Totally Sick

Getting sick in a developing country is traumatic.  Bathrooms are scarce and toilet paper is non-existent.  Forget soap or water or anything to prevent you from spreading your disease to your friends and family.  If you do manage to make it to a bathroom, you would not dare lie on the cool tile floor as you might at home because 1) you would drown in the omni-present puddle of shit sludge and 2) your face would literally be flopping into the hole-in-the-ground toilet.

Let's just say, for my blog's sake, you happen to survive long enough to be able to consult medical help.  You don't know the exact location of the nearest doctor.  (Hell, the nearest doctor might even be a shaman.) If you do find one, said doctor might not speak your language.  Once in Peru, we were at a bar somewhere outside Machu Picchu and our guide had to phone in a doctor to tend to my very delirious husband.  The doctor had a highly visible hand-gun holstered to his chest to ward off would be thieves.  My husband saw the gun and thought this man was coming to "put him down."  I doubt anyone in the civilized world would expect certain death from a house call.

Getting sick is never fun.  It's downright horrible when you are far from home.  But once again China has managed to make the whole process interesting.

Eastern and Western medicine could not be more different.  I knew this, but I really didn't understand this before moving to China.  My first encounter with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) philosophy occurred while I was chopping garlic in a morning cooking class.  Sofia, my instructor, noticed I had been yawning and asked what was wrong.  I responded I was tired and I did not have a chance to drink coffee.  Her eyes met mine with a blank stare.  She sized me up and declared that my spleen was damp.  Damp spleens cause tiredness.  (What?  You didn't know?)  If my spleen isn't damp, I am pretty sure I would be crispy-mummified.  Besides, spleens can be removed.  I know at least one spleenless survivor who did turn all Sleeping Beauty after her surgery.  Damp spleen?  I think I will just blame my husband for waking me up all night.

Fast forward to the fall when people start getting colds.  My husband and I were in Chinese class and our teacher walked in completely sausaged-out she had so many coats/scarves/hats/gloves on.  My husband and I meanwhile sat sweating balls in our T-shirts and shorts because in the fall the Chinese government turns off the AC when it is still bloody hot, especially on the 26th floor of a East/West facing office with no insulation.  I asked if she was sick and she replied that she had left the window open and therefore got sick.  I replied that she probably got sick from germs and we had to translate the words for germs and virus because she could not grasp my point.  After much discussion she tentatively offered up that maybe there are two kinds of sickness:  wind sickness and whatever-you-said-were-those-invisible-things sickness.  I think she just wanted to get on with torturing us through class.  Topic closed.

Then the Sheppard house went all Petri Dish.  We were trading a variety of cold viruses when Finn got the super-whammy stomach flu.  Three days later I was crawling between bed and the bathroom.  I could not stand up for three days, could barely eat for another 7.  I have not been that bad since Peru.  For the first time since having children, I could not physically take care of them.  Austin was worried.

During this time I remember waking up in a haze.  Our Ayi and my friend Xiao Ran were in my bedroom discussing my state.  They murmurred (all in Chinese, of course):  "What's wrong with her?"  "Why won't she get out of bed?"  "She has a fever."  "She has diarrhea."  "She must have sat on something cold.""Yes. Probably something cold."

Wait, WHAT?  If I had had strength, I would have shouted:  "Sat on something cold?  No, Finn got sick and gave it to me.  He got sick because nobody NOBODY, not even food service workers wash their hands here!  You know the last time I have seen soap and paper towels in a bathroom????!!!!! It's called germs, people!"  Instead, I just crawled past them and blew out the last few inches of my intestines and probably my damp spleen.

When I was finally well enough to take the kids to the bus stop, several ladies commented on how thin and pale I looked (Hey, by the way, I can understand Chinese now!)  I told them what was wrong and all of them scolded me for sitting on a cold surface.  A cold bench or floor, it turns out, gives you diarrhea.  I even found this apparent fact in a children's safety book so it must be true.

This comes from a child safety book published in China.  It warns that if you sit on a cold floor you will get stomach and intestinal pains and diarrhea.  It advises to sit on a pillow to prevent illness.  It says nothing of the gun on the floor, which I would presume more dangerous than diarrhea or the other cucumbery thing that is blowing cold wind.

Bullocks, I thought.  Every last bit of it.  I mean, I have done accupuncture and swear by it, but cold benches and damp spleens are the domain of the middle ages and wives tales.  Come on, at some point one has to believe in science.  And then I got to thinking.  Our Ayi is never sick.  My Chinese friends are never sick (aside from the slight one, two-day cold).  Xiao Ran does not get sick and she lives in our house.  Could it be that there is something to all this?

Naturally I set out to find  answers.  I went to my first TCM class.  I learned the basic premise of Chinese medicine is that food IS medicine and that only when you are not properly fortified, lacking sleep or exposed to too much stress or the elements will your body suffer and need special herbs to bring your body back into balance.  With about 5 more years of study I will hopefully understand the details, but the basic premise is sound.  More sound than ignoring your body's natural needs and cycles and then spending thousands of dollars on pills to "fix" it. 

I decided to put the theory to practice and made several more changes to my diet, this time crossing into the last sacred territory of MY WESTERN BREAKFAST.  Now, I make and eat bone and seaweed and mushroom broth soup for breakfast.  Yes, folks, my erstwhile delight of eating pastries and spooning Nutella has been supplanted with melted marrow.  I sip tinctures of ginger, lemon and honey. I boil pears and lychee and make my own fruit tea. (White fruits and veggies are good for the throat and lungs!)  I make sure to send the kids with as much warm food in their lunch as possible.  I bought myself this triple-fat goose coat with furry hood.  I wear a mask.  I limit my time spent in the harsh elements. I wear fuzzy slippers at home.  My ass stays clear of cold surfaces.  I GO TO BED AT 11:00 p.m.--3 hours early---so my gall bladder can recover (from what I am not sure!)

