We booked a private tour guide to bring us around since the father was away on his business. The guide cost 300rmb per day, cheaper if we booked her directly instead of going through her company, but having an extra pair of hands to help shepherd the children around will help greatly.

1st day in Beijing and I thought I should entertain the kids first before boring them with temples, monuments and imperial gardens.  So our fist stop was the 北京动物园 (Beijing Zoo), got to visit the pandas! The animals in Beijing zoo are quite different from our rain forest theme zoo in Singapore. There was a quite a large number of various colourful fowl and birds, and the children seems to enjoy looking at the beautiful birds. The Chinese tigers look more magnificent from our Malayan tigers, but most of the big lazy cats (tigers, leopards, lions) were either sleeping or lazing motionless in their enclosures. A lot of walking was done, and the boat ride along the canal allow us a good rest.

The 2nd place to visit was the 北京自然博物馆 (Beijing Museum of Natural History) as there is an ongoing Woolly Mammoth exibition. I thought I could see the real, whole woolly mammoth. The big woolly mammoth on display turned out to be a replica, the real things are only the bones and the head. The kids weren’t too interested with the mammoth, so we make our way to the main exhibits at the main exhibits. They separated the two area and we had to purchase tickets to visit both areas, damn!

Anyway, the dinosaurs, animals, bugs and plants interest the children way more then the mammoth. Its funny that we just visited the real animals in the morning, and then looked at their specimens in the afternoon. Nevertheless, the children enjoyed the trip.

Believe it or not, we have moved to Shanghai for almost half a year and have never been visiting any places except 城隍庙 (Chenghuang Temple) and 世纪公园 (Century Park), and maybe a few shopping trips. It was either too cold or too wet (raining) or the father away for business trips during the weekends.

We have plan to visit Beijing but was postpone several time. I almost wanted to postpone this trip again due to the swine flu outbreak. Heck, China isn’t affected yet, at least not from what we known, so we made a last minute decision and bought the tickets to fly out tonight.

And after battling the horrible peak hour traffic for 1hr 30min, we finally arrived in the domestic airport just in time to check in. Beijing, here we come.

Should we start using organic food?

My sis has a friend who owns a pomela orchard in the southern province of China. During her visit to the farm, the friend told her pesticide and other chemcials are used generously in most Chinese farms. They practice that too, but have a few speical pomelo trees which spcifically cater to their own needs and the fruits are wrapped carefully to free them from chemcials.

He also told her that human waste are precious to the small scale farmers. He doesn’t need to spend money to engage companies to clear his sewage at home, the farmers would happily come remove all the dump and use them as fertilliser.

I was watching “The Toilet Man” on National Geographic channel and it was showing me exactly the same thing- farmers scopping free human waste toilets and apply them to their vegetable patches.

While I told my sis those human waste were all natural, the idea of having raw salad that might have been laced with them aren’t agreeable at all. So, either have the veggies coated with chemicals from the larger scale farmers, or have those fertilised with all kind of “organic” waste from the smaller scale farms.  Yupe, time to check out on the organic greens.

Our preferred driver 马师傅 has 3 children. It is already rare to see a family with 2 children, let alone 3. Luckily his no. 3 is a boy, else he will most probably try for no. 4. I didn’t asked the exact amount, but he must have be fined at least a few tens of thousand RMB. He is fond of his girls as much as his boy, but somehow, he must have a boy in the family.

And when our ayi 黄姐 gave birth to her first born, who happens to be a girl, her mother-in-law didn’t even bother to visit her or help her out during her confinement month until her own mother came to her rescue.

The idea of having a male heir is still very prevalent, especially among the rural countryside. Remember that hard sell man who did the cleaning demo for my flooring 2 days ago? He too has a daughter and is going to try for a second one, a boy in particular. He said both his parents and in-laws wanted them to try for a boy, to carry on the family name. According to him, couples are entitled to try for a second one if their first born happens to be a girl (in the rural countryside). So, what happen if it happens to be a girl? He said they could always do an ultra sound scan to check the fetus gender. Isn’t that illegal? Well, money could solve the problem. It could be done at around 2000RMB.

If they managed to conceive and give birth to a boy, this little prince will carry both his and his wife’s family name. His family name is 李 (Li), and his wife is 赵 (Zhao), the son will bear the combined surname of 李赵 (Li Zhao). The interesting part is, his father-in-law will have to pay him 20k RMB for that grandson to co-carry his family name of 赵. This is the first time I heard of such practice, but it must be something common among the countryside.

