Although I had been awake since 2 AM, I started the day (the actual daylight day) with a great sense of purpose. Perhaps I had been feeling lost and low in the evening and the night, but it was just a spur, as it can be at best, an encouragement to pursue my options fully.
For breakfast I had two slices of leftover raisin bread from last night, together with some milk tea. The milk tea was "wheat flavor." Yesterday I had accidentally gotten strawberry flavor, which was weird. My only other choices were "chocolate" and "wheat." I have never heard of wheat-flavored anything. Maybe it was a little like malt. It was weird too. It's funny that they don't make tea-flavored milk tea, but never mind. Perhaps tomorrow I may even try making my own British Breakfast tea. I can go out and buy milk, maybe sugar as well. Okay, yes, I admit that I imported tea to China. But it's a comfort food for me, and I sure haven't seen any for sale around here! Tomorrow I will celebrate perhaps by finally breaking it out.
I had a carefully planned out set of objectives for the day. First I would check e-mail, put up my post, write to a few people. Next I would go out and get a cell-phone, according to a plan I also made: first see if FL or JZ had written back with advice, next (assuming they hadn't, and they hadn't) go to the huge electronics store across the street, third (if they had nothing better than the phone stand guy offered) buy the phone from the phone-stand guy. Objective 3 was to make at least three apartment appointments. Underneath this objective, I wrote "Just do it woman!"--because I was really terrified of doing this.
Objective 1 was easily completed, especially since I had written out even some of my e-mails and all of my post ahead of time. At the last minute, I decided to check the "That's Beijing" postings again. That's Bejing is a website of classifieds and such which is written in English and includes apartment listings. I had been checking it, but not turning up all that much. All of a sudden this morning a new ad appeared, an apartment with all the standard amenities I am insisting on (AC, internet, private bathroom, etc.), and only five minutes walk from Beida. I scribbled down the number and went straight back to my room to call. I just had a strong good feeling about it, exactly as some of the other posts had given me a bad feeling. It felt right. The number was local, and after some fumbling I was able to call it. I did the best Chinese I could muster, and spoke my lines. It was the first time I had spoken Chinese to a stranger on the telephone. I was able to make an appointment at noon. She told me the building and apartment number with great patience. ("Building FOUR not building TEN"--they sound quite similar in Chinese--"one, two, three, FOUR.")
Feeling flushed and eager, I went out to accomplish objective 2. The electronics store was an astonishing multi-story maze selling...EVERYTHING. New and used. Not much of a used electronics market in the States, but here nothing seems to get truly thrown away. Even if it's broken someone will scavenge it. Also, no point in dumpster-diving here, as someone who needs the stuff more has been there before you. I also got the sense (from seeing a fellow lugging a huge computer monitor through the front door) that they buy stuff. Well, where else would they get it? Just last June I had to throw away a similar monitor--because who would want it these days? Well, someone in China might, if there were a way of solving the transport problem!
I was pretty bewildered, wandering through the crowds and the undifferentiated masses of cords, wires, batteries, computers, ipods, palm pilots, and lots of unidentifiable things. I'm someone who tends to feel overwhelmed in a BestBuy, I'll have you know, and this was absolute chaos compared to that. But eventually I noticed a sign that said "Cell Phones Basement level." I will add that everything around here is in Chinese. This is not a tourist part of town. I'm sure a lot of the students here do speak English, but there is no need for bilingual anything in the signage department.
I went down the basement. Everything clean, white, deeply organized, more like an expensive jewelry store, like Tiffany's. No browsing either. I wandered about, looking at the signs and trying to be casual, like I was "just looking", and also trying to remember appropriate brand-names. (Nokia and Motorola predominated.) But I didn't get far before one particular saleswoman called out to me with such persistent politeness that I had to answer. Questions, questions. I picked up the cues, because the questions were easy. Fumbled some of the answers for once, because it's hard to put the concept of "average to low-end, no-frills, gets the job done type phone" into the vocabulary I possess. Ask me about the stylistic features and moral-textual transgressions of Sima Qian's Shiji according to traditional readers and I can do a creditable job. Ask me to join the modern world and I flounder a bit. I did manage to convey that I would rather not pay $200 or even $100. I said it didn't need to be able to take pictures. (Well, I have a brand new digital camera for that, don't I?!) We moved slowly down the ladder. Once I laughed. "You don't like it?" she asked, hopefully, looking back toward a more expensive model. "It's not that," I said. "It's just that I don't have a cell-phone in the States either, so to me they all look the same." Primly, she explained that the one had a color display and the other black and white…and so on.
