The text message lands in the parent’s wechat group - the students have arrived at the train station and are expected at school by 7pm. This starts the countdown to when I need to pick up Elisa but I don’t really need a countdown as I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’ve been thinking about it all day, well, because I have nothing else to do. That and the PTSD from last year’s culture trip pickup.
Last year, the culture trip pickup was at about the same time and I drove to the school to pick Elisa up. Like most schools, the roads are not designed for parents to pick up their kids, in fact the roads around her school are particularly small and are probably due to a centuries old heritage.Last year, as I waited, a car tried to squeeze past my car. The margins were so tight, the other car side mirror moved under my side mirror. A scrap avoided only by the suspension’s height.
So this year, I was anxious. Well, I’m often anxious, but especially anxious for the pickup. Then another text message comes in. The pickup location has changed. The message is in Chinese and I try to search for the new location. No luck. Elisa sends me the location, which is a block away from the school and along a big road.
The big road has a side road which has street parking. I veer into the side road and am pleased to see two spots near the pickup location. It’s parallel parking, but no worries my car has self parking. I tap the park icon and the car takes over. Then, just as it was about to back in, it jolts to a stop. The car detected obstacles. I see a person on a scooter in front right of the car, moving in the opposite direction. No worries, just let him pass and then continue. I check the review mirror and the side street which was void of traffic when I pulled into it is no longer empty. There’s about 20 scooters queued up and trying to figure out how to pass. They squeeze by on both sides making most use of the space, some nudging my car. I try to move the car, but worried I would crush someone passing on the right or topple someone on the left, I decide to wait it out. It takes a while until the queue passes. Another army of scooters is coming up but I have enough time to manually park before they deadlock behind me.
For the past couple of years, I’ve been doing my pickup/drop-off duties rather than travelling myself. Picking up/dropping off Lydia on her way to/from Toronto. The same for Yang and Aidan. Picking up my brother Matt when he travelled to China. I kind of like it, it gives me a sense of purpose. Like the same sense of purpose when I walk listening to podcasts.
For the culture trip, the parents gather where the buses are about to drop off the kids. One bus for each grade. On one hand it’s odd, since most of the kids – at least Elisa – make their own way home after school. But on the other hand, there’s something about greeting your kid returning home after a trip even if this trip to Wuhan was only three nights.
Elisa’s bus arrives and kids are piling out, like a bunch of loose legos. I see one of the teachers with his backpack walk away in stealth. I’m scanning for Elisa when I see her waving. She walks over, and we start to walk to the car when she says her friends want to meet Kobe, our dog, who I have with me. She takes the leash and Kobe gets ooohs and ahhs. The dad gets a couple of nods.
I drive Elisa back to Hairun which takes about 25 minutes. This is the best part of it for me. The best part of my day. Listening to Elisa describe her experiences. The sentimentality of the last culture trip for the senior class. The coming together. The gossip. The teachers treating them more like adults. The food, always the food.