Looking Asian in Asia.

I can’t decide whether this is a good or bad thing.

The Pros:

1. You get the local prices for goods (or at least the more local price). For example, the starting price of a tee-shirt might be 40 kuai instead of the ridiculous 90 kuai. Either way though you can bargain it down to 15 kuai.

2. You don’t get the shop owners all tugging at your sleeve, waving pictures of bags and shoving shoes in your face trying to get you to buy it for prices I consider unreasonable even in America.

The Cons:

1. You don’t get the attention one deserves as a foreigner. This sounds bad, but as a foreigner, a visitor to this country, I expect to be treated somehow differently than the local people, as other Americans are treated. Case in point, when I go out with some white friends to eat, the owners always speak slower, and try to help them out more or less. Me on the other hand, I’m supposed to be able to keep up with their Chinese speaking speed (which is about 10 times faster than mine).

2. When I tell someone I’m from America, I always get, “No, you can’t be America.” – Um, excuse me, I think I know what I am, and yes I am indeed American. So I’ve decided for most occasions, I am not American, but rather Hong Kong-nian. This has suited me rather well, for the most part; expect that I’m often mistaken for Korean. Nothing new I guess. The other day I went to a store that was owned by a Korean guy, and I asked the price of something in Chinese. He responded in Korean, which of course resulted in me giving him a very confused look and a “huhhh??” He should figure I don’t speak Korean, but he proceeds with all these words… which leave me even more confused, as I can only say ‘i’m hungry’, ‘I’m full’, ‘thank you’, and ‘that guy is cute’ in Korean. Finally another girl in the store tells him, “I think you should speak Chinese.” – That’s the story for the day.

Two Pros to Two Cons. I can’t decide.

One more story – The other night I went clubbing and was trying to explain to the taxi driver where we needed to be. In Taiwan, clubs are called 夜店. (meaning night shop, I guess) I figured they should be called the same thing here. The taxi driver sort of paused, gave me a shocked look. I realized he must have thought we wanted to go to brothel. Shoot. So I quickly said nonono. I mean we want to go to the place you dance. Opps.

I made a one-hour trip today to this café called “the Bookworm”. Back in San Diego, as most of you are probably aware, I had a little obsession with coffee shops and just sitting, studying, reading, journaling, etc. there. It’s taken me almost a month to find time to do that. But this weekend, I’ve decided after three weeks of doing touristy things in Beijing, traveling around, studying Chinese, and successfully finding an internship, it’s time for me to simply breathe and do things I miss doing back in America. Hm. I guess this might be homesickness kicking in. Although I must say, I’m not necessarily homesick (this not to mean I don’t miss friends from home), just a bit exhausted, and feeling a tad introverted. 

This café is rather cute; it’s a restaurant/library/bookstore/event hall – reminds me of everything America minus the all Chinese staff.

This doesn’t really constitute as an update on life here in Beijing- Just a ramble of thoughts and such. Next time, I’ll put up a mass of pictures. But for now, much, much love. 

surprise, surprise. I do like China.

I've been itching to write, I really have.  (Funny too, because I've never really liked writing)But But after asking many other international students, who sadly don't seem to really care about their restricted Internet access, I have finally figured a way around it. Victory! Well, okay, I didn't figure it out myself. Ray, if you're reading this, here's your little shout-out: You're awesome! From now on you're my go to guy for Internet help. :P  Anyways, as its been a while since I've been able to write, I have by now composed so many tidbits of writing, some in my journal, some in Word, and some just floating around in my head. Some extremely critical, which I will leave unsaid, and some more personal matters, which I will also leave unsaid. 

It's been a while since I've first got here, well, really only 2 weeks, but it feels like a lot longer, but trying to recall my first impression of China, I think it was 'Maybe all my talk about moving over here (for a while) won't just be talk. I could see this as a reality. My reality.' Yes, of course the weather here isn't quite like San Diego,  nor any part of California I've ever been to, with the exception of Davis perhaps. The weather here is hot and ... dry. Not humid at all like Hong Kong, as I had anticipated.  But it's been manageable. Of course I hate how at the end of the day I have a layer of grime on my skin, and my hair feels as if I hadn't washed it for a few days, but in defense of Beijing, it is summer time here. The people here are also surprisingly more friendly than I had expected. Most of the time they are rather intrigued by the fact that I more or less look like them, but I have such poor Chinese, and an obviously not local accent. I don't think the feeling of being frustrated will ever grow old for me though. Maybe until I've lived here for 10 years, and can read all the menus at restaurants and can converse comfortably with anyone I want, I will continue to feel extremely inadequate in this city where I constantly feel as if I'm slowing the city down with my incompetence, but then again, I'm not that important. 