She was a pretty good salesperson, which is to say, one after my own heart. At every step off the way, she asked "Would it be okay if I…" (show you the model from the box at this table over here, put in the battery, explain how it works, etc.) Always asking permission. This is highly civilized, I feel. At any moment, I could say no and then wander freely off. No being trapped in a net of words and persuasions. Not feeling trapped (though occasionally I was bewildered), I agreed at each step. The phone was a bit more than the phone-stand guys, though a fairly similar model. A little handsomer perhaps (though I'm no judge). But I guess I liked the notion of always being able to go back to this big store in case of trouble. Who knows when a stand will or won't be there? And other people's experiences have suggested to me that there is always trouble eventually. So I agreed to the phone.
It quickly became clear that I didn't know the first thing about the way these things worked in China. No one explains it because everyone who lives in the twenty-first century already knows. Yeah yeah. The saleswoman was really patient and friendly, but the girl (obviously in training) sitting at the table with us emanated an air of astonishment. Could a person really possibly be so ignorant, she was wondering. Yes in fact, a person could. Not only was I unclear on how it worked, but I didn't understand the vocabulary in which it was explained. It's all just so full of modern jargon. But well-placed questions of my own eventually got the thing worked out. Patience was the saleswoman's job, but she managed to convey a further impression of helpful friendly amusement.
Here is how it works. First you buy the phone. Then you buy the phone number, which is called a SIM card. It looks like a credit card, but then, amazingly, you pop out the little golden wafer from it, stick it in your phone, and then you have a phone number. (The saleswoman did it for me. The little trainee even started to protest…apparently this is something most people know how to do themselves.) Next, you have to buy another card which you activate by calling a certain number and entering the series of digits on the card. This is a declining balance thing. Now for the plan I got, it costs 20 RMB /month ($2.50) and a slight extra charge of each call (fractions of a cent, too tiny to calculate). Is this not superb, actually? far preferable to the way it is in the US where you usually have to pay through the nose for astronomical numbers of minutes that you'd have to live on the phone to use up--OR you have to pay so much per call that you end up not using the phone?
Another funny thing about the whole transaction. It involved almost no paperwork. I paid in cash (the total came to about $75). I only had to write my name on one form, together with my newly chosen phone number--I chose one I thought would be easy to remember--and nothing else about me. I never had to show any ID, provide any address. I could have given a false name and it wouldn't have mattered a jot. No registration, no control whatsoever. I think the thing I wrote my name on was something like a customer service form, nothing official. And then I had a phone.
Next order of business: find the apartment and look it over. This was harder than I'd anticipated. The place name, which I'd assumed was a street address, was not found on any maps. It turned out to be the name of the housing complex, but I didn't know that as I scoured all my new maps and even dared to ask the hotel desk clerks. No clue. "Do you have the person's phone number?" one asked. "Why don't you just call." Anyone who knows me knows how much I'd hate to do that. Why hadn't I just asked for directions the first time? But I didn't see much choice, so I gritted my teeth and did it. I used my new cell-phone. I had a hard time making sense of the directions, since they involved a lot of place names and landmarks I didn't know. At least I figured out the right corner of the map to explore! The lady was also extremely patient. Where was I just reading about the incredible reservoir of Chinese patience? I think it was LeCarre's The Honourable Schoolboy.
