Melanie Fischer

This is our family Chinese New Year Video. Happy 2024! Made by Celia

Hoping to keep this blog from getting away from me, so hoping to get this month recap out as month finishes.

After Dave’s family left and Morton had his birthday party, Herb decided he wanted to see more of China. Dan was heading off to Hong Kong for a quick conference, so Herb decided to tag along. I quickly bought him an airplane ticket and booked him a tour for the day. The next afternoon he flew out with Dan. They got to the hotel late, had  dinner and went to bed. The next morning he went down to the lobby to meet his tour guide. Tour guide never showed up. People at the front desk told him they had a free shuttle bus downtown to a cable car that goes up a big hill in the middle of the city – so Herb took it. Pretty impressive – he’s almost 90 years old. He went downtown, found the line, made lots of conversation, took the cable car up, then walked up to a pagoda on top, bought lunch, found a bus down. Asked people for help to figure out what bus to get back to hotel in time to go to Dan’s banquet dinner. He had a marvelous time!

A couple days later Herb and I went to FaHai Temple. FaHai Temple has magnificent frescos that have survived from the 1440s. The emperor’s favorite eunuch at the time, brought together the best painters from all over China to paint these frescos – which apparently made it unique having all the best talent together. Apparently their paints were mineral based – which I don’t really understand what other paints are – but apparently this has caused them to last much better than their European counterparts. 

We bought tickets which allowed us to enter for 20 minutes into the dark room with a flashlight. Before entering the dark temple we were required to lock our phones into a small locker (so sadly no pictures). We had a great time though walking around with our flashlights looking at the painted figures, noticing the fastidious details, and trying to make out the stories they were depicting. A tour guide led the few others around talking in Mandarin and continually yelling at us in rapid Mandarin to “hush”. 

A school parent invited Dan and I and another colleague of Dan’s to dinner at their house. The dinner was so lovely, with many small beautiful courses, but I want to show off this fish:

Other things going on at the end of November:

I met a couple friends at  the Beijing Botanical Garden, in which there is a temple with a reclining Buddha which my friend Dong thought we needed to see. We hadn’t seen each other since before the summer so we were more interested in catching up than admiring the Buddha, but the garden, although chilly , is really beautiful and we had a nice meal in the restaurant there. 

Afterwards I ran back to ISB to represent New York (but really Brooklyn) for the second year in a row at the faculty/staff international food event. We again served Bagels and lox. The bagels were certainly not up to Brooklyn standards but we are all just thrilled to be able to find some here. 

We went to a fabulous art opening of the artist Bing Yi. The work was beautiful and it was a lesson in marketing. She has created a character – almost an alter ego – that her work is telling the story of and she presents her work as if this alter ego made the work. SO MUCH EASIER to present the work as if it were someone else’s. SO SMART! She threw a large dinner after the opening a the Nue hotel, to which we were invited. It was a lovely evening.

Now that the play Morton was working on is over he is full speed ahead with the ping-pong team.

Herb and I finally got out to the Summer Palace. It was definitely NOT summer. We had a really nice time but it was cold and windy.

At one point we looked over and there were three lines of Chinese people. At first we couldn’t figure out what they were doing.

Then we realized they were lined up to shoot a picture of the special temple through rocks. I don’t know why. I guess it looked amazing???? I didn’t wait in line to figure out.

The next day was Thanksgiving. Here it is a normal work/school day. We had originally hoped to celebrate it on Saturday but Dan and his dad would be heading to Shanghai for the weekend, so at last minute I decided we’d do a small thanksgiving. I ordered some chicken and vegetables to cook. The day before our friend Tiffany said she and her three kids would join us for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately we forgot to take any pictures, but we had a pretty mellow, but still delicious thanksgiving. It was nice to all hang out. I’d have to say my apple crisp a la mode with a home made butterscotch sauce was pretty yum!

The next Dan and his father flew off to Shanghai. They walked along the Bund (the famous Shanghai waterfront), and in the Yuyuan (rock) Park.

then they went to the Jewish Museum. The place was mostly empty except for a gaggle of high school girls. They approached Herb and asked if he was Jewish. They were writing a paper for school about Shanghai’s Jewish history and were excited to meet an actual Jew. They had lots of questions, which I hear Herb enjoyed answering.

Big brother David arrived that evening for a drink at the hotel bar dinner. The next morning they went up to the Oriental Pearl Tower (the third largest tower in the world) – which had a look out with a glass floor that apparently was pretty freaky to stand on.

They then took at boat ride before Dan had to head back to the airport, leaving Dave and Herb for one more night and day in Shanghai.

Herb’s last few days in Beijing, he and I walked around an interesting art neighborhood called ChowYangDi. It has some narrow traditional Chinese streets which we wandered around – checking out a gift shop, a snack shop and then stopping into a drink shop for a hot drink.

