i would like to comment a bit on the odd day to day expenses that occur in th is country. now it is very cheap, unreasonably so even, to eat out, buy groceries, cook, find entertainment, see friends, etc., so that in general, one does not actually need to make a lot to live very well. we buy massive bags worth of fresh produce for less than 30rmb, all the groceries we could want for less than 50rmb, plus fruit and freshly prepared cold chinese salads and we’re looking at no more than the equivalent of 20 dollars and we’re set for at least a week. by some estimate, one only needs a quarter of that to live very comfortably in this country. but then, there’s rent.

now maybe i’m unreasonable, but i have a certain standard that i find hard to give up, especially when it concerns the place that i call home, the bathroom that i do my business in, and the kitchen that i prepare meals for the ones i care about in. you can rent a place very cheaply, no more than 30 dollars a month, but it will be underground, is a literal room, have a shared bathroom with no gauranteed hot water, no gaurantee of windows, and definitely okitchen htough you can bring your own electric stove and many people do. that’s the bottom of the pole.

and then there’s the chinese style apartments which are, for most intents and purposes alright, but shoddy, feeling like they’re falling apart, and they are, with no regard for the common spaces of the buildings meaning you can be on the highest floor and all the lights will be out in the hallways so you’ll feel like you’re living in a cave. and the bathrooms, lord save me from the bathrooms. so that’s like, the middle, wh ich, unfortunately, from a standards point of view, i find difficult to accept.

now i realize this might make me seem like a snob or something, but for the same reason that i never understood why people don’t care about the quality of their hotel rooms while on vacation based on the flimsy pretense that they don’t plan to stay in that that often didn’t and doesn’t make sense to me i mean, you need a place to stay right, some place comfortable because what happens if you’re sick or too drunk you don’t want to passout in a trash heap i can’t come to terms with an apartment that i dread the thougt of taking a shower in, which is most chinese apartments. but that makes up the middle tier as far as quality goes.

then there are those places meant for foreigners to stay in, built from the ground up for them, and are of decent quality. noe i say decent only because even they could use a good bit of work. one common complaint is the abundance of mold on the walls of even the most expensive, and i do mean most expensive as these places can run for close to western prices, of places just still feel like they are falling apart, and they are. but, you can find places that will satisfy my standards, but again, they’re expensive.

which brings us to the point that i find myself in an odd employment state. you see, i’m no longer. the foreigner who’s willing to relocate and work in beijing, i’m the foreigner who’s already here and is looking for a job, with the major difference being that while the former has an allure of self sacrifice, and thus the appropriate compensation to go along with what ever jobs may fall under that category, the latter does not, and will pay close to absolutely nothing for work that in any other country will earn me a decent living. bottom line, i can’t make more than 700 dollars a month doing full time programming work in this god forsaken country. now that isn’t actually bad by chinese standards, and were my only goal to pay for our day to day expenses, i’m golden, but i need to pay for rent, and i need a place that i am comfortable taking a shower in, and that’s where the conflict comes into play, namely i for the moment just, can’t.

and the irony of it all, my father just got a new place in beijing and it meets our standards, and is cheaper by far than anything else out there we’ve found, but is in the wrong part of town, and i think that makes all the difference.

but the plan is to continue searching, both for a job and an apartment, and i think we’re going to venture way the far out of town to a place that’s still subway accessible, and easilly accessible might i add, but hopefully very inexpensive by virtue of it being far away, and we might be lucky out there.

let’s see, other problems that plague the sean. he needs to leave again out of the country by july 15 to get on his last entry into the country. and this will be the last one as his visa expires at the end of august, as in proper expires and he will need to go back to the united states to get a new one, which he really does not want to. for reasons beyond his countrol and knowledge and patience to sort through his working visa still hasn’t come through, and neither had maria’s, but she no longer needs to worry because a) she’s going back to the states anyways and b) she will get a student visa through tsinghua. the sean’s plan though is to get on his last entry, as cheaply as possible, then at the last mi nute switch while in country to a 90 day single entry visa, which he knows he can, so he cwn stay in the country until the end of november by which time hopefully some other, better solution would have presented itself. at the moment he doesn’t care which: his father comes throug, he gets employed elsewhere, or he pays somebody 1000 dollars and they give him the visa in that shady, underhanded, sort of grey area kind of way. it really doesn’t matter.

