Beijing Tai Tai

by Tania McCartney

  When we got to the school, I was greeted by some directors and led through the centre of a line-up of about 60 teenagers, who all broke into applause the moment I walked through. It was an intensely moving moment. These are kids from families who earn less than 50 bucks a month, who have probably never tasted chocolate and have one set of clothes, for goodness sake. And they were applauding me. It was themwho needed the applause, so I clapped right back. While trying not to cry. This school was a ticket to bigger and better things for these kids; the thrill of it was overwhelming.

  Following a quick tour of the school, the opening ceremony began with singers, dancers, speeches and heart-rending words from one of the students’ grateful mothers, who had just beaten cancer only to find out her husband was now stricken. Talk about being handed more than your share.

  The ceremony experience was wonderful. I handed out certificates to a few people bearing megawatt grins, then I presented a short talk to these glorious young students on the youth of Australia, their schooling, work and lifestyle. Featuring a slideshow of houses, beaches, windsurfers, teens, fashion and Aussie food, it didn’t dawn on me until later that these kids were probably seeing such things for the first time ever. Windsurfers? What the? No wonder they sat in stunned silence. I may as well have made a presentation to Plutonians on Pluto; this was so like another planet to them.

  Good Lord. How I wanted to snatch these young people and hold them to my heart and squeeze them and take them home with me. Every single one of them. How I wanted to take them around the world to witness the wonder that is our Earth—its people, its cultures, its joys and horrors. We all need this. We all need to see this. It’s horrifying to me that these kids have no idea what exists outside their own shanty town.

  This experience was a heartbreaking, enlightening and beautiful one. These are the people who will be creating China’s future, and to see the determination and strength and hope in their eyes ... it was a moment in life I won’t soon forget.

  Princess Diana, eat your heart out.

  Summer in The Jing Sucks

  It’s a cesspit hellhole

  I will never understand people who say they love summer. I don’t get it. Perhaps people see mangoes, icy poles, surfing and outdoor BBQs when they think of summer. I do, too, but I also see sticky hands, sand in your swimmers, sunburn and stinking hot nights, unable to sleep because you a) don’t have an air-conditioner, or b) you don’t want to turn it on and make a bigger hole in the ozone layer.

  Sure, I’d love summer too if I could sail to Corsica on a yacht wearing a bikini on a supermodel body while sipping cool bubbles and absconding to an air-conditioned house to sleep under a mosquito net, lulled to sleep by the lapping ocean.

  Back to reality.

  The reality of summer in Beijing is that we’re stuck inside and if we do go outside, we melt instantly or choke on the pollution that bakes and gets even more foul under the blistering summer sun. There’s no cooling sea breeze, no seafood and fresh summer fruit on the beach, and no swinging in lazy hammocks under the shade of a coconut tree here, no no.

  There’s warm beer, flies on meat at the wet market, ponging stinks from the gutters, overheating taxis spewing black smoke, and the highly offensive, burning fingers of an overheated sun, poking you right in the skin. We went to Chaoyang Park the other day, and I swear to God, I felt like a lobster being plunged alive into a boiling pot of water; we were dripping wet when we got home. No wonder the Chinese carry umbrellas to shield them from the sun. At first I thought it was daggy; they won’t wear sunglasses or hats but they’ll tote that daggy brolly. Now, of course, I think it’s a very, very cool idea.

  Lord knows how we’re going to skirt around this achingly long summer holiday period. We’ve not been here long enough to justify a holiday on the beach and Xiansheng is too busy with work, anyway. We’re stuck in the middle of a lava-filled pit and the heat is rising.

  God help us all.

  Missing You

  The honeymoon period may be over

  Just before leaving Australia for Beijing, we were told about the process of transition and settlement we’d experience as expats.

  It would start out with much excitement and exuberance—this would last about three months. After this would come the shock period—What Have We Done?—which lasts about another three months. From there, it’s the I Want To Go Home period—a time where nothing is working, everything is frustrating, comfort zones have been tested one too many times, the click of the light switch sounds irritating, the ground is too bumpy for your shoes and you’re just, well... over it.

