Learning Disability

Finally! I can write in my pajamas! After my notorious package spent over a month in customs, I finally received my laptop, winter clothes and some stale Junior Mints (not your fault Mom!). I also have subscribed to a fantastic VPN that all the Westerners use so that I can rejoin the online social networking revolution. We now have the internet in our room and it's a surprisingly fast connection. It's great to be able to reconnect with with the world!

A couple of pretty cool and not so cool things have already occurred this week. Pretty cool: I got my stuff. I found a very rare shoe store and am now the proud owner of winter boots that actually fit me! I went to Super Wal-Mart (two story, very different than what you'd find in the States) for the sole purpose of buying wine and cheese. The cheese and wine on the shelves in Chinese grocery stores just doesn't resemble anything close to real wine or cheese!

During my trip to Wal-Mart, I saw something I never thought I'd see...a wedding taking place in the meat department! The happy couple both chopped meat on the butcher's block as they were photographed and applauded by the crowd that had congregated around the ribs, filet's and other meat parts. Apparently the couple met while working there and wanted to share their special day with the meats and their co-workers. Only in China! They were particularly impressed when I approached them after the 'ceremony' to congratulate them (in Chinese of course!). If only I had my camera with me!

The 'not so cool' thing that happened is that I had to give a five minute speech in class this week. I had to introduce the families of three of my classmates - their names, ages, jobs, likes/dislikes. Of course, my group had the LARGEST FAMILIES EVER, one with 8 and two with 6 family members! After struggling through what turned into ten minutes of half Chinese/half Chinglish, most of my classmates, and definitely our teacher, must have thought that I had some sort of learning disability. It was awful!

The pictures are of Anna-Lina and I touring a hutong in a rickshaw earlier today (Maybe I should attend class as opposed to doing things in Beijing in order to overcome my learning disability?!?). We also visited the Lama Temple, home to amazing architecture and a lot of gold Buddhas. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday!

I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween! The Chinese don't really celebrate it, but a lot of my friends are going out in costume Saturday night anyway. Should be interesting to see their reaction to my costume...more on that next week! Go Gators, beat the Dawgs! (Teal, that's just for you!) ;)

再见的北京!

Frogger

I'm finally back to feeling like a human being again, as opposed to a coughing machine! Thanks to all for your concern and well wishes! It is great to hear from friends and family from home, especially when you're half way around the world and not feeling well!

I've ventured out on Dexter, my 'new to me' bike, this week quite a bit. I should have taken out a larger AD&D policy before purchasing a bike. Riding a bike or driving a car here is like flirting with suicide every time you get behind the wheel! The best way to describe it is like a cross between chicken and a really advanced level of Frogger that I could never get to in the arcades as a child. Basically, it's each man for himself and the larger the vehicle, the better chance you have of going somewhere. Although there are traffic lights, signs and rules, no one follows them. It's utter chaos.

There was a report on International CNN this week on traffic in Beijing. They are adding over 2,000 cars A DAY to the roads here in Beijing alone! I'm sure you've read that China recently surpassed the US in annual auto sales per year. You can believe it when you walk out on to any street here. What's scary, though, is that the people don't really know how to drive and they don't have 'driving schools' just yet. Needless to say, I'm getting pretty good with using my little bell to warn everyone I'm coming, and I'm just biding my time before I get into a wreck with another bike, car or pedestrian!

Masami (Japanese), Ashley (Michigan), Mei Xian (my Korean roommate) and I went to a fantastic Korean BBQ place for dinner this week (see picture). We cooked our own meat on the coals right at our seat! Korean food is fantastic, but they use a whole lot of plates. I would not want to be a dishwasher at a Korean restaurant!

