Homeward Bound!

July 29, 2008

Several days to catch up on and so little energy! Boys are ensconced in front of the TV watching The Fox and the Hound for the second time so I can get a few minutes to sit. It’s kind of a mixed blessing when they are old enough to sit through a movie! In two days we’ll be halfway home, and none too soon. We are all completely knackered and ready to be in our own home. The boys got sick on the train from Fuzhou, which was not the most pleasant train ride despite the soft seats. The train was fine, I just didn’t feel well myself nor sleep well. Now the boys have been feverish. Isaac has recovered pretty quickly but Ethan has been pretty puny but is perking up. They napped early today though and will be exhausted by bed time – we all will. And Pamela and Vincent will be coming late to say hi and bye. Still we want to see them again before we go.

The PSB just showed up at our door. Never had that happen in China before, though I wasn’t altogether surprised. So many so-called “Olympic security” people are everywhere watching everything going on. Now if only they could apply that energy to traffic and forming lines…. Anyway, he was relatively nice, even knows an old senior editor from CCTV that I used to work with. Jack has gone with him to swipe our passports. He just gave the spiel about how it’s China’s law, etc. I half expected a fine, but apparently it’s okay. Hopefully he won’t cause any trouble about all the other time we stayed here unregistered.

Meanwhile, our last couple days in Fuzhou were nice. We endured another hot morning with family in Jack’s village, where Jack’s dad showed up in what is supposed to be also Jack’s house (though he sold all the land without consulting Jack) though he didn’t say hi or join us, partly since he’s not happy with Jack and mostly because he has bad relationships with a lot of the family in the village.

We then moved into the hotel where Jack’s cousin was staying for training (the cousin who bought us the train tickets). It was pretty comfy and there was a big park with an amusement park a few minutes walk away. We enjoyed eating familiar food and food that wasn’t being forced on us in large quantity by family. Jack enjoyed the breakfast buffet, but it was all a bit too local food for me – a lot of pickled stuff and stuffed buns. The boys liked the Chinese doughnuts and watermelon though.

The train rides, besides aforementioned punyness, was nice. It was a very long train (as in many cars), with two regular soft sleeper cars (usually there is one) and one luxury soft sleeper car. We didn’t even know about that! For an extra $100 we could have had a room to ourselves with our own toilet and little couch. Not really worth it though with the kids, esp since one bed was on top. The next time we come back the boys will be big enough we will have to buy a whole four-bed soft sleeper room. The train food was decent and people relatively okay. Isaac forced an older boy to play with him, as he is wont to do (he did the same with an older boy at our hotel breakfast table).Ethan loved to just sit and watch outside (especially excited when he saw train tracks), making comments. He is quite the chatterbox these days. Even if his vocabulary probably isn’t as large as Isaac’s, his grammar is better. He says things like “Mama, wait. I coming!” and when scared says “Scares me!”. Even though they still only speak a few words of Chinese, their English has at least improved, even if I’m not sure anyone else would understand most of it!

Okay, better tend to the sickies…

Terrorizing two-year-old

July 23, 2008

The little cousin is something of a terror, but naturally still sweet in the way all kids are. His parents yell and threaten and swear they’ve tried everything but seem otherwise proud of the fact that their toddler scares away 5-year-olds. Half the time he does play well with the boys, but the rest of the time he pushes, shoves, grabs and bites. He knocked Ethan off the scooter car and has come close to causing serious injury many times. Still, he can be really sweet. In some ways I’m a little impressed his parents have the patience that they do. I have seen them sometimes rather than yelling or smacking telling him gently that he’s a good boy and to share and showing their affection often, even on occasion removing him from the scene despite his rather hearty (and he is very strong!) protests.. Still last night I nearly blew a fuse when he was taking all their blocks into his backpack and Ethan was quite upset (he’s definitely more sensitive). So there were four or five adults huddled around trying to reason with this spoiled two-year-old and unwilling to just remove him from the situation. Meanwhile I was the only one who remembered the boys’ potatoes cooking on the stove before they burned. Another lady was there playing with her 9-month-old and she kept shaking her head. Apparently that’s the reaction most parents have around here and apparently also it runs in the family – his grandpa is tough, a fighter, his dad has been known to easily get in fights and his uncle in recent times beat his parents, the kids’ grandparents, not to mention his own wife and kid. Still I tell Jack he may be genetically predisposed but his strong character can certainly still be turned for the good.

