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We arrive at Slender West Lake. It's a kind of garden carefully designed so that every few steps there is a scenic vista. The story goes that the park was owned or managed or something by a salt merchant and the park was visited by the emperor. The emperor liked the park but commented it would be better if he could see the White Tower from within it. The white tower is a famous tower in Beijing. Over the next night, the salt merchant had a miniature white tower constructed out of salt to the delight of the emperor. It was later reconstructed with proper materials. Pillars of salt are poor choices for long-term construction, as Coldplay once noted in their seminal work, "Viva la Vida." The emperor in question was Qianlong, known for having the largest harem and nearly the longest reign. He would have had the longest reign had he not resigned and passed on the post in order not to take the title from his grandfather, whom he respected.
The park is quite nice and seems unknown or unreachable by Western tourists, as I saw zero non-Chinese people. At first, I was surprised to see so many women in traditional garb getting their pictures taken until we passed the shop renting out the outfits and selling photo shoots.
The other ubiquitous guests were many groups of around 20 high school-aged kids in matching tracksuits. These were the school uniforms of what I was informed was the top high school in all of China. A field trip. I'm a little skeptical of the claim, but the others insisted it was true that the school in question had the highest standardized test scores in the country. Top school or not, the kids were all over the park. Later, each group had a large sheet of paper and seemed to be doing a collaborative watercoloring assignment.
We brought MIL's grandmother along and borrowed a wheelchair where able. There is no Chinese with Disabilities Act, and nearly nothing is designed to accommodate wheelchairs. Many places, especially historical places, have a practice where thresholds are intentionally about a foot off the ground. It's bad luck to step on the elevated threshold, as one should get over and not dwell on their problems, or something. If possible, one should avoid being disabled in China.
Fortunately, Grandmother can handle even stairs on foot given a little help, so we could navigate her around the park well enough. There's a steep and narrow bridge called the 24 Bridge because it has 24 posts and 24 maidens danced on it or something; also, it's 24 meters long. I'm not totally sure this wasn't all made up on the spot, but it's definitely called the 24 Bridge. That was on a sign in English, so it must be the case. We got Grandmother to the top of this bridge, which is maybe 2 meters wide and flat for a meter. Of course, we need to take a picture here on this high-traffic bridge. Somehow, the people around us accommodate this madness, and we get the shot.
MIL has a kind of insistent energy when traveling that drives my wife a little crazy in too high of doses. She likes to maximize every moment of a trip. Take a picture here, move on to the next place to take a picture, repeat. Even resting is done in a kind of purposeful way, explicitly to prepare for the next action. I have a rather opposite approach but appreciate that with her, we cover a lot more ground.
The sun goes down as we reach the end of the park, and it's time to head to dinner. Today is the simplest meal yet. We stop by Grandma's apartment and drop off my sister-in-law, who has a headache, and then just walk around the block, past a small group of locals just hanging out and a new conveniently located grocery store, to a hole-in-the-wall that looked from the outside as much like a restaurant as a crafts space. The walls were plain, and supplies were stored next to the tables. It's just the four of us; Grandma and Uncle left. I'm not sure how ordering worked; we're the only ones in the place, and they just start bringing out dishes to place on the lazy Susan.
If my wife wrote this, the log out would be about 60% descriptions of food. I'd write more about it, but the descriptions themselves are fairly vague. There were meatballs in a kind of brothy soup, fish in a sauce covered in a local corn, the good kind of intestines (my wife has strong feelings on this subject), the standard Chinese chicken where the meat is cut such that you must fight and nibble around bones for every bite, along with a few local vegetable dishes.
I grew up a picky eater but have gradually overcome that status and have resolved to eat almost anything my wife eats on this trip. Still, when I plucked the chicken head from the plate, I passed it over to her; she appreciates it more than I possibly can. Willingness to try anything had garnered me some goodwill among the extended family. I even tried "stinky tofu" at the FIL's grandma's place that even my wife didn't eat. I don't recommend it; it may actually be a prank, like when someone from Chicago convinces an out-of-towner to drink Malört. If it was, then they were committed to the bit, going back in for seconds. Then again, some of my city fellows swear by the terrible liquor. FIL actually liked Malört when he tried it.
