Have Mother, Will Travel: A Mother and Daughter Discover Themselves, Each Other, and the World

by Claire Fontaine

  My mom, twenty-six other jet-lagged Americans and Canadians, and I are in our hotel lobby, getting the official rundown from the organizers of the annual event, Bill and Pamela Chalmers. Bill’s impossible to miss; he’s toweringly tall, with piercing blue eyes and dark hair streaked with silver. His wife, Pamela, is as gentle as he seems stern, a petite, pretty woman with delicate features, a wide smile, and gleaming hazel eyes.

  The trip technically began in San Francisco, where we’d had a welcome dinner and basic overview, but today marks the official start date, and Bill’s all business. As are we; there’s no small talk, and expressions tend toward giddy excitement or type A laser focus. Most teams are couples aged forty to sixty, save for another mother-daughter duo and some teams there just as friends.

  “Welcome, everyone,” Bill says. “Hope you’ve settled in okay. Pamela is handing out the scavenge booklets now. You will receive a new booklet at the beginning of each leg of the trip, and they will become your bible. They have your hotel information, key phrases in each language, emergency phone numbers, and, of course, the scavenges. Do not lose these. You will not be given another.

  “Have a look,” he continues, gesturing for us to open the booklets Pamela’s pressing into our hands. “You’ll notice that Beijing has eighty-five scavenges, each worth a different amount of points. You will always have more scavenges than there is time to do, which means that there will be a lot of strategy involved. We’ll tally up your points at the end of each leg.”

  I flip through the book, curious to finally see the scavenges. They don’t disappoint: trying “delicacies” like locusts or silkworms, taking a Chinese cooking class, doing tai chi in a park, singing at a karaoke bar. Some scavenges are riddles themselves, like enjoying sam seh, photographing a kaidangku, and finding out what happens at 29 Luilichang Street. I like how many of them allow for interactions with the Chinese, like flying a kite with local kids at Tiananmen Square, or attending a court session and explaining the proceedings.

  And Bill clearly has a sense of humor: Scavenge #42 requires documenting egregious commercial trademark violations, and Scavenge #66 asks us to visit an Internet café, Google the Dalai Lama, Taiwan independence, and human rights in China—and then hightail it out of there.

  The scavenges range from five points to two hundred and fifty points (the more challenging or time-consuming the scavenge, the more points it’s worth), and following Bill’s rules is imperative. Points are deducted for using the Internet or calls home to solve scavenges, showing up late to meetings, or failing to prove we’ve completed scavenges by taking photos and showing ticket stubs. The boot-camp school I was in as a teen was based on a system of points and levels (gaining points = advancing levels = going home; while breaking rules = losing points = a lengthier stay in hell), so I may be the youngest person on this trip but I definitely have an advantage there.

  “So,” Bill concludes, “we’ll meet again as a group three days from now, at ten P.M. sharp. Remember, our motto is ‘Trusting strangers in strange lands.’ This trip is what you make it, you can spend as much or as little time on each scavenge as you like; you can just take a taxi or you can go to the driver’s house and have dinner with his family. You’ll see, even with identical instructions and scavenges, each team will go home with very different memories. Now . . . good-bye and good luck!”

  With that, everyone scurries out of the hotel, poring over the booklets as they go. My mother, however, apparently unable to walk and think at the same time, steers me to a set of chairs, pulls out the scavenge booklet and a map of Beijing, and proceeds to do . . . nothing. Thirty minutes later, there I am, sitting with my foot tapping, stomach grumbling, and teeth gritted.

  “You heard him,” she says, after I ask her for the tenth time if we can leave, “strategy is everything. Beijing is absolutely enormous and we’ll backtrack like crazy unless we map everything out and order the scavenges.”

  “Yes, but we’re hardly strategizing! There are eighty-five scavenges—it’s idiocy to map them all out now, we’re jet-lagged and haven’t eaten in eight hours! Look, scavenge number ten has lots of food options and they’re twenty-five points each. If we go to the Noodle Loft and order old-style Peking duck, a Chinese pancake, and Asian fondue—whatever that is—we get one hundred points and can strategize while we eat. Okay? Good, let’s go.”

