The First Week

So I finally made it to Beijing! On Thursday morning I woke up at 5 AM and went to San Francisco International airport. I said goodbye to my parents (I won’t see them again in person until December) and went in search of other SYA students in the airport. After some initial trouble checking in (one of my bags was slightly overweight and my ticket was under Jamie and my passport says James), we boarded the plane and embarked on our 12 hour journey to Beijing. SYA booked a group flight with 48 of the kids, so most everybody was sitting near a fellow student. The exception, of course, was me who was placed a few rows forwards next to two women who were either veteran travelers or were suckered into buying the better part of a Sharper Image store (I am guessing the latter). The first thing they did after each taking an Airborne pill was to inflate their ergonomic airplane pads which in theory provides more comfort and support for your back and neck. Of course this was before they started sniffing their necklaces with air purifiers on them and performing acupressure on themselves in order to reduce jet lag. They were very nice people, even if they were susceptible to marketing gimmicks.

After I couldn’t stand a watching a second more of “Ms. Pettigrew Lives for a Day” I slipped into a woefully short Dramamine induced slumber. Upon landing we collected our luggage in the new Beijing airport (which was clearly designed to impress foreigners; it served its purpose) and boarded busses that took us to the school.

Upon arriving we were given a brief orientation speech and then we went out into the courtyard to find our families. Looking around for somebody you have never met but will be spending the next nine months with is a very strange feeling. I bumbled around until finally a young woman who asked if I was James. This was my host sister; she is studying abroad in the UK this year but was still in town. Her English was very good and we talked while waiting for a taxi. We loaded my luggage into the taxi and my host mom and dad (mama and baba in Chinese) took me home (my host sister was going to have dinner with a teacher before she left). My family lives in an apartment in the Xi Cheng (西城) district. Our apartment is in a large complex which overlooks a very nice courtyard with lots of plants and a sort of outdoor gym that seems to be ubiquitous in Beijing (they have what amounts to ellipticals, stair machines, bike machines, and some very cool ones that you would not find in an American gym; I have no idea what they exercise but they are really fun). The difference is that these machines are made completely out of bright blue and yellow metal, but I suppose they still serve their purpose. The apartment is small but is not missing anything and is very comfortable. My favorite part is probably the bathroom, which literally turns into a shower. There is a shower head mounted on the wall across from the sink, and you just shower next to the toilet and the sink, there is no divider. It works surprisingly well and is a great way to save space.

That night we ate out at a local restaurant. Dinner included a dish with onions and celery, one with potatoes (and possibly a meat, it was hard to tell), some tasty greens, and of course lots of rice. After dinner I tried to unpack, but quickly was drawn to my bed at around 10 o’clock Beijing time; I had been awake 26 hours.

Saturday morning marked the beginning of our orientation. I woke up early and looked around the apartment. My host mother was nowhere to be found. I asked my father where she was and he said that she was at the park (of course I didn’t understand this at the time). I walked with him for about five minutes and across the third ring road to a huge park that was filled with people despite it being only seven o’clock in the morning. The park was very well maintained and people were doing everything from Tai Chi to flying kites. My mother was doing an aerobic exercise with a paddle and a ball. I’m not sure what it is called (my mom told me but I seem to have forgotten), but basically imagine a paddle about the size of a badminton racket that is slightly concave. You place the ball inside the paddle and use centrifugal force for to keep the ball on the racket. My mother was impressive, spinning and popping the ball around elegantly and in an unmistakably Chinese style.

To get to school my host father brought me to school via the bus. School Year Abroad places its students in the Beijing Normal University Number 2 High School (rolls of the tongue nicely doesn’t it?). This is great because it lets us be in a real Chinese school and allows us to interact with the students there. The downside is that we got one of the top floors of the building, meaning that get to climb twelve flights of stairs six stories every to get to our classrooms. There is an elevator, but only the teachers and administrators get to use it (presumably the same administrators who decided to put the program on the sixth floor). After reviewing some basic rules, we split up into advisory groups and were told that we were to go pick any restaurant and order lunch without the help of our teachers. My group picked one of the many restaurants near the school and were seated at two large circular tables. We ordered by pointing and saying “这个”（this）. We ended up with Kung Pao Chicken, some noodles, a plate of awesome dumplings, and a dish which consisted of a pile of tiny shrimp that still had their eyes in them. Overall it was a pretty tasty meal.

