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Lydia wants to go outside, down to the open space the sits in the middle of our apartment complex. I’m tired from driving visitors around and want to take a nap, but the eagerness in her eyes is not resistible. We take the elevator down the four floors and head outside. Once there, the place is like a UN (or at least east asian) convention for small people. There are of course Chinese kids, but also Japanese, Korean, American, Australian, and Euros. Lydia fits in with them all and is soon playing while I take my seat on a bench and obsessively check my cell phone. Eventually I put my headphones on and listen to an ESPN podcast. Just in time for Lydia to come running toward me in a mix of whining and crying and outrage. Turns out a little boy had captured a small frog (I’m tempted to say tadpole .. but it is indeed a complete looking mini frog) inside of a plastic coke bottle. Lydia is whining/crying/outraged because she wants one, and not able to find one she wants the little boy’s frog. ...

Yang got a cold call asking her if we wanted to go fencing. The cold caller had two advantages on reaching Yang vs. me. First, Yang would actually speak with them. Second, Yang could actually understand what they were saying. So, Yang agreed to take Aidan and Lydia to the “free” fencing lesson at the Olympic fencing center. We got there and it was packed. More packed than a Hawaiian timeshare sale to get a free snorkeling trip. Aidan and Lydia got the requisite five minute instruction and then Aidan was off to fight his first match. I got to admit, Aidan loved it. ...

In the past six months, something has happened to Lydia. She became a sweetheart. Sure, there has been a few bumps along the way – like the time when she told Yang she would find her a better husband, one that spoke Chinese – but mostly it has been an upward ascension of niceness. I come home from work and she runs to me and hugs me. All this without asking for candy or in tears because the ayi cannot draw a van gogh replica. The topper was on Sunday when we visited one of Yang’s oldest and closest and up tight friends in Beijing. Lydia told her “auntie, you are so pretty” and this woman of late 40s just melted. This woman who has been known to turn water into ice looked like a little kid again. ...

When my plane reached the gate at Beijing International a squad of Chinese health officials (workers?) came on board and announced they would take our temperatures in light of the H1N1 flu. The announcement lasted for about 10 seconds in English and 100 seconds in Chinese. Then the officials walked down the aisle taking the thermal reading of each passenger by pointing a sensor at our foreheads. Once off the plane we walked through another health check and another thermal reading. Upon passing immigration I was handed a card that recommended I stay at home for seven days..a self quarantine. Having passed and not to having fellow passengers with fevers, who where mexican citizens, or had visited mexico, I was feeling lucky. Luckier than two of my co-workers who upon return from the states had been quarantined in a two star hotel for seven days…because a fellow passenger had been confirmed with H1N1. ...

I’ve just finished my traditional take-off nap and have awoken to find myself surrounded by strangers all heading to Beijing for one reason or another. I am heading to Beijing because this is where Yang, Aidan, Lydia, and Elisa live and I can’t wait to see them again after two weeks state side. And Aidan cannot wait to see me because I am packing his new black bionicle. These work trips are always tiring and always intense. It is kind of like a management training class without the training where they take away everything you are comfortable with…everything that grounds you…apply a bit of stress…mix in exhaustion…and a dash of uncertainty. Because of this you are more emotionally open to change or collapse. As far as the management training classes go, I don’t like them much; it feels like a parlor trick. I guess that’s because it is. As far as the work trip goes, I guess that should be more under my own control. So when waiting for the plane I had those familiar thoughts I have at the conclusion of these trips. How I am going to be a better father, how I am not going to work so hard, how I am going to run fast, how I am going to finally learn chinese. And even as I have these thoughts which can get strangely emotional at times and I recognize that I’ve had them before and have yet to accomplish a single one. That when I get back to Beijing I will be too busy and stressed to do any of these things. And that even if I did not have the time constraint or stress constraint then I still might not do these things. That maybe what I really am, when left to my own devices, is a worked out and stressed out animal. I suspect that this is what Yang would say. But I did make a change this trip. In the stressed out jet lag days, I made a good decision to let go of a project that would have stressed me out even further in favor of one I could do in my sleep (don’t tell my boss). In fact, it’s my easiest job (scope wise) in maybe ten years. So I should get to find out if I can learn chinese or spend time with Aidan and teach him baseball, or spend time with Lydia and teach her English, or spend time with Elisa and have her teach me serenity. So, like I said, the exhausted, plus stress, plus taking away everything that comforts you tends to take your mind to a place it would not normally go. You lose you grounding, you try to establish new grounding. Another 10 hours and I will be on the ground in Beijing. ...

A wise old friend or at least and old friend or at least and old person once told me that the reason you send your kids to school is so someone will kick their ass. That way you don’t have too. An important part of child development is knowing they are not in fact king and that real kings wield their power simply because they can. That this is an invaluable life lesson for the physical and mental ass kickings that await them. And I must say, that as an adult this does occur but that the power of understanding does not lead to insight or acceptance. Sometimes the best thing to do is just pick up your toys and play with someone else. ...

