September 11th, 2008

Don’t worry, I’m not planning on describing in detail every single day I’m here (Day 137, Day 138, Day 139… yawn). But this first day has already been so fun. Last night I arrived at Beijing Capital airport. After saying goodbye to the fun friends I had made on the plane, I spotted a fairly uninterested Chinese man holding a red China Study Abroad sign. I approached him and gave a sort of affirmative nod which he returned (he was talking on his cell phone), then he took my luggage cart and I follwed him to the van. He spoke no english, so I immediately found myself babbling back in Chinese - wait, what? I speak Chinese? Oh right!! It came out so automatically, I didn’t even to think about what I was saying. Kinda neato. But I quickly reached my Chinese glass ceiling, and ran out of things to I knew how to say.

So we drove about half an hour on the highway through Beijing, and I think I pulled a muscle in my neck straining to look at every single little thing. It was so wonderful to see all the Chinese-y things that are so familiar to me. We also drove by the Birds Nest, which was stunning. I was delivered to a high-rise apartment building in the middle of Beijing Mining and Technology University Campus (which is close to Peking University, where I will be a student), where my poor unsuspecting suitcase was thoroughly ridiculed for its extremely high weight (it has a low metabolism!! It cant help being heavy!!!) by the night guards who helped me bring it up the stairs and into the elevator. The door to my apartment looks much more like the door to a bank safe than the door to an apartment. It’s a big flat metal slab with no door handle but several funny-looking keyholes.

I was so happy to see that my building and apartment are both of normal PRC quality. I was afraid I would be given a posh Western-style apartment, with carpet and matching furniture and Western kitchen and bathroom. But its delightfully proletariat, peeling paint and Chinese bathroom and stains everywhere. I’m so happy about it (not being sarcastic!!). This is what I wanted.

After a possibly perfect night’s sleep (11 pm to 9 am), I awoke to several realizations.
1) I was extremely thirsty.
2) there was no (drinkable) water anywhere in the apartment.
3) I had no idea what floor i was on (the 3rd? the 27th?).
4) I had no idea where any kind of store was located
5) Both of my suitemates were gone, so I was alone.

After panicking for about a minute, I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I was a big grown-up adult, then proceeded to get dressed, go exploring (I am, in fact, on the 2nd floor), find a
store, and buy some water (with a 5-yuan note that a friend in America randomly gave me 6 months ago - as of yet, I still haven’t changed any money). Much relieved, I decided to explore some more, so I wandered around for about an hour, only getting minorly lost once. Everything was very familiar and gave me happy jumpy feelings in my stomach, from the clothes people wore to the smells on the street. I’m also thinking of authoring a travelogue entitled “100 Ways to Use a Bicycle.” Chinese people are very creative! The only thing that surprised me was how much people stared at me. In smaller cities, I expect stares, but I thought that in Beijing, especially right after the Olympics with its influx of half of million foreigners, residents would be used to all us funny-looking funny-talking people. But no. Even though I swiftly realized my blonde hair and pale skin would stand out here - even though I knew that people were just curious, not critical - I started checking my skirt for indecencies, my butt for stickers reading “Kick Me,” and my nose for boogers. Being looked at so much just made me feel like I must be doing something wrong or embarrassing, or that I have 3 heads, or perhaps that I’m freakishly ugly. I’d forgotten how self-conscious it makes one to be gawked at.

This afternoon, we’re going to register for classes, and also register at the police station (all resident foreigners have to do that, not sure why).

In summation, so far I’m having a MARVELOUS TIME!!!!!

-Bethany