Melanie Fischer

Soon after we returned from Yunnan a neighbor named Dana posted a picture on the neighborhood chat group of her patio which was newly planted with flowers. It made me really depressed about our patio  where the bricks were mud covered with not a flower in site. In the fall I bought some outdoor couches but looking at Dana’s picture made the idea of hanging out on our patio depressing.

Another neighbor, Sara, told me she had a power washer. I thought that was a good place to begin. I quickly realized both that we have no outlets outside – so I had to also borrow a long extension cord – and that the spigot closest to where I needed to wash was broken and the other has a gerry-rigged hose – it isn’t threaded so someone had taken wire to attempt to hold the hose onto the spigot. I worked a while on the one area I could reach with the hose and then asked the management if they could have someone clean the patio as it looks as if it hasn’t been properly cleaned in years. The next day a couple showed up to clean. He was using a floor polisher and she had a Chinese broom – which is more for dusting off an area than serious work. It took them the entire day! They did a good job – but so inefficient!

Also on our patio are two sculptures. One is really large and is placed in what looks like possibly used to hold water and small fish but now it just fills with leaves and lots of dust (can be seen in back of picture above). I asked the management if it could be removed. The owners told them the sculptures cost a lot of money and were essential for the Fung Shui of the house. Ugh!

Dana gave me the contact of the flower/plant lady. She sent me tons of pictures of different flowers and plants to choose from. But I didn’t even have any pots. The whole thing felt very overwhelming. Dana offered to come over and give me her opinion – which I greatly appreciated! She suggested places I put pots, that I put astro turf around the trees, and moving our barbecue to a different location. I started collecting pots. I bought a few from neighbors who were selling theirs and then Sara helped me order some more pots online. I SO miss shopping in the U.S – both in person shopping and online – I know where to go and how to order online. I know neither here in China. People say buying stuff online is amazing here but for me so far it’s just incredibly difficult and frustrating. Ayi Ling helped me order some large flower boxes. They came in pieces that needed tools to be assembled – more borrowing of tools.

I called Dana’s “astro turf” guy – there is a person for everything in China! He quickly came out, took measurements and gave me a price. The next day he installed the astro turf. It sounds strange to put astro turf outside around our trees but it made the patio look so much better! So much cleaner! 

After days of hearing what Sara was doing in her garden, she had me over to see all the plants she had planted. I was asking her details about how she planted one of her plants when she said, “Oh, no – when I say I “planted” these – I mean I point where I want it and the gardeners plant it.” I laughed – so funny! Then she advised me, “If you spend more than 200rmb (a little under $30) the people who sell the plants deliver and plant them too. Make sure to insist they do that for you. They won’t offer it to you but it’s part of the deal”. Good to know.

I dragged my feet on ordering the flowers/plants. Felt so overwhelming ordering plants online. I drove out to see Dana’s flower lady in person – that was overwhelming enough. So much stuff – so hard to know how much I need. After a bunch of wandering I picked out some plants that I thought would look good together, plus some kale and mint. The proprietor told me she’d probably deliver and plant later that day. 

Later that evening, as we were finishing dinner, and the sun had already set, I assumed that they weren’t coming to plant that day. Then I heard a truck pull up.  So crazy. I turned on my phone light to direct and approve what they were doing. Hard to tell how it was all looking with just my phone light. I had them fill the “pool” below the large sculpture with soil and flowers. Despite their forgetting the yellow flowers I wanted, and planting in the dark, in the morning I was so happy with the way it looked. Such a nicer place to hang out.

So many other things were also going on during my patio craziness. Spring was packed full of end of year events:

Mid April ISB hosted the APAC (I think Asia Pacific Assoc. Conference) competition – in which similar schools from China and neighboring countries participate. The schools make a big deal out of it – and especially since these conferences are just starting back after a 3 year Covid break. Celia played on the soccer team. It was super fun to watch and I am so proud of her for going out for soccer for the first time her senior year. 

