Final Thoughts

So here it is, my final blog entry from my summer in Beijing. I was right about the fact that I’d be too busy to write after I stopped working, so I will try to include everything interesting.

I got to attend two different Olympic events: women’s soccer and beach volleyball. The soccer games we saw were Brazil v. Nigeria and Canada v. Sweden, and the beach volleyball was six different games, four men’s and two women’s. We got to see the second women’s US team, but unfortunately not Walsh and May. The security getting into the Olympic venues was extremely tight. There was this ticket reader with a webcam that scanned each ticket and took a picture of the ticket holder so that each ticket matched a face, then the security was similar to that at most airports: putting all your belongings through a scanner, walking through the detector, and getting searched with the handheld one. I purposely didn’t bring a purse to the soccer game, and as such had to empty my pockets and explain what my extra battery for my camera was used for (couldn’t really do that in Chinese). What was extremely surprising at both venues was the number of empty seats. Any of you who’ve been watching on TV can see that the stands aren’t too full, and it’s really unfortunate that all these corporations buy a ton of tickets and then don’t use them when there are people everywhere scrounging for tickets. Also interesting though is how available it seems many tickets have become. I’ve probably gotten at least 5-10 e-mails sent out to the Beijing Ultimate list of people with extra tickets.
Inside the soccer stadium, there were sections of Chinese people all wearing the same yellow shirt and red hat, waving those inflatable cheering sticks together; it seemed these people were assigned to be in cheering sections. There were also of course the people cheering for the countries playing randomly in crowds wearing their country’s colors and waving their country’s flag. Our seats ended up in the right above a Canada cheering group, which made the second game a lot of fun. At half time, the fuwa (characters) came out with some cheerleaders and danced around the stadium. I could not believe that they were dancing to “We’re All in This Together” from High School Musical! All of the music they played in general was American, and all of the announcements were in the three official languages of the Olympics: English, French, and Chinese, so it almost made me forget that we were in Beijing.
The beach volleyball stadium was just built for the Olympics, ad it is very clean and new looking inside. The entire thing was open air, which made me very happy our tickets were in the evening (6pm-12am). I enjoyed watching beach volleyball a lot better for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which being that I played volleyball for six years and actually know all the rules and calls. What made it so much more fun, however, was how they entertained the crowd. Between every point, they played about seven seconds of some hit song from the 80s or 90s. It was extremely fun to sit there singing along and especially exciting when they played “My Sharona” twice. As the night went on, and more people left, we kept moving closer and closer to the front rows, and by the last game, we were in the second row, which was just AWESOME. It was like watching from the bench, and I was so enthralled with it that I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.

Concession Stand: The food available at all the Olympic venues was horrible. You can read the names yourselves, but does it look appetizing to you? The names don’t really give you a great idea, so here are a few descriptions: The sausages come in vacuum sealed packages and were basically like American hotdogs, but slightly smaller. The ‘Presidents Snack Noodles’ are actually a package of instant noodles WITH the spice packet, but with no bowl or water, so you just eat them hard. The biggest issue with the lack of decent food is that many Olympic tickets run the course of several hours; my friends had beach volleyball tickets from 9am until 10:30pm, and it’s kinda hard to survive all day on ‘Presidents Snack Noodles’ and sausages. The beer, however, was great and extremely cheap for beer at a sporting event. Unfortunately, most Chinese volunteers don’t know how to pour beer into a cup, so it usually came with a decent amount of foam. It seemed strange to me that China wouldn’t take advantage of selling snack food at higher prices and more of it to gain back some of their debt from preparing for these Olympics, but hey, I won’t complain about 5 kuai Budweiser!

Besides the Olympics, I spent my last week here doing some last-minute souvenir shopping and sightseeing. I finally went to the silk market, which is a huge building full of people trying to sell you things. Depending on how much of a foreigner you look like and what stores you are walking past, they grab you (literally) and try to sell you things. The silk market is all about bargaining, and the people who work there know how to bargain in most common languages. I’m told they go to a special school for this. My first purchase was two ‘disco attire’ dresses, which I ended up paying 350 kuai for, which I guess isn’t too bad since the original price was about 2000 kuai each. I bargained with this woman for about 30 minutes, and she was way too nice for me to not buy them at that point. After that, I was totally worn out, and I only purchased one other small souvenir the rest of the time we were there. I don’t know how people can go there all the time, but I guess some people are just not as nice as I am with bargaining.

On a similar note, I also made it to the zoo market this week. The zoo market is quite the opposite of the silk market. Everything there is already really cheap, no one pulls you into his or her store, and only slight bargaining is necessary. The following day, I also went to the zoo, which as you could guess is right across the street from the zoo market. The pandas there were adorable, and I did the best I could at getting a good picture.

The rest of the zoo was similar to most other zoos, though the animals are in much smaller cages than in most zoos in the states.




And now my final thoughts on my trip…

This is the first time I have actually lived someplace away from home (besides college) for longer than three weeks. Over the course of my two months here, I felt very free and in control of everything I was doing. I also felt like I really had my own life here, unlike anyone else, mainly due to the awesome Ultimate community. I’m really glad I found them before I left because they became some of my best friends over the past two months. Last night it finally hit me that I’m leaving, and as many of you could guess, I got really upset. I couldn’t really be going much further away from the people who live here. Even now, as I sit in the airport terminal waiting to board my plane home, I’m holding back my tears. It’s not only the people though, it’s the city itself and the ability to wander around and see new, interesting things every day and learn new words. Especially during the Olympics, it became really interesting to meet people on the streets or in a bar because everyone had some interesting story as to why they were in Beijing.

As far as my Chinese language skills go, they’ve improved drastically, probably even more so than I realize. When I went to return my bicycle two days ago, I actually managed to have an argument with the woman about my deposit in complete Chinese, and I won! Also walking out of the subway earlier that week, a Chinese woman graciously shared her umbrella with me, as it had started pouring while I was underground. I started talking to her in Chinese and actually managed to get through the entire conversation without misunderstanding or having to say things in English. I know for certain that my Chinese would be almost inexistent had I stayed in the states this summer, and I’m expecting to experience other people feeling that way in the second-year class this fall.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading about my adventures this summer. After living here for two months, I am positive I will be back within the next couple of years, and I’ve definitely met some amazing people who I’ll be keeping in touch with: Skype is my new best friend.

That’s all for this adventure!

~Chirona

中国加油! 奥运加油!

I know most of you can't read that title, but what it says is "Zhongguo Jiayou! Aoyun Jiayou!" which is China's Olympic cheer; it translates to approximately "Let's go China! Let's go Olympics!" The opening ceremony is tomorrow night, and I realized that I haven't actually written anything about the Olympics and how it's changing Beijing.

Construction: When I first arrived here, there was contruction almost everywhere and at almost every hour. The street I live off of, which is constructed of cement blocks, was constantly being torn up and put back together, and everywhere else in the city, you could probably not walk more than a block at any time of day without seeing construction. One of the most impressive parts of all this construction was how quickly it all happened. Near my office just over the course of a couple of weeks, the roads we take to work completely changed paths. For weeks I was frustrated as to why every single map of Beijing is wrong in some capacity, but I understand now...it's because Beijing's map literally changes every week. A couple of weeks ago, construction stopped on my street, which now seems a lot wider than it ever was and where it is now actually possible to ride your bike without crashing into people every ten seconds. The rest of the construction going on is either done or halted for the games now, and it makes things seem slightly quieter.

