thilly thenny

I’m officially sick.  Yesterday it’s so warm in the office, I could have sweat out my entire existence, and today, I’m freezing.  What is up?

Good news: my friend is having a baby!!! and my other friend just got into law school!!!  I’m really happy for them, genuinely and honestly.  They deserve it.

.

Okay, so I’m going to try to sum up the China trip.  It’s a lot to take in, but Ima try.

Got to the airport without a hitch.  Took BART in and sat there eating my bacon, egg and cheese sandwich waiting for the ‘rents.  Noticed that some athletic team was heading to Beijing as well, including a very short but oh so adorable guy who seemed to be talking to his girlfriend or friend on the phone.  Turns out they were the Olympic Boxing team going to scout out the environment and facilities in Beijing for the games next year.

In any case, the flight went well, long but well.  I found my uncle (dad’s little brother) waiting for us when we exited customs, and we all headed to the hotel.  It was clear that the taxi driver couldn’t keep his eyes off me, which I particularly enjoyed since Ty had just blown me off (yet again?).

The hotel was pretty much right next to the shopping district near Tianmen Square, the largest public square in the world and sight of 6.4. (we don’t talk about it).  They had a fairly priced restaurant downstairs, and the staircase down always smelled like salted meats.  Usually the pungent wave of not-so-enticing scents were stronger in the mornings, when we’d walk down for our free breakfast: pickled duck eggs, boiled eggs, fried rice, plastic jelly looking ham, lots of other pickled stuff (the only really good thing there), some fried dough (called you tiao), conghee (that’s what it’s called in english/cantonese but we call it xi fan or watery rice), yams, and probably a couple of other things I don’t remember.  Mostly I just ate the fried rice with pickled veggies, just about the only thing that didn’t make me want to gag.

We threw out stuff into the two adjacent hotel rooms and headed out to Tianmen Square to see the night scene.  Turns out, it was freezing and we stayed only a bit walking along the underground walkways to get from one side of the street to another.  I’m sure I’ll find pictures of that somewhere, but these are all from my iphone, so no flash + night = no picture.

Next day: since we left on Wednesday morning and didn’t get there til Thursday night (we lost a day at the international date line), this is now Friday.  The cabby outside out hotel took us around to three places.  The first was a temple that featured pictures of celebrities and important people alike going there to bow to the spirit and buy these “jade” wishes that would hang as an offering to the god (spirit? well shen in any case).  I bought eight, which ended up being about a thousand rbm, or about $120.   That’s not including the tickets, which was $240 rbm (I’m not going to convert everything; just know that it used to be $1 to 8rbm, it was $1 to 7.5rbm and became $1 to 7.4rbm why the time I left). 

The second place was a bell tower that carried no interest to me.  After spending so much money at the previous place, we skipped this and went to some ancient guy’s house.   He’s known to have one of the most innovative and meticulous mansions in Chinese history.  A very important person, who visited the west and had a fascination with bats.  Remind me to include pictures later, but suffice to say his place was a spectacle.

I think in the afternoon we went to the shopping district and walked around quite a bit.  My mom was pretty tired at that point, and we all snuggled up to a good cup of joe at the Starbucks.

This is where it gets blurry.  We went home and rested, I played VC with my uncle for a bit and I think that was it.  Next day was going to the National Conservatory, which is right next to Tianmen Square, the Forbidden city, etc.  My mom and I waited in line to go into the Mao Ze Dong moseleum (is that what it’s called? or spelled?).  My dad had to wait outside because he’d already seen it before, and we didn’t want to take the extra time to store our bags, cameras, etc.

I’d never seen a dead person before, but Mao Ze Dong didn’t look dead.  In fact, laying there so peacefully in his glass coffin, he looked very much like a doll.  I’m tempted to whistle the communist anthem as I’m writing.

What’s next?  Ah, yes.  The national conservatory, which was still being renovated and looked like a bird’s nest or giant donut or the next Olympic stadium, had a beautiful garden outside perfect for our strolling.  A little bit of this and we headed over to Tsinghua, the Harvard, Princeton and Yale of China, and also where my cousin happens to be studying electrical engineering.

We walked around the gigantic, picturesque campus with me dreaming of one day attending MBA here or something (work is getting tiring and restricting).  The housing wasn’t spread through campus but all in one designated spread with bicycle parking on the first floor and dormitories starting on the second.  Everyone had to have a bike there, since it didn’t make financial sense to take the bus and taxi everywhere but was too far to get from class to class.

 The lunch party consisted of some very delightful food and my aunt (my mom’s oldest sister), her husband, my resulting cousing, my family, and my paternal uncle.  We have specific names for each relative and how they’re related to us, so it’s weird that I have to use such a complicated process of explaining everything.

Here is me at lunch showing off my new Marc Jacobs.

