YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
…and to think this morning I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be blogging today. But then tonight happened, and it was completely awesome. Once I got off work I went to go have dinner with a friend of mine from highschool named Matt, which was cool because a) we could both speak in non-broken english, b) he’s someone who i’m actually friends with as opposed to a coworker — not that i don’t really like my coworkers and c) it was in wudaokou (more on this later). Matt’s been doing an intensive language study for the last 5 months but is about to go home and finish his majors in chinese and business. Oh, and he’s looking to go into the hospitality industry in asia. Just for the record i’m doing asian studies and economics (probably NU’s closest equivalents to chinese and business), am currently working at a chinese travel company, and have spent the last 5 years working for dad’s vacation rental site. So needless to say we spent most of the conversation telling stories about stupid things we’ve done in china, making fun of our highschool friends (we love you, colin scully), and discussing the merits of dicking around with… liberated… fire extinguishers, which is apparently one of his hobbies. Fun times all around.
Anyway after dinner we went our separate ways and I decided to go to the lotus center, because i was already in wudaokou so why not. walking from the japanese place that i used to eat at all the time to the lotus center, though, triggered some really weird emotions. I’m not quite sure why but there was something about walking that extremely, extremely familiar route — seeing the crazy night market across the street, passing the little corner store where we used to make beer runs at all hours, walking right by all the little clothing stores blaring random electronic music that always did and continue to put me in a better mood no matter what — it was a little overwhelming. Not to sound like a complete wuss but a lot of memories hit me very, very hard all at once; i may or may not have gotten a teensy bit choked up. Which seems out of place for 五道口大街 (the main street) because it’s not particularly quaint or anything like that, but i guess it’s charming in it’s own bustling, noisy, crazy sort of way. the chinese word 热闹 comes to mind.
But really, there’s something to be said for actually knowing an area like I know at least that part of wudaokou. This knowledge has a lot of practical utility, especially in china, where asking where to buy things will often get you sent a miles out of the way (see this post) when simply knowing where they are beforehand will take you down the street, if that makes sense. So yeah, because I still don’t know my home neighborhood very well at all I chose to go blanket and grocery shopping in wudaokou’s loutus center because i know that place very, very well — and i found everything i needed within fifteen minutes, no problem.
Carrying it home, on the other hand, was a little trickier. Crowded chinese subways aren’t particularly conducive to big bulky blanket bags (boom alliteration!), and bicycles even less so. I normally get stared at the subway enough as it is, but shuffling around this huge comforter thing took the stares to a completely new level. Unfortunately I just couldn’t bring myself to care because there’s pretty much nobody in the country at this point who i’d be embarrassed to run into while carrying a big pink quilt (i’m pretty sure it’s a quilt, i haven’t actually opened it yet) — which is why i’m putting it on the internet!
The more things change, the more they stay the same
And just for funsies, here’s the rest of the groceries I bought. Now at this point i imagine that my friends from this summer are all probably just shaking their heads, and the rest of you who don’t already know better are probably realizing “wow, he apparently has the palate of a six-year-old.” To which i’d reply … yeah pretty much but that’s when my sense of humor stopped developing too, so at least i’m consistent.
The point of this blog, if there was one, was just to say that it’s weird how much seeing a familiar face, walking down a street or procuring a blanket and comfort food can affect somebody, but it’s certainly boosted the hell out of my morale. Which was already doing pretty well in the first place, considering the ‘holy crap i am in china’ elation hasn’t quite worn off yet. Still though, tonight was a very good insulation against the fact that my roommate just left to hong kong for a while, the cashier at the store gave me like nine of those jiao bills (the financial equivalent of a bitch-slap), having to make the transfer from the 10 to the 4 which usually makes me hate humankind and specifically any chinese woman who has given birth to a child in the last 50 years, etc.
edit: Oh, and the little notepads in the picture are to be carried around with me at all times, so that when i learn new words i can write them down. if i’m going to be here i might as well learn the language, damn it. also, writing about biking with the bag o’ blanket reminded me of this article that i found today which you should check out (it’s short!) unless you happen to be one of my parents. Having read it, it occurs to me that while biking around one-handed with the blanket was probably pretty bad, i’ve been biking around the last several days with my headphones in; considering that horns passed turn signals as the preferred means of auto communication in china a long time ago, i’m kinda coming to realize that this is probably the most dangerous thing i’ve ever done, so i’m going to stop. yay!