Day Four: Routine Sets In

I am finally starting to feel a sense of routine about my day. I got up, did some pushups, showered, got dressed, went to work. I finally solved the darn problem with my bank account. Fucking irritating. I also paid my first month's rent. I've been asked "nicely" for second month's rent by Monday. I hope my withdrawal limit doesn't stop that from happening.

I got a glance at a gym in my apartment today. I need to look into that tomorrow. Hopefully it's already paid for (have I mentioned my apartment is swank?).

Work today was less exciting than yesterday, but not by much. The boss likes my initiative. The coworkers are calling me "Laoshi" (teacher) when they ask me questions about English. I have other skills, but acute knowledge of English is the one skill I have that everyone in the office lacks completely, so It's what I'm defaulting to as an intern, but the boss is going to try hard to get me into some real research next week. Not bad.

Went out for dinner again tonight, and I've found I can eat almost anything that's not made of some strange fish, and like it. I can even handle the spicy stuff, with enough Qingdao at my side to wash it down. I worry I might get fat here. I really thought I was going to end up losing weight. But we shall see.

I picked up a phone today! So I can make phone calls now. It's not even that expensive to call the US. So get your requests in now.

I'm getting a better sense of the Chaoyang area of Beijing (which, anywhere outside of China, would be a city on its own). At least, I've got a very good sense for having only been here four days. My Chinese is getting marginally better, too. Work is forcing me to think in Chinese for hours at a time, 5 days a week. Super good for me. Surprisingly, since I can get by on the street with short, simple phrases, I'm not learning much, except to listen to people who don't have crisp, educated accents.

But I'm learning about the culture, quite a bit. I'm learning the Chinese perspective; what nationalism means here, what money means, what consumerism looks like. I'm learning how the Chinese people view government, view Taiwan, view Tibet, view America and the West in general. And I can say for sure that most Westerners have it pretty wrong. I'm starting to realize I haven't had it quite right, despite a lot of studying. But coworkers and friends have been surprisingly happy to share their very frank opinions with me, and have been happy to listen to mine (though I tend to be more pro-China than the average American).

My Chinese friends have been genuinely confused when I mentioned that China scares a lot of Americans, though they understand better when I talk about the American perspective on Taiwan, on self-determinism/human rights and Tibet, and how overseas Chinese tend to deal with any doubts as to China's pristine perfection, etc. It's a relationship that needs a lot of healing, but one that can be healed through lots of talking. Good thing we're in the information age.

Anyway, I think I'm starting to learn exactly what I intended to. Everyone around me is eager to both teach me and learn themselves, so it's been a mind-bogglingly productive start to my adventure in Beijing. More pictures to come in later posts, promise.

Day Three: Work Begins

I'm keeping this short, but Horizon is awesome. The place is hard-working yet laid back... the team is very self-motivated. Everyone was thrilled to meet me, and I got quite a few invitations to go to dinner, bars, and karaoke--many of which I plan to take up.

I am the only white guy in the 400-person office. Most people speak English only a bit better than I speak Chinese, though my manager (Dr. Feng, who has enough charisma to knock an elephant out) speaks English better than I do. The team seems pretty excited to have an American intern--I got bombarded with MSN messages today, and lost a few hours to it.

I was worried at first that the language barrier would be a problem. It does make things difficult, but everyone's willing to be patient, and they all want me to learn better Chinese. In return, I'm helping run the daily English Corner at lunch, and will be giving 90-minute English lessons every Thursday. I'm doing a lot of English proofreading, and even translating. I'll be meeting with some clients and working on some research for an American company I can't name, but my hands are going to get pretty dirty pretty quickly.

I'm feeling a lot better about my Chinese. I am speaking rather brokenly to my coworkers, but they're so scared about speaking English to a real American that they sympathize. I sat through a 90-minute training presentation about, well, giving presentations, and it was all in Chinese. Dr. Feng asked me to summarize the presentation to him afterwards, and said I did okay. "Keep talking and listening," he said in Chinese. I'm not getting paid, but I'm there to learn about the language and culture. He knew that, and my colleagues know it. So it looks like work is going to be a great time.

