Culture Shock!

Frankly, I had always wondered why so many women living abroad joined the American Women's Club, stayed put in their tidy expat compounds, and when they ventured out, traveled in packs. Now, I do.

While we've been able to laugh (usually hours AFTER the fact) at our stupid newbie moments, during them, it's all sweat and tears. Language isn't just a barrier; it's the Great Wall.

Take today.

I went foraging for furniture. (Although...take a look at this cute sofa I found. Are the orange accessories a yes or a no?)

Anyhow, all the guidebooks said to go to this one antique shop. I should have known better. Can you say tourist trap? But, heck, we traveled a full HOUR to get to the place. Rather than call it a waste of a day, I learned that just 2 kilometers away was an old village.

So off we went, all happy and proud of ourselves for being adventurers.

And then came lunch.

I decided that one week of acclimatizing to Shanghai wasn't quite enough time for our stomachs to handle street food.

So we ducked into a little restaurant, crammed with people, where I thought I was ordering won ton soup. Instead, I got...

...the bowl of mystery. Under full disclosure, it was an expensive bowl of mystery.

My "bu yao" (I don't want it!) didn't do much to remove the bowl from our table. Neither did pantomiming that no-I-did-not-order-this. Clearly, I need to study my Mandarin more. No translation required for the tittering among the waitstaff. *sigh*

And just to wallow in my ineptness, let me just mention my first grocery shopping expedition to Carrefour. You would think: hey, it's a French company. I'll be able to get around this grocery store just fine! Uh-huh. And you would think: hey, I'm a regular shopper of the Asian food stores in Seattle. I'll be able to get around just fine. Repeat after me: uh-huh.

There was no preparing for the sheer number of people in the store. Nor the bewildering array of products, most of which I have never seen before. To be blunt, I went catatonic. As in I was able to steer my cart, but not much else. I literally put 3 things in my grocery cart. Meanwhile, my husband dumped the entire contents of the beverage aisle into his cart.

So I was very much relieved when I took the kids for an evening stroll back at our home...and there, waiting for me on my computer, was a message from one of my best friends from college. We now live 10 minutes away from each other in Shanghai. She announced that she was back in town!

I am so eating humble pie tonight...and let me tell you, it tastes good. YAY! A friend who speaks my language and knows her way around Shanghai. A friend who I can hang out with. YAY!

China, Jai You!

Whatever language I had been faithfully practicing every day in my car to prepare for this move, it was clearly not Mandarin. People have been staring blankly at me, head cocked to the side in a mixture of confusion and amusement and irritation, whenever I've tried my few words and phrases. Embarrassing.

After the deafening cheers in the stands during yesterday's kayaking races for the Olympics, I turned to the Chinese guy next to me and asked him what he was yelling: "Jai you!" He said, "It means, go!" Last night, I asked my friend, Alex, what it really meant, and he explained, "Literally, it translates to 'add oil.'" When you want to win or go faster, you need to add a little fuel. I love that.

So while my family slumbers on this morning, I thought it was about time that I committed my personal resolutions for the next year in China in blog. Here's how I want to add a little fuel for myself! Justina, jai you!

• Acquire some basic Mandarin language skills! While it's impractical to think that I'll be fluent in Mandarin after a year, I'd like to be proficient enough to have a real conversation. Not just a transaction of information: where is the bathroom? I would like two orders of these dumplings. You know what I mean. Exchange ideas. And really, it would be absolutely amazing to get fluent enough that I could speak with my mom. Have a true conversation with her.

Translation: hire a Mandarin tutor, make sure to get out of my expat compound and practice the language with real people!

• Write my next novels! So my agent kicked me in the rear end when I saw him in L.A. a few weeks ago, telling me it was time to Get Back to Work. The truth is, after my last book tour which lasted almost SIX months, I was burned out. Absolutely and completely burned out. I took the entire summer off of writing. That's one long dry spell, longer than any I've ever given myself. Even when I was launching readergirlz with Lorie Ann Grover, Janet Lee Carey, and Dia Calhoun, I was writing--and even finished North of Beautiful during our most intense time. As my writer-friends have assured me: I have just been filling my creative well. I think they're right. Now, I am yearning to get back to the empty page and spend hours writing. I have four (count them, four!) book ideas that I've been ruminating over the past year or two.

Translation: commit to writng 3 full days a week and 2 mornings a week.

