Asian popcorn! Yes there are pink, blue, and purple pieces in there.

I am skipping class (again) this Friday morning - Craig says I am taking a 'mental health day' to recuperate from the stress of the past two weeks. Whenever I have a string of bad luck, I try to remember when a friend told me that some Buddhists believe that "when a lot of things are going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born - and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible."

This started when I was bedridden last week with the evil Chinese 感冒 ganmao (flu) for an entire day. Fever, nausea, the works. As soon as I was well, it up and off looking at apartments. Craig and I wanted to move out of the dorms, partly because my roomate is dodgy and I miss having a kitchen, and largely because we should be able to find a nice apartment for the same amount (or much less in Craig's case) we pay for the dorms. Our deadline was today, since I'd have to relocate this week anyway to a new dorm (since the old one is being renovated) and Craig needs to pay another month of housing.

It's stressful finding a place to live under normal circumstances, but try doing it under a deadline of less than 2 weeks with an agent that speaks absolutely no English. I now know lots of new vocab terms such as: landlord, utilities, rent, contract, maintenance fees, and deposit, and have insight into how things like utilities and such are handled in Beijing.

We also discovered that rent in Beijing is paid in cash. Now this isn't a problem except rent is around 5500 RMB per month. The largest bill denomination is 100 RMB. And we'd have to pay in 3 month installments. This reminds me of the beginning of the semester when students were literally carrying shoeboxes of cash to pay for tuition. And since neither Craig nor I have accounts at a local Beijing bank, the only way to withdraw that much cash from a foreign account is to phase it over several days.

Unbelievably, after lots of biking back and forth to look at apartments, we found a really cozy place with a nice old couple as landlords last Friday. I even had a month of deposit, all fifty-five 100 RMB bills in a little envelope, ready to fork over. Unfortunately, we lost the apartment this Monday. They decided at the last minute to rent to their daughter who was returning home from the Netherlands.

So we lost our apartment, we're stuck in our current housing situtation, and I have more cash than I know what to do with (plus due to money transfer boo-boos, I ended up overdrafting my chequeing account and got hit with a 90 USD overdraft charge).

------------------------

To counter all the above negativity, here are two little bits of optimism:

1) I moved into new dorm and it is ridiculously nice. I no longer have a bathroom that looks like it's from a crackhouse. Also, there is a possibility I will be getting a new roommate. Hopefully this one will not watch Korean TV all the time and smell up the room with kimchi and cooking onions.

2) We saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! English showing with chinese subtitles. We were the only ones laughing at the English funny bits, like when Professor McGonagall called someone a "blithering, babbling, bumbling baboon" or something (hey alliteration is funny). Chinese for Harry Potter is 哈利波特 pronounced hah-lee-bwoh-tuh. I also ate the sweet, coloured, movie popcorn of my Hong Kong youth - can't find the stuff anywhere in the US.

3) I have an internship in China: I am now officially doing research as an intern with the Beijing office of the UNHCR! :)

Climbing on scaffolding in Tiananmen Square

Today I discovered the English name of 邓云晞 Deng Yun Xi, the 15 year-old kid who I tutor English to every Sunday morning.

It is Melody.

The kid is a boy.

When I asked who gave him his name, he said it was his English teacher at school.

How do I delicately suggest that his name is a little, uh, inappropriate and give him a new name without implying that his teacher is an idiot? Maybe I should keep my yap shut but I don't want him to grow up to be a big important adult who introduces himself to other big important adults with "Hi, my name is Melody".

The entrance to Lao She Teahouse

A few pictures from last week's class trip to 老舍茶馆 Lao She Teahouse. This place is a replica of a classic teahouse where people can watch performances of various traditional Chinese arts. We saw acrobatics and contortion, Chinese Opera (an scene about the Monkey King stealing peaches), ventriloquism, and - this was my favourite - sound imitations! These two guys came in and did the most amazing imitations of birds tweeting, dogs barking (big and small), pigs snorting,) horses galloping (differentiating between racetrack horses and wild horses, and even a train chugging along and arriving at a station (北京站!).

Unfortunately, my camera battery died soon after we arrived at the Teahouse so there aren't photos of the performance - or the traditional Qing Dynasty style 小吃 snacks we ate. There were little cookies and pastries, and plates of 瓜子 guazi - dried melon seeds, which you eat by cracking the shell to extract the sliver of nut inside (don't eat the shell!). I also finally tried 冰糖葫芦 bingtang hulu, which are a kebab of tiny candied fruit. Hawthorn is traditional, but street stalls sell bingtanghulu of candied kiwi, strawberries, clementines, even entire bananas.

And all this was washed down with copious amounts of tea.

Craig eating 囔 - nang2, muslim flatbread

"担担面好了!" (pronounced "dahn dahn mian hao le")
"担担面 hollaback!"
- Craig and a dining hall fuwuyuan

"We're old school. Remember when 'ting' took so much longer to write?"
- Chris and I comparing the amount of time it took to write 'ting' in traditional characters (聼) versus simplified (听). We both learned traditional characters before switching to simplified in China.

