1. Notes: 2 / 11 months ago 

   我在北京九天。

   I have been in Beijing for 10 days now. 

   The plane trip was long as always (20 hours from Nashville to China). I had to change terminals in Los Angeles by walking outside on the street at 10 PM… looking over my shoulder every 10 seconds trying to shake the feeling I was going to get mugged. There were several points at which I worried I wasn’t going to make it - if you think about it, an international flight really is a series of rather extraordinary events, and at any point, any number of things could go wrong to wreck the entire process. I guess it’s a marker of the times we live in that such a thing has become so commonplace.

   I have not been here for very long, but I am already astonished at how much I have come to be able to understand and communicate in Chinese. It helps, I guess, to be forced to use the language, whether that’s with the server at the restaurant who doesn’t speak any English, or with Xixi’s 姥姥 whose best English is a hearty “Sank you!”. Still, it’s not all smooth sailing - today I tried to ask for a straw at a restaurant, but said ＂稻草, dào cǎo” (straw as in the straw you might find in a scarecrow or a bundle of hay) rather than “吸管, xī guǎn” (the straw you drink with)… the confused, confused look I got makes sense now. I find myself inspired and intimidated at the same time to keep learning - hopefully I will be able to end the summer with 2,000 new words. 

   It definitely helps that I have been to Beijing once before, but there are still some cultural differences that continue to surprise me. I was recently at a movie theater with a sensor-flush, squat toilet. Please do go through this logic with me: here we have the technology to make the toilet flush with a sensor… but still chose to go with the squat toilet. Xixi assures me that Chinese people really just like this kind of toilet better. Still, I’m provided with a lot of Western luxuries that wouldn’t be afforded me in many other places in China: McDonalds, Pizza Hut, movies in English (just went to see Pirates 4 in English with Chinese subtitles and spent most of the movie Xixi and I the only ones laughing in the theater), etc.. That kind of thing makes it easier to live here for sure.

   The subway is crazy. There are so, so, so many people here. I don’t think I’ll ever find another place on Earth crowded ever again after coming here. And the city is more enormous than you ever thought - 45 minutes to 1 hour drive downtown on a light traffic day.

   I’m going to be working in the energy industry here. The project I’m working on is a joint venture between an American company, a Chinese company, and the best university in China, and involves developing coal-to-liquid and clean coal technology. I’m excited to work on this project because it is quite similar to the design I did for my senior project at Vanderbilt, but also, Xixi’s dad feels that this is a really great project to be a part of, and I agree. Right now, about 70% of China’s energy is produced from coal, and that energy consumption is only going to expand with China’s rapid industrial development. This project has the potential to contribute a lot to society - if we can find a way to clean up the coal energy industry, the pollution problem here could be largely addressed, and an efficient coal-to-liquid system could reduce energy costs for everyone here. Good for American business, good for Chinese business, and good for the Chinese people, which in turn is, of course, good for the whole world. Xixi’s dad is very emphatic when he always tells me his philosophy - which is that his job as a person is to contribute a little bit to society and to his company, and to help everyone / make everyone a little bit happier by being here. It makes me glad, because these are the same values I’ve always hoped to be able to live out, and this first job seems to set me on the path to be able to do just that.

   I should be starting work sometime next week. Until then, keeping on building up my Chinese vocabulary (according to my Chinese teacher from Vanderbilt, I already know 90% of Chinese grammar?), and keeping on trying to learn 3 diabolos! I find that having more than one thing to work on helps to prevent me from overpracticing.

   It’s getting late and I am trying to stick to a sleeping schedule so that getting up early for work next week won’t be a problem. Xixi’s dad says he wants to give me a crash course in the energy industry in China tomorrow, so I should get some sleep so I can make sense of everything.

   祝好，晚安。

   
   

2. Notes

   1. tiasays liked this
   2. calvinloveinternet said: 三Q ，三Q！
   3. dougleville posted this

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