Beijing (Part 1)

The first thing you will notice about Beijing is the cold. It will be cold – Chicago style cold. The second thing you will notice, or rather, your friend will, is that the people there speak Mandarin with a different accent than the one he is used to. He has a little trouble understanding them, and vice versa. You will not know this at the time, but this will be problematic. The third thing you will notice about Beijing, is the thick, brown haze that has descended on the city. This is pollution, and it hasn’t actually “descended” on the city, but instead, risen up from factories and the millions of cars crowding the streets – the fourth thing you’ll notice.

The fifth thing you will notice is that the people here are not as friendly as they were in Shanghai. In Shanghai, you’re friend will have joked and laughed with all types of people. When you get off the bus from the airport, and go to talk to the lounging cabbies for a ride to the hotel, they will be less than receptive. They will insist on charging you 50 RMB for what should be a 10 RMB trip. You won’t know for sure, but you will suspect that the “fifth thing you notice” is a direct result of the “second thing you notice.” You will not ride with these surly cab drivers. Instead, you will take all your luggage onto the crowded subway. That’ll teach them for trying to rip you off.

You will be staying at the Holiday Inn, but you will have difficulty communicating this to people. It turns out, Chinese works differently from Japanese. In Japan, almost all foreign words and names are katakanaized – ie said with a Japanese accent. The “Holiday Inn” is the “horidei innu”, “Hillary Clinton” is “hirari kurinton”, and the word “cup” is “kappu”. If you ever need to tell a taxi driver to get you somewhere you don’t know the Japanese word for, just say it in Engrish. Chinese is not like this. All foreign words are completely transformed into Chinese. You cannot even use your own name in China. You need a completely different Chinese name. They borrow nothing. Saying “Holiday Inn” in a Chinese accent will get you nowhere. Your friend figures to say the Chinese word for “holiday” followed by the Chinese word for “inn”. Success. Note: here, you must know Chinese for even the most basic level of communication.

You will be exhausted when you finally make it to the hotel. The hotel, like everything else in Beijing, will be in the process of renovation. (Everything that is not new must be made to look new when the Olympics come to town in the summer.) Because you will only be spending a day and a half in the city, you will attempt to plan extensively with the concierge. She will not know the best way to get places. She will not know when things open or close. She will not know what time buses leave. She will not know the things you will need to know in order to make a detailed, hour-by-hour plan. She will suggest that you take an organized tour. You will ignore her suggestion – she thinks you are a pussy. You will decide to wing it.