Holla everyone^^ The Greek Man in Beijing is back...finally! *crickets* Oh come on...sad panda. I must have been at least a wee bit right? :-p Sweet~!
So it's been well over 10 days since my last post from the Dubai airport. That was definitely the longest 6 hours of my life. Especially the last hour just wouldn't go by. As I waited for my gate to open I would successively doze off with my head dangling only to wake up instantly and then rinse and repeat. Fortunately, though, I had no problems sleeping during the flight so that went by pretty fast.
I landed in Beijing and went through a few lines for health inspection and immigration. Those went quite smoothly. Getting my luggage was a drag cause they were practically the last bags to come out. Just my luck really but it was worth the wait since I came out of the baggage claim to be greeted by a warm hug! :-)
Here I am now! In the land of sweet and sour sauce and kung fu masters. This is gonna be a big wall of text so strap in nicely and click below for more.
Quite a lot has happened since I got here and in all honesty up until now I've had mixed feelings. It's really quite different going to another country to visit than it is to stay for a good long time. The impact of being in a country where most people don't speak English is probably the hardest of them all. Of course this worried me quite a bit since I knew that at some point I wouldn't have Kimy holding my hand and walking me around. But, hey, I came here to learn another language so I guess I'll just suck it up and take this opportunity. It can be quite funny at times trying to communicate really. So far I've had tons of laughs in a variety of lost-in-translation moments. Kim and I went out with her friend Lu and her boyfriend (who's name I can't spell but the translation is "Prince"). Now I knew Prince had next to zero English skills but he has a passion I can relate to: football. He's a big Arsenal fan and he seems to know a lot about European teams. To my surprise he even knew Greek teams, Panathinaikos and Olympiakos. Heck, he even knew one of our scorers back in the 2004 Euro, Charisteas! So communication between us was pretty much along the lines of "Christiano Ronaldo?", "Good player! *thumbs up*". We even managed to comment on Arsenal's recent victory. It got even better when he asked me if I ever played Starcraft. That literally lit my face up! :-D On the flipside comes the interesting part of the evening: talking with Lu. Now Lu is better at English than Prince so there shouldn't be too many problems there right? Ha ha ha! Funny story. Kim went to the bathroom at some point and Lu asks me "How many people in your classroom?". I was flabergasted for a second cause I had no idea what classroom she meant. My Chinese class? The English class that I was gonna teach? But wait I haven't started with those yet. So I ask "You mean in my Greek school?" she nodded yes so I smiled thinking I know how to say numbers in her language so I answer "San shi wu (35)". A moment's silence and then laughter from both Prince and her ensued. I'm completely stumped at this point. Kim comes back and finds us in this linguistic mess. Lu explains to her what we disussed and she tells me "She asked you how many people will be staying in your room at the university". I just laughed my butt off there.
So lines of communication can get distorted. But if you get into the proper channels things can work out. It's all a matter of perspective really. So far whoever I've interacted with has been easy going and lighthearted. If words do not make sense, then smiling and laughing does. And this is exactly what they are like here. They are happy people. One just needs to get into the spirit of their culture. Admittedly for most it could be hard since there are a lot of restrictions that the Chinese impose on themselves. I prefer to see it more like a form of politeness. In the west (and especially Greece) we tend to over-try to act cool and confident which often leads to us making spectacles of ourselves or even worse, insulting others without even knowing we did.
Am I enjoying China so far, you may wonder. Despite the language barriers I'll have to admit it's been fun so far. I haven't been to any bars or clubs so far. Not really my scene but might happen if the mood strikes me. I've seen one movie at the cinema. GI Joe! lol yeah ok I know but it was the only English speaking movie we could handle. Surprisingly enough if you exclude its title it wasn't a bad action flick. The theatre was great with good audio and video systems. It was kinda weird watching the movie with Chinese subtitles but overall good fun. Was a pleasant change to not see an exaggerated anti-piracy ad going off in my face (watch a movie in the UK and you'll know what I mean).
Eating here is amazing really! There are tons of choices ranging from Chinese and Asian food to good old fashioned fast food places to street vendor-style finger-food. They got KFC, McDonald's, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut, Haagen Dazs (I'm boycotting them). But the best is checking out their own cuisine. So far my absolute favorite is Peking Duck, the real stuff. Not the crispy duck bs we drool over in the west. Trust me, Beijing is worth visiting just for the duck. It's just...awesome! :-D Korean BBQ is pure win as well! You get to cook your meat on a stove in the middle of your table. Mix with sauces and vegetables, get some cold noodles too and your in for a grand treat! Don't get me started on Chinese Hot Pot too cause then I'll be talking forever.
Probably one of my favorite parts of the evenings here, though, is walking around the streets where every sidewalk is covered in street vendors. In their majority they sell copycat stuff like watches, glasses, CDs and DVDs, books and handbags but it's really quite fun just looking around. Reminds me of some streets in Athens the only difference is that they don't pack their stuff once police shows up. :-p
I'm gonna stop here since it seems the wall is growing. I'll be back with part 2 soon enough so stay tuned.
Peace out all^^
Yannis
No comments:
Post a Comment