Fall to winter
OMG! I can’t believe I forgot to mention this in the last post. When we went out to dinner with friends in Hanoi we ordered spring rolls – the kind you put in water and they soften and you wrap around fresh vegetables and shrimp. This is a Vietnamese dish. We ordered it and the waiter came and is showing us how to assemble the – she brought us wraps in the package – which seemed very strange. Then she assembles it without putting it in the water – so it’s breaking apart. I was thinking, “maybe this is a different kind of wrap”, but then it’s all breaking apart as she’s trying to wrap this crispy wrap and then she hands it to our friend who takes a bite and thinks it’s very weird. Then I ask her to bring us some bowls of water – which of course fixed the problem. But how can she not know that the wraps need to be soaked first -both because she works at a restaurant where they serve this food and because it’s a Vietnamese dish and we’re in Vietnam. SO STRANGE!!
I regularly get texts regularly in Chinese which I can’t read, and if I have AI translate them, they make no sense. I often have no idea if these are message I should pay attention to or if they are junk. I don’t want to get a virus, so I don’t click on them. I recently got one of these messages. The same message has come in a number of times and I had a feeling it was from my internet and phone provider so I finally sent a copy of the email to a Chinese friend who said it was in fact from my phone provider saying I hadn’t paid the bill and my phone and our home internet was going to be turned off. I couldn’t figure out how to pay the bill online, so I had our driver take me to the office where I signed up for my phone and internet. We got there and it was locked with a note scribbled on the door that was too sloppy to translate but the driver eventually communicated to me that the office was closed for an indefinite period of time. I asked him to look online for the nearest other office – where he drove me. It ended up being in a mall and when I found the shop it was locked, though the hours said it should be open. I went into the shop next door and, with my broken Mandarin, asked the woman when the phone store would be open. She insisted it was – until we walked next door. I explained my problem and that it is too hard for me, with my minimal language skills, to negotiate this over the phone in Chinese. She called the main number and was told the shop was open. We walked back over. I knocked hard on the door and after a few minutes a woman appeared from the back – looking like she had been napping. The reason I retell this mundane story is that it really got me thinking about foreigners in the US – or other places – how easy to get lost in the system. I have many people willing to help me and still I struggled to keep my phone and internet on.
Mid October, late one Friday evening we were closing down shabbat dinner at Roberta and Ted’s when Roberta told us she was having a “Run for the Cure” early the next morning, followed by a yoga class our friend Robyn was running and she’d love for Dan and I to join us. I wasn’t thrilled that it was already late, we had to drive half an hour home and another 45 minutes to get to the race the next morning – but we wanted to support it – plus it sounded fun. Ended up being a beautiful Sunday morning. We were a bit concerned in the beginning of the run as they were trying to keep us together and stopped us a couple times to take group photos – but eventually Dan and I and a few other people sped up, ahead of the group, and enjoyed running in the beautiful park. Afterward it was lovely sitting outside on our mats, doing a little yoga. The event organizers had tons of photographers along the route and around us as we did yoga- which felt weird – but nonetheless we had a great time. As we hadn’t planned to do this race, we had already scheduled a mixed doubles match with some neighborhood friends at 1:00 – so we had to bolt – get back out to our neighborhood and play a couple hours of tennis. We were REALLY tired that evening and the next day.
Morton told me he wanted to get his hair trimmed – which was really needed – so I quickly scheduled a hair cutting appointment before he could change his mind. As we were going down town, Morton and I planned a whole day and Dan joined us.
For whatever reason, ISB planned their annual International Day to be scheduled on October 31st. Everyone dresses up in their home country’s traditional clothes, there is a parade around the track, and parents set up booths representing their countries – presenting information and often serving samplings of their food – among other activities. This year Yao Ming and the Ambassador of Guyana were guest hosts of this event – leading the parade, saying some words, and hitting the gong which officially starts International Day. We spent some time chatting with them before the parade, which was lovely and later Yao Ming held an assembly in which he just answered everyone’s questions. Yao Ming is like no star in the US as he is the first and really only star who made it outside of China. – Maybe Jackie Chan is the one other – but Yao Ming is so much more noticeable than Jackie Chan that his experience is so much more extreme. Yao Ming has been out of the NBA for a couple decades but he can’t go anywhere in China without causing an avalanche of enthusiastic followers.
Meanwhile, Celia and her friend in Boston went out to a Halloween party dressed as Clark Kent and Louis Lane.
That Wednesday after school Morton and I went to the photography mall and found him a new camera for his birthday and to bring on his trip.
Friday night Dan and I went downtown to the main art area, Qi Jiu Ba (798), to attend an art opening that the school’s art club put on. We arrived as a presentation was going on. – about the show and presenting the artists. Morton was called. We had no idea his work was in the show!
Dan and I had hoped to also get away for the weekend, but ended up Dan had to work Saturday morning, so I decided to book a hotel Saturday night in a hutong downtown – with the traditional interior courtyard – and spend some time wandering Beijing.
A few days later I flew down for a very quick trip to Shanghai to attend my friend Wang Xin’s big art opening. I asked her to suggest a convenient hotel for me to stay in. She sent me a link in Chinese on a Chinese app. I was surprised by how cheap the room was and it looked pretty nice. When I arrived – the room was an interior room – no windows! It just had a fake one!
