Story: Birthday in Beijing

I would love to talk about the commercial and soulless Christmas celebrated in China but that would be a very Western-centric thing to say (would you accuse Jews of being inconsiderate by not celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ?). I would talk about the amazing get away I had to Hong Kong for the Countdown to 2008; I would even talk about being in my hometown during Chinese New Year for the first time since 1990 and seeing all the relatives but it pales in comparison the pomp of celebrations in mainland China. So, I'll entertain you instead with the retelling of the humble events that occurred on my birthday this March 22.

A week before my birthday violence broke out in Tibet, marking the 1959 anniversary when the Chinese army laid siege to the formerly independent country and the 1989 uprising of Tibetans against the Chinese occupation. I was at a model UN conference, where thousands of young, bright students from all across China and Asia gathered to represent countries and debate about issues relevant to international politics. During our debates regarding global warming, human trafficking, and energy sharing in the China South Sea, riots broke out and an estimated 80 Tibetans and Chinese perished. We did not hear a peep about what was erupting in Tibet that weekend. As soon as the conference finished, I came back to the real world and was shocked to hear about the recent events. My roommates saw the Chinese News on CCTV which reported that the situation was stable and about 10 people died.

The BBC, many Canadian websites, the International Herald Tribune, and several other sites talking about Tibet were blocked. I did however, get access to the New York Times and learned as much about the event as I could. I also asked many friends abroad if they could copy and paste any articles they could and send them to me. What a great relief that my email was not blocked…yet.

During the week I tried to email my fellow delegates these articles. 5 recipients were Chinese, 1 was Indonesian, 1 was Bangladeshi. The non-Chinese emails went through, but all the China-bound emails failed. An expat friend who has been living in China for 2+ years told me that email servers that are based in China must agree to the censorship laws.

Luckily, the filter isn't 100% effective and I did manage to send some messages via Gmail Chat and my Journalist friend was able to carry out a chat using MSN Messenger with a friend in Tibet.

Weren't we talking about my birthday?

Oh yes, on Thursday my friend from Indonesia came to visit and after a yummy homemade dinner of Japanese Curry, on Friday 11:59:59/ Saturday 00:00:01 there was a surprise birthday cake and present opening! I got some pretty good loot I have to say: a clubbing shirt, a cell phone, a book that I have been COVETTING called "Wolf Totem" by previously anonymous Jiang Rong, and David Attenborough's series Living Planet. More than the awesomeness of the presents, I was touched so deeply by how thoughtful the presents, the cake, the atmosphere were all prepared to make March 22nd, 2008 a really special day for me.

On the 22nd, we planned to go to an International Pillow Fight. Beijing was participating and as far as I knew, so were Sydney and New York. Toronto or Vancouver too perhaps? We arrived about half an hour late to an empty square and a congregation of stern looking cops, large German Shepherds, and curious onlookers. Our 3 oversized pillows were embarrassingly difficult to hide. Thank goodness my (white) American friend was there otherwise, who knew how hard we would have been looked down upon? Many police eyed us, followed us, meanwhile talking into their radios. We asked the security and police what they thought was going on. They claimed they were afraid of having so many people gathered for this pillow fight it could have been a public safety risk. I wonder what the word for pillow fight is in Mandarin – zhen tou da zhang?

I asked some onlookers too, they were curious about the heavy presence of security over what was a very empty plaza. One old man I talked to thought that an important government official must be coming. "Do you want to know the truth?" I asked him innocently. He laughed when I told him. I wish the government was just as light hearted.

During this time, we saw many foreigners and locals warily put away their own pillows. Annoyed, I pulled out a pillow and I hit my friends with it a little bit. We took some touristy photos and then put the pillows away. With nothing better to do we walked around the mall - only to be followed by the cops. At first saying nothing, they shadowed us as we went up the escalators, into lingerie stores, and as we ordered ice cream. Finally, they spoke to us, saying that we could not walk around the malls with our pillows. In our defense, I said that the pillows were *already* being carried in a bag, it's their nature to be big and fluffy and we couldn't hide them any more than that. How many times has my logic swayed people while I've been in China..? You got it. So we had to walk down to the front desk to check in our pillows. My white friend apologized, if he had been holding the pillows the whole time we wouldn't have been hassled he said.

An even funnier thing to laugh at in hindsight, is that I had prepared a FREE HUGS, FREE TIBET shirt in honour of March 22 Free Hugs day. Good thing, I was persuaded not to. Hehe.

At night, we had dinner at a very nice Indian restaurant and sang our hearts out at "Hello Kitty" karaoke bar. My mom came from Vancouver a few days later, claiming adolescent insubordination on my part and now I am in Jakarta, Indonesia. My school fees and apartment have been paid for until July but my bank account in China has been closed and who can say no to your own mother especially when her health is failing?

You might be wondering, what exactly did I do to make my parents so angry and worried? All I can say is that parents have loved and cared for us since before the day we were born. They nurture us like chicks in the nest until one day we can fly with our own wings. On our flight trajectory there's an area of uncertainty, a storm perhaps and the parents from their high branch have a choice. And here is where Western and Chinese thought diverge: my Western upbringing dictates that parents should tell the children of the possible conditions of the storm, but allow the children to make their own decision. If they choose to brave the storm there will be hardships and lessons learned from these hardships. My Eastern background says that parents would rather rein in their children, protecting them from the storm. Our wings are not strong enough and our condition too weak and inexperienced to be able to stand the storm.

Both conditions have their good and bad points.
What can I do as a child of two worlds?

Many friends have been consulted, and great deals of sage advice and fraternal love have been graced upon me. The best answer seems to be: Love and The Middle Way. It is the same philosophy that the Dalai Lama has put forth for several decades.