Orientation, the Impending Language Pledge, and My Life

Hello friends!
It has been an insane few days here in Beijing.
Move in was initially an incredibly intimidating experience; I got to our host university, and was immediately overwhelmed by the massive amount of Korean and Italian students that were checking in (I know that there's over 100 Italians alone).  The check-in counter for my program was closed and so I floundered around for a little bit, looking completely lost, until it opened back up when the workers returned from their lunch break. Since then we've sat through quite a few orientation meetings, met our Chinese roommates, and wandered around a few different parts of the city.  More on that later.

First off, I want to explain a little bit about our program. It's super intense (and small too, there's only four of us). We're the only group to have the language pledge, a commitment we make to speak only Chinese during our semester here in Beijing.  They're super serious about it too; if you violate the pledge 3 times, they fail you in all your classes and send you home.  Also, all our classes and trips and everything are completely separate from all the other programs.  We're also the only foreign students here with Chinese roommates. I asked our assistant director, James, about it, and he said that the seperate-ness was for "quality control".  This is gonna be the hardest academic experience of my life, I have no doubt about it.  My Chinese skills are not strong, and interacting exclusively in this incredibly difficult, intimidating language is going to be a monumental struggle.  We're already speaking a lot of Chinese and I find myself asking for translations of English words every few minutes, asking for more simple interpretations of our Chinese roommates' sentences, fumbling through menus in restaurants, and the like.  It doesn't help that all of the other kids in my program speak significantly better Chinese than me. This might sound a little cocky (not intending to), but I'm not used to being the worst at things and it's pretty rough, such a freaking humbling experience.  Probably good for my ego in the long run though. I'm unbelievably nervous for the language pledge and classes to start on Monday, almost as nervous as I've ever been for everything.  My mood and my emotions fluctuate wildly; after a good interaction in Chinese, when I'm able to effectively communicate my thoughts, I feel great.  I believe I can handle the pledge.  Then, often no more than a few minutes later, I'll pathetically struggle my way through a conversation, and my morale will be devastated.  I question my ability to learn and speak the language, my ability to stick to the pledge, my ability to stay sane for the next four months.  It's been quite a roller coaster, and it's only going to get more intense from here. 
There are upsides though.  The people in my program are absolutely fantastic.  The other exchange students (2 more from Tufts and one from Bennington) are really good people and share a lot of my feelings.  It always helps to know that you're all in the same boat, because a lot of the time struggling with the language can be an incredibly isolating experience.  I've had so many fantastic conversations in the past few days, like the one I had with Forest and Logan sitting on the rooftop section of an incredibly overpriced KTV bar in the HouHai district.  The four of our Chinese roommates are also really really cool people.  They're incredibly patient with our (especially my) language struggles, they're funny and kind and understanding and really good people overall. I'm really looking forward to making some lifelong friends here.  The stories and experiences that I'm going to make over the next four months here are going to be etched in my memory forever, because when else am I going to move to a completely unfamiliar country and be forced to study and speak a language that I'm barely proficient in full time for four months? I already have one: the day we met our roommates, I was talking to one of the Chinese guys in absolutely elementary Chinese about basketball as they were showing us around the neighborhood. I asked him who his favorite player was, and he said it was Tracy McGrady. We then proceeded to struggle through a conversation about T-Mac, his recent retirement, and his legendary 13 points in 33 seconds. What made the interaction even more comical was that one of us American students, the aforementioned Forest, didn't know who T-Mac was and hadn't heard about the previously mentioned feat.  Watching/hearing us struggle to explain the event in Chinese together must have been absolutely hilarious.  When the conversation drew to a natural close though, I was left with quite a unique feeling. It showed me that no matter how difficult language boundaries can be, certain feelings and emotions can transcend them.  That was on the second day of the program.  It's going to be moments like those, which hopefully happen in increasing amounts as my language skills improve, that get me through the difficult days/weeks.  I already know it.
I knew coming into this program that I was putting myself out of my comfort zone, that things were going to be difficult.  I had no idea how far out of my comfort zone it was going to be, how bad the struggle really is.  These next four months are going to be a defining test of my resiliency, of my confidence, of my self-esteem. The key is going to be reminding myself that this is what I want, that the rewards (both personal and academic) are going to be worth the difficulties. I'm proud of myself for putting myself in this situation, because now that I'm here I'm gonna be forced to make the best of it.  Right now, floundering is not an option for me.  I will struggle, I will persevere, I will succeed.
This test actually comes at a remarkably appropriate time in my life.  In the past two months or so, I've decided to commit to changing the things I don't like about myself, about my life, about the way I think and act and speak.  This is going to test that commitment in a way that few things can.  One way this commitment has been manifesting itself that I've been thinking about a lot is in the way that I pray.  I think I've gotten a lot more religious over this summer, due to a plethora of factors that I won't go into.  When I was home over the past few weeks, I realized that my new relationship with religion has come hand in hand with a dramatic change in the way that I pray.  I no longer ask god for good things to happen to me, I no longer ask him/her/it to make me strong or give me good luck or help me be a better person.  All I ask from god is that he/her/it keeps the things that I can't control about my life stable, keeps them in a condition that optimize my ability to help myself, to change myself for the better, to make good things happen to myself.  This was a big change for me, and I think it represents a much larger way that I think about and interact with the world.
I will pass this test. It comes at a perfect time and I am completely determined to make it one of the best experiences of my life.

