A Change of Scenery, or Scorpions on a Stick

     The changes that can happen in a week are really astounding. Last Friday was the Dragon Boat Festival, a nationally observed holiday that meant a three-day weekend for me. That Friday morning I woke up in a state of despair, though, having no weekend plans or people to meet. My attempts to tag along with my housemates, the two American guys, were quickly shut down:

     *after knocking multiple times and clearing my throat*

     "Hey, what are y'all up to today? Can I tag along?"

    "Uh, well, I'm going to go get lunch with my girlfriend, and Matt is going to a friend's birthday party, so, uh, yeah..."

     While that plan quickly fell apart, I was shamelessly undeterred by rejection and so texted Wilson to find out if I could crash his weekend plans. Sure enough, he graciously invited me to his friend's birthday celebration that evening, where I met a host of his friends, Chinese and non-Chinese alike. I spent a lot of the night talking with his girlfriend Wurihan and her friend Bai Dian Dian. They were a ton of fun to talk to, Bai Dian Dian (whose name literally translates as White Spot-Spot) putting on airs in a mock-British accent and Wurihan telling me about life in inner Mongolia, where she is from. The two also taught me some Chinese slang that would never come up in class--using 屄 (pronounced bī, meaning "vagina"--or a more colorful version of the word) as an intensifying suffix. For instance:

     Declaring that someone is 很二 (hěn èr), or "very two", like the number, is to say that he or she is very stupid. To really emphasize how idiotic he or she is, though, you could call this person 二屄 (èr bī), or "double vagina". which is much like calling him or her a "stupid dumbass". There are a slew of other combinations, including 傻屄 (shǎ bī), meaning "stupid dumbass" and 装屄 (zhuāng bī), meaning "pretentious ass" or "poser". 

     My personal favorite, though, is 牛屄 (niú bī) or "cow c---". 

     "Cow c---?!" you exclaim in hushed tones, anxiously glancing at passerby. "What an appalling and deplorable thing to say!" 

    "No, my dear friend, in fact I think you are the biggest cow c--- I know," I cheerfully reply. "You amaze me." 
     
     In fact, niú bī is a wonderful thing to be, as it means a very confident, impressive, or daring person (think "total badass").

     As you can tell, it was a fun (and informative) evening, and I'm looking forward to seeing Wilson and my new friends again.

***

~ THE MOVE ~

     While there's a very high chance a different writer could seamlessly integrate this into the flow of this blog post, moving out of my host family's home was so sudden that maybe this is appropriate.

      In short: I moved, and I am glad of it!

The view from the apartment. The building that looks like it
is leaning is the CCTV building, headquarters for
China's national news station

    Sha, whose family so kindly offered to host me in their spare apartment for the month of July, told me I could move in earlier than anticipated. I was at first on the fence about moving in early, as I still had a week left with my host family and was somewhat daunted by the thought of living alone; however, it soon became increasingly evident that I would be in higher spirits if I had my own space. My host family is very kind and had my best interests at heart, but there were a lot of things we didn't see eye-to-eye on and rubbed me the wrong way. My host mocking the way I speak Chinese in a high-pitched voice and telling me that I should call him if I needed to talk to Chinese people while I was out "since Chinese people won't understand you when you speak" definitely undermined my confidence. He and his mother standing over me and militantly demanding that I eat all the food they put in front of me (often two or three times what I could feasibly eat, and frequently too oily, spicy, and/or fat-laden for my taste) got old very quickly. Feeling that I had to defend everything I did or said because he would quickly look for any fallacies in my logic made me just want to hole up in my room a lot of the time. 

     So when given the chance to have some privacy (and room I could take a full step in), I decided that my concern about offending my host family shouldn't take precedence. I dropped some hints that I would be moving out early, and when Saturday rolled around, Sha came over and helped me move out. My host family wasn't around, so I called to let them know I was leaving, but told them I would come over the next day to say goodbye. When I went over Sunday night after shopping at the outdoor market by their house, we had a really nice conversation over dinner, my hosts lauding my produce selection and telling me that I was welcome to come over anytime. I think this is the best possible outcome--we left on really great terms and still have a positive relationship, but are not encroaching on each other's space.

