Hiding in Haidian

I haven't really been posting much which is an indication of my poor time management here. Much of life here is occupied by the World Cup, which is one of the most amazing events the world knows. I still prefer the Olympics but have found myself fully enveloped in football mania, reading the bios of Lionel Messi, Diego Forlan, David Villa and that awesome Turkish-German midfielder. This is also by far the best World Cup I've ever had. Previous cups featured games in morning or early afternoon times in US EST. While there was some charm to waking up to a 7:30am showdown, it doesn't quite match up to primetime. The first round games here were 7:30pm, 10pm and 2:30am. The first two times were amazing and I caught almost all those games, including US-Slovenia and US-Algeria. The latter is quite problematic and the only two games I tried to watch (England-Algeria and US-Ghana) I fell asleep a bit before the ending. Adding to the excitement is the international presence in Beijing. The European, African and South American expat population in Beijing continually has strong showings, notably a large and loud Spanish contingent that I watched lose to Switzerland.

The US-Ghana game started with me at Pyro Bar and found me back in my apartment by the start of the second half. Somehow I saw all 3 goals before passing out in extra time and waking up to a dubbed version of Sponge Bob Square Pants. I gotta say that even though we could have gone very far in this tournament, I am very proud of our performance. With a roster that essential amounts to a bunch of B-listers and two marginal world class players (Landon Donovan and Tim Howard) we displayed grit and resilience throughout and made our country proud, in a sport that we will care more and more about. While we could have beaten Ghana, there is no way we could match up talentwise with Uruguay.

Anyways Beijing has been a slow but exhausting whir of cheap and interesting food, language practice, terrible air and the occasional exciting field trip. Notable dinners include Uyghur (a cuisine I memorably sampled towards the end of my last visit here), Hot Pot and dumplings, and I'm eager for more. I have started sampling a local restaurant that specializes in Lanzhou food, which I had never even heard of but essentially amounts to especially tasty Northern Chinese food. I think it is literally impossible to spend more than 30 kuai at this restaurant, and I typically spend from 8-15 for a very nice meal and drink. The beer glasses they used here are Tsingdao glasses sponsored by the NBA. I remarked that they were special and they gave me one for free, which almost paid for my meal and now holds my toothbrush.

After a few weeks of frustration, my Mandarin has started to improve and I'm gaining fluidity again. My general strategy of practicing by talking to strangers is similar to last time, but I've refined it and spend a lot of energy learning characters and vocabulary. I will make a post specifically about the trials and tribulations of learning the Mandarin language.

Last Saturday I did one of my few touristy trips in a city that I've now spent about 4 months in, going to the surprisingly little known LuGou Qiao southwest of Beijing. Also known as the Marco Polo Bridge for the Venetian's laudatory comments about the bridge that brought it fame in Europe, the bridge is a 700 year old sturdy architectural marvel that contains about 140 delicately and uniquely carved lions. Today it is almost equally as famous, especially within China, as the site of the beginning of World War 2 (or the Pacific War between Japan and China) in 1937. I definitely appreciated the history of the bridge, from imagining Marco Polo walking along the same path 500 odd years before me or crouching Chinese soldiers resting their guns against the lions in a dark July night. Getting there was even an adventure as I needed to take a 45 minute one transfer bus ride. That doesn't sound particularly risky, but buses here are very scary to me. There are almost 1000 different lines, the maps are nearly all in Chinese and the place names are all strange to me unless they're at a subway stop, and they don't always announce the stops when you're on the bus. As a result, I never went on one last time I was here (nor did I need to with the usefulness of the subway). I spent an hour and a half on the bus website beforehand figuring out my route before managing to execute it properly.

That day, I had 3 people ask me what country I was from. This is pretty rare as most people don't ever approach me in Chinese. The first person was notable. I was literally getting in the elevator of my building when this guy in the elevator asked me what country I was from. I said American, and he told me I don't look American. I told him that there are many different types of Americans, and he responded that, "no, I definitely looked Arabic." He proceeded to lecture me on my own features and why they were Arab, particularly my dark eyebrows (??) and eyes. Then he said I looked like a word that definitely sounded like "Iraqi." I finally asked him if he had ever seen an Arab. He paused, then said "Yes. Yes. On TV." Sigh.

