Emperor Yiming & His 2 Slaves - A Parents' Survival Tale in China

Friday, March 16, 2012 – 9:00 a.m. Atlanta

Vacation! Time with the wife and the small storm that is Cayden Yiming Riker. Ping is coming to take us to the airport directly from work, where I’ve just finished the graveyard shift. It’s already been a long day and it’s gonna get a lot longer. I need this. It’s been six years since Ping and I went to China. She’s been back, in fact with Cayden, several times since then, but this is our first trip as a family.

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is busily adding an international concourse, due to open in just a few months. Maybe it’s the times, but I’m really noticing the K-9 squad, and especially their side arms. I’ve seen police, of course, wearing guns. But, in my day-to-day life, it’s unusual, thankfully, to see big lethal weapons carried about by paramilitary types. I’m sure Cayden would like to pet the dogs, but of course they’re on duty. Lots of soldiers pass through here daily, as well. Their duty never ends; it just expands. We have a drink in the atrium and head to our plane. The wait is not too long.

We take Korean Airlines Flight 36. I’m instantly in love with this carrier, and its lovely stewardesses. Yes, stewardesses! Not a mix of flight attendants, half of whom are young men and the other half look like their mothers. Thanks, American unions. This is an ultra-new 777. There’s leg room, something else lost to corporate greed. I’m 6’1” and don’t fix in the cubic footage assigned to me by Delta and other U.S. carriers. Here, I can actually stretch out a little. There are also toys! Each seatback has a video station in it. There are movies, so you don’t have to all watch Big Momma’s House III at the same time, while one jerk near the tiny screen keeps his window shade open. There’s also a mix of shows, games, and travel charts, plus a pair of live camera feeds, one from the nose forward and the other pointing straight down.

Cayden hogs the window seat. He instantly glues his face to the glass and there’s no chance I’ll be able to talk or bribe him out of that spot for the entire flight. And I thought the biggest butt ruled. Silly me.

My new girlfriends move about the cabin purposefully, settling people in. They wear matching teal and white unis, with starched kerchiefs and hair ribbons all aligned. They’re slim and pretty and smiling. Seriously, whenever a “flight attendant” appears in a movie or on TV, they look like this. Whenever I fly domestic, they look like my mom’s old drinking buddies. I think I hear the captain mention over the p.a. that the crew is based out of Singapore. Ping tells me the stewardesses’ cheekbones are too high, not like Chinese girls, who are the only pretty ones. I love my wife.

15 hours to Incheon. I watched “The Descendants” with Georgia Clooney. Very moving and relatable. Nice to see a film with something to say to people over 14. The food is hot, varied, plentiful, and very good. The crew can’t do enough to ensure our comfort. Even so, I’ve never been able to sleep. I don’t have an extra thousand dollars to upgrade to the new bed modules in business class. One day. Still, the flight is surprisingly enjoyable, especially since this adventure includes two of my beautiful ones.

Saturday, March 17 – Incheon

I’m again amazed at what this plane, with its outsized engine, can do. We are able to stop in what feels like a fraction of the runway length I would have expected. Incheon’s airport and the hotel next to it hold no surprises. They’re neat and clean, but nothing flashy. We check, but there’s really no time to go “out” tonight, to Seoul. Besides, after nearly 36 hours with barely a catnap, I’m ready for some horizontal sleep. My body may be tuned to working overnight hours, but right now I’m exhausted in every time zone there is.

We have a fairly nice dinner in the lobby. Again, it’s good, but not anything really noteworthy.

Cayden’s been throwing tantrums over nothing his mother or I can figure. He’s four and not really open to calming words. Of words, he shares many Chinese ones with Ping, but almost none at all, in either language, with me. It’s frustrating. I’m hoping it’s just because he’s having a hard time understanding why different people in his life speak different languages. Anyway, I try not to give into the dramatics, and trying to get Ping to ignore the worst of it as well.

After some wrangling, we get Cayden up to the room and settle in for some sleep.

March 18 – Incheon to Tianjin

Feeling better after some real sleep and some much-needed covert domestic maneuvers. We rush through a Western-leaning breakfast at the hotel. The only thing unfamiliar is something I mistake for potatoes, but that Ping informs me is oyster mushrooms. Cayden is a little better, but still spends some of his time digging in his paws like a cat refusing to budge. He wants to ride the elevators over and over, and wants to operate the automatic doors. At times, it’s cute. Mostly, though, it’s distracting when we’re trying to keep track of both him and the plentitude of luggage Ping’s brought along. I think back to old movies about British-sounding actors, Stewart Granger perhaps, on safari and how they’ll be slashing their way through the dense (and fake-looking) jungle with machetes, but will stop to have tea served fine bone china cups, set out on a full dining set. Someone puts a record of classical music on the portable Victrola. Braving the wilds doesn’t mean giving up civilization. And so, we haul our creature comforts (a.k.a. stuff) with us. In this case, I get to be the native bearer.

We make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. I look around and see very few couples hauling small children. Ping says the parents leave them with the grandparents. My father’s in no condition to watch Cayden, even if he didn’t live hundreds of miles from us in the states. And of course, we’re heading to see Ping’s parents. So, Cayden is our constant companion.

Aaron texts to say the animals are well and fed. He’s finally driving, so I’ve hired him to make sure the beasts are o.k..

Cayden drags his mom back to the elevator. She gives in to him, again. I try to bribe him with gum, which he accepts. He then whines until Ping takes him on the elevator anyway. Then, he p-too’s the gum back into my hand. We have a child leash that Ariana got for her baby (babier) brother. It’s made to look like a monkey riding Cayden, with the tail acting as the leash. Ping decided against bringing it.

Tianjin

Flying in, we can see massive, sprawling construction, on a background of melting snow. Most noticeable are the countless clusters of high-rise apartment buildings. It looks as though most are from a single set of blueprints. Of course, anything would be an improvement over the uniform, and uniformly drab, communist era architecture these buildings are replacing. These are “happy designs.” There are angles and colors, instead of the low, heavy blocky structures of previous decades. China is showing off its new look.

Driving is as crazy as I remember from our last trip. This must be the first generation that has fully embraced the automobile. That is, the first to embrace the Western ideal of one man-one car. One side-effect: Ping says there’s a major crackdown underway on drunk driving. I remember from our trip six years ago, the government had tried to crack down on jaywalking. I don’t think either effort has been totally successful. One of Ping’s minions joins us at the airport, and helps stuff our safari gear into two vehicles. We’ve also hauled along some gifts, including a stroller and child car seat. They go onto the pile and we’re off.

After a time, we arrive at the narrow streets of Mama and Baba’s apartment. Grungy snow and grit cake every surface. There are more cars here than I remember. It’s a tight fit, as the alley was not really designed to accommodate more than one or two. Now, just a few decades after workers built the complex, the personal wealth has risen to the point that virtually every family here has a car. I can still see bicycles scattered about. Somehow, though, it feels as though those cyclists are fighting a losing battle against the ever-multiplying smog monsters.

We fit ourselves into the long, narrow, two-room apartment: Dianlan (Baba), Guiju (Mama), Ping’s brother Fusheng, Ping’s sister Shuhua, her husband Kuan, their twenty-something son, Bin, and his pregnant wife, Jing. The stroller and several other gifts are for her.

Guiju and Dianlan have filled the table (which is in the living/dining/general purpose room) with assorted dishes. Pork, fried shrimp, fresh cucumber, tomatoes, sprouts, noodles, egg drop soup and more. Cayden mostly sticks to noodles and pistachios. His grandparents beam love at him. We eat as the family chatters, usually two or three speaking at once. It’s 2012. We have phones and Skype, but somehow it’s not the same, so there’s a lot to catch up on.

I’m overjoyed all out of proportion to note that Mama and Baba are now the proud owners of a bona fide toilet. The Rube Goldberg apparatus of our last visit has been flushed from their home.

On to Ping’s sister’s. Shuhua and Kuan are putting us up for this first night. As we drive, I perceive a difference from our last trip. Then, only six years ago, I noticed how many people wore conservative combinations of white shirts and dark pants. That was in late spring. This time, it’s late winter, but there are very few Mao-era, black, blue, or grey quilted coats to be seen. Now, the clothes boast a great array of bright colors and modern fabrics. I’m sure Ping would argue that I’m imagining it, but I’ll allow my imagination to embrace this thought. When I first met Ping, I had to push her to buy bright colors. Her hand would always first reach for things of grey and black. Now, I don’t have to prompt her at all. She’s forever coming home with bags of new clothes and shoes (Lord, the shoes!) and stuffing every closet in the house with pinks and greens and purples and pinks and everything else. And logos. My bride loves designer crap. I’m not partial to wearing a billboard; I feel that if I do, Nike should be paying me, not the other way around. But, Ping likes name brands. I see that same shift in tastes writ large on the streets of China: color and western brands are everywhere.

These are the things that make up love: mortgages and shared toilet sinks, errands and school appointments. The lover learns to climb the mountain, diaper by diaper, petty spat by petty spat. The muscles grow stronger and the climber more confident (or too tired to fight) until he reaches a summit of spousal civility. Nothing, however, trains the climber’s ill-designed limbs to descend, to let go of love’s imaginings created as if from nothing in the rarified air. To go from peak to base, these bits must be worn away, one by one. Amazing it is to find a few precious ingots still speckling the mountainside, when one thought they’d all been mined away and spent years before.