I can't say I'll miss the elevator.

Especially when I'm trading it in for this.

Sha with the groceries

     Speaking of space (and also autonomy), I am thrilled to now have tons of it! The apartment is lavish, in a word, with marble floors, beautiful decor, a king-sized bed--I am truly living high on the hog. I've certainly been eased into the perils of living alone. After I arrived on Saturday, Sha took me to Sanlitun, an enormous shopping district with high-end designer stores neighboring an enormous counterfeit goods market. After we explored the shops for hours, we stopped by a Westernized grocery, where I splurged on luxuries like olive oil and cheddar cheese, among a few other things, spending about $20 total. In contrast, I spent under $5 at the open-air food market by my host family's house the next day on broccoli, potatoes, garlic, onions, tomatoes, carrots, bananas, mangos, orange juice, dried noodles, and Chinese spices. 

Isn't this food beautiful?

Caught in the rain after gallivanting in Sanlitun

I have since recreated the fateful "spaghetti" with
non-vermicelli noodles, yielding much
more delicious results

     The abundance and freshness of the food I bought with comparatively so little money has inspired me to experiment in the kitchen, so far with mostly positive results. I tried to make spaghetti with tomato sauce from scratch--in lieu of basil and oregano I threw in some Chinese spices, which actually were very delicious. Where I went wrong was with the noodles, though--it turns out that the noodles I bought were vermicelli, which did not mix well with the sauce at all. Still, I am optimistic that my trial and error will yield some interesting and fruitful results, if not a food blog (perhaps a "failed-food blog").

     The craziest thing happened soon after the move--after the so-so swing dancing experience last time (so-so because I had to wander around dark alleyways in the dead of night) I realized one of the other (few) swing dancing venues in Beijing is a five-minute walk away from the apartment. So, Monday night I ventured out with very low expectations for what I might find. As soon as I arrived, I edged over the dance floor, working up the courage and energy to ask someone to dance. Glancing around, I noticed a girl about my age who also seemed to have come alone. We made knowing eye contact--the kind that says, "I don't know anyone here, but I'm friendly and not psychotic! Let's talk!" and so I ended up meeting Clare. There were so many coincidences that it seemed like destiny--Clare, who just graduated from Stanford, arrived in Beijing last week where she is interning and came to the swing place alone that night in search of dancing and friends. We ended up leaving together and discovered that she lives in the building next to mine, and that she will be going to Harvard for grad school--in other words, fate has intertwined us as friends! I was so thrilled to meet her, and we have since set a regular dance date. We went swing dancing again last night and met a bunch of new people, and our next plan is to try joining the public waltz group that happens in the park. We can't stop marveling at how friendly the dance scene is here, and I can't stop marveling that I met Clare!

     While my workplace is about evenly split between Chinese and non-Chinese people, the language of the office is English, and so I haven't quite been getting the full immersion experience. I was discouraged that my Chinese hasn't been improving as quickly as I had hoped, so I took matters into my own hands and spent this last week contacting Chinese schools and tutors. I really wanted to find the best teacher possible, and so I had lessons with a few this week and called Chinese schools to learn more about their programs. I have trouble committing, especially to programs that require you to pay for hours and hours of classes at one time, if I feel that there might be a better option. Also complicating things is the fact that I am working full-time, so I don't have tons of free time to commute back and forth between the apartment, my workplace, and a school (while also managing to practice violin, work out, chill out...) 

