Previously on The China Chronicles:
The Cardon family arrives, exhausted, in Beijing. Mom is confused, Daniel is spanky, and fast-talking Beijingers run rampant. Culture shocks and overwhelmination occur and the audience is left wondering-- will this family survive, or will the stress of living overseas tear them apart for ever?
Or at least, that's what we'd like to think it would sound like if this was one of the Chinese period dramas we see on the TV. I swear, at least four of the like-thirty channels we get are these awesome looking period dramas, obviously sitcoms by the cinematography, with 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'-esque costumes and not-very-well-made sets. We like (well, Sarah and I like, Dad sits and pretends to be aloof but we know he likes it too) to sit ad watch these shows, in Chinese with Chinese subtitles and Chinese dubs and pretend we know what they are saying. At the end there's a "Next week on This Awesome Chinese Period Drama" that probably sounds a lot like my first paragraph. It's quite fun.
As is Beijing, so far at least, I think. It's been a little bit crazy. My phone was stolen within 18 hours of its purchase, from the hotel lobby no less, we exhausted ourselves going out all day Wednesday and got thoroughly soaked in the torrential rain. Like, I know rain. I live in Sammamish. But this was crazy compared to Washington! Giant drops, coming in sideways, huge puddles, and it starts and stops whenever it feels like it and it's most inconvenient for you. Sarah and I took a taxi to Young Women's on Wednesday but didn't really know where it was, so we had to get out two blocks away and ran through the rain to get there. Great first impression for the YW in our branch, I'm sure, with our hair plastered all over and our jeans soaked to our knees. They are a great group of girls, though, and our leader is hilarious, awesome, and eight months pregnant. We were a little freaked out about getting home, though, but Coincidence! (da dada Dah!) one of the girls lives in our building. Her family is Australian and moved here a week before we did. The parents came to pick her up so we went home on the subway with them. It was much less confusing than I thought it would be and I understood it about as well as (maybe better than) the dad, who took his time figuring out where to go to get home. Ah well. We got home eventually, and found out they also have a 16-year-old boy (oh my, an Australian, and my age, to be sure!*). Our families went out to dinner together on Friday, to a dumpling place across from the hotel. They are super nice and I think we'll be friends. Although, said 16-year-old could have looked a little happier, I am, after all, the only Mormon and non-asian girl his age he's seen and will see for a while, would it kill you to smile? Oh well, I know we're meant to be. Friends, I mean. :)
Thursday and Friday were kind of spent recuperating from Wednesday, on which we went out four separate times. We went to a meat market, a park across the street, and the Solana Shopping Center, which oh my gosh contrast. The place is like Redmond Town Center, but twice as big and nicer. It has tons of American stores, too, at prices probably worse than in America. Here's a good thing to know- people are always talking about how cheap it is to shop in China, and it's true, but only if you go to the local markets and shops. You could quite easily spend $400 on a Gucci bag within a mile of an area where you could buy like, 50 socks for 10 yuan (there are 6.4 yuan to a dollar). So, there you go.
Sites at the Solana Shopping Center
We have loved walking down to this little alley down the street with tons of noodle shops and a bakery where you can get the most delicious sesame buns for only 1 yuan. I've learned in dealing with cashiers so far that "This one", "How much", the number 1-10, "Hello", and "Thank you" are about all you need to know. I have felt rather awesome and local communicating with the girl selling the sesame buns- "Zhe ge duo xiao qian? San ge. Zhe ge si ge. Xie xie!" and then Sarah is like "You're amazing!" and bows down to worship me, sesame bun in hand. Yep, that's what happens. Well, I can ride the subway and I can buy sesame buns-- what else do I really need to survive here?
Bargaining skills is the answer to that question, as I found out when we went to the Great Wall. Holy cow, guys, I climbed on part of the Great Wall of China. Sarah got a t-shirt and I got a watercolor thing, complete with an argument with the saleslady.
"I give you for thirty, is ver ver good price!"
"No, I'm only going to pay twenty."
"Thirty is ver ver cheap price!"
Another saleslady walks by and says "Oh yes, thirty is ver good price."
"No, I'm only paying twenty."
"Twenty five? Is ver ver good price!"
"No, I will only pay twenty for that."
"Okay, twenty."
I sort of wish I had stuck with asking for 15, but she wore me down a little bit and I didn't really know what was a good price, although I was pretty sure it was less than thirty. I just figured I had to pay less than what she was asking, else what was the point? But at least I learned something, and I can add bargaining to my necessary skills, although I will def need more practice.
Oh right, I went to the Great Wall of China, I should probably talk about that, huh? It was… old. And I didn't want to touch it much because of the thousands of people who had touched it before me, and who knows where their hands have been. But it was also seriously awesome. In the area we went to, Mutianyu, the wall is way up on top of the mountains. It must have taken some serious hard work to get all those stones up there. We had hired a driver (Mr. Lee, I recommend him to hire if you're going to Beijing anytime soon) who was pretty cool and spoke good English. He told us some history about the wall, some of it I think is just urban legend, like that you can see it from space. Wikipedia says that the width of the Great Wall(okay, I'm calling it the GW) in ordinary sight from the moon would be like the width of a human hair from two miles away. But oh well, I let Mr. Lee have his moment telling us about the wall. Then we took the chair lift up and hiked around a bit. Oh my gosh, it was hard! You see pictures of the wall winding across the mountains and you're like "yeah whatever", but up close, the stairs are super steep, and either three inches or two feet apart, up-down ways (what are you supposed to call that, the height between stairs? It seems like it should have a name, like girth. Or maybe Garth.). So yeah, some parts of it were really steep. I was up for climbing the whole 8,800km but Dad was carrying a sleepy Daniel in the backpack and said we had to leave. Party pooper.
