As part of the Beijing Tai Tai Virtual Tour we are thrilled to have the following guest post by Tania McCartney
A Toddler’s Survival Guide to China
It’s not every day you get to pack your nappies (not that you’ll end up needing them) and shift to China. As a two-year old Aussie bloke, I could never have dreamed nor schemed the joy in store for me in that nation’s capital. Life in Beijing is like a wonderland of toddler bliss and parental angst that quite simply takes the breath away.
But if you’re lucky enough to ditch the nappies and move there, you’ll need to do it right. After living in China for four years – right through my prime toddler years – I’m your go-to kid. Here’s my survival guide. Don’t let Mum read it.
Departure
It’s moving day and your family must leave for China by 10am.
Sleep in for the first time ever, in your whole entire life. Ever. Wake grumpy. Become completely incoherent to request or instruction. Total noncompliance during passport examination at Customs is mandatory, but it’s absolutely okay to charm the flight attendants, so long as they come up with the Goods. You know what I’m talking about – food and colouring books with pencils.
When you’re handed the Goods, smear the food, rip the colouring books and snap the pencils. They’ll still think you’re adorable.
It’s a long flight. Rewire your blood to become one of the teensy percentage of kids who react adversely to medicated sedatives. Run amok for nine hours. Do not ingest anything except lollies, apple juice and plastic texta lids. Scream, wail and cry when these items are depleted.
When Mum takes you into the toilet to give the adults in the cabin some peace, scream like a banshee and unravel every toilet roll in fury. Refuse to go to the toilet.
Back at Mum’s seat, wet through every single nappy available then fall asleep just as the plane begins to descend, and whilst wearing nothing but underpants. Wet through your clothes, your Mum’s clothes and the fabric seat so it stinks to high heaven. Wake screaming fifteen minutes later from ear pain.
When you get off the plane, vomit in the nice new car on the way to your new home. And don’t forget to get some on your mother’s shoes.
Arrival
On the first morning of your new life in Beijing, wake at the crack of dawn despite the fact that you’ve only had four hours sleep. Stand on the windowsill of the 20th floor of a precariously-built-Chinese-building and slam your fists repeatedly into the pane of glass. Don’t even notice your new ayi (maid, cook and child carer) screaming at your mother – “Not safe! Not safe!”
Get hauled to the ground. Run your hands over the floor and shove your hands in your mouth.
Exploring Your New Town
First stop: Tian’anmen Square. Be the only child in China using a stroller. Be the only child in China with light hair and green eyes. Be exceedingly adorable and wide-eyed-cute in your stroller then watch as fifteen thousand provincial Chinese tear over to rub their hands on your face and take photos with their frozen-in-time instamatics.
Remember that banshee? Scream like its older, more experienced cousin.
Watch in wonder as the provincial Chinese think you’re now even cuter. Pop! Flash! go the instamatics. And… you’re off – pushed in that stroller across Tian’anmen Square like a formula one race car, your provincial friends trailing behind, little red flags waving, Mum and Dad screeching “taxi!!”.
Wipe your hands all over your face where dozens of provincial hands have been before you, and shove those hands in your mouth.
Spend a week at SOS Clinic or Beijing United Hospital. Or both. When you get out, shove your hands in your mouth.
Eating Out
Forget à la carte… in Chinese restaurants you have carte blanche. So exciting. The Chinese will let you get away with anything so take full and shameless advantage. Run, jump, climb, skid, shout, giggle, refuse any intervention then use adorable gooey eyes on the waiters. Ride in their arms, play hide and seek, use them as a swing, a carrier, a vehicle, a horsie.
When it’s time to eat, insist that fried rice and egg pancakes are the only thing you could possibly ingest. Spread the rice from here to kingdom-come, mash some into your hair and up your nose where it will dry like cement. Shove your finger up your nose to push it deeper. Drop your chopsticks on the floor, pick them up and shove them in your mouth. Shove anything except food in your mouth, particularly if it’s been on the floor. Chew on the back of the chair and shred the paper napkin before tossing all over the next waiter.
When it’s time to leave the restaurant, go kicking and screaming but know you’ll always be welcomed back. You can simply do no wrong. Make eyes at the utterly adoring wait staff then grab a handful of Mum’s hair and pull it as you wave goodbye.
Play
It’s too hot, freezing, polluted, filthy to go outside. When Mum finally agrees to take you to the indoor playground upstairs, tear around for hours non-stop and refuse to leave. After the sixth or seventh visit to this playground, grow suddenly and immensely bored with it and never want to go again. This is the time Mum suddenly falls in love with it.
Make best friends with all the children who go away for twelve weeks over summer. Fight unashamedly with the children who are always around and available to play. End up playing really nicely with the ones whose mothers your Mum can’t stand.
Refuse to play with any toy that is ridiculously expensive or was really hard to acquire. Become obsessed with any toy that could poison or impale you on contact. Whine endlessly until Mum ruins yet another pot making playdough. Squeal with delight when the blue food colouring has finally been kneaded through, then roll it, cut it and mould it for 28.7 seconds before leaving it to dry into a cement cowpat, never to be used again.
Oh – and shove some in your mouth.
Ayi
Why should Mum and Dad invest a year’s pay on an hour-a-day expat-driven daycare facility, when you can have your very own personal valet? Enter Ayi – and enter the entourage-saturated world of the Western toddler mega star.
The gods are smiling on you, little one. Who is she – this dark haired angel on Earth who will acquiesce to your every (perfectly reasonable) demand? Part psychic, part adoring fawner – this woman has been sent from above to both anticipate and provide all that your parents will not.
Of course, you are naturally oblivious to the tension and frustration caused by Ayi and her lenient ways. Whiz on the floor? Sure. Poop in the corner? Why not. Be spoon-fed morning, noon and night and cossetted within an inch of your life – yes, please. But what does it matter? Independence and self-competence? Bah, humbug!
The thing is, at least two of you in this parental love-triangle are happy. You have the need for adoration and Ayi has the need to give it – a pure and harmonious union. And all the while, Mum is hoping in her heart of hearts this will not turn you into a discipline-deprived despot by the time you’re five.
Just remind Mum the old Chinese adage… the more difficult the boy, the better the man.
We can live in hope.
Tania McCartney is an editor, presenter and book-obsessed author of both children’s and adult books. As an ACT Ambassador for the National Year of Reading 2012, she is passionate about literacy and children’s literature. Tania runs literary site Kids Book Review, writes for several online sites and loves paper, travel, marshmallows and laughing. Her latest book Beijing Tai Tai, $24.99 is out now and available from www.exislepublishing.com.au. It is also available as an ebook for $9.99.
Tania blogs at www.taniamccartney.com
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