After dinner, Uncle drives us back to our hotel. He talks about how he's been driving for fifty years. When he was young, delivery driving was a great career in China. The government would train you up, and there was always work. He had driven big trucks, chemicals, and during one war or the other, cannons. He was almost sent to Vietnam, but fortunately, instead, they sent him elsewhere during the war to guard against the Soviets. It seems there wasn't a lot of trust between the two countries during the time, and China feared there might be trouble.
It is insisted that we are ready to be picked up by precisely 7:15 a.m. the next morning. This won't be a problem; we've been waking up at 5 a.m. at the latest. My inclination to sleep in when able is still less powerful than the jet lag. But the reasoning—that we're going to get picked up, ride the 5 minutes to Grandma's, eat breakfast, and leave by 7:30—sounds very optimistic. We've not yet completed a meal in less than an hour and a half.
It's 7:45 the next morning; my wife is splitting our third pastry as Auntie taps a hard-boiled egg on the table to peel. There are all sorts of Chinese breakfast pastries. The fried dough sticks are my favorite and come in sweet or savory variants. Also on offer are fried balls stuffed with a sweet bean paste and covered in sesame seeds, something like hash browns but using gelatinous rice, and finally, a flaky thing meant to be eaten with congee (a type of rice soup that is the single most common breakfast offering) that I can best describe as flaky pizza crust filled with a slim layer of buttery sweet spread. The car is packed, and we leave at 8.
We drop off our bags at a downtown Nanjing hotel where we'll stay for the next three days and head to the Zhongshan Mausoleum. Or as I might call it, Mount Nanjing Government History. But first, a brief overview of recent Chinese history according to FIL:
First, the dude the whole park is named after, Sun Yat-sen, establishes the Republic of China (ROC) by uniting the people of China against the Qing dynasty. It lasted for like 4 seconds before the warlords were like, "Nah, bruh, we want to control fiefs actually," and as they had most of the military power, the nascent ROC got rocked, maybe got rocked twice, possibly three times. Sun Yat-sen then goes and establishes a military school, finds allies in Russia, the US, and all freedom-loving Chinese farmers. Then WW2 happens, and the Japanese come into the picture. Everyone hates that. There's a three-way bloodbath for a while. The ROC + commies + Americans + farmers were led by a Chiang Kai-shek. Eventually, the Japanese and warlords lose, and the major question of whether to make an American (really more British in practice) style democracy or a more Soviet-style state is the next big topic. This is resolved by "look over there!" /hand-waving motion/ oh look, the CPC runs the mainland, and the ROC runs Taiwan, and both claim to run the whole thing, great.
We board a long golf cart. Along with us is the Syracuse grad student who likes Shadow Hart, an auntie, and two younger biology grad students that I'm not sure how we're connected to.
The first stop is the home of Chiang Kai-shek, the second ROC leader. It's very Western-styled inside. There is a small chapel. His wife, a Soong sister, is Christian. There's also a small 6-person barracks in the basement. The two slept in separate beds, which was apparently common at the time for wealthy people in China.
There's a whole exhibit on the three Soong sisters. Another one married Sun Yat-sen. They were all born in China but educated in the US. All throughout the park, I'm struck by how often there are connections to America mentioned. Roughly a third of the plaques in the park have English translations on them. I still don't see any Westerners all day, but I appreciate the accommodation.
We board our golf cart again and take a break from history to visit a cherry blossom garden. We are fortunate enough to be here while they were blossoming. The blossoms are white and come down in waves whenever the wind blows. These ones were gifts from a sister city in Japan. If you've seen cherry blossoms in anime it's basically like that.
While we were taking our pictures, we learn of Syracuse grad's lady troubles as he is distracted by her texts. He's seeing but not official with a girl set up through a family friend. She has an upcoming ski trip in Japan during her birthday and is upset that he plans to give her a gift after the trip rather than before it. We pry for details and learn that she is something like a medical sales rep. We'll be introduced to her later in the week.
Back in the golf cart and next stop is the mausoleum of the first Ming emperor. I'm beginning to notice that there aren't a lot of golf carts as we zoom past gates. I'd find out later that the two grad students in the party were justifying a VIP package. Everyone in the cart besides me and FIL has or is pursuing a PhD. MIL runs a research lab, and these two grad students were potential collaborators or something, so some grant or another is paying for this ride.
