Deep Inside China, American Family Struggles to Cope
Larsens Don't Care for Food,
Local Opera or Stares;
Ford Provides Lots of Perks
A Closet Full of Hormel Cans
CHONGQING, China -- As one of Ford Motor Co.'s managers in China, 30-year-old John Larsen is exposing his family to a culture they couldn't imagine back home in a Michigan suburb.
But when his wife and kids -- ages 2, 4 and 6 -- moved here last September, they preferred to stay inside a 19th-floor Hilton hotel suite, where the family lived for nine months. The rarity of fair-complexioned, American children on the sidewalks of the gritty industrial city of Chongqing makes the Larsen family a crowd-stopping spectacle.
"It's not very fun and my kids hate it," says their mother, Laurel, 31. Over a bowl of her homemade vegetarian chili in the five-star Hilton, the Cincinnati-born woman added, "When we go home and close the door, we feel like we are back in America."
As corporate ambitions bore deeper into China, foreign companies are sending families to less-developed cities like Chongqing. Such places offer huge, untapped markets for companies. They also provide accelerated career opportunities to young executives eager to punch their ticket on the way to upper management. But the postings can feel like a detour into isolation and culture shock for some families.
Chongqing is a city of 32 million people, but Westerners are still rare here. The city is nearly 900 miles west of Shanghai, and about a decade behind it in terms of economic prosperity. So-called bang-bang men hang out on the streets, hungry to earn a few cents lugging stones, machinery or even garbage on their bamboo poles. Residents walk on sidewalks covered in cooking oil and spittle. Even the weather isn't a selling point: Fog trapped in by the surrounding mountains creates generally soupy skies, made worse by pollution.
American companies are drawn to cities like Chongqing because they are cheap; the average annual wage here is $1,500, about half of what it is in Shanghai. Merchandisers see markets for all kinds of products. In Chongqing, for example, car ownership is just 1.3 per 100 people, a fifth of the rate in Beijing.
A tall, confident man with wispy brown hair, Mr. Larsen sees many benefits to the move. He likes his job, developing marketing strategy for Ford. He's glad his children are seeing a different way of life. The private school that the older two kids attend provides an excellent education, he and his wife agree.
Still, the adjustment has been more challenging than they expected. "We thought we would be eating a lot of Chinese food and the kids would be learning Chinese quickly because they'd be immersed," says Mr. Larsen. So far, that hasn't happened.
A marble lobby dominated by a waterfall and piano bar makes the Hilton the swankiest address in this part of China. English is the first language and a concierge takes care of smoothing over any rough spots. A blue-lettered "WELCOME" mat marked the entrance to the Larsen's three-bedroom suite, converted from six guest rooms. It cost $4,300 a month, paid mostly by Ford. When the family needed to step outside, their driver, Jojo, waited in a black Ford Mondeo sedan, provided by the company.
Ford picks up most of the rent for its expatriate employees and encourages them to live in hotels because the conveniences help workers "remain focused on running the business," says Ron Tyack, a senior Ford executive in China.
Expat perks are being scaled back in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and especially Hong Kong, parts of China where rapid development has made it easier for foreigners to adjust. But perks remain a must to lure Americans and their families to cities like Chongqing.
Shanghai and Beijing each have a dozen international schools, many with hundreds of students. Chongqing has one international school, in a converted house, with 40 pupils ages 2 to 17. Ten hospitals in Beijing offer foreign-grade medical care. Chongqing has a single Western-style clinic, located in the Hilton, that rotates a different doctor through every few months. Even breathing is easier in Shanghai. Chongqing has 88 fewer days of good-quality air than Shanghai during the average year, according to Chinese government statistics.
Perhaps most shocking: The Starbucks chain, which boasts nearly 100 coffee shops between Beijing and Shanghai, doesn't have one in Chongqing.
In recent years, "the demographics of the expats have changed," says Joseph Verga, a 45-year-old financial controller for Ford, who lives in Chongqing. When he moved here two years ago, "there wasn't a baby" among his U.S. co-workers, he says.
