Day in the Life of a Smogster?

Some days in Beijing there is a hint of blue in a gray sky, other days you can't see your hand if you hold it out in front of you. Today is one of the latter days. Beijing has days where the air pollution is so bad that you will see many people
a) with face masks on ranging from surgical-esque masks to fancy colors/hello kitty/the like.
b) gasping for air
c) going slower than normal
d) wearing a scarf over their face
e) reaching for an inhaler
f) or actually, you see less people.

Today was one of those days where I wish I had a, was doing both b, c, and e, and wish I did d as well.

This is the view from my window today:


Normally I bike about 10-15 to and from school, then again I also speed bike. Beijing is bike city and after a month of being here biking for hours is nothing. After biking home today I was gasping and wheezing like crazy. Some days it is clear and other days it's worse than this one. Then again, Beijing is the air pollution capital of the world currently. The one advantage of it being smoggier is that it's generally quieter and people honk less, because less people are out. You would think there would be more honking because people have more trouble seeing each other, but this is Beijing.

On a completely other note, here are some of the pretty cool cats I've met/hung out with today.
This is Pierre. He is from France. He's doing the Nuclear program and gets to have fun classes about environmental programs in Chinese that he can't actually understand.



We went to this really cool noodle place that Tiancheng's cousin Tianxi showed me. There are no foreigners here at all and there are absolutely no pictures on the menu or any english spoken. However I was able to order spicy beef noodles. (很辣牛肉面条). When I first came to Beijing, this was one of the first meals I had. That day, I had a lot of trouble eating the soup/noodles with chopsticks and it was super hot and spicy for me. Today, I was pro with the chopsticks (it's learn or starve) and it wasn't spicy. I think after a month of eating spicy food in Beijing that if it's not really really spicy it just tastes normal. Non spicy things are starting to taste a little bland.

Then the I had the fun of speaking class today and comprehensive (writing mainly but with speaking and listening too...it's super fun).


Pictured left is Taku (Japan), Mohammed (Saudi Arabia) and Dawei(David)(Hungary). They are all pretty cool!



Pictured above are: Clayton (US), Lydia (Canada), Mohammed (Saudi Arabia), Me (US), Anthony (UK/Australia).
Clayton and Lydia sit in front of me and Su Mo Han (Mohammed), and Anthony sits behind us.

Pictured below on the left are 2 South Korean students in black and a Dutch student in Blue. In the middle picture my speaking teacher just finished braiding Lydia's hair. She french braided my hair and Lydia's hair today during the xuexi (break) in class. On the left is Dawei (David) asking my comprehensive teacher something about tones.



Depending on what class we have, there are normally 6-10 students. We stay in the same classroom and our teachers rotate. We always have class from 1-5 pm Monday through Friday. Basically we have tingxie (dictation quizzes) and exams everyday. I'm studying constantly here. We joke around a lot and today someone said a lot of things in the wrong tone and our teacher said a) she couldn't understand any of it and b) he said some pretty funny things because he pronounced them wrong and said good horse instead of number and then some other things. Our class couldn't stop laughing.

I'm totally ready for nap time now though, ha. So more later.

How to count to ten on one hand

大家好！
Normally in China when you're ordering food on the streets or just buying things you use your hand to show how many, even if you say it. In China, you can count on one hand!

1. 一 （yi)
   
   
   
   
2. 二 (er)
   
   
   
   
   
3. 三 (san)
   
   
   
   
4. 四 (si)
   
   
   
   
   
5. 五 (wu)
   
   
   
   
6. 六 (liu)
   
   
   
   
7. 七 (qi)
   
   
   
   
8. 八 (ba)
   
   
   
   
9. 九 (jiu)
   
   
   
   
   
10. 十 (shi) (There are 3 for this one. The other one is a cross, but you use both hands for that.)
    

And that's how to count with one hand in Chinese!

Ni hao China!

大家好！(Hello everyone!)

This is a little late, but I figured better late than never! For those that don't know - I made the move to China! I am in Beijing studying at Tsinghua University. Colloquially, Tsinghua is known as Qinghua and will thus be referred to as Qinghua such forth.

