Zai Beida: Sunny Days Before School Starts

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Friday, September 11th, 2009.

Beida first came to sight last Monday. I left Sanlitun Youth hostel, in the nightlife district, and arrived and Beijing University (Beida for short). I am staying at the Shaoyuan Hotel, number 9, room 507. The accommodations are better than any I received in America, but this only speaks to the comparative cost of living and earning power, and thus the ability of Americans to stay at a residence that in China is extremely nice. I have on roommate. We share our own bathroom. No communal showers! A welcome change from college living. From my room, I can see the moutains adjacent to Beijing in the West, accompanied by beautiful sunsets. Oh, and when I spoke of smog in Sanlitun, that was specific to that district; smog in the university area is not so bad; recently, too, we've been having beautiful blue days here.

At Shaoyuan, maid service keeps a gigantic thermos filled each morning with hot water. Beijing water is questionable unheated, so by midnight I've always finished this bottle. There is a water boiler down the hall to refill. I have a TV too, but neither I nor my roommate seem interested in turning it on. Chinese TV broadcasts either soccer or goofy game shows. And who wants TV when Beijing is right outside your door?

My fellow students here are all quite nice, and everyone seems to be making an almost inhuman effort to make friends. LOL. Americans. Though, I must say, I've met some nice people. Too many names though, to remember right now.

Orientation has been a whirlwind of making friends and seeing Beida and Beijing. I've seen Wudaokou, the commercial district, where, of course, Western brands or knockoffs reign supreme. Uniqlo (clothing store from Japan that I went to in NYC), Google, Microsoft, Nike, etc. are all present. I have also bought a bike, which was an ordeal! A group of us CIEE students went to find some and, after prolonged haggling, finally settled on a price. We were told to return to the shop tomorrow to pick some ten bikes. When we returned, we were told to go to another shop near Tsinghua U., which is a hefty walk away, to pick them up. Luckily we were not getting jipped, but the bikes (120 kuai) are so cheap that they took numerous zhe song le (tighten this!) to get them into a semi-working state. They get you from A to B with a dose of danger, but, whatevs, they still get you from A to B.

Two days ago I took my Chinese placement test, and, along with many others here, placed in level 1 (out of 30). LOL! This only reveals what I've always suspected about HWS' Chinese program, namely, that it goes very slowly....indeed, unnecessarily so. A student in classics is reading Plato by his third semester of Greek. Why can't the Chinese program expect comparatively similar progress? Who knows!

The test itself was mostly gibberish to me. At one point I was asked to describe a series of cartoons in Chinese involving a snake, and, not knowing the Chinese word for snake, was forced to draw a sguiggly picture, with a forked tongue, between characters. Classmates fared little better. I wonder what the Chinese are thinking when they read these pathetic essays???? At the very least, though, these experiences teach you how to be resourceful.

Still, I get along pretty well here. My Chinese is already improving. I can order food and take directions well enough, and, occasionally, will understand a complete sentence in its entirety. That's a rare golden moment that is richly savored.

I have a private tutor as well who refuses to speak English. Good. But I didn't understand a lick of the tour he gave me of Beida. The campus, bty, is a mix between modern and old Chinese architecture. Its quite beautiful! At one end you feel like you're studying during the Qing dynasty, and at the other, you're fully aware that you are living in the 21st century.

The food here is so cheap it feels wrong to buy it. I had lunch the other day under a bright Beijing sun in a hutong for 7 kuai, or, about one American dollar. That was two sesame bread cakes, two kabobs, and a huge bottle of Qingdao pijiu (beer), which was founded by the Germans about 100 years ago. Not that we should be surprised that wherever the Germans went they founded a brewery!! The beer bottles here, incidentally, are in liters or something; they're about three times as big as American bottles, and that goes for most drinks, alcoholic or not. Things are BIG in China. Makes those Western bottles seem pretty puny. And, when your getting this for 2 kuai (the price of my beer, which is 15 cents (???), you have to be pretty happy with yourself. Many Americans get too happy, but that's another story.

The hutong I visited for lunch was great. They are little brick houses with fires crackling outside, and tended to by usually a husband and wife. Mah jong is played here and there. Pictures will follow, and I need to get up pictures of Sanlitun as well.

I explored some of the universities on my bike (and found a botanical garden) around Beida and came across an aircraft graveyard for students of some technology center. Inside were P-51 mustangs, MiG's from the Vietnam era, and other American/Soviet aircraft. I tried to get in but was stopped by the guard....I guess he didn't realize I was American, and, uh, that those are MY airplanes in there? Anyway, the students there dismantle them for study, I guess. Not that there's anything truly secretive about a P-51, either. Oh, I think there was a P-31 there too, but it was mostly scrap. Oh, and on this solo excursion my bike was hit by a motorbike. Only the back tire, and only slightly, but it freaked me out. The perpetrator, once he saw I was a Meiguoren (American) skadoodled like mad, and gave me shifty looks as he jetted off. Rawr.

Life is great here!!! especially when you have 36,000 kuai to spend on food, bikes, and just whatever comes to mind (sticking to a budget, of course). This is about what most Chinese make in a year here, so, financially, I am extraordinarily free. Its a great feeling to just whip out your bike and go wherever you feel like knowing that you have the money and the slight language skills to pull you through whatever situation the day throws at you. Food is good, weather is balmy....basically, things are good. I start classes on Monday and am quite ready to delve into REALLY learning Chinese: spoken Chinese and written Chinese, and a language practicum + an English course on Chinese philosophy. Rawr! There is the option, too, of taking a 24 hour language pledge here, excluding weekends and family, that I might sign. In other words as my program director, tian laoshi, said in half-thought out English: eat with Chinese, think with Chinese, and sleep with Chinese....I'll just let that one go.

Zaijian Ya'll!

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