As Virginia and New Jersey Go, So Go Virginia and New Jersey

by Jennifer A. Steen and Jonathan GS Koppell

November 9, 2009

This is an op-ed JK and I wrote after the 2009 elections. Unfortunately, we were slow off the blocks and by the time we got turned down by the NYT (they demand three days of exclusive consideration and took all three!) even our local op-ed pages were done chewing on the election results. I thought it was a good piece, which is why we tried to get it into the old gray lady, but in retrospect I wish I had withdrawn it from the Times after 24 hours and submitted it elsewhere. Lesson learned. In any case, I still think it's a good piece so decided to post it on my blog. Of course, I also put a reminder in my calendar for the first week of November, 2013, when I will dust it off, plug in current numbers and try again!

Reading it this week, after the headlines have screamed about how Dorgan and Dodd's retirements herald doom for the Democrats, I have some additional thoughts which I may or may not get around to posting. Stay tuned, readers. All one of you. (Hi, Mom!)

Republican victories in gubernatorial elections held in New Jersey and Virginia this week have been widely interpreted as rebukes to President Obama and warning signals for Democrats to expect big trouble in 2010 if things continue along the current path. This interpretation likely overstates the case, even without considering the somewhat contradictory information offered from the Democratic victory in New York’s twenty-third congressional district.

First, the history of off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey suggests they are not bellwethers of the midterm congressional races. Second, the information already available about 2010 -- a midterm election where the president’s party holds a majority in Congress under conditions of economic stress -- is already far more significant than anything gleaned from Tuesday’s outcome. The idea that the president or congressional leaders should now stop and rethink everything because the statehouses in Richmond and Trenton will have new occupants is fanciful.

Until 1989, results of gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey were mutually independent. Democratic or Republican success in one state was uncorrelated with party performance in the other. Since then, the states’ respective gubernatorial votes have been closely aligned, suggesting that national conditions do exert a significant influence on election results in Virginia and New Jersey. In fact, the party of the sitting president has lost both gubernatorial contests in all six election cycles. The average penalty for bearing the incumbent president’s party label has been about ten percent of the two-party vote in both states.

Of course, the president’s party typically pays a penalty in midterm congressional elections as well. This is the “decline” half of the ‘surge-and-decline’ theory posited by political scientists. In presidential election years there is typically a surge of support for the party of winning presidential candidate. Some congressional candidates who would not otherwise have won ride the president’s coattails into office. Two years later, however, these once-lucky candidates lose their re-election bids. The stronger the surge, the theory goes, the steeper the decline.

That trend, once iron-clad, has faded in recent years (Democrats actually gained seats in the middle of Bill Clinton’s second term, as did Republicans in the middle of George W. Bush’s first) but one would still expect that in 2010 the Democrats will lose some of the 21 seats they picked up with Obama’s victory, particularly in light of the state of the economy. So do this week’s results in Virginia and New Jersey tell us anything we don’t already know about the Democrats’ prospects in 2010? Actually, no. Since 1989, when Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial results started to track each other, the average decline in House seats held by the president’s party has been about 15 House seats, with considerable variation over the five cycles. That variation in seat loss (or gain, as in 1998 and 2002) has been completely uncorrelated with the gubernatorial results from the previous year.

Consider two examples. During George H.W. Bush’s term, Democrat Jim Florio won big in New Jersey, but the following year Democrats picked up only eight House seats. In 1997, the landslide was in Virginia, as Republican Jim Gilmour trounced his opponent by thirteen points. His party subsequently lost seats in Congress, breaking a 52-year streak in which the out party had gained House seats in every midterm election. Of course, one can point to idiosyncrasies to explain both of these examples, but that is exactly the point. While voters in Virginia and New Jersey have consistently chosen governors from the party locked out of the White House, results in those states have also reflected current local conditions. The same is true for the congressional elections held one year later.

All the crowing, teeth-gnashing and dissection that followed Tuesday’s election is understandable; the results provide terrific grist for the media mill. But consider what we already knew on Monday: The party of the president always fares relatively poorly in off-year gubernatorial elections. Virginia and New Jersey, in particular, always elect governors from the out party. The president’s party usually loses seats in a midterm election. So it is not much of a news flash that the road ahead for Democratic congressional candidates is rough. This is a dog-bites-man headline that provides no new information or reason for revising strategy in the White House or on Capitol Hill. Rather than serving as a bellwether, the results from Virginia and New Jersey actually suggest that the current political dynamics look a lot like those of previous years. The traditional decline in support for an incumbent president is carrying over to other candidates bearing his party banner. Recently elected Democrats will likely struggle to hold office -- particularly those in marginal districts. And the pundits will breathlessly declare the dawn of new political era.

