Allergic to the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, and Other Tourist Attractions

by Lenore Look

  “Did you know this was going to happen to us?” I asked.

  “No,” my dad said. “I was not expecting this.”

  “Am I going to die?” I asked. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

  “No,” my dad said. “I think this is supposed to be good for us.”

  “You mean this isn’t letting the air out of us?” I asked.

  “No,” my dad said. “We’re not balloons.”

  “I’m scared,” I said.

  “I know,” my dad said, reaching out to hold my hand. “The needles are supposed to move our chi.”

  “What’s chi?” I asked.

  “Energy,” my dad said. “We’re made up of energy. According to Chinese medicine, when our energy gets stuck, we get sick. The needles help release the stuck chi. Then we feel better.”

  Release what?

  Oh no!

  This was not good news.

  “Which needle?” I asked. “I DON’T WANT MY STUFF COMING OUT AT ALL!!!”

  Silence.

  My dad stared at me.

  I stared at the needles in the backs of my hands.

  Then everything spilled out, all at once.

  “Itookoutyourpassportandlostit,” I said. “Thenitfelloutofmycleanlaundrybutitwasn’tyourpassportanymoreitwasalittleblueball.”

  My dad turned the color of bones in the desert.

  He didn’t breathe, not one bit.

  A week went by.

  Then my dad blinked.

  It was all he did.

  He didn’t lunge for me.

  He didn’t scream at me.

  He didn’t even have a Shakespearean curse for me.

  Not one.

  Chinese medicine is really amazing.

  Who knew that wearing quills like a porcupine would soften the blow like this?

  It works better than crying!

  And it sure beats being sick.

  porcupuncture so well, my dad looked as calm as Walden Pond.

  And I felt much better too. As soon as my chi got unstuck, I was healed, just like that.

  “Son,” my dad said as we left the crowded clinic and stepped back onto the crowded sidewalk, “I feel like a new man.”

  My dad breathed in deeply.

  He pulled back his shoulders.

  He lifted his chin.

  He was a giant.

  “You’re not mad at me?” I asked.

  “Mad at you?” my dad said. “Why should I be mad? You should be more careful, son. But it was a piece of paper. It can be replaced.”

  I skipped a little to keep up with my dad’s long stride. We went down the street.

  “The important thing is that we’re healthy,” my dad said. “When you have your health, you have everything. All other problems are minor.”

  “Really, Dad?”

  “Really, son,” my dad said. I love it when he calls me that. Son. I love it more than my own name. And I love it especially when he calls me that in a good mood, like he was in now.

  “I’m glad you’re not mad at me,” I said.

  My dad squeezed my hand.

  “I’m glad we’re together,” he said, “and that we’re on vacation in one of the oldest and most fascinating cultures on earth.”

  He was right about that.

  We had walked right into the middle of a very old place.

  The streets were dusty and narrow.

  The houses were old and gray and close together.

  A man went by with an ancient wheelbarrow.

  “Where are we?” I asked my dad.

  He stopped.

  He turned around.

  “Are we lost?” I asked.

  “Not sure,” my dad said. “I think we’re in a hutong.”

  “A who?” I asked.

  “ ‘Hutong’ means ‘alley’ or ‘lane,’ ” my dad said. “The real culture of Beijing is in the hutongs, the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Many of them have been destroyed to make room for high-rises. I really wanted to see one of these.”

  “How old?” I asked. Old is creepy. “Older than Concord?”

  “Much older,” my dad said. “Some of these were built in the 1200s when the Mongols ruled China during the Yuan dynasty. These neighborhoods formed concentric circles around the Forbidden City. Aristocrats and wealthy people lived in the spacious lanes closest to the palace, while commoners and laborers lived in the outer circles of narrower alleys.”

  My dad loves history and historical sites. If he could live in an old house and dress up in old-fashioned clothes and give tours, he would.

  “It feels like we’ve stepped back in time,” my dad said. His eyes filled with the gray light of the hutong. “You get a sense of what life was like for many centuries.

  “The narrowest hutong is only sixteen inches wide,” he continued. “When two people meet, they have to turn sideways to pass one another. And many lanes have strange names, like Skewed Tobacco Pouch Street, or Soap Street, or Nine Turns, which actually has nineteen turns.”

  A street with nineteen turns?

  “Do you mean we’re LOST, DAD???” I cried.

  Then I really cried. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Tears streamed down my face.

  You’d cry too if you were lost in a crowd of more than one billion people and your dad had the vocabulary of a Chinese baby. Worse, my dad had no more pieces of paper with addresses on them. None.

  “Son,” my dad said, kneeling beside me and holding me firmly. “Think of this as an adventure. You’re never lost on an adventure. You are always where you need to be.”

  “I am?”

  “Sure,” my dad said. “The Chinese call it destiny.”

  “Dusty?” I asked.

  My dad shook his head. “ ‘Fate’ is another word for it. It’s the belief that your life has a map. You’re never lost.”

  I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.

  “So let’s just explore and enjoy this part of town together,” my dad said. “After that, we’ll worry about finding our way back.”

