I have a few pictures up on my photobucket account: it's basically some pictures of my neighborhood and some of the friends I've made with the entire staff of a local hair salon. I love boys who spend more time on their hair than I do.
I started looking at new apartments in the south Chongwen district before the October holiday, but I ran into many of the same issues that I did the first time I went house hunting. Despite the craftiness of the two agents assigned to me, they were pretty good guys, and, after looking around a few days, they actually tried to find me apartments according to my specifications or ones they thought I might like that were still in my price range. I still see them occasionally (They live in my neighborhood. I totally bug them whenever I need help.) I didn’t find a place before the October holiday, but needed to, and did, only a few days after my glorious return from Guiyang (around October 9th-10th). It’s ever so slightly more expensive than my old place, but the location is good and convenient to my new work. It’s also bigger and newer than my old apartment. The apartment complex is a little more ‘upscale,’ but I’m not sure how I feel about that yet. I think it really said something good about me to the locals when they saw me walking into the older building in the down-to-earth neighborhood in Haidian everyday. Of course, my apartment in Haidian was rather nice, but it was definitely older. My new apartment is almost too much for me. It’s like a middle-class gated community. There are some definite perks. The neighborhood is composed of some 15-story apartment buildings surrounding a decent-sized courtyard with a man-made pond with a walkway resembling a dock. The pond connects to a small man-made brook that weaves through the courtyard. On the other end is a small pool with large rocks in it. Colorful fish normally swim in the brook, but it was drained and the fish all relocated to the dammed up pond in preparation for the winter. There is a small community of neighborhood cats who hang out behind the same building everyday. I have joined the ranks of apartment dwellers that pat them on the head and bring them scraps of food. The courtyard also contains exercise equipment and some ping-pong tables. There is a convenience store right next to each of the gates.
In contrast, the road I live off of is mostly older buildings and apartments and less upscale, and all around smaller and dirtier than my old area. A lot of locals give me these knowing looks as I walk through the gates to the apartments everyday; something to the effect of, “Of course the foreigner lives there. It’s nice, and she can probably afford it.”
It’s been a month, so I like to gloss over a little, but let me tell you, finding the place and moving in was a huge, life-sucking chore. I signed the contract for the new apartment, had a lengthy discussion full of Chinese anger and dramatics with my old landlady and her two daughters (they didn’t want to give me back any of my unused rent money, even though, contractually, they had to), and packed up and moved all my earthly possessions across town in one taxi with my friends Lily and Zhang Liwei in a matter of two days. The worst part about it? The sudden move didn’t change the fact that I had work on one of those days in Daxing, which was a $15 taxi ride from Haidian, one way. It was the demo-class for my new work. That means I had to be super-energetic and teach a class of 19 children I’ve never met before without encountering any major glitches. At the end of that charade, I was subjected to a barrage of (stupid) questions from the well-meaning parents. Of course, the children were ridiculously ill behaved; their parents were there, they were totally unfocused, they were clueless and confused about the whole English thing, and they didn’t really ‘get’ that this new, weird lady with a funny face was their teacher. During the question session with the parents, one of the parents asked the requisite question about my credentials. I still felt a little offended by it, but mostly because of the way she asked; it was very round about. She inferred that maybe, possibly, I was too shy with children (which is ridiculous,) and therefore might be an uncomfortable and (inexperienced) teacher. No, I don’t have teaching experience just oozing from my resume, but I have experience nonetheless, and I trained with Scholastic for nearly two months before I actually started teaching. You try acting familiar with 19 three-year-olds you’ve never seen before in a language they don’t understand. Without knowing the children, it’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t. In fact, the first week of teaching was a big ball of awkward. It got better once the children came to know me and understand what I expect of them in class. It wasn’t happening in that 30-minute demo class.
Oh, did I mention the fact that the apartment, despite all of my new landlord’s assurances, did not come readily available with Internet? For an entire week, I was without access to, well, anything. I couldn’t do homework, regular work, blogging, picture posting, and I got behind on my lolcats. 660 RMB, a 6 day wait, and sending Liwei to harass my building managers is what finally got my internet up and working.
My current apartment has a lot more built-ins and was all around less dirty, but it still took a good month or so of cleaning bits and pieces of the apartment to get all of my things moved in and the apartment in a state of clean I can live comfortably in.
The only other major issues I had moving in were figuring out how to buy gas to keep me in hot water, and then how to actually turn on the central heating. A trip to my real estate agents (who I’m pretty sure love me secretly, despite the uncontrollable wretching) helped me figure out that I could only buy gas at the Agricultural Bank a 15 minute walk from my apartment. I suffered without heat the most of November, because I was just so darn busy almost all day everyday, and couldn’t bother. The fact that I didn’t know who or how to ask was just peripheral. That issue was also solved by drafting Liwei into battle against my housing management office. After that, I had heat. That was only about a week ago, though, and temperatures have been below freezing since early November. I’m just glad I didn’t shrivel up and die in my sleep.
That’s about everything involved in my big move to Anlelin Rd.
I still want to post about:
My new job!
New friends in my neighborhood!
The pain in the neck that is graduate classes!
Food and shopping!
Learning Chinese!
Riding the Bus!
… and GUIYANG!
Yes, it's been a good long time since I updated. I have been working on posts in my free time, but haven't finished any. It's not so much that my new job is too demanding or my student workload is too much, though those factors have had a significanty impact. The truth is, things have been incredibly crazy, and it's really really cold in Beijing.
Just as a quick rundown of my goings on:
I moved to the south side of Beijing
I started a new teaching job at the RYB Daxing Kindergarten
Halloween!
Another English teacher was injured by a car and is going home to the U.S. permanently next week
Two other English teachers are leaving Beijing for personal reasons
One of the Chinese teachers at Daxing was let go because of crazy circumstances. (She was incredibly irresponsible, and I personally think the kindergarten made the right decision.)
I have made friends with people in my neighborhood -sort of.
Updates should be forthcoming. I am nearing completion, but thought I'd give everyone reason to believe I'm still alive.
I'd give more of the juicy details about the goings on of the teachers who are leaving, but I do want to respect their privacy -and the company's- to an extent. I would like to note that with little exception, these things are just things that happen, and they have all happened in a reliatively short amount of time.
Despite being a little scattered, though, things are good. I really like my kindergarten. I really like my neighborhood. School isn't perfect, but I'm doing reasonably well, I think. All around, everything's okay.
Okay folks. I give you credit if you haven't given up on this blog so far. It's been nuts this past month or two, what with moving, changing jobs, and lack of internet.
The good news is that I really am getting settled into my new job at the Kindergarten and should be back on track with my graduate studies by the end of this weekend. That means I will once again have my evenings and weekends free to have shenanigans and write about them.
For now, please say hello to Mr. Goth-Emo Pear. He has been keeping my company this week, but he doesn't say much for my state of sanity.
Look out, Mr. Goth-Emo Pear! You're going to fall!
I didn't die. I just moved to the other side of Beijing and was deprived of Internet for a week. I suppose that's similar to death.
The new pad, if I do say so myself, is pretty freakin' sweet. It has its own problems, of course, but the new land lord is a great improvement. You should have seen the drama I came up against when I told my old land lady I had to move for my work.