My TCM lifestyle has doubled my time spent in the kitchen and seriously cut into my Chinese study time and writing time, but I am healthy, I feel good!  I am rested.  My gall bladder is gall bladdery!  I am nourished!  I...I...I...I... Wait, am I fucking sick again? 

Hmph.  There was only one thing left to do.  Go to the freezer, eat two Haggen Daaz ice cream bars, wash them down with a Coke and get to writing this blog well into the Gall Bladder hours, that blissful time when my kids are asleep and the creative juices are flowing.  Which, reminds me of the one upside of getting sick in a developing country:  Ace new lyrics to the Diarrhea Song.  Common' sing it!!!!!:


When you're on The Great Wall and there ain't no toilet stall, diarrhea (clap clap) diarrhea (clap clap)

When you've hiked to Machu Picchu and the Shit Gods start to beat you, diarrhea (clap clap)

When you're in Thailand, your ass sounds like it's in a band, diarrhea (clap clap).

The Fragrance Fries the Cowboy Bone and Other Misunderstandings

Today marks our one-year anniversary of moving to China.  One year of fantastic adventures--both good and character building; epicurean discoveries--both tasty and traumatic; and linguistic development--both brain damaging and, well, brain damaging.

With this important milestone crossed some friends have asked "Have you given up on Chinese yet?"  Given up?  Well, no.  Has anyone ever noticed how stubborn I am?  Frankly, I plan to keep struggling through the world's most ancient of languages until I learn it.  Which may be in 10 years.  Or never.  Why the pessimism?  Because the Fragrance Fries the Cowboy Bone.

The Fragrance Fries the Cowboy Bone is the menu description of a homely soup served up at a restaurant near Austin's work.  The soup turned out to be a vile grey pile of shredded mystery animal stomach steeped in a sour juice that is a byproduct from making tofu; a soup that was a desperate invention born out of great famine and somehow still a laobeijing (old Beijing) staple.

The point is not the nose-hair curling nastiness of the soup, but rather the poetry of the description.  How could my harsh Germanic oral renderings compete with such delicacy?  I'm not even to Mary Had a Little Lamb and this humble restaurant hums the Rach 3. 

The problem is there are just too many words and too many subtleties in Chinese.  Every time I ask my dear friend and teacher Xiao Ran how to say a phrase like "take the dog for a walk" she immediately answers with 15 different choices, each more complicated and poetic than that last.  I just want to walk the fucking dog.  I don't need to whisk through the weeping willows with my glorious heavenly lion lapping at my heels.  I don't need to prance through the peonies with my princely pal protecting me.  Really I don't. 

Besides, I have bigger fish to fry.  I've got tone deafness in a world of tones.  After one year I am just starting to hear the second tone, not that I will remember when and how to use it.  (One down, three to go!) Turns out, tones are pretty important in a tonal language.  My friends leap tall mountains to try to understand me but the rest of Beijing shoots me the familiar "what the hell"  look while shouting "SHENME?????" (What??????) for all the world to witness my shame.

My favorite story of misunderstanding occurred last month when I walked into Jenny Lou's, a popular grocery store carrying foreign foods at extortionate prices.  When I crossed the threshold I heard a loud popping and sizzling sound.  I followed the noise to a corner where I saw a thick electrical cable burst into flames.  A few inches from the flames was a cardboard stand carrying newspapers (think highly combustible) and fresh flowers.  I quickly surveyed the area for a fire extinguisher and, not finding one, began to jump and shout "FIRE!!!!!!!"  Only I was off a vowel (A and O sound very similar) and used the wrong tone so I was actually jumping up and down shouting "FLOWERS!!!!!" in front of the fresh flower stand.   The cashiers and shoppers looked at me in total bewilderment:  the foreigners probably noting that they should really lobby for better mental health care in China and the Chinese silently confirming what they already know to be true:  those laowai (foreign people) are CRAZY.

I was clearly not getting the intended reaction and grew increasingly nervous because you do not **DO NOT** want to be in any burning building, especially one that was obviously not built-to-code and with highly noxious drywall.  I figured I was using the wrong tone and launched into a second tirade in second tone.  This hardly advanced my Samaritan cause as I ended up shouting "MAGNIFICENT!!!!!"  instead of FIRE!!!!.  I mean, the flowers were just okay, nothing special.  On my third try I used the third tone:  H--OO--AAH!!!! and an employee recognized it as H--OO-UUH:  FIRE!!!!!!  By then it was obvious because the smoke began to pour out from behind the newspaper stand.  A cashier grabbed an extinguisher and doused the flames, after which I stood there for a moment, perhaps ticking off another of my nine lives or perhaps waiting for a thank you that never came, and then went on my merry way to find tortillas.

So what's there left to do besides study my arse off only to be constantly misunderstood?  Well, laugh and cry a bit.  And travel.  I have one trip planned every month until we fly home.  Now that's MAGNIFICENT!!!!!!

Close Encounters with Chinese Exercise

I was chatting with my neighbor at the park.  Nice guy; a Chinese man who has spent ample time in The States.  Our kids go to school together, they ride the bus together, so on and so forth.