  Yes, this latter part is usually around the six-month mark, and it’s pretty much spot-on. Some people get weepy, angry, confused, walking around in a daze; others just experience mild annoyance. We experienced the latter. It wasn’t too bad, but it was definitely there. It didn’t last too long, and mostly, it was just missing people, so it’s fortuitous that very soon my mother-in-law will arrive in Beijing—our very first visitor. She could well be the very thing we need to give us a dose of home comfort.

  In the meantime, we’ll just continue to draw on our dwindling stock of comfort items like Aussie chocolate and wine (that always helps). And my mother-in-law (MIL) will bring a restock of sugary treats and even some Aussie magazines and Freddo frogs, which we’re so excited about. She’ll also bring aerosol deodorant, which is non-existent here. We don’t want to pong or go without chocolate frogs for too long now, do we?

  Surprisingly, we’re not missing too much else from home. We’re adventurous enough with food but it’s probably just those special little Australian treats we miss the most. And perhaps television. There are a few English language channels here but mostly the choice of programs is dire. We seem to be relying on DVDs and there’s always plenty of those to go around—the kids have it all from Thomas the Tank Engine to Barbie movies. I even found Dallas seasons one to three the other day. I was leaping around the DVD shop like a mad crazed soap-addict with big hair and gargantuan shoulder pads.

  We’re also missing—well I am, anyway—being able to jump in a car and go straight to a shopping centre with everything under one roof, where I don’t have to dodge rain or sandstorms or potholes or potentially rabid dogs or poop/whiz/lurgies. I so miss wheeling my trolley full of groceries onto smooth bitumen, packing them in the car, driving home in temperature-controlled comfort and unpacking them straight into my refrigerator. That doesn’t happen here, oh no.

  If I want to get the best prices and quality, I have to go to Chaoyangmenwai Dajie for bread, I have to go to Liangma for flowers, I have to go to expat supermarket Jenny Lou’s for yoghurt and cheese, the local Jingkelong supermarket for Chinese candy, Xin Yuan Li wet market for fruit and vegetables and nuts, Pacific Century Place shopping centre for fish, Watsons chemist for face masques, creams and toothbrushes. It’s a right royal pain and although it all seems ‘charming’ at the start, it soon soon soon wears thin.

  Nevertheless. Half the fun is in the challenges, is it not? And there’s plenty of those to keep us on our toes. How long until we tire of challenges is uncertain, but you can bet your life you’ll be reading about it here soon enough.

  The Matriarch

  She has arrived

  I’m a very fortunate woman. I have the most wonderful mother-in-law (MIL) in the world. Seriously. This is particularly helpful to my soul because I lost my own dear mum many years ago when she was far too young, and MIL is as close to helping ease that loss as anyone possibly could.

  I was actually ecstatic when MIL said she would come to visit us in Beijing and, of course, I was ecstatic for the kids. To have their Granny here is a major treat for all of us, sharing with her this surreal Beijing experience. But how do you decide where to take visitors in China’s capital, especially those people who really mean something to you? There is so much to see and do, it’s easy to stand on the spot and spin with panic about fitting it all in.

  The first thing we’ve done with
MIL is feed her. Food is big here. It’s so big, it’s like Italy or something. So we strap on our feedbags and we eat out lots and she loves it. We’ve even taken her to the night market off Wangfujing Street where you can see the reproductive organs of farm animals speared on skewers and grilled on an open flame. Mmmm—delish. And if this isn’t your thing, you could opt for a crunchy centipede or two, a scorpion, a skinned snake or a sea anemone, plugged onto the end of a stick like a briny lollipop.

  MIL passed on eating at the night market but she loved the stomach-turning spectacle. In fact, at first I wondered if this barrage of skewered horror is produced solely for touristic shock value, but when you see the Chinese voraciously nibbling little black parcels with crunchy legs sticking out of their mouths, you soon realise this is the real deal.

