Beijing Tai Tai

by Tania McCartney

  Our kids? Well, they are poised for snow. They are ready and waiting. They’ve heard the stories and they are ready to experience the mush, the slush, and the bite on the fingertips of freshly laid powder. They have their boots, their mittens and their hats by the door, and every single day when they leap from their beds, they race to the window for a glimpse of powder on the rooftops below.

  So far, no go.

  Some mornings, the city looks so frozen and cold that I shuffle to the early morning window and hallucinate snow on the rooftops. But it’s just cold. Cold appears white sometimes. Or maybe it’s my brain playing tricks on me because I want it so bad.

  In lieu of snow, we instead had a wonderful ice experience today. We walked on the frozen canal near Liangma flower market. The kids thought it was so cool to walk on water and even slip on it in their boots. They grinned like snowmen with puffy-coat-padded tummies. It was so much fun—such a simple thing, but aren’t simple things often the most fun?

  Our mittens and scarves and boots are still poised by the door. Bring on snow, Beijing, bring it on!

  Festive Traditions

  I’m dreaming of a white Christmas

  Christmas day in Beijing is a bittersweet affair.

  It begins with the dawning realisation that Santa really did make it—an enormous relief for any parent intent on coordinating a successful flying visit (address changes take a while to get through to the man in red; he does get awfully busy).

  When snug under the fingertips of sleep, there is nothing more lovely than waking to the sound of peeping kids, rustling through their Santa stockings, then dragging said stockings through the early morning house to Mum and Dad’s room. Squeak squeak peep peep! go the kids, as their Santa treats tumble onto our bed.

  Dad sits up to turn on the lamp dimly and we all exclaim and gush over the spanking bounty of fabulous knick-knacks and candy, crackling in its happy cellophane. And after the stockings, there is begging for candy and then cuddles and reading new storybooks and sticking fingers into finger puppets and scribbling on teensy pads of paper with brand new rainbow pencils.

  Then, as every year, Mum or Dad shuffles out to turn on the coffee maker, and also flicks on the living room light, where upon they loudly exclaim something along the lines of: ‘My goodness, what is all this shiny new stuff gleaming under the tree?!’ After a heartbeat pause, the thundering feet begin and those kids round that corner in a nanosecond and stop short at the floodlit tree, spurting forth its standard tumble of stacked and wrapped presents, but also an extra stash of treasures, artfully arranged by the crafty Santa Claus.

  Dad grumbles something about bank statements and then goes to pour the coffee.

  After cooing over the stack of bright new toys, we strike up the Christmas carols and Dad and I bring our fat mugs of coffee and we all four sit under the sparkling tree and begin opening presents, one by one. Someone plays elf and distributes each gift, and we must read aloud who it’s for and who it’s from. We also nibble the cookies Santa leaves in exchange for a glass of beer, and carrots for the reindeer, and read aloud his friendly thank-you note.

  Next are the phone calls and Skype with friends and family. We all yak about the pressies and the things we’re going to do today and how much we miss each other and we send cuddles across the miles and invariably have a good cry.

  Next it’s a visit to our colleague’s house for Christmas lunch followed by pudding and lots of delicious sticky things and a tipple or two. There are presents exchanged and some rollicking stories and then Riley chucks several wobblies, so while Dad and Ella stay on to continue the feasting, Mum takes Riley home for an afternoon nap then sits in silence under the tree and cries. She puts on a Christmas movie and cries some more.

  Dad and Ella come home and Mum cries, and Dad refills her glass of bubbles. Mum and Dad battle with the kids over the bounty of fab new toys and we all play and make puzzles until dinnertime. Then it’s bubble baths and sugarplum sleepyhead kids tumbling into bed and then Dad and Mum sit among the landfill of wrapping paper and toast those dear departed and so very missed. We toast our loved ones far away and then we toast ourselves and congratulate each other on getting through our first Beijing Christmas.

  On Boxing Day morning, it snows. Mum cries again. It’s only a smattering and there’s nothing on the ground, but the rooftops are dusted with a tempting skerrick of icing sugar.

