Sitting at a table in Pizza Hut (yes, we succumbed once more to the call of the West), we pass time before boarding the train that will bring us to Xi'an. We spent the day between the Forbidden City and the Temple of Yong He Gong where Sara was fascinated by the Buddha. Between my two daughters she is definitely the one that takes her religion more seriously, while after her first communion, Nina professes herself agnostic. I was observing them today while they watched, transfixed, the golden statues and their fruit and flowers offerings, the faithful who burned incense while praying. I saw how, for the first time, they really understood what we tried to teach them all along, that different people have different beliefs but no less valid than our own and the world is big enough for everybody.
We really liked Beijing but it is time to leave it behind. Even in transit, sitting at a table of a public restaurant as the only fixed point, I strangely feel at home. I think for the others it's the same. Brendan reads his book and the girls are drawing, nobody seems bothered by the precariousness of the situation. Very early on, at the beginning of this experience, we are learning how feeling at home is a mental state and has little to do with a specific place. Feeling at home in our own heads seems to be what counts. Once that happens we realize we don't need much more.
Showing posts with label beijing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beijing. Show all posts
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Chinese Cuisine
After the first day, I had resigned myself to a diet of boiled rice and green tea for the next three weeks. In an attempt to cushion the culture shock on the girls, we stupidly tried to eat Western food, with at best mediocre results. But after our first dinner it was clear that it would be impossible to continue with these highly improbable dishes that were vaguely European and distinctly bad news for our livers. There was nothing for it but to surrender to Chinese cuisine. After two days, we are all converted. Completely different to what is on offer in Europe, here it's much healthier, without that fast-food taste of MSG. Below you can find a picture of my favourite breakfast these days: spring rolls, baozi (little balls of steamed rice filled with fruit compote), fritters and custard pie.
My adaptation to this new culture has gone one step further. Despite the many kilos of medicine that I brought, I needed a pharmacy. Just finding one was an adventure: we had to head for Qianmen (a type of Chinatown, if that isn't a contradiction in terms!), decidedly outside the standard tourist sites, where for the first time we had confirmation of the reported fact that the Chinese continuously hawk and spit on the ground. This behaviour has been recently banned, in preparation for the Olympics, so as not to horrify Westerners. The ban has worked in the tourist areas where fines are enforced, but away from them, people fall back into their old habits. The pharmacy was part of a large department store that seemed out of Stalin's Russia, with two shop-assistants who looked like Red Cross nurses from the Great War. I explained my problem to the one who seemed to have a few words of English, and she asked me:
"Do you want Chinese or Western Medicine?"
At first I looked at her as if she were joking, but then the spirit of adventure (or desperation) got the better of me: "I don't care - as long as it works". She wrote out a pair of characters on a slip of paper, and sent me to another counter where they handed me a box of tablets identical to what we might expect to find at home, but entirely in Chinese. When I realised that I had no way of figuring out what exactly it was that I was about in ingest, I returned to my Red Cross Nurse of the Great War and asked her what was in the tablets: "Antibiotic? Anti-inflammatory?"
She looked at me, confused, without reply.
"Herbs?" I suggested.
"Yes. Chinese herbs."
That was enough for me. In that moment I would have tried cyanide, if that's what they had given me". Three days later, the problem is resolved. Whatever it was, it worked.
After the Great Wall, we visited the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. Beautiful places, wonderful architecture, but as ever it was the people who fascinated me. The park around the Temple of Heaven, for example, was full of people practicing Tai Chi, taking waltz lessons, some were singing in groups, others simply playing cards - all of them making the most of the sunshine, despite the cold.
Last night we met Beiyan who brought us to a restaurant to eat authentic Peking Duck, roasted and caramelized, sliced into small pieces and placed into rice pancakes with plum sauce and vegetables. The only one who didn't like it was Sara who, under the influence of jetlag, fell asleep with her head on the table before beginning to eat.
My adaptation to this new culture has gone one step further. Despite the many kilos of medicine that I brought, I needed a pharmacy. Just finding one was an adventure: we had to head for Qianmen (a type of Chinatown, if that isn't a contradiction in terms!), decidedly outside the standard tourist sites, where for the first time we had confirmation of the reported fact that the Chinese continuously hawk and spit on the ground. This behaviour has been recently banned, in preparation for the Olympics, so as not to horrify Westerners. The ban has worked in the tourist areas where fines are enforced, but away from them, people fall back into their old habits. The pharmacy was part of a large department store that seemed out of Stalin's Russia, with two shop-assistants who looked like Red Cross nurses from the Great War. I explained my problem to the one who seemed to have a few words of English, and she asked me:
"Do you want Chinese or Western Medicine?"
At first I looked at her as if she were joking, but then the spirit of adventure (or desperation) got the better of me: "I don't care - as long as it works". She wrote out a pair of characters on a slip of paper, and sent me to another counter where they handed me a box of tablets identical to what we might expect to find at home, but entirely in Chinese. When I realised that I had no way of figuring out what exactly it was that I was about in ingest, I returned to my Red Cross Nurse of the Great War and asked her what was in the tablets: "Antibiotic? Anti-inflammatory?"
She looked at me, confused, without reply.
"Herbs?" I suggested.
"Yes. Chinese herbs."
That was enough for me. In that moment I would have tried cyanide, if that's what they had given me". Three days later, the problem is resolved. Whatever it was, it worked.