With an hour left until my appointment, I set off. It was actually really easy to find, and the "5 minutes to Beida" was not an exaggeration. It was quite near the bookstore I had explored yesterday, a housing complex of tall mustard yellow buildings. Okay, I admit, they are really ugly. But ugly in a friendly way, not to glitzy, not pretentious. Still fancier than Magie but somewhat reminiscent of it, because I think they are mostly occupied by Beida students. I walked around the place, getting a sense of the area. Along one side was a little street that was like a liminal time-frontier--high-rises on one-side and a little stretch of an older time on the other. Hole in the wall dumpling and noodle shops. A tea house. Vegetable market. Hutong-type alleys visible beyond that.I got baozi from a wizened old guy who looked at me dubiously but didn't seem terrified of a potential language barrier. The language needed was minimal anyway. It went like this: "Want baozi?" "Yes." He takes a steamer off the stack that are balanced on a rack over a vat of boiling water. He whips the top off and onto the next lower steamer, dumps the contents into a little bag, and hands it to me. VERY hot. They seem ready to melt the bag…but not quite. "Three yuan." I give it to him and say "Thank you." Most of the game is just knowing what you want. I wanted baozi. The baozi were good, a little greasy, very hot and filling. The little street is clearly a fine resource.
Walking back along the edge of the complex, I sold myself on it. The windows showed various signs of occupancy--curtains, signs, clothes hanging to dry. The mustardy buildings, perhaps 9 or 10 of them, encircled a grassy center courtyard that was not exactly run-down, but not what you'd call manicured either. Garbage and recycling cans right in the middle of it. But also trellises and benches and stepping stone through the grass. One could sit there, surrounded by buildings, and not be especially aware of the huge street just on the other side. Lots of young people going in and out. Security guys were standing around, alert but unintrusive. They made no move to stop me or check me, but were just being there. I asked one about how the get to the apartment number (the big place was a bit bewildering). He pointed the way and let me in through the locked building door with his keycard.Elevator, slightly shabby but fast enough, to the 16th floor. I was maybe ten minutes early but I decided to go up anyway. That proved an important and wise decision! The door of the place was open. Initially I was put off by how small it was. I'd been expecting 1 BR but it was actually a studio (it's sort of ambiguous here when they write ads, even though the ad was in English). Bathroom in the hall, with a washing machine in it. Then a miniature kitchen opening off on the left (fridge on the right against the wall). Next a bright red sofa (left) and a big TV (right). Then a double bed (left), opposite a tall glass-case bookshelf (right). Then a desk (left) and an armoire (right). Finally, along the back wall, a huge window with a gorgeous view. I mean, really nice, looking out over first the bit of city between the building and the campus, next the pretty green campus, and beyond an even greener strip of suburb with some mountains in the distance.
For one person it was small but not cramped. It will not feel cavernous with only my one suitcase of stuff in it. It had AC and heat, and on the little desk a DSL modem. Can't see myself needing the huge TV, but there's probably no getting rid of it. Hang a cloth in front of it, perhaps. In my heart I had already decided to take it. Expensive for market at $475/month, but the location--and the view… I bargained a little but not hard, got it down to $450. The landlady was a good person. At the FB orientation, they said that you should trust your instincts about someone being bad but not necessarily about them being good, as there may be cues you're not sensitive to. Possibly. But all the same: she was a middle-aged lady, owned the apartment herself, friendly, patient with my occasional incomprehension, gentle in the bargaining, and easily met my eyes. She talked about her daughter, who had just graduated from Beida with a degree in English. (Also, I should say that on the phone initially, she had interrogated me: are you renting it for yourself? What are you doing in Beijing? Where are you from? Scammers don't care who they scam, I'm guessing, but landlords care who they rent to.) The mother and daughter had lived in the place for a while, it seemed, perhaps different apartments in the same building? (a good solution I think). Now the daughter had graduated, so the mother was renting the place out.
