Wow! We have now been in Beijing
over 48 hours. There is so much to do, so much to see, and so much to think
about. We arrived here on Thursday afternoon Beijing time, or early morning
Greenville, SC time. We brought eight pieces of luggage and four carry-ons. I
wonder if it is too much. The flight from Detroit was long but completely fine.
Between Russia in October and China in March, I was familiar with the long
flight.
We have a 33rd floor apartment on
the 29th level on the north of Beijing. I say 29th level, because the Chinese
believe that any number with "4" in it is unlucky (in addition to
13), so there are no 4th, 14th, 24th, or 34th floors. So, we have the 35th
floor directly above us. We have windows on three sides of our 1,650 SF (150
square meters here in China) 3-BR, 2-bath apartment; our bedroom faces to the
east, the other bedrooms and kitchen face to the north, and the living room
faces to the west towards the north (Bei) end of the Olympic Village Green.
There is around 1 1/2 miles of green space between our apartment and the
Olympic Village. We have had gorgeous weather for three days; highs near 82 and
lows around 60. This is the forecast for the next ten days.
Here are a couple of quick
observations. Mandarin is a brilliant if complicated language. Four tones, many
characters, no verb tenses. Go figure! And Chinese can speak their
language and write their characters with amazing speed! Perhaps
I will feel differently later, but I cannot believe you appreciate a culture
well apart from its language and its food.
Did I say food? Our perception is
that food is somewhat expensive, but eating out is inexpensive. And
western-style restaurants are also available. For example, four of us ate out
yesterday at KFC for around $12.00 total. That is 72 kwai, RMB, or yuan (CNY).
Why there are three different terms for currency I cannot explain. Another
feature of the money experience here is that the largest bill available is 100
CNY, or around $16.00. The result? You carry a thick wad of cash, or six times
the normal rate if you think in terms of carrying $100 bills.
We have shopped so far at
Wal-Mart, a small shop/market, and a medium size shop/market. The first and the
third of these take credit cards, but the small shop does not. In the small
shop there are many vendors (fruits, vegetables, chicken, beef, pork, seafood,
breads, noodles, etc.) competing for your business and waiting to negotiate
with you. You might have four fruit vendors with exactly the same offerings,
but they stand ready to sell you their goods with smiles on their faces. At
Wal-Mart there are no bags, nor do they bag your groceries for you. You provide
the bags; you bag your goods. But at Wal-Mart there is an enormous variety of
rice, soy sauce, cooking oil, rice cookers, bread (surprising!) and woks. But,
to my disappointment, only three coffee makers were to be found. In the seafood
section there were live shrimp, crabs, and fish - and squid (on ice!) so big I
kept a healthy distance!!
Speaking of subways, 10 million
people ride them every day - for 2 CNY or $0.33/ride. Mass transit is a normal
part of the urban life here. The signs are clearly marked in both Chinese
(Mandarin here) and English, so it fairly easy to navigate. For us, it is about
10 minutes to the subway station, 40 minutes to our stop, and then about 10
minute walk to both language school and church. We have friends spread
throughout the huge metropolis of Beijing; this is how we will
visit them. What we will do when it is very cold in winter, I cannot yet
predict. Cheryl will have a say in this, as taxis are numerous throughout the
city.
Speaking of my bride, she has
been very busy "setting up shop" with our clothes, cleaning,
organization, etc. I am very thankful for her "can do" spirit in this
whole endeavor.
Enough for now - more tomorrow!
