first and second and third impressions

This morning, as I will have to do every morning at 7AM for the rest of the summer, and possibly even for the rest of the year, I checked my temperature. I hadn't realize how insane the flu precautions were going to be until arriving at the hotel. Besides getting checked along with every other passenger before getting off the plane, a note from Abby (whose Chinese name I should probably learn in the very near future) explained that we were going to have our temperatures recorded EVERY DAY for the rest of the trip. If anyone's temperature ever climbs over 99 degrees, the entire program gets quarantined. I grew up thinking that 98.7 was standard. My temperature this morning was 36.7, or 98.1 degrees, which is a little low for me. In other words, this entire plan is completely insane.
 
Anyway, that's not exactly what I planned to talk about. My issue was that my thermometer (newly issued by the program) didn't work. I put in my mouth for a couple of minutes, then put it under my armpit for a while as a backup plan. When neither of these instructed methods of deriving my temperature worked, I tried to explain to the chinese woman who stopped by this morning. But instead she spent about five minutes trying to show me how to read the damn thing, with no success. I finally brought it back into my room, retook my temperature, stared at the thing for five more minutes, about to give up, until I finally noticed an incredibly thin white line. 

The previous paragraph might serve as a good metaphor for how china differs from the states - nothing seems to work until you look hard enough and realize that things just work a little differently. Unfortunately, it's actually a huge oversimplification.  Beijing matches and fails to match expectations, resembles the states in unexpected ways and then fails to in ways subtle and unsubtle.

This is the third day I've been in China. I would hardly say that I've gathered three days worth of impressions, given that I got here at 8 pm Thursday night, spent thirteen hours asleep yesterday and this morning combined, and, well, it's shy of 11 am here. Normally I think I like writing better about one particular topic rather than adopting the "dear diary" format, but there's just too much to talk about.

Water. I'm still not sure if I have it figured out or not. The kettle provided with the room is in constant use. Whenever I pour water out I boil a whole new jugful. Bottled water is one kuai if I need it, or in other words 15 cents (use a 7 to 1 ratio for yuan to dollars). Nonetheless, that's not a sustainable option. So far the best way of cooling it seems to be just leaving the water in the kettle, since the nalgene is actually fairly thermally insulating. For long term (overnight) I can stash a nalgene in the fridge and it will get cold. In the short run, lukewarm or slightly warmed than that seems the best I can do. My recent teadrinking habits have helped me stomach drinking warmish water, since it's pretty much just consuming very mediocre tea.

The city itself. I am very very pleasantly surprised by Beijing. I think my trip to Shanghai skewed my expectations some. And I don't think my view of shanghai was particularly fair - I saw a lot of the old town, which was fantastic, but also facing the prospects of destruction in the next decade and replacement by "new" china of tall high rises. Hard not to be a little sentimental. But whereas I remember Shanghai being pointy without the redeeming properties of hong kong, Beijing sprawls. These are the suburbs - wudaokou, essentially the student neighborhood of time. but they don't behave like american-style suburbs. If you walk the streets, you pass lots of little stands, selling scallion pancakes, baozhi, english books (I was pretty surprised to spot guns, germs and steel for sale) and anything else you can name. It's not that everything isn't built up, but there is definitely a human scale to life here as well. Whoever said there weren't trees around was lying. The campus's main thoroughfare is a pretty tree-lined walkway.

the smog. I don't know why. but I don't see it yet. Perhaps it hasn't reached its full force, but I remember getting to Hong Kong and noticing an immediate decline in air quality. Traveling to Shanghai was even worse - especially because I was going there to play ultimate. How was anyone supposed to go exercise?! But I really can't tell if the smog is here or if I am in the middle of a miraculous reprieve. There's blue sky to be seen. The moonset is beautiful and orangish, possibly the best indicator I have of air pollution. Yet I can even see some stars in the sky at night. I have no idea what's going on, really - but for now, the weather is quite nice. Very hot, probably close to 90ish. But I actually kind of like it, and it's not quite as overwhelmingly humid as hong kong was.

embarassing stories about the language pledge. I got off the plane thinking I was never getting to speak english again, except to my friends and folks. However, it looks like the pledge only takes effect sometime tomorrow when we sign a contract, which means that I spent a day fumbling around in broken chinese kind of in vain. But actually, that's not really true. My feeling here is that most people want to speak in Chinese if possible, and tend to be happy to try to communicate with you in putonghua rather than awkwardly switching to english. Upholding the language pledge is going to be easier than it seemed at very first glance. The biggest challenge right now looks like ordering from a menu, ever. Yesterday I overcame that problem by going to a baozi stand, which constituted my very first food in all of china. They were baked and flaky, sort of like croissants, except with a mishmash of pork and scallion on the inside. 

I know a lot of you reading this are food junkies, but unfortunately my lack of computer means no pictures for now. Once I find a way to get a new hard drive, I'll definitely start photographing the food here...the breakfast buffet alone is a world apart from what it would ever resemble stateside. Ever had pickled lotus root for breakfast?

Over and out.