Last Friday I finished my last classes and said goodbye to my English class of future Parliamentarians rather unemotionally before rushing off to the airport in order to catch my flight to Beijing. The whole trip to China is such a blur and I went through it in such a sleep-deprived state that sometimes I question whether it really happened.
I touched down in the Beijing airport around 8 pm and followed Sutong's directions to the hotel he had made reservations at. I had been hoping that my one year of Mandarin would instantly return to me the second I entered the country, but alas, virtually none of it did and I had to resort to mixing English and Chinese phrases which were met with confounded looks by those I attempted to speak to.
Upon hitting the Beijing streets, I was amazed at how refreshing it was to see dirty streets and poor workers eating on the side of the road. I remember when I first arrived in Seoul I asked Janice where the ghetto areas were, and she said the closest thing would be some rundown houses near the N tower in the middle of the city. I've found that Seoul really is lacking in the "ghetto" department, aside from the goshitel I had originally planned on staying in, which was inhabited by poor migrant workers.
And in actuality, the Hou Hai area where our hotel was located in Beijing was ghetto only in comparison to Seoul- it's home to Chinese celebrities and the Beijing elite as well. Once I managed to find the hotel and get settled, Sutong, his girlfriend Vivian, and I set out to the lakeside where a number of jazz-club like establishments were situated (and playing songs that were popular in 2006 Kyrgyzstan like "Gasolina" and "Boro Boro")
Sometime during the course of our conversation, the topic of Koreans came up. Vivian explained that a popular Chinese slang word is a word that sounds like "dee-yeah," which is hard to define in English, but usually means "cute" in a good or a bad way- i.e. whiny Korean voices, couples wearing matching clothes. Apparently, it also applies to Taiwanese people as well- one Taiwanese singer on the radio had a "dee-yeah" voice.
Another slang word introduced to me was the word "niu," which literally means cow, but which figuratively means "cool."
For my first meal in Beijing, I had the chance to try authentic Chinese zhajiang mian in its country of origin. Strangely, I've heard both Koreans and Chinese declare that their country created zhajiangmian/jajjangmyeon and that the other country could not possibly have the same dish. Sometimes I feel like Asia is one big high school and each country is its own little social clique.
The salty Chinese zhajiang mian was initially much better than the sweet Korean jajjangmyeon, but after a few bites it felt like a stroke waiting to happen.
the view outside our hotel room
one of the lakes by our hotel
We had originally planned to get up at 5:30 the next morning to head to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. That didn't happen, so at 8:30 we departed for the wall. On our way through the Beijing countryside, we stopped at a restaurant where you could catch and then immediately eat your own fish.
Sutong actually caught our fish- I just pretended like I was helping
A pretty cow place to eat
To Be Continued
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