2/11/2008

-Once again, I’m back in Beijing, this time after a slightly less frozen adventure in Taiyuan and Pingyao for the Chinese New Year! I return to find that most of the city is still on vacation for another week (slackers). This means:

1. I have no internet. We’re not quite sure what the story is, but it’s not here. I’ve heard that all the IT guys are on vacation, so nobody has fixed the internet after one of its routine breakdowns that happen once every 30 hours or so. Others say that the school intentionally cut off the internet because it interferes with the school’s wireless systems, if that even makes sense. There is also rumor that a giant beast invaded the server while we were all in Harbin, to only release its grip on the school’s internet after a so-called “chosen one” arises to slay it. Either way, I am stuck without internet in my dorm. Somehow the PKU campus wireless still works, as does the internet at our program directors’ offices across the street. I think once again we’re just getting the “American” service. If I do need to go online I can easily go to the SIS building across the street. The Study English Bar also has free wireless, and they give you delicious free drinks like kiwi tea! So it’s not actually that bad.

2. None of the cafeterias on campus are open. Well, that’s not actually true. There is one eatery I have dubbed “the rice house,” simply because every other campus food place is called the _____ house, and this place serves rice. And they do have many other things! The typical choice is a selection of stir-fry dishes that they will then dump a bowl’s worth of rice onto. Yet, in the morning they have baozi (delicious, delicious dumplings, bigger than regular Chinese dumplings with a thicker breading) and we were happy to find at lunch today that they also had jaozi (the regular old Chinese dumplings). The place is not bad, but I’m a little afraid I will tire of it soon. There are usually about 6 eateries in our immediate vicinity to choose from, plus the eight jillion random other ones spread about campus. And I miss the noodle house!!

3. The banks are not open. Well, that’s not true either. The only bank that is of any use to me is not open, that is the Bank of China. I went across the street to the Bank of Beijing to happily see it was open. Yet, for some reason, despite the many transactions they were obviously performing at the time, I was told I could not cash my traveler’s checks because “they were on holiday.” Oh well. It’s not like I spent all of my cash and don’t have a check card to get money out of an ATM. …wait, it is like that? Hm. In all seriousness, it isn’t much of a problem. Since RMB has such a low value compared to the dollar, it’s very easy to borrow money from friends here. It’s just a bit annoying to think I will have to do that for a whole other week.

-So you may have noticed I never finished retelling the Harbin trip. In a nutshell, we went to snow world the next day, it was fun but not as fun as ice world, we flew back home, and that’s the end of it. A few noteworthy events to mention:

1. While in the shower Saturday night in Harbin I noticed the phone was ringing. I was especially surprised because this was a bathroom, and what the hell was a phone doing there? Obviously I couldn’t answer it at the time, so I continued on with my business. Perhaps our room phone was located in the bathroom, or maybe you could call the bathroom phone from the room and my roommates thought that was the funniest thing in the world to do? Could be anything. Once I stepped out of the shower, the phone rang again, so I answered. A bunch of incomprehensible Chinese followed, until they realized I only spoke English, when they said “Beautiful girl?” …what? I was confused. “You want…beautiful girl?” HA! Ohhhhh. No no no no no was my response, and I laughed hysterically after hanging up. Although I was so curious as to what exactly would have happened if I’d said yes.

2. The next day we took a gondola to cross the river to snow world. It was fun.

3. That night a few of us decided to wander into the bright, flashy club across the street. There were so many lights, it had to be important! We were led to a table immediately. Hm, I thought, I’d never been led to table in a club before. Wait a minute, there are poles everywhere here. Wait a minute, a GIRL just walked out and started DANCING on that pole. Ohhhhh. I started to wonder what section of town we were in. Laughing, we quickly left, but not before noticing the menu. It listed items around the range of 5800 kuai…I’m not sure I want to know what that was.

4. The next morning I tried to watch the Superbowl at 7am, but no! The best we could get was espn.com’s gamecast, which is a sad, sad thing. The fact that the Patriots lost made up for it a little, and seeing a pot of porridge labeled “gruel” at breakfast made up for it a lot. Ohhh translations in China. How poor they are.

5. At the airport restaurant we were handed menus in Cyrillic. I guess we look Russian.