  She doesn’t answer, just continues to stare at the map while making nary a notation or plan. I feel badly, because I know she’s still foggy from the accident and even with enough aspirin to toxify her liver for life, her head’s throbbing, but hunger’s beginning to trump sympathy. She’s being so illogical I’m about to walk over to the wall and bang my head against it just so we’ll be on the same page.

  On a trip like this you can’t plan everything, but my mom’s the kind of person who actually practice-packs. We argued in the weeks before leaving, because she felt I wasn’t doing enough to prepare and I thought she was going overboard. Case in point: Pamela e-mailed a list of sixty-two countries, at least ten of which we’d be visiting. I scanned the list out of curiosity and then forgot about it; my mom divided days before departure by countries and sent this e-mail:

  I’ve done Argentina, it’s attached for you to use as a template. Under the name of each country, give the time zone and country code for phone numbers and then list . . .

  1. Major airports, and distance to them

  2. A bit of history of the country/city—I found I could do this while listing the places, people, or things in #3

  3. Major sites—historic sites, temples, mosques, shrines, land-marks, museums, etc. Please give the address and hours open

  4. Some folklore, heroes, or legends

  5. The quintessential foods of the country or area

  6. The quintessential clothing (i.e., the longyi in Burma, or the lei in Hawaii)

  7. Any major dos or don’ts or cultural advice/customs

  8. ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF THAT I MISSED

  Need I say more?

  I sit with her for another ten minutes and just as I’m about to lose it, an elegant woman in a red silk suit, with her hair twisted in a tight chignon, walks past us. She’s very pregnant and very loud, hollering Chinese into her cell phone and punctuating with her one free hand. Midsentence and without breaking stride, she hacks really loudly and shoots a well-aimed stream of spit into an urn two feet away from her.

  I’m shocked, mildly disgusted, and thrilled—spitting is on par with nails on a chalkboard to my mom, who, horrified, takes this as her exit cue.

  Athletes spit in every country. Men spit in many countries. In Beijing, everyone spits. Once we hit the streets of downtown Beijing, people of every size, age, and gender are hacking and spitting left, right, and center. You could throw down a skim board and glide down entire blocks without a hitch. Or you could if any block were clear enough. Which is, of course, impossible.

  Because Beijing is home to nine million bicycles, fifteen million residents, and two million tourists. And they’re all on this block.

  Maybe it’s the concussion, pollution so bad it actually coats the roof of your mouth with filth, the fact that the Chinese speak very, very loudly, or that there’s no such thing as personal space here, but thus far Beijing feels like an assault. We’re bumped and nudged from every direction, buffeted about like corks on the open sea as we walk in search of food. Beside us, six lanes are packed with anything that will transport humans or lumber. Cars, bicycles, buses, motorcycles, trishaws (three-wheeled rickshaws), phone-booth-size aluminum boxes with a man and gas pedal attached to the front, cement trucks, backhoes, and the occasional military vehicle.

  Beijing looks a cross between Orange County and Blade Runner, sprinkled with pagoda-style roofs. By the time we arrive at Wangfujing, a wide, pedestrian mall that is Beijing’s premier shopping area, Mia and I are ready to drop. She’s also very irritable. There are a lot of food scavenges from the night market’s food stalls but it’s too early and noth
ing else here beckons—Häagen-Dazs, McDonald’s, and a multistory KFC the size of a Costco.

  “I vote for the Colonel,” Mia says, working to clear her throat of slime. She looks like a dog trying to eat peanut butter. “God, it’s like having pond scum in your mouth. Come on.” She pulls me toward KFC.

  “I didn’t come all the way to China to eat something I don’t even eat in my own country.”

  “I didn’t come all this way to starve! We’ve got three days to eat like natives!”

  Ninety percent of the time, Mia is an absolute delight to travel with; she’s energetic, curious, resilient. Ten percent of the time, however, Mia’s digestive system is the bane of my existence, even when we travel a mile from home.

