Chestnut Season
Yang drives into the heart of Beijing in order to buy freshly roasted Chestnuts. With fall comes Chestnut season in Beijing and the street side store Yang is going to is the most famous and the best roaster of all. As she gets near the stand she notices the long line and the complete lack of parking. Lack of parking except for an illegal spot right in front of the stand. With kids in the car and the prospect of having to drive in endless circles Yang contemplates the illegal park. Then she notices the the two soldiers standing right in front of the illegal spot. Two soldiers holding automatic (think AK47) weapons. So Yang does the only rationale thing, swing in between the soldiers and the takes the illegal spot. I mean, after all, what type of Beijing police would bother to ticket a car when it is being guarded by two of the nation’s finest.
The extra security is in run up to the 60th anniversary of the communists taking power in China. Some have claimed that the security concerns and security tightening is even higher than during the Olympics. I’m not so sure, but it’s close. Let’s review what happened last year versus this year:
- Last year volunteers the old and young) were were all over the streets of Beijing with the task of being helpful to tourists and of reporting any suspicious activities. This year the old volunteers are back, manning the streets. Actually, they would have just hung out on the streets during the day anyway, this just gives them a purpose and new shirts. The young volunteers are not needed in the streets as there is no flood of englsh speaking tourists. I did see a young volunteers checking for any problems on the subway. Last year DVD shops, beggars, and “massage parlors” where all closed in our neighborhood. This year, the “massage parlors” closed up two weeks ago (I noticed while walking Elisa) and our local DVD shop was raided by police yesterday. The beggars are still there but are playing it pretty low key. Last year they shut the back door of my office building, locked it in fact (got to love those fire codes). This year it remains open. Last year they locked down large portions of the city where the Olympics opening ceremony was to be held. This year they locked down the main drag of Beijing (Chang’an Jie) so tanks and floats could partake in practice. Last year they blocked internet sites until the western media complained. This year, youtube, facebook, twitter, blogspot, me posting this post… remain permanently blocked. Last year there was a stabbing of Americans and rumors of a conspiracy. This year there were two stabbing “sprees” and rumors of a conspiracy.
But the one thing you can always count on is human nature and the desire to cover one’s ass. Aidan went to school last week and was sent home because he had a temperature of 37 degrees celsius. For those of you keeping score at home that is 98.6 fahrenheit, also known as normal. Yesterday, Aidan’s teacher called Yang to tell he that if Aidan has a fever (and he had a slight one) that he should not go to the children’s hospital for treatment, that many sick kids are there. That is not very safe. Seemed like reasonable advice at the time. Several hours later, the teacher called again. Even volunteered to make a house visit if Aidan was sick vs. us taking him to the hospital for…and here is the magic word…diagnosis. You see, if Aidan was to be diagnosed with H1N1, then his entire class you be sent to home quarantine for a week (as happened at other schools recently). And the teacher would be quarantine for a week as well. And this would be very, very bad before national day.
So Yang did park, got out of the car, waited in the long line, procured, and sped of no doubt smiling at the soldiers. And we have mounds and mounds of freshly roasted chestnuts. So much that I think we will survive the winter or at least the 60th anniversary telecast.