Weather/Pollution: As many of you know from reading my earlier posts, the weather when I first got here was very rainy and hazy almost every day. The government was making it rain in an attempt to clear the pollution from the air. About three or four weeks after I got here, I saw my first Beijing blue sky, and it was extremely exciting, in fact I never though I'd get so excited over seeing a blue sky. This occurred occasionally over the next couple weeks, and recently it has been much more frequent. There was even one day that had a gorgous blue sky with white fluffy clouds. My friend Tao got some great pictures of it, which you can see in this blog entry of his. Currently, however, looking out my office window (a little over 24 hours before the opening ceremony), it is relatively hazy.

Traffic: As a means of both getting rid of pollution and reducing traffic, starting July 20th, half the cars in Beijing were taken off the road. This was implemented by allowing alternating odd and even days depending on the last number of your license plate. I know a bunch of you immediately thought this, so yes, zero counts as even. Beijing has 5 concentric ring roads within the city, and I believe this rule is in affect within the 5 rings. There are also some addtional laws about larger vehicles, but I'm not exactly sure what they are. There have been some interesting changes in transit since this rule went into affect. The first thing almost everyone noticed was that it became nearly impossible in many locations to get taxis. All taxis are allowed on the roads at all times, but since so many people can't drive, they're all taking taxis. This was especially the case after 11pm when all public transit (except the newly added olympic bus lines) stopped running. The week before Avril left, she and I ended up walking 40 minutes back to our hotel because we couldn't find an empty cab along the entire route, and later that night, it took a group of us over an hour to hail a cab just to take us 15 minutes down to the street to a popular bar district. As far as traffic itself was concerned, it was a lot lighter, and it made riding my bike places a bit easier since there were less cars to possibly run me over. Public transit I'm told also got a lot more crowded, though I've only taken it a couple of times since. The past couple of days, however, as olympic athletes and spectators started rolling into town, traffic has been worse than ever. What's normally a 50-minute bus ride home from work for my friend Mike took him about an hour and a half on Tuesday night, and many other of my friends told me they were gonna start riding their bikes to work, which I've been glad I already do. It'll be interesting to see how traffic continues during the games.

Buses/Subways: Since I've been here, three new subway lines have opened up, giving much more access to the city. One of these lines is a straight shot to the airport in 16 minutes, which is a nice trade-off from the 3o-45 minute drive, depending on traffic. There are also a bunch of Olympic bus lines that have been added to the system and all run 24 hours. The generally run between Olympic venues, but have become convenient for a lot of people's work commutes. Additionally, the subways and many bus lines are supposed to start running 24 hours, which will be awesome, though I'm not sure when that goes into affect.

Security: Security has been noticably stepped up everywhere. There are cops almost every block just standing guard, as well as sidewalk security cameras and mandatory bag checks in every subway station. In addition to the normal traffic security standing on the corners of intersections, I've seen cops standing there, as well as right in the center of the intersection at many locations. I haven't made it over to the Olympic Village yet, but my friends who have said they couldn't get within a couple blocks of the Bird's Nest because security was so tight.

Olympic Paraphernalia: In addition to not being able to go a block without seeing a cop, you can't make more than ten feet without seeing some sort of Olympic paraphernalia. The contruction fences, sides of buildings, cars, buses, subways, and stores are covered in advertisements for the games. There are flags all along all the ring roads and some of the other major roads, and almost all the street signs have the olympic logo somewhere on them. The new subway lines have moving advertisements in the tunnels with the Fuwa (Olympic mascots), and on the inside, there are TVs explaining a random sport, usually one of the less common ones. Last week, lit up visa (official sponsor of the Olympics) signs were put up outside of all the small stores as well, which I think totally takes away from the feel of things. I literally watched vans full of these signs stop and drop two off along with people to hang them at every store in the area.

In general, it's really exciting to be here during this time, and I'm really curious to see how things change in the next week and a half. I have plans to watch the opening ceremony on one of the huge outdoor screens being set up, and I'm really excited for it as well as the events I'm attending next week. I'll probably post again before I leave, but this is my last day of work, and I might be really busy doing everything I still haven't done in this city. Enjoy the Olympics!

Chinese Exercise Parks

I've briefly mentioned these before in at least one entry, but they definitely deserve an entry all to themselves. Last night was my last night of Tuesday pickup (Ultimate), and I finally made myself go early so I could stop by the exercise park and take pictures.
That's not a great shot because it was dusk, which is a really hard time to take pictures, but it gives you a general idea. That path area in front actually goes around in a circle and people walk around it for exercise. There are also other large areas where people dance or do yoga in large groups. The first time I stopped in this park, there was also a large group of men singing. This is all going on at about 7:30pm, but I'd assume it's also pretty crowded during the day, especially since none of the kids are in school right now. Here are a few of my favorite machines:

On this machine, you pull the metal chains down and up with alternating hands as you can see the guy at the next one doing.






On this one, you hold onto the black handles and turn the wheels one with each hand. We joke that the people who use these a lot are probably really good at drawing perfect circles. Also note that there is one set higher up and one lower down.






On this one, the orange parts extend backwards, pivoting from the top, so it's basically just leg exercises, but you can do it facing your friends and even have a conversation!










Hope you find these machines as fascinating as I do. It's just really interesting to see everyone using them at almost any time of day, though the parks are significantly more crowded in the couple of hours after the work day. I also found a weather site in Chinese that, in addition to pollen and air quality forecasts, includes a section on "morning exercises forecast," which shows how common they are.

Western Lunch

Yesterday when we were on our way to one of our usual lunch restaurants, we passed by a new western restaurant, and the woman outside handed us menus. The front of the menu says in large print "WALK TIME" and underneath in small print "Please.flower me". We spend a good portion of our lunch drooling over the menu, as we've had western food maybe once or twice since we've been here, and making fun of the English translations. The most interesting thing about the translations is that they don't ever stick to one spelling. Here are a few examples: "spughetti, spaghetti, spayhetti", "sandwick, sandwith, sandwich", "friedrice, friderice, froderoce". By the end of the meal, we decided that we had to go to this place for lunch the next day (today), and we even got an okay from our three Chinese coworkers we always eat with (their English names are Apple, Kitty, and Tweety).

Nathan and I spent a good portion of the morning discussing what it was we wanted to order for lunch, since we had the menu, and being excited about eating western food with our coworkers. We clearly walked ahead of our coworkers on the way there, and when we got to the restaurant, they kinda gave us a weird look, but then followed us in. We had of course by this time decided exactly what it was we wanted to eat, but the three of them sat there flipping through the menu for a good 15 minutes, seemingly quite confused as to what they should order. Mind you all three of these coworkers generally eat kung pao chicken for lunch almost every day. After having a bunch of conversations with the waitress and each other they finally ordered, though Nathan and I could tell they weren't so happy. A minute later, the waitress brought out small plates, forks, knives, and spoons. Tweety picked up the fork with a look of confusion, clearly thinking "I don't know how to use this!". Nathan and I did some demonstrations and at the same time got really excited to see her attempts to use a fork.

