Soon after my last update we had “Back to School Night”. The middle school one started with the middle school orchestra playing. They were amazing. By far the best middle school orchestra I’ve ever heard – and they were just two weeks into school – so very few practices.
A couple days later a parent named Melody invited me to join in a group she organized to go to the Forbidden City. Melody and her business partner, Claire, had started a company that provides the ever increasing number of extremely affluent Beijingers with activities to entertain then and fill their time. We were going to an art exhibit in the Forbidden City and Melody and Claire had organized an amazing array of experts to lead the tour: there was the leading Forbidden City expert on their antiquities, there was the lead curator for the biggest art fair in Beijing, there was an artist who had one of a few contemporary piece that were included in the show … of course they all spoke in Mandarin – well above my one year old level of Mandarin. But Melody either translated or had Rose, a lovely woman who works for her, walk around with me and give me the gist of what was being discussed. The old paintings were stunning and it was interesting to learn that every person who has owned these works would add their personal stamp and often add a few lines of a story to the scroll. I had never noticed before but some of the scrolls had tons of stamps – some owners had stamped the pieces right in the middle! Kind of cool to have this history of where the piece has been right on it – but the idea of past owners of a Michaelangelo, stamping their name in the middle of his piece is pretty crazy from a Western perspective.
After the art tour I started talking to Claire. She was explaining how Chinese parents only want to send their kids to really famous schools they have heard of: Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, and she has been holding meetings introducing parents to fantastic small liberal arts colleges in the U.S. – as she went to one. Ends up she went to Carleton College – my Alma mater. Such a small world! As we laughed about this crazy small world meeting, we strolled over to The Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where, on the roof, our group had drinks and an amazing multi course dinner – where the chef came out and discussed his inspiration for each course. Quite a night!
A gorgeous and delicious desertFantastic wine – and what a label!
The walls in our house are all cement – so hanging artwork is a major challenge. I want to have some flexibility in hanging artwork, so I decided to get picture hanging trim. That arrived two Fridays ago – so I am starting to get work on the walls. I am still figuring out the proper hooks to use so the artwork hands flat on the wall – but I’m excited to be reunited with some artwork I haven’t seen in over a year! When the hanging is a worked out a little better I’ll post some pictures – but it was nice to get some work up on the walls before we had a school leadership party to kick off the Chinese October Holiday.
My kids had off the weekend – Wednesday this week for the holiday. We can’t leave Beijing without risking getting stuck out of the city -if where ever one visits has one case – your return to Beijing will be delayed – possibly for a long time. But we had lots of little adventures.
We went out to dinner – and this was a tofu dish we were served! Sprinkles on fried, eggy tofu. So strange! (but funny)
I heard there was a driving range behind our local supermarket. I couldn’t believe it- but Dan and Morton checked it out and had a great time.
Another day we wandered around a traditional Chinese neighborhood with small wandering streets, called a Hutong- most of these neighborhoods have been replaced in the last twenty years with big green wide streets and large apartment buildings. We found a vegan restaurant for lunch. They had this tofu duck on the menu. So crazy!
And then Celia found some candied tiny crab apples to eat along the route. The weather was ideal -and we had a lovely time.
Last day off from school, Morton and I were invited to join a family volleyball game. It was a fun way to get to know some new families.
Morton’s in the middle with the orange shorts.
Since the kids have been back in school – and over this past weekend, I went to the big Beijing Picasso show – which was a bit odd with some copies – but there were some lovely pieces and I enjoyed getting to know a couple women I went with.
I also played some tennisOur new table in the shop
And went shopping at a furniture store that I wanted to buy everything – there were so many beautiful things and for similar prices as IKEA. I wish I had a bigger home in New York – I’d buy everything!
Random Reporting
Crazy visa required medical tests
To change our visas from a short stay visa to a long term visa I had to go get an official medical exam. I had to go downtown to the official medical facility. ChangYang, who works at ISB, and I waited for the place to open and then hurried in, to get ahead of the line. We ran in, she registered me on the computer and then we waited my turn. After being called, I signing in, appropriate green codes were checked, paperwork completed, questions answered, and I payed the fee. Then I was sent upstairs to the medical maze. I was sent from area to area – a rat scurrying through – to get the appropriate stickings and scanings. One spot they took blood, another – a chest x-ray, another they put circular stickers all over my body with wires that connected to a monitor (any doctors out there know what this was for?), yet another they took my blood pressure … It was all very officiant and felt quite crazy! With that completed, a few days later the kids and I went to the Chinese visa office, had our official pictures taken, met individually (I couldn’t be near desk during kids meeting and vice-versa) with the visa agent. They took our passports and said they’d return them when the process was over. That was a bit unnerving but a week and a half later or so our passports were returned with our new year long visas. We need to reapply every year – though I believe without the medical experiments.
On a completely different subject, a couple Fridays ago we went to Roberta and Ted’s for Shabbat. Roberta had just come back from going to a more remote area of China to have many women (I forget the number but it was impressively high) get tested for the HPV virus. She told an incredible story of how they got so many women tested. Normally we get undressed, go onto the table, put our feet in the stirrups, and a doctor gives us a papsmear. Using this method would take too long to get so many women through the process. To be more efficient, they had a large number of women come into a room and get into a circle around a table. Then, through some laughter and group encouragement, they would get the women to drop their pants and under garments, squat and take their own samples. So amazing, crazy, and brilliant. Why don’t we do that?! – though not sure about the group aspect. All the more incredible as I have learned that tampons are not part of this culture – they are very difficult to find here. … . .…. OTHER RANDOM EVENTS:
MY NEW LOOK
I went to the hair salon. They insisted on blow drying my hair. They promised they were drying it curly. This is me with ”curly blown dried hair”! The kids couldn’t even look at me. I took some silly pictures then quickly washed it out.
