Well, we have learned a thing or two about living in China.  The first is that there appear to be no rules.  The second is that there appear to be lots of rules.  If you are confused, then you have just joined the club.  The "no rules/lots of rules" dichotomy in China appears to be the rule.  Every where you look, there's nothing but contradiction.  And to the foreigner, it all appears a bit nuts.  This is true for everything from traffic and parking to internet access and the cost of living.  I will say more about all of these things in later reports, but for now I will tell you about the experience of getting Hannah into and present at school.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, we visited what we thought would be Hannah's school a few weeks ago and learned a few things.  First, the school was not located where we thought it was located (and where everyone who helped us find a place to live thought it was located, including the real estate agent).  Second, the school was quite far away from where we were living and would be a rather long taxi ride to and from every day.  Third, the school, although quite nice, seemed terribly disorganized given they couldn't tell us when school would start.  And finally, the school seemed to have odd rules like wearing a uniform only on Mondays.  But, the strangest thing was to come.  Nearly two weeks went by after our initial visit to the school without any word about when school would start.  I contacted the director by email a couple of times inquiring about when school would begin, but nothing.  So, we just waited.  Well, Sunday evening, September 2nd, we get a phone call and then an email at about 9:00pm telling us that school would begin in the morning and that Hannah should be there at 7:30am!  Well, we were completely unprepared for that -- and had already made other plans for the next day -- so I let them know how I felt about the late notice (for which they apologized profusely) and that Hannah would not be at school on the first day.  Because the school is so far away, I had been making inquiries into another school -- the primary school attached to Beijing University -- which had been my first choice initially, but which had pretty much turned down all of our requests to enroll Hannah for the past several months (before even coming to China), giving all kinds of excuses about quotas and paperwork and the like.  I felt like I was getting the run around from that school, so I had settled on the other, not knowing that it (Yi Xiao) was so far away and the Beida school was very close by.  So, once I heard that school was indeed beginning on September 3rd, I contacted the Beida school again first thing Monday morning (I had been trying to reach them the entire week before, but never got any answer).  The headmaster reluctantly agreed to meet with us at 4:00 that day (this took several phone calls to her that day to finally manage).  Once we were there, she took one look at us, handed us the paperwork and said Hannah could go to school there.  Geez.  Of course it's more expensive, but it's also a better school, and it's only a 15-20 minute bike ride from home rather than an hour taxi-ride!  Needless to say, it's a pretty harrowing 15-20 minutes by bike given all the traffic, but we have managed thus far.  Just 4 major intersections to maneuver and one rather congested street and we're there.

So, Hannah started school on Tuesday, September 4th and really enjoyed her first week.  She is in the 5th grade, 3rd class (there are 9-10 classes per grade!).  There are about 40 students in her class (as in every other class in the school-- that's a lot of students if you do the math given the school goes from kindergarten to 6th grade!).  They begin the day with English, which is of course Hannah's best subject in an all Chinese speaking school!  She was even asked to help out with some of the pronunciation.  All other classes (math, science, computers, art, music, PE, Chinese language, history, and culture, etc.) are all in Chinese and she has struggled a bit there, but is starting to get the hang of a few things.  We have hired a tutor 3 evenings a week to help out with her homework and all seems to be going well.  Chinese school days, however, are LONG days!  They go to school from 7:50am until 4:45pm Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 7:50am until 2:45pm on Tuesdays; and 7:50am until 3:45pm on Fridays!!  Can you believe that?  By the time we manage tutoring/homework, etc, in the evening, that's about all we can do.  But, Hannah really seems to be enjoying it and hasn't complained once about going.  She says the kids have all been really nice to her and are helping her out with the Chinese.  A couple of them speak pretty decent English, so they have become friends pretty quickly.  And the teachers seem to be nice and patient with her too, although Hannah says the teachers can be pretty mean to some of the Chinese kids.  She's not sure what the yelling is about, but Hannah says the Chinese kids get yelled at a lot.  Hmmm.  Hope that doesn't happen to Hannah!

So, it's been an interesting experience so far.  You can see some photos of the school in the slide show below.  I can only get so far into the school yard as parents aren't allowed past the red-taped area you will see in the photos.  Someday I can hopefully get more of the school rooms, etc.   As with everything in China, it's quite the adventure!

We hope all is well back at home!  In a couple of days I'll report about our weekend trip to the Temple of Heaven, so check back!