We had a class field trip to another section of the Great Wall on Friday. The weather was a typical "cloudy" Beijing day where the pollution hangs over the city, so the visibility wasn't great. There were also a lot of tourists in this particular section. Since I am still not 100% health-wise, I took the easy way onto the Wall via cable car! I'm sure the Chinese who built the Wall would flip in their graves if they knew that there were cable cars to lift lazy tourists up to the top! I ran into the only other Gator fan I know in Beijing, Jonathan, so of course we had to do the Gator Chomp on the Wall! I also really wanted to drink a beer on the Great Wall, so I did that with a South African friend, Ruan. It's really surreal to be taking field trips to something as incredible as the Great Wall!

School is getting better...my vocabulary and pronunciation improves each week. I can finally order food at a restaurant and hail a cab without having to pretend like I'm a mime. I did, however, realize that I was pronouncing my own name wrong. It's spelled Jia Li. I thought it was pronounced like "Jolie" but that's wrong! It's actually pronounced Jolly, as in Jolly old St. Nick! Oops! ;)

To my BB&T friends, I still have not received my package (it's been almost a month!) that has the hat you all signed and gave me during my going away party. I will most certainly wear it and post a picture as soon as I actually get it! I haven't forgotten!

Off to prepare my resume and business cards for a CCIM networking event and to get my Halloween costume ready for next weekend! Zai Jian from Beijing!

Two Firsts

The Beijing winds have kicked up in the last four or five days, and the temperature has started to drop. With winds up to 40 mph and gusts up to 55, it feels like a tropical storm blowing through...except there's no rain! I am really not looking forward to winter in Beijing. I have heard a lot of horror stories about how cold it will get, and the wind will just make it worse! I am eternally grateful to whomever invented thermal underwear!

As long as I have traveled, I've always had a strange desire to visit a hospital in another country. Likewise, I've always felt that if I had my own mode of transportation in another country, then it would really feel like I lived there. Both of my desires became a reality this week.

I finally broke down and went to the University Hospital on Monday of this week. The cold I had for over two weeks was getting worse, and I couldn't fight it with over-the-counter Chinese medicine anymore. The local University hospital was clean, bright, not too crowded and efficient. No one spoke great English, but we both knew enough to communicate. Two hours later, I saw a doctor twice, had chest x-rays and blood work completed with results in hand and received an IV drip of antibiotics. I understood that I had some kind of infection. Friday morning, after visiting the transfusion room twice a day for antibiotic drips for 3 days, I woke up feeling worse than I did on Monday. So, I skipped class and went back to the doctor. She sent me to another hospital.

Hospitals in China are very different than at home (shocker!). As I've learned is typical of hospitals here, the doctors wait inside the rooms and patients queue up outside the room waiting their turn, or in some cases, inside the room while the other patient is being examined. Since I am not native and more interesting, I suppose, there was at least one-two other people in the room waiting his/her turn and watching my examination. No such thing as doctor/patient confidentiality here!

The other hospital was public and it was chaotic....there were people everywhere. It was dark and felt dirty. Some were smoking indoors (they smoke indoors everywhere here...but in a hospital?!?!). The doctor, however, was very knowledgeable and his English was really good. He told me that I have acute bronchitis and loaded me up with 3 much stronger medicines. After having a fever for over 24 hours over the weekend, it finally broke and I am starting to feel a little better.

In between visits to the hospital, I finally decided to join the other millions of Chinese and buy a bicycle! I am now the proud owner of a used red bicycle I've named Dexter (Dexter~HBO show~blood~red). Since I haven't felt good, it hasn't gotten much use yet!

That's about all that happened this week in China, besides a lot of sleeping, coughing and blowing my nose. Since you don't want to see pictures of all that, I didn't post any this week! Zai jian from Beijing!

The Great Wall

The holiday week here in Beijing has been fascinating. I've explored several different areas of the city and tried a lot of new foods (the most interesting so far is pigeon eggs...I haven't worked up to scorpions just yet!!). I slept in a hutong, a traditional Chinese community nestled in between the new skyscrapers all over Beijing. With friends, we spent an afternoon in Beihai Park watching old Chinese couples waltzing and children writing Hanzi (Chinese characters) on the sidewalk with water and calligraphy brushes. Couple those images with some of the Beijing Opera singers practicing their music by shouting over the lake, and you have an idea of how cool parks in China can be!