Anyway… Ping is still dealing with the after effects of being stuck in a plane seat for 15 hours. She says her legs are sore. She rests once we arrive at Shuhau and Kuan’s apartment. Shuhua instantly plies me with tea and snacks. The men wrestle with a three-wheel stroller that needs assembly. It’s not rocket science, but it’s close enough with my brain half-numb from travel. The stroller is for Jing’s baby. Once again, I’m struck by how nicely my in-laws keep this cozy space. It would be cozy, in fact for two, and they’ve raised a son here. Kuan has several decorative collections, including the tea pots he showed us on our last visit. Cayden runs around like a crazy boy, scaring the big goldfish. He’s having a blast.

After awhile, we head out to dinner. It’s Baba’s 79th birthday party. 80th, by the lunar calendar, which is retro-calculated to conception. We drive to a restaurant called “Xiang Ding Hua Yuan” or Flower Garden. Vehicles are parked within inches of each other. How they manage this without dinging the heck out of them, I’ll never know. Inside, we find a well lit, warm atmosphere. It’s also huge, with multiple floors. I love places that offer each party their own private room and servers. This should be every restaurant. It’s a sizeable room, with a big round table and a couch for lounging and smoking. There’s even an attached restroom.

Most of the twenty or so relatives have brought Baba booze. It’s traditional, and greatly appreciated. After the gifts, comes the cake. The servers bring it first, so that no one can claim later to be too full to have some. Baba and Mama wear paper crowns. The food is plentiful and varied. Baba is the center of attention, and enjoys his night.

After dinner, we drive around the streets of Tianjin. I notice the bridges are lit up. I don’t know if this is new, but I don’t remember it from six years ago. There’s still a lot of the old here, but quite a bit of new construction. The Fenghua Bridge arcs over the Haihe River, fitted with sails in the three sets of giant curving arches that resemble the plates of some great stegosaurus. Lights shine on the sails to great artistic effect. Also modern, but an utterly different design is the Guanghua Bridge, on which cars travel over a curvaceous platform bridge. Again, the city planners have used light playfully to enhance its place on the river. In stark contrast to the structures of thirty years past, these bridges and some of the newer buildings maintain a sense of wonder and emotion. This is no longer the utilitarian construction inspired by the Mao mindset, now crumbling back into the dust, as cranes and bulldozers bring about a new era.

Back to Mama and Baba’s for chit chat. More food. More time for Cayden to play. Fusheng and his wife, Jinzhen, then take us to their place for the night. They live within walking distance in a blocky apartment complex. There are no lights in the stairwells, and the wall facings are either crumbling from the acid in the air or covered in advertising bills and phone numbers for various services, including a few that don’t really belong in a family-oriented complex. Inside, the apartment is a very different story. They’ve worked hard to make it not only livable, but modern and warm. They’ve bought and remodeled a second unit, to give them a little elbow room. Now, the home has gleaming white walls and white marble floors, kept immaculate. The fixtures and furnishings are modern with all the electronica of the early 21st century neatly displayed. Plus, a fish tank.

Somehow, Ping finds the strength for more conversation. She presents her nephew, Xu, with an i-Touch. I’m ready for a good night’s sleep.

Monday March 19, Tianjin –

Marble floors are noisy, reflecting the sounds of whoever is walking them. We can also hear every movement in the apartment above. We can hear Xu coughing and hacking. He sounds like a smoker, although it’s equally likely his young lungs are also coping the fiercely polluted air of Tianjin. We saw a report on TV last night that says lung cancer is up six percent in ten years.

Xu speaks English fairly well. I see him listening to me to try and catch my accent. I pride myself on not having a regional accent, just plain American English. Xu also has computer skills. He wants to manage. I tell him he should contact Best Buy or Home Depot and convince them to make him a manager of one of their stores here. Both are moving rapidly to expand in China and grab a chunk of the one-point-four billion people here. I later found out that Home Depot had to retreat in its plans, after discovering that its formula for success didn’t translate among Chinese do-it-yourselfers.

Fusheng is a government official in charge of business licenses. Jinzhen runs two flower shops. They live well on Fusheng’s kickbacks, perks, and comps. The situation is explained with a smile and a laugh. There’s no major graft involved, just the kinds of wheel greasing that are accepted as common practice. Ping says Fusheng handled last night’s birthday dinner for Baba, paying just fifty dollars U.S.. I suppose he’s had official dealings with the restaurant.

Time to get ready for the day. The bathroom contains a shower and the washing machine. The shower itself is a showerhead and a hole in the floor. There’s no sill or door to hold in the water. It’s efficient, if a little messy.

Which appears to be at odds with the general level of fastidious cleanliness. Cleaning floors are an hourly rite, it seems. I still feel awkward entering a home. I know I’m supposed to take off my shoes, but I don’t quite know how to do that without bringing crap into the home. If I un-shoe outside, it comes on my socks or bare feet. There’s also the hopping about on one foot to remove a high top shoe. There’s never enough room for a bench in the foyer, which make sense since there’s never a foyer. In any case, I try to behave politely while changing from shoes to borrowed slippers or vice versa.

We walk the two blocks to Mama and Baba’s, Cayden trudging merrily along with us. The alleyways and entryways are crowded with bicycles, bearing up poorly under years of weather and pollution. Even so, it’s not depressing. On the contrary, everywhere I look, people are gathered in courtyards, exchanging gossip. A postman on a bicycle hand-delivers letters to folks and chats with them. A small boy pees through the split crotch in his pants. No diaper. I hope Cayden isn’t getting ideas.

The smell of food greets us at my in-law’s door. Breakfast includes many leftovers from Baba’s party, plus tianbian, a personal favorite. It’s a fried tortilla-like affair with a breadstick and bean paste in the center; greasy, hot, and very filling on a cold morning like this. I think it could easily be Americanized, but I’m not sure the result would be anything as welcome as the original we find here, this morning. Mama offers me a Coke to go with it. She’s learning. Cayden focuses his attention on the corn-based congi.

The Yans have Chinese opera playing on the television, then switch over to the news. There’s a rat-faced man (I’m not kidding; he’s like some caricature) who broke into the Forbidden City in Beijing and stole priceless artifacts. He got caught within 48 hours. I can’t imagine what his plan might have been. There’s also a story about a boat that sank in Guangdong, where we’re going later in this trip. It’s leaking fuel oil. Great. The report rounds out with news of an artificial insemination project for a panda. That’s not a kicker story. They take their pandas very seriously here.

We head downtown. Again, I notice more tall buildings than the last time; the skyline in most directions is not limited to six stories. Also, I think the downtown is growing outwards, expanding. The shopping district is a great deal of fun. We browse through shops and free-standing carts. The area is alive with noise and the confusion of animated bargaining; inscrutable to my Western mind. We shy away from the cheap, plastic items, in favor of some still inexpensive but nicer handmade fetishes and keepsakes. I suppose many of these have found their way to malls in metro Atlanta, but somehow they lose their charm there. Here, I can see them in some context and enjoy learning their link to the rich past. Kuan collects nic-nacs like this, and that makes me feel like they’re worth collecting. I should also mention that Kuan insists on paying for almost everything on this trip, including out souvenirs. I hope he comes to visit us, so I can repay the kindness.

Cayden enjoys playing with the nun chucks I picked out for his older brother. For him, almost every object is a new prompt for the glee and giggly insanity that is childhood. I’ll let Ping carry the chucks home in her luggage. She has a talent for talking her way past questioning screeners that I could never manage. The weapon is nothing serious, but Aaron collects these things. I’d get him a sword, but the ones here just aren’t very solid or well made. We actually have nicer ones at home.

Outside, a young couple stops us, and makes a fuss over Cayden. They pull out a camera and each of them takes a picture of the other posing with Cayden. Odd as this seems to me, Ping says it happens a lot over here. She told me this several times back home, but I didn’t believe her. Now, I see it. He’s that cute.

Next, it’s on to Bin and Jing’s apartment, which Shuhua and Kuan has bought for the couple, for $300,000 U.S.. It stands in a crowded block of high-rises, where cars can barely squeeze in to park. The young couple is not home, but Kuan wants us to see the place. It’s very pretty inside, nicely decorated in dark woods and red draperies, although at 900 square feet, it’s cozy for one, let alone a baby and two exhausted parents. Cayden climbs up on the window seats that adorn each room. Ping says this is nicer than her “sister” Yulan’s seventh floor apartment, which, unlike this one, has no elevator. Once again I get confused. Ping says “sister” because she and Yulan are of the same generation, but they are actually cousins. Yulan was at Baba’s birthday party last night.

Kuan quickly offers me something to drink and some candy, including the coveted Italian yummies, Ferrero Rocher. He offers me Coke, then tea. I accept the Coke. He pours the tea as well and I’m obliged to make a good show of drinking both. My bladder is straining to keep up.

Back at my in-law’s home, Shuhua sets out an expansive dinner of many dishes, including beef, pig’s feet, seaweed salad, pea pods, layered bread, fish, chicken and vegetables, and more. I think I tried all of the excellent offerings.

Cayden quickly zonked out. He’s had a busy day. In fact, he was out by six, and slept through the night. I take a moment to go online. I can’t quite access ajc.com, the site for atlanta’s paper. I think the government’s filtering system is interfering. It’s about a fifty-fifty chance of linking up with that one. I have better luck checking on my online junk, TrekMovie.com. It’s for happy nerds who love Star Trek. I have some friends who chat there, so I post an update on the trip. Then, the rest of us settle down for the night. Kuan’s pet cricket chirps, but it can’t stop me from slipping off. I’ve also been busy.

Tuesday, March 20, Tianjin –

Hot Jian Bing and corn congi for breakfast; a good hot meal to start a cold day. Cayden is up and loud by 7 a.m.. At home, Ping’s been keeping them both up until after 1 a.m., so he usually sleeps until after noon. We spend the morning puttering around the apartment. I read a little from my Nook. It’s a book about how Hollywood movies get stuck in “Developmental Hell.”