  And all is good in the world.

  Sisters Unite

  Life works in mysterious ways

  My darling jie jie (big sister) arrived in Beijing just after Christmas Day on her first overseas jaunt and much to the joy of our family. Because she had not travelled overseas before, I never dreamed she would settle in so fast and enjoy Beijing as much as she has. It’s quite amazing, really (though I suspect the unparalleled shopping experiences have helped). But what’s even more amazing about her arrival was her ability to land a job only days after arriving. As you do.

  I had taken her to visit the kids’ school and as we walked through the foyer, the principal walked by and fate collided. ‘Ahh, so you’re a teacher, are you?’ he said, ‘Come into my office [read: educational lair].’

  Half an hour later, in a taxi on the way home, Jie Jie told me the principal had all but offered her a job. I fell over; a tough feat considering I was already sitting down. You see, Jie Jie and I haven’t lived in the same city since 1986. Bizarre to think that two sisters from a surfing town on the north coast of New South Wales would end up living in Beijing together someday. But that is the way of our now teensy world. She’s moving here next July, with her husband Smoothie, to start the new school year, and she’ll be teaching at my kids’ school.

  It’s beyond my wildest dreams that I would have family here in Beijing—I’m ecstatic for the kids and thrilled for our sisterhood. And I’m even more in love with Beijing for making the seemingly impossible, possible.

  Once again.

  Let it Snow

  Oh! the fluttering glory

  A first, soft snowfall has a way of enchanting people. Things go quiet. The air develops a kind of thick, padded feeling, like a soundproofed room. Then suddenly, like someone has shaken a blossom tree, soft white petals begin to fall from the sky.

  It’s a phenomenal thing, really. I can’t get enough of it. I’m so obsessed with snow, I keep a piece of dark felt at the ready to catch the flakes and study their incredulous, unique, six-pointed designs. The kids go crazy for it. We love to examine every last, totally inimitable flake.

  Beijing’s first snowfall for the McCartney family happened while eating breakfast at Grandma’s Kitchen near Guanghua Lu. We had entered the restaurant via a frozen, grey streetscape, and after an hour of hot coffee, scrambled eggs and berry-studded pancakes, we returned to a street draped in a soft white blanket.

  Jie Jie let out a gasp and then a squeak and then she burst into tears. She’s a snow virgin. No matter, I also gasped and squealed and burst into tears (yes, I cry a lot—The Jing does that to you). The kids gasped and squeaked then opened their voices and called them out into the falling ice blossoms. The flurry was gentle but thick, and all five of us skipped and pranced and swirled and grinned on the pavement outside Grandma’s Kitchen for a very long time, unable to tear ourselves away from it all.

  Oh my. Dirty, grey Beijing looks beautiful in a pristine blanket of newly fallen snow.

  Caught up in the wintry spirit, we then tore home and put on thick boots and hotfooted it to Hou Hai Lake for a spot of skating. But this ain’t no ordinary skating, no no. This is hilarity combined with a fabulous workout and cultural experience bar none, because skating on Hou Hai features everyone. It features expat kiddies with puffing ayis, it features little old men riding their bikes onto the surface and tying antiquated skates to their feet. It features local kids tearing around on specially rigged bicycles that cut across the ice on blades.

  Our choice of transport is the ice chair—a crudely welded double seat (one at the fron
t, one at the back) with scratchy, blunt blades underneath, and two crooked metal sticks used to propel yourself and that cumbersome chair around. Once you get momentum going, it can be fun but try getting started with your own hefty weight onboard (as well as a child), then try steering and turning and, God forbid, stopping. Oh yes, this is hilariously hairy fun.

  Like us, there are people who fall over the moment they set foot on the ice, there are people who can straggle around with a decent semblance of balance, and there are people who play ice hockey in a cordoned-off ice patch, like pros. But the one thing we all share is the spirit of fun. From colliding ice chairs to squeals and slips, everyone is smiling and the wintry atmosphere is marvellous.

