感冒了

Began the week very homesick. But Thursday was fun. Got lunch with YuanRuonan, the art student who showed me the art department a couple weeks ago. I also had lunch with her last week. Our conversations are becoming easier. Her English is limited so luckily we mostly speak Chinese. Many places still have Christmas decorations up, including the restaurant we ate at on Thursday. I guess a fair amount of people celebrate Christmas, but I also think they find more decorative value in cheap Christmas decorations than I do. I find more value in cheap Chinese decorations, too, I'm sure. The place we ate at had two enormous Santa heads on the wall and some other smaller decorations. Certainly a festive joint. We ate 京酱肉丝 (JingJiangRouSi-Sautéed shredded pork in sweet bean sauce, a dish particular to Beijing), roast eggplant, and onion pancake. All very oily, all very good.

After lunch on Thursday I had my first calligraphy (SHOOfa) class and it was the most relaxing two hours. We practiced two strokes. It was so pleasant, and I was able to use my art skills. Very much looking forward to learning new strokes next Thursday.

Today (Friday the twenty-sixth) I went again to ChaoYang to have a lesson with Ms. Liang. ChaoYang is the biggest park in Asia and she lives a couple blocks away from it. Right now it is a sea of brown tree tops. On the way there I got my first glimpses of some of the main tourist attractions in Beijing. The most striking view of the trip, however, was a burnt tower near the famous CCTV tower. It was an unfinished part of the CCTV tower complex (so I don't think anyone (or at least not many people) was hurt because it burned at night when construction was not going on). I got the pictures online, but they don't do it justice. A burnt skyscraper is magnificent. Ms. Liang told me it happened during Spring Festival last year when a lot of fireworks were being set off (and when I first got here there were fireworks for about two weeks, which I ought to have found nerve-wracking in this densely populated city).

I've been developing a cold over the past few days, but Ms. Liang made me some spectacularly strong ginger tea (which I couldn't smell), some noodles from her hometown with some sausage that her mother made, and pressed on my face in the points that would make my nose stop running. She also showed me a chart of pressure points and told me the area on my back where a traditional Chinese doctor would press to relieve my snotty nose. Then I told her about the new healthcare bill. It sounds like healthcare costs suck for anyone privately employed in China, too. But anyway, next week I'll make a meal with Ms. Liang, which will include her taking me to wherever she knows to go to get some western ingredients. I look forward to this. I'll need to think of the best thing to make. Please comment suggestions, if you have them. I think I've set it so you don't need an account to comment.

On my way to the bus station after the lesson a family asked me for three dollars to buy their child some food. I've never had a whole family (mother, father, baby) ask me for money. They looked fine and healthy, so I can't help but wonder if they just go to ChaoYang (heavy foreigner population) with a baby to ask for money as an occupation. I gave them ten dollars (less than two US) anyway, but that would buy a few meals. Sometimes I don't mind being a foreigner being taken advantage of.