Classes begin

In Brief:

·         I’ve finished my first week in Peking University (So pleased about the three day weekend! Unfortunately two days are six hours non-stop starting at 8am. That part is not so great.)

·         I have been given a scooter which Anna and I share and are totally in love with.

·         I’ve joined the church for internationals in Beijing which great, everyone’s been very kind to me!

·         We have got cable TV working in our flat and I challenge you to find anything on it that isn’t indescribably weird or the most terribly acted thing you’ve ever seen. As a way to ‘learn Chinese’ though, it’s fairly enjoyable if not a bit mystifying.

Things I’m trying to get used to:

·         Beijing men’s crop tops. For old men here it is completely acceptable in any context to roll their top up and have their midriff on show to cool down. It is probably one of the least attractive things I’ve ever seen. The people who are most inclined to do it are usually the ones with the best pot bellies.

·         Not being able to flush toilet paper. The sewers here can’t cope apparently so everyone has a bin next to the toilet where you have to put your used toilet roll. It’s less annoying than I anticipated but still strange.

·         I know that I’ve already done a road rage rant but I am still struggling to adapt to the completely crazy road habits. I don’t know if I will ever get to the stage where when I’m cycling to class I don’t inwardly scream at the man in a massive cart who abruptly stops in the middle of the cycle path and start texting, or the people that decide to wheel a disabled old man backwards into the oncoming cycling traffic for me to dodge, or the man who drives up the cycle path the wrong way completely blocking the whole thing for no explicable reason. I can definitely see myself adapting to using my horn a lot though. My patience is wearing thin.

Things I’m really enjoying

• ·         The underground and buses as well as being cheap have little Chinese TVs to watch while you’re riding them. The content is hit and miss, sometimes it’s just pictures of traffic, once it was advertising a restaurant where you sit on toilets and eat from miniature urinals, my personal favourite was the Chinese version of total wipeout while I was on the bus a few days ago. Still, it’s a nice touch. On the central line actually they even have lighted adverts in the underground tunnel itself that you can watch through the windows instead of just the pitch black that I’m used to. I saw a creepy cartoon on it last night, as with many of the Chinese commercials I’m still clueless as to what it was advertising.
•  The Peking University Canteen. You top up your university card and can eat anywhere you like. The food is so cheap it even puts what I’ve had locally to shame. I ate a massive three dish meal with rice today for TEN PENCE. That is ridiculous value for money.

CLASSES

Classes are with my class from Cambridge so in many ways that feels like one of the most familiar things here, in other ways it’s very different. We start at 8am on the dot, if you are more than five minutes late then you lose half a mark off your final grade and if you don’t turn up to one then you lose a full mark. If you miss more than a quarter of the classes then you automatically fail the course. I’m fine with turning up to things, but I tended to slip in late most of the time, admittedly more than five minutes late on many occasions. So I will really have to sort out those habits, otherwise the end grade might not be pretty. The classes are all in Chinese, you cannot make the teachers speak a word of English to you even though they are probably all fluent. Our first 8am lecture was on the history of the types of literature written in different dynasties and what distigushes one form of poetry from another. I think that was the hardest one we’ve had so far, and I came out definitely not knowing most of what she said. It’s a learning curve.  

TELEVISON

 I went to a talk yesterday that said Television is the most tightly controlled media in China. I don’t know what messages they are trying to send out to the people with these programmes but they all seem to be mind-rotting and hyperactive. Think of the most drug induced children’s shows (In my head I am thinking of In the Midnight Garden), on E numbers. Something as strange as that is almost at the level of the average television show here.  Currently Dani is watching a man with horns on his head be lifted into the air suspended by ropes while he screams in feigned agony for some reason and fairly cheesy Chinese pop music plays softly in the background while an audience watches. We are totally lost. He is now miming along to a peaceful song.

‘Beijing youth’ is what we have taken to be the equivalent of ‘Friends’ in the west, however it is truly awful. There are three guys and three girls from what we have figured out, and I think they pair off in the end from an advert we saw where they were all together on a snowy mountain with the women in wedding dresses, but despite seeing several episodes now, we haven’t really figured out much else. The acting is pantomime level at best, every basic emotion is exaggerated and expressed far too clearly, yet the content matter is meant to be serious. We’re planning on getting addicted and if we manage I will let you know what it’s really about. 

Adverts here are exhausting to watch because they are so hyperactive. They jump from one scene to another so fast and everything contains as many flashing lights, animations and sound effects as possible. They also show the same advert up to four times in the same advert break until you are familiar with every frame of the annoying but attractive Chinese girl licks the remnants of a yogurt drink off her lips seductively. By the time the show starts again you are relieved just for the pause in scenario jumps all over the place.

CHURCH

I’ve been going to the nearest Beijing Christian International Fellowship (bcif) church to where I live for the past couple weeks now, and it’s been great. Religion in China is a tricky subject, technically you’re not able to talk to anyone under the age of 18 about religion of any kind, and the Chinese churches have to be in authorized government buildings run mainly by members of the party, all of whom have to officially be atheist so you can infer the implications on the teaching in these. I’ve heard that they are a lot better than they have been in previous decades but that the general focus is on good works for your nation rather than faith in God, and it is used as a tool for keeping the people loyal to the government. This isn’t what I go to but  I do want to go along at some point to a nearby one and find out more about it first hand, it would be good for my Chinese as well. The majority of Christians in China aren’t actually members of this church but meet in what is called the ‘underground church’ which is illegally run in people’s homes. If I tried to go to one of them I’d just draw attention to them and cause them harm, so I won’t be doing that. The one I go to is a foreigners only church, which means it doesn’t have to be run by the government, you have to show a foreign passport to be allowed entry, and Chinese people can’t come. It’s really strange, I’m glad that I can go and worship freely but it doesn’t feel right that I am able to be above the law while the rest of China has to abide by these regulations.

The international community there is so good though, everyone is really welcoming and I’ve met so many great people so far, with lots of interesting backgrounds. Americans are definitely the dominant nationality but there are plenty other countries represented as well and it’s an incredible cultural exchange. That is true not just of church but the Wudaokou area in general, there’s a strange bond you feel with people from anywhere in the world other than China while you’re in Beijing, a kind of ‘us vs. them’ as you try and adapt to the majority and new culture. That affinity allows you to interact with a lot of different occupations, ages and backgrounds in a really unique way which I love. Getting to know other internationals is very easy, and the massive area I’m in already feels like a world village of sorts.

I tried uploading photos but the internet is just so slow, so I’ll do it next time! Sorry for writing so much, and thank you for reading!