My tennis buddy Coco (Gua Yan) threw a lovely dinner party for a few of us who play tennis together. — it’s funny, almost all Chinese have a second English name. They always introduce themselves with this name (such as my friend Coco). At a certain point this year it occurred to me that it’s weird I don’t know my friends’ real names. I mentioned this to my friend Jing Yu. I had just found out she had an English name after I had known her for close to a year and I had spent a long time trying to remember her Chinese name and the proper pronunciation. She then told me she doesn’t know many of her Chinese friends Chinese names either. Many Chinese people introduce themselves to other Chinese with their English names as well. Very strange!

Celia had the Senior Parade. It’s a tradition among the international schools when the seniors, about a month before graduation, dress in their cap and gowns, all the other students in the school and the faculty and staff and parents stand in the school halls and the seniors walk through the entire school and everyone cheers them on. It was super nice – but I don’t know why they school needed to get me started crying so far in advance of graduation.

A number of big art shows and fairs started back after years of hiatus. 

The day after I finally finished my garden we had a barbecue and Celia had her senior prom! The prom was kind of a bust: it started at 6:00 and only ran until 9:00, mashed potatoes were the only vegetarian food Celia could eat, the time for dancing was brief and Celia was unhappy with the music the kid DJing played. But despite that Celia had a great time: getting her nails and make-up done and dressing up with friends and going out after the prom was a blast. Plus she looked beautiful!

May 1st Celia turned 18! – the legal age of drinking in China – though no one pays attention to that. She went out with friends to the Chun Bing restaurant (very thin pancakes which you wrap around different ingredients) – that we went to in the hutong much earlier this year. As a family we went to a vegetarian Chinese restaurant (a rarity) and I ordered her an incredible strawberry cream cake that  my friend Jingyu had brought to my ladies tennis dinner.

Quick highlights as this is getting way too long:

Mid May Celia and Dan went to Japan to meet up with Dan’s parents. Celia went for a week (as she was done with all her classes and exams) and Dan for a long weekend. Morton planned to go on a camping trip, so I invited a bunch of ladies over for my birthday. My friend Su-en brought one of the most amazing looking cakes I have ever seen.

The school had it’s first Spring Fair in four years. It was super fun but the weather was cold and Dan turned purple doing the dunk tank!

Morton went to Gobi Water Town for the eighth grade trip. Despite his not wanting to go, I think he had a good time.

Dan and I went to see the premier Chinese violinist at the Egg (Beijing’s version of New York’s Lincoln Center). It was so beautiful and I was so impressed by how young the crowd was and how the audience really seemed to know the music – cheering when songs were announced. 

Also note worthy: Celia’s friend Tommy gave Milo a new tie (he didn’t like it – but boy did he look cute!)

And on May 27th Celia graduated highschool! Dan gave speeches:  at the senior dinner (putting pictures of her up) and at graduation when he directed the speech to her, and then presenting her with her diploma. After graduation a parent organized for the four of us the most amazing vegetarian Japanese and Chinese dinner in their private space. It was one of the best meals I have ever eaten. 

After dinner Celia met up with many of her classmates at a club where some Canadian rapper played and then they ran down to Tianneman Square for the raising of the flag.

Before Celia and I ran off to the U.S, my friends organized a special tennis match for me and Morton had his 8th grade final dance. He looked so handsome!

Then Celia and I flew off – 1.5 hours to Seoul, 18 hours to NYC, then picked up the rental car and drove two hours to my mother’s in Bryn Mawr. Quite a trip!

Since being back in the US, Celia and I spent some time with my mother, adjusting to the time change and seeing Judd who came up. Celia went to her Brooklyn Prospect prom.

My mother and I also went to NY. We had Art Luck night – which was so great to get together with my art ladies after only virtual get togethers for the last year, had dinner out with some friends and went to some galleries to see some art. it’s been so nice to catch up!

