The China Match

Chinese lesson #47: only white people eat scorpions. Today proved it pretty conclusively. We went to Wangfujing, a big famous market about twenty minutes away from where I’m living. We took the subway there which was pretty cool, costs 2 kuai (a bit under 30 cents) to ride… transportation here is, as always, cheap to the point of silliness.*  Anyway we got there and went to the part where they sell all the disgusting food (Wangfujing is known for putting bizarre things like this on sticks and claiming that they’re edible) and it was populated — almost exclusively — by white tourists presumably thinking that they were getting real the “Chinese” experience by eating cow testicles or snakes or whathaveyou. The only actual Chinese people there aside from the vendors were laughing and taking pictures of said tourists, then going to eat at McDonald’s. As an example, take this picture, in which Chris, Lauren, Chrissy, and I posed to provide a front for Jackie to photograph more awesome white people. All in all it was pretty excellent. Knowing full well that not even Chinese people eat scorpions regularly, I bought a stick full (of live ones! they only kill them RIGHT before you eat them, so they’re still wiggling as you walk up to the stand) and had myself some very crunchy appetizers.**

I’d say it was probably the most manly thing I’ve done here yet, aside from perhaps crossing the 8-way by 8-way intersection on a bike, diagonally, when a good deal of lights were green. Japan does this thing where for busy intersections they’ll just take a time off every cycle to freeze all the lights so everyone can walk freely. China is having none of it.
I also had to leave halfway through the trip to go to an interview for qunar.com, which is like the Chinese version of kayak.com. I had a pretty hard time finding the place (taxis didn’t know where it was) but after some vague directions from the local police i was able to make it there on time. What’s more, I got the internship! I can work there winter quarter. On the way back though, taxis didn’t think it was worth their time to take me, or they were going the wrong direction, or they couldn’t understand me, the latter being highly worrisome to say the least. Gotta get better at my beijing accent, I suppose.
Anyway that took like two hours and once i got back we ate hot pot, which is a dish we learned about in class and is generally pretty awesome. I was clearly pretty excited about it.
Overall Wangfujing’s a fun place to go, especially if you want to eat things that are not intended to be eaten, or drink terrible drinks that, while awful, are full of dry ice.

*I know I probably talk about the craziness of prices here more than I should. This sort of thing should calm down as I get more adjusted to it. Sorry!
**Scorpion-eating action shot coming as soon as I can get Lauren to email it to me