Now (on a much lighter note), I'm gonna talk about some of the little things that I've noticed/done here.
First: you don't know big, you don't know crowded, you don't know bustling til you've been to Beijing.  It's a completely different world. The main surface arteries in the city are 6 lanes in each direction, with additional bike/scooter lanes on the side.  The subway currently has 17 lines and continues to expand.  The amount of cars and traffic during all hours of the day/night is absurd. The city stretches out in every direction for miles. On my way over to the expat bar/cafe that I'm currently sitting at to mooch off of wifi, at about 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, the subway was absolutely packed.  I had to transfer twice on the ridiculously massive subway and stood in subway cars packed to the brim with people (I was often the only foreigner).  I continue to be amazed/overwhelmed by its size, by its energy, by its character. It's awe inspiring, and rather scary as well.
Second: there are a lot of expats here, and the culture is pretty hilarious.  On Thursday night, we went to an expat bar in the heart of the university district (WuDaoKou) called Pyro Pizza.  They have weekly pong tournaments on Thursday night.  The crowd inside was the most eclectic mix of expats and Chinese I could have ever imagined, all playing pong and drinking and dancing to the ridiculous ratchet music they were playing.  I felt like I was in a frat basement.  Some interesting characters I met include: Joe, the native Kansan, who was wearing a tucked in Kobe jersey with matching Lakers athletic shorts, wearing a black and pink snapback with a giant marijuana leaf and "BLUNTS" written on both sides; and Kate, the intimidatingly large, short haired Dutch manager of the bar who destroyed people at pong, yelled at anyone she didn't like, and had an I <3 WU (WuDaoKou) tattoo on her right shoulder.  I'm currently sitting at another expat bar/cafe, enjoying their wifi with some cheap beer and coffee, eavesdropping on the conversations (a mix of English and Chinese) going on around me, and enjoying their interesting mix of American mega-hit music of the past 15 years ago.
Third: food here is magnificent. It can be cheap or expensive, and you can find anything you could possibly want.  Highlights since my last post include the Yunnan food that our assistant director James treated us too last night, the 5 kuai (less than $1) steamed dumplings I had for breakfast by campus today, and the famous Beijing Roast Duck that we had with our roommates on Thursday.
Fourth: you'd think Chinese people would have a decent exposure to Indians, but most Chinese here seem to think that I'm black. Unfortunately, most Chinese people also have quite a stereotypically negative perception of black people as well.

After I get dinner somewhere around here, I'm headed to the Hyatt in the middle of town to buy an expensive cocktail and just watch the Beijing skyline and chat with the other Americans in my program from their 64th floor bar.  It should be beautiful with how good the weather has been around here. The day I moved in, Wednesday, was incredibly bleak; it was cloudy and the pollution/smog was everywhere. It made visibility miserable; you could smell it; you could feel it in your lungs.  Since then though, it has been absolutely gorgeous outside. We've been able to see the blue skies and the stars every day/night (which apparently is a rarity in Beijing). James recommended that we go to this bar and take advantage of the clear skies, so we're doing just that tonight.  I really hope the weather stays this good, fall is supposed to be the best season in Beijing after all.

