day 1

I couldn’t see the great wall from the airplane…. but that doesn’t mean I didn’t look.

Arrived at PEK after getting 11 hours of restless sleep. It was alright, but I definitely woke up many times. At least my row mate was a nice kid visiting his dad in China. As we approached Beijing, there was some beautiful scenery where rivers of mist flowed among jagged mountain tops. Unfortunately, Beijing also has a mist (of pollution). I’d heard that things would be pretty smoggy, but it’s still surprising. I guess I won’t worry about skin cancer.
Kai picked me up from the airport and we took the subway back. It being 5pm, the subways were especially crowded. Contrary to American opinion, the people here just seem to expect that they’ll be cut off. It makes it less stressful, then, when you have to run in front of people to catch a subway. As Kai said, “welcome to China.”
Got my apartment (single occupancy! w air conditioning!) and got a campus tour from Kai and Bo. It reminded me of Thailand- noodle-y foods, dirty streets and, well, Asians. There were lots of tourists (I was reminded that this doubles as a park) and much of the architecture straddles ancient and modern styles: think concrete pagodas. There are lots of canteens on campus… but for now they are indistinguishable to me. We went to a collection of them for dinner and Bo asked me what I wanted. I just hemmed and hawed before choosing a fried chicken with string bean dish. It was yummy and about 6 yuan (~$1).
As we walked around, the conversation moved to the Great Firewall and what democracy means. Kai reported that he thought it was stupid that so much is limited, but Bo responded that Kai’s evaluation was too naive or simplistic. It was then explained that the government limits these things to prevent the erosion of society. I was too tired to dig any deeper (I didn’t even bring it up, but I’m sure they’re preemptively apologetic), and it’s probably best to establish a better relationship with someone before getting on touchy subjects. Interestingly, Kai commented that “freedom is a very different notion here than it is in the West. There, it is a positive word associated with happiness. But here, freedom has existence in several contexts, most of which are negative… think of ‘freedom’ as ‘immorality’. Here, people have mostly been focused on primary needs such as food and housing. But as affluence increases, maybe the interest in freedom in the Western sense will increase.”

other things I noticed here:
-innocent physical affection between members of the same sex
-people walking very closely (I had to do that things where you wriggle to get around someone in your personal space)
-sun sets early (aided by the smog?)
-lights/AC kept at minimum. Great bc it saves energy but also makes things feel less… what’s the word…. well-kept??
-fewer safety precautions, as far as railings go