The good news is Jack’s cousin in Fuzhou managed to secure us soft berth tickets for Sunday back to Beijing. I am very relieved about that! And excited it’s only a few days away. We’re trying to work out right now what we’re doing the last few days. The plan was to go tomorrow to Jack’s village, but right now Jack is very upset at his dad. He first wanted us to stay in the village in his “own” house, a complete dump, then to stay with another uncle, who Jack says his place is not much better. Jack wanted to stay with an uncle that has a nicer house. But his dad is on the outs with that uncle (as he apparently is with much of his family) and refuses to come if we do that. He tells Jack he should build his own house, and Jack says he would if his dad had ever done anything for him, but he sees all his cousins getting houses from their parents, not to mention just generally being raised well and gets upset that his dad expects him to do it for him. So now we are thinking we may stay where we are one more hot, boring day and go the village for lunch on Friday then head into Fuzhou to a hotel for the last couple nights. I cannot wait to get some peace and quiet, hopefully air conditioning, and not to mention Internet!

Speaking of air conditioning, I can’t believe we’ve lived over two weeks now in scorching heat with no central air. We load up on the icy water and turn the fans on high but it’s still unbearable. Still, I have to count our blessings that at least, except for a couple nights a couple times, we’ve had AC in our sleeping room. So at least naps and nighttime are comfortable.

Despite being really in the middle of nowhere (though not for long, a new highway is coming through), we have found one thing to entertain the boys. They love swimming in the river. We have to trust it’s not toxic, but most of the locals don’t seem to think so, swimming and washing their clothes there. We go in the evening after 5pm when the water is lower so we can pretty much wade all the way across. The cousin has inner tubes and little blow-up boat too they like to play with. He and another boy had been playing with us for a couple nights but we realized these festering sores on cousin’s leg were getting worse and suggested he shouldn’t come anymore. I gave them some antibiotic ointment and bandages but not sure they’ll really use them. The kid is covered in injuries. When I had to drag him downstairs to his dad a couple nights ago when it was bath time for the boys, apparently the trumpet he had in his mouth cut in his mouth. I felt awful since I didn’t even realize at the time. I went to check on him later after Jack told me and everyone just pooh-poohed me – “oh, this happens all the time”.

His grandparents seem to appreciate American medicine more. I gave them a bunch of ibuprofen when his grandpa, Jack’s uncle, had a fever and headache (spends too much time cooking for us, then also tending to his mother who apparently is a fussy eater and wakes also at night demanding food). Apparently it helped though he also took some Chinese medicine. I hope he doesn’t overdo it. Still he was taking more today for some other pain and asking about what kinds of things you can get in the States, like for nerve pain and such. I told Jack that was a strong as you could get without seeing doctor. Jack told him my mom uses Chinese pain patches for her pain but he hasn’t found them quite as effective!

One more day...

July 20, 2008

I just gained a day. And when you’re desperate to go home, that’s disheartening. I was quite sure today was Monday the 21^st but alas it is not. So we still have a few days stuck in this village with not much to do. I’m quite sure the boys will be thrilled when we leave, but they are doing well playing with the toys here. Whenever we do go outside they want to go back in. There are some cool cars to drive around the house, so that helps. The house’s owner, Jack’s cousin, returned tonight with his wife and two-year-old. They are very nice – the don’t mind us staying in their room with the AC. The boy is rather hyper, which explains why all the toys are broken. We’ll see how the boys get along with him –so far they are not too keen and if the boy doesn’t want them playing with his toys that’ll make these few days even more excruciating. At least annoying aunt left today, after sharing her philosophies on giving the boys milk every time they cry at night (kids drink a lot of milk here), and after giving them each 200 Yuan for her face.