Shortly after Mr. Verga and his 42-year-old wife Marybeth were dispatched to China, they trekked through Tibet. She filled their apartment with paintings from Vietnam and a clay warrior statue from Xian in western China. But after Ms. Verga became pregnant, she decided she didn't want to go to a Chinese hospital. So this spring, two months before her due date, she flew home to Detroit to give birth to her son in a U.S. hospital. "There's not one thing that's the same," about Chongqing and the U.S., she says.
Before Ford started making cars here in 2003, the city -- familiar overseas as "Chungking" -- hadn't seen so much foreign attention since serving as an allied supply post in World War II. Decaying hillside mansions are a reminder that Chongqing was a capital for the Nationalist government before the civil war that brought communists to power in 1949. Today Chongqing is the main jumping-off point for tourist cruises on the Yangtze River toward the famed Three Gorges Dam.
The government is eager to boost interest in places like Chongqing, which gets just 5% of the $8 billion of foreign direct investment that Shanghai takes in annually.
The first time either of the Larsens saw China was when Ford flew them to Chongqing last summer for a visit after his job offer. The couple, who have been married eight years, realized they would be in for a big change. But there was never really much debate whether he would take the job. Ms. Larsen jokes that she knew that in accepting his marriage proposal she was also agreeing to someday follow him to China.
Her husband caught the China bug after being assigned by the Mormon Church to do missionary work in Taiwan at age 19. While there, he learned to speak and read Chinese. Today he speaks Mandarin Chinese well enough to conduct business meetings. Before moving to China, Ms. Larsen's international experience consisted of living in London for 18 months and a vacation to Cancún, Mexico.
Like many foreigners in town, Ms. Larsen says she won't touch Chongqing's signature cuisine: "huoguo," or hot pot -- a fondue-like dish so loaded with fiery chilies that its aroma seems permanently suspended in Chongqing's air, along with diesel fumes. Supermarkets feature chicken feet jutting out of crushed ice and slabs of pork dangling from sharp hooks.
Neatly dressed in slacks, a black argyle V-neck and bright white blouse, Ms. Larsen shows off her solution to the food challenge: A closet full of cans, stacked to the ceiling, with labels like Green Giant, Crisco and Hormel -- items lugged to Chongqing in suitcases or mailed from overseas. Her birthday present in February was a silver, side-by-side U.S.-sized refrigerator-freezer.
Laurel and John Larsen and their children, James, 4 years old, Emma, 6, (standing) and Eliza, 2, held by her father, wear Chinese-style clothes made by a local tailor.
Food is a bargain in Chongqing. Ms. Larsen spends only $50 to $100 a week on groceries, compared with $200 to $300 in Michigan. With the help of her small network of expat wives, she has found one store that has Oreo cookies and another that stocks Fruit Loops cereal and canned refried beans. The children see little in the markets that resembles the food they remember back home. Ms. Larsen says they don't give her much sass when she tells them: "here's what you're eating."
Recently, the Larsens faced an important new food complication. Four-year-old James was diagnosed with celiac disease during the family's summer visit back to the U.S. The boy now needs a diet free of gluten, which is found in wheat. In the U.S., Ms. Larsen prepared two cartons of special wheat-free foods to take back to Chongqing.
Entertainment in Chongqing is hard to find, the Larsens say. At a drive-through "safari park," the children looked through car windows and watched tigers devour live chickens tossed from a ranger's jeep. Enthusiasm about visiting pandas was marred, Ms. Larsen says, by seeing the zoo's grubby bathrooms. The Larsens attended a Chinese opera, featuring two actors with painted faces, one in a horse costume. Tickets cost only $2, but the family, unimpressed, left at intermission.
One pastime Ms. Larsen has designed for 2-year-old Eliza is spotting dogs near the Hilton hotel. A look down an alley found no animals one Tuesday. After an hour, the little girl had glimpsed two mutts. "He's going to his house," Eliza said as a scruffy brown dog jostled along a sidewalk crowded with scaffolding equipment.
Chinese men and women made way for the tot to amble down on the sidewalk. Nearly everyone reacted to the rare sight of a foreign child, pointing, giggling, staring and sometimes touching her. "Eliza's kind of like the monkey on show," her mother said.
