Moving in

I have been in Beijing for a week now, and in those seven days, I have: signed my first apartment (in Chinese!), visited three of favorite places in the city, (798 art district, Tiananmen, and Nanluoguxiang), had orientation for IUP, eaten one of the best meals of my life, eaten one of the cheapest meals of my life, taken a cooking class, discovered IKEA Beijing, and made way too many trips to the cell phone store. While it seems like this is the first time I’ve had time to sit down and breathe, I am trying to take everything one step at a time.

I’m living in 五道口,about a ten minute walk from the IUP building. My apartment complex only has singles, and this will be my first time living alone. So far it’s been fine, but I’m glad that I have my friend, Simin, one floor below me. The location is really convenient, with a supermarket right across the street and the subway about fifteen minutes down the road. The apartment hunt was not that bad at all – I looked at five or six different apartments my first day in Beijing and managed to sign this lease within 24 hours of first contacting the agency. I was surprised I was able to negotiate the terms with my agent and landlord, as the first few days in Beijing were a bit of a struggle with the language. I know things will only get easier with time, but I have had some frustrating moments over the past week.

I guess the major barrier I encounter with my speaking is what people expect me to be able to say, given my appearance, and what they get. I am asked the question, “What are you?” in regards to my ethnicity at least once a day. A few cab drivers were very annoyed to find out I am not fully Chinese, nor did I grow up speaking the language – in fact, one driver even kicked my mom and me out of his cab because he refused to take directions to our hotel. (Side note: it seems as though people in Beijing don’t use addresses.) I’ve encountered this attitude in the past, but it still surprises me as the majority of Chinese are over-the-top nice and go out of their way to help. Today, for example, as I was trying to navigate the public bus, one lady would not stop staring at me. After saying hello to her, she asked me where I was going and pointed me in the direction of the correct stop, about a block away. She even followed me down the street and made sure I was taken care of.

At the same time, however, I have felt that I am getting more familiar with Beijing, and that my Chinese is coming back. It’s a really spread out city, so getting from my district to downtown near the second ring road can be anywhere from a 20 minute cab ride with no traffic to over an hour on public transportation. Over the past week, though, I have made this trip a few times, going back and forth from my mom’s hotel room and my new apartment, which has really helped me understand the layout of the city. In fact, I have been asked for directions four times now and been able to correctly respond to three of them!

More pictures and stories from the past week to come – just wanted to give everybody a preliminary update because it’s been so long!