In Beijing, Uiyger-ville is a long dirt road lined with restaurants selling skewered lamb & flatbread - whose signs are all written in arabic. Kinda like Chinatown of SF, a poor and self-sufficient ethnic enclave, where many of the waiters only speak the native tongue.
We arrive in a taxi and before the taxi even stops, five guys (the "solicitors" for the restaurants) are hanging off the windows, excitedly yelling for us to go to their restaurant.
We're attacked by different guys all trying to get us into their respective restaurants. One guy is chasing my friend, another one is in my face, yelling and screaming at me in some arabic tongue, another is pulling my friend into his restaurant.
Suddenly, the whole street erupts with activity, as new solicitors from restaurants down the street run full-speed toward us and start yelling at us to try their restaurant. Don't ask me how we chose a restaurant and finally sat down.
The food is really good, lots of meat though, mostly lamb meat that's barbecued and very spicy.
Sunday, September 14, 1997
Tuesday, September 02, 1997
Beijing
(email to friends, I had left for China the day the world found out that Princess Diana had died)
After what seemed like a week of travelling to get to Beijing, spending a night in Hotel Nikko near Tokyo airport by my lonesome (kept the night light on cause it was freaky in the hotel room), meeting really nice relatives I never knew I had, feeling homesick for family and friends (even before reaching Beijing, how pathetic is that?). I am finally here, in my second home, the e-mail center for Beijing University students.
Of course I had to do e-mail first thing I got here. Let's see - rooms are tiny, I just bought a washing machine today with 8 other people so I'm paying about $25 USD for my share, and had to get my blood drawn for HIV and syphillis testing. (I coulda told them that there have been no opportunities for me to contract those diseases but ya' know)
By the way, don't use swear words and words relating to 1015 Folsom and "extra-curriculars" because they censor mail. It's been kinda hard meeting people cause a lot of foreign students are part of programs - the UC EAP program is the largest, of course, so they all clique together and then the Korean, Japanese students form there own little cliques. The individual loner types (me!) have to work twice as hard to find out about stuff (where to buy laundry detergent, clothing lines, refrigerators, etc.) and to meet random people. So it's like freshman year all over again except in Chinese.
I've been so friendly these past two days it's scary, talking to random people while waiting for the phone, eating in the cafeteria. It didn't hit me that I am FAR away from home, my parents, my beloved friends, until I spent the first night in the dorms.
After what seemed like a week of travelling to get to Beijing, spending a night in Hotel Nikko near Tokyo airport by my lonesome (kept the night light on cause it was freaky in the hotel room), meeting really nice relatives I never knew I had, feeling homesick for family and friends (even before reaching Beijing, how pathetic is that?). I am finally here, in my second home, the e-mail center for Beijing University students.
Of course I had to do e-mail first thing I got here. Let's see - rooms are tiny, I just bought a washing machine today with 8 other people so I'm paying about $25 USD for my share, and had to get my blood drawn for HIV and syphillis testing. (I coulda told them that there have been no opportunities for me to contract those diseases but ya' know)
By the way, don't use swear words and words relating to 1015 Folsom and "extra-curriculars" because they censor mail. It's been kinda hard meeting people cause a lot of foreign students are part of programs - the UC EAP program is the largest, of course, so they all clique together and then the Korean, Japanese students form there own little cliques. The individual loner types (me!) have to work twice as hard to find out about stuff (where to buy laundry detergent, clothing lines, refrigerators, etc.) and to meet random people. So it's like freshman year all over again except in Chinese.
I've been so friendly these past two days it's scary, talking to random people while waiting for the phone, eating in the cafeteria. It didn't hit me that I am FAR away from home, my parents, my beloved friends, until I spent the first night in the dorms.
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