8,000 Soldiers & A Wedding

Sunday November 16, 2014 – Atlanta en route to Beijing –

Our trip to China offers me a break in my current job hunt. This marks Cayden’s sixth trip with his mom; his lifetime average is therefore one per year. I’m jealous; it’s only my third time. In fact, the two of them leave me at home, a wild bachelor, for six weeks at a shot. Our real reason for making this trip is to attend a nephew’s wedding.

Schlepping eight suitcases and three carry-ons through Hartsfield-Jackson International is no small job. Ping has packed piles of candy, gifts, a new iPhone, toys, and clothes, both ours and many to be given away. We’re provisioned like British explorers seeking the elusive source of the Nile.

Delta had us check-in some of the carry-ons, thanks to the bin hogs who boarded the plane before us. The airline industry’s profit-hungry plan to charge for “extra” baggage has forced everyone to carry a lot of their stuff on board. Meanwhile, the amount of stuff people take now exceeds their body weight. I’m not quite sure how the plane manages to get off the ground.

The flight has a stopover in Seattle. It’s a domestic, a.k.a. SardineAir. Some of the passengers stretch their legs by strolling the plane during the entire flight. I get a butt stuck in my face, courtesy of an aging rocker wannabe who sports long grey hair, a leather vest, and a Slash hat. I have to crane my neck to look past him to get a view of the Rockies, including Mt. Rainier. Cayden is glued to the window, taking it all in.

At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the three of us indulge in burgers. As always, a layover means too much time to sit but never enough time to go outside the airport to see anything. Cayden enjoys looking at all the huge planes. I enjoy his happiness.

Then, we’re on an Airbus and headed to China. Well, we will be as soon as the pilot figures out what’s wrong with the plane. He tells us a red warning light has come on and he’s called some engineers to check it out. 45 minutes later, we’re on our way. The pilot says that, because of the tailwind, we’ll still arrive 30 minutes ahead of our original schedule. 10 ½ hours in a seat. Cue the crying babies and hyperactive toddlers. Cayden is actually very well-behaved and I’m grateful. Fortunately, this leg of the journey finds us aboard a decent plane. The seats are somewhat roomier; at least I’m not banging my knees on the chair in front of me. Plus, each seatback has a built-in entertainment center, with numerous movies, TV shows, and games. That helps relieve the monotony.

Monday November 17 – Beijing –

Not for the first time, I notice that the Chinese like to build things on a grand scale. This is Beijing’s newest airport, opened earlier this year. It’s evening and the international concourse is a ghost town, albeit with gleaming marble floors and beautifully lit vaulted ceilings. We make our way to the street, where we are met by a driver, named Yu, sent by Mr. Liu, who is back in Atlanta. Mr. Liu collects a quarter-million dollars per month in rent from properties here in Beijing. I need a plan like that! Driver Yu takes us out into the sparse traffic. A few drivers still manage to cut us off; I don’t know if that’s a rule or something.

We thank Mr. Yu and check into a very nice hotel, the Yu Yang. My wife has good taste. The lobby glows with rich carvings and decorative red marble columns. Ping says there’s been an incredible boom in hotel construction in just the past few years and now it’s possible to get great deals in the older four-star hotels.

We’re not the only ones who like this hotel. We share an elevator with a man in a suit holding up an obviously drunken and much younger girl. He guides the stumbling girl off the elevator to their room. As we arrive at our floor, we hear the unmistakable sounds of… urm… exuberant play just a few doors down. This particular brand of play is illegal in China, but that doesn’t stop people from being people.

As we settle into our room, I can’t help but notice a new feature. Ping says it’s common in hotels now: a floor-to-ceiling window looking directly from the main room into the bathroom. On the night stand is a small bin marked “Supply with pay,” containing “vibrated & condom.” I’m curious, but we have Cayden – who, blessedly, is oblivious to certain things around him.

Despite the long trip, and the lack of sleep over the past 27 hours, Ping does not fail to commit us to a dinner with friends. Cathy and Patrick take us out to a bustling restaurant where the staff trots out nearly a dozen spicy Sichuan dishes: pork ribs & rice with chilies; beans and lotus in a hot sauce; corn and leek soup; a conventional salad with a light dressing; cucumber pickles and walnuts; spicy noodles; and more. I stick to tea, while Ping and our hosts drink a local beer, sipping it from small bowls. Around us, the room thrums with conversation, music, and laughter. The crowd is young: 20-something business types, soldiers, couples, and groups of friends smoking and drinking. One young man topples out of his chair, and sits laughing on the floor.

Ping chats with Patrick and Cathy, occasionally filling me in on the gist of things. I focus on keeping tabs on Cayden, who is electrified by this new place. The food is excellent, despite my fatigue. Still, I’m glad to get to bed – which doesn’t happen until after one a.m.

Tuesday November 18 – Beijing and Tianjin --

I’ve been using this trip to play with my new iPhone. As of this writing, the iPhone 6-Plus is state-of-the-planet… a distinction I expect to last about six months. Apple rolled it out to enormous fanfare, as usual, creating the usual shortage. Ping argued for months with a number of vendors to get the one we wanted. One idiot ordered a 16G instead of the 64G we told him to get. We discovered the mistake the next day, but he insisted we’d have to wait a month for the delivery and only then trade it in. He told us it was impossible to change the order – pure nonsense! Unsurprisingly, when the phone finally came, the store was out of 64G replacements. Staffers called the factory, but everyone agreed there was nothing they could do. I can only assume they were trying to unload the nearly useless 16G phones so they could then sell customers a 100 dollar plan to upgrade to 64G. Regardless, Ping would not be put off. She made half-a-dozen trips to various Apple stores before getting the right phone. Part of her motivation was to prove that Apple (made in China) is superior to my previous Korean-made phones. I’m happy with silver. Gold is impossible to find, thanks to the demand… in China. In any case, I have my new toy. I’m eager to play with the neat-o camera.

My left ear is slowly recovering from a case of barotrauma caused by many hours in a pressurized flying cigar tube. I am also still fighting against a 13-hour time differential that leaves me feeling an inch or so above the ground and slow to respond. Aside from a cough she has picked up, Ping seems unfazed by our travel.

Yet another friend – this one also named Ping – picks us up to drive us to Tianjin for a visit with my Ping’s parents and sister. Ping gives Ping a purse and book bag, stereo headset, and a NuSkin spa machine. NuSkin is another of my Ping’s projects. She sells the various lotions, pills, unctions, unguents, balms, and poultices, offering women free spa treatments and generally turning the whole thing into a gal pal gab-fest. In any case, Ping insists that giving out the gifts is making our luggage lighter as we go.

Cayden is really opening up here, chatting with alt-Ping and her husband, who it turns out we met on our last trip. My Ping reminds me that the husband was the guy who got into a fight with an inconsiderate SUV driver who blocked dozens of other drivers outside a train station.

Driving through Beijing’s Central Business District, we pass the distinctive 44-story CCTV building. This is the ultimate source of news, documentaries, and soap operas for more than a billion people. I’ve applied here. They said I was overqualified. Grrr! The glass and steel building looks like something Cayden might have designed with his Lego set. It is essentially two huge and twisted ‘Z’s’ joined at one end. The lower floors are not visible from a distance. Locals joke that the powerful media headquarters looks like a giant pair of boxer shorts.

The traffic is lousy, comparable to Atlanta’s rush hour. As we get out of Beijing, Ping points out that the buildings are more ramshackle. She uses the word ‘crappy.’ Even here, I notice more cars than I remember seeing during our past trips. That helps to explain the ugly brown color staining the sky. I can spot some of the millions of trees officials planted for the 2006 Olympics. They’re a good size now, but appear to be struggling to cope with the filthy air. I can now see birch, willows, and pine. In places, workers have begun harvesting these trees, which I thought to be ornamental. I assume they’re used for firewood.

Small conversations spring up.

“Mommy, what’s that?”

“A big truck.”

“Does big truck stink?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t make big truck stinky. Truck is so stinky.”

It’s stream-of-consciousness for a six-year-old boy. The doctors have diagnosed Cayden as being on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. They use jargon I don’t fully grasp, but I hope it all means that eventually he can find his way in the mainstream. For now, he’s in a special class. We’ve brought along enough homework to keep him busy during this trip. Meanwhile, he has no trouble at all speaking Chinese with his relatives. I hope one day he can even teach his father, who has yet to find a good Chinese language class. Ping says she’ll teach me, but…

We arrive at Shuhua and Kuan’s home and being hauling our stuff inside. Alt-Ping and her husband – I still don’t have his name – take off. Inside the apartment, we’re greeted by a loud chirping, and a loud whirring. One is a toy bird. The other is a Kuan’s live cricket farm. I had forgotten how loud those suckers get inside their jars on top of the aquarium.

Shuhua and Kuan’s two-year-old grandson is sleeping in one of the two bedrooms. He soon wakes up and pokes his nose out to see what’s going on. Songze Wang is actually Cayden’s nephew. He goes by the nickname Duo Duo. I keep saying “doo doo,” but it’s more like “dodo.” He is hanging on Cayden’s every word and watching closely what his uncle does. There’s a mix of boyhood kinship and rivalry.

Shuhua, meanwhile, has ferried several dishes in from the kitchen for us, including pork dumplings with vinegar, congi, and tofu noodles. It’s a good and generous spread. The goat liver is too harsh for my tastes, like coagulated blood; I avoid it after one taste while trying to not offend my sister-in-law.

Kuan has come home and motions me over to the far end of the room, where he offers me some of his special tea. I fondly remember the warming table and his collection of pots and teas. Kuan pours the hot water over the small bowls before pouring the tea and serving it to me along with radishes, oranges, bananas, and sunflower seeds. We attempt conversation, me with virtually no Mandarin and Kuan with as little English. Mostly, we laugh at the boys. The sisters go through photo albums of Ping’s glory days. I hope it’s OK to lust after a younger version of my wife, even if she has a serious case of late 80’s/early 90’s hair. Ping points to an old boyfriend – loser. She says she’s in touch with some of the people in the photos – including the one who treated us to a scorpion dinner last time.

Later, we walk to a restaurant for Peking duck – Cayden’s favorite. Duo Duo wolfs his down as quickly as the staff brings it out. The dishes include tarot cakes, fungi, pickled tripe, leeks, and marinated beef. Kuan brought sodas for us to drink; the restaurant allows customers to bring their own. The duck is served cut into strips. Other restaurants have a server bring the bird out from the kitchen split lengthwise, the head and beak still on, and then carve it at the table. I’m not a fan of the third option: cleavered bird served with splintered bones still inside. Here, we take the strips of duck and lay them on a tortilla-like flour disc along with celery, scallions, and bean sauce. The table is overflowing with food, but Kuan orders even more. Out comes cai xin (greens) and duck soup.

Despite obvious signs of jet lag, Cayden wants to use the restaurant’s play area, and Duo Duo is right there with him. He shouts “Wa bang ni na!” over and over, staring intently at Cayden’s toy train. “I help you carry it!” The boys chase each other through the miniature plastic fortress, Duo Duo calling for “Da bau!” He calls Cayden “the boy” instead of uncle. After about 45 minutes, they’re getting a little too crazy – Cayden wants to push a rocking horse down the slide – and it’s time to go.

It’s nine o’clock by the time we get back to the apartment for the night. We work to trim some of that jet lag, sleeping nearly 12 hours straight.