• Throw myself into the China experience! My year in Australia with my husband flew. Absolutely flew (except for the first few months when I had to adjust to all the racism...). So I know my time in Shanghai will be fast. I want to get to know the city, the quirky neighborhoods, the secret places to eat and shop. I want to travel in Asia (and have already booked our trip to Bhutan!). And I want to meet the cool, creative people who are changing the face of China now: the architects and designers, the directors and producers and writers and artists, the entrepreneurs.

Translation: set aside a day a week to explore the city. Pick out the places we want to visit in China and Asia. And interview cool people. This is all about feeding my creative well.

• Take exquisite care of my family, friends, and self! And of paramount importance to me, I want to make sure my family is safe and happy. So I want to do what I can to help my kiddos acclimatize to their new home. (That might mean volunteering at their school as a writer-in-residence since my eldest still--so far!--doesn't have a problem with me being onsite with him. I realize this will change sooner than I like.) One of my very best friends from college lives 10 minutes away from me now in Shanghai! I definitely want to devote some great quality time with my girlfriend. And finally, the big 4-0 has proven to me once and for all that my metabolism is slooooowing down. Must work out. Every. Day. Or I will take on the shape of a round Shanghainese dumpling.

Translation: breathe.

And take new exercise classes: try out tai chi! fencing! heck, racewalking!

Geocache with my family! And just have fun.

The Real Olympics

And let the Games begin! After a marathon shopping expedition at Ikea in Shanghai where we picked up sheets and towels and rubbish bins and candles (what can I say? I need my candles), we powered through the traffic to the airport.

Beijing bound, baby! Here's my hubby and I with my daughter's obsession (and reason why she was excited to move to China: the Friendlies, mascot of the Beijing Olympics!).

We arrived at the Olympics Sporting Green to a deluge of Ark-ian proportions. The gray skies didn't put a damper on our excitement. What did was my husband "forgetting" to pack the brand-new, ultra-cool man purse that I had purchased for him back in Seattle. Oh, don't even get me started on my own travel bag angst. After years (years!) of searchng, I have yet to find the perfect handbag for traveling, one that is chic yet can hold a car's worth of just-in-case supplies. (Don't scoff: look who has a raincoat...and who doesn't.)

Anyhow, let me return to the Man Bag offense. So I found the perfect bag for my husband fitting all my requirements: hip enough for the coolest guy, able to hold a ton of stuff. Translation: I would not have to be the sole family sherpa of all things. Someone--who shall remain nameless--conveniently forgot to pack the man bag. So I spent the day participating in the first of the Headley Olympics events: Man Bag Spotting. (Note the guy standing behind us. What is he carrying over his shoulder? Oh, that's right. A Man Bag. )

And the winner of the Man Bag Spotting event?

Providentially, our first tickets were for the two events that our kids competed in this last Track season: racewalking and turbo javelin! Here's the remote control car the Olympians got to use to transport their thrown javelin back to the pit. How cool is that?

Even so, jetlag set in after the first two hours...

Then, on to our Marathon Subway Expedition to the women's soccer. As a rule when we travel, we try to stay away from taxis (expensive, traffic, etc.) and travel by public transport. The Beijing subways are awesome! Clean! Well-signed! Now, the toilets... Yes, you got it: in my ginormous travel bag, I had (thankfully) tucked in our own toilet paper. Thank goodness.

By weird happenstance, my former yoga teacher's little sister is the goalie of the U.S. Women's soccer team. Hope did an amazing job defending our goal. Woo hoo! The U.S. team won the gold in overtime! And my kids take the gold in Power Sleeping on the go.

Shanghaied

Ni hao! And so our life in China begins.

The night of our Big Move, I couldn't sleep. So at 3:00 a.m., I just got up and cleaned the house. My parents had mentioned that they would try to come wish us goodbye. We waited and waited. No sign of them. As we pulled out of our driveway for the last time, there they were, ambling down the street. My mom looked so sad that I wondered whether we were making a mistake, leaving the country. Leaving them behind. But my husband reminded me, "They're visiting in a few weeks."

Three movies on a plane later, we arrived! (Question: was Anne Bolyn truly as conniving and cruel as the movie made her out to be? Now, I'm curious and want to read about her.) Traveling with 6 suitcases (not to mention 2 stuffed animals, 1 guitar case, 4 carry-on backpacks, and 1 loaded Kindle!) was a shock to my system. I--Ms. Traveling Light--never check luggage if I can help it. I like being unencumbered. I like walking off the plane and being directly on my way. When my husband and I moved to Australia for a year (before kids...and those are the operative words), we took one suitcase each. One. Each. That was it for the year.

