Week One: Arrival
I made it to China! The trip was exhausting, but otherwise mostly uneventful. 16 ½ hours to Hong Kong, with a two hour layover (during which, I managed to get lost in the HK airport with about 10 other people looking for the same flight, all because their signage was wrong), and then another three hours up to Beijing. At this point, I’d be pretty happy to never have to sit on an airplane again.
My first taste of Beijing was trying to navigate to my host’s home via bus – an interesting challenge since I have literally no clue where anything is (even a week later). Thankfully, I speak enough Chinese to hold simple conversations, so getting to where I needed to go was pretty simple.
During my time here, I’ll be staying with one of the women I work with, Annie. In exchange, I’m helping her daughter with her English. I’m honestly not sure how much she needs it though. Other than more complicated things like verb conjugation and past participles, she has a pretty good grasp on the language.
Overall, my first week has been pretty uneventful, but not in a bad way. On Sunday, because it was Mother’s Day, I was invited to try 烤鸭 (roast duck – a specialty in Beijing) with Annie, her mother, and her daughter. I didn’t get any photos of it, but wow it was good.
I started work on Monday at Zhicheng Public Interest. I work primarily with their Children’s Legal Aid Center, but I do a bunch of other stuff as well. I’ve proofread a bunch of English documents and helped write a few abstracts for some studies they’re doing. I’m also responsible for working with one other intern on compiling information on every country’s anti-school bullying policies and laws, an unsurprisingly difficult task. I’ve also been put on a new project – helping rank a bunch of the NGOs and other organizations that will be attending Zhicheng’s annual children’s rights summit based on the work that they do. It’s a lot of work, since I’m one of the only interns here so far, but it’s way better than having nothing to do all day.
During the week, I help Ariel with her English, and I read. Since getting here, I’ve read 15 books. Thank god for online libraries. During lunch, I’ll walk to a small market nearby and buy some fruit and a cold drink, since it’s almost impossible to get cold water here. One of the perks of working with Zicheng is, if I want it, breakfast and lunch are free Monday-Friday. All I have to do is bring a lunchbox and some chopsticks.
Today, I went to 颐和园 (the Summer Palace gardens). My nearly ten-mile walk took me past dozens of buildings, down a long covered walkway (conveniently called the Long Road), and down past 昆明湖 (Kunming Lake). When I was first typing this up, I was resting near Kunming Lake and trying to figure out where I was. The grounds are so massive and the signs are easy to miss, so I ended up walking around the entire lake, and up several obnoxiously steep bridges and hills just to find my way back to the gate I wanted to leave through. It was probably one of the most breathtaking things I’ve seen, however. The architecture is complex and brightly colored, and the grounds are groomed immaculately. Lilypads and lotus blooms line the edges of the bodies of water. Each of the bridges is carved with intricate designs, and everywhere you walk there's some form of complex statue - whether bronze cast or stone. The trees are all carefully trimmed and shaped, like massive bonsai. I really can't properly explain just how beautiful it was. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see all of it, because at the end of those ten miles I was just too tired to walk all the way up the stairs to the Incense Tower. Instead, I went home.
The photo above is part of 苏州街 (Suzhou Street), an almost Venice-style market area with the skinniest streets (I'm not sure I can even call them streets) I've ever walked on. I spent most of the time just watching where I walked instead of actually looking at any of the stuff that was for sale because I was too worried about falling in. There were boat rides offered, and artists creating ornate calligraphy scrolls meant to be hung in your house - I didn't get any because I knew it probably wouldn't survive the trip home, unfortunately.
For dinner, Ariel, Annie and I went to the local SoFly mall to get dinner. Tonight, we had 烤鱼 (roast fish). For dessert we had - surprisingly - chocolate babka! One of my favorite desserts from back home, I was extremely excited to be able to get them here. Globalization is good for a few things, it seems.
At work, someone asked me what the hardest thing about being in Beijing was. Other than being totally incapable of navigating the city, I think there’s two things.
The first is that, despite having studied Chinese for nearly 13 years, I’m still pretty illiterate. I knew I would be, but it’s different when it’s staring you in the face. This is my first time in China, so I’ve never had a chance to fully immerse myself before now. On the other hand, I’m extremely lucky to know any of the language. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to navigate when you can’t speak the language at all. The worst part about this is when people find out that I speak some Chinese, or see me on the subway using Baidu (Google Maps, but for China. I don’t think they have an English version – if they do, I haven’t found it) and realize I can read Chinese, and then strike up a conversation. They’re always excited with whatever tiny amount I can understand and respond to, but it’s definitely frustrating for me.
The second thing is the stares. I’m a blonde, white woman living in a place where there aren't exactly many blonde, white women. In fact, the first time I saw someone who was obviously a foreigner since leaving the airport was today, at the Palace. The staring is to be expected, but it’s a lot more blatant than I thought it would be. For example, as I was typing the draft of this post on my phone, two older women came up and just snapped a photo of me. Didn’t ask or anything. It does’t make me mad, but it definitely feels awkward. I’ve watched so many little kids stare and point at me in fascination (I think – either that or it’s horror), and I’ve seen tons of people slow down on their bikes or mopeds just to get a better look at me when I’m walking to work.
These things aside, I’m having a good time. I’m excited to explore more of Beijing and hopefully find some really cool stuff to share with you guys! I'll edit this to add photos later, but for now it's just going to have to be plain text (my VPN is being super slow so I can't access my emails - gotta love the Great Firewall).
Until next week!