A few days ago I was working at my boss Conrad's apartment when Conrad brought back a family he was trying to hire. I had no idea where they were from so I introduced myself in English. I then hear Conrad tell them in Cantonese about my dad and how he lived in Brazil. I come back and ask him in Cantonese if he's talking about my dad. The family was immediately startled and asked me how I knew Cantonese. I told them that I was ethnically Cantonese, what did they think I was? They thought I was Brazilian. So if you're keeping score at home, this summer I've been thought to be Southern Chinese (somewhat true), hapa, Korean, Thai, Malaysian, Iraqi, and Brazilian. I think that my mistaken identities could perhaps make a pretty good soccer team.

A uniquely unique experience

It's been a week or so since my last post, which even for a very sedentary lifestyle, lends itself to a bunch of interesting happenings in China, or at the very least, instances of cultural reflection. Since I am too lazy to recount these in any flowing manner, I will simply use bullet points.

- Going shopping my general manager Stephanie at NLGX, I discovered Plastered 8 (Your City, You're Plastered), a Churros fast food joint, a matchbook of "bunny suicides", and a Lady Gaga playing deck. At Plastered 8 I bought a t-shirt displaying a panda with a gun (does it eat shoots and leaves?) but the funniest thing was being in the store with the playing deck and hearing two Chinese ladies spot it and go "Lay Di Ga Ga!!"

-NLGX was a shopping street with cute stores such as this:

- At a meeting with a language partner, my partner asked me how I was so good with chopsticks. I asked her what she thought I looked like (ethnically). She said, "anything but Chinese!"

- I attempted to order watermelon juice. Interfered by the English name of this fruit, I asked for "水果汁" (shuiguo zhi) which literally means water fruit juice. 水果 actually just means fruit, but since 水 is water, I was thinking that this was the word for watermelon. The actual word is 西瓜汁 (xigua zhi), or Western fruit juice. Shuiguo zhi sounds like xigua zhi but is completely wrong.

- I iced Vivian at Kro's Nest. Icing girls aside, this turned out to be a great idea because our waitress came over and asked us what kind of drink that Smirnoff was. Vivian went on a long explanatory oration that covered the Bros Icing Bros phenomenon in its entirety. The waitress' interest was absolutely priceless, and I wish I had the ability to repeat that conversation.

- Needing some models for our shop, I accompanied my coworkers on a tour of a mannequin factory north of Beijing. Yes, this is in fact one of the strangest places I have ever been, as evidenced by the picture at the bottom of the post.

What were we doing there? Why we were looking for suitable mannequins!

- My dad came down this weekend and we went to Qianmen. Two years ago I spent a lovely Saturday traversing the shopping streets near Tiananmen Square, which held some nice high class but still local stores. Now that area has been completely bulldozed and a new, clean and touristy shopping complex has opened up. The area actually looks nice, as if it was meant to be there, but I know better. Chinese irreverence for history never ceases to amaze me.

- We found a basketball store called "QiaoDan" which is actually is Chinese for Michael Jordan's last name. The logo of the store was a cross between the NBA logo and Jordan's own Jumpman 23 logo. However there was no actual mention of Jordan and it became

apparent that the entire brand was an unauthorized rip off. See this is what LeBron wants. He wants Chinese companies ripping off his image.

- Nearby this place, I came across

a bridge that I had actually read about on Wikipedia. There were physics equations and calculus formulas written in block letters on the side of the bridge! I know, I know, control your excitement, but I was very eager to get my picture taken on this monumental landmark of nerdiness. I hope you can spot me in the photo.

- We were searching for the "Underground City," an elaborate gigantic bomb shelter that Mao ordered built when it looked like Beijing might get nuked by Soviets. True story, I read about it in Wikipedia. I neglected to read that the City had been closed for repairs since Feb 2008. Anyways we found a motorcycle taxi to take us there from the bridge to the City and discovered the place closed. Walking back, a crazy guy was clearly excited by our touristy appearance. He asked if we were Korean, to which my dad said no we were from Hong Kong. Then he invited us into his yard and brought out a shovel. I was so confused when he said, "you can dig!" Apparently he heard we were looking for an underground city and offered us an alternative route to get there (he was completely serious). He also offered us his dog. We had a tough time understanding his thick Beijing accent but it became clear that he was absolutely insane.

