An exercise in contrast

Today we had breakfast at our hotel, the Furama Xpress. We had luke-warm soy milk and black tea for drinks. For a main dish, we had sweet bean dumplings (which tasted like bierrocks), corn flat-breads, and fried rice with eggs. For bread, we had something with a consistency of ten year-old marshmallows, accompanied by the sounds of ten other hotel guests slurping pureed rice with pickled cabbage. To top it off, we were charged 15 RMB per person for the privilege, which amounts to about $2 per head. The Holiday Inn Express could learn a thing or two from our Japanese-owned hotel.

For lunch, however, we went to Grandma's Kitchen in Chaoyang with a coterie of expats. Eggs, potatoes , lemonade, coffee, and toast never tasted so good. And we have Jennifer and Luke, whose apartment we're taking over, to thank for taking us there and introducing us to their friends.

Every Sunday at 11:30, a pack of English-speaking expats from Canada, the United States, Australia, and the European Union gather at Grandma's Kitchen for brunch. Jennifer and Luke invited us, and we met an associate from the Beijing office of Paul Hastings, a caterer from Los Angeles, an advertising agent from Vancouver (whose Mandarin is amazing), an industrial designer from Australia, an architect from Ohio, and an economic consultant from Belgium, among others. They all vary in terms of the length of their stay in Beijing and what they do, but they're also all uniform in their willingness to help us become acclimated to Beijing. Coincidentally, one of them grew up about five minutes from my dad's house in New York. Small world...

Eating glorified meiguoren (American) diner food amongst English-speakers for two hours made it seem as if we were sitting at Clark's in Evanston, instead of the Chaoyang district. It was a relief to be amongst people who could teach us about hiring an ayi, what to pay for clothes at the Silk Market, how to buy a battery-powered bicycle, how to avoid getting sucked into a black market visa ring, and where to buy "antiques." But once we stepped outside of Grandma's Kitchen, we were right back in Beijing, and with a vengeance.


By "vengeance," I refer of course to Silk Market. The Silk Market is a crazy building/tourist trap filled with vendors that specialize in selling knock-off name-brand clothing. Each of the vendors speak about six different languages, though they limit their vocabulary based upon what type of goods they are selling. They will grab you by the arm, ask you how many girlfriends you have (especially if you have a wedding ring on), and, in my case, pat your belly in an attempt to point out that you need new shirts because you ate your way through studying for the bar exam. In an attempt to get my attention, one even grabbed my arm and asked where I was from, to which I responded, "no thank you." She in turn responded "No thank you? Where is No Thank You?" We couldn't help but laugh.

Overall, though, we're really feeling the need to learn Mandarin. When our cabbie got lost today, we had to call Jennifer and have her give him directions in Chinese.(Cabbies here can't read maps, apparently) When we opened a bank account yesterday, we had to rely upon our student host, such that we could be paying her tuition this year and not even know it. We know a few words, but it's simply not enough to get around, let alone to get from point A to point B. So from now on we're spending an hour a day with our other friend, the Rosetta Stone Language Program. We can now say "yes," "turn left," "turn right," and we can count to ten. It's a start.

Zaijian.