So, a comment on linguistic phenomena: let's take the word "okay."One would acknowledged that its shortened form "OK"is more or less universally understood as a form of expressing agreement. The word "okay" in English is more or less an iamb, with its two syllables being short-long, the stress on the 'kay' part. Thus, it is natural for the word "okay" in English to have evolved into forms such as "kay" and "K", thus leading to the occurence of "Kthxbai."
What has completely baffled me is the metamorphosis of "okay" into "Ou le" in Chinese. Whereas in English, we've taken the "kay" part of the word "okay" as an abbreviation, the "o" portion has been used in Chinese, with the particle "了" tacked on at the end. This particle is mostly used to signify finality, and the past tense, and is difficult to translate non-idiomatically into Chinese. They do use it in the same context... For example, negotiating what restaurant to take one's younger cousin to... (this following exchange is for entertainment purposes only and not to be taken seriously)
"你这个傻逼，怎能带我妹子去那个酒吧呢？" (You dumbass, how can we take my cousin to that bar?!)
"好好好，那就去你鸡巴提的那个地儿。"(All right, all right！ Then we'll go to the spot you fucking suggested.)
"就这样，七点去，啊？哦了。" (It's settled. Seven o'clock, all right? Ou le!)
So... on Saturday, my cousin had his soccer match, to which I brought Lucy and Sam. It was basically pretty awesome to see them again. UChicago'10 takes on the world! ... in the form of Beijing. My cousin had wanted to see if Sam would possibly play for their team, but he's a size 13 in America, which translates to a 46 in China, and my cousin's eyes just about jumped out of his head when he heard that. They'd have a hard enough time finding flip-flops that fit him, let alone cleats. And so Sam sat with us and gossiped about Princeton in Beijing. It was awesome. Afterwards, we got dinner at a place close to my cousin's girlfriend's store, and embarked on the summer-long search for a ridiculous Chinese shirt for Sam. It had to be... incredibly fobby, cheap, and preferably full of Engrish. We took a break from the exhausting search to have a drink at a bar - Lucy treated us to a Heinekin, a strawberry margarita, and she had a mai tai herself. It was exciting!
Yesterday, we got up early, and my cousin drove me to my paternal aunt's house. When I'm in China, I usually stay with my mother's side, who all live in Beijing. I was closer to them as a child, too, but my dad has the bigger family. He's the youngest and only boy in a family of five. Of his four older sisters, three are still living, but I probably, all combined, have about 10 cousins on my dad's side, and a lot of second cousins too. Because of the age difference, my oldest cousin happens to be about 3 years younger than my dad... and her daughter is about 25 and has to call me aunt. (lulz) This aunt is First Aunt, and she has three sons, two of whom I hung out with yesterday. Feifei, her youngest, is probably my favorite cousin: I remember him from when I was younger, but when I got here yesterday, I found an energetic 35-year old (yesterday was his birthday!), who still worked with computers, knew all about Linux and Dan Brown, and had read "Ender's Game." I don't deserve such awesome relatives, I really don't. He taught me mah-jong, which I played with my aunt and her second son and his wife. (They have an adorable seven-year old girl nicknamed Qingqing who studies English, and winked at me all through dinner.) We played for a really long time, during which I won twice - hooray - and then went to dinner. It was an extraordinarily fancy restaurant, but while eating a scallop, Qingqing found a piece of thread in it.
It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Literally. My cousin's wife called in the waiter, who called in the manager, and she put up the biggest but quiet and firm fuss about how this had been found. The manager tried to assuage her with a promise of a free entree, or several other things, but refused to give them more than a 12% discount. She drew out her claws, then. When the cowed manager promised to go talk to her boss, and slunk out of the room, my extended family all just about died laughing. My cousin's wife is a pretty petite woman, but she was persistent and shameless. It was the beginning of an epic evening. Throughout the rest of the night, my cousin's wife just stuck tight to her guns, and told her that they could take one of two choices: give them a 50% discount on the whole meal, or write up a guarantee, signed and stamped, that if anything happened to her daughter, they would undertake all responsibility. I was sitting in the corner, feeling very out of place, but Feifei assured me that I could simply regard it as a grand farce, a play. As well as a crash course in international relations, considering what my major was. The woman ended up coming back in, and trying to actually say that they'd sign such an agreement, but obviously, what my family wanted was a steeper discount on the meal. Both of my cousins joined the battle, and made it very clear that their mood had been completely ruined, because of the piece of thread, and the remote possibility that a child had come into danger thanks to their shoddy kitchen management. And laughed fit to kill when the woman left, and assured me that it wasn't about the money -Feifei's wife could get it reimbursed by her company- but more about the power struggle, and the right to strut out of there victorious. Though I felt mortified for the restaurant management, my cousins reassured me that there were no hard feelings on either side. It was all a part of the manager's job, to keep us happy. It was an eye-opener, that was for sure. When Feifei's wife finally walked back from getting the check, she informed us that they'd scored a 25% discount, and a $100 giftcard good for future visits for my cousin's wife. Cheers were had all around, and we enjoyed Feifei's birthday cake. I do have some crazy photos from when his wife smeared icing on his face. My relatives are too cool, seriously.
