Following Someone Else's Dream: Just to Communicate?

Vol. II, No. 4

These aren't my feet, but I wish they were!

I need to make a confession. Despite having left behind the world of banking and all its glitz, I still love a fine pair of shoes. Really love. I'm talking Prada heels (like these pictured at right), velcro army boots, or maybe red sequined Converse low-tops, which I wore to my wedding. So, naturally, when we arrived in Shanghai, I was either in heaven or hell, depending how you look at the circumstances of no longer being able to afford what one used to be able to afford.

So, anyway, whilst "window-shopping" one day (an idiotic term for a totally unfulfilling activity), a pair of shoes stopped me dead in my tracks. They were orange snakeskin loafers with a thick yellow fluorescent (yes! fluorescent!) gummy sole.

"How much?" I asked the saleslady.

She answered in Mandarin that they were about the equivalent of seventy-five dollars, adding, "But your feet are too big."

"I see," I said, not really seeing at all, and not appreciating her directness, but thrilled with the price. After all, I wear an American size 8, which is not exactly dainty, nor the opposite.

And here's where things got funny - for the rest of the day.

"Will bigger shoes arrive at your store in another shipment?" I asked, painstakingly translating individual word by individual word, using an app on my iPhone to trace Chinese characters onto a screen. But the saleslady just laughed at me; she'd understand none of the gibberish I'd spoken. Then she had an idea.

"Speak into my phone. I also have an app," she instructed. So I did, speaking into her phone slowly and clearly, asking again when the big shoes might arrive. It was a surreal moment, communicating with someone using two different languages, and two pieces of electronics, neither of us looking at each other, but instead at our phones.

"When will the last farm soften?" the app repeated back to us, and we both gave up, me in fits of laughter, the saleslady bewildered. I left behind the shop and my orange fluorescent shoes.

Later that afternoon, my husband and I ventured into downtown Shanghai for lunch. As you can

Seeking a restaurant in Shanghai

probably imagine, there was no shortage of restaurants in this bustling Chinese metropolis. But it was lunchtime, and there was definitely a shortage of seats. So we chose the only restaurant we could find that had a spare table, and I set about ordering for us.

"Please, I want to order a small parking meter for the baby," I said to the waiter. I'd tried to order a small bowl of rice, but I'd somehow managed to, well, not. Eventually, of course, I got my bowl of rice. Not many people successfully order small parking meters at Chinese restaurants.

Finally, the baby gets her rice

Of course, this probably all seems comical, and it was. Mostly. But by this time, we'd been in China for a week or so, and I was no clearer communicating than when we'd first arrived. I've studied Mandarin for a year, and I work for Sinovision, a Chinese television station. Could I really not order a bowl of rice?

It began to rain, hard, and we found our way to the underground, stepping over and into enormous puddles, drenching all three of us in the process. Back at home in the French Concession, I opened up my Chinese app and studied a few more characters, waiting for the rain to let up. Once it did, the glitter of the sparkling city had wilted, and in its place was a soggy, dripping early dusk that breathed a chilly wind that felt more like October than summer.

I went for a walk, admiring the eclectic fashion sense of, and I mean this, absolutely everyone. Fishnet stockings paired with a jersey singlet, funky haircuts shorn on a bias, someone wearing an army jacket with epaulets of lace. I stopped into a Japanese restaurant to pick up some take-out dinner. It was crowded. The line behind me was impatient. I tried to order udon, first in Mandarin, then in the five Japanese words that I remember from having lived in Tokyo. The counter chef only shrugged his shoulders. People behind me, even the ever-polite Japanese, were getting impatient. And I'm embarrassed to say this, but I'll tell you anyway: I started to cry.

Exploring the Bund in Shanghai

Biting my lip really, really hard, I pointed to some noodles, and put up two fingers. I paid my bill, hurried out the door, and cried in the rain that had begun again. This was ridiculous, I know, but everyone has ridiculous moments like these when traveling to a place you can't communicate effortlessly.

To comfort myself, I stopped into Mr Donut for a cruller. Nothing says comfort food like the cruller.

"Sir?" the guy behind the donut counter said to me. "Sir, are you okay?"

