Brief Realities

It is amazing that each day, world wide, is only 24 hours. We are currently closing day 7 here in Beijing and there is already a bucketful of stories to draw from. I’ll get to those later…

Yes, Arabic and Chinese on the same sign.

We are now in the process of beginning our graduate classes, which makes for long days with a lot of information comin’ at us really fast. However throughout all of this craziness Team Harbin {self-titled the “cool bean team”…get it? Har-BEAN, and its cold there??} has had an abundance of time to hang out, laugh, and meander our way throughout this great city. My last journey to China brought me to the province of Ningxia, world capital of the great bowl of noodles. The other day my team and I had an opportunity to eat at a Hui Muslim restaurant; this so very much reminded me of my last journey here. First of all, the cuisine is so very different and my taste buds were so very happy to have mutton (lamb) the only way that it should be prepared; the Hui know what they’re doing! I had every intention of sharing the beauty of the noodles with you, but I set my camera down to receive the dish from our fuyen {waitress}. By the time I remembered to pick it up again…well, this was all that remained.

We spent most of the afternoon learning about the beautiful {and powerful} history of the Chinese Church, from which every single person walked away with a new perspective, myself included. After being so encouraged from our massive history lecture the day continued to get better! One of the things we have all quickly adjusted to (and love) is public transportation-particularly the bus. Upon waiting at the bus stop a young Chinese couple approached to stand in ‘line’ (lines/cues are relative in China, its more like a mob everywhere you go). The woman was carrying a rather large bouquet of roses and white flowers. A co-teacher of mine looked at the flowers and mumbled to me “well Happy Valentines Day.”

“Thank you very much” we heard in perfectly clear English. {please note, you quickly get adjusted to people not being able to understand what you’re saying. Therefore having someone actually respond becomes quite a shock.}

My friend asked the woman a question in Chinese.

“We have been together for five years”

“Where did you meet?”

“In college.”

“Where did you study?”

“We went to college in Harbin”

In my head it was like I had won the Price is Right. We continued to talk about college, teaching English (“you will be uh, very cold teacher in Harbin”…awesome), and about the potential of the couple getting married (“Perhaps in one or two years. It is very expensive to live.”)

This was a very exciting interaction for many different reasons. For me it became real that people actually live in Harbin. This is the real deal. For my team members this was a first time getting to interact with a Chinese national who could speak more English than ‘hello’ and their numbers.

It truly has been fun getting to talk to my teammates about their first impressions of this country and their first experiences. On the left column, I have linked those who have blogs. Feel free to check them out if you have time! We’re currently trapped in the bubble of training, which will soon be popped. Please lift up that we will be ready for all that is to come, as it is coming sooner than we think. Also, some of my team members are feeling rather under the weather with fevers and internal organs that are not cooperating to the change of food and lifestyle. Health would be a good thing to have, especially in these crazy times.

~sunshine ... even though we never see the sun in Beijing.