The First Cold Day

Yesterday was the coldest day I have yet encountered in Beijing. The sky was very clear after all the storm and rain, so I could see the hills at sunrise.

I got up early to go out and see if I could get some things done on the academic front. That means I tried to dress respectable but not too fancy, slacks, a nice plain dark t-shirt, and a sweater I grabbed at the last minute, in case it was cold. Was it ever cold! A piercing wind was blowing the willow branches around so that they whipped around like long hair. I put the sweater on two steps out the door, and felt cold anyway. Not quite winter coat cold, but I am perceiving that I may have to try to buy some type of fall jacket.

The first thing I did was go to the foreign dorm office. I have finally perceived that this is the university's "Foreign Affairs Office" or waiban, which is so often mentioned by the FB people. I think the one at our university is so big and busy, though, that the little personal touches recommended by the FB--going in to see them, getting to know them, etc.--would be perceived as time-wasting annoyances. They have so many hundreds of students on their hands.

For a while, I got kicked back and forth between two offices, but the upshot of it was that I had done very well on the placement test (may not have even had to take it at all), and that they had my student ID as well as my permission to register with the History Department all prepared. Here is a picture of my student ID, which looks like a tiny red passport, complete with photo and all. It was still very early in the morning, and no one was about in the History Department. So I took Moby Dick (my last remaining English language book) down to the lake for a bit. I read the highly entertaining "Sermon" in chapter 9, and I'll tell you, there was nothing dull or preachy about THAT sermon. It was really something. But it was much too cold for me to stay for long.

So I took the permission slip back to the History Department, and had much better results this time. (I'm not sure if I mentioned my abortive first attempt to visit, when they turned me away for want of appropriate paper-work.) I had just the right stuff this time, though, and managed to capture the prized treasure--two separate course listings, for graduate and undergraduate courses. I went across to the Chinese Department, and managed to capture the same two items over there. The History Department also assigned me an advisor. It was neither of the people I had first written to, but rather a professor from Japan (he speaks very good Chinese, they assured me). They gave me his e-mail address and telephone number, a terrifying burden for such a little yellow piece of paper. Was I to write to him? But of course in Chinese!

It already seemed like it had been a very eventful day when I made my way home with these treasures. And I confess that I spent the entire afternoon inside, going through pictures from my visit to the Forbidden City, sleeping a little, generally resting up and recovering from the effects of having "overdone it." For lunch I ate a grilled cheese sandwich, which you could call my first successful cooked meal in my own kitchen, and some instant cream of mushroom soup, which was not bad at all. Here is the plate with many rambutan shells (they really are kind of like seashells) and one rambutan I hadn't eaten yet, as well as a papaya half. My afternoon snack.

A small note regarding a loose end that some of you have asked about: yes, JZ and FL are back in the picture. JZ is still in Xi'an and has been, she said, very sick, so she hasn't had a chance to write or call until now. But she called me yesterday, and said she would give my new phone-number to FL. FL is in Beijing, and he text-messaged me, suggesting I give him a call when it was convenient. I called him, and he approached the conversation with all the trepidation I have for a similar conversation in Chinese. But we were speaking English because learning English is apparently his full-time occupation at the moment. He wants to meet this afternoon, so that's what seems to be on my schedule.

I felt bad staying in through the whole of the beautiful afternoon, but for the time being I just wasn't up for any big adventures. I did very bravely write the briefest politest correctest self-introduction I could manage to the Japanese professor.

Finally around sunset, I went out for Korean food to a restaurant very near my house--across the street and down half a block. I had to break my rule about not going to places with girls in hanbok standing in front of them, because there was one there. But it was understandable because the place was awkwardly located, with a second floor entrance and a third floor seating area. It was good having the hanboked equivalent of a maitre d' to show the way.

Everyone is so polite in Korean restaurants here. It's almost as if they have decided that their collective image in China is going to be one of almost exaggeratedly good service. As I was led through the restaurant, every server or bus-boy I passed greeted me and bowed. Lonely little me. I was glad I'd kept on my "respectable" outfit! Of course it's all a typical Korean trick (I say this as a Korean, mind you) for being so polite that you feel bad if you don't order some fancy expensive food. However, I was immune. As I looked through the convenient picture menu, all I really wanted was bibim bop and kimchee. So that's what I had. Actually, they weren't at all annoyed, and seemed to think it was funny that I wanted such homey food. Or maybe they thought it was amusing because I used the Korean words.

Well, they had pretty darn good kimchee. And the panchum (sp?) were good too. One was thick seaweads about the size and thickness of snap-peas, but very different in taste and textures. Another was chewy textured tofu threads, similar to the ones that Colin likes so much but thinner. And the bebim bop was sizzling in its very hot stone bowl; the waitress mixed it for me, inquiring about how much kochujang I would take (half) and chopping up the egg very neatly. It was delicious, the taste of home.

The third floor seating area was interesting too. Each table had a little grill in the center, and starting about two feet above each grill was a little white chimney to carry the smoke away. I suppose it was more a fan than a chimney, for it clearly could be turned on by pulling a pull-chain that hung next to it. The handle of the pull-chain looked like a blue plastic jump-rope handle, and was very amusing.

The view from the place was also very nice. All the walls were glass, and decorated with tiny white lights. The white lights were the exact shape and size of the car headlights on the overpass outside, which was just at eye level, so between the cars out in the black night, and the lights, and the reflections of other lights from opposite walls, it was a dancing twinkling whirl.

If you have to eat alone, clearly a Korean restaurant is the way to go. They made sure I never had to pour my own tea.

The kimchee (which cost an extra dollar) arrived in three gigantic rolls, and I could barely eat half of one. They laughed at me when I asked them to wrap it up, but in a kindly way, and did it. Now my refrigerator smells very strongly of kimchee, which I'll have to eat soon or it will infect my milk and butter. But actually it's better than the smell that was already there, which was who knows what stale and musty. Do I ever need a box of baking soda! But where will I find that, in a place where no one seems to have an oven? I will have to make investigations.

Below, to show the unusual and beautiful clearness of the air today, are pictures of my western hills at sunrise, afternoon, and sunset.