An evening with Chairman Mao

Shenyang has a giant statue of Chairman Mao on a plaza in the middle of a roundabout. In the daytime, the plaza is practically empty, since there's traffic roaring around it on every side, no crosswalks or traffic lights to help you cross the street onto the plaza, and lastly, nothing to do once you get there but gaze up at Chairman Mao. And he's better viewed at a distance, I think.

The last couple evenings I rode past it in a taxi, though, I noticed dozens of people there jump-roping on the plaza. So last night Penny and I went to check it out.

Penny kind of loves jump roping. She's only two, so she doesn't really jump over the rope. But she loves to take long strings or my measuring tape and swing it emphatically while jumping not quite over it. She's a fan of the sport, though, and I knew she'd like the spectacle at the park. So last night, I grabbed a couple shoelaces as impromptu jump-ropes and took her to Mao Plaza.

We joined the audience bordering the jump-rope group. I gave Penny her shoelace and told her to go jump. She excitedly ran about 10 feet into the jump-rope crowd and then just stood there in awe watching the big kids jumping in time to the blaring techno music. She turned back to me and grinned, showing all the delight the world could possibly offer to an almost-three-year-old. Then she ran back and hugged my legs. She wouldn't go back in.

We watched for a while and did a little jumping, but what she was now completely smitten by were the kites being flown. She loves kites, since they're usually the K-page in her alphabet books, but I'm not sure she's ever seen one in real life. There were some kites being flown so high you couldn't see them anymore in the night sky. But along the kite string, like fishing bobs, were strung blinking lights so you could see where the string led into the sky. Plus, there were some men just starting to fly their kites, so Penny got to see the bumblebee and angel fish kite up close. She was awed.

I enjoyed seeing the groups of older people (older, like my parents' age) doing their line dancing or meeting up in small groups to do other dances. A couple people had giant paintbrushes, about waist-high, and they were practicing calligraphy on the paving stones, using a bucket of water as their inkwell. They had been at it for a long time. Dozens of wet characters were still visible, drying slowly. In the glare of the streetlights, I could see the characters that had already dried, leaving little clean streaks in the shapes of Chinese characters on the stone squares. Hundreds of characters went on for yards in every direction. I think I've written college essays shorter than what was written on the pavement in Mao Plaza.

I had called one of my Chinese friends to see if she wanted to come with us. Her son is Penny's good friend and would like it too. She had other plans, but she warned me to steer clear of the high school students. They gather on the plaza for English Corner, and if they think you speak English, they'll corner you. Her Canadian husband was cornered last time they went, and he couldn't extricate himself until he'd practiced their English for over an hour. Thankfully, they didn't see us. Or maybe I'm starting to blend in. Ha ha ha!

By the time we left, the actual jump-rope club had started its practice. They warmed up and stretched, then the techno music blared some more as they all jumped in unison and practiced their fancy footwork and trick jumps. Penny and I just jumped, ropeless, in the back. We had a blast.