I just went for a solitary jaunt through the surrounding Haidian district by myself, trying to reconnoiter the closest subway station. I missed it by a good 700 meters and found a different one – that’s what I get for asking guards and shopkeepers for relative directions as I go (“Excuse me, where’s the subway station?”) and just pretending like I understand their answer (“That way, it’s blah blah blah blah blah”). It was a really interesting walk though. I hadn’t really done that much solo exploration yet, and I got some film footage out of it as I went. I hate filming people, and especially flaunting my camcorder around the Chinese, but I would rather have the footage than not have it. After a little while of filming I ran into a group of teachers and ended up having dinner with them and ordering most of the food (or attempting to; there was another beer-for-green-tea moment when I asked for napkins and the waitress brought us all plastic gloves). I split up with them after dinner to resume my trek, though it was too dark to film much by that time. I did, however, find a neat park in the middle of the techno-corporate-mall-Haidian district where Beijingers were roller skating, dancing to music, and doing aerobics. It made me really happy to see such a vibrant city life here, and I got some clips of it, but I don’t know if they’ll show up very well for being taken in such dim light. I’ll see if I can post it up later. By the end of the walk I felt a lot more emboldened about exploring the place on my own.
Here’s what I’ve been able to come up with and hash together. Try playing with it; my labels might not give enough information, but I’m just testing to see if embedding this will even work at all.
View Beijing in a larger map
Tropical forestation? Beijing? Propaganda as a name of dance club is great. What is it in Chinese?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR-3xxfmWjg
Hey,it’s me~^^ That’s amazing that you walked in a unfamiliar area at random…What if you can’t find your way?! I don’t think I would dare to hang round without a map or something like this,especially when I cannot understand the local language well. Beijing the city is too big to be familiar with its traffic. I think it’s crowded and complicated…
PS.Beijingers always speak too fast. Some are clear but some not. It sound just like blah blah blah blah……exactly~
^^
@ Dad: I don’t know what the Chinese name is, actually. It might not have one.
@ Vivien: Haha, I cheated and looked up the area on the internet earlier, so I had a rough idea of where I was the whole time. Not where the subway was, though. I hope that’s true about Beijingers and I hope it means that I might understand people better in the south!
Your grandma is quite concerned about you cos you’re living in a strange place in China by yourself~ She worries about your work,life and shopping…and she asks about you many times a week.
I had better tell you the accent of people in Shen Zhen is heavy. That’s worse than Beijingers. But I think most of young people can speak Chinese clear and standard cos they have Chinese lessons in school anyway.