Is it sad that I could move all my earthly possesions in one cab? This is not to metion that the cab ride itself was only about 11 USD
I love the new neighborhood. It's not as rich and high tech, but it's very down to Chinese earth. My old neighborhood had decidedly Chinese flair, but the smells and crowded sidwalks of the new neighborhood just scream out, "This is China," to me. Don't misinterpret; it's still a nice neighborhood. My apartment is actually much newer and nicer.
It's in a convenient location for communiting to my new job.
By the way, I am now teaching 19 3-year olds (not 3 19-year olds...) in Daxing.
When the situation stablizes some more, and when I catch up on the past week of my graduate studies work, I promise, promise, promise, I will pump out the updates. I'm projecting next Thursday.
I surprise myself with my own progress.
Yi He Yuan.
The Summer Palace.
I could tell from a few different city maps that it was not all that far from where I live, but I wasn’t sure if there was a bus I could take. Some Chinese friends assured me that I should just take a cab: it wasn’t far, and the ride would only cost 10 kuai. There was crazy traffic getting into the parking area in the morning, however, and I had the cab drop me off at some distance, so I still ended up having a 5-10 minute walk to the gate. Around the gate, I had my share of people coming up to me trying to sell me things like post cards as well as people asking, “You need English guide?” I even had some other Chinese tourists asking for their picture with me. I really need to start charging for that.
I was only a little frustrated that I couldn’t truck it straight to the ticket office. Tickets are 30 kuai, but you can get an all-access pass for 60 kuai. Yi He Yuan is so big, though, that you only really need the 30 kuai pass unless you JUST want to see the other attractions which cost extra. They also had audio guides, but they aren’t cheap by Chinese standards. I believe they were something like 100 kuai on top of the deposit. I went ahead and bought a 10 kuai map, even though it was not the most helpful map. (It was NOT to scale.) I went on in and started looking at the rocks and buildings. There were a lot of rocks and buildings. I decided to go against the perceived flow of traffic and headed towards the lake, away from the rocks and buildings. This was probably a good move. The lake is huge, and the walk around it took the majority of my day. It was well worth it, though.
Interestingly, it seems like there was a sort of field trip
that a large number of army trainees were on. By midday, I think the entire
Chinese army all had pictures with me. My face hurt from smiling, but I made
out with some of my own pictures, at least. The worst part was it wasn’t just
the army men, but it was also a number of other Chinese tourists. Occasionally,
I received pitying looks from other foreigners.
But the scenery was absolutely
beautiful. I don’t think I would have changed much. After a leisurely but
lengthy walk around the lake all morning and into afternoon, which also
involved crossing steep bridges and romps through a willow and bamboo forest, I
was directly across from where I started. There was a small cluster of Chinese
wooden buildings and more big rocks, and one of them had a small convenience
store inside selling chips, drinks, candy, and cup noodles for lunch. They also
had a photo service where you could dress up in Manchu royal costumes for 20
kuai. The costumes, of course, were a little fake and corny, but with creative
photography, you can get some really nice pictures out of it. There was also
beautiful scenery from that location on the lake for a backdrop. After
polishing off some cup noodles and tea and talking to some of the Chinese
people sitting at the counter next to me, I decided that for 20 kuai (around
$3), I might as well give the Chinese-style glamour shots a try. There were a lot of giggly Chinese people,
young and old, as I traipsed around the building in my traditional polyester Chinese robes, and the shopkeeper followed behind, becoming my
personal photographer. In fact, one of the other customers asked if he could
take pictures with me and for me, but the shopkeeper said his pictures were no
good. I tried really hard not to laugh, but the goofy smile on my face was most likely a tell-all.
After my little costume party, I pushed forward, eager to see the more major and important buildings and rocks I had avoided in the morning. I got a little bit lost, but that wasn’t so bad, since the scenery was nice, and there were plenty of places to pull over, sit down, and take pictures. As I circled back around, there were also an increasing number of shops with all of the same merchandise. And none of it I wanted. Even though I really like Yi He Yuan, I was a little discouraged that most of the buildings are full of all the same shop, essentially. I did see interesting sights, though. For example, the famous marble boat and more of the high arched bridges. In front of one of the buildings, a crew was filming something. A crowd of Chinese and I were watching the process. When I tried to take a picture of the cameraman filming, I was scolded. Clearly, I was trying to steal their film secrets?
It was getting later in the day, and I was slowing down. It didn’t help that I somehow managed to climb up the mountain and sneak into the Buddhist temples on the hill. The large, most famous one is called the Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha, and is a little more than 40 meters high (totally stolen from a guide book). The revolving archives were next to it, but looked like they were closed for renovation. Since I basically went straight up the small mountain, I spent a good 15 minutes just sitting at the top, looking out over the lake, and talking to a German tourist with my disgustingly terrible German. He was headed to Suzhou Street, which seems like it would be a very cool street to walk down, but I was at a point where I did not feel like seeing anything new and certainly was not in the mood for shopping. I left it for another time.
I stumbled around trying to figure out how much longer I should stay and what things I could see on my way out. I met a few other foreign tourists on my way out – one from Ireland and one from Amsterdam. I ended up sharing a taxi with the guy from Amsterdam. We also got Mahua noodles. He was apparently in town for some conference, and from what I derived, he interns for a professor who works on the Large Hadron Collider. Since he was only in China for a short time, I’m glad I could introduce him to Mahua noodles.
But I should backtrack a little. Getting a taxi from the Summer Palace around closing time was an ordeal. I knew that there would be considerable traffic leaving the actual parking lot, so I went to the main road. However, empty taxis would pass me, probably assuming they could make more money if they picked someone up from the entrance. Eventually (maybe after 10-15 minutes) we got one. It ended up being worth the wait. The taxi driver knew exactly where he was going (some taxis have no idea where I live), but he also knew how to avoid the major intersections and traffic. I was praising his driving when I realized he understood most of what I said. He was beaming.
My friend from Amsterdam reminded me of how I acted my first week or so in China. Everything amazed him. He even took pictures of them making noodles in Mahua. It was weird to feel like a host, though. My Chinese is so bad.
I was exhausted, but got home around 7pm. Yi He Yuan ended up being quite a perfect day trip. However, next time, I might go specifically to see some of the things I missed, like Suzhou Street, some of the buildings and big rocks near the entrance, and an art gallery that costs a little extra near the southern Bafang gate. Who knows how long all that will take…
Remember; all of my photos are available on my Photobucket account, Kamizilla
I'm actually keeping with the schedule.
The Overnight Train
The train is certainly less expensive than flying, but not by a lot if you have a soft sleeper. I mean, you might be talking a difference of 50$ in some cases, but more in others, if the distance is further. But the train takes much longer, too. If you’re really on a budget, but have time, go with the train. Of course, the train from Shanghai to Beijing only took 12 hours, but I didn’t have to go the airport and go through security, I suppose. In fact, the only security I had to pass through was to show my ticket and passport, then chuck all my bags on a conveyor belt that went through a massive x-ray machine. I waited in a large waiting room crammed with people with Cecelia from Scholastic until the train was ready to board. She was concerned about my heavy bags and the state of my sometimes failure of a back, so she asked a man near us politely if he’d help me put all my bags on the train. He was ecstatic. Not only did he carry my heavy duffle through the teeming masses to the train platform, but his ticket was for car 2 and mine was for car 13, but he walked down to car 13, found my bunk, and helped me put my bag under the bed. Wow. I talked to Cecelia, and I think she was going to arrange some way to thank him a little more formally. I hope so!