Wednesday November 19 – Tianjin –

Kuan pops out to a street merchant for a breakfast of freshly-made crepe-like Jian Bing, soy milk, cakes, and rolls.

Ping shepherds Cayden through his morning routine.

“Who threw the toothbrush out the window?”

“Cayden.”

This apparently happened on one of their previous trips without me. Ping says he opened an upper level window and chucked his toothbrush out. I don’t even want to picture my little boy leaning out a window.

Dou Duo, meanwhile, insists on helping his Grampa Kuan feed the crickets. Kuan allows him to hold a gourd that is home to one of the chatty bugs. Duo Duo bangs it on the marble floor, then pees in his pants. The adults smile and respond with “Mishou!” (‘shame on you’) accompanied by the gesture of an index finger drawn across the cheek. It’s comparable to the American gesture of rubbing one index finger over the other. Cayden adds his own admonishment of “Cho cho!” (‘stinky’). He’s heard that one a lot.

As we all head out, I see that there is no blue at all in the sky, just a pervasive dingy sand color hanging over us. Only a few of the bicyclists on the roads wear masks. The air quality is far from the worst locals are used to. I look to the skyline, but only see a two-dimensional line of buildings, as if it’s the backdrop of a stage play.

Ping makes a couple of stops to deliver NuSkin products to her clients. Her wares include protein powder, vanilla, chocolate, or green tea flavored. I know this stuff well; Ping makes me take it. It comes in heavy canisters and I’m glad to unload a few of them. NuSkin is a relative newcomer to China. Its entry here propelled stock prices upwards. We bought 100 shares, since Ping was doing well with her sales. Our fortune nearly doubled. But, within months, someone in China decided to clamp down. The government launched a full-scale investigation of alleged pyramid-type sales. Our stock value cratered. I can only guess that someone at NuSkin failed to properly grease the rails. It’s hard to pick a side in a case where the seller probably is abusing their reps, but the government involved is almost certainly corrupt.

Next, we head to Lau Lau and Lau Yan’s apartment. They’ve opened a courtyard entrance in the back, which used to be blocked off. Ping says the government has knocked down some of the older buildings to allow for wider streets. Some of the familiar junk piles are also gone, but traces remain of this generation’s frugality. Near my in-laws back door, an ancient rusting bicycle rests under a layer of soot and grime. With one wheel missing, it’s not going anywhere, but serves as a source of spare parts. It sits among spare lumber and other odd items, any of which may be claimed at any moment to fill some need in a nearby home. The in-laws’ apartment itself is just as I remember it. Ping’s brother has upgraded one or two fixtures for his parents, including, blessedly, the toilet. The layout remains claustrophobic, however, with one small room on either end of a narrow, utility-minded hall. This space includes a kitchen built for one person to stand in; no dishwasher or disposal; and precious little counter space. The apartment has no left or right, no up or down. It’s like living on a U-boat.

Still tagging along with our group, Duo Duo is on the make for food. Ping says his mouth never stops chewing. Cayden comments on Lau Yan’s eyebrows, which are long and droop down into his eyes like twin weeping willows.

Escaping the apartment, our group heads out on some errands, including hair care, a fun but cheap indulgence here. I don’t really need a trim, but I get one anyway. It feels good. The workers do a great job, treating me to a wash, cut, neck shave, and rinse. Ping gets hers washed. Together it costs a little less than just me getting a haircut back home.

Fushun stops by the hair salon. He looks well. Ping’s brother is a successful civil servant and a go-getter. In addition to helping out his parents, he bought himself two adjacent apartments and renovated them into a comfortable home with gleaming marble floors, modern lighting and plumbing fixtures, and plenty of space. Fushun hosted us there on our last trip. Now, he’s turned over the apartment to his son Xu as a wedding gift.

We meet Xu’s fiancée, Mengjun, a few hours later at dinner. The bride-to-be is lovely with a radiant smile and easy manner. They look very happy together. Xu is ambitious like his father. He’s already started his own business as a multi-media wedding planner. That is, he prepares weddings that play out as events and offers a complete media package to the happy couple. He’s working on something special for his own wedding.

We have dinner at a noodle shop. It’s a traditional birthday dish, connoting long life. Ping’s birthday is tomorrow. Before we left home, I got her a Michael Kors purse which she shows off with great bravado to the women we meet. Dinner includes a birthday crown for Ping – which Cayden wears – and a small cake. She likes the Chinese cake, which is not sweet, almost like angel food. There’s also alcohol, provided by Fushun. I’m not sure what kind of alcohol it is. They simple describe it as being 53% ------- apparently effect is primary, taste an afterthought. Dinner is pleasant, despite the ever-present smoking, including some by Fushun. How people here can want even more pollution in their lungs is beyond me.

On the taxi ride home, I spot small fires on the local sidewalks. Each is tended by groups of two or three. The displays resemble the funeral rite Ping’s family took me to in the countryside during our trip in 2006. Indeed, the fire tenders are burning the same kind of paper sheets with perforated discs: symbolic money. Ping says during the tenth month by the lunar calendar people honor their lost loved ones. They burn offerings while facing the direction of the relative’s grave, not unlike Muslims facing Mecca to pray. Ping says in recent years, merchants have begun selling additional burnable facsimiles the departed may want: paper cars, paper washing machines, and paper iPhones. A common joke has a customer asking why his dear mother needs an iPhone in the afterlife when she wouldn’t know how to use one. The merchant reassures the bereaved that Steve Jobs is up there to teach her. For young men who died single, merchants sell paper hookers. Mourners also serve up a gift of alcohol – real alcohol.

Another frequent sighting: several drivers cover their wheels with plywood or floor mats. I ask, but Ping shrugs. Finally, Fushun lets us know that drivers want to keep the dog pee off their precious rides.

The remainder of the evening goes to packing, or re-packing. Ping is provisioning us for a campaign to four cities. First up tomorrow is Baoding.

Thursday November 20 – Tianjin and Baoding –

We begin my empress’ birthday with a trip to the Beijing bus station. The sky is a lifeless icy white, the sun barely a bright patch over an ill-defined landscape. Trees are wrapped with cloth strips to protect them from the acid in the atmosphere. Among the city noises is a persistent sharp hasp that rings from all directions. Many people have a dry cough, including Duo Duo. Ping says the boy inherited it from his father. I tell her that’s bull; it’s the air.

We’re headed to Hebei Province. Hours on the bus take Ping, Cayden, and me through rural expanses, small towns, and industrial areas. There’s never a hint of blue above. It’s chilling to visualize the whole world trapped like this in an unbreathable shroud. We pass auto dealers showing off their brand new cars, which are coated in muck. Ping says they come out and clean the cars every day, but by the next morning, they are covered again. When the air is like this schools cancel outdoor activities. Cayden keeps asking why things are so dirty. The ‘how’ is easy to explain. The ‘why’ is something I can’t quite understand myself.

Once in Baoding, Ping’s friends pick us up at the bus depot. Our plans have changed thanks to certain laws. Police monitor foreigners, requiring that they stay in specific hotels. Our original choice is not on that list, so we have to scramble to find one where the yangguizi can stay.

Ping’s friend, Zhao Xia, is married to Jian Chen, who served two tours in Liberia. They have a son, Yang Yang, who is Cayden’s age. At the hotel, the boys play a while then turn to their homework. Cayden struggles with his; he’s not trying tonight.

Later, we head out to eat. Zhao and Jian choose a restaurant that features a museum-like collection of antiques or reproductions (I’m no expert) perhaps from the Ming and Qing dynasties. We walk to our dining room past throne-like chairs of deep red wood, ornate tables, wall carvings, frescoes, vases, and a koi pond. The dinner is served in a beautifully furnished private room, with its own modern restroom. The meal comes with all the now-familiar trimmings. Conversation is lively and focuses mostly on the boys, who bounce and giggle in their own universe.

The night wraps up back at our hotel room. There’s a business card stuck in the door… from a 24-hour hooker. My birthday gal thinks that’s funny. I married the right empress, and we celebrate with exuberance, careful not to wake Cayden.

Friday November 21 – Hebei Province –

This morning, at least some of the mess out our window is actual fog. Visibility is even less than yesterday. From our third floor room, I can see the parking lot, dirty cars, sickly-looking trees, and a pile of rubble from a construction job going on without benefit of a safety fence. Beyond a few hundred yards it’s a void, as if a child had forgotten to draw in the background.

Our hotel room is simple in its furnishings. There’s a frosted glass door on the bathroom. A window opposite the door offers a view straight from the shower to someone laying in the bed. It’s a different aesthetic than I am used to. But, whatever…

Jian and Zhao meet us in the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Yang Yang was up until 11:30 last night doing his homework. He’s a hard worker in a tough system. His classroom has 63 students – far above capacity.

We spend the morning and early afternoon in Baoding, visiting the compound of the Governor-General of Zhili (which became Hebei Province). Its stately courtyards date back to 1729. Brightly colored tile roofs decorated with mythical creatures top modest-sized homes, offices, and work buildings. The beams are painted in intricate designs of bold tones of red, blue, green, and yellow. Part of the compound was lost to the Cultural Revolution, which sought to purge traditional art as well as any traces of capitalism in favor of Mao’s disastrous ideals. It’s hard to understand the goal in that kind of destruction. It’s also hard to believe what’s left of this place can stand-up against the corrosive air pumped out in an equally short-sighted bid to expand China’s energy supply.

We step through the entryway into a sizeable courtyard from three centuries ago. We are joined by a group of 17-year-old schoolgirls in red windbreakers. They immediately swarm Cayden. The girls erupt into a frenzy of action and giggles, grabbing my handsome son for pictures. It’s hard for him to know where to look. The girls flash two-fingered “peace” signs for whichever of their friends is taking the latest shot. Although a little confused, Cayden is loving the attention. His mom and I are standing back, enjoying the show. I carefully move in to get a few pictures of my own. Before I know it, the girls are swarming around me – honestly! I think it’s just the novelty of seeing an American. I have to say, I agree with Cayden: this is fun. I check with Ping afterwards. She hasn’t taken a single picture of me with the girls. Figures.

It’s easy to lose yourself in such a place. Not bad for a civil servant’s hang-out. Actually, his full title in the Qing Dynasty would have been: Governor-General of Zhili and Surrounding Areas Overseeing Military Affairs and Food Production, Manager of Waterways, Director of Civil Affairs. That’s a mouthful.

The site operators have carefully maintained each room’s decor. And there are many as this provincial office covers more than 30,000 square meters. It includes office space of course, but also rooms for wives, concubines, servants, a flower hall, and archery grounds. I’m a little surprised that the individual living quarters are not larger. Certainly, that wasn’t done for lack of funding. I make a guess that they chose to keep the rooms small so they could heat them in winter. It gets cold here! We climb through stone entryways and passages, usually separated by a low set of steps. Rich colors leap from the grey stone walls, highlighting silk curtained beds, rosewood desks, splendid seats, carvings, vases, bamboo screens hand-painted with cranes and landscapes, ornate latticework, and priceless knick-knacks stacked on oriental-style shelves. Even the rafters and beams carry artfully painted motifs from the Qing era. The grounds are home to tranquil gardens, scrupulously tended ornamental trees, and enormous stone monoliths that still bear their legends to visitors from around the world. This compound was no mere indulgence, however, on the part of the governors-general. The stately display reflects that fact that for centuries this was a place of commerce, government administration, scholarship, and more.