National Lampoon's Inaugural Vacation

Last week the Steen-Koppells decided to haul ass down to Washington for the inauguration of the 44^th president of the United States, you know who. And for anyone who might admire our spontaneity, let me come clean and admit that this was really a typical procrastinate-and-decide-at-the-last-minute Steen-Koppell operation. I had been entertaining the idea of going since Election Night, when I envied the communal joy and excitement of the folks partying in Grant Park. And of course, with my Herculean effort for the Obama campaign (45 minutes of GOTV calls on Election Day! WOOOOO HOO!) I obviously could have scored good seats (next to Bon Jovi??!!) if I had tried. But did I acquire tickets or ball gown in advance? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Did we even check the calendar for the date of the big free concert at the Lincoln Memorial (Bon Jovi from a distance!!)? Negatory. Did we bother to tell Carla (JK’s sister) we would be taking over her guest room? Not until the day before we arrived! So we headed down to DC with a cocktail dress in the garment bag and without tickets to a ball or the swearing-in ceremony, and hit the Beltway at just about the time concert was ending.

As luck would have it, I was not forced to wear a woefully informal dress to a fancy ball because we never acquired ball tickets! Thank goodness. Actually, our friend Ross (who must have made 60 minutes of GOTV calls) found ball tickets for us, but we decided that $1000 was too much to spend for the Home-States Ball, since we don’t even know anyone from Hawaii or Illinois. The Idaho ball would have been another matter. Readers of previous entries might recall that we also passed on tickets to the Olympic Opening Ceremonies offered at a similar price and lived to regret that choice. Happily, that was not the case this time.

We also never acquired tickets to the swearing in, but had an exciting day nonetheless. Actually, for us the inaugural activities kicked off on Monday, when we participated in the National Day of Service. While Barack Obama was painting a shelter for homeless pregnant teenagers, the Steen-Koppells (and Koppell-Topas) were also engaged in the Lord’s work. . . cleaning up a park in an affluent neighborhood! Boy, did we feel good about ourselves! Ha ha ha. But seriously, we were operating under serious constraints – we wanted to bring all the kids, our own plus our three nephews, ages 4, 9 and 10, and so we needed to find an activity that would not result in some or all of them whining “I’M BORED!” or whatever. There was also the small matter of being too lazy to drive two separate cars to our service event, so with Teo riding on Benjamin’s lap we needed to go somewhere close by. You know, to minimize risk of getting a REALLY big ticket. Oh yeah, and also to minimize risk of maiming one of our dear seatbelt-less nephews. So park clean-up seemed perfect, and off to Forest Hills Park we went.

And you know what? Even though the world was not saved by our raking leaves in a lovely playground in Cleveland Park, the event was awesome. It was over-enrolled – there were probably about 100 people there. We arrived about 45 minutes into the event and there was not much left to do – all the litter and broken toys had already been cleared out, but there were still leaves to rake. It was just so nice to see so many families and individuals turn out to participate, and it really did feel in a way like we were working side by side with Obama and the folks at the teen shelter, as well as the people at RFK stadium assembling military care packages, the people visiting residents of nursing homes and hospices, the servers at soup kitchens, and the like. Everyone was in high spirits. Ben (age 10) & Teo (age 9) were so awesome, they both picked up rakes and went right to work, and when they had finished clearing their patch they looked for other tasks to do. Elsa & Alessandro were very happy in the playground, and Jonathan and I pitched in a little while we weren’t supervising the two little nuts or, in my case, documenting the event photographically. Sadly, Mr. William didn’t get to join us because he got sick on the way down from New Haven, and his temp had even reached 104 the night before. (He was OK on Monday but we thought it would be stupid to take him out.)

Our plan for Tuesday morning was to leave Carla’s house by 8 am and take the Metro downtown, then walk to one of the public entrances to the Mall. When we all got downstairs and were suiting up for the freezing –ass cold day ahead of us, Carla turned the TV on and we saw that the Mall was already filling up and the Metro was insanely packed. In a stroke of luck, our friends Craig & Karen Tinsky called us as we were walking down the hill to the Cleveland Park Metro station – they were in their car a few blocks away and there were NO OTHER CARS ON THE STREETS AT ALL. All the dire warnings about the horrible traffic had deterred everyone but them! So they swung by to collect Jonathan, his mom Kathy, and me. (Oh yeah, have I not mentioned that we did NOT take the children to the swearing-in? This was hugely disappointing to Elsa, who said on the way home from Leaf-Raking Service, "I can't wait until tomorrow when Ale and I get to go to Barack Obama's inauguration!!" Uh, not exactly, pumpkin...) In another stroke of luck we found a parking space just a few blocks back from the traffic barriers! We then hot-footed it south toward the Mall and eventually split from the Tinskys, whose amazing powers of persuasion and schmoozation had earned them seated tickets.

