Life With the Wei Family

National Day had its ups and downs, a sense of unease at being a foreigner surrounded by nationalistic fervour (down) and an eight day holiday only two weeks into term (up). Here I want to focus on how I filled the up. I was lucky enough to go to the Great Wall of China with some of the other teachers, but not as most tourists experience it.

We went to an unrestored section of wall and stayed overnight in the rural mountain village of Sancha with the Wei family. A friend of the family drove us from Huairou city and we chatted in Mandarin with him about his love of English football and how Huairou had the best walnuts in the whole of China. It was only the next day that we realised this is what we were saying, but it didn’t stop our enthusiasm. The family were very welcoming as we arrived and we sat down to lunch in their concrete yard, looking down into the valley across peasant farms and the odd donkey. The whole time we were there was a brilliant escape from city life and pollution. Life with the Weis was certainly relaxed. It turns out that the China expert from the New Yorker magazine (Peter Hessler) also used to stay with them. In the evening, Wei Ziqi (the father) proudly showed us some articles and books in English written about the family. It was a really strange experience to be able to read all the details of the family life, with the main characters sitting around us, gauging our reactions. I wondered if they knew what the articles said, whether they would still be happy to show us. The articles mentioned that their son Wei Jia (12yrs old) had been very ill as a child and that Peter had saved his life by arranging for him to be accepted to a hospital in Beijing. He was a very jolly little kid, playing football with us during the day and encouraging us to play Chinese drinking games in the evening (likely so that the family could make a small mark up on the beer, but at 25 pence per bottle total we really didn't mind). Wei Jia was quite tubby and skipped out of his job of guiding us to the Wall on the first day, simply telling us always take the righthand turns. Two hours later we were completely lost in the Chinese forest, with only some rather odd looking bugs and a lot of trees for company. We eventually reached the top of the mountain and a break in the trees to see the Wall looking at us from the other side of the valley. We headed down for dinner and went back to the find the Wall the next morning. It was very treacherous and overgrown, nothing like the sanitised version that I was used to. A sadder side of the articles concerned Wei Ziqi’s brother. I had seen him about the courtyard, but he didn’t reply when I greeted him. Only through reading did I find out that he was mentally handicapped and had lived with the family all his life. Nobody in the village knew his real name, even to the family he was simply shazi (idiot). The family had once had to leave him at the government offices nearby to force them to pay the family some maintenance money to care for him. Apparently before the introduction of iodised salt to people in rural areas, this kind of birth defect was common, with most villages having one or several shazi. However, I should also make clear that he seemed perfectly happy in himself. I saw him a few times milling about the village near the house, seemingly quite content. The villagers all seemed quite used to him and let him about his business. I was certainly sad to have to leave Sancha so soon and I hope that I can return there in the Spring. Overall my 2 day break to Sancha cost me about £17, including all the food, accommodation and transport. All the food was delicious and well prepared, none of us got ill. We could tell it was all fresh because it was generally wandering about the buildings until a few minutes before dinner!!