Last week Aidan had final exams. Aidan is in the first grade. I’m trying to think back to when I had my first final exams. High school maybe. Yea, high school. But they weren’t that formal and not all classes had them. In wasn’t until college that I really knew what final exams where really all about. And I certainly never got the grades Aidan got, but more on that later. ...
Aidan and Lydia are fast asleep as we land at Beijing Airport, completing the flying portion of our return trip home. The day started out at 8AM PST (12AM CST) with me driving to Peet’s coffee, Jamba Juice, and Noah’s bagel (in that order) to satisfy our family’s cravings on our last vacation day in the states. Back to the hotel I help Yang shower the kids and do the final packing. By helping to shower the kids, I mean I tell Lydia and Aidan to keep their towel wrap on until their mom can tell them what to wear. By helping to pack, I mean I carry stuff down to the car. ...
It is Sunday morning and we are driving over Fangcaodi for Aidan’s piano recital. Yang and I are discussing the one parent rule allowed for the recital. I am inclined to abide by the rules and Yang says, never mind, it’s a silly over reaction to the flu scare and we should just go. Besides, if they complain we will say we have two kids since Lydia is also in tow. When we got to Fangcaodi and made it up the four flights of stairs where the music room is (strangely the stairs remind of All Souls) someone asks who Lydia is and outside of that, no one bothers us and the rule turned out not to be a big deal for those who ignored it. ...
Lydia has been in a bit of a whiny mood over the past few days as she gets over a slight fever. She’s been wanting to spend time with her best friends on this earth not named Aidan, namely Naomi from upstairs and her mom. When she can’t get access to these people…well let’s say it isn’t a linear progression once you get to position four. In any case, she has been practicing the piano and is eager to show me what she’s learned. She can read the music and play the notes in her lessons which impresses me because it is more than I can do. Then again she could just be faking it and I would never know. Every now and again she tells me she will play her own music and she in fact does. I won’t go so far as to say she has a gift – after all there are about 100 million other five year olds in china doing the same thing – but I am pretty impressed. ...
Lydia is coming out of the shower in a better mood than she went into it. Aidan just finished demonstrating he is way better than his father at bubble breaker. Elisa is rounding off her introductory month to the world of infectious diseases with a full blown cold. Me, I’m sitting on the coach typing this listening to music on my latest set of headphones. We’ve been making an effort to put the kids down (why does this sound like something you do to a horse?) by 8:30pm. Mainly this is because Aidan needs to get up at 6:15am in order to catch his 6:45am bus to school. It is also in part because one of our two ayis (this is the point in the narrative you curse me) needs to leave at 9pm sharp in order to catch her bus home. It is also in part, like parents without ayis, we can get some peace in the house for some adult time. Adult time, at our age and energy, spent mostly in our respective corners on our respective laptops. With, in Yang’s case, Elisa tugging at her for attention. ...
I pay for the drinks from a monthly work meal allowance of 600 RMB ($90 USD). A meal allowance that I’m never short of, in fact if I added up my unused meal allowance it would total about 7,000 RMB. Drinks in hand, I leave Starbucks with a Java chip frappuccino for Yang and a green tea soy latte for myself. Three three beggars glance my way, and they do some type of implicit triage and one of them walks towards me. She says “hello” as near and nudges herself into my walking path so that I must either make eye contact or walk around her. I walk around. She slides into my path and is sure to get her paper cup and arm against mine as I walk by. I move my head ever so slightly “no”. Her voice gets a little louder as I pass. “hello, hello” but is never aggressive beyond not respecting my physical space. The other two beggars, move on to other foreigners walking by. ...
At 6am my cell phone vibrates and before the first ring completes I press a button that makes it stop. This is so much ingrained in my daily routine that I cannot describe what the ring sounds like or what exactly I press to make it stop. I just know I do. I awake, not feeling rested, never feeling rested at 6am, and shower. Aidan needs to get up soon to catch his school bus so I give a shout out to the room he’s sleeping in … “aidan, need to get up”. Showed, shaved, brushed, and toweled I wake up Aidan before I dress. Wake up is not quite right. Yang and I cajole him into waking up, first with gentle reminders, then gentle threats, then just picking up up off the bed. ...
I am sitting in the lobby of the mega spa, one that I wrote about in this space a year or two ago. We are back here because York is visiting and because it has been damn cold in Beijing. As far as I know the cold snap and York’s arrival are purely coincidental. A Beijing winter tradition is to visit SPAs and when I asked Yang about this tradition being in contrast to the general phobia of Beijingers about hot/cold weather she looked at me like I had just asked why the sky is blue. Me, I am not a big fan of the spa in general and in particular being the only foreigner in a spa with hundreds of Chinese. This on the back of a work offsite where I am the only one of two hundred co-workers who doesn’t understand Chinese. So, I’m sitting this one out, in the lobby, taking the chance to catch up on my reading and my writing. It has been a heck of a few weeks in terms of getting behind and not being able to catch up. For my work, for my running, for my sleep, for my time with family. ...
Elisa wakes up in the middle of the night and fusses enough to wake up Yang. Says in something in Chinese Yang can’t quite understand. Then Yang can start to understand her “hē shuǐ 喝水” she says. 喝水. “Drink Water”, “Drink Water”. Yang grabs the water glass and brings it to Elisa’s mouth. Elisa shakes her off. Points at Yang. Yang needs to drink water. Yang needs to drink water because Yang always drinks water when she breast feeds Elisa. ...
Having just finished visiting where the great wall enters the sea, we are driving around central Qínhuángdǎo looking for a place to kill the next couple of hours. A modern mall where the kids could run around and we could relax a bit would be nice. Aidan is sitting in the passenger seat with Yang and wants an ice cream from KFC. I am trying to navigate the traffic with is heavy and tight and slow going. I light turns red and I stop. Just then Yang’s mom Yihong – who has been soundly asleep in the back seat along with Lydia and Elisa – wakes up. Without missing a beat she says “Lai Ba” (“we’re here”), wakes Lydia, and opens the car door. She’s about to step out into traffic when Yang calls her back and she realizes we have not parked but remain stuck in traffic. ...