As the Sunshine-Steen-Koppell contingent approached the Mall we encountered the first of many, many frustrations of the day. The map we had downloaded from the inaugural committee site bore absolutely no resemblance to the actual situation on the ground. Entrances and access routes that were clearly indicated on the official map were essentially non-existent in real life. Furthermore, the public-safety personnel –DC police and national guardsmen, mostly – had no clue about anything. Most of them had no idea which routes were open, which entrances were open, etc. We ended up having to double back – i.e., walk further north to resume going south – several times because we could not cross Pennsylvania Avenue (the route for the parade later in the day).

The sheer number of people walking the streets of downtown Washington was amazing! And the number of people lined up to get access to the parade route was staggering. These folks chose to forego the swearing-in itself to stand in the cold from whatever time they arrived (we saw them at 9:30 am) until the parade’s scheduled start at 2:30 pm. (CRAZY!)

When we got to 18^th Street and were told to go even further west, I knew that our chances of making it onto the Mall were dwindling. I decided to go for it on my own, left Jonathan and Kathy behind and booked to 19^th Street, where I turned south toward the Washington Monument. When I entered the Monument grounds people were just starting to congregate in front of the Jumbotron on the northeast corner, but instead of staking out a spot I hustled across the street to try to get onto the Mall. Alas, the last entrance closed, so I turned around and hoped to reunite with Jonathan at the Monument. In the span of just five minutes the Monument grounds had filled up! I found a patch of grass with a view of the Jumbotron and planted myself. It was only 10:30 am. I tried to call Jonathan and got his voicemail, and snippily suggested that he should have set his phone to vibrate. It may have been at that exact moment that he was leaving a voicemail for me, snippily suggesting the same thing! Cell phone service was completely overwhelmed. I think it was about 11:30 am when my phone started to beep and buzz and all at once I received 8 text messages, including 5 from Jonathan, and notification of 3 voicemails, which I couldn’t retrieve because I couldn’t get a line out.

SO it was a little disappointing that Jonathan and I didn’t get to watch the swearing-in together, although we later learned that we were probably only 20-30 feet apart. I knew that once he got my coordinates via text message (“I M due N of center of the Wash Mon, about 40 ft from fence”) he would be trying to find me, so we were together in spirit. We did finally rendez-vous about 30 minutes after Obama took the oath.

What a mood in the crowd! Everyone was happy and friendly. No one was pushing or shoving. It was crowded, but everyone kept a civilized radius of space around them. I took a bunch of short videos of the Jumbotron just so I could capture the crowd sounds – wild applause and cheering when Obama appeared, booing when Bush appeared, even louder booing when Cheney appeared. When the camera paused on Joe Lieberman some people booed and someone said aloud, “They hate him in Connecticut, too!” I responded, “I hate him in Connecticut!” and thus made two new friends from down I-95, a Lieberman-hating couple standing next to me. I was especially delighted to see that upon his entrance the president-elect was framed by TWO CHICKS FROM SAN FRANCISCO!!! YAY!!!

So then the ceremony started, and here is my brief review. Dianne talked too long and said nothing interesting. I found Rick Warren’s invocation to be totally inoffensive, and I appreciated his implicit acknowledgement that not everyone believes as he does (“the name of the one who changed my life”). For the first time in my entire adult life I felt the urge to recite the Lord’s Prayer. I have been a devout observer of the principle of NOT saying words that do not have meaning to me even though I know them and sometimes it’s a little awkward to stand silently. But I was tempted this time because the recitation seemed like a GIGANTIC community ritual, and I wanted to be part of it! (Somehow I doubt that my Jewish husband and mother-in-law felt the same urge.) Obama’s speech was great – loved the substance (including the shout-out to non-believers -- very unusual and much appreciated!) and, especially, the length, because at about 12:15 the cold finally seeped through all my layers. When I left Jonathan & Kathy I remembered to get my Metro ticket from Jonathan, but I forgot to get the hand-warming pouches he was holding for me. Big mistake. I spent the last 20 minutes or so shivering and hopping from foot to foot. (And also compulsively checking my cell phone to see whether my last text message to Jonathan had gone out yet.) I thought the poem sucked – as Jonathan said, that’s what you get for choosing a Yale professor.

I had binoculars lashed to my belt but never bothered taking them out because I was so far from the Capitol that even with magnification I still wouldn’t have been able to see anything. I had to explain to Elsa later that no, I had not come close enough to hand Obama the picture she drew of and for him! Although it turned out that we came about 100 feet from the president-elect earlier in the day – we were walking by the church when he exited. I was totally oblivious and had no idea why the crowd suddenly went wild. So basically my inauguration experience was similar to many of yours – I watched it on a TV. Except unlike you I was wearing two layers of long underwear, a turtleneck, a wool sweater and a knee-length coat, I had no access to a restroom, I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the night before, I had been on my feet for 5 hours, and I was all by myself. Except I wasn’t really all by myself. I was with a million friends.