     After meeting with two tutors who weren't up to snuff and still reluctant to commit to an inflexible class schedule, I was a bit disheartened. Then, out of the blue, a woman named Joyce I had previously written to texted me asking if I was still interested in working with her. I decided that there was no downside to meeting her for a trial lesson--after all, even if we didn't click I would still probably learn something. To my great surprise, she was anything but incompetent, having successfully tutored other students, and I got a sense that she was willing to work really hard to help me improve. She seems serious but kind, professional but understanding--perhaps the biggest sign that it was destiny is that we have identical work schedules, so it's easy to coordinate meetings. We had our first lesson last week, and I'm optimistic that I'm going to learn a lot!

Sha, Joyce, Tianzi, Jerry, me

     This last weekend I met Sha, Jerry, Tianzi and Joyce (all students from my high school) for dinner. After eating we wandered around Wangfujing, whose streets of tightly packed shops and vendors boast food not intended for the squeamish or faint of heart. While I had heard that China's cuisine includes a variety of delicacies not consumed in the West, nothing prepared me for turning the corner and suddenly coming face-to-face with a bucket of scorpions on a stick, still snapping mid-air. (Be forewarned that I have posted photographic and video evidence!) Next to the scorpions were some centipedes and crickets, and for the particularly famished, a few starfish and seahorses. While I pride myself on taking risks, I passed on the bug-kabobs (which they fry in front of you)--I am happy to remain simply a scorpion spectator.

The gang at Wangfujing

These scorpions were still wriggling, a fact I try
not to reflect on before bed.

     The other particularly unlikely element of this weekend was seeing an opera in Beijing--but not Beijing opera (which is a completely separate art form). Sha and I went to the National Centre for the Performing Arts and saw Wagner's Tannhäuser, sung by Chinese opera singers. It was a fun challenge for me to try to figure out what was going on in the Chinese-subtitled German-language opera. The singers were fantastic, and in a time when many American opera companies are struggling to make ends meet, seeing the huge cast in their elaborate costumes on the lavishly-designed set--coupled with Wagner's brilliant music--was an overwhelming experience.

At the National Centre for the Performing Arts

     Sha's friend Ricky, a rising sophomore at my old high school, is visiting Beijing for the next two weeks, so the two have moved into the apartment with me. While it's not quite the same solitude of living alone, they have (so far) greatly exceeded my expectations for teenage boy roommates--we haven't burned the place down yet, and if the apartment smells like anything, it's cologne, and thankfully not a locker room. I'm excited about this living arrangement--I feel that a crazy story or two is inevitable.

In the News: 

China says hijacking foiled in troubled Xinjiang

Apple Pays $60 Million for iPad Name in China (I wrote this one!)

China hails space mission's success as crew returns to Earth

N. Korea Girl Dies Saving Kim Portraits

The Blur of the Beginning

     I could write about what I packed for this two and a half month experience, or what it feels like to travel for 24 hours straight, but the long and the short of it is that I am in Beijing, settling into my host family's home and about to finish up my first week of interning. Already it feels like I've been here for ages--the daily oppressiveness of jetlag, pollution, heat, and sheer deluge of people sharing the same space as me leave me exhausted and, possibly excepting the jetlag, show no signs of ever letting up. That said, I'm loving my work and the people I've met.

My room at my host family's house

     After nearly an entire day of traveling that took me through Los Angeles and South Korea, I got to my host family's home late Saturday night (or early Saturday morning, according to my internal clock). My ride from the airport, a friend's father, and I were initially skeptical of my living arrangements: my host family lives in an older apartment complex, run-down by most Western standards (peeling paint, dirty cement floors, flickering lights) but their apartment itself is neat and clean. My room is very small (approximately 7 by 8.5 feet) with very thin walls, has a desk and bed, and leads to a contained patio of sorts (though calling it a patio would be generous). The bed is basically a glorified cot with a sleeping pad, spring-less and with a piece of fabric that serves as the sheet. Also, the internet is spotty and intermittent...have I sold you on the place yet? In spite of obvious deterring factors, I have my own room, access to hot water, a space to practice violin, food, a short commute to work, and a very helpful host family. In other words, by no means am I wasting away in a crumbling shanty.