  After a physical workout that left us pink-cheeked and frostbitten on the toes, we headed to Starbucks at the southern end of the lake and thawed out with a warm drink or two. Then we headed back home and prayed to the snow gods like Oliver to the gobsmacked Mr Bumble...

  ‘More, please!’

  How We Froze Our Extremities

  And left our kids behind

  We don’t have the kind of ayi you could leave your children with while you abscond to the Maldives for a kid-less holiday. I’ve already told you she’s not the most savvy childcare worker, and last week she fell asleep while looking after Riley at the indoor playground upstairs. She nearly copped a sacking for that but I’m a bit of a softie and she managed to use up yet another of her nine, feline lives.

  She’s not as young as she feigns, our ayi, nor is she as interested in my kids as she feigns. This means I have to be a teensy bit careful about placing them in her care. In a nutshell, she doesn’t exactly ooze kid-friendly charm; leaving them in her care is a bit like leaving them with your perpetually crabby Great Aunt Myrtle who loves them but refuses to give them candy and barks at them to be seen and not heard. Indeed, with Ayi, Riley can’t even toss a sock in the air without her roaring, ‘No!’—one of the few English words she’s managed to adopt, along with ‘baby’, ‘wee wee’ and ‘poo poo’. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve told her to take a chill pill over tossed socks.

  Anyway, it wasn’t until my sister Jie Jie arrived in Beijing that we even began to consider going away without the kids. Seeing the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival had been something on our list for a long time, and considering the kids whinge and moan about the cold when opening the freezer for an icy pole, we decided it wouldn’t be fair on anyone if they came along. The winter temperatures in Harbin can easily reach as low as – 40°C at night and – 30°C in the day and we had no desire to tote frozen kids home in our luggage. We love their warm cuddles far too much.

  So, we planned a decadent, kid-free getaway to Harbin, located in far north-eastern China, close to the Russian border. The kids were thrilled to have their Aunt Jie Jie all to themselves, and I must admit, it was a delight to be sent careening back into the Days Before Kids—a longlost, peaceful and self-indulgent time, where simplicity, calm and silence were the rule of the day.

  Harbin was an extraordinary experience, both emotionally and physically. To have your breath freeze on your pashmina, your fingertips burn on contact with open air and your contact lenses begin to solidify if you don’t blink often enough ... it’s challenging but unforgettable.

  Xiansheng and I dressed like Michelin men; we could barely button our coats at night we had so many layers stashed beneath, and we still froze. Imagine then, the shivers up our spines as we witnessed the unmissable Harbin polar bears swimming in the frozen Songhua River. And no, they’re not furry, they’re people—most of whom are over the age of 50.

  This astounding experience occurs in a large rectangle cut into the iceblock river. The rectangle is continuously scraped around the perimeter with a spade because the water ices over before your very eyes. There are even diving blocks made of ice on the edge of the pool, its water a balmy 0°C (outside: – 25°C), and there’s also a shanty, shivering building—the place from which the polar bears emerge, shuffling across the ice in their bare feet with their Speedos on and their swimming caps pulled down firmly over frostbitten ears.

  The actual plunging is a sight to behold. The polar bears climb onto their icy block and then plunge into that ‘warm’ pond. Then they swim to the edge, climb out to thunderous, be-gloved applause and cheering, and shuffle back into the shanty to have the ice chiselled from their skin.

  But there’s more to Harbin than polar bears. The snow sculptures on Sun Island during the day are so silent and so beautiful that they appear to be carved of icing sugar. And the evening event—the International Ice and Snow Festival—is worth every frozen fingertip and breath-snatching moment. These sizeable replicas of famous landmarks, icons and buildings, lit from the inside with powerful coloured lights, are so beautiful they almost manage to take your mind off the biting wind that’s stripping the skin from your face and cracking your eyelashes.

  What an exhilarating time we had experiencing this physical challenge and visual delight. And yes, even though we were gone just a couple of days, we missed the kids terribly.

  And the kids didn’t miss us a bit.