Our train was scheduled to leave at 7:40. There were three other beds and people to fill them in my car. Across from me was a girl a little older than me working in Beijing. She was thrilled to talk to me, but once the train was in full throttle, the snack vendors made a few passes, and I almost fell into the jerky toilet getting ready for the night, I became very tired, and passed out. The beds were surprisingly comfortable.
That is, until I woke up around midnight. There were people in the hallway talking and smoking, and my throat was sore from all the traveling and the air conditioning. I got up quietly, pulled on some pants, in the complete darkness, and slowly undid the latch on my bunk. I walked up and down the train, looking for some hot water to drink, and found dispensers near most of the rest rooms, but there were no cups. Some middle-aged men told me in Chinese to go to car 9, since that was the dinning car. After not stumbling to car 9, I found out it was closed. Some train attendants were sitting in a small alcove near the front of car 9, and they were giddy at the chance to use their English. They asked if they cold help, and I explained that my throat hurt and I was looking for hot water. One of them promptly unlocked the dinning car and emerged minutes later with a cheap paper cup, but that was more than good enough. I used the hot water dispenser liberally and let the girls practice all their best English on me. One of them explained to me that her boyfriend lived in Beijing, and she would finally get to see him. She’d been busy working for the past week, and she’d been on the train for over 24 hours.
Eventually, I felt too exhausted to let a little thing like a sore throat keep me from sleep, snuck back to my bunk, curled up in the warm covers, and let the train rock me to sleep.
I woke up scared. I could see light peeking through the drapes over the window, but I couldn’t feel the train moving at all. When I looked out, I could see that the train was moving, but only very slowly, and there was thick fog all around. I could barely see the ground. I lay in bed with my eyes closed, and the train eventually picked up speed again, and my bunkmates woke up one by one. We all got dressed and opened the window. We came into recognizable parts of Beijing as we were getting our entire luggage together, and sooner than I knew it, everyone was scuffling off the train as quickly as they could. The girl in my bunk helped me get my bag off the train, where my friend Wei was waiting. Getting out of the train station was just a matter of letting the crowds carry you along to the outside. There was a long wait for taxis, but I had already set my mind to it. None of that lugging a huge bag on the subway at 7 in the morning for me thanks.
The rest of the weekend I ended up having to go to work, but it’s worth noting that I didn’t feel entirely tired, despite taking the train all night long.
I may try to take the overnight train to some other places in the future; I really want to go to Xi’an, for example. But if the train takes much more than a day (which it can if you’re traveling long distances), I’m not sure it would be worth the money saved.
Sorry I disappeared, but I was busy playing with cheeky monkeys.
I'm working on some updates concurrently, and here's ever-hopefull schedule
Overnight train -tonight
Yi He Yuan - tonight
Job and housing shenanigans - tonight
October holiday in Guiyang, 2-3 pts. -by Friday
You can get ahead of me by looking at my Guiyang pictures:
Tuesday I went out into the big world of Beijing. I decided to actually put off the predictable Forbidden City, Tian An Men, and Mummy Mao for a later date, and stayed close to home, here in Haidian. The Summer Palace, or Yi He Yuan is only one of a few sight seeing spots out to the North West, and certainly one of the better known ones. Other places out of the central city I'd like to see are the ruins of the Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan), the Ming Dynasty Tombs, and the Fragrant Hills Park, to name a few. I would like to state, for the record, that the Summer Palace is huge, and if you're in no hurry to see all of Beijing, you could probably spend two whole days trying to see everything there is to see on the grounds of the Summer Palace at a leisurely pace. There were quite a few things I didn't get to, and I was there from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M.
I also love that my lunch felt like a picnic in a remote Chinese garden, but I was actually in Beijing eating a cup noodle surrounded by Chinese folks using broken English mixed with Beijing Hua (the local dialect) to ask me where I'm from and if I like China.
I will certainly write about the experience once my messy housing situation is under control.
For now, Be amused by pictures, and lots of them:
Yi He Yuan 1Yi He Yuan 2
Okay. My job has moved and changed. I have to move to another part of Beijing that's far south of here. That means I have to find a new apartment and do some more new job training in the next week. I will desperately try to sqeeze in some blogging between that bit of crazy and my graduate course work, but I think it would be safer to say I'll be back in a week.
Why can't my life be normal and easy!?
To make it up, I'll invest a little more time uploading pictures.
I was going to post all at once about my Shanghai experience and the overnight train, but I've been exhausted by teacher training and other such fun activities this week. I'm working on a few posts now - my overnight train experience, going out to Karaoke with the RYB people, a Chinese banquet, Chinese Wal-Mart (not to be confused with Wu Mart), and some of the friends I'm making in my neighborhood. Those will happen as soon as possible. I'm tired.
But Shanghai.
As I explained before, the Scholastic operation in Beijing is in conjunction with the Chinese company, RYB. The RYB center where I’m supposed to be teaching is being renovated until the middle of this month. I will be teaching the first ‘C’ level classes in the RYB centers in Beijing. For that reason, along with the fact that I needed to finish some foreigner registration procedures, I was sent back to Shanghai on an early Tuesday morning plane. I didn’t get to really see the airport from when I first arrived in Beijing, but going through the layers of security and the trek to my gate provided me the chance to really see how new, large, and expensive the Beijing airport is. Ooh. Aah. It was too clean and well groomed for my tastes. It was a sterile environment. I was secretly happy when I saw a broken chair in front of my gate.
On the plane, I was sitting next to an officer in the Chinese Navy. That was really unexpected, and I was surprised at how good his English was. The conversation was definitely laced with paranoia. I was wondering if he thought he could milk me for information, and I think he was thinking the opposite. That uncomfortable plane ride only lasted an hour or so, and when I was de-boarding, a Russian businessman who had been sitting in front of me gave me his card. That was sweet.
There was no one to pick me up and coddle me all the way to the hotel this time. I took the taxi of my own accord to the office and got there around 11:40 am. Christian, Brian, and Bennett from Concordia (my graduate school) were there, and we all went out to lunch together. Afterwards, Alberto came to the office, and Cecelia took a small group of the teachers to the foreigner registration office. We went in and took a number. There were over a hundred people in front of us, so I took a nap on one of the waiting benches. I think we may have been there for nearly two hours, but the actual taking our forms and getting everything signed and stamped when they called us up took only a minute or two.
After we went back to the office, I went out for dinner on my own, but ran into one of the other Scholastic teachers – Sam – and we got some Saizeriya together. Sam was going to split, and I felt the pangs of spending another night alone in Shanghai. I pouted all the way to a Coldstone down the street from my hotel when I got a call from Brian, Christian, and Bennett. They were going to go to a pub. After flirting scandalously with the Coldstone employees and making them sing for their tip money (they sang “Thank you for the jiao,” which I found hysterical), I trucked my way to the metro station and gobbled down my Chinese interpretation of Coldstone’s birthday cake remix. We all hopped in a cab, and Bennett showed them an advertisement for an English style pub. Our cab driver, of course, wasn’t actually sure where it was, and a 5-minute drive became 15.
