China Life #4

 September 21, 2025

China Life #4

Dear Friends and Family,

Time keeps passing and so much is happening that if I don’t get this all written down soon I am going to forget it all. Actually, I’m sure that I already have forgotten lots of little details and stories that I had hoped to share… such is life.

We are now almost beginning our third month in China. I frequently get asked, “How’s China?” and, “Are you getting settled now?”…both of which are loaded questions. So here’s my attempt at describing our lives at the moment.

Our apartment is becoming much more comfortable. Noémie got a new bed last week and we had the old rotten green pleather one dismantled and removed. We discovered garbage and hairballs on the floor underneath and behind it, so her room is feeling much cleaner. I bought some patio furniture and plants— so although it is still too hot and sticky to spend much time outside, at least we can use the balcony once the weather becomes a bit more tolerable.

Food is forever a combination of frustration and adventure. Ordering groceries online is becoming easier but I still make some mistakes and end up with weird vegetables or the wrong seasonings— and somehow even though our fridge is stocked and we have things in the cupboard, cooking in our tiny kitchen feels like a chore and it is hard to make anything except for stir-fries with rice or noodles. Our appliances are stacked on top of one another and there is only one very small counter space to prepare everything, so I am trying to come up with creative ways to set the chicken aside (often on top of the oven or fridge) while I prep the vegetables, for example. 

Ordering in is easy, but finding good take-out is difficult. Good pizza basically does not exist here. Ordering noodles and rice with mystery toppings is very easy but somewhat scary… often the meat has been chopped up with bones and everything, so we spend more time taking it out of our mouths than swallowing. The veggie dishes are safer so we lean towards them— but are often so spicy and/or oily that we don’t enjoy them. Once in awhile something is really yummy but we are never sure which dish it was. Fortunately I have come across a few “healthy food” places which will deliver salads or lightly fried veggies so we can always go for that in a pinch. Having said that, I am still certain that we will discover this amazing cuisine that Guangzhou is allegedly famous for— I just don’t know what it is or how to order it yet. I’m thinking about signing up for a food tour so that I can learn.

Last week I decided it was time to be brave and find a hairdresser. I had been given “Kevin’s” contact prior to arriving here, but when I asked Kevin for his prices I decided that I was not prepared to spend $500 on my hair (on top of the 45-minute cab ride to go to his fancy salon downtown). So I threw the question out into an online forum for Expats in Guangzhou— specifically asking if anyone had a contact for a hairdresser who is familiar with blond, curly hair. One lady wrote and told me about Kata, who is not far from here, and that she was pleased with his work. So I wrote to him, told him that I was looking for a colour touch-up, something to help with frizz in this humid climate, and a minimal trim/shape. I sent him pictures of my hair past and present, as well as how I wanted it to look. He told me to come to the salon.

When I got there, I was greeted by a variety of stares from both hairdressers and clients. I definitely felt talked about. I was given warm water with lime, packages of soda crackers, and grapes. Kata motioned me to a chair in front of a mirror, and brought out a colleague who spoke a bit of English. Again I showed them what I wanted. There was much discussion. They seemed perplexed. At one point there were five men standing around me in a huddled discussion, lifting strands of my hair and examining the  colour. I showed them the card that my lovely hair expert in Blind Bay gave me, listing the products and numbers that she uses on my hair. Eventually the one guy said, “You have 3 colours in your hair”. I said, “I know. I’d like the grey to go.” He said, “Well… which colour do you want?” When I said, “All of it!” that set off another frantic flurry of discussion. In the end, I opted for just a root touch-up because it became very clear that they did not know what they were doing.

Eventually this young guy wheeled out a cart with a brush and colour on it, and he started daintily dabbing the brush on my roots as though I was going to explode at any second. It was like he was afraid to touch my hair. I almost took over and did it myself. He then handed the task off to Kata, who was a bit braver and got the job done- then texted to tell me to “wait warmly” for awhile. So I did. I waited, and waited, and waited. I wondered if the colour would just dry onto my head. FINALLY someone came and motioned for me to go into the room with long beds and sinks. I laid down on this bed and hung my head into a basin, and then the bed started to move and squeeze my calves. It was a full-length massage table that was rolling around underneath me while this guy washed…and washed…and washed… and washed my hair for about 15 minutes.

Back into chair number one. 

A new guy came out with a bowl of white stuff, and started taking strands of my hair and rubbing this stuff in… combing it through, then kind of tossing the strands around like springs. Then he combed it again, rubbed the white goo in, and had this kind of perplexed look on his face the whole time that really did not install confidence in me. When I texted “What is this?” and translated it for him, he wrote back “Smoothing treatment”. (I had been assured that this would help with frizz but not kill my curls). OK, whatever. I ate a grape. He then wrapped my whole head in plastic wrap and put this giant spinning heat-fan thing on behind me.

Again I sat for far too long, not knowing what chemical alterations might be taking place on my head.

