Where did all the time go?

So, I had two free days until registration. I spent it watching chinese movies on CCTV5, some of which were very fun, and silly, some of which I consider to be works of art. (Lethal Hostage, a Chang Er film.) I started and finished both Jim Butcher's Cold Days, a pulp-fiction collection of snark and fantasy. The absolute trash kind of read that countered my homesickness. I skipped a lot of passages, without missing anything. It was a pretty good story, too, but there was too much talking, in order to give characters facetime. I also read The Order of The Scales, by Stephen Deas. That was a work of art, as fantasy goes. It is a book in the same vein as George R.R. Martin's Fire and Ice series, but without the massive amount of characters who just get in the way with their own, albeit interesting, but unimportant stories. Ach, all my prejudices about fantasy are coming out of the woodwork here. Anyway, in a beautiful tragedy, that actually made me sad, the book ended with a finality I've not seen recently. Far too often, people either don't know when to end a story, or don't want to, so leave open ends, or drag it out. Stephen Deas bites the bullet and cuts the arm off right when it needs to go.

But more about China.

I worked up the courage to meander into a cafe known as 'Blogger's Cafe,' in English, without my Ipad. The irony is rusting up my insides, I promise. I could easily have been in a cafe here in the states. I had beef noodles, which were good, and two cups of coffee, which were ok, but each cost more than the noodles, go figure.

I also visited SingKing BBQ. It boasted an impressive menu of various kebabs and meats. I tried the mutton, which was mouthwatering delicious, and the beefballs, which were not. The place seemed more designed for nightlife, with an impressive selection behind the bar.

Then there was Lakers, a pub down the lane, offering american style food, burgers, pizza, hotdogs. Apparently, that's american cuisine, our contribution to the global food scene. Anyway, they had heineken, so I got a heineken, and a burger. The burger was meh. The heineken was a heineken. But what was most interesting was the people at the bar. There was one pair, of your typical male, non-frat guy, with their large ballcaps and loose, overlarge jackets. They were trying to order, making a minor mess of it, nowhere near my imaginative fiasco. They did lean over to one table nearby with cute girls at it and ask them for help. They obliged, but didn't bite the hook when the guys asked them, is it shei shei? (Its she-eh, she-eh, for the record) to say thankyou. At this time, next to me, some new girls came in with cups of dice they were betting on, a game i've known so long I've forgotten it. They ordered a 3 foot tall pitcher thing of beer. I'll take a photo next time I see it to share. I was quite excited by it.

Next there is Sculpting in Time cafe. The first place with wifi I discovered. It's quite nice, like Coffea in Lexington, but with a more open feeling, and higher ceilings. People were smoking inside, something I haven't seen for years in Lexington. Businessmen greeted each other next to students relaxing for the day. Their password for the wifi was ilovebeijing.

Directly across from there, through campus, is 猫眼, cat's eye. A small, cosy cafe seemingly designed for couples. Even though I wasn't a couple, I discovered their pizza is pretty damn good, and it was the first place that had real coffee, not just lattes and diluted tea. Where is the drive for purity in caffeine! Anyway, that's about that for the days leading up to today. Sould be caught up now.

Facing my fear, a one act play.

The Foriegner or The Incident During Dinner Rush.
Benjamin Kandt

Please note: This was created when I began imagining how ridiculous my fear of entering a restaurant was, so I decided to write it into a play and embellish it a bit. Only a bit. Fears are rarely rational.



Characters:
外国人：The Foreigner
八 大学生：8 students waiting for a table
服务员: The Hostess
服务员二：The Waiter.
新男朋友和女朋友: The new couple, out for a romantic evening.

Act 1

[The curtain remains drawn, lights dim. We hear the chattering of voices and the honking of cars as they splash by in the rain. As the curtain rises, we see one figure, lit by blue spotlight with a flowing river of people breaking gently around him. He stands in front of a Chinese restaurant, looking in the window. Inside, the lights are orange, the people all smiling gaily. The sign above the door is bright red neon, with one character occasionally flickering. The characters only resemble real chinese characters, warped and incomprehensible]

外国人： she-ow... She-ung

[A large group of students, smoking and chatting boisterously stroll pass, brushing up against the foreigner. He reaches toward his fanny-pack, as if to reassure himself they didn't take it.]

[He turns back to the diner. We hear his stomach growl.]

外国人： Aw, fuck it.

[As he tries to enter, the river of people becomes a solid wall, keeping him away from the diner. He eventually forces his way through. The people look after him as if he ran into them all.]

[He enters. The heavy blanket falling into place behind him, cutting off the sound from outside.]

[We see the set turn with him, and now we look out of the same window we were looking into. Inside, we see several groups, each spotlighted in turn, only acting when the light is upon them. There are couches for waiting, and they are all filled, with a group of students greeting each other and catching up. Outside, as someone sets of a firecracker of red lights, their faces glow with enjoyment, and one girl points excitedly, tugging on her boyfriends arm. The 外国人 jumps at the sound. Next, the light highlights the new couple, standing in front of the hostess, arm in arm, the boyfriend asking if they have any open space. The girl is wishing they were going somewhere classier and she complains loudly. The hostess is smiling gently.]

