Language Barriers and Buddhist Monks

There are quite a few people who know basic English (especially numerical amounts, so they can tell how you much things cost – lol), but it is definitely still hard to communicate. Trying to explain or ask about anything in detail can be really difficult, and actually learning the language seems pretty impossible. I know a few words (a few as in probably ten words that I can remember without looking up), but can’t really understand what anyone is saying to me. The really impossible part is reading anything written in Chinese, because the characters mean nothing to me and I can’t read them at all. With other languages, like Russian, you can see the written word and then look it up in a dictionary to see what it means. In Chinese, every syllable is represented by a character, and the characters make up the word, so you can’t actually look something up to find out what it means because you have to be able to recognize the character first. It is very frustrating because I can’t tell what anything is. I had to do a lovely mime of shampooing my hair and brushing my teeth for the saleswoman in the drug store.

On my last full day in Beijing, I decided to do a little exploring on my own, and braved the China subway system on my own. It was actually pretty easy to navigate, although I had some problems finding the right streets once I actually left the subway. It’s also the equivalent of about 30 cents to ride, which is nice.

I went to the Lama Temple first, which is a famous Buddhist temple. The buildings were beautiful, and I also got to see some real Buddhist monks and some gorgeous statues of Buddha (although I couldn’t take pictures of the last two).



Then I decided to go visit the Hutongs. They are very old narrow, walled alleys which are usually named after the family who lived there (and in some cases, still lives there). The alleys are lined by walls, which open into courtyards and dilapidated buildings. The alleys and courtyards were charming, but looked very poor. Also, a lot of them have no heat, or even plumbing, so public toilets are all along the alley ways, and it doesn’t always smell very nice. I wanted to take pictures of the courtyards, but they actually had people living there and I didn’t want to be rude, so I stuck to the alleys.



I was going to go to a park, but my feet were really hurting, considering how much I’ve walked the past few days, so I took the subway back and walked up the Wangfujing Shopping District. Beijing is such a funny city, because in the Hutongs I saw these old buildings, and people riding bikes and rickshaws. And around the Wangfujing District, I saw Hummers, a Lexus store, a Chanel store, and a Louis Vuitton store (the real ones, not knock-offs!).

The modern parts of Beijing look a lot like a combination of New York and Las Vegas, which huge skyscrapers and really colorful, weird buildings, although it seems like it is probably about 10 times the size of New York.



I also saw a KFC, and the ever-popular McDonalds, but off the main street was a really interesting little food fair, although I couldn’t really tell what anything was so I just looked!

Then I went to the Foreign Language Bookstore, where I found a few trashy romance novels! (Hooray!) On my way back to the hostel, I passed a foot massage parlor, which sounded very tempting, but I decided to pass because I’ve heard that “massager” is sometimes a code word for “prostitute,” so I decided it was probably best not to find out.

Tomorrow I’m headed to Nanjing, hopefully with my luggage. I wasn’t too nervous about actually going to China, but what I’m really nervous about is teaching. I have no idea what I’m doing at all, but hopefully I’ll learn quickly. Chinese kids are so smart, I just hope they don’t think I’m a moron.