I was having such a good time here that I decided to spend the night, and had a great talk with Feifei. He gave me advice on networking in the future, especially if I intend to go into academia, and talked about how important it was to understand the library system at school. It held a lot more than books, that I could mine for helpful information. It was good to talk to someone other than my parents about my future, and what would be the next appropriate steps - Feifei also thinks I should try to go to graduate school in Europe, Germany specifically, because he studied in Heidelberg for a time, and broadening my international experiences would immensely benefit my future career. Before I went to bed, because I was sleeping in the same room as my aunt, we also had a brief talk about my dad - she's 70 and getting a little dotty, but it was nice to discuss how to deal with my dad's temper. (There were immense amounts of dirt and gossip thrown around at dinner about how my parents got together, which was vastly interesting because obviously, I'd never heard about it. But it was all hilarious.)
And now I'm waiting around until Feifei can drive me back to Wukesong, and my uncle's house, so I can do more work on my Tsinghua presentations - seriously, I gotta get cracking or... well, or die of embarrassment. Future plans for the next few days include visiting my maternal aunts, who have dogs and cats up the wazoo, and poking in on Peking University where Lucy has a connection with an econ professor. Holla at them guanxi, that's what I say.
All y'all back in the States, do leave me a note or two. I miss the Point, reading books in Harvard Square, hanging out with people and singing Andrew Bird... and everything in between. Beijing is awesome, but it's not home, so please send something my way to make me less homesick.
2008年6月29日星期日
2008年6月27日星期五
6.27. '180? please.' 'okay, fine, then what's your lowest price?'
China feels a little less like a dream now, but there are still tinges and moments when I feel like I'm floating somewhere I don't belong.
I'm not sure why this disconnected feeling actually happens... but I think it has something to do with how I look at all of this and think, "This could have been my life. I could have been here, living through all of this, buying these things every day, breathing this air, sleeping and waking and marrying someone like this. How weird is that?!" And trying to comprehend the possibility of this alternate reality is definitely a mental trial, but more than it being difficult to understand, it creates an instinctively panicky feeling at the bottom of my stomach.
The thought that I could have never been to Boston. Never gone to BLS, UChicago. Never met any of my friends. Read Harry Potter fanfiction. Been to Prince Edward Island. Learned lindy hop with Alex. Met Alex. Things like that kind of turn my stomach. Maybe. I don't know. Life is full of a lot of close calls, and living in Beijing now is like living in that alternate universe that could've been mine, so easily. Maybe that's why I'm so scared here. How much I love my life in Boston and Chicago as opposed to this existence.
It's not actually been such a bad boat, I have to say. We did go swing dancing, which was actually kind of nice... though they're quite an insular bunch. I don't know. I felt like a lao wai that time. I'll wait until Link gets back to Beijing, and ask him to take me around. ^_^ W00t. Anyway, yesterday, Lucy and I met up and went to YongAnLi, which was huge. And met up with Eg, who knows Emily! And Lucy helped me bargain down a watch, a cellphone battery, two handbags, and a hairclip, all for pretty much 250 RMB. For all of you playing at home, that's about 40 USD. Which is awesome. W00t. Then I went back to XiZhiMen, where my cousin called me and told me to take a cab to some hot pot place. I arrived at the restaurant to find a table of raucous young men - a few of which I recognized as being my cousin's friends from when we were younger. It was funny to sit and listen to them, call out each other for toasts, and yelling and swearing, and calling for more beer. One of them, who had brought a new girlfriend, was leaving on a trip tomorrow, and he kept pleading off drinking beer because he had a plane to catch.
"If I drink too fucking much, then I can't get up tomorrow!" He shook his head and laughed. My cousin didn't miss a beat.
"Wait, what? Did you just say you can't get it up? What can't you get up, huh?" The table exploded in laughter.
I hid my smile behind a glass of green tea, and put some more lamb meat in the pot. It was a very amusing time, to see them go to the bathroom together, and come back, with my cousin cursing.
"You can't fucking pee together with this asshole, I swear," he said as he sat down. "His aim's so goddamned horrible I swear my calves are wet." Much hooting and laughing.