"Yay new bike seat! Next time I'm going to get new pedals and a bell"
"What is this, Pimp My Ride?"

"My name is Emily and I emergencily need an English language partner..."
- written on a language exchange flyer.

"Okay, it's Saturday night. Do we watch an existentialist comedy or a mathematical thriller?"
- selecting DVDs (We chose the mathematical thriller. Someone should have warned me it's also a horror flick.)

"去麻烦别人!!"
- a pissed-off Craig telling an overly persistent beggar to bugger off and bother other people. With perfect tones and attitude. Full story halfway down here

Chris looking contemplative at the Summer Palace

This is Chris Chhim. That's not a typo. His last name really is spelled with a double "h". He is language whiz extraordinaire with a biting sense of humour, who is taking his junior year off from University of Chicago to be in Beijing. He likes to eat and try new foods - his favourite Beijing ice cream flavour is corn - and, like me, enjoys watching the Food Network back home. We bonded over our mutual dislike of Emeril and admiration for Jamie Oliver and Alton Brown. We also enjoy correcting Craig's tones and watching foreign and indie films.

(At this point, feel free to remark, as my mother has, that all my friends here are male. Actually, she wrote "Do you feel weird that your friends are all are boys, where have the girls gone?" In my defense, my friends in class are mostly female.)

Anyway, since I spend masses of time with this funny guy, his journal is a nice complement to my own and full of pithy commentary on Beijing's weird and wonderful. Check it out here.

-------------------------
ps. To follow-up yesterday's post, this was received in my inbox this morning:

Further to a message sent to registered Canadians in China on 10-11-2005 concerning threats to four and five-star hotels in China, Foreign Affairs Canada would like to advise you that, according to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, Chinese security authorities have determined that the source of the reported threat is not credible.

This was sent within 10 hours of the last email... way to issue a warning then retract it Canadian Embassy!

Craig successfully gives me a ride on the back of his bike!

This is a common practice in Beijing: a person hitching the ride on someone's bicycle by balancing on the back rack. While it's common to see a guy biking while the girl sits in the back, it's particularly funny to see a girl bike with a guy on the back. It took some practice but Craig can give me a ride and still maintain control of the bike! He's too heavy for me to bike him around though. So much for gender equality.

Anyway, that's not the reason why this post is titled "Scary" - even though it is when I bounce high up off the rack when he rides over a speed bump. Especially when he deliberately speeds up to go over the bump. What is scary is this email alert I received tonight from the Canadian Embassy in Beijing:

On November 4, 2005, Chinese authorities advised four- and five-star hotels in China, including Hong Kong, of a possible terrorist attack in the weeks ahead. Canadians in China should maintain a high level of personal security awareness at all times, particularly in commercial and public establishments. They should also monitor local developments, follow the advice of local authorities, and register and remain in contact with the Canadian Consular offices in China or Foreign Affairs Canada in Ottawa (toll-free at 10800-1400125, web site: www.voyage.gc.ca)

Guess it's not such a good idea to go for the best burgers in Beijing anytime soon!

Beijing weather according to the New York Times

Sorry for the extended absence. Exams filled most of last week, which meant the previous week was filled with disgusting studying. So, not much to report besides spending too much time in coffee shops poring over grammar books and character flashcards - which now exceed 800. We found a new coffee shop named "Hump Cafe" due to an unfortunate translation of its Chinese name - "Camel Cafe". They make great fries though which are yummy, if unhealthy, study food.

Speaking of food, I had diner food today for the first time since leaving North America. After 3 months, we were pretty much 肉串-ed, 囔-ed, and 饺子-ed out and craving a good ol' eggs and sausage fry-up. So we headed downtown to Paul's Steak and Eggs, a proper American-style diner smack in the heart of Beijing, run by Canadian (surprise) Paul Astephen. The atmosphere was a little window back into North America, complete with ketchup, maple syrup, and A1 Steak Sauce on the tables and Paul himself pointing us to a free table. The food was amazing: Chris had a Reuben, I had the classic diner breakfast aka cholesterol-on-a-plate, Craig had burger and huge piece of apple pie (which was "good by American standards"), and we split a cinnamon bun and onion rings.

The motto of Paul's is "you'll come for the price and return for the food". While the prices aren't cheap compared to local chinese food, it's certainly cheap for Western food in Beijing and well worth the 1 hour trip from BLCU.

Even if the journey involved breathing some of the worst air pollution I've seen during my stay in Beijing. Now this city is notorious for awful air quality but the air pollution index yesterday soared to over 450 APIs, with corresponding health warnings and recommendations that pretty much boil down to "don't breathe". Everywhere was covered in a smoggy (or more aptly described by the NY Times as smoky) haze and you could look directly at the sun and discern an orange circle outlined against a thick grey smog. Even the sun couldn't burn through the pollution, let alone your eyes! My lungs feel icky just thinking about it. If we have more days like this, in one year's time I'll be going home with great Mandarin and respiratory difficulties.