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Vivien, whom I now call by her proper Chinese nickname, Wei Wei (her name is Liu Wei), took me to Tianjin to see the city and to meet her family. Tianjin is a coastal city just southeast of Beijing, on the northeast coast of China. I didn't realize when she first invited me that Tianjin is China's third largest city. I suppose I had romantic dreams of rural China with peasants and stuff. No matter; it was a wonderful excursion.
Weiwei and I made our way to the Beijing main train station. It was from here in 1986 that I had my first glimpse of Beijing. In 1986, I was very, very scared of traveling in China. So scared, in fact, that I stayed in Hong Kong until I found a traveling companion whose planned route was similar to mine. She and I crossed the Chinese border together and found our way through to Canton. I was convinced that I could not have done it without her. After a week in Canton, though, she decided not to continue north to Beijing as planned, leaving me with the option of hanging around Canton until I found someone else or going off on my own. I collected lots of notes, advice, names of hotels and bus directions and got on a Canton-Beijing train all by myself. At 6 in the morning the next day, I tumbled off the train and stood right here, alone, in Beijing, petrified. I spoke not a word of Chinese, I was being accosted on all sides by people who I now know were offering me taxis, hotels, tours, and who knows what else, feeling worn out, burdened, lost, angry at my friend, and worried that I'd never find my bus, let alone my hotel.
And here I was again, walking hand in hand with a Chinese friend, with confidence, 150 words in my head, and plans to take a day trip to the seaside--to a city I'd never even heard of until this month. What an exhilarating, liberating feeling it was.
Walking in Tianjin with Weiwei was interesting. I'm used to the stares and the shy tentative 'hello's I get in public. But she found herself the subject of scrutiny in her own home town, as people found her nearly as interesting as me--just because of her proximity to me.
But it was good to have her with me because she could quietly translate what people were saying about me as we passed. I'm pleased to report that the comments were generally good or neutral.
On the way to her home, Weiwei pointed out the many crumbling single-story buildings that serve as neighborhoods. They look like they've suffered from some earthquake, but in fact nearly all were built after the 8.0 Tianjin earthquake of 1976. Weiwei explained (proudly, I think) that all of these homes were being razed and replaced with department stores and high-rise apartment buildings like hers. Many of the homes are already empty as the demolition deadline nears.
The Liu's own home is only 8 or 9 years old, but again, looks ageless. A thick layer of dust has settled on every inch of the building and, while the apartments are maintained pretty well, the communal stairwells are not. Rotting vegetables, rusting bikes, piles of used cardboard, and blocks of coal impede every step. The Lius' home is on the 7th floor and since there is no lift (as Weiwei calls it), Grandma Liu cannot visit. The family hope to move to a three-bedroom on the first floor before the end of the year. This is not so that the Liu girls (Weiwei and her little sister Liu Yang) can finally sleep in separate beds, but so Grandma Liu can move in. Papa Liu is the number-one son and it's his duty to care for her.
Weiwei's mom is a doctor and her dad is an engineer. (Sorry, Dad, I can't figure out what kind of engineer he is, but he's not a civil engineer. My guess is, from the looks of things, that China doesn't employ a whole heck of a lot of civil engineers.)
Mama Liu, unfortunately, was on a business trip to Xi'an this weekend and was very apologetic for her absence. She called to say hello while I was there. But Liu Yang and Papa Liu were at home and they were quite a handful. Liu Yang and Weiwei showed me their videodisk collection. Yes, Annette, what you read in the Inquirer is correct. Everyone owns hundreds of videodisks and players. Weiwei's collection is in English with Chinese subtitles. (When we walked in, Titanic was playing, but this one didn't have any shadows or coughing.) I can't tell how illegal this collection is, but the packaging on Forest Gump reads, in English, "The world will never be the dame after you see if through the eyes of Forest Gump."
The sisters and I went off to the tourist center--"Old Tianjin"--and did some shopping. I got a little smart-assed, as the sixth calligrapher called out to me, "I can write your name in Chinese," I called, back, "So can I."
While we were out shopping, Papa Liu felt it was his obligation to make us a feast. As is the northern Chinese custom, jiao zi (potstickers) was the main attraction. Although the first 100 pot stickers (!) were already made by the time we returned, Papa Liu insisted that I make some. He told me several times that I am much better at making them than Liu Yang!
Papa Liu is a lively man who simultaneously reminds me of my own mom and dad. He began worrying that we would miss the 6:00 train at 3:45 and was near panic when we hadn't sat down to eat before 4. It was then that he pulled out his copy of the all-China train timetable and looked for alternative routes to Beijing--just in case.
He made a marvelous meal of jiao zi and 5 or 6 other dishes and spent most of the meal shoving food on my plate. Every five minutes or so he would sent a daughter or go himself to the kitchen to get me something or other. He rarely sat.
But when he did sit, he babbled on and on, eager to talk to me even though he knows only 2 words of English and usually couldn't even tell when I was speaking Chinese. (It's really tough on the ego when I say "ni hao" and he turns to his daughters for translation.) (On the other hand, he thought my written Chinese was pretty good for a fur'ner.) He loved my camera and the toys I brought him. He showed me every picture of his family, starting with his own baby pictures. These photos were fabulous, especially their wedding picture. They got married in 1974, at the height of the communist frenzy and the picture is textbook Maoist. I think the bride and groom were even holding little red books!) He fretted and fussed and it was clear, for one day, he had three daughters, not just two.
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