Advertisement
Published: September 21st 2015
Hi everyone!
This week, I finally got to meet my language partner (語伴 yǔ bàn or 語伴兒 yǔ bà'ér in the Beijing dialect)! This is a Chinese native whom I will meet with for at least three hours per week, who will help me with my Chinese. Somehow, I have managed to spend something like four hours with him now and still don't know his name... we never really got to that part when we first met, oops... But he's super nice and very good at explaining things, whether that be new words or confusing grammar, so I am excited to work with him this semester! Did I mention he's also very tall and super cute? Yep. He's those things, too. I met with him yesterday, and in between his freaking out over common music interests with Ian (who is probably officially my best friend here), I managed to embarrass him already. In our popular culture class, taught by my primary teacher, Su laoshi, we have been learning lots of new slang words and other popular-culture related things (obviously). Su laoshi had given us a packet of Chinese slang words so we could talk to Chinese people and learn new
words from them. My 語伴 was interested in the words so he started going over them and explaining each of them to Ian and me. Some of the words Su laoshi put in that packet were surprisingly dirty... for example, one of the words was 車震 (chē zhèn), which is slang for "car sex." She also had more cultural ones, such as 高富帥／白富美 (gāofù shuài/bái fùměi), which refer to the perfect partners. The first, 高富帥, translates literally to tall, rich, and handsome, while the second, 白富美, translates literally to white, rich, and beautiful (in East Asia, white skin is considered to be the most beautiful, not tanned skin like in the US). There were a couple of words that my 語伴 didn't know, and one of them we had actually gone over in class, so I got to explain it to him! That was fun, because the word is 屎推中 (shǐ tuī zhōng) the first character is basically "pooping," the second is one of the characters used in "Twitter" (推特 tuī tè), and the third means "while." Basically, the word means sending tweets while going to the bathroom. It's also a pun, because 屎推 sounds kind of like the English
Rush hour
I don't know if you can tell, but there were cars facing every single direction in the intersection at the same time...word "sh****g," or "shweeting" (which is apparently a word in English) so my 語伴 was cracking up when I explained it to him. You can't argue that it's a clever use of language!
Anyways, to address the title of this blog post, Ian decided that he wanted to dye his hair anime-white (like actual white, not light blonde or grey), and I agreed to help him with that if he helps me with redying my hair purple. Finding dye has been our weekly adventure so far. We were told by one of the grad students here (Jingnan, who is in charge helping us out if we have any questions) that we might be able to find dye at the Silk Market 秀水市場 (Xiùshuǐ shìchǎng), so we decided to check it out Thursday after classes. Because we had no idea how to get there, we intended to stop by Jingnan's office and ask her. Jingnan shares an office with Director Wang, but she wasn't there that day so we tried asking Director Wang how to get there. He asked us why we wanted to go and when we told him what we were looking for, he lectured us on not
Twinning!
With Ian Faulkner buying dye from the Silk Market because we wouldn't know if it was legit or not, or safe, or any of those things. He said we should check online and get it from a known manufacturer. He managed to find purple dye online (which I haven't ordered yet but will soon; delivery in China is awesome because when you buy things online they are delivered either that day or the next). Then it was Ian's turn. First Director Wang spent about half an hour telling Ian why he shouldn't bleach/dye his hair (Ian has dirty blonde hair; the kind of color that lots of people pay good money to have). However, because Ian goes to a military college, he is determined to dye his hair now, as he can't in the US, and will have to cut it off when he gets back anyways. Also his argument is that although lots of people want his hair color, it is his natural color so he doesn't feel any strong desire to keep it that way. Anyways, we eventually convinced Director Wang that Ian was going to dye his hair one way or another, so Director Wang helped us look for dye/bleach online as well. Side note: dying hair white is a pretty intense process; there are lots of different products and steps involved. We weren't able to find any of the things Ian would need online, other than maybe bleach, but Director Wang told Ian that he didn't feel comfortable helping him buy bleach as it is dangerous and can be harmful, even if Ian were to try and order it from an American manufacturer. I understand why Director Wang is uncomfortable with the idea, but I also think part of it is his trying to keep Ian from bleaching his blonde hair.
