(From my old Substack)
Hei hei!
I’m writing this from a world-famous burger chain location somewhere in downtown Beijing. Ida, my roommate and the only other University of Bergen-student at Peking University, is with me. We’re usually very good at only going to authentic Chinese places and restaurants. But today we both had computer things to do, so undisclosed burger chain with steady internet access it is.
We’ve been in Beijing for about ten days now. Tomorrow, we have our first orientation session at the university. I therefore thought this was a good time to write a little about my initial impressions and some of the things that have happened!
For whatever reason, I feel like I have to start with this: when I scanned my ticket from Munich to Beijing, I was pleasantly surprised with a free upgrade! Instead of flying Economy, I got to fly Economy Premium. And the premium was palpable. The chair was so much nicer, and I actually slept quite well. Sat next to a friendly man, too, who had also been surprise-upgraded. I remember thinking wow, everything about this journey is going so smoothly.
Things got trickier, however, soon after landing. After immigration, I grabbed a taxi to get to our place. When we arrived, I tried paying the driver with the apps I had installed, but it didn’t work. Luckily, I had backup cash – but only 100s. The driver (allegedly) didn’t have change (I believe him), so it got a lot more expensive than it should have been.
Ida was arriving the day after me, so I met with the landlord by myself. Our place is really nice! But there were some things missing. Main problem was that the internet hadn’t been installed yet. Which meant that it was me and my Telenor 4G against the world. I was texting with Ida when my data suddenly ran out. I tried buying more through the text message, but it wouldn’t work. In retrospect I understand that all this probably does not sound like a big deal at all. But at the time, it was enough to make me quite panicked. I was supposed to meet someone in a few hours – but we still hadn’t picked an exact place and now I had no means of contacting him. Beyond that, no data means no translation apps, no payment apps, no anything. How was I supposed to buy internet, without internet? It seemed impossible.
But of course, things worked out. Since we live near a university, I ran out to the nearest building, hoping to find some trusty old Eduroam – to no avail. In the end, I had my dad help me call the phone company and get some extra data. Thanks, pappa! I guess I’m just sharing this story to illustrate that I really was very lost in the beginning. There were several moments like this. But by now, Ida and I have pretty much everything sorted. We have internet, a decent VPN (shh) and I know how to pay for stuff with my phone. Here’s some other things about life here:
Ida and I are staying in Haidan, the district where most universities in Beijing are located. When we started looking for a place to live, we first tried the area immediate to Peking University. When that proved difficult, we gradually expanded our search. I figured that as long as we live in the district, it didn’t really matter. Turns out that Haidan has more than 3 million people (more than half of Norway’s entire population), and covers quite a large area. We ended up living about an hour walk from campus instead. But there’s a metro station nearby-ish. And we’ve been eyeing the scooters that a lot of Beijingers drive around. Maybe we’ll get one and drive that to campus every morning.
As mentioned, we ended up living right next to another university campus: Beijing Forestry University. The area is nice. It’s quiet and there’s a decent outdoor gym on campus that I sometimes go to. Only problem is that the university campus is fenced-in, and the port guards don’t always let us enter at night without a student ID. In practice that means that we usually have to walk around the entire premise, which easily takes an extra twenty minutes. Ida and I are getting our steps in, at least.
Everyone I talked to who had been to Beijing told me that you stick out a lot as a foreigner, and it’s definitely true. I have never before felt like such an odd-one-out in a major city. A couple of times I’ve talked to people who say I’m the first foreigner they’ve spoken to. Occasionally people ask for a picture. Recently, when that happens, I’ve started asking to take pictures with them, too.
Speaking Chinese is so, so hard. I thought I had learnt some words and sentences before coming here, but I have yet to have anyone understand them in a real conversation. I don’t even think I’ve been able to correctly say “I don’t speak Chinese” (although that probably is the most useless sentenceI taught myself – everyone can tell that). Instead, I have often resorted to just pointing at myself and saying “I am Nor-we-gian. 挪-威-人!” Sometimes that works. Most of the time, however, Ida and I follow the philosophy of smile and nod. If we have to appear clueless, we should try to seem friendly as well.
It’s been pretty discouraging to never get it right. But over the last few days, I’ve met a couple of other foreigners who have a decent grasp of the language and insist that it really is worth it to keep trying. So, we’ll see.
Aside from that, Ida and I have done a fair bit of sightseeing. We got here just a couple of days before Chinese New Yearskicked off and have gotten to see some nice celebrations. The highlight was the Dongyue temple. I could have spent hours looking at everything and reading the plaques.
Big cities are always a wee bit exhausting. But Beijing issurprisingly manageable. The city feels very orderly, and the metro system is easy to understand. I think it was good that we got here during Chinese New Years, when there’s a lot less people in the city. Sort of a practice run with the public transport and everything, before the real challenge (big crowds) start.
Overall, my biggest impression from Beijing is that there’s so many impressions. My eyes are buzzing every night when I go to bed. But it’s really cool.
Another thing is that these couple of weeks (especially the very first couple of days) have been a real meditation on how people need people. I truly don’t know how I would have gotten anything done on my own. My mom’s Chinese colleague helped us look for places and communicate with the agent and landlord. His ex-colleague met me when I got here and helped me set up a Chinese SIM-card and taught me how to pay for things. Ida has also been great at navigating everything. Me? I have honestly been quite useless. Useless and clueless. But maybe that’s okay, as long as you show some gratitude for the people who help you out. And as long as you’re not useless and clueless forever.
Tomorrow is our orientation at the university. I’m getting a little restless from just roaming around every day. It’s going tobe good to have something to do again. And I’m starting the semester with most of my life-essentials in order, a good grasp of the subway system, and even a number of interesting new people on my phone. A promising start!
Note: this post was written on Saturday February 17th. Internet access is still a little tricky and I was only able to publish this through the iPhone Safari version of Substack. If there’s any formatting issues, that’s why!
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