Family

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. ...

Yang drives into the heart of Beijing in order to buy freshly roasted Chestnuts. With fall comes Chestnut season in Beijing and the street side store Yang is going to is the most famous and the best roaster of all. As she gets near the stand she notices the long line and the complete lack of parking. Lack of parking except for an illegal spot right in front of the stand. With kids in the car and the prospect of having to drive in endless circles Yang contemplates the illegal park. Then she notices the the two soldiers standing right in front of the illegal spot. Two soldiers holding automatic (think AK47) weapons. So Yang does the only rationale thing, swing in between the soldiers and the takes the illegal spot. I mean, after all, what type of Beijing police would bother to ticket a car when it is being guarded by two of the nation’s finest. ...

I walk into my office and shut the door. I am mad and angry and there is no where to go with it. Mad at amateurs who tried to give me the equivalent of “throw strikes” advice and angry that I could not just brush them off. I want to sit under my desk and hide but instead I scan my office for something…looking…and then my cell phone rings. It is Aidan. He tells me he just got home from school and he sounds like he is in his normal cheerful mood. At once I am a bit more relaxed. ...

He makes a suggestion to me. Then she does. Then they all pile on. I want to say “fuck you” but instead I say “yea” and when this encourages them I say “yes, I am aware” and when they continue I stare down at the table blankly and part of me disappears. Well, gee, do they think I’ve never heard that advice before. Do they think I am not harder on myself than them. I return to my office. Go to the bathroom. Run the scissors under the scolding hot water. Back to my office. A thin slice, just enough to bleed, and relief comes. It will heal no matter what they say. And then I wonder if they would ask a cripple to run faster, to jump higher, to pirouette like a ballerina. ...

The thing about kids is they mature faster than our adult memory can keep up with. A couple of recent examples. At Hong Kong disneyland, Aidan is looking at toys when I ask him if he likes a particular one. He doesn’t answer “yes or no” but rather if he can have that toy. And he notes the price. If I say “yes”, he will then use that toy’s price (in this case 35 HK) as a baseline to buy the toy he really wants. He’s been doing this for about a year now. ...