Upon finishing our lunch we returned to the school were we were told we were going to go on a scavenger hunt in Beijing. This scavenger hunt was meant to teach us basic survival skills such as buying water and using a phone. Again we split up into groups (also without any teachers), and began to roam the city. Using our limited knowledge of Chinese we asked locals were fruit markets were and if they knew were we could buy a phone card (public phones only take phone cards or IP cards, no cash or change). This was a great way for us to get used to living in Beijing and was much more interesting than sitting in a hot classroom and being told were and how to buy a phone card.

That night my family took me to buy a cell phone. Now most stores in the United States close around six or seven o’clock on weekends. At around eight thirty this electronics store, called GoMe, was still wide open and full of customers. I perused all of the same brand phones; Nokia, Motorola, Sony, LG, they all are pretty much the same as they are in the states. However there are also a variety of Chinese brands that looked interesting. After dodging the numerous salespeople (each brand had their own), I chose a phone from a company called TianYu. For 366 yuan (about $53), I got a phone that does can play music, videos, take pictures, and of course make and receive calls. Cell phones in China don’t require a monthly contract like they do in the US. All that we had to do to activate the phone was walk down to the neighborhood news stand and buy a SIM card and minutes. Phone numbers with more 8s (which are considered lucky; the Olympics began on 8.8.08 8:08:08) are more expensive. My host dad picked on that he thought had an appropriate number of eights, and so I bought that SIM card and some minutes to go with it. All of this cost less than 500 yuan (about $73).

That night there was a thunder storm. Starting at about three in the morning the thunder struck about twice a minute until the morning and continued a bit into the day. Along with the thunder was rain, which is fairly unusual for Beijing, but good considering the city’s major water shortage. That day at school was fairly mundane; we started with a Chinese placement test and a talk about the major rules. Later we were given our BNU uniforms. These are essentially bright blue polyester track suits. They are far from stylish but are comfortable enough and simplify getting dressed in the morning.

Buying a bike was also an entertaining cultural experience. I followed my host parents to a street corner where we waited for about 10 minutes for a shuttle. This was no public bus though, as far as I can tell this shuttle’s entire purpose was to drive around and ferry people a huge shopping center. I hopped on the crowded shuttle and was stood with my head hitting the ceiling during the ride over to the store. Now Americans are known for being materialistic, we have WalMart, and Costco, and tend to think we are the last word in mega retail stores. We have nothing on the Chinese. Again, at eight o’clock at night a shopping supercenter was jam packed with people. This place was like Costco, Walmart, and Safeway all shoved together. The store had at least five levels, and sold everything from exotic fish to bicycles. There was food, household items, school supplies, electrics, bicycles, movies, books, they had everything. The bike section was a few floors up and was situated in the corner of the store. The most common bikes were very utilitarian one speed bikes that can be seen all over Beijing. Since the bike section was nowhere near an exit, I tested the bike by riding around the store (the school supplies section to be exact), weaving in an out of the aisles and trying my best to avoid shoppers. I can only image how I looked to spectators; a six foot tall white kid riding a bike around a Chinese superstore trying not to knock over the pens and notebooks. I decided that the bike would work fine and we purchased a bell, basket, and lock with it. Again, the entire thing was fairly cheap, about 400 Yuan ($68) for the entire setup.