Volleyball season officially ended and Morton was asked to practice and play a friendly tournament on the highschool varsity ping-pong team. The competition was pretty tough, but Morton held his own – pretty good for an 8th grader playing mostly among seniors!

I was invited on a tour of the American Embassy art collection. The first tour they’ve given in over three years. The work was a beautiful collection of mostly contemporary art with some old photographs of foreign diplomates – some from well over a century ago.

Two weeks ago the kids had off from school Thursday and Friday. Trying to squeeze in as much traveling as possibly while Celia’s in China, I planned a trip. I warned the kids that we would have to carry our bags all day – so carry very little. Dan could bring other things the next day. Of course, at 5:30 in the morning, with departure in 30 minutes, I’m still talking Morton down from his three bags. In addition, to be consistent in the way I plan trips – I was still making reservations and decisions as we were heading to the airport. We flew off early Thursday morning (Celia had a party Wednesday evening) to Xiamen. Xiamen is a coastal town in the south east of China with about 3.5 million people. A lot of foreign ocean trade went through Xiamen. Downtown Xiamen is an island and another smaller island off of Xiamen, Gulangyu, is where the foreigners set up their headquarters. The kids and I flew in and jumped into a taxi to the old downtown area which has a walking street with the curvey hutong streets surrounding it. We wandered around, bought our obligatory refrigerator magnet, found a hole in the wall restaurant to buy a pretty good lunch, and then caught the ferry to Gulangyu.

Two blocks away from the ferry we lost the tours which were following their flag holding guides and found lovely quiet hutong streets and an ocean side promenade.

Large banyan trees grew along the roads and over old walls. Large old European estates in various states of repair and disrepair lined many of the interior streets.

After much wandering we found the large old estate we were staying at. Entering into the estate walls we walked into a blissfully calm environment, set up for tea service in front and a lovely garden in back. A small room next to where we checked in held the most beautiful traditional Chinese dresses I’d ever seen. There were no tags, and I assumed they were out of my price range, but I asked if they were for sale. They were for rent. Visitor rent the dresses and have themselves photographed in the gardens and in the beautiful old buildings of the estate. I have found this is a very common thing to do in China. Many of the famous sites (the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, for example) are surrounded by stores that rent time period costumes and photographers who will photograph you as you tour the sites.

That evening we headed to lovely seafood restaurant and ordered all their vegetarian dishes ( and one delicious bing (pancake) dish that included a tiny bit of seafood – sorry Celia!).

Around five years ago we were sailing up the Spanish coast and one of the towns we stopped in had these places were tourists were putting their feet into water and tiny fish were nibbling on them. We thought it was very strange, but Celia and I have discussed it a number of times since then, so when we saw the same type of place across the street from the restaurant, we figured we had to try it – so after dinner we went in. No amount of coaxing could get Morton even in the door. First they gave a painful foot/lower leg massage. Then they cupped the souls of our feet – putting a flame in the rubber cup and then getting it to suction to our feet. For whatever reason the cups wouldn’t stick to Celia’s feet. Finally we put our feet into the fish filled water. We laughed hysterically. It was so strange. I’m not sure if it did anything for our feet – but it was definitely an experience.

Once our feet were lovely from being nibbled on, we went looking for desert. We got these cute treats that are basically batter poured into egg shapes and then cute faces burned onto them to look at us while we ate them.

The next morning we had a lovely Chinese breakfast at the hotel before wandering back to the ferry to meet Dan at the airport.

After picking Dan up at the airport, we headed to see some Tulous. Tulous are beautiful old family compounds that were built as fortresses out of clay- the most lovely were built as circles. Each family with in the extended family would have their kitchen on the ground flood, storage directly above and sleeping room above that. The middle of the compound is outdoor space and sometimes as the extended family grew an additional circle or two were built inside the original circular building. Traditionally the bathroom was outside the compound, but more recently families have been adding bathroom facilities. Pretty crazy and amazing! Unfortunately most of the younger generations are leaving their family tulous for more convenient locations and/or more modern facilities and they just return to see family for the Chinese New Year holiday. Apparently during, I believe the 1970s, the U.S satellites saw these buildings and thought they were Nuclear reactors!