I know I am complaining and criticizing a lot – it’s just challenging. But I do know people are going out of their way to do what they think is right and I try to understand their point of view even if to me it’s simple.

Fuzhou, finally

July 19, 2008

We are in Fuzhou, for better or worse. A total of seven people saw us off to the airport at 6:30 in the morning. It was nice of HuaHua to arrange a car yet again, but the whole production was just a bit much, especially since they decided to go the non-highway way to save tolls and we were cutting it close time-wise. This turned out to be bad also because I was a bit brainless and didn’t pack all the liquids in the checked bags. So I lost a lot of stuff, most of which we gave to Jack’s aunt. What I’m mainly missing is my contact cleaner – good thing I have my glasses at least. They can’t even mail it because you can’t mail liquids either. I was getting really upset with security, probably not a good move, but especially because they wouldn’t even let me take the boys’ Tylenol. They kept pointing to their new Olympics regulations. The Olympics really make everything difficult for us, stricter and train travel is more troublesome with no electricity in the plugs anymore. Nevertheless we probably should have taken the train to Fuzhou, 40 hours and all. We wouldn’t have lost all our stuff and we would have saved some money. And we would have had a couple days without family around.

It is all getting to be a bit much – everyone means well but they are all bossy, nosy and can’t seem to trust us to raise our kids ourselves. I get very tired of being told they are too skinny and people trying to force feed them. We keep assuring people they are quite healthy and active. Everyone has strange rules too, like wearing different slippers in each room. I can’t do anything without someone or ones there asking what I’m doing and trying to do it for me. People spend so much time cooking for us, which I appreciate but we would tell them not to, that we quite genuinely didn’t want that much and didn’t want them getting so tired for us, but they would still do it every day and I am barely allowed in the kitchen and get yelled at if I try to clean up a little bit. Although at the big aunt’s place, I did wash dishes a couple times and she appreciated that. Was nice to be actually allowed to do something. I sooo can’t wait to be back in my own house. What gets me though is if they were in my house I’m quite sure they’d be just as bossy and nosy. When Jack’s cousin visited Beijing, she was always in the kitchen telling me what to do or taking over.

What’s most aggravating though is hearing how saintly Jack’s parents are, from both sides. Someone told Jack today he should place his father before his kids because his dad did so much for him. What? Everyone acts like it’s our responsibility to visit and look after his parents, who did very little for him and who in fact are supposed to be older and more mature. People believe Americans are cold because they don’t (in general) buy their kids fancy cars or build homes for them and because grandparents don’t raise their grandkids. Whereas from what I’ve seen spoiling their kids generally backfires and I don’t get why people have kids to be raised by someone else. But these are differences that it’s not really my place to say what’s better or worse since probably neither way is.

But what I really dislike is the idea of “face”. I know a lot of everyone fussing over us is because if they didn’t they would look bad. His one aunt in fact admitted she didn’t take very good care of her husband’s family when they visited. There is so much protocol, especially in family relationships, I would go completely bonkers. About who you call and when and who you stay with, and so on, which apparently Jack has been told he hasn’t done very correctly – he is thinking more about what’s best for the family and who has been kinder to him. His dad too got really angry because he didn’t call him as soon as we arrived in Fuzhou – called him just to tell him he had lost a lot of face because of that. His dad’s brother too was really rude and when we stopped at their shop, just kept working and barely gave a hello. Jack tells me that is actually very bad in Chinese custom as Ethan and Isaac are kind of considered his grandsons since they are carrying on the family name. His aunt was very jovial and friendly even but she has been a bit of a pain today.