My salad showed up first, and I was ecstatic. I hadn't had a salad or even anything salad-like since I'd been here. I ate it pretty quickly all the while my coworkers stared at me using my fork so fluidly. Tweety's beef with rice showed up (very adventurous choice I know), and her immediate reaction was "panzi hen da!!" (the plate is so big!!) Now she was actually referring to the plate itself, as plates in China are generally not larger than 6 or 7 inches in diameter. She started attempting to eat with a fork, but was having a really hard time with the concept of stabbing the pieces of meat. Nathan helped her out a bit, but meanwhile we were both holding ourselves back from laughing hysterically. Our (Nathan and my) pasta dishes showed up and we started eating as well.

It was now 1pm, and our lunch break is only from 12:30-1:30. Apple looks at her phone for the time and immediately yells to the waitress to hurry up because we need to go back to work. This recurrs probably 4 or 5 times before they get their food. Apple ordered some chicken wings and split a tuna sandwich with Tweety, and Kitty ordered a pasta dish with seafood. The entire meal was entertaining just watching them figure out how to deal with forks and hands (for the sandwich). Tweety ended up eating it with a fork because she couldn't deal with it with her hands.

When we finished eating, we asked our coworkers what they thought, and they were like American food is just sandwiches and pasta, and they went on about how Chinese food has so many more options for dishes, so they like it a lot better. We of course countered this with the fact that there are a ton of options for food in the US (not to mention the fact that they still eat the same thing for lunch every day) and that Americans feel the same way about Chinese food. By the time we paid, it was 1:32pm, and the three of them ran in front of us (yes...ran) to get back to the office. Of course, we were in no rush seeing as we have no real work to do at the office...

I think for our last three days of work, we'll stick with Chinese food so as not to overwhelm our coworkers.

Hua Kai Hotel

I've talked somewhat about my hotel in earlier entries like when I first arrived here, but I'm going to start from the beginning, mainly for the flow of the story:

The Hua Kai Hotel is in the Dongcheng district on a hutong, right off of Nanluogu xiang, which is a well-known bar street, with all the buildings in old Chinese style. The location is great, about a 5-minute walk from Houhai and Beihai Park, however, the hotel itself is another story...

When I first arrived at the Hua Kai, I was put in a room at the end of the fourth floor. Within 10 minutes, I discovered that the toilet was broken, and the hotel staff, which consists of two young-ish girls and the owner (Lao Li), told me I could pick any room on the floor. They started opening doors and showing me different rooms. At this point, I just wanted to put my stuff down, so I chose the room next door.

Let me pause here and give you a general description of the rooms in our hotel: Every room consists of minimum 2 beds, a desk, some cabinets, a closet, a coffee table with two chairs, a small water cooler with hot and warm water, and a bathroom with sink, toilet, and tub/shower. Beyond those common items, there are very few other similarities. The rooms on the right sides of the hallways are smaller, and generally have a green-ish bowl sink, whereas the ones on the left sides have an entire black marble counter with an inset grundgy tan (maybe it used to be white) sink. Some of the larger rooms have 3 beds, and one of them even has one huge (like bigger than king-size) bed and then one twin. The AC also varies from room to room, some with individual units and some with somewhat central-air that is controlled by the floor, not to mention the fact that the functionality of both types is sporadic.

Within a couple of days in my new room, I realized that the window wouldn't close all the way, the water heater for the shower constantly got unplugged, and there was no curtain on the shower (this was the case in everyone's room). After someone complained, a curtain appeared on my shower, and I managed to get the window fixed, but not the outlet for the water heater. I found myself standing on the toilet (it was plugged into the ceiling) fixing the plug about twice a week. There were also three light switches in the room, one of which turned on all the lights (bathroom and main room), one of which turned on the fan in the bathroom, and one of which did nothing. This made it extremely frustrating to pee in the middle of the night.

As far as sanitation goes, it doesn't really exist in the Hua Kai. Our program director told us we were supposed to have our rooms cleaned every day and sheets changed once a week. The first week or two, they were pretty good about emptying the garbage and taking the dirty towels (but not giving us clean ones), but then it slowed down. They will also come into the room while you're sleeping on weekends and just do such things without even recognizing your presence. Anytime you need anything, you need to go downstairs and ask. This includes: toilet paper, new sheets, new water, towels, a broom to sweep your room (I'm sure none of you are surprised I would ask for this), etc...

Since we've been here, the hotel staff has set up a convenience store in the lobby, which is relatively convenient (duh!). It sells cold drinks including 3 kuai beers, bowls of instant noodles, cigarettes, sanitary napkins, condoms, etc...

Onto the hotel staff: The two women who work in the hotel most definitely live there 24/7. One of them sleeps on the bench in the lobby every night, and I'm not sure where the other sleeps. I'm assuming the owner, Lao Li, lives elsewhere since he's usually not around at night. A new woman started working there a few weeks ago who wears dresses all the time and looks a lot less rugged than the other two. The other two also got into some sort of catfight last week, and are both covered in scratches and bruises on their faces and arms. It's kind of absurd, and we've all been somewhat scared of them since.

About the other people in the hotel: The second floor of our hotel we're all pretty sure is some sort of brothel/KTV (karaoke television). We all pretty much avoid it by taking the elevator, but noises from there definitely float up to the third floor. Additionally, there are a bunch of Chinese drama students who live in the hotel. One of them in particular is probably the most dramatic and rude person I've ever met. She borrows people's phones and laptops all the time, and will use them for hours without getting up. She had 2000 kuai stolen from her room at one point and accused one of the guys on our program who ended up getting taken to Chinese jail and questioned for a couple of hours (luckily he's Chinese and speaks fluently). She has also on two occasions had extended screaming/crying phone conversations, the first of which was at 5pm, and the second on which woke us all up at 3am.

This past Monday morning, at 9:30am, I was on skype with my parents when the power went out. I went out into the hall and in my best Chinglish asked when it was coming back on. I was told to wait a little bit, and then about 15 minutes later, the woman comes back to my room, wakes up my roommate, and informs us that we need to move upstairs because there's no power on the fourth floor. When do we need to move? RIGHT NOW!! It's 9:30 in the morning, and we'd lived in this room for 6 weeks! She then reasoned with us and said we could move at 10 or 11, but she wouldn't give me the key to the new room. After packing all of our stuff up (luckily Callie and I are pretty organized), we moved it all upstairs, and then I managed to explain that the hotel woman had to give me the key to our new room before I gave her back the old key. She finally gave in...

Our new room is on the opposite side of the hall, so it has the different bathroom, and we now have three beds. It also has the central air, but it's worked out so far (the two nights we've been there that is). Our group now is awkwardly split between the 5th and 3rd floors with four people still on the 4th floor (somehow they didn't have to move). My stuff is still somewhat in suitcases, but I guess I'll be a bit more organized when I leave in three weeks now...

A Better View Out My Window

Kevin and I figured out that we could open the window and stick our hands out with the camera in order to get a non-reflecting picture, so here it is! This setup is generally how a family in this area lives. There is an entrance in front as follows (the red door on the right):

Each family member then lives in one of the rooms off the courtyard. There is a specific layout as to where the parents, grandparents, and kids are, but I don't remember it now. Interesting insight into Chinese culture...

Olympics Tickets

I have to start this entry with: OMG I'M GOING TO THE OLYMPICS!!!!!! That's right...aren't you all jealous...

