beijing snapshots

The water here is questionable... For the life of me, I don't understand why no matter how often I wash the cups and the kettle at our hotel, the water continues to have a white powdery precipitation. Apparently my friend H. had the same issue when she studied in Beijing for a semester. Without cleaning, the white powder would form a thick layer in her electric water boiler. I wonder if the odd element in the water is the cause of my somewhat distressed GI situation that's starting to become more pronounced. I'm grateful that my son seems to be fine and, in fact, is eating "adult food" a lot more since we arrived.

There's a cafe kitty-corner from our hotel that gave my husband a free pass for the two cups of coffee he had the second day we're here. The reason: appreciation for allowing the staff to play with our son. And here we were appreciating them for giving us some free time to ourselves. I love how the mainland Chinese culture is so...communal about children. How much of this is an adaptation to the one-child policy? Cousins call each other brothers and sisters, as do unrelated kids of similar ages. Public spaces are often filled with grandparents and their charges mingling with other parental figures and children.

The flip side to the above attitude is how nosy/interfering people can get. I suspect that the flight attendant who whisked my son away to the cockpit area (while I got a much-needed shuteye on the flight) fed him some cheesecake despite my warning that he's allergic to dairy. Chinese people on the whole don't seem to believe in allergies. And they also firmly believe in their own way of raising kids, like when I got pretty loudly berated on two occasions by grandfather figures for not putting socks on my son while we're outdoors. Dang it, it's 75 degrees! He is not freezing!

The aforementioned cafe also has a stray dog lingering around its entrance. The white puppy has been recently abandoned, it appears, and no one in the square of which our hotel is a part of has the heart to shoo it away. I've heard several employees persuading each other to adopt the dog. No takers yet. My son screeches excitedly every time we pass by. The dog shows remarkable intelligence in eyeing my son warily.

After two days of living with our hotel room facing the hotel parking lot, it finally dawned on me this afternoon that there's a small shanty-town forming on the far side of the parking lot. So far, about seven small make-shift shelters show indications of people residing in them. No wonder there's a clothesline strung up along the brick wall containing the parking lot, with blankets hung up to dry. It's so strange to see people living like that within this very affluent neighborhood. China's visibly growing gap between its rich and poor really is no joke.