I'm on an adventure!
Yesterday was a good day.
I say this not in judgment of this day, which was a class day, but is hardly a bad one. Plus I've finally used Skype for something beyond checking to make sure that my microphone works (or, alternatively, I've finally used my microphone for something beyond checking to make sure that Skype works). If anyone wants to talk, I'm at Nedlum and I miss everyone's voice.
Back to yesterday.
So, I was just sitting in my room, puttering around on the lappy and working on some e-mail which I'd fallen behind in, when Jess Lee, another member of the abroad program, entered the scene, carrying in tow a Chinese girl who she introduced as Winna, who she'd met on Skype before coming, and asked if anyone felt like going somewhere.
Yes. Yes I would. For many reasons, of course, but the most simple is this: I need more China adventures. Because ultimately, that's what I'm here to have, and if I can't have them by fighting sinister cults and saving the world with my fists, cunning, and gumption (I really wish people still wrote pulp novels, so I could know if this is actually what happened in them), I need to have them by at least leaving Beijing Dashue. Dashue, of course, being Mandarin for "University".
So, the three of us got on a bus and headed out towards a shopping district. Which is sort of a funny thing to say, because half of Beijing is a shopping district. America is a consumerist society, don't get me wrong. But no shopping malls are crowded like Beijing shopping malls. I've been in the New York City Virgin Megastore, and it seems barren compared to these minor shopping centers.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're still on the bus, talking a bit. Winna's English, like everyone's in Beijing, is excellent (compared to my Chinese, at least!), and so the conversation drifted into TV. Everyone here downloads American television shows. This is hardly exceptional, of course. What is exceptional:
The biggest hit in China? Prison Break.
Let me repeat that: in just about every conversation I've had with people here, I can only watch as the talk slowly wanders to Prison Break, as though we were holding a divining rod. I mean, the show is back for a second season, (which apparently means it's somehow better than Firefly), so it's successful, but I've never really heard people talk about it in the US; it's pretty much "that show before 24". I haven't even seen a Livejournal icon for the show. Here, though, it's like they were talking about Lost. To be more specific, first season Lost, fresh off the hype-wagon.
Wentworth Miller: the Chinese equivalent of David Hasselhoff? Further study is warranted.
Anyway, after drawing two other complete strangers into the conversation, we eventually got off in the center of one of the many, many, many commercial districts. It was later than I'd expected, because Beijing traffic is hectic enough that I want to make it a separate post.
Oh, and before I forget to mention it: Beijing, in an apparent effort to make Times Square look austere, has afixed billboards to every stationary surface that takes a fixative (I worry I'll be advertising 007 if I stand still too long), so that may explain part of it, but I saw at least three separate billboards calling on further warriors to take up arms in support of the Horde.
Which also reminds me that yes, I have looked at the new drug of the 21st century, and expect that this, this is what the next Opium War will be fought over. Also, it could prove a catastrophically bad idea for me to continue in this vein. Fortunately, I'm a tightwad.
And we're back.
Anyway: it was a good time. We used one of those mall photo-booths (which I've never been in, not having been half of an adorable couple, as one finds in the national subconscious, back in middle school when hanging out in malls was The Thing To Do. Or, so the National Subconscious informs me. The mall itself had more, and smaller, stores than an American mall, with maybe a bit more jewelery and a bit less electronics than the typical American mall. Oh, and also, there saw a sizable arcade, one with people in it. Lots of people (although, given this is Beijing, there are lots of people everywhere). Which was, of course, really freaking bizarre, because the last time I saw an arcade being used was in Terminator II: Judgment Day. They weren't even playing DDR; it was the sort of light-gun and fighting games that people shoveled coins into back before they started owning consoles. I guess we just exported all the arcades to China along with the Nike factories.
After we left the mall, we walked about fifty feet down the sidewalk before entering what could loosely, and (more importantly) humerously, be characterized as another mall. Only this was more of a closed-air market, crowded as my mental image of Woodstock, only instead of hippies looking for peace it was full of Chinese people of all ages looking for bargins on blue jeans designed for xkdc characters, US Army outfits (which I'm sure are a front of some sort, although whether the PRC is looking for potential traitors, or the the CIA is doing the same thing but with a different emphasis, is anyone's guess), and Seinfeld-esque "puffy shirts," which I'm honestly considering buying if I ever go back with cash in my wallet, because (as I told Jess), it's the sort of thing I'd wear if I wanted to look like a pirate. And when don't I?
After a bit more browsing (well, I browsed. Jess bought. This is of course the quintessential, stereotypical, paleolithic difference between the sexes: women gather, men hunt), and some KFC (I know. I felt guilty. But also satisfied), we bid goodbye to Winna (who lived close to the shopping plaza, and far from our campus) hopped on the bus, and headed back to Beijing Dashue, talking of literature all the way. (Well, most of the way. We also briefly discussed whether it was appropriate to call Winna our "sherpa" through the wilds of Beijing mercantilism).
(Yes. It is occurring to me that I'm abusing the parenthetical.)
So... I don't know where this puts me tomorrow, or the day after. As I've said before, the fact that today (well, yesterday) was a good day has no bearing on what's to come. All you can do is treasure the good times you've had.
And, if you're lucky, you can puzzle out what made them good, and see if it'll make the good times to come.
We go to the beds we've made for ourselves.
If you're not happy with it, change the fucking sheets.