Because I've slacked in writing, (technically the ability to do so was beyond my power), I've sum up my last 2 weeks here with things I've done in 4 little points. 

1. The National Stadium, and the Water Cube. Home of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Standing there made me feel powerful. Imagine, just a year ago, the world's best athletes stood on the same field, sat in the same seats, swam in the same pool a I did. 

The highlight of this little outing. I actually got to swim in the WaterCube -- in the practice / warm-up pool of ... Michael Phelps! 

We hella got ripped off though. Apparently you need swimming caps to swim there, and needless to say, we were not prepared enough to have brought our own. 

We had to by them outside for 40 kuai (equivalent to around 5 dollars), when back at the school, they sell them for 10 kuai (~2 dollars) and probably outside if we bargained for it, 7 kuai (1 dollar). But as an EAP alumni wisely told me, if you don't get ripped off, you haven't gone out enough. 

2. Eating a lot of unhealthy, super oily, street foods that always leave my stomach upset the next day. 

I should have learned by now, but street food always manages to look appetizing enough for me to buy a whole meal for 3 kuai (~40 cents). Yes, food here really can be that cheap. 

There is also an abundance of watermelon here. Almost every intersection, at each street corner is a stand that sells very juicy, but also very seed-y watermelons. 

I've also tried the famous Peking duck, and sadly have to admit, it tastes the same as peking duck back in Milpitas. 

3. I'm slowly mastering... no, mastering isn't the right word... I'm slowly learning the skill of bargaining. And I throughly enjoy it. It's very satisfying to know that I got something for the price I wanted it for, not the price I was given. The first few times, I felt very offended when I gave my price (obviously too low) and was told 'get lost,' or 'are you crazy?!' But these are all simply part of their vocabulary, where they try and sucker people like me, to fall for the 'I feel bad, okay, I'll buy it for that price' trick. 

4. Touristy cultural dense places: The Great Wall of China, 

which makes me think of the Great Firewall of China, culprit of my inability to blog or log into Facebook, and Tiananmen Square. Chinese history is no doubt very rich. 

And the last time I came to China, I did indeed visit both of these places. 

Yet, what is a 12 year old supposed to know about Chinese history. However, this time, standing amongst the crowds, climbing up the Wall, left me feeling a deep sense of cultural heritage. The portion of the Wall I visited - Badaling - was built sometime during the 14th century, and as Wikipedia tells me, is visited by millions of tourists each year. Tiananmen Square, let me just say, is a place that sparked my interest in Chinese history. I'll leave it at that for this blog. 

5. In typical Michelle fashion, I always feel the need to exercise wherever I go. The air here, with the pollution, has surprisingly been decent to run in, late at night. It was exactly one month after my marathon since I started running again, and it felt great. It also seems that I'm always one of the only girl there to exercise. I've seen a handful of girls wearing dresses and heels to walk around the track in... 

I've also been trying to practice the Asian hacky sack feather foot kicking thing. I have no clue what it's called. But you kick it around with your foot. 

I went to the track area with some American friends the other day, and as it was the first time we've played we were terrible, and made lots of noise in English. Quite a crowd gathered around, watching from a distance, but obviously watching, so I thought I'd ask them to join. Funny enough, the moment I asked, everyone pretended to be busy with their own exercise. Sadly, only one guy would play with us. But from now on, I've decided I'm going to use that feather foot kicking thing to become friends with the local Chinese students. 

So that in a nutshell has been my past 2 weeks. Wow. this was long. 

And here's a story just because: The other day in class the teacher was trying to explain the phrase: 逆反心理。 From her explanation, I got something along the lines of 'kids doing what their parent's don't want them to do,' so I wrote that in my notebook. My classmates, looks over at my paper, and writes 'rebellious??' Oh yea. rebellious was the word I was looking for. I knew there had to be a shorter way to describe 'kids doing what their parent's don't want them to do.' My English is rapidly deteriorating. 

I'm going to Inner Mongolia tomorrow with a few friends. I'm pretty excited, but I haven't a clue what to expect. But if no one hears from me in a week... I'm  probably lost somewhere in Inner Mongolia. Perhaps two weeks from now, be a tad concerned. Much love.