For lunch, the indefatigable Shuhua sets out more congi, eggs, more layered bread, beef, spinach and glass noodles with salt and oil of wasabi (hot! but good), mixed vegetables, and pencil-thin potatoes. These quickly become a favorite of Cayden’s and mine.

Once fueled up, we’re off again. There’s shopping out there that must be shopped. I notice, perhaps belatedly, that the street blue and white street signs all include one line in English. That seems amazingly accommodating, especially since Chinese cities cater to so many international visitors, not just English-speakers. Still, it’s comforting to see something familiar. On the roads, some of the trucks are laden to overflowing with enormous cargoes of trash, barely restrained by straps. They’re headed for recycling or reuse.

It’s hazy, caused on this day, I think, by the weather more than the pollution. It’s hard to know which influence is winning. The scars from the toxic are everywhere. Even new structures are dirty. The paint or outer layers of concrete appear burned by the acidic atmosphere. Dickens would call it a miasma.

There are billboards sandwiched in, and an incredible number of banks. All the large buildings seem to be there for the sake of moving money around, or, I should say, for the sake of moving it from many places to a few. House, factory, farm, sit virtually on top of one another in this region. There is no such thing as undeveloped land.

Along the highway, every inch of arable land is in use. It’s March, so many of the fields lay fallow for now. But, in one tiny landlocked lot, dozens of sheep graze over about a quarter acre of green. I can see what seem to be millions of trees, all planted within just the past few years. Yang shu. Ping tells me they’re here for looks and to help clean the air. It’s another sign of people living a green life here. I suspect it’s always been part of life in most of China, since families do much more of their own farming than Americans do. They don’t have to “go green.” They are already there.

We come upon a toll. It’s ten yuan, or one dollar fifty cents. The exchange rate right now is about six-to-one, give or take. It was eight to one the last time we were here in 2006.

We head into a shopping district. It’s a vast flea market-style collection of shops and kiosks. Chinese must obsess about watches and electronics. Shopkeepers one after another display piles of the stuff, like it was fruit. Watches, phones, cigarette lighters, women’s accessories. We stop in one shop that’s run by a friend of Kuan’s. He shows me a nice looking leather belt. There’s also one for my brother Jay – a crocodile head and croc leather, from Thailand.

We look at several watches, until I make it clear to him that I’m OK with all the watches being fakes (they are) but I want one that looks nice and works. He shows me a Vacheron Constantine Geneve wristwatch, with copper finish. I can see the movement through the back and there are a number of cool gadgets on the face. It’s 100 dollars U.S.. Again, I know it’s fake, but it’s good looking… and shiny. I want it. Ping tells me to make sure I use it to attract a rich woman, so she can get some of the money. I love my wife.

Back to Mama and Baba’s for some more boy-spoiling. Kuan stops outside, in the alley, to set off a firecracker that looks dangerously homemade. It works. The report is so loud, it sets off a car alarm. The owner shows up, giving Kuan a dirty look and scolding. Ha! Cayden loves it. Every little boy needs a crazy uncle.

I try again, but Kuan won’t take any money. At least he let me pay for the watch and belts.

Inside, Kuan gives Cayden a remote controlled police car, while everyone talks about… stuff. I have no idea, but there’s a lot of talking. Meanwhile, Ping repacks for the latest leg of our journey. I’m dizzy trying to follow her system. Somehow, she’s calculated every thread that will adorn my back for the next few days in Beijing. Had my wife been with Scott, he’d have come back from the South Pole, wearing a clean shirt.

Back to Shuhua and Kuan’s for dinner. She brings out some now-familiar dishes, plus some new ones: cucumber and chicken eggs, duck eggs preserved so the whites are translucent like tea with dark green yokes. She serves a final dish of egg and tomato soup.

After dinner, I indulge in an unnecessary haircut. For five bucks (one dollar) I can’t resist having someone wait on my and make a fuss. The treatment includes a wash and cut. I end up tipping the guy another five bucks, which is ridiculous, but still a fraction of what a lesser haircut would cost at home. The only negative is that the close cropping shows off my silver. Ah, well.

March 21 – Tianjin, heading out –

Breakfast brought a few familiar tastes, plus sticky rice, which are soft, deep-fried rice balls usually with a fig or date at the center, plus tea eggs, and soy and blackbean soup.

More repacking. More grey, dirty skies.

We get to the Tianjin train station. It’s bustling with travelers, migrant workers carrying all they own, and the occasional beggar showing off useless limbs and hoping for charity. This last is something I’ve seen more of in China than anywhere else. Most people offer a small amount of money and move on, or else ignore the person all together. Ping offers money. The station itself is spacious, modern, and very clean. Workers scrub and polish the outside of the train as we board. This is my first bullet train. Cayden is dragged along by his mom like the proverbial rag doll. I find crowds like this a bit terrifying, and have to force myself not to think about losing him in this mass of people.

Soon, we’re moving. The landscape slides by at 295 kph, or 164 mph. Cayden is fascinated with a toy bullet train his mother has saved for him from a previous trip they made without me. It’s a key ring, flashlight, bottle opener. But mostly, it’s a toy.

We flash by clusters of crumbling homes. No charm to be seen. They’re slums, plain and ugly. A few of these are home to garbage pickers. They get all they need to live (if that’s the right way to say it) from other people’s trash. But, it’s more than that. Whole communities live within the trash piles they’ve collected. The buildings are cleverly configured out of cast-offs of all sorts. It’s impossible to trace a part to its original purpose. Detritus of every conceivable type is piled to the single story roofs. I struggle to find the positive in what I’m seeing. I guess it’s true they’re recycling, but this seems more than extreme. Here, the people seem to be less important somehow than the junk heaps. Ping says their children have a high blood cancer rate. But, that’s not the most limiting factor in this unlovable existence. Some of the junk communities are being razed. The government has swept them literally off the map. They’ve been turned into neat piles of used brick, with all the other materials carted off somewhere for re-use. At the edge of these landscapes, new, modern hi-rise apartments stand. I have no way of knowing whether the people who lived in the dumps now have homes in the clouds. I hope so, but have no way to check.

The train takes just 35 minutes to get us to Beijing, instead of a nearly 90 minute car trip. We hustle into a taxi and let the driver duel other cars and bicyclists. Better him than me. Atlanta traffic is maddening. This stuff feels like a blood sport. The air outside is dark, heavy with grit and poisons.

We arrive at our hotel: China Hall of Science and Technology. I have no idea how that works out to the name of a hotel, but that’s what’s on the huge sign in English. The lobby is huge, with lots of cool marble under foot and bright fixtures and brassworks everywhere. Ping has some friends coming to meet us. She reminds me that we all met on my last trip. My memory strains.

Cayden is in hog heaven. He’s in love with all things transportation. He especially loves trains, elevators, and escalators, often making his frustrated mom repeat trips for no other reason than to “ride” an elevator again. He p’toos his gum into my hand. I look around for somewhere to throw it out. It’s good to be the king.

The room is pleasant, with two beds, complimentary slippers. Our room is dozens of floors above the street. Looking out the window, though, I can’t see more than a few blocks because of the smog.

We don’t have much time to relax. Ping’s friend, Weiqing, takes us to the restaurant: Celestial Court – Fresh Realm. The decorations are spare and mostly done in bright whites, like something out of a sci-fi movie. I would agree that it’s “fresh” except that cigarette smoke invades and flavors everything. Ping and her friend select from a huge menu. Each dish is $35 U.S. – modern Beijing prices. The waitress takes our order on an iPad-like device.

Tea, watermelon juice, tofu soup, lotus stems, black fungi spiced with chilis, mushrooms and Chinese bacon with garlic (yum!), noodles, rice, and jellied yams. It’s some of the most ambitious food I’ve seen here and it’s wonderful.

We head back to the room for a nap. But, before I can drift off, Ping tells me that Weiqing’s husband is having an affair. She says that’s a side-effect of success in the business world. Ping says Weiqing is hurting, not in the mood for the usual girl-talk and gossip. Affairs sound fun in the abstract, but not in practice.

Fortunately, Cayden decides that a nap is a good thing. After we all get some rest, Ping dresses him in a vest and tie so she can show him off to her gal pals at dinner tonight. I take a minute to show Beijing to my little man. I point out the window into the dirty air and tell him he’s partly from here and partly from the U.S.. I tell him you never know where life will take you, and (in a whisper) that’s O.K..

We’re soon in yet another taxi. Beijing traffic is busy, but reasonably well-behaved. The drivers keep to their lanes. Buses and taxis make up a good part of the mix.

We arrive at a very nice seafood restaurant on the city’s east side. We get a private room. Ping hugs and giggles with her two girlfriends, Christine who we met on my first visit and her two children and another lady I met last time. There’s a lot of chatting and laughter. They look like they’re 20 again. Only the life-baggage betrays their age. Another of Ping’s friends has weathered divorce, following a husband’s infidelity. Cayden plays with his bullet train/flashlight/can-opener. The other children stare vacantly at a TV that’s hanging on one wall.

The wait staff hauls in many dishes. They include garlic-crusted ribs, spicy cabbage, lotus stem (had that for lunch!), tofu, chicken and garlic cloves, broccoli, pork, scallops on the half shell, custard tarts, noodles with tomato and eggs, soup, steamed buns, and watermelon slices.

Cathy drives us to the subway. I can now place her from my first trip. She’s the mother of the boy who got way out of hand at a restaurant. Fortunately, he’s at home tonight.

The subway is busy but not packed. We get back and, being the old couple we’ve become, call it a night by eleven.