Things I have learned since being in China:
1: Come to China with a Chinese friend. It makes life easier. I had my friend Tiancheng to help me get from the airport, get an apartment (this to
ok awhile), get a phone and just get situated in general.
2: Chinese food will make you sick at first. However it is possibly the most delicious thing in the world. I love hot pot.

<-This is 非肠猪 (intestines).(We thought it was ji [chicken]...we were wrong.) The fuyuan (waitress) laughed at us.
And that would be the face I made after trying it. ->

3: You can't drink the water. What is this, Mexico?

4: There are no road rules. Aka Chinese people are terrible drivers and you may think you will die many times because of this.

5: Bikes = life. If you live in China, get a bike. At my university you can't even drive, but there are thousands of bikers. (see photo)

6: Bring Peanut Butter. No explanation needed.

7: People are helpful when you ask them questions about learning the language. I ask the street vendors by me on a regular basis what things they sell are called. I learn a lot. "Zhe ge shi/jiao shenme?" (这个是／叫什么？）

8: People will always try to screw laowai (foreigners) out of money. Deal with it, accept it, or call them on their bullshit.

9: Haggle. You can pretty much haggle for anything, and never take the price that they give you, especially if you are a foreigner. We were in houhai (a kind of touristy place) and were at a bar and were able to haggle down the prices because they were tai gui le (really expensive). It worked.

10: Expats (expatriots - foreigners) are good resources. They provide all sorts of help, nice hang out places with vpns (virtual private networks to break through the great firewall)(this is also a call out to my favorite place Lush), magazines which tell current events and services for foreigners, and are just nice to hang out with when you are a bit homesick.

11: You will learn to tune things out. People honk here. All the time. ALL THE TIME. At first it drove me crazy. Ok, It still drives me a little crazy, but not as much as before. People here are loud and it's just a very loud culture.

12: China loves white people. For example, you could get paid to stand outside of a shop and attract new customers.

13: The exchange rate is 6.5 kuai (Chinese Yuan) to 1 dollar (USD). I normally divide by 6 just because it's easier for me to figure out how much things are. Food at my school is anywhere from 6-12 kuai (1-2 dollars) or can be up to 30 for a meal at hot pot (around 5 dollars).

14: Come with a vpn. (VPN= virtual private network) China blocks a lot of google services and google voice is a great tool to use to talk to people from home and you can use these with a vpn.

15: Explore. I just wander around and find new places. There is this great alleyway with an amazing cheap restaurant and really cool shops and things to see near me. China is entrenched in history, a lot of dirt, and really cool things.

16: You learn to love dirt. China is by far the dirtiest place I have been in the world. You just get kind of used to it. It's not bad for you...

17: Forecast: Smoggy. My favorite thing to read is that the weather forecast (tianqi yubao) saying that it will be foggy. When it says that it will be foggy it is really saying that the smog is bad.

18: Chinese love to party. And by this I mean two things. The first is that bars and clubs are always packed everyday of the week (not just Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) and ladies night on Thursday usually means free drinks and free entry for girls across Beijing. The second is the chinese equivalent of cheers - Ganbei (干杯！). As my friend Kai told me, it essentially means that when a guy says this, he immediately has to finish his drink or he will lose face. (Girls can just sip though...).

19: Chinese school is much harder than American school. I am in class around 4-6 hours a day. However I spend much more time studying, practicing and learning than I do in the United States. I have tingxie (dictation quizzes) and tests every single class. When they say preview, they mean memorize. You start to automatically memorize everything, but you learn so much more. If you read something (a dialogue perhaps), you will be expected to recite the whole thing from memory mere minutes after learning it.

20: Most Americans you meet are Mormons. I have not yet been asked if I am a mormon, which is surprising. Also the fact that there are many mormons here is surprising, because China does not like missionaries and there is a strong dislike/distrust of organized religion. Many missionaries have been deported for trying to convert people.

21: Everyone gets a week off in October. This is called National Holiday. From October 1-7 no one (except tourism people I'm assuming) has work, school, or what not. This coincides with my birthday! yay! and I am going to Inner Mongolia with Luke and some friends.


There are many more, but these are the ones I can think of for now. I love China. It is possibly the best experience of my life so far.

Zaijian! 再见！