My cousin is a drama queen, basically. But a funny one. There were about ten or so of them, and only four or five women, all girlfriends... and then me. A few of them asked me eager questions about America, and what I was doing here, and stories about my cousin. My cousin lovingly recounted an instance where my mother had given him a royal spanking...
The scene: Connie was 5, and my cousin, Ning-Ning, about 12 or so, with his friend Hu Chen, were with me at my grandfather's house. While everyone was finishing up lunch in the kitchen, we were sitting in my grandfather's bedroom. They were discussing something, and I was curious, but my cousin had told me to ask my mom about it. So I, being completely naïve, had marched into the kitchen and tugged at my mother, who absent-mindedly turned towards me.
"Mama, Ning-Ning told me to ask you what licking a popsicle means."
Dead silence in the kitchen, full of my adult maternal relatives. I really wish that I'd remembered this, but I was only 5, after all. And then my mother stormed into the bedroom, spanked him, yelled at him, and basically ripped my cousin a new one.
Some things never change.
My cousin has a horrible temper, and a bad habit of yelling at people. Isn't too polite. Definitely lazy. Spends everyone's money but his own, but that's because he doesn't have any. But aside from bullying me when I was a little girl, he's a nice guy - always very generous, loyal, and protective. Though he can be a tard, he's not a bad guy, and I do like him when he makes sense. Anyway.
I sat through two hours of dinner, of listening to swears, toasts, through the haze of beer and cigarette smoke. I've been here for about four days now, and I can tell you he's pretty much a pack-a-day kind of guy. *shakes head* His girlfriend is kind of a sweet girl, though, and I like her. We went shopping this afternoon for some clothing. I brought a few awesome skirts, and two great shirts: one of which is below. W00t.
You can't see all of it, but it's basically a gray tee, with a black cat on it who is entangling itself in an orange ball of thread. A speech bubble from the cat says, "Fffffffffhhhhhh!!!"
I love it, because... when was the last time you heard a cat say "Ffffffffhhhhhh!!!" ? It's ridiculous, which is a pretty good representation of Beijing. <3
Tomorrow, some proper work on my presentation for Tsinghua, and my cousin's soccer game. Hopefully, also, meeting up with Lucy, Eg (from yesterday) and Sam Berkowitz, that sexy bastard, and having dinner. It'll be like UChicago'10. W00t.
I'm not sure why this disconnected feeling actually happens... but I think it has something to do with how I look at all of this and think, "This could have been my life. I could have been here, living through all of this, buying these things every day, breathing this air, sleeping and waking and marrying someone like this. How weird is that?!" And trying to comprehend the possibility of this alternate reality is definitely a mental trial, but more than it being difficult to understand, it creates an instinctively panicky feeling at the bottom of my stomach.
The thought that I could have never been to Boston. Never gone to BLS, UChicago. Never met any of my friends. Read Harry Potter fanfiction. Been to Prince Edward Island. Learned lindy hop with Alex. Met Alex. Things like that kind of turn my stomach. Maybe. I don't know. Life is full of a lot of close calls, and living in Beijing now is like living in that alternate universe that could've been mine, so easily. Maybe that's why I'm so scared here. How much I love my life in Boston and Chicago as opposed to this existence.
It's not actually been such a bad boat, I have to say. We did go swing dancing, which was actually kind of nice... though they're quite an insular bunch. I don't know. I felt like a lao wai that time. I'll wait until Link gets back to Beijing, and ask him to take me around. ^_^ W00t. Anyway, yesterday, Lucy and I met up and went to YongAnLi, which was huge. And met up with Eg, who knows Emily! And Lucy helped me bargain down a watch, a cellphone battery, two handbags, and a hairclip, all for pretty much 250 RMB. For all of you playing at home, that's about 40 USD. Which is awesome. W00t. Then I went back to XiZhiMen, where my cousin called me and told me to take a cab to some hot pot place. I arrived at the restaurant to find a table of raucous young men - a few of which I recognized as being my cousin's friends from when we were younger. It was funny to sit and listen to them, call out each other for toasts, and yelling and swearing, and calling for more beer. One of them, who had brought a new girlfriend, was leaving on a trip tomorrow, and he kept pleading off drinking beer because he had a plane to catch.
"If I drink too fucking much, then I can't get up tomorrow!" He shook his head and laughed. My cousin didn't miss a beat.
"Wait, what? Did you just say you can't get it up? What can't you get up, huh?" The table exploded in laughter.
I hid my smile behind a glass of green tea, and put some more lamb meat in the pot. It was a very amusing time, to see them go to the bathroom together, and come back, with my cousin cursing.
