Welcome to the neighborhood

We live in a gated community out in the sticks, as I like to say.  It's really just about a 15-20 minutes' drive from the heart of the city without traffic.  But it does feel like we're in the sticks when you have to drive to get anything.

Most of the people who live in our community are expats or really wealthy Chinese.  The expats are pretty friendly with each other.  The Chinese don't really like to associate with us.  Still, we say our nihaos.  Maybe we're not saying it right, you know with the tones and all.  I find myself going out of my way to be friendly so they know that I'm not Chinese, though I look like one.  Although to the trained eye, it's so obvious that I'm not.  And the moment you see me walking around with my 3 hybrid looking kids, it's also obvious that I'm not Chinese.

I had one lady approach me at the grocery store once.  Had no idea what she was saying, but she was holding up 3 fingers and pointing at my kids.  I think she was saying something like "Are all 3 yours?"  or "You really have 3 kids?"

We live in a townhouse that looks like this.  There are many townhouse and duplex style houses like these in the neighborhood.

We also have these big boys.  The villas.  NJ's school is a block away from our house in one of these villas that was renovated.  The weird thing is, most of them are empty.  I've only seen 3 occupied and we have dozens of villas here, maybe even over 100.  It's kinda eerie.  All these huge mansions.  Empty.  They had a major "build it and they will come" mentality, except nobody came.



This one puts the size into perspective.  Wee NJ out front.

Here is the club house.  It's massive.  I couldn't even get a good picture that shows it in its entirety. It contains a swimming pool, meeting rooms, banquet rooms, a gym, a children's playroom, badmitton court and probably some other rooms I don't know about.

The clubhouse has a convenience store which has saved me a bunch of times.  It's tiny but carries a surprisingly good variety of things.  Rice, bread, candy, snacks, cleaning items, eggs, cheese, frozen meat, juice, sauces, noodles, beer, wine... many imported foods, all overpriced, of course.

There are lots of man made water features and lakes.  More empty mansions in the background.  Won't you be our neighbor?