  Worry? I was already worried!

  But my dad was not.

  First we stopped for a bowl of noodles.

  Then we shared a bag of sunflower seeds. You crack the shell between your teeth and you eat the middle.

  After that, we stopped in a bookstore.

  Then we checked out a little-pet market. I stuck my finger in the baby rabbit cages. And listened to the songbirds.

  Then we watched and clapped for the yo-yo dude performing his tricks. He was super-duper!

  Then we put money into an old man’s can. His sign said:

  “A wise man you are,” he said to my dad. “You are a friend and son of China from far away. You will live a long and prosperous life. You will have a long trip in China.”

  My dad smiled and nodded.

  Then it was my turn.

  “You have a smart older brother,” he said, turning my face in his hand. “And two very smart younger sisters.”

  That’s on my face?

  “You are very loving,” the fortune-teller said. “You always want to do the right thing.”

  That’s better.

  “But you don’t always remember what it is.”

  How did he know?

  Then he gave me one last glance.

  “Your wife will be very pretty.”

  Whaaaat?

  “I’MNOTGETTINGMARRIED!!!” I cried. “BESIDES,MYWIFEISGOINGTOBEAHAMSTER!!!”

  After that, my dad bought a pair of stress balls—and put them in my PDK.

  Then a few steps down the street, he added a yo-yo to my supplies. “Who knows,” he said. “You might have to make a living on the streets.” It was perfect!

  We got ice cream.

  Then we got invited to play a game of Chinese chess. I love Chinese chess! The sun was setting on a cold but not windy afternoon. Players were bundled up and bent over their games on top of plastic crates outside their homes. Everyone was pleased that I could play. My gunggung had taught me.


  Finally, my dad said it was time to go.

  Too bad.

  “It’s really super-duper here,” I said.

  “I had a feeling it would be,” my dad said.

  “Do you believe in that fortune-teller stuff?” I asked.

  “Nah,” my dad said. “It’s just for fun.”

  “Maybe I would have liked living here in the old days,” I said.

  “Me too,” my dad said.

  Then, hand in hand, my dad and I headed toward the busy street where you could see tall buildings and cars and taxis zooming past and everything looked scarier than it did thousands of years ago.

  the fortune–teller was right.

  My dad was going to be in China for a long time.

  After he reported his missing passport to the police …

  After he got his new photos taken …

  After he stood in line for another entire day …

  After all that, my dad still had to wait “up to two weeks” before returning to the embassy to pick up his new passport and visa.

  Rule No. 3 for traveling overseas, my dad says, is never lose your passport, or someone else’s.

  The good news was that my dad was still not mad at me.

  The bad news was that it messed up our itinerary. You can’t buy a train or bus ticket or check into a hotel in China without your passport. Staying an extra two weeks in Beijing meant that we needed a Plan B. Our Plan A included the world’s largest dinosaur pit, kung fu lessons at Shaolin Temple, and my yehyeh’s village, where it floods every year and where he used to take down the doors of his house when he was a boy and paddle around for survival. Calvin was really disappointed. He wanted to do that.

  Not me.

  I now had to survive long enough to marry someone pretty. I’m not looking forward to it, but if that’s on my dusty life map, there’s nothing I can do about it but stay away from danger.

  So I was in our room checking out the new stuff in my PDK when Calvin leaped out of nowhere and chopped my head and kicked my butt.

  “Ow!” I cried. “Owwowowow!”

  That’s the problem with Calvin. He can be a bookworm one minute and a total Lantian dude the next.

  “A fight, a fight!” Anibelly cried. “You’re busted!”

  Lucky for Calvin, Bean Sprout blocked my kung fu leg in the air and my kung fu chop in mid-chop. Otherwise, Calvin would have suffered too.

  “AlvinAlvin,” Bean Sprout said. “Let’s go play!”

  So we did.

  We followed Bean Sprout down to the lobby (she took the stairs) to stare at the Christmas tree (again).

  The ornament that said “friend” was still there. And it stared me smack in the eye.

  “Is this all you wanted to do?” I asked.

  “Yup,” Bean Sprout said.

  “Me too,” Katie said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It’s SOOOO beautiful,” Anibelly said, wrapping her arms around me. “Isn’t it, Alvin?”

  I wished Anibelly wouldn’t do that, but it did feel good. So I put my arm around her too.

  “I’m so glad you guys are staying longer,” Bean Sprout said. “It was my Christmas wish.”

  “Mine too,” Katie said. “Having you here makes Christmas feel really special.”

  “It feels special to me too,” Calvin said. “But Christmas is tomorrow, and most of your ornaments are still on the tree. No one’s taken any.”

  “No worries,” Katie said. “They will.”

  “It’s the miracle of Christmas,” Bean Sprout said. “You’ll see.”

  “Yeah, you’ll see!” Anibelly said. Then she and Bean Sprout did their little dance and sang “Jingle Bells.” It’s Anibelly’s favorite.

  Then Katie told us the story of the shepherds who watched their flocks by night …

  And we all stared at the Christmas tree for seven seconds straight. Amen.

