What is Beijing like? It's not so foreign as I expected, and yet it's much more foreign. The fact that signs are all written in Chinese, and that the language of the street is Mandarin, is not very strange. The airport could have been any airport, just much bigger and much slicker. The highways and overpasses are highways and overpasses. And the people are just people.
On the other hand, on the way from the airport to BLCU, I saw three cars driving in the emergency vehicle lane, and going out for the campus tour this morning, we were greeted by a car driving down the sidewalk. The Korean community here is very fond of silly-looking motor scooters on which they speed about. And the TV is much different than in America. It's much more wholesome, for one thing--I haven't seen a terribly lowbrow program yet (even Chinese MTV seems corny rather than disgusting). It has many more soap operas, all of which are soaked in melodrama (the music, the acting, etc., are all way over the top). This morning I saw a fascinating game show which revolved around guessing, with a blindfold on, the value of various yuan notes waved near one's ear (different value notes are different sizes--1 yuan notes are tiny, 100 yuan notes are larger than American bills). There was also a part about counting money as fast as possible. A novel TV show concept, I suppose.
Also, the sky is always smoggy, everywhere smells funny (it doesn't "stink"--it's just a weird smell), and all the locals ride (invariably dirty) bicycles.
All for all, though, I like it. I'm over a few humps--I have the internet, for one thing, which makes me feel a lot safer (in that I'm back in touch with the world), and I've showered once, bought one meal, etc.--and am settling in pretty well.
