Still Chillin' in China

(ed. This was supposed to come out on Sunday, but due to lack of a computer was posted late)
So its been a couple of days since the last post, right before our awesome exchange group split up, and I can only hope we haven’t lost too many readers. Contrary to what the Cary Academy home page says, the foreign exchange trips are not over for all of us, as at least four students are still overseas. Mark, John, Julie, and I are all now interns at Chinese branches of American corporations, with Mark and John in Shanghai and me and Julie in Beijing. I figure I should just continue the story from where it left off, Wednesday night, and describe what happened next.

Setting – Jade Palace Hotel
Time – ~ 7:30 P.M. Wednesday night
Main Character – Me

All of us had just finished up a rather emotional final dinner together, and we were back at the hotel. Getting ready to leave at 8:30, I was surprised to find that my host parent was already at the hotel ready to go. Some quick packing was in order, and also unfortunately some very quick goodbyes. I have got to agree with Camryn’s post that you know you have had an awesome time when you are sad to leave a group of people you had to put up with for many four hour bus rides. Also smoking is not cool. Where was I? Oh right - I got into a taxi to go to the final residence I would be staying at for my time in China. Coleman (Host) and his wife Janet are both incredibly nice, and live in a pretty spacious apartment in Beijing. Its about 25 minutes from Tiananmen square, so its kind of far from Beijing proper. That’s about it for Wednesday night – I was a little nervous about my first day of work so I went to bed early to get prepped for NCR.

Setting – National Cash Register, Beijing Office
Time – Thursday
Main Character – Me Again

I really was nervous for no reason. Coleman and I got on an NCR shuttle at about 7:45, and I soon found out that everyone at NCR was very nice. I got a desk in the Order Management team and a mentor named Jason Liu. Unfortunately it’s the end of quarter here and the office is also involved in a major procurement, so there is not much work for a new intern. Downside = not much to do, Upside = finally get to surf the internet and find out what’s going on in the world. Crazy how much you miss in three weeks. Lunch was great due to the fact that it was Subway, about the only sandwich place I have seen in all of China. Not much to report about work, except that I did get to learn a bunch of shipping and ordering terms. That will undoubtedly come in handy back at school. For dinner the host family treated me to Beijing duck, which is incredibly good. The second time I have had it (first being with the school group) and I have to say that it is definitely one of my favorite Chinese foods.

Setting – See above
Time – Friday
Main Character – Hey, Me Again!

I cannot really report anything new from work today, it kind of followed Thursday. I kept myself entertained by imagining myself in scenes from Office Space, which really is not that hard with the generic cubicle farm setting. Also I have a coffee cup (filled with water) that I just carry around to help get myself into character. Lunch was also Subway again, and it was still good. For dinner we went straight from work to a fancy restaurant in Beijing to celebrate Coleman’s church leader’s anniversary. I got to meet many people in the small circle, and it was a great opportunity to practice some Chinese. Its funny how using one word instantly impresses people. For dinner we had Beijing duck. Third time now in about a week, and it is really delicious. One thing I did not try though was the well cooked duck hearts that was also an entrée. I am not that adventurous.

Setting – Beijing
Time – Saturday
Main Character – This line really is not necessary

I have got to start out by writing about a pretty embarrassing story. See last night the dinner party ended at about 10:00, and everyone was planning to go to the Minister’s house after that. Coleman suggested, and I wholeheartedly agreed, that since he did not know when it would end I catch a cab back to the apartment. Another fun opportunity to try out Chinese, and with a good amount of luck I found the residence. Now I had never used a Chinese lock before, and so once I managed to get into the apartment I assumed that I had to turn the bottom handle to actually lock the door. Well it did lock, but it was actually a deadbolt that could not be opened from the outside…yah, I really could not have foreseen what happened next. After a great, long sleep I woke up to find no one else in the house. I thought they had just stepped out, but when they arrived back about a half an hour later I found out they never came back. They could not get back into the apartment, and since I was sound a sleep I couldn’t hear them to open the door. In the end they just laughed about it, because they went back to the ministers house and had a very good chat with him before they slept in the guest room. My host family did not care, but I felt pretty embarrassed. Ah well, whatcha going to do? After that unfortunate start we picked up Julie and went out to lunch. Following lunch was a tour in a rickshaw of a Chinese hutong. A hutong is the traditional architecture style of Beijing, with many small walled off courtyards forming a kind of maze. With recent development in Beijing destroying the hutongs in favor of office buildings, I am glad that we got to see a still functional one. After the hutongs was a quick stop at a Chinese garden, and then back to the apartment to relax.

Setting – Beijing
Time – Sunday

So finally here is the day that I was planning to blog about. Since my host family are religious Christians, every Sunday they go to services. However, due to local government ordinances, foreigners must attend a separate church. Both Julie and I got to attend this foreigner only service, and I have to say it was quite an experience to have your passport checked before you entered. Only foreigners were allowed in. The service itself was very nice and was also non-denominational. For lunch Coleman and Janet picked us up and took us to a popular western style mall. Before Li Laoshi marks us down though we still had only Chinese food, at a great Chinese tea restaurant. The funniest thing that happened though was that after lunch Julie and I went to see Pirates of the Carribean 3 at a Chinese movie theater that plays movies in English with Chinese subtitles. I had already seen the movie in America, so I noticed when they cut out about 35 minutes of the movie. The entire beginning was altered, replaced by a scrolling, Star Wars-esque page describing what had happened. I honestly don’t know why the censors did it – it wasn’t that violent/anti – proletariat. That’s one of the weirdest things I have noticed in China.

I have kind of ran longer than I expected to, but I have got a good amount of free time to type. Anyways I think that's what I will leave all of you readers at home with – Ben G.