Monday marked my first day of classes, and I’m not going to talk about them much because honestly the first day wasn’t all that interesting. I am taking English (with a focus on Chinese poetry and classics), Chinese History (post-imperial), Chinese Culture, Pre-calculus, and Chinese language (which is fairly intensive – 12 hours a week in class, plus, you know, living in China). Tuesday morning I went to school with a friend who lives in the same apartment complex as me. We walked down to the bus stop, and waited for the bus to come. The bus arrived and the doors opened; people poured in from our stop and we jumped in last. The bus was completely filled. I don’t mean just the seat, those are always full, but I mean that it was so full that my backpack was sticking out of the bus once I got in because there was no room to go any further. The doors closed and squish me in next to the at least 120 other people on the bus. All these people made things toasty, and soon enough the windows were steamed from the heat. A great way to start the morning. Finally we reached our stop and jumped off with a grand sigh.

The next event of note aside took place this afternoon (I am writing this on Wednesday night, but it probably won’t get posted until Thursday morning, which might actually still be Wednesday for those in the US) was visiting the Pearl Market. After school today two of my friends though it would be cool to visit a big shopping center in southeast Beijing renowned for its knockoff items. We caught a cab, which took about 50 minutes to get across town to the market. Once we finally got there we were greeted with a shopping floor full of electronics and salespeople who were more than happy to harass you until you bought them. Prices are negotiated through haggling, and luckily one of my friends had visited Beijing for two weeks before and had some experience in the area (he also spoke more Chinese than me or my other friend). We walked around and were yelled at by the stalls we passed “Polo, high quality, low price” and calls of “Rolex, very nice and cheap” surrounded us. Each floor had different focuses (Electronics, Watches and Wallets, Clothing, Jewelry, etc). Most of the shopkeepers saw three white kids and thought “Jackpot!” Luckily, my friend employed his negotiation skills to ensure we didn’t get ripped off (he managed to score a digital sports watch for about 5 bucks and we bartered for about 15 minutes with one woman over a Billabong sweatshirt – the listed price was 675 Yuan ($99, probably more than you would pay for a real one, and this was definitely fake). Thanks to our repeated yelling of “Tai Gui Le!” (Too expensive) and our threats of leaving we finally got the price down to 60 Yuan ($9).
Untitled from Jamie Manley on Vimeo.
At this point we realized that we didn’t really want the sweatshirt, so we left and via the shoe section where salespeople hit us with shoes to get our attention. We took a cab back to school and had a great tour of Tiananmen Square where we sat waiting at a red light for about 20 minutes thanks to Beijing Rush hour traffic. The haggling was great fun and there were definitely some good deals to be had.

So yeah, that pretty much has been my life in China for the last week. Of course there has been more, but these are the biggest highlights, I will write about the interesting stuff later. I am having an awesome time and I think it will only improve as I get used to the pace of life around here. There are tons of quirky things around here, and so in closing I have attached a list of things that are different or surprising here.

· Western table manners are thrown out the window. Slurping from your bowl of rice is perfectly ok and you can just eat straight out of the serving dish if you want.

· Travel guides advise you not to pet all of the stray dogs in Beijing. What they don’t tell you is that all of these dogs are not your typical big ugly inner city stray dog, but cute little Pomeranians. I’m serious, they are all over and are definitively the dog of choice for domestic pets.

· Some cabs won’t stop for foreigners. We found this out yesterday when we the cab would see us, turn on its turn signal, and begin to change lanes, and then quickly swerve back to its original lane when they saw us. Oh well…

· Traffic laws are completely ignored. On the cab ride over to the Pearl Market we must have had at least 20 near death experiences, and easily could have stuck our hands out the window and touched the cars we were passing. Driving is essential one big game of chicken. Crossing the street is terrifying and requires lightning reflexes and sharp eyes to identify the cars that just don’t care that there are people on the road in front of them.

· Milk isn’t refrigerated. People here drink it from plastic bags that you pour into a bowl and heat up in the microwave. I’m not sure what the deal is here, my guess is that because the bags have only one serving, the milk is exposed to the air for a really short time and won’t go bad when it is the bag. I have been drinking it every morning for breakfast and I haven’t had a bad experience yet so I guess its okay.

· No tipping.

· Being an American kid in a Chinese school uniform draws lots of glances. All the time. Everywhere. Most people are too shy to ask, but there “the look” is something that everyone in the program has been getting a lot.

Pictures! (They should be in chronological order).

More to come later. 再见！