Expat bling

I am driving. Aidan, Lydia, Elisa, and the mother in law unit are in the back seat. Yang is in the passenger seat. There is some type of conversation going on about the weather.  I haven't showered and somehow have ended up wearing with a black polo sweat shirt with dark blue sweats. My hair is uncombed, my face not just unshaven but unevenly unshaven. It is just then that I think this is an all together different type of expat life that most folks sign up for.

A black audi is behind me, straddling lanes and flashing it's high beams.  I brake noticeably in order to annoy him. As he starts to pass on my right, I accelerate but our buzz box lacks the power to stay in front and he passes us and is gone.

There are a set of expats here with drivers and luxury apartments and expense accounts and kids who go to $25,000 international schools. I am not in this class. We are not in this class. This is not to say we are poor. No, we are decidedly middle class. Middle class with privileges. An ayi, or two. Dinner out more than not. 40 minute taxi rides that cost $5. 600ML diet coke for 45 cents.

We get to Starbucks and I use my company meal card to buy a venti coffee, two lattes, one cinnamon roll, and one mushroom egg sandwich. My mother in law takes a sip of the latte and empties one, then two, and finally three sugar packets into it. If this isn't her first latte then it is the first she's had with taste buds attached. We should have gotten her a hot chocolate. We use my meal card because i seldom, if ever, eat lunch using the card and over the past three years I've collected over 10,000 RMB in unspent lunch money. 10,000 RMB is about half the monthly educational allowance or a third of the monthly rental allowance for the "real expats". If I can squirrel away my lunch money for another twelve years then Aidan will be able to go to expat first grade when he is seventeen. Lydia will have to wait a bit longer. No need to think about Elisa at this point.

Breakfast consumed, we head out. The security guard is peering in our car which is parked directly in front of the Starbucks, in a reserved spot. The guard's obvious concern shifts to friendliness when he sees us and realizes he won't get fired when the boss shows up in his black audi and finds a vw hatchback taking its space.

Later that morning, I am in the same navy blue sweats and black sweatshirt. Still no shower and no shave. I am preparing to serve but the sun blinds me and the wind messes with my toss. Yang has skimped down to shorts and a pink tank top and is attracking gawkers. No one dresses that skimpy in Beijing in November. Somewhere across town there is a McKinsey associate in a five star hotel health club and on an indoor court with a perfect 72 degrees and no wind. Playing tennis with another McKinsey associate or perhaps his EA. Me, I lost 7-5. At least I made it a game by playing the wind shots to my advantage.

We head back to our apartment, the right blinker not blinking and me thinking "expat bling baby"