Anyway, we arrived in Fuzhou and arranged to stay at one uncle’s place near the airport (an uncle who is at great dispute with Jack’s dad, part of the reason everyone is upset at him). He himself works away from most of the time, but his wife and two girls looked after us. They were sweet – the two girls are really shy, which was kind of a nice change. The one apparently was a girl I befriended on our last trip here five years ago – she was so small then I wouldn’t have recognized – now she is a very tall 16-year-old. The mother was nice too, though as mad as everyone else. She cooked so much food that we could never eat and the boys wouldn’t really anyway. That’s fine, that’s what people do when you have guests, but she didn’t stop the whole time. She was always trying to cook more and then decided to order a few dishes from a restaurant. Jack said flat out she had better not or we would leave, but she did anyway. She kept making all kinds of stuff for Ethan and Isaac and sometimes got lucky at least, like with some kind of noodle soup they really liked. Their house was big but very simple with barely working faucets and no hot water (they have a scary electric thing they put in the water to heat for baths). There was also no AC but it was pretty cool, thanks to the Typhoon in Taiwan. They have these also scary fans hanging in the mosquito nets over the beds that were nice for sleeping.

But the good thing about that place was it’s proximity to the beach. The beach they took us to was pretty trashy, but close to the water was nice and flat for a long ways out so the boys could romp around. They had a wonderful time jumping over waves and then later sitting and letting it wash over them. We actually got lucky because of afore-mentioned rain that there was a break long enough to play. The aunt was a bit mad here too, though, chasing the boys all over because she was terrified they would fall into every little wave that came. I wasn’t that concerned because you could see flat sand for some distance, but I still tried to keep them in line and nobody had as much fun as we would have liked. Well, the boys still had a great time. When it was close to lunchtime though, the rain picked up but Isaac refused to leave. He was having way too much fun that he threw a major tantrum at the suggestion that he should leave. Finally the rain started coming hard about the moment he threw himself down on the sand (after already washing him off once) so I had to carrying him kicking and screaming, both of us drenched and sand-covered back to the rickshaw. Back home, they took us to a neighbor’s with a tap outside to wash off some more and we all bathed well at home!

We stayed two nights there, which brings me to today. Though today actually starts with yesterday, when we stopped to see Jack’s uncle and aunt (previously mentioned), who work close to where we were staying. As I said, uncle just kept working and aunt gushed a bit and took us to their little shack where she fed us watermelon cut with the same knife she had cut fish with… Later that night there was an opera performance at the town hall next to our apartment building. It started with ear-splittingly loud fireworks that terrified the boys. Later we went out to watch a little – Ethan is really into Chinese opera – and said aunt was there. So I guess Jack told her we were going to his nice aunt’s place today so this morning she called to say she was arranging transportation and was coming with us. In hindsight, we should have said thanks, but no. She hired this fancy car for a lot of money, which we ended up having to pay and what’s more someone suggested to her we take a different way that they said would be easier (this aunt’s place is somewhat inaccessible). We ended up driving for ages, having to stop often to ask directions, over huge puddles and potholes, and then getting to a point where a car could go no further. Aunt was not well and got out and puked but refused to go back home – we could not figure out what she wanted to go with us (until we got here and Jack’s dad was here and big feast – she and her daughters are good eaters…) At this point we transferred to a motorbike rickshaw. I did not like this idea of five of us and our luggage in one of these little things but there was not much choice. This rickshaw bounced us all over the place and at one point I was seriously terrified for our lives when he tried to go up and hill that he shouldn’t have and got stuck and wobbly. After aunt got out and Jack with one of the kids to hold it a little he was able to get up but after that I was scared as we passed a lot of treacherous areas and praying we would just get there in one piece. We still got lost many times before finally seeing the aunt walking out to greet us. We still had a walk a ways but I was just grateful not to be in a vehicle. The annoying aunt rode in the rickshaw to the house, took a few smaller suitcases out, then waited for Jack to come pay the driver. Jack just grabbed the big suitcase and went inside- by this point very annoyed with her. The nice aunt ended up paying and in the process of the chaos we left Ethan’s favorite blocks in the rickshaw. He is really into his “robot” made of a few blocks and we also had taken from the last house these pieces you fit together to make shapes or whatever that Ethan must have sat and played with quietly for nearly an hour. Jack is quite upset we lost these – I figure they are three and will forget by tomorrow anyway with the news toys where we are, but we will keep an eye out for more. I am just glad we arrived alive and if we had to lose something it wasn’t passports, money, or computers.