After our tour, Jian buys us tanghúlú, colorful candied fruit on a bamboo kebab. The bright red glaze is crunchy and sweet, encasing half-a-dozen sour Chinese hawthorn fruit. Ping’s face lights up as the sweets-on-a-stick brings her back to her childhood.

Outside, we pass rows of parked motorbikes. In order to protect themselves from the cold, drivers attach a quilted skirt to the front and mitts that look like boxing gloves to the handlebar.

For lunch we hit a burger joint, which seems somehow out of place. The meal includes wonton soup and a basket full of the local burgers. The meat bulges generously from the bun, red and fatty. The two ladies at the table wait for me to take a bite. I know this is going to be something – different. It tastes fine, a little rare even for me, and kind of greasy. I’m crossing my fingers as I ask Ping what’s in my mouth. OK, it’s not what I was thinking. It’s donkey. That’s when I notice the cartoon burros posted on the walls. It’s not just the restaurant’s mascot, it’s the meal. The ladies laugh at my awkwardness. In truth, Eeyore tastes pretty good.

Soon, it’s off to the train station. Cayden is bouncing with joy, boarding yet another bullet train. This one’s taking us to Shangxi Province, and it’s packed. Two men are in our seats, but they quickly clear out. It’s a standard game to try to get a little more than you pay for. I can’t really point fingers, since Ping bought only two seats for our three butts. Cayden glues his to the window seat, leaving me to straddle mine over the gap. The overhead compartments are jammed, so we stick our bags between our legs.

The train glides through farming villages and then into a series of mountain tunnels. At one point, we’re underground for a good twenty minutes, although there appear to be no subway stations on this stretch. When we emerge, I see something I haven’t seen in days… blue skies. It doesn’t last. The heavens return to a funereal grey as we head through cities undergoing massive expansion. Sky cranes crowd the landscape, raising one apartment building after another, usually in sizeable clusters. These boom towns also belch fresh smoke from power plants, adding to the dimming of the sky.

We make it to the Vienna Hotel, in Taiyuan. The lobby sports 18th century French friezes and marble columns trimmed in rich dark wood along with hammered copper panels displaying a dragon and crane motif. Our room comes equipped with a window that looks directly from the bed into the shower. Seriously, it’s mere inches from eyeball to bather. For modesty’s sake (?) there’s a venetian blind.

Heading out to dinner brings us into the middle of the homicidal traffic. Horns blare non-stop. Ping and I hold Cayden’s hands in a death grip. I seriously doubt whether these drivers would even slow down if they hit us. Danger Boy enjoys the adventure.

We make it – alive, obviously – to a nearby restaurant, where I break my vow and eat pig’s feet. I can cross that off my bucket list.

Saturday November 22 – Shanxi Province –

Zao shang hao. (‘Good morning’). It’s 5:30 a.m.. We rush through dressing in order to meet a tour bus that will take us to the walled city of Pingyao. Ping chats up the women on the bus. We stopped in a convenience store last night and stocked up on junk food for our breakfast. As the sun comes up, the sky shows off an all-too-brief glimpse of blue before a beige miasma drifts back in. Ping and I try on the masks we brought for this trip, fitting one over Cayden’s face as well. We saw days of heavy pollution like this on our earlier trips, but not so many back-to-back and not over so wide an area as we’ve seen on this trip. I begin to wonder what it does to a person to never see the sun or the stars. It’s sad and a little terrifying.

We pass through parts of Tiayuan, spotting the local stadium, which is a replica of Beijing’s Olympic Bird’s Nest. Volkswagens own the roads here, easily outnumbering the Fords and Toyotas or even China’s BYD brand cars. Construction is everywhere, including countless apartment high-rise complexes. They look nice from the outside, if a bit industrial. Then, the tree-lined road swings through rural areas.

Our first stop is Qiao Ji Da Yuan. The Qiao family estate dates back to the Qing Dynasty, the mid-1750’s in fact. Locals recognize it as the location for the 1991 film “Raise the Red Lantern,” directed by Yimou Zhang and starring Gong Li, about the travails of the fourth wife of a wealthy lord as she competes with her bitter rivals. It’s been many years since I saw the movie. I seem to recall it does not end well for the ladies. Be that as it may, tourists can’t wait to pose beneath the red lanterns that brighten the stone courtyards.

Our group of tourists blends with several others, making it difficult to keep track of the right bunch. We double-time march perhaps a quarter mile over the stones of an extended court area past bronze statues of historic figures and merchants on camels.

The gates of the estate are lavishly decorated with ornamental stone screens, tranquil murals, plus small ponds, benches, archways, and steps. Everywhere there is artwork, carved into each doorway, railing, pillar, roof, and wall. Tiny faces decorate the ends of each rafter along the roofline, which supports its own bestiary. The eaves gleam with gold paintings that depict fables and flower. It’s as if hands were never idle during the centuries when this place was the enviable home to this wealthy family. Cayden finds a room housing a model of the complex, giving us some idea what we’ve been walking through. It is both castle and mansion.

Another room shows the silhouette cut-outs used as screen puppets for entertainment in the generations before movies. The site is also home to a gift from the Empress Dowager Cixi – a patriotic tablet written by a famous general, Li Hongzhang. We move hastily through sumptuous rooms with throne-like seats on raised platforms and enormous wooden screens painted with traditional pastoral images. Priceless ceramics are on display in elaborate showcases: tiny emperors, sipping bowls, pots, vases, animals. A few of the rooms have been preserved from the early 20th century, complete with black and white photographs and antique clocks, their gears and springs exposed to view. The bedrooms of the wives are caves of rich wooden tables and chairs and beds draped in silks. One sensuously appointed dressing table contains a high mirror. It must have taken a master woodcarver a full year to render this homage to vanity. All is surrounded by feminine artifacts of jade and pottery.

We can barely take it in as our guides sprint us through the narrow courtyards, past room after room, with little time for narration. I’m not really sure how much we got to see of the 313 rooms and more than two dozen courtyards. There’s barely time to pet some of the stone lions on guard at every doorway – which you should do for good luck.

As we finish our whirlwind visit, we walk through a sizeable bazaar of foods and souvenirs. I know it’s a tourist thing, but I will say that the items don’t look cheaply made. I’ve long since learned there are no real antiques anywhere to be had in China; the government scrupulously snatches them up for museums. The items we see here are pleasant keepsakes, not the kind of clichéd plastic crap I see in malls at home. Table after table strains under the merchandise: figurines of Mao, etched stones, dolls, cookware, bowls, ornamental coins, small swords, brightly colored charms, chopsticks, jadestone animals, flutes and small drums, pipes, oddities, and trinkets. We pick up a couple of snacks and head back to the bus… past a loading dock filled with 40-gallon clay jars of vinegar. I like vinegar more than most folks; back home I put it on my French fries to the astonishment of Southerners. But even for me, 40 gallons is a lot.

Our bus takes us next to a famous glass factory in Qi County. We tour the kiln room, a museum, and of course the gift shop. The artisans have captured every conceivable color and frozen them in fantastic or useful shapes. We choose a bracelet for my daughter Ariana. Ping picks something for herself as well. The glassware is exquisite, but I am grateful we give it a pass rather than try to baby it all the way home.

It’s all very nice, but Ping is a little frustrated that this stop is on the tour. She explains that the tour guides get a cut of whatever the visitors buy. Meanwhile, I’m busy keeping an eye on Cayden. Nothing gets the blood flowing quite like a sugar-fueled six-year-old boy in a room full of pricey glass.

The next leg of our trek takes us through small towns and numerous fields that lay fallow for the winter. Seemingly everywhere I look, farmers have loaded bins with their corn harvest. Many are as tall as I am.

We make a lunch stop. Our three guides lead us inside to a frankly awful meal. The noodles are undercooked and there’s a decided lack of meat… or flavor. Again, I suspect the guides are choosing this place to get a kick-back. It’s the slow season. We have three of them to our busload of tourists.

Outside, we step lively to get back to the bus, past a gaping ditch. There are no safety barriers around the pipeline construction. Two little boys squeal and play precariously at the edge.

Finally, we reach the main goal of our journey: the famed walled city of Pingyao. It’s laid-out to resemble a turtle, symbol of long life. One gate stands for the head, one for the tail, and four are “leg” gates. Interestingly, the North and South Gates do not line up. One represents fire, the other for water, so the two gates must never directly meet according to the rules of Feng Shui. The city’s modern wall dates back nearly 600 years and includes 72 watchtowers, thousands of defensive crenellations, and even a moat. It’s tempting to walk the wall’s circumference, which is about four miles to better enjoy the excellent view of the sprawling layout. This architecture reflects the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with lovely tile roofs, mud brick walls, and cobblestone streets. Beijing once had walls as splendid and strong as this, but in 1956 Mao and his supporters unveiled plans to modernize the capital – and down came its centuries old bulwarks.

Like the compound at Zhili in ages past, Pingyao remains a “yamen,” or government center. 48,000 people live here, business people choosing to live inside the wall while younger people live just outside. Our guide calls Pingyao the Wall Street of the Ming Dynasty. Much of the wealth came from mining and coal mines still operate today.

“Maaah-ME, there are dusty houses.” He’s right; they are. They’re amazingly pretty, though.

The people who thought up this place put a high value on water. Drought is common. So, the buildings are edged with drainpipes. There are water barrels and cisterns all over the area. The city’s enormous defensive moat depends on seasonal rains.

We trot after the blur of yellow banners, held aloft by our fleet-footed guides. They lead us on another race through history. We pass through gates of stone, up the steps of brick watchtowers that rise several levels above the city walls, then back down, through dusty streets and courtyards. There’s barely time to take pictures. Cayden, however, finds time to flirt with yet another besotted female who comes over to faun over Ping’s cute boy. I wish I could bottle whatever it is that he has.

It’s easy to believe we’ve slipped a few centuries into the past. A row of cannon point outward from the walls. Life-sized bronze figures recall characters who may have walked these stones long ago. There are steles, large stone tablet with engraved or raised lettering, frequently calligraphy, to tell us the stories of these streets.

We get one grim story as we look through the torture museum. It’s not the kind of thing we would have planned to show Cayden, and his face tells me he has some idea of what all of this stuff is. This ‘stuff’ is a collection of ingenious tools for causing pain, humiliation, and death. There’s a yellowed drawing on one wall, showing officials cutting off the arms and legs of a still-living woman. There’s also a grainy photograph (I’m not sure of the period) that bears testament to the execution of a prisoner through the infamous ‘death by one thousand cuts.’ It’s amazing to think that such brutality was part of the legal language, although I know that China is by no means alone in using torture. The U.S. has recently employed horrific, and largely fruitless, methods of “enhanced interrogation” in an effort to protect democracy from terrorists. The museum also holds stocks; vicious-looking blades; a wooden cage that would require a man to never rise above a crouch; heavy collars; ropes; and a rocking horse with a spiked saddle. According to a sketch, this last item was also meant to be used on any woman who transgressed in some manner, perhaps displeasing her husband. We also pass a row of cramped, stone prison cells where countless people no doubt waited in darkness for mercy that may never have come.

It’s a relief to move on to the banking museum. Nothing too menacing here.

Ping peeks through entrance gates into the private courtyards of some of the families who live here. She spots stacks of small black cylinders, honeycombed with holes. These are coal bricks; each providing about five hours of heat. Ping says it reminds her of her father’s old home in Hebei Province. An orange tabby owns one of the homes, keeping a watchful eye on visitors. Some of the homes are in good shape, others are crumbling and in need of care. The veneer has fallen away from many of the ancient walls, to reveal bricks below that could date back to the original construction. In places, the holes are patched with a new layer of mud and straw.