  Given that her mood is only likely to get worse, and my head’s pounding, I should be kneeling before the Colonel in gratitude, but I want to eat real Chinese food, Travel Channel Chinese food.

  “We haven’t looked that long, I’m sure we’ll find something.” I turn and head toward the big street. “If we don’t find anything in a few minutes,” I call behind me, “we’ll do KFC, okay?”

  I reach the sidewalk, feeling Mia’s eyes burning into my back. And, as if by magic, there are the red-and-white striped awnings of food stalls across the street. I plunge into six lanes of solid traffic. Nothing’s going to stand between Mia and Peking duck.

  Brakes slam and tin-box-cycles swerve around us. We hit the opposite side shaken but standing.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” I lie. “Now, let’s go eat.”

  We snake through the crowded sidewalk toward merchants upon whose culinary delights we shall sup. I see ahead things being threaded onto skewers, I see things being dipped into big, steaming vats, I hear laughter and orders called out. I don’t care what they’re selling, we’re eating it.

  Then the stench hits us. I stop so suddenly that Mia rams into me from behind. I hear her gasp. The smell is a blend of rancid oil, ammonia, fish, the rotten sweetness of warm raw meat, and a dark tang.

  Food, it seems, is a relative term in China. There are rows of meticulously aligned wet, lumpy things of various shapes, in a variety of meat-like colors and pale fishy hues. It’s visually quite compelling, but a lot of it doesn’t just look parasite-inducing, it looks like giant parasites, period. There are yellow grubs the size of my shoes (picture a big fat hot dog bun, segmented, with an identifiable butt and mouth), and it’s one thing to see six-inch-long black scorpions on a skewer on the Travel Channel, another entirely to have them inches away.

  One food article in particular fascinates me. It’s a caterpillarish thing as long and thick as a cucumber, with a slick, pearlescent gray surface and a stylish fringe, obviously some kind of rather fashionable sea critter. I lean down to examine it, captivated in a horrified kind of way. When one suddenly JUMPS IN MY FACE!

  I leap back with a shriek. Everyone around us laughs as the guy who fooled me with that thing keeps wiggling it at me.

  “Centipede, lady! Centipede for you! Excellent for you lady, ha, ha, ha, ha!”

  It is funny and I start laughing, turning to see if Mia’s laughing, too. Hardly. She’s leaned over the curb holding her stomach, gagging with dry heaves. I rush over.

  “Mia, are you throwing up?”

  “Throwing up what—dust?!” She straightens up. “So, let’s see, now, we can have fried chicken or fried scorpions! Gee, tough choice, Mother!”

  “I’m sure there’s chicken-like matter here, too, honey. And pork, you love pork.”

  “Just give me a PowerBar before I faint.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “What are you talking about? You lined your entire suitcase with them.”

  “I told you I brought them for you—why didn’t you put one in your backpack?”

  “Because I thought I saw you put one in your purse.”

  “Why would I do that? I can’t stand them.”

  “Because your daughter might want one. Because you always carry food.”

  “What am I, a pack mule? You’re not ten years old. I bet you don’t have toilet paper with you, either.”

  “This was so stupid,” she mutters, which means she doesn’t. “You had to sit and plan, plan, plan, and what good did it do, we can’t find anything! We could have eaten two hours ago!”

  “You know, Mia, I’m hungry, too. If I were one of your girlfriends you wouldn’t be throwing a tantrum.”

  “Yeah, because none of my friends would have a problem eating at KFC—they’re not prima donnas! Are you sure you didn’t pack a Luna Bar? I swear I saw you pack one.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  There’s a lot to see today and it’s not as if being hungry will kill her. I pause to think of how I can defuse the situation, try a more patient and loving approach. But before I can stop it, “You might consider that suffering in silence is a highly underrated skill” pops out.

  Apparently, she has considered it. She’s been silent to me since. We’re on a trishaw on a quiet street running along the eastern wall of the Forbidden City, which is not red, as I expected, but a soft clay-rose color. The trishaw’s cushy tires, along with the driver’s steady, rhythmic pedaling, glide us dreamily along beneath pale clouds of cherry blossoms.

