Technology Problems and Funny Conversations

For anyone who even realizes that I am writing a day later than usual, sorry for the late post. Friday night the month of Internet I bought expired. Perfect timing - the Internet service place is closed for the whole weekend, so I had to wait until today to add time. Even better timing: my Beijing cell phone Sim card ran out of money the next morning. I guess there are worse things.

Unfortunately, not having a phone was a problem for my host family. We were all planning on eating lunch together (Peking duck), walking around the Olympic park, then playing badminton in the afternoon. It turned out my HBA sister couldn't make it, so my host family tried to reach me telling me they were postponing lunch and Olympics until next weekend. They couldn't reach me, so they drove to my campus (about five minutes) to tell me to wait until the afternoon to play badminton. Oops.

Anyway, no HBA trip this weekend. No Olympics. So not too many pictures. Just a long, boring album of me playing badminton. Here I am:

So the most interesting part of the week was a trip to a big shopping area, Xidan, on Friday afternoon. I hate shopping, but I ended up buying some Chinese children's books, a few Chinese movies, and two English books (each a $1.40). And it's more of a challenge and much funnier to shop in Chinese than in English.

Like at one store the girl working there noticed the three of us were all speaking Chinese to each other. So she asked if we were all from the same country. When we said yes, she looked at us like we were crazy. So we had to explain the language pledge. And that one of us actually works for HBA, so she obviously wouldn't let us speak English. Then, looking at my friend Dominic (who is half Italian and half some combination of Hawaiian and Chinese) she said, "Is he American too? He doesn't look like you." So we had to explain that not everyone looks the same in America.

And then all of the awkward conversations with shopkeepers harassing you trying to sell you there stuff (all of which is exactly the same, no matter where you go). The store we went to was filled with small shops, all piled together - kind of like an indoors street market. "不要" (bu yao - don't want) is probably the single most useful phrase I've learned.

And then the conversation at the bookstore when one woman cracked up when she noticed I was buying children's books. I had to explain that I am basically a child when it comes to Chinese. And that reading fairy tales might help.

And talking to the taxi driver on the way back (Beijing subways close at 10:00). Taxi drivers in Beijing work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. Most of them are very friendly and enjoy talking to foreigners. He also asked us why we were all speaking Chinese.

And then back in Wudoaku (where are campus is), while we were buying books, a Chinese man also buying books heard us speaking Chinese and started explaining his not-for-profit organization to us, hoping we might want to help out (actually sounded very interesting - they send people, including Americans, into poor areas in inner China to teach them basically anything that might help them learn more about the outside world - maybe another summer). Knowing we might not understand if he explained in Chinese, he spoke in (fluent) English. Us having the language pledge, we answered in Chinese. Chinese speaking English, American speaking Chinese. Makes no sense.

Eight and a half hours after leaving, we finally got back to campus. Obviously, I am thrilled to be coming home in 13 days. But for the first time, I felt very comfortable just walking around the city speaking Chinese. Not as unfamiliar place when you can understand what is happening around you. Kind of neat I guess.