What is 36 degrees Celsius in Fahrenheit?

Hot.  It got to 97 degrees F yesterday in Beijing.

We went to the Yonghegong Lama Temple and met our friends and had lunch at a vegetarian buffet restaurant favored by Tibetan monks.   The kids did okay considering it was so hot and also incense-smoky at the Temple.  They all bought prayer flags and fans across the street and put the latter to good use.

Yonghegong Temple

and then onto Jingshan Park.  The temple at the top of this human-made hill, the highest point in BJ, is lined up such that looking South one sees the Forbidden City

 

and looking North one sees the Drum Tower.  Lined up beyond is the Bell Tower.  There's a compass painted on the terrace indicating North.

The view of Beijing from here is spectacular and one can see and feel the ancient alongside the brand, brand new.  Forbidden city rooftops and shiny highrises.  This is Beijing to me.  The Maserati on the street in the same block as the hunched over guy pedaling his bike ducked down under his load of recyclable flats of cardboard.  Beijing 2012.

Out the West gate leads to Beihai Park with a huge willow-lined lake.  We rode a long tailed boat on a small portion of the lake, cooling off a little and watching the storm clouds gather.

We were nearly an hour away from home with traffic and it took just about that long to even catch a taxi so by the time we got back to our apartment for pizza and slumber party, the girls and I were totally exhausted and cranky.   After pizza the girls were raring to go and had a great, late, slumber party.  Unfortunately, they also got up at 6 after going to sleep close to 10.   The parents, our friends, came to collect them this morning and  after setting up some booby traps and pranks in my bedroom, inviting us in for a snack of rice, mixed with chocolate, water and peanuts and served with a knife, they took off to explore Chaoyang Park a bit more.   We're having some quiet blogging/reading/sewing time before heading over there ourselves for a bit more 90-something degree Beijing fun.            

The Yellow Sea

I need to live by the sea.   Maybe even the Yellow Sea.

Qingdao, Shandong, China is a coastal city of over 8 million, situated on the Yellow Sea opposite Korea.  Qingdao is also spelled Tsingtao and is the home of a beer maker of the same name.
Inhabited by humans for 6000 years,  Qingdao was taken by Germany from 1898 to 1914.  There remain many areas of German architecture, churches and other colonial buildings.  I love that style.  (Despite the history, much like the US Southern plantation buildings with their horrible histories, the architecture remains and is lovely.   The antidote, I think, is having Chinese people here now own those German buildings, like when people of color own the plantation homes.)

We spent last weekend there with our friends from San Francisco whose two kids are also in MI in SF. They, like several SF MI families, are spending most of the Summer in China, traveling and staying put, touring and going it alone.  The kids are having varying degrees of practice seemingly owing more to the kids' personalities rather than the modes of travel.  Our two friends jumped in with both feet.  Neither parent speaks Chinese and both kids took over the translation.  They are just post third grade, are, like LiLi, 9 years old, and are fluent speakers who seem to feel comfortable and effortless in the language.  Sure, there are times when, like LiLi, they go on strike and say, "I don't know how to say that," when they do.  And when motivated, say by ordering ice cream, they suddenly find a fluency none of us knew they had.  Plus, now that I can understand a bit myself, I can hear when they're straying off course, saying things we grownups didn't ask them to say.

We took the bullet train from BJ's South Station, a huge well organized station rivaling many airports.  We made our ways to the station from different parts of BJ and hooked up via cell phone once there.  It's advisable to have a meeting spot since the station is so huge but we figured with both families wired we'd work it out.

We called our friends once we got to the drop off entrance and they'd gone ahead to a FF restaurant looking for coffee.  McDonald's is behind and above a Chinese noodle house so the signs that seem to be taking one to McD appear to wind up a the noodle house.  It's a bit disconcerting but also a relief:  McD serves noodles in BJ!   But no, actually, you keep walking and go up a set of stairs and there you are, golden arches.  LiLi has never set foot in a Mcdonalds at home and has been heard to say, loudly, "I don't like McDonald's or Burger King, yuck."  I know the time will come when she's out with friends and it will happen, but I didn't figure on it happening in Beijing, China.  Funny thing, our friends don't ever go to Mcdonald's at home either, and were shocked to find themselves there too.  Still, it was a good meeting place since we could all sit down together.