The architecture also reflects people’s belief in lucky numbers. Many of the office areas have six rooms on either six of a courtyard. Six translates to ‘trouble-free.’ Eight is ‘financial success’ – I like that. Nine, often counted in the studs on certain doors or the number of rooms in a palace, is meant to bring long life to the emperor. There’s also a spot for the city’s ‘Nine Dragons Wall.’ The dazzling Qing Dynasty-era hand-carved relief panel captures the twisted, tangled serpents in yellow poplar.

We make our way to one of the broad avenues that bustles with foot traffic. The street runs through two-story shops of stone, trimmed in rich dark wood. Some of the merchants sell meat, though I can’t quite recognize what kind. Ping haggles with two ladies over a portion and manages to get it for a good price. It turns out to be yellow ox from Eastern Tibet. It tastes like ham. One of the guides points out that people expecting to find beef from a cow should remember where they are. He also warns us against souvenir shopping, saying the same objects are available for less money everywhere.

I constantly remind Cayden to stay close, as small vehicles and bicycles whiz by. Ping gets to gabbing with a group of ladies. Cayden and I are on a mini-trolley with members of our group… and it takes off without Ping. Cayden bursts into tears and will not be consoled. It takes ten long minutes before Ping finds her way back to the group. Then, it’s back on the bus.

Our guides have the bus pull into a market – another chance for kickbacks. Ping picks up some snacks, including a package of dates. All heads turn as two men get into a very loud fight. They’re quickly in each other’s face and taking on a very threatening posture. Workers hurry over and thrown the men out, yelling at them for misbehaving. These fights are common, making me glad that guns are illegal here.

Back in Tiayuan, we find a pedestrian-friendly area with lots of restaurants. Ping chooses one with congi for Cayden, who also munches down on a pizza-like form of tarot-based purple bread. Purple pizza! Ping has some beef tripe while I enjoy spicy beef with chilies. It all goes down well after such a long and exhausting day.

We’re all worn out and ready for bed. Hours later, with Cayden off in the shadowland, Ping pleasantly interrupts my sleep.

Sunday, November 23 – Tiayuan –

We somehow manage to sleep through the non-stop honking from the street, eleven stories below. Sunday is not a day off here. Banks are open and construction workers are busy.

Gloomy skies – again.

Ping repacks for more than an hour while I explore. Half of this hotel floor is office space, although it looks as though all of the tenants moved out a few weeks ago. I wander past several rooms and peek in through the glass walls to see furniture piled up on desks. Large potted plants have shriveled. I find one money plant with a tiny cluster of green hiding inside a mostly dead mass. I go back to the room and fetch it a coffee pot full of water. Hoping for some financial luck. Who knows? I also buy lottery tickets, which seems like even more of a longshot.

We hit lunch at a very nice restaurant. Twenty dollars buys us three generous dishes – pork and potato, spicy beef, and bacon and mushroom. I wish American Chinese restaurants had this. It feels as though they offer only a tiny fraction of the dishes we’ve seen on our trips here, usually catering to an Americanized clientele who look for bogus meals like Mongolian Beef. On the other hand, napkins are complimentary in the states. Here, we have to pay for them, so I carry wads of paper towel in my pockets everywhere we go.

After lunch, we go to the impressive inverted pyramid that is the Shanxi Museum. Amazingly, this is free to the public. More than half-a-million priceless books and relics fill four hexagonally-shaped floors which surround a vertigo-inducing atrium. At the top level, I want to lean out over the gaping central space to get a shot on my iPhone, but my nervous system jolts a clear ‘no way.’

Ping, Cayden, and I wander through history in the airy halls of this place. From Bronze Age artifacts to the jewelry of several dynasties, it’s an amazing journey in time along the Yellow River Region. Phoenix and dragon motifs adorn ceremonial bowls and chests. A full carillon of bronze bells stands on display. Artisans pay special tribute to horses and camels that made up centuries of trade along the Silk Road. One entire wall is taken up by a diorama of an underground mining community. There’s an extensive exhibit on Buddhist carvings dating back to the Han Dynasty. The hall is made to look like one of the grottoes where these carvings originated and it contains life-sized statuary, enormous heads, etched plinths, and steles. Some pieces carry the remnants of their original colorful glaze. Elsewhere in the museum, a palace worth of homes, courtyards, opera houses, and palisades stand in miniature, the models realized in great detail. A temple clings precariously to a sheer mountainside. A dozen or more magnificent Pagodas allow visitors to peek into their tiny windows. Calligraphy, jade and porcelain masterworks each worth a small fortune are offered up to the eye in huge caches. There’s a whole display case filled with concave ceramic forms that turn out to be… pillows.

I’m amused to see the docents include children who are not much older than Cayden. One boy – who looks to be about nine – holds court as he guides tourists past ancient treasures, offering expert commentary.

We take in what we can in a few hours, then we’re in a cab headed to the Taiyuan train station headed for Xi’an. It’s a space built for giants. The girders are at least four stories over our heads, though only the lower two levels are given over to gates and shops. The gleaming floor would provide space for I don’t know how many simultaneous football games. Cayden is focused on the bullet train. It’s an uneventful ride.

Not so the taxi ordeal that follows. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sure I was about to be in a wreck. It begins with a cab that arrives just ahead of ours. Police pull over that one for a spot check and find enough violations to pull the driver out of service. Then, our driver picks us up. His cab is small. Our bags don’t all fit in the trunk because of the bucket and mop he keeps there. (How often do people get sick in his cab that he needs to carry them instead of keeping them at a garage?) The rest of the luggage rides with Ping and Cayden in the back. I ride shotgun with my knees against my chest. The cab itself runs loudly and the heat barely works. The icy rain works its way in through gaps in the windows. Our driver, who speaks with a thick local accent, hits the gas hard. Ping tells him our destination, but he has to stop several times while he fumbles with the GPS. With all of the new construction, the device is largely useless. The driver stops again to ask another cabbie for directions. At some point, he detours into a darkened area. The tires are so bald that they skid all over the rain-slicked dirt roads. There is a low wall along all of the roadways, with only open fields beyond it. The road is narrow and pocked with holes, which does not convince the driver to go any slower. At one point, he slams on the brakes and we skid to within a foot of a wall of dirt and debris. A second later and we would have hit it. He grinds the gears turning us around. After twenty minutes, he finds another cab driver and gets new bearings. To my amazement, we finally emerge onto a main avenue and make it to our hotel. Alive.

Ping says the Yee King Garden Hotel is new. Video screens at the front desk show off the different theme rooms, including one decorated for fans of “Hello Kitty.” I’m not totally convinced that’s for kids. Our room is done in 70’s bachelor pad style; over the beds is a mirror that lights up with the male and female symbols. Despite posted signs warning that prostitution is illegal, the rooms come with packages of condoms for sale. Also noodles and Red Bull. Doesn’t matter. It’s clean and we’re tired.

Monday, November 24 – Xi-an –

Ping hates all of the construction. The noise of jackhammers and shouting begins around dawn. It’s not just where we are. All of Xi’an is undergoing a building boom as indeed are many, many cities around the country. Towers rise everywhere we look. Ping says all of this is replacing what she calls the “crappy” villages of her childhood. I barely got to see those villages. I admit, they look ragged, but I wonder if there’s no happy medium between that rustic living and these new hive-habitats.

As we’re getting ready, the power cuts out. Not knowing whether to trust the elevators, we haul some of our bags down eleven flights of stairs. We talk to the desk staff, who tell us the outage was caused by local construction and that it happens a lot.

Mr. Xu picks us up for breakfast. A friend of Mr. Li’s is there, too. Mr. Li, along with his wife, are friends of ours back in Lawrenceville. They work together on remodeling projects and flipping houses. They did a wonderful job updating our Reagan-era kitchen.

Modern, fashionable shops line the pleasant streets of Xi’an. There are trees and vibrant colors everywhere. The city is well-kept, a nice improvement over parts of Tianjin. It’s also much cleaner. There are no refuse piles, nor is everything covered in a layer of grey filth.

During the ride, Mr. Xu points out some of the beauty of Xi’an. His English is excellent, having learned in public school then polishing his skills while spending time in NYC and Chicago. He plays American music on his car stereo.

He says most visitors miss out on all of the history and points of interest here in Xi’an, because they’re overshadowed by the world famous Terracotta Warriors. He offers us some of the local lore. During World War II, the Communist president met here with feuding generals of the Kuomintang (KMT) and Communist Party of China, to forge a united front against invading imperial Japanese troops.

A famously star-crossed couple once built a lush winter home in Xi’an in order to take advantage of the warm springs here. The legend, from the late Qin Dynasty, has been retold in the film and opera “Farewell My Concubine.” It focuses on Consort Yu and her doomed love for the ruthless Chu warlord Xiang Yu. Their story culminated when she committed suicide using Xiang Yu’s sword, in order to avoid distracting him from a siege with the emperor’s coalition. Consort Yu left a series of sad poems. Xiang Yu defeated the Qin forces only to lose a protracted campaign from the founder of the Han Dynasty. Xiang Yu ultimately drowned himself in the Wu River.

I do wish we had more time to explore the city properly, but we’ve come for Xi’an’s most famous site.

Mr. Xu drives us there and even buys us our tickets. He says the general location of the Terracotta Warriors, or Shadow Army, was an open secret for centuries, as was the fact that several other royal tombs dot the region. He dismisses reports that a mass grave found on the site is evidence that the main artisans were killed to preserve the secret. Mr. Xu says labor on the nearby tomb of Emperor Qin – still sealed with its reputed city on a lake of mercury – involved over 700,000 workers. No one could keep so many people quiet. At least one thousand master artisans and their assistants worked on the warriors themselves over several decades, again making secrecy virtually impossible.

Mr. Xu drops us at the ticket plaza. Ping, Cayden, and I walk a winding path as the sky drops frigid drizzle on our heads. Ping carries a blue umbrella to shield Cayden while I pull cough drops from my pocket for all of us. The dour winter weather does nothing to diminish the beauty of this place. Even stripped of its seasonal finery, the grounds are lovely and welcoming. The main complex is a series of buildings connected by paved walkways. One structure is in the shape of an oversized aircraft hangar. It covers pit one, the largest, which spans 251 yards east to west by 67 yards north to south.

In 1974, farmers who were digging a well turned up bits and pieces of an incredible necropolis under the earth in Xi’an. They had discovered a “hobby” that China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, realized on a titanic scale more than 22 centuries ago. Qin ordered the finest artisans to build and bury: more than 8,000 soldiers; 130 chariots drawn by 520 horses; as well as 150 cavalry horses; plus musicians, acrobats, and other non-military figures.

Entering this vast space is like walking onto an army’s parade grounds where the action has been flash-frozen. We view the troops from a walking track that runs the perimeter. Thousands of the figures stand erect, ready for an order to march. And no two are exactly alike! Some are in robes, while others wear plated armor. Some are clean-shaven; others have mustaches or full beards. The faces show a great range of age and character. Many of the men stand as if holding bows or spears, but there are none to be seen. It seems that a later emperor coveted the very real weapons once held by these statues, and broke in to take them. His men also set some of the roofing beams on fire, causing widespread collapses. That explains why so many of these artifacts are broken and lying on the floor. Countless among the ranks stand without heads on their shoulders. It’s a damn shame. As magnificent as this unearthed field is, it must have been heart-stopping to walk among these columns of men inside their common crypt.

