Beijing Tai Tai

by Tania McCartney

It’s not easy being green. Especially when you live in Beijing where everything is grey. This is, however, rapidly changing.

  Three years ago, my green fabric shopping bags from Coles drew questionable stares from the locals, as did my Crocs shoes (but that’s a whole other story). Sure, they may not be the prettiest, rhinestone-spangled shopping bags on the Beijing block, but they are strong and they hold a lot. Many a shopkeeper has oohed and ahhed with envy over these bags.

  But the most important thing they do, of course, is eliminate the need for plastic bags, a common blight on our planet’s increasingly frail ecosystem. Yes, the world’s oceans have become plastic soup and we need to start fishing for shopping bags.

  I’m probably not alone when I say I was delighted to see expat supermarkets Jenny Lou and April Gourmet jump on the green bandwagon with their self-promoting sacks. Olé Westernised supermarkets have also followed suit, although you do have to purchase your family’s body-weight in groceries before you qualify for a free bag (whereupon you’ll also receive some kitsch, junky toy to take home and chuck in the bin).

  Upgrading to degradable bags are not the only thing that will make Beijing greener. China has a long way to go before turning Green: the environmental atrocities I witness daily have always sort of put the kybosh on making a personal effort. After all, it’s 1.3 billion against four. How could one little family create enough of an impact to make a difference here in Beijing, let alone China?

  Living a temporary, expat life carries with it a certain dreamlike quality—that you’re not living a Real Life and that all the old rules don’t necessarily apply. Along with culture changes and major shifts in the way things are done (a lot of it taken out of our hands), it’s easy to forget about Real Life. But with the glut of Going Green programmes surrounding Earth Day on 22 April this year, my guilt levels began to rise. Why wasn’t I making an effort any more? Why was I being so slack? Why wasn’t I encouraging my children to heed the Green call that I’m so gung-ho about in Australia?

  Well, it’s time to make a stand. I have procrastinated long enough and this old-time Greenie is back on the wagon. My Green shopping bags are poised by the front door. I no longer accept plastic bags and if I forget my green bags while shopping, I buy a new one and absorb the cost. I turn off lights and remind the kids to the do same. I am blasting the house with a shot of air-con, then turning it off and waiting until it’s unbearably warm to repeat the same. The fridge is pulled out from the wall so it runs more efficiently, my microwave is used more than the oven, and the kettle only boils enough water for one or two cups. We have switched to energy-efficient light bulbs, are looking into buying organic, local food, and are trying to eat with the seasons. We are eating less meat, more vegetables. We are buying less, reusing more. We are sorting items into our building’s recycling and educating Ayi to do the same.

  It’s working. My seven-year-old daughter is now reminding me to turn off the tap when brushing my teeth. My husband is finally remembering to turn off the energy-efficient light bulbs we’ve installed. Even my five-year-old son is dumping stuff in the recycle.

  And everything feels a lighter shade of green.

  Let’s Go Fly a Kite

  Feng hen da

  The Chinese don’t seem to like wind ( feng). Indeed, being such an extreme weather phenomenon, it no doubt causes all manner of physical ailments in China, from flus to mental fatigue to carbuncles. When it’s windy, my ayi rushes into the house wrapped to the eyeballs like a mummy, fresh from the pashmina grave. If she thinks the soft draught from our crappy air-conditioner is the equivalent of a brisk breeze, then the galloping feng outside must surely be a high force gale.

  ‘Feng hen da!’ she says. Wind really big, really strong.

  ‘I know! Isn’t it fabulous?’ I want to say back, but I know she will look at me and think the same thing she does most days of our lives together: ‘Stupid foreigner. I know you let your children sleep with the air-conditioner on. That’s child abuse, you know.’

  So I say nothing and instead grab the kids and they slip on their sneakers and we head downstairs (with no coats— gasp!) to harness that wind and make the most of every gusting puff. We take kites.