He inquired about our recent trips to Mongolia and Xian.  Simple enough idle banter, only it took my entire life force to string together a few intelligent sentences because my neighbor's father was next to us, bent in half and ramming his shoulder repeatedly into a Hawthorn tree.  He then began to grind the back of his neck against the tree, grunting and huffing like a yoked ox.

Me: "Xi'an.  Uh. Yes.  Uh.  Xi'an.  Yes.  Uh.  Xi'an was uh great *pause* yes,  we, um, loved Xi'an." 
Neighbor:  "How long did you stay?"
Father: "Uuuuuuhhhhhhhh."  Bam!  "Uhhhhhhhhhhhh."  Bam. "RRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUhhhhh."
Me: "Stay?  Uh. Oh, yeah.  Xi'an.  Uh.  Yes we stayed there."

I bumbled away and my neighbor was looking at me strangely.  He must have though I was high or stupid.  Really, I was just trying to be polite and not gawk or point and laugh out loud.  In the US, such behavior is the domain of itchy bears or rutting elk or, say, folks confined to the looney bin.

I've seen many odd exercise rituals in China.  I'm used to them.  Most exercise is done outside in public so an early morning trip to a park or an evening trip to any patch of concrete large to accommodate line dancing is entertaining.  The difference is I have always seen, say, men crawling around in circles in the dirt from a safe distance--far enough to discretely oogle, lift my jaw off the ground, or laugh until I cry or pee my pants.  I've never waded in for a better look fearing it too rude or insensitive.  I really wasn't prepared for a close encounter with elk man.  I was so happy and relieved when my sobbing child extracted me from the scene.  "Oops, gotta run!  Bye!" I said and skipped off.

It's not uncommon to see people holding odd or uncomfortable positions for a long time.  My friend Mark got this great shot of a man standing on his head on concrete.

Man crawling on all fours in the park.  He does this every day at 2:00 pm. 

Another common form of exercise in Beijing is walking backwards.  Already for some--myself included--, walking backwards is a tough task.  Add to it the unevenness of pavement: craters, un-cordoned construction zones, cars driving on sidewalks, sheer ledges into cess-pit canals, and you have a downright dangerous activity!  Extra points go to people who walk backwards while slapping themselves. Gold stars to those traveling in reverse, slapping themselves and singing opera.

This kind man was playing Chinese Yo Yo.  He ran string up to the top of a pine tree and was throwing the yo-yo up the line. 

The first time I saw someone walking backwards slapping himself silly I was on a path that cut below a bridge.  It was dark under there and for once there was not a single person around.  I had the death plunge into stinky canal on my right, the 3rd ring road above my head, concrete pylons to my left and Sergeant Nutter barreling backwards towards me.  I scampered back up the path and hid behind a bush while he spanked himself up the hill.

On my way home that day I saw a man carefully wrap a eucalyptus tree with a golden swath of fabric.  He then stood a few feet from the tree and flung himself forward and up to chest-butt the tree.  He was still heaving his body at the tree when I left the park an hour later.  Trees are common exercise partners, mostly because they are there and they are free.  Come spring you will see apples and peaches and Chinese people hanging from them as they stretch their limbs or do some pull ups.

This Chinese Yo-Yo has grooves in it that make an a sound like a didgeridoo on speed. 

Now let's get this straight I am not making fun of the Chinese and their creative forms of exercise.  I think it is awesome that China is such a healthy and fit nation.  I think it is awesome that exercise is incorporated into daily life.  Nobody schedules and drives to a gym.  Gyms are a bust enterprise here in Beijing.  They come and go faster than a flash flood in the desert.  Oxygym in our complex has gone through bankruptcy several times in the last 6 years.  I'm told it is chronically empty and that most Chinese who hold gym memberships do so for bragging rights.  (Note to all derelict gym members:  your new excuse for not going to gym is you only have the membership for status!)

 You tai chi your way to work, ride your bike to the store, jian (Chinese hackey sack) on break with your buds, you slap yourself while waiting in line, ballroom dance in the plaza after dinner and che ling (Chinese yo-yo) on Saturdays in the park. Analog exercise machines encircle most playgrounds so adults can exercise while watching the kids play--brilliant!  Note to self: I should really use those machines.

This Man attached a dragon kite to his yo -yo for added WOW.

You find public exercise equipment in every park, plaza and square, not matter how small the town.  The equipment is kept clean and in good working condition.

Often times exercise equipment encircles a playground.  The adults can get exercise while the children play!  Brilliant!  I should actually try it sometime.

Rampant

Jaws is on my balcony.  Mandibulous Maximus.  And it won't leave.  It is a cricket, a giant Chinese cricket.  I hate crickets.  For some reason we have three.

Giant Chinese Cricket.  This one the boys named BIG BOY.  He is indeed large but not man-eating like Jaws.

Eli calls the main cricket in question Chomper.  Finn calls him Muncher.  I call him Kujo.  I want it dead.  It wants me dead. 

Jaws/Chomper/Muncher/Kujo is sitting on the balcony ready to pounce and kill me I just know it.  You might think this is an irrational fear, but it's not.  Kujo has dagger sharp jaws.  You come near his cage and this horrible death bug pounces to the bamboo bars like a creature out of the movie Alien.  It's not natural.