There's not too much to say here; the Ming dynasty started in the 1300s and is known for simple and less ostentatious rule. The tomb itself is buried somewhere and hasn't been opened. There is or was an order of hereditary guards to protect his tomb that still live in the area today. On the way back to the VIP-mobile, we stop and get some drinks. It's almost 90 degrees out, and we could use a cool-down. The rest of the group gets ice cream, my wife opting for a corn-flavored treat. I get a Coke Zero. Syracuse informed me that in China, Coke is called "happy drink for fat people," fair enough.
Next is lunch at the Buddhist temple. It's all vegetarian "monk noodles." Basically like if those big ramen bowls from anime had spaghetti in them along with soft tofu, mushrooms, an egg, and a few other veggies. Good and pretty cheap at 28 yuan for the premium bowl.
Hunger satisfied, we check out the Buddhist temple. The first shrine is the shrine of wealth, which doubles, appropriately, as the gift shop. There's something almost pure about a literal shrine to wealth. No circumlocutions here; you want wealth? Say no more, we've got just the place for you. Also, can I interest you in little Buddha statues? Although the girl manning the register isn't doing a good job selling the merchandise, slumped over snoozing on a display.
We stopped by the fertility shrine to have a word with that Buddha in particular, left a yuan coin on the rooster shrine that represents our zodiac, and said hi to a pale white cat that Syracuse says is always napping in the same position every time he's been here. Maybe the most zen creature in the whole temple. Finally, we visit the jewel of the temple. In a cool stone cavern beneath the main shrine is a piece of the cremains (what remains after cremation) of Tang Sanzang, the main character in "Journey to the West" who traveled to India to retrieve the original Buddhist texts. The remains are stored within an intricate golden miniature structure.
Having seen enough, it's time to return to the electric chariot. There is a 9-story pagoda, essentially a Chinese tower, that we stop in to get a good view of Nanjing.
Walking up all those steps turned out to be a preview as our final destination was the mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen. It's a huge structure, and you need to walk many steps up to the tomb. The steps supposedly represent the further effort needed by the people to complete the revolution. At the top, we pick up some lemonade and waters. Hydration has been a major struggle. The Chinese seem to broadly not care for water that isn't boiled and infused with herbs. Up at the top, though, they have the rare ice-cold water. I cherish the cold liquid, reminded of home.
MIL is very impressed with the scale of the structure, noting only emperors and kings had mausoleums this grand. I can't help but think that wasn't what Yat-sen was going for. There is something about the Chinese worldview that is still hard for my American brain to grok. They speak about ROC and CPC much the same as they speak of the Ming and Qing. Yat-sen may as well have been an emperor. We're living through another era in a long history. Of course, I have a very small and biased view into the Chinese mindset.
There's an exhibit after we finish at the mausoleum going through Sun Yat-sen's life. I'm not going to tell it better than Wikipedia. We're pretty exhausted; it's been a bit of a death march.
We have one last ride to the exit and walk to a restaurant located between a small lake and the imposing wall of Nanjing. This dinner is attended by a family friend who is also the boss of someone else in the family. His kid is studying in the US, a junior in college getting ready to apply for med school. My wife advises him on the process and will probably review his son's application. We drink through the two bottles of moutai he brought. During dinner we learn that Syracuse has come to a resolution with his not quite girlfriend that after the trip is fine but she expects two gifts.
We leave the restaurant feeling good. The temperature is dropping down to tolerable levels, and we walk a short distance to a bus stop, which we take back to the hotel.
Preamble (pre ramble?)
Almost a year ago I married a girl who is either a first or second generation Chinese American depending on how you count people who came over as young kids. Over the years I have met many of her relatives, now my in-laws, that lived or made trips to the US. The time has come to meet those who do not and did not. To my great shame I do not speak Chinese.
We're going along with my wife's nuclear family. My mother-in-law and father-in-law, hence MIL and FIL, and her younger sister. The sister is 14 years younger than her and a natural born US citizen. The gap is a result of the one-child policy. While my wife goes by her Anglicized name, her sister prefers using her Chinese one. She's pretty sharp, doing her undergrad right now with plans of going to law school. She talks and acts like you'd expect of any American Zoomer. I think she feels her Chinese identity is a little more precarious and clings to it a little more tightly as a result.
