Dealing with Duality

It is still hard to say how I feel about living in Beijing. The tastes,
smells, sounds, sights, and textures still leave me in some level of
culture shock. I think that the hardest thing I’ve had to wrap my
head around is the many seemingly contradictory experiences of life in
Beijing. As I walk out of the International University of Business and
Economics campus I live on and into the local neighborhood I notice how
the streets are littered with cigarettes and trash, and garbage collects
along the curb. It seems to be a place lacking any sort of cleanliness,
but when I step into the subway system it is spotless with airport like
security for your bags. The extremely efficient, brightly lit and clean
train pulls up exactly on schedule and as it flies out of the station I
almost feel like I could be in a futuristic episode of Doctor Who as I
listen to an unfamiliar language, speeding underground in a sleek shiny
metro car. When I walk to local restaurants around campus I see
shiny expensive cars driving on the same street as bicycles towing carts
of heaping piles of wood or other supplies. There are fancy restaurants
with big red lanterns next to the local hole in the wall restaurants no
bigger than my dorm room. The fancy hot pot restaurant I went to served
soup with little fish in it(really, a whole fish was in my soup, eyes,
scales, and all!) but the best meal I have had yet is the delicious baozi
from a restaurant that is more like a room with three small tables. At
first glance it would scare away anyone frightened of the lack of
hygiene. It is a place where you don’t let the rough wooden chopsticks
hit the table but you can count on the steamed buns and dumplings being
fresh and delicious. At first I thought the whole hallway I live on in
my dorm smelt like Chinese take-out but now I seem have become accustomed
to this smell everywhere. So often this city seems so modern teaming with
businessmen and technology but then I remember that there are no laundry
dryers, YouTube, and facebook don’t work, and I wonder how this great
contrast exists. Last Saturday I went to the Forbidden City, a beautiful
site of Chinese history. It was remarkable that to get to the gorgeous
palace built over five hundred years ago for the glory of Chinese
dynasties I had to walk through Tiananmen Squareand consider the great
contrast in these two historical sites. I am still processing what it
means to be in China, and especially in Beijing. My senses have been
bombarded with all the new surroundings and although there are
somethings I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to I can definitely get
used to sitting with some friends over a couple dishes of steaming hot
baozi from the hole in the wall restaurant where a little happiness can
be bought for less than a dollar.