Chinese Host Family

Yesterday my ACC "brother" Liu Lei and I went to our host family's house for New Year's. (It's still New Years. There are explosions every hour of the day. I have expressed my fondness for this holiday, but I think we've had enough.

I brought them oranges, because everyone says that's an excellent gift at New Year's and after my last, horrible meeting with my host father I may have kind of eaten all the chocolate I was going to give them. But how many oranges are appropriate? You cannot give your family four oranges, because the Chinese word for "four" is the same as the word for "death." You do not want to give your family death-many oranges. That would obviously signify that you wish them dead. Which I didn't, even after that first visit. But I digress.

Liu Lei and I took a cab to some area, I don't really know where, and stood outside in the cold for about half an hour, waiting. Liu Lei bought and started reading a Chinese rock magazine. I just stood there, feeling stupid. After a long time went by, Liu Lei called them. They said they'd be right there.

More time passed.

As it turns out, we were in the wrong place. Liu Lei eventually spotted our host brother, whom I really like. He's a little older than I am, tall, with long, frizzy, bleached-brown hair. He kind of reminded me of Alexander in Everything is Illuminated; less guileless, but the way he dressed and his saunter.

We got to their apartment and met our host mother. I gave her the oranges and we sat down. Chinese Brother flipped through the channels on the television while people made small talk. I like our host mother. She seems very patient, and accepted my explanation that although I can understand what they say, I prefer listening to talking. Which is true, even in English, most of the time.

Our Chinese Father kept returning to the - to him - hilarious fact that I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. Not one word, no sirree. "She can't understand at all!" he laughed.

Yes, I can. But it seemed like too much trouble to tell him so. Liu Lei was nice about it and said that I was a good student, just quiet and new to Beijing. They preferred to talk to him, anyway- host families always get a girl and a boy, and in every case I know of they vastly prefer the boy and direct all the talking to him, even if the girl speaks better Chinese. I am totally okay with this. Liu Lei can do the talking, it is not a problem. I will be demure and eat my potato salad.

I don't know if it's because they had Americans over, but the first course of the meal would have fit right in at a labor day picnic. We had potato salad, coleslaw, and something that looked an awful lot like hot dog pieces cut up into pennies, with a pool of ketchup to dip them in. I kept expecting ambrosia salad to turn up. We also had cold Beijing duck and jiaozi, which our host mother tried to teach us to bao (fold). Baoing jiaozi is fun. Saying "baoing jiaozi" is super fun.

After lunch, my two ersatz brothers put on their coats, so I put mine on, too. Chinese was spoken, and I nodded and smiled and said "hao." Then we shook hands with the parents and the three of us left the building. I had no idea where we were going, when we would be home, or when I would have an opportunity to use the bathroom, but I went with it. I trusted Liu Lei and my Chinese brother whose name I don't know.

We got in a cab and I looked out the window and wondered, idley, where we were headed. We got out and found ourselves in the most crowded ... place I had ever seen in my life. This is the sort of crowd you only see in Asia. I swear I could have lifted my feet up off the ground and been bourne along by the current. I do not know what these people were doing, exactly. There were vendors to the sides of the road selling funny hats, chuanr, pinwheels, etc, as well as the occasional stilt walker and enormous drum, but generally speaking the purpose of the event seemed to be to mill around. So mill we did. Chinese brother bought us all enormous chuanr consisting of what I later learned to be Hawthorne berries (doesn't that sound poisonous?) dipped in caramelized sugar on a stick. I ate my chuanr and thought, "This is an enormous chuanr, but it's not as though it is a particularly enormous chuanr, that's just the size chuanr are." The phrase "the size chuanr are" appeals to me a great deal.

So my second meeting with my host family was, in my opinion, rather a success. I still don't care for my host father, but the mom and the brother are all right. Liu Lei took pictures, which I've asked him to email me. If he does, they will be posted later.