Alex

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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