Beijing Tai Tai

by Tania McCartney

  But the biggest issue for securing play dates for our son is the transitory nature of expat life in Beijing. People are already leaving and we’ve only been here five months. The good ones go quickly; they charm you and then they leave. This would surely stick in your craw after a while. I can see why some long-term expats have stopped ‘caring’ about people because, after a time, you just have to clear your craw.

  So, darling little Riley makes best friends with all the kids who either leave pretty much soon after meeting, or who are planning on going away for twelve weeks over summer. Not us, alas. We are here this summer—oh Lord, we are here. And as for the kids who won’t be going away and are available to play ... well, Riley either refuses to play with them or they’re little shits or their mothers drive me bonkers.

  Such is Beijing life.

  Bu Xie

  No need to thank

  There’s a phrase in China that essentially means ‘no problem’ or ‘you’re welcome’ or ‘don’t mention it’. It’s bu xie (pronounced ‘boo shee-eh’ and meaning literally: don’t thank).

  Due to its no-nonsense, somewhat abridged use, Mandarin doesn’t frequently feature the word ‘please’. One does say ‘thank you’, but it’s not cloyingly over-used in the general vernacular as it is in the West, where its impact is often rendered meaningless.

  In China, kids don’t thank their parents for passing the soy sauce. It’s not because they’re rude, it’s because their parents don’t expect to be thanked. It’s normal for them to pass the sauce; no expectations for thanks—it’s the least they could do, it’s only sauce after all. Friends see this similarly: the more you have to thank someone, the less important you are to them. Friends really don’t need to thank, it’s that simple.

  Just before we left Australia, our Mandarin teacher, Ping, took us to lunch (on a very meagre student income) to thank us for all we had done for her during our mutual time living in Adelaide. It was a wonderful lunch. She brought along a Chinese colleague and we feasted and drank and toasted each other as is the true Chinese way, and at the end of the meal, I thanked Ping in front of her friend.

  A short time later, I thanked her again, and she brushed this second thank you off with a nervous smile. The next time I thanked her, she became clearly uncomfortable, and by the fourth time, she pulled me aside to tell me my endless thanks made our friendship appear less valuable, especially in front of her Chinese colleague, and could I stop it right now please.

  In a way, her reaction makes a lot of sense, but I still can’t stop the thanking habit—it’s that socially entrenched. At first I thought I should drop it while in China, but it really is something Xiansheng and I feel strongly about ... and we’ll therefore continue to teach it to our children, China or no China.

  So, despite the ceaseless requests not to thank—from everyone I thank—we’ll continue with the over thanking. Whenever I thank Ayi for dinner or for doing something miniscule, she continues to say ‘buxie’ each time, yet I still thank. It’s sort of like a little tug of war. And do you know what? I’m noticing she actually doesn’t mind it now. She actually appears to appreciate the thanks. Just as I’m growing used to the Mandarin way, she too seems to be growing used to the Aussie way.

  Isn’t that understanding what multiculturalism is all about?

  The Foodie House of Horrors

  Do people really eat this stuff?

  Okay, I am officially intrigued by this whole Chinese food delicacy thing. Since arriving in the capital, we have had some interesting experiences with the insides and outside of various entities that have either crawled, hopped or slithered in their previous incarnation.

  Our first experience was the restaurant across from our house. A joint frequented nightly by Party members in black Audis, we were keen to see what the fuss was all about. We got frocked up, asked Ayi to babysit the kids, and trotted off across the road.

  It was a lovely restaurant. Great service, beautiful décor, even quite busy—that solid indicator of good food. I guess we should have sensed something might go awry when I asked for wine (pu tao jiu). The girl stared at me like I’d just asked for marshmallow curry. Xiansheng and I settled for beer; not such a big deal.

  When we were presented with the food menu, however, things kind of plummeted into the bowels of a horror film. Do you recall those times in life when you feel like you’ve entered the Haunted House at a carnival? You wonder if you’re dreaming somehow, but then it dawns on you with mounting horror, that this is real. Well, running my eyes over this menu was one of those times.

