Last Day in Beijing

To me, this embodies the average hutong. It's a bit run-down, but no one is asking for anything fancy!

My last weekend in Beijing was wonderful, and the theme was snacks and hutongs! Hutongs are traditional alleyways with courtyard homes, and they are quite fun to explore.

On Friday night, I went out to dinner with my coworkers and the other summer associates, followed by a hip hutong bar with one of my classmates, our Chinese friend, and a new Australian friend. We stayed up late talking and eating meat skewers - including chicken kidneys and gristle - in the alley.

A countryside hutong. I wish you could hear the roosters and smell those flowers spilling over the walls!

On Saturday, I left the city for a village trip. I took the metro to the end of the line, then boarded a bus to visit some ancient Ming Dynasty tombs that house the emperors. I love village life, and getting out on my own in the peaceful countryside was just what I needed to cap off my trip. I walked through a flower field and some nearly-empty hutongs, listening to roosters, birds, cicadas, and other animal sounds. As for food, the village grows a lot of fruit, which I sampled as I walked along the county roads. I also had donkey meat in my noodles, and it was surprisingly delicious.

My very last full day involved two hutongs. In the morning, I went to some winding, interconnected hutongs behind the main train station. I ate steamed buns filled with leeks and egg and also sticky rice cooked with prunes. 

This woman is making jiaozi, which are boiled dumplings,
not baozi, which are steamed and more bread-like.

In the afternoon, my friend joined me for a walk in a touristy hutong. It was so crowded and busy, but it was a lot of fun. We ate clay pot yogurt, cool noodles, and pomelo juice.
On my way home, I finally tried the handmade green tea ice cream my friends have been telling me about. And I ate durian fruit for the first time! (It's gross, actually!)

A well-kept hutong. 

So long, Beijing!

Around the World in 60 Days

Something small has been weighing me down this whole trip.

I packed very carefully, bringing only what was absolutely necessary. But I had to pack one item that seems absurd to me: my apartment keys. I carry these keys with me everywhere, around the entire globe, just so that when I return I can immediately go to my apartment. They've been across the London Bridge, to the Berlin Wall, on Red Square, around Lake Baikal, up the Great Wall, and on Tiananmen Square.

I really thought about leaving my keys with someone before I left. But I didn't. So every time I opened that particular pocket of my purse and felt those keys, I pictured my little studio apartment in Ohio, and I remembered how I feel when I am there. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it pulled me away each time. And it's had a strange effect on me and how I view these past two months.

Pro-tip for travelers: don't bring your keys.

Do I Like Beijing?

Do I like Beijing? I've been asking myself that since February 2008, but have been absolutely pestering myself about it for the last five weeks. Do I have to answer???

A view of downtown from the pedestrian overpass that leads to my street, on the right.

Ugh. It's a huge city, and I don't like huge cities. But the thing about them is that you make them - part of them - your own. When I was at the university, I made a few places my own. The park and Weiming Lake. The zongzi stand. The back street with noodle shops. Yeah, Beijing is alright.

I moved downtown, and I'll readily admit I hate the business district. HATE. But the sidestreet where I live is mine. The bikes. The old men playing mazhong. The knife sharpener. And my dear, sweet baozi friends. (I'll explain that last one!)

Each morning I leave my place and grab breakfast a couple doors down. I order the same thing every day: five little egg and chive baozi (steamed buns) and soy milk. A man and a woman run the stand. They are amused by me, and I by them. They ask me funny questions, like whether I eat baozi in America and what's cereal? (It's like cold, dry porridge. Gross!) And why don't I find a nice Han Chinese guy so I can eat baozi every day? (Oh, baozi is a race thing, now?) And my favorite question: what will you have today? (As if I'll surprise them and go off-menu.) After they ask that one, they say my order before I can get it out. It's a game. Maybe they're mocking me. I don't know.

This is Guomao, the China World Trade Center, where I work.