  There’s something about kites and childhood. They are an idyllic match. Flying a kite encompasses all the skills children do so well—running, jumping, leaping, laughing, bounding, squealing, lifting the arms high above the head and looking skyward. All the movements of a small child fit perfectly into the act of kite-flying, and Ella and Riley are kite-flying masters.

  Sure, there are moments when the gusts of wind run out of puff and the kites take a spin or scud across the ground. This is when the complaining begins and I have to unhand my cafe latte and dash over to untangle a string or re-roll it or plunge the kite into a soft air pocket and watch it clutch and climb its way rapidly on high.

  It’s a fabulous feeling. The kids then unroll the string and stand with their little faces skyward, pulling and tugging and manoeuvring that canvas bird into the clouds. Watching them makes me so so happy.

  Here they are in China, spinning kites into a rare blue sky on a bracing but sunny breeze. We’re in China. Yes, it still hits me every now and then, and memories like these will be stop points for our family, of a time in Beijing that was far too fleeting.

  A Compounded Situation

  Living life in, on and under the compound

  Things that scratch at me: apathy, rudeness, anything half-arsed, unpacking the dishwasher and compound living. You can imagine, then, how I felt way back when we first learned we were coming to China. Family living options: compound living on a compound, compound living in a compounded community, and compound living in a singular compounded building.

  Ai yi yi. So many choices—how could we decide? We opted for the latter. It seemed the less compounded of a compounding situation.

  Coming to Beijing is like being sucked into a social vortex. Everyone wants to check you out. They want to know your standing, your ranking in the order of things. It’s only normal, of course, but after a while it can become a challenge playing the social game—a game of unsaid expectation that you should be part of things, part of the group. Part of the compound.

  I don’t have a problem with socialising but as most tai tai will tell you, one could easily spend 90 per cent of one’s time doing coffee, lunching and shopping in Beijing. Easily. While I once relished this freedom, I now find I’m a busy mummy. I have two kids, a husband, an ayi to point things out to, family and old friends to keep up-to-date, bodily functions to perform, travel haunts to plan and a thousand books to write.

  Love the odd spot of coffee at Comptoirs de France, a lingering trip to Muxiyuan fabric market and the occasional gossip at Lovely Nails, but how do you fit in the constantly renewing flow of people you meet here (school, my work, Xiansheng’s work, the compound, on the street)? How?

  And compound living—er ... compounds the problem, because you’re surrounded.

  If you have anything even scantly incriminating happening in your house (vodka tonics before 5p.m., DVDs with a single mild expletive, a particularly mess-ridden living room, a shouting session with the kids, a breakfast dish mountain in the sink, no make-up on and hair like a kabushka), a neighbour, or their kid, will ding-dong the doorbell at the precise, acme-embarrassment moment.

  If your kids want to play with their neighbour-friends, they will drive you bananas with wanting to move in permanently to their apartment or their friends will want to move permanently into yours. On long stretches of holidays, all the kids your children want to play with will go away and your kids will develop a sudden aversion to playing with all the lovely ones left behind and/or there will be no lovely ones left behind.

  If you’re having a crappy day/fat day/blue day/deadline day/cannot-cope-with-washing-hair day—you’re bound to run into the chicest, be-scarfed neighbour on the block who’s keen for a 90-minute chit chat by the lift. I mean, it’s nice ... but it’s always there. Li
ke dorm-sharing. No escape. And they just keep coming—as old ones leave, new ones come. Eyeballs at every corner, ears by every door.

  Most of them are really, really lovely, but there are also the ones who take intense personal exception to the fact that you can’t give up your precious hours to get to know them, that you can’t call up God to create another precious weekend to spend with their family, that you don’t organise daily play dates with their kids or go on four-hour shopping expeditions together.

  These are the ones who greet you in the lift with the tightly pursed mouth, the trace of sarcasm in their voice, the wounded body language and the odd comment about your being so busy all the time. This is incredulous to me. These people I simply cannot explain. Get a life! And funny that they’re often the ones I hardly even know. For goodness sake, it’s nothing personal.

  Compound living. One thing I won’t be missing when we leave Beijing.

