So today I was walking to a cafe to work on a presentation for one of my classes and saw an old Chinese man sitting on a bench, just people watching. He reminded me a lot of Grandpa. So I figured I should write a blog post for people back home.
This language is hard. I've now been here two months and it's hard to feel like I'm not progressing at all. I can still only have simple conversations with people, although I've gotten very good at ordering food. Which is, I suppose, the most important part. The food here is really good too. And you don't have to tip people. They think it's rude if you tip here!
The big thing about China, of course, is how many people there are. EVERYWHERE. There's no such thing as traffic patterns, because there's probably not enough room for two cars to pass by each other, walkers walk where they can and bikers go every which way. You can't let people go, because chances are they'll run into you. You need to walk with a purpose so that they know how to walk the same speed around you and not run into you.
There are traffic jams in Beijing from 5:30 in the morning until 11 at night. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would want to drive in this city.
I'd say around fifty percent of the advertising here has white people in it. It's very strange. There's an odd sort of striving towards "white" beauty. Women here have commented on my "double eyelids" which I'd never even heard of before. A lot of the pictures have people who are blond, but I think are kind of ugly by American standards. There is a subway line with a stop right at Peking University, (line four) and Levi bought up all the adds at our station for about two months. The adds were really interesting. There were several pictures. One was of a Chinese guy with very western features (maybe half Chinese) by himself, one had an chinese guy playing a guitar on the subway with two white girls, a dark haired white guy and another chinese guy looking adoringly at him, and then the five of them running through the rain together. It's startling to see so many white people on the ads when there is such homogeneity around you.
The pollution here is not over exaggerated. It's been getting pretty bad the past couple of days. it looks like there's fog, but a little bit higher in the sky so only buildings are obscured. People walk around with face masks. I am afraid of going running outside on days like today. I did it once and my lungs burned afterward. Someone told me breathing the air here is sort of like smoking a certain amount of cigarettes a day (I think it was a pack, yeesh).
Around campus there are several small streets with lots of street vendors selling snacks, fruits, ect. which are really cheap and really delicious. Down the road in the WuDaoKou district there is a night market on the street side where you can buy books, clothes or puppies if you want to. The other day I walked by both and none of the vendors were there. Apparently there is a bureau in the government in charge of the image of Beijing, and they came through, confiscated stuff and told the people they couldn't sell it there anymore. The streets looked kind of lonely. But I walked by the alley near the school today, and there was one woman selling fruits again. The tenacity of the Chinese entrepreneur.
Greg is coming to visit! And the timing works out so that I am going to buy my plane ticket to India really soon. Gotta start reading up on India.
I think of a million other things to write down when I'm not in my room by a computer.
I miss and love everyone at home.
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