Fitting In

So here's the deal with my blog. China and Google do not always get along. So pretty often, they have a little fight about something in Google news that makes China look bad, so China blocks Google across the country. The last week or so has been that way. At my aunt's house, I can't access blocked websites, but at school, we have a VPN that allows users to access blocked websites. Facebook is pretty much inaccessible for me just because it's SO SLOW, even at school. So that's the reason why I haven't been posting anything to cover my first week here. I have a lot to catch up on with telling y'all about my time here so far!

I got here on Saturday afternoon at 3:15, and the first thing that we did when my aunt Liz and my cousins Isabella and Jeremy picked me up was go to real Chinese food! It was pretty good. We dropped my stuff off and went to a small restaurant that is pretty central to the expat communities in Beijing. From what I understand (and don't quote me on this because I might be wrong), the expatriate community in Beijing is more or less it's own section of the city. Where I live is called the Cathay View Villas. There's a few hundred that live there. There's also the Beijing Riviera down the street, and a bunch more within maybe 30 square miles. It's a relatively small area called the Chaoyang District. Beijing as a city forms it's own state within China because it's so big! I didn't know that, did you? It's about 22 million people (but it's REALLY fluid so people come and go all the time), and it's divided into who knows how many districts. This restaurant that we went to on the first day is one of many restaurants that provide service to the expat community. Here's a picture of my family at the restaurant!

Good lookin' bunch, huh? We had a ton of stuff. We had sesame chicken (which, unlike the States, is literally chicken with sesame seeds), sweet and sour pork (which is pretty similar to the States but not as sugary), and a few other traditional dishes. All of it was fantastic. Jet lag wasn't really an issue. I set my watch as soon as I got on the plane in San Francisco so I would get the new time zone through my thick skull, and I think it worked! I think that jet lag is just mental to an extent, but then again I haven't traveled as much as some. I'm sure I'll get it on the way back in December.

Anyway, we went home, went to bed, and I got up the next morning and went on a run! I live in a BEAUTIFUL area. Cathay View is basically every nationality under the sun, but the architecture is all the same. Running through it and trying to find my way home was a little tricky but I made it alright and hopped in the shower to get ready for church, which started at 9. Beijing has some weird weather, man. It's always "foggy" (i.e. polluted), but during the rainy season is summer. When it rains, it pours, and washes some of the pollution out of the air. The first day that I went to church was one such occasion where I went running and it was hot and muggy and nasty, and then about 30 minutes later it starts pouring just out of the blue. It was amazing. Gigantic droplets. Out of nowhere.

The youth pastor that I'm serving under in the church arranged for one of the youth leaders to come pick me up near my house in a taxi, but when it rains, the taxi drivers freak out, and understandably so, because there's not much drainage. So, 10 minutes after the taxi was supposed to arrive, my aunt thought it would be best to just drive me to church herself. The youth leader that was supposed to pick me up, bless her heart, has only been here for 3 weeks herself, so when I finally met her I really felt for her because I have no idea what I'm doing either. Our youth pastor, Tim reimbursed her for all of her trouble because not only can she not speak Chinese, but even if she could, she doesn't know her way around well enough to direct the cab driver, and even if she did, he was too freaked out by the rain to really listen! Poor girl.

Church was a lot of fun. We do two services for them. One is at 9am and the other at 11am. There's several other youth leaders that I'm sure I'll introduce to you later. In short, they were all fantastic. The kids are pretty funny. Most are third culture kids, so watching them all relate is funny because many of them don't have a "home culture," or something that really defines who they are. They don't fit inside the box of "Korean" or "American" or "Spanish." They are their own people, and that's pretty fun to see. They're all pretty quirky because of it and it's a joy to watch. I'm looking forward to seeing them again on Friday night!

After church, all the youth leaders and I went out for lunch at a place near the church where they serve dumplings. It was a similar restaurant to the one from Saturday, but it's actually in the city, among the Chinese population, which was cool. None of the staff spoke enough English for me to communicate with them so that's always fun. I'm glad God gave us hands to communicate with!

Weird huh? Weird. But it was good. These little puppies are not the dumplings that I'm used to. The dumplings I'm used to are German dumplings that are basically balls of dough that are super dense. These are like potstickers with pork and veggies in them and they were so good. The youth staff goes to restaurants after church after Sunday so I'm looking forward to eating more stuff like this.

After lunch, some of the girls on staff who have been here a while wrote out directions for me to use the subway! None of them live close to me so I was on my own. Now, here's my life philosophy. You can take convenient ways out of things, or you can jump into discomfort. I think that the second option is how we grow the most. I had the option of just calling my aunt to come pick me up. Not only would that have been inconvenient for her, but it was also would have been me avoiding something that I have to learn sooner or later: the subway. It was a blast. It's also super easy, so in reality it was nothing to be worried about, but it's kind of intimidating when you're at the station and you see this:

This picture doesn't do it justice. The hall stretches a long way along the subway tracks, and there's a ton of people all along it. Notice anything in common with all these people? I did. They're all Chinese. Not a single white person there! Except for this country boy from Placerville, CA. Oorah.

It was awesome. See? I fit right in! You'd never know I was a foreigner!

That night I relaxed a little, and then Monday was the start of my job! It was fantastic, but it was an information dump! I'm writing this on Wednesday. School starts Thursday. Tryouts for all sports are on Friday, and games and races begin next week. This is a busy place. The Western Academy of Beijing ALWAYS has something going on. The office I work in is the WABX Office (Western Academy of Beijing Extracurricular office; it's not pronounced like "wad," but more like "bad"). Everyone in here is really nice, gracious, and welcoming. I'll tell you more about the office when school starts and I actually have a good picture of what the office is like and how it runs. For now, it's all been orientation so it's not an accurate picture of what work is like.

Until next time!