Chinese Food

(This is post #4. To start with post #1, click on "Deja Vu" at right and work your way up.)

Our Olympic trip was amazing, and the more time that passes the more the non-amazing aspects fade from memory. For example, I can't even remember anymore how friggin' hot and humid it was when we schlepped out to Shanghai's Hong Kou district to visit our former home at the SISU Foreign Experts Building, although if you looked at our pictures you can see how revoltingly sweaty we all were. Man, was that gross. However, one challenge that will not be soon forgotten was keeping the kids fed. I had expected it to be tough to sell Elsa on Chinese food. I had not anticipated that she would go on full-blown strike against any non-white food. Her diet consisted almost exclusively of rice, totally plain noodles and pancakes. (Yes, I know that the outside of a pancake is gold, but the inside is ... white.) What kind of mood do you suppose a little girl is in most of the time when all she eats is carbohydrate? I'm sorry, let me rephrase the question -- what kinds of moods? -- because there were actually two varieties of mood in evidence: (1) Totally spazzy, bouncing off the walls, shouting random gibberish, or (2) totally bereft, sobbing, shouting inbetween sobs, "But I WANT/DON'T WANT XYZ!" The highs and lows were quite pronounced. Not a lot of middle ground.

After about a week Elsa started to have GI trouble, and we explained to her the connection between what goes in and what comes out. This led to two hilarious moments when Elsa announced in public, at the top of her lungs, "I'm going to drink my water now so that my poops won't hurt!" (But perhaps the word "poop" is not widely taught in Beijing English classes, as I was the only person on the subway to crack up at this statement.)

William was also following the All-White Diet, limiting his intake to two items: milk from my left breast and milk from my right breast. I have been desperately trying to wean the little man off of daytime nursing for a couple of months now, but in China it was just pointless. He destroyed the collars of 3 of my shirts as he insistently tried to gain access to the source of all nourishment. It did not take me long to realize that resistance was futile. (Yes, my baby son is the Borg.) If I tried to deny him he went absolutely maniac on me, so I decided that the embarrassment of nursing in public – not exactly commonplace in China – was preferable to the embarrassment of an all-out tantrum. William, by the way, is not the discreet nurser that his big sister was. With Elsa it was no big deal to breastfeed in public because she would latch on and calmly suckle under my shirt-tail without making a big scene. William likes to multi-task, so while he nurses he likes to lift mommy's shirt and expose as much boob as he possibly can. When I try to restrain his wandering hand he always yanks it away from me and grabs onto the shirt again. I am convinced that he thinks it is a funny game to play with Mommy. He also likes variety, so he will take a few swigs off boob #1, then pop off for a grab at boob #2, leaving #1 hanging for all to enjoy the view.

Because I hadn't been nursing full time prior to the Olympics, Mr. Man would get hungry in the middle of the night and wake up yelling. So his diet also had a majorly negative effect on the rest of the family's sleeping patterns.

What was especially surprising about the whole eating situation was that both kids rejected food that they eat regularly at home. Elsa LOVES watermelon, and she really likes pineapple and strawberries, all of which were available all the time, in the hotel breakfast buffet and at the hospitality suite. She would have NOTHING to do with these fruits in China, beyond picking them up and announcing their names in Chinese (loudly, duh) to anyone who happened to hear her (which would be anyone in a 100-foot radius), then putting the mauled pieces back on a serving dish for others to enjoy. I tried taking her to the hypermarket (which is like a supermarket, except bigger, louder and more crowded) to choose things she'd like to eat, but she preferred instead to re-enact one of her favorite Chinese videos. By the time we got to Shanghai we were desperate to get some protein into her, so Jonathan bought her a McDonald's hamburger, which she said she wanted. But once it was presented to her it was no go – it turned out that Elsa only wanted a hamburger if she could go to the McDonald's Playplace. Sadly, neither the McD's on Nanjing Road nor the one in the basement of our hotel had a playground, so Elsa refused to eat her burger. William at least got some protein every morning when he snarfed scrambled eggs and yogurt from the breakfast buffet. (I refused to think about the food-borne illness one might catch by eating runny eggs in China.)

Sukey was, as usual, the heroine of the food story, as she somehow got Elsa to eat a few pieces of broccoli when they went to the food court next door to the JW. I was impressed that Sukey knew how to say "broccoli" in Mandarin, let alone get some into Elsa's system. Apparently William ate broccoli, too. WOW!! (When is this girl going to realize that she should drop out of her fancy-pants liberal arts college, abandon her career aspirations and be our full-time nanny???)