After dropping my bag at the hotel, I went and met Xin and a couple of her friends for a late lunch before we headed to the opening.
The show ended up being really beautiful, I ran and saw a couple other shows nearby, went to the after show dinner, made plans for brunch and art viewing the next day before flying back and then I headed back to my windowless hotel room. When I got there I looked at my phone. Lots of messages from Dan.
Yao Ming’s handler kept saying to him they wanted to get together with him whenever he got down to Shanghai. Dan was very curious why they wanted to meet with him so much. Maybe Yao Ming was starting a school??? When I made my plans to go for Xin’s opening, Dan told him he’d be down for those two days – he figured it would be convenient to go then. But he didn’t hear back, so I went to Shanghai on my own as originally planned. Of course, while I was there, they called and asked Dan and I for tea the next morning. Dan was calling to tell me he was flying down the next morning and to meet him. I quickly told Xin I’d miss brunch but meet up later for some art viewing.
The next morning I went to the address and found myself at a very upscale hotel lobby. A manager stopped me at the door and asked what I was doing there. I explained that I thought I was meeting Yao Ming there but wasn’t sure of the address. He asked if I had an appointment and when I confirmed he told me Yao Ming lived across the street and would sometimes meet people at their tea house upstairs and I should wait. Dan came soon after and then Yao Ming’s handler. He took us upstairs and we ordered drinks. Yao came a few minutes later and joined us. The four of us had a lovely time chatting for a couple hours and then we headed our separate ways. Yao walked us to the door and then a fan chased after him. Didn’t seem like there was an agenda, maybe it’s just hard for him to meet people? Not sure, but both he and his handler were lovely.
Dan and I then went to check out the Biennial at the Shanghai MOCA before heading to meet Xin and another friend for some more art and then back to Beijing.
It was a lovely, and fast two days.
The next weekend our good friends Leo and Ami invited us to an undisclosed art location they wanted to show us. It was a museum and hotel of stone. It was both amazing and very strange. The owner of the museum/hotel went around the country and would find or be shown large rocks. He would then hire people to saw them in half. If he likes what he saw, he’d have them slice off that piece and he’d frame it. If he didn’t like it, he’d have slice it off again, and again until hopefully he had a slice he liked. The artworks were beautiful. They looked like they were paintings or ink drawings. And the museum and hotel itself were amazing with light fixtures and windows made out of stone.
Afterwards we went right by the Forbidden City. We went to this beautiful museum, that I had been to once before, and then to a lovely tea house – where Morton joined us- for tastings and then a private dinner – they only had one table at this restaurant. It was really lovely.
Other things this fall:
Weekend before Thanksgiving we had another long weekend. For a long time I had wanted to go to a city called Datong – so Dan, Morton and I headed there. We took a two and a half hour bullet train there Friday morning.
I had booked us into a lovely Chinese hotel in the old town. We checked in early, grabbed some lunch nearby and then headed to see famous grottos that were just outside of the town. They blew us all away. There are hundreds of these caves that were carved into the rock faces by monks in around 300 bc and the caves are full of Buddhas.
That afternoon we decided to bike around the old city up on the old wall. It was very much like when we biked on the old wall of Xian, my first year in China, but the bikes were a lot better. Morton biked taking photos along the way.
Walking back to the hotel from the wall I noticed an interesting looking building which we decided to walk by. It ended up being a theater. Two women approached us with tickets to sell. Apparently it was a show about the story of Datong (the city we were in), and the show started in about ten minutes. They were selling the tickets for pretty cheap so we decided we’d risk it.
We headed into the theater and headed down what we thought was the ramp down to the section where our seats were. We ended up entering a room and we were supposed to stand in the middle of the room. As no one spoke English and our Mandarin is limited, we weren’t exactly sure what was going on. After a little bit the show began all around us as we stood with the other spectators in the middle.
After about 15 minutes, we were all ushered into a different room where the story continued. We ended up being shuffled into about 5 different rooms with different sets all around us and often above us also.
The story, from what we could tell, seemed a little cheesy but the sets and lights were pretty amazing. I don’t think they often get foreigners at this show as the ushers would always gesture, making sure we went to the correct area. At the end of the show an usher grabbed us and had us pose for a picture with one of the stars of the show.
As Thanksgiving is a work day here in China, we decided to wait until the following Saturday to throw our Thanksgiving dinner. It would be our first larger party in our new house and I wasn’t sure how/if we could make it work – where everyone would fit and how I’d make the dinner without an oven! We were 17 people in total and I really wanted us all to sit around one table. We covered the pool table to put the food out, everyone helped cook, and we all squoze (I love that word – even if it isn’t a word) around a long table. We couldn’t have fit even one other person. It was really lovely and made me feel appreciative of my Beijing community. People here really show up to things and we meet people we would never meet in the US – so our friends do all sorts of different things in their lives. It makes it really fun.
I hope you are all having a good winter holiday! We’re currently traveling in Thailand, Laos, and soon to Cambodia. I’ll write some more when we get back. Xo