服务员： 几个- [Her eyes widen as she sees the 外国人] 人？(How many people?)
男朋友： 两个。[He turns to gaze upon his girlfriend, catching the 外国人 out of the corner of his eyes. He tightens his grip on her, and turns back to the front, quickly.] (Two people.)
服务员： 跟我来。(Come with me)

[They exit.]

[The 外国人 looks around with wonder, like a newborn child. He begins to remove some of his layers, and his snow goggles, and his three hats. No one else is dressed so warmly.]

外国人： Knee How! [He brays like a donkey]
八大学生： [They wince, then smile] 你好。你是哪国人？(Hello, where are you from?)
外国人：Uh... [He fumbles with his massive fannypack, pulling out a thick, heavy phrasebook, thumbing through it] shhhhhhhhhna... Shhhna...
八大学生： Where are you from? [They speak without any accent.]
外国人：Oh, thank god, someone that speaks English. I'm from America.

[服务员 returns]

服务员： 你们的几案准备啊。(Your table is ready)
八大学生： Baibai.

[八大学生 exit]

服务员： 几个人？(How many people?)
外国人： Uh.... I'm 美国人。(American)
服务员： 不是。几个人？(No, how many people?)
外国人： Uh.... Can you write it? Oh, shit... [He consults his guidebook] Knee Kuh Yee ... Sheeea mah?
服务员： 一个人。跟我来。(One person. Come with me)

[She leads him to a corner, away from other diners, and hands him a menu. It's written in gibberish, and most dishes have a direct english translation, like heaven's red slippers, instead of a description of the food. There are pictures though.]

等一下。(Wait a moment)

[She exits. The 外国人 puts the menu on the table, which is a wooden box piece over a plastic crate, and pulls out his phrasebook. He looks for a bit at the options.]

[服务员二 enters.]

服务员二：What you want?
外国人： Uh, I want sweet and sour pork.
服务员二： What?

[The 外国人 points at a picture and grunts, making the same needy noises as a child.]

[The 服务员二 exits.]

外国人： All in a days work. [Dusts hands off.]

Fin

The morning after...

I slept like a log. I think I must have mentioned to a few people how hard the beds are in China, compared to what I'm used to in the states, but I don't know if I also mentioned how easily I sleep on them. I woke up at 6:00AM to beautifully clear skies, filled with a beautiful sunrise, awash in rose colors. I didn't think to take a picture then, but I'll get one one of these mornings. I met Emily in the lobby, and she took me on a tour of the campus. UIBE is decently sized, not huge, but not small, either. I guestimate walking from one end of the campus to the other might take me 10 minutes, if I chose to meander. Despite that, the dorms on campus house large numbers of students, in buildings many stories high, like 40 stories, at least. There are lots of stores and restaurants on every side, offering a plethora of cuisine options. Of which I'm starting to sample.

Back on track, so, I met Emily, and we went to see 后海, one of the man-made lakes settled into the suburbia of Beijing. Which, btw, is highly integrated with the tourist business. As you walk down the street, you find yourself suddenly in the midst of one of the market streets, where the road is filled with walking throngs of people (mostly Chinese in this instance), who occasionally, absent-mindedly move to let cars through. The cars, for their part, are used to it, and honk with good cheer. In addition to the curio shops that line this marketstreet, vendors set up selling everything you could think of (not literally, but you get the idea, or rather, let me demonstrate. Gourds, bracelets, bunny-ears as hairclips, stickers of popular american bands, incense, postcards, yogurt and milktea (every 20 feet) meat kebabs, nuts, are you getting the picture? Perhaps not. Pictures will be forthcoming from round 2, I promise) and hawking their wares to passerby.

后海 Houhai (ho' high) is really quite pretty. With traditional wooden bridges built in a zigzag fashion crossing the lake, you can get a good view of the entire thing. At the moment, it's partially frozen, and I've sadly just missed the period of time where it's frozen over enough to skate on. According to some of the things I've read, some wizened citizens like to strip to speedos and go for a brisk swim in the cold waters. No eyewitness accounts yet though, so I'm a tad skeptical, but could see it happening.

We meandered around the market street for a bit, and stopped in at a shoe store, where Emily browsed, and I tried to look like I didn't not want to be there. None of them would fit me, anyway, though they were quite pretty. Some of the other stores we entered reminded me quite strongly of places like those in Fayette mall. Something about a small world goes here, right?

We returned to campus after our trip, and I took some photos along the way, don't blame me, blame the cameraman for the fingers in the way.

After we got back, I found out I would have some free time, until Monday, when registration began. So I had 2 days without adult supervision. What trouble could I get into during that time? Not much, it turns out. But we'll get to that.

That night, I was charged by myself, to find food for myself. Which seems simple, right? Until you factor in a terrifying and crippling anxiety about walking into a restaurant during dinner rush and saying, 'knee how' and having people look at you like a donkey trying to talk. Look, let's move on for now, we both don't really want to talk about it, right? I'll give it it's own post.

So I eventually suceeded in not doing anything, and went hungry for the night. Not one of my best moments, I know, but there is nowhere but up from rock bottom. On the plus side, my pacing without entering let me see almost all the restaurants along that side of the camus, somewhere around 30 places.