I’m waiting for Wang Ayi to finish in the kitchen so that I can make my lunch for the week – two bean chili. Wang Ayi has been in the kitchen since roughly 3pm, making dumplings from scratch. And I mean from scratch. Made the wrap from flour, chopped the veggies, cooked the eggs, cook the pork, formed the dumplings, and cooked them. She did everything but kill the pig. The downside of this that if I don’t get in the kitchen early in the day, then I am shot until Wang Ayi is done. Should be about 30 minutes now. It’s 8pm. Wang Ayi is famous for trying to save money, which is why she makes everything from scratch. I guess this a good thing in an Ayi versus the ones who always takes the best piece of meat. But it also has a downside – beyond the time in the kitchen – in that we like the store bought dumping wrap and noodles from time to time. There is a saying in China that there is always someone in your way. I’m sure this saying isn’t in English but my Chinese isn’t so good (see previous posts) so I will have a hard time to translate. If I did translate it would go like yǒu rén zǒng shì nǐ de lù (有人总是你的路). Right now there are eight people and three goldfish in the house. Two Ayis, one grandmother, one father, one mother, and three children. It feels loud and crowded and I’m not even considering the noise the goldfish make. Flush. ...

At 67 and 65 years old, sitting on the beach in Sanya, and drinking Cuba Libres they felt pretty good about their lives. Two kids off to college, the older one to an ivy league school the younger one to a bit lesser school but in her own way. They had enough money they could live comfortably in one of their three small homes (Beijing, San Francisco, Sanya) and move between locations at their own pace and never be out of touch. It was time to relax, a true golden age. They had three favorite hobbies during these days. Golf, reading, and telling tales from their younger, somewhat wilder, and somewhat busier days. How their best decisions were also their most ill informed ones. If they knew more about real estate in Beijing, they would have never bought when they did, yet they did and now that accounted for 30% of their income. If they knew about the corruption rampant in his business, he would have never taken the job, yet he did and become the steady income person as the incorruptible one. So here they were, trading stories of their late 30s and early 40s. Kids were still high maintenance but they had ayis so they could go out on the town from time to time. They started telling stories of late night parties. How he used to overtly flight with certain girls. How she, in her own words, “used to fuck everyman in sight” at which he said “excuse me?” She said, “well, yea, you didn’t think you were the only one getting a little side action, did you?” And he said, he never got any side action. That he had been faithful all these years, that he was just flirty. That sometimes the flirts turned into something more but that he resisted acting out any of those desires. To which she said “you missed out”, smiled, and took another sip of her Cuba Libre. ...

We arrive at the Airport, T3, and Yang’s father JiPing heads strait for the Air China line that has no people in front of it. This would not be the economy line nor the self check-in line. First class line. He shows his special acamedician card that lets him whisk us through even though we only have economy seats. Lydia and Aidan impress the counter lady with their Chinese. The counter people in China tend to be a lot nicer…and not just the first class ones. Not like the 10 cup of coffee with hemorrhoids types you can run into in the states. Yang disappears to get Elisa’s infant boarding pass and is gone a long time when she calls me and says they won’t allow her to take three kids on the plane and I need to come over with my passport. I start to comment that this is weird since she flew 13 hours from the states with the three kids and Qingdao is a short hop. So I wander over in the direction where she is (the airport is so big one needs GPS) but can’t find her. Turns out they relented and she had returned without me seeing her. ...

Lydia runs into the den carrying a bowl of sliced apples and pears. She tells me in her unique english that I can eat some and would I like a few or many. I take one of each remembering that I had passed on an apple earlier in the day because it was looking a bit old. After my two pieces she says “ok” and runs out of the room, bowl in hand. Moments pass and she is back with the bowl of strawberries and tells me I can eat some. I have one thinking that I hope the strawberries are washed and what should I do with the pit. I haven’t been eating meat now for over two months. I try to avoid dairy but not so much…just replacing milk with soy in my cereal. Yang’s mom Yihang at first thought it was amusing and at the same time didn’t quite get that pieces of meat served in dishes also count. Lately she has been asking when I will start again and I honestly don’t know. She tells me that it can’t be healthy not to eat meat and I tell her I don’t know, if anything I’ve been feeling a lot healthier. She is especially worried because when I dropped by her apartment last week her mahjong friends told her I looked too skinny. To which I retort that I just don’t look as fat as I used to. I’ve lost maybe five pounds. This does not seem to console her. She asks again why and when and since I’m never good at these questions even when I know the why or when so I proceed to answer the more interesting question which is “what’s next?” I tell her I plan to go on a raw food diet followed by an all fruit diet. She doesn’t get the humor in this even when I add that during the raw food phase I can load up on sushi. Well, at least sashimi. Our new Ayi that cooks everything from scratch and throws nothing away. Makes her own noodles, makes her own dumpling wraps, I would not be surprised to find a rice paddy in the back bedroom. I guess that makes it healthier. It is cheaper but noodles and dumpling wraps are not exactly expensive to begin here. It does take a fairly long amount of time. And on her weekly day off I’ve been know to go through the fridge and throw away the old and molding food. Or feed it to the goldfish. We’ve been pretty good with the fast food and soda for the kids. McDonalds is a maybe once a month event and its for the toy more than the food. KFC (which is on par here in terms of fast food popularity) we’ve only been to once with the kids. And that was for a toy. Aidan likes Sprite but is lucky to have a can every two weeks—we just don’t buy it nor stock it in the house. Out major weakness is ice cream and with summer coming we can expect two a day ice cream cones for the kids. Hey, I may even have one. As I write this I just finished dinner. Yihang had they Ayi cook “meat tofu” just for me and it really did look like meat, which isn’t really they idea I’m going for. Tasted ok. We went to Qingdao last weekend and stopped in an SPR coffee shop where I bought Lydia a chocolate donut. You might be able to tell from these pictures that she enjoyed it. ...