Finally, I went out with Sarah and Kim tonight (both MIT students) to a great Hunan-style restaurant, where we got some rather spicy stuff. We all had our noses running and eyes watering by the end of it, it was great. My known territory in Beijing is getting bigger by the day; I'm hoping to know most of it pretty well by the time I get out of here.

And now, bed; it's too late already.

I found out today that on street-corners, 24oz. bottles of Qingdao beer cost 3RMB--that's less than 50 cents. I'm in heaven.


Also, the sky was blue today. It was kindof weird.

Day Two: New Challenges, New Friends

Today I woke up at 7:20, refreshed, before my alarm went off. Though now, I'm tired. With work tomorrow, I may call it an early night.

I hit a few bumps in the road today. I had to move 3 floors straight up after a few hours of trying to figure out why my darn electricity wasn't working--turns out, nobody's quite sure. That was irritating.

I am currently pirating internet from a company next-door, and the signal is terrible. My contract as written never specified internet, and so I'm getting what I paid for. I also realized that the Chinese government has specifically blacklisted my blog (as you can tell, I can still access the blogger dashboard to post, but I cannot read my own posts); my views are apparently too dangerous for the Chinese people. Frankly, I'm a bit flattered they care.

I also think my bank account is frozen due to suspicious withdrawals in Beijing (all of which are my own, of course). I tried calling, but I need to call between 9 and 5, EST. That is irritating. I still have no money, but I think it will get dealt with. Luckily, my housing agent is pretty patient with me.

After that fiasco, my housing agent (Jack--his English is pretty good) and I had lunch, and I invited him to go drinking, and he invited me to karaoke with his girlfriend. I made a new friend, and he and I are teaching each other a lot about our home countries. He's still helping me deal with the apartment thing.

Jack and I went to the Police Station so I could register myself there. I found out I have to have my paperwork (passport, visa, temporary residency permit) on me at all times, and it could be inspected at any point, for any reason. I suppose this is not that surprising. I just hope I don't lose it. At the police station, I stood for about 40 minutes at the "foreign registry" line behind 5 clearly Chinese-ethnicity people that all spoke Chinese. It was a bit confusing. Jack didn't know what to make of it, either.

I made another friend today, a guy named Ali, a student at Cambridge University, from Taipei, with a thick British accent. He was inspecting the room I moved into (I'm only here temporarily; I will be booted back down to the 6th floor in a few days) with his dad; clearly loaded, and has a cell phone for each Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, and London. Nice guy; also invited me to go drinking.

I have continued to find that my Chinese listening skills are just deplorable. I have to keep asking people to repeat, and more slowly--but I am finding my replies surprisingly quick and sharp.

After all this mess, I trekked north, to find my job. I went along the Third Ring Road, one of Beijing's five massive loop highways. The walk was hot, and my nose started bleeding suddenly--a very nice guy named David (it seems everyone with money in Beijing has an English name) jumped to my aide with a tissue, helped me find my way through the sprawl, and critiqued my Chinese (his assessment was that my pronunciation and grammar were great, my vocabulary okay, and my listening skills despicable.). He suggested I go to a park and find some old ladies and play Mahjong with them to practice. I think it's a good idea.

My journey to work was a broiling hour long. The very convenient subway line that could get me there in 15 minutes won't open until late June, and the traffic jam in the mornings is so bad that busses are useless (also, they're pickpocket havens). I may just have to suck it up and walk. But along the way, I made a few more observations:


1) Beijing is in a frenzy. I am guessing preparation for the Olympics has the entire city trying to put its best foot forward, but it's everywhere. I keep walking in the roads because all the sidewalks are being torn up and replaced. Sign-posts are being repainted everywhere. The police are in full deployment, probably to keep the streets clean. I don't see a single open counterfeit DVD dealer no matter where I go (compare this to any Chinatown you've been to).

2) Beijing has the most industrial smell I have smelt in a city. The whole place stinks so wonderfully, so subtlely, of gasoline fumes, of oil lubricants, of tar; the air is dusty and thick, the sky is glaringly bright and grey. There is no blue to be seen. Buildings are a gentle blur behind the smog-soup in the iron rice bowl of Beijing.

3) Soviet influence remains, however small. While Soviet factories have been torn down, hotels built for Soviet experts and diplomats from the glory days of the Sino-Soviet alliance still standing. I have not found the grandest of Soviet hotels yet, but I did find one: the Kempinksi. It is typically collectivist bland and uniform, yet oppressive. The Soviets were truly masters of crushing every facet of the individual human spirit, even in architecture.