However, once there, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a nice, clean place with a great atmosphere. Perusing the menu was a bit of a shock, because the prices were certainly Western. We ended up ordering a pitcher of the cheapest beer, which I recall being called Tiger Something. It tasted like good, cheap beer. We relaxed out in the small garden area, sipping our beers and talking about stuff young graduate students in Shanghai talk about, I suppose. After a while, Bennett and Brian ordered some shots. I stayed well away. While they were indulging, I found my way to the upstairs bathroom, and on the down, I noticed the nice pool table and the relative deserted nature of the second story of the building. I convinced my liquored-up buddies we should check it out, and we spent the remainder of the night drinking, throwing darts, trying to talk to the Chinese bar tender, and playing games of pool over conversations about China, graduate school, and life in general. At one point in the evening, a very drunk Chinese lady staggered up to me and gave me a hug. Later in the evening, after everyone with work the next morning filed out, the owners, Keith and Paul, two older chaps – one from England and one from Australia – made an appearance. They were great guys, and while Christian and Verna, The owner’s South African friend, played pool together, I hung around talking to Keith and Paul, who told me all about how they met and how the bar came to be. Bennett was occasionally joining in with the pool and watching people, and Brian was working hard trying to chat up the Chinese waitress, who said her name was Swallow. Nearing the end of the night, I think my glass of beer was magically refilling itself. I wasn’t ridiculously drunk, but I was definitely feeling quite tired by the end of the night. We all said our goodbyes to Verna, Keith, Paul, and Swallow and took a taxi to a McDonalds, where after some water, some salty French fries, and a potty break, we all felt a lot better. I got back to my hotel and crashed around 3 AM.
Now that I’ve regaled you with all the details of my night of drunken shenanigans, let me do a quick rundown of some of the cooler points of my glorious return to Shanghai (otherwise known as a relatively boring few days of waiting for things to happen and bumming around the Scholastic office). I helped my classmate, Bennett, find a self-proclaimed “American-style Laundromat.” The guy is kind of large (muscularly large) and while I can live with the small washing machines here, he can’t. But Laundromats apparently do exist in Shanghai. I have yet to see any in Beijing. We also checked out a foreign foods market that had pizza rolls, Lysol wipes, and my favorite candy bar (NutRageous). I also found a few different arcades, which all had House of the Dead 4 (I guess it’s popular), but none of the guns worked all that well, and I wasted a good 10$ on that throughout the week. I also won a totally unnecessary plushie in the UFO catcher machines. I got a haircut at a schnazzy salon, and subsequently made buddies of all 6 guys who worked there. One of them apparently said that he wanted to be my boyfriend in Chinese, and the other hair stylists cajoled him to tell me directly. He gave me a Doraemon doll to profess his attraction. In all actuality though, they were really nice guys, and they’ve asked me to stop by if I’m ever in Shanghai again. I also met some white businessmen – one from France and one from the States. The one from France works for a real estate company, and we shared some conversation about Chinese real estate agents over a hot pot dinner in Metro City, and we had so much left over food that I ended up sharing it with some guys on the wait staff as they were closing. They loved that. The American one apparently works for Electronic Arts. These were all things that make me think living in Shanghai wouldn’t be so bad. However, there were a few other things I didn’t like. The metro was more expensive, and I had issues with it. I was on one of the more crowded trains when this Chinese guy in my… proximity… tried to check out that proximity. At first I shifted as much as possible, trying to turn my body, and said “Dui Bu Qi” (I’m sorry) softly, and tried to move my bag over that area, but it didn’t quite reach. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt; I mean, we were all scrunched in there pretty good. However, not even thirty seconds later, he was trying again. This time, I said a little louder “Bu Yao” (don’t want). It was still a little too difficult to turn my body away. He backed off. For about ten seconds. This time, I was more forceful and loud with my Bu-Yao-ing. He backed off, and before he could try again, a kind old man who had observed the situation and knew what was going on motioned to switch places with me, putting himself between me and the letch. I thanked him profusely. I also encountered a few more Chinese people who, when I asked for directions or something similar in my best Chinese, blew me off. I mean, it was not the majority, but I’m used to Beijing, where 99% of the people are thrilled to talk to me. I also decided that the food didn’t really agree with me. I like the food in Beijing.
I made sure to make a stop at Happy Lemon. I’ve found I have to power to make all the Chinese people laugh at Happy Lemon by simply taking the little plastic lemons with order numbers on them and sticking them on my forehead. Making Chinese people laugh is, indeed, a great hobby.
I had a few things I wanted to talk about shortly, but I promise a bigger, shinier post tomorrow.
Bendy straws in China.
I hate bendy straws in China. In short, they suck. Whenever I get one in my soda, there's over a 50% chance there's a hole in it. It's usually in the bendy part. The straws are also thin and narrow, lacking proper suction and turning my delicious liquid drink into a series of gassy bubbles providing no real refreshment. It's like I'm foiled at every bendy turn.
Forget an extra $1.19 for Super-Sizing. I'll have a China-Size.
So tonight, I had dinner at the usual time, which is an hour later than most Chinese and dangerously close to closing time. I really do like noodles here in Beijing. You can get them spicy or salty, with vegetables, with meat, in soup or not. Most noodle dishes I have are anywhere from 10-20 Yuan, and usually closer to 10. For instance, tonight, I had a bowl of noodles with some tender beef chunks, potato, and some green leafy vegetable in a salty beef broth for 12 Yuan. Here's the deal: noddles are incredibly cheap and delicious, but they usually come out of the kitchen in a plasma state of hotness and bowl looks like it was meant to serve out of rather than eat out of. By the time I was finished eating, I had burned my tongue and hands (from splash-backs) a few times despite sincere efforts, and the bowl was still half full of noodles and meat. Mind you, this dish was one of the cheapest, most basic on the menu, and, theoretically, the least amount of food I could have ordered. Yet I could barely finish half.
How do Chinese people stay so thin? Why aren't they giants? These are the questions I ponder everyday as I choke down as much food as physically possible attempting to not offend anyone.
Even more on how much Chinese people love white girls.
In the past week, I've had several men ask me if I wanted to be their girlfriend. "I already have a boyfriend. Here's his picture," I say as I whip out a small print-out. "I don't care." They scoff. They are very persistent and very straightforward. It's very flattering and slightly disturbing at the same time. It's not hurting my self esteem, I'll tell you that. Just on the way back from dinner, a boy sitting in front of a barber shop called out to me "Hello! You are very beautiful!" I tell you, friends, in this respect, China is the biggest ego trip ever. Then I remember that I don't understand most everything and I'm not that rich and I have all these Chinese guys impersonated Pepe LePui hot on my tail. I also realize, sadly, that they probably see me as they see foreign women in the media: over-sexualized and easy. Of course, it's difficult to know what they're really thinking. I just speculate. Even Chinese girls seem fascinated by me. It's hard to tell if they really want to be my friend, if they just want English help, or if they secretly think I'm a mystical creature. I think I'm too used to Japan, particularly Tokyo, where foreigners were still rare, but not to the same extent. The strange thing is, I'm in Beijing. They just hosted the Olympics. I suppose I thought more Chinese people here would be used to foreigners, or at least less surprised. I still, frequently, walk into a store or restaurant for the first time and get the vibe that I might be one of only a few, if not the first ever, foreigner they've had in. And, in general, most foreigners I see are male. I see other foreign women occasionally, but less frequently. Therefore, I think there are a few combined factors that make me a real freak show when I'm walking down the street: I'm a foreinger: I'm a girl: I'm not blonde giant with big boobs, rather short, with dark hair and a failrly slender frame. It's like, I'm obviously foreign, but not like the white models in Chinese ads. People stare and squint at me. A lot. I would not suggest China for people who cannot handle staring.
