Part 2

Alright so, as promised, this is the followup of my last post. This past Sunday I met my Chinese family. My family consists of me, a fellow HBA classmate (now my older brother), and a chinese mother and father. Our teachers introduced us to our family and then we were on our own. They also gave us a photo album, which they apparently expect us to fill up with family memories. My "parents" were genuinely thrilled to meet us, and they told us that while we were in Beijing, their home was also our home. They are incredibly sweet. My "ma ma" is a teacher and my "ba ba" is a chemist. Before coming to Beijing, I had purchased an "I love New York" t-shirt and hat, which I gave to them as gifts. It was a big success. We exchanged phone numbers, and then I had to return to my dorm room to do my homework.

One of the main points that the teachers stress to the parents is that we have a lot of work and not a lot of free time, so they should be understanding if we are unable to spend a lot of time with them. However my parents, the following day, gave me a phone call, inviting me to a very special evening. My Chinese was not good enough to make a convincing excuse, so at 5:00 I found myself in my ma ma's car, talking in Chinese, and explaining that I really had to be home by 8:00 to do my work. If I didn't tell them this, I don't know what time I would have gotten home. It sounded like they had some real big plans for that evening.

Anyway we drove through Beijing for about half an hour, until we arrived at their apartment building. Along the way they pointed out the Olympic stadium and the CCTV building and other landmarks. They are incredibly proud of their city and their country. In the apartment were my ba ba's parents, cooking dinner, dressed in what can only be described as matching daytime pajamas. I apparently now had Chinese grandparents. My ye ye (grandpa) instantly demanded that we sit down and relax and gave us an enormous amount of tea. Their apartment was very small, only four or five rooms, and all four of them live there. My ma ma explained to me that she and my ba ba recently purchased an apartment that they had not yet moved into, so that they could finally live alone.

For dinner I had no idea what to expect. When the plates were brought out, it wasn't very reassuring: a lot of stew-ish dishes and fish and strange unidentifiable brown items (there were also eggs from an unidentified animal). Of course, to be polite, I had to try everything. Nothing was terrible. A few things were actually very good, even though I have no idea what they were. The whole time my Chinese grandparents talked to me in totally incomprehensible Chinese. It turns out that it's not my fault that I didn't understand them, since apparently the Chinese that older Beijing people speak is totally different from modern Chinese. My parents translated all meal. The general topic of conversation was "in what ways is Chinese better than America".

One little surprise I had was that apparently in China burping and slurping and chewing with your mouth open is totally appropriate. Or at least at this dinner. My nai nai (grandma) was really into the burping.

Once I was full, I was forced to eat a ton more food. Once this was done, and it was time to go, my grandparents offered their home to me, and we said good bye. My parents drove me home, and it was back to work.

MS