"You can't fucking pee together with this asshole, I swear," he said as he sat down. "His aim's so goddamned horrible I swear my calves are wet." Much hooting and laughing.
My cousin is a drama queen, basically. But a funny one. There were about ten or so of them, and only four or five women, all girlfriends... and then me. A few of them asked me eager questions about America, and what I was doing here, and stories about my cousin. My cousin lovingly recounted an instance where my mother had given him a royal spanking...
The scene: Connie was 5, and my cousin, Ning-Ning, about 12 or so, with his friend Hu Chen, were with me at my grandfather's house. While everyone was finishing up lunch in the kitchen, we were sitting in my grandfather's bedroom. They were discussing something, and I was curious, but my cousin had told me to ask my mom about it. So I, being completely naïve, had marched into the kitchen and tugged at my mother, who absent-mindedly turned towards me.
"Mama, Ning-Ning told me to ask you what licking a popsicle means."
Dead silence in the kitchen, full of my adult maternal relatives. I really wish that I'd remembered this, but I was only 5, after all. And then my mother stormed into the bedroom, spanked him, yelled at him, and basically ripped my cousin a new one.
Some things never change.
My cousin has a horrible temper, and a bad habit of yelling at people. Isn't too polite. Definitely lazy. Spends everyone's money but his own, but that's because he doesn't have any. But aside from bullying me when I was a little girl, he's a nice guy - always very generous, loyal, and protective. Though he can be a tard, he's not a bad guy, and I do like him when he makes sense. Anyway.
I sat through two hours of dinner, of listening to swears, toasts, through the haze of beer and cigarette smoke. I've been here for about four days now, and I can tell you he's pretty much a pack-a-day kind of guy. *shakes head* His girlfriend is kind of a sweet girl, though, and I like her. We went shopping this afternoon for some clothing. I brought a few awesome skirts, and two great shirts: one of which is below. W00t.
You can't see all of it, but it's basically a gray tee, with a black cat on it who is entangling itself in an orange ball of thread. A speech bubble from the cat says, "Fffffffffhhhhhh!!!"
I love it, because... when was the last time you heard a cat say "Ffffffffhhhhhh!!!" ? It's ridiculous, which is a pretty good representation of Beijing. <3
Tomorrow, some proper work on my presentation for Tsinghua, and my cousin's soccer game. Hopefully, also, meeting up with Lucy, Eg (from yesterday) and Sam Berkowitz, that sexy bastard, and having dinner. It'll be like UChicago'10. W00t.
2008年6月25日星期三
6.25. 'my style of dancing is too fast for this song'
I'm too asdfjkl tired to actually write this entry. Right this minute, I'm waiting for my cousin to get out of the shower so I can just go and brush my teeth and go to sleep, because this shit is ridiculous. Today was not the most satisfactory of days... I lost two hours to rereading "The Blue Castle," had a semi-confidence losing meeting with the people at Tsinghua, and ate too freaking much seafood. And to boot, didn't have the most exciting of first swing dance nights in Beijing.
I mean, the guy was not intentionally rude, or purposefully stupid, but "my style of dancing is too fast for this song" is probably the lamest excuse you can pull for not dancing to a particular song. It happened to be "Beyond the Sea" too, which isn't like "Fever"-slow, so I don't know what this guy was yammering about. He made it sound like a 50 bpm song. Goddamn. Also, it's just a horrible dancing habit, to pigeonhole yourself into a particular "type" of dance, or something. You can have a favorite, but as a lead, you can't eschew slower songs. He didn't even dance lindy, which, I don't know, if it's the only dance you do, you might not be too into the slow songs, yeah. But it just left a slightly bad taste in my mouth. You should always extend your range, I think, and learn more, and dance with more styles. Lindy hop, Charleston, East Coast, West Coast, Balboa... there's so much to learn, and it was just that it was a quiet kind of evening, where four couples on the floor was the most you'd see. And I miss Chicago. A lot.
Okay, enough whining for one evening. Maybe tomorrow I'll be in a better mood, and actually remember that today was kinda nice. For now, beeeeed.
I mean, the guy was not intentionally rude, or purposefully stupid, but "my style of dancing is too fast for this song" is probably the lamest excuse you can pull for not dancing to a particular song. It happened to be "Beyond the Sea" too, which isn't like "Fever"-slow, so I don't know what this guy was yammering about. He made it sound like a 50 bpm song. Goddamn. Also, it's just a horrible dancing habit, to pigeonhole yourself into a particular "type" of dance, or something. You can have a favorite, but as a lead, you can't eschew slower songs. He didn't even dance lindy, which, I don't know, if it's the only dance you do, you might not be too into the slow songs, yeah. But it just left a slightly bad taste in my mouth. You should always extend your range, I think, and learn more, and dance with more styles. Lindy hop, Charleston, East Coast, West Coast, Balboa... there's so much to learn, and it was just that it was a quiet kind of evening, where four couples on the floor was the most you'd see. And I miss Chicago. A lot.
