Missing LJ
Oh, wow. I'm seeing LJ again. *sparkles*
It is so hard to get into the LJ homepage from Beijing, I don't know why -- though most probably because of the same reason I still couldn't access Wikipedia. The proxy sites aren't working for this one. I think I've missed about half a year of news and even though I am very put out, am not willing, for the sake of my morning brain, to go and hunt them down.
So, please.
If you have a minute or two, lemme know how you've been doing. I would love to hear about it.
I'm in Beijing right now, studying Chinese and trying to find a life. I met new people, made new friends, and tried a stick of chicken claws. When you're in China, the adventure is in the food -- the food you eat, the food you see other people eat, the food you thought you would never touch, the food you ended up trying anyway. The Chinese are very fond of eating and they do it with such efficiency and ferocity that it doesn't look like a savored meal. Only when you go to the banquet restaurants that the enjoyment is obvious. The streets are filled with peddlers offering delicious pineapple halves, barbecued sticks of meat, and grilled spiced-mantou for less than an American dollar. If you eat moderately and are not picky, a dollar will fill your stomach and go straight to your hip. The food here is, mostly, greasy and peppered with MSG so don't wonder why you always crave water afterwards.
The area I live in is called the Wu Dao Kou area, famous for its foreigners concentration. In Wu Dao Kou there's a university called the Beijing Language and Culture University (北京语言大学) where I am currently living and studying. Half of the students here are from abroad -- Americans, Germans, Italians, Brits, Australians, Canadians, Russians, Spaniards, and many more. Sometimes it kinda feels like I am attending a US college again, what with all those Caucasian and Latin faces abound, then that notion is shattered when the person next to me open his mouth and a stream of Korean gushes out. The Koreans, and to some extent the Japanese, is the most numerous people from one nationality. I will go into the reasons why next time. The fact that they are there in such a large number has sprung out a lot of good eateries. You can always find a Korean restaurant, no matter where you go in Wu Dao Kou, and they are mostly terrific. I thought the Korean BBQs around Sunnyvale and San Jose were good, but I was wrong. The ones in Beijing speak directly to my tongue and heart -- and didn't left me feeling sluggish after eating.
One downside is that Western food is very expensive according to the standard here. KFC famous chicken is reduced to a half of a wing for a US dollar and it doesn't even taste like anything Colonel's. Pizza gains a new identity -- Chinesified. Trust the restaurants to put mouth-watering pictures on their menu for the benefit of dumb foreigners and then bring out a dish that looks nothing like the image. A seafood pizza literally has one shrimp on it. We counted. Spaghetti with meat sauce is boiled pasta with ketchup. Cheese and butter are evil and absurdly pricey. Bread comes out soggy and bland. For real cakes one really needs to go to a French patisserie and pay a lot for a slice of good Green Tea heaven.
And yet, with all those food around them, the Chinese seems to avoid the trap of obesity. They are slim people -- some may be stockier than others, but rarely you see a chubby one. Perhaps it's the amount of walking they do or the distance they cover with bicycles. Bikes are the foremost means of transportation in Beijing. It can be modified, added on, stripped off, but it's still a bike. Latch a cart to its back and voila, you get a bike-cart. The bike-carts are usually filled and stacked with things towering the riders and I wonder how they manage to balance. Apparently they just do and that what makes this people very fun to watch. Bikes are one thing, the traffic is another thing. The Beijing populace drive like mad. They don't really care if their car is scratched or damaged as long as they get wherever they're going. It's usual to bump a pedestrian or two, then shout at them for being stupid mules. The pedestrians, in defense of their honor, ignore all the signs and traffic lights. Everybody thinks he owns the road.
I'll stop here. There's a food science paper I need to correct and I haven't had breakfast! It's really good to be able to write in LJ again. ♥