  The Beijing Family Challenge

  Stretching family boundaries in the capital

  It’s our three-year anniversary of life in Beijing on 4 May. Clichés aside, yada yada yada—my, how it’s flown.

  I remember our first night well. I remember the dark Beijing night, the foggy, yellow air and that indefinable, permeating smell of noodles, eggshells and dust. I remember the nervousness but I also remember feeling almost instantly relaxed. People were smiling. They stared, they gawped, but not in a way that said, ‘My Lord, your roots need touching up.’ In hindsight, that unwanted attention was kind of welcoming, in an unnerving way.

  I remember being unable to sleep on those hardwood planks. I remember the sheets felt scratchy, the sunlight cast different shadows, even the water felt different on our skin. I remember trying to push a stroller on the streets outside, where the pavement featured more jagged metal than a giant’s mouthful of dodgy dental work.

  I remember being shocked that in China there is no such thing as a question that cannot be asked—and we were asked it, my friend. We were prodded and poked and asked how much we paid for anything. We had noses stuck deep into our shopping trolley—and I mean right down in there, close enough to smell the total price.

  After three years, people are still innately curious, but they have also changed. And so have we. No one would dare prod me now.

  Yes, in only three short years, Beijingren have changed—or perhaps my perception of them has changed. Sure, people still hock one up and let it fly, but it’s only occasionally now and I haven’t slipped on one for a very long time. The permanent, wide-eyed look on our kids’ faces is long gone. So is the feeling that everything is overwhelming. We know our way around—we have our favourite spots, our favourite eateries, our favourite weekend jaunts and favourite places we like to take visitors.

  We know where and how to shop. We are regulars at Fundazzle, The Bookworm, Ritan Park, Kempi Deli, Din Tai Fung and the inexorable Starbucks chain. We have a pretty solid hold on the language, the culture and the soul-stretching challenges. China has certainly swept us up in its vast, antique arms and held us close.

  But while we have absolutely become besotted with Beijing, it’s a strange love affair. The love is there but there’s also a continuing love/hate element that skims around the outskirts of this union. Life here may be fascinating and fun but it’s still not easy. There are certainly times when we want to phone up Beijing and tell it we need some space.

  But just when we want to pack it all in and slide quickly down this last leg to home base, we remember that for all its foibles, its frustrations and idiosyncrasies, Beijing has a long, remarkable history of culture and diversity not yet lost within the hardline advancement of the West. We have always known that, for a short time, we were going to be part of it. When the times get tough, we just tough it out. We focus on the wonders this town has to share or we dash off to another country for a quick break, then we come back and we reimmerse and become part of it all again.

  And part of it, we now most certainly are.

  Life’s Mysterious Ways

  And why you really can do anything

  As mentioned previously, now that I’m a Big Girl (read: sitting on the precipice of middle-age, but we will never speak of that again), I’ve realised there are no more excuses. I have to let go of my fears and do some serious boundary-stretching, and the strange thing is, boundary-stretching often involves the simplest of steps that are never as scary or as stressful as we feared they’d be.

  Because my work with tbjkids has unexpectedly dropped due to editorial management changes, I made the executive decision that this would not become an obstacle for me or my work. So, I stretched open my boundaries, whipped out my tenacity, and contacted Time Out magazine here in Beijing about doing some proofreading or sub-editing. Then I contacted City Weekend magazine and Little Star educational and schools magazine about doing the same.

  Within days, I was doing my first sub-edits and proofing. Within weeks, I was writing Time Out’ s monthly kids preview and events listings, and feature articles for Little Star. Within a month, I became City Weekend’ s Family Matters columnist and bloggist and Time Out’ s Kids Editor while still continuing to contribute bits and pieces to tbjkids. Who’da thunk it?

  Like I’ve said before—what’s the worst that can happen if you ask? Someone might say no?

  Like all writers, I’ve had many, many a no, so it feels great to be hearing a yes (or twenty). But what feels even greater is the monster-conquering. That’s right. Once you stare the monster straight in the eyeball and show it you’re not afraid, it begins to melt. It crumbles and falls away.

