History runs deep.
Confucianism is responsible today for the Chinese having certain rituals they must perform. This can range from obligatorily offering someone something to drink, to sending cards and continually expressing hospitality with clients throughout the year even though a business may have decided to pursue a deal with another company.
Daoism is what causes the Chinese to wait out problems instead of actively trying to fix them. As a male engineer, I might be at odds with both of these philosophies from time to time. There will be many more situations when I am frustrated or at odds with things here, but I have to realize I can't change China – they've been doing things this way for a very long time. I'm sure I'll have a chance to expound upon these ideas throughout the year, so if you don't get it, just wait – I'm sure I'll confuse you even more later.
What shall I do on a free day? Obviously the answer is to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube. A fellow soon-to-be teacher (Josh, who will go to a different city than I) purchased a knock-off cube here. I figured I had a couple hours to kill before anybody else was doing anything fun. Josh taught me how to solve it using 4 or 5 different algorithms. I finally managed to do the cube by myself (without any help from Josh) 2 days later.
Random picture of a rooftop garden, taken from a bus on a clear day. Pretty sweet!
At 11am, a few of us rolled out to the art district on the other side of town. After a little subway detour, we found a taxi driver to take us to the 789 art district. We were hungry when we got there, so we found a reasonably priced place that sold quesedillas (translated as “pancakes”) in addition to more common Chinese cuisine. I had Chinese curry – it wasn't nearly as good as Indian curry, but I'm a little biased towards Krishna or Deep India back in Cincinnati. I took some photos of the sculptures around there, but we didn't have time to do too much exploring within the district.
Not where we ate, but it reminded me of America
Bottle Caps
Damien Hirst Exhibit
With the rest of the group needing to get back to the hotel before 5:30, we took a bus to the closest subway entrance instead of a taxi – all the taxis were stuck in traffic going the opposite direction, and they weren't using the meters at that time of day. We took the subway all the way across the city, but we still needed to take a bus to our hotel... so we waited. And waited. Finally the right bus did come, but it was so packed, and there were so many of us, that I elected to stay off and take one for the team. I waited around for another bus, but when it didn't come, I started walking. Altogether, I probably walked a mile or two back to our hotel and got some good exercise at least.
Today (Sunday) I visited the BeiJing International Christian Fellowship for church. It was probably the last English service I'll attend for a very long time. This coming Saturday I'll be taking a 7-hour train to ChangChun!
On a side note, I played foursquare today with a volleyball. We had a fun time! Oh yeah - and I found a bunch of suspended jellies in my Minute Maid grape drink today. I'm just going to assume that's normal.
