Getting Settled

My journey here was a no brainer. I slept like a rock on both my flights, waking only for a short layover in Zurich. The woman who is coordinating my stay sent a driver to pick me up at the airport, which was great because when I walked off the plane I had no idea whether I was coming or going. We met up at what will become my office, then drove about ten minutes to my apartment.

Apartment is a funny word. The building I live in is called Gangwan Guoji or Harbour International, and was clearly designed to be a hotel. In fact, my coordinator tells me, some of the rooms here are rented out hotel style. Others are converted office spaces and longer-term rentals like mine. Peering into some of the other rooms on my floor as I walk by, I have no idea what goes on here, except that it looks and feels like a hotel, smoking optional.

My room is simple but homey -- desk, couch, TV, microwave, large fridge, bathroom, A/C, inexplicably enormous bed, and one shop-vac sized device I've never seen before but whose insides purport to be a washing machine. Floor-to-ceiling windows on the north side open onto a balcony that could fit as many people as a packed elevator. It's unclear whether I'll ever feel brave enough to weather the smog and actually use it, but I appreciate its existence. After a mid-morning nap to test out the bed and soothe my aching jetlag, I've decided I'm going to like it here.

My Chinese is all over the place. I fluctuate rather frequently between fluid speech and "...what?" regardless of a conversation's level of complexity. (I was killing it at the bank until the clerk wouldn't accept one of my five dollar bills because of a little tear at the crease or something else I couldn't really understand, at which point I just kept repeating, "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter," until she gave up on me and took the bill. Win.) Because I learned so much of what I know in an immersive setting, I have trouble thinking analytically about the language. I find myself feeling things out a lot of the time, rather than calculating well-translated responses, but I'm getting by and warming back up to it. Every once in awhile I remember a word, phrase, or character I thought I'd forgotten, which is reassuring.

Luckily I live in the embassy district, in perhaps the most international part of the city. Two years ago, this is where we would always have to come to do anything fun. Now that I'm right in the middle of everything, I'm grateful to have been forced to experience a less entertaining section of Beijing. I feel totally confident hopping on the bus or subway to get around, and plan to go back and revisit Wudaokou at some point, but for now I'm still trying to get oriented around here. One of my friends from Yale invited me to his improv comedy show tonight, which should be a fun thing to check out if I make it past eight o'clock without falling asleep. More on everything later. It's good to be back.

再见
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