After lunch was a beautiful national park thing where people go hiking.  Supposedly it was where the emperor used to go and only the emperor.  Anything that wasn’t open to the public before the revolutions is now a huge destination spot for the people.  It’s called frangrant mountain or some similar translation.  We climbed up a bit but my mom and I were tired.  Our muscles were still sore from traveling and the long flight, and not going to sleep at night and promptly waking at 4am was wearing us out during the day.  So after a quick look about 2/5 the way up the mountain, we started making the descent.  The taxi driver, who was nearing 60 or 70?, said he had run up the trail in a record time of 24 minutes as a race during his schooling days.  Normally, it took about an hour.  You couldn’t quite make out the view of Beijing from the first rest stop, but it was getting late.

Shops crammed into the bottom of the national park like nothing else.  Huge megaphones advertised chestnuts and this kind of sour small apple looking thing.  They’re used to make tanhulu, a hard candy covered version of the fruit.  We walked down the hill, observing the various treats for sale but not partaking.  Then, it was Starbucks and back to the hotel to get our things and train station.

The train to Taiyuan sucked.  It was dirty.  The bathroom was wet and a hole in the ground with no where to flush.  We didn’t have our individual cabins for some random safety reason that didn’t make sense.  The girl above me was brushing her hair and getting it everywhere.  The blanket was wet.  I just felt so dirty and untouchable after that ordeal.  I even kept my boots on in bed because I wanted as little of me touching the contaminated air as possible.

We arrived the next morning at around 6:30.  It was dusty.  Taiyuan is the northern part of China that does all the coal mining.  If you hear about some mine collapsing and killing tons of people, that’s probably where it happened.

My grandparents were ecstatic to see me, having not done so in person since I was a senior in high school.  There was lots of showering and unpacking and exchanging presents.  My counsin got a new ipod nano.  I got $5000 rbm.  My grandpa and I traded PSP games.  I saw my uncle’s new house, which is closer to the city center.

The next few days flew by without much happening, so I won’t go chronologically.  We stayed at home a few days.  My mom and I went shopping and got out hair and nails done.  I cried and whined and cried some more still wretchedly hurt from Ty’s lack of caring.  We played mahjong, ate and walked around the neighborhood.  My dad bought  31 discs of soap operas for $90rbm.  Chinese soaps have endings and a huge variety of topics and lengths, and older immigrants abroad are always buying them in the motherland to share with friends.

The only notable thing that really happened was that my parents and I went to visit this town outside of Taiyuan that’s a perfectly kept version of ancient towns complete with it high town walls, arrow shooting windows, and a three level entrance in case enemies attacked.  The town had prospered as the first bank in China, which was later replaced by the government ran banks and because of a horrible run on the bank.  People still live there, and the store keepers purposely shove souvernirs into shelves and crevices so the customers can “discover” their treasures.  Near the town was the mansion of the man who invented the banking system.  His name was a huge part of the history, and his history alone decorated the now sparse rooms in the mansion.  It’s comprised of 5 wings and a courtyard and spells out double happiness or shuang xi from an aerial view.  It was also where they filmed Da Hong Deng Long Gao Gao Gua (raise the red lantern) with Gong Li and director Zhang Yi Mo.

 Before I knew it, I was back on the dreaded train to Hefei, where my mom’s side lives.  Thankfully we got out own cabin this time.  Our uncle didn’t accompany us, but it was nice to have out own private space.  The entire trip was 16 hours long going from 2pm to 6 the next morning.  For hours we watched the lanscape go by, played cards and talked about nothing.

The landscape was still that of the coal mining or at least it was pretty plain and terribly dusty.  There were huge sacks of sweet potatos and corn propped on the roof.  In some areas, farmers were burning the dried stacks of the corn still clinging to the ground, so they could make fertilizer and room for a new crop cycle.

My aunt (my mother’s younger sister and the youngest of the family) arrived with her cousin-in-law to greet us at the airport.  We all went to her place, where we showered and ate breakfast.   Off to grandpas to stay for the duration of our trip. 

I think this was Saturday when we arrived, so the majority of our trip was gone and the rest of the time was a flurry of shopping for necessities (shit’s cheaper in China), buying gifts, and seeing everyone.  I’d grown up here, my dad went to school here, and my mom has most of her family here, so you can imagine the list of people to see.

I saw my cousin and his parents (my mom’s older brother- 2nd in the family- and his wife).  We talked family stuff, lots of conflicts and the usual headache that I’d never had to face because we were always abroad and I was too young the other times I’d visited.  My dad and I went shopping, while my mom went to meet her grade school friends.  They’d heard about her through my aunt (the youngest), who quickly passed them my mom’s number.  I think they haven’t seen each other for 20+ years.  It was touching, but I had to go to dinner with my dad’s college friends, their spouses (for the most part wives), and their kids.  Shopping was fine; we were thinking of buying my grandfather a new washing machine (the Chinese don’t really use dryers because they all have enclosed, glass balconeys great for hanging clothes, dried meats, plants, etc.) and my dad wanted to pick up some treats.

