life. in china. captured through the eyes of a nomad named jen.

china is quirky. i get that. i love it in fact. people walk backwards for exercise. others bare their potbellies when its hot outside by rolling up their t-shirts. some even clap their potbellies for extra effect. characters, they are everywhere.  i can go on and on….(but i’ll save that for another post, watch out for my first photo expose titled Beijing Bellies).
anyway sometimes things still throw me for a loop. like choking, strangling. my coworker joked to me that she wants to choke me. okay funny? i guess? i mean i know she’s joking, but in the states you don’t joke about suffocating the air out of someone. and just now, boss man told the coworker who wants to choke me (jokingly), that he is going to strangle her (jokingly?). i’m sorry, but for a boss man to tell his subordinate he is going to strangle her, joking or no joking, it’s just kind of sick isn’t it? after explaining to her that strangle = choke, she didn’t think it was a big deal.
and that after that comment, bossman goes to the bathroom, comes back and announces to our entire office that there is a naked man in the men’s bathroom.

welcome to my office space.

did i mention that tibet is beautiful. blue skies. white clouds. nice, friendly people who poor you copious amounts of barley beer? remember my pictures of tibet?

now look at this

this is my view from inside the car where i sat for five hours not moving.

porque, porque? well cuz a group of angry villagers, some carrying shovels, decided to ambush our car. they banged on the doors, yelling and screaming at the community relations woman to get out of the car. i thought they would tip the car over. but they didn’t. instead, a group of villagers decided to sit in front of our car and hold us hostage. yeah you heard me. hostage.

that was me, my coworker and two employees from the client company held hostage because 70 villagers or so decided to protest that the company was using up some of their water. and they demanded that the community relations person, whom i was riding in the car with, address their problems. but she couldn’t right then and there. so stuck in a car unable to move, i called my boss in beijing.

um boss? we are stuck in a car. they won’t let us leave and i need to use the bathroom.

he said he couldn’t help me with that one.

i wasn’t afraid that they were going to really hurt us. they were angry, and had every right to be. however, they wouldn’t cause serious damage because they’re too afraid of the financial consequences. rather, i was actually more afraid that i would end up having to piss my pants since i was drinking tons of water to cope with the tibetan sun/altitude.

for two hours, i sat there. staring at the plastic bag next to me. thinking yes, no, maybe so? but being the brave soul that i am, i slipped out of the car when some of the villagers blocking the back of the car joined the demonstrating masses), and did my business behind some rocks and quickly ran back into the car. things escalated when some company people and govt people got punched and wacked by plastic water bottles outside by the then Very Angry villagers.

The company boss ran into his car after getting wacked. And after the car carrying bossman made a run for it, our driver decided to follow suit. people kept blocking our car, and started to throw huge stones and dirt at us as we pulled away, but we somehow managed to escape intact.

so there you have it. my recap of Monday, June 19th 2006. monday, bloody mondays eh!?

if you didn’t feel sorry for me that I couldn’t breathe earlier today because Beijing is so effin polluted, I hope you do now.

tonight after work, i went to Carre Four. It’s like the French version of Walmart in China. I was very very hungry, so I decided to order some noodles and 7 up. The noodles I ordered in Chinese. But then…
Huh? What? You mean apple soda?

I had no idea how to say seven up in Chinese and somehow I didn’t think a literal translation would work, Chee san. So, I took the green drink that looked like it was radioactive, took a few sips and felt squirmish. Then, I waited and waited and waited for the pimply adolescent boy who looked like he wanted to kill everyone in sight, to give me my daym noodles. But, he decided to serve the other two girls first. It looked like my noodles was not going to happen anytime soon. After twenty minutes, pissed off, I demanded my money back, and then walked through the section of raw meat to buy two veggie buns.

You’d think that after a bit of food in my tummy, things would start to look A-Okay. But then…..

1) while taking down a plastic case containing a bed protector mattress, i managed two knock down two of them from the shelf, one almost hitting me in the head.
2) got bombarded by two ladies who were trying to sell me mops. one kept telling me hers was better, cuz everyoneee knows Scotch 3m. The other was saying her german mop was much more water adsorbent. i don’t get why they give a shiet. i don’t think they get commission on the mops they sell, do they? anyway, right when i picked out the mop i wanted i wacked a chinese woman in the head with it when i put it in my cart. if looks could kill…..

3) then in the checkout line, with my shopping cart piled high with a wok, the mattress pad, a knife, cutting board, the mop, etc…..the women decides to take like 5 minutes to examine my 100 yuan bills. usually this process takes 30 seconds, but she seemed to think that she was the highest ranking quality control person for China’s treasury department.

4) then when i finally get my change, i see a crowd of people, all 100 of them had decided to block the entire entrance way to stand inside and go ohhhh and ahhhhh everytime mr. thunderman banged his symbols. when i finally managed to push my way to the front door, two ladies decided to turn back around, blocking my path.

are you guys going out or coming in?

coming in, we don’t want to get wet.

well i want to go home!!!! i screamed. okay, i didn’t scream, but i was a bit sarcastic.
5) finally outside, i thought i would get a little wet on my way to the closest cab. but there was not a cab in site. beijing only has 70,000 cabs, yet none was available at the entrance. so i bravely pushed my cart into the pouring rain, and realized i had to walk through water about a foot deep to get to the side of the road. this was the worst thunder/lightening i have seen since i’ve been in beijing, and lucky me decided to make tonight a big flat shopping night.

