Welcome to my second attempt to start a blog on our trip to China. Two days ago my cousin Margaret, her two chinese born daughters and I left Toronto for a two week adventure in China. The trip was to be a family trip to reintroduce my cousin's daughters to their birth country. Unfortunately with just three days until departure my cousin's husband was forced to deal with a work emergency. This meant I was the lucky fill in - and after jumping through several beaurocratic hoops andwith only seven minutes to spare I managed to meet Marg, Sophie and Isabelle at the plane destined for Beijing on the morning of Wednesday November 21.
The trip itself was a uneventful and we arrived in Beijing on a smoggy cool fall day. The girls had travelled well, although the youngest at age five had not slept at all. The remainder of the day was a blur and we all fell into bed exhausted at 8pm local time.
Today was our first tourist adventure. Our guide who is a regular guide for the adoption company Children's Bridge had planned several meaningful visits for the girls. After a fabulous breakfast of local food we piled into the van and headed for a small school in a nearby village. In actual fact the "village" had long since been swallowed up by the enormous city of Beijing that boasts 14 million people who ride nine million bicycles! Even with all those bicycle riders the traffic is horrendous and it took us nearly one and half hours to drive 8Km to the school.
We were greeted by officials from the school and elsewhere when we arrived and were treated to watching the children exercise in the school yard. After that we were invited to observe a group of seven year olds during their daily English class. Today's lesson involved standing up and enunciating clearly "I am a fat cow" with a picture of a cow stuck to the child's shirt. All the children proudly completed this task and not one person in the room cracked a smile. I wondered whether any of the children realised what they were actually saying or whether the teacher had planned this as some kind of a private joke. The kids were all amazingly well behaved and sat silently with their arms crossed at their desks. When called upon they all thrust up their arms shouting the Chineses equivalent of "pick me". It was designed to impress and it did. While we were in the class room I saw one other large tour group go through and I wondered if this sort of invasion was a daily experience for these children.
Following our school visit we were taken to the "village" to visit the paper cut house where craftspeople engage in tradition chinese craft making. In fact the traditional village was a brand new replica filled with empty houses and a few craft people. Our guide seemed mildly surprised when asked if this was a new set of buildings but did admit that it was a new old village. The "village" itself was nestled under the imposing chimneys of the nuclear power plant and surrounded by red banners written in both English and Chineses espousing correct behaviour and thinking for the chinese people. It was a little surreal.
The third stop on our route was to visit a farmer's house. Actually there was no evidence of any farming in this collection of homes in a factory area. This did not seem to phase our tour guide who cheerfully introduced us to the farmeress in the house that bore a sign reading "official site of traditionall home". The house itself was spotless and quite modern. Filled with at least twenty empty birdcages - the farmeress got rid of them because they were too noisy (actually I doubt a bird ever lived in them as they were spotless too) and huge TV and pictures of her family hidden behind the proper pictures (the pictures of the family were brought out when Marg asked about her daughter and grandson). The kids enjoyed the mandarins and watching highly competitive ping pong on the impressive tv. I got the impression that we were being practised on in anticipation of the influx of visitors during next year's Olympics.
We made a somewhat unwise decision to take the girls on a walk to a park for exercise after lunch of dim sum (delicious) so that they would sleep better tonight. After walking for far too long we gave up on the park and returned home with very sore feet. I did enjoy the walk as the shops were really interesting - a hodge podge of the usual type of store you find in any part of the world, and traditional architecture that seems to have lost value today. It reminded me of Abu Dhabi as there were many tiny food shops selling savoury dishes of every sort mixed in with textiles, electronics and dollar store type things.
Now I am sitting in a pitch black room. The girls have collapsed and are fast asleep. With any luck they will sleep through the night this time as Marg and I need the sleep too. Tomorrow our guide is taking us to a Kite Factory and to fly kites. I hope to go to the Silk Market which sounds like an Arab Souk. I am so glad that Abu Dhabi trained me well in the art of bartering as I am told that that is necessary. I can't wait.
Until tomorrow.......
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