Movies always show groups of old men sitting around playing board games in the park, but I had never seen it in real life. Then I ran across these old men in Qingdao. I had to have a picture, but I didn’t want to walk up to them and interrupt their game to ask permission, especially when I knew it would involve dealing with language barriers and probably result in an awkwardly stage photo anyway.
So I told my daughter to hold pose for an picture, then zoomed behind her to capture the oldsters across the street. I’m pretty sure they never noticed, but my kid was on to me instantly.
“You just pretended to take a picture of me so you could take one of those old men, didn’t you?” she accused. Caught out, I refocused and took a second picture, this time of her face. But she still disapproved my deceptive little game.
Coastal Chinese cities are a far cry from Narnia, but I still half-expected Mr. Tumnus to trot by when I spotted this lamp post in a garden in Qingdao.
Qingdao and Seattle have a lot in common. One of my favorite things at home is turning a corner and getting a perfectly framed view of the mountains, Puget Sound, or Lake Union. Qingdao gets that, too.
Memory is a funny thing. A few years ago I read a book in which one character famously never danced.
Everyone in the book agreed that person was just not a dancer. But then one day, flipping through an old photo album, there was a picture of him on the dance floor.
I thought the memory of the day my daughter learned to fly a kite in China was complete and clear. It was such a special event I was sure every detail would stick in my memory forever. I don’t remember flying a kite myself in China, but here is evidence that it happened.
Super cheap package tours to China are awesome. I’m an expert at making cheap travel plans. But I’ve taken a package trip to China because even I couldn’t plan an equivalent trip for less. But the downside to those package deals (and most package tours) is that they don’t allow for individual contact.
When I was on my package tour of China, we were beset by hawkers every time we got off the bus. But I never had an actual conversation with a Chinese person who wasn’t paid to be nice to me or trying to sell something. Once, at the zoo in Beijing, a pair of college students approached me wanting to practice their English. Before we had finished with pleasantries, the tour guide rushed over and shooed them away.
Talking to Strangers
In contrast, solo travel can be hard. In China, it’s guaranteed to be. But the upside is the connections with regular people, which do more to demolish preconceptions and stereotypes than anything else that could happen. When I traveled with my daughter in China, we met dozens of people. We chatted with college students about marine biology; explained international adoption to old ladies with the help of a cell phone translation app.
Help When You Least Expect It
And we got lots of neighborly help from strangers. When we got lost and couldn’t understand the directions in Chinese, people gave us a ride where we were going. The concierge at our hotel volunteered to accompany us for an orphanage visit on her day off.
On the day pictured here, we visited the May 4 Square, a public space honoring protesters who fought for Chinese freedom from foreign occupation, now a popular place for couples and families to spend their free time.
Flying a Kite
We bought a kite, then struggled to put it together. This man, who was at the park flying kites with his young son, noticed our struggle. He came over and fixed our kite, then showed us how to fly it. We didn’t try to talk much or struggle with translation apps. We just hung out, flying kites, cheering on our kids. That dad kept an eye on us as well as his own kid. He helped us straighten out the string when the kite fell or tangled with someone else’s. Thanks to him, we spent a relaxing afternoon the way the locals do. That day we were part of the community, just another family among many enjoying the waterfront on a day off.
Package tours can be a good deal. But the neighborly kindness of strangers far from home is priceless in so many ways.