Thursday, March 22, 2012 – Beijing –

We start off with a buffet breakfast before heading off to The Summer Palace under oppressive skies of boney white.

It seems like a short distance between The Forbidden City and The Summer Palace. Of course, we’re travelling by car, not rickshaw or on foot. Still, I kind of wonder why the Emperors wouldn’t have wanted to get a little further away when they used to get away.

The palace is an expansive estate of just over a square mile, dominated by Kunming Lake and Longevity Hill. We’re a couple of weeks early for the beginning of tourist season and it’s chilly, with damp gusts from the lake that prick their way through our clothes. Even without its summer blanket of petals and greenery, it’s heartbreakingly beautiful. It’s with good reason that they call this the "Gardens of Nurtured Harmony." It’s all fine and well to keep this for the blessed few, but it’s so much better to see people come to a place that makes us ache to preserve Earth’s truest treasures.

Ping points out the quarters of the Dowager Empress, Cixi. She says the empress once ordered her eunuch to cut down a tree that grew like a dragon, symbol of male power. Empress Cixi returned later to find the tree only reduced by half. She demanded to know why her wishes had been disobeyed. The servant replied that the tree, in its diminished state, resembled a phoenix, the symbol of female power.

Ping also points out the occurrences of nines, something I remember from The Forbidden City. There, nine rows of nine bolts not only reinforce a door, but make the entryway lucky. Here, Ping points across the water to a bridge with 17 arches underneath. My math is terrible. She has to explain that the 17 means there when you begin from the largest arch in the center, you cross nine arches to get to either shore.

Ping was once a tour guide here, as well as at The Forbidden City. She makes fun of the young girls handling those duties today, saying their English and Mandarin are not as good as hers.

The emperor and his slaves take a leisurely stroll down The Long Corridor. One or two of these arches, in reproduction, might adorn a restaurant back home. Here, they go on beyond counting. I’ve seen the imitations, but it’s amazing to see the craftsmanship that goes into just one of these pillars, with its brightly painted figureheads. In the high cornices, beams, and recesses of each section are a number of hand-done story paintings. Amazingly, there are 14,000 in all. I can’t begin to guess what that translates to in man-hours, or lifetimes. And the story goes, this was all begun in order to please the Qianlong Emperor’s mother, so she could enjoy a walk without worrying about the rain. I guess some kids are better to their mom than others.

On one side of this impressive walkway, we look out onto the lake. On the other, we pass a succession of gardens and private, contemplative areas. It is still late winter, but the buds are just appearing that will soon burst from every limb and dominate the scenery.

It’s cold, so we duck into a snack bar, incongruously set along the way. Inside, we trade conversation with visitors from Michigan and from Milan. Ping speaks Italian, and it’s always a treat when she finds someone to chatter with in the vowel-rich tongue. I also hear Russian at another table. Truly, this is a choice destination for world travelers.

The moment is magical, but Emperor Yiming’s temper brings it to an abrupt end. He goes from peaceful to screaming with nothing much in-between. It takes us slow-witted dolts an eternity to realize he’s asking for crackers. I’m apologetic to the other people in the shop. We rush to appease the angry one and make a hasty retreat.

Just two minutes later, we come across another little boy throwing his own tantrum. He’s laying on the ground, whining and irreconcilable because his heartless mother won’t buy him some toy or other from the souvenir stand. Ping and the other woman chat and exchange mom notes.

We pass numerous pavilions, including Qing Yan Fang, the Boat of Purity and Ease. It looks like something straight out of Mark Twain’s days on the Mississippi. This double-decker boat, however, is rendered out of marble. I’m told it’s Empress Cixi’s doing. I regret we can’t give each many hours of examination. There’s a ferry dock, and an opera house, plus modern shops tucked into formerly royal spaces. I confirm with Ping that the rules of commercialism are different here. There’s no way officials at The Forbidden City would allow such capitalism. I buy an inexpensive red baseball cap against the biting wind. Ping bundles Cayden up tighter in his clothes and buys him a hot ear of corn on the cob, which he happily munches.

At a certain point, we move from the lakeside to the steep hillside. There’s a good deal of climbing to get up to some of the pagodas and balconies. The stairs are rough-hewn stones, with uneven steps that are tough on a little one’s legs, and on his father’s, too. The view makes it worthwhile, though, as we look out on the pearl gray water from treetop level.

The trip back down is also great fun, as we travel like gem-mining dwarves through tunnels, either carved from stone or created by laying huge boulders on top of each other. It’s a tight fight, but another impressive reminder of the sheer amount of effort that went into this place. We poke our noses into places once reserved for command theatrical performances, or special dining occasions. We also pick up some useless junk to take home.

After several hours of indulging in the life and recreations of ancient royalty, we head back to the hotel. Cayden passes out cold long before we get there, and daddy-slave gets to haul his royal heaviness.

Ping joins a friend, Weiqing, for coffee. They discuss Weiqing’s husband, and she tells Ping she’s been texting the other woman.

At five we head out, taking the subway with the other cattle to meet Patrick. Cayden must have a window seat, to see the billboards fly by outside the dark glass of the subway car. Patrick, who has visited us in Atlanta, takes us the rest of the way to the restaurant in his new, 190K yuan ($30K) Volkswagen SUV. Patrick works for NCR. Ping did some work for the company, as an interpreter.

We come to a part of town with many gleaming new, neon-laced towers. “The Middle 8th” restaurant offers Yunnan cuisine, Han-style cooking, to successful young professionals. The décor is modern and the food is good. Patrick’s wife, Yan, is waiting at our booth. We say our hellos, and Ping and the others play catch up.

The food comes quickly, as the waitress hurries to set out the many dishes: noodles in a vinegar sauce, shrimp salad, grilled fish, chicken soup (bone shards still in it), tofu salad, mushrooms and fungi wrapped in mango leaf, ribs in leaves of some sort, bamboo chute salad, coke (3 200ml bottles, because Ping has informed our hosts that I’m a gulper), Chrysanthemum tea, spicey beef medallions, spicey pork in bamboo leaf, and a variety of cakes, including some durian ones. Durians are those huge pine-cone-shaped fruits from Thailand, sometimes called stinky fruit. I’ve heard that some restaurants ban durian because the smell drives away too many customers. I’ve been dying to try durian, but never dared to buy one for fear of hating the first bite having to explain to Ping why I have leftovers the size of an ugly football. In the end, the durian cake is only slightly gamey. It turns out the flavor is a three-way cross between pear, peach, and squash.

Cayden gets whiney. He only wants the cakes, especially the sticky rice and cream ones. Later, we get him to eat a bowl of rice.

Yan loves Cayden, and swings him around like a doll, which he enjoys tremendously. Patrick and Yan have chosen not to have children. They tell Ping that part of the reason is because parents become targets for those trying to make money. Yan says an expectant mother must sign up for all pre-schools before the baby comes, or risk missing out. She and Patrick agree that many teachers teach little or nothing during the week, then charge high fees to tutor on the weekends. The teachers also sell books and school supplies. In this way, our hosts say, teachers end up driving luxury cars.

Cayden plays Angry Birds after dinner. The others chit-chat. Mostly left out of the converstation, I try not to stare at all the pretty young girls.

We take a nighttime driving tour of the candy-colored city. I can’t help but think of Christmas decorations, but here the lights are used year-round, apparently for the sheer joy of light. We stop for a stroll through an open air lakeside entertainment district. It’s similar to an upscale mall with seductively curving streets, hot nightspots, and an endless variety of shops. Most of the signs are in English, although I don’t recognize most of the chains. The place has a wonderful organic feel to it, very inviting. Cayden is ecstatic at the chance to ride the dian ti, “electronic stairs.” He makes us ride them several times, shouting “Dian ti! Dian ti!”

Afterwards, we head back to the hotel. Friends pop up to the room for a bit. It’s Weiqing, her son, and her husband. That’s a bit awkward, after what she revealed earlier. Of course, no one says anything, and I pick up no obvious tension. Ping pulls some gifts from the suitcases. I honestly had no idea she had all this stuff in our bags. There are school supplies, shirts, and gum for the boy, who’s about ten. I supplement that with some of the orange flavored gum I’ve brought to placate Cayden. The boy likes that a lot. Meanwhile, Cayden flirts shamelessly with Weiqing. He has a sly look that would earn a young man a slap in the face, but in a little boy is priceless.

The others head out. I stay put, reading, catching up on my journal, and texting Ariana and Aaron.

Friday March 23 – Beijing

Our first blue sky day! We can see mountains now that were previously hidden behind a gray wall of gritty air.

After breakfast, we head off for a short taxi ride to The Temple of Heaven. It’s very windy. A hapless bride is with her wedding party in the courtyard. She can barely stand as the gusts whip her frilly silk layers like so many reeds in a hurricane.

Buffeted by gusts ourselves, Ping, The Emperor, and I make our way into the sprawling site. We pass through one of the 24 gates set in the vast, circular wall. The complex’s layout is simple, though stunning in its sheer size. You can feel yourself shrink as you make the long trek across any of the courtyards. A circle and square motif represents the connection between heaven and earth. There are three main halls, plus the vault of heaven, which is the tallest of the structures. It’s a round pagoda, with a three-tiered roof, topped by a golden globe. Roughly in the center of the whole affair is the Circular Mound Altar. Most of the stonework is gleaming white marble. Built 600 years ago, this is where emperors would come to make offerings and pray for rain and good crops. We climb the steps which wrap the Altar and pass through one of its own gates. At the very center is a convex stone. I wait for my turn to stand on it, and can feel the thrill of the energy. The stone amplifies my voice like being onstage at Carnegie Hall. I imagine that enjoying this trick as I do today, would, a few centuries back, have earned me the separation of head from body.

