Arriving in Beijing
When we arrived in Beijing, Angie’s parents were kind enough to pick us both up from the airport. This was my first time meeting with Angie’s father (I previously met her Mum in Melbourne). Angie’s parents took us to a local shopping mall where we also met with her aunty, uncle, and cousins (who Angie currently lives with in Melbourne) for a hotpot dinner. This hotpot was particularly fancy, more so than others I have had before. There were three different types of broths all from different areas: Hainan, Sichuan, and Taiwan. We had many different types of meats including beef, fish, and even a lobster which I was able to photograph live before it was prepared to be cooked in the pot. As we were eating, I was roughly following the conversation which was entirely in Chinese discussing what Angie and I should do in China. It quickly unfolded that there were enough things to do in Beijing that we could remain in Beijing for the entire trip, visiting other areas on future trips instead. I felt my Chinese was a little rusty having spent the last week in Korea although it was coming back to me fast. I felt welcomed to China by Angie’s family and am grateful for their hospitality. They were all interested in recommending which places we should visit in Beijing.
Visiting Angie’s Family’s Home
After the hotpot, Angie’s parents took me back to their house for some tea. This was a good opportunity to try to make some conversation with her parents as it is still quite difficult for me to verbally contribute to larger group conversations given my current level of Chinese. It was interesting to see inside of a Beijing family home, especially Angie’s childhood home. Her parents were welcoming and made me some local jasmine tea while we sat together watching the local sports channel. I was able to have a conversation with Angie’s dad about his favourite sports talking about basketball and soccer. Domestic basketball was playing on television, so we were also talking about how the domestic Chinese basketball teams often have some foreign players. Angie’s dad seemed very happy to chat about sports and was very understanding of my current Chinese-level shortcomings. I also had some other conversations with her family about my motivations for learning Chinese such as improved memory/brain training, desire to understand another culture in greater detail, and desire to succeed in different aspects of life, previously feeling that only being able to speak one language was a key weakness of mine. After these conversations, they kindly took me to my hotel to check in and get some much-needed rest.