Wo Han Shuai

At long last, a return to normality.

I arrived at Southwest University on Sunday, beaten and downtrodden, after getting only 90 minutes of sleep the previous night.  "C'est la vie" we all thought; it's our last night in Beijing, it would be a shame to waste it.  I seem to always forget that I'm an old man in a young man's body.  

My 4 a.m. wakeup call reminded me that I was not quite the savvy, indestructible world traveler I thought I was.  What proceeded was the most unpleasant 12 hours possibly ever lived.  And not even a Starbucks to ease the pain; nor, to my dismay, a coffee vendor of any kind.  Anywhere.  Oh the humanity.

Despite my grumbling, we made it to the University sans problems, and I have gotten settled on my posh 5th floor dorm room fairly quickly.  Brice and I found ourselves in a "deluxe" suite, which is usually reserved for triples, but through some enlightened happenstance we get it to ourselves.  What makes a dorm room "deluxe", you may wonder.  For one, leather couches.  Also, a separate bedroom.  We are quite pleased.   

Our classes at the University are laughably short, but I am learning a decent amount through the thickly-accented English of our Professors.  While I have little hope of learning anything but the most rudimentary Chinese, I am at least able to practice it whenever we go out to markets or shops.  

The typical conversation proceeds thusly:

Shopkeeper: [Fast Chinese telling me the price]

Me: Uhh...I don't speak Chinese.

Shopkeeper: [Makes hand gesture referring to the Chinese character for the price]

Me: [I shrug, because I don't understand the hand gestures, nor the character it refers to]

Shopkeeper: [Looks confused, because nobody shrugs in China]

Me: [In broken Chinese] I America country...I no understand....Sorry

Shopkeeper: [Finds a calculator and types in the price]

Chinese, I'm finding, is a mystery.  Our language teacher writes characters on the board expecting us to recite them...but she often forgets that, for us, Chinese is not phonetic.  At all.  The only way we can pronounce these symbols is though route memorization.  I am planning on just learning pinyin, which is the phonetic spelling of Chinese (which, of course, nobody here can actually read).  

Spanish is suddenly looking much more appealing.

Chongqing is turning out to be a nice city to spend two months in; the area is fairly forgiving to foreigners (probably because they don't get many here), and I have not been hassled to buy a Rolex once.  The vegetation is lush and green, which is a byproduct of the scorching 100+ degree weather with humidity in the 90s.  I've been told on numerous occasions the weather will cool down soon, but I've seen little evidence of it.  

Some local students helped me get set up with a cell phone and some local slang, so I am now prepared to play the part of a hip college student studying abroad.  China, by the way, has the cell phone industry down to a science.  50RMB for a SIM card, 130RMB for a second-hand (or third-hand, or fourth-hand) phone, and you are set.  If you can navigate the somewhat shady network of underground cell phone and SIM card dealers (many students deal them for extra money), you can have a phone with no contracts, no salesmen, nothing.  All for less than $20USD.  The United States should take note.

This weekend we travel to Hainan for the National Holiday.  Hainan, I'm told, is the Chinese eqivilent of Hawaii.  

Fantastic.  

If there is anything that a pale, skinny Irishman traveling abroad dosen't need, it is more hot weather and sandy beaches.

Oh well, maybe they will have a Starbucks.  One can only dream.

Zai Jain (Goodbye),

--McG

Note: The title of this blog is "I'm handsome" in semi-pinyin.  My new Chinese friend Jason taught me it tonight.  I'm planning on saying it as much as I can tomorrow.  What fun.