Song Without Words: The Beijing Exodus

I can't find my cellphone. Not that I really need it right now, but it beeps every now and then, notifying me that I have a new message - probably the daily news digest. It's somewhere in the pile of magazines, newspapers and books next to my bed. Nobody's calling now, unless they're in Beijing. But with the Spring Festival coming up soon, everyone's preparing their luggage and tickets to get on the next train or plane out of the capital.

I realized how dramatic this annual event was when I tried to place my usual delivery order for some lunch. The usual tired attendant's voice didn't pick up the phone after I called three times in a row. I went outside to get a to-go order of some street meat and vegetable shish-kababs. Not a single stand was in sight. For the first evening since I've been in this neighborhood, the little curving streets around my apartment were empty, quiet...and clean. Even the local restaurants were all closed. The delivery people, the waitresses, the cooks, everyone has gone home.

I made some convenient noodles.

A few people still linger around, walking in and out of the area pulling their luggage around. The happy ones go, with airplane tickets reserved online or with train tickets bought months in advance. The sad ones return, resting another night in their apartments before waking up again at three or four in the morning to rush to the train ticket booths, hoping to buy a ticket to get them out of this place. A walk by the Wudaokou ticket booth at eight in the evening told me the ones sleeping had no chance - some people are camping outside, armed with noodle bowls, blankets and mp3s to fight for the last few hard seats.

A few early birds are popping firecrackers somewhere.

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Formula Pop with Predictable Melody: Koreans in Wudaokou, Sketches

Taxi driver:
Are you Korean?...Oh, Korean-American! Interesting. No, no, I just noticed it from the small accent you have. Not like most Koreans, but interesting. I pull around a lot of Korean kids in this neighborhood. I know, they're rather loud, aren't they?... Oh, I didn't realize Koreans took the bus around here. Do you like taking the bus in Beijing? Hey, I hope you don't mind me saying this, saying you're America and all, but I think the Korean students here - you know why they aren't welcomed by the Chinese here? --- their suzhi (素质) is just so low. All they do is skip class during the day, drink during the night, fool around with boy or girlfriends, throw up in my car... actually, I can't really tell Koreans apart from Chinese people, but I know when I have a Korean in my car -- they're just so damn loud, all drunk, you know what I'm saying? Suzhi is just so low in those kids - they come to China and go back to Korea without having studied our language well at all, all they do is hun rizi, loaf through their days. Their taking Wudaokou down into a drain. Oh, here's your stop. 18 kuai. I hope you didn't mind listening.

IUP classmate, while eating lunch:
I live in Huaqing Jiayuan. Lots of Koreans there. It's kind of hard to study when there are drunk Koreans throwing and falling outside my apartment door. I know Koreans are the Irish of Asia, but it's awfully annoying to hear Korean swear words (they yell the same words, and I don't have to study Korean to know that some dude is calling his ex-girlfriend a bitch) while trying to memorize characters. That was my initial impression - really drunk ethnicity. Then, my Chinese friend told me that most of the Koreans in China, in Wudaokou at least, are the students who couldn't get into college or succeed according to their parents' standards in South Korea, but too poor to study abroad in the States. The average joe student who drowns his parents' ambitions in beer and soju - I look at the drunk kid at my doorsteps, and he seems to fits the demographic.

Musicology student at the Beijing Conservatory of Music, over a beer:
I'll try to be as detached about this. No, I don't really have a clear opinion about Koreans - you don't even count to me as Korean because you're too American. I'm just saying you don't think like the typical Korean boy that I've met in China. I'll just talk about Koreans from a cultural perspective - I believe that most Chinese people are angry at Koreans for stealing bits of its culture. For example, the Duanwu festival is part of Chinese culture, but Koreans are now celebrating like it originated from the Korean peninsula. Every country is trying to protect its traditions and customs, but I think South Korea went too far by celebrating Duanwu (Festival). That's not to say I complete hate Koreans - it's like how I hate the Japanese government for its actions half a century ago, but not its people. I think that generally, Koreans seem to fit mold of beauty that appeals to more people around the world. I mean, think about it - why do you think Korean dramas are seen around the world more than Chinese and Japanese dramas? As much as you argue about how the acting quality is among the countries, I think it still comes down to looks.

Korean-Chinese (Chaoxian, 朝鲜族) hairstylist:
Most of my friends are Chaoxian - I don't hang without the actual Koreans. Our cultural backgrounds are just too different for any meaningful conversation. They do come in for haircuts every other week - it's much cheaper to get your hair cut in China than in Korea. Your hair is perfect for perming. 300 yuan. Come on, just try it. The latest Korean styles have to involve perming.

Note: The opinions in this blog do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the author. The author did not get a perm.

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The Yankee Doodle Theme Song from Barney: Let's go to Class - Everywhere

This cold is not going away. Runny nose, fever, hoarse voice complicated by constant Chinese practice everyday, has made the cold drag on.

The first week of Chinese was appropriate for my sickness. The first two lessons basically covered health. By the end of the week, I was able to tell everyone exactly what symptoms I had, the details of a restless sleep and my sensitivity to light.