4) The Chinese love the news. It's everywhere on TV, and most of it is covering the Sichuan earthquake, all the time.

5) Communism is out, capital-Fascism is in. In the news, in advertisements, in everything, the State is using every opportunity to promote itself, and to garner popular support. The Sichuan earthquake and the Beijing Olympics are focal points for how hard the government is working for China, how awesome the PLA is, etc. All the banks (all of them) are owned by the government, and a few people have told me that this is why they're so terrible. Same with healthcare, all transporation, all television and most news, resource companies (mining, oil, energy, etc). The companies act almost-freely (it's not a planned economy), but in the interest of the State. Government and business leaders are the same people. China's youth, while not the revolutionaries of the Cultural Revolution, are happy to shrug and let the state do its will--all for China. That said, it's a pretty cool form of capital-Fascism--people mostly don't notice it, and mostly go about their lives, worrying about dating, fashion, sports. It's a passive Fascism, one that lets people indulge in the privileges that the government bestows upon them.

6) Ed Steinfeld might be the most famous American in Beijing. A Political Science professor at MIT, Prof. Steinfeld knows most of the Horizon folks, and 2 people on the street that excitedly proclaimed "Ni renshi Edward Steinfeld ma?" when I told them I was an MIT student. It was rather terrifying.

Anyway, I trekked forth and finally found my place of employ. I had some surprisingly competent conversations with very helpful servicefolk that ended up pointing me up to the 7th floor, where Horizon stood. I said "hi" at the counter, told them I'd be there tomorrow, and realized that the 8 people I talked to on Horizon's floor all spoke Chinese. I am now rather terrified that my summer employment may be with people that know no English. Here's to hoping.

On my way home, I decided to take a different route. I went through the Embassy district, and bought some groceries (though I am specifically still lacking in meat, a wok, a wooden spoon for stir-frying, and cooking oil. I don't know why the heck the grocery store I went to lacked these things). The Sanlitun Embassy district was pretty modest, and seems to be composed mostly of pre-fabbed two-story buildings for the "little guys--" Somalia, Portugal, Honduras were all there. The US, Australian, UK, Japanese, Korean embassies have their own homes.

I have made a short list of must-go places for me while in Beijing, that I suppose I will start getting to come this Saturday: Beijing Dagong Kaoya Dian (Lonely Planet says it's some of the best Peking Duck in the city), Tiananmen Square (and the Great Hall of the People--I plan to be there on June 4th to let myself be disappointed into realizing that the Chinese youth will be there flying kites instead of demonstrating), Chaoyang Park, Jingshan Park (where I will play Mahjong and do Taichi with some old folks), the Temple of Heaven, The Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, some Peking Opera, the Great Wall, and hutongs (literally "alleyways," but they're enclaves of old-school Chinese street-side markets). That's it so far.

We'll see if these plans actually come to fruition. My Chinese is bad enough that those that know English are insisting on speaking it to me, and I am going to struggle to really immerse myself unless I have an epiphany of sorts. I am still a bit scared, but hopefully, going to work and meeting people I'll actually know will help me stay busy, and learning.

I can't afford to stop, not for a minute. Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their vision. I'm armed with a bit of the local language, but besides that, I'm living the dream, right there.

Day One: Groping for China

Note: This post has few pictures, but I will add more to later posts. Gotta take them in the daytime.

Now.

I touched down in Beijing at 2:05PM, local time (that's 2:05AM, Boston time), and stepped out to admire the truly epic color, haziness, and smell of Beijing's famous smog. Through customs, Chinese government workers stood with high discipline and pride at their small contribution to making China greater. I realized I was in the first rising Great Power that has existed since World War II. And they know it.





My taxi ride was awkward--I could talk to the poor guy, but not understand a word he was saying... his accent was far too thick. We got lost, and ended up in a traffic jam in the new Airport Expressway, built exactly for the Olympics. The ironic and terrible thing was that, sitting on our expressway for 30 minutes, unmoving, we stared longingly at the six or seven expressways that were completely empty of cars, wondering why we could not use them. China may have some transportation issues come early August. Newly-planted trees were lined up in awkwardly straight and forced rows along the dirt on either side of the high-rise highway, and great construction vehicles still steamed along underneath.