After spending about an hour and a half in Director Wang's office, he suggested we try out a hair salon and have them do it for us. Director Wang told us that the place across from the dorms (with the hot guys, where I got my hair cut last time) overcharged, so we should try this other one, and he told us how to get there. It turned out that his directions brought us down this ally on the edge of campus, and the hair place was in this really sketchy-looking corner. We chose not to go in, because we weren't sure we were even in the right place and it really was pretty sketchy. We ended up walking back to campus, and we ducked into the place across the street to ask how much it would cost there. They told us that to dye Ian's hair white would cost 600元 (about USD$100), and to dye my hair purple would be 300元, and they could do it that day. However, buying the hair dye offline for me would only cost about 60元, and I'm not doing any additional bleaching, so going to the hair salon to have it done seems dumb. We ended up going back to Director Wang's office, and asking him about his suggested place. He confirmed that we had found the right place, but walked us back over and asked the lady what her prices were. She said 50元 for me, although I would have to bring my own dye, and 50元 per bleaching for Ian. She seemed to think that to get his hair white would require a bunch of bleachings, but Ian had done his research and had found that it's not about how many times you bleach the hair. After a point, you have to use a specific process with other type of dyes/toners to get it to the actual white (Director Wang refused to listen when Ian was trying to explain this). We decided not to go to that place, either. However, I would like to say that the salon was actually in the sketchiest place. In order to enter the place (which was small and only had one chair, as it was operated by the one hairdresser), you had to go through this creepy, dark scooter/bike garage thing. Crazy sketchy.
On Friday, Ian and I decided that we actually did want to go to 秀水市場, even if we weren't going to buy hair dye there. On the subway, there was this one guy who kept staring at us. It was probably because we were speaking English and Ian is obviously a foreigner, but it was so disconcerting, because I swear I made eye contact with him so many times, and he didn't look away at all. Most people, when you catch them staring, will look away awkwardly, but this guy just kept on staring. At one point we got to sit down, and we were sitting on the same side as him, so he actually
leaned forward in order to keep staring. Super awkward. Anyways, we made it to 秀水市場, and were very confused when we got there. This market is a place where you can bargain prices, so we were expecting like a street with vendors where you could buy trinkets and souvenir stuff. It definitely wasn't that. 秀水市場 is attached to the subway, so we walked up some stairs into what looked like a department store/mall. We actually walked out of the building and Ian called Jingnan to confirm we were in the right place, because this place sold (probably knockoffs of) big-name brands, and was very nice and new-looking. Turns out we were in fact in the right place, so we decided to walk around and browse a bit. Each of the shop windows had signs on them saying "items priced as marked, please no bargaining." Definitely a way to rip
people tourists off, because walking through the mall we constantly heard people bargaining. We ended up trying our own hand at bargaining, and ended up with Beats Studio Wireless headphones for 350元 each (that's about USD$55). They were originally priced at 980元, so we did a pretty good job, although we might have been able to get them even lower. So far they seem pretty legit; they came with all of the correct cords, the sound quality is awesome, and they look like they're supposed to. My parents are convinced they're probably knockoffs, but even if they are, I think we ended up with a pretty good deal considering the quality of the headphones. I also noticed lots of winter jackets being sold at 秀水市場, so as it starts getting colder I may go back to bargain for a winter coat. It turns out we left right at rush hour so our ride back to campus was uncomfortable, to say the least. We were crammed on the subway so tightly that there was no way
not to touch anyone else, and even if you were to lose your balance, there's no way you could have even fallen over (yes, I do worry about falling on my face a lot. It's one of the side-effects of being a naturally clumsy person). It's not until you ride the subways at rush hour that you can truly appreciate how crowded Beijing is. Normally it doesn't feel all that crowded to me, but at rush hour you can definitely feel the crush of people. Once we made it back to Wudaokou (the part of Beijing the school is in), we coincidentally ran into a couple of the girls from our program, who invited us to burritos. Needless to say we went, and my first burrito in China was wonderful. And only 15元, because of a special the bar does on Friday evenings. I miss cheese...