But yeah, the next two days I worked up the courage to enter some places, wandered around the other two sides of campus that were busy, and read like 3 books, watched two movies on CCTV6 and practiced my Chinese. Very relaxing.

That's all for this post, more in the next.

-Ben

Oh, the places you'll go (and not be able to communicate in)

There are few things as wonderful as visiting another country, and few things as heart-stoppingly terrifying as trying to communicate with someone when you possess barely enough of their language to admit you don't know their language. Or so it seems to me. Luckily for me, there are several wonderful people who have already spent time learning my native language who also, for some reason, are interested in helping me to navigate their country. As I arrived in Beijing, blanketed with a chill and darkness, I was greeted with a smile by one of those wonderful people. With her help, we arrived at my place of residence, and began to arrange a room for me. Nw, I don't understand every word spoken of mandarin, yet, but I'm guessing that the conversation at the dezk went something along the lines of, "We're here to deliver that guy (me) to his room."
"Do what, now?"
"He's just arrived, which room is his?"
"He doesn't have one."
"What."
"We don't have him on file."
...
After a few minutes and much speaking, calling and checking of records,it turned out they did have a record of me, but not a room assingment. So they gave me one.
"Your roommate is Korean." She mentioned over her shoulder.
Sounded good to me.
A few moments later.
"And female... One moment."
Still sounded fine by me.
"Fixed now."
Not as fine, but what can you do? It isn't often every male college student gets his dreams fulfilled. Or even close to it.
So they get me up to my room, which is uninhabited, but luckily enough, has a surplus of sunflower seed shells all over the floor. Which I decide are better dealt with tomorrow.
So I make plans to meet up with Emily tomorrow for orientation, with all the other students (no one) and go right to sleep.

Up in the skies, it's a bird, It's a plane!

So, I began my trek across the territory of the avians this morning at 6:45AM EST. Now, after (6:45-10:30 add an hour for time difference)= ~5hours + (8 hours flight time?) = 13 hours in traversing, I'm finally awake. Ater finishing my first book 1 hour in, I sat and pondered the cliffhanger of an ending. Man pitted against man in a duel to the death, where only one can win. They leap off a cliff together, to fall to the hard ground below in each other's embrace, once brothers, now bitter enemies. But did they really die? Magic knows no bounds.

Anyway, Dallas Fort-Worth airport was huge, as always, with a tram that I thought I understood, until I overshot my destination. Minor problems, of course, I had plenty of time to make my gate. I even got the chance to eat at Einstein's Bagels, a holdover from my days at ASU. Mmmmmm, bagels. In the airport terminal there was a construction of plactic, funcitoning like an echoing chamber, I'll try and get a picture of it on my way back through, 5 months from now.

Wow, 5 months suddenly strikes me as a long time to remember anything. I'll be gone for almost half a year. I'm starting to get a grasp on how long that really is. Less than half of my longest relationship, less than third of the time spent living downtown, time that seems, now, to have flown by in a rush of breathless memory-making, merry-making. Perhaps this will be the same, and I'll be writing like this on my flight back, and be struck by the similarities of my situation.

Korean Airlines is very nice. The cabin is spacious, the uniformed, flight attendants sharp like the crisp fold of a freshly laundered sheet. The rows upon rows of american travelers, with their graying hair on top of their head and upon their faces. Koreans returning to visit family, having spent years away for study or work. Filies, going to visit parents with newborns, or young. A sea of expectation, all going somewhere planned. S much forethought from all these people, none simply wandering, their next few weeks a rigid plan, in orr to reach their home on time, to seal that business deal with time for relaxation,or to return home sooner to loved ones. Traveling strikes me as a quintessentially human endeavor, wrapped up in our sense of place and identity. Where are you from, serrah? Ah, you're American!
Where are you going, madam? Ah, you're a student.
What do you do for a living? You fly a plane! You must love to travel!
or perhaps I'm simply being silly.

-Ben

The day before the end of the world: Leaving Lexington

Today is Tuesday, the last full day in Lexington before I fly out to Beijing for 5 months. Until now, my departure hasn't really sunk in, but after the week of goodbyes and bittersweet partings, I'm beginning to realize that I'm really doing this. I'm going, on my own, to a foreign country, for 5 months, to learn to speak the language. I guess I should start packing now. Packing is something that I'm either really good at, or really bad at. Yesterday, when I decided to put some things in the suitcase, I found I was done after about 15 minutes, with half my suitcase still empty. My mom thinks I ought to take two suitcases, but it's beyond me how I would bring enough stuff to fill two. We'll figure it out eventually. In the meantime, I'm concluding my farewell rituals, having coffee with coworkers, hugging friends goodbye, gazing around my room, realizing that I won't see it for a long time, let alone sleep in my own bed. Perhaps that is for the best though, since my bed is so comfortable that I never want to wake up.
I started writing this post in a coffee shop in downtown Lexington, KY, and I'm concluding it in the Lexington bluegrass airport, waiting for my first flight. I'll start short, until I have more important and interesting things to write about.

-Ben