Beijing Tai Tai

by Tania McCartney

  It’s not necessarily China I’m cheering on. It’s non-country-specific, actually. It really tends to be whomever I’ve caught on the telly at that particular moment. It could be a Bulgarian weightlifter, a pair of Spanish synchronised swimmers, a Japanese trampolinist or a pack of rowers from the Old Country (Great Britain to you).

  I mean, how could you not gasp, yell, scream with victory and cry out in anguish as these athletes push their bodies beyond normal human capacity? How could you not tear-up at the sight of their faces—devastation, shock, triumph and pure elation—after many years, sometimes an entire lifetime, of training and personal dedication, not to mention pushing their bodies to the brink of human endurance?

  While I’m a deeply passionate Aussie team supporter and am first to leap from my seat and scream Aussie Aussie Aussie!, does it really matter where we are from when it comes to the thrill of the win? Can we not extend ourselves beyond the lines of our borders and feel an inner sense of pride for all athletes as they strive for that glint of gold?

  The Beijing Olympics is setting a fine example of sportsmanship. Sure, there’s been frustration and disappointment for many. Sure, the Chinese are certainly dominating (and this surprises you because...?), but overall I’ve been astounded at the all-round sportsmanship displayed at these Games. From the welcoming English-speaking volunteers right up to the gold medalists extending themselves with handshakes and kisses to subordinate winners on the medal dais. It’s a fine thing for our children to see.

  Sport, whether you’re an armchair spectator or semi-professional, is truly something that connects us all. It’s something that links us and firmly entrenches us in the human experience—both physically and emotionally. And when it can be celebrated in such a spirit of companionship, this is when the world feels truly at peace—a true embodiment of the Olympic ideology.

  And on a final note, in the immortal words of my son: ‘Win, Australia! You just gotta win!’ If only it were that easy...

  Chinese Street Gyms

  This ain’t no high-tech fitness club

  Have you heard of the Chinese exercise equipment dotted in pockets along the streets of Beijing? My kids love these things. Elliptical trainers, stationary bikes, StairMasters, lat-pulls, they’re all there. It’s just that they’re made for grannies and everyday ren, rather than great hulking chunks of muscle, bulging with testosterone and sweating out steroids.

  When we first moved to China, I was scared to let my kids run rampant on these local exercise staples. I felt we didn’t ‘qualify’ to use such an inventive community initiative, really reserved for harried businessmen on their way to work or elderly Beijingren in need of arthritic relief. I felt, well, that we were just too foreign and my kids were too small and would totally misuse these exercise options as play equipment or something appalling like that.

  How things have changed. Now that we are lao pengyou de Beijing—old Beijing friends—our entire family feels far more comfortable stretching our boundaries and stepping into the footprints of the local Chinese. We’ve now been using this Chinese exercise equipment for around three years and not only are we wholeheartedly welcomed by the locals who use these contraptions to keep fit, we also seem to encourage other Chinese passers-by to join in.

  The Chinese have a no-nonsense, admirable approach to health. They shade themselves from the sun, live in synch with the seasons, eat an excellent diet (even if it is a little high in oil and salt), practise an impressively lao (old) form of alternative medicine, and believe in keeping physically active and able. Coming from Australia, where few people exercise in public unless they can run like the wind with Olympic track style, pop with muscles while lifting their own bodyweight in barbells or look like a supermodel in a leotard, it was a little cheesy seeing middle-aged women walking backwards on the street in their socks and sandals, let alone ballroom dancing to screechy Cultural Revolution oldies, clapping their hands and chanting in the sunshine, or practising tai chi with faux swords under a tree in their pyjamas.

  I almost averted my eyes at first. Standing in the middle of the street, slapping their hands together behind their backs like dilapidated flamingos was just, well, strange to me. But it soon became an everyday sight in our lives and with it came the understanding that it doesn’t matter where you exercise, how you do it or how daft you look, as long as you do it, and even better, enjoy doing it.

