The rush is back on and the heat is still intense but the humidity isn’t as bad as Japan while the air is dense with either smog or the scent of rubber from a nearby track field. The crush of bodies and the unapologetic maneuvering (i.e. pushing and shoving) is back on. I feel my throat clogging up with something and every now and then need to cough or hock. I see others doing the same, though some choose to project their refuse onto the ground on either side of them. And then there’s the timeless thrill of slow merges and narrow misses with traffic, a reminder that this here is very much a vehicle city. The bikes and scooters are never slower to notify you of their presence and the urgency with which they need to get by. And finally, there’s that need to get just one more step ahead of the next person or else face waiting and possibly missing your train. Game face on, it’s time to get back to one if the fastest cities on earth: Beijing.
It’s green and hot here in Beijing but certainly not as humid as Japan. I suppose it only made sense to leave Japan when I did as not only was I starting to speak Chinese again but I was getting fed up with the speed of people’s walking. It was as if they had no rush to catch their train. I realize that Japanese trains, though slower, are also a bungle of tracks cobbled together over the years so even if you rush you will probably get on the wrong train.
And although I still have a couple of weeks before classes actually begin (though the first years are doing their military training right now), I’m already planning my October break escape, most likely to the Philippines, though I wish I could go closer only to avoid the lengthy plane ride. It’s a trip I’ve been meaning to take for a while and now that my bank account is a little more healthy and I know what to expect from the fiest semester, I’m certainly more confident going. Furthermore, since I was back in Canada for a month and only in Japan for two weeks, I like the idea of having at least another week of vacay before the slog of four months of essay correcting begins in earnest. And looking at what there is to do in the Philippines, I may even do a scuba diving course.
Lucky for me, I’m in that “honeymoon” phase in which everything I do for the first few days is new again. It happens when I return to Winnipeg and it happens when I return to Beijing. I hit up the old shops to see how they’re going and if they’re still there; what’s changed and what has stayed the same.
So what’s changed in the 6 weeks that I’ve been gone?
1) A Swiss company has started selling jarred fresh air in Beijing, something a Canadian entrepreneur had done doing last December, part way through the “smog season”, a season that roughly coincides with the turning on of power stations to heat homes throughout the winter.
2) I read that Wangfujing’s venerable night market has been shuttered, but I’ll have to double check that. Guess I should’ve tried the skewered scorpions and snakes while I had the chance.
3) The new library at my university is half way up. The new apartments just off campus (were they really needed?) are also almost completed.
4) A guy dressed as a woman was ridiculed and then told his story to the media bringing Chinese transgender issues to the fore. I can see what this year’s student essays will be about already.
5) The ‘Bab Burger’ (Korean for “Rice Burger”) joint near my place has closed its doors only two years after opening. I went there once and it was alright. My students talked about it a lot so I don’t know how these places shut down so quickly. Are they not making money? Does their lease expire? Do they get fed up with the food service industry? Luckily the Indonesian restaurant, Hejian donkey burger and Uyghur restaurants still remain.
6) I seem to be speaking Chinese much easier now. Granted, I use a lot of the same words and my pronunciation is by no means perfect, but the language itself comes out a whole lot easier than it did last year at this time. You’ll notice below that I’m now including the tonal markets on the pinyin which I hope helps my pronunciation. Also, one student pointed out the first one should be “好好工作好好玩儿“ Hǎohǎo gōngzuò hǎo hǎowán er which means “work hard play hard”.
7) China has a Pokemon Go rip off: City Elves Go. I still dont care. I want my original Nintendo or Super Nintendo.
8) Did Cavalia come back again? Haven’t they been here before or was all that advertising really for this month’s performance? Or have they replaced the horses with some special breed of Mongolian horse and will set them free after their job is done?
9) VPN servers have been tampered with again. How nice Japan was in this regard.
Further, I’ve got my first semester’s reading list ready to go so I do have some things to keep me busy over the next couple of weeks until classes start. If you’ve been following along for a while you’ll see that there are a couple of duplicates in the stack of books, that’s because I haven’t finished some of them due to my work load or simply losing interest. I still intend to finish a good portion of these books by the end of the first semester. You’ll also see two books on Ukraine, a country I’ve been meaning to read up on for quite a while.
Hope all is well with you and that you enjoy these last few days of summer vacation.