As we approached Beijing proper, I noticed a few things about it.
1) It's big. Much, much bigger than the maps seem to imply. It makes Boston look like a speck (it is).
2) It's tall. Skyscrapers are everywhere. Apartments rising above 30 stories seems to be the norm. The Prudential can't hold a candle to literally hundreds of the towers in this city.
3) The traffic is horrid. I was terrified, and my driver was even being reasonable. The whole place makes Boston drivers look angelic.



After getting lost, we found my apartment, which is actually quite nice. I do have almost all the furnishings I thought I would, though as you have already read, I'm at a public computer. Nonetheless, I'll be quite physically comfortable in the apartment.

But as I upacked, I was gripped by some culture shock, and some fear of leaving. I was pretty sure I would be more comfortable staying inside, reading... luckily, the lack of internet made my usual time-wasting mechanic unavailable.

I decided to go ahead and gander around, at least get a sense of my territory. As night fell, I started to wander.

Turns out, I'm in a both very wealthy, and very authentically Chinese part of the city. One of Lonely Planet's top Beijing bars is at the bottom of the tower I live in (it's called Beer Mania). There is a hospital within a block's walking distance. To my north, jazz clubs, night clubs, and bars. To my south, restaurants, and lots of small convenience shops. To my east, more of the same, but with small side-streets with oodles people selling food out of tiny windows with no price tags and no conception of English--while I was too terrified to touch this food on day one, I found it my favorite place to visit so far. I got dinner at a place where again, nobody spoke English, and I awkwardly ordered by gesturing at pictures and placing the appropriate Chinese sentence structure around a lot of "Zheige!" ("This!")





I learned a few more things along my travel this evening.

1) I am terrible at Chinese. Really horrid. Especially listening. I know just enough to do almost nothing. I am not sure how this happened. Part of my problem is other people's accents... I just can't manage to successfully listen to what they have to say. This results in many one-sided conversations.

2) There are cranes everywhere. I mean it. This city is going to be a lot bigger than it even already is in a few years. I saw a single construction site with 12 cranes, all of which were bigger than the crane used for the MIT Media Lab extension.

3) Everyone smokes and spits. I actually got spat on tonight by someone.

4) Children are the same everywhere. Though the Chinse give them some more leeway in their ability to be-loud-and-obnoxious in public. I like it.

5) Americans are not the only people with bad beer taste. At the bars, the big, proud signs outside said "Budweiser," "Miller Lite," and "Carlsberg." Nothing exciting.

6) Alcohol and Cigarettes are eveywhere. Any street you go to, there will be little shops dedicated to just these two commodities. Most covenience stores seem to have them rather prominently displayed.

7) Beijing is a spectacular dichotomy. Most of what I walked through looked like some of the nicer neighborhoods of Boston, but even within Chaoyang, these little alleyways jutted out with very low-income commercial stuff. Lots of people still ride around on three-wheeled bicycles with small motors, carrying loads-too-wide strapped down with bungees.

8) As a white man, you are not immune to local traffic etiquette. And the local etiquette seems to be "might makes right-of-way." I've already almost gotten run over, but mostly by bicyclists.

This whole experience is already terrifying--I am looking forward to seeing people that will become a social network... Horizon employees, other MIT students.

I still have yet to find a darn grocery store. I need groceries.

But as much as feeling like a tourist is kindof fun, we can't forget, kids, that we're on a mission. Today is day one in my journey to heal the Sino-American relationship.

Foggofwar is Shifting Gears

Twelve days until I depart for China, and I think I'll be spending more time posting about the trip than foreign policy stuff... though I'll try to keep it relevant. If I can get to a computer, I'll try to post about the 19th anniversary of June 4th, and security/PR stuff for the Olympics. I should have a pretty good first-hand view of China in overdrive, and I want to share it with all of you.



There are likely to be lots of good pictures of me saluting Chairman Mao, posing in Red Guard garb, and doing other obscene anti-American stuff my grandparents would kill me if they saw. I think they read this, though.

Please post comments as to places I should go, food I should eat, things I should buy, pictures I should take. Plan right now includes Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guilin, Xi'an.