Late that afternoon we did a hike up the hills behind the tiny town of Zhangzhou. The air and the view were so lovely – and as a tea drinker – a little embarrassing how little I knew about how tea is grown. At least here, they are grown on bushes cut short into low rectangles.

That night we stayed in a beautiful smaller rectangular Tulou. As most of the family had moved out of the Tulou, one remaining couple, whose kids are grown, was running it as an inn.

The next day, Dan and I woke early to take a pathetic but also glorious (air and scenery were fantastic!) run up the hill the town was nestled in. The door to the Tulou was impressive and more of a feat to open than we are used to.

After a run and a quick shower we had a lovely simple breakfast and then headed out to see a few more Tulous and tiny towns. We saw what is apparently the largest Tulou (sadly I forget the number of people it houses).

Then we walked to a beautiful Tulou which sadly now only houses animals. I’m thinking it would be a fantastic artists’ retreat!

We stopped in the same town with the largest Tulou and the animal housing tulou at a tiny hotel and had a coffee.

Before leaving the Tulou area we visited a few more Tulous – including one that had two circles inside the outer circle. It was a shame to loose the yard in the middle, but it was a pretty amazing structure.

We then had our driver take us to a town an hour north up the coast from Xiamen called Quanzhou, home to around 7 million people. It is considered the start of the Sea Silk Road. Quanzhou is considered a third tier city – so foreign tourists don’t really go there but a friend, Dong, was taking her daughter, Autumn, there to check it out for the weekend and encouraged us to meet her there. Dong had heard that being a third tier city, Quanzhou was able to avoid having much of their old neighborhoods knocked down for high-rises that most of the big cities have experienced. I spent a lot of time trying to book ourselves into the hotel Dong and Autumn were staying at and was told that they don’t take foreigners but eventually I was able to get Dan’s assistant to get us two rooms. The hotel was in the old hutong area – so excessable only by foot – getting there through a maze of walking streets. It was lovely.

The main attraction in Quanzhou is Kaiyuan temple. After settling into the hotel we headed out to see it. Walking there we walked through what must be the most major tourist street. It was crazy crowded!

We stopped along the root to get a roof top view from a building that had a fancy bake shop inside.

Kaiyuan Temple has twin tours. They are are made out of stone and are incredibly beautiful (one can be seen behind the lady with her pastry). I had never seen one that looked like this.

We then ran back to the hotel and met up with Dong and Autumn to have dinner. Walking to dinner Celia and Dan stumbled upon this dog that was dyed to look like a panda. Pretty crazy!

The next day after breakfast at the hotel, we head out with Dong and Autumn to see some old beautiful temples.

The first temple was Confucian where we have been told people come to pray for good grades. Dong showed us how to do it, we lit incense and then made our wishes. I’m not sure my kids cared very much.

It was very interesting seeing how the walls of the temple were built, between the bricks were areas of mud based, or sand based cement. Any architects out there can explain why?

We then went to an old mosque. There were the old walls and then a newer mosque sitting next to it.

Outside the mosque we decided to try a cup of sugar cane juice that this woman was making. It was good – though a little too sweet to finish.

Then we headed to one last temple. I believe it was buddhist (I need Dong to confirm). The building was over the top ornate but it was so crazy crowded we couldn’t bear it.

After lunch we wandered the hutong streets some more and went back to see the towers again as the girls had missed it the first time around. The boys took a Morton detour and apparently found a place to shoot a bow and arrow.

Then we said, “Goodbye” to Dong and Autumn before heading to the airport back to Beijing.