  I flicked those pages. I flicked and flicked and found nothing but carnage. Nothing but the dismembered corpses of non-specific living beings, from sea slugs to cows.

  Sure, they say these foods are meant to be delicacies, but forgive me, eating something that not long ago siphoned pig poo is not my idea of delicacy. Let me just run through a small sample of the mouthwatering menu items on offer:

  boiled duck blood with pickled red pepper

  scalding chicken kidneys

  duck claw with pickled vegetables

  sliced pig’s ear

  crystal duck’s tongue

  white fungus with fruit sauce

  flavoured bullfrog

  shredded bowel with garlic

  snakehead slices and the pièce de résistance—braised beef penis, kidney and bowel ( mm-mmm, a tantalising blend).

  To be fair, they did have some ‘regular’ dishes, too—and I would have gone for chicken, but after seeing a picture of a whole, charred chook complete with claws and head, floating in a bowl of grey soup, I suspected even an innocent breast fillet would come stuffed with blanched gizzards.

  Feeling brave, Xiansheng ordered a plate of sliced duck, which arrived slimy, pimply and done to an appetising shade of puce. It was surrounded by pale, throat-clutchingly dry dumplings and three mysterious sauces that could well have been any of the above menu items, shoved in a blender and whizzed.

  Of all the items on the menu, I could only stomach asking for two: salmon sashimi and lobster pieces with noodles. You can imagine my horror when the waitress said both dishes were not available that night.

  ‘Mei you.’ Don’t have.

  Oh mei you, mei you! I could write a tome about this phrase, so oft repeated and so oft scratching to my ears. It seems to be mei you bloody everything in this town.

  Faced with a despairing and nauseated stomach, I scanned that little book of horrors again and finally settled on a plate of broccoli and a plate of pumpkin. How bad could that be? So I pointed to the broccoli and said ‘one of these’ and then to the pumpkin, and said ‘one of these’.

  Then the confusion began.

  How so much confusion can be created over ‘one of these’ and ‘one of these’, complete with pointing finger, remains completely mystifying to me. Perhaps the waitress was wondering why someone would order two plates of vegetables for dinner. Hello! Just take one look at the abattoir floor you’re serving for dinner!

  So. After much to-ing and fro-ing, the broccoli arrived, bunched into the shape of a brain and covered in a shiny sauce of lard mixed with Gravox. And the pumpkin. My God. How can pumpkin be so tortured? Boiled, pale, stringy, sad—laying in a bowl of used dishwater with a handful of pimply red berries scattered on top (marinated chicken testicles, perhaps?).

  It was when I sampled the pumpkin and the bile rose into my throat that I knew our time was up in the Little Shop of Horrors. Two minutes later we were paid, on the street, across the road and straight into Subway, where I struggled to choke down a vegetarian sandwich.

  For a country with such a rich variety of exquisite food, why oh why is scraping the abattoir floor considered a delicacy? Yet another intriguing mystery of the Middle Kingdom.

  Mei You

  Holy Toledo! Bugger! Darn it and damnation!

  Okay, I have to elaborate a little more on the mei you thing because it’s really driving me loop de loop.

  Mei you, pronounced ‘
may yo’, is pretty much the shopper’s equivalent of all-sold-out. It means ‘don’t have’ and is blurted with frustrating regularity in this town, but not just at markets. It also happens habitually in restaurants, especially in restaurants where the only menu choice is braised beef bowel or chicken nuts (and I don’t mean legumes). Let me clarify here that this mei you term won’t ever apply to the beef bowel or chicken nuts themselves. It will only apply to anything remotely edible or to whatever size you happen to wear or to anything you need urgently and can’t find anywhere else. Or all of the above.

  It’s like Confucian Law (move over Murphy) and its recurrence is truly one of the marvels of life in China.