The extended family is mostly in Nanjing and a little bit in Shanghai. The plan is relatively simple: fly into Shanghai through Hong Kong, take the train to Nanjing, meet people for a few days, train back to Shanghai, meet other people, then me and the wife are spending a couple of days in Osaka, Japan on the way back with an old buddy of mine. That's the short plan. The long plan is outlined in meticulous detail in Chinese on a Google Docs form by MIL.
This series of posts will be something like a travel log, or trog.
Hong Kong
The first few days are relatively uneventful. Me and the wife fly separately to Hong Kong. The flight is probably half white and half Chinese people. We sit separately and I don't sleep a wink, sandwiched between two other guys. The website hadn't been willing to accept our visas so I couldn't check in before getting to the airport, so we were left with the bottom-of-the-barrel choice of seats. Despite this, paying $25 for in-flight internet makes the flight fly by as I let the best social media slop our finest engineers can serve melt my brain into a timeless stasis. Time travel is real; it just only goes one way.
We spend around 13 hours in Hong Kong, most of them sleeping. We didn't have enough time to get out into the city proper but we did manage to grab a meal and explore the 7-11 in the airport. For European readers, as they are mostly a North American and apparently Asian chain, 7-11s are convenience stores, frequently gas stations. Think Apu's store from The Simpsons. In America they're not highly thought of, mainly notable for their "slurpee" carbonated slushy machines. However, apparently 7-11 has a social media presence in Asia unlike its presence in the West.
I was once told for international travel that if you're staying long enough in a country it is interesting to try their local Chinese food because it's so variable and the diaspora adapts the food to the local palate. Within Asia this is supposedly how one should think about 7-11s. We bought a couple of Hong Kong-specific pastries and Tsingtao beer. It's an opportunity to verify if I set up WeChat Pay correctly. The beer is a pale lager that I have had before in the States; it's crisp and refreshing.
Shanghai
The next morning we fly to Shanghai and take the local subway to our hotel near the main shopping district. When buying tickets we put one of our 100-yuan bills, worth around $14, in to buy our 8-yuan worth of tickets. The machine instantly shut off and declared itself out of order after dispensing the tickets. No change provided. We learned not to trust machines going forward but as far as lessons go this one was relatively cheap. Supposedly the hotel we stayed at was one of the places Nixon stayed when he did whatever it was only Nixon could do. I was assured our room was not wiretapped. Every time we stopped at a new hotel we needed to present our passports and they recorded our movements into some system. We had a few hours to kill as we waited for the rest of her family to arrive so we strolled down the shopping street to a place called The Bund where one can see a skyline over the bay.
The shopping street is huge and packed. Scattered about are college-aged Chinese people in cosplay. My wife says she doesn't think there is any particular event. It's a Saturday and people just do that sometimes. Every once in a while we see a young, attractive woman in some elaborate dress or makeup with a personal photographer taking staged photos. Where cross traffic is allowed on the strip, the roads are dominated by scooters.
The shops themselves extend three stories up for most of the strip that goes on for at least a mile and in places five or six stories up. It's easily three times as dense as Chicago's Michigan Ave. White people are still regular enough that my presence only attracts minor glances and increased attention by the street vendors. The shops are about an even mix between Western and mainland brands. The food is mostly mainland with a smattering of brands like McDonald's, KFC, and, to my surprise, Pizza Hut. Apparently, the localized phonetic characters for Pizza Hut translate to something like "home of the winners". Eventually, at around 10pm, her parents arrived and we went in search of dinner. We had reservations at a hotpot place they described as "reputable". There were probably ten hot pot places in a block and somehow this was one of the only ones with zero signs.
Her parents execute a basic strategy when going anywhere in China: they ask random people on the street where to go for their destination and go that direction until they run into another random stranger to ask. They prioritize police officers and workers but if none are available they'll ask just about any person on the street. This sounds like a viable strategy but so far the results have been significantly worse than using a mapping app. We spent probably 30 minutes wandering around a block, walking through alleys, asking random people where this specific hotpot place was. Eventually, I'm confident through the process of elimination, we tried an unmarked door beside a KFC and found an elevator to our destination.
