Attempting the impossible and the ridiculous, I plan on keeping a diary of some sort here--like, hopefully, a 70% stats, 30% commentary type of journalistic/reflective endeavor, while writing some, writing... urgh, fiction. Anyway, re-cap on the last three days. Beijing, China - Day 1 (082806)
- Plane delayed for a day in Chicago - Stayed at hotel, met people - Got to Beijing around 11 - Got to Tianjin around 1:30 due to getting lost - Slept from 15:00-3:00
I know where mama got her temper when third Auntie opened her mouth and yelled. The first day in Beijing is gray. It's gray like the newly built buildings, sleek and modern and flashing with giant, vertical red banners that scream how so and so real estate company is making your home and community a garden of a paradise to live in. Every apartment complex here is compared to Babylonian gardens. They might have a chance, if they are able to pierce the thick wall of cloud pollutants more paradise lost than regained. It's so gray the trees look like they did in 1995, matte gray, gray through a memory filter. We were driving and we kept getting lost and honked at. There's a few stray bicyclists looking out of the era. There's a taxi drive taking a piss off the side of the road.
We're driving and we kept getting lost. Tough it out, cookie.
I'm afraid my hypochondriac tendencies are, if we could adequately borrow the terror alert system, at a red. It's a bit on the scary side. I would like it to stop so that I can resume to be the foolhardy, gullible, idealistic girl that I am.
Beijing is somehow ugly and unfamiliar looking like a game not worth saving on Sim City.
There's towering condos everywhere, and everywhere billboards and banners shout mercilessly.
Me? I just don't wanna die. Hahaha.
There was a car accident on the way back. It flipped to its side and scattered packages of letters over two lanes. The driver's walking around without a shirt on. He's got his shirt pressed to the side of his head, where blood oozed and trickled out. I kept on wishing the police car we're chasing in front of us would give us a ticket, because we sure was going at insane speeds swiveling from car to car enough to make me wish the seatbelt in the back of the car would actually work.
It's just, I don't wanna die.
Tianjin, China - Day 2 (082906)
- Chatted from 3:00-6:00 on QQ - Went to Grandma's @ noon - Went to hospital in the afternoon for that tonsil problem - Got shot twice - Shopped @ Carrefour, massive 20:00 lines
Today I got shot (by a needle). I fainted for about 10 seconds to gray haze -heart sped up, ears imploded, eyes to zombie death, a group of nurses ushered around me and led me to bed, "Are you okay? Are you okay? Tell us what's wrong, what do you feel? Can you hear with your ear? shi bu shi er ming la?" To which I moan in confusion, "er ming shi shen me yi si?" Death I wantednto say, before I regained conscious in my fingers and gripped them strong against the bedpost--death. 10 seconds later I was okay, but all the doctors think I've lost my head. "Zen me bu zhi dao er ming shen me yi si?" What does she mean she doesn't know what er ming means?
Oh, she just got back from America. She lived there for 10 years. Auntie explains. Oh, guai bu de. (Oh, no wonder) One doctor quips. "Zhang de zhen nai ren-er ne!" She is very cute! Another nurse quips. "Shi ah, hen jun ah," and another adds.
And I almost fainted again.
Tianjin, China - Day 3 (083006)
- Went to Western medicine hospital - Went to visit brother - Went to Chinese medicine hospital - Went to Carrefour again to buy more junk - Fell asleep from 17:00-21:30 again...
I love this place two to three o'clock in the afternoon--when the cars are wearier and roads breezier and I'm crisscrossing traffic like a fish in a stream, slice and dicing my way around.
There's this one little kid that made my day. He was going upstream, on a red light, curving between taxis and bikes. He's on a skateboard. He makes an ollie. He's a shrimp of a little thing disappearing into the crowd.