View from the Top

28 July

I wanted to share with you this nifty sunset picture from my window. My new room in Beijing is on the 26^th floor, and my windows face Northwest. The sky was a clear blue all day, and the temperature reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit!

Currently, there is a massive thunderstorm going on outside. When it rains here, sometimes it seems like a damn burst in the heavens because it is usually a sudden occurrence, and very heavy. For example, today I left class at about 8:10pm and thought, “It will rain tonight.” By the time I travel 4 metro stops with one change over, it is pouring so hard that many people are just waiting for a break inside the metro station. I charge on out because where I come from rain is a good thing!

Gold Star to those who catch the reference!

I am still undecided whether my Birks are cleaner or dirtier than when I started this trip home. All of the street crossings, and many parts of the sidewalks were flooded. And I don’t mean puddles that you can elegantly jump over, but ankle high lakes spanning the breath of the pavement!

Oh well, moments like these sunset pictures balance it all out in the end.

 

For those of you who didn’t get the reference, YouTube “Luke Bryan Rain is a Good Thing” and Enjoy!

Blonde in Beijing

July 26

As you know I got back to Beijing today and besides those trivial things like paying my school tuition and starting my visa extension process at the top of my list was getting my hair done. What may seem like a simple process is definitely an experience here in Beijing. The Chinese version of blonde is this brassy metallic color which looks cool on them, but would definitely turn my hair orange! Always remember Google is your friend. So I found a salon before I went to Chengde that had several reviews indication that 1) had fluent English speaking management and 2) had colorists that could turn that brassy, orange, nastiness back into blonde. I went to scope the place out, and speak with a manager just to see how things worked and what not. The manager on the floor, David, was very polite, and friendly. He gave me his business card so that I could set up an appointment when I knew for sure when I would be back in Beijing. 

In America, my mother and I have the same stylist, Carol – who has been treating my mother’s hair since she was in college, and let’s just say that on August 6 someone is turning 63. We frequently schedule dual appointments and block Carol out for two maybe three hours since we both get cuts and colors. Now Carol does us simultaneously with my mother getting color first since she just has a base, and I have a base with highlights. She also manages to do this with her own two hands. The same process here in Beijing utilized a colorist, a stylist, and two assistants with the managers checking in from time to time. Even stranger to me is that the colorist did my base, set it, shampooed the color out; and then repeated the whole process with my highlights. Then I had to get my hair trimmed! By this point most people will start to wonder how much this wound up costing me: 1940 kuai, which for simple math at a 6:1 conversion is around $320 USD. My mother would know for certain, but that is more than what Carol charges for both of us. I guarantee my Papa is frowning, and thinking, “just dye it yourself.” Well Papa dearest, if you recall, I both cut and dyed my own hair when I lived in Germany, and got good enough to where I was mixing my own dye. The problem is that I have yet to find anywhere that sells it, and beggars cannot be choosers. I will have to wait till I get to Shanghai before trying again. Shanghai has a larger ex-pat population, and may have more student budget friendly options. If not, then Grandmother will get her wish, and I am dying back to natural brunette.

Now who can guess what I did next. I mean I just spent more money on my hair in three hours than I did the whole month that I lived in Chengde.

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Back in Beijing

26 July

My apologies for the delayed posting, but I did not want to subject anyone to an undignified rant. Before I summarize my time in Chengde I need to give another apology. This one to my aunt for waking her up at 5am because I took a friend’s word that Denver is 12 hours behind China, and I need not double check with Google. Therefore, instead of calling at 7am to wish my uncle a Very Happy 60^th Birthday – I called at 5am. All I can say is that at least I didn’t pull her out of bed by her ankles like my father used to do!

Living in Chengde is living in continual frustration. I had a great experience with some unfortunate occurrences that seem so much more dire than they really are when I was living through them because I lived on the thin line between “throwing in the towel” and “I can do it, I can do it.” The teacher I was assigned to in Chengde spoke less English than I did Chinese; which for anyone who has ever taken foreign language is horribly irksome. If I had a question on grammar or the specific meaning of a vocabulary word, the answer was in Chinese, and that really doesn’t help me since I don’t speak Chinese.