We got Jaws/Chomper /Muncher/Kujo--we'll call the beast JCMK--at the She Li He pet market in South Beijing.  She Li He is larger than a Super Walmart and sells birds and fish and turtles and chinchilla and emperor scorpions and crickets.  Lots of crickets.  There were stalls that sold nothing but crickets.  Walking by a cricket stall is like walking by Dodger stadium after a winning run is scored.  Only louder.  A winning cricket can make a sound louder than a gas-powered lawn mower. 

I say winning because cricket sports are popular in China.  Yes, you read that correctly:  cricket sports.  There are regular cricket "singing" contests.  I wondered how anyone can call the incessantly loud and annoying chirp-buzz loop singing.  Then I heard Beijing Opera. (Author looks over shoulder once again for mobile execution van.)

Cricket fighting is also popular on both legally and an extra-legally.  Legal fights are broadcast onto giant TV screens.  Illegal fights occur in back alleys.  Potential cricket champs are fed diets of duck and liver and high-quality meats.  Potential champs are trained and sometimes given cricket steroids.  Potential champs will sell for thousands of dollars, for a creature that lives at most 100 days.

JCMK is clearly a fighting cricket.  He was a gift to Eli from a man who owns a cricket stall in She Li He.  I thought at first the man gave us the cricket because he liked us.  Now I know he wants us dead. 

Cricket Stall at She Li Yuan.  Each one of those cages and balls inside and outside of the store has one large, loud cricket.  The owner has to drink beer on the job to survive it.

Well, that explains how we got one cricket.  How did we fall down the rabbit hole and end up with three?  Mea culpa, I fell in love with the little cricket cages.  They make great decorations/Christmas ornaments.  So I bought two more empty cages.  I guess my traveler's Mandarin (see blog post 10 Years) did not adequately convey that I wanted only the cages because they came complete with two more horrible, jaw-clacking buzzing demons, the first "Big Boy" the size of my hand and his compatriot "Thornback" who has a huge sword-thingy poking out of its rear-end.

They boys grabbed the cages and happily skipped away before I could even return the wicked beasts.  The thought of having these creatures in my house gave me a nervous tick.  I felt like I was licking a thousand wooden spoons at once.  My pulse quickened and my mouth started to blur with pre-vomit salivation.

Ok.  Calm down, I thought.  If you can't beat them, join them.  Okay.  I can do this.  I can embrace the cricket.  I can.  Yes I can.  I have embraced countless other bugs and mud and weapons (sort of) and boys hurling themselves off too-tall things and boys beating each other and fart contests.  Crickets should be no problem, right?

So there I sat holding BIG BOY while bouncing though Beijing in a motorcycle sidecar.  I stared at him trying to appreciate his extraordinarily delicate limbs and curious antennae and cute eyeballs.  I can do this I thought.  Yes I can. 

We brought them home and fed them lychee and cucumber and smelly melon (that's a direct translation) and carrots.  JCMK ripped the food from our hands and tore through it like a starved hyena rips at a carcass.  Then he jumped on the bars and began hissing for more.  I felt faint just being near JCMK.

The boys insisted that the crickets sleep in their room, apparently unaware that crickets don't sleep, rather they buzz loudly and furiously for mates that--in JCMK, Big Boy, and Thorn Back's cases--will never come.  The night began quiet enough.  The boys were sound asleep when we heard what we thought was a broken washing machine.  You know, the thump, thump, thump when your machine is off-balance, coupled with the squeak of a breaking fan belt.  I actually ran in to check the washing machine.  Not it.  Eli then padded out of his room: "Mom, what's that noise?"  We realized not only did we have a fighting cricket, we had a rock star. 

The next morning our Ayi (that's maid/nanny in Chinese.  Everyone has an Ayi in China.   It's, like, compulsory.) was clutching her finger and warned us that (JCMK) bites.  I decide I had to get rid of him.  The problem was how?  Austin was opposed to JCMK's disposal:  "But the boys like him!"  I reminded my dear husband that he wants to dispose of our dog, Ruby, and they like her much more than the death cricket.  I could not possibly squash the thing because I die just thinking about the crunching sound it would make.  And the guts I would have to clean.  (Blurry salivation begins.)

It turns out that our dog Ruby forced the hand. Ruby is our eight-pound wiener dog who thinks she is eighty pounds.  Or 800 pounds.  On two occasions she tried to attack a bear, a GRIZZLY bear.  JCMK was no match for Super Ruby.  She swatted down his cage and chewed it to pieces.  The only problem was that JCMK escaped.  Admist much ear-piercing screams (who knew I could scream like a girl!!!!!!!???????) Austin managed to hurl JCMK out onto the balcony and slam shut the glass sliding doors.

Ruby:  Pest or Pest Control?

Ok.  Problem solved.  Only we can never use our balcony again, at least until the death cricket leaves.  Only he won't leave.  He was happily snacking on Ruby turds--we have a doggy pee/poo pad since we live 28 floors up and can't fathom taking her for 10 walks a day.  Now I have even more reason to dislike crickets and, is that fucking cricket staring at me?

Things only got worse because I had to sleep on the couch that night.  The couch that sits in front of the glass curtain that gives way to the balcony.  That same balcony where JCMK was perched, ready to kill me.   I couldn't sleep knowing that thing was out there, but there was nowhere else to sleep.  My in-laws had the guest bedroom and Austin was running to the john every 20 minutes for a round of toilet Olympics--what's worse death by cricket or THE VAN INCIDENT**** revisited?  Close call.

Again, I had to calm myself.  Bring in the forces of reason.  Who knew fear could be so irrational?  I mantra:  "I AM BIGGER THAN THE CRICKET. I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN THE CRICKET. THE CRICKET CAN'T HURT ME."  I said this a million times until I finally dropped into sleep.