We all woke up at 3:00 a.m., hungry and totally wired. As we waited for stores to open, we took a walk (already stifling in the thick, hot air) and then escaped into the air-conditioned Tourist Tunnel underneath the river. There, we hopped on a tram, narrated as part horror show (weird heh-heh-heh laughter) and Disney.

Foraging for food was a good reminder that we were in a different country. Here, luckily, everything was translated into English. What I liked was ordering our meal via placemat. We just circled whatever we wanted.

Then it was on to the first store to get basics for our new home: towels, sheets...mooncakes. The mid-autumn festival (celebrating the full, fat moon and family) is in a few weeks, and already the mooncakes are out in stores. Even ones selling linens! This is the fanciest box I've seen:

Picking what we wanted was easy. A half-dozen salesladies fluttered around us. Paying for what we needed took a bit of time. Cash registers aren't at the front of the store. Instead, we finally spotted a cashier, located in the perimeter, in front of the changing room. Two people cut right in front of me. And that's when the "exciting" and "surreal" concept of moving to a foreign country became reality. Finally, I tried out my feeble Mandarin when a third person squeezed in front of my cart: "Bu!" Which communicated effectively enough: the line is behind us.

Off to Beijing tomorrow for the Olympics!

Parting Thoughts

Here I am, on the eve of leaving America to move to China for our year abroad. It's been a lovely whirlwind of family and friends that's often felt like my own Olympic of goodbyes.

My emotions by Wordle:



The week started with a last goodbye with the readergirlz divas where we toasted each other for our great year and conspired on new literacy programs. And then my mentor, Janet Wong, who refused to let me take her picture. She didn't say anything about me blogging about her though.

Then it was on to the annual Meat-and-Corn Fest at our friends Bill & Kristin's home. If there are any people who can make miracles happen, it's these two.



Yes, yes, Kristin is a genius and bestselling author (The Motherhood Manifesto) and political activist (Moms Rising). But Bill? He can preside over Congress. He can start businesses. And most importantly, he can bake! Here it is, my very own China pie a la Bill.


Then my sister and kids ventured to the Puget Sound Blood Center with me. There, we met some of the crew who, after hearing about Girl Overboard, thought we might have some mutual interest in getting more minorities to give blood and register for the National Bone Marrow registry.

Not only is my sister gorgeous, but she'll be attending nursing school in a few weeks. She was fascinated with our tour: from the blood extraction to the bones warehoused at the center for surgeries. I was...faint. Who knew that bones and heart valves could be...freeze dried. (Fine, fine, there's some scientific term for this procedure, but look at this ankle bone for yourself. Freeze dried, yes?)

And then! At last! My buttons from the wonderful Kyle at Button Arcade arrived just in time. (Love Button Arcade.)

As a present for all the wonderful authors who have blurbed my previous novels and my readergirlz crew, I had their book covers turned into buttons.

Shhhh...it's supposed to be a surprise. But I just had to share since there buttons are so darn cute! Can you name all the books and authors? (Major shout out to Lorie Ann Grover who coordinated this project for me as a PRESENT to me! I love that woman.)

And then...the goodbyes. To my mom and sister. (I can't even begin to express how much I will miss them.) To my kids' track team. To my writing mentor, Janet Lee Carey and Janet Wong. To my readergirlz buddies, Lorie Ann, Dia Calhoun, and Holly Cupala.

And one last goodbye to my local library. I love libraries, and I especially love my local one. Let me ask you this: how many librarians come to your house to say goodbye? How many librarians email you to assure you that they will help you research WHATEVER YOU NEED?!


It's a good thing they offered. Because I need a lot. (Of books, that is. And friends. And family.)

Word Obsessed

Dreamtime is such a beautiful thing, important when writing. Integral to living. And let's face it: a euphemism for procrastination.

Without dinking around, I would never have found Wordle. Nor would I have created a few new Wordles (doodles with words). Waste of time or moment of joy?

Wordle 1: My China Year Hopes

Wordle 2: readergirlz love

Wordle 3: Sisterhood

Join me, all you word obsessed ones! Create your own Wordles and show them to me. (It's always more fun when other people procrastinate with you.) And if you're a writer, tell your agent and editor we're working. Flexing our creativity. Really.

Crazy about Words!

Yes, it's true. I am obsessed with all things Moo.

You will be, too, once you check out http://www.moo.com/ for the adorable and eye-catching minute-sized business cards and stickers. So while I was trolling around Moo, I came across text-based designs.

Meet my new obsession: Wordle:

Type in your favorite quote or various words and the program automatically generates Word Art for you. Here's mine for North of Beautiful.

