Forbidden City

Alex’s restlessness increases the longer he is with the students. He is discussed by the students and feels that it is “What To Do With Alex Day” (142), a conversation he is not allowed to be part of, it seems. Meanwhile, he feels he is “going nuts with frustration” (142), worrying about his father, reliving the killing of Lao Xu, and the terror of the square. The sound of gunfire outside the window punctuates his thoughts.

Nai-nai continues to feed and tend to him as he tries to regain strength. The family eats “boiled rice and stir-fried celery with soya bean sauce and sugar in it. That’s it. A typical meal” (143). Alex comes to see that the way he lived and ate at the hotel and the kind of Chinese food he enjoyed back at home is drastically different than what the people of Beijing actually have access to.

Xin-hua’s friend, Xiao Yang, spends some time traversing the city carefully in order to get a better sense of what is going on and to see if he can find out anything more about the fate of Alex’s father. Although nothing is discovered about Alex’s father’s whereabouts, Alex can tell that something more is afoot with the students.