Sand Gets in Your Eyes: Spring in Beijing

Spring is windy and stormy in much of the world. But in Beijing it brings with it the added curse of sand. A common news topic this time of year is tree planting – trying to stop the evil Gobi desert from sending its sand our way. Recently, we looked out our window and saw our English-Polish neighbor kids digging a hole to plant trees, while hotel staff looked on.

I assumed this was hotel sand-fighting propaganda, but after we ventured outside we discovered the neighbor boys had themselves requested and chosen these trees – one cherry blossom and one peach. The kids all had fun digging and pouring water. And we big people all had fun toasting it with neighbor Kasha’s cherry brandy.

But the belief the trees were a sort of symbolic sand-fighting effort at all was all my assumption on first glance out the window. Flipping through hotel channels soon after, my attention was arrested by a photo on the hotel channel. It was us and the neighbors in full digging mode.  Turns out the hotel is promoting the act as planting “memorial trees” for “departed foreign experts”, presumably referring to the man who dug up his own trees on moving.

Tiger Dad + Kitten Mom = Flexible Cat Kids?

Surviving - and thriving - in Chinese schools

I knew my 5-year-old twins would start speaking Chinese if we threw them into a Chinese school. But still somehow I’ve been surprised to see it happen. Being a worrying, coddling mother I wondered what traumas they might suffer along the way.  Their father, more of a “stop crying and just do it” sort, wanted them to be happy but knew they’d survive.

And they did complain at the kindergarten (more equivalent to a US preschool) in Beijing where we first enrolled them. They complained that the teachers yelled, and they couldn’t tell me what they were doing all 8 or 9 hours they were at the school everyday.  Still, their Chinese progressed and instead of complaining that they couldn't understand the teachers or talk to their friends, they started coming home telling me about conversations they had in Chinese.

Example of a Chinese textbook for 5 year olds

Still we were concerned they were just playing all day and knew that at nearly 6 years old, they were up to more challenge than that, in any language. Finally through chance, we learned of another school with smaller classes, a more educational focus, and better yet – more than half the price! On the last day at the old school, Isaac told his teacher in Chinese he was “going to university” (which translates literally to “big school” in Chinese).

And then, my boys who previously had to be coaxed and coerced and bribed (Isaac more than his twin Ethan) to do homework at night, suddenly last weekend, just two days after starting the new school, couldn’t stop doing it. They just wanted to write characters all night, while their dinner went cold. And then, at school the next day, Isaac raised his hand to answer a question and boldly went to the front of the class to answer. Shyer Ethan soon followed suit.

Suddenly, for now, I feel better about the prospect of throwing them in competitive primary school.

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.