Saturday, after meeting with my 語伴, Ian and I decided to try Walmart (沃爾瑪 Wò'ērmǎ), to see if they had any non-natural colored hair dyes. They didn't, but it was just as big as those in the US, that's for sure. After getting back to campus we grabbed a quick dinner from the dining hall, where we met Chris, one of our other classmates. Chris has been sick recently, so I haven't really seen him around, although other than Ian, I don't tend to see any of the guys often. They all tend to do their own thing all the time, so while I see the other girls pretty regularly, I hardly ever see the guys. Anyways, on our way back to the dorms from the dining hall, we stopped to investigate a small crowd of people. Some Korean guys were singing covers of kpop songs, so Yinka and I (who are both into kpop) made us stop to listen for a bit. The guys were amazing singers, and it was really awesome that they were just there, singing. As we were standing there, I noticed that the front row of the circle of people were all females, while the guys (friends and boyfriends, I would guess), all hung out on the periphery of the circle. I thought that was pretty funny, because Chris and Ian were doing the same thing. Chris actually ended up just leaving, and Ian and I left Yinka there a little bit later. Once Yinka got back to the room, the three of us hung out and ended up playing Uno and other various card games. Normally Ian (who is already in a homestay since he was here over the summer) leaves campus by 11, due to the bus schedule. He decided he could just take a taxi though, because we were having a good time just hanging out. We finished playing cards at 3 am, by which point it made more sense for Ian to stay until the buses started running again (6am) than to take a cab back. I suggested we do some homework, because up until then my weekend had not been as productive as I normally try to be. By about 5am we had all given up trying to do work, so Yinka got in bed and Ian and I decided to walk around campus for a bit to try and stay awake. We were actually really surprised/alarmed at how many people were also out. Most of them were running, which made both of us feel like such slackers. I can't even begin to fathom waking up and running at 5am; I have no idea where people get the motivation to do that. Unfortunately, we didn't get a good sunrise, so the sky just got steadily brighter as we were making our way back to the dorm so Ian could pick up his stuff. It was really weird, because it didn't feel like a gradual process at all, but more like there were random sudden jumps in brightness. Ian did make it back home on the first bus of the day, and he lives about an hour away by bus, so he ended up getting back at around 7am. I will be the first to tell you that I am a night owl, but let me tell you, there is a HUGE difference between just staying up until 6am and deciding to stay up. Once you've actually made the decision, it is suddenly so much more difficult to actually follow through. All of us ended up sleeping in until around 1 or 2pm today, which I suppose is not very surprising.
That's all for now, and I will see you all next time!
PS. I found out at about 1am Saturday morning that my Kunming program has been canceled due to low enrollments. I am currently working with my parents, various offices at my school, and the IES contact on figuring out what I will be doing spring semester. I promise to keep you all updated! Bye for now!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.137s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0846s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
Terry May
non-member comment
Hi Katie, So Ian wants white hair, huh? In recent years, I've become convinced that white hair (actually, any hair at all) is the coolest! I would be happy to trade my head of hair for his - he would have to wear a hat a lot though, to cover the thin and bare areas. How do the Beijing burritos compare to Rio's? Margaritas? I like your Beats headphones! I hope they hold up better than the 'name brand' suitcase I bought in Yangshuo. I made numerous and frequent trips to McGuckins to find replacement wheels/parts for the ones that kept falling off. I'm truly sorry to hear the Kunming program won't be happening for you. Of course, I'd recommend Hangzhou. I get a Hangzhou newsletter via e-mail - just last week I found a great job....for Judy. It's teaching Kindergarten, M-F, 8 am to 5 pm. I'll keep my eyes open for opportunities for you too. Terry