  The other intriguing thing about this mei you phenomenon is that it’s said to you when it isn’t necessarily true. Sometimes it’s said when the person can’t be bothered looking for something for you. Or if your price is too low. Or if they don’t like you. Or if they just don’t know whether or not they have it. This applies with exasperating regularity because, in China, no one wants to appear as if they don’t know. They’d rather lie than utter those very simple, basic words of ‘Actually ... I don’t know.’ Or God forbid, ‘I don’t know, but why don’t I find out for you?’

  Having said that, you just have to bide your time. If China teaches you anything, it’s patience—and the fact that anything can be done and anything can be found and anything can be for sale. If you bide your time, the mei you phenomenon will evaporate like a plate of hot pork dumplings on a street corner, and you’ll once again be grinning from ear to ear, extolling the magical land of China, where anything is possible.

  If you can wait.

  Alas—for me—patience? Mei you!

  The Jolly Green Giant

  My feet are like Goofy shoes

  In Australia, my feet are a size nine (a European 40). This size is relatively normal in our country—perhaps on the larger size of normal but then I am 174 centimetres tall so I need some kind of counterbalance down below. Anyway, the point is this: at home, I can buy size nine shoes at every store in town, unless they are sold out to the myriad other size-nine shoe shoppers.

  Here in Beijing, my feet are not normal. They are bordering on gargantuan. Now I know how Goofy, Minnie and Mickey Mouse feel, poor buggers. They, too, would have a tough time finding shoes for those plates of meat, although I’m sure a kindly illustrator could whip some up in a pinch. Me, I’m not so lucky.

  As I came to Beijing with quite literally two or three pairs of shoes, I have been on the shoe hunt pretty much consistently since arriving. What a low blow this shoe shopping experience has been. I mean, really low—like, foot level.

  Sheesh. I mean, they’re not that huge but in the eyes of the shoe stores of Beijing, it seems I have been endowed with clown shoes for feet. Snow shoes. Skis. Surfboards. After trawling the shoe shops of Wangfujing Street in search of anything even remotely worthy of my enormous clodhoppers, I had the crestfallen experience of being rejected from shop after shop like a banished podiatry heathen. I mean, for goodness sake, I’m surprised I could even get my feet in the door, they were that enormous. I kept tripping over and knocking things from shelves 2 metres away if I so much as twinkled a toe.

  I’ll never forget walking into one last shoe shop, bright-eyed and unabashedly hopeful that perhaps this one would have something greater than a size 39. Mei you, mei you and mei you.

  I’ll tell you what you can do with your bloody mei you.

  But more than the mei you humiliation was the looks I got. This last girl, upon my announcement that I was searching for a size 40 shoe, took one look at my face, then unhinged her eyeballs and slowly, ever so steadily, rolled them down my body, over my chin, down my neck, over the lumps of my boobs, down my stomach, over each thigh, my knees and ankles to my feet—two massive, flapping platters with nothing but two straps of red leather strung between my colossal Moses-tablet toes.

  I followed her eyes myself and looked down at those forlorn sandalclad, almost-naked slabs, and I honestly don’t think I’ve seen anything so enormous in my life. Tears sprang to my eyes, I was so horrified.

  I smiled weakly, fired up my ‘reverse mode’ warning beep and backed out of the store. Then I went home and very quickly logged onto www.humungousclodhoppers.com and ordered me some shoes.

  More on the Jolly Green Giant

  You could show Chinese cartoons on my arse

  Like my feet, I’m not petite: a size twelve in Australia, a size eight in the United States. In Australia, I’m quite slim and trim. Here, in China, you could show cartoons on my arse, it’s so enormous. You could land jumbo jets on my thighs and don’t even mention my acres of love handles and bowlful of jelly belly. Olympians could swim laps in it.

  When I sift through the dolls clothes on the racks in Beijing’s clothing stores for women, I take my five-year-old daughter with me, and many of them would fit her. These are some teensy women. I could span the upper chest of many a Chinese woman with one hand and she’d be completely covered. I once tried on a Chinese bra. It fit around my chest, but my boobs were pushed so far together, I could have jammed a bunch of lilies in there (bear in mind that cleavage is not usual for me).