Beijing announced on Tuesday that the fourth phase of Olympic ticket sales would begin on Friday, July 25th at 9am. Tickets for the 5 main venues would be sold at the main box office, and all other tickets would be sold at their respective venues. The beijinger, a really popular ex-pat blog about Beijing said that anyone wishing to buy tickets should get there really early, and that some people would even be camping out. The remaining 820,000 tickets were being sold, 250,000 of which were for events in Beijing proper (as opposed to the co-hose cities). I did a bunch of research online into whether I was actually allowed to buy tickets, as the website states:
"Any natural person who has established domicile in the territory of People's Republic of China (except Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macao Special Administrative Region and Taiwan Province) and possesses a valid ID is eligible to order Olympic tickets"
We had a long group discussion about said issue Thursday night, and decided it was worth giving it a shot. Four people from our program including my roommate Callie (and not myself) skipped class and went to try to get soccer tickets at 8am. I wasn't there, but I'm told the line was absurd and very organized up until the end, where it turned into a huge mob. Callie left to go to the second part of class, and then went back with another guy from our group. They'd moved "less than a city block" since 8am according to Callie (it was now noon), but they stuck it out. Here's Callie's description of what they went through:
"waiting in line for 6 hours, dodging policemen, and sprinting in a free-for-all race against the citizens of Beijing across a parking lot and standing entirely pressed up against 4 other people for 15 minutes within a ring of guards who were holding hands to keep us in. Basically no other way to describe it really..."
In the mean time, being as each person was allowed to purchase two tickets and there were five of them there, Risa, Kristyn, Stephanie, and I went over to Chaoyang park to try to purchase beach volleyball tickets. We stood outside the gate to get in from about 1:30-2:30, but there were people who'd been standing there since 11am. We also got a call from the other group that they'd successfully gotten women's soccer tickets for 150 kuai each (that's about $22). They apparently hadn't let anyone in since 9am. At about 2:30, the guard informed us they'd be opening the gate in a few minutes, and everyone formed into the most packed crowd I've been in...every man for himself...Risa and I managed to get towards the front and were in the first couple of groups into the gate. Once inside the gate, they put us all in a single-file line and started letting small groups in at a time. I was in the first group in and Risa in the second. The other two were a bit behind us. The lines at the box office were separated by date, so I got online for the 13, 14, 15th tickets and about half hour later (about 4:30) had tickets in my hand for beach volleyball on the 13th at night. They cost 50 kuai each, i.e. $7...isn't that absurd?! I still can't believe that I have tickets...

This is what one woman's shoes looked like after running for tickets:

And here's a good picture of the crowd:

Eating Out

I realized at lunch today that I haven't talked about eating in Beijing yet, which is surprising seeing as I do it two-three times a day (depending on when I wake up). Every meal for the most part, I go out to eat. This is mainly due to the fact that I'm living in a hotel with no kitchen facilities, but it's also relatively cheap to eat out if you find the right places. Generally a meal here will cost from 10-30 kuai (about $2-5). Of course most foreign food and many of the larger, flashier restaurants can cost upwards of 100-300 kuai for a meal, but I have rarely if ever gone to such places. I will now walk you through a typical dining out experience when locals aren't eating with me.
We walk into a restaurant and either sit down or tell the waiter/waitress how many people and are shown to a table. The menu consists of one or a combination of the following: a white piece of paper completely in Chinese with places to write the quantity of each dish, a completely Chinese menu that's generally two sided, or a large menu with lots of pictures. Sometimes, depending on how touristy and popular the place is, there will be English translations of some or all things or an actual separate English menu, but neither of these can be expected unless you go someplace with an English name. Obviously the best case of those listed is the large menu with pictures because we can just look through it and point at what we want.
The waiter/waitress (fuyuan) stands at your table waiting for your order as soon as you walk in. Coming from the states, this is really awkward because we're used to having time to figure out what we want. It is best if you go into the restaurant with an idea already of what it is you want to eat, as most of them serve similar dishes. Often it is easier to ask "do you have this?" about everything you want instead of actually trying to get through the menu. When the menu is completely in Chinese or you're faced with one of those white sheets, asking is a must at least for now, as I cannot understand most of any menu.
Chinese people traditionally don't drink water with meals, instead drinking either tea (cha) or beer (pijiu), and when they do drink water, it is hot (basically tea without the tea leaves). We often ask for cold bottled water and are either told they don't have it or given room-temperature bottled water. Often when having soups for meals, the liquid part serves as the drink and no further drink is ordered.
Anytime you need anything in a restaurant be it napkins, more beer, the bill, chopsticks, etc...you simply yell out "FUYUAN!" Yes...yell. It seems so rude, but you're basically yelling "WAITER!" It's the only way to get any service, so at this point, I've gotten used to it. Hopefully I won't start doing this when I return to the states.
Getting the bill is kind of like the beginning of the meal. The fuyuan brings you your bill and then stands there waiting for money. They are also relatively pushy and if someone pulls out a 100 kuai bill (which by the way is the biggest bill that exists and equals about $15) will often just take it from them to pay, and then you will all have to pay that person. In general for smaller purchases, they hate when you only have a 100 kuai bill, but it's not usually a problem for food.
When leaving the restaurant, they are usually pretty grateful and say thankyou and goodbye in the now common form of "xiexie bbye".

