“Of course, I have a 3D printer. Do you want to see it?” Adam, Eddie’s 11 year old (chosen) nephew leads me to his room and unveils his 3D printer.
“Do you want to see my software drawings now?”
Eddie has gone back to get Peking university to get the ajvar I brought from the States, still in his room. That left me, so far untouched by jet lag, to get to know his adopted Chinese family for a couple of hours. It’s Adam’s first day of summer vacation, which in my childhood meant unequivocal freedom from homework and anything beyond what sport or activity I was going to do that day. Not here in the South Eastern neighborhood of Beijing. Here, most families choose housing within walking distance to schools. Adam is taking a summer school course in 3D printing, preparing for an international English exam, and revising on courses he (and his parents) felt he could do better in. Adam is 11.
Adam and Eddie reunite
His parents asked me if I felt the US was less intense than China; they have been thinking about sending him away for at least a year so he can get some breathing from form the intense pressure of chineses education. How do you separarte 1.5 billion people and decide who gets into what school? The next day on the train, Eddie would point out the repeating ad I had been staring at was in fact study aids for the middle school exam Adam had just completed.
A daily scene: families wait outside a Beijing elementary school for the children to leave.
“Do you want to shoot with me?” They know I played basketball in Cambridge with Eddie. I don’t remember seeing any hoops around, but I agree. Eddie’s uncle pulls out a mini basketball hoop from his workstation where he crafts little furniture, tools, and other gadgets for the house. I can’t help but think of my father, the ultimate tinkerer and crafter in my mind.
Across from their building is a little maintenance shed with a ladder climbing up the edge of the budiling. Eddie’s uncle grabs a nearby moped, stands on the back seat, attaches the backboard to a metal chain I assume he put there, and ties the bottom of the backboard with some thick shoelaces.
“Of course, steph city and hard harden are very poplar here” Adam tells me when i ask about the NBA. He’s got great basketball instincts and defended me valiently after challenging me to some 1-on-1. Every 10-15 minutes we take a break from the smoldering summer heat and talk with Adam’s mother under a nearby tree.
“Do you think Adam speaks good English? Mine very bad, very bad” She tells me they wanted to go to Australia this summer but their visa was rejected.
“They are scared we don’t leave. US visa is very hard too, but is US safe?”
I assure her for the most part the US is very safe.
“But there are guns!” I didn’t say anything, but almost every diagram Adam showed me for his 3d printer was a gun or weapon.
I take sip it of a coke-looking-bottle and am told this is a traditional drink from her home town. Honey-water fermented beer, homemade of course. It’s sweet and refreshing. Eddie returns, Ajvar in hand, and auntie Wang pulls out her camera again and starts talking with Eddie. “She wants you to teach Adam some moves and she will record and watch them later”
Eddie already taught Adam over the past year all he needs at this age, but we come up with a couple flashy moves and he happily goes through them. Eddie tells me she wants just one more. And then another after that.
Adam showing me some plants he has grow
Sufficiently sweaty and hungry, we go back for the feast they have prepared for the foreign guest. Uncle Wang also is a baker, and his little rolls waiting. I ask him how he can use such a small oven, in the US that would be the size of a microwave. Everything in their home is small and has a place and is used, or that’s the feeling I got at least.
Lightning sets in after we eat so we decide to chat a bit while uncle Wang takes Adam to a study class for his English exam. This was his first day of summer break, I couldn’t help but say. Maybe I should set up an exchange for him to go to Washington, he won’t have classes on his first day of summer, that’s for sure.
We browse some of my photos and at first Eddie’s aunt is worried i have some deep sadness in me looking at a few of my 35mm black and white photos. Then I show her some collage, double exposure, and other colorful pics and she is responding actively to each one. Eddie tells me she’s not worried anymore.
“But why are you making photos?” I am asked. It surprised her that I take and make photos just for me, to follow my gut and get out of my head. Edie’s aunt instead tells me that in china, people do not have the luxury to do things with aimlessness, or at least without a clear purpose. They are still pushing to survive, which Eddie slightly challenges her on, pointing to the middle class surroundings and price of their apartment. After we finish going through some travel photos of Lisbon where Eddie is from - she tells me that the common theme betweeen my photos is that it makes her feel present. I told her that is the highest compliment someone could give me.
They send us off and point us in a direction of some Hutong’s; labriths of small alley ways that used to dominate Beijing for many years. It’s still raining but that only amplifies how new it is all to me. How the neon lights are doubled with their shimmering reflections and the uneven pavement creates large puddles testing our awareness. We pop into a small local restaurant which covets stares, both because of how i look and how well eddie speaks. We order some potential mystery meat we find out later was pork, some fresh cucuember with garlic and cold beers.
We head back out into the rain and I can’t help but feel this has been a perfect launching point for our Chinese adventures. Down to earth local people and small, crooked streets.