If I bore the brunt of William's food issues, Jonathan paid a high price too. He is all about food and had been looking forward to authentic Chinese fare, soooo much better in China than in Chinatown. And when we were living in Shanghai he was deprived of Chinese food during our last month because I was pregnant with Elsa and nauseated by the mere thought of dishes I had loved when we first arrived. We spent our last few weeks in Shanghai sampling the restaurants of whiteytown – oh wait, I mean, of the expat neighborhoods. We ate Mexican, Indian, Thai, American, Continental, etc., because of my queasiness vis-a-vis Chinese food. Now the source of that queasiness is a 4-year-old bundle of energy, and she is still coming between Jonathan and his Chinese food! Of course, it wasn't entirely her fault – part of the problem was that we were often at Olympic venues at meal time, and as we posted earlier the food offerings there were crap. Non-Chinese crap. So our Chinese meals consisted of... (1) dim sum in the hospitality suite, (2) won-ton soup from room service in Beijing, (3) one single dinner out at a restaurant across the street from the JW called "South Beauty," and (4) Shanghai noodles and fried rice from room service in Shanghai, (which was surprisingly good but not particularly exotic).

Jonathan expects to return to Shanghai for a meeting this winter, so I hope he will gorge himself on the finest local cuisine he can find!

Message from JK

(This is the third post. To start at the beginning click "Deja Vu" at right, then work your way up. I know I promised an account of the US/China basketball game next, but for now you'll have to settle for Jonathan's email to his parents, sent August 14, Day 7.)

Sorry we have been so incommunicado. It has been logistically difficult to write because we are either at something, wrangling monsters or passed out. Wanted to send a brief update but we’ll say more when we get back.

We are having a good time and enjoy going to the games. The program that I was teaching in concluded on the evening of the 12^th. My session went well and was positively received – it was particularly appreciated that my remarks were quite tailored to China. IN general the program went well and it certainly provided convenience for us; we had use of a van to ferry us and my colleague Jeff Sonnenfeld (who you met a LaGuardia) with his wife and little kids. This kept us away from the paying guests – a good idea. In addition to the events, we went to the great wall and forbidden city (briefly). There was a hostpiality suite where we could get snacks all day long. This made lunch easy.

The downside of all this is that we exist in something of a cocoon. We stay at the JW Marriott hotel where all the food is Western. We went out in van or buses and were dropped off at venues. In the last couple of days we’ve been taking subway and cabs to get around which is better on this dimension but more tiring and time-consuming.

Beijing is quite different than our last visit. More built up and more green. There has clearly been an intense effort to plant trees, shrubs, grass and flowers for aesthetic and air quality reasons. It does make a difference but the city is still very spread out and dominated by huge freeway-like streets that demolish and feeling of urban-ness that persists in only a few pockets.

Alas the Olympics have a similar feeling. Sort of antiseptic. The security measures are so intense that there is absolutely no congregation of humanity (surprise!). This makes it hard to feel any Olympic spirit. Each venue has separate security with tickets required for entry. Example last night we were at tennis but wanted to go to the main gift shop on the Olympic green. Not possible because our tickets didn’t get us in there (tennis is not on the green). The net result is that it feels like you are going to a series of sporting events (which are very cool) but not attending “the Olympics” per se. Different from my admittedly old recollections of Lake Placid.

There is also a distinct lack of Chinese-ness to the games. There is nothing in the way of performance, art, decoration, or music to signal that you are in China. Indeed, even the Chinese jerseys have the team name written as “C H I N A” rather than using characters. Most strikingly, the only food available at the venues is chips, ice cream and hot dogs plus soda and water. That is IT. Seriously. It is very lame and a real lost opportunity to show off Chinese cuisine not to mention all the foregone revenue and frustrated hungry spectators. Same thing with souvenirs. There is hardly anything. Some very generic looking t-shirts and hats. The only distinctive thing is the mascots which, as a result, are very popular.

Dealing with the kids has been very tough. Perhaps because of the unusual situation (in terms of hours, living conditions, etc.) they are particularly resistant. Eating, for example, is a major problem. There is a lot of struggling over almost everything which can be maddening and makes it hard to enjoy what is going on. We try to remember they are little bananas in a tough spot and sometimes they are a total joy – cute and funny and clearly having fun. They were a huge hit with everyone at the conference. We got many many compliments on them and people were quite patient with their antics.

The blessing has been the help provided by Sukey Bernard, the daughter of fellow Fulbrighters who were in Shanghai with us. She has taken care of the kids on several days allowing us to go to a couple of events without them and generally not go totally insane. Without her here, we would have changed our return tickets by now.

Anyway, we’re winding down. Tonight is the last event for which we have tickets (volleyball). On the 16^th we go to shanghai for two days then fly home on the 18^th.

Hope all is well in Mei Guo.

Love,

J & J & E & W

First Event (Ladies' 12-Story Stair Climb)

(This is the second post. Click on "Deja Vu" at right if you missed the first post.)

As a bit of background, the Steen-Koppells are in Beijing under the auspices of the Yale Global Leadership Forum at the Olympics (password:Yale), an executive-education program. On Tuesday the participants will be hearing from Professor Koppell on corporate governance in China. Jonathan’s compensation included all expenses for our family, and the package includes tickets to several events.