Inner Mongolia

At 6:30pm on Friday afternoon while playing some double disc (Frisbee game) in Chaoyang Park, I received a call from Avril informing me that if I get back to the hotel in 20 minutes, I can go to Inner Mongolia for the weekend for free! This trip had been planned for weeks, but I had opted not to go after being told it'd cost approximately US$400. Apparently someone dropped out at the last minute, and I had approximately an hour and a half to get all the way across town to the hotel, pack my stuff, and get to the train station. Of course I had no problem doing so...
Inner Mongolia is actually in northern China along the border of Mongolia itself. Getting there takes an overnight train ride that's approximately ten hours. We had hard sleepers, which are sections of 6 beds, 3 on top of each other on two sides, along a corridor. Each car has about 20 rows, so it sleeps 60 people. Our group was spread out on a few different cars, but of course we all managed to take over a section to chat and drink. The lights go out in the cars at about 10:30pm, which forces you to go to sleep. The beds are surprisingly comfortable considering they are about 2 feet wide and consist of a board with some padding and a comforter. I slept straight through for the most part until the train attendant woke me at 7am: "kuai! kuai!" was all I understood really, which means "quickly! quickly!". We were almost there, so I got myself up.
We ate breakfast at a buffet at a 4-star hotel. The food was pretty good, however the drink options were: hot water, coffee, room-temperature milk, or steaming hot tang (OJ). After being given a speech about keeping hydrated, we were unsure of how to do so with such drink options, and I ended up filling my nalgene with hot water in hopes of it becoming room-temp in an hour or so.
After a 3-hour busride to the grasslands complete with speeding past trucks on the highway and going .2 mph through ditches on the dirt roads, we arrived at our "hotel" if you can call it that. We were staying in yurts, 2 people to a yurt, in the middle of the grasslands. All you could see around you was grassland and more yurts. We had lunch in the larger dining yurts, and then set out on horseback across the grassland. The horses were following a path, but pretty much free to go at whatever pace they liked, so they'd randomly trott without warning, but it was a really cool way to see the area. We stopped partway at another yurt to taste the traditional milk tea. It does not taste like milk+tea, but more like salt water with some other weird flavors. Most of us were not huge fans, though we all tasted it. We rode our horses back to our yurts, and then we had 3-4 hours of free time. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and it was perfect weather to chill outside.
I'd brought a disc along, so I started throwing it with some people, and then some of the locals started joining in. By the end of the three hours, we'd probably taught about 10 people how to throw a frisbee who'd never even seen one before. It was really cool to be bringing this new sport to their lives, and I ended up giving them the disc as a gift, communicating in Chinese that they could use it to practice (lianxi).
That night, we had the Mongolian specialty of roasted lamb. We'd seen them deliver the live lamb earlier, and though we hadn't seen the actual killing of it, we'd seen the skin lying on the ground, and then being thrown on the truck full of other live lambs before driving away. Two whole roasted lambs were brought out to the yurt, and there was a ceremony before they were cut up. The ceremony involved a king and queen who were given traditional clothes to wear. I was initially picked as the queen, but the clothes wouldn't fit me, so they picked one of the skinnier girls. The ceremony involved some songs and some drinking of baijiu out of bowls.
Sidenote about baijiu: It's a distilled liquor that's usually anywhere from %40-%60 alcohol (not proof). A small bottle costs 4 kuai here (about 60 cents), which is absurd. There are many more expensive brands, but we obviously don't partake in them. This is what wikipedia says about the taste, "There are a number of accounts in English which comment unfavorably on the taste of baijiu, comparing it with rubbing alcohol or diesel fuel. The author Tim Clissold, who writes frequently on China, noted that he'd "never met anybody, even at the heights of alcoholic derangement, prepared to admit that they actually liked the taste", and that "after drinking it, most people screw up their faces in an involuntary expression of pain and some even yell out.""
After dinner, we all walked a bit away from our yurts and watched a horse race and then a some Mongolian wrestling matches. Some of the guys on our trip wrestled as well...this would NEVER happen at a hotel in the states. All this was followed by a bonfire, music, and fireworks back where our yurts were, and we all stayed up dancing, singing, and drinking baijiu (it was way cheaper than beer there because water is so scarce) late into the night.
The next morning, we were all awoken at 7am to eat breakfast and head out to the desert. Our breakfast consisted of very little that any of us wanted to eat, but we managed to shove some of it in our mouths before getting on the bus. We had a 5 hour bus ride to the desert, the former half of which I spent trying to get a piece of glass out of my foot that I'd stupidly gotten stuck there when I'd wandered outside without shoes on. I guess I got it out because it's certainly not there anymore.
We arrived at the desert at about one and had lunch before heading up the dunes. Climbing the large dune to get to the top was rather difficult. There were two options: a ladder along the sand and just straight climbing. Shoes were kinda the opposite of useful, so I took them off. Climbing up the ladder hurt your feet, but climbing up the dune straight was like taking one step forwards and half a step backwards each time. It was strenuous, but really cool at the same time. Once we reached the top, we got in this vehicle I can only describe as a mix between a large ATV and a tank, but the top was open, and it seated 30-40 people. We drove through the dunes, and it was kinda like a roller coaster without a track. We stopped at one point and were let off to walk around for a bit before returning. After that, we got to ride camels out in a different direction to an oasis where we again stopped a bit before turning around. Riding camels was really cool, though slightly painful after the horseback rides the day before. When we finished the camel rides, we got to sled down the dune we'd walked up on wooden sleds. It looked a lot faster than it actually felt, but was nonetheless really cool. We took a chair lift the rest of the way back as it was getting late and were on our way back to the capital city, Hohhot, where we would catch our train. We stopped at what we were told was a factory along the way, although it seemed more like a bustling outlet center. After being given 30 minutes in a restaurant to eat dinner, we rushed to the train station exhausted, gross, and sandy for our overnight train back home. Needless to say there was a lot less drinking on the return trip since we all passed out pretty quickly. The next morning upon returning to our hotel at about 9am, everyone showered and almost immediately went to McDonalds (Maidonglao) for breakfast sandwiches. They've become a novelty to us!

Squat Toilets aka Squatters

Now that I've finally mastered the squatter, or at least to the best of my ability, I feel it is time to write about them. Disclaimer: you may not actually want to read this blog entry...

When I first stepped off the plane in Beijing with a desire to pee, I encountered my first squat toilet in the airport. My thought at the time was "Fuck! I hate these!" but of course I managed to pee and move on to claim my luggage. My next encounter with squat toilets was the public toilets off of nanluogu xiang (the bar street I live off of) that night when Andi and I realized we needed to pee after having 5 drinks in a bar. This was further unpleasant because a) it's a public bathroom and b) public bathrooms don't come with toilet paper. This is when I realized why we'd been given a pocket-size toilet paper pack in our welcome kit. To answer your obvious question: my hotel bathroom does have a western toilet, as they are referred to here.
Upon arriving at the office the following Tuesday, Avril showed me around and explained that the office toilets too are squatters, though there is a toilet paper dispenser on the wall when you walk in, and the toilets, soap, sink, and hand dryer are all automatic; basically, it's a completely modern bathroom cleaned multiple times a day, but still with squat toilets.
From this point on, I knew I'd need to get used to them because going an entire work day (9-6) without peeing is just unrealistic. I spent a good half an hour or so my second day here researching the best way to use squat toilets online, which was only really helpful in informing me that the groves on the edge of the toilet are actually for your feet, and that "Likely as not, you won't have to use one," which is 100% false.
The following weekend in Shanghai, I got into a long discussion with two of the guys on the Ultimate team about how exactly to go about using them, and I was even given a squatting position demonstration. Since then I've managed to figure it out, though I more than ever think it's so unfair that guys have aim.
Most of the guys on my trip have avoided using them to some extent, which is totally unfair. One of my favorite comments though is when one of the guys said he "threw his back out squatting".
If you'd actually like to read more about how to squat/deal with the situation, here's a good article for you: http://gochina.about.com/od/tripplanning/ht/How2_Squat.htm

Sun in Beijing?

I don't know how much any of you have heard about this, but Beijing's been doing a lot to try to control the weather and get rid of pollution lately because of the Olympics. The basics is that they've been shooting silver iodide at clouds in order to induce rain. The purpose of this at the moment is to try to get rid of pollution in the air, and the purpose of this later on will be to control when it rains during the Olympics. As such, pretty much every day since I have been here has been overcast and/or rainy. It is generally written on the weather forecast sites as "hazy," which is definitely a good word to describe it. When I first got here, I asked around, and everyone was like "Yea, there are blue skies sometimes...usually after it rains," but I had thus far only experienced 'haze'. Today, however, was apparently the exception. It was GORGEOUS with blue skies and a few clouds. I could even see stars tonight! So I took some pictures off the fire escape at the end of my hall, and this is the actual view from my hotel:

It was a gorgeous day to be bicycling, playing Ultimate and just enjoying the city and life...

