Living with a meimei, a nainai and a Chinese mama

As I write this, my nainai is cleaning up after our typical meal of sauteed cabbage with rice. I will be sad to see her leave soon. After her surgery she will return to Gansu. She told me that she cannot wait to go back home. She says the pollution in Beijing is awful and there are too many people. She told me more, but that is about as much as I could understand. 

Dou jiang

Her accent is so strong that she may as well be speaking another language. Fortunately we have worked out a system, so it feels as though we are conversing. I ask her how her day is, she responds hen hao (meaning very good and pronounced hun how). I proceed to ask her if she needs any help and she says bu*. I then sit down to eat with her and she prods me to chi…chi…chi (pronounced chr) until I finally take a bite. Along with my nainai (Chinese for grandmother) I live with a 7-year old girl who I call meimei or little sister, and my meimei's mother.

The apartment is sparsely decorated with a couple of Chinese paintings, my meimei's art masterpieces scribbled on the walls, and red lucky charms hanging under the doorways. The couch,  across from the nicest big-screen TV I have ever seen, is also bright red, a color that is extremely important in Chinese culture----  it signifies good luck and happiness.

Split pants!

Everyday I eat breakfast, dinner, and sometimes lunch with the family. My favorite meal is definitely breakfast. Almost every morning my host mom makes me doujiang, a soybean milk drink and a sweet mibing, which is a kind of rice pancake.

An interesting pattern that I have noticed living with this family is that my 7 -year old meimei, her mother and her nainai all tend to fall asleep at around the same time. In general, children do not seem to always have bedtimes. Sometimes l come home late from studying around 9 or 10 and see children walking around outside with their parents. Speaking of children, I have seen a lot of bare bottoms here, because most babies do not wear diapers. Instead, they wear split pants and either just go to the bathroom when they feel like it or when their caretakers tell them to go to. Everyday I notice new things, it makes life here all the more interesting. Last night while walking around town I found this gem below. If only we had a Spice Girls restaurant in San Francisco! 



*bu means no