Okay, enough whining for one evening. Maybe tomorrow I'll be in a better mood, and actually remember that today was kinda nice. For now, beeeeed.
2008年6月24日星期二
6.25. why can't I breathe whenever I... set foot in this country?
Liz Phair was playing over the loudspeakers at the dim sum eatery we went to last night.
It was kind of surreal listening to "Why Can't I" while looking at my cousin's girlfriend across the table, eating her "fengzhua," which for all of you keeping score at home, basically means chicken feet. But I mean, there're a lot of surreal things here. Beijing still seems like a huge dream sometimes. It shouldn't be. I was born here, and I spent seven years here before I was shipped off to the other side of the Pacific and made to learn that "one cat, two cat" is not actually grammatically correct. But really. It's like a dream.
I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning, so yeah, I fooled around online, learned that LJ was not to be mine for several months (I don't know how I'm going to survive, honestly. Like... it's like disappearing from Facebook for a month! But only a month because Facebook deprivation for a month = LJ deprivation for three, pretty much), and despaired. I also wrote a long-ass e-mail to my parents in Chinese that at least my mom was happy about, which meant yay. My cousin and his girlfriend got me out of here around 9:30 or so, and we drove to their workplace, which is a small boutique that sells fake Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Gucci, along with the frivolous sort of clothing that is both the hallmark of Beijing girls (sizes 0 and under, thank you very much) and the bane of my mother's existence. In other words, it's a normal boutique in Beijing, and my cousin kindly offered to get me a free bag, but my taste is just really too simple for what Beijing fashion is like... Lucy and I dissected this idea this afternoon, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
After hanging around their store a little, I called up Lucy, who lives in Changping, and we made a date at Wangfujing, which is one of Beijing's big shopping intersections. And when we say shopping, we mean pretty much all kinds of shopping - from United Colors of Benetton to Burberry to the kind of place where you can bargain a notebook from 28 RMB down to 10. My cousin drove me there, and it was awesome to actually find Lucy because we had arranged to meet in front of XinTianDi, one of the malls there, which actually had multiple entrances! It should've been harder to find her, in retrospect, but my eyes are good. We ran around the mall and the bookstore at Wangfujing for two hours, gabbing in English and interspersed bits of Chinese. Sometimes because we felt like it, sometimes because we were too excited to speak in Chinese. And got weird looks from a lot of people.
The debate of the hour: Beijing fashion. Basically, we were being judged all the time... to give you a picture... Lucy was wearing a brown tanktop, and khaki shorts, with a sequined-ish golden purse and flip-flops. I was wearing flip-flops, a green tanktop from GAP, and a flowery patterned brown and white skirt from Wet Seal, and carrying a small black tote from the Seminary Co-op. If you were in America, you wouldn't take a second look at us. In one of the most crowded shopping districts of Beijing, we stood out (if you bothered to look at us) like a sore thumb. First of all, no one did their hair like me - and I mean no one. Lucy at least had hers half permed and curly, which was the same for about half the girls we saw. Secondly, we were just dressed too plainly. Most of the girls who went by were dressed up - something shiny, or flowery, or sequined, or bright pink or yellow or green. Or something. They also had huge rhinestone clips in their hair, and were thin as sticks. Lucy and I, who both are about 5'8'' and 5'6'' respectively, and more or less under 150 pounds, were the fattest chicks around. No lie. The most interesting thing about China is that ordinary girls who walk around on the street actually LOOK LIKE the models in the advertisements. Srsly. And we also wore flip-flops, which are a definitely dress *down*. Since I'm also kind of tall for an Asian girl (and Lucy DEFINITELY is), we also didn't need to wear high heels, which they were also all wearing. *fume* Just because I don't want to kill my feet all day... basically, we were way too dressed down for Beijing. One guy told us we definitely looked like we weren't from around there. I'd like to have asked him exactly where we looked like we came from. But I'm not sure if it's just a commentary on Americans, who are just used to having all the money in the world and dressing like they earn minimum wage. It's difficult to strike a balance between the perfect FOB in America, and the stereotypical ABC in China. (See glossary!) After all, I'm just not the kind of girl who goes around with silver lame purses and teetering high heels. I like cardigans, and flats, and bookish totebags. And looking 40, as Anneke would say.