The details of this place are as magnificent as the whole. Leading up the steps of one of the temples, we find a dual set of stairs with gorgeous dragons carved in a central marble slab. These steps are for emperors only. Everyone else must make do with mere plain marble stairs.

All that marble and grandeur is tough on the feet. We make a pit stop for snacks. Again, the powers that be have decided it’s OK to put tourist kiosks and shops in The Temple of Heaven. That’s fine with me. I’m hungry. Ping tells me that the Emperor, by comparison, would come here twice a year for a spiritual and physical cleansing. For three days, away from the eyes of the common folk, he’d dress in special robes and abstain from sex and meat. Then, he would offer his special prayer in an elaborate ceremony. Apparently, the smallest mistake could bring bad luck for the whole country. I applaud the Emperors’ dedication and lift my Coke in a toast to them.

In one of the shops, we go whole hog on the tourism thing. They take portrait pictures in full imperial costume. We can’t resist letting Emperor Cayden Yiming Riker show his true colors. He dons canary yellow silks robs and a regal cap and sits on the golden throne. Cayden squirms a bit. I kind of prefer my cell phone shot of him making a face to the eventual masterpiece. Still, it’s a fun keepsake and will soon be framed and on our wall back home.

As we walk about, the wind picks up tremendously. Now I know what blew out the smoggy overcast. There are shallow inclines between the temples, and Cayden uses the opportunity to attempt flight. I’m not exaggerating when I say he very nearly succeeds; the winds are that powerful. He pulls a mask over his face. I wish I had one, too. Within minutes, I begin to notice that the rainless squall has snapped small and moderate-sized limbs off of dozens of ancient trees. This is not typical weather. These stately gentlemen have been here for centuries without seeing anything like this. I’m amazed that the fierce winds don’t snap the blue clay tiles off the roofs like confetti.

The winds die down for a bit. We spot a couple of beggars. One carries an enormous sandwich board. His story is written on it. Ping summarizes for me: The man tried to intervene in a robbery, chased the bad guys, but wound up wrecking his car and losing a leg. Ping gives the man a yuan.

A short distance away, a man who has lost a hand is singing. Cayden is captivated by the one-handed man’s voice. As is fitting for a four-year-old boy who hears music, he begins to dance. We give the one-handed man a yuan, as well. We all enjoy the man’s singing. Ping explains, though, that his physical impairment means he could never be a pop star. I think she means that showbiz is all about appearances, but I also think she means that here, it’s more a case of prejudice than mere superficiality. A young man approaches. He’s with a group of friends who urge him on. The newcomer takes the microphone and begins to sing. The one-handed man doesn’t seem to mind, especially since the newcomer’s friends fill his pouch with money. Pop star, maybe not. But, today the one-handed man will eat well.

We wrap up the visit and flag down a taxi. The radio carries a report of the freakish wind. As we ride back to our hotel, we get a good view of Tiananmen Square. I would like to visit there again, but there is so much that we have not done, yet.

After a rest, Weiqing and her husband pick us up and drive us to a hot pot restaurant, Hai Dilao. As we enter, the waiters call out, “Huan ying!” (“We’re pleased to welcome you to our place!”) I hear it so often during the evening, I’m reminded of the “What’ll ya have? What’ll ya have?” call of The Varsity in Atlanta. At Hai Dilao, it’s dinner and a show, and then some. The guests are invited to get their nails done or have their shoes shined while they eat. The food crowds the table top. There are nine of us, so there’s a lot to share. The meat goes into the hot pot of water, oil, and spices first, followed by shrimp, pasta balls, tripe, fish, bamboo chutes, tofu, and assorted other good things. A young waiter comes over for the noodle pulling dance, lalamian. He holds both ends of the enormous strands of pasta and sails them through the air like streamers.

Hai Dilao is clearly the go-to place for birthdays. Through the steamy air and laughter, I can hear a number of tables breaking into “Happy Birthday to You” in English.

Everyone has arrived to our gathering now. Our party includes Dong’s friend and his wife and daughter, as well as Weiqing and her husband and son. Cayden and the other boy play games on a couple of cell phones. Dong’s friend immediately offers me some very expensive alcohol. I’m forced to decline, must to his confusion. I manage to get a few videos on my phone, especially of the women. They love to see themselves together. The eating and talking go on for an hour or more. The men get a little drunk. The women gossip. The kids play games. It’s all wonderfully familiar.

Later, Dong’s friend drives us to the train station. Cayden keeps saying, “Huo che lai le, huo che lai le.” The train’s coming! His enthusiasm turns to frustration as traffic stalls within sight of the terminal. After ten minutes, we travel the last 100 meters, but another car is stopped to unload someone. Other vehicles quickly park, illegally, on either side of it. There are no police anywhere. A final SUV brings everyone else to a halt. Dong’s friend gets into a shouting match with the SUV driver. The threaten escalate and it nearly comes to blows.

Somehow, I get Cayden out of there and we make it to the 11pm bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin. The situation there is no less confusing. It’s late and the taxi drivers have thinned out to a trickle. The line of people from the train gets longer and longer. It’s several minutes between taxi arrivals, so the line doesn’t move much at all. Ping strikes up a conversation with a pretty girl and Cayden flirts with her. He offers her his toy bullet train/flashlight/bottle opener souvenir. It takes the girl a moment to realize what he’s doing. She takes it and a second later he snatches it back. It’s a cute ritual in a four-year-old and the girl giggles. Ping eventually calls Kuan, who drives over and rescues us.

We head back to their apartment, tired.

Saturday – March 24 – Tianjin to Pan Shan –

Hot tianbian for breakfast. Then, we pack everything into Kuan’s SUV for a trip to the mountains. It’s a spot Ping’s family has been to a few times over the years for a weekend getaway, although they say it’s getting built up now. Ping describes the place we’ll be staying as a bed and breakfast; she promises there will be flush toilets.

Kuan drives us along the two-hour trip. He won’t take money for gas. Ping promises we’ll buy him some alcohol later. I again am struck at how one-sided it feels to visit. The generosity is overwhelming. I wish it was easier for the in-laws to get visitation visas to the U.S. so we could repay some of this kindness.

After hours of flat, mostly featureless pre-spring landscape, the mountains rise before us. I can make out the carved steppes with their farms perched above the plains. We’re within a few dozen miles of The Great Wall, although it’s not visible here.

We drive up some foothills, through a few small villages. The shops and homes are painted brightly and cling to narrow roads. The plains quickly drop away. There are no guard rails separating us from the steep drop-off. I can see a sprawling development below. It features up-scale convention-style hotel lodgings and facilities, complete with parking lots, a fountain, and landscaping. They would not be out of place in any suburb in the U.S., but they’re in sharp contrast to our destination.

It’s a family-owned, and by the looks of it, family-built, motel of about half-a-dozen rooms. The owners are in the process of adding another wing. They’ve carved a shelf on the mountain and laid a concrete foundation, which now overlooks the gulf between the mountain’s rock-scrabble arms. There’s a view of the skylift above and a power plant in the valley. The foundation lacks so much as a half-hearted barrier to keep an idiot like me from falling to my death. I definitely don’t want Cayden playing here. There must be a booming market for lawyers in China. The finished buildings are a simple two-story cinder-block design, but clean. The guest quarters are one building. The dining room/kitchen is another. There’s a third that seem undecided. I’m pleased to see that they have lights, and plumbing. The interior is Spartan, to say the least. The floors are stone and cold. In fact, even standing inside with my coat on, it’s cold. There’s a lot of sun coming through the wall-sized windows at this altitude, but it offers very little heat.

The toilets are, as promised, there. And yes, they do flush. They just don’t offer a chance to sit, being as they consist of a hole in the floor. I intentionally get very little practice at this sport. But I suppose, when in Rome… Oh, and the tiled wall includes a picture of a naked lady. I check. There’s one in every room.

Our hosts serve us lunch, made of dishes that are locally raises or grown. It’s similar to what we’ve seen, but with a local flavor. Cayden snarfs it down with enthusiasm. I check with Ping, who says the whole stay – a room and three meals – comes to eighty yuan per person. Twelve dollars U.S..

The owners are cheerful and friendly. They chat amongst themselves over (I assume) family matters but never miss the opportunity to jump in with one more dish or refill. Once the meal is cleared, they’re back to their other work, construction. I can’t claim to have anything like the energy they show. Other families in this part of the village appear to be on the same plan, indefatigably operating hotels, shops, and restaurants even as they physically expand them. All the activity makes me feel lazy.

Our owners take their meal off in the kitchen. We can see and hear them. Ping eavesdrops a little. She says one of the men hurt himself in a construction accident last year. He was trying to blast away some of the rock, when an explosion took two of his fingers and damaged one eye. He still works on the expansion of the family business.

Outside, Kuan tries without success to raise a kite in the faltering mountain breeze. He stands on the concrete flooring, with no railings. Cayden wants a close look. I hold his hand tightly, as my blood pressure soars like the kite should. Eventually, Kuan switches to his other favorite amusement, setting off firecrackers. The reports bounce through the foothills.

We head out on a stroll up the streets. It’s a steep hike; the building foundations are often several feet higher by the time they make it from one end to the other. A market square perches on an upper ridge. Kuan chose this weekend so we could enjoy a local festival. Villagers sell the usual trinkets and collectibles, necklaces, ocarinas, knick-knacks, and of course tons of food. It’s obvious they love tourists. There are also some unique items, including a good supply of large coconuts, apparently shipped in from the south. Men sit carving open the tops to sell them as ready-to-go cups of milk. They also etch decorative designs in pineapples.