For those who don't know, hotpot is a kind of communal meal where everyone sits around a hot pot—almost Chinese names are this literal—full of various flavored broths. You dump things in to cook over time but most centrally you take your chopsticks, pick up some thin-sliced frozen meat and dip them in until cooked, usually 20-ish seconds. Then you dip them in a sauce of your own design and eat.
Racism against white people is usually tame and harmless. As long as it doesn't hold an accusation of wrongdoing I take it in stride. One exception is the idea that we cannot handle spices. This is a harmful untruth that has been used to deny me and my people the flavor we deserve. We subjugated most of the globe in search of spices, and yet our spice lust is denied. The staff at this hotpot place wore devil horns and served us a sour plum juice along with broth that was maybe mild.
Bellies full and bodies jetlagged, we made it back to the hotel. The AC in our room was busted but we were too tired to care and fell asleep quickly. The next day we woke up for the breakfast buffet. Like much of the city, the spread was half Western and half Chinese. The buffet was well attended and for the first hour there were two white guys in the hall and we were both wearing orange polos. After breakfast we walked through the People's Park. They have an advanced form of analog Tinder. There are hundreds or thousands of essentially dating profiles on laminated sheets of printer paper laid out on the path. There are sections for foreign matches and all sorts of categories. Some have phone numbers; some are tended by the prospective matches or, more commonly, their parents, uncles, or aunts. According to the wife, the women greatly outnumber the men. It wasn't clear to me why, given the sex imbalance should lean the other way.
Next we visit the Yu Yuan Park. It's a neat estate with essentially ornate 1700s-era meeting rooms and rock parks. The park is attached to a huge marketplace selling every trinket or bauble you can imagine. One of my quests was to find a couple of copies of Mao's Little Red Book as a souvenir for me and a buddy who I knew would also appreciate one. Unfortunately, the one shop that had them only had German and French versions. I want either a Chinese or English version. The in-laws offered to order one for me but there is a kind of vulgar poetry to haggling for one with a street vendor that holds a special appeal to me.
We grab lunch in the form of XLBs. These are soup-filled dumplings, in this case a crab meat version the area is known for. For good measure we also pick up a couple of pan-fried baos and spring rolls from another shop. It's a warm day so I pop into a 7-11 and pick up a couple of slurpees. They come in 12-ounce cups. China has advanced much over the last few decades but they are not yet ready for the 44-ounce variant available to more advanced nations. Maybe next generation. Slurpees in hand, we took the train back to get our bags from the hotel and then headed to the train station to take high-speed rail to Nanjing. We arrive early and present our passports at the gate to be recorded. When the train arrives, despite the seats being assigned, everyone boards the train in a disorganized rush that I don’t quite understand. The ride to Nanjing is smooth and impressive. I watch out the window as countryside zooms past. The Chinese countryside is not like the American equivalent. There are random clusters of a dozen or so identical 10+ story tall apartment buildings and a smattering of industrial buildings. There are no suburbs; stand-alone single-family homes are rare. Huge factories, complete and operating or under construction, dot the landscape.
Nanjing, the southern capital
We arrive in Nanjing and an uncle picks us up. He's high up in a media organization that, for reasons unexplained to me, owns the hotel we're staying in. His wife is a Party member. These are easily our wealthiest relatives in China.
The Chinese have something of a gift-giving culture. Our bags came over laden with gifts to give out. As a young couple, our obligations aren't so great: some Nike jackets or sweaters for aunts and uncles, slippers and melatonin for grandparents, more specific things for a handful of exceptions. It's somewhat interesting what mainland Chinese people want. Coveted are medicines with what is seen as superior American quality control, brand-name clothing, the kinds of nuts and ingredients one could get at any American big box store.
At the hotel we meet up with the wife of our ride and exchange some gifts. We received a belated wedding gift of several red packets bulging with 100-yuan notes. I feel a little uneasy about taking several thousand yuan from a literal Communist Party member. But she's friendly enough and I'm not here to fight that battle.
Dinner is a bit of an ambush that in hindsight we should have seen coming. We thought we just had normal reservations at the hotel restaurant but it ended up being something like a pseudo-wedding reception. I would have preferred to have dressed better for the occasion but it quickly became apparent that, besides drinking obligations, we were probably among the least important people at the event.
