Two Meetings, An Eel, and a Bat

You would think that scheduling two meetings three hours apart would be a reasonable thing to do, but in Beijing you would be wrong.

My first meeting was at 10, and I had to take a bus to a neighboring university to meet my new Chinese tutor, AL, for the first time. Unfortunately, I had not reckoned on an enormous Friday morning traffic jam, or on the fact that the bus routes were a little more complicated than they looked. So I was about 15 minutes late, but fortunately I had a cell phone and was able to call her. As usual when I try to meet new people, we had a fair amount of trouble finding one another. But with two cell-phones most such problems can eventually be resolved.

Then she wanted me to get on the back of her bicycle to get back to her office. Mind you, this was my first time on the back of a bicycle. Also, I am a strapping big woman and she was a very small Chinese lady. I felt really bad, but I did as she asked. Can't start a new teacher-student relationship by disobeying your teacher, can you? She did have to work very hard to pedal us both the few blocks that we had to go, and got quite out of breath. I felt bad, but decided my main task should be trying to sit still and steady. Shades of me learning to ride a bike: I just can't believe that it could possibly be stable sitting sideways on the back of a bicycle. But somehow we didn't tip over.

I was relieved when we got to her office. We talked for a while about the kinds of things I need. I had thought about it in advance and decided there were two main things. One was advice on what was culturally appropriate to say in certain situations. Another was making my Chinese more elegant and learned-sounding. I feel like I can basically communicate with people, but I still sound like a dumb kid as far as level of diction is concerned. So I want to sound like a PhD by the time I am one, if that makes any sense. She understood exactly what I meant. She thought my first objective could be fairly easily achieved, but the second, she warned, would take some time. I have since actually thought of a third objective, which is expanding both active and passive vocabulary. I thought of this by the by because I learned so many good new words during our lesson.

It was a very good lesson. She is a highly experienced teacher who got a degree in modern Chinese from Beida. She also had a good sense of what I wanted, and a friendly sense of fun, so I felt comfortable asking all kinds of questions, right down to: "What do you say in a bookstore when they tell you that something is 50% off?" (Because it seems weird not to say anything. Answer, nothing much. Maybe just "Ah." Or if you're really feeling loquacious, maybe "Hao de"=Okay.) We had fun talking about four character phrases, which I'm really bad at using. It's a great handicap in my Chinese language education, that despite the fact that I like and appreciate the stories behind them, and adore the concept, I can never remember to actually use these set phrases. But maybe I'll do better this time around.

Because it had taken us awhile to get started, and I had been a bit late to begin with, we didn't get done with our lesson until nearly noon. Then I had to fill out some forms in order to reserve a block of time with her--which I think will be worthwhile. Though AL's expensive for a Chinese tutor by local standards, 100 RMB/hour, sometime you get what you pay for. And I like how she's aware of the fact that I have kind of special needs, and she's not just trying to do some by the book type program. So I signed up for 90 minutes a week on Friday mornings. I think this will be $20/week well spent. After all, improving my Chinese is one of my major objectives in being here.

Now, though, it was 12:30 and I had to quickly hop in a cab. I should have brought all I needed for my other meeting with me, but I hadn't, so I had to dash home and bike like crazy to school. I was a bit late but not horribly. At least the person I was meeting was still there. This was SXb, the grad student of my professor, and we were going to talk about some Chinese department classes, and which ones might be useful. We did that. He had some suggestions, and knew a lot about the different professors. He also suggested that Shiji studies in Japan would be a great topic, as it's hard for Chinese people to write on it because they can't spend time in Japan. I think Japanese people are better positioned to write on it, though, as the intricacies of Japanese academia… I didn't say this, though, and just scribbled down all his suggestions. We chatted for a while, and he even asked me a few things about graduate school in the U.S. He's just getting ready to take his qualifying exams, and said that the hardest part is the English proficiency test. I said several times that I would be more than happy to help him with English, especially the listening comprehension which he said is really hard for him, but didn't get any answer out of him.

He is one of those people who is very hard to read. I get the feeling that he has a certain obligation towards me, perhaps placed on him by YHz or (my tutor suggested) that Chinese students generally consider it their duty to help foreign students. He seemed embarrassed by the idea of reciprocation, while I am embarrassed by non-reciprocation, so it is one of those cultural tangles. The best I can think of is just accept his help, having let him know that I'm more than happy to reciprocate however I can.

After all this stress and rushing around, I was very tired and more sick than ever. I overdid it for sure! I also hadn't found time for lunch, so I ducked into the Quick Café place for a hamburger. Too much mayo but it tasted good anyway. Then I went home and tried to rest and relax for a while.

At evening I went wandering around in search of something new and different to eat. I feel like I shouldn't always eat at the same place, so I keep trying new things. I almost went for one restaurant, across the street, but got horrified by the things other people were eating--chicken necks, chicken claws, unidentifiable sea creatures--and went out again. Then I just went to a Japanese restaurant by the bookstore that at least looked really clean. I don't know why I try to eat Japanese food in China though. I had eel and rice but it was only so-so. Not at all sweet, much less sweet than in Japan even. But at least light and simple.

I also dropped in the bookstore. Didn't find much, but I picked up some origami paper and after I got home I made this little purple snail. It's not very good paper--what should I expect, 36 sheets for only fifty cents--and the tip of the snail's shell tore as I was trying to open in out. But it was good practice and fun. Origami is a good thing to do when I'm trying to relax.

Another notable thing was that I had a little guest outside my window screen, a somewhat sinister looking bat. But bats are good luck here, so I shouldn't be creeped out by him. He was kind of cute, sleeping head down and clinging to my window screen. Hard to take a good picture of him, though!