Crossing roads

“Here, you can use Jie’s bike. That’ll speed things up.” Three minutes later I found myself breaking three rules: riding a bike in China, crossing an incredibly busy intersection on bike in China, and going against traffic at a busy intersection on bike in China. Our objective: getting my iPhone to work, a surprisingly difficult feat.

Eight hours earlier, I had awaken and developed a game plan for the morning filled with gusto. “I can take line 4 to 10 to 5 to Hepingli station for a dry run of finding my church. Then I’ll head back on 10 to 8 to nonchalantly see some Olympic venues (you know, I’m basically a local). Then I’ll hit up walmart at Zhichunlu on 10 to grab a few things and why not see what Wumart--a walmart competitor?--is about on Zhongguancun on 4.”

The subways are actually pretty navigable for those with limited Chinese--the station signs are written and announced in both Chinese and English. The clerk I encountered, however, didn’t speak English and wasn’t too interested in playing charades. So I finally found a picture of a reloadable subway card and proudly stated “wo yao na ge” (“I want that one”). Lots of body contact and three subway lines later, I arrived at Hepingli station. By that time, the sugar from my breakfast of banana and apple had started to wear off, and some of my gusto with that. I emerged from the station and sure enough saw lots of buildings with Chinese signs… I’m not sure how I was expecting to see a beam of sunlight from heaven cut through the smog cloud and highlight the church. So I retreated. Next stop? Walmart.

At Zhichunlu, I took one exit from the station (there’s often up to four, depending on which side of the street/intersection you want to arrive). I found… more buildings with Chinese names. I crossed a bridge over a road and found a small market. But wait! In the distance beyond the market I could see the glowing letters of foreign capitalism! It actually provided for an interesting juxtaposition and (perhaps) a poignant analogy of a China transitioning between two worlds. In front of me was an opportunity to directly support Chinese merchants whose small tin roof huts were half a block away from their small store fronts (once I got that far in to the market/community, I decided it was best to turn back). But in the distance was a giant corporation that would probably pay minimally to its employees and chinese factory suppliers with its gains going to the coffers of an overseas megalomaniac.

After 30 minutes of walking in wrong directions, I finally arrived at the entrance to Walmart. At that point, I dismissed any feelings of guilt. I had earned that trip to this greedy corporation, dangit!

Later in the day, after finally returning home and to lab, lab mate Kai offered to help me get my cell phone working. It took running around to three different stores/stands several times to buy a plan, activate it, configure it, (illegally?) unlock my phone, and bargain for cheaper prices before I finally got a working number (!). I also find myself being less outraged at the random website outages that I encounter. So what if I can’t get my VPN working? I seem to be able to get by. Maybe this whole Great Firewall thing isn’t as restrictive as depicted.

Oh wait, gmail just stopped working mid-message sent. argggggggg. It turns out that maybe I’m not as successfully adjusted as I thought…