back to i here, i think. i had also planned on joining maria in the states and nyc for her internship this summer, but the feasibility of it is minimal. the expenses unfortunatly just far outweigh the gain, and if i go, i have to plan on staying, which is a decision i’m not yet ready to make. i definitely want to be here when maria starts her school so if i head back to the states it will be after that so no point making the expense now. startup expenses in general back in the states is also just in general prohibitive so even if i wanted to, maybe the best i can do is go back to los angeles which actually doesn’t sound that appealing. i’m kinda holding out that china will still work out in a bit way and we’ll all make our personal fortunes here and change the world for the better.

which at least there’s still a chance of, and having lost most of my steam for blogging, i will end here by saying that no matter what, the sean is trying to be optimistic, and hey, he hadn’t thought of this but maybe he and maria can get married; that’ll solve his visa problems.

oh and the restaurant is a complete bust incidentally. to summarize in the quickest way possible, there’s been management issues from the get go, the owners no longer like each other, for some reason one half viewed my desire to no longer be their full time employee as a sign that they should exit the business as well so they gave my dad some time to find someone to buy them out, and since it obviously didn’t happen fast enough they’ve been threatening to close down the business and then wanted to buy us out which, well, hey, seemed like quite a good deal actually because we were done with the stupid thing anyway and didn’t want to have anything to do with it and if you’ll listen to my father about it, he’s convinced the entire thing was a conspiracy to get the entire business by the other half owners at a greatly depreciated value by driving me out, driving the restaurant down, then lording over us the fact that they have more money to convince us to sell out to them, but things really came to a head when, afraid that they might steal our business licenses my father put up fake copies on the walls and, lo and behold, the next day they were stolen from us, and then when maria and i went to go check our mail because we’re using the restaurant as our mailing address because it’s convenient we find that they had changed the locks on us and were no longer able to get in, and that they had fired all the staff and closed the restaurant without telling us! what is wrong with these people? they were just in the middle of negotiating how to buy our half our when all of a sudden, chaos. so now maria and i have no place to get our mail which is a) a shame and b) just inconvenient as far as timing goes because we’re expecting her all important actual enrollment confirmation packet from tsinghua which should also have the confirmation that the chinese government is going to pay for all her tuition and housing and give her a monthly stipend to live on in. that was sarcastic by the way, though it’ll be cool if it happened that way, but we are actually waiting for this packet and it’s being sent to the restaurant and we’re not sure how to get it anymore because these people are insane!

…

so here’s to hoping it all comes together, heh, and that those we’ve wronged or disappointed in the past may forgive and move forward with us towards a brighter and better future.

It was an excellent food-and-walking day. Google Maps clocks us at some 13 km, hardly hastily executed at some 6 hours, and in any event involving many stops, detours, tea and food purchases, bathroom breaks, and window-shopping interludes. Starting on a familiar route, we got Sean a chicken-and-potato bing; shortly we detoured for convenience-store pudding.

I don’t remember if I have ever before specifically desired Chinese pudding—more jelly-like than the American version—but once my wish was verbalized Sean was a man on a mission. In truth, the convenience-store pudding wasn’t quite what I had in mind, so we followed it up with a second pudding event later on. That second event took place at iTea at the mall at Wangfujing and went by the name Triple Pudding, if I recall correctly. It was guinea pig-colored, and it tasted like coconut, chocolate, and pseudo-coffee in a caramel-y sauce and was served as a beverage with a straw. Perfect.

The Wangfujing Oriental Plaza is a very mally-y mall, and we’ve done it before; no surprises there. We checked out the movie theater—I had previously noted that it had on offer an English-language film called the Echelon Conspiracy, which we are skeptical is marketed in the States. Something to look into, but we decided to give it a miss for today. We window-shopped at jewelry and bag stores, not because we need anything in particular, but just for fun…I have in mind a white patent leather handbag, and am in 0 hurry to find it. The hunt is more fun than actually owning it would be, unless—perhaps—someday…I can find that elusive Perfect One. As an additional benefit, the mall offered some relief from the area’s oppressive pollen. There’s something in the air right now to which I am miserably allergic. I’m going through a box of Kleenex a day. Gross-ba.

After heading back out into the humid summer air, we got a grilled corn, which Sean agrees is superior in texture to the simple boiled one, and watched and mingled with the crowds. We stopped to thoroughly examine a group that turned out to be comprised of international MBA students from Carlson, apparently visiting the Cheung Kong business school. I refrained from busting out the camera for them, but we were far from the only gawkers. In fairness, it took them a decently long time for them to get organized on some office building steps and figure out how to display their banner so their cameraman had a shot at catching it in the frame. I did stop to take a picture of a World Cup ad, though, which features fake crowds into which aisles have been blatantly interlaid, with the intention of making it look like a stadium event. Bwhahahahah. Fail.

In good time we found ourselves out of the crowded mall-and-office area and following a long park which runs between the two sides of a divided boulevard. The sunlight was golden. The trees looked almost tropical, and so many roses and other flowers had been planted (especially red and yellow ones) as to make me feel like I was back on campus. Floofy dogs also abounded, and we observed that the volume of the floof on the dog in the tricycle basket is proportional to the crappiness of the tricycle and the decrepitude of the adoring Chinese man pedaling it. As Sean often observes, this country is weird. We also saw some old men flying kites, which were pretty damn far away, high in the sky. How did they do that?

Night fell, and we reached Nanluoguxiang, tourist alley of tourist alleys. 15 kuai “mojitos” beckoned, and although I find it difficult to believe they actually contained alcohol, they were pleasant and sweet and welcome in the warm night. Further walks took us past adorable kittens (“Buy a shirt and get a kitten free!”) and the stand where they sell mix music. A police van came by the DJ just as we did; poof, and the music was off, the player hidden, and the crowd innocent. Two minutes later and it was all back to normal; we purchased three nameless CDs, hoped for the best and set off again home.

It was a good day, and a relaxed one. I get the feeling my relaxation is drawing to a close for a good while; June may be the end of it, and I’m cherishing this free-wheeling Beijingness while I can.

I suggested to him (after he disposed of some subpar fruit pieces by tossing them to the side of an alley) that he is becoming more Chinese. Putting aside the disputed question of whether he would have utilized the same disposal method in the States, I think he thinks any change in his behavior is a necessary or at least reasonable adaptation.

How Chinese do we want to be? There are clearly many points of life here, even so far, that are superior to life in the States. For one thing, despite my unfamiliarity, metric is more logical and I should get used to it. More importantly, the environment encourages some salubrious habits. One can walk to a store to acquire supplies; produce is cheap, and at least some of it is cheaper than some processed food. I also appreciate that the ready correlation between energy and water use and a bill for it encourages awareness and conservation. (Of course, maybe this is no different from how many people live in the States; but I had a ridiculously inflated flat-fee utility bill, which encouraged me to get my money’s worth.) I’m not expected to maintain a personal automobile, a circumstance I often felt guilty about in the states. I didn’t want to drive a car, didn’t want to worry about it, didn’t want to have to return to my starting point if I took a trip, didn’t want to pollute, would rather get some exercise, would rather be able to drink without determining whether I’d need to go anywhere in the next few hours, and didn’t want to pay insurance (which is clearly a massive, and massively inefficient, scam). Plus, Beijing subway kicks L.A. subway’s ass.

I’m not stressed out. This is good. Of course, had I quit my lawyer job and taken up studenthood in the States, I would likely also be less stressed. It’s certainly cheaper to be a student in Beijing than in L.A. (On the other hand, I must be nuts: I still can hardly say anything to most people, can navigate only in a very limited way, and almost get hit by various motorized vehicles all the friggin’ time.)

But. I’m not such a big fan of everyone spitting in the street all the time. Not a fan of adults peeing in the bushes at the park when there is a public toilet in view, if not within 10 meters. Not a fan of people throwing their trash to the ground, even though in most parts of town it seems that someone else comes along and cleans it up reasonably promptly. I’m getting used to the pushing/shoving/no personal space thing…but I still wish people would form an orderly line so I didn’t feel like I had to push/shove/breathe down the old lady’s neck myself. I wish people would maintain awareness of others using the sidewalk and make some effort not to obstruct others’ movements. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m willing to resist. I have my standards. We’ll see how long that lasts.

We’ve now secured an apartment–well, secured, at least in some sense. The rent is already high and we’ve sort-of been warned that the landlady may increase it. The place is quite nice, however, and I can’t wait to have my own collection of points in the 3-d coordinate plane. Everyone here has been wonderful, and at least Sean’s grandmother will be sad that we won’t be around as much, but I will be happier once I have my own desk, tea paraphernalia, and place to put my stinky running clothes. We will hopefully be moving on Sunday.

I registered for the GMAT and have only a few weeks to study. I am also working on getting the recommendation letter templates out. Chinese schools are *so* not on a schedule–except, apparently, as regards receiving my completed application. One has posted the 2010 app; the other, not so much. As National Holiday draws to a close, however, I’m hoping they’ll be more responsive.

I have also lately learned that the picture on the outside of the package does not necessarily reflect the contents. I bought a package of tasty dried fruits (labeled plums…maybe). Although I am in no way dissatisfied with the contents, I was mildly surprised by them.  These photos are the outside and the inside. I am likely to pursue a new package of these, as I’ve eaten almost all of them.

Package

Contents. Tasty, but not as advertised.

The weather has been intermittently astonishingly beautiful, but it is getting cold. I anticipate that we will need to use a heater soon. I understand that it doesn’t get as cold here as, say, Boston, but that it will approach freezing. I am also becoming impatient to explore more, especially on my own, and am finding my lack of language skills quite limiting. This is not surprising, and I believe that as the National Holiday finishes up–and I have my own apartment — I can get the language-learning show on the road. *Can’t wait to unpack.*

I signed up for my first race in Beijing, or outside it–only a 10k, but since registration for the Beijing Half-Marathon is closed, I’ll take what I can get. I also posted on the Beijinger website, asking for gym recommendations and info on running clubs. I’m not optimistic anyone will have anything useful to say, but let’s see what fish this net ensnares.

I’d like to start out by stating that I think I’m spending way too much time with my family. Counting the time after we left our apartments in LA, we’ve been living with some form of family for over two months. I think it’s starting to get to me. It just sort of feels as if my time is not my own. My grandmother likes having meals with us, and they prepare them, and they do ask if we want to eat with them, but I just don’t have the heart to say no. My only reasonable excuse is that we eat dinner much later than they, so for the moment, we’re only obligated for lunch.

The point though, is that it seems like it’s just one holiday with all the family after another. More on the Mid-Autumn Festival by the way, later; I promise. And there’s so many of them. And Chinese people are so loud, especially when they all get together.

B. showed up that day as well. The city was for all intents and purposes closed and we thought it might be fun for him to come over. The majority of the festivities involved sitting in front of the TV and watching the big parade go by, then during lunch, watching the rerun, then that evening at my aunt and uncle’s place (more on them at some point) watching it yet again. All in all, we’ve seen parts of it at least three times, oh and I just remember that it was playing on the huge eight story tall TV screen in front of Tian An Men Square as we passed it on the bus. So make that four times.

My grandmother really liked B. As she put it, she loves anybody who loves her country. She is actually quite fiercely patriotic, though evidently not as patriotic as my uncle (this being my father’s older brother, I’m realizing that without names my relationships with people is going to be vague, but, well, I’m not sure there’s a way around it) since he is patriotic and loves the entire of history of China, even before the communists took over, and apparently my grandmother only loves it since then. Either way. She actually cried during the TV broadcast, when they tore at your heartstrings with recorded broadcasts of Chairman Mao declaring that “Our country is standing up now,” no sarcasm intended.

The entire broadcast was a tribute to perfection. Everyone standing in formation was even the same height. Apparently, they were specifically chosen to be only a few centimeters apart at most. They all marched in sync. to a degree I had never thought possible. They even turned their heads at the same time, in the same way, as the current president rode by in his fancy Red Flag Chinese limousine. Oh and I want to be the guy who gets to throw the flat. So in China, when they raise the flag, it’s not like in the States where someone just makes sure it never touches the ground. Here, someone actually bundles it so that yes, it doesn’t touch the ground, and then, at an appropriate, predetermined point, he lavishly throws it into the air with a grandiose gesture so that it waves majestically as it is raised. Quite a spectacle to behold actually, and yes, I want to be that guy.

The parade can be seen of as being in two parts. The first being a demonstration and procession of China’s military might, showing tanks and missile launchers from anti-air cannons to ICBM launchers. We think they’re empty though, and the tanks weren’t those proper “tanks” per se popularized in the Gulf War, more like those modern, “Urban” type tanks the police like to use, outfitted with fancy guns and cannons and missiles. The point being, they must have not been loaded, for safety reasons one, and two, so they don’t damage the rode. My father even speculated that they may have been made out of cardboard, but I’m not entirely sure of that.

Incidentally I saw a video online comparing the North Korea military demonstration to China’s, with the implication that they’re similar. I’d like to personally say that I at least liked China’s more, because of the second part, which was a demonstration by the students, the workers, and the “masses.”

So every student in the sophomore year basically had to participate. They’d been practicing for months, all summer, and even now with school in session, they’ve been taking sanctioned days of to practice some more. Now they’re coordination is no where near on par with the military’s, which borders on frightening, but it was neat to see so many of them gathered. They formed in what my father called “Legions,” squares of marchers 1000 people strong. And there were tons of them! I can’t imaging the numbers that showed up for this affair! And they all danced, and chanted, and held up signs giving praise to this or that, I’m not entirely sure or don’t entirely remember, but that’s not really the point, I just liked seeing them all.

Then there were floats, one for each of the different uh, regions, that China controls. Lavish, tacky looking things. Quite gaudy and frightening in their own way. They’re actually still on display at Tian An Men Square. We saw them as we were passing on the bus and they were surrounded by a literal sea of people. You can’t imagine the number of people all out and walking about on a Sunday night, looking at all this stuff. They had two eight story tall TV screens, and two more that must have been eight stories wide. Plus all the floats lit up. And 56 ceremonial pillars. And there were lights. And there were water fountains doing dances in the air. And, as said before, people as far as the eye can see.

Quite a spectacle, all in all. I can’t wait until it’s finished though so that things can get back to normal. People still aren’t really working right now, and businesses are closed. This is hampering my personal ability to get a job and secure an apartment, though it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll be taking my mother’s place. But these are all stories for another time. Suffice it to end with that this country of 60 has come quite a long way, has quite a long ways to go still, but I’m loving every moment of being in it. And I also promise that Maria will be back, at some point; we have been, to put it mildly, busy.

One of our primary concerns especially this early on, though we’ve been here for just about ten days now already, is to find an apartment. We would like to be in the North part of town, in the district called Haidian, which is where Maria’s possible MBA schools are. It’s actually where all the universities are, so it makes for a nice pseudo-collegiate atmosphere. Plus, Maria’s friend B., more on him at a later point I’m sure, lives there and would be nice to have friends around.

Our search has taken us onto all the usual internet sites, places like Craigslist, and lesser known expat sites like Beijinger, CityWeekend, etc. (look, I’m using links!) My step mother has been gracious and kind enough to help us with making the all important phone call to follow up on the ads we’ve found.

So the other day, we did a bunch of research online, got a bunch of phone numbers written down, made the necessary calls, then headed out. We ended up seeing four different places that day.

The first one was the most expensive, 4500 RMB for a 2 bd./2 ba. It was on the campus of the Geosciences University, where incidentally B. had lived before and had told us horror stories about frozen winters. It was, “nice,” in a way; a 6th story walk up. It came “furnished,” read into that whatever you’d like, and I think from now on, whenever quotes are employed, feel free to read into them whatever you feel is appropriate. These “furniture,” especially the “bed,” made me realize that hard though my father’s be, there are worse, shudder though I at that realization. It was, otherwise, modest for what it was, and obviously expensive for what it was.

And Maria just read this and said it was in no way “nice,” which, as I pointed out after correcting it, was why it was in quotes.

The next place was a decent walk away, and was next to the Forestry University. It’s entrance can be best characterized as a dungeon, overhanging detritus and all. As a general description, all these places appeared “Soviet” to me, no offense intended. Sort of, winter and/or nuclear wasteland type. This was a 1 bd./ 1 ba. for 3300 RMB. The funniest thing about this one was that it had been occupied previously by English speaking students, and probably a young girl who liked K-Pop stars judging by the stickers on the dresser mirror. This also meant there was a neat little printout guide on “How-to” do this and that, like pay for the water bill, pay the electric bill, etc., with cute-sy type remarks like “Good boy, you just paid your electric bill!” I should point out that I actually liked NONE of these. They all had their flaws, the most specific of which is “I don’t like them.” They’re too, “Chinese,” for lack of a better term, and again, no offense intended.

The third one wasn’t bad. It was in a suburby feeling kind of area, three story tall buildings in rows with vegetation and actual vegetables growing between them, kind of like English row houses actually. It was tiny, but we could’ve gotten it for 1800 RMB. No kitchen, per se, but it had a space where we could set up an electric stove. The bedroom was also up some steep stairs in what I could only imagine was the attic with low enough hanging ceilings that you actually couldn’t use half the available space. But at least it was, clean, less “Chinese” in some ways, almost like a dorm room.

Moving on the fourth one was just bad. It was still a little further away, 1 bd./ 1 ba. for 2200 RMB, very “Chinese,” and so I don’t sound like a broken record, just not right, yet again.

Then we went and looked at guitars for me :) Then we went to my father’s restaurant, Connections Bar and Grill and I actually bought a guitar. This was a whole interesting evening in and of itself but that will have to wait until another post. Back to apartments.

I think what we learned is that our standards are higher than “Chinese.” We’ve said that we want to live here, but we don’t want to become “locals” or “natives” per se. Reading what I just wrote I think that makes me sound like a horrible person, but the facts are that I’ve gotten used to some standard of living in the US and I’m not entirely comfortable shedding it. It’s like the needs we’ve developed in the States; no reason to leave them behind, plus we shouldn’t.

But it was still good to see these because I think it’s given us perspective on what it is we do and do not want in an apartment. Going forward, we should be much better prepared to identify what it is we do or do not like. As it stands, I think I can sum it up a little:

1) It needs to be in a “complex,” one with a guard, for safety reasons.
2) It needs to be a “high rise,” meaning something build relatively recently, probably within the past ten years or so, at most.
3) It needs to be near you want to be, and sometimes that may mean not near any other forms of public transportation. It’s OK to commute and travel a little when you want to go out, but if you’re going to school, save the travel time as best as possible.
4) Do stick to your standards. Just because you’re living in another country, doesn’t mean you need to change who you are. You are neither in that dire of straits or that constrained of time to have to settle for anything less than you are comfortable with.
5) Get an agent, or at least have one show you around, and if you can, get a “seller’s” agent, one that you won’t have to pay a fee to. They know the area, what’s available, have all the required phone numbers, and can get you better deal. We had an agent, a lovely Chinese girl who accompanied us on bicycle.
6) The higher up you are, the less likely it is you’ll have bugs, and the more control you will have on your ambient temperature; during the winter, the heat accumulates up high so you can at least open your windows to regulate instead of freezing down below (Thanks B. for the tip! He lives in quite a nice place by the way, in BLCU).

Whew! I’m exhausted! We’ve had so many late nights, all of them fun, so I’m going to stop now. I think I’ll exercise some form of mental discipline and try to at least update this once a night going forward until we are caught up.

Some things to look forward to:

1) Our time spent with B.
2) National Day (Happy Birthday New China!)
3) Additional business schemes
4) Job hunting news

Good. One immediate issue resolved.

Another pressing concern had been the questionable comfort provided by our hard Chinese mattress. I think I’ve actually gotten used to it. (!!)

Yesterday also marked my first run in Beijing, a late-morning 5 miles around a nearby park. Sal tracked it, and I enjoyed examining its satellite map and record greatly. I walked to Yuyuantan Park, paid the 2 yuan admission price and entered without difficulty (it was also my first solo venture in China!). It was in the upper 60′s, a little humid, and overall very pleasant (and reassuring. I *can* run here!). The park was full of groups–some of them in the hundreds of people–practicing song, dance, and performance. I am guessing this is related to National Day, which is on Oct 1. Or maybe I’m wrong and this is just what people do on Friday mornings in Beijing parks. The park itself is beautiful, with bridges over lotus ponds and plentiful foliage. The run at first reminded me of the City of Angels half-marathon, with entertainment every quarter-mile or so; then it reminded me of Venice Beach, although some parts of the park are so stately and elegant I thought it might be like running in the Huntington in San Marino.

Until near the end of the run, I was prepared to evaluate the commentary as no worse than LA. Maybe as it got later or as I got sweatier it seemed more appropriate to old Chinese guys to talk to me. Sources were old and middle-aged men (incidentally, it appears that a tiny Speedo is considered adequate coverage for a male of any age for any purpose, including swimming, grunting calisthenics, or walking around talking to people…). Some old guys swimming in the lake all called “Hallo!” and waved, and laughed when I waved back. Some men clapped as I ran past and called out some words in Chinese, and I have no idea what they said and didn’t stop to try to find out. Some middle-aged guy followed me a bit as I left the park. I tried to be friendly but to indicate he should get lost. Perhaps he really was just trying to help me cross the street, but I found him creepy and took a detour on my way home so he wouldn’t know where I lived. By the time I made it back he was no longer in sight, so I think I succeeded.

The air seemed fine to me, although it did look hazy, and later when I blew my nose I produced some black dust. I wonder if this is the sort of thing that builds up and gets to you eventually. I am also somewhat self-conscious about my clothing: I wore my gray shorts with pockets (containing my passport, Sean’s cell phone, some money, and a hand-drawn map) and a dark FBI tank top, so more modest outfits could be imagined, but it was hardly indecent for US standards. Still, the only other girl I’ve seen running in Beijing so far wore long pants and a shirt with sleeves. Tank tops do not appear to be popular here. As Sean noted, however, the locals tend to wear far more clothing than we do and do not seem uncomfortable. We are always hot when we’re out and about. Perhaps we walk farther than they do? Perhaps they are just smaller people and therefore have more surface area to volume? Maybe they don’t care about being hot? I wore jeans on yesterday’s walking and subway tour, and by the time we got back they were moist, hot, and uncomfortable. Can I wear running shorts everywhere from now on? :D

I am worried that someone official will call after me, and I won’t understand it, and won’t know when I need to stop and listen to them. Sigh. Is there any answer for this? Better Chinese will help, but even Americans in America get taken in by false officials or merely assertive strangers in unfamiliar environments. My strategy of ignoring strangers who talk to me does have this vulnerability.

Later yesterday, we visited Sean’s mother’s apartment (sans mother, and itself a minor adventure) and his dad’s bar and grill. At the latter, I met another of his cousins, a business partner of his dad’s, and had a draft Beijing beer. I love beer on tap and enjoyed the chance to sit, visit, and chill. These landmarks help me get my sense of direction, if nothing else.

Sean and I had been going to do some tourist stuff today with one of his cousins, but the cousin is sick, so that’s off. My revised agenda for today includes setting up some trades and further researching language programs. I’m finding the idea of an intensive language program with extras appealing. I found one that includes culture and martial arts classes. Neat! Locations are still difficult for me to evaluate, however. This city is very, very big.

In the morning, Maria managed to find some “bread” and “butter” in the fridge. Read what you’d like into the quotes. We also got some eggs from the maid who helps my grandparents out. Impressively enough, I remembered that there was this park next to my grandparents building. I had gone there as a kid before I left for the United States and wouldn’t you know it, initial inspection via Google maps indicated that it may be a good place for the Maria to run. So we went to inspect further.

From my best guess, the park is called “Jade Park Altar” or something like that. There are walking paths all along the perimeter and bisecting it in a figure eight with a bridge, bridge indicating multiple bodies of water. There were lots of people swimming what looked to be the entire length of the lake, right next to the sign that said “No Swimming.” Same with fishing.

Lunch was taken care of by my grandparents. They’re quite insistent that we eat some meal with them. I don’t think we’ve gotten out of one yet and are even currently committed to lunch with them yet again tomorrow. Although today they did tell a lovely story about my Grand Uncle and his wife. More on that at some point, maybe.

After lunch we thought we’d tackle the Beijing subway, this being my first time ever on it as well, but we figured, subways are subways, how hard can it be. The system is more in line with a cross between the London Tube and NYC than LA. We had decided the night before that we would pay my cousin a visit at his office and at the same time check out the apartment to see if we would be interested in living there. We also got to see the Walmart, and I had lots of fun spotting the foreigners. I wanted to say “hi,” but thought better about it.

Michael (my cousin)’s apartment was quite nice actually. But what I’ve come to realize, though I’ve always sort of known it but had given it very little actual thought due to the temporary nature of my visits to this country, of which this does not count, is that the Chinese bathrooms and kitchens are terribly sub-par. They just don’t feel “clean” to me, no matter how clean I know they are. This can be said about my father’s current apartment, and Michael’s office. My mother had indicated that this may be so, and so had my father; they had said that no matter what, we’d probably have to renovate the bathroom.

So after touring with Michael, we figured on taking the long, scenic way home and started walking in the general direction of South and lo and behold, found a furniture “store,” quotes indicative of the fact that it was more akin to an Ikea but with everything provided by different brands and vendors. We looked specifically at mattresses (see above) and to my general dismay, found that even the most expensive mattress, costing in excess of 7000 dollars, could barely hold a candle to some of the worst mattresses in the US. I’m inclined to just ship one over now.

We also looked at bathroom and kitchen renovation stuff, which surprisingly may cost even less than the crappy “best” mattress.

We continued walking, failed to get Boba from a little corner stall type store that had no English whatsoever, got lost a bit, ended up back on the subway at rush hour no less, got tea when we first exited the subway thinking we could walk back from there, checked out a Coach store, having failed to walk back from there we then got back in the subway, again at rush hour no less, and ended up back where we had originally gotten on in the morning, safe in the knowledge that we knew how to get back.

I wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous enough to attempt trying to order food from a restaurant, so we went back to the super market, bought some instant noodles and beer, bought a “Golden Brick” from the bread bakery next to it, and returned to consume at “home.”

To Maria’s delight, she found out that there was hot water still in the thermos that the maid had brought in that morning; finally, she had leaned how to make tea without use of the microwave. There are also no tea pots, no tea bags, and no tea balls. And there was no thermos today.

Today, we did very little. Lots and lots of research online, including me managing to update my Facebook status. More, or less actually, on this, at some point. We had a lovely lunch again with my grandparents, and basically just arranged for things to happen either tomorrow or over the weekend. So more on that when it happens!

