I am here

I took two planes to arrive in Beijing: one from Orlando to Chicago (~ 3 hours), then one from Chicago to Beijing (~13 hours).

Here's what needs to be said about these two flights: on the first one, I sat beside a man who wouldn't stop talking, but honestly he had some good advice about frequent fliers. He had huge teeth that stuck out, with huge spaces in between them. I'm kind of hard of hearing, and so sometimes while he was talking to me I'd just zone out and look at his teeth. I feel like I've gotten pretty good at reading facial expressions and filling things in with, "oh, really? Hah, that's terrible." It's surprising how big of a catch all "that's terrible" is.

On the next flight (which had 10 seats per row) I sat down, feeling pretty ready for whatever was ahead of me. Still couldn't eat, but it was fine. Then a mother sat down with her infant beside me. I sent out about ten text messages in my fear.


It turned out fine. Yeah, the flight was 13 hours, and so you're going to get some crying in there, but overall the kid had a good temperament. All the people in my row bonded silently over our relief. I'd like to think so, at least.

I get to Beijing and go through "customs." That means I waited in line for about thirty seconds, then this dude takes my passport, types some stuff in, "You wrote your visa number down wrong. It is okay. Thank you." No questions. Just let me go on through.

The Beijing airport was beautiful. I landed in the new terminal, I think. Huge ceilings, red highlighting everything. I went to get my camera out but it'd lost its charge.

I immediately found some other CET people at baggage claim. They were so helpful with helping me get my bags, etc. Everyone had about the same amount of luggage I did - two suitcases (around 50 lbs), a big backpack, a purse.

We waited together for the rest of us, and talked a little about our backgrounds in Chinese. I met several girls that I got along well with immediately. Everyone here seems supportive, only one or two people came off with that "I'm so well traveled that it just hurts me to talk about it but I guess I will anyway" vibe. Man, I can't stand that sort of stuff. Anyway, everyone was exhausted but friendly.

Turns out our Resident Advisor (or something that starts with an N, I think) went to Guilford College. Something about her is super, super familiar, but I think she probably graduated when I was a sophomore. She's also helpful!

The drive from the airport express highway to campus was gorgeous. I've never quite had a highway experience like this - there were trees that looked kind of like aspens planted equidistantly throughout the drive. By the time we left the airport it was about 7:00, so the sun had set, but the aspens still stood out.

I know it was haze, and so this is disgusting, but the fog around the trees made it look celestial in some way. To add to that, there were people on bikes all along the highway! It gave it a feeling that, despite the fact that we were driving into a mega-city, it was still manageable.

Then came hotel after hotel after hotel. My favorite one (and I'm upset I didn't get a picture), was a stumpy-looking hotel amongst all the beautiful ones, with Chinese characters that I'm sure didn't say this, and then in English, "GREAT HOTEL."

Got into my dorm and immediately met my American suitemate, Rebecca. She was here last year and so helped me out getting settled and figuring out the little things.


The whole group of us went out to eat. My first legitimate Chinese food experience.

I flipped through a menu that had plenty of pictures for me to figure out what was going on. Though the jiaozi (dumplings) looked incredible, I'm too scared that I'm going to eat meat, and so I went for something that turned out to be really good - I can't remember the name, but it was basically like a vegetable pizza without any bread. And no cheese. I think it was just broccoli, corn, and egg, with a ton of oil on it. Hey, a cheap meal, but actually pretty healthy. The table also got some jasmine tea. This worked out to 11 kuai (pron. like the "qui" in "quiet, I can't tell if kuai translates to bucks or dollars), which is about a dollar and a half.

At the restaurant it was hard for me to get a good idea of what etiqutte to use with wait staff here. I'm the type of person who gets freaked out if I'm dining with someone who doesn't say "thank you!" after the waiter/waitress refills his or her glass, so I guess I'm on heightened alert. Anyway, at the restaurant, instead of making subtle glances, etc, at the waitstaff, you simply yell, "Fu(wu)yuan!" Or, in Beijing, "Fuyuar!" , meaning, "Waiter!" It came off as really rude to me, but I'd heard this is pretty normal. The wait staff didn't seem fussed. Anyway, the one guy at our table who was especially vocal then went on to say in English, "She's speaking too quietly. I can't even hear her. I could understand her but she's speaking too quietly." I thought what was especially entertaining about this remark was that it was made while she was still speaking. How rude a la la!

Anyway, the food was great, and I tried some stuff that looked disgusting - it looked like a kind of cold soup, it seemed like, with white, watery stuff, and then grainy looking stuff in it. Then some fruit.

Turns out it was oatmeal! Or something like it.

Same thing happened this morning at breakfast. I wish I had a picture - there were these little things that looked like crustaceans or something, some kind of sea creature. Kind of like dumplings but with blue dots all over them. They looked gnarly, but it passed the "Wo chi su, zhe ge wo keyi chi ma?" (I'm a vegetarian, can I eat this?) test, so I put it on my plate.

It was a roll. With seasme seeds in it. I swear it looked too gnarly to be anything remotely like a roll.

Back to chronology: after dinner I came back here, spoke some more with my suitemate, Rebecca (soon to be called Xiao Ka, once the language pledge starts... tomorrow). She did CET here in the fall, and then over break rather than going home, she hiked on the outskirts of Tibet with another dude here. "Where'd you sleep? In hostels?" "Well, no, usually just where ever we could find somewhere... Like barns and stuff."