After the Great Wall, we visited the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. Beautiful places, wonderful architecture, but as ever it was the people who fascinated me. The park around the Temple of Heaven, for example, was full of people practicing Tai Chi, taking waltz lessons, some were singing in groups, others simply playing cards - all of them making the most of the sunshine, despite the cold.
Last night we met Beiyan who brought us to a restaurant to eat authentic Peking Duck, roasted and caramelized, sliced into small pieces and placed into rice pancakes with plum sauce and vegetables. The only one who didn't like it was Sara who, under the influence of jetlag, fell asleep with her head on the table before beginning to eat.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Good Morning China!
[Original Blog Entry Monday December 30 by Letizia. Translated by Brendan. ]
It's four in the morning and we finally concede to the jetlag and surrender to Greenwich Mean Time: The girls are playing on their Nintendos in the other room, Brendan is studying the guide, and I'm writing my first post on the road. China has welcomed us with open arms. After 10 hours of half-light on the airplane, we landed in Beijing to the kind of beautiful sunlight that we haven't seen in Ireland since September. At the passport check we were waved through with wide smiles. We noticed a button on the policeman's kiosk that we could press in the event that we weren't satisfied with our treatment. Our suitcases arrived even before we did, and soon afterwards we were already in a taxi called by an airport official whose job seemed to entail helping passengers in whatever way necessary.
Brendan passed his first test in Chinese with flying colours, chatting with the taxi driver while the kids and I were giggling in the back. Once in the hotel, we colonized our room, opening the suitcases and taking out books, slippers, computer and the various other items that for the next months will constitute our home. They are exactly those things that differentiate between a normal holiday and what we are doing - vital for helping us at least feel as if we are not always in a hotel, but difficult to drag across four continents. I'm already thinking impatiently about the first parcel that we'll send home.
Despite the tiredness - for us it was 2 in the morning and none of us had slept on the plane - we headed out and reached Tiananmen Square by foot. Very quickly we realised that we were amongst the very few Westerners around. Locals looked at us with intense curiosity, especially at the girls, and more than once we were stopped in order to have our picture taken with complete strangers. Nina: "I feel like I'm Avril Lavigne!". When we got to the square, the souvenir vendors descended on us, and for the second time we saw the proof of Brendan's Chinese. Along with the language, he also acquired the ability to haggle, without which you can't survive here. From him we learned the magic words to free ourselves from the vendors. When nothing else works; no, no thank you, I don't want it, just say bu yao! with a certain authority, and they vanish. First they freeze, silent, and then they disappear. He assures me that we're not being rude, but I'm not convinced.
The cold at that point was too much, as was the tiredness, so we took shelter in a nearby subway station. Once inside, nobody was inclined to venture back out into the cold and so Brendan gave his final demonstration of his command of the language: with the map of the subway on the wall, in Chinese, he managed to get us back to the hotel, changing train along the way. Needless to say we were the only Westerners around. I don't know if I'll be able to compete with this when it's my turn to translate in South America.
It's four in the morning and we finally concede to the jetlag and surrender to Greenwich Mean Time: The girls are playing on their Nintendos in the other room, Brendan is studying the guide, and I'm writing my first post on the road. China has welcomed us with open arms. After 10 hours of half-light on the airplane, we landed in Beijing to the kind of beautiful sunlight that we haven't seen in Ireland since September. At the passport check we were waved through with wide smiles. We noticed a button on the policeman's kiosk that we could press in the event that we weren't satisfied with our treatment. Our suitcases arrived even before we did, and soon afterwards we were already in a taxi called by an airport official whose job seemed to entail helping passengers in whatever way necessary.
Brendan passed his first test in Chinese with flying colours, chatting with the taxi driver while the kids and I were giggling in the back. Once in the hotel, we colonized our room, opening the suitcases and taking out books, slippers, computer and the various other items that for the next months will constitute our home. They are exactly those things that differentiate between a normal holiday and what we are doing - vital for helping us at least feel as if we are not always in a hotel, but difficult to drag across four continents. I'm already thinking impatiently about the first parcel that we'll send home.
Despite the tiredness - for us it was 2 in the morning and none of us had slept on the plane - we headed out and reached Tiananmen Square by foot. Very quickly we realised that we were amongst the very few Westerners around. Locals looked at us with intense curiosity, especially at the girls, and more than once we were stopped in order to have our picture taken with complete strangers. Nina: "I feel like I'm Avril Lavigne!". When we got to the square, the souvenir vendors descended on us, and for the second time we saw the proof of Brendan's Chinese. Along with the language, he also acquired the ability to haggle, without which you can't survive here. From him we learned the magic words to free ourselves from the vendors. When nothing else works; no, no thank you, I don't want it, just say bu yao! with a certain authority, and they vanish. First they freeze, silent, and then they disappear. He assures me that we're not being rude, but I'm not convinced.
The cold at that point was too much, as was the tiredness, so we took shelter in a nearby subway station. Once inside, nobody was inclined to venture back out into the cold and so Brendan gave his final demonstration of his command of the language: with the map of the subway on the wall, in Chinese, he managed to get us back to the hotel, changing train along the way. Needless to say we were the only Westerners around. I don't know if I'll be able to compete with this when it's my turn to translate in South America.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
