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July 08, 2004
Fireworks in Beijing
At least I did spend the 4th of July with another American, Julie Hackenbracht. She's a friend of my roommate Jason's, also a recent Harvard graduate and she's in China for at least two years studying Chinese language and literature. I went with my 2nd cousin An-Qi to meet up with her near the Xizhemen stop on the Beijing subway, which I took for the first time. It was a typical Beijing morning - strolling around a Chinese college area, ice cream, stealing wireless connectivity, buying DVDs and getting stared down by most of the local lao-bei-xing (common people), who apparantly are still not used to a white person living amongst them.
I think she gets worse stares going to and from home - she lives with a Chinese family in an area of town not known for having non-natives. We spoke in a mix of English and Mandarin. My cousin followed almost all of it, which is good for someone who will be attending a master's program in England within the next year. The conversation, as usual, turned to Chinese politics and it was amusing to see our liberal leaning come through in our muddled mixture of societal generalizations carried through in poorly translated lingolisms. For example, it's so hard for me to translate a something like "History is written by the victors" into the equivalent Chinese saying. Although, it's often easy enough for people to understand direct translations.
Stealing WiFi from the air conditioned comfort of an ice cream shop.
Enjoying Chinese "socialism."
Not stealing bikes from Chinese university students.
Posted by rxu at July 8, 2004 01:40 AM