Adventures Outside of Beijing

My day started at 6:45 this morning, first day of Closed Weekend with my family. For some insane reason which I have yet to understand, I have been waking up at the crack of dawn (in my view), always before the alarm on my ancient Chinese phone has gone off. It may be because I am so exhausted at 9:00 that I pass out on my bed, but I think something in Beijing is getting to me. Along with getting up at the wee hours of the morning, I also seem to be losing my hair at a faster rate than normal. This worries me (as it should). I quite like my hair and want it to stay on my head, and not in the trash. Even though I seem to be fighting nature to keep it blonde. My genes just aren't with me on this one.

Anyway, back to my day. Despite my being here a week, the language barrier remains alive and kicking, and I still, at 8:00 this morning, had no idea where we were going (even though I must have asked a couple times). All I could understand out of the gibberish my family threw my way was "tunnel." To me, that didn't sound particularly interesting or specific. At first I thought that we were going to my "Aunts" house, and she had a tunnel in the basement or something. Instead, we started to drive outside of Beijing (lovely drive, lots of new and exciting things to see). We had not even been on the road for 10 minutes (or made 10 people jump out of the way of our car yet) before my family said "Look over there!" And there it was. The Water Cube. And close by, the Birds Nest. I just started laughing these huge, hysterical laughs. I finally saw in person what everyone in the world has been watching on tv for months. It was incredible, and even I, a foreigner, could feel the pride and power radiating from it. Seeing it on TV doesn't even begin to compare.

Once we got past that, the drive was rather uneventful, aside from the tons (and I mean that literally) of corn that was laid out on the side of the road. Seriously, there were people husking corn on the road, and then getting the kernels and drying them out on the road. I couldn't get a straight answer for why they did this, other than that it was a hot day. It kinda makes you wonder where the food you eat has been though. That's all I'm saying. (I will post pictures later.) At the end of the road, we finally got to our destination: the Chinese/Japanese war museum. Although most of the text was in Chinese, obviously, I did try to look at many of the grisly pictures (one in particular I remember showed the body of a young man, covered in blood, with his head on backwards. Just imagine the thoughts that would go through your head with no explanation. Yeah.) And then we got to the tunnel.

From what I could understand, apparently during the war, the Chinese built an extensive tunnel system around Beijing, where they could safely blow the enemy to bits and protect the villagers. There is a part that is still standing and open to the public, and that is the part that my sister, me and my mother (both Chinese) walked through. Now, I have always thought of myself as non-claustrophobic, but I have also never been in a crowded tunnel before (and in true Chinese tradition, there were quite a lot of people down there with me.) So as I fought down the rising panic, I tried to focus on the Chinese echoing around me, and the small things I could understand.

After 15 minutes of walking through relatively dark and cool (although surprisingly clean and well kept) tunnels, we emerged at another end of the museum. It was traditional Chinese houses and watch towers, all constructed around the time the tunnel was built (which was in 1944, by the way.) Then the picture taking began. Me in the bedroom, me by the ancient wok, me and my sister in front of the watchtower, my mother and I, the whole family... I swear, my Chinese mother was like a kid at Christmas with my camera, while I hovered protectively like the mother hen because I (unlike them) knew that the battery in my camera was on it's last legs and desperately needed to get to the nearest outlet.

After our museum experience, the family piled back into the car and shot off home. I thought we were going out to lunch first, but we made a quick pit stop at a local outlet store. My host dad found a couple jackets he liked (apparently my middle aged father likes to pretend he's 20) and proceeded to find out that they were out of cash and the bank cards weren't working. I lent them the emergency 100 RMB needed to buy the jackets, and we drove to the Aunt's house for lunch, because we had no money to go out. We were probably there for 2 hours, and I understood maybe 20 words. Total. I would get questions fired at me, in Chinese, going a mile a minute, and if I looked confused (which I normally did. Wouldn't you??) they simply moved on to talking to each other.

Now I am at home, trying to get my energy up to go eat Beijing duck for dinner. What more could you want, Beijing duck in Beijing? I can die happy now. I think that we are also going to the Olympic green (you know what I mean) tonight, but I'm not quite clear on that. I'm still waiting for the time when I can understand my family without them speaking English.

Well, more later. I will be adding either pictures or a flickr account later, it is currently in the works (ie I am too lazy to set one up right now, but I know I need to). Stay tuned for the next episode of: "Surviving in Beijing." Hint: when these posts stop coming out regularly, you'll know that my survival instincts have abandoned me, and I might not be coming home. :) 再见, as they say here in Beijing. Or for those of you who can't speak Chinese, bye!