February 12, 2009: Beijing, China

Up until today I would have said that Beijing winters are wonderful. It wasn’t so cold (perhaps the onset of an early Spring?) and it was quite dry. Dry climates agree with me because I don’t have to worry about my hair. It falls nicely flat when it dries, or stays in whatever I marshal it into. Humidity is not my friend.

As for the pollution, my previous time in Beijing was a little limited (since I spent most of my time in Yantai) but it seems generally cleaner now. Ignoring all the powder from the massive amounts of firecrackers that went off for New Year, I can see blue sky most days. This continues to shock me since I went a full week over the summer without seeing blue sky or the sun.

Today breaks the trend of nice weather. Morning dawned exceedingly gray and foggy and the afternoon had a strange sort of rain. More like mist that happened to also be rain sometimes. One of our professors said that the rain might/would turn into snow a little later on. It might have already hit the ice stage since we were sorta sliding around on the street while we walked to class. It might have also just been the wet smooth stones.

I understand the need for precipitation in China with the drought going on and all, but if it has to rain, could it at least be just a tad warmer? As in being unable to see my breath when I breath inside a restaurant?! (I must admit, the insulation of that restaurant was sorely lacking. But it was Korean so we can’t blame Chinese construction.)

Speaking of ice, Tram and I went ice skating yesterday on the on-campus lake. Even the minor issue of her being unable to ice skate was easily rectified. You could either rent skates for 10 yuan or rent a chair for 20. The best way to picture the chair would be to imagine a metal fold out chair that probably could only seat a ten year old nailed down onto a plank of wood. This wood than had two sled like blades on the bottom. They also gave you poles maneuver with but I ended up pushing her instead. She might have been better off pushing herself since during one of my attempts to spin her around really fast, I ended dumping her out of the chair. It was really funny.

We also found the Chinese equivalent of Walmart (though they have those here too). It’s a store called Carrefour. We were wandering around and chatting when a guy ran past, stopped turned around and was excited to see us. More preciously, he was excited we could understand and speak English. He was desperately trying to buy a cell phone and didn’t know any of the necessary vocab. I’ve never met someone so happy that I could speak English (and I have met some people who are quite happy about it).

Classes are going well. A little simple at the moment, but I’m not sure if they’re just finding where were are or what. We have lots of free time and while it pains me to admit it, I’m a week ahead in my reading courses. Hence, I decided to spend my time as productively as possible. So far I’ve only explored the area immediately around the school, but as soon as I find the subway stop, I’m off to the far corners of the city!