But most people here are just people. They have their moment of gawking, then they treat you like a normal human being, with sincere kindness.
Okay, tomorrow, I will post about my week in Shanghai and the overnight train.
Getting lost
My first day in Beijing, I was supposed to go to the Scholastic office (which is actually the Red, Yellow, Blue office, more on that later) in Pufangyu. It was basically straight down the road from my hotel, and the night before, I had a good laugh with Christine that if I got lost, that would be pretty sad.
So there was this roundabout, and I didn’t take the narrow sidewalk path straight through the roundabout, but rather took the walking path which went under it, and ended up not going straight somehow. But I didn’t realize that for a good hour. I kept walking and smiling like the stupid foreigner I was down the road until I realized I was in a very residential ‘China’ area, and the road was becoming less paved. It was like, the further I went, the more everyone else who saw me realized I was lost, but it only hit me when I literally started running out of road. Luckily, there was a passing taxi. I got in, and showed him the address Christine wrote down for me. It couldn’t have been more than a mile away. He didn’t know where it was. We drove around for maybe 10 minutes, and finally, I recognized a Pizza Hut, which Christine had mentioned in her directions. I told him to let me out, and he apologized. (It didn’t matter too much – my fare was still less than 3 dollars). Okay, so what did Christine say about the Pizza Hut? I would pass it. Okay. I passed it. Oh! I came across a Wu Mart? What did Christine say about the Wu Mart? I’m not all that sure. I passed the Wu Mart just a little, and decided to ask someone, just to make sure. I pulled out that address again and asked a passing family, zai nar, and pointed to the address. The pointed back in the direction of the Wu Mart, and said something else, but of course I didn’t know what. Okay, that direction. I crossed the street and asked someone else. They pointed around the side of the Wu Mart. I went that way. I asked another person there, they point back in front of the Wu Mart, and drew me a small map, indicated to go back near the Pizza Hut. Okay. To make sure, one last time, I decided to ask one of the Olympics volunteers at the tent outside the Wu Mart. (there are small information tents with volunteers all over Beijing right now.) The middle-aged man took it upon himself to find this place for me. I followed him, and he asked security guards along the way. We passed the Pizza Hut again, and headed around the side of that building. This was the location of the Red Yellow Blue (RYB) School. Before we went in, though, another security guard said no one was there, and that we were probably looking for the office, which was in the same building, but through the front, back past the Pizza Hut on the 4th floor. I finally found it. I thanked the volunteer, pushed the elevator button, for the 4th floor, and looked at my watch. The ordeal had taken two and a half hours and the office was only a 20-minute walk from my hotel. Good job, Laowai.
Getting a phone
Getting a phone was not nearly as hard as I thought. Admittedly, this is in part due to going with May, Christine’s pregnant Chinese office assistant, and in part due to Wu Mart. My original plan was to go for the cheapest phone that also had all the basic functions I wanted. And those included calling and texting capabilities. Nothing fancy. I didn’t even have to buy the cheapest model, because a slightly nice new one was on sale for less than the cheapest one. Go me. I think it cost something like 230 Yuan (around $35) and came with two free plastic glitter beer mugs. That’s definitely a winning situation. I actually owned my phone for a day before I bought a SIM card. When I did buy a SIM card, it was also from Wu Mart. I couldn’t tell you much about the kind it is, except I got it at the suggestion of May and Christine and it has the M-Zone people on it. I think I only put 50 Yuan (the minimum) on it, and I haven’t run out of minutes yet.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Chinese cellular service, you have to buy not only a phone, but also a SIM card, which will give you a phone number. You can buy a cheap SIM card if you don’t care what number you get, or you can pay extra if you want a number like 888 888 8888. (8’s are lucky, so they cost more, apparently) You also buy credit for the phone, which is activated by calling a number on the phone card. It’s a lot more complicated than all of that, I’m sure, but this is my rudimentary understanding.
Wu Mart
What can I say? I love Wu Mart. They have anything an American girl in Beijing could ever want (except real deodorant and tampons) for the right price. The only thing I can’t stand about Wu Mart? The lines. They are ridiculous. Carrefor (think French WalMart) is just about as bad with the line situation, but prices are ever so slightly more expensive, and the atmosphere is not as Chinese. Besides, I almost die a horrible, horrible death every time I step into Carrefor because their shopping carts lack adequate steering mechanisms. It’s more difficult to maneuver in a Carrefor than it is to cross the road in central Beijing. Still, I am not a fan of the lines in Wu Mart. It’s like a game, and I always lose. I always seem to get in the ONE line where the middle aged Chinese house wife is going to have a conniption fit over something she thought was on sale, or the cashier’s snail pace seems to reflect the lack of meaning their lives have to them (you see it in the eyes). Okay, you may think “Surely she’s exaggerating for dramatic effect.” No. I love Wu Mart, but I don’t think I’ve ever been able to get through any of the lines in less than 5 minutes. Ever. Even when I was in the speed lanes with one item. I think the one that really killed me was the time I was, indeed, buying only one or two things, was next in line, and the woman in front of me and the cashier were having it out. Then, when the lady finally left, he decided to just close his register. There were 4 people in line behind me. I honestly almost cried, but I was laughing too hard.
A Chinese “Party”
I work for Scholastic. In Beijing, they are partnered with a Chinese group, RYB (Red, Yellow Blue, or Hong, Huang, Lan). RYB has centers dotted all over Beijing, and Scholastic has English classrooms within those centers. I am not considered an employee of RYB in any way, but at the same time, I am expected to go to RYB functions. Christine said that eventually the foreign English teachers (like me) should even attend the RYB teacher training sessions (even though we will only use Scholastic curriculum and teaching methods in the classroom). It’s all about the relations and proving to RYB that we are serious and professional about this partnership, and want to be a part of them/work with them. You get it. So last Thursday there was an RYB teacher party. Imagine my surprise when by ‘party,’ they meant upwards of 15 RYB employees making lengthy speeches in front of all the other teachers, crammed in a hot gymnasium-type room in one of the centers. It was an experience, for sure. I couldn’t understand anything. May and I were filling the roles of the bad kids sitting in the back of the room. She was playing games on her phone, we were giggling at the speakers, she was imitating some of them; it was like middle school. There was also some group singing (which I sucked at for obvious reasons), a power point presentation of some sort, and some of the teachers performed a somewhat (provocative) dance routine (part of it to a remix of Zelda’s Lullaby from the Nintendo 64 video game.) When we first entered the room, everyone was handed mini Chinese flags to wave around during the meeting as well. It was a very strange experience. To the credit of whoever organized the party, there were awards, a group picture, and cake at the very end, which I suppose constitutes party activity. Otherwise, I would characterize the whole experience as bizarre.
May, Lily, and Cincy, my three Chinese girlfriends
At the ‘party’ (I’m using the term lightly), I met Lily, who will be my partner teacher when my center is open and I start teaching classes. She’s a sweetheart, but I suspect she also knows 50 ways to kill a man with chopsticks. She’s generally quiet, but funny, and likes to laugh at/with me. She makes some hilarious unexpected comments. She’s also been an immense help to me. Lily’s gone shopping with me, helped me move in to my apartment, dealt with my landlady and some maintenance scheduling issues over the phone for me – she’s invaluable. It hasn’t been all work between us, though. We’ve gone out to eat a few times, took a walk in the park, played with some local children, talked with some elderly folk, gone for ice-cream, and totally conned a free dinner from an unsuspecting university boy. (She only looks innocent on the surface.)
