Kitchen Wench

Only in China could the weather forecast for my vacation destination be “widespread dust” and “smoke”.  Not sunny, not rainy, but dusty and smoky.  My lungs are loving this place. 

Tomorrow is the official start of China’s week-long labor day holiday, where apparently the entire country (or close to it, since there are hardly any train tickets to be had) picks itself up and goes on vacation.  Well, of course it’s not everybody, but since there are 1.3 billion people, it’s still going to be a lot of Chinese vacationers out and about this week.  Unable to make train arrangements and unwilling to spend hundreds of (US) dollars on a plane ticket, Michael and I are heading into the thick of it on a Chinese tour. 

A Chinese tour.  I don’t quite know what we’ve gotten ourselves into; the guides will most likely not speak any English, my translation skills are rather subpar, and the tour brochure has such broken English that I’m not even entirely sure what sights we are supposed to be seeing.  In any event, somehow we will board a train to Qingdao tomorrow night, “live active freely by the sea”, take bus to Yantai, boat to Dalian, “live active freely in the People’s Square” and do some other stuff, like visiting “Tai qing pour”, “Eight Strategic Borders”, and a military port/base which foreigners are not allowed into. 

I looked up the word for “arrested” in the dictionary today. I’m going to start working on that self criticism.  Wo wanquan bu zhi dao waiguoren bu keyi jin qu.  Zhen de.   Wish me luck.

I returned to Beijing last night.

Thank GOD.  I have never been so thankful to return to a place in my life. 

Words cannot really describe the last week spent in Shanxi Province.  Most of it ranged from polluted to uncomfortable to utterly absurd.  Things like… scratching the top of my head and having my fingernails turn black from the coal dust…  Or drinking fen jiu (the local liquor that smells and probably tastes an awful lot like rubbing alcohol) with Communist party officials… being mobbed by small schoolchildren asking for autographs… eating three Chinese banquets in four days… or having a random man off the street walk uninvited into my hotel room because he wanted to see some foreigners.  I felt like an alien/celebrity, and not in a good way.

Walking around Beijing today, Gobi desert grit has never tasted so good between my teeth. 

First off, Beijing is great. 

Second off, I ate some absolutely delicious German food here last night, at this place that translates to Schindler Fillingstation, a few blocks from the Xi Shui silk market.  The potato salad was out of this world: tangy, vingary, sweet, bacon-y.  I had pork filet with mushrooms over spatzle with cheese.  It was salty, creamy, and delicious.  We also had some wonderful German beer (Erdinger) and great Riesling as well–lots of flavor!  I’m not a dark beer fan, but the Erdinger wasn’t bitter at all.  As much as I love Chinese food, this has probably been my best meal here so far.  I think we’ll definately be eating there again.

In other news, tonight I am Shanxi bound, slated for one of the most ridiculous schedules I have ever seen (sightseeing from 6 am to 8 pm?!).  Who knows if I’ll have time to write, let alone sleep.  In any event, I’m sure the forthcoming stories will be interesting.

On Friday I arrived in Beijing and moved into my dorm. I’ve almost completed my first week of classes and have already enjoyed yang rou chuanr, pirated DVDs, and purchased a Chinese cell phone. It’s nice to settle in to a rhythm… sort of. It’s only been one week, and while I’ve started planning the layout of my life here, we’re already going to be picking up and moving next weekend. I’m conflicted about spending 9 days in Shaanxi Province, as I would really like to wring some quality time out of Beijing, without killing myself sightseeing. (I’m also afraid I may have already visited some of the sites in Shaanxi as well.)

There’s something to actually living in a foreign country, rather than just seeing it from the window of a tourbus or through the lens of your camera. It’s empowering to master the fundamentals in another language, to figure out the bus and subway systems, and, ultimately, to feel at home in a place that isn’t really like home at all.

I also went swing dancing in Beijing, which was… Well, I had fun. But I was also very frustrated at times. It was not how I was expecting. But, damnit, I paid for a 4 lesson package and I’m going to slog through it. I don’t want to give up dance here if I don’t have to.

Life is much less eventful without the constant travel, so I don’t have much to report yet. (For instance, today I went to Wu Mei, the Chinese version of Wal-Mart.) However, this program won’t let me sit still for long, so I’m sure I’ll post again soon.