The fresh rinse

I love the rain in Beijing. I can't really explain it. There's something about it all when it starts to really come down. Today I was out and about, actually at Wangfujing (a place known for its shopping--I wasn't there shopping, but job hunting; I'll explain later, I'm sure) when the rain started to pour.

I was stuck without an umbrella when it started to come down, so I worked my way down toward the subway, stopping in a new store after a quick jaunt in the rain. Each store had its own set of refugees. I'm sure this happens in the US too, of course. But there's something to be said about people huddled in one area, all taking refuge from something they can't control. They look out expectantly, hoping for the rain to let up so that they can be on their ways again. 

After about three store fronts I found someone selling umbrellas. I bought one for 10 RMB about 1.46 USD (I didn't even bargain so you know I overpaid). I saw umbrellas on sale this morning in a 711, but they were 29 RMB about 4.33 USD. That was way too expensive.

With umbrella in hand, I set out for the subway. Each store front I passed had a new scene of people gathered close together waiting for the rain to stop. Staring up and out hopefully. It was just a great feeling it gave me. I made it to the entrance to the subway and there was maybe one hundred people all in the same boat. Stuck. It was just quite a site to see all those people not wanting to go back out in the rain, drenched, and waiting. Some squatting, standing, lingering. Rather than taking the subway, I opted for a bus, a much slower and more outdoor experience.

I like to be outside when it is storming like this. Especially in Beijing. The rain here makes me feel a heartlifting warmth. It's like new life for the city; the city looks so much cleaner when it really comes down. And I think I feel the city take a breath. I know it's a little lame, it's just a bunch of feelings I can't really explain. It just felt so good to be outside waiting for my bus in a downpour. After 25 minutes my bus finally came. And by then, the rain had stopped. The city was fresh rinsed and I was there to enjoy it all.

Questionable? ...nah

So I was going into the subway, and had to get my bag scanned. This is also part of the new security--I wonder if it will stay after the games. Even during the games, it might be more of a "for show" kind of thing. Here's why I say that.

So I put my bag on, and go around to the other side to grab it, at this time a guy comes up with his bag. He sets his bag on the belt moving the wrong way, gives it a little push so it barely goes through the rubber curtain hanging down. Then he asks, "Did you see it?" With no response he grabs it and enters the subway.

While a majority of the people's bags are scanned... Some can still get away with something like this. It's all slightly humorous.

Protecting the Flowers

So I went to Tian'anmen Square the other day. I went into the underpass and turns out there are some security measures in place. On the Square there are the usual guards, who don't really do anything, and the marching soldiers who look really intense. But this time, there were new measures in place.

In the refurbished underpasses there was a security check point. It's not like the TSA, but in some sense, it's trying to be. There is an x-ray machine and all bags are being scanned. Then, after your bag is scanned, there are three women and three men with handheld metal detectors checking everyone coming onto the Square (the male guards check men, female check women). I was rather impressed with the measures and the fact that they were being carried out. People were actually being searched. Unfortunately, that appreciation was challenged when on the way out through a different underpass, I saw the security check, but the people coming in weren't being scanned. People without bags could walk straight through. It was more crowded and chaotic at this check. More like the Chinese security checks I am familiar with.

Those are simply the security measures to get out onto the square. On the square there are a bunch of gardens being constructed. All of them impermanent. They were still being constructed when I was there. One was nearly finished, it was a model of the Sutong Bridge, made with flowers and metal. Flowers were planted on both sides of the bridge and on the bridge.

Another was a world map, the continents were green plants. Each city that has had the Olympics was marked with some sort of dot or star--like on a map.

There were a bunch of other gardens still under "construction." You can't really say they were being planted, because the plants were arriving in plastic bins, probably how they were transported from the farms at which they were grown. Upon arrival, they were being potted in plastic containers and then assembled together on metal grids or on the ground.

It makes sense to put security around the Square. History has proved it is a place to be seen on a world stage. So, whether the guards are searching for protest materials or weapons, the security checks will be worthwhile in protecting the reputation of China, not only the pretty flowers.

T-Storms

Beijing always looks cleaner after some rain.

Lost and Found

So, I ended up calling my host-grandparents (That's what I call them, their my host mother's sister-in-law's parents, whom I met at Chinese New Year when I was abroad with Dickinson), but they said today wouldn't be a very interesting day to come over. My Waigong (host-grandpa) said I should talk to Jiuma (his daughter, Gao's sister-in-law (Jiuma means aunt) and come with them the next time they visit.

