August 2009
Sunday was the last day in Beijing and a travel day to Shanghai. Since we were traveling later in the evening, we decided that we needed an easy day and one that did not include massive sweating. Lunch was across the street, where we ordered corn noodle soup that never came. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the supermarket so I could buy my eighth shot glass, and YK could buy a can of Coke Light to replace the one from the mini bar that was consumed the previous evening.
Xuesong and Aihua picked us up and dropped us off at the Capital Museum while they went off to eat lunch. This museum was in a beautiful building and held all sorts of antiquities from old Beijing. We saw porcelain, jade, paintings, and calligraphy. YK and I bought ourselves shirts.
Then we went back to the foot massage place and had a repeat performance of the first night of the Beijing leg of our trip (pun intended). This time I had the guy that massaged YK last time and though the massage was great, I didn’t remember it being so painful. Also, this time we each ended up with a free pair of socks.
For those of you that don’t know, my Dad took Mandarin at SMC a while back. His Chinese comes in handy quite frequently, especially when ordering beer or paying for things. When he speaks Chinese, he usually shocks his audience because they don’t expect a westerner to know Chinese. However, the problem that dad then faces is they answer him back in Chinese, and then he does not know how to respond. It is still worth the shock value though.
Also, he figured out in this class that the words mother, scold, horse, the last name Ma, and when you make a statement a question are all the same word “ma” with different intonations. So, he asked Aihua how she would say, “Does mother Ma scold the horse?” and she said “ma ma ma ma ma” and then looked very surprised at the coincidence. She had never noticed it before. Dad showed me his flashcard later on and we learned that the word hemp is also a ma. He never did ask how to say “Does mother Ma scold the hemp horse?”
Post foot massage it was time for dinner at a place called Jinding Xuan, which was known for its dim sum. We ordered and waited for our dumplings and eggplant when I noticed that there were twin girls, probably around 12 years old, who were celebrating a birthday. How did I know? They were wearing crowns, and they had a cake. The mother had a camera and looked at me, so I offered to take a family portrait. They thanked me, and I went back to the table. Ten minutes later, one of the girls brought me a slice of cake as an additional thank you. We figured this was a birthday place because we saw two other cakes brought to tables. Everyone joked that I should offer to take their pictures too in order to get more cake.
We started to hear music from what we thought was a live band, but then over the loud speaker we heard, “It is rush hour, be mindful of your belongings”. I guess they have had problems with theft at the restaurant. Someone even came to YK’s chair and put a big orange slip cover over the chair to conceal her purse. Hyun pointed out that by concealing the purse in that manner, they were actually telling the thieves where the purses were.
Service was pretty good, but two dishes lagged, and we were given the option of waiting for the last two dishes or canceling them. Since we were in no hurry to get to the train station, we decided to wait, probably to the dismay of the waiter, who wanted to fill the table with a new group of people waiting outside. Soon three ladies in red started to bring art onto a stage directly behind Aihua, Xuesong, and Hyun. Right away, I noticed a hand painted giant fan. It turned out that there was a live auction for everyone eating dinner. As the auction began, one of the ladies spoke on a mike while the others held the art. It seemed like no one was listening. Xuesong was very interested and looked at the bid sheet and each piece of art intently. He ended up buying two scroll paintings, one of the monkey symbol of the zodiac (his father’s birth year) and another one I can’t recall.
A fan came up, but it had huge flowers on it. It was starting at 280 Yuan (almost $45). When the one I was interested in came up, I was afraid that would be the starting bid for my fan, however, instead of having a high starting bid, it was a flat price of 180 Yuan to the first bidder (less than $30). My hand shot up, and I bought the giant fan. Only four items were sold at the auction, and three of them were to our table.
The ride to the train station was short and we sat outside killing some time until we boarded the train. We chose a 10-hour overnight train, and the four of us had our own bed in a deluxe four-bed sleeper room. YK was in the bed above Dad, and Hyun was in the bed above me. We also each had our TV, though they went unused. Soon after the train took off at 9:30, we went to sleep one by one. I was last because I was typing out an update. We all awoke Monday morning in Shanghai.
Small Wide World 
6 thoughts on “Beijing Diary(6) by Chrissy”
Comments are closed.