- At Lush (where else), I sat at one of the more international tables of my life. Brought together by Georgetown grad and Chinese law student BTB, I was sandwiched between girls from Ukraine and Thailand, as well as individuals from Germany, Switzerland and China. The Ukrainian was very cool but the interesting encounter was with the Thai, who I thought was Chinese since she spoke it so well. So when she said she was from "Tai Guo" I thought that was a city in southern China. In my mind I was thinking this place sounded a lot like the Cantonese word for Thailand. Then I realized she was actually from Thailand. Since she didn't speak any English, this was only the second encounter I can remember where I had to communicate to a non-Chinese person in Chinese, after a brief experience two summers ago with Kazakhs. So I find it pretty novel - Chinese is becoming more of an international language.

- I asked my landlord for help last week when I couldn't turn on my TV. He came here with his entire family, comprised of a wife and a 12 year old boy, and quickly pressed one button to solve the problem. So that was embarrassing. But the real reason he came was to talk, or have his son practice his English. They invited me to dinner at their place which I went to last night, and among other things, I helped his son with his English homework - cool experience. While we mostly talked in Chinese, they kept trying to spray in English whenever they knew the words - all the basic words. Since I already knew these words, this exercise was completely useless and rather hilarious.

So that's last week in highlight form.

The thing I've come to conclude, which I touched on earlier, is that no one here thinks I'm Chinese (except expats). This was a discovery I made in 2008 but something I've only come to accept this summer. In 2008, I was like Chinese people are just stupid if they can't realize I'm Chinese. Now I just say, yeah I do look really mixed.

I believe race is an issue of self-identity. I now consider myself mixed-race, because it is so relevant to my life especially here in China. However, I am the only person in my family to identify as such and the only one who indicated so on the 2010 Census. Thus I'd still like to make the distinction that scientifically I am only about 13/64 white, and the rest Chinese, and culturally I am entirely Chinese-American. Mixed culture is a real thing brought about by having parents who don't look alike, but I didn't grow up like that. Still, perhaps growing up in America has made me appear much more foreign to people in China. I think I have looked more mixed the older I have gotten, which may be a result of my majority white environment. If I had grown up in Hong Kong, like my Chinese-looking cousins, perhaps I would look different.

But enough about those little details. The macro picture is that I find myself in an absurdly unique position. I get to experience life as an Asian in the United States and life as a white guy in China (some people do think I'm white). The problem is that I'm powerless to change their beliefs, with my obviously nonfluent Mandarin - unless I get creative. In touristy areas, people inevitably come up speaking to me in English, offering me cheap wallets in awful accents. I have decided to treat this annoyance instead as an opportunity. I have a great chance here to fuck with people. I have already pulled the line, "对不起我的英语不太好" meaning "sorry my English isn't too good." If I have to, I'll bust out some French. The other alternative I've used, when faced with an offering in English, is to rebut them with a long overdone inquisition in English that would expose them. "Want T-Shirt??" "Why yes, do you perchance have anything in synthetic polyester? My cousin-in-law is getting married and I think cheap Chinese souvenirs would be a perfect gift to bequeath them." Sometimes I do this in an Irish accent.

SPO: The biggest sporting event of the summer

I have some more Beijing stories to share, but I want to make a sports interlude. Though the action doesn't really pick up until July, there's a huge sports story brewing that people have been waiting on for years now. The whole country, scratch that, the whole world is watching and the speculation over the eventual winner and the home team's chances and all are getting out of hand. Since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, I would like to add my own two cents on this matter, my expertise be damned. I'm talking of course about the LeBron James sweepstakes.

LeBron's hitting the free agent market on July 1 and as the best player of the generation, people are making a big deal over it. New York and Chicago are even throwing up billboards inviting LeBron to come. Also available are top tier players like Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudamire and Joe Johnson, so its quite possible that the NBA next year will look nothing like the NBA this year. But its all about LeBron and here's what I think he wants:

1. Attention. The way James has treated the speculation this season has proved that he very much wants to soak in the spotlight. Never before a free agent and not even recruited by colleges because he was going to the NBA, LeBron has never been in this position before and now he's loving it. The team he chooses will need to be able to quench his thirst for attention and keep him in the world spotlight. The argument is whether any team can stay in the spotlight simply by having LeBron, or whether it'll need to be a big time franchise from a big time city.