  So, despite passing on a skewered seahorse or two, MIL is loving it in Beijing and this brings me much personal satisfaction. Not only because I love her and so appreciate her being within squeezing distance of my children, but also because half the fun of this China adventure is in the sharing. Truly. I mean, it’s all great, but when you can share it with someone you love ... nothing beats that.

  The most precious thing of all when she arrived, was when we sat up til the wee hours chatting on the couch and she kept saying, ‘I can’t believe I’m in China, I can’t believe I’m in China.’

  Strange. That’s exactly how I feel. Even after six months in the capital. It usually hits me when I’m standing on the 26[th] floor looking down at a grey-veiled cityscape, but also when I wipe the white dust from the television or when a vendor splits open a pomelo at the wet market. These are the small moments I’ll truly remember here.

  And I hope in my heart of hearts that MIL can take home these special moments, too.

  Mid-Autumn Festival

  And the illustrious mooncake

  I don’t want to talk about summer. It was a horror. Thank goodness autumn is finally tumbling from the trees.

  My mother-in-law has arrived at a wonderful time of year. In early autumn, the weather is divine: the heat of summer starts to curl away and the days end with goose-bumping evenings that are a joy to stroll through. The pollution has cleared and things are blue-skied and fresh. Leaves are yellowing and dropping and floating on breezes, and we’re draping light scarves, tied loosely at the neck. The Mid-Autumn Festival is here, too. It’s a joyful time.

  While Chinese New Year is the Christmas of the Chinese people, Mid-Autumn Festival is probably the closest equivalent to an American Thanksgiving—an excuse to gather, to celebrate a bountiful harvest and to spend time sharing and feasting with family and friends.

  If you have ever tried a Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake, you’ll know they’re an acquired taste. Me, I could stuff my cheeks with them for the long cold winter. Cloyingly thick and subtly sweet, these ancient cakes are packed with fruit and lotus seed pastes. The outer pastry is cake-like and stamped with traditional Chinese characters or designs, and oftentimes you’ll find a yellow egg yolk inside, representing the full autumn moon.

  The history of the mooncake is rather special. The cakes were used by the Chinese during the Yuan Dynasty (1200–1368AD) to smuggle secret notes of revolt past the non-mooncake-eating Mongols. These sweet little cakes quickly and effectively spread news of the revolt—to be staged on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, the same day the festival is held in modern times.

  Today’s modern mooncakes are a flavour bonanza. You can find raspberry, mango, rose petal, vanilla and even chocolate ice-cream cakes by Häagen-Dazs. They’re a wonderful treat, and encompass a delicious time of year here in Beijing.

  Oh, simple are the joys of sharing in these wonderful local traditions. When things get lousy in Beijing, these are the things we treasure most.

  Big Boy School

  How did my little baby become a real-life boy?

  You hear about those mothers who clutch at the waft of air left behind when their children head off to school for the first time. They lament, cry and wander the empty halls, unable to know what to do with themselves.

  This is just not me. Sorry. School has always made me leaping around-ecstatic for more reasons than can be contained here, but the main one being that school opens my children’s heads like a can of magic beans and stuffs wonderful things in there. Both my kids love and thrive at school. How could I be happier?

  But magic beans aside, there’s another reason we wanted to start Riley at school at the ripe old age of two-and-a-half. It’s because he isn’t speaking. Well, I mean, he can speak, he just doesn’t do it often and doesn’t do it well for his age average. And trust me, plenty of people have an opinion on what comprises ‘average’.

  Even if we refuse to listen to opinion, we are still a little worried. Probably more than a little worried. Don’t we all want our kids to have an advantage in life, wherever possible?

  We’ve already consulted a Western speech therapist who assessed Riley and told us he has a ‘speech deficit’ that could compromise his future development—whatever that means. Even after a comprehensive explanation, I still have no idea. Needless to say, the anguish Xiansheng and I have gone through over this diagnosis is unparalleled. Have we failed him? Have we caused this terrible problem by talking too much or too little? Was bringing him to China where English saturation is so compromised a vast mistake? What does this mean for his future? His intelligence? His education? This has been a terrifying time for us, a time when nothing but the worst struck-dumb scenario seems foremost in our minds.