The next morning the boys were peering out onto the balcony.  They bravely stepped out to survey all the corners and confirmed that JCMK was gone.  We had released the scourge of the insect world to run rampant in Beijing.  Good riddance.

***For those of you who have never heard a Sheppard barf, it is traumatizing.  Austin had a particularly violent bout of the vomits in Myanmar in a van.  Nobody within one square mile of that van will ever forget that day.

10 Years

I come to realize it's gonna take me ten years to do anything worthwhile in this town.  I thought I would come to Beijing, learn Chinese, learn Tai Ji and Gong Fu, learn to tie fortune knots, learn to cook Chinese food, learn to play Mahjong.  And while at it, I fancied learning photography and TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine).  Hey, I'm a quick learner so why not?  I'll tell you why not: because it is impossible!  What illusions I had!  Chinese! Did I really think I was going to learn Chinese in just two years? 

On NOT Learning Chinese
We've been in Beijing 8 months.  I finished a semester at a Chinese Public University where I took an intensive Mandarin course.  I spent four hours a day in class and countless hours outside of class doing homework.  Just to keep up required 2 hours practice a night.  To excel, probably 4.  (I did not excel.)  I cried in frustration more than once.  I thought about quitting 100 times.  This from a Phi Beta Kappa honor grad who is supposed to be good in languages and, uh, other things.

Austin and I blew through a notebook per week and several pens per week.  When is the last time you actually used up all a pen's ink?

I studied harder for Intensive Mandarin 221 than I remember studying for my entire class load in college.  And for what?  I can tenuously say I have a command of traveler's Chinese.  Nothing more, and I am totally being generous with the word "command."  What or whom can I actually command if half the country doesn't even speak Mandarin?  Hell, I'm convinced half of Beijing doesn't even speak Mandarin without shoving 40 marbles in their mouths first.  So I can only travel to those hamlets where Party leaders took the edict to speak Putonghua--"The Common Language"-- very seriously.  Or, I can stay in Beijing and be content with 1) asking directions 2) ordering food and 3) telling a taxi where to go.  If I dare attempt more sophisticated conversation, I must seek out and  speak exclusively to University Professors who by law must take Correct Mandarin Speech Classes (Spit out the Marbles!!! Tone down the Pirate for the land-lubbers!) before they can teach. 

Austin and I have had many a chuckle over our ignorance.  We fondly recall our dear friend Charles, Austin's freshman-year roommate, and his Herculean efforts to learn Chinese.  Charles would while away the night with a pack of hand-written Mandarin flash cards.  He would sit at his desk for hours flipping through the deck, mumbling to himself.  We would pop in to the room on occasion--mind you, never to study or sleep, usually for Tang, Southern Comfort or Austin's guitar-- and there was Charles, like a statue in the corner:  flip, mumble, flip, mumble, flip.  We actually felt bad for Charles because we just assumed he was no ace of languages.  He worked so hard for meager returns, while we slept through our Spanish classes.  We knew Chinese was difficult, but 3-5 hours a night difficult?  No way.

How wrong we were and how sorry we are for doubting Charles.  Seventeen years later we find ourselves hunched over stacks of flashcards and swearing long into the night.  Eight months of re-sculpting my facial muscles and tying my tongue in knots and my spoken Mandarin sucks.  I can never remember which tone to use.  Tone-flubbed Chinese gets you nowhere.  More depressing is that speaking is undoubtedly the easiest skill in the great Mandarin language triumvirate.  Reading?  Give me five more years.  Writing?  I need at least 10.  

On NOT Learning Tea
Intensive Mandarin is finished I feel like I have been sprung from prison.  I finally have freedom to pursue the other great secrets of the Orient.  Yesterday, I went to Maliandao, one of the largest tea markets in the world.  It was a square mile of nothing but tea and tea accessories.   It's crazy to think of a market that big selling just one commodity.  It would be like the Mall of America selling nothing but socks. 

I love tea.  I was sure I knew a thing or two about tea.  I went with Jessica, a real connoisseur of tea.  She, like, majored in tea.  I'm not kidding. 

Jess took me into the wholesale shops where inside each I was treated to formal tea tastings.  Let me say this: tea is an art.  It is a process.  It is steeped in knowledge and superstition and millenia-old healing processes.  It is part of lifestyle that I say very few Westerners really understand. 

I was furiously taking notes while savoring the complex flavors of tea.  "All tea is green tea.  (UH?  Really?)  This tea type requires this temperature of water.  This tea type is best purchased in Spring.  Always store this type of tea in baskets.  Keep this one in the fridge. You must age this tea.  Drink this tea before Meals.  Drink this tea after meals.  Never drink this tea during your period.  This tea in yin.  That tea is yang.  Steep green tea in glass.  Rolling the tea matters.  When you roll the tea matters.  Watch out for flavored tea, flavoring masks poor-quality leaves.  You cannot call this tea such and such unless it comes from such and such province.  You can re-use these leaves 3 times, those 5, those 7."  And on and on and on.  Get it?  I don't either.  My experience made wine tastings seem simple.  I think of the powdered Crystal Light "tea" that comes in a giant plastic tub.  My boss used to drink it.  I laugh out loud.

Tea I have come to know is much like fine wine: age, provenance and storage matter!