2. NBA Championships. Multiple ones are needed to ensure that James goes down as one of the greatest of all time, and more than 6 might be needed for James to be considered the greatest. That actually seems very unlikely at this stage, I would certainly have a hard time seeing James surpass Michael Jordan. But anyways, LeBron needs to start winning titles for his legacy to reach its potential, and he's learned that he can't do this by himself. The teams that Cleveland have had in previous years haven't been bad, but LeBron needs a real sidekick worthy of comparison to Scottie Pippen.

3. Money. Most certainly LeBron wants to make money, but I'm confident this is a tertiary concern below the previous two. He's obviously made millions and will make millions more and his endorsements could potentially grow greatly from a location change. The difference between what the Cavaliers and and Knicks could offer him is not insignificant, but I argue that the marginal utility is.

Ok, so the suitors appear to be the hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, the New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls. I don't have the financial information in front of me, but each team can offer LeBron a max contract. The Cavaliers can offer a little more because of an NBA role that gives preference to players re-signing with their current teams. So with that, here's a brash look into the mind of King James.

The LA Clippers have no chance. For some reason, this team has been offered up as a dark horse team to land quality free agents, such as Kobe Bryant, before. Maybe it's the great weather, the Hollywood landscape, the access to the glitz and glamor that LeBron would indeed like. But those properties are really the domain of the LA Lakers, who have dominated the Clippers in this market for my entire life. Really I don't even know why the Clippers are in this city, they'd be better off moving to Seattle. Even if they nabbed LeBron, he would still not displace Kobe as the biggest athlete in town. That'd be unacceptable to him as he wants to be the biggest athlete in the world. Also, the Clippers are a terrible franchise. Their owner is a well-documented moron, they never win, they have no fans and they even have a terrible name.

The New Jersey Nets are possibly the most interesting team in the discussion. They recently finished a season where they came close to setting the NBA record for most losses in a season. For their efforts, they only got the 3rd pick in the draft (in a 2 man draft) and attendance was terrible. And they will play next year in Newark. That's quite a lot to swallow. However, the team is really not that bad. Devin Harris is a really good point guard who would work great with LeBron, Yi Jianlian still has potential and Brook Lopez is quite good and looks hilarious. With the third pick (perhaps a solid big man like DeMarcus Cousens and Derrick Favors) and another free agent, this team would compete with LeBron next year. But even better, they have a new ownership group headed in with the richest billionaire in Russia leading the way, and Jay-Z also along as a minority owner. LeBron and Jay-Z are notably good pals, if only because they bring each other street cred. The team should move to Brooklyn in time for 2012, which would satisfy both LeBron's need to play in a huge market and his hipster lifestyle. This actually all makes great sense for him. I just can't see LeBron wearing New Jersey on the front of his shirt for two seasons.

Chicago is another city that makes great sense, both marketing and basketball sense. The 3rd biggest city in the US, LeBron can stay in the midwest and still attract an enormous audience. The Bulls are young, with tons of talent like Luol Deng, Derrick Rose and Kirk Hinrich. The team is also famous worldwide especially here in China. The one problem may seem trivial but is actually quite serious in my opinion. The source of the Bulls fame is of course the looming shadow of Michael Jordan. The Bulls will always be Michael's franchise and LeBron will not change that. Now LeBron used to look up to Jordan, wearing the 23 since high school. But now, as evidenced by his decision to switch jersey numbers next year, he wants to carve his own legacy. He doesn't want to be the next Jordan, he wants to be the first James. It's not so much that LeBron no longer wants to be compared with Jordan, but he doesn't want to be compared negatively. If he goes to Chicago and doesn't win 6 championships, he'll inevitably be compared unfavorably.