She would take care of the electric bill for me (apparently it's quite complicated, and she wanted to make sure it was done right)--I would just pay her each month. She would go to the security bureau with me (a legal requirement). She asked only for a small sum of earnest money, about $75, and 3 months rent plus deposit payable when I picked up the keys. I hesitated a little at that, but I can swing it. And after all, I would have the keys already, and have gone to the security bureau with her, so it would be a pretty confusing scam at that point, right? So I took it. Perhaps it was wrong of me to take the first place I looked at, but an enormous relief as well. I had just handed over the money (she wrote me out a receipt in my own notebook), and was asking a few last-minute questions, when there was another knock on the door--someone else coming to look at the place. It seems that she had just arranged a sort of open house at 12, and I had got there first. She told them that I had decided to take it, sorry, better luck next time. The other apartment seekers were extremely disgusted and disappointed at this state of affairs, as I would have been if I'd arrived ten minutes too late. They were Chinese, though, and from this I know that the price was not wholly exorbitant, even by local standards. Perhaps they would have bargained harder (or not bargained), but it was a moot point. And though I suppose she could have, she was nice enough not to put the place up for auction! Especially since another potential renter called her cell phone just a few minutes later! Another sign of her being a good egg. Luck, timing, a good feeling. It's early to say until the keys are actually in my hand, but I think this will work out.
As with the cell-phone, but moreso: no forms, no paperwork, no background checking, no passport checking. She didn't even ask for my name, though she gave me hers in the receipt she wrote out for my earnest money. We just set a time to meet back at the apartment when she would give me the key. She said meanwhile she would have it cleaned and get me the proper quilts (I was clearly clueless about this, and she explained it with great amusement). There is something called "the three quilts"--I'll have to investigate in more depth when I see them! This is life in a deregulated system. It occurs to me that the big chunk of rent at the beginning is her assurance that I'm good for it, because she has no other. Now I just have to make sure I can come up with that much cash. I think I can, though I should probably spread the withdrawals out over a couple days to make sure.
Now I feel GREAT. Empowered. Confident. On the walk home I bought a melon slice on a stick. It was extremely sweet and mild, although the parts near the rind were bitter. Bitter-rind sweet melons, 1 yuan a slice.
I went home and rested a while. But as it was still early--and I felt so free--I decided to go explore the famous "Nameless Lake" in the north part of the campus. It was extremely lovely, as was the lightly wooded walk on the way, a rocky slope or wall along one side with occasional rough staircases and alcoves for outdoor studying. Traditional buildings, and even a tall pagoda. As far as natural and man-made beauty goes, this campus has Princeton and Harvard beat, I have to say. But since my hands are complaining about all this typing, I'll let the pictures make up the next several "thousand words."
The last photo, below, depicts one of the more foolish things I have seen people do. There was a very steep, rugged stone staircase that also twisted back and forth, and boys on bikes at the top were having an organized competition to see who could hope thier bikes down to the bottom in the shortest time and with the least falling off. This is the only time I have ever seen a Chinese cyclist wear a helmet, but even so it was amazingly foolish. A crowd of people had gathered to watch.
In closing I will just add that despite being occasionally lonely, occasionally alienated, often confused and insecure--I nonetheless feel very good here. Except for the lack of Colin, I might say I feel more whole. That's not quite right though. It's more like this: it's like having gone to the gym day after day, year after year, and building up a set of muscles you're hardly even aware of, much less confident in, because when you're not in the gym you hardly do anything but sit behind a desk. Then one day you find yourself in a situation where you're actually using all those muscles you barely knew you had. At first you feel apprehensive: am I really strong enough to pick up that piano? Very doubtful, you try anyway. And when you can pick up the piano, it feels great.
At home, the standard response of people outside my field (and that's most people) is, wow, China. That must be interesting. Or maybe, why did you decide to study that? Very little else to talk about, then, except a trip they or someone they know made, maybe a Chinese person of their acquaintance, his odd quirks.
My work has sometimes felt like a difficult to defend abstraction, but now I'm actually here--this is China itself, warts and all. There are plenty of warts! But at least no one asks me why I'd want to study Chinese. It is self-evidently the best language and culture in the world as far as most people are concerned! Probably this arrogance should annoy me, and maybe will, but doesn't right now. It's not like I identify with it--like I said, plenty of warts--but I am invested in the culture, more or less permanently. It may not, in fact, be the best culture in the world, but my choices are a declaration that to me at least it is the most interesting. And here are its living branches, rustling about on bicycles, chattering on cell-phones, and walking about with open umbrellas on a sunny day (okay, yes, actually functioning as parasols). Here I am and now (finally) I feel free to enjoy it.
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