The highlight of our trip was probably running through the bookstore at Wangfujing, and kicking up a storm in the foreign language section. I was hunting for some sort of German-English dictionary, and Lucy a French-English one, both of us for our civ programs in autumn quarter (I'm in Vienna, she's in Paris). We found some hilarious English-French-Chinese ones, which were cute, and also the foreign import section, which was amazing. They had such a good collection of English classics, right off the bat. Shakespeare and the Western Canon. Pretty much. More than once, we exclaimed, "We can do our civ booklist shopping here!" There was also an excellent bestseller section, with two whole shelves for Haruki Murakami, a good section on entrepeneurship, etc., and of course, small paperbacks, the domain of Michael Crichton and LaVyrle Spencer. Some of the books were more expensive in RMB (it's about a little less than 7 RMB to the dollar right now), but some were a lot cheaper. Like a paperback of "Anne of Green Gables" for 20 RMB? You can't get that for USD3! Really. Our favorite, however, was the travel section. Lonely Planet had a great selection, from Myanmar (Burma) to Venice to Chicago (!), but the most puzzling thing was the conspicuous lack of China. We had to ask a salesperson, and he admitted that it actually wasn't allowed to be imported. And then we laughed like crazy, and I swore to find out once I was back in the States exactly what kind of sensitive dirt Lonely Planet had on the Chinese government. It was also cool because our salesperson was an adorable guy who asked us where we were from, and we had a few nice exchanges. I think that Lucy and I may also pick up a present for Richard - perhaps a Chinese translation of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"? Or Hegel? He does follow you everywhere.
Afterwards, we picked up a lamb kebab each while strolling along one of the smaller side roads, filled with vendors who were selling the cheap stuff you can even get in Chinatown in Chicago. (P.S. They have... like, scorpion kebabs. And cicada kebabs. But the scorpions were still writhing on the sticks. It was really really disturbing. I didn't like to look at them, let alone imagine eating them. Gawd.) And Lucy helped me bargain this notebook down to 10 RMB. (Yes, that's slightly over a dollar, folks.) It's really cute, with a soft blue embroidered cover, and I'm thinking of buying more for presents back home. If you buy a ton, too, it's easier to bargain down. Which is good 'cause I suck at it. I'm just too nice, and you can smell the foreigner on me from a mile away in those circumstances. Part of the key to bargaining is to pretend you don't really want something, and I am so bad at lying it should be illegal. Ugh.
We parted ways, after promising to pull together some UChicago'10 party at KTV (hello, karaoke!) and possibly traveling to Shanghai during August to see Lisa (and maybe even with Sam. Whoa.), and my cousin drove me home. We had a pretty good dinner, cooked by my aunt, and I sat and watched a bit of a TV drama involving killing monks. (Man, Buddhism is not entirely a pacifist religion, no matter what they want you to believe.) And now I'm really freaking tired, but I can't go to sleep until at least 10 p.m., because I'll wake up at 6 again tomorrow if I'm not careful.
At least we brought a cell phone number during the day, and my cousin's girlfriend has an old one I can use for the summer. Whee. I will be phone-ed very soon, and can send it out to people, and bother them. Excellentatious. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep writing these wicked long posts, but I see and feel so much and have so much to say that Chinese doesn't give me the capability to express.
As Lucy commented today, "I haven't talked so much in a long time that my throat hurts." I feel like I've said a lot too. Here's to becoming as loquacious in Chinese this summer as I am in English. Or perhaps even more, since I can pick up more swears from my cousin. One can only hope.
(Glossary: FOB means Fresh Off the Boat, indicating a large degree of naivety about American culture, where as ABC means American-Born-Chinese, or someone who looks like they should speak with a proper Beijing accent, but is really American at the core. I'm definitely not the former, but I'm not sure how far from the latter I am at times.)
It was kind of surreal listening to "Why Can't I" while looking at my cousin's girlfriend across the table, eating her "fengzhua," which for all of you keeping score at home, basically means chicken feet. But I mean, there're a lot of surreal things here. Beijing still seems like a huge dream sometimes. It shouldn't be. I was born here, and I spent seven years here before I was shipped off to the other side of the Pacific and made to learn that "one cat, two cat" is not actually grammatically correct. But really. It's like a dream.
