The Intrepid Traveler

(by Suzanne)

I love watching Lillia striding purposefully through an airport terminal, pulling her carry-on behind her (it’s almost as big as she is). She is such a good traveler. This isn’t to say that she has never gotten into a snit or even thrown a full-on tantrum, but these have been no more often than at home. The first couple of days were pretty rough, as she was savagely jet-lagged and kept us up all night. We solved this by using the star system. For each night that she stayed in bed and didn’t wake us up, she would get a star sticker in a little book, redeemable for candy and other goodies. This worked like a charm.

As I expected, she adapted to the peculiarities of life in China very easily. I was actually surprised at how quickly she learned that you don’t drink the tap water, and that you throw the toilet paper in the wastebasket, not the toilet. Food was no problem at all. She would try absolutely anything as long as we assured her that there was no chili pepper in it. The squat toilets were not a big deal either, unless they were really dirty and stinky (not very often).

She was a little discomfited that she didn’t have enough Chinese to converse with people. Her natural charm made her a magnet for the Chinese, and they were forever trying to talk to her. Whenever she was more than arm’s length away from me when this occurred, I would hear “Mommy! They’re talking to me again!”, and I’d have to step in and translate, and explain that she only spoke Yingwen. But she uses the Chinese that she knows, ni hao, xie xie, bu ke qi, zao shang hao, etc., and a new one that she didn’t learn in school, maidan (check, please!) She also recognizes ji sui?, and correctly answers wu sui (How old? Five.)

Although she generally tires more quickly than we do, she displayed incredible stamina at the Great Wall and at Huang Shan, where we went up and down literally hundreds of stone and concrete steps. My legs were shaking by the time we got back to the top of the cable car. She’s really been a trooper. I am so proud of her.

So, if you’re thinking of taking your Chinese child to China just for fun, here are my thoughts.

1) Five is certainly doable, but allow some slack in your itinerary so that you have a day of down time every once in a while. Lillia needed some time occasionally to hang out at the hotel and draw or watch cartoons on the computer.

2) Bring plenty of Kleenex packs (toilet paper is usually not provided at public toilets), and Wet Ones (paper towels and napkins are also usually not provided).

3) Keep outings short. Many of the sights are very large and overwhelming. You may want to spend hours at the Forbidden City, but your 5-year-old’s eyes will probably glaze over after an hour or so.

4) See an acrobatic show. I think the highlight of China for Lillia was watching 12 girls arranged in an inverted pyramid riding a single bicycle.

5) Stay at the Mao Er Hutong Bed and Breakfast.

Having said all this, I think six or seven might be a better age. I think Lillia is just too new to the world to recognize the extraordinariness of the things she was seeing. Can a five-year-old even conceive of a 3000-mile-long wall? Or buildings that are 600 years old? On the other hand, you don't want to wait too long, so that they will have formed more prejudices. A good friend of mine took her eleven-year-old daughter to Japan a few years ago, and while she had a great time, her verdict on the traditional Japanese breakfast was "No FISH for breakfast!". So, they went out to Starbucks every morning. This would absolutely drive me nuts. Lillia dug into the Japanese breakfast with gusto.