Alex

So. I met this Australian guy on a classmates house warming party last week, and he told me a story. A story about how wrong things can go sometimes, when you don't really have a firm grasp of the cultural differences in a new country.

A friends of his, and the friends girlfriend, had come to China and was planning to stay here for quite a while, hence they decided to get a dog. So they went down to the market, where they had all these cute dogs in cages. They were standing there for a couple of minutes, trying to decide which one they wanted, and finally picked the absolutely cutest one they could find. "This one!", they said and pointed at it. "We want this one!"

So the owner picked up the dog and took it away. The two foreigners figured that, hey, maybe he'll just put a collar on it or something. And then, the owner came back and handed them a bag of meat. (And the audience goes "Noooo!" and "Awwww!" and we all feel a bit bad about it.)

Only in China baby.

However, I met this Chinese guy when I went down to my old hostel in Wuhan a couple of days ago. We were talking a bit, his English was much much better than my Chinese, so conversation went pretty smooth. And I told him this story, about how they went to the market to buy a pet, and picked the cutest little doggie they found, and then was handed this bag of meat.

He went quiet, and then looked at me, and, completely confused asked me: "But.... why did they pick the cutest one? That doesn't matter for the taste."

What do you reply to that?



Alex

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October break already, it feels riddiculous, since the fall semester only has been going on for two weeks. All of China is celebrating the National day, and the Autumn festival (originally presented to me as ''Moon cookie day'', since it's the day when you eat moon cookies and talk to your relatives via the moon, a connection presumably working world-wide and through time) in one week. So no lessons for me! Allow me to give up a cheerfull: YAY!

And what do I do, the first chance I get? Well, I go back to Beijing of course. It comes as naturally and instinctively to me as taking a walk when ever it starts raining. And it's considered just as incomprehensible by several of my aquaintances.

There seem to be two kind of people, those who love this city, and those who don't. Those who don't most oftenly hate it intensively. I've hear people say that it is by far the nasties, ugliest, unfriendliest city in all of China and all of Asia. I've heard people compare it with ''a long and boring conversation'', because of the endless concrete vastelands that this city consist of. I've seen people wrinkle their nose at the mere mention of Beijing. I've seen them stare at me, as if I'm some kind of freak from outer space, when I say that I love the sound of the Beijing accent. (Imagine the sheer joy I felt when I got into a cab at the train station this morning, and every syllable that came out of the cab drivers mouth was reeking of Beijing hua.)

The words: ''I love Beijing'', is replied with either: ''Oh, I love Beijing too!'', and no further explanation is needed.Or the reaction will be: ''But... why?'' (And then comes that suspicious look that suggests that I might be some kind of pervert, and should be handled with care.)

Why? Well I don't know (bu tai qingchu, as I often repeat during my classes). It's like when you fall in love, it's more a matter of chemistry, rather than of perfection in the personality of one's object of affection. (After all, who have ever had a perfect lover? I haven't, and I'll never be one either.)

There is two aspects of Beijing. One aspect is Beijing as the city in itself, and even though it's ever-changing, it's still the same good ol' Beijing I keep returning to. And I can return to the same Beijing over and over again, for as many times as I want.

The other aspect of Beijing is the people I meet, not too surprisingly mostly foreigners, people who are here for a shorter period of time. I've gotten to know some very dear friends here, and it's always difficult for me to leave, since I can never go back to a Beijing that is as it was when I left it, because these persons who matters so much for me won't be here next time I come back. When I say good bye to friends who live on the other side of the planet (even when I'm not on the other side of everything, as I am now), and I know that I can never come back to find them here, it's impossible to know if I'll ever see them again. (Thanks to Steven and Amanda who showed me that there is hope after all.)

Oh my, let's not get too sentimental and gloomy. I'm back in Beijing for a couple of days, and now it's time to go and scoope out some new people who I can leave behind as I go back to Wuhan and miss like crazy ever after.



Alex

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