And that was all it took, being called 'Sir,' by someone trying his best to communicate on his turf in my language, to force me to get over myself.



- Patricia Sexton is the author of "LIVE from Mongolia!", the true story of a woman chucking in her Wall Street career to become anchor of the Mongolian news. She's also the host of Sinovision's WE Talk, a talk show exploring how celebs and artists have overcome big obstacles to pursue extraordinary dreams. Follow on Twitter and on her Facebook page.

Following Someone Else's Dream: Noodle Boy

At four o'clock in the morning in Shanghai, I was still wide-eyed. All three of us were. I gave up on sleep, and pulled two mugs from the cabinet. Instead of coffee, I filled them with red wine. When it comes to jet-lag, I'll do pretty much anything to get over it as quickly as possible. End to end, we sat on the sofa in our Airbnb apartment in the French Concession, sipping mugs of red wine.

Jet-lagged in Shanghai

"We did it. Can you believe it? We did it," I said, still kind of disbelieving the whole thing myself.

We were gone. We'd left our New York home, my home anyway, we'd left our jobs, we'd left our friends. We'd left behind a life, a livelihood.

My husband smiled and nodded in agreement. He'd wanted to do this for so long. I hadn't been so sure. What would come of all this?

The French Concession is a jungle of low-lying buildings, a warren of tiny streets nestled into more and tinier streets. Restaurants are tucked into basements; kitchen sinks are outside on the alleyways and shared by neighbors. It's a place where dawn creeps up on you. My husband and the baby went back to bed. The wine had worked for him, not for me. I stood at the open window, inhaling the smell of a city summer morning, and watched as Shanghai came to life.

Our apartment was on the second floor, and in between our building and the neighbor's were just a few feet and an alley. You could almost stretch your arms wide and touch both buildings with your fingertips. Across this little alley, I could see directly into my neighbor's apartment, a window into her morning routine. Rubbing her eyes, tousling her hair, she stretched and put the kettle on, and then stirred something in a pot. When she raised her arms to stretch, I noticed her t-shirt read, in all capitals: "New York City."

Dawn in the French Concession

The sun rose, peeking in only at angles that the neighboring buildings would allow. Outside, it grew noisy. Cyclists maneuvered through the warren of streets, jingling their bike bells as they went. A boy brushed his teeth in one of the outdoor sinks; a chatty pair of women prepared breakfast in another. Cutlery clinked, and old men spit vociferously. It was time to get up.

Later that day, we met The Noodle Boy. The Noodle Boy, whose name I never got, couldn't write his name for me because he couldn't write, at least that's what I gathered from our conversation of limited Mandarin and excessive gesturing. But what I did manage to discover about Noodle Boy is that he's Uyghur, one of a small minority of central Asians who's come to the big city of Shanghai to follow, possibly, a dream. Whether his path was born of necessity or dreams, I don't know and probably never will. But what I did learn was that Noodle Boy was very young to be running a noodle restaurant, yet very talented at just that.

"I am Muslim!" Noodle Boy said in English, by way of introducing himself in a word common to both of us. Relieved that we finally understood each other, he hugged me and asked me in Mandarin what I wanted to eat.

"Noodles," I said. "Your best noodles."

And Noodle Boy went straight to work.

Noodle shop in the French Concession

He mixed, kneaded, tossed, twirled, and spun, finally stripping out long strands of homemade spaghetti to throw into an outdoor pot of boiling water. In the back, an old woman, maybe his mother, fried an egg and sauteed fresh tomatoes. Into the pot all of it went. Out of the pot came "tomato egg noodle," which Noodle Boy assured me was his best. It was.

It's often said that everyone you meet, you meet for a reason. Who knows why we bump into someone, or why they become memorable to us. Who knows what chance meeting will forever change the course of our lives. Some forks in the road will lead to love, others to loss. Some to farewells, others to new beginnings. For the simple reason of pursuit, Noodle Boy is memorable to me. Just a teenager (so I'd gathered), he'd come a long way to pursue something. And I presume he'd left behind quite a lot to do just that.