  So, at the recommendation of the therapist, Riley has just started in pre-nursery at the British School of Beijing because he needs to be saturated with the English language via his peers. Dad, a nattering mum and chattering big sister don’t seem to be enough, unbelievably, so perhaps school will help.

  And yes, I’ve been ecstatic for him starting pre-nursery because he just loves it, but it’s been interesting to note my own feelings of trepidation—something I didn’t feel with Ella. There was some heart-pulling emotion when Riley donned his Big Boy uniform and school shoes for the first time. It kind of didn’t feel right. He just seemed too ... little. Like a little lamb in a big wolf suit.

  Is it a youngest-child thing? Is it the fact that he still fits baby-sized undies? Or is it that watching him enter this milestone experience hauls up the harsh reality that I’m now well past procreation, and no more babes will be emerging from this womb? If that isn’t a slap in the face of my own mortality, I don’t know what is.

  Whatever the case, I was surprised to actually worry about Riley a little when he headed off to school with his Mickey Mouse backpack and his teensy little legs sticking out of those shorts and that fuzzy head reflected in the school bus window.

  And those worries? Our son came home clutching a paper snake with sand under his fingernails and a grin plastered from ear to ear. And he’s been skipping merrily to school ever since.

  I may still be a little heartbroken, but my Big Boy has made the grade.

  Those Special Moments

  Jingshan Park delivers

  Those special moments in life often sneak up on us when we least expect them. It’s when we turn a corner and suddenly, it’s there—something a little breathtaking. Or a lot breathtaking. The ironic thing about stinky, polluted Beijing is that it has a habit of providing lots of breathtaking moments.

  Sometimes it can be something someone did. Sometimes it can be a view. Sometimes it can be Ella’s piano teacher, the gorgeous Lily, clapping along playfully to my daughter’s tunes. Sometimes it can be the ambience of a place, that certain something that fills a space with spirit. And this is what Jingshan Park did for us.

  We took a cab to this illustrious park (located just north of the Forbidden City) early in the morning because Riley is starting his days pre-5a.m. at the moment, and we’d already been up for hours and hours. It was about 8.15a.m. when we arrived yet the place was already alive with people—a feat for Beijing where everybody seem
s to enjoy a daily sleep-in and nothing gets moving til 10 or 11a.m.

  As we entered the eastern gate, the first thing that struck us was the colour of the garden. Bathed in early morning light and rich with that European-masters-antique colour that washes over things at the onset of autumn, everything seemed golden. Along with the turning leaves—orange, gold, brilliant yellow—it was truly like a Monet masterpiece, a palette of captured light.

  As we meandered into the park, we were also struck by the people. Mostly elderly, they were actively participating in any manner of physical activity from badminton to fan dancing to tai chi or simple stretching. There were women with long, bright ribbons, twirling them in great looping swirls, luminescent in the sunlight. There were blokes in caps kicking be-feathered hackysacks. There were grandmothers pushing dozy kids in strollers or carting them around enfolded in arms, their eyes bright in the morning sun.

  The most elderly and infirm were gathered near a hillside, planting their feet on slabs of rock, swinging their arms, clapping, chanting and singing old songs from the Cultural Revolution in a perfectly enunciated Mandarin rhythm that took my breath away. The kids stood mesmerised. I wept, it was so beautiful, and Ella watched me cry with great curiosity.

  We then began the climb to the top of the hillside, and on the way up we took meandering paths through petrified wood and rocky outcrops and each turn presented a new and delightful surprise—a man singing tenor against a small enclave in the rock face, a woman sawing a homemade bow against a lute-type instrument, or er hu. A kid whizzing in the middle of the footpath. It’s all wonderful (especially if you side-step the whiz).