Beijing Tai Tai

by Tania McCartney

  Despite the vomit, it was a nice introduction, our first night, and as we scaled the heights to our apartment, the view clean knocked our socks off. The night sky may have been hazy from filth but the coloured lights of the city’s buildings, surrounding us on all sides ... it was just breathtaking. As we twirled around the floor of our massive, open-plan living area, we marvelled and grinned. We were right in the middle of it all, like a pin in the middle of a pincushion of pins.

  With the kids bathed (in an effort to rid Riley of Eau de Wee-Wee and Spew) and straight to bed, Xiansheng and I settled down with a glass of wine, while resting our feet on ten unpacked suitcases. We had eyes only for the view.

  Three hours in and China was going okay. So far so good.

  First Full Day Overload

  It’s the little things...

  Things smell funny. Not in an unpleasant way, just a different way. And the strawberries taste like candy. The apples look different. The milk pongs. The bread crumbles upon contact after toasting (yes, they have ‘bread’!), and the yoghurt tastes like it did back home in 1982.

  It appears the Chinese actually enjoy sleeping on hardwood planks; our aching hips are screaming out for inner coils. There are no ceiling lights and not enough lamps in the apartment—we fumble around in a state of dim. Things break with frightening regularity. A parade of strangers turns up at the door and waltzes through our apartment almost hourly, fixing things, helping themselves to an unabashed eyeful of our private life. I mean, they stare. Things seem to take forever to get done and explanations are rarely forthcoming.

  Welcome to our first, scratchy day in the capital. Our comfort zone is being pressed and prodded already too soon.

  For all this, though, there are white slippers for our feet. And the teabags have that 1950s retro charm, and the loose tea—saints be praised—it overwhelms me. The green tea, the pu-erh, the barley tea, the jasmine, the rose, the chrysanthemum flowers that open like magical anemones in your teacup.

  Today we wandered Xin Yuan Li wet market, awash with more green leaves than the Amazon jungle. The tofu section had me stunned with the seemingly endless ways the humble soybean can be stretched, soaked, shredded and moulded. For less than a dollar, I took home an entire shopping bag of cherry tomatoes, bursting with red. For not much more, I secured my weight in cucumbers. And the lychees and cherries and guavas and mangoes ... too fragrant and pennywise to mention. The variety of mushrooms had me skipping for joy through the imaginary fields in my mind. It is a chef’s haven here—a foodie’s paradise, a pomelo-addict’s nirvana. It’s a fruit salad of scrumptiousness.

  We’ve only been here a day but have already learned that pu-erh tea makes you lose weight and bamboo extract soothes a lost voice. We have learned that drinking cold water is an assault on the body and warm water cleanses you through. We’re learning quickly that the Chinese live according to the seasons and that this seasonal living has its charm—it allows us to live within the rhythms of mother nature, to sample her finest at its best, straight from her earth rather than a simulated greenhouse with a chemical addiction. It also allows our bodies to become analogous with the air—the temperature, the time of year, and so with it, enjoy warm foods when we should, cooling foods when we must.

  Coming to live in China is a little bit like stepping back in time. Could it be possible that this step backwards will create a better future for our family?

  It’s an intriguing thought. We shall see.

  The Square

  It’s the big things...

  It only took two days to follow in the footsteps of scores of provincial Chinese tourists and haul ourselves around Tian’anmen—the world’s largest city-central square. This small action sent us hurtling towards a glimpse of stratospheric super-stardom. We now know, all four of us, what dodging the paparazzi in La La Land might be like.

  We were famous. We were trailed, pawed, revered, snapped and begged to be part of family photo shoots. Being wide-eyed and bushytailed, and typically friendly Australian laowai (foreigners), we said, ‘Of course!’ Big mistake. Photographic Group Number One paved the way for Group Number Two and Three. By Group Eight, we had to say, ‘No more photos, please!’ as a queue started forming around the Square.

  We should have charged money. The locals would have.

  Apparently, provincial people use photos with foreigners to wangle tourist visas for travel around or out of China. Urban myth or not, the aggression with which these people sought our photographic autograph was a little unnerving, as was the way dark-skinned, country bumpkin parents shoved their achingly shy toddlers forward for a photo op. Little darlings.

