The Story of You, Part 2.
Jay K.
Jay K.
[the place where I'm staying for the summer]
Continuing from the last episode, I am in Beijing, China and this is my first night here. I want to go back 9 hrs and start from the beginning. June 28, 2008, around 12 o’clock, I landed at Beijing airport. Walking out of the airport, I wasn’t excited but rather anxious and nervous. I took a cab to the university. I tried to say the name of the school and stuffs in Chinese—I even practiced that few times last night, but the driver couldn’t understand my Chinese and I couldn’t understand his.
He asked me something in Chinese and I really didn’t know what he was asking. I still don’t know. I will eventually find out what he asked today at the end of this journey, which is a year later. I wanted to ask lots of things, but I couldn’t and the driver and I were really awkward in the small cab. He drove really fast and crazy. It was like Fast and Furious 4; Beijing Drift. I admit that taxi drivers in Korea are pretty crazy too but he was even crazier.
Do you guys remember that I said the first impression of Seoul was “gray”? If Seoul is “gray”, the first impression of Beijing is “super gray”. People didn’t lie about pollution in Beijing. You can actually feel that the air is polluted, which is amazing experience too. As you can see, the first impression of Beijing wasn’t that great. I was already complaining about so many things as I was entering the city. However, I got excited as the crazy cab drove into the actual city. It was a different world. Here was the brave new world! Construction was going on everywhere and so many people were there.
"O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world That hath such people in't!"
I finally arrived at the dormitory of Beijing Normal University where I will stay for the summer. I checked in at the front desk and I again realized my poor Chinese ability. I couldn’t say a word and understand a word. It was pretty pathetic. People here talk really fast.
I entered my room and no one was there yet. The room wasn’t bad; I expected the worse. I wanted to look around and explore the brave new world, but I was too tired to do that so just took a nap—I didn’t sleep at all last night. I was very hungry, so I went down to the first floor and there was a restaurant. Unlike in Chinese restaurants in the States, there wasn’t any English explanation in the menu. However, I knew how to say “fried rice” in Chinese. I was proud myself ordering fried rice although the fried rice wasn’t that good.
I met my roommate Noel in the afternoon. I don’t want to say much about him because I don’t know him well yet. I met Joe, my good friend from Berkeley. Thankfully, he lives around the school and can help me a lot. It was really good to see him here. The first day was really tiring and disappointing. It was also stressing and depressing. I hope it will get better and better as I get used to this gloomy sky and humid weather.
[We went to the very famous peking duck restaurant in Beijing]
[me and Noel on my left]
Ps.
More pictures to come in the next episode. I am too tired to edit pictures. Also, sorry for the reduced size pictures. I attaches the link where you guys can see the bigger size of pictures.
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