I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning, so yeah, I fooled around online, learned that LJ was not to be mine for several months (I don't know how I'm going to survive, honestly. Like... it's like disappearing from Facebook for a month! But only a month because Facebook deprivation for a month = LJ deprivation for three, pretty much), and despaired. I also wrote a long-ass e-mail to my parents in Chinese that at least my mom was happy about, which meant yay. My cousin and his girlfriend got me out of here around 9:30 or so, and we drove to their workplace, which is a small boutique that sells fake Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Gucci, along with the frivolous sort of clothing that is both the hallmark of Beijing girls (sizes 0 and under, thank you very much) and the bane of my mother's existence. In other words, it's a normal boutique in Beijing, and my cousin kindly offered to get me a free bag, but my taste is just really too simple for what Beijing fashion is like... Lucy and I dissected this idea this afternoon, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
After hanging around their store a little, I called up Lucy, who lives in Changping, and we made a date at Wangfujing, which is one of Beijing's big shopping intersections. And when we say shopping, we mean pretty much all kinds of shopping - from United Colors of Benetton to Burberry to the kind of place where you can bargain a notebook from 28 RMB down to 10. My cousin drove me there, and it was awesome to actually find Lucy because we had arranged to meet in front of XinTianDi, one of the malls there, which actually had multiple entrances! It should've been harder to find her, in retrospect, but my eyes are good. We ran around the mall and the bookstore at Wangfujing for two hours, gabbing in English and interspersed bits of Chinese. Sometimes because we felt like it, sometimes because we were too excited to speak in Chinese. And got weird looks from a lot of people.
The debate of the hour: Beijing fashion. Basically, we were being judged all the time... to give you a picture... Lucy was wearing a brown tanktop, and khaki shorts, with a sequined-ish golden purse and flip-flops. I was wearing flip-flops, a green tanktop from GAP, and a flowery patterned brown and white skirt from Wet Seal, and carrying a small black tote from the Seminary Co-op. If you were in America, you wouldn't take a second look at us. In one of the most crowded shopping districts of Beijing, we stood out (if you bothered to look at us) like a sore thumb. First of all, no one did their hair like me - and I mean no one. Lucy at least had hers half permed and curly, which was the same for about half the girls we saw. Secondly, we were just dressed too plainly. Most of the girls who went by were dressed up - something shiny, or flowery, or sequined, or bright pink or yellow or green. Or something. They also had huge rhinestone clips in their hair, and were thin as sticks. Lucy and I, who both are about 5'8'' and 5'6'' respectively, and more or less under 150 pounds, were the fattest chicks around. No lie. The most interesting thing about China is that ordinary girls who walk around on the street actually LOOK LIKE the models in the advertisements. Srsly. And we also wore flip-flops, which are a definitely dress *down*. Since I'm also kind of tall for an Asian girl (and Lucy DEFINITELY is), we also didn't need to wear high heels, which they were also all wearing. *fume* Just because I don't want to kill my feet all day... basically, we were way too dressed down for Beijing. One guy told us we definitely looked like we weren't from around there. I'd like to have asked him exactly where we looked like we came from. But I'm not sure if it's just a commentary on Americans, who are just used to having all the money in the world and dressing like they earn minimum wage. It's difficult to strike a balance between the perfect FOB in America, and the stereotypical ABC in China. (See glossary!) After all, I'm just not the kind of girl who goes around with silver lame purses and teetering high heels. I like cardigans, and flats, and bookish totebags. And looking 40, as Anneke would say.
The highlight of our trip was probably running through the bookstore at Wangfujing, and kicking up a storm in the foreign language section. I was hunting for some sort of German-English dictionary, and Lucy a French-English one, both of us for our civ programs in autumn quarter (I'm in Vienna, she's in Paris). We found some hilarious English-French-Chinese ones, which were cute, and also the foreign import section, which was amazing. They had such a good collection of English classics, right off the bat. Shakespeare and the Western Canon. Pretty much. More than once, we exclaimed, "We can do our civ booklist shopping here!" There was also an excellent bestseller section, with two whole shelves for Haruki Murakami, a good section on entrepeneurship, etc., and of course, small paperbacks, the domain of Michael Crichton and LaVyrle Spencer. Some of the books were more expensive in RMB (it's about a little less than 7 RMB to the dollar right now), but some were a lot cheaper. Like a paperback of "Anne of Green Gables" for 20 RMB? You can't get that for USD3! Really. Our favorite, however, was the travel section. Lonely Planet had a great selection, from Myanmar (Burma) to Venice to Chicago (!), but the most puzzling thing was the conspicuous lack of China. We had to ask a salesperson, and he admitted that it actually wasn't allowed to be imported. And then we laughed like crazy, and I swore to find out once I was back in the States exactly what kind of sensitive dirt Lonely Planet had on the Chinese government. It was also cool because our salesperson was an adorable guy who asked us where we were from, and we had a few nice exchanges. I think that Lucy and I may also pick up a present for Richard - perhaps a Chinese translation of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"? Or Hegel? He does follow you everywhere.