-Patricia Sexton is the author of "LIVE from Mongolia!", the true story of a woman chucking in her Wall Street career to become anchor of the Mongolian news. She's also the host of Sinovision's WE Talk, a talk show exploring how celebs and artists have overcome big obstacles to pursue extraordinary dreams. Follow her on Twitter and on Facebook. 

Following Someone Else's Dream: The In-Between

Vol. II, No. 2

So, where were we? Ah, yes: I'd fallen in love with someone who'd asked me to leave Manhattan for the country that's about as far away from Manhattan as you can get!

Holding court on an overnight flight to China.

In fact, our favorite New Yorker comedian Lewis Black had this to say about New Zealand: "Terrorism doesn't exist in New Zealand. Terrorists get on the plane, shout 'Allahu Akbar,' shout it again a few more times, and then realize they still have 22 hours left on the flight. Then they order the chicken." Here's a more in-depth clip of Black's about New Zealand, which my husband says is a real Kiwi favorite.

Anyway, of this man who'd one day be my husband, I had just one question, the same question I'd asked everyone I'd ever dated:

"If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

Usually I'd get a pretty tepid answer: Florida, Hawaii, maybe Mexico. All beautiful places, but not my travel-cup-of-tea. At that point, I'd just returned from Mongolia, and it was places like Mongolia that I wanted to return to.

"China," he said without a moment's hesitation. "I want to backpack in China."

I was sold. Exactly five years later, we set out.

For reasons that neither my husband nor I can now recall, I flew alone with our baby daughter to Shanghai. She and I carried 62lbs of luggage, one stroller, a diaper bag, and a carry-on suitcase. Frankly speaking, this part of the journey was very forgettable, and I was looking forward to doing just that once we arrived. Jade, on the other hand, was enjoying the attention of the 100-some people in Economy class, who were facing her as she stood in her bassinet and screeched.

But arrive we finally did, to a city of 24 million people, the biggest in the world. After meeting Jesse in the airport, we made our way into the heart of the "Paris of the East."

As far as commerce is concerned, Shanghai couldn't be better located. Right on the coast, it's one of the busiest ports in the world - and it has been for centuries. Originally settled sometime around the fall of Rome, Shanghai became a full-fledged municipality after Genghis Khan's grandson invaded China. But it wasn't until the Opium Wars in the 19th century that Shanghai became a sort of household-name destination for the European elite. To make a long story short, the Opium Wars were about European access to China. Because of its location and busy port, Shanghai was of particular interest to the Europeans, in particular the British. There was a war, followed by a crappy treaty that the Chinese signed under duress, followed by another war. As part of the terms of the treaty, China had begrudgingly agreed to lease out land to foreign governments. And it was because of this, finally I'm getting to my point!, that the French Concession was established.

And it was to the French Concession that we were headed!

Eating chicken feet near Changle Rd in Shanghai

To be honest, I remember precisely none of the journey into Shanghai. An 18-hour flight with a chatty 9-month-old will do that to you. But what I do recall is our first meal. Before we'd even opened the menu in the small restaurant off the main road in the French Concession, my husband and I made a solemn commitment to each other to order one adventurous item, for every meal we'd eat in China.

And then we opened the menu. Promptly, we passed on the "Fried Black Jew's Ear" in favor of a pair of chicken feet. After all, the sauce on the chicken feet promised a zesty sweet and sour, and that goes better with the cold lager we'd ordered.

So there we were, our first afternoon in China, following a dream both of us had had - to backpack in the Middle Kingdom. Of course, when we'd first met and talked about this dream adventure, neither of us had ever imagined we'd have had a baby by then, and that she'd be tagging along.

More to come from our adventure into the Middle Kingdom, where we will discover a remedy for jet-lag, we'll encounter the beneficiaries of 13th-century Yuan dynasty politics, and we'll meet a Uighur noodle expert!

-Patricia Sexton is the author of "LIVE from Mongolia!", the true story of a woman chucking in her Wall Street career to become anchor of the Mongolian news. She's also the host of Sinovision's WE Talk, a cross-cultural talk show exploring how celebs and artists have overcome big obstacles to pursue extraordinary dreams. Follow Patricia on Twitter and on Facebook.