Welcome to Beijing - Jarrett Stein

My first two days in China consisted of 10 hours of class, 12 hours of sleep, with the rest of the time devoted to inventing hand gestures in unsuccessful attempts to commune with the native Beijingers. In the little research I did before I left, each book or person echoed the same sentiment, “You will experience culture shock”. Talk about your understatements. Beijing offers more than an extraordinary culture; it’s an entirely different planet.

First, to address the issue of the language barrier, it should be noted that barrier is an insufficient term as barriers can be broken. Here, it’s an impenetrable language fortress. We are housed at a fancy international hotel, full of Americans and Europeans alike, yet not one employee has understood a word I’ve said, including the concierge. Exploring outwards in my experiences, the waiters, shop-clerks, peddlers, and even students have had zero understanding of anything I’ve tried to say.

Now, although I’m admittedly an ignorant Westerner, I do know that expecting the Chinese to understand English is naïve and maybe even offensive. If a Tsinghua (the university where we take classes) student came to America with no knowledge of English, of course I’d be just as hopeless a host. Kramer and public speaking coaches alike have expressed that the majority of communication is non-verbal. This maxim was quickly invalidated here. But, even failing to understand anything has its benefits, even if it’s only humor found in or after the moment.

So as part of the Penn Abroad program, we take 2 Communications classes, each 2.5 hours, 4 days a week. One class focuses on Media Events with the upcoming Olympics in particular, and the other on Intellectual Property and Piracy (not the Black Beard kind, unfortunate I know). But I didn’t travel to another planet to take class, I came to hop out of my spaceship and explore, seeing, doing, tasting, touching things I’ve never experienced before.

One of the first things I do when I get to a new place is find the neighborhood supermarket and stock up my room. A block from our hotel is a huge department store called Lotus. I don’t know what’s the bigger trip, navigating to the shop or walking the aisles inside. Although it’s only 100 yards or so away from our hotel, to enter Lotus one must cross a 6-lane street, dodging buses, cars, motorcycles, scooters, and bikes. There really is no way to express how scary crossing the street is; in 48 hours I’ve almost died I’d say a dozen or so times. I’ve adapted however, adopting the strategy of finding a larger local shadowing their every move as they cross the street, careful to situate myself on the inside so I won’t be the first killed, but maybe the second who escapes only maimed and injured. Reaching the safe harbor of the sidewalk is an accomplishment but more so a relief.

Lotus itself is massive, and I’ve only probably seen a small fraction of all the wares it offers. The first floor consists of multiple small shops, ranging from the legitimate (Nike Outlet) to the absurd (The Vento Race = The North Face). The second floor is similar to a Wal-Mart, and the third is a supermarket. What would cost upwards of $300 in the U.S. cost my roommate and I around 30 bucks each. When a can of beer costs 10 cents, you know you’ve found a good place to be. It’s really too difficult to describe the ludicrousness of some of the available foods and wares, so I’ll try to include pictures in a later post.

I have so much more to talk about, but am too lazy to write about it now. I’d say the moral of this post is just the pure joy embedded in spontaneous, uninhibited exploration. Joy isn’t even the right word; it’s the natural humor that expresses itself in times of perceived hopelessness, downright shock, and finally unexpected triumph. Beijing is one nutty place.