Week Four

I’ve been in China for one month now. It feels more like two though. We had six days of school this week, but we get a week of vacation now. This is for the National Day holiday, to remember the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 by the Communist party. Normally, this holiday is only for three days. Now it is extended to seven days to let people travel and visit family, but the work weeks are lengthened one day the week before and after the vacation. So next Sunday I go back to school. For the vacation, I’ll travel outside Beijing with one of my Chinese friends to a city called Dalian. It’s about twelve hours northeast by train. It’s very close to North Korea, and is on the coast. When I return I’ll put up a map and write about that experience.

There weren’t a lot of interesting things happening this past week. I was mostly just busy with school and watching more bootleg movies. I tried some of the more infamous Chinese delicacies with the family this week too; hotpot and chicken feet. Hotpot was a big bowl of boiling water and oil, and you cook pieces of lamb and vegetables in it and then dip it in a nasty peanut-like sauce. Chicken feet were just bad. They didn’t have anything on them worth eating, and just looked unappetizing. The next morning, there they were all dried up on the kitchen table ready for breakfast. I’ve just stopped eating the breakfast that the family has. I don’t want anymore leftovers or muffins, so I just go to the grocery store and buy some peanut butter and bread. I think, most Chinese people don’t eat breakfast.

Wednesday morning, I was walking out of my apartment complex toward the gate, and I noticed a lot more guards there than usual. I knew they would probably say something to me as I walked up, and they did. They asked to see my passport and residence permit. Ok, no big deal. I just went to my room and got it and came back and showed it to them, and I was on my merry way. They were actually very nice too. The thing was that this wasn’t a random check. They were all waiting there for me at gate number one at 7:40 AM because that’s when I always leave the complex to go to school. That was also about the day my visa would expire and I would need a residence permit. They even had their English speaking guard because they knew an American person would be coming. So, he starts asking to see my passport and residence permit. I tell him I need to go back to my room and get it, and he keeps repeating everything over like a broken record. I don’t know if he knew English or just memorized a recording of what to say. He asks what building and room number I live in before I retrieve my documents. I come back with my passport in about five minutes. I knew one guard was watching me from a distance when I went to my room to make sure I wasn’t lying to them about where I lived. Again, there were no problems or anything. Just a lot of paranoia and guards with nothing better to do. That’s how Beijing is though. Everyone’s got their own squad of rent-a-cops to keep the order and peace in Beijing, by telling cars where to park and intimidating bike thieves.