We are really annoyed with annoying aunt’s cheapness. That is really bad manners for Chinese to help someone then make them pay for it. His uncle in Chongqing – probably the only man in the family that is somewhat sane and likeable – hired cars for us a couple times and always paid before we even got in the car. What’s worse though is she later was going on to Jack in front of a crowd about how well he took care of her daughter in Beijing and that she wanted to give him money… such a Pharisee.

Anyway, the nice aunt’s house is nice – though I guess actually it belongs to their son. I’m kind of confused about their family situation – apparently they built houses for their sons, spent a lot of money on them and one son at least treats them very badly, even beat both his parents and destroyed part of the house they had built. Nice. But our room was built for a son who worked in Israel for some time. It has AC, a TV and so on, all of which is very nice, and it’s on the second floor where noone else stays, so it feels quiet and private too. She also has a washing machine so we can finally get some clean clothes – she was very concerned about my dirty underwear and washed it by hand for me… hmmm. Don’t know what we will do tomorrow – finding a way to do Internet will be first thing I think, and hopefully the rain will have stopped and the boys might be able to swim a bit in the river. They have impressed me with their ability to find interesting things and entertainment wherever we are. They will run around pretending to be monsters scaring each other if there is nothing else to do. They both finished apples after dinner and we sent Isaac with the core to put back on the dining table. He came back smiling and proud and we gave him the second one. Ditto. Later, the aunts, who were sitting at the table, said he had thrown them out the window. There are some habits, like peeing in public wherever they see an interesting hole or puddle, that will have to be kicked when we get home!

The brighter side of Chongqing

We spent yesterday finding and dining with the couple who sponsored Jack through 3 years of school. And what’s more I finally saw a nice side to this dirty city. In the morning, a very unusually cool but gray one, we loaded into a taxi to look for the sponsor, only knowing where he had worked several years ago, for the highway department. It took some time and lots of asking to find the right place only to find out it had moved. Fortunately the couple running a watermelon stand at the old location knew where it had moved to, so we loaded back up and managed to find it, again with much stopping to ask. A man outside the building happened to be walking by who knew the name and which floor he worked on and the guard inside then looked it up and called him. He was needless to say quite surprised and didn’t quite know what to do with me at first. We went up and they chatted for a while. Jack called his wife, who he says was the real sponsor, and she invited us to dinner. Jack’s aunts weren’t too thrilled - they like to keep everyone captive at home and don’t understand why anyone would go out with anyone who wasn’t family.

But we went in the evening to their very nice apartment in a complex by the Yangtze with the best playground for the kids we’ve run across so far. It was broken and run down in parts like they all are but the boys still had a blast. They took us to a restaurant directly overlooking the Yangtze in an area that has been very well developed and reminded me a bit of Shanghai, or the Houhai bar area in Beijing. We tried to get a table on the roof with a gorgeous view but they were worried about rain and sent us back to the boring first floor. Still it was a nice dinner, Jack snuck away to pay before they could much to their consternation. Still, I think they were touched by the whole thing – that he would go to the effort to find them and take them to dinner. Apparently a lot of sponsorees don’t even bother to write their annual letter of their progress. Jack had been kind of embarrassed though that he didn’t really work as hard as he should have in high school and didn’t make it to a top university – they had offered to pay his university tuition if he did. They were a lovely couple, much less bossy and invasive than most people. We went to walk along the river after dinner, where a friend or relative of theirs who had joined us bought the boys these kind of light sabers that thrilled them to no end. It was very nice to experience a clean and pretty side to the city (I even saw foreigners for the first time here and they looked equally surprised to see me) – on the ride over I had been telling Jack that I really could not stand this city (despite his grandma trying hard to persuade us to live here by telling us what a paradise it is), so I was glad to be proven wrong.

Still, I'm glad we are leaving for Fuzhou tomorrow. That might prove to be just as crazy but it'll be a change, and beach too!