Ms. Larsen and her daughter took a route back to the Hilton over a pedestrian bridge, where merchants sell sunglasses, combs and belts. One woman's habit is to thrust a mirror into the little girl's hand each time they pass, Ms. Larsen says. She says she feels obligated to buy it, even though she is tiring of the routine. At first, the woman asked only one yuan for a mirror, Ms. Larsen says, but now she charges eight yuan, about 99 cents, for each one.
As Ms. Larsen settled up, a middle-aged man bent down for a closer look at Eliza, while a bang-bang man leaned on his bamboo stick and watched. An elderly passerby gave Eliza's cheek a quick pinch. Everyone tried to be friendly, but Eliza, unsmiling, said nothing. She kept her head down, eyes fixed on the new mirror.
Foreigners are such a rarity in Chongqing that even Ms. Larsen gawks at times: "There's a Westerner we don't know," she says, on one drive through town. Only about 25 of Ford's 2,500 employees in Chongqing are foreigners. The Larsens say they know literally every expat family living here.
Ms. Larsen says she hasn't learned enough Chinese in her two hours of weekly lessons to make even basic points to the family baby sitter. She often calls her husband on the cellphone to seek translation help. Looking over the skyscrapers outside the hotel window, she says, "Real life is happening out there, and I'm not connected." Even so, she adds, "What would I do out there?"
Her offer to volunteer at an orphanage was turned down, she says. Her major diversion is teaching two Pilates-style exercise classes each week for expat women, plus dance classes for little girls. Instead of paying her, a few dollars are collected per class for a local school for the blind.
A centerpiece of expat social life is a Wednesday "ladies' lunch," where funds are raised for the blind school and news is swapped about which store has taco shells or sour cream. The women make visits to the fabric market, using calculators to bargain, then use gestures to show a tailor what they want made.
While she hasn't made friends with locals, Ms. Larsen says she values her new expat friends. They are people who simply wouldn't be in her orbit back home, she says, including a woman from Cuba and a woman closer to her mother's age.
From the Hilton, every morning a white van picked up the older two children, Emma and James, for the 20-minute drive to the place in China they enjoy most: school. Ms. Larsen prizes the 7-to-1 student-teacher ratio at the Yew Chung International School, which Ford covers at an annual cost of $13,000 per child.
National flags wrap along the ceiling of Yew Chung School. Children from a dozen countries sit shoulder-to-shoulder at little desks. Emma's class groups 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds. She studies Chinese each day and practices with her father at night. She is reading English above her U.S. grade level.
"I think I'm going to be a snob when I go home and walk into the public school," Ms. Larsen says. "They go a lot faster [here]."
With two years still to go on their assignment, the Larsens recently decided to move out of the Hilton and into a five-bedroom house in a new gated community designed for expatriates. Ford pays almost all of the rent. The couple say they want their kids to have a more "American" experience, in particular a yard to play in and the responsibility to clean it up. There's also a local pool and a playground in the area.
Mr. Larsen has recently needed to spend part of each week at Ford's new plant in Nanjing, several hours away by plane, near China's east coast. Ms. Larsen says his absences sharpen the isolation she feels in the new house, away from the helpful, English-speaking Hilton staff. But she says she accepts that her husband's new assignment is a sign of his value to Ford.
The Larsens credit life in Chongqing with deepening their family ties. "We have to be friends with each other," Mr. Larsen says. They have taken trips to Thailand and South Korea, and made plans to visit Bali and Hong Kong's new Disneyland. Ms. Larsen says she is also trying to get out of urban Chongqing more on weekends, going to places such as parks around the mountainous region.
But they are always aware how far they are from home. Mr. and Ms. Larsen returned from dinner one evening to a find a poem from their 6-year-old daughter Emma, complete with a child's misspellings, taped to their bed-stand. It read:
Amarica is my place!
I love Amarica.
It was fun.
It was so fun.
I miss it.
I miss my frieds.
I love Amarica.
Amarica was my place and it still is my place.