View from my room

The market by my host family's apartment complex

"Honey, I brought home a nice turtle and frog for dinner!"

With Kazumi

     Also, I have housemates! Before I came I had no idea that my host family has two apartments and regularly hosts foreigners, and so for the first few days of being here I kept running into new people. I first met Kazumi, a Japanese woman who is staying here for a week while taking Chinese classes. That we both speak Japanese and our mutual feeling of cluelessness quickly bonded us, and so the day after I arrived she invited me to go with her to the 798 district, which is an art district area in Beijing crammed with galleries and cafes. We must have visited tens of contemporary art galleries by the time we made it out of the area--the most memorable were an exhibit of pictures of icons (not, the description insisted, iconic pictures) and a highly disturbing series of works with motifs of jellyfish and bondage. Kazumi's side passion is singing jazz, so tonight we're going to go to a jazz club. As we only speak in Japanese, so far my time in Beijing has been an unlikely double-immersion experience, which has made for some entertaining language mix-ups. There are also two American guys, a Mexican man and an Israeli woman living in the apartment who I met over a series of days, each time surprised to discover a new housemate. 

     I'm not yet over jetlag, which has meant that everyday I have been waking up somewhere between 4 and 5 am. I then engage in battle with the internet connection as I try to Skype my family and friends, get dressed, do the exercise dance with the schoolchildren across from my balcony, practice violin, eat breakfast, and head out the door to fight my way onto the subway system. I'll clarify a few of these points:

     1) The exercise dance: every morning at the same time, the students of a school across from my apartment complex process outside in lines, forming a huge formation. As school officials supervise, a symphonic band soundtrack comes on over the loudspeakers, accompanying a narrator who keeps the beat ("One two three four, two two three four..."). [Here's someone's YouTube video of one such dance.] It's so cheesy and yet so regimented that I can't help but join in from afar. Also, this has been my only exercise since coming--with the air quality being so abominable, working out outside is out of the question.

     2) Breakfast: room temperature milk in a packet (see photo), an egg or rice, and a mini-Luna bar from my rations if I'm peckish.

Breakfast

     3) The subway: There is a word in Japanese for a full train during rush hour, man-in densha. What I didn't realize was that man-in densha is the lower end of the bell curve for train passenger density in China. Especially during rush hour, the lines extend up the stairs to the entryway, and there is a violent  rush of squeezing and pushing to get on the train--to the point that a fight briefly broke out in my subway car this morning (that was quickly resolved, don't worry!). 

     Anyway, I'm getting accustomed to the routine and as I said, really enjoying the people here. It's not quite the coffee-run internship--I've already written two stories so far on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and on China's closing of Tibet to foreign tourists. Also, today I accompanied Gloria, the bureau's reporter, to a speech she gave to the faculty of a local women's university. After her forty-five minute presentation on empowering and heightening global awareness in women, the first question of three questions she was asked was, "What does creative writing mean?" It was fascinating to hear her explain the concepts of fiction-writing, developing the narrative voice, and self-expression to these teachers, who struggled to grasp what she was talking about. I imagine they were shocked that students could spend their college careers majoring in such a thing.

After explaining the concept of a creative writing major

     Other things I'm trying to adjust to:

• The constant and blatant stares I get everywhere I go--having hundreds of eyes on you anytime you're in public takes some getting used to.
• The directness of the Chinese language and people--in huge contrast to the honorifics and "I humbly beseech you" speech patterns of Japanese, people here have no qualms telling you "don't want!", "get out", "not right!" 
• That the TV screens go black when foreign news reports on topics that are controversial to the Chinese government. This has happened at least three times this week, once when the BBC reporter was in the middle of the word Tiananmen.

     Anyway, I'm going to cut this off before it gets any longer than it already is. It's long overdue and still doesn't properly express how overwhelming and stimulating this experience is. 

In The News (I wrote these!):

Tiananmen Square Quietly Remembered 23 Years Later

China Forbids International Tourism to Tibet Indefinitely