I’m so happy it’s only two weeks before we are back in Beijing to get ready for our return flight. I’m glad we’re getting to see Jack’s family, but it’s all a bit much for me at moments – being in unfamiliar territory is bad enough but never getting a moment to myself is not good for the sanity. We had one of those horrible dinners Friday night where the men all get red-faced drunk while the women sit there drinking Sprite and looking on their men with pride. It was all I could do in my then already overwhelmed state of mind to keep from having a nervous breakdown.

Still it helps me understand Jack a bit better. His grandma is sweet, funny and completely mad all rolled into one. She never stops talking to me even though I can only understand a few words here and there. I was walking her around a small museum today and it took forever because she moved so slowly, would stop to talk to me (and beat her grandson when he tried to make her move faster). It occurred to me later that she is illiterate and probably wanted some explanation what we were looking at but I also can’t read that much Chinese. I feel badly for her though since apparently her daughters keep her confined so they don’t have to pay her medical bills if she gets ill, though she is sooo happy when we insist on taking her out to parks or museums. She tricked her daughter, the “second aunt” into letting her out of the house to go visit us at the “big aunt’s” house by telling her she was going back to her own house. And apparently she is plotting to keep one of the boys (Isaac is the current favorite) here in Chongqing. Haha, funny. Jack’s “big aunt” keeps telling me to leave one. She is only half kidding I think. I feel badly for her. I thought when we arrived that she was the craziest aunt, refusing to even let me bathe the boys, but she has turned out to be the more calm and normal. And her craziness is a bit understandable considering her son died a year or so ago of a brain tumor. I met him last time we paid a brief visit and he was really sweet, non-complaining. It really grieves me to think about, especially how that must be for her. She seems to be coping well but her husband seems more detached. I told Jack it’s kind of ironic that she would clearly love to have a grandchild to take care of but will never get one while his mother has these two grandsons and isn’t interested in them. He said she (who visited with is dad a few months ago – I don’t get this family) got upset when she heard we were coming and hadn’t told her.

Anyway, I can’t imagine bringing up any kid where they live. Saying it’s a dump is being kind. There is literally trash everywhere, a sort of river going by that is also filled with trash and stinks to high heaven. Everywhere you go is the same – just feels toxic to me, I feel like a bad mother letting my kids stay there even a few days yet people are living their whole lives there and somehow proud of it. Still, the boys actually enjoyed it, and liked being able to roam around and climb hills and go around vegetable paddies and so on. We went one afternoon to find Jack’s old middle school. Was a veeery long walk through trash heaps and toxic factories but the boys did pretty well and enjoyed it. Jack was very happy to find it, even under a new name, and look around and tell me stories of things he was remembering. He’s been really reminiscing a lot this whole trip.

I also just have to tell a sweet Ethan story. Despite his propensity to beat his brother, he seems to be the most soft-hearted of the two and is always more ready to share than Isaac and when Isaac demands “big” asks sweetly if he can have “small”. Well, lately he has been into making these so-called “robots” out of blocks. It consists of a long block with a small one for a head and two other small ones for feet. Very small and simple yet he makes them all the time and carries them around and gives them to other people. Anyway, yesterday Isaac took his “robot” just out of malice and threw it on the floor. Ethan plopped down weeping and wailing and I proceeded tell Isaac he needed to fix it and say sorry to his brother. He was screaming and refusing and meanwhile Ethan got up and went to fix his robot – but at the same time he made one for Isaac too and gave it to him. I was so shocked and touched I nearly cried. It was like he thought, “if Isaac wants one let him have his own” or maybe more like “this way he won’t destroy mine anymore!”. Nevertheless I found that an amazing example of turning the other cheek (or was it heaping burning coals?). They really interact well more and more and are really good friends most of the time. I love it when I catch them conversing with each other, but even more when they work out problems together and work together without being told.