My Beijing mom's group had advised we get first class train tickets since they're not that much more than coach and are much more comfortable.  Plus, the sets of two seats swivel so it's possible to have four seats facing each other.  In China, with things changing on a dime as they do, one can plan for, for example,  a five hour ride in first class, soft sleeper seats in a train with a dining car, and wind up in 3rd class hard seat, smoking seats in a train with a squat toilet and no dining car... for nine hours, so we weren't sure how it would all work out.  Alas, the seats and train were as we thought.  The ride to the coast was smooth, bullet fast, and lovely.  The terrain is flat and farmed, with loads and loads of trees planted in hedgerows and any available space as a result of China's aggressive reforestation policies.  The farms may still be family owned, and do still include the tiny little mounds mid-field that are the family's dead, buried according to Feng Shui principles, in the best possible spots.  I love those little tombs in the middle of ripening crops.  So safe, so rich, so obvious a reminder of impermanence.

We got to Qingdao and enjoyed the historic (partially) train station and taxi-ed to our gorgeous hotel, Sea View Garden Hotel.  We stayed in room that did, in fact, have sea views, walked along the sea shore, bought and flew kites at May 4th square,

went to sandy beach #2, had jiaozi (dumplings) at a hole in the wall, took a boat ride around the harbor, went to the Underwater World aquarium, and drank a lot of Tsingtao beer.  I don't usually drink, and really not in China, but that beer was very yummy and quite a treat.  You can even get it cold in Qingdao.  Cold beer.  Wow.

The air in Qingdao was so so clean.  The sea breeze was renewing.  The sun felt good.  There is something about being on the coast, any coast, that just feels better.  Less crowded; less congested; less claustrophobic.

I'd rather live on the sea.  Maybe the Pacific.  Maybe the other side of the Pacific.
Or maybe the Yellow Sea.

The Honeymoon is Over

I have a phone full of photos to download and blog about but never seem to find the time.  It's been a month since I last wrote and over four months since we arrived in Beijing.   Since my long history is that 3-4 months tends to be the honeymoon period (jobs, moves, houses, relationships), I'm checking in at this phase:  The Honeymoon is Over Phase

The big things:

1.  School.  LiLi's school is imperfect.  The Chinese side is the national curriculum crammed into half a day.  The teachers are, naturally, native M speakers.  Some of them have not entirely left behind the motivation-by-shaming they were likely exposed to as kids.  Perhaps even trained for.  This doesn't sit well in a lovely small sweet nurturing environment.  Nor does it sit well with me.  Parents are upset and complaining.  We have yet to see what the admin will do about it.  LiLi's Chinese is good but her confidence is failing as is her English.  I'm torn between just plopping her into the local school like another family from our SF MI school did.  What the heck.  If she's going to have to deal with the shaming, why not have her get the full time CN.  I'm torn between that and, on the worst days, packing our bags.  This is hard.  Much of parenting is hard and I've been super fortunate to have a relatively easy and fun kid  to parent.  But there are still these phases that feel like crossroads and feel like there is a "right" answer and I need to figure out what it is.  Complicating matters is that tuition went up and I just paid the huge huge tuition for the fall semester.   Again, maybe the local school?

2.  Work.  I still love my job and the work but some of the other foreign attorneys are on my nerves.  I remain impressed with the CN lawyers.  But I'm happy I never shared this blog site with work!  Hahaha.  I need to renegotiate my contract and figure out how much longer to stay, to commit to, here.  There is a lot of work to be done, it is great fun doing it, and I've gotten used to the maddening "things change on a dime" aspects of it all.  Things keep happening about which my boss, who is over a decade my junior, says, "I can't wait to see how you write this up in your memoirs."  I'm not quite old enough to be thinking about memoirs but it's also true that some of this stuff is pretty noteworthy.  Funny and weird and hard and sad and absurd and funny.

3.  Home.  Well, what does that even mean?  Someone asked me yesterday, shocked, that LiLi still thinks of San Francisco as "home."  There are so many layers to what constitutes "home" and it is very hard to live where you're not known.  I was so comfortable with being known, for years and years on a professional level, on friendship level by folks I've known for two decades, by my neighbors in my sweet SF 'hood, as a mom active at school, and in other arenas.   And I put myself in a place where I am not known at all.  I'm liking that part in a way, but it is also exhausting.