Afterwards, we picked up a lamb kebab each while strolling along one of the smaller side roads, filled with vendors who were selling the cheap stuff you can even get in Chinatown in Chicago. (P.S. They have... like, scorpion kebabs. And cicada kebabs. But the scorpions were still writhing on the sticks. It was really really disturbing. I didn't like to look at them, let alone imagine eating them. Gawd.) And Lucy helped me bargain this notebook down to 10 RMB. (Yes, that's slightly over a dollar, folks.) It's really cute, with a soft blue embroidered cover, and I'm thinking of buying more for presents back home. If you buy a ton, too, it's easier to bargain down. Which is good 'cause I suck at it. I'm just too nice, and you can smell the foreigner on me from a mile away in those circumstances. Part of the key to bargaining is to pretend you don't really want something, and I am so bad at lying it should be illegal. Ugh.
We parted ways, after promising to pull together some UChicago'10 party at KTV (hello, karaoke!) and possibly traveling to Shanghai during August to see Lisa (and maybe even with Sam. Whoa.), and my cousin drove me home. We had a pretty good dinner, cooked by my aunt, and I sat and watched a bit of a TV drama involving killing monks. (Man, Buddhism is not entirely a pacifist religion, no matter what they want you to believe.) And now I'm really freaking tired, but I can't go to sleep until at least 10 p.m., because I'll wake up at 6 again tomorrow if I'm not careful.
At least we brought a cell phone number during the day, and my cousin's girlfriend has an old one I can use for the summer. Whee. I will be phone-ed very soon, and can send it out to people, and bother them. Excellentatious. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep writing these wicked long posts, but I see and feel so much and have so much to say that Chinese doesn't give me the capability to express.
As Lucy commented today, "I haven't talked so much in a long time that my throat hurts." I feel like I've said a lot too. Here's to becoming as loquacious in Chinese this summer as I am in English. Or perhaps even more, since I can pick up more swears from my cousin. One can only hope.
(Glossary: FOB means Fresh Off the Boat, indicating a large degree of naivety about American culture, where as ABC means American-Born-Chinese, or someone who looks like they should speak with a proper Beijing accent, but is really American at the core. I'm definitely not the former, but I'm not sure how far from the latter I am at times.)
2008年6月23日星期一
6.24. can you BELIEVE what they've done?!
The Great Firewall of China strikes again.
They blocked my damn LJ. ASDFJKL.
In other news, it's barely 7 a.m. and I've already been wide awake for about an hour. My body feels like it might need a little more sleep, but my mind's rearing to go. Last night, my cousin picked me up from the airport, and it was a whirlwind ride through the evening haze of Beijing, and then some evening dim sum that tastes quintessentially Chinese (I haven't had rice porridge like that since my grandmother was still alive). And finally to home, where I took a shower, and kind of crashed. I've only slept for about 5 and a half hours, though...
There is so much to be done in the next few days. First off, though, a cellphone must be procured, and then everything else... giving people presents, calling other people, arranging visits, working on my PowerPoints for teaching the kids at summer camp... I'm so frustrated that I can't update my LJ - this means I'll be essentially out of touch with everyone on my friendslist! Aaaaaaaaraugh. Yes. We'll work something out or something will... yeah, whatever. *deep sigh*
Now to see if there can be breakfast procured, and unpacking done. And a whole summer. This feels like something like a dream, but that plane ride to Tokyo-Narita can only be described as a nightmare... so life is life. Surprise.
They blocked my damn LJ. ASDFJKL.
In other news, it's barely 7 a.m. and I've already been wide awake for about an hour. My body feels like it might need a little more sleep, but my mind's rearing to go. Last night, my cousin picked me up from the airport, and it was a whirlwind ride through the evening haze of Beijing, and then some evening dim sum that tastes quintessentially Chinese (I haven't had rice porridge like that since my grandmother was still alive). And finally to home, where I took a shower, and kind of crashed. I've only slept for about 5 and a half hours, though...
There is so much to be done in the next few days. First off, though, a cellphone must be procured, and then everything else... giving people presents, calling other people, arranging visits, working on my PowerPoints for teaching the kids at summer camp... I'm so frustrated that I can't update my LJ - this means I'll be essentially out of touch with everyone on my friendslist! Aaaaaaaaraugh. Yes. We'll work something out or something will... yeah, whatever. *deep sigh*
Now to see if there can be breakfast procured, and unpacking done. And a whole summer. This feels like something like a dream, but that plane ride to Tokyo-Narita can only be described as a nightmare... so life is life. Surprise.
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