On Not Learning Martial Arts
Perhaps you read my post "Lesley in the Land of Legends" wherein  I got a rare glimpse into the life of Shaolin monks and Gong Fu students?  Martial arts requires a lifetime of discipline.  I can't even comb my hair or make my bed in the morning.  I thought I could add it to my exercise regimen that is currently non-existent thanks to hellacious Chinese class and now serious knee damage.  You can't casually pursue Martial Arts if you want to learn anything.  It's not like football where you cannot play for years but you will always be able to toss around the pigskin on Thanksgiving.  Martial Arts take serious commitment and daily practice.  As my children have learned, once a week is not enough.  You forget everything between classes.


Hey, I Did Learn Something!
All this not learning has left me no time to pursue knots and mahjong and TCM.  My camera User Guide is still shrink-wrapped.  My one triumph has been in the kitchen.  My Chinese cooking skills were weak, by far the weakest of my international fair.  I have taken a few classes here at a wonderful place called The Hutong with flattering results.  The mobile execution vans (yes, they exist here in China) might nab me for saying this: the majority of my dishes have been unmatched in restaurants to date.  I am often underwhelmed with my meals so this is saying a lot. 

The good news is that I don't have to speak Chinese to survive outside China. (Well, so far.)  Western medicine has kept me alive all these years.  Great tea is wonderful, but just plain old good tea warms the heart just fine.  My photos suffice to capture and share the memories.  I can play Mahjong in retirement.  I can always go to the gym.  (Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha).  I don't need fortune knots to know or believe that I am one of the most blessed people on this earth.  But food.  We have ALL got to eat and it ain't gonna be Ramen for dinner!

So far I've excelled at cooking.  The only thing I have done well in China.  Above are my Eggplant and Long Bean and Golden Tofu Stir fries.

Lesley in the Land of Legends.

I think the sign says "Beware Those who Enter."

I should have checked the itinerary more closely.  I should have read the fine print.  I should have studied my trip literature.  It was a hasty decision to go, I'll admit; I specialize in hasty decisions.

It was revenge of sorts.  I scrawled the 'ol John Hancock on the dotted line of the "Shaolin: Land of Legends" trip that was organized by the kids' Kung Fu teacher shortly after Austin informed me we would not be vacationing in Shanghai as planned over the Chinese Labor Day holiday.  It turns out Austin had to work (again).  Hmph.  I would not be hanging out in Beijing just because my dear husband has to work (again).

There. Done.  The boys and I are going to Shaolin, the birthplace of Kung Fu.  I thought:  Goodie!  We can see some temples, watch some monks kick monk ass, pick up a few sweet moves, pretend we know a thing or two about Chinese culture.  I envisioned relaxing with a Tsing Dao beer and enjoying the fresh air while my boys pound each other with renewed vigor and new-found expertise.  Excellent.  I packed a few clothes, a few snacks and plenty of reading material because I was counting on the kids nodding off early to leave me some free time to read. (HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!! Is my brain really that clouded from learning Chinese?)

Eli looking serious in his Kung Fu Uniform.

Once settled on the train--our first Chinese train ride!!!!!!--I dug out the crumpled trip brochure and decided to educate myself on the glorious adventure unfolding before us.  I first leaned that we would be housed at the original Shaolin School of Kung Fu, "school" being the operative word.  School sounded the alarm bells as I'm pretty sure there are no umbrella drinks served at a school.  What?  Shaolin has no Hiltons?  I dialed down the panic meter by reasoning that Shaolin is too sacred a place--the Chinese prefer to use the word Intangible Cultural Heritage Site--to sully with chintzy hotels.  ***Those of you who have traveled to China recently can go ahead and LOL.  There is NO place here that is too intangibly cultured for a shabby hotel.***

More worrisome was the word "training" that appeared 3 times PER DAY in the trip itinerary.   I was sure this meant training for the kids.  Great, wear them out:  go ahead and try!   Oh, the books I can read tonight, baby!  I can almost feel the cold sweat of a Tsing Dao bottle clasped in my hands!


Okay, so check in, followed by dinner at the mess hall, followed by uniform hand-outs.  Blah blah blah and something about providing all kid and adult shoe sizes.  Blah, blah blah, we were to report in the lobby at 5:00 am the following morning to run to the temple and begin training.  *****SLAMS ON BRAIN BRAKES***** Wait, WHAT?    What's this about adult shoe sizes and 5:00 am?  And did I just read that correctly:  RUN to the temple?!?!?!

Me:  "Laoshi, why do you need my shoe size?
Laoshi: "For your Kung Fu Shoes."
Me:  "Why do I need shoes?"
Laoshi: "Because it's better than training bare foot."
Me: "Um, what exactly do you mean by training."
Laoshi:  "We practice Tai Ji and Kung Fu."
Me:  "What if you don't know Tai Ji or Kung Fu?"
Laoshi: "You learn it."
Me: "Is the part about meeting at 5:00 am a typo?"
Laoshi: "No."
Me: "Can we start, say, around 7:00 pm?"
Laoshi: "No."
Me: "Is the temple close to our dorm?"
Laoshi: "No."

My next question was almost:  "When is the next train back to Beijing?"  But I thought better of it.  Now, let's be clear:  I wanted to learn a martial art while in China.  My two personal goals to achieve while in China are to learn the Chinese language and to learn a martial art (pick one, any!) As for my first goal,  I am working extremely hard to sound less intelligble than a two-year old.  Chinese is my pain, Kung Fu would be my gain, my reward, my fun hobby and interesting exercise.

Ass-whupping monk using pain to reach zen.

