Bread and Becoming

“Oh my God, I can’t handle this.  It’s only been 10 days.  Why did I agree to this, encourage this, force this?  I can’t live in China!  I can’t be a full-time mom!  I don’t even know where to buy bread!” I screamed inside my head while forcing an external smile for my daughters’ diligence and exuberance for mixing flour, water and sugar.

Mixing four, water and sugar was my way of making bread, sort of.  I couldn’t find any bread in the markets.  But I could find flour, water and sugar.  So, problem solved.  I would make my own bread.

Assuming my newly minted pioneering spirit, I thought, “I can do this.  I’ll have the girls help me.  Bread is only flour, water and a bit of sugar right?  Oh shit, wrong!  Its needs some sort of leavening agent.  Shit!  Shit!  Shit!  And, oh double shit!  I don’t have an oven!  How can I make bread without an oven?  How could I forget that fact!  What am I doing here?!” I implored silently – all the while outwardly smiling at Madi and Cati who were covered head to toe in powdery flour!

I started to cry.

Just then, the phone rang.

“HI Honey, how’s your day going?  Did you find bread?” my husband, Bob, innocently asked.

“My day?  It’s going great!” I lied through gritted teeth, smiling.

I continued, “Couldn’t find any bread at the castle market, the #68 store, the #1 department store or the A’Merica bakery so the girls and I are trying our hand at making bread.”

It was important for me to sound as upbeat as possible.  I didn’t want to admit, quite yet, that I wasn’t cut out to be a pioneering, full-time, capable woman, mother and wife.  I didn’t want to admit that I felt like a pioneering, full-time, very capable loser, quitter and failure.

“Oh, can’t find bread?  I’ll have the company driver go buy a loaf or two.  I just had some with my coffee.  It was delicious!  You’ll like it.”

“Asshole!” I thought.  “It can’t be that easy!”

“Hey listen, the reason I called is not to talk about bread.  Chin’s wife has something to do with the government.  He just told me they are coming to get you.  Just go with them.” 

“Wait! What?”  This was my breaking point!

“I can’t go anywhere with anyone – let alone the government!  What will I do with Madi and Cati?  Where are they taking me?  What do they want?”  I was starting to get hysterical.  The tears were flowing; mean, angry, passionate tears.  I wanted to jump.

“Calm down.  It’s nothing to get upset over.  You can bring Madi and Cati.  Just go.”

“Wait!  What do you mean ‘Calm Down’?  CALM DOWN?!  Do you know what kind of day I’ve just had and its only 10 in the morning?  I’m going out of my mind.  I couldn’t find BREAD!”  I screamed into the phone.

Now, Madi and Cati screamed too.

“Just go with Chin’s wife.  Don’t worry.  It will be ok.”

“It will be ok.” I mocked him inside my head. 

“OK” I said to him, resigned that this was my new life.

With that, I hung up the phone and hurriedly prepared to meet the Chinese government in Kunshan.  I cleaned up Madi and Cati as best possible and changed into my Tahari black suit and Dana Buckman silk blouse.  I immediately felt like a valued person again.  The suit, the business armor, gave me power, gave me purpose, defined me.

I heard a knock.

“OK, girls.  There are some nice people here.  Please, please, please be good.”

Madi and Cati smiled sweetly! 

I opened the door to find a contingent of Chinese people in dark suits.

“Hello.  Er – I mean, Nihao.” 

“Hello, Teacher Lori.  We are excited you are living in Kunshan.  We are late.  We must go,” a nameless suit replied.

“Did I hear that right?  Teacher?  I’m not a teacher.  Maybe they call everyone teacher?”  I silently reasoned while walking out the apartment door.

Madi, Cati and I were led to a parade of Santana’s and ushered to the one at the front of the line.  We got in the car; me in the front seat and Madi and Cati in the back seat, sitting on the laps of the dark suits.  As we left the apartment building that had come to be our home, the guard gave me two-thumbs up.  I returned his thumbs up sign and took it as an omen of only good things to come.

At our final destination, a bevy of excited sounds and colorful sights accosted my ears and eyes.  Students will gongs, drums and banners lined the driveway; welcoming us at their school.  All the students were smartly dressed with red scarves tied around their necks.  I would later come to learn, the red scarves were symbols of the youth communist party.  The scarves are prized possessions and a status symbol within the Chinese youth school culture.

“Teacher Lori, come with us,” said a rather tall lady with short, stylish hair.  Although she was wearing a dark suit like the rest of the government, she had a definitive style, a modern vibe, about her.

”OK.  May I ask where we are going?”

“You, together with your lovely daughters, will meet the students of the school,” said the tall lady.

“Oh.  Why?”  I asked, starting to get nervous.

“So you can be their teacher.”

“Their teacher?  What will I teach?  I’m not a teacher,” I laughed.

“You will teach English,”

“Oh no.  I can’t.  Thank you for the opportunity but I can’t work now.  I have two babies.  I just moved to Kunshan.  I don’t even know where to buy bread yet.”

“Never mind.  You will teach English.  You will be very good,” the tall lady said after conferring for 10 minutes with a matronly-looking woman.  “Besides, the head mistress thinks you look like a teacher.  So, you will like it.”

With that edict, I was a working woman again, teaching English in a school run by the government of Kunshan.

Entering the large auditorium filled with students.  I realized it was not only filled with students, but also filled with something I couldn’t see but could feel - anticipation, adventure and possibilities – if I allowed them to be.

With resolve, I walked into the auditorium with my daughters in hand and into my new life in Kunshan redefined as a pioneering, full-time, capable woman, mother, wife and my new role as Lori LaoShi.