  Now I can’t live without the grannies at the bottom of my building twirling their wrists around, kicking their legs in the air or performing deep knee bends. I can’t get enough of the ballroom dancers, especially the ones who can’t find a partner and dance solo, holding an imaginary Fred Astaire. How I’ve pined to go over and take their hand and swirl and twirl alongside them. My absolute favourite are the tai chi groups who entrance me with their muscle-toning moves, and the granddads who head to the street gym, roll up their singlets and rub their lumbago backs on the big meat-tenderising apparatus next to the joint-loosening contraption.

  My personal favourite of these exercise contraptions, often painted bright yellow, blue or green, would have to be the hip-slipping walker. You plant a foot on each pedal and swing your legs like you’re running through space, ironing out all the cricks and clicks in any type of hip, especially the crusty hips of an oft-seated writer. I also love the pizza wheels, as my kids call them: flat disks you stand on, grip the handles and twist from side to side like a pony-tail-wearing jivester at a 1950s dance.

  My kids’ favourites? Everything. They run from piece to piece like mice in a maze, unable to decide what to go on, what to stay on, what to hog. It’s a joy watching them enjoy these simple contraptions so much—and for free!

  What could be better? I’ll tell you what: seeing my kids attract an audience of fellow Chinese sports-enthusiasts to share in the joy.

  Summer Holiday: Day 45

  We’re over halfway through!

  Today, I am celebrating. I haven’t popped the champagne cork yet; the champagne glass is empty (have to wait until at least 3p.m., realistically), but I am celebrating nonetheless. This morning, I spoiled myself to a Starbucks non-fat vanilla latte (grande) and even spent an hour chatting with a very intelligent person who was actually older than eight years. This afternoon, I might even have my nails done. Or go long-overdue shopping. Or— gasp!—read a magazine in between my regularly scheduled writing. I might even turn on the tele (I never do this in the day unless the kids are home) and watch some Games. Ooh la la! The choice is overwhelming me.

  So, today my kids started another two weeks of Summer Camp. And the reason I’m celebrating, above and beyond having personal choice outside playdough, Wii, colouring books, Tonka trucks and Barbies, is that my kids where actually happy to go. They were really excited, and this—as many a mother will tell you—is a real feat. Sure, I talked it up, I created infectious enthusiasm, but I honestly do think they enjoy it. Anything that involves swimming, hotdogs and friends is surely enough to keep any kid in rapture.

  They had last week at home, and we had a good time. We pottered around and made trips to Jenny Lou’s for goodies, and kicked the soccer ball down the corridor into Ayi’s room, and coloured in and made ice slushies. Dad even nipped home early to take them both swimming.

  But overall, home is rather boring. Sure, Mum likes to play but she still needs to write, shop for food, pick things up off the floor (groan) and wash Beijing microbes off her skin and hair occasionally. Boring, I know, but Real—and kids happen to live in a land of make-believe, where fun must gush from a curling Dr Seuss tap. So, it’s with relief that they dashed off to Summer Camp at 8.15a.m. And I have every nerve-cell crossed that they’ll return home just as enthused.

  The other reason I’m celebrating is that we’re halfway through the school holidays. Halfway through! In fact, more than halfway through. More than that, we are also only two and a bit weeks from a trip to Hong Kong for some really really fast R&R—so fast, we’ll be jetting back the day the kids were meant to st
art school ( shhhh). We would have gone earlier, only this large International Sporting Event just happened to be happening.

  We also have a special reason to go to Hong Kong. We’re meeting up with Granny on her way back to Australia from the UK. Any excuse to spend a long weekend in Honkers. The kids will go bananas seeing their Gran, whom they adore. And I’ll have someone to take to The Peninsula for High Tea. Again, any excuse (husband and kids never interested— groan).

  Isn’t the world becoming a teensy place? When I was a kid, we’d be lucky to meet up with Granny two suburbs away, let alone popping down to Hong Kong, sweetie darling. I mean, really. It’s like the time I watched Riley play in his ClubFootball grand final, and I was particularly impressed by a little five-year-old British boy who scored quite a few goals. I passed on a compliment to the child, and then asked him where he had learned his soccer skills. Expecting him to say ‘In Sussex, Ma’am,’ he instead confidently announced he had learned his stuff in Singapore. As you do.