What's really amazing is that the program developer gives you full rights to use your creation on T-shirts (that you can sell, if you're so inclined)...or develop your own Moo card designs! How generous is that?

Moooooo... Will you Moo, too?

Real, At Last!

Never mind signing the book contract. Or holding the bound book after months (heck, years!) of writing and rewriting. Never mind seeing it in bookstores to make you realize, oh my goodness! My words are in print!

Nothing signals that you're a bonafide author than having your picture taken by Sonya Sones, wonderful novelist, former film editor, and fabulous photographer.

When I was in LA a week ago, Little Willow and I filmed a bunch of YA authors for our new endeavor: rgz TV. A ton of them have Hollywood backgrounds, which made it more nervewracking for ME than for the authors, I'm sure.

You can catch the first of our interviews up on www.youtube.com/readergirlz. Watch Paula Yoo ripping on her violin with sass and verve. And Sonya--witty, charming, gorgeous--giving the inside scoop on her latest book. And then she turns her camera on all of us.

It's nothing but fun at readergirlz! Especially when I'm editing the footage for these videos and giggling at all the (lame) special effects I'm (lamely) using.

Charmed, I'm Sure!

When I wrote the Mama Lecture Series in Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies), I never really thought I'd be scripting my own lectures. But here I am, telling (lecturing) my kids that nothing really matters in life except for friends and family. (This, I'm sure, will come back to haunt me when it's back to school time and the kiddos are slacking off: But, Mom, you said nothing mattered more than friends. I want to hang out with my new ones in China!)

How important friends are has become so clear now that we're down to our last week in the U.S. LAST WEEK! LAST 7 DAYS!!

In between getting our final shots--who knew that there'd be a run on the rabies vaccinations in the U.S.?--we've been saying our last goodbyes to dear friends.

(Note: The Japanese encephalitis shot hurts.)

Readergirlz diva Lorie Ann Grover has been a great sport, going geocaching with me in the HOT, DRY heat in Winthrop where I love to write.

Then, she and Dia Calhoun sent me off with the most gorgeous readergirlz yearbook, filled with photos of everything our group did in the last 18 months! 31 Flavorite Authors! Operation Teen Book Drop! Books for Your BFF! And all the authors we've brought to teen readers over the year.

Dia also created a geocache in honor of North of Beautiful!

Here we are, sneakily hiding the cache together in a super secret location for other treasure hunters to find.




Two nights ago, my StrataGem group--the fabulous women who worked with me to help women and children--threw a party for me. It was the first time in 2 years when all of us were able to get together on the same night (except for Birgit who lives in Vienna). It was a miracle, I tell you. They created a charm bracelet for me with each of the charms symbolizing a special moment together. Like the Christmas box for the boxes we created for kids in third world countries. And the snowflake for our retreat at the Sleeping Lady Lodge where we figured out how to fix the world! (Of course, fixing our own worlds--how on earth do you balance family with career with philanthropy?!--was and is a conundrum.)

And then the readergirlz of Seattle went (what else?) geocaching with me for one final time as we filmed footage for a future North of Beautiful video.



Pictured here: Dia Calhoun, Jackie Parker (Interactive Reader & postergirlz), Holly Cupala, Sara Easterly (rgz publicist), me, Lorie Ann Grover, Janet Lee Carey, and Nancy Pearl (honorary readergirlz).

Friends, I tell you. They make up a charmed life.

FREE book giveaway!

And now this from Melissa Walker whose VIOLET IN PRIVATE

is featured (and dissected--in a good way!) at readergirlz this month... Guess what? My new writer-buddy is giving away a copy of GIRL OVERBOARD to those intrepid enough to take a fun quiz! (I was wondering why Melissa wanted me to sign the book but not personalize it to her when we were together in San Francisco for Ypulse.) So book on over to Melissa before the end of the week.

Here are the deets from her blog:

"This week, your prize is a signed copy of Justina Chen Headley's fantastic Girl Overboard, which pretty much has it all: family, snowboarding, community service, dim sum and friend-love (yes!).

To win a copy of the book, you have a fun mission: Take this quiz by LaToya Evans ("What's your Spare Time Read?") and tell me what book you get... I thought I knew where I'd end up, but I got The Luxe (which I still haven't read--oops)! It must be that amazing ball gown that I dream of owning."

Kindle: Sparking a Love Affair!

After hearing me whine, cry, and moan about only being allowed to bring 50 books into China next year, my hubby bought me a Kindle.

Today was play day. I am an early adopter of fashion, not of technology. So I gingerly unpacked the Kindle and have to admit: what the device had going for it was the pretty, book-like packaging.

