Tai Tai

Tai-Tai Tenai

Recently a dear friend (Jackie, I miss you!) asked me what I DO everyday. I then realized I haven’t actually divulged the mundane details of my daily existence.

To answer Jackie’s question, I must tell you my “title” here. That would be tai-tai. Now the Chinese dictionary lists tai-tai as a married woman. True, I am that. But it also translates into “madam.” (Not that kind of madam!) More like, “Yes, Madam, I shall prepare your dinner.” Or, “Yes, Madam, I shall wait in the car while you shop...until I am needed to carry your bags!”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The agony! From Ms. Tenai, I have become Tenai Tai-tai, a lady who lunches. Say it isn’t so!

It isn’t!

I have not been out to lunch once in the entire month I have lived in Beijing. My housekeeper is perfectly able to prepare my luncheon at home!

While I have been dining in the comfort of my 4,000 square-foot abode, this is how I have been filling the last 30 days. (Today is our one-month anniversary here by the way.)

1. I get Lucas on the school bus at 8 a.m. This sounds easier than it is! Check it out: ISB (Lucas’s school) does not have a Monday through Friday schedule. They have a six-day schedule but a 5-day school week. On the fourth day of every 6, Lucas has library and PE. Can I tell you how many times he has forgotten to return his books or worn his sandals? Can anyone explain this 6-day agenda to me? Why, oh, why, can’t he have library or gym on a set day? I am begging for a day: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, any day! Just the same day! Our mornings would go so much more smoothly.

2. I exercise. I have a Scottish friend who is married to a Dane, and she likes to walk. She has managed to lose 10 pounds. Me, none…

Today we walked three miles on Dead-Ayi Road. Yes. This is a road where many ayi-s on bicycles have been killed by cars in the dark. We also did a little trekking through a garbage dump, several construction sites, and then we forded a stream. Yes, all on the outskirts of Beijing.

We are (imagine me speaking with a Scottish accent) “quite keen” on exploration. I may have found someone as crazy as me! Or she is having a good laugh at my expense. Or plotting my murder. It would be remarkably easy to kill me off. All it would take is a shoulder bump into traffic. My body could then be dumped with all the trash at the construction site. The positive? Dead Ayi Road (which is a terribly politically incorrect term) could then be renamed Dead Tai Tai Road... That seems a little better.

When Julie is not available and is busy killing off some other American tai-tai, I ride my bike on the indoor trainer. After exploring my neighborhood by foot, there is no way in hell I will brave Beijing traffic on my own! To make my stationary cycling more challenging, I memorize Chinese vocabulary as I spin..

3. Spinning my wheels…memorizing words…Twice a week I have intense Chinese language class. I have leapt over the Abyss of Incommunicado and landed more or less intact, fingers bleeding slightly and scrambling on my knees for a foothold. This week I managed to put together the entire sentence: “I tomorrow morning at 10 am go to the quickie mart and buy a big bottle of cooking oil.”

I actually said 7/11, not quickie mart. Semantics.

Believe it or not, though, those words are in the right order. But you KNOW I am in a foreign country if I am buying big bottles of cooking oil! (NO wonder Julie has lost weight and I haven’t…) Luckily the quickie marts here do not feel dangerous. I have never, not once, felt like someone was going to pull a gun and shoot me. Beijing bonus!

So Chinese. Wow. Most of the time I feel like I am in a wind tunnel! Everything starts with an sh, ch, ty, j, z, dg, g, or zh sound. Even odder, the letter Q is never paired with a U and it always says CH. And X says SH. Here are some of my favorite words:

Gonggong qi che = Bus.

Chaoshi. = Supermarket.

Changchang = Often.

Chuchai =Business trip

I guess we can put them all together and say: “Brad changchang qu chuchai ye wo bu zuo gonggongqiche zai chaoshi.”

(Say THAT dead times fast, Peter Piper!)

Translation: Brad often goes on a business trip and I do not take a bus to the supermarket.

(Both true statements in fact. Brad is gone nearly once a week and I have the driver take me to the market.)

Look how fluent I have become after only 1000 hours of studying. (The word 1000 can also mean money if you say it like you're angry!)

So I am becoming fluent!

And useful too!

Useful, maybe not. Ma Ayi manages the household and very well, I might add. I do pilates when she does the laundry. I do yoga when she vacuums. Yesterday I tried to make cookies in the oven. It is so tiny that none of my baking sheets fit! Good thing we are vegetarians and don’t need a turkey in November. I also learned that the oven inexplicably turns off when the timer is not in use. (Julie explained that to me this morning.) I was wondering why that last batch never browned…

Clearly my life is not always a piece of cake!

After Ma Ayi’s dinner (almost always delicious and Chinese), I do have to put all the leftovers in Tupperware AND load the dishwasher. Sometimes I even turn the dishwasher on! I normally need a bit of a relax after that strenuous activity.

Other daily demanding activities:

• Practicing piano with Lucas; his wrists are not right!
• Practicing guitar with Lucas; his chords are not clean.
• Practicing PenPal handwriting with Lucas; his printing is not clear.
• Searching for an Olympic swim coach for Lucas
• Searching for a Wimbleton coach for Lucas
• Seaching for a World-cup soccer coach for Lucas; Brad no longer cuts the mustard. Wait! That expression can't be right! Is it? Am I losing my English skills already? What a weird-ass phrase! How did I come up with that?
• Monitoring Ma Ayi's cooking: no more "jelly fish," please.
• Monitoring Ma Ayi's ironing: no more starched underwear or sheets, please.
• Monitoring Ma Ayi's appliance use. That's a whole other blog entry!
• Writing this blog, hoping to become the next David Sedaris
• Writing vocabulary lists, hoping to memorize an entire language
• Writing notes to Lucas's classmates' parents, hoping to arrange playdates and ease his transition.

And sometimes, despite all my hard work, the cookie crumbles...

This week, Lucas’s teacher thought he might need a psychological intervention because he yelled on the playground. Lucas shouted, “I hate school and I hate ISB.” Imagine that. A seven-year-old venting his frustration! In America I thought that was a healthy expression of emotion. Here, however, it is incredibly out-of-control. The teacher wrote, “The other children were shocked!”

He might have even [gasp] stamped his foot!

Shocking, I tell you!

Chocking.

Qocking.

Xocking.

Tyocking.

Jocking.

Dgocking.

Zhocking.

Shocking.

I must go study…

Oh, and go to a meeting at school!

With love,

Kimbeijingerly Ten-Tai-Tai