It is so tempting to go out and stand among the troops. I would love to pick a few at random and learn their individual stories. Again, these are not machine-pressed replicas. Each clay man represents a person who actually lived and played a role in Qin’s army. Each figure breathed, laughed, complained, ate, had a family, and dreamed of conquest and glory or of a quiet life. I wonder who they really were.

I confess to having another temptation as well. There are bricks everywhere, strays left out as archeologists continue their decades-long task of reassembling this display. The bricks made up the streets beneath the feet of these honored men. Forty years ago, the farmers who found this place began to haul off the bricks to use on their farms, fashioning them into pig sties and such. The government got wind of this and offered to repurchase the bricks for 30 yuan each, which was considered a lot of money at the time. Today, each brick is valued at half-a-million yuan – 80-thousand dollars! So yes, the idea of slipping a few in my man purse to pay off my mortgage does cross my mind. The site has already proved to be a windfall for many. The government paid the people of three villages to move away from their homes here, in order to preserve this incredible find.

We spend over an hour walking around Pit 1. Ping points out that you can tell the important soldiers by their shoes, which point up. Some ranking officers also wear hats, while others show their top knots. The highest ranking officers are a little taller than life, while the common fighters are rendered just under normal height. Some of the statues appear to have beer bellies. Ping says that paunch is known as a “general’s belly.”

Each of the statues is made from local clay, which retains a pinkish hue. There’s very little evidence of the pigments that once covered each figure. Indeed, every man or animal had its own distinct color scheme, from reds and blues to yellows and greens, not to mention life-like pigments for the faces and eyes. Many master craftsmen and their assistants turned out these life-sized avatars on an assembly-line basis. I can only imagine the hours that went into making each clay centurion. A close examination of the soul of one archer’s sandal reveals row upon row of tiny circles patterned by hand. The body armor on some of the men appears to have been made up of individual squares joined together by tiny straps. Dozens of the artisans, understandably, signed their names on parts of the figures. The reconstruction is almost as amazing as the creation. Of the many thousands of figures here only one – a crouching archer – was discovered completely intact!

I enjoy the look of wonder on Cayden’s face. He points at life-sized horses and turns to me with a questioning look. All I can say is, “I know!” As in, there are so many and they’re so incredible. Words just fail.

We move on, out of order, to Pit 3. It’s the smallest and contains a general and some of his officers. No word on what campaign they may have been planning. The early excavations revealed the volatile nature of the pigments used on the statues. Literally within seconds of being exposed to sun and air, the paint flaked away or faded, leaving only phantom traces. So, for Pit 2, government archeologists built the shelter over the site before unearthing its contents. They even allowed experts from Germany to join in the work. Frustratingly, the results were the same. The colors proved ephemeral. For now, the experts are leaving some figures to remain buried until they can try and solve this problem and preserve the elusive beauty of these ghostly soldiers.

Walking on stone for hours leaves us all bone tired. I don’t know how the soldiers have managed to stand there like that for thousands of years. We make our way out of the Terracotta complex only to find that we have to pass through a sizeable shopping plaza. Along with every variation on miniature Terracotta Warriors, they sell mock weapons, toys, plus pomegranates and other snacks. Ping haggles with a woman to get a two-for-one price on some figurines. We can probably find the same thing back home, but getting them here somehow makes it special. We get several of them in black stone, brass, and clay. I especially like these latter ones – made presumably from the same earth used to make their big brothers so long ago.

Mr. Xu is waiting when we get finished – half an hour after we promised to meet him. We exchange the glory of the third century B.C. for the headaches of the 21st century A.D. The rain has touched off a number of minor wrecks. Drivers are finding it hard to navigate around construction for a new subway system. What roads are left look like cratered moonscapes.

We wind up inside one of Xi’an’s walls, at a Muslim restaurant. No pork, no heat. On the plus side, the dishes are spicy and plentiful, served on carved tables. Mr. Xu and Mrs. Li’s friend join us for dinner. Mr. Xu asks me about America, everything from junk food to sex in the movies. I do my best to answer his questions without making America sound like one of Dante’s levels of Hell.

Back at our hotel, I spot a sign posted inside the shower: “Caution Wet Floor.” On the nightstand, a package is labelled: “Snugness Joviality Condom.” I’m too tired to find any context for either. Cayden, Ping, and I konk-out by 10:00.

Tuesday November 25 – Xi’an and a train to Henan Province –

Ping is a blur of packing and cursing. I’m basically useless in these situations. There are times I’m glad I don’t speak Chinese.

Today, we’ll start off by delivering more of the NuSkin supplies to one of her clients here. I figure less weight in the bags is a good thing… until Ping says someone has also decided to use us to deliver some presents back to Tianjin.

I get through on the spotty Wi-Fi connections to find an email alert about the situation in Ferguson, Missouri. A grand jury has come back with a decision on whether to indict a white police officer who shot and killed an unarmed black man the officer says was attacking him. I try Google and Bing. The “news” buttons aren’t even on either site as it appears in China. Eventually, I find an article that says there is no indictment in the death of Michael Brown. The clashes in Ferguson begin immediately and escalate rapidly. I learn over time that the riots spread to other cities as well and lasted, off and on, for weeks. Racial tensions in the U.S. are a nightmare. Both sides tend to embrace extreme viewpoints and neither is very good at talking with the other. The media is on the scene, focusing on the violence and using the most inflammatory sound bites. That’s not helping. Neither are the endless TV panels of idiots who talk (and don’t listen) in absolutely polarized terms.

The power at the hotel goes out again. This time, a maid tells us the elevators have their own generators and are safe. We use them to get out. For the first time on this trip, I need my sunglasses. The clear brilliant sky is a welcome sight.

Mr. Li’s brother picks us op for lunch. We’re joined by Mrs. Li’s sister from last night. The two are not a couple; the names are making my head swim. We get a private room on the fourth floor overlooking the street. The hostess serves jasmine tea. Also joining us are a second woman and Mr. Li’s business partner. The table has built-in heating elements beneath the tablecloth. I’m not sure if that’s a great idea; the spread shows scorch marks in several places. Someone says we need to be careful where we set down our phones.

It’s one of the multi-dish meals we’ve seen on our visits: lamb, beef, tofu, bean curd, potatoes, mushrooms, greens, glass noodles, shrimp paste, and more. Desert is a fine pastry. There’s no Coke. Cayden wants my Pepsi. He’s brought Ferdinand the train to lunch with us. In his bag, he’s carrying the rest of his fleet: Patchwork Hiro, Big City Engine, and Patrick the Cement Mixer. Each takes a turn as his favorite of the day.

After lunch, Mrs. Li takes us to the Shaanxi History Museum – not be confused with the Shanxi Museum we saw the other day. SHM is home to about 375,000 pieces or sets of relics, including bronzes from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, countless delicately glazed pottery figures and utensils, and murals from the Tang Tombs. The museum itself is done in the Tang style, dating from the seventh century through the early tenth.

In the foyer, Cayden come face-to-face with a 10-foot tall stone lion that could easily gulp him down in one bite. Moving on, the first exhibit hall houses the petrified remains of a soldier and two chariots with their horse teams. Six horses in all. It’s part of a much larger display of implements of war from the region. There are also masks and ornate bronze wine vessels from the Zhou Dynasty. Many fanciful animals are remembered from ages past: a bronze bull ridden by a frog and another figure that looks like a snail. Characters dance along an impressively-carved wall, while Buddhas make their homes in small stone tabernacles. A much larger cousin is in a nearby room, towering 14 feet tall. He’s surrounded by columns inset with hundreds of smaller Buddhas.

Around the corner, there’s a fairly small object that looks like a gamer’s die. It’s black etched with red letters on its 18 sides. The die is a seal that once belonged to an important minister of the Western Wei Dynasty, Du Gu Xin. A card explains (in English) that this seal was used to stamp official messages: “Humble Xin Present Letter to Your Majesty” or “Secret.” Coins fill one display case, while round handheld mirrors fill another, engraved with lucky symbols of flowers, double phoenixes, ribbons, or grapes. It would take a lot of polishing to make the smooth fronts of these ancient bronze mirrors once again reflect the faces of their self-adoring owners.

One case contains about 300 figures, each about one foot tall. It is the funerary procession for a prince of the Ming Dynasty – a much, much smaller version of the Terracotta Warriors. The colors on these figures remain bright even after at least four centuries.

It’s a dazzling couple of hours. Then, we’re off on another train -- past miles and miles of efficient-looking if artless hi-rise apartments. Even a New Yorker might find the housing density here overpowering. We arrive in Louyang, a modern prefecture in western Henan Province. More than seven-million people live here, which explains the need for housing. Once inside the prefecture, the skyline lights up with tracery illumination outlining each building that looks like a child’s playful vision of a city.

Simon and Pan pick us up. She’s just had a baby, who is home tonight. This is the first time Ping has met Pan face-to-face. I’m always amazed at the ease with which my bride makes friends out of NuSkin customers. Simon speaks English very well and says he appreciates the chance to practice it.

The couple takes us to dinner, which consists of many dishes. Out by the kitchen, we catch the staff practicing a choral piece for some upcoming event. I also spot some items that were not (thankfully) part of our meal. Sitting on a counter where guests can see, are glass jars filled with snakes, turtles, seahorses, and ants. All are stored in vinegar, ready to be served.

At the Cygnus International Hotel, the lobby is home to a lovely white piano as well as a mural of the giant Buddha we plan to visit at Longmen Grottoes. I can’t help but notice how many steps there are leading up to the big guy. I may actually lose weight on this trip.

Wednesday November 26 – Louyang –

Buddha will have to wait. Cayden has a stomach issue. It’s not too serious, but it requires a complete change of linens. We can’t get too far from a bathroom today.

I seem to hear less traffic noise than we’ve had to cope with over the past several stops. There’s also a noticeable difference here in the way people dress. It’s much more stylish. In fact, on this trip I’ve seen very little of the Mao influence that I noticed back in ’06. Mostly gone are the quilted grey jackets, white shirts, and black pants. People dress as they choose and would not be out of place in any American city.

After lunch, we visit Simon and Pan at their apartment. Their baby is just eight days old!

“Who make the small feet?”

“The God.”

“The God make the small feet.”

Pan’s mother is staying with them, doing the lioness’ share of the babysitting, and by the looks of it enjoying every minute. The apartment is not huge, but not cramped either. Mom gets her own room.

Cayden’s stomach appears to have calmed down, mercifully.

The couple takes us out to dinner at a western-style restaurant. Well, it’s an approximation of one. We order steaks and pizza and fries. They’re OK, but prepared as if by someone who’s never seen or tasted the genuine article. Simon generously buys Cayden some toy trucks, which he enjoys tremendously. Ping takes the opportunity to get her hair washed in a salon in the same shopping mall.

I feel odd about accepting so much from our various hosts. Ping insists Pan is getting a good deal on the NuSkin stuff, which includes three spa machines and a large canister of the protein powder. Pan is our very last customer of this trip, meaning a big break for my back. On top of everything else, Simon is sending us a driver in the morning to take us to see the Big Buddha.

Thursday November 27 – Louyang –

It’s Thanksgiving back home. Not much sign of it here, of course.