一个美国家庭在中国的新生活
作为福特汽车(Ford Motor Co.)派驻中国的一名经理，现年30岁的约翰?拉森(John Larsen)拖家带口来到了中国。在这里，他们感受到了与遥远的密歇根州大相径庭的中国文化。
但当他的妻子和3个孩子去年9月刚来到重庆市的时候，他们宁愿呆在希尔顿酒店的房间里。他们后来在酒店住了9个月的时间。由于来到这里的外国人并不多，白皮肤的美国孩子的出现使得拉尔森一家人成为了重庆市街头引人驻足的一大景观。
孩子的母亲、现年31岁的劳拉?拉森(Laurel Larsen)说，“这一点也不好玩，我们的孩子讨厌这样。只有在回到家、关上门后才会让我们觉得又回到了美国。”
随著在华业务的进一步拓展，跨国企业正在把国内员工及其家人派往重庆等中国一些经济欠发达的城市。这些地区为跨国公司带来了巨大的潜在商机。来到这些地方发展还为年轻的管理者提供了平步青云的升迁机会。但举家来到这些地区可能会让一些家庭过著“与世隔绝”的生活，另外，当地的文化也会让他们有格格不入的感觉。
重庆是一个有著3,200万人口的直辖市，但在这里的西方人却很少。重庆在上海以西约1,450公里，经济发展程度比上海要落后大约10年。被俗称为棒棒的挑夫拿著扁担在街头游荡，寻找挑运石头、机器或行李的活儿来赚取为数不多的几毛钱。居民在粘满油渍和唾沫的人行道上漫步。即使是天气也不尽人意：环绕的群山使得城市经常大雾弥漫，污染更是进一步加剧了这种情况。
美国公司选择了重庆这样的城市是因为其成本低廉；这里的平均年工资约为1,500美元，基本是上海的一半。商人们认为各种产品在这里都有广阔的市场。比如，重庆的汽车保有量仅为每百人1.3辆，是北京的五分之一。
高大、自信的拉森认为到重庆工作让他受益匪浅。他喜欢这份为福特汽车制定营销战略的工作。他很高兴他的孩子们能体验不同的生活方式。这里的一所私立学校为他两个较大的孩子提供了良好的教育，他们夫妇都认同这点。
不过，他们对重庆生活的适应过程要比最初预计的困难。拉森说：“我们曾认为能够接受多种中餐，并且由于孩子们浸润在中文环境中，他们也会很快掌握中文。”而现在，这些都没有发生。
装饰有瀑布和钢琴的大理石大堂使希尔顿酒店成为重庆最时髦的地方。英语是这里的第一语言，门童小心翼翼地擦净任何污渍。带有蓝色“欢迎”字样的地毯铺在拉森三室套房的入口处，这是由6间客房改造而成的。每月的房租是4,300美元，大部分由福特汽车承担。当拉森一家需要外出时，他们的司机Jojo就会在公司提供的黑色福特蒙迪欧(Ford Mondeo)轿车中等候。拉森家现在仍配有一名司机。
福特汽车驻中国的高级管理人员泰克(Ron Tyack)说，公司承担外派人员的房租，并鼓励他们住在酒店里，因为生活的便利有助于员工将精力放到工作中。
在北京、上海、广州，尤其是香港，外派人员的额外补贴正在减少，因为外籍人士在这些快速发展的地区更容易适应环境。但在重庆等城市，为了吸引美国人和他们的家庭来此工作，额外补贴仍是不可或缺的。
上海和北京各有十几家国际学校，其中许多学校都有数百名学生。重庆只有一所国际学校，仅有40名2至17岁的学生。北京有10所医院可提供同国外接轨的医疗服务。而重庆仅在希尔顿酒店有一家西方模式的诊所，医生也不固定。甚至上海的空气也要好于重庆。根据中国政府的统计，重庆空气质量达到良好以上的天数平均每年要比上海少88天。
还有更让人吃惊的：星巴克(Starbucks)号称在北京和上海都有近100家连锁店，而在重庆却没有一家。
