Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Mom and Dad come to Beijing

Well this is a very long update for a very long couple of weeks. To be honest, I’ve been too busy to write emails, talk to anyone, or even write this blog. So I’ll just start from the beginning and tell you about my last couple of weeks. The semester was winding down, and all the papers and final exams were looming in the next week, but I was very excited anyways.


My parents came! Mom and Dad flew in to Beijing looking neat and tidy as always, which was a definite contrast from what I looked like getting off a thirteen hour plane ride. They were tired, but generally in good spirits despite the fact that the airline lost my mom’s suitcase.


I took them to their new hotel, and after an altercation with hotel clerk about being in a smoking room rather than the previously requested non-smoking room, we walked down to check out my campus. I showed them my dorm, the Beida campus, and we got some dinner at a restaurant my friends and I like to call the Medicine House. Eating with them was actually surprisingly successful, which I had worried about. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to order more than five or six different things the whole week they were visiting, but I ended up getting lucky with picture menus and some English sub-menus.


The next day, I had to teach English, so I took my parents to Tian’anmen Square, showed them around, and pointed them in the direction of the Forbidden City, and rushed off to start my hour and a half trip to the Beijing suburbs. They survived the center of Beijing, wandering through the Forbidden City and Tian’anmen Square until I returned to retrieve them from curious Chinese tourists. That night, we went to a restaurant that serves Peking Duck, and it was really amazing. It was actually my first time have duck in Beijing, and it was definitely worth trying.


The next day I took them to the Temple of Heaven and the Pearl Market. Mom liked the Temple of Heaven, because the Temple of Heaven is not only made up of old temples and corridors from Imperial China, it is also a public park, where Beijing residents go to enjoy leisurely activities. They got to see Chinese people in action, fake working out on a metal playground for adults, singing together, ballroom dancing together, practicing calligraphy, playing musical instruments, and “sanbuing” an anglicized description of Chinese people walking slowly up and down the sidewalks with their hands clasped firmly behind their backs. Dad was in his glory, and he was like a kid in a candy store in the Pearl Market, bargaining for things I would never think of buying. We left him to the electronics vendors on the first floor while Mom and I headed up to the pearl section to buy pearls for all our family members and friends.


On Sunday it was raining, so I suggested we visit a museum in Tian’anmen Square, and since my Dad enjoyed the Pearl Market so much, I suggested we also go to the Silk Market, which is much larger and has more things for him to buy. Unfortunately, we got to Tian’anmen Square and the museum was closed. When I went up to ask the guard in front of the museum how long the museum had been closed, he said “I don’t know.” Then I asked him when the museum would open again, and he said “I don’t know.” So there’s not much information being passed around in China these days.


After the failure at the National Museum, we headed over two stops on the metro to the Silk Market. Dad just immediately wandered off, his face glowing with excitement at all the fake designer products, watches, and clothes he could buy, assuming that my mom would just carry all that stuff home with her. Mom and I wandered around upstairs, bought some more pearls, looked at purses, and fake Spyder jackets. We were there for about three hours, and we all came out with enormous amounts of stuff. Dad bought three suits from a tailor who measures his customers in the store and makes whole suits overnight for the price of one nice sports coat. During our time there, there was an ongoing contest between the three of us about who was the best bargainer. My mom has always been frugal, so I think she’s pretty good because she won’t spend more than a certain amount. I can speak Chinese, which helps a lot and the vendors always start lower, and Dad is just sure that he is the best bargainer. So we had some good natured competition when it came down to how cheap we could buy things.

The next day I took my parents to the Olympic Green, and we explored the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. The architecture there is really interesting, and inside the Bird’s Nest I did a lap around the field just to get a feel for how the athletes felt during the Olympics. I’m pretty sure it was a lot more stressful for them; I just looked goofy. Everything about the area is new and athletic. Even the street lights look like golf clubs and the ground lights look like golf balls on tees. But the area, especially hotels in the area, have taken a serious economic hit this year, as not only are the Olympics over and the influx of visitors coming to watch even national evens have dwindled because of less spending power. Also the number of tourists coming to China is much smaller this year because of the financial crisis. However, unlike Athens and its athletic arenas from the 2004 Olympics, China has pretty stable plans to transform most of the Olympic stadiums and buildings into publically accessible athletic clubs and sports fields.

That day I also took them to my school, where I taught my 28 students the vocabulary for “family” and introduced them to my parents. I had the girls write out self-introductions that they would recite to Mom and Dad, and some of them said things like “my hair is black and purple and my sweater is black and purple,” and “my birthday is July 20, 1994” while others simply introduced themselves, talked about their school, and sat down. They also wanted to sing, so they sang a song, we played some games, and Mom showed them pictures of Marshall and I when we were a little younger. I think it was a good experience for Mom and Dad because it was a chance for them to see Beijing suburbs and see how some of the lower classes of Chinese people live outside the city. They also got to ride the bus, which is always an adventure.


On Tuesday my parents and I visited the Summer Palace, and they got to walk around the complex, explore the temples and read a little about Empress Cixi and the Imperial family. And on Tuesday, we made yet another trip to the Silk Market to pick up some more things and buy a dress for me!


On Wednesday, we finally went to the Great Wall. The nice thing is, there is a train that leaves from the North Beijing Station and takes visitors directly to Badaling, the closest part of the Wall to the city. It was very crowded, and pretty cold that day, but I warned my parents not to wear coats, because they would be warm enough after they hiked up the wall. We walked only about 1km, and then stopped and took pictures. Dad desperately wanted to call somebody in the U.S. and tell this lucky person that we were on the Great Wall, but Mom restrained him and reminded him that it was 1 am for Marshall, Grandma, and Nanny, and none of them would like to be woken up at that time in the morning no matter how great the Great Wall was. To get down from the Wall, we took a small rollercoaster that rambles down from the top of the wall down the mountain. The rollercoaster landed right in front of a bear exhibit, so we took pictures of the lazy bears, I ate some meat on a stick, or chua’r as it’s called in China, and we headed back on the train to Beijing.

That night, Mom and I headed out to watch the Acrobats at the Chaoyang Theater. The show was fantastic, and all the acrobats did amazing things. It almost made me scared for them as they balanced on each other’s shoulders or on a metal rod inserted into another acrobat’s mouth. I can’t imagine how painful it would be to mess up on one of the tricks. The coolest thing about the show: we were in the front row!


The next day, Mom and Dad were parting ways, and Dad flew down to Shanghai on business, while Mom had a few hours to wait in the airport. I met her there after my Chinese class and we had lunch and Starbucks together until it was time to board. It was so great having my parents visit in Beijing, and I got to show them so many things that I love about the city, and they seemed to enjoy them too. Dad’s favorite was definitely the Silk Market, and Mom lugged home a new set of golf clubs, a suitcase, and various articles of clothing and electronics from his exploits there.





No comments:

Post a Comment