anyway, i get to the side of the road, but everyone and their mom manages to hail a cab and get to it faster than me. remember i had a shopping cart full of shiet. then after someone steals a cab from me, another car zooms right past splashing my pretty white skirt. at least i wasn’t wearing a white shirt because by the time i finally get a cab, i was drenched to the bones.

okay i’m done with my pity parade. at least tomorrow is friday.

i feel that i’m suffocating in my office. no not from the work. but, from the awful air pollution that blankets beijing day in and day out. today must be awfully bad because around 4pm, i felt like someone filled my entire passage way with some god awful substance. for some reason my coworkers like to turn on all the air conditioning and also open the windows. this lets in the all the air pollution from outside. anyway, all of a sudden after all morning breathing in yuckness, i found myself short of breath. i asked my coworker if she could breathe. she said yes. she sort of laughed. she also said i looked white. and finally she suggested that i wear a face mask inside the office. think SARS. i said good idea. she said she was just kidding. i said i am not kidding when i say that i feel like im stuck in a box with no more clean air to breathe. so, in a melodramatic fashion, i left the office to try to get some air outside. but that didn’t help. walking near some grass and trees didn’t help. seeing some cute doggies helped for a second. what was i thinking though? i went outside to breathe in the polluted air in bigger quantities? what a nut. i am feeling nutty from lack of oxygen. anyway, totally defeated, i am now at my desk trying to breathe through my mouth. i just told another coworker my breathing problems. she thinks its funny. she writes hee hee on messeger. the other one wrote hia hia. but i don’t think living in one of the world’s top ten most polluted cities is very funny at all right now.

so realize this is the first time in my life that my  one drink costs more than my hourly salary.

ouch.

but hey, when one has a choice of lychee mojito, green apple mojito, peach mojito, mojito OG, rasberry mojito. one must not complain.

On the Way to Shigatse

Traditional Tibetan Architecture

On the Job

Tibetan Village Chief’s Wife and Grandchildren

Tibetan Villagers

Cute Tibtan Grandpa and his sheep

Rural Tibet

BBQ and Beer Time w/the co-workers

Monks in Monastary

i may love beijiing. but i don’t love feeling like a retard. today my ” i feel like a retard” level reached an all time high.  this occured when i had to do last minute laundry for tibet. well after loading up my load, i took one look at my cousin’s fancy washing machine and realized that i had no idea how to use it. but dammit, i need clean underwear and socks! i’m going to be in little villages in the middle of nowhere, and i don’t even know when i’m coming back to beijing (the firm bought me a one-way ticket!).

thank god for technology. that’s all i got to say. retardo took about five snapshots of the washing machine and dryer using the macro function and gmailed it over to motherchu. then i used my cousin’s internet phone to hear her tell me how to do laundry. i felt like i was back in sixth grade all over again.
oh me, oh mi, i really gots to get me a chinese tutor!

Fever in the morning, fever all through the night.
Everybody’s got the fever
That is something you should know

Fever isn’t such a new scene
Fever started long ago

Okay. World cup fever has swept over Beijing big time! Tonight this bar, Browns, across the street from my cousin was packed with orange clad dutch men and women. Who knew this city had so many former clog-wearing, edam cheese eating peeps?

On opening night, Browns was full of germans and there was even a small contingent of costa rica supporters. As for the Chinese football fans? Well for the most part, they seemed to arbitrarily chose a country to root for that night. The chinese guy sitting next to me, rolled his rrrrrrrrrrrsssssssss for costa rica, while others decided to root for zzzzz germans. A few Chinese even sported Brasil jerseys. Apparently, Brasil’s popularity has reached Asia as well. No doubt because Brasilian men are yummy. And watching Brasilian men running around showing off their toned bodies is tasty. Wait. I guess I speak from a hetero women’s perspective, but I digress.

Anyway, It still amazes me how many different countries are represented here. Besides London, Beijing is hands down the most diverse city I have lived/live in. This makes for especially fun times during international supporting events as I am now finding out.

And just as world cup fever is getting a hold of me, so has the “beijing fever.” Foreigners and Chinese alike seem to be stricken with it. Everytime i ask someone i meet for the first time, “so tell me, how do you find beijing? its the same answer. “i love it”. In fact, recently a Chinese University conducted a survey measuring happiness and 59% of Beijingers said that they were happy with their lives. The survey also found Beijing people to be happier than those living in Shanghai and Guanzhou.

This does not surprise me. The city buzzes with activity, people are clamoring around constantly on foot, bikes or in cars; carving out their existence on a daily basis amongst million and millions of other people. Yet somehow most everyone still retains a laid back attitude. Even recent visitors of mine from England noticed how “chill” Beijing people are within the four days they were here. I guess people’s happiness equals a “hey its all good attitude” that permeates throughout life in the capital.

Life for me right now? All good. Count me as one of the happy ones.

In recent weeks, I have started my new job, which I am really enjoying (btw, due to visa issues we do not leave for Tibet until Tues). I dig my coworkers and they seem to dig me. I also have managed to find a flat that I am excited to be moving into. The location is super convenient and the flat’s got character (unlike the generic Ikea type apartments in huge skyscrapers, which I can’t afford anyway).

And get this. When I asked the landlords if the ceiling lights work, they turned on a set of normal ones. But then they flicked on another set of lights. To my amazement, rainbow colored spotlights along the ledge of the ceiling, started to flicker on. Within seconds the living room transformed into a tacky karoke center. My landlords, quite proud of their remodeled apartment, told me with lights like that, I can invite friends over for New Years party. Awesome!

Beijing, You Give Me Fever.