...the rest of the first week in Beijing

Thank you all very much for your encouragement and support! I really appreciate hearing from you. I apologize for not having written as regularly as I had wanted to. Please excuse me as I try to catch up to the present.

"So what's the excuse for the lacksidasical updating" you ask? Well, I have been having a wonderful time in Hong Kong with my amazing and kind relatives over the Chinese new year, and was having way to much fun to write. :) Since then i've returned to beijing, but have gotten sick. I've now recovered, and so here is the next installment.

Feb 1.
A Chinese Breakfast

I woke up and ate breakfast with my roommate, Phillip. He was very helpful and kind and spoke English relatively well. At check-in, we had received a large sheet of perforated paper, with which he showed me how to carefully tear and redeem for breakfast at a nearby restaurant . Breakfast is 7-8:30 each morning and today, it consisted of…very interesting things. I copied Phillip by taking what he took (I kind of like stinky man did with me) I ate cold red bean gruel, bean sprouts in vinegar, and a sponge cake with dried something inside. The two familiar things were a boiled egg and chopsticks.

At work, for the first week, my job is to look around and talk to people and see what project appeals to me. Exploring on my first day at work, I found that we get free pop, milk, soymilk, tea, coffee, and yoghurt. That's right! Free yoghurt. The yoghurt is available in mint, plain, orange, and strawberry. This yoghurt is much less solid that the kind found in North America, and we drink it using a small straw. (the kind used in the lunch-box drinks) I also noticed a familiar name on a door - a professor from Toronto was a visiting scholar here. I said "hello" and he asked if I needed anything, and when he heard my story, he offered to lend me warm stuff to wear (since it was very cold walking to work without warm clothes) It was nice to see a familiar face.

A Western Lunch
My supervisor took me for lunch at a 'western' food bar, and ate a club sandwich (CAD$4.50) , and (CAD$2) for fresh grapefruit juice. He paid for me, and it was nice since I hadn't eaten anything but a chocolate bar and airplane food in the past 24 hours.

Back at the office, we met with all the other members of the group. A few of the students offered me their phone numbers in order to phone in case I needed help. This was much appreciated. My first experience working with this elite group was….. to play act. They were shooting a video of people at a party playing a video game, the details of which I can't tell you, but the game did not exist. We had to pretend. We got a script, and acted. It was a little strange, especially when we did everything twice -- the first take (20 minutes) had to be repeated because the student cameraman forgot to push "record".

I'm glad my supervisor showed me a small room where I can connect my laptop to send the emails out (but I'm really not supposed to be using my own computer here). The room also contains an Xbox video game console… for research purposes of course. I happen to be getting good at one of the games.

When we came back, to the dorm, I found that the sheets had been changed, and the towels in the bathroom were fresh. It wasn't as bad as I had first thought. (note: I realized weeks later that they weren't fresh. They had just been refolded. Oh well!)

I also found two bugs trying to make more baby bugs. However, I didn't want this to happen bugs so I unkindly interrupted them with my shoe.

Feb 2
I discovered that a Hair cut costs 30 Yuan, (5 dollars) includes not one, but two shampoos, (before and after) a the haircut, and a 20 minute back rub! I've never been wanting to grow out my hair as fast as I do now.

I need to shop for some emergency clothing.. There is a small womens clothing store in the basement, and I might go there if I get desperate.

No need! Luckily, an Australian student in my lab helped bring me to a small department store. I am now the proud owner of a pair of bright red longjohns.

Feb 3.
There is a Starbucks nearby. I was invited there with an Australian student and my supervisor and his wife. There we saw the supervisor's 7 month old baby he . His wife also works at Microsoft. Apparently an intern that came here a few months ago had a breakdown of paranoid schizophrenia, wandered into traffic and got thrown into jail. They bailed him out, but by then he was too far gone and hasn't recovered since. Hope I have better luck.

I'm not sure where the bugs went. I haven't really seen any in two days... perhaps the insects I ran into the first day were the welcoming party.

Feb 4.

I found out where the bugs were. They hide when you get back from work, but if you come in unexpectedly during the day, there they are - staring up at you from your pillow. yes. your pillow -- I think I will sleep with earplugs tonight.

That Evening I got a call from the front desk. My bag had arrived from the airport! I was so excited! I'm sure I must have skipped to the front desk to get it. hmmm. that's strange. ...the thing I used to secure the zippers together was missing... and it looked like someone had opened it....

I brought it up to my room, but I had some strange anxiety about the opening the case - dreading the outcome, but drawn to do it... ZZZIP! Inside, all the contents were jumbled. Ah, some kind person must have thought to relieve me of all the valuable items so that the baggage would be easier to carry. At least they left my underwear and socks!

Feb 5
I decided to go to Hong Kong for the Chinese New Years to be with my extended family there. I needed to check out of the dorm/hotel temporarily, and make my way to the airport.

My roommate helped a lot earlier in the morning in helping me find out the checkout procedure, but he was still at work when I came back to check out. So I was confused when things changed. The staff somehow communicated that I had to remove everything and put it into a little room. I had to go back a few times before I understood this since I had left things there thinking that we could go back to the room after the holiday.

The housekeeping staff spoke no English whatsoever, and it was very difficult for them to communicate. I was finally able to figure out what was going on thanks to a local Chinese student from Microsoft, who had given me his cell number. I called it and used him as a translator. It turns out that the floor is being shut down for the holidays, and people are being moved and moved back to different rooms after the holiday… so we have to move all of our stuff out and into a different room for storage, Marked with our name. The childlike rendition of my Chinese name is apparently hilarious. I probably wrote it wrong.

Taxi to HK

I said goodbye to the dorm/hotel and made my way to the major street to get a taxi. However, all the first 4 taxis that I flagged said 'no, I won't go to the airport.'

I was getting anxious, as it is (Saturday) rush hour a few hours before my flight and nobody wanted to go to the airport. I was very relieved when I finally flagged a taxi that said yes, he would go… but.. he said several things made gestures like cars smashing together… I indicated that I didn't understand, but figured this is why the other people would not to go to the airport.
He then said the word 'detour'… and made a wave gesture a weaving gesture with his hands… I wanted to get out at that point, but we had moved into the middle of 5 lanes of traffic and I no longer knew where I was. I was at his mercy. We promptly went 7 minutes in one direction around the ring, and then turned around to go the opposite way. 15 minutes later, we were back where we started, except on the other side of the road. I figured that this was not a good thing.
Beijing is built in several rings, like many of the old cities in Europe. The first ring is the old forbidden city, and each concentric ring contains larger and larger pieces of the city. Each ring is actually a major road, but like highways in North America, there is if you start in one direction, you can't go in the other direction for quite a while. It seems that I had flagged a taxi on the wrong side of the road. If I had just gone to the other side, I would have saved 15 minutes and, more importantly, not had a big "SUCKER" sign flashing on my forehead.There are stories of taxi drivers taking clueless foreign people around and around the rings in order to ring up their totals. I am proud to report that I don't *think* that this happened to me, although I am not sure.

As I am writing this, I am sitting in the airport waiting for the flight that will take me to Hong Kong a little before midnight. It should be a bit easier there, as I can at least understand Cantonese, and people speak more English in general. (HK was a former British Colony until 1997)

...next time, Chinese new year, and a Hong Kong holiday. Happy year of the Rooster!

Mike

(p.s. I've posted these on a website, http://mtsang.blogspot.com/ which will display all the updates in the same place)