Allergic to the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, and Other Tourist Attractions

by Lenore Look

  She felt my forehead. “No fever,” she said.

  But my mom knows you don’t need a fever to be sick. And when I’m sick, a ladies’ room is the best place to keep an eye on me, just in case.

  So we got in line. (There’s always a line to use the nicer restroom.)

  Then we went in. The three of us squeezed into one stall.

  What???!!!

  This was no ladies’ room.

  This was another pit toilet!!!

  With the same powerful sucking action!

  My mom said I only needed a lesson in how to use it.

  “Just squat,” she said.

  Then my mom was tugging and pulling me over it, and I was tugging and pulling back. If I had known this was going to happen, I would have stayed in the men’s room!

  Well, this explained a lot of things … such as how they made eunuchs back in the old days. If you don’t know what a eunuch is, I’m not going to tell you. Calvin said tens of thousands of them used to work in the Forbidden City. And they were not happy dudes, you can count on that.

  “IAMNOTUSINGAFLUSHINGPITTOILETAREYOUCRAZY???!!!”

  I screamed at the top of my lungs.

  And if you think that it was a silent scream on account of I was all freaked out by the pit toilets, you’d be wrong. It was the loudest scream in the Forbidden City in the history of China ever, next to the eunuchs’.

  no one said anything about starting over in the Forbidden City after that. We were back in the car before I knew it, and everyone had a special souvenir from the gift shop but me.

  Anibelly carried a new coin purse.

  Bean Sprout had bought a little fan with—yikes!—a dragon on it.

  Katie wore a small jade good-luck charm.

  Aiyi had a scarf for my mom. It was very pretty. It made her look better after spending the morning in the toilet with me.

  But all I had was a sore throat.

  Worse, my PDK was still empty.

  “You should have a T-shirt that says ‘All I Saw in the Forbidden City Was the Toilet,’ ” Calvin said. He was wearing a new T-shirt that said “I Climbed the Great Wall.”

  “Well, you didn’t climb the Great Wall,” I said.

  “I didn’t see much of the Forbidden City either, thanks to you,” Calvin said. “But I really wanted this shirt anyway.”

  “It looks good,” I said.

  “Thanks,” said Calvin.

  I was glad I had a good word for Calvin. Usually, I don’t have any good words for him on account of he’s always kicking my butt and not letting me touch his things. But he hasn’t kicked my butt since we left home. He’s been reading his book instead, and looking like he’s on a field trip. “You’re a good tourist,” I added. I could hardly believe that I had a second good word for him! It was not normal.

  And Calvin knew it.

  Oops.

  Calvin gave me the eye.

  Then he gave me the other eye.

  I hate it when he does that.

  Calvin can read my mind. It’s one of his talents.

  And the problem with that was that I was thinking about you-know-what-I-didn’t-tell-my-dad.

  “What did you do?” Calvin asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Why do you look so guilty, then?” he asked.

  All eyes turned to me.

  Gulp.

  “AlvinAlvin!” Bean Sprout burst into song. “You better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout, I’m telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town!”

  “He sees you when you’re sleeping,” Anibelly chimed in. “He knows when you’re awake.”

  “He knows if you’ve been bad or good,” they both sang, “so be good for goodness’ sake!”

  Ugggggggh. It’s the creepiest Christmas song ever!

  Worse, the phone rang and it was my dad.

  “Are you sure?” my mom said.

  “CrackCrackCrackSsssSsssSss,” said my dad.

  My mom looked worried.

  “SsssSssssSsssClakClakClak,” my dad said.

  My mom looked worrieder.

  Then she hung up.

  It was not good news.

  There was no passport at the apartment. So my dad and Uncle Jonathan were heading to the embassy.

  No passport? Did they check the closet? Maybe I had dropped it in the back of the closet when …

  I felt sick again.

  Very, very sick.

  “Mom,” Anibelly said. “Alvin doesn’t look so good!”

  “Oh, darling,” my mom said. “When your dad’s not having a good day, you don’t have one either, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “We should get some lunch in you,” Aiyi said. “You’ll feel much better after lunch.”

  Then she said some Chinese words to Pan, and soon our minivan stopped and everyone jumped out, even Pan. He did not drive off. Instead, he walked into the restaurant with us. Aiyi had invited him to join us for lunch.

  “It’s important to feed and take care of the people who help you,” Aiyi said. “Pan either eats with us, or if there’s a bunch of drivers around, like there was at the Great Wall, he’ll prefer to sit at the drivers’ table.”

  Calvin and I sat up as straight as chopsticks. Being a Chinese driver sounded better and better!

  “We’re very lucky to have good help,” Aiyi said. “They give up being with their own families to be with ours.”

  My mom nodded. She knows what it’s like to have good help too, on account of she has me and Calvin. We’re gentlemen. We like to do all the work. And soon we’ll be able to drive her around!

  “Speaking of help,” Aiyi continued, “when you have laundry, just set it out on a chair and our maid will take care of it for you.”

  “Thank you,” my mom said. “That would be great.”

  Then our lunch came out.