福特汽车驻重庆的财务总监韦尔加(Joseph Verga)说，近年来，外派人员的人口结构发生了变化。当他两年前来到重庆时，他的美国同事中没有一个是有孩子在身边的。
在45岁的韦尔加和他42岁的妻子玛丽贝丝(Marybeth)被派到中国后不久，他们就游览了西藏。他们的房子内挂满了从越南购买的绘画，摆著从西安购买的兵马俑像。但在玛丽贝丝怀孕后，她决定不去中国的医院。因此今年春季，在她预产期的前两个月，她回到了底特律的老家，在美国医院生下了她的儿子。她说，重庆和美国没有一件事情是相同的。
在第二次世界大战中作为盟军的后方补给站之后，重庆还从未如此吸引海外的目光，直到福特汽车2003年开始在此生产汽车。山坡上荒芜的官邸还在提醒著人们，在1949年共产党掌权之前，重庆曾是国民党政府的战时首都。现在，重庆是游客沿长江游览著名的三峡大坝的主要起点。
政府非常渴望能提高外商对重庆等城市的投资热情，每年重庆吸引的外资仅是上海吸引的80亿美元外商直接投资额的5%。
拉森夫妇首次到中国是去年夏季福特汽车在提供给拉森工作职位后送他们到重庆参观的时候。这对结婚8年之久的夫妻意识到他们的生活将会发生很大的改变。但在他是否应该接受这份工作方面两人并没有太多的争论。拉森太太开玩笑地说，她清楚地知道，在接受他求婚的时候，就同意了有一天要随他来到中国。
她的丈夫曾在19岁时被Mormon教堂派到台湾做传教士。他在那里学会了汉语。现在，他的汉语水平足以参加商务会谈。在到中国前，拉森太太的国际经历包括在伦敦生活过18个月，还曾到墨西哥坎昆度假。
同在重庆的许多外国人一样，拉森太太说她不愿尝试重庆最有名的火锅。超市中最有特点的是从冰屑中伸出的鸡爪和吊在钩子上的猪肉。
拉森太太面对食物难题的解决办法是：一直堆到天花板的满满一柜子Green Giant、Crisco和Hormel等品牌的罐头，这些罐头都是她用箱子带到重庆或是从海外邮寄过来的。她在2月份生日时的礼物是一个银色的，美国规格的冷冻冷藏柜。
重庆的食品很便宜。拉森太太每周购买食物只要花费50至100美元，而在密歇根每周要200至300美元。凭借一个外派专家妻子的小圈子的帮助，她找到了一个销售Oreo曲奇的商店，还有一个出售Froot Loops谷类食品和听装豆泥的商店。孩子们在市场上很难发现什么同美国老家重的食品相似。拉森太太说，当她告诉孩子们，在这里就只有这些食品时，他们也不怎么顶嘴。
最近，拉森夫妇在饮食上又遇到了新问题。今年夏季全家会美国度假时，4岁的詹姆斯被诊断患有麸质过敏症。拉森太太怀疑重庆的医生是否发现了这个问题。她的儿子现在不能食用含有小麦蛋白的食品，不论是谷物、吐司还是比萨。在美国，她准备了两箱子不含小麦蛋白的特殊食品，准备带回重庆。
拉森夫妇说，重庆的娱乐设施也很难找。在驾车通过野生动物园时，孩子们通过车窗观看老虎捕食活鸡的情景。拉森太太说，在看到动物园肮脏的洗浴室后，参观大熊猫的热情也不复存在了。他们还观看了中国戏剧，两个脸上涂满油彩的演员，其中一个穿著马的服装。门票仅为2美元，但全家都不感兴趣，在中场休息时就退场了。
拉森太太给两岁的伊丽莎设计的一项消遣是在靠近希尔顿酒店的地方找小狗。一个周二，沿著小巷看去，没有一个动物。一个小时后，这个小女孩看到了两只小狗。当一只脏兮兮的小狗沿著布满脚手架的街道摇摇晃晃地远去时，伊丽莎说：“它要回家了。”
中国的男女老少纷纷给这个小女孩让路。几乎每个人对这个难得一见的外国小孩的反应都是指指点点、目不转睛盯著她看、甚至上来摸摸她。她的妈妈说，伊丽莎就象是猴子在表演一样。
