Silly Short-term Expats

We began the day with Chinese Criminal Law and Procedure. As always, the professor was entertaining, and his comments provided further insight into the Chinese mentality. For instance, when the topic of Taiwan came up, he simply assumed that if Taiwan ever tried to formally assert its independence, there would be a war. There was no equivocation--he was just very matter of fact, and took it as a given.

The middle of the day was spent on line at the Public Security Bureau to apply for our residence permits. Three hours into it, we were almost at the front of the line when a woman in front of us refused to get up from the counter, as the authorities would not accept some documents she had brought with her. Lots of yelling ensued, but eventually she got up and left. Then, three guys tried to cut into the line directly behind us, and even more yelling ensued from the surrounding crowd, a security guard, and other assorted bystanders. Eventually, however, we managed to get to the front of the line, hand in our documents, and get a receipt. So now the Chinese will have our passport for a week of processing, and then we'll get to go back and wait on a different (though shorter) line.

After an extremely late lunch of delicious dim sum near an old imperial palace, we made our way to synagogue to celebrate Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Overall, it was a nice service, made particularly surreal by the fact that a bunch of Jews came together from all over the world for High Holiday services in a random ballroom in Beijing. But the rabbi did manage to offend about half the room within the first twenty seconds of the service by calling attention to the fact that most non-observant Jews only attend services on the High Holidays. But he slowly redeemed himself over the course of the service, and we concluded with some truly beautiful singing. I think we'll go back there for concluding services and dinner this evening.

One thing mentioned during the service was how long-term Beijing expats get annoyed by the short-term visitors' tendency to comment on "the craziness" of Beijing. I think they were referring to the continued amazement of visitors at the sight of children defecating on the street, motorized rick-shaws, terrible pollution, terrible traffic--you know, all the things we write about on this blog. And I suppose it could get old to hear people talking about obnoxious cab drivers in New York, the Chicago accent, or how wonderful the skiing is in Colorado. To me, however, these are the things that make our homes interesting. For them, however, I suspect that they're not as enamored with their hometown as we are with ours. C'est la vie.