Then it was time to put the book download to a test. Amazon promised that the entire process would take less than a minute. And that's all it took to change me from skeptic to convert. Sixty seconds. In that time, I downloaded BREAKING DAWN and within seconds, Edward was in my hands!

So it's true. Kindle had me at a whisper. Because that promised Whispernet technology? It worked. So I tested my own book. Look!

I was expecting that the device would be a distraction because I love the feel of a book in my hands when I read. But the leather book cover that comes with the Kindle pretty much approximates that bookish feel.

So far, two thumbs up!

Even so, here's my wishlist for Kindle 2.0 (so far):

• I want the book covers to be shown in color, not black & white.
  
• I want to be able to highlight portions of sentences, not the entire line.


• While this form factor is very sleek, I really wish the Kindle wasn't stark white. I'll have to see if there's a cute skin I can wrap around it. And then there are always my Moo stickers that I can use!

Hanging with the (Book) Stars in La La Land

The stars aligned in Los Angeles this weekend--combining my wedding anniversary with meeting the newest nephew (just 3 weeks old!) in the Headley clan and hanging out with countless fabulous YA luminaries.

First stop: Anniversary

As one last gift before we move to China, my parents sent my hubby and I BY OURSELVES to LA for our wee-bit-early 15th anniversary. There, we finally visited the Getty Center and the Getty Villa, which we'd been wanting to see for years.

Now, as some of you know, I've been angsting / whining / bemoaning about the 50-BOOK LIMIT imposed on us for our move. I mean, really! 50 books! When I visited my public library last week, I actually teared up, already missing my access to every book I could possibly want. So what did my thoughtful hubster do? He bought me a Kindle as an anniversary present! Now, I can download books and audiobooks to my heart's content in our year away. Yahoo!

Second stop: rgz TV
While I opted not to attend this year's SCBWI conference, I met live and in-person my book hero and blog superstar, Little Willow! She is as bubbly and adorable AND articulate as I had imagined her to be.

Look at that mischievous smile! A casting director would be an idiot not to include her in any film or play!

Together, Little Willow and I interviewed a bunch of YA authors for our new readergirlz initiative: rgz TV...coming soon on YouTube! Watch out, Oprah! Little Willow really needs to start her own book TV show. She is THAT spectacular as a talkshow host.

Paula Yoo wowed us with her rocking (seriously) violin concerto. Her playing literally elicited spontaneous applause from people in the outdoor bar! And then we were joined by the immensely talented and warm-hearted Sonya Sones who shares the same hat fetish as me. Lisa Yee & her peep graced the couch--and I have to admit, my FlipCam shook since I was laughing (silently, I hope) at her jokes. Joyce Lee Wong and Tina Ferraro joined in the fun, too. (May I tell you how much I appreciated Joyce's heartfelt thank you to readergirlz for taking our free time to promote YA literature? That was very, very sweet.)

Holly Cupala (pictured in apple green), another readergirlz denizen, just sold her first YA novel in a two-book deal! Can you tell from her wide smile? Okay, part of the smile can be attributed to meeting Jay Asher in person after featuring his 13 Reasons Why all July at readergirlz.

Ellen Hopkins shared her wisdom and heart with us...all in three minutes of footage. And finally, after we wrangled all the details out of Rachel Cohn about her latest book and upcoming Nick & Norah movie, she demanded to interview me about NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL. I learned that the woman does not take NO for an answer--no matter how much I protested. Which was a lot. Honestly, I was sweating so profusely, I could have been an ad for why deodorant is a good thing. Let's just say that I very much prefer to be on the other side of the camera.

And let it be known: the Pacific Northwest SCBWI has it going on! Jolie Stekley (in the geometric dress) and Sara Easterly (unpictured since she's imminently going into labor with baby #1) rock the children's book world with the way they run our local SCBWI. We were chatting when Melissa--the famous book reviewer from MySpace--recognized us from all of our photographs. Tucked between her and Holly is Martha Brockenbrough (that's Miss Cinemama to you!). Make sure to check out her TWILIGHT article.

Fourth stop: friends & family
Hubster and I had brunch at the Hotel Bel Air with our very dear friends, Chris and June Peters. They are fabulous and creative--one's an artist, the other a screenwriter. They've moved from down the street to LA. Boo! After snuggling with my newest nephew, I dragged my hubster to Venice Beach for my agent's annual Writers House book bash, famous for its desserts. This year did not disappoint with the micro-milkshakes. YUM.

Fun times in La La Land!