When we got back to Beijing Celia was very excited to see Milo.

Since we got back:

I went on a lovely tour of this art area in Beijing that was designed and built by Aiweiwei and now houses very high end art businesses. A friend of a friend, Hugh, has a business making rugs. He gave a few friend and I a tour of his business, served us lovely tea and then showed us an art gallery and two incredibly upscale furniture businesses. It was pretty amazing.

In addition, Celia has started playing soccer on her highschool team – a gutsy thing to start senior year. We are proud of her – though I have not accomplished taking a decent picture of her playing.

Last weekend we celebrated Purim. Morton – by going away camping with the Boyscouts all weekend. Celia, Dan, and I went to Ted and Roberta, who are long time Beijing weiguaren (foreigners). Ted is a writer and rewrote the Purim story as a Western and then we read and acted out the story. It was a riot. Celia played the mayor of the town (who replaced the king in the original story). She was fantastic. I had my etch-a-sketch in case I needed a quick draw. (Anita and I made it years ago).

And one last picture special for Celia that she just came home and had me shoot:

We hope to hear from you all! Although we are having great adventures, we miss you!

Xo

Last week an ISB parent invited me to join her to see one of the locations of the Beijing Biennial Art Show (there are three). This location is in an old department store that opened around 1960 where only foreign currency could be spent – which regular Chinese people couldn’t get their hands on. Apparently regular Chinese people would go in and be astonished at all the colorful clothes, the appliances and other foreign conveniences they had never seen before. More recently the department store has been struggling, there was talk of plowing it down. There are still a couple floors selling some goods and they just opened a couple floors for the Biennial. A number of curators had areas they curated. The show was really nice to see – a lot of really interesting work. Sadly the show was very empty – hopefully that was because it was a week day. Unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures.

There was also a beautiful installation by Tan Jing where the tiles crack and break under the viewers feet, giving a sense of walking through dusty memories.

There were a couple pieces by Xin Yunpeng about pingpong. I especially liked a video piece with the sounds of the game and a break with the referee’s eyes.

Trying to out run the Chunjie (Spring Festival) travel rush, which should start tomorrow (Friday the 20th of January), we jumped on a plane to Harbin this past weekend. Harbin is a two and a quarter hour flight north of Beijing.

Harbin is by far the coldest place I have ever been – and as I went to college in Minnesota – that’s saying something. Harbin has a population of over 10 million people and before this past summer when Celia and I read the book People Love Dead Jews – which has a chapter on this city – I had never heard of Harbin. There are so many humungous cities in China that I have been completely ignorant of. Harbin is famous for it’s over the top Winter Ice and Snow Festival – and we had heard it was not to be missed. That, and our interest in the very large Jewish community that lived in and made the city the thriving metropolis that it is- made us very interested in going.

After checking into the hotel and bundling up (see picture above) we strolled along the main old street and found a dumpling shop to grab dinner and try Harbin beer (very light).

The next morning after the Chinese buffet breakfast at our hotel we bundled again and walked out to the river front. On the river were lots of activities – though not the many people we expected and feared. It was quite empty. There were ice sleds and carnival type rides spinning people on the ice, ice skating and ice bicycles. Four wheel vehicles were spinning people on a long line of inner tubes connected with ropes. I convinced the kids, and then the man driving the four wheel vehicle (in Mandarin!!), instead of driving us in crazy circles, to pull us to the other side of the river to where the Snow Sculpture Festival was taking place.

The snow sculptures were super impressive!

After the snow sculptures, we took a gondola ride back over the river. Morton headed back to the hotel and Morton, Dan and I found a delicious Chunbing restaurant (I have found out that’s the name of those delicious pancakes we ate at the Beijing Hutong restaurant) and ate a late lunch.

Late afternoon we headed out to see the Ice Sculptures – which are the most famous part of the Harbin Winter Festival. The handiwork was not as impressive as the snow sculptures, but the overall effect, with the massive size and amount and with the disco lights inside was a fantastic site.

