Happy 牛 (niu) Year

The Chinese New Year in Beijing = absolute crazy mayhem and celebration! It's insanity! (that's for you, Megan!). I woke up on Jan 25th, Chinese New Years eve, to the sound of fireworks going off in our courtyard, which didn't stop all day long. The traditional purpose of Chinese fireworks is to scare off evil spirits with loud noises before the coming New Year, which means instead of spectacular displays of light, there were spectacular displays of sound all day, and THEN spectacular displays of light at night.

For a couple of days, there wasn't a whole lot going on because this is mainly a family holiday and much of the city is shut down, so Liz and I had our own feast of Mac & Cheese and jiaozi (dumplings) at our apt and watched a bit of the Spring Festival Gala on TV. At about 11pm, Seth came over and we went outside to a major intersection to watch the fireworks exploding all around us. I almost walked into fireworks being set off a couple of times in the middle of the street, only to be pulled back in time by Seth (thanks!). We saw all these large-scale, professional fireworks displays all around us, and I was puzzled at first because I couldn't figure out if companies or hotels were arranging these displays, only to get up close and realize that half the time, a 12 year old kid was setting them off! It was non-stop fireworks mayhem in every direction you looked!



Almost equally as amazing is how quickly the streets got cleaned up! By the time I got back to my apartment at 1am, this is what was piled up just in front of my building - the pile was taller than I am!




The Chinese New Years holiday lasted about a week, and though I was a little sick for most of it, I tried to do something fun every day. For example, Liz and I went ice skating on Beijing University's lake one day, and we went to a 庙会 (a temple fair) on another. Temple fairs are a famous part of the celebrations held over this week of holidays that are strangely remniscent of the NC State Fair - only with 串 instead of funnel cakes. There were performances, vendors selling all sorts of Ox themed paraphenalia to celebrate the Ox year, food stands, and excited crowds... a lot of fun! (see facebook for more pictures)

Drinking Obamas

9 pm on January 20th - after a long day and freezing temperatures, did we brave the cold weather and a crowded, smoky bar to see Obama's Inauguration? Hell yeah! Wouldn't have missed it for the world! Liz (my roommate), Seth, Carl, and I taxi-ed over to The Rickshaw in Sanlitun to watch the presidential inauguration on their flat-screen TVs broadcasting CNN (I miss CNN!). We couldn't hear a thing for the first 3 hours since the bar was full of people from all over chatting about Obama and American politics. It was fun hearing Americans explain everything that had happened during the election and describe Obama's cabinet appointees to their British and Chinese buddies. There was definitely a palpable sense of pride in being American all around us that night.

So we had a couple of drinks (of course, one of the drink specials was named The Obama, and of course, we all ordered one) and the bar finally quieted down to complete silence as we watched Obama take the presidential oath and make his inaugural speech. I think many Americans are now holding their heads a bit higher after that night. 2009 is turning out to be a new start in so many ways!

The Neighborhood View

Whoa. I'm in Beijing. I'm living in Beijing. This is my new reality. This is what I've been wanting to do for a long time - probably a couple of years now - and I've finally transformed my aspirations into actuality. It hasn't been easy, and my first week here was especially overwhelming. I went apartment hunting 4 days in a row, met up with 8 friends, started job hunting, signed an apartment contract, joined a gym, and went on a date all within the first week and a half. phew! The good news is that now, after 2 weeks, what was once so new and different is already becoming familiar - it's amazing how quickly people adapt to new situations.

Even though I'm still pretty stressed about job hunting, and I only understand half of what's said around me, I can already tell that coming to China was the right decision. It's an everyday challenge just to navigate my way around here every day, and though it comes with some stress, I like that challenge. I didn't realize just how comfortable....actually, complacent, I was with my life in Chapel Hill. I felt in control of every aspect of my life there, yet somehow felt lost. Here, I'm forced left and right to give up on my perfectionist tendencies and the necessity to know exactly what's going on around me (sign this 1 year apartment contract that I can't read at all? sure!), and I feel great! Who knew?

The Wang Family Reunion

Hi everyone! So in the spirit of trying new things out, like moving halfway around the world, I've also decided to give blogging a try so that I can chronicle my experiences and thoughts as I begin a life in Beijing. Why did I decide to move to China for a period of time? Well, there are many reasons that most of you have heard at some point, but I often forget to acknowledge the most basic, underlying reason - my family and the appreciation of my Chinese heritage, language, and culture that comes from them.

This trip to China first started with a Wang family reunion in Anhui province, composed of just my paternal grandfather, his children (my dad and his siblings), and their families. You'd think it'd be easier to get us all together, but with my Uncle Qingbo and his family in China, my family in America, and my Aunt Ruiping and her family in Japan, we haven't all gotten together in over a decade. This reunion was especially cool because my cousins are both 19 years old, and this time we talked pretty frankly and in depth about our very different lives. At night, when there wasn't much to do, I thought a lot about how my life would've been if my family had never immigrated to the West and I had grown up in Anhui.

I did get to spend time out of my head though, and there was lots of celebrating, good food, banquet rooms, toasting my relatives with tiny cups of 白酒，relatives once, twice, and three times removed, and conversation (much of which was heavily accented to the point where I just nodded my head and tried to go with the flow). All in all, it was a good time, but more importantly, hearing my parents talk about the hopes and dreams they had when they grew up in China and how far they've come since then was the perfect way to mark the start of my own independent life in China and the hopes and dreams I'm (hopefully) on my way to fulfilling.