karaoke, ladies' street and nachos!

Friday night, I went with a bunch of other American students to karaoke at our local "17 Miles KTV" (a location of the very popular KTV karaoke chain). Having been to karaoke in China and Taiwan before, I had an idea of what to expect, whereas some of my classmates were baffled by what they found. In karaoke places here, you get your own room, and you get to select your own songs. The American song selection is limited to current hits and pretty much Backstreet Boys and NSync songs, so if that variety isn't really in your repetoire, your only other option is singing Chinese songs (good luck if you don't read traditional Chinese characters!). Our room even came equipped with maracas and tambourines! After we had all had our fill of awkwardness and general humiliation, we finally left, our final song of course being a Spice Girls song.

On Saturday, we decided to explore a bit of the shopping in Beijing. We took the subway to the stop for what is called "Ladies' Street". While we were walking there, we actually stumbled across the United States Embassy (right next to Israel's, actually).
The actual Ladies' Street was like a festival--the upper street level we decorated with flags and everything and had a bunch of music and lively activity going on. There were a bunch of clothing stores and little street stands selling various goods--including one man selling four puppies (pictured here...so cute!) for the starting price of 350 RMB, which is less than $60. In some of the shops, they had classic "Engrish" shirts with slogans in English that made absolutely no sense. I was very tempted to buy some of the more ridiculous ones, one of which is pictured.

The real action of Ladies' Street, however, is underground. Once you get underground, you're confronted with stand after stand of small booths selling everything imaginable: clothing, jewelry, toys, and more. My personal favorite part is that all the salespeople refer to you as "friend," which is great but not quite as great as the "pretty lady" I got often in Taiwan :-). After Ladies' Street, we stopped by a small flower market area (Beijing's big flower market is in the area, but we didn't have time to make it in there so we had to go to the small substitute).

My personal favorite moment from my Ladies' Street experience was in a particular clothing stall marketed toward those who have a weakness for shiny objects (I think every single item was covered in at least 3 dozen rhinestones). I found what can best be described as a onesie that amused me, and I had every intention of going into the two-foot by two-foot curtained corner and trying it on, but before I had made it halfway across the store, the salesperson looked at me, sized me up, and looked at me and went "Mm-mmm", as in no way are you going to fit into that and you might as well not try it on. She was kind enough to take the item out of my hands and put it back on the rack. I guess I would need the equivalent of a Lane Bryant of Asian clothing stores.

Once we were done in that area, we decided to go to Sanlitunr, one of the "hip" areas for nightlife in Beijing. Having eaten Chinese food for the past 3 weeks, all of us were ready for a bit of a change. In America, mixing it up for dinner usually means going out for Thai instead of getting a pizza or something. Here, mixing it up means going for rice instead of noodles. So needless to say, we were in need of a change of pace, so we decided to eat at a Mexican restaurant we found in Sanlitunr. I can honestly say that nachos have never tasted so good. We stayed there, relaxed for a while and just enjoyed being in an atmosphere that played cheesy, smooth jazzy remakes of Sting and Beatles songs. Although some of the finer points of Tex-Mex cuisine eluded them (the waiter tried to tell us that a burrito, enchilada and tostada are all exactly the same thing), overall it was a very delicious meal.

On Sunday, I went to a hip-hop class at our local Bally's with my friend Annika. It was one of the more awkward experiences I've had since I've been here, because it was the instructor (a male), two middle-age Chinese women and the two of us. Our instructor was really feeling it the whole time, and with my sub-par dance skills and coordination skills, I was a less-than-ideal pupil. He spoke a little English, however, unlike the other dance instructors we've had, so that helped a little bit.

After the gym, we decided to go on an adventure to our local Carrefour, which is a French chain that is the equivalent of a Target here in Asia. The one I had frequented in Taiwan was a supermarket paradise, so I figured I could get whatever I needed at the Carrefour here as well. Well, I was wrong. What I needed most was lotion because the air is so dry, but when I got to Carrefour I immediately was ready to give up. Unlike the one in Taiwan, this Carrefour was just a bunch of items shoved into bins (the clothing was a REAL mess), arranged by no apparent organizing principle. The sheer number of people also made it impossible to navigate the already innavigable aisles, so by the time I found the toiletries section I was more frustrated than anything. I finally squeezed my way into the lotion aisle, only to be confronted by these two options: Sheep placenta lotion and snake gall oil lotion. Needless to say, I walked out of Carrefour empty-handed.

The only thing that could comfort us after that was a pizza restaurant next to Carrefour (we were so hungry from the gym). We ordered what we thought was a 4 cheese pizza. Well, technically it was a good guess, but it was really more like a giant cheese bread--there was no sauce on it! So when we asked for tomato dipping sauce, what did they bring but a vat of ketchup. It was not even close to what we were expecting, but at least we got some laughs out of it.


In class the other day, we talked about parents worrying about their children (a vocab word/grammar lesson). We talked a lot about how Chinese worry about their children if they haven't gotten married by 27 or 28, even if they are super busy at work. In fact, there is apparently a park that parents go to and bring 8x10's of their children to "advertise" for their children to try and find them a spouse. Mom, don't get any ideas.

The other day, my roommate Evelyn had a conversation about the weather that I feel is an accurate summary of the weather here. It went a little something like this:

Me: What does the weather look like?
Evelyn: Kind of dark, really.
Me: Dark, like the sun isn't up all the way, or dark like polluted dark?
Evelyn: *long pause* You know, I don't know.

So for those of you wondering how the air quality is here, that might be your answer. There are days when we can see blue sky, and there are days when I can't find where the sun is in the sky.

One final thing: I have made a few random encounters in the past few days. When I was at the bank exchanging money last week, a Chinese woman came up to me and asked me to be friends (no really, she actually said that). She apparently wanted to practice her English, so she gave me all her information and everything, so I guess I have a new friend! Yesterday at lunch at the cafeteria, after FINALLY finding a place to sit (so many people!!), I ended up sitting with these two graduate students. As it turns out, they were from Taiwan (one from Taipei, where I studied, and the other was from Hualian, which is probably the world's most beautiful place, but both went to school in Taizhong, where I went to visit a hot spring!), so we got to talk about how awesome Taiwan is. They gave me their contact info too and said we were friends, so I guess that means I have 3 new friends here in China!