A Day in the Life Of....

It's been a while since I blogged, mainly due to lack of Internet time, and it's impossible to capture in a nutshell what life in Beijing has been like since I started class ago.

I'm settled into the Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), a government run institute to educate foreigners in Mandarin. The population is extremely international, which might be the best perk of the school. However, as a Torontonian, I'm generally less amazed than the rest of my classmates at our "United Nations". There's a multitude of Americans, hordes of South Koreans, many Western Europeans across the continent, and numerous Japanese students. I frequently hear Indonesian spoken in my dormitory, and a large herd of Cantonese speakers arrived yesterday. There's a sprinkling of Latin American nationals, and I'm told there are quite a number of Africans although most of them are in longer-term programs so I haven't met any. The Caribbean doesn't seem to be present, the Middle East (except for Israel) and South Asia are underrepresented, while Central Asia is largely absent. It's ironic because China has an increasing presence in many oil rich Middle Eastern, African, and Central Asian countries. Of course, I haven't gone through any official lists, this is entirely based on my own observation.

The most intriguing fact to note about all this population make-up is that even though we're all here to study Mandarin, the lingua franca is indisputably English. Whether I'm in a conversation with a Russian, Greek, and Tunisian, or eating lunch with a German, Korean, and Japanese Briton, we all revert to English. A French girl apologized that her accented English wasn't very good, and when I assured her that it was infinitely better than my French she responded that English was the language of conversation. The extent of this phenomenon is manifest in my Mexican classmate, who came to China without any knowledge of English, and after a month here, can converse comfortably in the language. Perhaps, with such an international population, anyone who comes here is sure to improve their English at least as much as their Mandarin.

What brings most students is far-sightedness, the realization that China is a potent force in the world presenting extensive opportunities and commanding much influence. While this is true, the constant flow of English is a reminder that imperial transitions are a glacial process and that it is English, not Mandarin that dominates the world in politics, culture, media, etc. Perhaps it would be different if we added the equivalent of 1.3 billion Chinese into the mix, and English might be spoken far less across nationalities. The fact that I do not know the outcome of such an equation is the greatest weakness of this school; the environment is such that we make friends who speak every other language except Mandarin. A French girl practices her German skills, a Korean her Japanese, and the Greek his Russian, but there are few such exchanges in Mandarin.

Official learning has a high school vibe. Classes begin at 8am and end at 12pm: consisting of spoken conversational skills, reading, and listening. We have breaks every hour, where all the classes mingle in the hallway, unsure of what to do. High school stereotypes are replaced by national ones, and it's incredibly easy to pinpoint where everyone is from even before hearing their accent. Europeans don the same outfit a few days in a row, something no American or Canadian would ever do. The equivalent of social cliques are language networks, once you connect to one German, you're immediately linked to dozens more. Everyone speaks English. The rare person without command of English requires an English, not Mandarin translator to partake in conversation.

After lunch is wu xiu, the Chinese term for nap time. At first no one really admitted it, fearing that we'd be judged lazy or antisocial but we've learned that it is essentially universal, and our conversational teacher has informed us that throughout her education, from primary to high school, they were given an allotted naptime every day. There aren't very many options in the scorching heat. But it's inevitably a struggle to balance studying with sightseeing, and I confess that I've done a poor job of both.

Even though we foreigners eat local food, stay in Beijing, and basically adjust to our new lives, our integration with the real China remains superficial. We do not live the life of a typical Beijing local, remaining outside most of the social forces, unaware of the reality we live in, like consumers of fresh produce at a grocery store, who are so far removed from the agricultural process that went into the cultivation of the vegetables and fruits that they purchase.

Other than daily naps, there are two features of Chinese society that still come as a surprise. Even though i say a prayer for my life whenever I step off a curb, that was largely expected. What I did not expect was the realization that coffee is cultural. In my ignorance, I assumed that coffee was universally popular, hasn't it been around for centuries? Aren't coffee beans grown in Java, Columbia and Africa?

But in Beijing, coffee is poor, rare and overpriced; coffee shops even more so. Beijingers assure me there is plenty of coffee shops around my school, but it hardly compares to the presence in Toronto. In an entrepreneurial move, I am tempted to open a Starbucks franchise on campus and cater to the foreigners, mainly Americans, who stumble to class every morning without a dose of caffeine. There's a cafe in my dorm but it doesn't open until 8am, when all students are already in class. In fact, so low is the demand for coffee that a mini coffe tumbler by Nescafe sells at the grocery store for 35 yuan, the equivalent of 40 bottles of water, 35 bowls of white rice, 17 subway rides, or an entire Beijing roast duck. Even Starbucks rip-offs aren't that extreme.

The other daily reminder that Beijing is not Toronto or Chicago or Seoul, is the large number of Chinese guys of all ages who walk around with rolled up shirts, exposing their beer bellies or lanky abdomen. They seem proud of their unfit built. They raise their shirt and wave it in the heat in such a way that i'm embarassed on their behalf. According to my teacher, before the Olympics, a distinct concern was the crowds of unfit guys walking around shirtless, so the government set up numerous stands to distribute shirts to these people in an effort to both clothe them and shame them. Clothing was mainly accomplished, shaming needs more progress.

One final interesting aspect of Chinese life has been my few contacts with locals. These conversations have definitely been the most intriguing and informative, since they take place with uneducated retail or food workers with blunt opinions. It took a while to master the art of conversation. We are constantly bombarded with extremely personal questions by complete strangers. "How old are you?" is normallly the first and most important inquiry. Also, "Where are you from?", "Are you working?", "Where do you work?", "How tall are you?", "Have you graduated?". Perhaps after 30 minutes, the question of "What is your name?" will arise. To defer this constant probing, I've learned to be the one to ask the questions. It's definitely led to many memorable conversations.

This blog is too long, so it will have to be the next entry to discuss other activities in the life of a BLCU student.