In the summer of 2010, while taking a stroll around Beijing’s Chaoyang Park, I saw dozens of couples posing for wedding pictures. The skies were clear, and it was sweltering hot. I’m guessing it was around 95 degrees. The men were sweating through their tuxedos, and the women were having trouble keeping their hairdos in place. Continue reading
Author: slightlyreworded
North Korea’s Kim: Too sexy to be true?
The death of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il last December set off a period of mourning unlike anything I had ever seen.
The footage broadcast by the country’s state-run media showed tens of thousands of people in the capital Pyongyang, weeping and buckling over in grief. Women fainted, and even grown men sobbed uncontrollably. A New Year editorial published by the North’s leading newspapers called Kim’s death “the greatest loss our nation had suffered in its 5,000-year-long history and the bitterest grief our Party and people had experienced … The tears our service personnel and people shed with greatest sorrow were tears of the unity, unaffected and crystal-clear, and tears of their firm determination to follow the Party to the end of the earth.”
A few days after Kim’s death, I met with my Chinese teacher Cathy for our twice-a-week language lesson. Cathy is in her mid-40s and has lived in Beijing her entire life. Some days we choose a topic to discuss, and on this day we decided to talk about international news.
“What do you think about Kim Jong-il’s death?” I asked. Continue reading
A jade burial suit? Are you crazy?
The day after my paternal grandmother died, I went to a funeral home with my uncles Jim and Paul to pick out a casket.
The director of the funeral home met us at the entrance and said he was sorry for our loss. We followed him to a brightly lit room, where around a half-dozen caskets were on display.
“This is one of our basic models,” the funeral director said, pointing to a casket with an oak finish. If we wanted to go with something “a little more expensive,” he suggested a coffin with a shiny white exterior that resembled marble.
Not even the most basic casket seemed appropriate for my grandmother. Aesthetically speaking, she was a woman of simple tastes.
“$2,000 for a casket? Are you crazy?” I could imagine her saying. “Bury me in a cardboard box, and use the money to buy Jimmy a new coat for winter!” Continue reading
Lessons from a dad I lost too soon
The last time I saw my father was through our living room window.
He was sitting in his favorite La-Z-Boy. I pounded on the screen with my fist, but he paid no attention.
“I love you. I love you,” I said.
Finally, he looked in my direction and muttered something that I couldn’t understand. Satisfied, I walked toward the end of our driveway, where a car was waiting for me. I was leaving for the weekend to stay with my best friend and would be back on a Sunday, November 5.
When I returned home two days later, I was led to my parent’s bedroom, where my uncle and mom were waiting. Your dad got sick, they told me. We took him to a hospital. There was a little bit of a pause. “And he just … died.” Continue reading
Knowing when to say give
As tourists file into the Yonghe Lama Temple, a woman carrying a gray sack stops near the entrance and gets down on her knees.
She bows, lowering her head so close to the ground that her shoulder-length hair hangs inches from the concrete. Still hunched over, she extends her hands, palms up, toward a plastic bowl in front of her body. The bowl is filled with coins and a few yuan bills.
Most people walk past the woman without looking down, pausing only to snap a few pictures of a historic arch outside the temple – a Buddhist monastery that is one of Beijing’s most visited tourist attractions. Continue reading
To friend or not to friend
A couple weeks ago, I received an e-mail I never expected would come: “Vicki Nesbitt wants to be friends with you on Facebook.”
Vicki is my mother, the same person who – after receiving a text message – pointed to the screen and asked me: “What’s this envelope thing on my cellphone?”
I accepted her friend request, taking the plunge into this new world where baby boomers are discovering social media and connecting with their children online. At 33, I’m not worried about what she’ll see on my wall. I’m pretty tame, and the photos of me turning over police cars were destroyed long before Mark Zuckerberg entered Harvard. Continue reading
Even the blue, blue grass of home isn’t idyllic
The Chinese characters for America are 美国 （meiguo), which literally mean “beautiful country.”
Whoever came up with this translation knew what they were talking about. After spending more than 14 months in Beijing, every day in my hometown of Morehead, Kentucky, feels like one of those dreamy scenes from a Claude Monet painting. Dark green grass. Rolling hills. Sunsets you can get lost in.
I took all these things for granted when I lived here. People would ask me about my hometown and I’d usually say something like, “It’s small, has only one McDonald’s and nowhere to shop.” I talked a lot about the things Morehead didn’t have, which – I now realize – is what makes it great. Continue reading
Translations gone wild
When I visit the United States on Friday, there will be a lot of things I won’t miss about Beijing: the air pollution, traffic jams and kids taking a dump on the sidewalk, just to name a few.
But one thing I will certainly miss are the Chinglish signs. There have been days when – after failing to accomplish the simplest of tasks because of my limited Chinese – I’ve felt like swearing off chopsticks, grabbing my passport and catching the first plane out of town.
But when I look up and see a sign for dried fruit that says “fuck fruit,” suddenly the clouds part, birds chirp and all is well. (“Dry” and a colloquialism for “sex” share the same Chinese character.) Continue reading
Sometimes I get the red, white and blues
On June 12, the US Embassy in Beijing sent out an e-mail warning Americans to be careful at nightclubs in Beijing. It said that an embassy employee was attacked by a group of Chinese on June 9 at a club near Workers Stadium, a popular bar area and expat hangout.
“The employee, who was out with some colleagues, was hit in the head with a sharp object as he was dancing away from the group,” the e-mail said. “According to witnesses, the employee fell to the floor and was repeatedly beaten and kicked in the head by individuals serving as bouncers for the nightclub. By all accounts, the attack was unprovoked.”
Workers Stadium in Beijing. The US Embassy said one of their employees was attacked at a nightclub on the west side of the stadium. (Photo by Jason Walsh via Wikipedia)
The attack wasn’t the first targeting US citizens, the embassy said, adding that “maintaining an awareness of your surroundings and keeping a low profile are critical to avoiding potential problems.”
Asking a foreigner in Beijing – especially those who look and sound very different from the Chinese – to keep a low profile is a bit like asking a cricket marching in a pack of ants to blend in. It’s just not going to happen. Foreigners make up less than 1 percent of the city’s 20 million residents. We stand out wherever we go. Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s not. Continue reading
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s an American!
One of the few memories I have of first grade is the time I pissed my pants.
School usually let out around 3 pm. It was around 2:45, and I thought I could hold it for another 15 minutes. I crossed my legs and shifted in my seat, trying to focus on anything but the obvious. When the bell rang, I stood up and the floodgates opened.
I was wearing stonewashed jeans with white specks, not the kind of pants that could hide a stain.
My mother was parked outside, and to get to her car I had to walk across a field that separated the school from a road where parents waited for their children. It was the longest 100 yards of my childhood. Continue reading
Slightly Reworded 