FIL took the head of the table as the head host, surrounded by the other elders of the family and then expanding outwards in accordance with tradition and pragmatism. Naturally, me and my wife were seated not quite at the opposite end, which itself is reserved for an important person, but at the approximate importance of a cousin who had brought her Pomeranian. This is good news; honor is an obligation and we were ill-equipped to bear it, armed only with my wife's vague recollection of tradition.
One thing we did know is that I was expected to drink. The Chinese drink of high occasions is baijiu or white alcohol and the king of baijiu is Moutai. Moutai is approximately 100 proof and drunk in thimble-sized glasses. It tastes and smells relatively sweet and is not cheap, running you around 1500 yuan (around $200) for a 500ml bottle. To waste Moutai is a grave sin. As a relatively young man and the newlywed, it is my duty to drink with every guest, every offered toast, and to continue drinking until the toaster stops.
When not drinking I sat next to a young man around my age who got an undergrad in Syracuse and was pursuing a PhD in computer security. He had opted to not drink anything and was one of the few people able to speak English. I asked what he wanted to do after he finished his PhD and he said anything but computer security. We ended up talking about board/computer games and a little bit into AI alignment. He gave a p(doom) of 95% and Shadowheart was his favorite companion in Baldur's Gate 3.
Some number of hours later, dinner was finished and the last of the guests filtered out and we were compelled to finish the last of the last opened bottle of Moutai. We set an alarm and passed out in the room for another breakfast buffet the next day.
At breakfast it's no longer just a rarity to see another white person. I am the only one. People are definitely looking. Still, the breakfast spread is mixed Western and Chinese. There seems to be a Huawei convention of some sort at the hotel as we leave. Time to visit the wife's two remaining grandmothers and extended family in the countryside.
We leave behind most of the luggage and call two taxis to take us about an hour and a half into one of those clusters of identical ~10-story buildings. We're now well outside the kind of places a Westerner without family would ever find themselves. Locals stare, and kids keep staring even after you stare back. Some of them have never seen a white person in the flesh. I'm not offended by this at all, just an interesting experience. No one is aggressive or rude, just curious. Almost no one here speaks any English unless they've retired from elsewhere. I'm extremely dependent on my wife who does her best to keep me up to speed on conversations. We only stop briefly at her grandmother's house; we'll be back later. First we need to visit her grandfather's grave on her father's side. He passed away a few years ago and my wife has been there since but you're supposed to do it every April if you're local. And if you're not, you just do it whenever you visit.
The cemetery is row after row of essentially upright tablets with the ashes just beneath them. Husband and wife share a tablet; there is a picture of each and the patrilineal offspring's names are laser-etched on them. I don't think there is a way for my name to end up on one of these but I wonder if a Chinese man marries a Western woman how they deal with Latin alphabet names. We decorated the tablet with flowers and plants then took turns kowtowing three times while addressing the dead. It was fine to use English. I introduced myself and thanked him for his part in creating the woman I loved. Then we went to a stall nearby where we lit a fire and tossed fake money to be lit so that he will have money in the afterlife. There’s every variety of bills including good old greenbacks. I was worried that the Chinese afterlife might not accept counterfeit bills so I snuck a real 20-dollar bill into the pyre.
One thing that has fascinated me about Chinese culture is trying to square Chinese Communist ideology with a culture that at every possible angle seems to celebrate success and laud becoming wealthy. I like these people. They strike me as spiritually more American than most of the people I've met in Europe. American rightists would find themselves more at home here than American leftists.
After we finish up we go to meet my FIL's grandmother. She's in her late 80s and my wife, who is a psychiatrist by trade, responded to a question of whether she had early-stage dementia by saying it was definitely not an early stage. Before she forgets who I am she is either able to grasp that I work with computers or in a bank but can't seem to accept their union. When she believes I work at a bank she insists that must mean, as a perk of employment, I get free breakfast, a state of affairs she approves of.
She lives in a grouping of houses somehow tied to some shared ancestor. Everyone in the area seems to be a great aunt or uncle. From the outside the homes look kind of slummy but the interiors are clean and well maintained. Behind her living space is a corridor that is covered but exposed to the elements which leads to a shed and a room that is half dedicated to a chicken coop where she sources fresh eggs and roosters to eat. One unlucky rooster was selected earlier that day to form two of the several dishes we were served for lunch shortly after arriving. Beyond the coop there is an acre or so of well-maintained garden. Last time my wife visited she said they only had an outhouse for a toilet but since then they must have installed a septic system. Most of the people there have scooters or little electric cars to get around.
