(On Tian an men Square, ft. me)
Along with then-stranger North-American students (mostly from McGill, but also from UOttawa, UdM, BrownU,...), I was involved in taking a semester of intensive language study at China's premiere university. Peking University (referred to as PKU, or 北大 - the Great of the North - in this blog as well as everywhere else in Asia), is situated in the Haidian district district of Beijing (North West of the center/Forbidden City), near the Line 13's 五道口 station。The programme was to last from the beginning of May until the end of July, for a duration of about 10 weeks.
Needless to say, as I was doing Level One, I could not read nor speak a word of Mandarin back then; and therefore spent this first month in China being completely lost and sincerely clueless, as if I was stuck in the middle of an inside joke that everybody else but me could get.
(The Level One Chinese class, ft. Thomas and Rebecca)
I flew unstrategically: from Montreal to Washington (that is to say, towards the south pole), and then from Washington to Beijing, flying over the North pole. Ah! The joys of being a student - that was the cheapest option. In Washington, I met with a very drowsy T (Thomas Funck on sleeping pills) who was coincidently on the same flight as mine, and to which I didn't really get to talk to before we arrived in China.
I think I will always remember our arrival at the Beijing airport. This was a week or so after the French blew out the Olympic torch as a protest movement against Chinese policy governance over the Tibet issue. We were a bit scared because some of us already had a lot of trouble with getting their visas approved (even with a letter of acceptance from 北大!!), so getting through the customs could prove not to be a little matter. I was feeling fine (with a sensation of déjà vu, taking into account the time I was in Heathrow during the terrorist alert - a story I will leave for another day), but Thomas was looking pretty anxious (no worries mate, it was so 可爱!). Needless to say, everything went fine - obviously, otherwise the story would be kind of boring, wouldn't it?*
Thomas and I met with fellow students for the first time on the PKU bus that came to pick us up at the airport. The only thing I remember of the ride is meeting up with David Dean, a blonde guy from Brown (sic), who told me he used to live in the city in his early childhood, and that while looking through the window, he could not recognize anything at all from his early days. I looked through the window as well: apparently the 9 million bicycles (from the Katie Melua song) were all gone, replaced by heavy, crazy traffic, jaywalkers who matched the skills of Montrealers and mad cabdrivers who, I learned from experience later on, would feel personally offended were you to use the seatbelt when you’d be using their services. On that particular bus ride, I cannot recall seeing all the crazy buildings the Chinese had just built for the Olympics. Although I know I must’ve passed them at some point on the way from the airport to 北大, no, I did not see the sea dragon set of buildings, nor the Olympic village, with pavilions each with the architecture from its representative country; nor the cloud building; nor the now infamous bubble-wrap like building. What I do remember though is Ma Bo - the Peking University staff assigned to us - pointing at the Bird Nest through the window and the feeling that bloomed in my chest just then - when it dawned on me that this was real, that I was there, really, finally, after all these years.
(The Bird Nest picture I took on Day one)
From as far as I can remember (which is not that far, but you get the point), I had always been drawn to anything Chinese. 12 years ago or so, when I was still living in the suburbs of Montreal, I would ask my mother to drop some of my friends and I in Chinatown, in downtown Montreal. There, I spent countless afternoons browsing shelves filled with treasures, objects painted with funny characters, and million other things hiding their mysteries under a thick layer of dust. This particular feeling - the candid, pure glee from discovery - never really left me. Even more: from what I can say today with a retroactive point of view, going to China didn’t make China any more clearer a mystery to me: rather, going there and trying to figure it out made me even more confused, and even more charmed, elated, and curious!
The bus got off the highway and immediately stopped next to the highway’s underpass. We got out and checked in at Furama Xpress, an Hotel 3 minutes away from the south gates of 北大’s walled campus.
I had never, and still have not at the time of writing, stepped foot in a campus as beautiful as 北大‘s. At the center of it, like a gem sitting in the middle of a glorious crown, stood the Weiming Lake, i.e. the “Unnamed lake” - who never received a name, as it was feared an earthly name could taint its heavenly beauty ( I am not making that up). Therefore, with the same spirit, I will cut short the description of the campus here and limit myself to saying the following: everyday going to classes was pretty much like walking inside a dream to me.
The first week went by smoothly - naturally, as everybody in the McGill programme was still trying to get to know each other. When not attending classes, we visited the Forbidden City, looked at overly expensive shops around it (which made us fall in love with the Silk market later on), and went out in Sanlitun.
(a night in Sanlitun ft. Dee, Sean & Rebecca)
On an overly hot day of the second weekend, we ascended the Great Wall (that is to say, some people took the lift, but I, Indy J, obviously climbed!). When on top, we took the eponymous “tourist pictures” and I met with a Canadian diplomat who was being shown around by Chinese officials. I told him he had my dream job, we has a very insightful conversation on life as a diplomat in China and I guess he liked me/my enthousiasm, because he then gave me his card and a Canadian flag, the latter which has been traveling around the world with me since then. After leaving the diplomat’s side, I took the slides to get down the wall - what a ride! I definitely have to do it again next time I go to Beijing.