  Yes, the world is getting smaller and smaller and with that comes ever-increasing reasons to pop a champagne cork. Why, you ask?

  Do you really need a reason?

  Foodie Culture Shock

  Stretching our family’s palate in Beijing

  I remember one of the first things to rise up and slap us in the face when we first arrived in Beijing was the food. The crumbling toast, the ponging milk and the strange animal parts on offer was disturbing. The Weet-Bix cost the price of a small car and the local Lays chips contained more MSG than even the strongest bowel could tolerate in one, er ... sitting.

  In our first weeks in the capital, we almost immediately craved food from home. A lot. We craved warm donuts dusted in cinnamon sugar, wobbling tubs of buffalo mozzarella and curling slips of shaved honey ham. We craved yoghurt iceblocks and hunks of nougat that sweettalked the tongue. We became obsessed with finding wholegrain bread, natural muesli and soy milk. Where to buy Lavazza coffee? How to find fresh barbecued chickens? Is there such a thing as organic in this town? Which way to the gummy-bear store?

  This searching consumed me, as the chief hunter and gatherer of food for our family. And securing these finds took months—nay, years. But in the meantime, along with an infinite supply of good restaurants and our ayi’s cooking talent, something began to shift in our family. It was our palates, sliding sideways like an oral continental drift from Australia to China. Now, after three-and-a-half years, could our mouths have become ... Chinese?

  For our family, there is nothing like gong bao chicken, Peking duck and the crack of toffee crabapples against the teeth—a favourite with our kids. We crave and adore the scallion pancakes, the marinated tofu, the steaming hotpot cauldrons swimming with sliced lotus root, shaved pork and needle mushrooms. All this is part of us now, along with hole-in-the-wall baozi (bread dumplings) and bing (egg pancakes).

  Although we still indulge in foreign treats, we mostly eat endemic foods now, in parallel with the seasons and fully engaged in the local flavours of China. I’ve actually been glad to say goodbye to our Australian tongues and I do believe this is the culinary Way while living here. We had to let go of our tongue’s security blanket. Immerse. Lap it up. Chow down some chow mien. Suck in a duck. The donuts would always be there when we went home.

  And what of our food cravings from home? They haven’t actually disappeared. They’re not an issue; they’re on standby. The only issue now is how we’re going to deal with our ravenous food cravings when we return to Australia.

  Our cravings for the flavour of China.

  Paralympic Meltdown

  How can these Games make one woman so pathetic?

  Okay, so here’s the thing: when it comes to such things as triumph over adversity (and the loss of pets), I’m really pathetic. I become a blubbering mess. And this is also true for the Paralympians.

  Don’t get me wrong, there’s not a shred of self-ingratiating pity in it. It’s just sheer and pristine admiration, affection, awe and total respect for people who do whatever they want in life, even if they have no legs or can’t see.

  I like exercise once I get into it (a bit like certain other pesky physical acts) but for the most part, it’s a bit agonising making the daily commitment to work this rear end on the treadmill. I’ve been known to pull excuses out of nether-regions and stratospheres to kybosh a workout. Sore foot, aching back, headache, tired, new DVD...

  Oh, give me a break. If a man can run 5000 metres or score a soccer goal completely blind, then I can ignore a little fatigue and push past it without whining. Surely.

  Hmmm. Don’t save your sporting admiration for me. Save it for these Paralympians. How can you not shed a tear as talented swimmers, who are severely physically compromised, fling themselves into the deep end of a swimming pool and power through that water with no arms and do it faster than most of us ever could, even when asleep and inside our dreams?

  I mean, come on! How could you not be completely moved by this? How could you not wail out loud watching China’s Wu Chunmiao, winner of the women’s 100 metres T11 (blind) sprint, remove her gold medal and drape it gently around the neck of her guide runner?