Lunch is served with a bottle of baijiu and we are joined by a few other family members. Among them is a great uncle who is also in his late 80s and has been deaf and mute since what was described as an antibiotic incident when he was a kid. Despite these setbacks he is in excellent health and appears to do most of the upkeep around the house. After successfully responding to a few of his toasts he takes a liking to me and I feel a kinship with another man who can understand very little of what is said around him. We drink through a bottle of baijiu and my great uncle attempts to retrieve a second bottle from the other room. He nearly achieves success, to the objections of the younger generation, but is eventually disarmed. Although relieved to not be drinking any more at lunch before being made to drink at dinner, I couldn't help but root for him. Eventually we wander out and then are waved into another relative’s house for tea. Supposedly an aunt and uncle but I have no idea how many degrees removed. The man is a retired doctor who used to head a hospital. MIL insists that a while back everyone was moving from the countryside to the city because the entitlements were much better in cities but there's been a reversal in favor of cleaner air and maybe something to do with removing taxes on grown produce and the addition of a farm subsidy 15 years ago. The doctor has what is described as a classic Chinese sword which he claims to use for tai chi and also for protecting himself from bad spirits. It forms a part of a traditional Chinese wall.
After we finish drinking tea there we walk out and FIL shows us around where he grew up while we wait for a ride back to MIL's apartment building. There is a pond he used to catch frogs and fish in as a young kid, under the not-so-responsible supervision of deaf and mute great uncle. There is a sign that says you're not allowed into it anymore for safety reasons, damn liberals. Feral cats are abundant and we run into 4 cats hanging around some trees while two of them work on making a few more. There are plenty of people out and about and I definitely draw some attention.
Back at the MIL's grandma's apartment we have another meal and another bottle of baijiu. An aunt and uncle with their 10-year-old kid join us. The kid practices a little English and welcomes us to Nanjing. He's full of energy and eats quickly. After an hour or so he is sent to the other room to do homework while we continue drinking. Some of the conversations as they're translated for me are almost comically familiar. One uncle notes that not everyone really needs to go to college. The trades are a good career path for many and aren't encouraged enough. Another uncle mentions that the rich have an unfair leg up in schooling.
We receive a few more gifts. I get a set of Buddhist prayer beads made of a black wood that smells nice. The set comes with a scroll that explains in Chinese the significance. My wife gets a fat Buddha bracelet. Supposedly this is a particularly fat version of Buddha that is able to absorb all the bad things in the world into his enormous stomach. We also receive some paintings that are claimed to be from a famous ancient artist and come in official-looking packets. He paid twenty yuan for each one and he is the only one that seems to be convinced they aren't forgeries. I later learn one of his favorite pastimes is buying dubious items on a Chinese bidding site. In any case, they were definitely made by a Chinese artist which makes them authentic enough for me.
MIL, FIL, and sister-in-law will all sleep at grandma's. Uncle drives me and the wife to the nearby hotel that he has a connection with where we stay the night.
The next day we wake up and after a quick breakfast at grandma's we go to MIL's grandfather's grave to repeat a similar ritual. On the way MIL points out the area she grew up and the land that her grand father used to own. The story goes that before the cultural revolution her grandfather got really sick and needed antibiotics. Hard to come by in semi rural China in I think the 50s? They ended up selling a bunch of land off to buy them only for him to die anyways. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the family might have fared worse during the revolution if they still owned all the land.
This time we have more company and a relative who is a Buddhist monk chants while we burn not just the paper money but a set of clothing and some paper representations of gold bars and a tea set. The monk had originally been part of an order but during the Cultural Revolution they shut down his group so he got married and had kids. At some point the restrictions slackened and he's back to performing rituals as a job.
During the part where we kowtow and speak to the dead I said it was an honor to be introduced and that if fortune is favorable we'd introduce him to another on our next visit. Every kid or parent that did the ritual devoted at least some of their dialogue to asking for good grades. After the ritual we all went to get lunch at a restaurant where, of course, more baijiu was shared.
I'm publishing this on the road to our next destination. I will probably edit this when I get home and add pictures either in a substack or X post. I'm trying to give more of an impression than a polished essay.