Only four days in another country and it's remarkable how our group is beginning to acclimate themselves to Beijing and the Chinese people. The language barrier is still and will continue to be an issue, but I'm already finding it hard to remember what it was like when everyone knew what I was saying. Our time with the kids on the basketball court has taught us that there are many ways to get a message across when there is no common language. One of the players, by far the most talented of the group, spoke enough English to tell us that he will also be volunteering at the Olympics, which is apparently an honor because of the massive number of native Chinese who applied to volunteer for the games.
Among the other pieces of the culture and simply life in Beijing that we are beginning to find second nature include:
1. The knowledge that any use of public restrooms will mean using a hole in the ground.
2. That our bathroom's use of a toilet shower (check the picture) is actually not that bad.
3. That what originally looks like pure chaos on the streets of Beijing is actually ... well organized chaos. There is obvious skill in the drivers being able to avoid collisions as they weave in and out of streets with no actual lanes, but viewing it through the eyes of an American driver, it looks crazy.
Our adaptation even includes the other people we are living with, Australians from Queen's University of Technology and fellow Americans from Emerson College, in that we have formed into a rather tight group in a very short time. We keep forgetting that we all will be here for quite a bit more time, and that we really haven't become as familiar with the country as we think we have, but I guess our connection has allowed us to form our own community within a much, much larger one.
No comments:
Post a Comment