Today was actually a bit anti-climatic, being the day of the Mid Autumn (Moon) Festival and all. I'm not gonna lie. I was expecting huge all day celebrations, like the kind you see on TV (how American am I?), but it was not to be. I woke up at 7:15 (I know, late right? I was so excited) and expected big things. Turns out, not so much. My mother, who happens to be an airline hostess for Air China (hence the reason we have AirChina things coming out of our ears over here) didn't even come home from where-ever she was until 2pm. To kill time, I did homework, bought ice cream (my one trip into the wild, ie Beijing) and tried desperately to amuse myself.
Lunch was this lamb and noodle thing that my dad makes. He is a good cook (and really funny, because he has this purple apron he wears and you just know that not a single male in America would be caught dead in it, but he wears it proudly. I love him, seriously.) and most of our meals are different. Although my family seems to be laboring under the impresssion that I like lamb, and I don't have the heart to tell them I don't, especially when he puts a huge bowl of lamb and noodles in front of me. What am I supposed to say, Sorry that you worked for an hour making lunch, but I actually don't like it? I didn't think so. (By the way, if you have never eaten noodles with chopsticks, consider yourself lucky. Even though I already have trouble with chopsticks, they have to push it and give me noodles. It was basically impossible. I considered just giving up and eating with the dog.)
I didn't make it much farther past lunch. I passed out on my bed at about 1:30, and didn't wake up for 2 hours. I felt bad, but what are you gonna do? When you gotta sleep, you gotta sleep. At least I finished all my homework. I was tired of getting the look from parents. You know what I mean, the one that says, You've had an hour, why haven't you finished your impossibly large homework load? Yeah, that one.
I finally met the grandparents tonight. Before I got to Beijing, I was under the impression that they lived with us, but that is not the case. (As a nice side note, they have the weirdest shower. There is no drain, and basically you have to aim all the water into buckets as you shower, otherwise it will run all over the ground int the house. I have no idea how it works.) Anyways, in the true Chinese tradition, vast amounts of food was forced into my small rice bowl, and they joined my family in laughing at me while I struggled to manipulate my chopsticks into some sort of proper arrangement, which seems impossible if you are not Chinese. (I swear, I think there is a gene for proper chopstick use, and white people just don't have it.)
The only real celebration (that I could see) of the moon festival was us eating moon cakes. Lots and lots of moon cakes. Otherwise, we just watched TV (Keeping Mum, fabulous movie), ate dinner, watched more TV (Ugly Betty this time) and then walked home. Guess what we did at home? You guessed it, watched more TV. This time, we mainly watched celebrations with lots of singing on TV, and my sister and I played with a birdie and paddles (like badminton inside.)
I made two very important discoveries tonight, about the house I live in and about Chinese medicine. First, about the house. On one of the chairs, leaning against where your back goes, there was this thing. Until now, I had no idea what it was. Then my family practically forced me to sit in it, and lean back. It was a back massager. It felt so so so so SO good. If only I had known about that a few days ago, when my back resembled the Rocky Mountains, then life would have been so much better. (Seriously, my back was one huge knot that hurt if I even ran my fingers over it, or if anything touched it. Painful much?) I sat there for 15 minutes until I had to get up. Pure bliss.
My second discovery was not nearly as nice. My Chinese mother had a headache for all of today (I think, remember the language barrier? I still don't know what people are saying to me. I just smile and nod, and hope I haven't just agreed to something bad.) and I guess western medicine just wasn't doing it for her. So she resorted to Chinese medicine. I really didn't understand what was going on when she lifted her hair up, and my Chinese dad pulled out lotion and this scraper looking thing. Then I got really confused when he proceeded to scrape off much of the skin off her neck and upper back, going just to the point of drawing blood. I must have looked worried, because my mother said "Don't worry, is Chinese medicine. Makes me feel less pressure." Yeah, that's because all the blood that was in your brain is now trying to figure out why half your skin is missing. That's all I'm saying. :) But really, it was kinda scary. I would rather deal with the headache, myself. I quite like my skin being exactly where it is, thanks very much.
Tomorrow I'm going to Tian An Men (天安们) Square. I must be improving, because I did understand that much (just kidding, I'm not that stupid. My family seems to understand that for right now, the golden rule is simple sentences only.) Should be fun. Well, that's it, folks!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
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2 comments:
Soph: Great story. We need one of those chairs here. Can you bring one home?
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