  Our very white-skinned, blonde-haired Ella was so freaked out by all this attention, she jumped into Riley’s stroller and pulled the hood down over her face. This did nothing to stop the Chinese from shoving their phones under her protective awning and snapping a point-blank photo of her face, or reaching in and wiping their grubby hands all over her cheeks. I was swatting them away like flies. Riley rode up high on Daddy’s shoulders to escape the pawing but they still grabbed at his legs like pagans revering the Madonna. A wailing Madonna in the form of a terrified little boy.

  Yes, Tian’anmen was a pretty full-on introduction to China for us. Not only were we foreign but it seems we were also the only people in Beijing to have a blonde girl in a hot pink dress jammed into a baby stroller, and a green-eyed two-year-old riding 7 feet high in the air with dangling legs so adorable that no one could resist a tug.

  The Chinese, God love’em, couldn’t help themselves. And the more the kids cried, the more adorable the locals found it, and the more snaphappy and pawing they became.

  It’s amazing how fast a crappy old stroller can go when you push it hard enough, because we pushed that thing across Tian’anmen like a Formula One race car. Scary that our admirers happily hotfooted after us, their little red flags flapping madly. It wasn’t until we were in the safety of a cab, with ruddy faces jamming smiles through the windows, that we finally escaped our provincial friends, waving and calling out to us long after we evaporated up Chang’an Jie.

  Mark my words, this experience will benchmark a whole new reality for our family.

  Food Glorious Food

  Beijingfan? We’re already hooked!

  Our very first Beijing restaurant experience was a culinary wonder. It was typical local fare in a large, very busy restaurant—always an indicator of good Beijingfan (local food). Four adults and two kids ate and ate and ate with much gusto. We supped like gluttons and we even drank beer (well, except the kids). So you can imagine the look on our faces when the bill was delivered, announcing the whopping total of 97 yuan. That’s about sixteen Australian dollars.

  We carried on like ecstatic maniacs for 25 minutes about this (much to our expat hosts’ eye-rolling), then we went home and slept and came back the next night. And the night after that. We love, love, love it. We love the oil, the salt, the dumpling wrappers, the plump minced pork, the herbs, the egg pancakes, the mushy rice porridge with shreds of savoury chicken—the whole shebang.

  This is not Chinese food! Not the Chinese food we once knew—the shiny, sticky, sesame-seeded stuff from the suburban Cantonese restaurants back home. Mandarin food is different. It’s like a whole new cuisine has slipped over on our tongues, and we’ve fallen ravenously in love.

  The al dente bounce of jiaozi (dumpling) dough on the teeth. The satisfying lump of hot fried bread studded with green onions and zinging with salt, passing into the gullet. The crunch of silky, wilted greens bathed in fresh garlic and a slip of oil. The chunky shards of cucumber with a sesame tang, tingling the centre of the tongue. The fizz of local Tsingtao beer on the lips. The curl of cigarette smoke in the nostrils and busy chatter of voices and natter of chopsticks in bowls (no forks here).

  I love it all. Yes, even the smoke, in a Parisian-café sort of way.

  And what I probably love more than anything is the kid thing. Our kids can do no wrong. Our kids ar
e still settling in; they’re disoriented and ratty. They whine, they bang their chopsticks on the bowls and stick them upright in their rice (both a terrible no-no—the former imitates beggars banging their bowl for money, the latter imitates incense offerings stuck into sand for the dead).

  Our kids won’t sit still like the perfect Chinese tots around us. They squiggle and squirm and hop on and off their seats before chasing each other around the tables, bumping into scurrying staff carrying hotpots of scalding stock.

  This kind of kiddie behaviour is grounds for restaurant-divorce in Australia. Here, it’s all ... it’s all ... should I say it? It’s all okay. The staff love the kids. The fellow patrons love the kids. Instead of stares and glares and rolling eyes, there is naught but compassion, grins and encouragement. I am stunned. What the...?