The chair lift going up
Aint that purty?
Don't fall off Sarah!
See? crazy steps.
Not counting the 2500 years of history (except, contrary to popular belief, most of the wall was built 1400-1600AD), the best part of the wall was coming down. They had the GIGANTOR toboggan slide that went all the way down the mountain, and I would have been going like 60 miles an hour except the guy in front of me was a slowpoke and you had to stay 35m apart, and there were a bajillion signs and workers yelling at you to slow down. But it was seriously fun. The GW was an amzaing experience and I advise all of you to go there someday, except be sure to go to Mutianyu instead of Badaling, because apparently there are a bajillion (I like that word, can you tell?) tourists there all the time.
Toboggan!
So after the GW we went to this seriously cool old Buddhist temple called the Red Snail Temple. It was pretty awesome. You go through a few really ornate gates and get to these bamboo paths (that made me want to take out my katana and chop them all down ((oh wait, katana are Japanese (((and oh look, parentheses within parentheses((((and hey that rhymed, but this is getting ridiculous(((((and my katana is actually a letter opener so it wouldn't work anyway))))))))))))))). Dude, fifteen in a row. I bet you didn't know it was possible. What was I saying? Oh yeah, this cool Buddhist temple. It was very beautiful and had a lot of lush gardens and fountains and temples with Buddha statues inside, and places for you to buy incense and burn it so the whole place had this kind of smoky smell that was actually very relaxing. It was an amazing place that Dad said you couldn't even begin to try and recreate in the U.S. because it would take you a thousand years.
Going up to the Red Snail Temple
Somebody made us pay for this picture
How do they get up there?
So that was this past week. Today we went to our branch for the first time. For those of you who don't know, in our church we have different ways we divide the area so that congregations of people can meet together based on where they live. The smallest group is called a ward, with about 100-400 people depending on the area, then a stake with about ten wards, then a region, and I don't know after that. However, some countries (coughCommunistscough) don't recognize the Church, so we can't officially have a ward, or there aren't enough people to constitute a ward, so they call it a branch. China is one such country, so when I say branch I'm not talking about some weird ritual with a tree or anything (Mormons aren't THAT weird, gigglesnort), but a congregation of people. Capiche? At least that's how I understand it, if I said anything doctrinally incorrect let me know, Dad :)
So as I was saying, we went to the branch, and they are awesome. They are mostly a bunch of expatriates who are only living here for a few months to a few years, so they are ready to make friends really fast. There is a great bunch of youth (several of whom are boys my age, *cue British accent* how exciting!) and I'm the oldest girl. I think I will have a great time here, I'm already sad we're not staying for longer. I suppose that's a good sign!
So, I just realized that the past three paragraphs have started with "So". I thought about going back to change it, but then I decided it added some sort of voice and talkative quality to my writing. I figure it will help you imagine my mellifluous voice (points to whoever knows what that word means without looking it up! Oh wait, I better look it up first.) spouting off stories about China and adventures and awesomeness. Can you just imagine it now? No, don't worry about it. Next week I'll just try not too be so repetitive in my filler words. Maybe I'll try "chop chop" and "jukebox" instead of "so" to encourage more variety.
I could have lots more to say about our apartment and our funny language tutor and the awesome people in the branch and the cahrazy traffic, but I think now is as good a place as any to stop. It's been a tiring week and I think I'll go to bed at 8. Oh, too late. Maybe I'll go to bed at 8 your time. :) Just FYI, we're 15 hours ahead of PST. If you ever want to know what time it is here, just add three hours to yours, then add twelve. It usually is pretty easy to figure out. Adjust accordingly to your time zone.
Okay, goodbye for real now. Zai jian, and wan an!
Ellyn
P.S. Next week on The China Chronicles:
The Cardons are once more thrown into the hubbub of the city. Will they learn to find the best deals at a grocery store? Will they get over the shock of seeing Zombie Mao? Or will the smog and traffic overpower them and crush them into eternal doom? Join us next week on The China Chronicles, 9:30/8:30 CST.
P.P.S. I found the sun, finally! It was orange and rather frightening, actually. I saw blue sky, too, though we had to get all the way in Shunyi District before we found it.
See? Sun.
P.P.P.S. The China Chronicles, three words which I can never write without an epic announcer voice in my head, is what the subject line says in Chinese characters, courtesy of my tech-savvy uncle. The first two characters are Middle Country, Zhong Guo, which is the native name for China, which is of course the center of the Universe.
Seen on the way in from the GW. Apparently giraffes are a common problem.
We went out to Beijing duck with my dad's sister's husband's brother and family, who have lived in Beijing for a few years. Quite delicious food, and lemon chicken is now our favorite dish.
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