I spent an afternoon with my friend Anna-Lina, from Austria, in Tian'anmen Square. There were tens of thousands of Chinese from all over the country who had come to visit and see the sights from the parade and 60th anniversary decorations in the Square. I felt like a minor celebrity after having at least 15 different groups of people ask to take their picture with us! Anna-Lina blames my blonde hair for all the attention!

The absolute highlight of my time in China so far, and certainly something that I will remember for the rest of my life, was the 10km walk from Jinshanling to Simatai on the Great Wall. The weather could not have been more perfect - it was clear, cool and visibility was great! Anna-Lina, Chloe (from Kansas) and I departed Beijing early on Sunday morning. The hike took us 4.5 hours. It was a very difficult hike, but still not as bad as the Inca Trail en route to Machu Picchu! The wall is about 6-10' wide and has a tower about every 100 yards or so. The parts we walked have not been well maintained (aka not a lot of tourists!) and so the walk was rocky with bits falling off every now and then!

Despite the challenging climb, the views were absolutely worth my legs feeling like lead weights at the end! The landscape was breathtaking...mountains with the Wall stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction. Truly a remarkable man-made barrier and even though it didn't really work for the intended purpose, I'm sure glad the Chinese spent over 1000 years building it!

We didn't have a place arranged to sleep, so we were lucky to find a place at the Simatai Guesthouse...a small place with only three rooms just down from the Wall run by a nice Chinese couple. The Tsingtao beer that I am drinking in this picture with Chloe and Anna-Lina was the best, most well-deserved beer I have had in a long time! We got up at 4:30 the next morning to watch the sun rise over the Wall. I wanted to hike a little faster than the others, so I walked alone for over an hour with the Wall lit only by moon light. We were the only people on the wall at that early hour. I got to a perfect sun rise viewing spot about 10 minutes before the sun came. Sitting alone on the Great Wall and watching the sun rise was one of the most moving, peaceful and spiritual moments of my life. It still gives me chills just thinking about it.

Aside from all of the tourist spots I visited, I also tried to go shopping for a winter coat and boots. A word of advice to anyone who wears a size 9 (or 41 for my European readers!) shoe or higher: don't expect to find shoes that fit you in China! Even at H&M, they didn't have my size! I honestly don't know what I'm going to do to get through this winter season, but I'll figure something out. My quest for a coat was also a fun experience. I feel like a giant when shopping for any type of clothing here. I finally found one that fit, but it looks like I should be trying out to be a dancer in a Jay-Z video! (fair warning for future blog pictures. I recognize the jacket is silly, but it fits!).

Another experience that every female should have once in their life is to get a haircut in a country where no one in the salon speaks English. Also, since you haven't covered the all-so-important 'hair cut' chapter in Chinese class, you're terrified at what you're asking for. Once we finally understood that I didn't want a perm or to color my hair, my hairdresser set out to wash, cut and blow dry my hair. It actually turned out to be a pretty decent hair cut (no hair cut experience will ever be as good as Arthur & Tamara Isard in Winston-Salem, NC though!) and it only cost me $4.40 USD, so no complaints! I'm just glad I still have hair and not the all so popular bob that all the Chinese girls are sporting right now! I couldn't pull it off like they can!

Erica - congrats on the Wedding! Gators - hope you beat LSU! Lindsey - I can't wait to catch up and tell you my latest story about this beautiful butterfly I saw in Sanlitun!! ;)

Zai Jain from Beijing!

Happy 60th China!

The last week hasn't been too eventful due to the fact that I have been fighting a cold. I went to a pharmacy in my neighborhood where I quickly realized that taking any sort of medication here will be a risk in and of itself....nothing is in English (and I'm allergic to way too many medications to take a chance!). So until I learn more Chinese, I am going to fight colds the good old fashioned way with no medicine at all!