  The staff actually scuffle to entertain the kids, to pick them up, to trail them, to cuddle them, to pinch their faces, to whisper sweet Mandarin nothings in their ears. They quite simply adore them. And let’s not even mention the security guards in our building whose faces light up and knees bend to the floor the moment our kids appear as silhouettes in the distance.

  And of course, like a puppy, the more over-attention you give it, the more it wants to squirm away. Our kids are like, ‘I know how much you wanna squeeze my pink cheeks. I know you want it bad. You gotta work for it, baby.’ They torture these poor, sweet, young laowai-obsessed wait staff. One minute the kids are using them as swings, fire engines, even horsies; the next, they’re running away on their sneakered feet, teasing with pale-iris eyes and scampering away like evil snow pixies.

  And the staff just love it all the more. It’s a bizarre dance.

  Apparently, pixie-like behaviour is condoned in China, and if it means Xiansheng and I don’t have to step in and/or gush apologies to crabby fellow patrons—hey! We’re happy! We can actually spend time chatting to each other as husband and wife, or—God forbid—actually even swallow some food.

  It also doesn’t seem to matter when the kids gnaw the back of their chairs, shred their paper napkins or spread their rice from here to kingdom come. Even the bad-luck act of dropping chopsticks on the floor can’t besmirch the attractiveness of our kids. The staff just rush forth to pick them up and replace them with a freshly sheathed pair (though not before Riley shoves the filthy ones in his mouth).

  No wonder we are regulars.

  Baby School

  Today my baby started little school in big China

  I’m fine. No, really.

  Today Ella left for full-time Reception at the British School of Beijing, and I was actually ecstatic. Sure, she was a little nervy but she jumped right on that bus (well, she was nudged) and when she got home this afternoon, she was buzzing and smiley and chatting non-stop about all the exciting things she did, just as I knew she would.

  She needs little pushes, our Ella. Riley might be different, but Ella needs a gentle nudge. Not a brain-washing, thought-controlling shove. Just a little prod towards the fear—and then she can walk right through it, of her own volition.

  We’ve often done this with her. I remember the first time she sat in the bouncy toddler seat anchored to the front of Riley’s pram. She had refused to get in. Categorically refused. She carried on like a maniac for twenty minutes before I simply lifted her up and plonked her straight in. Sure, she screamed. For about three seconds. Then she promptly stopped and started bouncing up and down in the seat with glee (and then refused to get out, but that’s a whole other story).

  Yes, a little nudge can be a good thing.

  So, after less than a year of part-time kindergarten in Australia, my little tot, who had not even begun learning phonics, has been ‘nudged’ into full-time, big-girl school, entering a curriculum around eighteen months ahead of her Aussie peers. How will she cope? I’m not too worried. We’ll take things a day at a time. She only has six weeks of school before the summer holidays, so things are in wind-down mode anyway. I’m actually more worried about how we’re going to cope with the long summer than I am about her grades.

  But back to why I was ecstatic. This ecstasy is not for me—it’s for Ella. What an opportunity. Firstly, to have the chance to go to an international school (a reality I honestly never configured into my lifetime as a parent), and secondly because she is so ready for this. So so ready.

  I have a deep belief in allowing kids to be kids (read: have unstructured fun), but I also believe education doesn’t have to be ‘work’. And to enjoy the myriad educational wonders at the British School—I’m just so, so excited for her. Excited she is starting so early on this journey to independence and adventure, something I voraciously encourage in my children, even at this tender age.

  Meanwhile, little Riley and I are left at home, wandering the empty halls. But we aren’t crying and lamenting. We are kicking soccer balls! And ruining pots with homemade playdough! And talking about the day that Riley will join his big sister. And when will that be? Straight after summer when he is two-and-a-half years old. Straight in the deep end for my kids, thankyouverymuch.

  That’ll make’em good swimmers.

  On a Plate

  But sometimes not easy to swallow

  It’s an understatement to say that moving to Beijing has been a breeze for us. We really are being well looked after and I’m kind of reeling at how easy this settling-in period has become. From the helpful reps waiting at the airport arrival gate to the cushy apartment, everything seems easy and pretty much served to us on a plate.

