We Visit the New Artists' Community
Today the children had their "homestay," the day that they go home with their conversation buddies for a taste of how regular Chinese kids their age live. Ryan and Sam went together, which was a relief to me because I've been concerned about this event. In recent days, the director of the program, Bai Fan, seems to be vague and sometimes inconsistent in her answers to questions about the families. It became clear that many of the buddies' families were reluctant to bring our kids to their homes, perhaps because they were embarrassed about how modest their living quarters are. It certainly isn't because it's too much trouble to clean the place, which would be my excuse. In the morning I emailed Ching ching to let her know that even though we left her yesterday saying we would probably be too exhausted to see her today, I could get away to see her if she needed some girlfriend time.

She emailed back that she, too, was exhausted. But knowing the importance of seizing the moment, she offered to show us around the new artists' community in Beijing and take us to lunch there. We agreed to rendezvous at the Lido Hotel where Chingching would then direct us to the artists' community, because "you're never gonna find it." It was tucked away in a section of old factories, some still in use, near the airport. The taxi could only go as far as street and we had to walk the rest of the way into a village-sized cluster of high-ceiled industrial buildings. The places were very much like SOHO lofts, painted white inside with lots of windows and exposed pipes. One of the first large studios we entered was an abandoned factory that still had quotations of Chairman Mao painted on the rafters in big red Chinese characters. Underneath the fading slogans was one particularly provocative painting of nude, young, Chinese men curled up around each other -- kind of like a Klimt painting or that famous old nude of John and Yoko in bed. I later found out that this ironic juxtoposition of Mao sayings or images is a very common sight in new China, if for no other reason than the fact that there too many old Mao references and too little time. In other words, new China is moving so fast, it hasn't the time nor the inclination to erase the past to make way for the future.

The next gallery blew me away. It contained rows and rows of headless wire mannekins wearing every color of tattered Mao jackets and work pants. Empty suits. They resembed a unit of those ghostly terra cotta soldiers in Xian.

There was a terrifice pair of comic book statues of Chairman Mao holding hands with Karl Marx. We mugged it up in front of them as chingching took pictures. Then the moms decided that chingching and I ought to pose together in front of the statues to echo the student-mentor relationship between the two men. I was supposed to stand in front of the mentor Marx while ching ching stood in front the Mao, the student, but that would have meant exposing the right side of my face (henceforth to be called my "bad side,") to the camera. So we did the opposite, but I think the any viewer who cares will get the point.

We had a great 2 1/2 hour lunch in which we touched on many important subjects such as .

My Summer Vacation by Wendy Lin

This is the story of three moms and their four kids in China.

My two friends, Betty and Jeannie, and I enrolled our four children (Ella, Ryan, Gabi and Sam) in a Chinese language emersion course for the summer. It's a 3 1/2 week program. The children are studying reading, writing and conversational Chinese in addition to Chinese culture, including calligraphy, martial arts and Chinese painting and such. The program takes kids 6 to 18 years old, with kids under 13 years accompanied by parents. Ella, Gabi and Sam are 10-years-old and Ryan is 8.

We arrived on Wednesday night and were met by a staff member of the Sino Language Gateway who took our luggage and whisked us away to our domirtory rooms at Tsing Hua University. We flew directly from NYC to Beijing and it took us 14 hours.

So we three Moms have set up camp in the dormitory with the kids (each of us has our own room).

Sam and I settling in nicely. The dormitory is very comfortable, even luxurious, by Chinese standards. Tsinghua (pronounced ching-hua) University is an old, prestigious school that dates back to pre-revolutionary China and is known as the M.I.T. of China. We are staying at the brand-new foreign students dormitory with rooms that are air conditioned with private baths and color TV.
We eat in the school cafeteria and see the children for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We would like to sit in on their classes, but have been tactfully asked not to.

The kids are adapting wonderfully, Sam having had a rocky first day with jet lag and culture shock. He is a picky eater to begin with, but he's really finding it difficult to eat in the Chinese cafeteria. Ella never met a new food she didn't want to try, so she is in heaven working her way through each new and unfamiliar dish at the university cafeterias. There are many cafeterias on campus. The Tsinghua campus is huge ("It's like Ohio State," says Jeannie.) Our main cafeteria has 3 floors of food. You order your food from stalls, like a food court at a mall, and swipe your food card to pay. Sam and Ryan are still bringing forks to their meals, but Ella and Gabi are managing nicely with their chopsticks.

I don't like the food much myself and don't always like to use chopsticks when a fork would be so much easier, but feel I have to set an example for the children. When Sam was having his first night crisis, I promised I would move heaven and earth to get him McDonald's chicken nuggets the next day. (He was HUNGRY.) Jeannie and Betty, having lived through my agonizing over Sam's food since his infancy ("Do you think he's eating enough? Are you sure he's eating enough?") continue to indulge me and helped me present Sam with a hot Happy Meal for lunch the next day. And naturally, he barely looked up from his tray of Chinese food when I arrived with the fast food treat, saying he was doing just fine without it, thanks.

Sam is in the beginner's class of Chinese, along with Ryan. The girls are in the intermediate class, although they're thinking of switching to beginner because it's a bit too difficult for them. Sam was initially placed in the intermediate class after scoring well on the placement exam. He asked him how this was possible since he has had no Chinese language training and doesn't know any Chinese. He said the test was multiple choice and he guessed. After spending a few minutes in the intermediate class, he was put in the proper group.

After dinner, the kids have a conversation class with a Chinese "buddy" who is a local kid their age, usually the son or daughter of a university professor. The buddy doesn't speak much English so the kids have to use their language skills to communicate. The first day, Sam and Ryan just played tic-tac-toe with their buddy.

The weather has been awful in every way, but today the sun is out for the first time and the kids have the day off. We are debating what to do with this precious day because it is the only unscheduled day in the entire program. Yesterday, while the kids were at class, we took a cab into the city (about 45 minutes from campus) to see Chingching Ni, a former Newsday reporter who is now the Beijing correspondent with the Los Angeles Times. I met her when she was a student at the journalism school at Columbia; Jeannie and Betty also know her from the Asian American Journalists Association where WE all first met. Chingching's being here is a godsend. She was born and raised in Beijing. Her advice is not to go the Beijing Zoo. ("Disgusting," she said.) She recommended an ice skating rink where they also serve 31 flavors of Haagen Daz ice cream.

There is more to write, but I will send this now to get it to you before the news gets old.