Finally I was unwrapped and ushered back to the rinsing room (no massage this time) and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed… 

Then some kid brought out a blow dryer. And a comb. And he combed through my hair as he blew it  until it looked more or less as though I had been electrocuted. He then realized how dreadful I looked, so he sprayed it all down with a bottle of water and rang a bell to ask for help. Another consult happened with 4 people, and it was decided that a diffuser was needed to dry my hair. So he procured one, but then proceeded to dry my hair and comb it at the same time which… surprise… yielded the same result. He gave up, and called Kata back. Kata then asked what kind of a cut I wanted. I knew that no cutting was  going to take place with this mass of frizz they had created, so I said, “Just a tiny trim please”… at which point he started randomly scissoring around my head, holding the scissors sideways as though cutting off every random stray hair was going to make a speck of difference. He then left me like this and told me I was done:

I showed him what I WANTED to look like… the same photo I had shown him before going to the salon… the same photo I showed him when I arrived at the salon… the photo which IS ME when my Canadian hairdresser (Rae you’re amazing) does my hair PROPERLY… 

At which point they pulled out the flat-iron. And a curling iron. And started ironing my hair like their lives depended on it.

I thought I was going to go bald. 

Eventually I just told them that it was great, thank you very much, I have to go now… and took off the cape, paid them FAR too much for the disservice, and called a cab to go home.

Fortunately although my roots are too dark, I still have hair and it is largely unchanged despite my 4 hours of hairdo hell.

This week coming up is supposed to be Camp Week. Both Kieran and Noémie were looking forward to going away, and I was looking forward to having a week to myself and a week with no grade 6 classes. Kieran was slated to go to Hong Kong to work on his Duke of Edinburgh award with the grade 9 students, and Noémie is heading to Beijing with her year group. Unfortunately on Thursday we were notified of two typhoons brewing over the Philippines and heading straight towards Hong Kong/Guangzhou. All of the camps except for the Beijing trip were postponed. So Kieran (and my grade 6 classes) will be here this week. Noémie is heading to the airport at 6am tomorrow and will be out of the path of the typhoons.

One typhoon hit last night. It rained heavily throughout most of the day, and by 2am the lightning and thunder had us all awake. The whole city was shaking with the noise and it was SO loud. Today is much less rainy and tomorrow is supposed to be nice, but apparently a potential “super-typhoon” is in the works and could arrive here on Wednesday. We shall see. I kind of hope it does; will be exciting!

Kieran had his first foray into Chinese hockey last night. I had been in touch with a coach, “Mr. B”, from Ontario. He wrote yesterday and asked if Kieran wanted to come out to practice so we decided to check it out. Mr. B. sent me a Chinese map with a pin on it and told us to be at the rink before 7pm. Kieran wanted to go running yesterday afternoon, and he specifically wanted to train on a course that he will be running on October 17th with his cross-country team. So, despite the beginning of the typhoon hitting us yesterday morning, he took a cab almost an hour a way to go run 10km in the pouring rain. By the time he got home almost 3 hours later, it was almost time for us to get another car to take us to the ice rink, which was also an hour away. By the time we got his hockey gear organized and headed out to the taxi, it was VERY wet outside. We were struggling to stay dry and hold umbrellas, hockey sticks and gear bags as we loaded everything into the car. We were happy to have gotten a non-smoking car (you never know…. there’s no way of requesting one and although the drivers are not supposed to smoke while there are passengers in the car, almost all of them smoke on the way to pick people up, so the cars stink) but unfortunately this driver had a bad case of pumping the accelerator so we were chugging along the highway for an hour and I could not even speak by about 30 minutes into the trip.

The driver also took the pin on the app VERY literally and drove us past the only gate that was open to the university where the rink is, and took us up a tiny side-street full of cars and ended in a dead-end with a locked gate. He then told me that I had given him the wrong location and had to change it in my app (in Chinese, of course), and he spent a long time trying to turn the car around in tiny little turns. When we got to the right gate, we climbed back out into the rain and the dark and had no idea where the rink was. Luckily Mr. B. had driven to near where we were dropped off, and gave us a ride to the ice.

Kieran got geared up and out onto the far half of the half-sized rink. The side-boards were moldy because apparently they turn the A/C off at night and the rink melts. There was one other little hockey player out with Kieran— Zachary, who I think was 9 or 10. Then about an hour later a little guy, Frank, who was 6, went out and joined them as well. They worked on their shots, stick-handling and skating while at the closer end of the ice, 3 girls had rented skates and hobbled along holding onto large plastic koi-shaped push chairs and falling. Afterwards, Mr. B. told us tales of having been a former pro-soccer player who was injured in one car accident and miraculously “fixed” in another, using music as a therapy during his years of recovery… so he teaches music here but is trying to get out of it because he wants to start a pizza business and has designed a machine that will make perfect pizza crusts, and of course he coaches hockey on the side. I had trouble following the story.

Anyway, back out into the rain we went, and had a smoky yet very fast (somewhat scary) car ride home.

This is getting long enough. Time to give your eyes a break.

Our half-term holiday starts after this week, so Kieran and I are picking Noémie up at the airport on Friday and then all of us are heading to Thailand for 10 days early on Saturday morning.

Take care, all.

xo

Love

Shannon

PS- Some fun photos: