textures | tones

My conference call was canceled this afternoon, and Sean and I had been a bit stressed out, so we took the afternoon off and strode out into the streets.

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’ve not had any dreams lately, at least none that I can remember. When I just wake up, and I know I had a really good dream, one full of wonders and fantasy and whatever else makes such things perhaps a bit better than real life, it slips away, much quicker than before, well before I’ve had a chance to write it down. So I mean, it’s an excuse really, but this is why I’ve not written down any dreams lately. Also sometimes they’re just mundane, like the one where I dreamed Maria said one thing to me and it turns out she actually said another or nothing at all, ones that happen after I’ve moved from the bedroom to the couch to continue sleeping so that I can keep her company, albeit unconsciously, probably after the point in the day when one should still be asleep and so perhaps my punishment is boring, normal every day dreams. And maybe it is a punishment; maybe I should pay more attention to real life.

Which lately hasn’t been all that great. Lots have happened actually, and I can’t believe it’s been twenty days since I last posted anything, since anybody last posted anything here. I wonder if it’s possible to get my membership with expat blog revoked? It’s not like I’ve been doing anything horribly expat-y lately, though we did buy a water cooler, and that was an adventure in and of itself.

So Maria had been feeling dehydrated, and so have I frankly, and the water in China is a little dodgy and though you can boil it and clean it of whatever bacteria might be in it, we couldn’t help the film of sediment that formed on our water kettle nor the layer of detritus on the bottom of our water bottle into which we poured our boiled water. This meant we didn’t have much faith in it actually, and have substituted water when thirsty with perhaps not too healthy, sugary others. So we had talked about it a while ago, but the solution was to purchase a water bottle, one of those big ones that you see on the backs of trucks being delivered in the States. I had fond memories of using one the last time I was in China because it provided instant hot water and was a perfect means of re-constituting instant noodles. I only just recently realized, since it’s gotten to be summer and the weather is hot and humid in Beijing, that you can also get instant cold water and so have a nice refreshing beverage whenever called upon. But this was some time ago, the discussion I mean, about getting a big water bottle, so we revisited it recently and decided to actually go forward with it.

So in China, it’s a pretty easy thing to do. Just down our little alley there’s this guy that sells these big jugs of water. They weren’t open that day actually, so it was their loss, but we found another guy selling the exact same thing serendipitously actually on our way to the supermarket. Apparently they’re just everywhere, and they all do basically the same thing, and they all have a guy driving around a three wheeled bicycle that takes these things and delivers them to you. So we go into this little hole in the wall store, filled with big bottles of water, and the guy is very nice in that salesmen-sy kind of way and he lets us sample the water and he explains how it’s the best kind of water there is and he says they’re having a special where if you buy ten bottles they’ll give you two more for free. Whatever. The point though was that it was easy. He had the machines there that provided the instant hot and cold, he had the bottles of water, he had the guy to deliver and install it all, and a quick exchange of money later and we were on our way to fresh water heaven. We’ve a phone number to call whenever we need a new bottle and he’ll send the guy on his way, and he’ll maintain our water machine thingy for a year. Obviously the point’s a little moot since we’re hoping to move by the end of June, but apparently it’s a universal machine, capable of housing and carrying any and all kinds of big water bottles, so we’re good. It’s humming away happily as I write actually, and it breathes; every now and then you’ll hear it gurgling pleasantly. In short, everyone go get a water cooler! Huh…I just remembered that those things are called water coolers…

So that’s the bit of China that’s kind of non-bloggy and kind of expat-y and I hope it justifies my existence in the expat blog directory listing.

Since I last wrote we’ve also attended a friend’s wedding up in San Francisco. We needed to get out of the country anyways to enter on our next visa entry and Maria was running her first marathon in the States, which turned out very well. Fully expect to see some more milestone updates later on but at the moment I’m a little fuzzy on all the dates. But the wedding was nice, I got to see some of my family and Maria got to see an extensive bit of hers. We were apart for two weeks, and it killed me. That was when I was doing the whole nocturnal living thing as evidenced by my previous posts about biking in Beijing in the middle of the night. Not exactly the pinnacle of healthy living here. I’m hoping though for things to regain a semblance of sanity and normalcy soon.

The restaurant is also fast out of my hands, hopefully, I pray. Skipping over all the pertinent details because they’re not mine to disclose, but the headache and stress of having to deal with being in the food service industry may soon be behind me. That does mean I’m still out of a job, and have been for a while, and haven’t been paid by anybody for a really long while, and the whole process has still nevertheless sucked this transitioning out of my hands and will probably suck long after the actual transition takes place, but um, it’s still a load off, and will be even more so of one when I have my high paying power job that lets me live the life of luxury in this town, no sarcasm intended, obviously.

And speaking of jobs, I had the world’s worst interview today, ever. Not only was it for a job that I applied to a very long time ago and so now have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of what it was about, but they had layered themselves in so many different company names an recruiters and go betweens that I had no idea who I was even applying for a job with. It was an hour away by subway, out in the bums of nowhere, though it was really pretty, kind of tropical looking on the ride out due to it raining today, and when I get there I knew immediately it wasn’t going to work but had to still sit through it all, much to my general embarrassment. See, I knew at once that it was a Chinese company, without even a hint of foreign-ness to it. There were no English signs, there were no foreign employees, and you could just feel that tinge of Chinese laziness in the air where they hire a bunch of people with credentials on paper who all they do is the least necessary, if that. I’ll come out and say it now: the majority of Chinese employees try to get away with doing as little as possible. Maria just read somewhere recently that Chinese greed is only outweighed by Chinese laziness, and it’s true. There’s a whole floor of people sitting in cubicles, everyone looking at their own computer screens, all messing on the internet in one way or another, without so much as a word being spoken to anyone, without that sort of collaborative creativity and productivity one feels in US offices. Just with that, I knew I wouldn’t want the job, but apparently they didn’t want me either. Ah the other thing was the actual applications I had to fill out. First, there was a questionnaire and one of the questions was in Chinese; obviously a test of my literacy which I obviously failed. Second, all the boxes to fill in information like “name” or “relation” or “previous employer’s name” where too small; you couldn’t write the English in there even if you wanted to. Obviously meant to accept Chinese characters only, and obviously another count on which I failed. Then there were the questions about HTTP protocol and DNS lookups which I actually just don’t know, so obviously I’m not qualified for the job either but I don’t actually remember because it’s been ages since I first applied and these people put so many buffers between the actual job and me I went in completely blind. So there wasn’t even a real interview. Some guy came out, said thanks for coming out, said I probably wasn’t qualified, asked if I had any questions, and that was it. Hours of my life wasted in what is probably the biggest job interview fail of my life. I’ve been failing a lot really, and it’s kinda putting a crimp in my self esteem.

But the pluses do also exist. I’m doing some freelance programming work which allows me to flex some of my programming muscles. I’m doing some music work for pay as well and that’s always a good thing. There are a few social events on my calendar coming up with people whose company I enjoy, and I at least am very excited by my father’s and Maria’s business opportunities coming right over the horizon. I’m hoping for lots of good things from them.

A bigger short of it though is that I’m not entirely sure I’m happy, but I’m hoping to find what I need to fix that so that I can be, so that this opportunity which has been afforded me and which I have undertaken with Maria, my partner in all of this, will have ultimately been beneficial. Um…so that’s the meaning behind the title, actually. I’d like to enter a process of discovery and more specifically, rediscovery, of all the things in life that I love so that I can share them with the person I love.

So I’m a little bit deaf right now. Everything’s sort of muffled and even when I talk to myself it’s as if there’s cotton filling up my skull. It was an overall crappy day, punctuated by some good times. I had rehearsal with the IFC Youth Choir, which was lots of fun; I’ve always enjoyed working with developing voices and these kids, though small in number, make a wonderful sound together. I hope to do more work with them in the future. And thankfully, I also got paid; it’s nice to get paid to do music work and this would be the first time that I was paid for such work in China. But the crappiness in general stems from the fact that for the past 48 or so ours I’ve been on my own, kind of just cooped up in this altogether much too large apartment that I’m in. It’s surprising just how used to having Maria around I’ve gotten. The weather’s also been weird; much too hot for my tastes so I’ve switched my schedule around so that I do most of my active and productive things during the night and sleep during the day; but this means my sleep is fitful, disturbed by the heat. I mean, it was so bad that as I was talking to Maria on the phone, I missed her so much and it was all I could to do stop from crying. I ran off to the restaurant at some point and, disgusted by the whole affair, drank my sorrows away with alcoholic girly drinks.

But the good way; I got to go to a club in China! For the first time! And though I groaned and griped the entire time saying I didn’t want to go, it turned out to be lots of fun! I went with XiaoXing, one of my only friends in China at the moment (damnit Maria, when are you coming back…). But uh, yeah, details about the club, because well, it’s not even close to anything like clubs in the States.

So they’re called something I can’t remember but I think is related to some phonetic rendition of the English acronym “DJ.” Apparently there are a lot of them and they’re really popular with the young people. I mean, it’s almost 4AM now and we left early, and when we first got there it was jammed packed. For some reason, it was called “GT Banana Club.” Yeah. And the Chinese name…”GT Banana Club” pronounced phonetically. Yeah. It’s tucked away next to some business center somewhere and the neon sign is half blown out so you really have to look carefully to make out the “banana” part of the name. When you get in, there’s these really crappy looking marble stairs that lead up to the first layer of the concierge. Here they take the cover, which wasn’t that much, somewhere around 50RMB as it varies depending on gender and day of the week. Up yet another flight of crappy looking marble stairs (I’m talking faux chic and glamorous here, kind of like porn shoot marble) and you get to the next layer of the concierge where they check your ticket and scan you with a hand held metal detector. The first thing you’ll notice when you get in, the fruit platters. Every single table has a huge, ornate, excessively decorated fruit platter. Don’t ask me why; apparently it’s communal but I’ll be damned if I touch it. But I later found out that apparently it costs money but they just leave them around and it’s just kind of, gross…I can honestly say, despite my lack in clubbing knowledge, that this was quite unlike anything in the US I’ve ever been to. The space was really big, with multiple floors, with multiple seating options ranging from huge and luxurious booths to tall round tables with stools to almost private room type booths. And again, don’t forget the fruit platter on every table top. There’s a bar, decently well stocked, though the whiskey is the highlight. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet but whiskey is the only liquor that’s managed to penetrate the Chinese market in any way. Go to any bar or restaurant and you’ll see at least a dozen different kinds of top shelf whiskey, but try to find any top shelf vodka or tequila and you’re fresh out of luck. Someone needs to market Patron here; they’ll make a killing. But uh…so we ordered two Long Island Iced Teas, not that expensive really, but that was the cheapest stuff on the menu. They had this massive VIP “Set” that you can order that costs over 15,000 RMB (2000 USD). Not sure what it includes, but at least a fruit platter and a couple of bottles of whiskey with mixer and a sort of private staff who takes care of your needs, and which apparently also includes some dancing girls. It was weird; next to where we were standing there were these two mid-30s looking men, one of whom was really fat and passed out, around this table arrayed with a massive fruit platter and multiple bottles of whiskey, while two staff girls danced for them and a male staff member poured more drinks. And the guy was passed out. Apparently that’s what happens; you can pay for people to keep you company, and I wondered how many of the girls in there were like that, because something seemed fishy given how ugly most of the men looked.

But that brings up the dance floor, which was huge, and which bounced! The entire floor bounced! Even if you didn’t want to dance yourself, just by virtue of standing on the floor you moved in rhythm to the music! Pretty neat! And there were lots and lots and lots of bubbles from a bubble machine :) And lots of fog, and a separate, smaller stage that lifted like 5 feet onto which at one point were three staff dancing girls, dressed all in white 1920s style flapper type dresses, dancing to a really crappy Chinese dance song. Speaking of which, the music was mostly European and American, except for the odd few of the Chinese ones that emulated those styles. I have a feeling these people have absolutely no idea what the words in the songs are because they’re all shouting along happily to “Fuck, fuck, fuck” and “Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn.” It’s like my staff singing along happily to “Like a Virgin” with absolutely no idea what the words mean! I’ve also never seen so many groups of the same sex all dancing together. Now, obviously, some of gay; there’s a lot of those in China apparently, or maybe I just can’t tell because men in China have a much closer and physical form of camaraderie than in the States. Either way, but where I’d expect men and women to be dancing together in the States, there were just large groups of men and large group of women, all dancing in that pseudo-inappropriate club sort of way with lots of grinding. And then there were the tall caps. What the hell is with the very tall baseball caps?!?!?!? I’d like to just chalk it up to Chinese people being weird, especially when it’s like, they have a limited exposure to Western popular culture, so whatever they do see or find they then emulate and apply a multiplier on in their own special “Chinese” way that just puts it all the more over the top. I mean, imaging a Chinese man, probably mid-20s, with an afro, and a massive, tall baseball cap sitting on top of the afro, that says “Let’s be Colorful” with “Colorful” written in rainbow colors…

In short though, it was a lot of fun, especially the music. It helps when I’m feeling down to just be so completely taken over by something; the massive vibrations of the bass literally shook me to where I couldn’t stand straight; when music is that physical it helps me to kind of forget everything else and just be literally moved by it. Maria, my dear, I miss you so much. I wish you were there; you’d enjoy it a lot. I’ve already got it in the plans for us to go there together :)

Chinese men. Interesting creatures really. Often times easily mistaken for women due to the way they dress (skinny jeans, Louis Vuitton “murses,” Vertu “designer” cell phones, etc.), their mannerisms (“V” for victory hand signals), the style of their hair (long, colored, pink). Other times borderline homosexual due to the “camaraderie” they exhibit towards their fellow men when found in groups (leaning over one another REALLY closely, arm over shoulders, etc.), though actual gay Chinese men are equally easy to distinguish. They also seem completely ignorant of women and sexuality, flirting awkwardly with any women that they see, but when pressed further about actual sexuality blushing most unbecomingly and lacking anything to say. Then there are those with “girlfriends” yet their dealings seem so, PG-13. Despite all their or rather these flaws though, they are the least concerning. What I’ve come to only recently be personally acquainted with as far as can be categorized as a flaw in the character of Chinese men is their DIS-regard towards women; they don’t seem to know how to treat them well. At best they ignore them and take them for granted, like when they’re out in a big group all getting dinner or something together somewhere and only brought their girlfriend/significant other/wife along for the ride and proceeds to pay no attention to them whatsoever. At worst they’re abusive, verbally and physically. I bring this up only because I’m having trouble with one of my waitstaff, my only male waitstaff at the moment. Since I’ve stepped back as full time manager, I appointed one of my female waitstaff the position of supervisor since she has the most experience working in a restaurant setting, speaks the best English, and seems to be most motivated to do her job and do it well. This meant that the waiter would be expected to listen to the waitress. Apparently this is a problem with him. He doesn’t seem able to take orders from a woman, and they’ve been having loud and lengthy arguments while I wasn’t around these past few weeks. I confronted him about this today, not in a very direct way, and his response was that “it’s not a big deal, you know how women get,” in Chinese of course; not quite the response I was hoping for. I told him to help me help my female supervisor, appealing to his sense of masculinity at wanting to “provide,” and I thought the matter was resolved. I had thought that all that was wrong was that he isn’t used to working this way yet, having a female authority figure, and that given time things will get better. Evidently I was wrong because I found out late last night that he got into another argument, this time with a another female waitstaff of mine, not even one in any position of power, and actually ended up physically hitting her multiple times. This is not acceptable behavior, and not behavior I would expect under any circumstances. So now I’m going to go and talk to all parties involved tomorrow morning, try to sort things out, with the most likely out come being that I’ll have to let him go, which puts me in a VERY difficult position because I will once again be short staffed until I hire and train his replacement. The point though is that I am rather disgusted at even the implication that he could have hit her, and this whole affair has just soured me even more on the restaurant, the food service industry, and Chinese men in general. I mean, normally they’re relatively cute and harmless creatures; but sometimes they make me weep for the state of women in this country.

This post consists of rambling observations on 1) Chinese law and Chinese lawyers, 2) Maria’s fascinating work in Beijing that she doesn’t regret at all getting snookered into accepting, and 3) Maria’s disinclination to work (“I have a plan, and this isn’t part of it!”).

Shortly after arriving in Beijing, I responded to an ad seeking teachers of legal English. “LegalCo” promised a light schedule and a few bucks, and I thought it might be interesting. LegalCo deals in teaching professional skills, law firm p.r., translation, and lawyer placement; I toured their office; I discussed with them my suitability for their available position (they had me penciled into their schedule before I even showed up, as it turns out) and I started doing things with them. They asked me to give a short talk on a topic of my choice within the field of Legal English to a promised audience of 100 students at one of China’s most prestigious universities, and I agreed. Thereafter they asked me if I’d like to tag along to a visit to one of China’s leading domestic law firms and dinner. Sounds good!