  As Goethe once said: ‘At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you.’ In other words, once you mentally and emotionally and physically commit, without compromise, things will start to miraculously unfold. They will start to work, no matter the obstacle, no matter the person who grabs at your highest flying leap and hauls you to the ground, no matter the chronically stunted people who can’t bear to utter a single word of encouragement or praise, no matter the people who go out of their way to shut you out or complicate things for you or inexplicably ignore, snub or debase you (sometimes right in front of you). Even with these kinds of people all around, you find yourself remaining tall. You find yourself standing strong.

  Sure, you may bend a little against the negative force but once you let them slide on by, all the muck and waste drains down the shithole, and there you are—free and clean and embarking on a superlative journey of doing what you love.

  Please do what you love. I highly recommend it.

  Orgasmic Organic

  Oh baby! oh baby ... am I converted!

  I have just received my very first order (what took me so long!?) from a local food delivery service, Organic Farm. The bags that arrived were so heavy I could barely lift them to the kitchen. And I only spent 240 yuan (around $40).

  Hopping around the kitchen like a possessed flea, this was like Christmas on the farm. I slashed open those bags and a nest of luminescent treasures awaited: purple cabbage and onions the colour of king’s robes, pale gold and supernaturally smooth ginger, pearlescent soybeans and olive-green mung beans and chalky buckwheat flour (hello, pancakes!), packets of dark green herbs bursting with chlorophyll and pungent on the nose—the basil leaves are so rich and fleshy and abundant, I will be making Italian all weekend.

  There is a kilo of Fuji apples possessing that tangy and elusive scent reminiscent of my early years as an apple aficionado in Tasmania—where the best apples in the world are grown, and where you will never know a better crunch against your teeth. There are pale green zucchinis, bumpy cucumbers, cherry tomatoes with tight, shiny, fire-engine skins, and the cleanest, glossiest, firmest potatoes you’ve ever seen in your life, nestling in an Organic Farm brown paper bag like something from a boutique greengrocer in Greenwich Village. You can just feel your teeth sliding into those potatoes, cut into fat chips and roasted in the oven, sending you soaring back to childhood when potatoes tasted like pota
toes.

  This is truly veggie bliss in a bag. I’m itching to break open the eggs. Where to start? What to try first? It’s all so overwhelming. I think I’ll soak the soybeans for the massive pots of vibrant vegetable soup we make every weekend, sometimes studded with flecks of bacon, sometimes swirled with Indian spices, sometimes sprinkled with croutons or grated cheese. Then tomorrow night it will be basil-infused lasagne. And with all those apples—a syrupy apple pie, crusted with brown sugar. Sunday morning will be buckwheat pancakes—the kids’ favourite—and a ratatouille seems vital with all those zucchinis and tomatoes. The packet of mint—it’s been a long time since my husband and I indulged in a mint julep...

  But what’s making me happiest of all is the thrill of watching sustainable farming and organics become popular here in China. Along with the elimination of plastic bags in shopping centres, this is a giant step in a very positive planetary direction.

  That’s It, She’s Gone!

  I think I want to sack my ayi III

  You’re probably tired of hearing this by now, but ... how can one teensy, elderly woman cause so much hell in one family’s life? I am wondering if she’s been hired by someone who really wants to push me over Suicide Ledge at the top of Mount Tolerance.

  Get ready for the latest.

  Last year, we had an air-conditioner installed in our kitchen because in summer it gets so hot you could crack an egg on the floor and fry it without turning on a single gas burner. Ayi gave us a moderate amount of grief over this air-conditioner then, but it’s not even the height of summer and she’s already started—cracking my head open like said egg.

  In our house, Ayi has been told (for over three years now) to never, under any circumstances, adjust the heating or the air-conditioning. Ever. The temperature comfort of our home is at the behest of our family—i.e. the people who actually live in the home—and not at the behest of someone who pops in to iron and cook, and who has such a screwed sense of temperature comfort, it’s like we’ve been borne of totally opposite species, not opposite cultures. Truly.