The no good very bad parental units

The no good very bad parental units
9pm Wednesday

Today we had a free day and spent most of the morning chatting with some of you fine folk. We didn't venture out until the afternoon when housekeeping came to clean our room. It was sprinkling when we left to visit our favorite haunt, Hypermart. As we approached the market it began raining and was coming down fairly hard. We enjoyed it as it was such a nice break from the heat (which in all fairness has come down and has gone from furnace heating oppressive to mildly uncomfortable), but we were pretty wet as we went into the market. As James and I were looking at something, a lady stopped, looked at our poor little wet waif, pulled a wad of paper towels out of her pocket (something I always keep on hand when shopping) and proceeded to wipe our daughter down. The lady didn't talk to us, just kept drying off the little empress. As she finished and walked away, I said thank you in Chinese and she either said "You're welcome" or "You are no good very bad parental units who just flunked Chinese parenting 101." I'm not really sure, because, well, I only look like I speak Chinese.

Speaking of Chinese parenting, we have been surprised at the ubiquitous bare baby bottom. At the store, bare baby bottoms. On the street, bare baby bottoms. At the Forbidden City, not forbidden bare baby bottoms. Either the bottoms are completely bare or are peeking through the "split pants" that many of the babies wear. We asked Joy to reveal the story behind this phenomena. She said that the older generation does not think that it is good for babies to wear diapers in this hot weather. They fear the babies will become overheated and will get diaper rashes. This is apparently a hot topic on the internet for young parents. The bottom line (I am so cracking myself up) is that because both parents often have to work, they rely on the older generation to care for their children while they are gone. Consequently the parents acquiesce and go along with it. And that's the naked truth, ar, ar.

The weather cleared up so we took a nice long walk to a park and then to a buffet for dinner. Very interesting buffet. They do have pizza there, but the toppings are quite unique. Some combinations are: beans and golden raisins; corn and pineapple; cranberries and some kind of meat. Some pizzas have mayo as the sauce. The buffet also has the distinction of being an "all the beer you can drink" place as well which made for some rather raucous patrons yesterday. There was a huge group of what looked like college aged kids drinking and smoking up the place (that's another thing that is hard to get used to, cigarette smoke everywhere). We were with the family who adopted the 7 –year-old. Along with the parents, two of his sisters came to China as well. One is in her early 20s, Jennifer, the other is 13, Sarah  (both very sweet young ladies). As we were getting set to leave, some of the guys were eyeing Jennifer and seemed to be goading each other on to do something. We decided to get out of there, before they uttered some bad pick-up line and embarrassed everyone involved. They started following us out, but Jennifer got ahead of them. Just as we were out of there, one looked at Sarah and said, "You are a very beautiful" then they elbowed each other and walked away. Oh boys will be boys no matter where you are.

A word about walking around busy Beijing, you are pretty much taking your life into your hands. It's not crime that is the issue, it is crossing the street. Pedestrians most resolutely do not have the right of way. It is amazing to watch cars come so close to peds. We had a bus pass way too close in front of us when we had the green "go ahead and walk guy signal." We've learned to be aggressive and to just start walking when it's our turn. I started uttering death threats with my eyes to oncoming traffic (in a really sweet peaceful fashion of course). Once we'd start across the street I would initialize ocular death rays. I'm sure I looked frightening. Hey, don't mess with Mama bear.

We came back and gave K a bath in the sink. She's so small we find that the sink functions just fine. She loves her baths. I think the water level goes down about 50% while she's in there. She splashes like crazy and finds it absolutely hilarious to watch her mom try to dodge the waves that emanate from the whirling water. I'm sure housekeeping wonders what in the world kind of hygienic routine we follow as they see all the water spots on the mirror. Those crazy foreigners!

Tomorrow it is off to the Beijing Zoo and an acrobatic show in the afternoon. That will be our last full day in Beijing, hurray! We fly out to Guangzhou on Friday. We are looking forward to seeing a new city, but even more it signals the last leg of our trip! And there's no ifs, ands, or butts about it (okay, I'm done, I promise!).