Twice in One Week, What Even?

Today I am going to go visit Yanan. Unfortunately, the donut shop closed down because rent was getting too high, so Yanan had to find another job, and I no longer get to eat donuts every two weeks or so. Now she works in a shopping mall department store selling expensive imported men's shoes from Italy or France or something--Pierre Cardin? It's good for her because she now has coworkers, when before she was often in the donut store alone. (Wow Molly, you are right about my sentence structure being all crazy). One thing I learned from working at Camille's Sandwich Shop in Pittsburgh, is that crappy jobs are ten times crappier when you are there all alone, and actually kind of fun when you have crazy people working next to you.

Last time I visited Yanan at her new job, I got to hang out with the new coworkers too. They couldn't believe I was using my left hand to write characters, and then they told me I held the pen wrong. Well lately I have been practicing writing holding the pen the way they told me to. It's not only more comfortable, but the ink flows better out of my pen. Weird! Here is a strange thing: Chinese people are always shocked by left-handed people because almost no one in China uses their left hand to write. But after the initial shock they will always say, oh but left handed people are very smart. Well if your culture thinks left handed people are smart, why make all kids write with their right hands? Yao? Anyone?

This week is midterms (bleehhhh), and then next week we go to Chengdu in Sichuan for a week. I owe you guys a picture blog--hopefully I'll have some good ones from Chengdu!

Love,
Jen

Things That Happen In China

Well as this is a new semester, and I've been in China for a good five or so months, my life is feeling more like routine and less like a new adventure, so sometimes I forget to post. But I am still having experiences, and it's been too long since I've shared them with you all, so here goes:

My research project is about tourism in hutongs, traditional alleyways in the center of Beijing. Many of these guys have been demolished for development, while others have been developed into commercial tourism streets. I think this is interesting because on the one hand, people are sad hutongs are disappearing, and on the other hand, one of the only ways to preserve them, tourism, is drastically changing them. So I spent last semester interviewing people who live in the hutongs about how they feel about this phenomenon, and this semester I am interviewing people in the tourism business about their attitudes toward it. So lately I've talked to a guy who designs nifty Beijing T-shirts, a hostel owner, and a coffeeshop owner.

Hmmmm what else--there was a huge fire in an unfinished hotel due to extreme fireworks set off by the hotel company next to the hotel. I got to watch it because it was only ten minutes from my dorm. It was really frightening to see that many flames in one place--maybe 40 stories of disaster. There were hundreds of people watching. Kind of creepy. As far as I can tell 6-7 people were hurt and maybe 1 person died.

I really have no idea how to speak English anymore.

I am taking a cooking class once a week, so when I come home I can make you all delicious Chinese delicacies.