The plan all along was to, you know, soft-pedal my Kung Fu learning.  I would find a foreigner-friendly school.  I could pick the place and time and a kind, understanding instructor could come to me.  Nowhere did I say I wanted to learn Kung Fu at dark-thirty with an ass-whuping monk who uses pain to reach zen.  5:00 am is when I am heading into my second sleep cycle, and I only run if someone is chasing me.  Alas, I am awash in that familiar "Oh-shit-what-have-I-gotten myself into--feeling.  I look over at my kids and they are happily smacking each other.   I can do this, I think.  Monkey see, monkey do.  Let's hear it for good role models!

They practice on Granite.

We arrived at the hotel good and tired after a long, hot train ride and a long, hot bus ride.  We ate, got suited up and I set my alarm for a time heretofore never occupied with such barbaric activities as morning exercise.  Turns out I didn't even need my alarm.  The school's 200-decidble staticky bugle recording sounds at 4:45 a.m.  Within ten minutes I heard foot falls echoing off the plaster walls.  Voices shouted in unison: "Yao Er Yao (pronounced yow, R, yow) Yao Er Yao." Or "Yi Er San San San......." I peered out the curtains and saw a red, undulating caterpillar 6000 students long heading to the main square.  Waking up to the red army works better than caffeine. 

The seven-year old students at morning drills.

The original Shaolin Kung Fu Academy is small compared to it's newer counterpart that has 30,000 enrolled students.  Think about that for a moment.  The New Shaolin Academy is the size of a large American University, only ALL 30,000 students go to the same class at the same time.  And ALL 30,000 students were packed together in a campus smaller than my high school.

Students attending Shaolin start as young as 4 years old.  Some with "extraordinary athletic talent" are sent here to begin training for the Olympics.  Most enter at age 7 or 8, the magical age where kids are labeled "bad" "dumb" or disobedient.

Still other students attend Shaolin because Kung Fu runs deep in the family.  Some descend from generations of Monks and Warriors.   And little has changed over the years.  Students sleep 12 to a tiny room, bunks piled 4 to a column.  Bathrooms are few, running water is scarce and electricity is limited to a single bulb hanging in each room.  There are no computers.  There are no cell phones.

Finn stick training with Yan Laoshi.

Students practice 6 days a week.  Kung Fu practice takes place in the morning and regular school in the afternoons.  School starts at 5:00 am and ends around 8:00 pm.  Lights out at 9:00 p.m.  Sunday is reserved for washing and cleaning.  Students must hand-wash their uniforms, shoes and bedding.  In their free time, students practice Kung Fu because there is, well, nothing else to do. 

If you are trying to compare Shaolin with US boot camps and "reform" schools, don't.  Once you are enrolled in Shaolin, you cannot drop-out, you cannot go home.  Family is allowed to visit for a few days, not to exceed more than 2 weeks a year.  They do not use money on campus to prevent students from buying a bus ticket to get the F*%! out of Dodge.  Laoshi said that when he was at Shaolin, some students would sell their blood to get money for bus tickets to escape.  Laoshi does not make this shit up.  I asked about the fate of students who are terrible at Kung Fu.  Do they get sent home?  "Nope." Says Laoshi. They have to repeat and keep repeating with younger and younger students.  The shame is terrible.

Between Training we hiked many steps to many temples.

The Shaolin way might seem cruel or traumatizing to a pampered, coddled American.  I myself couldn't decide whether I was awed or disturbed watching small children drill in perfect form.  The kids seemed happy enough, though; and nobody was trying to escape on our watch.  I kept waiting for someone to tug on my sleeve, begging me to rescue them.  No tugs, no pleading eyes.

Just smiles, plenty of oggles, and the occasional dropped-jaw.  Regular tourists are not allowed into the school so many children were curious and starstruck.  The students loved to laugh and joke with us.  They even let Finn Kung Fu chop an already broken stick.  They carefully held it together so Finn would not see the crack and wildly cheered his "amazing" power.

The older students who taught our classes were so surprisingly sweet and gentle.  One little girl in the group was terrified so the teacher held her hand and stayed by her side for the entire four days.

I hoped to divine our teachers' internal musings.  I mean seriously, put yourself in their shoes and observe our small group of 7 families.  One word immediately comes to mind:  UNDISCIPLINED.  This applies to both the adults and the children.  They assigned me and the boys a full-time assistant just to corral us to and fro. Between the 3 daily training sessions, Laoshi had us off discovering the lesser known temples of Shaolin.   Yes, the Sheppards had a sheppard to sheppard us.  Eli was always off finding "secret passageways" and climbing everything.  Finn was in perpetual Finnland, preferring to study ants and patterns in the pavement along the way.  I myself have this habit of bolting off course to get a good picture.  Add to our free-spirited ways, the regular nuisance of having to pose in a photo every 5 feet.  You can't really blame us for lagging far behind, can you?  (Our Kung Fu "sheppard" saw to it that nobody brought a camera near us.  I asked if he could come back to Beijing with us.  Bad joke.  Really bad joke come to think of it.  Uh, he's not allowed to leave.) 

As far as Kung Fu goes, we made every last 5:00 a.m. training.  We were the first ones in line!  I've discovered that in two years I might learn the 24-pattern Tai Ji but I will certainly look like troll performing it.  In two years, I might be able to do those things in Kung Fu--you know, what are those moves called?  Probably not.

I also learned that I probably should read the fine print in life.  (I won't).   As for the kids.  Well, Finn has already appointed himself Kung-Fu Master in training. 

Finn took immediately to the sword.

Dude, Where's the Fireworks?

