Hearts and Minds

Across the street from the school is my favorite store.  I am calling it a store because I cannot really explain it in one word other than “store,” but to give the whole picture it is basically a convince store the size of a toll booth attached to a street front grill where the best lo mien in all of Beijing is made.  The store is owned by one family consisting of the father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, two aunts, an uncle, and three boys.  The entire family lives in the store and sleeps behind the cash register and in between the isles.  This is the side of Beijing that most foreigners do not get to see.  The disparity of wealth is like nothing I could have imagined.  I will take a taxi ride 10 minutes from campus and pass ten high rises worth millions and then I can return to where I live and seen three generations of a family living in their store. 

This store really is not the cleanest place to buy my things, but I like giving them my business.  My daily routine is to grab a bottle of iced Oolong tea in aisle 2, which is also their kitchen apparently because they are always making food right next to the tea shelf, grab an egg custard y the uncle’s bedroom, which is a rolled blanket and makeshift pillow out of grocery bags, and then go to the cash register aka master bed room.  The family also has a little girl about five or six years old.  Every time I see her I try to give her a small treat or gift.  The other day I gave her a chocolate and today I gave her this small Beanie Baby key chain.  She seemed to really like it and thanked me.  I was sure she did not have a lot of toys, so I knew it was appreciated. 

In the afternoon I went to order lo mien for lunch and the little girl came up to be and said, “Hey I remember you, I like you!”  Then to my surprise she came out with a giant bag of stuffed animals and asked me to play.  I sat on a little folding stool on the side walk and ate my noodles as I played with her Mickey Mouse dolls.  We played for about an hour; games that five year olds enjoy like running to a random spot, touching it, and running back.  I taught her how to do a “high 5” and then we played hide and seek.  All of this was done under the watchful eyes of the grandmother, who looked like she was suspicious of westerners.  After countless giggles and laughter the grandmother warmed up to me as well and chuckled at the games the little girl and I were playing.  After about an hour of play I told the little girl that I had to return home, so she said “OK, I will see you later tonight then and we can play again?” I had to tell her that I was busy tonight but tomorrow afternoon we would play again.  She said OK and good bye. 

After playing with a little Chinese girl for an hour and understanding most of what she said I realized that my Chinese speaking ability is equivalent that of a six year old.  Even she had to dumb stuff down for me because she could see I did not understand.  Sadly eight years of studying Chinese puts me at a pre-school level in China.  It is, how the Chinese say “Mei guan xi” (no problem), because I have been in China over a week now and I realize that I am quite functional with my abilities and this program is really accelerating my progress.  Days like today remind me that it is more important to appreciate the whole experience rather than lock myself in my room and study the text.