  It’s day six. Xiansheng started work today and our ayi (housekeeper/cook—the word ayi means ‘auntie’) started work on the same day. An ectomorphic, fuzzy-haired sixty-something-year-old woman, things seem to have started out well. She is enthusiastic, excitable, accommodating, polite. She uses the polite form of ‘you’ (nin)rather than the less formal ni, and calls me furen. This will probably be the first and last time anyone ever calls me Madam, so I’m relishing it.

  Having an ayi is beyond my wildest dreams. Most tai tai in Beijing have one and they perform many tasks from cooking, shopping and cleaning to washing, ironing and child-minding. For me, having an ayi means I can have a few moments a day (for the first time in a very long time) to rediscover my writing, and perhaps even rediscover who I am. It’s going to be an interesting process of rediscovery on many levels, and, of course, giving up the scrubbing of toilets for a while is a delightful little bonus.

  I must admit, though, having an ayi unnerves me. Having someone work for me, in my house, in my space. Dealing with my underwear. It’s creepy creepy creepy, for so many reasons. I’m so damned self-sufficient and have never leaned on so much as a benchtop my whole life long ... so to have this woman cleaning our toilets, scrubbing our floors, making our meals, ironing Xiansheng’s shirts and folding my smalls ... it’s just weird, and yes, it’s difficult.

  Ha! you may well laugh or even roll your eyes in ‘yeah right’ sarcasm. But it’s true—I’ve been feeling lazy, awkward and intensely uncomfortable since Ayi started. Especially as our paraphernalia from Australia hasn’t yet arrived and all I have is the television and a handful of books and toys for the kids. The days seem long, drawn out, with not much to do except ... nothing much, while Ayi cooks, cleans, dusts, polishes, scrubs and mops. And I can’t even help because apparently, if you do that, ayis feel they’re not doing their job properly and this leads to ayi-paranoia and that’s a whole other kettle of jiaozi.

  So I don’t help. I hang around and do unspeakable things like write in journals and send emails, play games with the kids and watch cartoons.

  Yes, living with house-help should make me ecstatically happy, but for now, whenever Ayi’s key turns in the lock, I break into a cold sweat. She lopes in with her bags of shopping and a big ‘Ni hao, Furen!’ and proceeds to chat with me as though I’m completely fluent and she’s known me for years. I just smile a lot and try to avoid her and smatter the air with lots of ‘ting bu dong’ (I hear you but don’t understand what
you’re saying). It’s awkward. It’s weird. Having her here is really the equivalent of someone standing and staring at you for eight hours straight.

  I. Don’t. Like. It. There, I said it.

  I mean, you can fart but it has to be silent, and you can pick your nose but you have to flick it somewhere strategic, and you can’t gorge yourself on chocolate all day or get stuck into the sherry at 10a.m.

  Yesterday, while Ella was at school and while Riley napped, I sat at the dining room table, wasting decadent hours journalling on the laptop. Ayi stood 3 metres behind me, ironing a mountain of clothes like a pack horse. The house was silent, my back was vulnerable to her gaze and I just wanted to fold myself up and slip under the door like a telegram. My swallowing hurt, my skin prickled and tears wallowed in my eyes. This woman is old enough to be my mother and she toiled silently through a creased bundle of cotton the size of a small car.

  I imagine she resents me. I’m sure she takes exception to these wasteful hours of gluttonous memory-cataloguing—so self-indulgent. The silence hurts. Listening to that iron glide and hiss over cotton actually hurts. I can’t bear being the princess in the ivory tower, doodling in the middle of the day like a debauched wench, while this frail, borderline poverty-stricken woman tapdances for pennies.

  It got too much to bear. I closed my laptop, checked on my sleeping son, phoned a neighbour and slipped out under the door like a telegram.

  Princess in the Ivory Tower

  It’s not all it’s cracked up to be

  Well, I’m slipping a little deeper into a new comfort zone.

  As previously lamented, you’d think I would be skipping for joy over home-help. Not so. I want to skip for joy. I’m trying to skip for joy, but all I can manage right now is a lopsided lope.