Then there is the home that means my house.   I had a lovely Sabbatical-ing couple in my house in SF but they're done at the end of this month.   I was fairly cavalier about leaving in January, packing our stuff but leaving my rugs, antiques and art.  For some reason I felt that it would work out.  This time feels less that way and I'm wishing I had moved it all into long term storage.  I have one gigantic painting that needs some sort of climate controlled storage that I got when I was much younger and darker.  It's an intense painting and I am not even sure I like it anymore.  Then there's all this other stuff that I love and when I look at pictures of my house I miss.  Oddly, I don't want it here though.  I talk to people all the time who move to BJ with shipping containers of stuff and I really don't want that. Which leads me to....

4.  Apartment.  We still like our BJ apartment but I wish I'd gone for the smaller unit with 2 BR and a better view.  We almost never use the third bedroom which has a huge desk (from a South African woman who was moving home) and sofabed (from that CN-brit couple who have actually slept on it here when they got back from Cambodia).  I envisioned working long nights in that room but I almost always work with my laptop in my bed instead.   Also, despite that the original stated plan (not sure I ever believed it) was to only stay 6 months, in month five I continue to buy furniture.  We just bought a second sofa bed, great Ikea bright red, from a mom from Tajikistan (or one of the other post-Soviets) who is moving to India, and another air filtering machine.   At this point we own furniture previously owned by folks from:  UK; South Africa; China; Tajikistan; Denmark; Brazil and others.   Our apt still has the feel of an open and not very well-furnished place, but it suits us.  If we were going to stay here longer I'd want to stay in this complex for its proximity the the park, shops, restaurants, but I'd want to be in the penthouse (if I, say, won the lottery or something.)

5.  Friends.  LiLi has a passel of buddies and even had her first slumber party last weekend.  I'm the one who is missing having friends.  I feel lonely and though I have lots of warm acquaintance relationships like in my CN class and at work, it's not the same as having someone to talk with who has known you for years and years, whom you can share the parenting worries like from my #1 here, relationship woes, and that kind of thing.  It's also true that most adults who are living the ex-pat life feel this way, and in a way we have each other.   I did go out in the evening over the weekend with a woman who is a contemporary, also CN-AM and roughly my age, at least in the same time zone, also divorced, etc.  She's not drinking so instead of drinks and dinner we had foot massage and dinner.  That was awesome and fun.  And has some potential.  I'm involved with a women's professional networking group too and have some potentials there.

Also, a set of friends from SF are visiting and we spend Sunday with them.  It was so comfortable and fun and reminds me how much I miss these friends in particular and just fitting comfortably in general.  We're going to Qingdao w this family via bullet train this weekend so it'll be a great break from BJ.

6.  Language.  My own acquisition of CN has gone much more slowly that LiLi's.  My class is two mornings a week for two hours and I've missed a handful because of work obligations.   But the whole set up is imperfect since I learn maybe 20 or so new words and sentences a lesson but then immediately go to work and begin working, reading, writing, meeting, etc so the new words just fly out of my head. Or maybe my hard drive is full and I need an upgrade.

I continue to make mistakes like, for example, we took our visiting friends out for Peking Duck.  Last time we ordered two plates of duck and this time we had a larger group so I meant to order three.  But instead of three "plates" of duck, I actually ordered three whole ducks.  I became alarmed when they brought the wrappers and sauces to the table and then the plates of duck started to arrive and arrive and arrive.  One of the moms speaks CN and asked the waitress why she didn't tell me my mistake, and the poor waitress said she tried.  In any case it was delicious and even still not very expensive.  And we've enjoyed having leftover duck with our Ayi, who has made more wrappers from scratch.

But obviously I need help with the language.  I'm planning to renegotiate my work contract to take an intensive language study course for a few weeks over the summer.  I feel pretty stuck and like I am not communicating but in a taxi with a summer intern yesterday, the woman said I was speaking CN and the driver who was understanding me.   So, perhaps there is some hope for me.