Commuting in Beijing

So I'd heard about how bad commuting to work in Beijing is, but I always just shrugged it off thinking: how could it be much worse than commuting in NY, which I did for the past three summers? Boy was I off...
The quickest route to work for us (Nathan, Avril, and I) on public transit involves taking a bus 8 stops to a subway one stop, and then another bus for four stops. The entire thing takes about an hour. Getting on the bus during rush hour involves being literally pushed by the crowd until the bus is packed, and then the doors are closed literally on people. Depending on the size of the bus, there are different doors you enter and exit from. If it's got three doors, you get on in the middle and off in either the front or back; if it's got two, you get on in the front and off in the back. Also, if the route number is over 400, you have to swipe your card when you get on AND off because those buses are air conditioned. The subway is just about as ridiculous, except that you are contained within a space to walk in. The thing that I don't get and that bothers me to no end after commuting in NY is that in between said buses and subways, noone seems to be in any kind of rush. They take their time walking up the stairs from the subway, to the bus stops, and from the bus stops to work. This doesn't bother me so much in the morning, but when we get out of work at 6pm, it'd be really nice to get home, change, and eat dinner sooner rather than later.
Along this route, I've noticed some of the numerous jobs Beijing has come up with to employ its citizens:
-People stand at the bus stops waving flags to get pedestrians and bicyclists out of the way of the bus
-People stand on the subway platforms and line you up next to where the door's going to open and scream at you if you step over the yellow line
-People hand out newspapers to people entering the subway
-People collect newspapers from people exiting the subway
-People direct traffic at almost every major intersection, telling pedestrians and bicyclists when to go
I have since discovered that the best means of transportation in Beijing is by bicycle. I rented a bicycle for the equivalent of $10/month (with a $65 deposit). Riding a bike around Beijing is awesome and additionally is saving me a ton of money. I now ride my bike to work, which takes only 30 minutes, and I ride my bike to Ultimate twice a week, each of which takes about 10-15 minutes. Rental bikes come with a basket on the front too, so I can ride it to the grocery store and such. The roads in Beijing are constructed for bikes as well. Every intersection with a traffic light has a light for cars, a light for pedestrians, and a light for bicyclists. As I discover all of these secrets, I'm starting to feel more and more like I actually live here, though the language barrier is still really tough...

Working in Beijing

As many of you know, I started work last Tuesday (a week ago), but I wanted to wait until I experienced it a bit before posting. The company I'm working for, which is called in English "CN-KnowHow Intellectual Property Agent Ltd." (http://www.cnkip.net/) is in a building called the Fortune International Center, which incidentally is right next to a building looking exactly the same called the Fortune Building. I have yet to go into the wrong one in the morning, but I'm sure it will happen at some point. The company is on the third floor, and there's a pretty cool view out the window of my office. I'm in a side office with one other person as are the two other interns from my program working here. Avril has already been here a month, and Nathan just started today. The first day, I was invited into the conference room with the company president Mr. Xie who told us to call him Victor, another head guy here (Avril's boss) Mr. Wang, and the woman I work for, Crystal. Victor asked me to introduce myself, which I did in Chinese, and then asked what I wanted to get out of the internship. I hate questions like that! Apparently my answer of wanting to explore patent law as a possible career was good enough. After that, I spent the rest of the day and all of Wednesday doing absolutely nothing. When I asked for something to do, all they told me was that if I "want to learn something" I could read this book, which is just a straight copy in English of Chinese patent law. I managed to get through about 20 pages before dozing off. Interns are a new thing to China, so unlike in the US where interns are given all the bitch work to do, they don't really know what to do with us here. On Wednesday, I called my program coordinator to say I wasn't doing anything, and I have since been given a project. I'm researching a US patent case from 2004 and working on a presentation to give them on it. I've since learned that law is relatively confusing and difficult to interpret, so this has lead to a bunch of debates between myself and the other interns because mostly the rest of the office doesn't speak English well enough to join in.
One of the best things about my job so far though is that everyone here is really eager to learn English and learn about English grammar and also really eager to help us with our Chinese. I was prompted to write this at this moment because Mr. Wang just came into my office solely to have a conversation with me in Chinese about what I did this weekend. It was a great exchange because he corrected my grammar and I taught him words in English like "team" and "frisbee", though they may not be the most useful words in his English vocabulary.
Some interesting things about the office here: Everyone has a cup or multiple cups on his/her desk to drink water or tea during the day. There are water coolers throughout the office since you can't drink tap water. Even though this building is relatively modern and air conditioned, the bathrooms have squat toilets, which I'm solely becoming more comfortable with using. There is also a strainer over a pot in the bathroom for people to dump tea into (it catches the tea leaves). At exactly 12:30pm, everyone no matter what he/she is doing jumps up and leaves for lunch. By 1:30pm, everyone is back, but it's widely accepted to take a nap on your desk for 10 minutes after lunch. Work ends at 6pm, which really sucks because it takes an hour to get back, and then it's already 7.
That's all on work in China (工作在中国) for now!

Shanghai Tournament

Nervous to get to the airport, I was about 15 minutes away from the hotel when I realized I'd forgotten my orthodics. That would've made the weekend much more difficult...I made it to Dongzhimen and managed to ask a woman where to get my ticket for the airport shuttle. I actually understood her response of "The newspaper stand over there" and successfully made it to the airport an hour before my flight. However, Chinese security check is really intense, and I ended up having to check my Ultimate bag after they smelled (yes...smelled) every single one of my toiletries. (Apparently conditioner and lotion are fine, but not shampoo, hairspray, or sunblock...)
When I arrived in Shanghai, I turned on my phone to receive a text in Chinese saying "Welcome to Shanghai" among other things I couldn't understand. I called Candice, one of the other Ultimate players, to meet up with her, and seeing as I didn't know the area (and assumed she did) ended up taking an unfortunately long and expensive (1.5 hours and 160 kuai/$25) cab ride to meet them. We made a delicious pasta dinner in Candice's dad's apartment before heading over to the hotel and registration party.
I have never been to an Ultimate tournament with so many parties before. The scheduled events for the weekend included in our 500 kuai/$73 tournament fee consisted of:
Friday: Registration party
Saturday: Games, lunch, games, dinner/20 kegs, tournament party (included two free drinks)
Sunday: Games, lunch/15 kegs
There was also a Sunday dinner/party and a Monday party, but we all left before those. Also included in the tournament fee was a disc, bottle opener, towel, key chain light, and all the information for everything. Mind you, this tournament fee was extremely expensive as far as the Asian Ultimate world goes.
A note on the differences between Shanghai and Beijing: Everyone in Shanghai speaks English because it is full of ex-pats, and so many Americans live there. There are all sorts of American extablishments everywhere including Starbucks, Papa Johns, and even a Specialized bike store. It's a very interesting contrast to Beijing where almost noone speaks English, and if you go into a restaurant without any Chinese knowledge, you won't be able to order.
Back to the tournament: There were teams at the tournament from Shanghai, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Singapore and a bunch of other Chinese cities. It was amazing to have the only real common language between everyone be the sport of Ultimate. I played on Beijing's B team (BeiBling for this tournament), and we did really well, winning 4 of 6 games. We were definitely the best B team there. The weather on Saturday morning was a miserable 95% humidity and about 95 degrees, but we somehow survived. A bunch of teams brought with them some form of alcohol native to their country or some snacks, which were shared between teams at the end of games.
The theme for the tournament party was "conspiracy". Our team dressed as Monopoly, each of us being a different space on the board, and one person was Mr. Moneybags. He handed out money to buy properties. The property cards had been adjusted to read things like "with one house: sip of beer, with two houses: chug beer, etc..." The goal of the game was to get everyone else drunk (i.e. making it harder for them to play the next day). Other teams were dressed as black and white spies, Julius Caesar, etc... It was a lot of fun, and once again just kinda awesome to walk around (and have about 7 drinks for free!)
On Sunday, we got to watch the championship game between the Philippines and Shanghai (our A team got knocked out in the semi-finals). This was probably the best game of Ultimate I've ever watched, and the women on the Philippines team are AMAZING. I could never ever dream of being as good as they are. Unfortunately, Shanghair won though the Philippines team was clearly better. The final score was 15-12, but prior to it being 13-12, Philippines had been winning the entire game.
After enjoying some delicious Papa Johns, we all hopped in some (less expensive) cabs to the airport and flew back to Beijing. Just to top off the weekend, I poetically finished reading Ender's Game just as my bag arrived on the baggage claim. I got back to my room exhausted, sun burnt, sore, bug-bitten, and somewhat hungover at 1:30am Monday morning and couldn't bring myself to shower before going to sleep...