  I really want my kids to see these Paralympic Games and so last night we took Ella (Riley opted out—‘Too rainy, Mum’) to the Bird’s Nest in torrential rain to see these astounding athletes in action. We saw an Australian arm amputee win the 200-metre sprint and a blind Chinese 5000-metre runner steal the gold in a last-minute dash. The cataclysmic eruption around the stadium is something I will never forget, so long as I live—it still raises the hairs on my arms. We also enjoyed shot put, javelin, long jump and plenty of wheelchair racing and sprinting.

  My only complaint is that I missed a little too much of the action because I spent far too much time watching the reaction on Ella’s face. Isn’t it real-life moments like these that teach our children more than anything else ever could?

  Guest Overload

  Everybody’s doing it

  What is it about September and October? Has Beijing Capital airport crumbled under the weight of an expat family and friend influx or what? Everyone is exhausted and run ragged; everyone is busy beyond any kind of sanity and no one has a spare pillow or blanket to save themselves. Houses are full, beds are chock-a-block and Ya Show market has paid off its mortgage. But the Guest Season in Beijing is almost over and people are finally shipping their last round of visitors out the door.

  Not that we should complain. Having people visit is great fun. It gets us off our jaded butts and into the hot spots once again ... who could ever have too much of the Beijing hutongs or the Temple of Heaven or the fragrantly smoky forecourt of the Lama Temple?

  Most guests are too overwhelmed by this place to just sit on your couch and eat jiaozi and fart all day. They are out and about, on tours, buzzing around in taxis, balancing on the edge of the Great Wall, snapping photos of the guards marching like tin soldiers in Tian’anmen Square and sampling all manner of unearthly foodie delights. They are buying up trinkets, t-shirts and silk. They are bedecking their necks in baubles from the sea, groaning under the skilled hands of a local masseuse and gawping at the provincial throngs power-surging into the Forbidden City.

  Having guests gives us an excuse to go along with them, to enjoy Beijing all over again—to feast, to sample, to roll in it and sigh. We get to boast about the kaleidoscope of gorgeousness at our local fruit and veg market. We get to brag about how we swathe ourselves in silk for 90 cents and pluck pearls from stalls like day-old cherries. We can gloat over how we are watching centuries of old China crumble before our very eyes, and are witnessing the construction of a New World.

  It is a proud and happy time when guests come to stay. Plus, of course, any excuse to add to the handbag collection. Please don’t tell Xiansheng.

  So Long Summer

  It’s been nice knowing you

  Ahhh ... I can almost feel the change in the air. Almost. It’s just about here. I can taste it. And as many a sea
soned Beijinger will know, the cold descends in about the same time it takes to grow bamboo. Frighteningly fast.

  Exciting.

  Exciting because our family is pining for the end of summer. Perhaps it’s the vintage blend of the British Isles in our veins but we love the cold. Descendants of lizards are we. Give it all to us: snow, ice, frost, slush, hail, sleet, flurries and blizzards—the lot. Bitter, frozen, icy, freezing, chilly, frosty, wintry, arctic are all good for us. Skating on frozen Hou Hai Lake is one of our favourite family pastimes ever.

  We love the numbness of frozen fingertips, the lull of hand-warmers in the pockets, the snugness of a beanie on the head, earmuffs muffling the ears, thick socks packing boots, soft scarves under the chin, melty lip balm on the lips, warming hot cocoa puffed with marshmallows, huddling by an open fire, bed socks, throw rugs, tearing inside out of the frozen wind while laughing hard with breathlessness, cuddles and Eskimo kisses when the tips of the nose are cold.

  We love love love it.

  I’ve been pining for the days when my kids rush in from the school bus without looking like they’ve been dragged through a wet jungle backwards. I can’t wait to see them in their smart school blazers and their snug hats and boots on the weekend. I can’t wait to help them shove their feet into snow boots and clump downstairs for a snowball thrashing.

  So, goodbye summer—you haven’t been too hard on us this year. Have fun in the south ... and don’t wait up for us.

  Publishing a Children’s Book in Beijing

  Sometimes we have to control our own dreams

  Whenever I tell people I’m a writer, they invariably say they’d love to write a book. Indeed, we all have a story to tell, and if you love writing what better thrill than to have a book in print?