Sanlitun, CBD, and the Law School

We spent Tuesday in the China Business District (CBD) and Sanlitun. Sanlitun is the embassy area in Beijing, and is a bit nicer than the rest of the city. There are fewer cars, more trees, and the International SOS clinic, which is a western medical oasis.

You walk in to International SOS and there's hot chocolate on your left and a list of all their English-speaking/western-trained physicians on your right--they even have Pepto in the pharmacy, some traditional Chinese herbal remedies that are said to help cure pollution-inflicted ailments, and even the nurses speak English. We went there to finish up some immunizations, and to start a few more that we waited on until our arrival, but the mochaccinos weren't too bad either. After getting some particularly painful shots and learning from our doctor why the tap water is untrustworthy in Beijing (the water treatment plants are state-of-the-art, but the pipes date back to Imperial times), we explored the rest of the neighborhood.

Around the corner from SOS is Jenny Lou's, a grocery store that carries mostly western products for all of the foreign service types that live in the district. If you need bagels, good milk, or even pancake mix, Jenny's is the place to go. There's also a Bank of China in the area, which is only cause for celebration because the tellers speak better English than the folks at the branch near our apartment. The wait was longer (90 minutes, I think) but that's the price you pay for going to a bank just before lunch time in China when the markets are open.

Walking around Sanlitun, we also noticed that a fair amount of western children were being toted around by native Chinese babysitters. (a.k.a. ayi, which literally translates as "aunt") Most people with money in Beijing get ayis to do basic house work, cooking, or cleaning. Others will get them to do babysitting. What was most interesting about these ayi, however, was how they interacted with the children they cared for: they spoke to the kids in Mandarin, and the kids knew exactly what they were saying. Some of the kids ignored their caregivers, to be sure, but you could tell that even the more insolent crumb-snatchers had learned the language.

In any event, we grabbed some authentic Thai food for lunch in Sanlitun, and the restaurant had a copy of "That's Beijing," a monthly magazine that's written for expats. The classified section tells the story of the expat life: it's pretty easy for English-speakers to get jobs here, and some jobs are of the type that you would never see listed in the U.S.--or in Denver, at least. For example: one listing was for a research consultancy needing part-time editorial assistance on reports for the Chinese telecommunications industry. (It was tailor-written for me, I think) Another listing wanted someone to work as a personal assistant for an American film director coming to China to work on new projects. Yet another offered an incredible salary and benefits package for a place called "Wall Street English." The most valuable part of the magazine, however, is the map: every month TBJ publishes a map of a particular district in Beijing that shows where all of the good spots are. This month they did Haidian, our territory, so we were pretty pleased to get a copy of the magazine, which only runs about 45,000 per month in circulation.

To get to CBD, however, we took a cab. And on the way, we witnessed a classic "spectator face fight" between two drivers that had managed to crash into each other. I say "spectator" because usually when a fight like this breaks out, the 75 or so people that are walking by slow down to watch the fun. And by "face," I refer to the fact that the fight is generally well beyond the level merited by the alleged infraction, such that it seems as if those involved are fighting simply to avoid embarassment. By "fight," however, I refer to some fairly girlish-looking slapping that's more for show than anything else. We see one of these fights at least once every three days, though, and they're a hoot to watch both for the drama, and to watch the reactions of the bystanders.

Because of the fight, we barely made it to CBD on time. We were headed there because most of the U.S. law firms with offices in Beijing locate them in CBD, so we went there to try to secure me an internship. While I was having coffee, however, Katie made her way over to "the Place", which is a monster outdoor mall fitted with a gigantic canopy/screen, a-la Las Vegas, that you can walk under and watch television on. And beneath the courtyard of the open-air mall is a bookstore specializing in English titles, including a wonderful little volume called the "Mandarin Phrasebook" that Katie picked up. If you're coming to China, I highly recommend that you buy a copy of this book before you arrive--it has now allowed us to tell the street vendors outside our apartment that we're vegetarians, thereby avoiding some of the mystery meat they would otherwise foist upon our unsuspecting palettes. We can even now tell the dry cleaners not to wash my suits in water, which evidently is not an uncommon thing.

After CBD, we made our way back to Haidian, bought my electric bicycle, and stopped at the Wu Mart. After 45 minutes of trying to decipher some items in the frozen food section, we made our way home, ate dinner, and passed out.

Today was spent in Haidian, on our electric bicycles amongst the Beijing masses. The bikes are amazingly safe, moreso than non-electrified models. They go a little bit faster than some of the manual models, but not so fast that you lose control. The balance is better, and we can get to campus in a reasonable amount of time without having to spend 20 RMB on a taxi. And, best of all, we're helping the environment.

But today we got to wait in even more lines. To apply for an official residency permit, which is yet another document required for foreigners studying in Beijing, we had to return to campus and wait on line for some 19 year-old pissant to copy some information onto some forms for us and apply an official stamp. They took their sweet time, however, and so we were almost late for the opening ceremony at the law school for the LL.M. program.

By "law school" I refer not to the building where the undergraduates and Chinese law graduate students take classes, but to the brand-new faculty building where only we students in the English-language LL.M. program take classes. Indeed, we have been told that of all of the students attached to the law school, the English-language LL.M. students are the only ones allowed into the building. Within the courtyard of the faculty building, however, they have preserved and modernized some buildings from an old hutong that was no doubt demolished for the new law faculty building, and that is where we had the ceremony. We heard a few short speeches, met some of the students from the previous year that are still here in Beijing, and had a tour of the new building to see where we would be taking classes.

The most interesting part of the day was probably meeting the folks from the previous year. One is an American lawyer working for the top Chinese law firm in China, and had some interesting thoughts on how international law firms in China really don't do much other than act as a liaison between foreign companies and Chinese firms. Another is an American attorney who works for a Texas-based firm, and she will be shuttling back and forth between Beijing and Houston during her second year. The third is an Aussie working in-house at a local company. All three of them, however, had interesting things to say, including some comments about how we should have bought bikes that would have been less appealing to the bike thieves. ;-) Oh well...

We came home for lunch after the ceremony, and got some vegetarian street food outside our apartment using the Mandarin Phrasebook. (Fried Beijing street food is particularly good with ketchup.) After that, however, it was back to campus to wait on more lines, this time for our permanent student ID cards and to charge up our Internet accounts. As if things aren't complicated enough, you have to pay extra for Internet on campus, and even more for international connections, which are sold separately from domestic accounts. (For me, at least, I thought it was all just one series of tubes.) We also had to buy meal cards in order to get the government-subsidized chow on campus. I guess it evens out, though: you pay more for international Internet, but you can eat for less than two dollars a day because the Chinese government subsidizes food for everyone in its universities, not just the poor.

So that's the story. Tomorrow we attend a seminar called "Bridging the Culture Gap" which is being hosted by one of the students from last year's class.

The mall


Katie test-drives her new steed