In the Jing

I am in Beijing! Just arrived 5/8 and it’s been awesome. I am staying at my grandparents’ (who raised me) and I can’t stress enough how amazing my grandma’s cooking skills are. She made my favorite tofu dish the night I arrived and it was so delish! Her cooking is seriously one of the most special things I miss about from my childhood that I spent mostly in the Jing. I’m so glad I’m lucky enough to eat the amazing food she makes every time I come back because she only cooks for grandpa nowadays. Love them so much!!!

Where my grandparents live. Pix for Flora~

I remember a Wellesley sister once said to me that “family is trouble.” I never quite agreed with that because I have a very small family in the states and they are pretty awesome. However, as soon as I got back to Beijing, things have already started happening that keep bringing this line up in my head. So yesterday morning, I saw my cousin’s family! I grew up being the closest to my cousin Evelyn and I call her sister in Chinese because she really is more like an older sister to me. Her son Qiqi is now two years old. He’s a shy little kid but very cute indeed. He can even speak some simple words now! My brother in law is still the same…he still likes to force his point of views on me and act like he knows everything…Oh wellz, as long as he’s nice to Evelyn but seriously, every time I see him I’m reminded of how I don’t wanna be with a Chinese man. 狭隘！Also, I just found out that, my aunt in Japan called up almost everyone in the family (yes across the globe apparently) about what happened in my life at the end of last December (those of you who know me should know what I’m talking about…)…ugh. I knew this would happen and that’s why I didn’t call anyone in the fam since what happened because I didn’t wanna deal with it. I know they care about me a lot but I’d like to deal with things like this on my own. Evelyn kept saying how everyone really thought it was a pity that things didn’t work out but dude! this is my life and I know what’s good for myself. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it didn’t happen and I can now say with certainty that I’m glad things happened the way they did.

Bro in law with Qiqi

This is why I love my cousin so much. She can always read my mind and she always knows what’s best for me…unlike other family members who care but do things that totally rub me the wrong way. Even though Evelyn doesn’t work now and practically stays home everyday with her kid, she still knows more about what’s going on in the world than most other people I know!

Enough rant about the family. I hung out with my cousin alone for a couple hours on a campus of a university yesterday after she dropped off Qiqi and my bro in law at the kindergarten. (speaking of which, kindergartens are so hard to get in nowadays in China and you need to do so much prep work to “qualify” your kid. Completely ridic but that’s a story for another time.) We watched a basketball game as we chilled and it reminded me so much of how I’ve always wanted to go to a Chinese college and live the Chinese student campus life :( I feel like I missed out on so much. Maybe I should seriously consider grad school in China now?! But it won’t be the same… I know most of these students are probably going to face unemployment issues when they graduate and as my cousin puts it, they’ll probably have to go home and work in a hoggery (ok that was mean, lol). But still…

Most schools in China have one of these on campus.

Basket ball game. My cousin said Chinese girls consider themselves to be too delicate to watch basketball games thus the lack of female representatives at the game...

dog with rabbit ears. so cute :) love puppies! but miss wawa so much :(

My aunt and uncle (my cousin’s parents) then joined us for lunch. And here’s the amazing food we had! Love Peking duck and fish heads!

I then met up with my other aunt (the really intense one who works at apple) and my other cousin, Cissy. Opened a bank account at ICBC, got a sim card for my iphone (amazing that I can use my iphone in China!), got a new pair of jeans (can you believe that I did not bring a single pair of jeans/pants to China? Dunno what the heck I was thinking!!!), hung out in zhongguancun (the electronics city in Beijing) and had Korean food. If you ever come to Beijing and need to get any electronics or get anything unlocked or anything, check out zhongguancun. People there have mad skills and it doesn’t cost that much to get anything done. And the customer service is awesooooome. Go Beijing!

I’ll see Jingyu tomorrow (wooohooo) and we’ll go to 王府井 for some great food. She mentioned that there’s this new place at 鼓楼 that’s supposed to replace 后海 - the bar district that surrounds the north sea (is it the north sea?). So maybe we’ll check that out. Apparently the party scene in Beijing is now even crazy on weekdays? Mix and Vics are definitely old stories now…We’ll see if I get a chance to check out the new places at all before I headed off to the sticks.

Chinese travel agencies don’t like me because I’m not a Chinese citizen and they won’t book anything for me unless I have a Chinese identification card (which you get at the age of 18 in China if you’re a citizen)…I’m considering just paying 100rmb for a fake one so I don’t have to deal with this bs… I got my aunt’s ctrip card though and I’m most likely just gonna get a plane ticket and head off to Dunhuang (yay dessert!) in the next couple of days without joining a tourist group since foreigner tourist groups are so ridiculously expensive and I’m NOT a foreigner. I prefer it this way anyway though my family’s probably gonna get all worried because things (naturally and politically) haven’t been very stable on that side of the country. I can def handle myself though as long as I can find a hotel that checks in people with foreign passports…otherwise staying at the train station overnight might be an option? ;)

OK sorry I rambled so much...but I can get a little excited right? :)