Holy moly that kind of stuff always humbles me. I mean. That's adventure, by definition. Too bad it makes me nervous just thinking about it.

I passed OUT last night feeling disgusting and tired and with a weird stomach just from all the terrible airplane food.



Woke up at 7:30, eager for my shower. There was no hot water. I still have yet to get a shower - Sorry mom! No one else has either, all the hot water was bad! I will as soon as I'm done with this I PROMISE - but luckily chopping off however many inches of hair before I came here has proven to be wise. I just don't get as grimy without all that hair. Maybe I'm post hoc-ing it, I probably just played with my hair more when it was long which blah blah blha why am I talking about this.

Today we started off orientation with a placement test. I felt all right about it, there were no freak outs, and I thought the speaking part went really well. I'll hopefully place into 200 here.

Lunch was good! There were two things I heard many times about Beijing before I came here that have yet to be confirmed in any way:

1. The food is secretly disgusting
In my 24 hours of experience with Beijing, the food's been really good. Unlike most Chinese food I've ever had, sure, because most of what I've eaten has just been vegetables... but hey, those vegetables have been prepared really well! Yet to have aubergine, which may be one of my favorites.

At lunch today one of the cafeteria dudes approached me, started picking up this unidentifiable fried thing and putting it on my plate.

"Wo chi su!! Wo chi su!! Wo keyi?!" (I'm a vegetarian, I'm a vegetarian!! Can I?!)

"Dui dui dui dui dui. ZHE SHI SSSSOOOOMETHING. NI XIHUAN." (Yes yes yes yes yes! THIS IS SSOOOOOMEEEETHING. YOU LIKE IT.

Then he started spooning some kinda jelly onto it. It was so funny! When I went to sit down at my table, I looked at eveyrone else's plates and they also had whatever it was called.

I ate it. It was french fries. Chinese french fries. I love that the man knew we liked them, as Americans.

After lunch I was able to come back here for about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of down time. Got to talk to my Reed Turchi! That was too weird - last night as I was going asleep, he had just woken up. When I spoke to him this afternoon, he'd lived a full day, meanwhile I had slept and had a very basic morning. I can't explain the oddness.

Then we went to a department store so we could grab some things we might need. I needed hangers, a laundry bag, a bowl, some food, a cup.

I think that's been my favorite thing so far. I can't help but get excited at the fact that I am in the Motherland - China: Where Your Shit is Made.

Japan is always projected as the center of all things cute, but what I liked about the excessive amounts of Disney (Disney Princess rubix cubes!!) was that it wasn't... freakishly cute. Just regular cute. ke ai (pron. kuh eye)

I will be a tourist and go back there to take pictures.

In the end, I purchased:
four bananas
A glass bowl
A plastic cup with a filter for loose leaf tea on top
A laundry basket
A plastic wash basin
Chop sticks
About 25 hangers
A bag of nuts
A big bag of oatmeal

All for 129 kuai, which is... $18.86.


Check. Him. Out. That is NOT the Quaker Oats man. I made it throughout my entire department store without laughing until I met this guy. I'm laughing out loud just looking at him now.



After that, more orientation. People (or maybe just travelers, this is less cool if that's the case) are required to register their pets here. I think they should do that in America.

My Chinese roommate moves in tomorrow! We had a "culture" orientation today, where we learned that our Chinese roommates will probably frequently call us fat, or stupid, or our teachers may feel free to point out that we have a new pimple. "Whenever your roommate calls you fat, just pretend they're saying, "I love you!" instead. Because that's really what they mean." Personal space is not really something that's done here. Or, the sensitive part of me should say, it's Different.



Do you want to see pictures of my apartment?! OF COURSE YOU DO.
This picture isn't very good. Okay, so when you first enter my apartment (it's on the fourth floor), there's a tiny space with two wardrobes. On the left, a bathroom. On the right, two other rooms.




Here's my room. Yes, the feet of the beds are touching. Whatcha gonna do. No point in complaining, and no, I don't think a rearrangement will be possible, because there's only one power outlet in the room.


Here's the view from my room. It looks out to a little square, and there are several tall buildings around. Apparently the Beijing Institute of Education has several little campuses throughout Beijing. If I told you my dorm is right beside the Beijing zoo, I was wrong. That was last semester! These rooms are supposed to be way nicer, though. Except for the size.

There are about four buildings that make up this campus. So far I've only been in three (there's a whole fourth of my campus left to see!!): the Can Ting (tsan ting, cafeteria), the dorm, and the academic building. Let me tell you, it's a fancy looking cafeteria. AND, the classrooms in the academic building are really nice. So, that's good. The facilities here I feel like are really strong, and it seems like everyone here's trying their hardest to make sure things go smoothly. Like, the hot water issue was dealt with immediately by our shifu (shurefoo, kind of like a super).

The bathrooms are nicer than Carolina's.


Except you can't flush toilet paper. But still, there are two Western toilets and a really clean shower, two sinks, and I'm pretty sure marble tile. We also get this huge hot water filter, which'll be really handy for making oatmeal and tea in the mornings! The little things are what make it homey. They ain't allow no huge-ass water heater in no Carolina dorm!
It's... yellow outside today. I think it was legitimately a cloudy day, though other CETers assure me that I am an idiot. As it happens, we live on huang street... which is... yellow street. :) ke ai!

The view from the window.


So that concludes today's adventures on blogspot. I hope that I'm not coming off as negative, but I do think it's fun to highlight little differences that you'd never think about.

My spirits are high, although I am disgusting and tired.