With school on break for summer vacation, I no longer need to wake up promptly at 6am in order to walk Aidan to the school bus. So now when the alarm goes off, I tend to linger in bed for a bit longer and not get out of the house until 7AM when I make my five minute walk to Starbucks at Lido Square. For the past few mornings I’ve encountered a strange site. Teenagers, nearly all boys, walking in loose fitting athletics gear across Lido square, clearing heading somewhere, looking like it is for a workout. Two things are striking. One, there are many of them. Not five or ten, but more like 40. And I figure there are more than one troop because my arrival time at Starbucks has varied over the past week by as much as 30 minutes. Each trip, however, I’ve seen them. The second weird thing is that they are all overweight, bordering on obese. It is a fat camp.

Yang and I had actually seen the this specific fat camp once before. We were hunting for gyms in the Lido area two years ago and walked into one close by. It had all the equipment and space one could ever want, but it was run down and not real well maintained as facilities in Beijing without good management tend to get. It actually reminded me of that hotel in the Jack Nicolson movie The Shining. When Yang and I visited, everyone working out was overweight and that didn’t seem like a good sign. Yang asked why everyone is so heavy and was told it was a fat camp.

This week Aidan and Lydia went to a summer camp sponsored by their school. We can’t wait to hear all the details when they return tomorrow. Aidan has a cell phone (he is seven after all) and Yang called him on the first day. He was cleaning. This is certainly something he doesn’t do at home. The first night Aidan and Lydia were sent to different dorms and the next morning Yang called Aidan. As she was talking to Aidan she heard Lydia run up asking Aidan if he had mosquito bites like she had and for Aidan to put on the mosquito repellant patch. Before they left for camp, Yang has assigned Lydia the role of mosquito patch manager and she took the job very seriously.

Meanwhile, back at home, Elisa was having a summer camp of her own. No older siblings competing for attention, the button of her parents’ eyes. Walking hand in hand at Solano mall at least until she tired of my hand and waved me off. Having dinner at an Italian restaurant where she wanted to climb on the table and wailed when denied. Laughing hysterically as she tired. Falling asleep in Yang’s arms as we made our way out of the mall.

Tomorrow night the whole troop will be back home, sharing a meal and the fortunate chaos which is our home.