I went to the PKU New Student Orientation, for which I had high hopes. These hopes were quickly dashed, as the entire thing consisted of a long lecture (actually a short lecture that took a long time) by a security officer, spoken in very slow and heavily accented English. There was some instruction on the different types of visas and necessary procedures, which might have been useful if the FB orientation hadn't done it much better, and if I hadn't already gone all the way through the process myself (I hope). Aside from that, I only learned a few interesting scraps of fact.
· There is no immigration bureau in China because it is a non-immigration country, thus the Division of Entry and Exit Administration has charge of foreigners in the country. (This division was where the security officer came from.)
· Foreign students are not allowed to ride motorcycles. (It's for your own good!)
· Overseas students (meaning us) are not allowed to work.
· A public security bureau permit is required for the raising of dogs.
· Religious activities are permitted, but only in designated places, and no distribution of religious materials or organization of outside events is permitted.
· When taking a taxi, be sure to ask for a receipt in case you have left any belongings in the taxi--you have a better chance of getting them back that way.
I don't think anyone was especially satisfied with this so-called orientation, though we were instructed to applaud repeatedly at designated moments.
Afterwards, I sat around in one of the campus eating places with a group of students, some of which I knew already and others who were new to me. One ABC girl I especially didn't like kept going on and on about handsome Korean guys and hot dating possibilities, how she didn't want a Chinese tutor unless it was a boy, and so on. Maybe in some embarrassing bygone day I myself sounded like just such a hotpants little slut, but eventually one comes to realize that almost no one wants to hear this kind of stuff, especially not at length. In general, the conversation was quite disappointing. The only thing that seemed important was the fancy restaurants and bars they had gone to and with whom. Everyone seemed aware that the present company was dull, so it was especially uncomfortable--people just sort of putting in the time as a kind of investment in hope of future return, such as being included in some more interesting gathering.
Who needs that. Life is too short. I eventually managed to extricate myself, went to the Wu-mei to get myself a notebook. I also browsed a bit in some of the bookstores they had there, though most annoyingly there were so many mosquitoes in the bookstore that I was almost too itchy to stay!
Then--okay, I confess--I had KFC. I was tired and hungry, and it was right next to the site of my next errand. It was welcoming, familiar--until I went in and saw the menu. Nothing like "chicken nuggets" "chicken sandwich" etc. It was all fragrant this and something-or-other that, poeticized names completely obscuring what the stuff really was. I ended up pointing at one of the combinations. "I'll have the number two." The response was a blank look, until she turned around and saw what I was point at. "Oh." She got out a picture menu, and proceeded to quiz me on the options--fries or salad, soda or juice. KFC in China is much spicier than in the U.S., which is a point in its favor, though I definitely got a week's worth of oil right there. Fried chicken AND mayonnaise? Lots of people were in the upstairs studying, and it looked like a classier parody of an American fast-food restaurant. I had seen this in Taiwan too--young people hang out in fast-food places, meaning they go there and stay. Hard to see why it needs to be fast then... It does manage to catch the cold impersonal sadness of a fast-food restaurant but everything has more solidity, like real money went into building it.
Well, I left as soon as I was done eating and headed to the computer city. There I purchased a camera identical to the one I had had, regretting the cost tremendously, but there's no help for it. I explained to the salesgirl that I had had one just like it but it had gotten stolen. She asked me about the details of the theft, and was quite impressed. "That thief was hard-core!" Then she gave me many pieces of advice about how to avoid this in the future, including wearing a front-carried shoulder bag (check) and walking with a companion (yeah right).
As far as I can tell, there is no bargaining in the computer city. The little shops make extra money by selling you many accessories. I was able to quickly refuse all the accessories except another big memory card. "The thief got the memory card too!" she said, shaking her head. They all said I spoke very good Chinese, which I think is only a relative compliment--the real meaning is probably, good compared to the other loser Americans that have come through here. Or suchlike.
Anyway, I was much happier to have a camera again, and here are some pictures I took.
The exotic red fruit, which I have since been told is a Fire-dragon fruit, and is white inside, and tastes like a kiwi:
The ugly bedsheet I bought at the Mini-mart:
My darling laundry-hamper next to a fish-bowl that came with the place, even already full of water. But where to find a fish?
Some shots of my ingeniously strung up bathroom clothesline (taken from below to make them more interesting):
The sun setting through a thick haze of pollution over the barely visible western hills:
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