Noodles on a train

If there really is such thing as hotter than hell, then we’ve arrived there. Chongqing is known as one of the four hottest spots in China, and not in a good way. We’re basically confined indoors during most of the day, and indoors is not so cool either since the dog (they’re breeding huskies, in a hot climate no less, poor things) chewed up the air conditioning cable and Jack’s aunt is waiting for her husband to return this weekend to fix it. I feel especially bad for his granny sleeping in these temperatures. We have an air-con unit in our room, for which I’m extremely grateful – I feel guilty about hogging it but then it wouldn’t be even used if we weren’t here. At least in early morning and evening we can go out to the playground just outside – this one even has a slide. Jack’s 15-year-old cousin is here too to provide them entertainment and they like him a lot.

The train ride over here went pretty well. Going soft sleeper was a very wise choice on Jack’s part. We still had to share the compartment, with a granny taking her grandson back home to raise (a Chinese habit I’ll never quite understand) and a guy who just got his graduate degree and is starting a job in Chongqing and who spent most of the time up in his top bunk. There are lots of interesting stories on trains. But fortunately thanks to having a door, we didn’t have to hear all of them. It was really nice to be able to shut the door and have some peace and quiet. This was especially true since right next door was a very chubby and hyper five-year-old girl who the boys found quite entertaining but who was at times a bit much for my patience level. The boys at least enjoyed the ride, sitting watching out the window while eating instant noodles. They slept somewhat decently too.

I haven’t had a decent sleep myself in quite some time and my tolerance is at a low level, but I’m trying hard to grin and bear it and know “this too shall pass”. Still it’s been kind of rough. The boys were coughing a bit before we left (probably thanks to Ming Ming) but got much worse when we got here – with the exhaustion, change of scenery and heat. Jack’s aunts bought them some Chinese cough medicine but just a sip or two and Isaac was throwing up. At least after that night he was mostly fine but Ethan has got worse and doesn’t sleep well. I’m sure he just wants to be back in his own house doing the things he’s used to doing. Still, I have to say they have shown themselves to be pretty resilient and I hope that despite their young age something of the moving around and cultural diversity they’re encountering will stick with them and make them somehow tougher and more adaptable.

The cousins depart

Happy late Independence Day to you all and late Anniversary to us! The day passed without event for us, and every day like that is a blessing! The cousins left a few days ago and I feel bad for them – the father is basically gone year round working and Hong Ting couldn’t even remember (or be bothered to try) when was the last time she saw him. So anyway, he travels between Inner Mongolia and Changsha in the south. They were planning to meet him in Inner Mongolia, to which Beijing would have been on the way, but he told them to go to Changsha back in the south. So the day after they arrived there he told him he was going to Inner Mongolia so they dragged the kids off again with only standing tickets on a very long journey. I really feel bad for the kids, but I hope they still manage to think it’s a good adventure.

We spent our last full day with them on Tiananmen, where I went to see pickled Mao for the first time. Kind of interesting, especially all these people, even young guys, buying flowers to put by his statue. I find it strange in this day and age that he still inspires so much of a cult following, but that’s just my outsider’s perspective! I kind of think his body must be wax or something but Jack says it’s definitely “real”, even if real means so many preservatives of various kinds over the years that it’s not really real anymore.

The boys also became their own tourist attraction. They plopped down in the middle of the square with their cousin Ming Ming to eat chocolate muffins. He finished and got up and shortly after I looked over and saw a lady squatting down and asking if she could take a picture. We agreed and when she was done two more ladies had appeared to take their picture. This wasn’t the first time that had happened – they were also photographed eating lamb kebabs on Wangfuging.

Poor Ming Ming was sickly most of the time and had a fever added to his cough by the time they left. Jack spent a few hours and some money with them at the hospital – wasn’t much help, he wasn’t really that sickly and they just gave him the same medicine I had already offered, but I guess his mama felt better.

Besides that we’ve just been saying goodbyes (Fred, Dawn & Daniel and Michael) and in some cases (Rob) hellos and goodbyes together. We took the boys for one last romp at the so-called amusement park at the park down the road. They happily jumped on the trampoline and cavorted in the balls and went up and down slides for a couple hours. Even though we don’t have anything quite like that back home, I will still be happy to get back to the land of free and plentiful playgrounds – such thing just barely exists for kids here.