The Miami Heat are an extremely intriguing option. Now Miami isn't a large metropolis per se, but I've always thought of it as a city that carried a lot of weight in the cultural context of the US (similar to Boston, a city of 700,000 that acts a lot bigger). Certainly Miami is an important city to the Hispanic American population, and by extension the Latin American world. Both are markets that the NBA could grow in. So Dwyane Wade is the star of the Heat and is also a free agent. There is talk that the two want to be on the same team, and Miami is the likely destination if that scenario were to happen. Critics say that the two megastars couldn't possibly share one basketball - who would shoot it in crunch time? I think they're dead wrong. Dwyane Wade came off the bench for the gold medal winning 2008 Olympic team and managed to finish as the leading scorer. That tournament showed his ability to move without the ball and expose inferior defenders. I think he could definitely adapt his game to work with another great scorer. LeBron for his part has never been a selfish player. If anything he's been criticized for being too selfless, passing up last second shots to the likes of Donyell Marshall and Sasha Pavlovic. Passing is his greatest strength and I think he could make Wade even greater. I'm actually terrified of them playing together. Maybe their egos could clash, I don't know, but basketball-wise I think they could make it happen.

Now the New York Knicks are the team that people have talked about LeBron going to for years, since he got drafted into a small market team. They're obviously the biggest market and really on a different level than Chicago and Los Angeles. The Knicks are one of the most prestigious NBA franchises (maybe behind the Lakers and Celtics) and play in the most famous stadium (the overrated Madison Square Garden). It's a big stage for a big star. The problem is that the Knicks suck, having been buried into laughingstock territory under the General Managership of Isaiah Thomas. Even with LeBron, I don't see them competing next year. But in all other aspects, LeBron makes sense in Manhattan. Can't you see the enormous LeBron billboard in Times Square? He'd be the biggest thing to hit New York since Godzilla.

Finally we get to the hometown Cleveland Cavaliers. Some pundits and diehard fans alike are convinced that LeBron will re-sign with his team. They believe that 1) He's from the area and it's his hometown team 2) the fans adore them and he's too loyal to leave 3) it's been a good fit, why change? 4) he wants to bring Cleveland it's first championship in ages and 5) Cleveland can offer him the most money. All valid points. But they're all completely utterly wrong. LeBron is from Akron, Ohio which is only 40 miles from Cleveland. However the cities seem to be as different as Baltimore and Washington and LeBron has NEVER shown any signs of hometown rooting for Cleveland. The man's a frontrunner, wearing a Yankee hat to an Indians game. He says he grew up as a Cowboys, Yankees and Bulls fan! I've never heard of a bigger frontrunning fan. In an interview, he stated his favorite cities as 1) New York 2) Washington 3) Dallas 4) Los Angeles 5) Akron. (His favorite borough? Brooklyn) Yes, Akron beat out Cleveland on that list. LeBron doesn't care about Cleveland and he probably can't wait to get out. He hasn't been able to win there in 7 seasons and he probably doubts if he ever will. He'll probably feel bad leaving his devoted fans, cause they're going to be monumentally crushed, but he will. Sorry.

So I actually am really interested to see where LeBron ends up. I think the most likely destinations are New Jersey, New York and Miami. Chicago might have an outside shot. The Brooklyn Nets though seem to be the most fitting ultimate destination. Expect the attention-craving LeBron to draw out the negotiations and have a gigantic press conference when he does sign.

And yes I am aware that there is an actually important international sporting event occurring this summer. I'm am even more excited for this for despite my only lukewarm interest in soccer, I love the World Cup. Something about nations competing against each other and their fans following passionately is really cool. I can't wait for England - US, a.k.a. Revolutionary War 2, nor for Brazil - North Korea, a.k.a. Koreans Barbecued. I'm also really rooting for an African team to shine and so it sucks that Ghana's best player Michael Essien is out with injury and that Cote D'Ivoire's Didier Drogba (one of the top 5 players in the world) just dislocated his elbow. Stuff starts Friday and I can't wait. I might write more about this.

Chinese internet idiosyncrasies

So it's Friday afternoon and this is my first blog post from Beijing. One could assume that I needed to wait til the end of the work week to have time to write. And they'd be wildly incorrect. I've actually had so much free time in the last few days that I've watched my first Bollywood movie, the 5 hour Lagaan, read more books (one half of one) than I have during the entire school year. I really had my first day of work today but even that was very casual. No, the hurdle I have only just managed to leap has been internet access and firewall scaling.

The Great Firewall of China is widely known in the US if only by reputation. The last time I was here, blocked sites mainly included Wikipedia, CNN and anti-China groups. Basically places where one could learn about the not-so-great sides of the People's Republic's governing body. So I could live with that. Now the list includes Facebook, YouTube, only the Chinese-language Wikipedia, Google Groups, Google Documents and Blogger. These I would really prefer not to live without.