Tickets to the Opening Ceremonies were offered as an option, with the cheap seats costing $650 a piece. While we’ve been known to splurge on a sporting event – we got engaged during the 7th inning stretch at Game One of the 2000 Subway Series, a game that the Yankees finally won in the bottom of the 15 inning at about 2:00 am and that cost us about $60 per inning to attend – we didn’t give any serious thought to attending the Olympic opening. But as we watched the ceremony kick off (from the comfort of the Yale hospitality suite at the JW Marriott, where we can eat and drink to our heart’s content around the clock) I had some pangs of regret. I thought BOCOG put on an amazing show and it would have been awesome to experience it in person! I may have missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance there. Oh well… Those who attended have universally volunteered that it was terribly hot and uncomfortable inside the stadium, with the ambient 80 degrees enhanced by the body heat of 90,000 spectators plus the fireworks.

There is a giant tour bus to take the Yale group to our Olympic events and sightseeing excursions, but someone was smart (and kind) enough to arrange a 12-passenger van that is dedicated exclusively to us and the Sonnenfelds, the other family with small children. This makes the outings much more convenient for us and spares the muckety-muck program participants from having to tolerate crankiness or craziness from tired, hungry little ones. Saturday morning we attended our first Olympic competition, and when we went to the hospitality suite, the debarkation point for all group excursions, we learned that there was to be an extra passenger on our special van that morning… Rick Levin, the president of Yale. I got a kick out of imagining Levin squished in a row with Elsa and Sophie Sonnenfeld, her 5-year-old buddy. As it turned out Levin did not actually wake up 3 hours after returning from the opening ceremonies to attend a preliminary round of women’s handball. His loss!

OK, so the rest of this post is going to be greatly abbreviated, probably to the relief of my readers (all three of you). I’m now back at the computer on Day 4 – our schedule is so crazy that I am using any down time I have, which is virtually nil, to SLEEP, not blog. So I have a ton to catch up on…

First Olympic event: Women’s handball, Angola vs. France. Elsa was freaked out by the fact that some girls were trying to block other girls from throwing the ball, so after 10 minutes she had to leave the arena. I can report that the breezeway of the venue was very nice and the snack bar items quite reasonably priced. I’m told by those who actually got to watch the match that France won.

Security for the venues is insanely tight. One has to have a ticket to get within the wide perimeter that encompasses all the venues, and once the security checkpoint has been cleared one has a loooong hike to whichever event. I think we walked at least half a mile from entry to handball arena. Inside the perimeter it is eerily quiet. Here is a photo that illustrates the scene aptly. There just aren’t that many people milling around, even by the concessions. The Olympic complex feels almost like a ghost town.

En route to handball we stopped to take pictures with the Olympic mascots, the “Fuwa,” and the kids attracted a ton of attention. Dozens of Chinese Olympic-goers wanted to snap photos with the little ones. Jonathan and I used to attract similar requests when we lived here, but compared to us Elsa is Angelina Jolie. People literally try to take William out of my arms to hold him in a picture. I’ve let them once or twice. (At left is a typical shot of the kids, including Lauren Sonnenfeld, with an admirer.)

Biggest scare: Evacuation of our hotel at 9:30 p.m. on Day 2. Jonathan and I were in a sub-basement banquet room as the kick-off dinner for the Yale Global Leadership Forum wound down. Suddenly an announcement sounded over the P.A. system, of course in Chinese. Hmm, whatever, everyone kept chatting, etc. Then the English translation came on: “Ladies and gentlemen, please evacuate the building immediately. Do not panic. Do not use the lifts. Please proceed calmly to the nearest exit.” Are you kidding? My children were 12 stories above me, so I did not remain calm and I did not evacuate the building. I did, however, follow the instruction to avoid the lifts. I flew up the first six flights of stairs, then started to slow, and by the last two I was dragging pretty badly. When I burst into the hotel room, winded and sweaty, Sukey had the kids ready to evacuate. Jonathan beat me there and looked fresh as a daisy because he had come up on the elevator. That worked out fine for him because there was no fire, no bomb, no nothing, just a false alarm, as we learned after carting everyone back down the fire stairs to the lobby.

All’s well that ends well, but it’s still worth noting my reaction to the evacuation announcement. I allowed myself to think about what might be happening (fire? terrorist attack?) and what the consequences might be (children trapped on upper story, separate from Mom & Dad, etc.) for about 20 seconds. Maybe less. My response was virtually identical to my response to Elsa’s seizure last year – I could almost feel the thick security door come sliding down to block all emotional signals from my brain as I focused on powering myself up those damned stairs. Exactly like my focus on the 911 call a year ago – I did not look at or think about the convulsing little girl as I methodically took the steps necessary to summon help. ("Proceed to the nearest landline. State your location and the nature of the emergency. Listen carefully and answer the dispatcher's questions.")