Today the woman looked me up and down in my fancy office clothes and said, "You're going to work. Where do you go?" I told her I work at Guomao, a place everyone knows. She knew, too, but said, "You take the metro?" No, I walk, it's like 20 minutes straight up the road. She was shocked it was so near. I was confused, because you can actually see the Guomao building from there.

And that's when I realized a big city doesn't have to be. You can buy your eggs and chives and soy beans next door to your baozi stand, which is right in front of your apartment. And you don't have to leave this block, ever, and you are happy. You never have to put on a suit, walk to the Guomao China World Trade Center, swipe your card, and sit at a desk reading banking regulations. Novel concept.

Beijing is not so bad.

This is not a model city! It's the SOHO district, which I walk past every day.
It's easy to get lost wandering among the plain white office buildings. 

My Beijing Apartment

This is the outside of my building from the back alley.

After three weeks of class at Beijing University, where I lived in a hotel, I moved into an apartment I found listed online. I'm kind of low maintenance... (That's not the right word. I sign up for undesirable situations on purpose?) ... so I was far from dismayed to see the place for the first time when I moved in. 

The way I describe my place to my friends who still live in hotels is that it's where normal, lower-middle-class people live. It's on a sidestreet with overflowing trash cans, too many idling taxis, a knife-sharpening business in a questionable alley, and a couple noodle shops. The fruit market always smells rotten, but I still buy mangoes and lizhi there. Stray animals wander around. And the many, many old people who sit on the street all day openly stare at me. They either yell "Foreigner!" at me, or whisper "beautiful girl..." like I can't hear either. You know, if they reversed the volume on those, it'd be blatant racism and street harassment, but seeing how it's genuine surprise and admiration, I'll let it go.

My particular building is old, six stories because any more and it would need an elevator, painted red, and could use some upkeep. I'm on the first floor, so I don't have to endure the dusty, creepy staircase with sound-activated lights for very long. But it's there.

Inside, the apartment is small, and wallpapered in hot pink. Like, Hello Kitty pink. There's a bed in the hallway, which was supposed to be mine, but I got upgraded to one of the two bedrooms. That story is forthcoming! There's a tiny kitchen and a tiny bathroom. It's old and not very clean. There's nothing specifically gross about the place... it's just China, okay?

Pink and flowery.

The first few days I took cold showers. Not on purpose. I just didn't realize how fickle the hot water machine is. It's in the kitchen, and you have to plug it in, turn on the kitchen light, and let the kitchen faucet run for a few minutes before going into the bathroom to use the shower. Silly me for not knowing that!

I'm happy here, I'm comfortable, and I've learned to call this place "home."

This is the street entrance to my building. People congregate here every day to play cards, look after children as a group, drink tea, eat meals, and comment on this American girl every time she walks by.

Do you know where "home" is?  It's the place where, when you're walking after work in 100 degree heat after a day of reading banking regulations and you're in a complete daze and can't remember the last twenty minutes of your life including how you crossed ten busy roads, and suddenly you snap out of it and find yourself 30 meters above the Third Ring Road on a pedestrian overpass that leads to your sidestreet... that's when you know it's home. Because you can find it unconscious and blindfolded.

"Midnight" Bike Ride

A blurry morning bike ride through the empty streets of Beijing.

My professor calls it the "midnight" bike ride, but it's better/worse depending on your view. A group of us law students rented bikes, woke up to meet at 2:30 am, and we rode our bikes in the darkness, stillness, and quietness of Beijing from our university to Tiananmen Square.

The square was lively at 4:00 am because each day, there is a beautiful flag raising ceremony at sunrise. On the morning we chose, the sun rose at 4:45. The ceremony is, naturally, brief. The soldiers march out, slowly raise the flag to the national anthem, and then retreat.

Just before the flag raising.

The excitement and the crowd were interesting. The flag raising is something that citizens from all over the country come to see. I felt emotional, not only because the ceremony is beautiful, but also because I felt so connected to China and because those around me felt national pride in their country.

What's more, the bike ride back was exceptional! The sun was up, and the city was waking up and coming alive!

The flag has risen, and so has the sun.