IUP is thorough. At HBA, I remember covering hundreds of words, knowing definitions of characters but glossing over usages. Here, the teachers grind each word's usage into you. For example, I know about ten ways to express going to sleep. Each term is used in a slightly different way. While the locals will understand what you want to say, they will not correct your words with the correct synonym. Fortunately, all the IUP teachers are patient and eager to help, whether I take their class or not.

Yesterday, a group of students and teachers went to a village preserved since the Ming Dynasty called 爨底下, or Cuan Di Xia. The village is shaped like a round bowl filled with rice, with the landowner's house on the highest spoonful. Most of the structures were maintained for more than 400 years. Tourists come to eat the local cuisine, which is supposed to be unique. My hunger didn't detect anything outstanding, to the cook's disappointment. However, I saw an old lady making cornbread in a great big metal bowl over an open fire. Her hands must be like insulated gloves - she would touch the bowl to flip the patties with her bare hands! Although the fresh bread was meant to be served to the awaiting customers in her restaurant, she sold a couple for the IUP troop to share. The unsweetened bread was the best thing I've had since living in China. The American southern cornbread cannot compare.

Everyone explore the town on their own. I found myself with the teachers, talking in Chinese throughout the day. Had I been with the other students, I don't think I would have appreciated or understood the town's culture, religion and geography deeply. The local geography is confounding - some places are labeled "Eight Mysteries Pool" and "Nine Meditation Stones," but when I actually hiked to those areas, all I found were cesspools dark with algae and nine boulders. I bet if I made a sign that said "Tree of Richard" next to anything resembling a branch, someone would take a photograph. Others areas were breathtaking - river-cut passageways with caves and cavities, single bell temples surrounded by vast green mountains.

Back in my room, I can only imagine my hike through fading memories preserved by these photographs. Outside, I hear American students in drunken stupor. There are a lot of foreign students on campus now as the actual university students leave and summer language program students move in. My opportunities for a Chinese-only environment dwindle in Wudaokou - with English in one ear and Korean in the other, hearing Chinese is a luxury. Maybe if I willingly try to not understand English and Korean, I can get by. Realistically, however, I have told other Koreans and Americans who see me as foreign that I am Chinese. It works - unless I'm talking with another Chinese.

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Song Number 1: Chasing the Sun

Simply put, the plane ride to Beijing was not pleasant. Sitting in one spot for half a day is painful. Thankfully, I had Chinese to take my mind off things. A man from Chengdu sitting next to me was so kind to help me review vocabulary and grammar. I heard myself using the basic dialogue responses that Zhou laoshi had prepared. Chinese 115 at Yale is amazing.
Every so often while I studied, I looked outside the window to enjoy the scenery. The plane took me through every possible geographic region - I saw the Pacific, the Canadian mountain range, its forests, the freezing waters of the North Pole at noon (icebergs included), Chinese desert, Chinese tundra, Chinese farmland... all under the sun. I moved with the sun, rotating around the Earth, casting my shadow 30,000 feet up in the air, my orange round ball of a friend some 65 million miles away.
The humidity hit me like a batting ram when I got off the plane. After customs and baggage claim, I saw thousands of Chinese teenagers crowded around the entrance with orange balloons, waiting for some celebrity to come. I felt pairs of eyes follow me all the way out of the airport - why do they make it so evident?
I took a bus to Wudaokou, thankfully met up with a senior Light Fellow called Jason, who helped me get a taxi to my couchsurfing host's address. My host was really relaxed - an Austrian native, he makes his living taking amazing photographs and teaching English. He's pretty good at Japanese, but his Chinese is not up to par, yet. Like me, he said that he came to China to see it before the Olympic Games' tourists do.
The first afternoon and night there I felt myself blending into the crowd, joining the Asian mass. Occasionally I found myself gawking (though subtlely) at other foreigners, but I think I looked at them more to hear a bit of that comforting English language than for their foreign appearance. The only people who know I'm a foreigner are the waitresses. I'd spend too long poring over the menu while others know immediately what they want. Despite my language barrier (for now), the waitresses were really nice, speaking broken English and unbroken Chinese, while I made sense of them with broken Chinese and unbroken English.
People don't sleep very early in Wudaokou. I took a walk after a much needed shower, and night life is bizarre here. On the main street where everyone from the nearby apartments gather, groups of anywhere from five to fifteen sat in a circle, eating meat kabobs, noodles, and drinking huge bottles of beer. I walked a bit further down to the park, and saw old couples practicing how to waltz to some Chinese singer out of the '80s. After dodging incoming waltzers, the big street was filled with teenagers and other foreigners, some going to nightclubs, some to bars, some to karaoke, some to their homes, some to join their friends for a usual nine-o'clock-meat'n'beer-meal. The drivers liberally honk horns, groups of friends yell raucously into the night, and I lied on my host's couch, overcome by fatigue and jetlag.

edit 8:40 AM BST
I ate xiao baozi and ma2la4mi3sian4 (small meat dumplings and spicy noodles with vegetables) for breakfast. I must pack now, and go to Beijing Language and Culture University to register with Harvard.
note: Nobody seems to cook themselves breakfast in the morning.
note: Drink lots of water. Liters and liters more.

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