We made a trip to Carrefour, which is like Wal-mart, and bought more things than we could carry.  The new house needed phones, since we now have a second story and about 3,000 sq feet of extra space.  Buying them from China meant that we only paid about $8 USD per phone, and they worked off of batteries, so if a natural disaster or any disaster happened, we could call as long as the phone lines worked.  There was a trip to electronic city (think 6 story department store just for electronics and much bigger than Best Buy or Circuit City).  I really like the graffiti-esk graphic ads that Sony plastered all over the first floor.

Saturday night was my dad’s dinner and my mom’s dinner.  I went to sing Karoake with friends afterwards, so my dad entertained a very drunk college friend from 9 until 10:30 when I arrived home, and my mom didn’t make an appearance until around 11.  I think my dad got really jealous that an ex might have snuck in her group outing, which I think is adorable.  Sunday, Monday and Tuesday flew by with shopping for a whole list of things, including so many many presents and errands (fixing my moms’ gold bracelet– that thing is heavy!) and god knows what else.  My dad had to go back to his old college to deal with some business on Monday, so my mom, aunt and I went to the spa.  Before hand, she and I, mostly she, scrubbed the entire house clean, threw out all the old rags my grandfather likes to hoard, and glared at anyone who got in her way or asked her not to.  It was great to see that side of my mom.  Then mom’s colleagues called, so I spent the rest of the time with my aunt shopping out little hearts out.  Of course I thought it was fun, but the cute trinkets didn’t really interest me anymore and most of the list were boring stuff, like toothbrushes and gas stove and slippers for the house.

My cousin, now married, invited the whole family to eat.  I’ll spare the details, but it wasn’t hugely pleasant.  My aunt and uncle (the youngest) invited me out to eat Korean hotpot.  My mom and I couldn’t find a Starbucks in Hefei to save our lives.  I consulted my uncle about his business aspirations and have agreed to help him do a little research now that I’m home.  We talked about family stuff.  I got $10g each from my aunt and grandpa.

The only part of my dad’s family that lives in Hefei is his uncle, who also happens to be the man to introduce my parents to each other.   His daughter got married 9 years ago, when I went back and was the bride of honor– something about needing someone younger than her to give her away and me being from America and all gave me standing or something.  Well, she had a daughter, who I haven’t seen since she was 6 months old.  She’s now 6 and so adorable I wanted to pick her up and eat her.  Really.  Like would make a totally upright man become a pedophile.  Beautiful, sassy, and self-aware.

The last day, which was Tuesday, we packed everything up, ate lunch at my dad’s old mentor’s new house in a whole newly developed suburb about 20 km away from the old city.  Basically the entire city center is going to move south in the next 5-10 years.  Gorgeous new and “safe” neighborhoods were popping up everywhere with grocery stores and all of life’s necessities included.  Personal cars on the road is growing exponentially, a fatal problem when you mix no regard for traffic laws with experienced taxi drivers and newbie rich bourgeoisie.  We came back in the afternoon and finished packing everything, had our last dinner with grandpa, my aunt, and my uncle.  Goodbyes were said and off to the train station again.

Thankfully, this was the express train to Beijing, and with so many business people, the individual cabins were both clean and brand freakin’ new… well almost.  The trip went by smoothly as did the shuttle ride to the airport and the four hours of waiting.  I actually ate a KFC Old Beijing Chicken wrap for $11 RBM.  Before that I hadn’t had KFC since my first year in college because my grandfather never had it in the states.

We ran into the US Boxing team again and the oh so cute boy.  He sat in the same row but a few seats over and was chatting up some ‘cute’ asian girl.  I say ‘cute’ because she’s the type that men think is beautiful but all the girls would consider ugly.  First, I was annoyed and jealous and a little hurt because he thought she was prettier (I’ll admit it).  Second, they were annoying because they kept talking.  Third, he’s a lot cuter when he kept his not to brilliant mouth closed.  The flight was too long, 10 hours, and I turned up my iphone and read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  The view outside was beautiful, especially when we flew in the night.  The clouds near us unlaced to allow the jet to flurry by, while the rest of the clouds formed a fairy tale landscape of a soft, pillowy blue.  Millions of stars dotted the sky, which looks for spherical 35,000 feet off the ground.

Hours later, I observed the sun rising from the eastern horizon and the bay slowly appearing.  First, a glimpse of Stinson Beach and Sausalito.  Then, Half Moon Bay floated by to make way for 280, the peninsula, and finally the Target by 92 and 101, where I used to shop.

In a blink, I went through customs and was hugging my parents goodbye.  Thirty minutes of waiting later (because we landed early and Oscar wasn’t ready), he came by to pick me up.