To us, having more children means additional responsibilities and higher cost. To many of the Chinese country folks, more children means more protection when they grow old, 多一个孩子，老来就多一份保障。Such differing mentality. Forget about relying on the children, I would be glad if my kids don’t give me additional problems when I grow old.

While I wanted to get either the cakes or strawberry for Zeeyau and the school bus for 弟弟, they went against my wish and wanted the black cat and the green frogie.

I know Zeeyau likes black cat and it does look cute, so I agreed. However, I think 弟弟 choice of the frog bag is really bad, so I manged to convince him to choose another frogie backpack instead.

However, they were both out of stock.

So in the end, I bought an elephant bag for Zeeyau, which happened to be her first choice bag before discovering the black cat.

Need a small lunch box for Zeeyau as well, so I thought the strawberry box is lovely to have. Out of stock too, and have to settle for the blue school bus. Not a bad idea, both the kids like it and 弟弟 could use it in future as well.

So, these are the two items I got in the end. I am still waiting for the green frogie bag to be back in stock.

I just sent the super hard sell guy away. I am not sure if he was really frustrated and angry with me for not buying his product after doing a supposedly free cleaning session, because he sounded damn pissed. Might be an emotional blackmailing tactic, else, he must have thought I am an extremely stingy Singaporean.

I bought some cleaning products from Carrefour a few days ago and was entitled to a free floor cleaning session. The product’s company called me and arranged for an appointment. I specifically asked if there will be any fee incurred and if there will be any promotion of products sale, the lady at the line replied no, so I went ahead to arrange for a time slot.

The man came and I asked again if there will be any fees and told him I am not going to buy anything. The product he used was a kind of essential oil (he said from palm tree, err…?), just spray straight from the bottle onto the floor and use a mop to spread it like our usual mopping routine. He claimed that the oil is better then wax (smelly and sticky), easy to use, give a matte sheen and has anti bacterial component (which I highly suspect). He also said the same spray can be used to clean wooden doors and proceed to spray my doors and USED THE SAME MOP TO WIPE THE DOORS!!! I knew I have frowned and my expression changed, but I think he believed there wasn’t anything wrong with using that same dirty piece of floor mop. Thank goodness my wooden table was covered with stuff, else he might use that on the table too!

He mopped and talked and finished his demonstration and proceeded to selling his products. He talked so fast that I hadn’t had a chance to tell him that I didn’t intend to buy anything.

The spray cost about $250 (forgot the exact amount, around there), but if I join as a junior member now, I can get buy 4 bottles at $198 each, get a mop free ($76) and free cleaning sessions from him. If I join as a VIP member, I can buy 6 bottles at $198 each, get another free bottle, a free mop, and free floor, furniture and glass windows cleaning sessions.

I said no. He threw in more goodies. 2 bottles free for VIP.

No.

Join as junior member, get 1 bottle and 1 mop free.

No.

Don’t need to join member. Buy 4 bottles and get 1 bottle free.

No.

Buy 4 bottles and get 1 bottle and 1 mop free.

No.

Buy 1 bottle and get 1 bottle free.

No.

Buy 1 bottle and 2 bottles free.

No no no.

Buy 1 bottle and 2 bottles, 1 mop free!!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

He started to sound frustrated and lost his initial politeness. Said things like never seen a person like me,  renting a place at a few thousand rmb and refused to spend little money on cleaning products. He also said that even he is able to afford buying it.

What the hell, I told him I simply don’t need it and I have other cleaning products that I am satisfied with. Well, if he didn’t sound so frustrated and rude, I might have yielded. Sorry for wasting his time, however, 我吃软不吃硬，so his hard selling method only made me more unwilling to give his product a chance.

I should have learnt my lesson. Always made it clear that I am not going to make any purchase. No, should be never let anybody into the house for free demo session anymore.

And if I am keen on buying something, remember to refuse buying until they threw in all the goodies.

When domestic helpers get together, they tend to disuse or bitch about their employers.  Well, I am sure employers have similar sessions too. Anyway, beside the main topic education in Shanghai, Pek Cheng (the mom who stayed with us for the past week), we also talked about engaging domestic helpers to assist in the  daily chores.

She was quite surprise I seems to be rather busy. She observed that I have been washing, cleaning, tidying even though there is a part time helper to do the work. Not that she advocates leaving every task to the ayi, but she thinks that I shouldn’t spend so much time doing those chores and then complained about not having enough of it. Since the ayi will be here for the specific number of hours regardless of the amount of work to be done, it seems illogical that I complete the housekeeping work.