"Small Town" China

6 July

First, we have to give thanks to my host's boyfriend for my ability to get on the Internet and make posts. My host showed me the Ethernet cord where I could plug into the router, but I have never used Ethernet for this computer and when I plugged it in no install box came up.  Well damnation ... now what? I admit to being almost completely reliant on my computer prompting me to do things in order to get programs install or what not. So I looked at my host, and said something along the lines of "in America I use Wifi, I don't know how to use this." Later that night her boyfriend was over, and he very helpfully set it up for me. By this I mean he tested the internet on his computer first to make sure it was working, then we two, him speaking no English and me speaking no technical Chinese (and very little Chinese at that) are squatting in front of the tea table my computer is on trying to figure out the proper click sequence to get to the proper install box. This is one of those moments where you are in the middle before you know you began and are wondering how you wound up doing this in the first place. All I can say is thank you to Bill Gates for making the Windows Icons universal so that my host's none English speaking boyfriend can find the icon he knows will get him to what he wants and get me onto the internet!

I wave the Red, White, and Blue

4 July

To all my fellow Americans, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! (I always want to watch that movie on this day.) This marks my third 4th of July outside of the USA, not many to some; and yet more than others have experienced. Each one is a bit different from the last, and I hope this one will be just as memorable!

My first in Paris, I was staying that the "House of the United States," so there was beer, BBQ, fireworks, and beer pong (I blame that on the Texan contingent represented!). Once our supply of beer was gone, we went out and bought more on our way to the Eiffel Tower where we laid on the green and watched the it light up every hour on the hour after dark. The best part is the French will sometimes come up and wish you a Happy Independence or Freedom Day if they realize your a friendly American.

The second in Germany, I once again celebrated with a group of Americans; however, we roped quite a few Germans into our fun with promises of beer, meat, and smores. We could never run out of beer because we lived in a Student Commune, and there were three Getrinketverkauft (mini-marts that stocked heavily towards beer) within 1000 feet of our BBQing location. The highlight of course were the smores since most of us had been out of the States for a year or more, and marshmallows are just not something Europeans understand. We got our hands on about six bags of marshmallows, and then tapped into our brilliant American ingenuity and used butter cookies topped with chocolate rather than graham crackers and Hershey's. Perhaps better than the smores were our German friends reaction to them: something along the lines of "This is a hot sticky mess that doesn't taste like anything but chocolate and sugar!?! Why do you love it so much?" There isn't much of a response besides "It's American!" to explain or counter that observation ....

.... but that meant more smores for me!!!! Win-win in my opinion.

So my third in China, and not even a big city where you are guaranteed to find ex-pats, a small town in Northern China called Chengde that gets the occasional tourist, and us students who are dedicated to learning Chinese. Tonight, after six hours of one on one with my teacher (guh) and dinner with my host, I can celebrate. The options are limited since I wouldn't trust myself with American fireworks so Chinese are out of the question, and while there is BBQ it is mainly kebobs, no big slabs of cow, pig or chicken happily roasting over some coals ... I just made myself really hungry = (
The plan right now is for the three waiguorenmen (foreigners) consisting of myself, another American, and a Brit to celebrate by playing "foot birdie"in the park followed by ice cream.

A quick note on "foot birdie" and ice cream. The Chinese term is ti jianzi, but it follows the same rules as hakiesak, but you play with something resembling a big badminton birdie that is flat at the bottom, and weighted. Hence "foot birdie" seems like the most reasonable thing to call it though my dictionary tells me it means shuttlecock. Ice cream is our reward because this is actually much more difficult than we imagined, and last night we were only able to get eight hits in a row. However, ice cream here doesn't taste like it has dairy/milk in it. I think of it as the difference between my delicious cup of Starbucks dark roast with two shots of espresso vs. Nescafe .... something is just missing.... but refreshing and delicious all the same.

Hopefully, I will get some photos of this for the next post!