  One of the hallmarks of a mother-daughter relationship is what I call the Zero to Sixty Factor. We can get instantly irritated at each other and just as instantly move on. As in:

  “I can’t believe you told a complete stranger that!”

  “What, that you have prolapsed ankles? Honey, she’s fitting your shoes!”

  “I don’t care— Oh, my God, I love those sandals, second shelf, bronze, are they gorgeous or what?”

  “Oooh, yeah, they’d go great with our linen pants.” (Our meaning mine, of course.)

  Men don’t get this. Paul will hear us going back and forth and say, “Girls, stop fussing,” and we’ll immediately turn to him and say in unison, We’re not arguing, puzzled that he would even think that.

  Mia’s obviously not back to zero yet. As a mom, you learn to gauge how long your daughter’s going to be mad, but this time I’m not sure if Mia’s being quiet because she’s over it, falling asleep, or bitching at me in her head. Maybe discovering that I actually did have a melted PowerBar in my purse helped. The one she swore I put in there and I swore I hadn’t.

  I have no recollection of doing it, that’s how autopilot that kind of mom behavior is—always anticipate every possible need for the family. Paul makes sure the car has gas, I handle everything else; Mia’s autopilot is to just assume we’ve done everything. My girlfriend Chris, who has a daughter Mia’s age, says the same thing. God forbid you try to give them advice, they’re all grown-up and know everything, but they still expect you to take care of them.

  Travel is stressful, and it’s not like renewing our relationship is going to happen in one chat over tea in China, tra-la-la. I knew at some point we’d regress to old patterns the way we’re doing now, which we call our B&B—Bitchy (Mia) and Bossy (me). But I figured it would happen after we’d been gone long enough to get on each other’s nerves, like after three weeks. If it’s like this every time something comes up, we aren’t going to make it a week, much less five months.

  So important is it to the Chinese to always know which way is north that to be so swept away by something that you lose all sense is to “not even remember which way is north.” Jingshan Park, once the emperor’s private garden, and a twenty-five-point scavenge, sits outside the north wall of the City, where its densely forested hills can block the dark yin forces of the north—yin being the female element. You know, like dust clouds, storms, evil spirits, the murderous Mongols, and power-hungry Manchus. To further avoid these yinny female dangers, structures were always built to open to the south to take advantage of the positive, nourishing yang forces, which are male elements. Like light and nourishment. I’m not going to say anything.

  The plaza at the bottom of the hill is filled with young couples in
tight jeans holding hands and nuzzling. After all the shouting and hacking, it’s pleasant to weave through them. We stop at the spot where in 1644 the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, hung himself in shame and dishonor as peasants overran the Forbidden City. I give a capsule history to Mia, who listens even though she’s still not talking.

  “He made a quick stop on his way out to kill his teenage daughter, lest she suffer dishonor at the enemy’s hands.”

  “What a guy.”

  Sarcasm, a good sign! Maybe she’s thawing. She’s already starting to hack like a native and I’m afraid she’s going to start spitting like one, but I don’t dare say anything.

  Why is it that mothers are so willing to walk on eggshells around their daughters, far more afraid of their silence than daughters are of ours when we’re upset? Why do daughters usually call the shots in the speaking-silence battle? You don’t hear many daughters saying, “You never call me!” I wonder if it’s how they level the playing field, finally wield some power, after eighteen years of us being able to boss them around?

  After climbing steep stone stairs through dense firs, we arrive at a terrace with a circular pavilion. Fat red-lacquered columns support eaves and beams that are kaleidoscopically painted. The coffered ceilings dance with white cranes and clouds, separated by geometric bands of bright cobalt blue, red, white, greens. Repeated swirls of gold on the columns turn out to be the snaking bodies of dragons twisting and curling about themselves with bared claws and fangs.

  “Hey, Mom, come here,” Mia calls from the edge of the pavilion, in her normal tone of voice. I feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders relax. Discord with Mia makes me feel crappy like nothing else can. I walk to the railing and stand beside her. She gives me a gentle elbow and looks at me sideways with a grin. That look and the ensuing laughter is our standard “sorry for being a jerk” routine, no words needed.