Booking A Flight to Shanghai

Another insight into Chinese culture: I was given the e-mail of a travel agent at about 9:30 in the morning yesterday and e-mailed her almost immediately with the information for the flights I wanted, the same ones everyone else is taking. She responded within an hour asking for my passport info, and then almost immediately sent me flight information. Once I selected my flights, she called my cell and asked to speak to someone who could explain how to find my hotel. I gave her to one of the cleaning people with a brief attempt to tell them that she needed directions. Within an hour after that, a man showed up at my door with my plane ticket, and I handed him 1200 kuai (about $170) in cash to pay for it. He thanked me, and then left. That would be a total of about 2 hours between first making contact with the travel agent and recieving a physical ticket for my flights and a demonstration of how China is still a cashed-based society.

Summer Palace

Yesterday, I walked out of my hotel and to the top of the street and, for the first time, went a different direction. On my way to the Gulou subway stop, I passed by both the drum tower and the bell tower. They are both huge and are separated by a small courtyard. In the area, there are also a bunch of rickshaws and drivers awaiting passengers. Where all the drivers wait, there are all these things that on first glance appear to be playground equipment as they are all colored bright blues, oranges, and reds. However, on further inspection, I realized they are actually various exercise machines, and this is what the drivers do while they wait. I saw them all over yesterday, and I will take a picture and post it soon. In the same general area, there were also two tables of elder Chinese women playing mahjjong. (For those of you who don't know, this is a game played commonly by Jewish and Chinese women, including my mom and her friends, that uses ivory tiles engraved with Chinese characters.) I almost took out my phone to call you mom, but that would not have been cost-effective. I wanted to take a picture, but I thought that would be rude.

Andi and I were meeting at a subway station, and we had some issues finding each other. (Since everything is in Chinese almost exclusively on all the public transit, we generally just count how many stops ahead of time, and Andi counted wrong.) We found each other and opted to take a taxi rather than risk getting lost on the bus.

We arrived at Summer Palace, which is a gorgeous 1.2 square kilometer (I think that's what it said) property covered in small buildings, a large lake, bridges, gates, and gardens; everything has names like "Longevity Hill" and "Harmonious Gardens". Our first priority was to find the restaurant as neither of us had eaten and it was about 2:30pm. On our way there (it was relatively far away), we walked slowly and just took in everything we saw. It is all gorgeous, and I will post pictures shortly. By the time we got to the restaurant, it was closed, so we grabbed some snacks and continued wandering. The palace closes at 5pm, so we didn't have very much time. One of the most fascinating things to me was all of the different plants and birds over here that don't exist in the states, as well as all of the architecture and decoration. Our last stop before departing the palace was to climb up to the Tower of Buddhist Incense. This offered an amazing panoramic view of the palace as well as parts of Beijing. This consisted of climbing a lot of steps, which our feet were not so happy about after walking around all afternoon (we were both wearing flip-flops). The top of the tower contains the Buddha with One Thousand Hands and Eyes (some of you can picture this from art history class). It is a huge bronze statue and was just amazing to see in person, though this is the one thing they didn't allow us to photograph.

After departing the palace, we managed to figure out how to take a bus, and I took Andi to see the Drum and Bell towers. We stopped at a small market to buy some postcards, and the woman in the store was really friendly. We discussed which postcards to buy, where we were from, what we're doing here, and when we're going home all in Chinese. I was very proud of myself! Right before we left, she handed me some tissues to wipe my face as I was sweating profusely; it had been about 80 degrees and humid all day.

After stopping by my room briefly to rest our feet and enjoy the AC, we went to find a specific noodle restaurant nearby that one of my guidebooks (thanks for that Sue!) recommends. We got a little lost, but in doing so got to see the Qianhai lake (five minutes from my hotel) that is very scenic, and I hope to return to many times. The restaurant called 'Jingweimian Dawang' or 'Beijing Noodle King' has a gorgeous facade, and when we walked in, they banged a gong to signal our arrival. We ordered way too much food even though we were starving, and we couldn't even each finish a 20oz beer cause we were so tired. A note about Chinese meals: they are taken either with beer or nothing to drink, generally speaking. Andi went home after dinner, and I eventually managed to find my way home, though I was exhausted and covered in pollution, i.e. most exposed parts of my skin had somewhat of a black tint, and ready to shower. Unfortunately, the water heater for my shower got unplugged and now the outlet is broken, so not only did I have no curtain and no pressure, I had no heat. An unfortunate end to a great day, but I'm going to try to somehow explain that to the front desk workers and hopefully switch rooms because my TV also doesn't work, and my window doesn't close (this wasn't a problem until we had a huge thunderstorm last night).

Ultimate in Beijing

First, an interesting note about the communist aspect of China: All blogging websites are blocked, but I guess this found a loophole. I was trying to figure out why it is that I can post on the blog, but not actually see it, and that is apparently the reason. China as a nation blocks almost any website address with the word "blog" in it as well as livejournal, myspace, and similar sites, though luckily facebook isn't blocked! So I apologize if anything doesn't look great on the blog cause I actually can't see it myself until I return to the states.

Ultimate here is AMAZING. I found my way to the McDonalds we were meeting at, and immediately struck up conversation with some guys from Oberlin who know Keith (our coach last year) and some other people, all of whom were extremely impressed that I'd arrived less than 24 hours prior and was already out to play. One of the guys I met, Gabe, graduated Brown in '03, so we had a lot to talk about, though he only played ultimate there his first two years, so he barely knew anyone I know. Another one of the guys, Kevin, kinda explained everything about Beijing Ultimate to me and introduced me to everyone. He also immediately asked me to come play with their team in Shanghai next weekend. This was really exciting, as I've been reading all their posts about Shanghai for the last couple of weeks.
(Warning...about to use some Ultimate terms many of you may not understand) We were playing a mini-hat tournament where teams are attempted to be made fairly based on skill levels 1-3. There were about 30-40 people there, which is awesome, and we had four teams. All 4 teams finished 1-1 after the first two games, so it was pretty fair. My team had four women, myself and another who are pretty good and well-versed in the game, and then two girls who'd never played before. One was Chinese, didn't really speak English, and showed up in khaki capris and a t-shirt, and the other was American, relatively athletic, and wearing exercise clothes. The other good girl on my team hurt herself after the 2nd point, and the Chinese girl had a hard time keeping up cause she wasn't in great shape, so we ended up vaguely playing savage most of the time, and I soon after started handling almost every point with two of the guys. The biggest issue I had was that noone was running any real offense, so I didn't really know where to go half the time. Later on, we started running horizontal stacks, and I was handling, so it wasn't too bad. My other issue was that about halfway through the first game, which correlated to about 4pm (4am there), jet lag suddenly hit me, and unfortunately that doesn't go well with playing savage ultimate. I got a second wind by the third game though and was fine.
After the tournament, 20 of us went out to dinner, and food kinda just kept coming, but in the end, it was only 25 kuai (about $4). That's including the 20 500ml beers we went through. I guess I chose the wrong seat cause I ended up being the one collecting everyone's money to pay, though most of you will probably read that and be like "of course you were!" They joked that it was part of my initiation. One relieving thing about all of this is that a lot of these people speak way less Chinese than I do, and they survive living here. After dinner, I got to go shower in Susannah's apartment that Andi's staying in, which felt amazing compared to my shower here.
Tomorrow, Andi and I are going to the Summer Palace, which is supposed to be gorgeous, and then I start work on Tuesday (contrary to what i was told before I left). Friday afternoon, I'm flying down to Shanghai to play in the tournament.
It's almost 2am, so I guess I should get used to going to sleep. Happy Father's day to Grandpa and Dad, and sorry I didn't get a chance to call you.