When the Chinese take over the world there will be more fireworks.  Way more fireworks.

The Chinese will find any earthly excuse to blow up shit: birthdays, weddings, project completion, Fridays, Tuesdays, just-because days.  Explosions are generally a good way to start your day; they drive away the bad spirits.  It's like having a cup of coffee, only it's bigger and louder and far more colorful.

I thought I had grown used to the familiar popping and booming sound that, along with honks and throat hoarks, are the soundtrack of Beijing, but nothing could have prepared me for Chinese New Year.

The boys and I nearly missed Chinese New Year.  It is a two-week festival.  We were in Myanmar for the first week and a time miscalculation got us waylaid in Thailand during the second.  We got home late on the last night of New Year's.  It was past mid-night and the fireworks curfew is 10:00 p.m.--in theory at least.  The boys were half asleep so I told them we would surely catch the celebration next year.  They were too tired to be disappointed.

Fortunately, China does not disappoint.  Sometimes it's bewildering, dirty and incomprehensible, but it does not disappoint; the Lantern Festival made sure of that.  The Lantern Festival bookends Chinese New Year.  It is celebrated on the 15th day of the first Lunar Month on the Chinese calendar.  The idea of the Lantern Festival is to trick the heavenly Jade Emperor.  Legend has it that some Chinese hunters killed the Emperor's heavenly crane.  The red-hot Jade-king responded by sending his horsemen to burn down the whole of China.  The heavenly Jade Princess felt sorry for the Chinese people and warned them of her father's designs.  A wise man reasoned that if everyone lit lanterns and fireworks the Emperor would be fooled into thinking China was immolated.  It worked!  Naturally, Eli brought up the minor point that as a God, Mr. Jade really should have known better.  I reminded him that we believe in Santa Claus and Leprechauns, putting the matter squarely to rest.

We didn't know about the Lantern Festival until the day of festival itself.  It's not like there is a big sign announcing it and, if there was, we couldn't read it anyway.  I asked our Ayi the best place to see the Lantern Festival.  She responded with a look that confirms that I have fewer brain cells than a lily pad.  (I am used to this look in China.) After a careful moment she said: "You go to Beijing."  Okay, I got that much, so: "Where in Beijing?"  I ask.  "Anywhere,"  (My-chickens-are-smarter-than-you-look resumes.)

She was not kidding.  The Lantern Festival is omnipresent and is especially good when viewed from the 28th floor of our centrally-located apartment.  Perhaps we are a little naive, but how were we to understand the whole damn city was going to explode?  How was I supposed to know that every last able-bodied Beijinger would go pyro?  Blowing up shit is Chinese entitlement; it is part of the national psyche.  They take fuse duty as seriously as green tea and tests.

As an American raised in the the litigious era, I was used to controlled fireworks shows, shuttling down to a pre-ordained location, circling for an hour to find $50 parking and waiting for 3 more hours to see a 20-minute, musically-choreographed, computer-driven spectacle being ignited from a barge surrounded by fire boats. No way in hell would I ever set off my own fireworks and I always kept a good, safe distance when friends did.

But THIS IS CHINA, as we've grown accustomed to saying, and our first-ever Lantern Festival experience began as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon.  We have a panoramic view and our necks got a workout turning to and fro watching the competing displays.  We ogled for an hour when one of us had the bright idea of taking it to the streets.  Me, who hates loud noises and is terrified of fire, hastily agreed.  Everything somehow sounds good to me in China--like riding my bike in rush hour, eating scorpions and taking a 4-hour per day Chinese class. 

The Hutong neighborhood adjacent South of us was proving once again that humble people know how to party.  There was a fireworks shop erected in the middle of the street, because, the middle of an already-congested street is a great place to pile enough explosives to send the whole of Beijing to the moon.  They were selling all manner of TNT classified as way-beyond legal in the US.  We are talking 10,000-round fire crackers.  Think about that: 10,000 round wheels.  We can't buy more than 10-round poppers back home if my memory serves me well.  And crates--crates, I tell you--of fireworks with enough powder to shoot colorful sparks 250 feet skyward.  

We meandered our way through the narrow streets, watching our neighbors light up the night.  I had my hands futilely covering my ears.  Sparks and rockets were literally whizzing around us.  The booms echoed off the highrises, steel and concrete.  I thought of my BFF Phaedra working the Seattle burn ward on July 4th and began to laugh because, fuck it, you only live once.  It was the errant rocket that blew sideways and set a car 10-feet from us ablaze that forced us to retreat.... To the fireworks stand.....  To buy explosives:  bottle rockets and fire balls and the 10,000-round wheel of death.   And hand them to our children.   I admit, holding the rocket launching tube was exhilarating.  The kick-back was thrilling.  The lights and sulfur smell of power was intoxicating. 

We headed home, limbs surprisingly intact, at 10:00 pm.  The boys were exhausted from the day's danger and folly and actually asked to go to bed.  I wished them pleasant times in the Land of Nod and took a seat by the window when I noticed a calvacade of cars dumping hundreds huge crates on the sidewalk across the street.  There was a flurry of activity as men scurried about lighting fuses and then jumped into their cars.  Drive-by Fireworks gangsters.  Count down 3-2-1 and the windows began to rattle, the ground vibrating.  It was the best show yet.  My kids managed to sleep through it.  I could not stop laughing.  Fireworks never get old.  Nor does adventure.

Our upstairs neighbor Mark Griffith took the footage of and processed this incredible video montage of the lantern festival fireworks:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/niffgurd/6834027271/