So I learned about VPNs, Virtual Private Networks that basically give remote users access to one's network. So I can have my computer surf through an American address and bypass the firewall. But the reliable ones are not free. The place I wanted to use required $7, fine by me, but only acceptable through Paypal. And only through a bank account wired to Paypal, which I hadn't setup yet. In the process of setting this up, I get an email notifying me of restrictions placed upon my Paypal account because of suspicions of 3rd party activity. So I couldn't add bank information to my account meaning I couldn't pay. So I got my dad to use his account, but he didn't know his bank account number and when we did find it, it didn't work. So eventually he had to call their support, which we had to wait a day for because of time differences, and finally got it squared away. And voila, Facebook had never seemed so life-sustaining. I posted as my status that I had triumphantly conquered the firewall.

We were still apartment hunting then though so I didn't have time to blog. Eventually we find a studio a block from where I'm working and the subway station, so awesome. It's small but the queen-sized bed is a luxury to me after a year on a top bunk. The one stovetop is an annoyance and the shower drain seems clogged, but its home and I love it. However, it had no internet ports. When questioned, the owner was like, "why don't you get a wireless card?" Why don't we. To those unfamiliar with these, like me, wireless cards are plugged into your computer and essentially give you internet access wherever there is cell phone coverage. So basically it transforms my MacBook Pro into an iPhone. Whatever, I'll take it. We remembered seeing these cards on sale in Carrefour, the French superstore where my dad and I bought apartment goods, and so returned. The China Mobile card they offered seemed good, but we wanted to try it out to be sure. However there was no cell signals in the store basement. So my dad and I, dragging our salesman along, went up 2 floors until we found a signal. I installed the device and searched for a signal. Switching between English and Chinese on the program, neither I nor my salesman were able to get internet access. My dad looked on the box and attributed this to the device's listed compatibility with Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, but my device running 10.6. While we were trying to troubleshoot the problem and running late to an engagement, my dad said we're not getting these and went back to get a refund. The salesman protested the entire way and insisted that it would work but we weren't taking any chances. So that night I went to bed with no internet.

I woke up at 6am jetlagged. The only places with wireless around that I knew about were coffeeshops in the mall, and NONE of them opened until 10am. What kind of Starbucks in the US would not open until 10am? None, absolutely none. Btw coffeeshops here are very overpriced - whereas every other basic good here is much cheaper than the US, coffee and tea are as expensive or more expensive. So in relative terms, they're outrageous. You could get breakfast 7 times over for a large latte, and I've bought a bottle of Evian for 18 kuai, and a larger bottle of water at the Carrefour for 1.5 kuai. Yeah. So I had 4 hours to kill without the internet. Hence Lagaan.

Finally I got on the wireless and checked my email and smiled again. But now my VPN wasn't working! It simply wouldn't connect. I didn't know whether it was the site's unworthiness or Chinese surveillance punishing me for my hubris, but I was denied once more by the Great Firewall. To compensate I wrote a very long Google buzz post. Later I went to the electronics center of Beijing, which happens to be very close to where I live. Like an American who doesn't know his way around, I went to a store and asked where I might find a Wuxian Wang Ka, or a no wires web card. Someone at this desk heard my accent and asked if I was American. I nodded. He was like I speak English! and came out to assist me. His English was only so so though, largely the product of two 3 week trips to the US where he had family. My Chinese was only slightly worse, but I went with him and spoke English. We found a card and I tried it on my laptop and behold! it worked. Plus they could give me a 3 month plan (as opposed to the 7 month I was offered previously) and I got a cheaper price. However, the wireless card apparently would take one day to get setup, meaning I still didn't have internet. This sounded very fishy to me and my Chinese-people-are-trying-to-rip-you-off sensors were blaring. But I got the phone number of my friendly guide and tried to give the impression that "I know where you work. If you fucked me over I am going to give you hell. Plus I'm a nice guy and can help you with your English."

In the meantime I went back to Starbucks and discovered a service that could provide access to Facebook in China. A free program, when turned on you literally cannot go to any sites other than Facebook. And even on Facebook you can't play flash games so no Farmville. Ugh. But that was nice. I spent most of yesterday in and around coffeeshops. This morning too I had to trek to Starbucks and wait for it to open before my day could begin, but finally in the afternoon my wireless card kicked in. Behold! The Facebook program stopped working. One problem fixed, a new one created. But what's this? The old VPN works again! Oddly enough I now have access to everything but Facebook. The idiosyncrasies here can drive one crazy.