At the gate, some kind of middle management looking official for the airline with too much time on his hand gave me a similar amount of hassle for the one bag that I was able to bring on. He said it’s too heavy, I said if it’s too heavy, how come I was approved by the lady at the terminal to bring it? (I neglected to inform him that I had wheeled and dealed my way into that one…) I think my logic was overwhelming enough that even though he threatened to get his supervisor to come look at the bag, as I passed him on my way up the plane we simply exchanged polite nods and smiles. So we were on our way, properly!

The flight was uneventful. Taipei was hot and humid, like mid 80s at 6 in the morning. It took us forever to find our terminal because their flight information TV screens scrolls really slowly, and Maria wandered around and got us some drinks while we waited. The flight to Beijing was uneventful as well. And I think they must have made some kind of policy changes at the Beijing airport but immigration was VERY easy to get through. It’s like they’re trying to make sure they do everything quickly. We got through the health inspection with no problems, although I found the infrared fever sensors neat, got through immigration with no problems and faster than I’ve ever done so before, got our bags (the bright green ribbon really helped, I’m glad we chose that color to adorn them with), and waltzed through customs with nothing to declare without any issue.

We met my cousin at the airport, got two taxis, filled them both with our suitcases, and left the airport. Having surpassed all necessary gate keepers, we had made it to China.

The taxi ride was, again, uneventful. I couldn’t help noticing all the young trees that they had planted, all the construction projects going on, and just how different the skyline really looked. Apparently, and it may be wrong, but there are 40 million people all trying to live here, so I can understand the need for more and more apartment complexes. But it’s perpetually building, and not like in the States where there’s some foreman wearing an orange vest talking on a phone not really doing anything; work is actually being done. It’s also the 60 anniversary of some National Holiday for the Communist Party? So everything’s being adorned with very pretty flowers and there’s been lots of military exercises apparently. There’ll be 8 days off work for these people come early October.

That first night we dropped our stuff off at my father’s apartment, then walked over to the local grocery store to purchase some supplies, notably shampoo and conditioner. My cousin went with us and he gave us the general feel for the neighborhood. Obviously, we had no good idea which one was the conditioner, but there were lots of very nice Chinese women working for the grocery store who tried to help. We also got soap, toothpaste, and Diet Coke, or more precisely Coke Light. My grandparents had been napping when we arrived, but were awake now and were able to instruct us on how to get our temporary residency cards.

We went down to the local police station, a monument to bureaucracy with shelves and shelves of exactly the same colored and shaped binders. The lady who helped us was very nice, though we had to wait a little bit because she was dealing with some other people before us who had a whole slew of issues to complain about. Again, and I think this is new, but like at the airport and immigration, there were these little buttons with cartoon faces on it, from very happy looking to very sad, meant for us to use to rate their performance. Since this was our first time registering, we needed photos so we walked half a block to a photo store where a very decently Photoshop savvy Chinese woman took our photos, cropped them down to the appropriate size, adjusted all the levels manually, straightened, and duplicated into a grid of fours to print for us. By this point, our temporary residency cards were ready, and we headed back to my father’s apartment to chat with my grandparents.

In short, they’re old. 93 my grandmother and 95 my grandfather. We wanted showers, and to spread things out a bit. We all agreed to get dinner along with my cousin and his wife.

I think I’ll end it there for now. I just got called by my grandmother to go and get lunch. I still need to write all about our adventures yesterday, but I’ll leave that for another time, NOT another day, and hopefully this blog will be all up to date.

It looks as if a Beijing half-marathon will be held a few weeks after I arrive. Perhaps I’ll be able to run it. I ran at the YMCA in my parents’ town this morning because I slept in past the time I could reasonably run outside in this humidity. I’m quite pleased I hadn’t cancelled my LA membership yet. Good.

I looked up the GMAT testing center in Beijing. The location doesn’t mean a ton to me now, but I feel better to have confirmed its existence. It is in any event in the same “district” I intend to live in.

My best friend, Sarah, bought me a couple of books (one a Mandarin mini-textbook written by someone who helpfully has some training in modern academic phonetics) and so I learn a new phrase here and there…yes, being able to talk, that’s something I’d like. I’ve been reading some history and guidebooks as well. I’m sure I’ll learn much faster in China, but I feel better the more I learn beforehand.

Ai! I cannot wait. I also miss the Sean. I am enjoying my stay here in Ohio very much, but it is far from him and even farther than LA from the new challenges in China.