  Then everyone raced for the elevators.

  Everyone but me.

  I’m allergic. I had to take the stairs.

  But before I did, I reached for the ornament that was calling out to me.

  “Friend,” it said. It was a really strange wish. How do you give a person as a gift?

  I put it in my PDK.

  I stared at it.

  It was a piece of heaven at the bottom of a dark and scary well.

  How I was going to grant that wish, I had no idea. Making friends was hard. Wishing for friends was even harder.

  Then I looked up.

  I stood on one foot.

  Then I stood on the other.

  It took a long time to take all the angels off the tree.

  And put them into my PDK.

  An entire host of heavenly angels in my PDK. Who needs survival gear when you’ve got angels?

  But how was I going to grant all those wishes?

  I breathed in.

  I breathed out.

  Well, I didn’t know that either.

  All I knew was that I could hardly wait to show my dad. I had a feeling he would help me do what I needed to do. He always does.

  “Daaaaad!” I cried, dashing back up the stairs, full speed ahead. There was no time to waste. “DAAAAAAAAAAAD!”

  my dad was shocked.

  But my mom was not.

  “Oh, Alvin,” she said, when she saw all the angel ornaments in my PDK. “What a lovely thing to do.”

  I nodded. Then I showed her all the money I had. I’d been saving it for a long time, not like Calvin, who spends it as soon as he gets it. I had some hung baus that my pohpoh and gunggung had given me right before our trip. And I had the money my dad had been paying me as part of our deal for me to keep quiet and be a good tourist.

  “Sometimes you really surprise me,” my mom said. “You are the most empathetic of my children.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, but I liked that my mom gave me a big, long hug and a kiss on the top of my head for being the most pathetic. I love it when she does that. I love it more than all the candy in China. Then she wiped tears from her eyes. My mom is like that. She cries whenever I do something right, and also when I do something wrong. So I gave her a hug and a kiss back.

  Then my mom took me shopping.

  The air was cold and gray.

  The streets were crowded.

  The bus was packed.

  I held on to my mom with one hand and my PDK with the other.

  Normally, I don’t like shopping. It’s not my thing.

  But I do in China.

  We went to a famous shopping street where nearly everything was outside and on clearance. There, my mom showed me:

  I watched my mom do it. You have to be very polite and patient. You have to remember your manners and not run away.

  Then I tried it. It was very scary! The lady didn’t punch her calculator. And I didn’t get the toy that I was pointing at with my eyes.

  “Eye action only works with people who know you,” my mom said.

  So I tried again. When I got the hang of it, I bought some stuff. Then I bought more stuff. It was fantastic! Best of all, I didn’t have to say a word!

  “You’re very good at this,” my mom said.

  I was super-duper!

  That was the good news.

  The bad news was that soon the “friend” ornament was the only one left. I showed it to my mom.

  “Well,” my mom said. “You can’t buy a friend, that’s for sure. You have to be one.”

  “You mean someone’s wishing for me?” I asked. “But I don’t speak Chinese.”

  My mom looked at me.

  I looked at all the packages in my hands.

  “You don’t need words to be a friend,” my mom said. “You just need to be there.”

  Then my mom gave me some advice.

  It sounded so easy.

  But it wasn’t easy.

  It was Christmas morning, and I was having a bad start. I had to get cleaned and dressed.

  “Tricked!” I wailed as we set out
for the orphanage. “You said I only had to be there. You didn’t say I had to look like Calviiiiin!”

  My brother Calvin is mostly neat and smells like soap. He was born that way. Not like me. I don’t normally look or smell that fine. It takes hours for my mom to catch me, hold me down and scrub me off. It’s a lot of work, like cleaning the tub, where mold begins to grow back as soon as she’s done.

  “It’s Christmas,” my mom said, pushing me into the car. “We always clean you up for a holiday.” The look on her face said that if my mold started to grow back before we got to our destination, I could forget about seeing another holiday.

  Then before I knew it, we were getting out of our car and everyone started marching toward an old gray building that looked like—yikes!!!—a school!

  What could be worse than going to school on Christmas Day?

  Going to an all-girls school/orphanage, that’s what.

  But it was too late.

  I walked straight into a roomful of girls!

  “Ni men hao,” they greeted us.

  Then they sang us a couple of Christmas songs in Chinese. I had no idea what they sang, but it sure sounded like “Silent Night” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

  After that, the teacher said something in Chinese that sounded like the girls were excited to have visitors and that we should help ourselves to dried plums and dates and red bean cakes and tea, which she really didn’t have to say on account of my dad was already helping himself. He loves Chinese treats.

  Normally, I love Chinese treats too. But this was not normal. These treats came with a bunch of girls, who surrounded me. And the problem with girls, as everyone knows, is that they’re not boys. They talk too much. They wear dresses. They put stuff on your plate. They want to hold your hand.

  Oh brother.

  Then Katie announced that there were presents for all.

  “The gifts appeared overnight,” Katie said excitedly.

  “It’s a miracle!” Bean Sprout cried. “It’s a miracle!”