May is the aforementioned office assistant to Christine, who is very cute and very pregnant. She cracks me up. She did some pretty outrageous things at the party, but she knew she could get away with it all, because she’s pregnant. She’s always so nice to me, too. I wish I could see her more often, but as soon as I get started working in my own center, I’ll actually see her less and less. She was a great help to me my first few days in Beijing, though, and I won’t forget.
Cincy I don’t know very much about yet, except that I had to work with her for one day, and she and her boyfriend love Japan and anime. I find it really refreshing and surprising, because usually, even if a Chinese person likes Japan, they aren’t so assertive about it. Cincy also has all the good gossip, and she gave me a little bit of the low-down on RYB and Scholastic relations in Beijing. I hope I get to spend more time with her - it seems like that feeling is mutual.
Finding an apartment
When is searching for residence ever really fun? Well, I’ll tell you how fun it was for me! It was beyond aggravating, and there were times I thought’s I would break down into tears. Before I start, I have to explain something about real estate agents in China, from my understanding -correct me if I’m wrong- they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know how to ‘sell’ a property, and they certainly don’t know how to help the negotiation process to actually seal the deal. They think their job is to show up, take you to properties, go “Here it is.” And hope you go for it. It may not be what you were looking for or even specifically asked for. It may be way out of your price range. They seem not to understand or care. They just want you to magically fall in love with the property that will bring them the most commission and sign the contract hastily, so that they can collect their fee and move on. I heard somewhere that this is due to the fact that real estate agent work, as we know it in the modern West, is a very new concept in China. When I said they don’t know what they’re doing, it wasn’t so much an insult as saying they literally have know idea what is expected of them. This can cause a lot of tension between agents and paying clients. Additionally, they made significant presumptions about me, because I’m American. They assumed I was wealthy beyond imagination and that I would never want to live in an older building. Monica, another Chinese teacher, Christine, and I spent hours with agents from 2 different companies last Wednesday. At first, we were shown three apartments in the same building which were identical except for a few differences in décor and furnishings. It was technically affordable, but not in the price range we wanted. Yes, it was a very new building (a high rise near a metro station), with the amenities I wanted, but it was, frankly, a little too snazzy for my own wants and needs. I do not need to live the high life in Beijing. This is where some of the agents assumptions caused confusion and friction. They didn’t understand – could I not afford these apartments? Wasn’t I a foreigner? Didn’t foreign standards demand apartments of this caliber? For the asking prices, these apartments were a deal! Why wasn’t I jumping all over this (relatively) cheap piece of luxury real estate? Why would I even want to see any other apartments? (I think they honestly thought they were only going to have to show me three identical apartments, and then I’d be able to make a decision.) We waited to meet with a different agent who said he had different apartments for around 1000 Yuan less a month. We followed him a ways and realized he was leading us back to the same building. We protested, and then he said “Well, what about this apartment building?” and motioned to one across the street. We asked how much, and he quoted the same rent as the others. As Christine said when we were walking away from that big disappointment, who didn’t seem to understand why we didn’t want to see the apartment, “What a waste of time.”
Finally, we met up with the first real estate agent again, and he seemed to begin to get it. He showed me a large apartment in an older building. Unfortunately, it was a little too ‘China’ for me. The fixtures were old, the apartment and amenities themselves were old and dirty. It seemed like other rooms in the same building would have been acceptable, but the particular one he showed us was just not taken care of, and I certainly didn’t want to invest a lot making it nicer. It had a nice view.
After a long walk (because the real estate agent didn’t know how to get to the next place), I saw another apartment in an older building. It was a little dirty, but nothing insurmountable. It had a new TV, two beds with newer mattresses, a newer water heater, a western toilet in good condition, a microwave, a small fridge that smelled quite ripe, but was in working order, a small washing machine, and A/C. An older woman who didn’t speak a lick of English owned it. We had Monica interpret. I explained I absolutely needed Internet, and she agreed to arrange the installation. She also agreed to have someone put a new toilet seat on the toilet, come out and make sure the fridge, water heater, and washing machine were all in working order. The location was good – within walking distance to some shopping centers and the metro – and it was not just a high rise where I’d probably never even meet my neighbors. It’s in a real neighborhood with old people doing community watch and playing mahjong at card tables all day, watching their grand children and walking their dogs. I was sold.
This is where I really grew to detest my real estate agent. Instead of going over the contract and hammering out terms, once I showed the slightest inclination of renting, he sat down, started filling out the paperwork with an attitude, brushing off questions moodily, saying that such and such was not an issue and not important and we didn’t have to talk about it, and pressing the old woman and I to sign without going over all the clauses and discussing important issues such as payment schedule and method. This caused a lot of friction and almost came to a head when Christine finally asked the impatient agent quite directly when he expected us to pay the deposit and his fee, and how much that total was. We tried not to laugh when he said ‘now.’ In other words, he wanted us to pay 3 months rent, one-month rent of deposit, and one-month rent for his fee, which came to nearly 12000 Yuan, or approximately $1,700, right there, in cash, and he wasn’t going to say anything. He never asked us at any point if we even had that kind of money, and assumed we were walking around with that amount of cash. (because we’re white)
I really did almost cry. I almost wanted to say “Screw you, I’m taking my business elsewhere.” I didn’t. I’m actually quite glad I just swallowed down the frustration and went through with it. I ended up renting the place for 2300 Yuan a month, which is probably a little more than the place is worth, but still dirt cheap for the size of the apartment by Western standards, and has all the amenities I want, and they work (or do since people came to fix them all this past week). It’s within my budget, I love the location, and when the ill-tempered real estate agent is not present, the old woman is actually a very pleasant lady.
Moving in
Some of this will be re-stating what I’ve already described about the place, but bear with me.
I really like the place I ended up with for a number of reasons, such as a great location in regards to where I’ll be working, nice neighborhood and convenient distance from several shopping areas, the metro, and some community parks. Additionally, I’m not in a foreigner-heavy area, so I’m kind of like the neighborhood white chick. (But I still occasionally see other foreigners, especially closer to the metro in the big shopping areas, but that makes sense. It’s not cheap by Chinese standards (when you consider it’s for one person) but it’s well within my budget and not too big, but a very comfortable size for one person. (Technically, two or more people could live there, but there would be some space issues if those people weren’t related or very good friends) It has all the amenities that make it not too China for me – a Western style toilet, locks on the doors, internet, a water heater, A/C, microwave, two beds, a refrigerator (even though it’s smelly), a tiny, but functional washing machine, a new TV, and a good mattress – along with furnishings that, while older, are solid wood, and things I don’t have to invest in. There are two tables in the kitchen, a stove (though I honestly don’t know that I’ll use it all that much), a sink, a wardrobe in the front room (which I like to call the foyer, even though it’s no such thing), a slightly nasty coffee table in the bed room, along with the main bed and a fold-out, both king-size, and a big wooden desk and chair.