The festival is a success. The tiny space is overflowing with visitors, including many foreign devils in BMWs. Huge tour buses push the throngs of pedestrians to the very edge of the narrow mountain path. Just when I think they can’t fit anything else, I see a bus and a BMW pass each other, virtually exchanging paint. Somehow, no one tumbles down the cliff face. There’s no space to park. So, everyone parks. The bimmer doors brush the weeds, as car after car disgorges happy touristas.

I look down to get a better view of the booming development below. These village hotels face slick competition. I am routing for the locals, but wonder how they can survive against huge corporate-backed encroachment. This getaway to the country will look like any suburban sprawl very soon.

Cayden is wearing out. He’s a good climber, but this may be more mountain than a boy can handle. Ping gets him an ear of corn to boost his strength. We have skipped the skylift and a trolley, and continued our trek on foot. The narrow road connects the square to another development, built to look like a temple. It’s more of a welcome and hospitality center. Families stop to pose for pictures. I get a few of our group. There’s a fountain and a wide area for viewing the valley, as well as ample opportunities to buy drinks and more food. We need more food. It’s been a lot of walking. God bless the beauty of this place, my family, and my Rockport boots.

After a couple of hours, we head back to our motel, with its home-made charms. The curtains are child-pink, with the word “Love” written out in sequins. The temperature is a concern. The heater barely warms the air four feet away. The walls themselves are cold; I suspect the owner-builders forgot to include insulation. I can’t quite see my breath in the room, but it’s easily in the fifties. The Emperor will be sleeping between his two slaves tonight in one bed. And I think we’ll all be in our clothes.

We head over to the restaurant for dinner. Our hosts have prepared more wonderful local dishes of cabbage, chicken, pork, rice, potatoes, fungi, carrots, and corn congi. Cayden can’t eat the roast chicken fast enough. We keep our coats on during the meal, as the common room is as cold as the one where we’re staying. Our feast is accompanied by a karaoke machine, playing “We’ve Got a Long Way to Go.” Over and over and over and over. The owners’ daughters come over and sing along with the machine. Between the over modulated song and the girls’ apparent inability to find a note in this thin mountain air, it’s quite a concert. Ping and Cayden join in, without much improvement.

Kuan sneaks off to improve the aural atmosphere by shooting off more firecrackers. I head out to watch. One of our hosts jumps on a moped and speeds off along the dark, winding road. She’s going full-throttle to bring back a new guest who couldn’t navigate the goat paths in daylight.

I take a peak skyward to see the stars blazing like they never do in light-polluted Atlanta. I can see many constellations I used to be able to name. I can recognize Orion. I point it out to Cayden, who would rather watch firecrackers. These moments are the miracles, anytime we want them.

Sunday March 25 – Pan Shen –

The three of us huddle together, fully dressed, under three comforters and a heating pad the Shuhua had the foresight to bring. We get some surprisingly good rest. The chill of the bathroom tile makes me skip my morning shower.

Breakfast is made up of breads in flaky layers, cabbage, eggs, and hot corn congi against the cold morning. We take one more stroll through the village, and then it’s time to pack and head out.

The drive is uneventful, but enjoyable. We wind up back in Tianjin in time for our next meal. Kuan picks a crowded restaurant that he’s fond of. We sit for quite a while in the waiting area, which is plastered with pictures of the dishes. There are no private rooms here. The waiter takes us to our table. There are piles of trash underneath from the last customers. It’s hard to imagine any restaurant allowing that. But, I look around and there’s trash – boxes from the alcohol, napkins, food scraps, under most of the tables. In truth, it’s less than appealing and I wish we could just walk out of there. An employee finally sweeps around our feet. Then, the food arrives: several dishes, including a small cupcake-like version of sticky rice, lamb pot-stickers, sprout salad, soup, and more. I’m to the point where describing the dizzying amounts of food fades to: “a plate of something brown, a pile of meat, some green stuff that could be beans.” In short, bau la. Cayden picks at his plain white rice.

Our group heads over to an amusement park on the west side of Tianjin. Cayden’s eyes grow wide at the sight of a pirate ship, cars spun on great spider-like arms, parachute drop, merry-go-round, and a big ferris wheel. It’s moderately crowded on this hazy Sunday afternoon. There are lots of parents. One lady tells Cayden he’s “piao liang,” “beautiful.” I learn another new phrase, “li la.” (Like the girl’s name, Lila.) “It’s coming.” Meaning, we’re almost there, little boy. You almost have what you want. We do our best to wear him out over the next couple of hours.

Then, it’s back to Kuan and Shuhua’s apartment. After 36 hours in my socks, I’m ready for a change and a quiet evening. Kuan offers me a sampling of teas. He uses a serving set that includes a tray that comes with a grate to catch the run-off. It holds several distinctive pots. I know Kuan has carefully chosen each one from the various shops he visits. He makes his presentation and I am genuinely impressed. Some of these teas go for 150 dollars U.S. per pound. The pots can also be exotic, lasting for generations if properly tended, including, apparently, allowing tea to wash over them to keep them from drying out. Tonight, Kuan is steeping samplings of three teas: one for toothache, another for nerves, and one for digestion. All three warm their way through us.

Monday, March 26, Tianjin –

Repacking. By now, I’ve learned to stand back and watch, carefully making sure I keep my hands and feet away from the suitcases. I’m a little upset that this is the last day that I’ll have Cayden for nearly a month, until he and his mom return home to Lawrenceville. As the clothes and gifts and herbs and candy and lord-only-knows-what fly from one vessel to another, the sisters chat/bicker. I’d move out of earshot, but the apartment is not large enough for such sanctuary. ShuPing and ShuHua exchange concerns about Cayden; he’s not very vocal, they say. Ping and I believe it’s because he’s constantly switching between English and Chinese. It’s probably nothing. He’ll most likely outgrow it soon. Still, it has us concerned.

Instead, I catch up on reading the news online. The government blocks many sites, especially news sites. I can see ajc.com’s homepage, but cannot get any of the articles to open.

Ping and I go out to run a few errands, leaving Cayden with his auntie. We buy some phone plan time for the phone Ping is using on this trip. And we get Ping’s hair washed. Thank goodness my Nook is fully charged and loaded with stuff. I’m currently reading “Tales from Development Hell,” in which David Hughes explores the terrifying process of turning good ideas into financial singularities.

After shopping, I get in some time horsing around with Cayden, who tries on the scary Chinese mask in front of the mirror in his cousin’s room and bounces on the bed. He also greatly pleases his mom with a much overdue full diaper. Chou si la! (Stinks to hell!)

Then, much too soon, it’s time to leave for our next leg of this trip. Cayden clings to Mommy slave. Daddy slave is close to tears. We barely make it out of the apartment. I hate to leave Cayden, but these last few days are meant to be Ping and my anniversary.

Bin picks us up. We’ll stay with Fusheng again tonight. En route, the smog is back with a vengeance, throwing up an almost solid barrier between us and the late afternoon sun. The sky looks like an ugly backdrop on some low budget stage show, giving the horizon a visible edge.

We first stop at Mama & Baba’s, so Ping can (shock!) repack. Bin leaves and Fusheng joins us, smoking and laughing. Everyone chats while making dumplings. Turns out we’re having dinner here.

CCTV News comes on. U.S. President Obama’s in Seoul for talks on nuclear weapons with Russian Prime Minister Medveyev and Chinese President Hu. I find it interesting that this broadcast devotes fully 15 minutes to the lead story. There are few graphics, and not much editing or cutaway video. It’s all sit down meetings and narration by the reporter. That’s in sharp contrast to the rules at my TV news station back home, where 1:30 is considered too long for a package. Later in the newscast, there’s a story about crews putting in a road and buses in a rural area, where small children (as the incredible video shows) have up to now been getting to school along goat paths, clinging to cliffs and crossing whitewater rivers on burroughs. Now, those kids will have stories use to shame their lazy grandchildren! There’s also a story on “vintage pour” tea, which is soaring in price by thousands of U.S. dollars. The video shows the merchants treating the carefully packed tins of tea like gold bricks, taking them out to show customers then quickly replacing them into climate-controlled vaults. If I win the lottery, maybe I’ll buy Kuan one of these packages.

Fusheng and Baba take turns showing their prodigious farting skills. Oddly, no one notices that, but many in the room are hacking and coughing from being outside in the day’s air pollution. Dinner progresses with good humor and conversation. Xu wants me to rewrite his resumé, something I regret to admit I’ve had too much practice doing. I tell him to email it to me and I’ll do it when I get home.

Tuesday, Mary 27, Tainjin –

We stop by Mama & Baba’s to pick up our luggage for Guangzhou. While there, we enjoy a fine breakfast of Jian Bing, soy milk, fresh strawberries, and a coke for me. At this point, each of my in-laws knows to have some at the ready, and eagerly presents me with a cold one.

Xu and Fusheng take us to the airport. There are more than a dozen skycranes poised over various parts of Tianjin airport, as it grows and grows. One major terminal appears brand new and there are other projects underway everywhere I look.

Ping and I are headed to Guongzhou on China Southern Airlines. After 45 minutes at the gate, the 737 takes off with a plane load of Japanese businessmen and two weary slaves. Ping tells me Guongzhou’s weather is comparable to Seattle. Nothing is ever really dry. As if to make her point, low clouds cling to the city as we come in for a landing. Fortunately, it’s warm. After days in the frosty north, I can finally wear my short-sleeve shirts. The city is amazingly green. From the air, it’s a sub-tropical leafy tapestry, in sharp contrast to the tan and grey topography we just left. The buildings are flamingo pink, like parts of Miami. We land, and I can see that the low clouds are only a light haze. Every angle is festooned with plant life, from sumptuous blood red blooms to too-perfect-to-be-real palm trees. It’s like walking around in an oversized arboretum.

