it's hard to believe, but this weekend marks six months that we have lived in beijing.
in some ways, it feels as though we only just arrived at capital airport, bleary-eyed after 20 hours of travel, weighed down with everything we owned stuffed into six enormous bags & four carry-ons and - let's not lie about it - terrified at what lay before us. in others, though, it feels like we've been here for so much longer...we even found ourselves calling it "home" upon our return from ireland.
we, of course, continue to find surprises around every corner and no matter how well-adjusted we may be to our new surroundings, there will always be elements of life here to which we simply cannot grow accustomed. this is not to say that we are not still loving the adventures that greet us each day or that we long to return to our lives stateside; the best way to describe where we are today is probably "comfortable with being uncomfortable."
our language skills get better every day - sean much more so than me, though I am starting to learn to read and write chinese characters (han zi)...I now have just over 100 in my repertoire; unfortunately, there are over 80,000 in existence (47,000+ in the kang xi dictionary) and 3,000-4,000 to achieve "literacy," so I have still have a long way to go. I cannot seem to get past the fear associated with saying something the wrong way - horrible side effect of being a perfectionist - though a colleague in my office offered me the most amazing advice about a month ago. she said, "be brave," which totally struck me, and I have tried to do so every day since then, despite the laughter that often results. my favorite so far is the cab drivers...here's an example...cab driver: "ni qu nar?" me: "guozijian" cab driver: "guozijian??? mumble mumble mumble" me: "dui. guozijian" cab driver: "guozijian??? mumble mumble mumble" me: "dui. guozijian. yonghegong. andingmen" cab driver: "ahhh. guozijian." and just so you know, I pronounce guozijian the same way every single time, which, of course, is probably incorrectly.
some other observations since our last collection...
on socialism (setting aside for a moment the part of the definition that references state
ownership of industry and instead focusing on the part about equal access to resources for all individuals)...in our hutong, there is a decent amount of construction going on, as people tear down or renovate the courtyard style housing and rebuild it to look as though it's old, and during all of this, it's pretty common that large piles of dirt and stacks of bricks sit unattended overnight. a favorite pastime of ours when sitting at a restaurant or bar that faces the street is to see how many people throughout the course of an evening will approach the stack of bricks, stop their bikes, pull half a dozen bricks off the pile, drop them into their baskets and ride away. similarly, all throughout the summer, and especially leading up to National Day, we would regularly see workers planting fresh flowers in the various public flower beds. this is typically done by a large flat bed truck pulling up to the curb and unloading dozens and dozens of individual plants in small pots, which the workers then remove from their pots and plant in the bed. just like the bricks, it was pretty standard to see several people approach the flower collection - with the workers right there - and reach into the cluster to take their pick of three or four different flowers to take home to their own doorsteps. and to all of this, nobody blinks an eye...it seems to us that it's pretty much expected. pretty amazing to see, all the same, and definitely adds some perspective to the "collective ownership" idea.
on culpability...if the city is tearing up the road to repair pipes underground and there is a giant 12 foot by 12 foot hole right at the corner where you cross the street, do not expect to have it roped off with cones, or caution tape or giant signs (not that you could read them anyway). that's just not how china rolls. not that this is all that disturbing to us; in fact, it's kind of refreshing, returning to a culture where you are responsible for yourself. if you fall in a hole, it's your own damn fault, stupid. and in case you are wondering...despite my early onset of klutziness after our arrival to beijing, no, I did not fall in the hole.
on being followed...it's hard to shake the feeling that the staff thinks you are a thief when you walk into a store and everywhere you go, there is a sales person trailing right behind you, ready to straighten that hanger on the rack to be just-so after you've touched it. it feels a little bit like being stalked by some sort of Gap "denim folder person" on crack. I'd like to say you get used to it, but you don't. something about having someone in your personal space at every turn makes the whole shopping experience a little more stressful than it should be. I get it - it's their job and they don't actually think you're stealing; it's just what they do. but it's still a bit unnerving. put this in the column of things to which we may never adjust.
all in all, we approach our next six months with excitement and anticipation - we hope to travel much more, expanding our "foreign land" definition to be more than just beijing and a quick trip to ireland. we have thailand and laos on the agenda for december as a start. more to come...and more often now that we have a more reliable VPN. cheers...
