Beijing – the first week

I’ve been here for a week already and the time flew by. I had little time to sit down and write and only just realized that I should do it soon before it becomes too much or before my days become even busier. On the first day, I moved into my place and met the first of two roommates, an American guy my age. I also got down to studying since I will take a placement exam on Thursday morning and the first class is Friday morning. My stack of flashcards on my desk is really high and I’m trying to get them all down to take stock of where I am before the course begins. On my second day I registered with the police, which is mandatory for everyone, even hotels and hostels do it for their guests, bought a metro card, and placed an ad on the Internet soliciting work as an English tutor.

I recieved about two dozen responses to my online ad in less than 48 hours, mostly from language schools who hold small classes or match tutors with students. I had also contacted a few language schools several weeks earlier, so I had a lot of leads. After turning down lots of offers and giving four free initial lessons to three people and one small group, I narrowed down the workload. I’m tutoring a nine-year girl at her home nearby everyday this weeks as she prepares for an English competition on Saturday and may tutor her on and off in August. I’m also tutoring a graduate student in electrical engineering in my apartment, and I may tutor another young girl, also in her home. It was a lot of commuting and I got all of the emails and requests mixed up, but the jobs were easy to find and the pay is really good.

I also responded to one ad for a language exchange and last Thursday I met up with a young guy who works at a telecom company. We instantly hit it off and he showed me around the upscale Chaoyang district and we spent hours in a restored hutong (one of Beijing’s old alleys), which was full of new shops and restaurants. We ate a western restaurant on that street, where I had a delicious salad and a Chinese influenced pizza – it was “gong bao ji ding,” or as Americans know it, kung pao chicken.

One of the shops we visited earlier had a lot of vintage style t-shirts, some with ironic or humorous pictures and sayings. One simply said 宫爆鸡丁 across the front, which is “gong bao ji ding” a.k.a. kung pao chicken. I chuckled when I came across it, and then realized it’s an inside joke that only Chinese-speaking Americans can really get. I’m now one of them – I get the joke! When the Chinese guy I was with saw it, he said, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen foreigners wearing that T-shirt. They must really like gong bao ji ding.”

Over the weekend, I visited the two largest malls I’ve ever been too, aside from the Mall of America. One was the Oriental Plaza, an upscale mall just east of Tianan’men Square. I had driven by it once or twice with Andy when we stayed near there, but I had no idea how big it was inside. Nearby is Wangfujing street, which is the city’s big pedestrian shopping street. It seemed like every store and advertisement had an Olympic theme. Just off of this street is a heavily trafficked street with a long line of food stalls. It was packed with camera-toting tourists sampling Chinese food that was far from their familiar kung pao chicken. Vendors dangled octopus on a stick and lamb kebabs right in my face, which was a little annoying, meanwhile much of the food looked unhealthy or down right gross, and it was overpriced. But it was worth it to see some of the more strange foods on offer, although the whole place seemed to exist more to draw attention from tourists than to win any Michelin stars. (see pictures of cicadas, kidneys, and seahorses, all grilled on wooden skewers, at gallery.mac.com/sambrummitt)

The other giant mall I went to was underneath a big plaza a couple kilometers southwest of where I live. I saw a modest sign and entrance for a Carrefour on one end of the plaza, so I decided to head inside and check out their food (they always have good bread). I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I expected to be in and out in no more than10 minutes, enough time to look around and pick up a few things. I descended into an underworld of restaurants and shops, got lost, and didn’t see the light of day for at least an hour and a half. There was a maze of chain restaurants and only a few signs to point you to one of many exits, but no map to help you find out where everything was, including the giant Carrefour. When I finally found the Carrefour, I put my bag in a locker and then wasted a ton of time finding my way around both floors of this supermarket that sells everything from food to clothes to mopeds (think Wal-Mart over two floors and entirely underground).

I got lost again trying to find the locker where I left my bag, because I entered on the first floor of the Carrefour (level B1), and exited on level B2 and had no idea where I was or how to get back because I couldn’t simply re-enter the supermarket and retrace my steps. I found myself lost in the maze of restaurants and little shops once again, but found the lockers and got out okay.

I registered for my class as soon as I possibly could early Monday morning. I paid the tuitiong, got my student ID, and scanned the a wall of papers with the students’ names to find out my exam room. There’s roughly 200 students in the six-week course, and maybe a third of them, by far the largest group, come from Korea. There were about 20 Americans on the list, a similar number of Japanese, and a sizable number from some Central Asian and Southeast Asian countries, Russia, Australia, and Canada. Then there were smaller numbers of students from some European and African countries. I couldn’t understand the Chinese names of a few countries, so I’m guessing based on the students’ names in some cases. I’ll find out after the placement test who is in my class, but I’m sure there will be at least someone with the name Park or Lee from Korea (there were at least ten of each of those two Korean names).

So far a few things have struck me. First, there is a lot of construction and it seems like it is stuff that should be finished by the Olympics, but I don’t see how it can possibly all get done within the next month (the Opening Ceremony is in exactly one month, not to mention all of the other things that could go wrong). Second, people seem to be really educated and knowledgeable. There are tons of universities around, and Beijing has one of the highest per capita income levels in the country, so I guess that means I met a lot more educated people. Interacting with people is much easier, which was not the case in Taicang, where a lot of people had limited English or little experience with foreigners. Third, the streets are really wide, the city is not very dense, and commuting is time-consuming and involves lots of walking. Finally, it’s really hot. Maybe I’m still getting used to it, and walking a few miles each day doesn’t help, but every single day I sweat a ton. There’s no way to avoid it and sometimes no relief from the heat.