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Published: February 16th 2008
Hello for the first time from China!
Well, I'm officially in the PRC and needless to say, it's amazing. I don't even know where to begin. Actually, I do and it's with this: I have no internet yet so I'm in an internet cafe right now. To describe it in 3 words, I would use: basement, dirty, smelly. Welcome haha. No, it's really not bad. I just can't wait for my own internet/computer. Just so that you all know, there are no pictures on this one because I'm in the cafe. On the next entry, I will upload plenty for you all.
Like I said, China is amazing. It's kind of weird at some times because I'm in a city and it does not feel much different. Then I look around and realize, I'm an idiot, I'm definitely not in Chicago! haha. Let me explain some of the differences:
1) In Chicago, there is a lot of traffic and that's fine. People drive fast, yes, but they are controlled and I trust them - it's almost organized traffic. In Beijing, take the complete opposite of driving skill. There is none. It has a ton of traffic, but it is ridiculously unorganized. I fear for my life every time I have to cross a street! People are always honking at you and at first, all of us thought they were mad. However, it's more of a friendly "Get the heck out of my way or I'm going to hit you without feeling bad" honk. I can't even describe it. Yes, they have the "walk" or "don't walk" signs. But, those aren't obeyed. People who are following the rule and walking when they should still have a great potential for getting hit. Literally, no organization and if I was driving here, I would get into so many accidents - we all would.
2) The Pollution. So far, it honestly has not been as bad as people have said. However, we're kind of in a down-time for smog, I guess. With that said, you do notice it though. The pollution plus the cigarette smoke has taken an awkward toll on my throat, but I'm alright. I'll let you know if I run into a really bad day of pollution.
3) The signs are in Chinese. haha - state the obvious, I know.
4). The food is amazing! It's so good I can't even describe it. Ordering is interesting. Apparently none of our Chinese is good enough yet to order exactly what we want because it's been different from what I've thought I said every time. But, regardless, it's been amazing. I have not ventured out too much on the "weird food" choices yet. The most unusual thing I've eaten so far is "kaoya," which is duck. The skin is unexpectedly juicy. You bite into it and it like sprays out at you....sounds gross but it's not as bad as you may think. The first meal I had here, I was with 10 other people. We ordered something and got our food (which was not what we thought) and we had about 12 different dishes in front of us. Then, we each got a beer. Now, a bottle of beer in China is about 175% of a beer bottle in America. It's huge, and amazing. Ok, the point of this story is to tell you how amazingly cheap it was. All of those dishes plus all of the beer came out to $4 US Dollars per person! A-MAZ-ING. I was terrible at using chopsticks when I first came and within about 3 days, I've gotten much better....but I'm still bad haha. I'm determined to become a chopstick pro - and I will, you wait!
With that being said, obviously, things are much cheaper. The food, the everything. I bought a pretty nice school/messenger bag yesterday for 6 US dollars that would probably be about $30 in the US. It's pretty awesome. What else have I bought? Oh, I bought a Bei Da (my school) sweatshirt for $9 US dollars which would be like $40 at any US school. I'm telling you, it's amazing.
Another amazing thing here are the grocery stores. First, off, many of them are underground. The convenient marts look like a stupid little shack on the outside, then you walk in the door, go down some stairs and it's this really nice, huge store! It's hard to describe and I'll have to take some pictures of it for you. It's ridiculously cool. My most favorite thing of the grocery stores are the escalators. That sounds weird, but I'm serious. They're not "stair escalators." They are actually just flat, moving ramps. Think of a moving walkway in an airport, and then add an incline/decline. It's awesome. Also, the Beijing Walmart is my new favorite store of the world. First off, they have the sweet escalators. Second off, it's 3 levels: basement, road level, one story up. They have everything. Granted, it's a typical Walmart. But, take the escalators plus the fact that the Chinese call it "War Mar" and you have yourself a hysterical time. Wo ai War Mar. There's a little Chinese for you haha.
About my university: I'm attending Peking University. In Chinese, it's Beijing DaXue. So, everyone calls it "Bei Da" for short. It turns out, Bei Da is the most prestigious university in college. It's equivalent to the US Harvard or Yale. The stat is that 30% of Chinese high schoolers make it to college and much less of that actually get into Bei Da. In June, they have a national testing day where signs are posted all over Beijing saying "Please be quiet, students testing." The airport is closed on that day so there are no loud planes, etc. So, college in China is a huge deal. If we, even as international students, say we go to Bei Da, people are amazed. They think that we're the smartest thing ever on top of the fact that they are impressed we can even speak a little Chinese. Granted, some are rude if we aren't totally fluent, but that's a small minority. It's pretty cool to be at the top university.
Ok, this is really long, I know. Sorry about that. One last thing, though. I thought that I wouldn't stand out too much because I have brown hair. Granted, I expected to a good amount. But brown hair and brown eyes definitely do not disguise the fact that I'm white. It's kind of funny to see the looks we get when we walk into places. I love it, actually. It's kind of nice/interesting to be the foreigner haha. I know that sounds weird, but it's cool to have the tables turned, I guess.
Anyways, I hope that this interested you all a little bit. If it didn't, write to me and I'll step up my game haha. Talk to you all soon and I will have pictures next time! (Also, I didn't edit this, sorry).
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Jenna Hilleren
non-member comment
Okay~ try having blonde hair, green eyes, and being really pale. I might as well carry around a neon sign on my back! I want a Bei Da sweatshirt. Dude, you're gonna have to let me know where you got that! Haha~ I see you've made it to Walmart. Way to go! Actually, it's gotten quite warm recently, so you're lucky. It's when it's really cold that the pollution gets a bit unbareable. Gimme a call, I wanna see you!!!!