Next time (don't hold your breath): U.S. vs. China basketball game! Yao Ming! Jason Kidd! Kobe Bryant! Jason Kidd! LeBron James! Jason Kidd! Did I mention Jason Kidd?

Deja Vu

Greetings from Beijing! We arrived safely and without major incident en route, although as the title of my blog predicted it was something of a Griswoldian journey. We departed New Haven at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 5, and arrived in Beijing 40 hours later. Our itinerary could only have been less efficient if we had stopped at Yellow Jacket en route! But the kids saved the major meltdowns until we were on Chinese soil, so I’d call the trip a success.

I’ve been experiencing déjà vu as many aspects of touchdown conjur up Fulbright Welcome Week 2003. Some of the parallels include

• Extended, seemingly futile negotiations with baggage-office staff at PEK as a bus carrying the rest of our large group waited … and waited… and waited for us
• Being cloistered in a swanky western hotel for the first couple of days, not having even to handle a RMB note or speak a word of Mandarin
• Hanging out with Sukey Bernard (Who? Keep reading!)
• Traveling with a big gang of academics who I don’t know well (or at all) and wondering which of them will become good friends during our China adventure

Of course, there are some differences this time around. Like, for example, we’re staying at the J.W. Marriott instead of the Hilton. Boy, it is just an entirely different experience here – the pool is on the second floor instead of the sixth!!! And, of course, there is the small matter of the two little monsters/darlings we have in tow.

What can I say about Elsa and William that they will not hold against me years from now? Hmmm… well, they are both sleeping right now and look perfectly angelic. But during their waking hours they are both extremely, um, exuberant. This is true at home, too, but they are really not taking any breaks from being hyper and loud. Actually, William is not that hyper, he is just loud. And extremely attached to his mommy. William’s two primary activities when he is not in my arms: clinging to mommy’s legs or shouting at the top of his lungs to be held by mommy. Elsa is defiant, demanding and just plain LOUD. Did I mention loud? Oh yeah, spazzy too. But she has endured a grueling journey here and is running on fumes – so far, the only thing she has eaten has been the cereal we brought with us, a few bites of fruit from the hospitality suite, and a few pieces of room-service penne. So I remain hopeful that once she acclimates – hopefully by tomorrow(?!) – she’ll settle down a bit.

Three things have saved me from going completely bonkers with Elsa. The first is the presence of another family on our trip with two lovely little girls, one a year older and one a year younger than Elsa. Playmates! Yay! The second is the astonishing (to Jonathan and me) reaction of our traveling companions to Elsa. Several of them apparently find her adorable and entertaining. Somehow they haven’t noticed the antics that have preceded her (involuntary, premature) departure from several public meals. So on the trip over we actually got several small breaks from Miss Loony-Tune while she visited with various new friends on the plane. Finally, we have help in Beijing from our friend Sukey, who in 2003 was the amazingly poised and sweet 15-year-old daughter of our fellow Fulbrighters in Shanghai, Jane Hunter and Joel Bernard. Today Sukey is heading into her junior year at Wesleyan and is in Beijing for the summer before spending fall semester here. We adored her in Shanghai and are thrilled to have her with us this week – she is GREAT with the kids and, super bonus, speaks Mandarin! YAY!!

So I actually have a few initial observations about Beijing and China that go beyond what a pain in the ass it is to have my kids here with me, although having barely left the hotel I don’t have much to report yet. My impression so far is basically plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. China, as anyone who has not been living in a cave knows, is insanely dynamic, always changing at a mad pace. There have been lots of changes in Beijing since I was last here in October, 2003, and even at Pudong Airport in Shanghai , where we enjoyed one of our avoidable stopovers). Pudong, for example, has two new terminals. Plus ca change. The international arrivals terminal, interestingly, is not air conditioned. Plus c’est la meme chose! It somehow seems soooo Chinese to me that they have a very sleek, modern, huge airport, which is largely motivated by the desire to create a certain image (you know, of sleekness and modernity) for the rest of the world. Yet international travelers deplaning at Pudong in, say, August cannot get through immigration without starting to “glow.” Nothing says 21ST CENTURY WORLD POWER like a steamy airport terminal, right?

Beijing has expanded outward since we were here in ’03. I think they had just finished building the Fourth Ring Road then; now the city has been built out to Sixth Ring Road. I wonder how many rings there will be in 2013! There is also a new terminal at PEK, and as intended it does indeed look like a dragon! Very cool. It is also IMMENSE – the largest airport in the world, I’m told. But as in Shanghai there is a hint of the developing world in that many flights do not terminate at the terminal per se. We parked on the tarmac and descended old-fashioned stairs, then stood around waiting for busses to transport us to the terminal. It was 91 degrees, 90% humidity and 200% smog. To be honest, it did seem an appropriate capper for our multi-leg journey to end on air-stairs. It was sort of like the golden age of travel, except we didn’t stop to refuel in Newfoundland.