There were also a number of things, though fixable, that I really didn’t care for. Along with all the fixtures in the apartment I can count as pluses, there are also minuses. It was really dirty. It looked like no one had cleaned it in ages, or only had made some half-assed attempts over a long period of time that left years of built up dirt in some spaces. To support my theory, there were a lot of things left in the apartment that I didn’t particularly want. Old boxes, shopping bags in the drawers, an old can of toothpicks in the desk, some crap under the bed I have yet to look at because I don’t know if I want to, a disgusting dustpan, an old, soggy, cloth mop I’m pretty sure isn’t going to clean anything anymore so much as just spread the dirt evenly, some dusty, disgusting hooks in the kitchen and bedroom, a nasty wooden stool in the bathroom that smells like it has rotted, another disgusting, warped wooden stool propping the kitchen door open, (of course, because it’s in the shower and it’s wood), old, ratty curtains that I think are actually sheets, and a dusty bottle of bleach. The list goes on. The stove was also incredibly dirty and rusty, and the walls surrounding it are caked with years of cooking grease. (I guess it’s actually more like frosting.)
I moved all my things in on Friday, August 22. I didn’t bother cleaning much that day, because I was exhausted, but Lily was there, and she helped me get my bed set, and the sink clean, at least. We went out, and I bought a pillow and sheets, so that I could sleep. (The landlady left some sheets for me, but like hell I was going to use her smelly old sheets. Thanks for the thought.) I also bought a cup and a hot water pot, so I could at least make myself tea in the mornings. I didn’t have a lot of cash, because I had to pay the landlady the rest of the deposit money by the 30th, and my financial aid check wasn’t in yet. We actually met a boy in the Carrefore who was a little younger than us – a university student – eager to practice his English. He bought us all dinner that night, so that was a plus. (Lily, I think, is convinced that if she sticks with me, she’ll never have to pay for dinner again) On Saturday I bought a few basic cleaning items, but was too tired after work to do much cleaning. On Sunday, one of my new Chinese buddies, Wei, came over to watch the Olympics on my TV. I persuaded him that he wanted to help me clean. At first, I set to the stove with some soap and steel wool and let Wei start on the bathroom with a wok brush, a sponge, and tile cleaner. I think we cleaned for three hours or more. It was fairly disgusting work, and we didn’t have any hot water at the time. (The water heater was fixed on Monday) Somehow, we powered through years of grime, though there are still quite a few areas in the apartment that need some special attention. However, the kitchen and bathroom are now at acceptable levels of dirty. We did, indeed, stop cleaning eventually and got something to eat and watched the Olympics closing ceremonies on TV. Lily helped me do some more cleaning of the refrigerator and stove that Tuesday, but I still couldn’t do much with my work starting that week. I was going to observe lessons at all four corners of Beijing in places I had no clue of the actual physical location, so I used trains, buses, taxis, sketchy rented cars with no markings, and hired motorcyclists to get to them all. Thankfully, at the end of the week I got my financial aid money in, I made my rent payment, and I finally had money to start getting the things I really needed for the pad. On Monday I spent the better part of the day shopping. Door mats, a new mop to replace the filthy ragged thing left in the bathroom, an assortment of noxious cleaners, hand soap, trash cans, sponges, a broom – you name it – anything to make my apartment proper and clean and homey for me. I still want to find curtains, though.
Chinese people love white girls
Okay, there are a number of stories I could tell you about this one. I don’t exactly blend in to my neighborhood. In fact, I said this before, but I’m kind of the token foreigner in my complex, and the people who live and work around me love it. It’s like I’m their American. I hear them sort of bragging sometimes- I can tell even though my Chinese is poor. They like to tell other people “Yes, she’s an American. She lives right over there. I’ve met her before. I see her all the time.” The old women in the parks around my house love it. They’re usually playing MahJong or playing with their grandchildren, and they’ll often pause what they’re doing to smile and say hi. They point at me to their tiny grandchildren and tell them “There’s a foreigner,” or they wave me over to watch their game of MahJong and ask me questions I don’t entirely understand or use their five words of English.
But things like this aren’t limited to my neighborhood. I’ve been stopped a few times just so some Chinese man can tell me I’m piaoliang or to be offered a teaching job. Often at restaurants I get a little bit closer attention by the curious wait staff, especially girls who look to be about my age. They also like to tell me I’m piaoliang and try to ask me all sorts of different questions in Chinese. In general, everyone is almost sickeningly obliging to me. That doesn’t mean I never get alienating stares or people frowning or scoffing at my presence, but that’s actually rare. Most people smile. Sometimes, from out of nowhere, someone will call out “hello” to me, and in stores, other customers will try to help me with their best English, even if I don’t need help. My apartment blew a fuse one day, and all I did was go outside, and within five minutes, one of my neighbors came up to me and tried to help me in his very best English. I had my power back on within twenty minutes. He also bought took it upon himself to show me some local shopping areas, a super market, and treated me to dinner one evening this past week. (I know what you’re thinking, but no, he’s not hitting on me. He’s really excited about having an American friend with whom he can practice and perfect his English living right next to him, however.)
Basically, I’m discovering what it’s like to get special treatment everywhere I go. It’s a little bit like being a celebrity, I suppose. A lot of people wanting to meet a white girl or practice their English have treated me to quite a few dinners already (and actually, I can recall only one unfortunate incident where someone was hoping for something more, but it ended up with me basically saying no, bu yao (don’t want), and leaving.) Yes, it is, at times, tiresome, because I’m conscious that someone somewhere is probably viewing anything and everything I do in public. I’m a little bit more worried about leaving the house if I don’t smell like I just came out of the shower or my hair isn’t perfectly groomed or I have a big zit on the end of my nose. People will notice those things. I also have to be careful of what I say. A lot of people ask me if I like China, or if I like China more than America, or if I like China more than Japan. I always have to be very cautious, and make it a point to tell them that I like China, but not the way I like America or Japan. I emphasize, or at least try to, that it’s different, so I don’t really ever say that one is better than the other, but try to pick out the things about China that I like. I like the people; I like the food; it has a lot of history. People are satisfied by these answers, but I think they also realize that it’s sort of my B.S. feel-good answer. However, there is truth in what I tell them, so I say it sincerely and try to avoid seeming flaky.
I wonder if my neighborhood would head-up a Kami-fan-club…
A few assorted neat thing
I love the parks near my apartment. At night, people gather there, dance, play sports, sing traditional Chinese song or play traditional Chinese instruments, practice tai chi, exercise, and even make-out in the darker areas. During the day people accumulate there to play MahJong, walk and play with their children and grandchildren, talk, play cards, exercise, and sell food or small goods. Once, there was even a man who came to sell crickets in small bamboo cages strung together and slung over his shoulder. Stray cats also frequent the parks, and are very friendly. They will come up to you with the hope you have food, stay long enough so you can give them a good scratch, and then waltz away through the bushes as if they never saw you in the first place. There are also many pet dogs in Beijing, perhaps especially in my area. I don’t think there are any leash laws, because you rarely see anybody using one. Sometimes, I even see this one produce farmer who comes along my street often with his horse. It’s so weird to see a horse and cart surrounded by taxis, bikes, and trucks. I feel a little sorry for the horse when he has to cross traffic, but the horse is probably used to it and not very scared. He’s probably thinking “I’ll show you how it’s done, little white girl.”
I think I like this “Few Assorted Neat Things” section of my entry, and might add it to any following entries, so I can just have a space to talk about some of the neat things I observe. There are so many- I wish I had the time to write about it all! This concludes, however, the severely abridged version of my first week and a half in Beijing.