But enough with my digital demons. What's life here like? Well for starters, the area I'm living in is pretty insane. The taxi ride from the airport reaffirmed to me that whatever I do in life, I will never drive in China. I have seen many cars here turn right on red, but I have not seen one of them stop before doing so. Once I got into the neighborhood, I saw that cars parked all over the place. On the side of the street, on the large sidewalks, in random alleyways, half on the street half on the sidewalk, directly in the middle of a road - it's nuts. In addition, my area is really confusing. Like not only is it confusing in the sense that it's China and my street name looks like 中关村三街 but also because it's actually a confusing area. I live next to a giant mall complex that I'm pretty sure wasn't here in '08. In fact I know that one of the malls opened in December. So basically this whole area is all new development, and there's still tons of construction ongoing, much of which is preventing me from taking straight lines to places. The malls are also super intricate and dizzying, and to a shopping newbie like me, everything looks the same. I can tell that the mall is very Westernized (I think the whole concept of a mall is entirely borrowed from the West) with familiar names like Lacoste, H&M and Reebok taking up the real estate.

I also went out for the first time this week, a glorious return trip to Lush with Vivian Chen, just like old times. We walked right into Wednesday night trivia. As a two-person team we had little hope to win, all of which were dashed by a 3 point performance (out of 11) in round 1. However, the following mythology round brought me 8 points and much glory, and we actually ended up finishing somewhere like 10th out of 13, embarrassing several larger teams. They also do scoring on an honor system here, where adjacent tables grade each other. We happened to grade the winning team, and so joined them upon their victory (grand prize was a bottle of Jack Daniels). Before the trivia even began though, I witnessed an event I had never seen before. The trivia announcer was a white male probably in his late 20s. His other white male friend came up and the announcer promptly pulled out a Smirnoff Ice, declaring, "you've been iced!" His friend responded by revealing his own Ice and saying "and you've been ice blocked!" For those of you unaware of the significance of this exchange, Bros Icing Bros (www.brosicingbros.com) has been a recent phase that men all over American colleges are talking about. Basically if someone presents you with a Smirnoff Ice, you have to go down on one knee and chug it. The premise is that drinking a whole Smirnoff Ice, the girliest of drinks, is the worst insult for a hard beer-guzzling bro. However, if you yourself present an Ice while being Iced, you have Ice-Blocked your offender who then has to chug both Ices. And yes, I saw this happen, in a bar in Beijing. Fads travel fast.

The rest of the night wasn't too exciting. We re-visited Pyro Pizza where I saw this guy standing pretty sketchily at the bar watching people dance. I asked him where he was from. In his first sentence he told me his nationality, Nigerian. In his second he told me his business in Beijing, selling drugs. This was certainly surprising, not the least because drug enforcement is so brutal in China. I told him I wasn't interested but that I hoped he evaded capture.

Other interesting exchanges included a conversation with a real estate agent. I told him that I was American and I had been in Beijing in the summer of 2008 and was just now coming back. He asked me whether I had gone back to the US since. At first I thought I misunderstood him, but when he confirmed that I hadn't, I was stupefied. Of course I had. My dad then explained to me that for most Chinese people, spending a summer in a foreign country more or less for fun was stupefying. When people left a country, they left for good.

My life so far seems rather adventurous in this blog post, but it really hasn't been. I don't know very many people in the city yet and still can't really drink or exercise because of my mono. Between setting up my internet and trying to get acclimated with the surroundings, I haven't done much. I don't envision doing too much sightseeing but there is a lot to do in Beijing that i have not yet done. My Mandarin is actually coming back faster than I expected, but I forgot how good it has to be in order to have real conversations. There's going to be a lot of grief and misadventures in that realm. But this is all stuff I've been exposed to before. The second time around really is easier. I remember the first few days I was in Beijing last time, in relative isolation. It sucked. I really couldn't get around with Chinese back then, I barely could eat, and I really didn't know anyone. It was pretty terrifying. But it got so, so, so much better. This time, I'm starting at a higher level, so who knows how good this summer could get?