I called Jiuma, she immediately invited me over. I wanted to see them, and so, of course, accepted. I said I would come over in the afternoon. She said no problem, from where you are take the 'zhuanmenr xianche dao kaifaqu, cong dabeiyao guo lai' in other words, the specialty bus that runs from Dabeiyao to Kaifaqu (the BDA-Beijing Development Area), which is located miles outside of town past the fifth ring road.

I get to this place to take the 'specialty bus' and start asking around, "where's the bus that goes to Kaifaqu?" The response was "Which Kaifaqu?" I was slightly taken aback, what do you mean which? I thought Beijing just had one? Nope, there's a bunch of them. Another call to my aunt's house and got my uncle this time. "Which Kaifaqu do you live in?" I asked. "Which Kaifaqu?! It's Beijing Kaifaqu, don't you remember where we live?" Oh right, of course, how could I have thought there was more than one Kaifaqu in Beijing... And for the first of many times today I got some directions, "Just head south a little ways and you'll see it, it goes right to our apartment, to Tianhuayuan." If only I could have remembered that one place's name.

Walked a little bit further south, didn't see it. Jiuma had said the bus goes from Dabeiyao, and that's where I was so I asked several ticket sellers who were off duty at the bus stop. "Dunno" was the resounding response--a common one when someone just doesn't want to take the time to help you. When someone actually doesn't know but still cares, the language changes from a curt 'dunno' to a 'I'm not sure' and then they usually ask someone else or direct you to ask someone from the area. (The worst is when people don't know but still point you in some direction, luckily this wasn't one of those times.) A bus driver pointed me to Bus 976 which goes to Beijing Kaifaqu... And I got on the bus and said, "Does this bus go to Huanjiayuan" The bus driver looked at me, he had never heard of that place. Of course at the time, I knew I hadn't remembered the name of the place Jiujiu (my uncle) had told me, so I just said something that sounded like it. No luck. The ticket seller on the bus swiped my card and gave me a stop to try. I thought I would just watch carefully as we drove through Kaifaqu, thinking I would recognize their apartment complex when I saw it.

I was searching for the apartment among a sea of communist style apartments in a "Special Developmental Zone." Yeah... no such luck. I decided to get off, but the ticket person said, "didn't you want to go to [such and such a place, the stop escapes me now]" Oh right. So I stayed on the bus. The high rise apartments gave way to factories, no people on the sidewalks, and very few cars on the road. When I got off I was in what felt like the middle of no where--probably the quietest part of Beijing, at least around this time, when the Olympics has caused all the factories in Beijing to shut down. I called my uncle again. "Where are you?" I don't know, I gave the cross roads but he had no idea. "Have someone tell me where you are" There's no one here. "No one's there? Just ask someone." I crossed the street and ran down another to find a couple that was about to drive off on a scooter. I asked them to help me and she explained to my uncle where I was. Unfortunately, no one was too clear where exactly we were; they used landmarks like the factories and the bus line 723, which had just driven past.

I was directed to go to the 723 bus stop and take it to some company's dormitory. I forget the name now, it was something like Yuanguihui dormitory. I got on the bus and they told me to get off at this one stop. I began searching for the dormitory, but everyone at the bus stop (luckily this one was a bit more populated than the last one) had no idea where the dormitory was... So I called Jiujiu again, I'm at Yuanguihui, but I don't know where the dormitory is, and no one here knows either. "Ok, stay there I'll be right there."

So after a few minutes he came, riding in his friend's car, not his own, because he has an odd numbered car (today is the 26th so he's not allowed to drive it). Jiujiu asked why I hadn't taken the specialty bus, I said I never found it, this is the only bus I found that came here. His friend said that that bus had stopped its service during the Olympics. And with that I was taken to Jiujiu's house. Lost and found. 

The rest of the day was spent talking and catching up with Jiujiu and Jiuma. They invited me to stay for dinner, I duly refused but they pressed, so I accepted. I just won't make a habit of it, right? We went to eat roast duck.

I think I'm probably the only person in Beijing who really doesn't care for Roast Duck. It's a Beijing Specialty and foreigners usually love it. I just don't like the taste. We walked to this restaurant where we ate a variety of dishes including one "congealed duck blood with eel and pig intestine." Mind you, that's my translation, and also a fabulous argument to never ask what you're eating until you've tried it. It was actually very good, served in a hot pot with peppers and sprouts. I liked it more than the duck, that's for sure!

