Family

I first visited Qingdao with my wife and parents back in the fall of 2002. I remember the date and time because the Giants were making their world series playoff run and we were able to catch parts of the national league playoff games on what passes for ESPN here. Qingdao, as a second tier China city wasn’t super impressive at that time and while it attracted its fair share of domestic tourist, very few international tourist went there. (the foreigners in town consisted largely of Korean and Japanese business folks and the ever present Russians). Over the years, we’ve visited Qingdao maybe three times and each time it gets a bit better in my estimation. Or maybe I am just getting used to it. ...

It is 6pm and I am walking down the hallway of the Sophia Hotel Qingdao when a middle aged man is returning to his room. He is be supported by two other middle aged men without whom it appears he would not be able to walk. He was a victim of Chinese dinner with drinking tradition, which some laowai (foreigners) here simply refer to as a “baijiu (while alcohol) party”. ...

I’m sitting in Shanghai Airlines first class lounge as I wait for my flight to Qingdao. The first class lounge is nice, a bit understated by the standards of first class lounges. As if I have a lot of experience in first class lounges. The reason I am in the first class lounge is because Yang got some kind of break on the ticket. Yang, the kids, and her dad will meet me in Qingdao and then we will spend five nights on some island whose name I can’t remember. So it is kind of like the perfect vacation light for me – no kids on the plane and first class. ...

I come home from work and find Lydia in front of the computer, frustrated that she can’t pick the right accessory for the barbie doll like dress up game. In the living room, Elisa is sitting with cui ayi watching cartoons. In the back bedroom, Aidan is watching his own cartoons. I think now would be a good time to send the TVs to all the parents who want to have dumb kids. I turn off the screens and take the kids downstairs to play. ...

I am standing up eating peanuts out of a plastic cup. Elisa walks up to me and beckons me to “my chair” and asks me to sit down. I don’t sit down so she climbs up on to the chair herself and sits down, as it to demonstrate to me what she means. She asks me to sit down again and I oblige. She does this because most nights at this time I sit in my chair and have a handful of peanuts and read The Chronicle on my Kindle. So once I am seated, Elisa climbs down and stands next to my chair and asks for a peanut as this is her shared nightly ritual with me. I tell her “just one” and she nods and greedily eats the half peanut I give her. She waits a moment and asks for another. I say “last one” and she says “last one”. A moment passes and she says “last one” and I hand her another. I check with Yang if Elisa knows what “last one” means in English and indeed Elisa knows; we confirm by having her ask for “last one” in Chinese. That said, I’m pretty sure our Ayi thinks “last one” means “peanut”. ...

I head downstairs after my morning workout and Lydia and Elisa are in the playground. Elisa is coming down the slide and Lydia is going way high on the swing. Lydia beams at me on her way up and says “babi, babi”. Elisa reaches the bottom of her slide, stands up and runs to me also saying “babi, babi.” I am quite happy at this moment. I greet then, tell them I am off to work, then hop on my bike and confidently push off for the 15 minute ride to the subway station. A half block away, I realize my tires are too low on air to make it, so I circle back home and pump them up. Upon my second exit, the girls still wave but seem as interested in their play than saying goodbye a second time. I am left with an impression of my two girls being very close, kind of like in this two pictures: ...

I am carrying Lydia as we walk back to our hotel in the English Bay section in Vancouver. My closest childhood friend Jose is a half block ahead walking with his five year old daughter. I am talking with his wife Sarah while Yang, Elisa, and Aidan are a half block back. This being an older neighborhood, a strip of relatively well maintained grass separates the street edge from the sidewalk. My left foot lands half on the sidewalk and half on the grass, something my ankle was unprepared for. It turns and gives way meaning I fall forward with nothing but Lydia to break my fall. I instinctively let go of Lydia as we near the ground and she lands hard. In the half second I had, I was able divert my fall away from her. A beat passes. Then Lydia is crying, a cry which is a bit of a relief since it means she wasn’t hurt that bad. I pull her close and wish her a happy birthday. ...

Having started my work day at 7AM and now finding it 7:30pm, I shut down my computer and tell my co-worker I won’t be checking email for the next two weeks. Looks of disbelief aside, I grab a taxi and meet Yang at a teppanyaki restaurant in Sanlitun. Charlie and a woman I refer to as laoshi (teacher) join us. For 198RMB each, we have all the food and drink we can handle which by the knots on my belt is a fairly decent amount. ...

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. ...

In a few short weeks Elisa will hit the ripe old age of two and we will celebrate by boarding a plane from Vancouver to Beijing. Two, as most any parent will tell you, is the magical time with your child also known as the terrible twos. Terrible as in they are inconsolable, fussy, have grocery store clearing tantrums, and are prone to throw things. And I’m just taking about the parents, the kids are much worse. Both our older kids, Aidan and Lydia, were early adopters of the terrible twos, each showing solid signs at 18 months and in full swing by 20 months. Yang will say Aidan did not go through the phase and Lydia never left if; all I will say is that they both with through it, with Lydia stopping to spit on the roses. ...