hello everyone! greetings from China! it has been a wild week so
far, and I apologize for the total lack of blog postings - it's not my
fault! it's the earthquake. Two weeks ago, there was a major
earthquake off the southern coast of Taiwan which severed the internet
connection between the mainland and the US. The result has been that
Gmail often takes about five minutes to load, and I haven't been able
to log into Blogger at all. Thanks to my Dad, who logged in for me
and changed my settings, I can now email in posts. So, hopefully from
now on in it will only get faster!
So... so much for the internet! what do I think of China?
overwhelming. EVERYTHING is different. Just... the same basic human
patterns are here - roads, tall buildings, pedestrians, busses,
taxis... but everything is bigger, more chaotic, a faster tempo. I
still haven't adjusted to it yet. Also, all the signs are in Chinese.
The people here have been wonderful so far, though. My roommate
couldn't be friendlier - she's been a lot of fun to talk to. Kind of
crazy, and lots of energy, and I'm not sure if I'd want to be her
roommate for more than a month, but it's just so fascinating to be
able to talk to someone whose background - whose whole life - is very,
very different from mine. One thing that living with her has called
to my attention is the amount of THINGS that I have - just the two
suitcases I packed to bring here surpass the amount of clothes she
brought by far. I've started translating the Chinese currency (RMB)
into dollars every time I buy something, and it becomes very obvious
very fast how much more money we have, and how much more we buy with
it. The Chinese seem to have the fundamentals of a consumer culture,
but right now they're just focusing on the bare essentials: cell
phones and electronic English/Chinese dictionaries. No kidding. In
every electronics store I've been to, those are the first things on
display - and my roommate already has both.
The fact that China is a communist country isn't immediately obvious.
There are a lot of policemen, and no bookstores. However, the
policemen are very, very friendly, and more than willing to help with
directions (as I found out last week during our "scavenger hunt" with
our roommates). Beijing is a fun place to be - TONS of little shops
(I already am keeping an eye out for gifts to bring back to people...
if you email me I will buy you a gift... (hint hint... I want email!!
helena.in.china@gmail.com...)
Things I've noticed so far that are different? 1. Pedestrians do NOT
have the right of way. At all. 2. If you are a bus, red lights do
not mean you have to stop. 3. If you are tall and have blond hair,
people will look at you like you've just gotten off a spaceship. They
will do this even if they are on a bike, and even if it means almost
falling off the bike and getting hit by a bus. 4. If you are tall
and have blond hair and can speak Chinese, people will look at you
like you've just gotten off a spaceship. But they will speak Chinese
with you, and be amazed that even space aliens are learning Chinese
these days. Also, if they are my roommate, they will compliment you
by saying that the Chinese you're studying is equal to what 5th and
6th grade students are learning! (and she will truly mean this as a
compliment!) 5. Everyone has a cell phone. Even the guy riding the
three wheeled bicycle piled high with toilet paper. 6. People sell
weird stuff on the street. 7. People sell weird stuff in
supermarkets. 8. People eat parts of animals that we don't (like the
feet). I only wish the internet connection was fast enough for me to
upload pictures.
Man... what else? we're going to the Great Wall this weekend, which
hopefully will be a good opportunity for me to buy overpriced
postcards to send people. Honestly, I can't say I'm totally enjoying
myself here (class is kind of lame - too much grammar), but I think
it's going to be OK. I'm really homesick. It's kind of funny to
realize what websites you look at when every page takes at least five
minutes to load (if it loads at all). For me, it's Ephblog, the ski
team blog (combined with NENSA and Prospect - fasterskier.com won't
load), the front page of Google News (I can read the headlines but not
the articles), and that's about it. Nothing else works. So
basically, I miss Williams and skiing. If I'm going to have to go a
winter without skiing, though, this one seems like a good one to
miss...
All in all, though, things are going well. It's cold outside, but
nice and warm inside, and I'm getting better at using chopsticks.
There is a Pizza Hut nearby if I get really desperate for food, and
there's a Starbucks a few blocks away (I really, really miss having
coffee every morning). I don't like having to do homework, and
speaking of which, there's a 600 character essay I have to write for
tomorrow on cultural preservation - I've got 250 down so far, and just
have to come up with some sort of argument and a conclusion, and then
I'm done. My grade here doesn't really matter, which is nice, but I
still have to do the work - plus, there are a lot of people here from
Middlebury, so I have to represent for Williams.
arrrggghhhh... back to work. I'll try and write more soon, and more
specifically about what's out there, but for now - zai jian!
