First day in China.

I've already written this to a mate, so I thought I'd just post it on my blog to let everyone read this.

It’s about 6 am, I can’t sleep as it’s touching 40 degrees here. Plus the fact my body clock is all messed up…

Well the flight was not so long, yet I didn’t sleep a wink. I was way too excited to sleep. That and I’d met two Australian girls in front of me, who kept the banter going, and a Chinese girl who spoke amazing English.

I got off the plane and as we walked towards passport control, there are these cameras on tripods, which are heat sensitive. Of course, me being one of the lads with a heart warmer-than-others, I got stopped and put into the quarantine area for a while to check my temperature. They checked my ears and temperature of my armpits to see whether I was a potential swine flu victim, and after a short while, they let me go. I met a really friendly American girl in the quarantine area – we decided they were picking on us just because we were white!



Passport control was so simple, and the people in Beijing Capital airport were so helpful. I got through the main gate, and met Serina (who I now have to call Jingyi as that’s her Chinese name) alone with my two new Chinese flatmates. I tried telling a joke when I arrived, which always goes down well. My jokes aren’t funny in English, but in Chinese – I’m hilarious! Oh and I’m living with a couple; a guy called Wang Zhi, who does IT and is always making jokes and very intelligent, and his girlfriend Liu Jia, a girl from Xinjiang who is great fun to talk to. You should hear her on her phone, always smiling, talking loudly to her mates and shouting at people. They’re both mathematicians but very outgoing. I’m really lucky being landed with these two.


We registered at the Police station after a journey through the Beijing Underground. It was so strange being stared at but at first, I thought nothing of it. I guess being tall, with fair hair and green eyes would get some looks initially, though it is Beijing, and there are a few foreigners here (though I’ve yet to see one!).

Being stared at was nothing compared to our trip to the supermarket. The one thing you have to remember about China is that the population density is double that of the UK, so the supermarket is rammed. Not only that, but people all stare at me. They stop in their stride and their eyes follow me across the shop gawping at me. Either that or they stare at me and crash their trolley into the stack of instant noodles, which was f*cking hilarious. I wish I had the banner ‘epic fail’ to bring out at that point. Wang and Liu think it’s great. We were walking down the street and some guy just took a photo of me. I would have posed given the chance but hey, maybe next time. Also when in restaurants, every waitress goes bright red at the sight of me, and the restaurant goes deathly silent when I speak Chinese.

Maybe it’s the area I’m living in. I’m living in Haidian, an area in which most the Universities are. But living in a block of flats with Chinese people, means that that in itself is unusual; most foreigners live in Uni accommodation or in the ‘expensive’ area of Beijing. So I guess I’m the local celebrity. I was told not to buy apples on my own, or they’ll be triple in price. However, that it good, as I did try to order apples but I had to ask three times as the old woman was mesmerised by my big English, ahem, eyes. The golden moment was when in the supermarket buying bedding, some lady was staring at me so hard she crashed into a pyramid of instant noodles!



Speaking Chinese isn’t as bad as I thought. I worked hard on the speaking over summer, but my housemates speak a bit of English, though I think my Chinese is better, yet it’s nice to just talk in English now and then when I can’t remember the odd word. I’m also quite confident to talk, I make a lot of mistakes but my housemates understand me, and we spend most of the time laughing.

We ate so much yesterday. We had some spicy dish with garlic, beef, chilli and celery. Some pumpkin buns and the biggest two plates of roast duck you could imagine. All for just under 10 quid for three people! The restaurants are crazy, everyone shouts and there’s so much happening all at once, but it’s really good fun.

Facebook is blocked, though I can get on it. I'm just using a good proxy.

Be good!