New Family Member
Celia finally got a cat! Celia picked it up from it’s foster home one evening. We had guests over and they knew the cat. It had been rescued not far from our home and had been through two foster homes. It came with the name Toto – which Celia instantly switched. Dan wanted to call it Chairman Mao ze Dong. I suggested Chairman Miao. Celia calls the cat Milo. The cat doesn’t answer to any of these things. It spent the first few days hidden inside a tiny bathroom drawer. We couldn’t find him for about 24 hours – when Celia opened her bathroom drawer and yelled with surprise. Now Milo comes out to pester Celia at night, but spends most of his days hidden in bedside tables or the back of closets and he’s very skittish. On a regular basis we are doing something like putting our clothes in our bureau and the cat comes bounding out in a fearful panic from the tiny crack below the dresser. Hopefully he’ll adjust to us. But Celia is thrilled to have him.
First Day of School
Two weeks down of new school. Kids are overwhelmed with how nice the school is. I have never seen a school with such nice facilities! I am enjoying the beautiful indoor tennis courts and swimming pool. Kids are enjoying the fantastic school food – breakfast, lunch, and endless snacks – and being able to go hang out and eat free snacks in Dan’s beautiful glass cube office. Celia can’t believe how light the schedule is: four classes a day with a couple study halls and no PE, vs. the eight classes a day she had in Brooklyn. Of course the real school work hasn’t really started yet – school eases kids back for first two weeks – so we’ll see if her tune changes once the real school work kicks in. Celia is also enjoying that her classmates are, across the board more academically engaged, than in Brooklyn. Morton has signed up for a plethora of at school after-school activities: volleyball – indoor and out, table tennis, golf … They kick in next week. And he’s trying to get a biking club set up.
At Forbidden City
A couple Friday nights ago we invited a few families over for dinner and to watch The Last Emperor. I hadn’t seen it since it’s release in late 80s. We projected it on the wall of our playroom and took breaks for dinner and dessert (it’s a long movie). It was a great prelude to our Sunday morning trip with the Rubin family to the Forbidden City.
Celia in an Olafur Eliasson art installationAnd who doesn’t love a cat video?
After going to the Red Brick Museum, and getting a wonderful tour from a curator there, I returned to show Celia the place and the show. There was a beautiful Olafur Eliasson installation and then a really interesting video show. And then we walked through the small garden and ate in the restaurant there. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a more beautiful, well thought out garden. Ever step we took there is another magical surprise – every viewpoint has been considered.
Last Thursday I went to an art show of an adult class where they copy traditional Chinese silk paintings. The care with the brush strokes were unbelievable – like Indian miniatures. It was so interesting to see. And everyone was very warm and inviting to me. It was lovely. The gallery space is in a mall and the manager ran after me as I was leaving to offer me a tour of the building. There are many fancy restaurants in the building, a small art gallery, a Japanese food market, and an entire area of fish tanks where fish wait to be ordered by customers at the restaurants upstairs. The building was finishing being built when Covid happened, so a lot of the building that looked like it would be a fun farmers type market and another area that should have been a beer garden, sat empty. It was a shame. The next night I did bring Dan back to have dinner at one of the restaurants. We had these amazing croquettes.
This past weekend was Zhongqiujie – Mid Autumn Festival. Everyone eats moon cakes – which are usually individually sized cakes that come in many flavors. Many people gave them to us. It was so nice – though Celia and Morton may have eaten a few dozen too many! Sunday the Wang Family, the dad is on the school board and one daughter is a school graduate and the other is an eighth grader, invited us to a fabulous 10 course vegetarian meal. Most of the dishes I couldn’t recognize, but were so beautiful and delicious. Morton opted out of this meal. Sitting at a meal for three and a half hours didn’t sound bearable to him.
This week I took Morton to have his eyes checked. Maybe they do this in the States, but I’ve never seen it. They figured out his new prescription then had him wear the new lenses in these funky glasses for ten minutes or so before we could go to make sure they didn’t give him a headache. I thought they were super fun science time travel type glasses!
While most people in the U.S. hardly remember there is (was?) a pandemic going on (we checked the online front page of NYT yesterday – nothing about Covid was even mentioned that day) – here it a major part of life. Apparently there currently are 15 cases in Beijing (in a city more populated than NYC) – so all schools had to put up plexiglass between students in the lunch room. Feels horrible but I just have to remind myself – as long as they don’t make school go remote – I should/will be happy.
Lastly for now, Yesterday a friend, Hanbin, took me to another local art museum – the Song Art Museum. The grounds were also beautiful. The museum was showing an exhibit of very young contemporary Chinese artists. Hanbin knew one of the artists’ fathers, so the artist, Zhang Ji, agreed to meet us near his work to discuss it. His work was really engaging – more emotionally driven than much of the work I’ve seen here so far – which I appreciate. Ends up he studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, as I did, and under at least one of the same people. His concepts about his art and insights into the current Chinese art world were really interesting to hear about. He had some large scale paintings, with amazingly varied and yummy textures, and he had some more quick whimsical drawings. Below are some drawings he did on tiles that he then baked onto the tiles. I love that idea of the quick gesture becoming a solid permanent object.