(Sliding off the Great Wall, ft. Krakow and Warsaw (my left and right shoes, that I bought in Poland and that I lost in a crammed sleeper bus going to Inner Mongolia later on. R.I.P.)
Also in the first week, each of us were assigned a Chinese “language partner”. Mine, Xue Dong Han, acted really strange and freaked out at me and the other programme students the first time we all met. Maybe it was her first time meeting or talking with an actual 白人? In any case, I never saw her again, even thought we set up a few rendez-vous to which she didn’t bother to show up. In French, we would call that a bitch. Oops, that’s English - my bad.
Out of all the programme students, only my friend Sean Cronin managed to land a nice language partner (who made friends with all of us and who - dear Dog - added me on facebook!). I remember at the time how this state of affairs made me very sad. What was wrong with us, 白人s, that Chinese PKUers didn’t want to make friends with us? At first, I looked at the behaviour of fellow caucasians (*cough* nights at Propaganda *cough*) and felt kind of ashamed. But after I thought really hard about it for a while, I realized the following: Dong Han’s definition of wild fun was to go and have tea with me... and I made clear that was 100% fine with that. Yes, I might have a bit of a crazy side when the sun goes down, but she would not have to endure me talking about it, and I was ready to embrace with open arms the idea of a tea- and- library friend with whom I only talk about school. Because, let’s face it, I am kind of a nerd, too. However, I feel Dong Han’s problem - and perhaps other “language partners”’s - is that she could not see past the stereotypes, the generalization: she saw all us white people as being the same, like a shapeless mass of evil american values, promiscuity-driven animals with individualistic ideals. But seriously. She should’ve seen how all these underdressed Korean girls were acting on the Propaganda dance floor - nothing to write home about, I’m sure.
The reason why I elaborated here about a girl I only met once is that I believe this general reaction from the language partners contributed greatly to us all fellow programme members feeling stranded out from the Chinese citizens, and therefore drove us to make friends more and more with other caucasian students instead of seeking out to make relations with residents. I cannot say that I managed to keep any friendship with a Beijinger, and this is a fact that I hate to admit, because this was a personal goal of mine and I really did try hard on numerous occasions to make friends. Anyways, no one else I know managed to do this either. Another reason to go back to Beijing: my work’s not done and over with there yet.
(At the Peking Opera, with the girl who died while fishing sea cucumber)
We did many activities around Beijing on this first month, such as going to an acrobatic show as well as going to Peking Opera (it rocked!). On May 31st, we visited the Temple of Heaven and its surrounding parks. On the long march towards the center, I remember old men drawing Chinese calligraphy with giant wet paintbrushes on the sidewalk’s concrete, and hundreds of colorful kites flying high in the sky. I also remember the disappointment I had felt earlier at the Forbidden City - from seeing all these great, empty buildings whose artifacts were all “stored away” in the British Museum. Being a particularly lucky human being I had the chance to see these treasures numerous times when living and returning to London; so in my mind, I only had to put the pieces of the puzzle together. But for the Chinese, these embodied part of their heritage being taken away from them.**
After the visit, I put these dark thoughts (as well as my pride!) aside and decided to go dancing with random Chinese people singing traditionnal songs in the Temple of Heaven park. I managed to make some Beijingers smile genuinely at my foolish tourist behavior, so that was good enough for me.
(Acting like crazy tourists/picture war, ft. David Ting)
By the time the month of June rolled in, I had been getting cozy with 北京 and started to really feel the need to go travelling around China. And that I did!!! That’s where all the real fun started. This will be the topic of my next entry: “June 2008 - PKU Campus life and visiting Northern China”.
- Footnotes:
* This reminds me of this one time in Qingdao (青岛), when I was sitting taking a Tsingtao beer with a guy in his late thirties randomly met at the Hostel (RMATH - might as well make an acronym for that one, since it happened so often). He was from Ghana, English teacher in China, with a zealous passion for the J.C. and for hitting on RMATH girls half his age, like me. Jonas - at least I think that was his name - went on about his trip to South Korea for about two hours - just to end up explaining that they refused his visa at the Korean customs and he had to flow back to 中国 after spending a week being stuck in the Incheon Airport (you know, just like in that movie with Tom Hanks? But without a plotline).
** This ended up being a good thing during the Cultural Revolution! But let’s be honest, that’s not why the Brits did it. I experienced the same phenomenon when visiting the Taj Mahal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh a few months later.
I lived in Beijing for 5 years. Best 5 years of my life. I rarely ventured to Haidian though as I was too old for most of the student joints around Wu Dao Kou, but in the early days, I did make a few excursions to Propaganda, Lush etc.
ReplyDeleteBeijing has changed though and I miss the old Beijing. Now it's trying to be too much like Shanghai.
I'm surprised by the reaction of your exchange partner. From my experience most Chinese would give their right arm to get the chance to know foreign friends to an extent that sometimes makes me envious because I have yellow skin.
As for the stereotype, all I will say is that in 5 years in Beijing I've met more than my fair share of promiscuous CHINESE girls who will go to clubs and pick up a different guy every time. To paraphrase a favourite quote of mine: not all westerners are promiscuous, and not all promiscuous people are westerners!