I had to lug my bags about, and that was even less fun than usual with the headache. I also had to wait nearly 2 hours for my flight, even after I got through security, which seemed not to take any time at all. I wrote a little bit of my journal and did some reading. The plane trip itself was uneventful, but I was sitting next to a really loud Chinese man who I swear, was talking on his cell phone right up to the minute he absolutely had to turn it off (and a little over that, actually), and was on it again the very second we landed. That totally helped the head situation.
It took a hot second to get through baggage claim, and when I came out at the arrivals area, I couldn’t see anyone waiting for me. Oh great. I pushed my little luggage trolley up and down looking to see if there was anyone I recognized, though I’m not sure how I would. I tried using a pay phone to call the Shanghai office, since I had that number, but apparently, all the pay phones in China don’t take change. They take a special kind of credit card, which I don’t have. Awesome.
Luckily, after 20 minutes or so, Christine from Scholastic and I spied each other. Our gazes locked, and it was love at first sight, because it meant we could leave the airport and get food and sleep. During the cab ride, Christine pointed out all sorts of places around Beijing, but I honestly noticed very few. I had a headache, I felt weak, I needed food, I needed a shower, and I needed sleep. The one site I do recall was the smokestack. I don’t know very much about this, and how this came to pass, but there is a smokestack in the middle of Beijing that is all decorated up with pretty colored lights. I decided to call it the drag queen stack. It does quite resemble a fairy wand.
I was to stay at a Super 8 hotel not too far from the Puhangyu Red Yellow Blue/ Scholastic office. Christine and I both saw the sign, so we had the cabbie pull off. However, the hotel was, in actuality, a block down. It was like a not-so-funny joke we pulled on ourselves. We walked down the road, which was, at that time, maybe the most ‘China’ road I had been down. It was lined with people sitting at card tables, eating or playing Mahjong, talking, watching their dogs, and pant less or slit-pants wearing children were running about. Additionally, where one white girl walking down the road is quite a sight, two is like, whoa. We drew a lot of attention. Awesome. The hotel was set back from the road though, and very clean. We had a sweet little security guard from the hotel help us with the bags. Christine pointed out the room prices, and said that they put a one in front of all of them for the Olympics. We got a much better rate, because Christine has connections. We got my things in my room with the aide of the cute short security guard, and then we hurried to the nearest Chinese restaurant, because I was pretty hungry. We ordered way too much food, but Christine decided that my first dinner in Beijing was a business expense. Afterwards, we went to a tiny house near the hotel where a man was selling bottled drinks. I wanted a few bottles of water for my room, and as I was buying them, an old woman sleeping on a board above the shop area gave me quite a scare when she shifted, and her foot came swinging down a foot or two from my head. Christine and I were trying hard not to judge or laugh. With that, Christine told me how to get to the office for the next day, and when to come, and then she left me for the night. The short security guard smiled at me as I was crawling back to my room. I had one more surprise that night before I could crash, though. When I was taking a shower, I noticed, for the first time, that there were condoms for sale in my bathroom. One of them had a vibrating device on it. Honestly, all I could think to mumble to myself was, “Way to go, China. Jiao You.”On Monday, I had the whole day free again, except that I planned on going to the women's soccer semi-final between Brazil and Germany in the evening. I slept in, for the first time since I arrived, then stumbled out of the hotel, hungry, as all I had for breakfast was some left over convenience store bread that I didn't particularly care for. I made my way back up the road to the metro city shopping area (the place that looks like the epcot ball, for those of you who have seen my pictures on Facebook) where I found, of all things, a Coco Ichiban curry restaurant. It was really crowded, too. The girl sitting at the counter next to me gave me a glare. That might have been the first time I was like, 'geez, get over it. I’m just a foreigner eating alone. What of it?" I wandered up and down the levels, walking around stores and getting the usual hasseling to buy something. How could a white person not be unimaginably wealthy? This Chinese girl and I took turns trying to play Resident Evil (at least, I think that's what it was) on a display model Wii. That was a big failure. It was still fun. I also walked around some high-end shopping areas outside of Metro city and treated myself to Happy Lemon, my new favorite drink place in Shanghai. Around 2pm, I went back towards my hotel and the Scholastic office, where I stopped to ask about my health exam on Tuesday and some details about my flight to Beijing. Cecelia, the Chinese woman who was helping me with all these things, was out. Oh boy.
Hilariously, I ran into her in the lobby of my hotel. She was looking for me, too. We worked out some details of my Tuesday (which trust me, you'll get to hear all about.) She also informed me I needed more passport photos, and while I was cutting it short, I ran back to metro city, where Cecelia said the closest passport photo place was. I think a lot of the employees there were weirded out by my persistent presence there that day. "Wait, I've seen that white person, like, 4 times today."
There was so much walking involved!
And when I got my pictures taken, I had to sprint back to the soccer stadium to meet the older woman and her niece and her niece’s friend. She was waiting patiently, but her niece and friend weren’t there. We both ended up waiting 30 minutes until right before the game, and they came. We scurried as quickly as possible through security and were pretty much running to our seats. While we were waiting, though, I was people watching. Some people were coming into the game, some were trying to scalp tickets, there were a number of police officers and security guards all around, an old woman collecting empty bottles, and a skittish cat that would peek out of some bushes, and at one point was lying contented in front of a statue in the middle of the walkway, but was scared off when someone settled themselves too close. One deliveryman had a huge load of boxes stacked on a small load bed attached to his bike, but because of the positioning of the police and security guards, ever numerous and watchful, he had to move his load a few boxes at a time down a set of stairs to go around them. It was interesting to watch for all of 5 minutes. Everything is new to me, so the smallest things catch my attention.
The game itself was awesome, I can’t recall play-by-plays, but I will say that the German women’s soccer team started really strong and in great form, while the Brazilians seemed to be lagging. In the second half, the two seemed to reverse these roles. The Brazilians were really on-point and in control of the ball almost the whole second half. The Germans became really slow and careless, and control over the ball was lacking. This I will say: I think that, regardless, Brazil would have won, but that the Germans could have done much better, save the fact that it was oppressively humid, even after the sun went down. I felt a little faint just sitting in the audience! They just weren't running as fast, weren't getting to the ball, and weren't putting the power into their kicks the way they needed.
The best part of the game, perhaps, wasn’t the game, but the fact that my seat was only a few over from the unofficial Brazilian cheer squad in the stands. Green and yellow painted faces, jerseys, wigs, hats, banners, Brazilian flags, and, of course, the cheering and chanting. The Chinese crowds were also highly amused. The Brazilians even got the Chinese to do a wave at one point. I was impressed, too, that the Brazilians made the effort to cheer for their team IN Chinese. So most to the entire game I could hear “Ba-Shi! Jiao You!” (Brazil! Add Oil!) One of the Brazilians even had a panda mask that he would put on occasionally and dance about in the front of the stands. Oh, the Chinese LOVED that. He may have been the most photographed person at that game! At half time, I also had my picture taken with him. At the end of the game, the Brazilian girls (who won 4-1), came over to blow kisses and to wave at the little cheering section. I parted with my three friends soon after we got out of the stadium, and I meandered back on home, catching dinner alone on the way. The restaurant had the Olympics playing on the radio, and occasionally, all the wait staff would call out "Zhongguo, Jiao You!" Once back in my hotel room, I took a much needed third shower of the day.