Ziao Zhi picks us up from the airport. He’s a vice president with a major alcohol maker.

As we drive north from the airport, the buildings grow taller and denser. Pinks and pastels rule, and the area appears to be very upscale. Homes come with roof gardens, as if there weren’t enough flora to be had already. The cars are new and bright with no signs of damage or compromise on luxury.

I already miss my Cayden. I’m so used to carting him along like one of the pieces of luggage. But, I know his honorary Goo goo slave is taking good care of him.

We arrive at Ping’s friend’s apartment. Dan Zeng and her son, Si Qi, live in an apartment with a doorman out front. Si Qi is nearly 12, speaks English very well, and is extremely bright and energetic. Their home is on two levels, apparently two apartments joined by stairs. There’s a redundant kitchen, but the arrangement gives the family enough room to live comfortably, with smart furnishings and hardwood floors. The view is striking, as Guangzhou is a gorgeous city to look at. Mao, Ping says, began his reforms here. Deng also favored this city.

I struggle to understand Ping as she explains that we step out of the elevator on a floor marked “23A.” It’s the 24th floor, but people associate “4” with death. Ping says the words for “4” and “death sound alike. So… 23A it is.

Once settled, we head out to dinner. We’re seating beside some picture windows that look out on the skyline and a roadway. A man, Weimin, and a woman in nice business clothes join us. The next several minutes include covert snippets of information from my bride. She tells me the man doesn’t want anyone to tell others about the lady he’s with tonight. His live-in girlfriend, apparently, wouldn’t like it. Ping says, “Don’t scratch it, it gets more dark.” Meaning: trying to learn more is like trying to scratch out something written in ink on paper. It just makes a mess of the page. By the time I half understand the dynamics of the table, dinner is over.

Later, four of us, including me, Ping, Dan, and Si Qi take a long walk in the rainbow neon light that bathes the walking path along the Pearl River. Faerie-lit ferry boats pass on the water, as joggers, bicyclists, and lovers make their way in the lane. We turn into the park. It’s alive on this spring night with strollers, children, seniors, lines dancers, and a group of people taking advantage of an exercise area. Bats flutter just above our heads, glutting themselves on the mosquitoes that thrive in the river’s lily-choked backwaters.

The two hens cluck through the night. I get the sense the even if I spoke fluent Mandarin, I’d still be left out of the conversation, by virtue of being male. The boy is also a good little talker, commenting on the bats, bugs, and Robin Hood, among other topics.

We get back to the Eastern Lake Villa. The gals yack and repack. Ping gives Dan some make-up. I show Si Qi some videos on my phone. I took them of Ari, Aaron, and Cayden during the holidays and vacations, in the two years since I’ve owned this phone. I was never a true camera nut until phones grew eyes. The brief clips do their job: I’m missing all three of my kiddoes. Si Qi eats it up. I get the sense he likes having an adult male around and I’m obviously giving off Daddy vibes right now. The boy is wildly bright and conversant. I can barely remember the name of China’s president, but at nearly 12, he knows Obama, Bush, and a bunch of other stuff.

We talk too long, keeping Si Qi up past his bedtime on a school night. Eventually, we both call it quits.

Wednesday March 28 – Guangzhou –

More packing. How is this even possible?

We’re heading out to breakfast, before boarding a train to Shenzhen.

Getting to breakfast, we walk about ten minutes through alleyways, across busy strees, and along delightfully irregular roads, accented by hanging laundry and flowering trees, vines, and potted plants.

Dan points out a house that Mao lived in in 1926, a local landmark. Like many others Dan speaks of Mao with something less than reverence. She’s from Hunan, Mao’s home province, and says he was even harder on people there than elsewhere.

We get to the restaurant, where the women scrutinize the menu checklist and mark down a number of entrés. The waitress has brought tea. I go to pour us some and Dan taps bends two fingers on the table, bent as if they were the legs of someone kneeling. It’s Cantonese for “Yes, please/Thank You.” Ping explains… In the 18th century, The Quinlong Emperor went out incognito to see how his people lived. His servants were told not to bow, but they were also afraid the emperor would cut off their heads if they failed to show the proper supplication. So they used the finger-kneel gesture.

Si Qi hurries in and joins us at the table. He literally has run all the way from school, which is at least a mile away. He’s not about to miss a good lunch. He’s not disappointed. The dishes start coming: beef wrapped in rice noodle, chicken feet, sticky rice, custard tarts, port and onions, tea of course, pork and chives in a rice noodle wrap, congi with chicken, and little durian cakes.

Ping complains that they’ve served the wrong kind of chicken feet. I’m not really sure how many kinds there are. It’s one of the few dishes I just won’t touch.

We walk back to the apartment to pick up two days’ worth of clothes. Then, Dan drives us to the train station, which is busy but efficient.

We make it to Shenzhen, where a porter takes us to our four-star hotel, The Century Plaza. It’s kind of Japanese by way of NYC. Snazzy. Comfortable.

Before I can exhale, Ping is on the phone to Kate, who’ll join us later. We’re heading to Hong Kong, depoting our bags here first. Ping insists I change my shirt. Somehow, she says, the grey Polo v-neck is fancier than the grey Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt. I obey.

We walk over to the border crossing, which involves a complicated transaction of forms. Officials in crisp uniforms works steadily to keep things moving. We strike up a quick conversation with a young man, about 20, from Chicago. Ryan is in Shenzhen as a teacher – something Ping wants me to do. The pay is minimal, but the compensation includes housing and even two trips home per year. This situation would be ideal for Aaron, I think. I’m sure some pretty Chinese girl would grab him in no time. Ryan says he enjoys the job, although there’s nothing to do in Shenzhen. I think he means there’s nothing for a 20 year old to do at night. That’s why he’s visiting Hong Kong.

It’s a 30 minute train ride to our next stop. We make several more connections in the tunnels – so many turn-styles and escalators, I lose count - then climb out of the subway system to daylight. Moments later, we’re on The Avenue of the Stars, which offers that amazing view of Victoria Harbor I’ve seen in movies. Hong Kong.

We walk along the waterfront, past the Starbucks kiosk, looking down at the movie stars, whose names and handprints are embedded in the walkway. I recognize a few, like Michelle Yeoh, Jackie Chan, and Bruce Lee, who also has a bronze statue here. Ping and I get a few touristy snap shots. Ping says she already has pictures like this. She means she has pictures of her visits here from 15 years ago. I twist her arm and make a few new digital memories. The light is fading, which allows me to catch Ping in the flash, bringing her forward in the picture. I feel lucky to catch a few with a junk in the background.

We take another subway, this time underneath the straits. We do some money changing. Then, we’re suddenly on the busy streets of Hong Kong’s downtown business/play district. It’s incredibly loud. It has the feel and volume of Times Square at rush hour. Just a few steps away from Ping, I lose her words to the diesel engines that are seemingly everywhere.

Ping stops into some shops. There’s a particular cosmetic item she’s trying to find for a friend. She shows the clerks a picture on her phone. Turns out it’s Kiehl’s, a product sold all over the world. There’s a Kiehl’s store in Lenox Square Mall in Buckhead.

After shopping, we meet Kate for dinner. She’s a smartly-dressed businesswoman with two sons. They’re home tonight. Like Cayden, I’m told they also like Angry Birds. Kate guides us to the restaurant inside a mall. The women catch up on missed years.

The food is impressive: fungi, onions, and peppers, plus rice noodle with ham, chicken, soy sauce, and a peanut flavoring that’s almost all the way to peanut butter. There’s also spinach rice, tofu with red chiles – spicy! – chicken and bamboo chutes, radish cake, beef cakes, and red bean pastry.

Kate says she and her husband like living in Hong Kong. On the other hand, she says he works too many hours and her boys are growing up in a city that is essentially a shopping mall.

I’m pleased to learn that Kate reads sci-fi. I mention a couple of favorite authors, who she already knows and likes. At this point, she remarks that I’m not the type of man she thought Ping would wind up with. She says, with no meanness, that I’m bookish. Fair enough. I tell her, from my point of view, Ping is good for me because she is so bright and outgoing. She balances my darker, (usually) quieter personality.

We walk and window shop after dinner. There’s a lot of that to do. I’m amazed at how many shops are devoted to cosmetics, and how many to men’s watches. Seriously, if a man wore a different watch each day of the year, he’d never be able to do justice to the selection here. I find a whole shop of Vacheron Constantine Geneve. I’m tempted to walk in and show them my fabulous fake, but don’t want to get arrested for counterfeiting. The models in the window are pretty impressive; carrying pricetags in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Finally, Ping and I make our way back through the maze of tunnels and walkways to Shenzhen. The trains are as crowded as ever. The stations are a challenge. The commuters never met a vector they didn’t like, and if I take my hand off Ping’s shoulder, one will see daylight and charge between us. Four more will widen the breach and we’ll be separated forever. So, I hold on for dear wife. The plaza opens up on the mild night. Some of the walkways are closed and we have to back-track. It’s a long walk back to The Century Plaza, but we make it.

Thursday March 29 – Shenzhen –

Once again, we’re too busy to check out most of the hotel’s amenities, and rather just eyeball the pool and foot massage parlor. Still, a four star hotel is not a bad place to wake up.

We putter around, a true luxury on these trips, until lunch, then duck into a little restaurant near the hotel. Ping reassures me it’s OK to pick the trachea-piercing bone splinters from my mouth at the table. The cleaved meat and fowl taste fine, but the splinters make it harder to enjoy.

