left that school.

So when I say it is ingrained in us to hide, these are the reasons why. We are shown that it is a weakness, and that it will be either ignored, or used as a weapon against us. It is really hard to unlearn that. But If I want my children to live in a world that is better, I have to reveal. I have to reveal why things like “Everyone is autistic” hurts. Why our micro-stimming or odd ticks help us and should not be used against us. I have to lead by example.

And that is the most horrifying thing in the darkest areas of my brain. Letting it all out, for the world to see. I am not ready to share my nightmares, even if I must eventually.

The problem with moving.

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As I think forward to the concept of moving again, I reflect upon the difficulties this will present. I also think about the difficulties it has presented in the past.

My wife and I do not enjoy moving, in fact we detest it. Even if our living arrangement is not ideal, the idea of packing everything to move is more frightful. We would rather repair, and disinfect a place ourselves than to move out of an unhealthy situation. We have done exactly that in the past.

While living in ChaoYang, I had some serious difficulty with a coworker at that time. We had a mold issue near the living-room window, the apartment only had 2 bedrooms and a large living room. When we moved in there was a broken kitchen counter, and the gas range fan was caked with an inch of grease.

We repaired the counter using my tools, fixed the toilet flush. And spent nearly a whole day scrubbing the grease off the kitchen exhaust fan.

We had our routines that we loved though. There was a wet market around the corner that we could get almost anything we needed. They had seamstresses for clothing repair. There was fruit and vegetables and fresh meat on the first floor. They sold basic furniture, electronics, blankets, curtains, and everything you needed for a home. They had a pet store, and seafood. There was gardening equipment, and home-repair tools. A whole floor of stationary and decorations for festivals. We loved going there all the time.

There was a supermarket across the street. That building had food booths, and restaurants. every Canadian Thanksgiving we used to go to a certain restaurant we called “The Red Restaurant” because of the sign. They had a Tailor, and pharmacies there. We knew exactly where everything was. Unfortunately the supermarket itself shrank twice while we were there. It began as a 2 floor market, then it shrank to just the first floor. Then our last year there, it shrank to half the first floor. Piano schools, dance schools, and science academies moved in upstairs.

There were two malls that were a short walk away, and we enjoyed walking there as a family. These malls, had movie theaters, and cat-cafe’s. You could sit with your drink and pet a cat. There was a lot of things to do there, including eating, board games, VR games, a couple large playgrounds for the kids and more.

Just around the corner was a great street food culture in the evenings. If we didn’t feel like cooking, we could just walk down the street and buy a large variety of food. All of these little food carts would appear in the early evening, and some of the foods were amazing, and cheap.

After moving to the ShunYi area, we have gone to visit the malls and the wet market in ChaoYang a couple of times. But we have tried to build new routines here. It has been hard, however. ShunYi, while more spread out and suburban, has less things like home repair and tools shops. It took us a while to find good green grocers, and there isn’t a large mall nearby. Instead there is a cosmopolitan shopping plaza.

This area is more expensive than ChaoYang, and it took us a while to get used to it. There is a lot more variety in restaurants and coffee shops. The plaza has more things for the children as well. They can buy birdseed and feed pigeons at “Pigeon Plaza”. There is an outside playground surrounded by a permanent farmer’s market. The plaza has 2 trains for families to ride around on.

Unfortunately some of the difficulties in our routines that arose is change. For the first couple of years we would find a coffee shop, grocery store or restaurant we liked, and it would disappear, or get down-sized and moved. For example there was a great restaurant / cafe next to a fountain plaza. They had an amazing bakery, and excellent fried chicken. after we had been patrons for about 7 months, (Bare minimum to make it a routine), it closed and moved practically next door. Now it is 1/4 the size, has no bakery, and no restaurant. They sell coffee, ice-cream, and sandwiches now.

Our second favorite cafe did the same a few months after that, and moved to the far side of the plaza, a good 20 minutes walk through the compound.

Now My wife and I consistently go to a cafe attached to a book store. It has survived.

But now, we have given notice to our school that we plan to move after this school year. My son has graduated, and we wish to get out of Beijing. While this is exciting, it has already begun to cause fear in my family. We don’t know where we are going yet. We don’t know what type of place it will be. We don’t know how long we will be needing to get acclimate to the new area.

My wife and I are both quite nervous about this, and I we still have 6 months left at this house and school. We have both lost sleep over this, but we made a promise to ourselves that we would leave Beijing.

I feel that even if we stayed, our family dynamic is changing as my son will be a legal adult. And this in itself is a very scary point for us. While he plans to have a gap year to focus on language learning, things are different.

Can we get him a visa to stay with us next year? Can we find a language school for him? Will he have to move out to another country? Is he ready to go out on his own? Have we taught him how to handle himself and his difficulties well enough? What support will he have if he’s out on his own?

If I’m still having trouble setting up and managing myself and my difficulties, how is he going to do?

And this all causes other issues. The more I worry about things, the more I get distracted, disorganized, and lost. I have been needing my personal space, and my huggables more often.

Most people don’t realize this, but it causes me to have more indigestion and heartburn. It also causes me to have more balance issues. (Both of these will be discusses in other articles.)

So as I look forward to the next school year, I need to sit down to put on my shoes more, and rely on my akla-seltzer tablets more. I also get lost in my classroom as I move from my desk at the back to the front of the room. I tend to head back to my desk 2 or 3 times now to get papers and material I prepared and forgot about. I need my alarms more to remind me when I have to finish class, or go get the children. And I need to sit down more when I am on duty watching the children outside.

At home I feel more sluggish in making decisions, and just want to find that next job so I have an idea of where we will be going to.

Wish me luck.