So tomorrow is the big day we head for Chongqing. Fortunately I realized a couple nights ago that our ticket was for the 6^th which was in fact Sunday rather than Saturday. Was nice to have an extra day to prepare but of course we are still behind in that department and will no doubt be frantic in the morning! After checking out and getting back whatever we can of our deposit, we will head to Vincent’s to drop off a couple suitcases of things we don’t need now for safekeeping. We’ll eat lunch there then head to the station. Am very curious to see how this soft sleeper will be and praying we may get enormously lucky and not have a full compartment, but kind of doubtful on that department.

The Cousins Descend

The cousins have descended. And despite the small space and her frequent instruction to me on the correct way to do things or raise my kids, it’s been good. The boys love their cousins, for some reason especially the 10-year-old girl. She reminds me a bit of Katie back in Athens – pretty, smart and mature for her age. They do like the 4-year-old boy too though I guess he’s not quite “big kid” enough to be as much fun and he’s could use a bit more discipline (but then again mine probably could too!). Still I am reminded how much humor and play is universal and cross-culture.

It does get a bit crazy here though – they took to throwing blocks at Hong Ting, the girl, who seemed to think it was funny and despite my constant telling them to stop, their mama was laughing too. Finally during one such session yesterday when I wasn’t paying attention she apparently got hit and was crying. I didn’t even notice she was crying, just thought she was hiding from the barrage. Her brother claimed it was our two who did it and Jack started to get angry at them, but I told him not to blame them since they were encouraging it and there wasn’t much I could do to stop it if I didn’t have their mama’s support. Anyway, everyone is good friends again today. They went by themselves today to the Great Wall, returning hot and exhausted but with tales (and pictures) of fat foreigners, who were horrified when the boy smashed a butterfly. I have to say I would have been too.

And if one more person tells me the boys shouldn’t be wearing a diaper even to sleep at 3 years old, I just might punch them. Chinese people have very standardized and mechanical views of child rearing. I’ve been really pleased at their quick success at going diaper-less during the day and know we should work on sleeping soon (though they both went pee-less during nap today when I promised them suckers in return!), but I really am not worried about that. The constant advice I am given is starting to wear on me, probably because Jack’s cousin is here. The first thing when she arrived was to say how skinny and sick they were. We assured her they were not sick at all. Meanwhile her son who snacks all day and only drinks sweet drinks has actually been sick. The other thing everyone says is you have to chase them to get them to eat if that’s what it takes. I strongly disagree on this matter, try to explain that kids won’t starve themselves and the most important is that what they eat is healthy. But I have had to relent to let Jack feed them in front of the tv to make sure they eat as much as he thinks they should even though I disagree with that.

Meanwhile, we squeezed in a trip to Daxing. It was nice if a bit disconcerting as it took me quite some time to orient myself and recognize everything – partly because so much has changed. It wasn’t terribly exciting for the boys but they still kept the lunch party entertained – Isaac pulling his handwipe magically out of his shirt again and again with squeals of laughter, Ethan crawling under the table and both of them twirling the big lazy susan around after placing some object on it. We saw Gilda, another old student of Pamela’s, and Leonard too who surprisingly but happily (he is kind of shy and not very attractive though smart and funny) married a lovely lady who is more educated than and is due with their child in a few months. We were mostly at their house when not lunching. Also Xiao Hong of course, who hasn’t changed a wee bit. I caught only a brief glimpse of my old apartment and the BIGC.

We leave on Saturday for Chongqing. Tickets were getting hard to come by, so we had to delay a day longer than we planned. Jack went to the ticket office at 7 pm when they started selling the next available train and reserved us two soft berths – that means first class beds. The compartments have doors and air conditioning and other amenities we will no doubt discover. We will have to share with two other people so I hope the boys are on good behavior and that the compartment-mates are not too annoying either! I’m kind of exhausted already thinking about spending the next few weeks on the road and with various family but hopefully it’ll be good and it’s definitely nice to be on the downward trend toward going home.