Hitting the Upswing

Well, it's finally happened. This past weekend, with only two weeks to go before our much-anticipated graduation, I finally hit the upswing of the study-abroad curve. I realized I was really, really happy about being in Beijing. Given the tenor of some of my past posts, this may come as a surprise. It certainly surprised me.

When I got back to Beijing from Inner Mongolia, I found that I was fed up with everything about the city: the constant humidity, the awful smells, the pushy people, the miscommunications, the food, the transportation issues, the distance from home, and the incredible expectations of our teachers. I was scared that I was making the mistake of my life committing to spending another FOUR MONTHS here in the fall.

But then, all of the sudden, everything wasn't such a Greek tragedy.
Maybe it had to do with my birthday, or even just my Sunday. After getting some much-needed sleep, I woke up around 11, chatted with my family, sent my sister off to college, then headed off to Houhai, one of the most picturesque places in Beijing. It was a bit of a subway's journey+walk away, but I just counted that as much needed exercise. It was definitely worth it. The sky was beautifully clear, humidity was all but gone, and I was sitting outside in Starbucks' lake-side patio sipping my favorite Black Tea Lemonade studying my vocabulary.

About half-way through the afternoon, these two giggling kids peeked around the bushes next to me, and then finally came out and asked for a picture with me. At that point, their mom came over and chided them for bothering me, but they excitedly told her that I agreed to take a picture with them. She then turned to the rest of her group and even more excitedly told them I had agreed to take a picture with them. Which is how I found myself the centerpoint of an entire Chinese tour group. Five minutes and many pictures later, it was back to memorization.

Side note: When I told my teacher that I had studied at Starbucks the previous day, she was completely surprised, and a little confused. She just asked in disbelief, "You studied at a Starbucks?" When I told her it was one of my favorite places to study back at Yale, she just made the "hmm" sound that seems to be our teachers' standard response to Americans' strange ways.

Anyway, back to the main point of this blog. Adjusting. I'm going to be honest, for many Americans, I believe China is a difficult adjustment. While on the surface Beijing has developed into a very Western-style city, there are many subtle differences you don't notice until you run up against them. And it's taking these differences in stride that can be a little wearing. After all, you have to contain your frustration from a lot of different aspects of Beijing culture. But eventually, their ways become your ways, and you don't have to give a second thought to dealing with situations.

I've been speaking in a lot of generalities, so I'm going to see if I can think of the many things I've adjusted to while being here:

• having to flag down a waitress at restaurants to get service
• understanding that prices are almost never final, and people are trying to make money for themselves
• always having a fan to deal with the humidity, having an umbrella to deal with the sunshine
• carrying hand sanitizer and tissue everywhere in case of a need to use the SQUAT TOILET
• dealing with the squat toilet
• accepting that traveling to places I want to go takes a long time (Beijing's a BIG city)
• pushing and cutting when trying to get somewhere/something; courtesy stops outside your bedroom door
• BYOCW; if you want cold water, buy it off a street vendor before heading off to a restaurant
• Beijing smells weird, it just does
• taking a risk when eating fruit
• paying a hefty price (in Chinese terms) for anything Western
• reading crazy lists (ie menus, bus stops)
• having frustrating misunderstandings; they're just going to happen

Those are just the few I can think of right now. But see all that? Altogether, these little issues had me a bit frustrated. But honestly, I made them bigger than they were, and now they're just the accepted reality of living in Beijing. And now I'm remembering again why I think this city is so cool, so fascinating, and so worth staying in for another four months. I can't wait to see what that experience will bring.