Ping tells me we’ll be joined at dinner by a friend of her ex-boyfriend. I’m told it’s my responsibility to talk up Ping, so the friend will send back glowing reports to the ex-boyfriend, thus letting him know his life choices were poor. In fact, Ping stops off to get her hair washed. I begin to wonder what she really thinks of her ex. Nah. That way lays madness.

More walking and pseudo-shopping. Ping won’t let me buy knick-knacks, because they’re all fakes. I know that, but they’re shiny and I want them. We make a pit stop. Ping orders red bean tea. She says it’s not as good as they make in the North. I order tea with honey and citrus (orange in this case.) My bladder is taking a beating. Coke takes the express. Tea hits the Autobahn.

The news is playing on the TV. A Jet Blue pilot allegedly lost it in mid-air, raving about Iran and yelling, “they’re gonna take us down,” before passengers took him down and sat on him until the co-pilot could land. In other news, China’s economy is showing signs of softness. Wall Street has taken back some recent gains. (I am now on course to retire comfortably at age 167.) I don’t see any coverage here of the circus that is the GOP primaries.

I’ve been reading about Foxconn, which has several factories in China, including two here in Shenzhen. The workers sign up in their teens, feeling lucky to get a job assembling the wildly popular iPhones and iPads. But, the hours are insane and they must live in dormitories with little chance to socialize. There have been numerous industrial accidents, fights, and protests. The plants also have a high suicide rate. The owners’ solution is to install netting, to keep workers from throwing themselves off the factory roof. The Chinese are learning capitalism, it seems, in about the same way Americans did. I’m wondering if there’s not a thriving industry of lawyers about to remake some of this, as happened in the U.S..

Hours later, we’re back on a train to Guangzhou. Ping plays with her virtual horse, installed on her iPhone. She pets it, feeds it, and I guess races it. The app fascinates her, like Angry Birds fascinates da bau. They both also like the one with the exploding dune buggies and the skull mountains. Prohibitive roaming charges prevent us from going online by phone here. That keeps Ping from accessing her favorite app, the virtual zoo, in which you charge admission and constantly add and feed more animals.

Other bullet trains startle me as they warp by in the opposite direction, four inches from my face. I swear I can feel the air suddenly compress. The other trains take just seconds to pass us.

We get back to Shenzhou and Ping’s old friend, Xiaomin picks us up and takes us to a very nice restaurant. His daughter, who is about four, is there, as are about five other people we don’t know. Two more straggle in later.

My host starts to serve Hennessey cognac, but I must decline. I get looks from our host and the others that are more bewildered astonishment than hurt feelings. How can I refuse fine alcohol? I also pass on the cigarettes. The dishes pour out of the kitchen: fungi and pork soup, tofu and chives, bacon, sushi, baked fish, duck, chicken served sectioned with the head poised to greet those eating it, pork heavily garnished with scorpions, seaweed soup, tea, and rolls stuffed with salty cabbage. Wasabe helps me take on most of the unrecognized entres. I am simply not brave enough to tackle the bugs. I notice no one else touches them either. It’s only later that Ping lets me know that the broth I’ve been eating… is made from the scorpion run-off from the pork dish. Yummy. Bug juice. The military owns this restaurant, and once again shame me with their generosity. There is a great deal of glass clinking, as people toast the meal and the gathering throughout the evening.

The waiters bring the little girl a bowl of noodles. She’s so bored, she’s literally climbing the walls, which include a fine latticework that’s perfect for little hands and feet.

I’m trying to pass on my glowing report of Ping to our host, so he can pass it along to her ex. Xiaomin tells us that the ex-beau is now on wife #3. Ping says she ruined him. Fair enough.

Ping tells me the local news is focusing on Chongqing’s police chief. He apparently caught the prime minister’s wife doing something illegal, involving her jewelry store. The chief tried to report it to the mayor, who told him to seek asylum at the U.S. consulate. Apparently, the U.S. said “no” but only turned over the chief after securing promises for his safety.

After dinner, Xiaomin drives us back to Dan’s apartment. It’s 9:30. SiQi is hard at work on his math homework.

We give Cayden a call via MSN video chat. His uncle and aunt bravely try to comfort him on the other end, but he’s not having any of it. He howls as Mommy and Baba tell him they love him. Mommy will be back in Tianjin on Monday. Baba’s going home to take care of the kitties. More tears.

Friday, March 30 – Guangzhou –

This is my last full day in China. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again. No knock against Dan; she’s wildly generous. It’s just that all Chinese beds are essentially wooden (or in the country, stone) platforms covered by a modest pad and one or two thin pillows. I’m a fat American who needs his cushioning.

Construction workers begin doing their thing around seven a.m.. Ping frequently remarks on how much things have changed in each of the cities she used to know so well.

We check on Cayden. He slept well, but is still pissed that we’re not there. He isn’t eating as much as he should.

Dan walks us to a nearby Shandong-style restaurant for an early lunch. I’m wearing the Tommy Bahamas shirt Ping brought, looking more than ever like an American tourist.

The hens go at it, while Ping reads off a sizeable menu and writes out our order for the waitress. I pour tea, getting a double finger tap, “Thanks.” It reminds me of a Blackjack player telling the dealer to “Hit me.”

The food arrives, beginning with what looks like a dark pancake. In fact, it’s a black rice cake. Also: tea, layered sauce and cake, rice, dumplings, beef ribs and tarot, a light banana pastry – so good! – skinny mushrooms and greens.

Si Qi joins us in his school uniform, after his midday run. Ping says he’ll get a nap before returning to class at two. That sounds like every schoolboy’s dream.

Back to the apartment for tea on Dan’s formal serving set. Then, the well-dressed man from the other night will pick us up for a shopping trip. Another man from that night also joins us at Dan’s. He asks Ping to make sure she doesn’t mention the young woman at the table that night. Turns out, we’ll be picking up his significant other on this trip, too. Ping agrees to keep things quiet.

Overcast and humid; the Toyota SUV expertly threads its way through the frenetic roadways. The well-dressed man asks to look at my Vacheron Constantine watch. He says he’s an expert on them. I’m not sure whether he means this brand, watches in general, or fakes. He pronounces it a top-rate fake. I’m gratified.

The Well-dressed man’s wife (girlfriend/roommate?) joins us. She’s cute.

We get to the marketplace, which is surrounded by vendors. Our party moves quickly past the guy selling pelts. I’m praying that among China’s many, many fakes, these are just a few more and not really from such beautiful animals. I don’t get close enough to find out.

We’re looking for a new messenger bag for me, to replace my trusty man-purse I got on my first China visit. Of course, the gals check out the enormous selection of women purses, wallets, and other accessories. They’re all fakes – but fabulous!

This place is chick heaven. There are no men’s stores or restaurants, just store after store after store of hardcore women’s accessories. There seem to be hundreds of shops crammed together like brightly lit closets. I find a great courier bag, leather and green canvass, not too girlie. $80 U.S.. Photo displays lead the buyer to believe these are the ones used by Brad Pitt and Will Smith. Ping finds herself a bag, plus two cell phone pouches, one for her and one to give Ariana when we get back home.

I finally learn that the well-dressed man’s name is Mr. Yu. After a few hours in the shopping zone, he returns us to Dan’s, where we blink before heading out to dinner.

We walk a short way between the taxi and the restaurant. I ask Mr. Yu about the striking, rice bowl-sized red flowers adorning the leafless trees. He says they’re cotton wood. I find out later, these are also known as red silk-cotton trees and are a local symbol here in Guangzhou and in Kaohsiung. Our guides have chosen a “local” restaurant, meaning one that doesn’t cater to many big noses. A cute little girl and her parents are there, waiting for us. Ping gives her some candy, which delights her.

Our food consists of chicken with a side of head, pickled garlic cloves, beef ribs, tea, rice, gelatinized water chestnuts, pork and scallions, peanuts, and beef and greens. “Hao Chi.” Yummy.

After dinner, Mr. Yu loads us all in another taxi, drops off his wife and daughter, and takes us to a karaoke club. Another man joins us, as do two club girls who become our servers for the evening. One of the men is drinking pretty freely, and enjoying the girls’ company. Ping and our host sing a duet and each sings some old favorites. I croak my way through old songs from Rod Stewart and Elton John. It’s nearly impossible to hear myself well enough through the distorted audio in this room to carry the tune. The machine gives me a score of 88, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Then, Ping and I sing “My Heart Will Go On.” Unlike Titanic, dinner now threatens to resurface thanks to our singing. It’s ridiculous, but fun.

Saturday March 31 – Guangzhou to Incheon to Atlanta

It’s a long trip home. Amazingly, at the Guangzhou Airport I catch up with Fred Blankenship, the news anchor I work with at WSB-TV and his party, producer Bryan Lazaro and photog/editor Pete Bradley. We’re booked on the same two flights that will take us back to Atlanta.

They’ve been following Atlanta’s mayor, Kasim Reed, on a trade visit to China. I knew they were in China, but didn’t know they were in Guangzhou or I would have invited them to join us last night. They look exhausted; this was no vacation for them. Pete shows me a couple of the pieces they’ve sent back for our audience. They stories show off the color of China from a very American perspective.

My co-workers trade jokes about the “weird” food and how hard it is to find good American cuisine. I stop myself from telling them how good authentic Chinese cooking can be. It sounds too much like I’m claiming to be an expert, which I’m not. I do think, by comparison to them, I’ve gone native. But, that’s not to say that I won’t enjoy a good steak once we get home.

My watch stops working on the flight home.