Oh well, I know I enjoy tidying and making the place presentable, but really agree that I am overdoing doing them. She pointed out that I could leave the dishes in the sink instead of washing and drying them after dinner. I could take out the vege and meat I would like for meals and leave it to the ayi to do the washing and cutting. And I should also stop spending time hand washing clothes and folding the washed laundry.

Simple things that need someone to knock some sense into me. I did manage to steal time to read to the kids and also to blog, practice calligraphy, surf the web, etc by leaving the pile of dirty dishes in the basin and reminding myself to stay away from the laundry basket. Unsightly, but time is more precious.

Donkey’s years ago, I applied to be a relief teacher at a kindergarten after my “A” Levels exam. I was confronted with 20+ active kids which seems to have unlimited energies. They were like little birds flying around and chirping nonstop, thousands of them. I surrendered on the second day even though it was an easy job, the noise was simply deafening and their movements gave me headache. From that time onwards, I am very sure I don’t posses any affinity with young children, I think I am afraid of them. That was why I chose to deal with teenagers during my teaching years, that are so much more interesting to interact with.

So, having 5 children at home these 9 days was a big challenge to me. The older ones required lots of attention because they got bored easily and needs activities to fill them up. The 2 toddlers needed even more attention because they were always fighting!

As I mentioned earlier, 弟弟 was handling the new friends very well during the first few days. However, we noticed that he was back to his old “little monster form” these few days. He refused to go to bed and made a big fused each night crying. He got angry easily and tend to hit people when he was agitated. He was very protective of his books and toys and tried to snatch them back if the 小哥哥 and 小妹妹 took them. However, if Zeeyau or the other 大姐姐(8yrs old) took them, he was more willing to share. We thought he probably felt threaten by the presence of the 妹妹 who is just 1 month younger and frustrated with the 哥哥 because he always “kachiao” (teased) him.

Luckily my friend and I shared similar mindset towards raising and handling children and had been quite cool with all these squabbles and conflicts, else friends might become foes in the end.

Anyway, the family has returned home and the situation is back to normal, it is just 弟弟 and myself at home now. 弟弟 seems to have shift back to his big boy self. Got to guide this boy carefully and and purge that violent and aggressive aspect from him.

We are having big friends and little friends from Malaysia at our place since Monday and I have been baby sitting the children since their mummy is busy shopping for schools. With 5 kids at home, I am surprised that our “friendly” neighbour downstairs has not made any visit yet. Maybe my place is really well padded now, or maybe they have surrendered. Oh well, most probably because all the children are watching their steps!

These few days has been a good exposure to 弟弟. He rarely has the chance to mingle with so many children all day long. With a little 妹妹 (just 1 month younger then 弟弟) who throw tantrums and to fight toys with  and older 哥哥who  wants to play with him but couldn’t get him to understand instruction and another  姐姐who isn’t keen to play with him because he is too young and has problem communicating with, he has to learn to handle all these new people and find ways to interact with them.

He seems to be showing sign of maturity. And I have realised that 弟弟 is actually quite easy to handle nowadays. He is really growing up to be a big boy now!

Zeeyau is a great walker since she was a toddler and as we used to walk to and from the grandfather’s place almost everyday,. She was taught to read the traffic light signal to train her to cross the road safely (just in case she ran too fast ahead of me and I couldn’t catch up with her before the junction).

This was quite easy and straight forward in Singapore. Go at “green” man, stop at “red man” and “flashing man”. It is fairly safe as drivers observe traffic rules except for some reckless ones.

However, after coming here, our rules has changed to stop at “every man”. Drivers observed a different set of traffic rules here and motorists have priority over pedestrians. Back home, drivers have to give way to pedestrian at the crossing while negotiating a left or right turn at junctions. Here, pedestrians better 乖乖 wait for the cars to clear before attempting to cross. I have seen a few rare instances where drivers  stop to give way to the pedestrians, but they were greeted with loud honking from the impatient drivers behind them.

Taking a car ride here can be pretty exciting at times. There are traffic rules in place, but sometimes I felt the rules mean “no rule”. Every now and then, you see cars driving through red lights signal, stopping in the middle of the road (with the driver missing, weird) or even driving in opposite direction. The scariest incident we have met so far was a car in front of us suddenly decided to do a U-turn right ahead of us in the middle of a street.

It will take a while before we decide to get a car or even try to drive around.