Tears for Fears strikes again!

Well, what all happened today? Let's see.

I went to WuMart this morning and bought several things to get shop properly set up here in the dorm. It went ok, found the store fine and most of what I needed. Then my roommate and I decided we needed to buy an iron to use between the two of us. So I waved a worker person over and said (in sort of Chinese) "We want that one" and pointed to the display model iron. So she climbed up on a step stool and got one for us. Well, she got one kind of like it for us, but there wasn't the one we wanted, so I told her "this one is fine" and then she wrote a ticket and said some stuff I didn't understand and waved me toward a woman standing behind a small checkout desk. So I took the ticket to her and she stared at the ticket, then stared at me. So I went back to the woman who wrote the ticket, took her to the desk with the other woman. Then they talked (argued?) and some kind of receipt was written, and then they both stared at me. Then woman number two pointed at the number on the receipt. So I paid.

Later today I bought a Chinese cell phone. It's fine, but I can't figure out how to enter people's names to store numbers. When I do, it treats it like pinyin, and then the characters pop up in the place of the letters. That's pretty not cool.


This afternoon I bought Horton Hears a Who in parallel English and Chinese. It's pretty amazing. I also bought a Mandarin phrase book to help get me through living here before I really know the language. I've gotten amazing at saying things like "That one!" and "Here is good" and "I don't have ___" and "I/He/We need to buy ___" all in Chinese. I can also say the normal stuff like "I'm sorry/excuse me" and "Thanks" and "You're welcome" and "Right" and "Hello."

I speak fluent Chinglish.


Tonight I went with a couple of guys to go have dinner, and we got a little lost. I finally told the driver "Here is good," and we got out. Then we walked for a while and met a couple of Chinese people in their 20's. They were really friendly and nice and wanted to listen and talk to us in English. So we did. Then they took us to show us a free art exhibit at the school they attend. This is also known as being scammed to the teeth by Chinese people. The ploy was to get us to buy some of their crappy prints which were masquerading as paintings. However, my roommate figured this out (as did the rest of us, though a moment too late to not go in the first place) and so he called someone on his phone and we pretended to be in-demand elsewhere and graciously bowed out. It was really fortunate that we got out then, because it would have been embarrassing for the con artists (it's a pun!) to learn that even though we're Americans/white/foreign/young, we don't have money to spend as it is. We only had enough on us for dinner. As I pointed out later, you can't get blood from a turnip. And though there were no turnips directly involved, I feel this is still somehow related.


As a result of our fervor to get out of that immediate area, we walked for a while before finding a place to eat. Subsequently, we came upon what is forever to be heralded as a diamond in the rough: Mexican Wave. It is a Mexican restaurant in the middle of Beijing. If you're keeping score at home, that's about 11,000 miles from Mexico. Apparently this place is a big ex-pat hangout. It was not strictly Mexican food, that is, there was pizza and beef sirloin or whatnot also. But it was all pretty decent. And how can you really complain too loudly about the quality of the Mexican food that is served to you by someone who has never heard Spanish actually spoken? I mean, it's the capital of China. Any kind of chip and salsa combination is lauded. An added bonus was the guy who played the guitar and sang the song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

Recap: Beijing + Enchiladas + Live cover of 80's British Pop = Multicultural Experience

T