Back in the Beij!!

“You can never step into the same river; for new waters are always flowing on to you.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

Finally, (FINALLY!) back in Beijing, where everything feels the same but different at the same time.

I arrived so late at the Beijing airport that the airport shuttle was no longer running. But I’m one lucky gal because my friend, known to me as Anne in NYC but known as Qiong in Beijing, drove all the way across Beijing to pick me up. I met Qiong on Craigslist, of all places, while looking for a Mandarin language partner in NYC. We met at a Starbucks in Union Square and became fast friends. She was still in NYC when I was in Beijing last year, and I always hoped that we’d meet again in Beijing. As soon as I walked out I saw her standing there, and I ran over and gave her a huge hug. This was just the beginning of many, many favors that she and many others would generously give me.

It was too late for me to move into my apartment so Anne, I mean, Qiong, dropped me off to stay with Alex and Garth where there were more hugs and happiness. It actually felt like I had never left. Even though it was late, Alex and Garth took me out for my favorite Beijing meal, chuanr and tsing dao (aka lamb kabobs and giant bottles of beer.) I was practically giddy as we sat in the old hutong catching up on the past year.

My short term goals for thew first few days were to get my apartment, get a bicycle, get a cell phone, and get an appointment with my advisor.

The next day I planned on taking a cab over to the university, but, as much as I hated to ask, I decided it would be best if I had Qiong there to guide me. Again, she drove across the city, picked me up, and took me over to Renmin where my other little hero met me, Lihui. I had only corresponded with Lihui over email. She is a masters student in urban planning who was appointed the dubious honor of showing me around. She had found me the apartment and has been looking after me constantly since we met.

The apartment, by the way, can be described at best as very Chinese and at worst as very scary. The Renmin area has an extremely high demand for apartments. Most masters students sleep FOUR to a tiny room with nothing but a top bunk and a desk below to call their own. So I was technically I’m lucky to have a spacious room with a double bed and a garden balcony despite the water stained 70s tile, shower that requires turning 5 knobs and igniting gas, a toilet with no seat or lid and a kitchen with no over and a stove that’s out on the porch for aeration. (I’m relegated to eating out or cooking instant noodles in my room.) Like I said, I’m technically one of the lucky ones. And on the bright side, the roommates have been extremely sweet to me (which places this apartment ahead of my first one at UCI.)

Qiong looked over the contract and agreed that I could tough it out in the short-term. She also generously gave me bedsheets, pillows, towels, a hair dryer, an old cell phone, and electric tea kettle saving me considerably from buying these things. She and Lihui next guided me through buying my bicycle (it’s also pretty dubious but will be fine for 3 months) and a sim card for my phone.

I’m starting to think that maybe I’m not such a great traveler after all, and that maybe my real skill lies in inserting myself in such desperate situations that people have to help me!

There was one last thing on my to-do list and that was to meet with my advisor. I had been having difficulty getting in touch with Renmin professors via email over the summer, and I was feeling incredibly nervous not knowing that to expect. Would they be very strict? Would they think my project was poor? Would they be too busy? Would I accidentally say something disrespectful? If I hadn’t been renting the world’s sketchiest toilet, I might have made myself sick with worry. Lihui assured me that they were extremely nice and that the professors are like family. This was so far from my own experience with professors and even further from my expectation of authoritarian Chinese professors that I couldn’t take her seriously. Lihui, contacted the professors herself and set up a meeting for me. She told me that my advisor was the nicest of them all.

I waited outside the meeting room when I saw a slightly awkward woman heading right towards me. We looked at each other and she introduced herself as my advisor with a shy smile and apologies for her English. She then said that she read over my proposal and thought that it sounded very important. I somehow resisted throwing my arms around her on the spot as I breathed a sigh of relief. We went into the office and the chair of the department joined us. They said the first thing that needed to be done was to select the sites for the research based on the project, but also based on their own connections since information is very difficult to obtain in China. For the next 90 minutes, I was completely stunned as they looked over maps and books, made phone calls, called another professor into the office, and went online to find a good research site for me. Never in my life had I received so much attention from academics. It actually made me very nervous since I’m still unsure how the research will turn out. By the end, we had some sites picked out and I had my first assignments, to go visit a site and to develop the survey I will administer. The three professors had been conversing in Mandarin and I was struggling to follow them, although I could get the gist since I understood the situation’s context.

At one point one of them asked if I could follow the conversation. I said, cha bu duo, more or less, but there was one word they kept saying, “feng” which I thought meant wind and which made no sense to me. They all started laughing as they explained that “feng” was a person’s name.

In addition to making my way through my to-do list, I’ve been having lots of fun exploring the highly developed neighborhood and spending time with the masters students who mostly speak good to excellent English. I attended a lecture by Dr. Ian Hodge from Cambridge on land use economics.. Not only was it a very interesting lecture by a worldclass urban economist, (urban planning geeks should look him up- he explained a lot about how U.S. taxes incentivize development no matter how much we plan for smart growth or UGBs), but it was also fascinating to observe the Chinese students. They were completely unafraid to ask questions, and most of the questions were asked by the women in the audience.

My time here already feels different because I’m spending so much time with Chinese people instead of foreigners like I did last time. It’s actually really cool. One problem is that it’s hard for me to remember Chinese names. Most students have an English name, but I insist in trying to use their Chinese name out of respect and give them my Chinese name. So for the next three months I guess I will be Luo Lan.

September 8, 2010. Uncategorized.