After dinner I returned home with one bus transfer--723 to the quick 8 line. I'm trying to familiarize myself with the bus lines, it's such a cheap and easy way to get around and not everywhere has subways yet, but everywhere seems to have buses--there are hundreds of bus lines in the city. The only drawback is trying to figure out how to find my way and not to get lost. Luckily my extended host family's patience, at least for today, allowed for some lost and found.

"you've gotten fat!"

Well, those were the first words that came out of my host family's mouth after seeing them for the first time in over a year.

Last night I showed up at my old house in northwestern Beijing. At the foot of the apartment outside, I ran into my host cousin NanNan. I was walking past the guards and see him standing there staring at me. He thought I was Cuyler but wasn't sure. I waved and he knew. He said, you've gotten fat! I said, I know, American food isn't as good for you as Chinese food.

In China, unlike the states, it is common for someone, especially family to comment openly on your body. So, saying you've gotten fat or chubby is not a hurtful comment like it might be in the states. They would say "ni shou le" or "you're thin!" if I had lost weight since my last time in China (though that would have been impossible!). 

Huang and Gao seemed happy to see me. Chen Chen, their daughter, was still at her class so I didn't see her. They said the same thing their nephew Nan Nan had said, "you've gotten fat." And after a delicious meal (yes I stormed their house just before dinner), we sat around and talked a bit and drank the two Spotted Cow beers I brought from Wisconsin, among some other small things. I talked about some of the things I wanted to do in China, internships, graduate school, and they offered to keep their eyes open to information. I offered to help them move, and they just might call me up sometime this week to help haul some things.

Today I'm going to call my host grandparents and see if I can go visit them! It's been so long since I've seen or talked to them, even, but I think it'll be a fun time. I want to reconnect with the families I had so much fun with last year. And if I do go there today, I'll probably again, hear the same refrain, "you've gotten fat!"

xia wo le yi tiao!

"you scared me one jump!" She said as I offered her a chair from my table to pull to another table.

I was outside sitting in an open courtyard reading my children's story. I'm a slow reader right now, that's for sure, but at least I'm trying! A woman was standing by a table that had all four seats taken, I was only one person at my table, so I offered her one of my table's chairs in Chinese. She was taken aback. The Chinese don't often expect to hear Chinese come from a laowai. She refused to take the chair, but then a middle aged woman at the other table said I should come over. I put away my elementary story about a boy very ready for school to start after a long summer vacation and brought my chair over (grabbing another for the standing woman, of course).

Turns out this woman had brought several people (including myself) together at this one table. None knew each other before sitting there. There was a couple, the middle aged woman and her daughter, and the girl that was standing. I sat down and they just wanted me to speak Chinese. I could do alright until I'd use an English grammatical structure, and they would have no idea what I was trying to say. Other times I completely blanked on the word I was trying to use. 

They gave me some ideas of where to search for jobs online. I'm going to try those in search of internships. Something like that might be able to get me get a different visa. And then find my own place, though staying at Grace and Paul's is very convenient, probably not for them though! An internship should also be less hours or part time depending on what the position is for, thus leaving me time to travel around China a bit!

This middle aged woman, named Zhang Fang, the one that brought us all together, had some of us exchange numbers. One guy didn't really want to exchange, but did so all the same. Zhang Fang's daughter joked about wanting to practice her English. I'll probably get some sort of call from her. That's what most people were after last time I was here. I want to meet a Chinese person who doesn't like speaking English, or doesn't know it that well. I'll have to keep searching. And, at the same time, just stay open to whatever comes.

Oriental Reorientation

I arrived in Beijing two days ago. I've come back to try and live, find work, and/or go to graduate school here. I spent my junior year abroad here, and now I'm back... with less organization and more wandering.

Not all who wander are lost is the adage this blog's title plays on, and as I explore my opportunities and go where that takes me some wandering will naturally take place. I want to embrace that wandering as a form of cultural and self exploration.

It probably sounds cliche and lame, but it really is the way I view my experiences as I attempt to settle down in China.

In the year since I was last in China, my Chinese speaking ability has waned. My comprehension skills are still about par, I can understand just about everything. While finding the words and what I want to say has been slow since arriving, it has definitely improved a great deal--a noticeable amount, definitely--in the last two days. I originally decided it would take 10 days to get my Chinese back to where it was when I left, but it might be sooner than that.

I also bought two children's books and I'm reading those two try to improve my reading. That and simply speaking with strangers has been my method for reorientation so far. 

I have a volunteer position during the Olympics, but after the Olympics, I'm wide open. I hope to narrow my wanderings into a position as an intern or volunteer during the next few months while I try to get settled. That's a brief overview of my plan. Now I just have to execute it...