  Peeking duck. It’s a Beijing specialty. A special duck chef comes to your table to put on a show for you. After that, you put stuff on a pancake, roll it up and eat it. But if you can’t wait for the show, you can eat Peeking duck anyway.

  It was very yummy! Aiyi had ordered many other dishes too. Tofu. Dumplings. Soup. Fish. Shrimp. Noodles. Greens. Rolls. Rice. Everything!

  It looked super-duper!

  It smelled super-duper!

  I could have eaten all of it, just like that! I was so hungry!!!

  Lucky for me, I didn’t.

  I caught myself just in the nick of time.

  When you’re in China, you don’t just dig in. You have to use your chopsticks and put something on your neighbor’s plate first. You wait until everyone has something. Then you eat.

  Aiyi served my mom and Pan first. Then she poured us tea.

  I already knew this on account of that’s how we do it in Concord too. My gunggung and pohpoh taught me.

  The other thing I knew was not to let your neighbor’s teacup get empty. When someone has sipped their tea, pour more for them!

  So I did.

  I filled Katie’s cup. She was mad at me earlier, but it’s hard to stay mad at someone who pours you tea.

  Then I filled my mom’s cup. She smiled and tapped the table, which gave me the idea that pouring my dad some tea later might be a good way to soften the blow coming to me. It might even work better than crying.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” my mom said.

  The more tea I poured, the better I felt!

  I felt good enough even to fill Calvin’s cup, which normally I wouldn’t do.

  Calvin tapped the table.

  He was suspicious of me earlier, and he was still suspicious of me now. I could see it in his eyes. He was watching me very carefully.

  Gulp.

  Making people smile in China is easy. All you need is a pot of tea. But getting your brother to stop reading your mind is not so easy.

  And the problem with that was I forgot to stop pouring his tea. I was too busy watching him watch me.

  “Whoaaaaa
!” Calvin cried. “Whoaaaaaaaaa!”

  He jumped away from the table, which should have been the end of that. But Calvin likes to tuck the tablecloth into his shirt like a napkin so that he doesn’t get crumbs in his lap. So the tablecloth set sail with him. SWOOOOOSH!

  Just then a man wearing a white surgical mask rolled a little cart up to our table. I think he was the special chef that Aiyi had told us about. On his cart was a dead duck.

  “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!” Anibelly shrieked.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaack!” Bean Sprout screamed.

  CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG!!!

  CLINKCLINKCLINKCLINK!!!!

  CRRRAAAAASH!

  “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!” the flounder cried.

  I dropped my teapot.

  CLUNK!

  THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!!!

  Everything happened all at once. And I screamed, “A real duck? With eyes? And a heart that beats? I thought we were only eating our duck paintings!!!”

  I had been doing so well with my Chinese manners, but I wasn’t doing so well anymore.

  if you think that I was having a horrible vacation, wait till you hear what happened next.

  For the first time in my life, I rode the elevator. All the way up to the thirty-second-floor-minus-four-bad-luck-floors, and I dashed into the closet before anyone could see where I was going. I had to find my dad’s passport, fast!

  But when I got to the closet, it was very clean and tidy, not like it was the night before, when I’d left everything in a heap on the floor. It was very strange.

  “Whence goeth mine bawbling, flea-infested, fusty trimmings?” I said.

  I turned around.

  I froze.

  There on my bed, where the China Art Museum used to be, was a stack of all my clothes, pressed and folded. Like new. I’ve never seen my clothes look so nice!

  Did the maid do my laundry???!!!

  What happened to my dad’s passport???

  I tore through my clothes.

  T-shirts!

  Pants!

  Socks!

  Underwear!

  I unzipped zippers.

  I undid buttons.

  I ripped through Velcro.

  Nothing.

  Then something. Fell. Out.

  From one of my pukiest pantaloon pockets, out came—ZOUNDS!—a little blue ball.

  Oops.

  This was not what I was looking for.

  What am I going to do with this???!!!

  Oh, I was going to be SOOOO busted.

  Quickly, I stuffed the ball into a different pocket.

  Then I ran out to the living room, where everyone was listening to my dad tell about his horrible day.

  “We were in line for five hours,” my dad said, “before I found out I needed a police report that said I’d lost my passport.”

  “And he needed new color passport photos too,” Uncle Jonathan added.

  “And a copy of my old passport,” my dad said. “I didn’t have any of that.”

  “What are you going to do?” my mom asked.

  “I’ll have to try again tomorrow,” my dad sighed.

  “Look on the bright side,” my mom said. “Losing your passport is better than losing one of our kids somewhere.”

  All the grown-ups nodded and chuckled.

  “Most days, I would agree,” my dad said, giving me a strong pat on the back. “Right, son?”

  Gulp.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I blinked.

  I ran back into our room.

  I turned out the light.

  I slipped under the covers.

  And closed my eyes.

  We had just gotten back from dinner and it wasn’t quite bedtime yet, but it was bedtime for me.

  Usually, I’m the last one to go to sleep on account of I need to keep an eye on things. But not tonight. The day had gone from bad to worse. So I had to end the day before it ended me.

