17: School Has Begun

“This would NEVER happen in America!” Anna stormed through three more aisles, dragging her new comforter, pillow, and laundry basket behind her. Zack and I followed, hoping to navigate the Caraway (a four-story tall Walmart equivalent where everyday is Black Friday) to find a check out line. After wandering around the store for a half hour trying to pay, we had been rejected from two registers and sent upstairs. There, four lines had formed, each at least 40 minutes long. Anna dropped her things. “Fuck,” she said, “I need a beer.”

School has finally started, and in the past three days, I’ve had six hours of Chinese class. Surprisingly, I am picking up on it really easily, especially vocabulary. The teacher, Liao Li Xiaona, even asked if I had taken Chinese previously. I guess I just have fantastic Chinese friends at home who rub off on me!

More than anything, I am struggling with pronunciation. Most of the time, it feels like there is a big sock in my mouth impairing my ability to speak Chinese. I intentionally speak slower than other students in my class, but that has proven to be an effective technique to learn the words faster. Tones are another issue. They are easy enough to remember with pinyin (Chinese sounded out into western characters; ie gǒu (dog) instead of 狗), but when I start constructing sentences it’s easy to forget them. Locals can’t understand me yet, but I’m well on my way to making sense .

The adjustment gets better and better every day as I meet new people. Having a small Chinese class seriously helps, because forcing nine people into a room for three hours at a time forces you to befriend everyone. I also have started meeting locals, which has resulted in the opportunity to expand my knowledge of the cool spots to hang outside of Beida.

A week from today, I start my internship. I have to apologize, because I told my readers the wrong name. It’s called Time Out. Apparently, and this is just hearsay, they send interns out to “fact check” their articles. In other words, they give interns tickets to events, pay for visits to bars, and take them out to coffee shops to review the local areas. I am not going to want to come home if this is the case!

Speaking of wanting to come home, I am wishing that I was raised in China right about now. Everyone is so nice and the food is so good; the only things that I would change are safety and environmental conditions. Pretty much, all my friends and family need to move here to experience what I’m going through right now.

16: The Silk Market

I slept eight hours last night, 21:30-5:30!! It is the first time I’ve gotten a full night’s sleep since the beginning of the trip; this makes for a very happy Burger.

Yesterday, my tour group of about ten geared up with a PKU student, Ben, and two exchange students who had been here over the fall, Zac and Mac, to explore the subway system and go out to the world famous Silk Market.

While getting on the subway, a man approached me and asked something in Chinese. Ben sheepishly translated, “He wants to take a picture of Zac and you.” Zac is 6’3 with platinum blonde hair; I am 5’1” with red hair. The man squeezed himself into the middle of the two bizarre Westerners and, with a flamboyant “CHEESU!”, Ben snapped the picture. The man, though I never learned his name, tagged along for the majority of the subway ride, flaunting his digital camera and awing at the Beida students. I’m excited to learn Chinese so I can speak with the locals!!

The Silk Market is famous for its knock-offs and haggling. Westerners shop at the Market hoping to find goods at cheap prices. Unsurprisingly, the shopkeepers prey on the tourists, hiking their unmarked prices up an acceptable bid in the West. They thus target the culture shocked and easily persuaded sightsee-ers, and 20-somethings are perfect.

I was with Michelle, Andrew, and Kim. Michelle attends Columbia and speaks Cantonese fluently. Andrew is ethnically Han Chinese, but he was raised in the States; his speaking ability is limited, despite a few semesters of training at Boston College. Kim (one of my roommates), with her long blonde hair and blue eyes, and I, with my short red hair and green eyes, became targeted.

Everywhere we went, Andrew and Michelle were left unscathed as people grabbed out for Kim and me. “Hey pretty girl,” shopkeepers yelled in their best English, “you like scarf? You like Burberry?” “You want Versace T-shirt?” “You see underwear now?” Offended when we walked by without acknowledgement, Kim and I said “duibuchi (sorry)” and “buyao (I don’t want it)” over and over again.

I came to the market with the intention of buying some gloves. My hands are small, almost children’s sized, so it is difficult to find a pair that fits me in the US. After trying on several, I picked out some black leather gloves with a wooly inside. VERSACE reads across the outside, though the chances of my Silk Market purchase being authentic are less than zero. The strategy for purchase was thus: I picked out the gloves, left the stand, got my Chinese-looking friends, and then haggled.

When I told the shopkeeper, a woman about four years older, 3” taller, and far shrewder than me, let out a horrified whine when I told her I was going to get my friends. She said, “No! You talk with me! Here, I give you good price!” She whipped out her calculator and wrote, ¥400, which converts to $58.80. I scoffed and walked away, intent on getting Michelle and Andrew.

With their help, we were able to talk it down to ¥85 ($12.50), but we could have probably gotten lower had Ben been with us.

As I found out during lunch, another student had not been so lucky. The BC boy, whose name I can’t recall at the moment, set his sights on a gong, and fell in love. Egged on to haggle and buy it, the American college student approached the retailer, who started the price at ¥850 ($125). In response, the boy started his bid at ¥350. He haggled it all the way down to his initial bid, and took the gong successfully.

Later, as he boasted his haggling skills, Andrew took out his phone and informed the buyer that he had spent $51.47. Realizing the rate of exchange, the college student slumped. To add further insult to injury, we asked Ben, the PKU student, what he thought the gong was worth. Shrugging, Ben guessed, “No more than ¥50 ($7.35).” The overpriced gong became the joke of the night.

I am finding that I really enjoy the company of my latest tour group. Everyone is supportive but laid back. We tease each other (How to pick up a saleslady at Silk Market? “Heyyyy nice gongs!”) and laugh about it, experiencing China not only through our own, but one another’s lens. I am really happy here.

Classes start today. Here is my schedule thus far:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Chinese: 9:00 -12:20	Internship China in the Developing Economy: Late	Chinese: 9:00 -12:20	Internship Sino-American Relations: Late	Chinese: 8:30 -10:30

I’m a bit nervous to try and get everything done on time, but I tend to do pretty well in school so hopefully I’ll be able to manage it.

Pictures posted on Facebook! See my “Beijing is Awesome” album or try to use this link.