  Chinese New Year

  If you do one thing this lifetime...

  Chinese New Year in Beijing is an unmissable experience. We’ve had quite a few unmissable experiences so far on our journey, but this is one I wouldn’t forgo for all the tea in China.

  Our family was very fortunate that our first CNY was also the time the Chinese government lifted their ban on fireworks within the Third Ring Road after a twelve-year hiatus. This meant every man and his dog, cat, canary and cricket were out in the streets setting off crackers.

  Noisy? A gross understatement.

  Being relatively new to Beijing and still somewhat starry-eyed, we didn’t think of gathering a fireworks arsenal ourselves. We instead sat back and enjoyed the frenzy of purchases made by every other living being in the capital. And did they ever buy up big. We couldn’t walk along the street beneath our building without running into a sparkling cracker. We were even given some hand-held swirlers by an eight-year-old who borrowed her father’s cigarette to light them for us. Ella and Riley screamed their heads off in terror when it began spinning and howling in my fist, and I must admit, I was also a little frozen in terror, yet I couldn’t help but think to myself, as I clutched that madly howling disk of light, ‘Gee, my kids need to be exposed to firecrackers more often.’

  So, it’s been a noisy time. The first fireworks began popping about a week ago, from about six in the morning—and they haven’t stopped since. Yes, you read it right. Thank goodness we’re 26 floors in the sky with relatively noise-blocking windows because the racket has pretty much been ceaseless. All night long, pop crack fizz—God knows how anyone near the ground has caught even a wink of sleep. No wonder half the population of Beijing goes away for the New Year, though I suspect nowhere in China would be quiet right now.

  The most amazing thing about these fireworks is the sheer bulk of them. Who on earth sets off fireworks during the day when they are totally washed-out against the pall of the white, polluted sky? Everyone, it seems. And as the week wore on, the speed and frequency of crackers—both day and night versions—ceaselessly escalated, becoming louder, bigger, busier and more frenzied, building, swelling, right up to the big night itself ... last night—New Year’s Eve.

  The kids slept through it, quite incredulously. Xiansheng was exhausted from a week of bai jiu-fuelled work celebrations and was in bed by 10p.m.—this man could sleep through a woodpecker attack on the side of his head. Me? I simply couldn’t sleep. Not only because of the clamouring noise, but because of the utter thrill of it all.

  So, I poured a glass of wine, fired up the video camera and settled in at the windowsill to marvel at the noise rupturing below. It was truly mind-boggling and even quite frightening.

  All over the city, for as far as the eye could see, in every pocket, every hutong, at the base of every tower and high-rise, splotches of light
exploded, ruptured, detonated and kapow-ed incessantly, from smackering snakelike crackers spitting along the ground to enormous aerial shells of blue, green, pink and gold. There were tom thumbs, Catherine wheels, Roman candles, starbursts, mines, spinners, rockets and missiles, all erupting, flaring, popping and thundering with such utter power and unrelenting force, I was reduced to gasping out loud. Indeed, I actually wondered if I was sitting on the set of a World War II movie.

  And this is the night it really truly hit me: we live in Beijing, China. It’s only taken a mass barrage of pyrotechnics to really hammer it home.

  This morning, Beijing is coated in a haze of post-firework smog, and the city is in the grips of a whopping great cracker hangover. Everyone is walking around clutching their aching heads and groaning from a week of no sleep. Unbelievable, then, that the crackers have not stopped popping. I can hear them now, the odd muffled pop or explosion in the streets below, or a small pfft of smoke rising a block over.

  Will they continue another day, a week, a month? Who knows. After a twelve-year cracker ban, it seems a firework binge was probably inevitable and something anyone worth their salt would happily tolerate.

  Xin nian kuai le! Happy New Year!

  Our Family’s First Snowman

  Well, okay ... our pitiful excuse for one

  My husband will never let me live down our first ever family snowman. He comes from Belfast, so he’s seen snow—baby, oh has he ever,—which gives him the right to call himself a snowman expert.