  In the dark, I listened to the windy breath of the air-purifying machine.

  I heard the voices of my family coming from the living room.

  Everyone was still visiting and having a good time.

  My dad was now making jokes about his wasted day.

  My mom was laughing about our tug-of-war in the ladies’ room.

  Calvin was reading something from his book. (Probably to Katie.)

  And I could hear Anibelly and Bean Sprout singing another Christmas carol. “Deck the Wall with boughs of rice cakes, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!”

  That’s the thing about my family. They could have a really rotten day, and the next thing you know, they’re laughing about it and rolling up rice balls in seaweed and dipping stuff in soy sauce and listening to classical music like Madonna.

  Not me.

  A tear leaked out of my eye.

  I blinked.

  Then another tear leaked out of my other eye.

  I blinked at the dark sky outside my window, but nothing blinked back. No moon. No stars. Nothing.

  Nothing in China is like anything in Concord.

  The lines are long.

  The toilets are deadly.

  Everything is HUGE, like it’s built for giants.

  Even Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas.

  The Santas are skinny.

  The ornaments are scary.

  Worse, I put someone’s wish back on the tree.

  Gulp.

  More tears fell out of my eyes.

  I was having the worst vacation of my life.

  “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I cried.

  Then I turned over and cried myself to sleep.

  when you’re traveling overseas and things don’t go as planned, you should have a Plan B, my dad says. My dad is really organized. He has a plan for everything.

  His Plan B was to go back to the embassy.

  And my mom and Aiyi’s plan was to take everyone shopping. No more sightseeing until the “guys can join us,” they said.

  But what happens when your Plan B still doesn’t go as planned?

  I had stomach cramps and needed to use the bathroom in a bad way.

  “There’s a Chinese medicine clinic not too far from here,” Aiyi said. “They’ll have just the cure for that.”

  So my dad needed a Plan B to his Plan B, which was to take me to the doctor.

  My mom bundled me up. And my dad carried me down twenty-eight flights of stairs, on account of an elevator is still an elevator when you’re sick, and into a waiting cab.

  I love being with my dad.

  “The last thing you want to do overseas is get arrested,” my dad said, putting his arm around me in the warm cab. “That’s the first rule of traveling abroad. Obey the laws of the country you’re in. Follow their rules. Respect their customs. Don’t get arrested.”

  I nodded.

  I love listening to my dad. He has a lot to say. He knows a lot about getting along with people and staying out of trouble. And he’s full of good advice.

  “And the second rule is, don’t get sick,” my dad said. “Medical treatments differ wherever you go. Sometimes the remedy is worse than the disease. You never know. It’s best to avoid it if you can.”

  But sometimes you can’t.

  And that’s when you end up at the Chinese medicine clinic.

  The doctor was in.

  She was sitting at a desk talking to a patient. Other patients were standing around and leaning close to hear what the doctor had to say. As soon as we walked in, the doctor stopped.

  “How old is he?” she asked my dad.

  “Seven and a half,” my dad said.

  The doctor said something in Chinese to the patient at her desk. The patient got up, and the doctor waved to my dad to sit down with me in his lap. It was my turn, just like that!

  “Children first.” The doctor winked at me.

  My dad explained that my tummy was sick.

  “Diarrhea?” the doctor asked.

  Everyone leaned in closer.
<
br />   How embarrassing! I had to tell the doctor about my troubles in front of everyone.

  “How many times?” the doctor asked.

  I wanted to disappear!

  No one moved. No one even breathed, until I held up ten fingers—and flashed them.

  Then everyone was talking all at once. It sounded like they all had something to say about how to cure you-know-what!

  The doctor wrote my answers down in Chinese.

  Then she took my pulse for a long, long time.

  Finally, she said my pulse told her that I was scared of many things. “Be brave,” she said. “Be happy. When you’re scared, you will get sick.” As for my tummy, she told me, “Eat only hot or warm food.”

  Everyone in the room nodded.

  Then the doctor asked my dad a bunch of questions and took his pulse too.

  “Stress,” she said to my dad. “Too much vacation.”

  The other patients had a lot to say about that too. Going to the doctor in China is a spectator sport with audience participation!

  At last, the doctor took us into the next room, where a few patients were lying on beds, resting quietly. The doctor pointed to two empty beds side by side. I lay down on one, and my dad lay down on the other.

  The good news about Chinese medicine, my pohpoh and gunggung had told me, is that everything is gentle and healing to your body. For thousands of years, the Chinese have cured themselves using plants and acupuncture.

  The bad news is, medicine is medicine.

  And I’m generally allergic to stuff like that.

  “What’s acupuncture?” I asked my dad.

  But before my dad could explain, he had turned into—gasp!—a human pincushion!

  The doctor had stuck him with needles all over!

  My poor dad!

  Then the doctor turned to me.

  “Relax,” the doctor said. “Close your eyes.”

  Before I knew it, I was a human pincushion too! YIKES!!! Then the doctor told us to rest, and left the room.

  “Dad?” I said. I dared not move a picometer.

  “Son,” my dad said. He dared not move a femtometer.