It’s been a fun-filled (tiring at times) few weeks with
family in China. Here are some miscellaneous observations, to add to my two
sisters’ and Neil’s entries.
Shih-Men: As you might have seen from some of the other blog
posts, we spent a day in the Shih-Men area in Hunan province, where our
father’s family is from. I found myself thinking a lot about what it was like
for Ba Ba to live in that area when he was a child. It was so hot that day, and
I know how much Ba Ba doesn’t like the heat now, but I’m guessing that at the
time he didn’t know there were much cooler alternatives! The countryside was
beautiful – lots of trees and a huge reservoir that we drove around to get to
the village. Even though the area seemed to have a slower pace of life and
houses were more spread out from each other, it was interesting to see that
women were still dressed to the nines in high heels and fancy dresses. As
mentioned in other blog posts, almost everyone in this village is a Wu
relative.
Our large tour bus couldn’t make it down some of the country
roads, so we all started walking towards our relative’s house where we were
going to have lunch. The sun was beating down and it felt like we were walking
at a snail’s pace. Our walking group including Yolanda, Neil, Chris (my
husband) and Oscar. We finally reached a small shaded area and took a break
since Oscar was starting to feel sick that day. As we were all crowding under
the tree for shade, an older woman walked up to us. To be truthful, my first
thought was that she was going to ask us for money since we were clearly
foreigners. She spoke Mandarin but was
hard to understand at times because of her heavy Hunan accent. Yolanda explained
that we were hanging out in the shade, waiting for our bus to turn around, and
that we were visiting relatives. The woman explained that she had just taken
lunch to someone. When Yolanda said we were from the U.S., the woman said that
she had a relative (Wu Fa Yueh, our father) who lived in the U.S. Yolanda said,
“hey, that’s our dad!”. And the woman recounted the last time our dad came to
Shih-Men (in the 80’s with myself and my mom). I don’t remember this trip very
much since I was around 4 years old at the time, but I’ve heard about it a lot
now from our Shih-Men relatives this trip. Some relatives showed us pictures
from the trip that they had carefully put into photo albums and others told me how
their kids had taken photos with me during the trip. During that 1980’s trip,
my parents told me that many Wu relatives in the countryside walked for a long
time to come meet us. I wish we could have spent more time in Shih-Men this
time to meet more of these relatives and spend more time with them. These
people seem to remember and know so much more about us than we know about them.
I hope I’ll have an opportunity to return in the future. In the end, this brief
(hot) experience under this shaded tree was one of my favorite memories from
our trip to China. (Picture coming soon!!)
Traveling with Oscar and Ruby: One of the most fun parts of
this last week in Beijing with Chris, my sister, Neil, Oscar and Ruby has been
hanging out with the kids! When we’re in a big group with Yvonne’s family, the
kids end up hanging out with each other, so after Yvonne’s family left, this
gave me an opportunity to spend more time with Oscar and Ruby. Oscar and Ruby
have both grown so much since we saw them before their trip, for Oscar’s Bar
Mitzvah. They are both incredibly tall now (I can’t believe I’m looking at
Oscar eye-to-eye these days!), and have also matured in different ways. I’ve
been most impressed with their traveling endurance and how they really go with
the flow in any traveling situation. We’ve spent long days walking around cultural
sites and long bus/car rides to get there, and they rarely complain. Oscar is
always ready with a smile and laugh (even for my dorky jokes) and Ruby is
always eager to recount a story or hear a new one. They are, from my point of
view, rarely in a “bad mood” as I would expect kids in their position might be
when they get tired or are just wanting to be back at home. At the same time,
they strike me as really typical kids for their age, which is a good thing of
course. My sister and Neil are doing an amazing job leading their family on
this adventure. They have a great balance between structure (with school
activities, reading aloud from history excerpts and asking the kids follow-up
questions) and allowing the kids to have free time to explore, relax, and enjoy
the sites we’re visiting. I can’t wait to continue to hear how the kids think
about this trip once they get home and as they get older!
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