Pigeon vs. Pigeon

Just a funny video of our cat and her adjustment to the new apartment.
She thinks there is another cat on the other side of the mirror.

The Wonderful 104

Our favorite bus in Beijing is the “Wonderful 104.” In fact I’m currently typing this entry while riding it. It was really the first bus we were comfortable with. It was the one bus that we knew went from my parent’s house to the Xizhimen (pronounced shee-jer-men) subway stop, which is the nearest “di tan” (subway) stop to their apartment. There are plenty that go there, but when we first got here we weren’t really interested in just getting on a bus and hoping it went the right place.

Actually the reason we always remembered the 104 is because my family refers to it as the “Infamous 104.” Apparently on more than one occasion they have boarded the 104 expecting it to bring them home (because there is a 104 stop right outside their complex) and it just brought them further away. My mom warned us about the 104, she said we could trust it to take us to subway, but no further.

Luckily a friend of ours told us that the 104 is actually one of the most useful buses in the city. We just moved into an apartment in Wang Jing, which is just outside the north-east corner of 4th Ring Road. The 104 had a stop just a couple blocks from us and is currently bringing us all the way across the city and will drop us off right at my parent’s complex on the western edge of 3rd Ring road (click on the “Map of Beijing” link on the right if you’re confused). It takes a long time, but because our stop is one of the first 104 stops after it leaves the garage, there are always plenty of seats available. The only way I would be able to write a blog entry while riding the bus is if am sitting in one of the forward facing seats near the back.

Right now Kara is on the aisle “zai you bien” (z-eye yo bee-en) or on my right side and we have an open window “zai zou bien” (z-eye zo bee-en) on my left.We probably have the best seats on the bus. There are about 30 seats on this type of bus and they are currently all full. Another dozen or so people are standing in the aisles holding onto handrails. There will undoubtedly be another 30 or more people crammed into this box on wheels before we arrive at my parents house.

On almost all busses there is a driver and an attendant. The driver’s only responsibility is to get to each stop and avoided collisions. The attendant calls out the next stop and informs the passengers at each stop that they can only get off using the rear door. Every bus has one “on” door and one, or sometimes two “off” doors. On some buses (like our Wonderful 104) there is an automated recording that informs you of the upcoming stop and aforementioned exiting strategy. One of the most endearing features of the 104 is the recording that reminds us to “Please getting prepare for your arrival.”

One of the least enduring qualities is the fact that there are several TV screens on the bus, as there are on most buses. This wouldn’t be so bad, but all they play are videos about the upcoming Olympics. Also not so bad, except that you may or may not know about the Five Friendlies. They are the mascots for the upcoming Olympics, animated and peppy mascots who star in the same four commercials that play over and over again on the buses as well as on the TV and before some DVDs. They are actually pretty well-designed, but there is the feeling of brainwashing after seeing too many of these same commercials. Especially since we can’t understand the writing on them, it feels like being inundated with subliminal messages is the real cost of taking cheaper public transportation.

The easiest way to use public transportation in Beijing is to buy a rechargeable bus/subway card. Every time you get on a bus you press your card against a scanner and it deducts .4 yuan from your card. This is equal to approximately 6 cents. On the 104, and other buses with long routes you also scan your card as you disembark and depending on how far you have traveled the price can go up to .8 yuan. It’s really cheap to travel this way, but the downside is that on most buses you end up standing for long periods of time and are usually in direct contact with at least three other people.

One of the most difficult things for us illiterate Americans is determining which buses go where. There are signs at every stop that show all the stops along the route, unfortunately between Kara and I we know about 25 out of the 20,000 or so characters in the Chinese language. Several times we have boarded buses only to find that the route ends before it arrives where we want to go.

It does seem odd not having a car and buses are definitely not always the most fun thing, but its also very freeing, We never have to worry about parking, we don’t have to pay for car insurance, and we don’t have to do any maintenance. We are actually getting pretty near my parent’s place now so I’m going to put the computer away and “getting prepare” for my arrival.

The Rhythm of the City

On the surface Beijing is primarily a city of straight lines. The entire city is a grid. The Forbidden City in the direct center with major roads radiating north, south, east, and west, and there are five major highways that create concentric rectangles around the city. All other roads run parallel or perpendicular to these. Skyscrapers dominate the skyline in every direction creating vertical lines, and even Chinese characters are made with combinations of straight dashes.

At street level, however, it often seems have no order at all. Traffic lights, street signs and road lines are ignored. Pedestrians, two and three wheeled bicycles, taxi cabs, SUVs, black Mercedes, cement trucks, dump trucks, flat-bed trucks, buses, and motorcycles share the roads and weave in and out and around each other continually. It's a constant games of Chicken and the winners are those who understand angles and timing. There is an art to cutting someone off here, and you must never make eye contact or you'll lose your edge in the situation.

I've discovered that different cities require different soundtracks. Since I've been here I've found that "Kill the Moonlight" by Spoon, "In Rainbows" by Radiohead, and "Graceland" by Paul Simon seem to fit Beijing well. This city has a very strong rhythm to it but there is plenty of nuance as well. I tried to listen to Bowerbirds the other day; the meandering melodies and simple instrumentation reminded me of Eau Claire, but it definitely didn't fit Beijing.

People talk a lot about "culture shock," which is obviously part of adapting to Beijing, but it's almost as much of a change to get used to the tempo of a large city like this.

We're still alive, just busy

I just wanted to put a quick post up.
We are alive, we have an apartment now, and we have lots to write about. We just don't have time right now.
We are leaving in a couple hours for the first of two consecutive weekends of youth camp. We've been utterly swamped and working 6 and 7 days a week making sure everything gets done so this thing happens. So look for some more posts in a week or two when we can take a couple days off and recuperate.
Looks for posts about riding the bus, getting a health check-up, finding an apartment, McDonalds, and youth camp.