This is the view out of my window...sorry for the reflections. The window neither opens nor closes...

View Out My Window

This is the view out of my window...sorry for the reflections. The window neither opens nor closes...

Plane Ride and First Impressions

It's about 9am Beijing time, and I unfortunately am awake and hoping I don't crash later. My plane ride was entertaining and unproductive. Thanks to all of you who wrote me plane letters. They entertained me for about the first hour after we took off (I read some of them twice), and I might have to give Sam and Paige the awards for most ridiculous content...Sam's was about how life is a game, and Paige's included a piece on how to ride an Ostrich.
I sat next to a 13-year-old native Chinese on the plane who moved to Montgomery County when she was 8. She goes by like 4 names including Maria, April, and Maebo (I think). She is exactly the opposite of everything I was when I was 13, and I definitely upon initial interaction guessed her to be about my age, or at least 16-ish. This isn't really what you all want to hear about, so here's a brief summary: She is OBSESSED with makeup and lip gloss (I saw all of it) and really really wants a boyfriend but doesn't know how to talk to boys (maybe cause 13-year-old boys are immature, which was what I told her), and she's positive that she never ever wants to see a gynecologist, have sex, or get married (don't ask how this all came up...) She also was incredibly impressed I go to Brown and asked about my SAT scores, how I got in, etc... I know I said brief, but two more things: She's confident that if a relationship with someone lasts two months, you may as well get married (cause that's a really long time!) and she's also really really nervous about going to high school next year and asked for advice about it (she's going to some magnet school in DC). So I spent the plane ride mostly talking to this girl; she made it almost impossible for me to get any reading done cause she was so curious about everything, not that I'm one to talk. We spent about two hours playing cards and some of the time speaking in Chinese (she said my pronunciation is really good!) And then she asked for my e-mail and phone number in China and said she's going to "e-mail me EVERY day." So far, I haven't heard from her...
At the end of the plane ride, I started getting really nervous about my trip and my stomach was quite unhappy, but once we landed, I was much better. The airport was really cool to step into (not temperature wise...it was actually like 85 degrees) and I actually recognized some characters on signs. Customs wasn't an issue, and I got my bags right away, though the wheel on one of my suitcases is broken now. I came out of the second customs with my bags by myself to a crowd of at least a hundred people all holding different signs in various languages, and all staring at me. Not thinking, I walked quickly to the exit, and then realized I'd forgotten to look for the "Abroad China" sign of the people who were picking me up. I stood there nervously at the end of this crowd for about 5 minutes wondering what to do and then spent awhile looking around for the sign with no success. I ended up trying to talk to the woman at the information desk who didn't really speak English, but basically told me to go buy a phone card and call the people to pick me up, but I didn't really understand her directions. I went over to the phones and attempted to use my debit card to call, but it wouldn't work. Some really nice Chinese man, who also didn't really speak English, came over and lent me his phone card and dialed the number for me. Claudia, the woman in charge, seemed surprised I was there already, but said they were on their way and to wait by the information booth. A good 45 minutes after exiting customs, my guides arrived and took my suitcases for me, and we were off...
I was given a backpack full of snacks, information, a shirt, and my cell phone in the car. I immediately called Andi to let her know I was here and tell her I'd meet her for dinner. When we got to the hotel, I was taken to my room, which consists of two rock-solid beds (like I think you would even think these are a bit stiff dad), some furniture, a tv, a water cooler, and a bathroom with a tub/shower without a curtain. The toilet had one of those push flush things on top, but it was permanently pushed in. AJ, one of the other students on the trip who has been here a week already came downstairs to explain to me how to operate the lights, shower, and the deal with laundry (basically do it yourself or pay 1 kuai for shirts and 2 kuai for pants, which they'll pick up on Wednesdays...they don't wash socks or underwear). We told the hotel managers my toilet was broken, and their response was to show me a bunch of different rooms and let me pick which I wanted. So I am now next door to that room, but the view out my window is of old Chinese buildings, and it's really cool to look at every two seconds. Probably the best thing yet about my room is that it has really good AC with a remote control, but I can't seem to get the window to close. The TV also doesn't work as far as I'm aware, but maybe I can get it fixed.
I was given about two seconds to send out the "I'm alive" e-mail to most of you before I was taken for a tour of the area. The entire area I'm living in is basically covered in bars and restaurants. The roads are paved with stones and about the width of one car and two people. These cars just kinda drive and expect you to not be in the way, which is a rather difficult task. My guides walked me to the subway station I'll be going to in a couple of hours to get to an ultimate tournament (it's about a twenty minute walk), and then Andi was going to meet me there. For those of you who don't know, Andi (short for Andria) is a close friend of mine from Brown who's doing PIB (Princeton in Beijing), which is well-known as the most intense immersion program. She doesn't start until Friday, after which I probably won't see her ever and after which she can't speak English (or even type something like this) or she gets sent home. I assured my guides I knew how to get back (though I wasn't actually so sure), and they left me there. I sat down to read my book on the steps outside the subway, and I couldn't even tell you how many awkward stares I got over the next half hour waiting. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...American red-head sitting on steps outside a subway reading a book called "Chinese Business Etiquette". Seeing Andi was really exciting because I know her AND she speaks English! We decided to go to a hot-pot restaurant where they basically put this pot of oil and such in this hole with a flame in your table and you order things to cook in it. Andi did all the talking because I was nervous and didn't really know what to say, but most of it was "Wo yao zhe ge..." (I want this...) and pointing at things. We got some beef, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots and then water, which you have to ask for as "cold boiled water" since you can't drink tap here, and Tsing Tao beer, which comes in 20oz bottles. These, by the way, cost about 3 kuai (43 cents) at the stores nearby. The hot-pot was ridiculously spicy, and that's an understatement. Andi and I took breaks and had to stop talking a bunch of times to let our mouths cool down. We got some ice cream on the street afterwards and then went back to my hotel (which I found!) and discussed bars to go to with AJ and some other kids on the program. They had apparently gotten wasted the night before when some random Chinese guy gave AJ a full bottle of whiskey for free (and his phone number). Mind you, AJ speaks almost zero Chinese, and this guy apparently didn't speak English at all. They talked about a bunch of places, and eventually Andi and I decided to go to "Reef Bar" where we had 5 or 6 drinks, most of which we had no idea what were made of because only the titles were in English, though both the "Around the World" and the "Kiss" tasted pretty good. After this, we went to a public bathroom, i.e. holes in the ground without toilet paper, and then Andi took a taxi back to our friend Susannah's house she's staying in. I found the hotel once again and passed out until now...
My next adventure: finding something to eat for breakfast and going to by toothpaste (I guess I forgot that mom...), hangers, and a shower curtain. Wish me luck!