One thing that I have neglected to write about in my last two posts is the precautions the Chinese take with the swine flu. EVERY morning for the last two+ weeks that I have been here, they come into my dorm room between 6:40 AM and 8:00 AM to take my temperature. Most mornings, I am still fast asleep with ear plugs in and sleeping mask on. They tap me on the shoulder, I roll over and take my face mask off. Then, they stick a gun-looking thing up to my forehead to make sure that I'm at or under the 'safe' temperature of 36.5 C. Luckily, I haven't had a fever yet because if I do, I'll immediately be quarantined. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I won't have to endure that while in China!

School is getting a little bit better. I've learned about 100+ vocabulary words and can now write/read at least 30 characters. I can have basic conversations like, "My name is Jamie. I am from America. One beer please. Where is the toilet?!" Learning Chinese fluently is definitely not a goal that I have, but it is exciting to be able to have conversations with the locals now. Granted, I sound like I've got the mentality of a preschooler being able to only peak simple sentences (one verb, one noun, etc.!) but it's better than pointing and nodding all the time! The one thing that scares me is the word chicken. It's spelled the exact same as the word prostitute. The only difference is the tone used. I'm terrified that I'm going to sit down in a restaurant and order a prostitute with noodles. I'll stick to veggies until I master that pronunciation! ;)

My trip to Chengdu isn't going to happen....we could not get the train tickets worked out to travel anywhere outside of Beijing. So, 5 of us have planned a 'backpacking in Beijing' trip. We are leaving today and will be touring the greater Beijing area, sleeping in hostels each night so that we can really explore the city. I'm excited to visit the Simitai section of the Great Wall. It's a 10K hike on the wall which is supposed to be very challenging!

Yesterday I celebrated China's 60th anniversary by visiting the Summer Palace, picture attached. It is a beautiful, huge palace surrounded by a man-made lake where the emperors used to vacation and get away from the chaos of Beijing. I applaud the Chinese for the quick and thorough effort they went through to ensure that the National Day was a pleasant day. For example, they placed flowers, lanterns, banners, etc. all over the place in order to beautify the city. Wednesday night, they shot a chemical off in the sky to chase off any clouds and pollution to make sure it was a beautiful day (this occured during the Olympics too). I happened to be out late on Wednesday night to see this for myself...there was a heavy, damp, unnatural mist all over the city. It worked though because the weather was beautiful on National Day!

My roommate, Mei Xian (pronounced 'may shin'), and I celebrated her 27th birthday on Tuesday (picture attached). She is from South Korea and we get along great, to the extent that we can communicate. She doesn't speak a lot of English and I don't know any Korean and very little Chinese, but we get by. She giggles at me all the time when I say something she doesn't understand and then I write down in English what I've said and try to explain what it means. Things like "how's it going" and "gotcha" are actually really challenging to explain to people!!

Tim Tebow, if you're reading this, my heart broke when I read about your hit and resulting concussion. I trust that you are recovering quickly. We need you back at 100% to take on LSU on the 10th. If there is anything that I can do, including flying home to massage your head, please let me know! Out of the 14 million people in Beijing, I finally found one other Florida Gator who happens to also be going to school at BLCU. Jonathan is my new best friend on campus. He'll be my Gator game-watching partner for the remainder of the season!

Erica, this is your last week as a single woman...enjoy it! I'll be thinking of you and Tony on the 10th and wish you a lifetime of love and happiness together! Also, I'll miss everyone who'll be at your wedding that I haven't seen or talked to in way too long!

Several of you have emailed asking for my address and/or cell phone number. Please do not send explosives, knives or guns. The Chinese wouldn't like it and I don't really need them!

Jamie Barden
Room 315, No. 17 Building
Beijing Language and Culture University
15 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District
Beijing, China 100083

We have been instructed to advise people to put return addresses on the back of the envelope instead of the front when sending mail to China. My cell phone number is: +0086 134 393 44157. Zai jian!