Frustrating and fantastic.
A simple trip downtown, to WalMart of all places, proved the first (of what I'm sure will be many) difficult and disorienting experience. People littered the isles, products were all foreign, and even the familiar such as Chips Ahoy! looked alien. Not to mention the smell--not particularly bad but certainly unfamiliar.
The inability to communicate makes even the trivial seem insurmountable. Gesturing with hands and remaining patient is a must as the only two phrases in Mandarin I'm comfortable with are "I'm sorry" and "I don't understand." Just about sums up my exchanges with the locals.
Night was an entirely different beast. Seth, Mikala and the Aussies went out to Donata's, a surprisingly good pizza place just outside of the CUC. Cheap beer, cold beer and good people go a long way.
After nourishment of the body and spirit, Seth and I went downtown with the Aussies to explore the bar scene. And like all great explorers, we were not content to stay in one place for too long. What followed was a night of heavy drinking (starting with a drink called the freak-out, a drink that needed to be lit on fire and it's fumes inhaled) and Western bonding. Man needs to know he's not alone in the struggle, and once realizing this it becomes not a struggle but an adventure.
After our final bar and some hookah we stumbled into a cab and were dropped off in the wrong place. The prototypical dark alley that all foreigners are told to avoid. After passing around a card with our address to a group of strangers, we attempted to return to our home. Of course, with no sense of where we were or where we were supposed to be, the effort proved futile.
Except a stranger ran after us explaining in broken English that he was a student at the CUC and he could take us there. Wary of a stranger in the night, we followed the man down side streets. The Aussies wanted to shake him, believing he was just looking for some money.
That wasn't the case.
He led us back on our campus and departed wishing us a good stay in Beijing.
3 comments:
PIZZA?! You hate pizza! Why aren't you eating Chinese food?
P.S. I linked you on my blog, which I will be writing more in soon.
http://gkulaga.wordpress.com/
you need to buy a knife.
you shouldn't list Donata as a "good pizza place" on your blog because people who visit Beijing after you might take you seriously. However, considering our circumstances at the time, I should be more sympathetic to your cause.
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