A friend of Ping’s is watching our puppy, Chancey, and sends us some pictures. She’s a shepherd mix who appears to be topping off at just under thirty pounds. Not much sign she’s missing us. She has a plush bed, new toys, and a boy to play with. She’s small, but has most of the shepherd markings. Chancey is lovey enough, albeit feckless. Cayden who?

It’s foggy and raining lightly as we arrive at Longmen Grottoes, on the shores of the Yi River. The river itself is at a serious ebb. Mud extends from the shore almost to the middle of the channel. Some birds take advantage by landing to peck out a quick meal of shellfish. Still, it’s the perfect backdrop for photographs. In fact, every conceivable angle is an awe-inspiring picture waiting to happen.

The work at Longmen (or Dragon’s Gate) Grottoes began about one-and-a-half millennia ago and lasted for more than five centuries. Now, the entire mountainside is honeycombed with niches dedicated to Buddhas, attending figures, dozens of pagodas, and thousands of steles that bear valuable glimpses into history. There are as many as 100,000 statues inside 1,400 holes dug into the limestone cliffs. The pitted slopes also hold clusters of individual figures, ranging from finger-sized to one foot in height. At least one of the many Sakyamuni Buddhas sports a jolly smile for all visitors. It’s a sharp contrast to the images of Christ I grew up with, who always seemed so joyless. Just sayin’…

A good percentage of the figures have suffered damage at the hands of less-respectful visitors. More than a few are missing their head! Ping says this happened during civil wars in the 1940’s. The Second Sino-Japanese War found imperial troops looting the site. And the Japanese weren’t the only tourists who grabbed souvenirs. Smilin’ Sakyamuni’s cave originally included two large bas-reliefs honoring emperors and empresses. Locals stole them in the 1930’s. They have since appeared in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Finally in 1949, The People’s Republic of China declared Longmen Grottoes a protected area. Cayden wants to go into the smaller caves, but they are gated off, perhaps as part of the protection. Some of the resident Buddhas look like they’re in jail.

Fortunately, the site’s largest Buddha remains proud and intact. This central image in the stadium-sized Fengxiansi Cave is another iteration of Buddha who stands (sits cross-legged, actually) an awesome 57 feet tall. He’s flanked on either side by Bodhisattvas, or enlightened followers, plus generals and other honored figures.

The rain has left the stone steps treacherous. We go slowly to avoid taking a spill. Besides, each of us is fighting a cold. Being an intrepid explorer won’t stop me from bitching about the little things. We excuse ourselves from climbing to the last two or three “caves,” which look out over the river from about 150 feet up. At this point, I suddenly wonder how the workers got up there to make the carvings in the first place. Did they hang by ropes and set up scaffolds? Or climb up the sheer rock face? If so, they were certainly more intrepid than I am.

We refuel with a hot meal of noodles, tripe, and steaming soy milk, plus a Coke for me. Even though I’m chilled through, I’m addicted to the stuff. The whole meal for the three of us comes to 38 yuan, or about six dollars.

Then, Ping sets our course for the Luoyang Museum. I confess, I’m a little overloaded on museums; I wish we could somehow spread these amazing visits over several weekends. Ah well. Onward…

Among the unique wonders of the Luoyang is a wooly mammoth skeleton, which Cayden enjoys. The pieces here go back to the Stone Age and stretch through China’s long and colorful history. The halls are open and airy, with huge murals hung on several of the walls. There are countless examples of three-color Tang era glazed figures, royal processions done in miniature, folk art, and delicately-made doll heads. A great many of the displays are given over to the love of camels, again showing the impact of trade along the Yellow River Valley. Moreover, Louyang was once capital to more than a dozen dynasties of the Xia and the East Zhou. We sweep through priceless groupings of bronze vessels, pottery of all shapes, plus porcelains, gold, and jade baubles. Here too, ancient poets have left their calligraphy in an expressive hand.

Next, we’re off to the train station and the long trip back to Tianjin. I’ve actually been looking forward to this part of our journey, as I love trains almost as much as my little emperor. Ping has booked us two berths in a sleeper car. Hearing that, I get a totally wrong impression of how things will go. I’m thinking of sleeper cars we’ve visited at the Southern Railway Museum in Duluth, Georgia. Or maybe something Cary Grant would ride with Eva Marie Saint.

Nope.

We run like hell to find the right car, just barely getting on an adjacent one before the train pulls out. Baggage in tow, Ping and I hold onto Cayden as we pass groups of stone-faced travelers, searching for the right section of our car. After some confusion, we get situated. That is, we meet our bunkmates. Instead of having our own room, as I’d thought, we’ll be sharing with a couple and their small child and a young man who looks like a student. There are six bunks in this cramped space. Each one is about shoulder-wide and offers a mere three feet or so clearance. There’s no sitting up in bed, just lying flat, coffin-style. I get one middle bunk, Ping and Cayden get the other. That’s fortunate. The top bunks have even less headroom while the lower ones serve as the social area. People break out their dinner and begin eating down there.

Cayden, who is four feet tall and absolutely loves trains, is in hog heaven. I tell him the bunks are a treehouse. Ping feeds him Thanksgiving Dinner: a heated can of beef noodles. I enjoy a cold beef sausage we bought at the station.

Climbing in and out of the bunk is a major project. The men in our group look on with amusement as I use a move I haven’t attempted since high school, essentially treating the bunk railings as parallel bars. There’s a ladder, but no one uses that, since it forces you to load yourself in head-first, like a torpedo, invariably kicking a passerby in the narrow and crowded companionway. Later, I discover that this train uses a water closet. It’s not supposed to operate when the train is stopped at a station, but no one told me. The poor rats.

There are two tiny fold-down tables in the passageway and seats to go with them. Some of the passengers campout there for the night, taking advantage of the port to recharge their phones. All good, except they also decide it’s a great place to play games and watch videos. The random explosion noises and musical snippets continue all night. Ping complains to the porter about some other jackass who’s decided that a train full of children and babies is a great place to smoke. The smoking stops, thankfully. Lights out at 10:00. The night is a symphony of snoring babies and passing trains. I have a paperback with me (I’m in the middle of Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars’ trilogy, which in part is about the race between overpopulation and technological solutions) but decide against using the light in my phone to stay up. I’m trying to be considerate. Plus, I need what little sleep I can get in my casket. Cayden and Ping are wrapped together inside a blanket in the bunk across the gap. They seem to have no problem sleeping.

Friday November 28 – Tianjin –

6:30 a.m. and the lights snap back on. We’re in Tianjin. I pull on my shoes and coat and make a check of my small space to make sure I don’t lose anything. My stiff muscles haul our bags out to the great plaza outside the train station, which includes the city’s landmark clock.

The air is slightly less cruddy this morning. Even so, I can look directly at the sun without squinting. I can see the now familiar landscape of modern buildings, construction, and artistically-minded bridges. The area is not as futuristic-looking as Shanghai, nor as frenetically overdeveloped as Hong Kong. There’s a nice balance playing out in this once dour dirty industrial center. I wonder, if they could only control the pollution, how truly pretty Tianjin might one day become.

As if to underscore my concerns, Ping mentions that there is an alarming rise in the number of children hospitalized due to pollution-related illnesses, some life-long. I remember Duo Duo’s incessant coughing. Some research links exposure to air pollution by pregnant women to autism and attention disorders in their babies. China has recently seen record high pollution levels, with no real end in sight.

Kuan picks us up and takes us back to the apartment, where Duo Duo is just waking up. Ever the good grandfather, Kuan has bought Cayden a remote controlled monster truck. It’s about two feet long and fairly fragile for a toy. Ping insists it will fit in our luggage for the trip back to Lawrenceville. Oh joy.

As Kuan heads off to work, Shuhua pops out to get some Jian Bing. Cayden and Duo Duo are in their own world.

“Da bau!”

“What?”

“Da bau!”

“What?”

“Da bau!”

“All right!”

Ping and Shuhua turn the sister volume up to eleven in an argument over cough medicine. We’ve brought some over-the-counter children’s medicine, as well as a prescription drug. Cayden’s doctor specifically told me it was good to share in the family as a cough spread around. We figure Duo Duo needs it, but the toddler’s grandmother insists the medicine is made for Americans. She give Duo Duo ice cream instead.

The point gets flipped minutes later as Kuan opens a drawer stuffed with Chinese medicines. He’s noticed that Ping and I have runny noses from the cold night on the train. I won’t lie, we’re exceeding the Gross Nasal Product of Snotsylvania. Kuan hands me what he says is a decongestant. I’ve run through my own pills at this point, and figure the stuff probably won’t kill me. Still, it makes me nervous to take anything with a Chinese label, so I’m no better than Shuhua in that respect.

Duo Duo calls me ‘Ye Ye,’ which roughly translates to ‘Grand Uncle.’ Yikes, I’m old!

Meanwhile, he’s gotten too rough with one of Kuan’s crickets. The bug bit his finger. Kuan tells him not to carry the cricket’s gourd any more. Duo Duo is not happy about either the bite or the discipline.

Shuhua makes us an excellent dinner. I’m not a crab eater, so I have to decline that dish. The bamboo shoots and egg; chicken and potatoes; and fungi and radishes are all excellent. She throws in a 2.5 liter Coke. That’s a big bottle, even for me.

I miss Ariana and Aaron. No matter how I try to figure the finances, not to mention the schedule, I can’t seem to make a full family trip happen. Being between jobs isn’t helping either. Neither of my older beautiful ones has shown much interest in coming, but I know it must bother them to be left out of family activities. I really like taking all three kids on trips, including Florida and my home state of Rhode Island. One day, I would like to show them this place.

Once again, booking a hotel room for a damned dabize (‘big nose’) proves to be a headache for Ping. This time, she asks Fushun to use his government connections. It’s touch-and-go for a while. I beg Ping not to make us stay at her parents’. I still remember the stone mattress. Finally, Ping finds another Hanting Hotel. A 20 minute cab ride gets us there. The room is clean and simple. 25 dollars per night for all of us. The main thing is that we can all get cleaned up after 40 hours in the same clothes. I feel like a snake shedding an old skin. And then… sleep.

Saturday November 29 – Tianjin –

Xu & Mengjun’s wedding day. For us, it begins with the sounds of exuberance ringing through the wall. Ping wants me to look young for the wedding. She applies a NuSkin mud mask. I tell her more exuberance would make me younger.

We join in the wedding day lunch back at the place where we celebrated Ping’s birthday. It’s set to go all afternoon. About 70 people crowd in. We take a table with three women – Ping’s cousins number 4, 2, and 3. I struggle to remember who I’ve already met and where.

The women in the restaurant are wearing red barrettes for the wedding. Wanting one for Ping, I go to a table where there’s a pile of them. The women there wave me away. I have no idea – maybe the women are supposed to get them for themselves. I leave empty-handed. Basically, it’s a day for me to sit down and shut up.

The restaurant buzzes with noise of dozens of simultaneous conversations plus frequent laughter. The food is hao chi! [pronounced ‘ha cheh,’ or ‘good’]. We’re soon Bau la! [‘full’]. Despite a potentially 200 yuan fine for smoking in a public place, several of the hardcore smokers light up. Even so, the mood is one of joy.

We pop over to Xu’s apartment, where members of the wedding party are gathered. The men are crammed on a couch watching American football. We peek in the bedroom: the bed is covered in red flower petals. It’s traditional for a virgin boy to roll in the marital bed. Duo Duo does the honors.

