Inaugural Post

In March 2007, I packed up my 400 sq ft apartment in New York and with newly pregnant belly in tow, headed off to an Asian adventure in Shanghai, China. I had morning sickness, air pollution sickness, late night danceathon sickness, and general homesickness. I escaped that fall and flew back home to the safety of small town America where I gave birth. Shanghai apparently didn't take well to the break-up. I returned with my new daughter, planning to make peace with Shanghai's strung-out overly passionate inner self, but it kicked me and my husband right back out. We headed back to New York in Feb'08. I was shocked but not sad. Shanghai and I were like soy sauce and curry: sort of okay together, but really always competing for center stage.

However, my husband was devastated. His dreams of years of dumplings and small happy, non Columbia MBA (read cold, cut-throat and boring) companies, were dashed. "Why? Why?" he kept asking Shanghai, but it was busy turning out the sad unsuspecting pockets of other expats and poor, economic crisis laden companies.

Then May 2009, it finally relented. "Okay. Replay, but this time on my terms. Bring furniture, bring children, settle in for the long haul this time. I'm taking over."

So round two: pregnant again. I'm a mom, a wife, a baby incubator, a writer, a frustrated and uneasy Shanghai grocery shopper, a speaker of very mediocre Chinese, and an anonymous expat stranded in Shanghai suburbs, trying every day to not run to Pudong airport and board a plane and head back to the US where I was a respected freelance consultant, friend to people without children, condo owner, hip mom and energetic wannabe novelist in Fort Greene Brooklyn, regular traveler (without my daughter!), a shopper, an efficient Fresh Direct customer, and an active sister, sister-in-law, daughter and cousin.

What makes me stay: my family. What makes me want to run: my family.

I've been Shanghaied. I wish I could be Shanghaied.

Welcome to my blog (aka lifeline) to the rest of the world!

Shanghai:

Part of Speech:	verb
Definition:	kidnap
Synonyms:	abduct, capture, carry away, carry off, grab, hijack, hold for ransom, pirate, run away with, seize, skyjack, snatch