As happened when we arrived at PEK for Fulbright orientation in 2003, one piece of our checked baggage failed to show up. Then it was my giant suitcase with all of my clothes for the semester; this time it was just our beat-up old stroller. Chasing the stroller down gave me an experience that truly illustrated the highs and lows of being in China.

First, the low… after all of our group had collected their bags and our stroller was the only thing missing, I went to see if it was with the oversized bags. A baggage-office staff person took my claim tags to try to track down the stroller, but I could not tell what was going on – was it on the ground, coming in from the tarmac, or was it lost, or what? Nor could I tell what she was actually doing to find the stroller, since it kind of looked like nothing. After about 5 minutes Jonathan came looking for me and was determined to abandon the stroller, which would have been fine because we REALLY wanted to get going to the hotel, as did the 24 people we were traveling with, and we knew we would probably get a brand-new stroller courtesy of either Yale or China Airlines. But at that point the girl with my claim tags had disappeared behind an official door, and since we had seen airport staff actually checking the tags as passengers left the baggage area I didn’t think we would be able to get our (HUGE) cart outside. So I left Jonathan in the office and I went out to get our greeter, hoping someone from the hospitality company would come back with me and either get our stroller or get our claim check back. And if you’re thinking, “But I’ve read all about the big campaign to teach English to hospitality workers in Beijing! Couldn’t you just tell the baggage staff to get your tags and let you go?” Um, no. I could not. It is possible that the combined English vocabulary of the four girls in the baggage office was smaller than my Mandarin vocabulary. And that is NOT a way to brag about my Mandarin!

I’m not knocking the baggage girls for their lack of English skills. What was frustrating about the experience was that for most of the time I and then Jonathan were waiting, nobody was doing anything except for ooh-ing and ah-ing at our adorable baby. (Our adorable little girl was already on the curb with one of her new jie-jies from the Yale delegation.) The girl who had our baggage tags mostly stood around looking worried, except of course when she went into the next room. When I finally got back to Jonathan with a baggage manager (who also spoke ZERO English but had been sort-of briefed by our guide), at least 20 minutes had passed since the last bag had been pulled off the carousel and we still had no stroller. We couldn’t communicate that we just wanted to cut bait, so I had to smile warmly and take my claim check out of the girl’s hand, which is probably incredibly rude in China, and said “Wamen qu zai hotel! Xie xie nimen!” (“We’re going to hotel! Thank you all!”) And no, the Mandarin word for “hotel” is not “hotel.” I just couldn’t remember how to say hotel. Everyone clearly thought we were nutty as Jonathan, William and I bolted out of there and hurried to rendez-vous with the other Yalies, who were of course very eager to get the hell out of the airport and into the hotel. (And who were also, by the way, super kind and gracious about the delay over a crappy old stroller!)

But then something sooo nice happened, something that would, I think, never happen at an American airport. We had exited the baggage area (with no one inspecting our claim check, by the way) and were about to get on the elevator to the parking garage when the original baggage girl came running up to us with, you guessed it, our stroller! She was sweaty and out of breath and obviously delighted to have reunited us with our precious lost luggage. It was NOT a short distance that she had covered. I did my best to express my appreciation and to convey that she had gone well beyond what anyone would have expected. “Hen hao! Xie xie ni! Ni shi wonderful!” Smile, hug, etc.

Of course, now I’m irked that I’m not going to get a new stroller from the Yale Executive Education Center! So thanks for nothin’, xiaojie!! Ha ha ha.

The ride into town was unusually quick. Usually all the roads in Beijing are totally congested, but for the Olympics there are restrictions for pollution control that take more than half the cars off the streets every day. Also, instead of a diamond lane they currently have a five-rings lane. Each highway has a lane painted with the Olympic rings (it looks cool, I’ll try to get a photo) which can only be used by vehicles with special Olympic credentials, which all of our vehicles have. We saw police cars at every exit (and the exits are closely spaced, so there was a lot of bacon on the highway), presumably enforcing the traffic restrictions. One of the Yale families spends a lot of time here (and even has an apartment in Beijing), and they were especially struck by the increased number of police on the highway. The absence of traffic is eerie. It’s not like Beijing is a ghost town by any means, but anyone who has been here before would notice right away how few cars there are.

OK, so I must conclude these ramblings without editing them because my coach is about to turn into a pumpkin. That is to say, the little angels are stirring from their nap. (Nap! Yay! Maybe we’ll all have a happy afternoon!!) Next time I will write about our first Olympic event (women’s handball, gooooooooooo Angola!) and impressions of the Olympic venues.

Oh yeah, we saw David Schwimmer at the airport in Beijing! Celebrity sighting #1!