7.  This City.  I have to say that I still love BJ and China so I can't really say the honeymoon is totally over.  The bad air, the spitting, pushing,  and the dog-eat-doggedness are still terrible and some days I'm just sick of it all.  But the level of energy and excitement, the sense of a rumbling underground, the rapidity of change, the anything-is-possible, those things are addictive and I'm not done experiencing those things just yet.  Not yet.  :  )

Toggle switch: Summer

It seems like it was just snowing.  We were wearing scarves every day.  Checking to make sure my gloves were in my bag.  Insisting that LiLi wear pants or tights.   Still shivery cold at night.

But then-- toggle switch click:  SUMMER.

Hot.  32 degrees C. (91 F) on Friday.   What?  

Street produce

When we were kids I can remember my folks buying sugar cane like this on the streets of Hong Kong.  It's such a kid treat.  Chew it and suck out the sugarwater, spitting out the pulp.  Like a giant chewable lollipop.  The kids had coconuts from earlier at the park and wanted the sugarcane man to chop open the coconuts so they could eat the flesh.  He didn't want to risk his blade though so they continued to carry those coconuts around until we got home and asked the apartment security guard who also declined.

A bit farther on the same street we ran into a horse drawn produce cart.  That gorgeous old horse needed a good hosing down, all mud-matted.  Who wouldn't be crotchety when born into that karma.

Back at the market I saw these spinning crepe-pancake- like things called Jianbing being made.  The man pours very thin batter on the rapidly spinning circular griddle and uses a wooden hoe-like tool to fold it and spread it, fold it and spread it.  When it is finally cooked through and thinned one last time, he cracks and egg over it, puts it on the counter and adds green onion and sauce.   Some sellers do the same thing by hand on their street vendor carts without the spinning hot flat.  Pretty impressive and yummy too.

Local shopping

Our local shopping area includes a mini-version of the Silk market with several one story buildings of interior stalls each with individual merchants.  One building has mostly clothing, another is "small things" that include clocks and dishes and mops.  Another: fish.  Another:  meat.  Still another:  produce and tofu.  All the buildings are together on the interior of a city block, behind the commercial and residential buildings at streetside.  You have to know they are there or follow someone walking determinedly up an alley.  Or get curious by someone else walking from behind the buildings carrying bags of long green vegetables.  

Huge slabs of tofu and pickled veges.  Stinky tofu too.  

Fabulous mushrooms and dried fungi; hot hot chilis

Rambutan--peel and eat

Durian:  The King of Fruits.  The smell is that of rotting flesh.  SE China hotels used to have those circle slash signs for cigarettes:  No Smoking.  And also circle/slash:  No Durian.  

Mangosteen:  The Queen of Fruits.  (And also the name of a great little Vietnamese restaurant in Little Saigon San Francisco.  We even went there pre-Symphony once.  Oh I miss the symphony, the ballet....)

Sad crab.

Qingming Day

This Monday through Wednesday were the Qingming Festival days with Wednesday being the actual tomb-sweeping day.  Millions of folks traveled to their parents and grandparents grave sites to clear weeds and honor their dead.  It is an ancient holiday that has once again become officially recognized.  Offices and schools are closed, though some people work the Saturday and Sunday before to earn the days off.  Our Ayi took off Sat-Wed to visit her parents and in-laws tombs in nearby towns.

I thought how I'd love that ritual:  to travel to my father's gravesite, sit and feel the stillness there imagining I communicated with him.  I wonder how he'd feel that I am living in China.  I wonder if he would sense how profoundly different it is than when he lived his childhood here.  So so different and yet so the same.

Since my family's dead are buried in countries other than China, we spent the day in Cuandixia, a preserved ancient town a couple of hours West of Beijing.  While obviously staged to accept many many tourists, it was actually fairly quiet on Wednesday.  The homes perched up the terraced hillside seem largely intact with old entryways, stacked stone walls and open courtyards.  The first of a series of MI families from home is visiting and the six of us enjoyed exploring the open homes many of which have been converted to cafes and guest houses.

Even with three restless kids in tow the ancient village is peaceful.  One can feel the hundreds of years worn by these homes, sense the work of hewn timber, feel the hands that laid the stone.  What will each of us leave behind once we are the ones dead and buried?  Are our hands calloused with real physical work?  Will the fruits of our labor stand decade after decade, century after century?  Would the family who raised that beam on their proud front doorway know that 600 years later three nine year old girls would stand goofy and teasing, sneaking bunny ears on each other, posing for an Iphone photo?