  And forget about knickers. In fact, forget about anything that involves encasing my drive-in-movie-screen derrière. I’ve found A-line skirts that gape around the waist, but as soon as hips or thighs want to get involved, you can forget it. The Chinese feature a race of women built like ten-year-old boys—a shape highly envied in the West, which is jam-packed with curvy bums, hips, thighs, bellies and boobs.

  Truth be told, the size thing in Beijing can get mighty depressing after a while. Not only because you can’t find any clothes to fit, but also because your self-perception becomes distorted. After all, isn’t life about comparisons? How else could I feel somewhat slim in Australia but like a sumo wrestler in China?

  It was with much celebration, then, that I found some jeans at Ya Show market that were big enough to encase my rear end, let alone my thighs (admittedly, they are stretch jeans). Once again I had the China problem—gaping waistband and skin-tight thighs, but this was nothing a small adjustment couldn’t fix, and the fact that I could even get my thighs into them was cause for much leaping about. I bought eight pairs on the spot.

  Thank God for Lycra—the best friend of Jolly Green Giants all over China.

  Xiao Fei

  Jolly green giant sympathiser

  Right. That’s it!

  I’ve decided that if I can’t find anything to cover my movie-screen rear end, I’ll rustle up some queen size bed sheets and head to a tailor to see if she can fashion something large enough to swathe my behind.

  I’ve never had any clothes made before. Sooo exciting! When I first arrived here with my ten-year-old pair of jolly green giant-sized jeans, it didn’t even occur to me that I would be indulging in tailor-made clothing. Such a luxurious thought would have fit in my skull like a square peg in a round hole. But it’s true, it’s true, it’s true! I’m having some clothes made. The thought of it not only clunks around in my head awkwardly, it also pulls the corners of my mouth upward and makes my eyeballs water.

  Who’d have ever dreamed I could have ten silk dresses and five wool suits made for the price of one custom-made polyester suit at home? This is a fashionista’s Nirvana. A tai tai’s trance. A style maven’s studio of delight.

  I met with our tailor—the one who made Xiansheng’s tux for the Great Wall event—Xiao Fei. She’s lovely and obviously talented. She has minimal English but does know the words for ‘button, seam, long, short, zip, sleeve, wool, silk, cotton, cashmere, skirt and dress’—a vocabulary that, combined with plenty of sign language, could easily produce a solid working relationship.

  Clothes know no language barrier!

  So, I’ve ordered two lime-green skirt suits and a powder-pink pea coat and two Chanel-style cropped, bouclé jackets. Chanel style! I mean, come on—this is madness, Jackie O! This is coming from a woman
who has spent the last two years in tracksuit pants from Big W and colours her own hair with boxes from the supermarket.

  I’m gagging with try-it-on-quick desire. I can’t wait for the fitting, which is only a week away. She works fast this woman, and that is good because I’m going to drive everyone bananas in the waiting. Jackets? I have jackets! And suits! A tai tai’s dream.

  Please don’t wake me up.

  Princess Diana Moments

  People are doing good things in this town

  Sometimes life throws Princess Diana Moments at you. These are moments where something happens and you’re not quite sure it should be you experiencing them or whether it should really be Princess Diana (or any other princess you fancy).

  I recently met a man involved in the opening of Beijing’s first scholarship vocational school for underprivileged teens (and I mean really underprivileged). I was so intrigued and impressed by the school, the man asked if I would like to attend the opening ceremony and present teachers with certificates. Sure. Why not? I can put on a suit and grin and I’m very good at handing people things and shaking hands. Princess Diana, I am not—but I can do this.

  So, on the day of the school opening, I frocked up in one of my new lime-green Xiao Fei suits, put a très sophisticated French roll in my hair, slung some baubles around my neck and dusted off my fake Hermès handbag.