Also, here's my address:  
Rithwik Hari 
Middlebury School in China 
Capital Normal University International Culture Plaza 
83 Third Ring Rd. 
Haidian District
Beijing, China 100089

Please write me/keep in touch with me via any medium possible.  I miss all of you dearly, and continued communication with you will help keep me sane over the next few months.  Being a stranger is not allowed.

That's all I have for now.  Thanks for powering through a rather long and philosophical post, I've had a lot to think about over the past few days, and it's nice to get it all out.  There will undoubtedly be more of these posts, especially as I'll soon be forced to speak exclusively Chinese. The thoughts and ideas and emotions that build up behind the dam that is my language barrier will need an outlet, and this will be it.
I hope all of you have been doing well, wherever you are and whatever life has brought you.

Day 1

I arrived safely in Beijing yesterday evening, and was met at the airport as planned by my good friend Logan.  We proceeded to take the airport subway connection to the Beijing Metro, then rode the subway itself back to his apartment near Beijing Normal University.  The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane was the humidity and the unique smell that always accompanies it; it reminded me a lot of getting off the plane in India.  Logan said that yesterday wasn't even particularly humid, even though it felt like an incredibly warm 77 degrees to me. The metro was fast, clean, fantastically cheap (~2 yuan, which translates into $0.33), and not nearly as crowded as I was expecting it to be.  There's TV screens all over the stations and the trains, with CCTV constantly playing some combination of news, cartoons, and other miscellaneous programming. 
After dropping off my luggage at his apartment, we took a taxi to the 鬼街 (Ghost Street) area, full of bustling restaurants overflowing into the streets, cars parked all over the sidewalks, paper lanterns hanging from the trees, and restaurant vendors heckling pedestrians.  We ate at a fantastic Uyghur restaurant; Uyghurs, for those of you who don't know, are one of China's officially recognized ethnic minority and come from the 新疆 (Xinjiang) province in the northwestern most part of China.  We ate a bunch of different preparations of mutton, from mutton kebabs to mutton fried rice to stir fried nan and mutton.  It was all glorious.  There was also a delicious spicy fried green beans dish that had the most peculiar tingling and mouth-numbing aftereffects, due to its preparation with Sichuan Pepper. We washed down our massive meal with a few Yanjing Fresh Beers, one of China's big two mass market beers that was surprisingly good.  Afterwards, we walked around beautiful old Beijing for an hour or so, and I got a nice mini-tour from my history-buff friend. 
I'm currently stuck in my friend's apartment for another hour or so.  I can't move into my program until noon, and though I would love to go exploring I can't leave the apartment without my massive suitcase because I have no way of getting back into his place.  I'm planning on just leaving here and heading straight to Capital Normal University, where my program through Middlebury is located, and checking in early. 
The city is intimidatingly large and the language continues to scare me, especially knowing that starting Monday, I'll be basically speaking it exclusively.  As I walk around though, I'm constantly thinking about how to say certain things in Chinese, looking and reading posted signs and billboards, and just trying to get a grasp of the language's day to day use.  It's somewhat comforting that I can pick out words and phrases all around me, and it'll only get better with every passing day that I spend here.  I'm really looking forward to getting to know this city, and the Chinese language, really well over the next 4-ish months!
That's all for now, I'll check back in a few days.

和力宏去到北京

你好朋友们,
Here, you'll find random chronicles of my time studying abroad in Beijing and my travels throughout China and Asia.  For those of you that don't speak/read Chinese, the title of this blog translates to: "He Lihong [my Chinese name] Goes to China: Studying Abroad in Beijing. I'm writing this sitting at the gate of my flight to Beijing from San Francisco International Airport, filled with both excitement and nervousness.  The amount of Chinese that I'm hearing already is pretty scary, but it's also somewhat reassuring that I can pick out words among the rapid conversations taking place around me.  I'll be arriving in Beijing at around 6PM local time on Tuesday the 27th, which is 3am PST/6am EST.  Logan, one of my good friends from high school who is currently spending his summer interning in Beijing, will be meeting me at Beijing Capital Airport, and I'll be spending the night with him.  Then, on Wednesday the 28th, I'll be moving into Capital Normal University's International Student Dorm and starting my program with Middlebury University's Middlebury in China program.


It's going to be an incredible four months, filled with incredible experiences of all sorts.  I'm already preparing for the intense struggle that will be speaking almost exclusively Chinese during my time in country, but the fruits of my labor will (hopefully) be worth the trouble. 
Thanks for following along!
-Rithwik