A Birthday with Chinese Characteristics

Chris is turning 18 soon. On the 23rd of December to be exact, so his host family decided to throw him a birthday party before everyone got busy with studying for “Midterms” and families start to arrive in Beijing. School let out and I did a bit of homework before changing into something a bit dressier than a track suit. I went to his house at 4:45 and his host family greeted me at the door. They told me he was upstairs so I went up and dropped off my things and started chatting until Sophie got there. We then went down and I began helping his host aunt prepare jiaozi for dinner. I’m awful at making them. The ones that she were making were perfect, like a piece of art, crescent moon shaped and everything that makes jiaozi, jiaozi. Mine on the other hand were like very small burritos. Warren showed up soon after I was told to stop making jiaozi for the sake of the dinner, and then the whole bunch was there. Chris’ grandmother mailed him some balloons for his birthday. We began blowing those up which created a balloon war. There was only the Kitchen which transformed into the dining room/living room, so there wasn’t much space. We ran around and I watched Chris play with his host family as if they were his real family. They joked; the whole scene was heartwarming, if you will. I joined in and it was a blast. Sophie was frosting the cake Chris’ grandmother also had mailed to him, but finished with half a jar of frosting left. So we had yet another game. Chris’ Jiejie, who was supposed to be his Ma, but instead Nainai was Ma…, joined in too. She’s a tall, thin Chinese woman who is a flight attendant. She stole a whole bunch of Air China plastic cups and chopsticks so we could use them for dinner tonight. But I digress; we began smearing frosting on each other’s faces. And it got interesting fast. A game of tag where you know if you’ve been tagged by the white streaks of pure deliciousness left on your shirt. Jiejie ran up and wiped the frosting that Chris had smeared across her on me and I would then wipe it off on Chris creating a vicious cycle. Chris’ other host sister, the 4 year old one, shrieked in the background along with the television that had its volume on too loud. Chris calls her “Xiao Mafan,” or Little Trouble, and even his host family has begun to call her that. Xiao Mafan has a bowl haircut, bad teeth and is slightly spoiled, but says the cutest things like, “I don’t like you,” or, “I’m going to kill you.” How adorable! Chris’ Ma stood in the kitchen making the little circular wraps for the jiaozi. She barely came up to my shoulder and had grey hair. She rolled dough and then pressed it out, over and over again, like a machine. The relationships between his host family is quite confusing. I still don’t know how everyone is related, but it doesn’t matter. There was Ma, Ayi, Ba, Xiao Mafan, Jiejie, and Kara’s sister. They set up a table they pulled from the closet and dinner was under way. They put a huge bowl of jiaozi in front of us and we devoured it. But the jiaozi kept coming. We finished five bowls of it before we were starting to feel slightly full. While we ate, we put on Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I tried to tell them that E.T. was in the movie but they didn’t believe me. So when the senate came up I stood up and pointed him out. How could they not know that E.T. was actually trying to phone home to cast his vote of no confidence for the current chancellor? The cake was amazing, we got candles and sang happy birthday to him. We finished that cake and his host family pulled out another one. It was a Pikachu shaped cake. Xiao Mafan wanted to have Pikachu’s left eye and electricity pouch. We humored her, and left Pikachu horribly disfigured. We sat around and talked at the dinner table about nothing in particular, until we went upstairs to watch the movie Sophie had given him as a gift. Art of War II. Never. Ever. Watch it. It was so bad, that we actually laughed ourselves to tears. Chris’ Ba walked by us and began to do the laundry and hang it on the balcony. He had salt and peppery hair. According to Chris, Ba and Ma had been Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, but they looked and acted like normal people. I never would’ve guessed that. The movie finished and we went home, thanking the family for dinner and wishing Chris yet another happy birthday. It certainly was an interesting party. I can’t wait to see what my birthday brings.