Visiting the Master

Today we toured Nanjing. We started off with the Children’s Science Museum. It was a neat place, and Charlie had an absolute blast. We were the only people in the place, which made it kind of eerie, but it also meant we had the guides (all of them) all to ourselves. Once they understood that the deaf kid could actually figure things out and understand what they were trying to explain through me, they were falling all over themselves to show him the exhibits. He especially loved getting in the fighter jet cockpit and “flying” the plane in one of those virtual 3D simulations. We got some great photos from there.


Then we went to the biggest park in Nanjing. Our experience there was written up so wonderfully by Jen on her blog that I’m just not even going to try to do it any differently. I’m citing hers. Following is “The Tale of The Master . . .”


As I promised in my earlier post, I have to tell the story that has
become one of our favorites - we laugh every time one of us mentions
it. It may turn out to be a "had to be there" but I'm hoping that I
can do it justice in the telling.


On our first day of touring Nanjing, we went to a wonderful park in
the city that was also along one portion of the city wall. We were
able to climb some stairs leading to the top of one portion, and as
always, there was a shop at the top. Lily, our fabulous guide in
Nanjing, explained that this shop was dedicated to glass painting.
It's really very cool, an artist paints a scene into a glass ball.
Doesn't sound too complicated, until you realize that the artist is
painting the ball through a hole the size of your index finger, and
upside down to boot. As we entered the shop, two of the girls rushed
over and breathlessly explained something to Lily in Chinese with all
possible urgency. One of them turned to K and myself and said in a
quavering voice, "today you are very lucky . . . today the MASTER is
here!" the other girl nods frantically and says "yes, yes Master
here!" Now, I hope you can understand how nearly impossible it was
not to burst out laughing at this point. I wasn't sure what to expect
as they ushered us with bowed heads to "The Master". Whatever I
expected, I wasn't disappointed.



At one side of the shop was a large, ornate worktable. Seated at this
table was the most serious Chinese man I've ever seen in my life.
Really, he looked almost severe. He was dressed all in black
traditional Chinese clothing. He barely deigned to look at us as he
sat so upright that I suspect he had a pole rammed into the back of
his shirt. His lips were a perfectly straight line. Too much fanfare,
you say? Just remember - he IS The Master, after all. At this time, I
still wasn't clear on what exactly he was the master of. Maybe China?


It turns out that he is the master of painting upside down into
little glass balls. He picked up a brush - the shop girls positively
quivered. One of them explained in a hushed voice, that this brush
was not a brush, but the tail of a mouse. I'm just relieved they
didn't ask me to eat it. With a jerk of his sleeve, the master began
to paint for us. We sensed we weren't supposed to speak. Every now
and then a shop girl would nudge us and say something to the effect
of "you see, the master".


I don't know if it was the actual artistry, or the reverence of the
shop girls, but I knew at once that I must have a little glass ball
that had been painted with a mouse's tail. We started browsing
through the store, shop girl at each elbow. They dutifully pointed
out which balls had been painted by students, and which by "The
Master". When it was a ball painted by The Master, they would do a
little Price Is Right flourish with their hands around the ball. The
prices were actually extremely reasonable, and there were two balls
that I couldn't choose between. I let Charlie choose for me, and he
was very pleased about that. He chose well. I am now the proud owner
of a glass ball on a wooden stand that has really beautiful trees
painted on it. Are you ready for this? The Master then decreed that
he would sign our balls, and he even painted Charlie's name (Xiao
Tian) on his in calligraphy. I think one of the shop girls fainted.


There you have the tale of The Master. Long may he live and paint.


I bought one of the pretty crystal balls, too. Mine is a four seasons ball, Chinese style. And
Charlie got a small one made by one of the apprentices that had a rooster in it. He was very excited about this, because he was born in the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese zodiac.


After the park, Lily took us to lunch at a local restaurant. Unfortunately, the girl who had taken the reservation from her had gone off duty and left no record of the reservation. We got to see Lily throw a fit with the restaurant staff until they finally prepared a private room for us. Not sure what she threatened them with, but whatever it was, it worked.


On the schedule for the afternoon was supposed to be a museum and a mausoleum. We went through the museum, and although I interpreted for Xiao Tian and he understood things okay, he was totally bored, and we couldn’t look at just the things we wanted to look at—the museum tour guide kept skipping over things we thought were interesting and spending long periods of time on things we had no interest in. We eventually met up with Lily again in the gift shop, where the shop girls were constantly hovering, telling us the virtues of everything we so much as glanced at, hoping to make a sale. Somehow, we weren’t tempted.


After seeing Xiao Tian’s lack of interest in the museum, though, we decided to nix the mausoleum. Frankly, we’d rather do fun stuff than visit dead guys. I know that sounds irreverent, but I have to consider the mix of people here. If I had friends with kids visiting me in Maryland, a crypt would definitely NOT be on the list of activities that I’d take them to see. So Lily canceled the mausoleum for us, and we went back to the hotel to rest up for the early flight the next day. We were even too tired to go out and hunt for food, so we ordered room service, complete with ice-cream sundaes for dessert. Did you know the Chinese serve cornflakes on ice-cream sundaes? It wasn’t bad, just different. The sherpa ordered American cheese cake, which actually didn't look at all like cheese cake we would recognize. It was more like white cake with rubber icing.


Then we packed our suitcases for the flight the next day. You'd think, having gotten rid of all the orphanage stuff, our suitcases would be much emptier and much lighter. What I hadn't taken into account, though, was that I had bought an entire wardrobe for Charlie. The suitcases bulged as badly as they had on the way in. This was not a good thing, because we can't just pick up another suitcase for any overflow, since in-country flights in China limit you to one checked bag and one carry-one per person. I was able to bring in two checked bags because it was an international flight, and fortunately we picked up Charlie on the first stop, so he became the "owner" of the second bag at that point. But we still needed to pick up our souvenirs in Guangzhou (where they would be less expensive than in Beijing) and would have one more in-country flight after that to get through. Ouch. Better make sure all our souvenirs are flat ones!


Before bed, as usual, we had a chat about what would be happening the next day. He was very excited about his first airplane flight and got very animated about that, so I wasn’t entirely sure he caught where we were going or why. But it was enough for now that he understood we were taking an airplane flight that was 2 hours long. We went through our little tuck-in routine and turned out the lights.

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