拉森太太和她的女儿有时会徒步经过一座桥回到希尔顿酒店，那里有小贩出售太阳镜、梳子和皮带。拉森太太说，一位妇女的习惯是每当她们经过时，都要向这个小女孩推销小镜子。她说，尽管她看不惯这种做法，但感觉好像有义务买下镜子。拉森太太说，一开始，这位妇女对每个镜子仅收1元钱，但现在每个要收8元钱，大约是99美分。
拉森夫人付账时，有个中年男人弯下腰仔细看著伊丽莎，而一位“棒棒”也靠在他的竹扁担上看著。还有一个年长的路人轻轻捏了伊丽莎的面颊一下。所有人都试图表现出友善，但伊丽莎面无笑容，什么也没说。她低著头，眼睛始终盯著一面新镜子。
外国人在重庆少之又少，以至于拉森夫人一次坐车经过市区时突然惊叫道：“那个西方人我们不认识。”福特汽车在重庆的2,500名员工中，只有25人是外国人。拉森夫妇说，他们对在这里的所有外籍家庭都了如指掌。
拉森夫人说，她从每周两小时的汉语课程中学得还不够，甚至无法同家里的保姆完成基本的交谈。她常常要拨打她丈夫的手机，让他帮忙翻译。看著酒店窗外的高楼大厦，她说：“外面的世界非常精彩，然而却与我无关”，但她又说：“我能做什么呢？”
她说，她希望到一个孤儿院做志愿者的申请被拒绝了。她的主要消遣是每周给外籍女性上两堂健身课，外加给小女孩们上舞蹈课。学费不是交给她，而是交给了一个当地的盲人学校。
外籍人士社交活动的中心是每周三的“主妇午餐”，为盲人学校筹集资金，同时也交流哪家商店销售玉米面豆卷和酸奶油的消息。这些女性到布料市场上用计算器讨价还价，然后用手势告诉裁缝她们想要的款式。
尽管并未同当地人交朋友，但拉森太太说，她很喜欢这些新的外籍朋友，其中包括一位古巴女性，还有一位同她母亲年龄相仿的女士。
每天早上，一辆白色面包车都会从希尔顿将年龄大些的两个孩子：艾玛和詹姆斯送到20分钟路程的学校：这也是他们在中国最喜欢的地方。拉森太太感到有些担心，因为车上没有美国法律要求的儿童座位。但对耀中国际学校(Yew Chung International School) 7比1的学生/教师比感到满意。福特汽车负担了每个孩子每年13,000美元的学费。
各国国旗沿著耀中学校的天花板排列著。来自十几个国家的孩子们肩并肩地坐在座子后。艾玛的班里都是5岁、6岁和7岁的孩子。她每天都学习汉语，晚上就同她的爸爸练习。她学的英语比她在美国同年级的水平还要高。
由于在中国还有两年的时间，拉森夫妇最近决定搬出希尔顿酒店，搬到附近一个面向外国人设计的社区中一套五间卧室的房子。福特汽车支付了几乎全部租金。他们夫妇说，希望孩子们能有更多的“美国人”生活经历，尤其是能有一个戏耍和需要打扫的院子。这里还有游泳池和运动场。
最近，拉森每周都有部分时间要在福特汽车在南京的新工厂度过。南京位于中国的东部，乘飞机需要几个小时。拉森太太说，由于在新家里没有说英语的希尔顿员工可以提供帮助，他不在时会加剧她与世隔绝的感觉。但她说，她认为对她丈夫的新安排是他对福特汽车有价值的体现。
拉森夫妇认为，在重庆的生活加深了他们家庭成员的联系。拉森说：“我们彼此都需要成为朋友。”他们曾一起到泰国和韩国旅行，并计划游览巴厘岛和香港的新迪斯尼乐园。拉森太太说，她也希望在周末更多地远离重庆市区，到山区附近的公园等地。
他们始终无法忘记离家有多远。一天晚上，拉森夫妇参加晚宴回到家中后，发现了6岁的女儿艾玛贴在床头柜上一首诗。其中写道：
美国是我的家!
我爱美国。
那里好。
那里真好。
我想那里。
我想我的朋友。
我爱美国。
美国是我的家，那才是我的家。