Then it’s on to Ping’s parents’ home. A relative is trying to put money in Cayden’s hand, another tradition. Ping lightheartedly tries to fight her off. A trip to the hair salon is next. Ping gets her hair washed while the hairdresser puts some mousse in Cayden’s do. Then, back to the apartment, where Dianlan (Baba/Lau Yan) holds court and smokes in the middle of a crowd of family members. His brother joins him.

We finally get to Tianjin’s very swank Zhengxie Club Hotel where the wedding is set to take place in just a few hours. Xu had mentioned his company is handling the wedding planning. I can now see that he’s not sparing any extravagance. There’s a runway in the middle of the rented hall, leading up to a stage that comes complete with scaffolding to hold the concert-style lighting. Tables done up in pink floral arrangements line either side of the runway. There are gift bags of candy for each guest. As we walk in, the DJ is playing ‘Ode to Billie Joe.’ (Does he know what that song is about?) After a while, a professional video begins playing on a loop on a compound digital screen behind the stage. The music accompanies scenes of the happy couple in full nuptial regalia. In fact, there are numerous set-ups, complete with costume changes and some animation thrown in. This thing took some time and money!

Cayden makes the rounds, visiting with Lau Lau and Lau Yan as well as Fushun. He loves all the excitement, clapping his hands nervously. Duo Duo is trouble. He delights in capturing and tearing up frilly paper globes and running in all directions. His father, Bin, makes a brief appearance, which calms Duo Duo for a moment or two. But, Bin is ping-ponging between two weddings today. Ping says Bin is getting a little drunk in the process.

Ping runs into an old friend of her brother’s. I’m not sure what, if anything, was on his mind back in the day. The friend tells Ping she still talks a lot. No wonder nothing happened between them. His loss.

Everyone rushes back downstairs to greet the happy couple as they pull up in a Rolls Royce. Traditional fireworks shoot off as groomsmen fling flower petals over Xu and Mengjun’s heads. She is a lovely bride.

Back upstairs, the ceremony begins in a big way, with lights flashing in time to upbeat dance music. An emcee appears, calling the couple up the runway. This is a non-religious ceremony. It’s more akin to a sporting event or a night at the disco than a church wedding. Xu gets on stage first, then sings to his bride who walks up the runway in a sumptuous diamond-and-white off-the-shoulder gown. As the two stand side-by-side, images flash across the big screen: a giant white dove, wavy lines, flowers.

The couple exchanges vows and rings and the deed is done. They pour champagne into a stack of glasses to create a fountain, then move to a tea ceremony. In a moving gesture, the new bride serves her in-laws tea to prove that she’s a good wife to their son.

She’s also adept at social sprints. Over the course of the next hour, Mengjun ducks out no less than three times and reappears in separate reception outfits. This bride is missing no opportunity to show off. She wears a fourth dress, red of course, as the couple departs. They’re not going far tonight. They’ve delayed plans for their honeymoon for a couple of months until after the Chinese New Year.

Meanwhile, the wedding guests are hungry. Literally within minutes of the ceremony – while the couple is still posing for pictures with guests – the event crew begins striking the set. As hotel staff begin carrying out trays laden with fine food, workers tear down the light scaffolding, the multi-part screen, the DJ stand, the runway.

Dinner is happy chaos. Duo Duo wants to play with the turntable that holds our drinks and most of the food. As he starts to spins it faster and faster, his mean old American great-uncle tells him in no uncertain terms to stop and “Sit down!” No language problem there. The boy sits. The stunned look on his face is accompanied by laughter from the adults. They tell Ping a boy should be allowed to do what he wants. Sorry, I know what a boy wants and he wants to break things. It may not be my place, but it’s my clothes and I don’t want to wear the wedding feast.

There are way too many dishes. I’m already stuffed when the staff brings out the ugly fish. I think that means we’re getting to the end, but it’s a psych-out! The waiters haul out an entirely new array of food. Then dessert. No one leaves without loading up on leftovers.

Sunday November 30 – Tianjin –

The sky is fairly blue. Cayden rushes to the window at the sound of fireworks. I cannot see them, but we both hear them. In addition to weddings and funerals, fireworks may mean that someone is finishing work on a new building. Construction workers raise the roof to raise the roof.

It’s windy and cold. Under his pants, Ping has Cayden wear his Halloween pajama bottoms, the ones that look like mummy wrappings.

Back at Shuhua and Kuan’s apartment, Duo Duo is clamoring for whatever toy Cayden is paying attention to at that moment. It degenerates into a screaming free-for-all: 2 boys, 2 women, and one foul-tempered yangguizi.

We head back out. There is no thru traffic here, as is common in many apartment complexes in the cities. That means any driver who wants to get out has to play a game of Tetris. Other drivers have parked wherever they can fit, often blocking several cars in the process. Ping says many drivers pay someone to park where they can, even under bridges. We see the cars three deep in places, or parked at odd angles, sometimes poking their rears into oncoming traffic. In the States, an officer would ticket the driver or slap a boot on the car. Here, it’s all good. In fact, drivers don’t tend to pin the traffic blame on other car driver. They say the real problem is bicyclists and scooter riders getting in the way.

Rather than heading back to sit with the smokers at the bomb shelter that is the in-laws’ place, I opt to hang out at the hotel. Ping has to take our one key card in order to operate the elevator, which means I get left in a room without power. The logistics of one card boggle the mind.

At this point, most of our big events are done. Ping wanted to extend this trip even longer, but I need to be home for Ariana’s birthday in just a few days. I’m always at odds with one of the women in my life. I think that’s just the way of things.

Tonight, Bin and Jing take us out to a hot pot restaurant similar to one we visited on our last trip. It’s inside a dazzlingly lit shopping mall. There’s a wait, but this chain offers guests a variety of ways to kill time. There are free snacks in a waiting area, which has ample seating. There’s also a free playground for the wee ones. For adults, there’s checkers, nail polish service, shoe polish service, and a computer area. It’s all free to keep the customers happy. I wish a few of our favorite spots back home would do this. The ‘Hai Di Lao’ chain is 20 years old. They recently opened their first locations in the U.S. Ping says the name means “pick something from the bottom of the ocean,” referring to how diners use utensils to dredge the bottom of the hot pot to snag their meat, veggies, or noodles. One of our servers is a noodle dancer, who dervishes the pasta into threads before plunging it into the boiling pot in front of us.

Later, back at our hotel, Ping has invited a woman to come over so Ping can give her a facial spa. Always working, my missus. This latest client brings her baby, who sits mesmerized by all the activity.

Monday December 1 – Tianjin –

From our room, I can look down into a nascent park; the newly planted tree (yang shu) are about shoulder height. A woman sweeps her arms through the air as she performs her exercise regimen. It’s a beautiful day for it. The sky is as clear and clean as we’ve seen it.

In truth, the parts of Tianjin that have been revivified are quite pretty. Some hi-rises are blocky and dull, but others show an artistic hand. Some within sight today look as though the architect carved sections out of his block, created sweeping transverse floors hanging over a curved glass roof several stories below. The growth is an ongoing effort, but I can see areas where the planners have found a good modern balance of shopping, work, and greenery.

We head off to Lau Lau’s for a breakfast of hot Jian Bing, corn congi, shortbread, chocolate cookies, pistachios, and mandarin oranges. Lau Lau browses the wedding pictures in my phone. Each of her two sons got married in someone’s home, with far less fanfare and far fewer guests. Seeing the big show from last night makes her cry… which is very dear.

Next, it’s out to the malls! I can see Ping’s eyes light up at the thought of shopping. ‘Shuping’ is Chinese for ‘shopping.’ There, I said it. To her great credit, Ping does a yeoman’s job of navigating bus routes between two malls as well as bargaining for deals on jewelry. At one store, we find some silver bracelets for my sister Lane and for Ariana’s birthday. Ari’s has a nice dragon and phoenix motif. I’m very pleased when we can find a piece that doesn’t look like something from the stores back home. The world gets smaller and smaller and the romance of travel and shopping in exotic locales somehow gets lost.

I spot a silver bracelet with two dragon heads on it. It’s similar to one Ping brought back for my birthday a few months ago. But, this one is more to my taste. In fact… it’s the one that I asked her to get when she sent me pictures of both. Despite my decision, she chose the other. Now, we decide that we should get this one and turn the other (which is also nice) into a gift for Aaron. The one we want today is priced at one-thousand yuan – 165 dollars U.S. In China, that’s a little too much, even for a nice bracelet like this. Ping takes the girl around a corner to talk to her privately. I’m not sure how she convinces the sales girl, but suddenly we have my bracelet for half the original price. Ping later explains that she gave the girl some of the money in cash, leaving it to her to decide how the transaction gets entered into the books. My wife is incredible!

On the way back to the in-laws, we spot a Christmas tree outside a McDonald’s. It’s the first holiday decoration we’ve seen here, although Christianity is common enough in China. America is encroaching.

We stop off at a market to pick up a few things for dinner. Ping carefully chooses some freshly grilled lamb, tomatoes, peanuts, and her favorites: watermelon seeds. There’s more face-to-face negotiating of a kind you’ll never see at Wal-Mart. There are no cash registers. The seller makes a profit and pockets the cash; the buyer gets a bargain. Everyone is genuinely happy – something else I really don’t notice at Wal-Mart or other multi-national big box stores. Ping’s mom adds our purchases to the eggs and cauliflower, congi, rolls, and pork meatballs she has already set out on the table.

The 7 O’Clock News is on CCTV. Ping says young people openly mock this government-run newscast. They laugh at the endless happy talk about successful politicians and policies as well as the reports on how dire things are in the rest of the world. The joke runs: “I want to die in CCTV News,” meaning things are so perfect in that program’s worldview that it’s like heaven. I can’t help comparing it to the industry that’s been my career for nearly 30 years. I’ve seen the dumbing down of news in the name of attracting a mass audience. News writing has gone from an eighth-grade level to barely impressing fifth graders. I’ve listened to highly-paid consultants preach that, in the internet age of non-stop information flow, audiences no longer know who they’re watching. Rather than working harder to find more meaningful, unique stories, the response is to load up on mundane tragedies and to tag every story with station branding. As a result, I’ve seen people who genuinely want to know what’s going on in their world treat mass appeal news as background noise. Something that is no longer an essential resource, but is a mere distraction. In China, Ping says young people dismiss their government’s attempts at happy news as so much “rubbish.” I think the end result back home may be much the same thing.

Tuesday December 2 – Tianjin –

My cold drags on, but I will not let it stop me. Ping’s got me taking pills from NuSkin that are made from Green Tea. She swears that will fix me right up. I’ve been taking them for years, in fact. I will swear by the weight loss pills. I carved off 20 pounds last year! Now, I just need to quit Coke to keep the pounds off.

Back to the in-laws for a late breakfast, to the accompaniment of hock-spitting, bickering, and unacknowledged farting. I try to clean my spoon, which has several layers of – I don’t want to think about it. Lau Lau drags one foot when she walks. Both in-laws talk with their mouths full, a habit that reasserts itself in their daughter when she’s with them. Cayden takes all of this in stride. I wish I could see the world like a six-year-old boy again. I remember spending enjoyable breakfasts with my elderly grandparents… eons ago, before I got so grouchy. I also have to realize that this vacation is a visit home for Ping. It’s no more boring to me than a trip to see my dad in Rhode Island is for her. The entertainment quotient goes only so far.

Lau Yan (Baba/Dianlan) tends his plants on the closet-sized back porch. I know he’d like to have a garden. I have asked Ping if we could swing the finances to buy Mama and Baba a house near our own. She says they would not want to move this late in life, even if it would mean seeing more of Cayden. I guess I can understand that.