Then we entered the red brick area that AiWeiWei developed as an artist area, which has now mostly become for high end design studios and such but there are some lovely art galleries and we headed to an art opening I’d been invited to. We had a great time looking at the art, talking as best we could with people at the gallery and Herb raved about the “7-layer cake” he ate at the gallery that I recognized as coming from Sam’s Club.

For Herb’s last night we took him out for Hot Pot, a traditional Sichuan dish in which you order a broth type base that is put onto a fire in the middle of the table and then you order food: meats, fish, vegetables, noodles to put into the broth to cook – it’s an activity and a meal. We had eaten this is in Chengdu. Chengdu is known for its fiery flavor. Here we ordered much more mild. I got a tomato broth and the men got a chicken mushroom broth.

This morning Herb and Fumiko left at 5:30 to start their trip home – three flights! Beijing to Tokyo, with a seven hour layover, then to LA, with a quick layover, then to Tucson. Soon they will board their second flight. Our fingers are crossed it all goes as smoothly as possible.

The summer was both lovely and busy. Celia and I left Beijing during the first week of June, flew Beijing to Seoul, Seoul to JFK, then we rented a car and drove to my mother’s outside of Philly. We spent time with her, recovering from our jet lag, and working on her new apartment. Then we went up to NY to send Celia off to her Brooklyn high-school prom and for me to catch up with my friends.

June to July I mostly spent helping my mother recover from her surgery – a much bigger process than we had expected – but she made great progress and we finally busted her out of the care facility and got her to the beach.

Meanwhile we were busy getting her new apartment ready for her to move in: picking out light fixtures, paint colors, flooring, etc. and negotiating the sale of her house. My brothers had been champs at working to empty the house of things she wouldn’t be bringing with her to the apartment. 

Celia got an apartment and a job canvasing in Brooklyn on gun control issues.

Morton and Dan arrived to the US a couple weeks after Celia and I and headed to the beach so Morton could look for a job before coming to visit my mother. He got some shifts at his dream job – working at Hartland Golf on Long Beach Island, and got a second job at the deli in Barnegat Light. They both were great!

Mid July I snuck away for a few days to Upstate NY with Anita to check out some of the Upstate Art Fair and the show my friend Manju put on – which was so lovely! We had a wonderful time staying at Manju’s home.

Before heading back to the beach I spent some time catching up with Celia – going to the Brooklyn Museum. She wanted to see the Picasso show there – which was disappointing – but the African Fashion show there was fabulous. We went out to eat and made a few purchases at the Brooklyn Pop-up show outside the museum. All around a lovely day.

Dan and Morton did the third rendition of their mini-golf marathon – playing every course on the island, biking from one to the other, in one day. Thankfully this year the wind agreed – pushing them in the correct direction up the island! I joined them for the last course. The perfect amount of mini-golf in one day for me!

Just after that, at the beginning of August, Dan had to head back to Beijing  (damn school to run!).

Morton stayed to work for a couple more weeks before he too had to return to Beijing. I was a bit nervous, taking Morton to the airport to make the trip back by himself. My biggest fear was he’d fall asleep at the gate and miss his plane – which left JFK at 1:40 in the morning! But we spoke on the phone until close to his departure time. 14 hours to Tokyo, transfer with four hour lay-over there before his flight to Beijing, navigating immigration, to where Dan picked him. Pretty grown-up!

Judd and I played in the local beach tennis club tournament.(How do I have no pictures??!!) Judd made a sweep – winning the men’s singles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles with me. It was so nice to hang out and play with him this summer! The women’s singles got cancelled as there were only two of us who signed up. My doubles partner Nancy and I came in second in the women’s doubles after Nancy had heart defibs and we had to force her to quit. But we had super fun playing together.

Order of things is starting to get confused in my head but end of August brought many wonderful days of catching up with people. My friend Courtenay and her cute dog came to see Judd and I at the beach. I probably hadn’t seen her in …40 years? It was super fun to catch up. I snuck in a couple art making nights, art viewing trips and meals, and wandering the city with friends. It was all too brief but also wonderful getting to spend time with all my friends and family who I miss so much while in China.

While I was in Brooklyn, Celia was taking a trip with her cousin Zach and his girlfriend up to Montreal, stopping at Niagra Falls. Sounds like they had a blast.

I finished what I’d call my “Official Summer” going up to  Boston, spending a few lovely days with Elon, Anna and Celia and then moving Celia into college (tear). 

After moving Celia in, I quickly jumped on a train down to Philly to meet packers at my mother’s the next day. The next month was a blur. Tons of last minute packing and working to completely empty the house. Anita came down and was a major help hanging and positioning all the art work, and lifting our spirits as my mother and I were getting pretty tired – physically and emotionally. Judd, Finn, and Aaron came through as we tried to get everything moved in to the new apartment, cleared out of the old house, and help my mother get her bearings. And then Aaron drove me up to Brooklyn to have a really wonderful goodbye dinner with some friends and then bring me to the airport to begin the long trip back to Beijing, Dan, Morton and Milo (our cat).

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!