the stale taste of polluted air

Well, three and a half weeks from now I'm going to be on a plane bound for the other side of the world - LAX via Tokyo, a 9-hour layover in LA during which I will hopefully make it to In-N-Out Burger and the Pacific Ocean, on to Denver for 4 days for my dear friend Sarah's wedding, and home the night of the 3rd, just in time to spend the 4th watching fireworks on the bay. I'm trying to enjoy my remaining time here as much as possible, spending plenty of time during the days relaxing in coffee shops and during the evenings sitting outside enjoying some of Beijing's finest food and beverages, especially as I feel like time for similar activities is so much harder to come by at home. I'm also making an effort, beginning right now, to write more regular observation-type blog updates, to change my habit of waiting forever and having to write a marathon update of what I've been doing for the last two months and what I have coming up during the next month during which there will surely be no update. My blog is difficult to access here at times, as many websites, including blogspot.com blogs, are blocked by the great firewall of China. However, I can usually access it once a week or more often, depending on my efforts to make it to places with outside networks, so I hope this plan for better updates will happen while I'm still here.

Anyway, some recent observations and musings: As summer quickly approaches, I'm quickly realizing how opposed to sun exposure many Chinese people are. This is a generalization, of course, but many Chinese people have the opposite attitude from the one in my home culture; that is, they want to stay as light-skinned as possible, avoiding sun exposure not just to protect from sunburn/skin cancer but also to avoid darkening their skin. Skin whitening products are as ubiquitous as are tanning products in the States, and it is not uncommon to see people wearing long sleeves, gloves, a hat, a visor covering their entire face, etc. on a hot and sunny day, and many people carry umbrellas when it's sunny, a practice I became used to in Madagascar, where the sun is unbelievably intense, but here it's about as intense as it is in the northern-middle United States - typically you won't get a severe sunburn if you're outside for 45 minutes or an hour. I was teaching a student who's getting ready to go to university in the States this fall, and in fact will be leaving soon so has discontinued our weekly spoken English practice, and she was shocked when I used the phrase "nice tan" to describe what we hope for when spending time outside in the summer, or the silver lining that can result from a burn. I explained that we like to get some color, generally the darker the better, during the warmer months in an American summer, and she asked if she would have trouble finding skin whitening products when she gets to Indiana. I informed her she would actually find the opposite, but almost definitely no skin whitening products - might want to bring some with her.

Another thing I've noticed since being here is my increasing propensity to use the word "America." This may not seem like a big deal, but during my years in the Hispanic Studies program at William & Mary, I quickly was broken of the habit of referring to the United States as "America," as my home country is no more American than any other country in the Western Hemisphere. "The United States" is a little bit longer to say than "America," and I'm not a fan of always being too overly politically correct, but I've generally strayed from non-intentional regular use of the word "America." Until I got here, that is. In China, as was sort of the case in Madagascar but to a much lesser extent, if you use the phrase "United States" people will often have no idea what you're talking about - then you drop the A-bomb and they immediately respond, "Oh, America!" For convenience's and communication's sake, I've begun almost exclusively using the A-word instead of the politically correct name.

Here's a heartwarming story to close things out - the other night I was leaving a coffee shop where I had been tutoring a student, about a 15 minute walk from home, a few minutes before 7 pm. I felt a few drops of rain begin to fall, but, hurrying home, figured I could make it. Just as I thought about how it never rains too hard in Beijing and at least it's nothing like a Virginia summer thunderstorm, the sky opened up. I didn't have an umbrella, and didn't really care about getting wet except that I was carrying a bag with my phone and iPod, so I briefly considered taking a taxi the remaining 10 minute walk home but didn't see any passenger-less taxis around. I hunkered down for the walk home, but before I got far a woman approached me and held her umbrella over my head. She was walking in the same direction and wanted to share her umbrella, an act of kindness I would never have expected. We couldn't really communicate with each other, but I've found that many Chinese people don't seem surprised when I don't speak their language, and even are appreciative of my most basic efforts to use the few Chinese words I do know. We walked for a while together, and she lived right outside of the gate of my neighborhood, so as we approached the gate I pointed to my building and tried to communicate that we were close, it wasn't raining as hard anymore, and I could definitely make it alone the rest of the way. She insisted in basic English that I come up to her apartment and take an umbrella with me, which I thought was too much, considering I was maybe two minutes from my door at this point. We both kept insisting, until finally I called my roommate to ask her to communicate that I could make it home alone, and that I was incredibly grateful for her generosity. The woman seemed satisfied by this explanation, but still dropped off her little bag of groceries with the guards by the gate, and walked me to my building, all the way to the door. I felt bad that all I could say upon arriving was a simple "Xie xie" - "thank you." She left with her umbrella and I made it up the stairs to change into dry clothes and wash my disgusting flip-flopped feet. Quite an experience.