In an effort to offer something, I present Baba with a battery-operated shaver. It’s a cheapie, but gets the job done; I use one myself. My father-in-law’s angora eyebrows knit in a look of skepticism. He trots out his own razor, a blade model that may have been used without a replacement blade for years! I notice his face has several days of stubble on it, especially in the crags and creases. Baba promises to try this new toy, but he doesn’t do so right then. I am not betting he ever will.

Someone has dropped off a package for us. Well, it’s for us to carry back to Lawrenceville. That damn thing would fill half a suitcase. Apparently, the sender knows folks at a local church and wants to give them Christmas ornaments. They’re having us haul them back to save fifty dollars postage. Ping says she’ll try to repack it, since it doesn’t have to stay in the huge original box.

Yet another FOP picks us up and takes us to another mall with fountains and countless specialty stores. The gals ditch the boys at a “French” pastry shop. Lovely Chinese waitresses dressed as mimes (minus the white-face) serve Cayden and me cheesecake. The speakers play American pop music.

Ping returns and we get in some window shopping before grabbing a taxi to another apartment complex. This is the home of – deep breath – Mr. Li’s daughter’s friend’s parents. I just go with it. The place is similar in lay-out to Mama and Baba’s. The couple here offers Cayden some soy milk and asks Ping to carry baby clothes back to Lawrenceville. We’re doing a thriving shipping business now.

It’s a long, bitterly cold journey making bus connections back to the in-laws. Xu and Mengjun pick us up for dinner. We’re joined in a private room by Mama and Baba, Fushun, Shuhua, and some cousins. Duo Duo is also coming.

At this point, Ping explains that Kuan cannot watch Duo Duo by himself. It seems he has a heart condition, made worse by stress. Sometime in the past day or two Duo Duo’s rough play inadvertently killed one of Kuan’s prized crickets. As much as his grandfather adores him, Duo Duo is a handful. The good news is that Daddy Bin is also coming and he has a calming influence on Duo Duo. Cayden sticks close to Lau Yan, which makes for a sweet image.

The evening is pleasant, with lots of traditional dishes, including duck. Cayden is bummed to learn that what he thought was ice cream is actually a brightly-colored glaze over mashed potatoes.

Wednesday December 3 – Tianjin –

Lau Lau calls repeatedly as Ping loads up our luggage, asking what’s taking so long. Bin has taken one load and we drag the rest of the bags over to the in-laws’ place. Lau Lau tears up throughout lunch. I don’t need a translator to know what she’s saying. It’s sweet, but it goes on for five solid hours while we sort out our next move. It’s Kuan who finally drives us to Beijing.

Our latest hotel offers a spacious room, with an opaque curtain dividing the bathroom for a change. The carpet and wallpaper seem to be engaged in mortal combat. The patterns could be lifted from 70’s porno – not that I’m an expert. Before we can settle in, we’re off to a duck dinner.

Beijing is colder than Tianjin. In fact, it’s cold as hell. A bitter wind finds every inch of exposed skin. We make it to the subway and squeeze our way onto a crowded car, jostling around with the other fish for ten stops.

Ping’s friends have been waiting patiently for 90 minutes. I toss back some warm date juice to thaw my brain. Lanfen Zhang works in metals for the government. As an executive with access to – I don’t know – metallurgical secrets, Beijing restricts his foreign travel. Hungli Jin and their daughter, Si Yu, also join us. They ask me to check some of the daughter’s English homework. She is doing very well. In fact, she seems to have a better grasp on the language than whoever composed the quiz. For the most part, I would have to say the Chinese learn English far better than Americans learn Chinese.

The conversation turns to weddings. Lanfen has obligations, including providing the ubiquitous red envelopes. As a supervisor, he is automatically invited to a staffer’s wedding. He says there are times when he’ll pass someone in the hall after he’s been to that person’s wedding. They don’t even recognize him. He’ll jokingly say, “Damn you, I just gave you 200 yuan!”

On the way back to the Hotel Fu Bang, I notice the state of the overhead lighting. Grit from the city’s nasty air has collected in thick deposits inside the fluorescent panels. That’s not the remarkable part.

Something is living inside the lights! Its paw prints run the entire length of the lights, which run the entire length of the station. Id’ guess the tracks are too big to belong to a rat. I would guess it’s a cat, but that’s some active kitty.

Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe they could capitalize on this beast to promote mass transit and actually cut down on emissions on the streets above. I say someone should adopt “Sooty” as the official Beijing Subway Mascot.

Thursday November 4 – Beijing –

It’s our last full day, and it’s gorgeous. Cerulean, azure, ultramarine, beryl – I’ve had precious little reason to trot out the thesaurus and look up “blue.” I swear, Beijing is trying to make me forget the pollution that blotted out the sun during the first two full weeks of our trip, perhaps hoping I won’t scare the folks back home with tales of poisonous air. Um. It’s not gonna work. But, the blue skies are nice.

Ping points out a place where she used to work. She says had she stayed in China, she would be rich now. I tell her we still need to make that happen, either here or in Lawrenceville.

Crossing the street remains a serious gamble. Beijing drivers may be just a little better behaved than their counterparts in other cities we’ve seen on this trip. But, they could use some work on safety. Several times, we’ve crossed with the light and been nearly struck by cars, buses, and taxis. On the other hand, I have not seen many drivers use their cell phones while at the wheel, something that’s a nearly universal habit on Atlanta’s roads. That may explain why we have not witnessed many more collisions.

We grab a taxi to Beijing’s Russian District: Cyrillic signs, occasional blondes in fur coats. We’re meeting Lillian, FOP, at an apparel mart. She sells very nice upscale sweaters, including some with fur collars.

Lillian and half-a-dozen employees and clients invite us to join them for a delicious take-out meal inside her boutique. Cayden is antsy and needs to bounce. We wander around the building, finding a giant fish tank to look at. I wish this day included some sightseeing, but our itinerary has closed in. We won’t be going back to The Great Wall or even to a communal bathhouse. Ping is all about business right now.

Next, we climb into the back of a passenger tricycle. The three of us cram under a quilted tent-like cover. The stingingly cold wind finds its way past the flaps. I would have thought that a small, battery-powered contraption like this would be able to navigate through traffic easily, but we get stuck in a logjam of cars on a through street. Our driver joins the shouting, zeroing in on one driver who he blames for the mess and demanding to know where he got his license. It takes 20 minutes to sort things out and get everyone moving again.

That gets us to the next mall, which includes a Starbucks. I’m not a huge fan, but I need hot liquid to thaw my frozen blood. Cayden decides he loves my Vanilla Latte. Mr. Li (number??) joins us. He’s in women’s orthopedic shoes. (I could make a joke…) He and Ping talk for a while as we warm up.

A stop at a local hair salon follows. Hey, it’s been at least 48 hours!! This is far more hair care than I really need, but why not? Prices in Beijing are twice those in Tianjin, but still much cheaper than back home. On the TV, news reports show things getting worse in Ferguson, Missouri. There’s been more violence in the streets, looting. Now, the anchor talks about another incident – this one in New York City. A white officer apparently used a banned choke hold to kill a man suspected of selling cigarettes illegally. Somehow, the grand jury there (like the one in Ferguson) has decided not to indict. At both scenes, protestors are yelling, politicians are making speeches, but it doesn’t look like anyone is actually listening to each other.

That evening, we join a group for a dinner of “big chicken.” The restaurant is designed to look as though it’s excavated beneath a great tree, with decorative faux roots and grapevines hung from the ceiling. Cayden thinks these are webs, and asks about spiders. I tell him he’s safe. We take a private room. The main dish is a chicken served on a platter. That is, the chicken’s startled-looking face sticks up from a bed of its chopped remains. I confess, I have never loved meat that’s been chopped with bones included. I cannot take a single bite without having to pick splintered chicken bone out of my mouth. To me, it just tastes like a lawsuit waiting to happen. The others manage to use their chopsticks to mine poultry morsels.

The rest of our group include Patrick, Cathy who we’ve met several times, and another woman, Grace. Ping keeps me updated as they talk about politics and Beijing’s new team of leaders.

Grace is about my age, attractive with a perhaps a bit of hesitancy in her smile. As a girl of six (Cayden’s age!), the government separated her from her parents and sent her to foster care in Xi’an during the Cultural Revolution. That would have been around 1969. At 12, she returned to find that her parents were in prison. In June of 1989, Grace went to Tiananmen Square to support the pro-democratic students who were protesting. She witnessed the bloody government crackdown first-hand, seeing the bodies of eight young people. Hundreds either died or disappeared. Grace survived, but lost her job as a result of her involvement. It’s been 25 years and the government has yet to acknowledge what happened, much less give a full accounting. If anything, Beijing’s entrenched power structure has shown itself by reserving the power to choose candidates in Hong Kong’s elections – which has sparked a new round of pro-democratic protests this year.

Grace wants to come to the U.S., possibly marry. Ping may try to find her a match – possibly with her brother who also lives in Atlanta.

Patrick talks about Mao, saying the longtime ruler never wanted his remains put on public display in the crypt at Tiananmen Square. That was an aide’s idea. He also throws out an historical tid-bit, saying a general blew up the tomb of China’s last empress, The Empress Dowager Cixi, in order to retrieve a giant black pearl buried in her mouth. (After 1949, The People’s Republic of China repaired the damage to the tomb.) A black pearl is a symbol of wisdom and is usually guarded in the teeth of a dragon. Tradition says it would protect the dowager empress’ body from decomposing. The general gave the stolen pearl to Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek. According to urban legend, it ultimately came to adorn the shoes of Chiang's wife, Soong May-ling.

Then there’s a more recent story that’s become legendary. It seems a German man came to China hoping to make his fortune. He quickly ran out of luck and money. Desperate and hungry, he asked a young lady in Shanghai if she would take him to dinner. So charmed was the lady that she took him to some nightclubs. There he proceeded to charm and… urm… service one woman after another. Ultimately, the man found fame and fortune by writing a book on how to pick-up Chinese girls. The women laugh at the story. Cayden laughs too. He’s been flirting with the women all night.

Friday December 5 – Homeward Bound –

Just before heading out, I turn on the TV to catch a documentary on deadly car crashes. The producers are using graphic Go Pro dashboard video that captured the last earthly moments of several victims. Cheery stuff to set the mood for our trip home.

Skies remain blue. Ping is pleased, having made many new customers and friends on this trip. Patrick the Cement Mixer is in Cayden’s hand for the flight back. He tells us he’s decided to ask Santa for Hiro and Douglas to add them to his mighty fleet. We’ll return home to Ariana’s birthday (24 tomorrow!!) and the crazed pace of the Christmas season. I think I’ll need a vacation in just a few weeks.

A quick final thought…

I am amazed at how quickly China is changing. More electricity and construction, and more pollution, of course. Also, more people who seem to be following Western trends in clothes, cars, entertainment, and other matters. They are demanding greater freedoms to go after what they want. I could wish that the people here would look carefully at the downside of all of this consumerism and make their choices accordingly. That’s a lot to ask. While I’m at it, I wish Americans would ask their politicians some serious questions about how we as a nation go after the things we want. I don’t really know what the future holds. I do know that adding one-and-a-half billion people to the quest for “more” sets a singular course for the world. China is the future. And it’s coming on fast. I just hope that when tomorrow comes, we can still see the sun.

###