China 2017, day 7: Pandas!

We woke up to a lot of yelling, which is how the Xiaos, Julia’s mother's family, communicate. From what I later gathered, Erjiujiu was mad because we saw the Wuhou Temple without him, while he was looking forward to this reunion so that he could spend time with us. He made all these plans, rented two cars, but then everything gets trumped by Julia’s mom who just has to be in the center because she’s the favorite child. Julia’s mom was mad because she thinks Erjiujiu just resents her for being the favorite child.

So Julia and I dragged her mom out to go shopping. We got me a jump rope which I need to start using to recover my healing foot, and a nice traditional Chinese shirt. For Julia we bought 7 pairs of socks for 10 Yuan. Then we went to the shoe district to buy Fan some shoes. There are enough shoes here for the entire population of China.

It took us forever to find something Fan was happy with, but we finally did, and then it was time to walk over to the restaurant where we were supposed to have lunch. The grandparents joined us, as well as Erjiuma, who is Erjiujiu’s wife, and Lili, their son, along with his wife, Liu Shuting. Lunch included a soup served in a unripened papaya, that had frog meat in it. It was actually pretty good.

Then, to try to bring peace back to the family, Julia and I drove with Erjiujiu to the panda park. They have pandas, and red pandas, which are even cuter, and peacocks.

They also have a small museum of endangered species, with some of the world’s worst taxidermy.

Throughout our visit there, Erjiujiu drove me crazy. If he thought there was a better viewing angle than where we stood, he would forcefully grab me by the arm and drag me while yelling at me in Chinese. He would also get impatient when we watched a panda, and yell at us “zou le!” (let’s go). Finally, he would walk twice as fast as us, and scold us for being too slow.

We drove back, but now Erjiujiu asks if it’s cool for us to tag along to get the second car. I didn’t want my frustration with him to affect our relationship, so I agreed - it’s just picking up a car, right?

Two hours later, we were back home. I’m never letting him take me anywhere anymore.