I probably spent too much time preparing for the lecture. I’ll return at some later date to the “Chinese people don’t take a schedule seriously” idea, but suffice to say that although they wanted to make sure I could fill 40 minutes, they still had to tell me to stop talking. Dude, I was on a roll, I had (legal writing!) powerpoint slides left, and I was enjoying listening to myself talk. :) I am a grammar fanatic, after all.

The day itself took forever, though. I was promised 250 yuan for a 30-40 minutes talk. The campus itself must have taken over an hour to drive to (in one of the LegalCo’s vehicles). Not to mention that it was pouring rain…anyway, the day began with me subwaying across town, walking to the car of the main employee I deal with at LegalCo (whom I’ll call S), and driving around trying to find this Australian tax lawyer, R, who was to give the talk at the Chinese law firm (on negotiation skills). We eventually found R, made it to the firm, found an elevator that would take us to the right floor– after some false starts, and got set up for his talk. The room filled with Chinese lawyers, most apparently no older than myself (although maybe the Asian gift of enduring youth affected my perception of their age). Many of the girls were dressed like American high school students. Sparkly dresses, tiered skirts, novelty shoes. What? The guys mostly wore jeans and dress shirts. I was wearing full formal suit-skirt and pumps, R was in a decently formal suit, and S at least wore wrinkled khakis. Even though I wasn’t on the schedule, a few people had questions for me too. I really wish I could understand the introduction that people give for me (in this case, by S). The law firm presented me with a neat little gift, formally presented, which turned out to contain a chunk of lucite with a dragon seal –functionally, a business card holder. Pret-tay nifty! Chinese paperweight!

Next step: after dropping off R, we drove to the University. The U has two campuses, one quite close to where I live. This was at the other campus. S admits he is not a great driver, and traffic was horrible, and the weather was also quite bad. We had picked up C, a Chinese law firm partner, at the law firm, so S and C and I drove first to the wrong town by accident and then to the right town, and to a fancy restaurant near the U. We had good food, a somewhat … inelegant meal, in terms of conversation, as I speak only English and C speaks only Chinese. S did some interpreting, but mostly went back and forth between speaking to his two guests. It was a neat place, we took pictures, and entertainment was just starting as we were leaving. I expect it was quite expensive, although of course I didn’t see the menu or the bill. Our event was supposed to start at 7, and at 645 we were still at the restaurant. Sigh. People just aren’t concerned with schedules? They also didn’t let me know when the bill came, and didn’t let me contribute. Apparently I’m the invitee, and it’s the inviter who pays. Plus they don’t let people who are just starting out, which apparently includes me, pay. Okay, for now! I only owe a thousand people already …

By the time we made it to the U, we were several minutes late and the room looked restless. It was packed, though, and no one looked like they were ready to give up their seat. A few people were standing against the back wall, too. We had some technical issues–resolved, and one of the speakers didn’t show (a guy from the British consulate supposedly was on a business trip). Whatever. Regardless, C and I got a million questions, and we didn’t end up leaving until 3 hours after we got there. Can I please go home now?

We packed S’s car with two more people, who we then dropped off (they have something to do with LegalCo…I think…they were never properly introduced). I got home so freaking late. So…30-40 minutes, eh? I returned home more than 11 hours after I left.

S is an interesting fellow, and he and his colleague D have explained to me their views on the Chinese legal system at some length. It is clear that China is in a transitional period, as western ideas of the rule of law and the desirability of avoiding corruption are gaining some ground, but the old ways prevail. Sounds like bribery is the way it is.

S also mentioned that he didn’t think it’d be hard for me to get a job in a domestic or international law firm. I told him: no hurry. For now, I’ve accepted a job as a “legal associate”–a very loose, part-time gig for Sean’s dad’s co. Still, I’m doing some legal work, and it’s very interesting. It is *not* California litigation (read: I have no experience in this area). So I am happy, but I am not actually content. I wasn’t planning to work here. I am supposed to be studying. As things are going, I think it unlikely that I will be happy with my GMAT score if I take it on the day currently scheduled. (Ignore, also, the fact that I don’t currently feel like going to business school.) The plan was to study, do my apps, learn Chinese. These things have *not* been my focus since showing up in this fancy city. I need to re-think, prioritize, and maybe even buckle down and work hard or some shit. Most unpalatable.

Sean is sleeping near my desk; his schedule is completely out of whack. We’re both being reasonably productive, but this is a largely unstructured life at the moment. In fact, many other strictures also seem to have fallen by the wayside. Whether to good or ill effect, I can’t yet say.

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.