The first blog is the deepest

Ok used to use Myspace....evidently this has become somewhat passe. Old people are adverse to facebook so we'll settle on blogspot. Wrote this post a few days ago after arriving in China, and the other one just now. Will update with some photo action soon!
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Thursday 4 Dec 2008

It’s been 3 days since arriving in China and only now am I beginning not to get scared of going outside. It’s a strange feeling to be in a country where you look normal but don’t sound normal. I’ll start from the beginning, as most diaries do – and apologies in advance if I bore you because you are the both the intended audience, and the unintended audience of my attempt to document my life for future‐Kai, who might be interested in what I did and ate, on a winters day long ago.

I arrived on an 11 hour flight from Sydney, where I rather coincidentally was seated next to an academic from NSW who had sharpened his teeth with a PhD in hydro scheduling in electricity systems (with some NZ folk by his side), and was now involved in research surrounding climate change mitigation strategies and was heading to Beijing to discuss the intricacies of this topic at a conference there. On arrival I took a train in the airport, that took me to….the same airport. Beijing’s new airport is huge. Mr and Mrs Wu were at the airport to greet me with a signcard with my name written across the top in Chinese and just‐in‐case in English down the bottom.

On the way home we drove past the Olympic area with the bird’s nest and all that jazz and after a while were at my new home for the next couple of months. It’s a beautiful little apartment in Hai Dian, and was filled with new furnishings for my arrival. I couldn’t believe that every detail had been thought of – from all the utensils I would need, to bacon and eggs in the fridge for my breakfast! Mr and Mrs Wu meticulously showed me how each of the plugs worked then left me on my way for the night.



The next day I joined them for lunch, and was shown the local supermarket and shops. I’ve never seen so much packaging on food before in my life. Everything that can be covered in glad wrap is, and everything that can be put in a plastic bag is put in two plastic bags. I find myself constantly staring at a maze of plastic and indistinguishable characters.

Ok so once not long ago I discovered I’m a very visual learner. So if I think of a word in English, I see it flash before my eyes in letters. This becomes a problem in Chinese because all of the words look really similar when written in English letters. I find myself often switching words around backwards or replacing consonants or vowel sounds just enough so I don’t make any sense. I think the only remedy for this is when I one day associate each character with a sound, which might or might not happen.

The second day I was shown a department store, and how to get to the nearest train station. I think I might invest in some Chinese clothes so I can blend more –my sneakers and baggy pants were decidedly casual compared to all the other girls and I felt I looked like a boy. Pretty much my strategy will be to do my hair nicer and wear boots and jackets with furry things on them. The furry things must be good for
breaking the icy wind too.

Today, with my new found knowledge of how to catch the train I ventured to Tiananmen square. When I first arrived in China I was gutted I look Chinese because then everyone doesn’t understand when I grin like an idiot and can’t speak. But today I realized it’s not actually that bad. The other alternative I realized is for everyone to stare at you as you walk past, and whisper “foreigner” under their breath. I was actually pretty stoked at my camouflage, and managed to help some lost looking Americans from Portland with my Chinese prowess.

Ok so I wandered around this grandest of grand areas that is eerily concrete and large, and am saving the inside of Forbidden City for when I have a friend to appreciate it with. So instead I went somewhere I was strangely drawn to, which is the Beijing Urban Planning Museum. Inside I was blown away by the huge scale of their miniature city model, which shows every last detail of Beijing’s cityscape across an entire floor of the museum. There were displays outlining the development of the city over time, as well as the developments that had led to the Beijing Olympics. I ended my stay with a “4D” (it’s like a motion master) movie, of what Beijing’s transportation network is going to be like in 2069.

Everyone here is immensely proud of the Olympics, and every self‐respecting street seller has little keyrings of the mascots to thrust at passers by. In shops I keep getting confronted by life‐size mascot soft toys, that cost about 500NZD each. I wonder who will be the last to stop selling these toys, or if they’ll just keep going forever.



Ok I’m about to go outside to visit the Wu’s. It’s freezing yet the street vendors near my home still keep open their stores and sit outside at 9pm, with not many people passing by. The whole day today I couldn’t stand still for very long because parts of my body would feel like they were hardening.