Later that evening we took a taxi to another side of the city to meet with Dan Ben-Canaan – who is known as the only Jew who lives in Harbin. He worked on having some of the many important Jewish buildings preserved. He and his lovely wife Isha had us to their home, gave us many snacks and spoke of the history of the Jewish people who from around 1890-1950 were a powerful force in Harbin.

The next day we got up early and spent a good chunk of the day exploring the historical buildings of Harbin.

The interior of St Sophia was odd. It needed a major restoration but they had a pianist playing music and a show of traditional western inspired landscapes (plus The Last Supper).

After our walking tour, and failing to find a restaurant I had read about, we went into a random restaurant that looked nice. While we tried to figure out the menu, a young man sitting at the table next to us came to our rescue. He was studying in Australia and was home for the holiday having lunch with his mom. He told us what to order and told us we’d done well falling into this restaurant – it had been in Harbin at least since he was a child.

After lunch we went and packed up our hotel room and headed to the airport and back to Beijing.

Highlights of this week: Celia celebrated her big “Halfway Lunch” – half way through senior year. The parents go over the top with it – spending hours decorating. The seniors are applauded on their way in, then special food and fantastic deserts, a slide show and a photo area.

Dan had a big meeting with a higher up in the government and was given the opportunity to spend a few extra days being quarantined in a hotel – locked in his room, eating lovely food that is left at his door in plastic containers.

I was invited to a hot pot restaurant with a really interesting group of women. We all wore red in honor of the new year.

Dan finally was released to his meeting and then was able to make the New Years Celebration at school.

This evening marks the beginning of ChunJie (the Spring Festival). Everyone in China goes to their home town to celebrate the New Year with their families. At the moment we plan to stay put, having some quiet time. Possibly we’ll do some exploring – once we recover from this last trip. I’ll let you know!

So we did sneak in a Thanksgiving dinner between all the lockdowns. The Sunday after Thanksgiving we were cleared to have a small Thanksgiving dinner. We had a few families over. We missed our families in the States, but it was super nice to get together and the food was all delicious – especially Celia’s tart!

After my last entry things continued to get a little crazy here. During that initial locking of our neighborhood they had everyone in the neighborhood line up and get tested. The delivery people and the Ayis (“Aunties” – women who clean the homes and do childcare) were caught also locked in to our neighborhood. Even delivery people who were just delivering a package at the wrong moment got locked in. They were held for maybe 12 hours in our complex. We were freed after around 24 hours as no one had Covid. 

The kids school planned to open the following week, but the one school that got permission to open had a case of Covid on the first day opened, so it was shut back down and all other opening of schools were denied. Covid was spreading in  Beijing and it seemed the government couldn’t keep up with their routine of picking up possible near contacts of near contacts and quarantining them. Fewer and fewer people were getting picked up as the system appeared to be overloaded. People started protesting. Many neighborhoods where people lived more tightly than in ours had been locked down apparently for months. We were on an emotional rollercoaster – so depressed to be shut in by Covid again. To have travelled so far to end up not being able to experience China – why are we here? And then for a half a day we’d get hopeful that things would improve – that the kids could go to school – and then things would look worse.

Back to our story: Someone in our neighborhood caught Covid and many in the neighborhood gathered to block entry to her house – so she couldn’t get picked up. The government never showed up for her. The government made a statement about this variant being weaker, then restrictions quickly started to get dropped. All happened very quickly. Schools were still closed, people were getting sick. People were panicked as they had heard for three years how dangerous Covid is. The city was a ghost town. Things were shut – no longer due to regulations but because there was no one to work places – everyone was sick. Dan got Covid. For five days he would sleep between his online meetings. Travel restrictions in China were finally lifted and vacation was a few days away. Saturday morning the 17th, Dan woke feeling better and I booked flights to Xi’an for the next day.