Monday - Our first day in Beijing
After arriving in Beijing and having changed our watches, Monday was more than half over. Passing through the three checkpoints went rapidly allowing us to finally emerge into the area where crowds were waiting. One more gate to maneuver through and the advice that Chinese don't hug was thrown to the wind. We were greeted by a hug from a young man whom we had never met saying what sounded like, "It's so nice to miss you." Of course, after a moment I realized this was Tang Jing as professor from Beijing Institute of Technology and that he was clearly saying, "I'm so glad to meet you."
My second 
big
hug came from Yulin Kang,
our student from Western Oregon University. The third greeter was Yulin's
husband Xiaojie Zhu, also
known as Jack. I sympathsized with him as he speaks no English and so
while we missed all the discussions that occured among the Chinese, he
missed the conversations in English. The culture changed cell phones were
constantly busy as Yulin contacted our driver for the moment to coordinate
our pickup location. Tang also took the lead in getting our tickets for
our flights on the next leg of the journey next Saturday and the exchange
of some money.
At this point we were very confident that we were in good hands as we headed to the car and found our bags already packed by Zhu. Then we followed our driver to his car, or at least to where he thought he had parked the car. He realized we had taken the elevator to the wrong level and our confidence waned. We returned to the elevator and for some reason he thought he should go up and we went down. Our confidence waned even more. After a few moments he emerged from the elevator and we found the car.
Actually the airport which
is beyond the outskirts on the northeast corner of Beijing is not far
from where we are staying. 
The
Central Academy of Fine Arts is on the northeast corner of Beijing just
beyond the fourth ring. Let me comment on the rings. Beijing and many
China cities are very well planned and layed out in straight roads running
north and south and east and west with right angle intersections. In the
center of Beijing is the Frobidden City (more on this after we visit it).
Beyond the Forbedden City is a road and circumnavigated the city. Beyond
that there is another ring circumnavigating and city. After that another
which is essentially the fourth ring. The may appear to show the emergence
of even another ring as the city grows. This fourth ring may be about
20 miles in each direction.
At the Academy
we were met by Philo Yang, our official host at the Academy.
She looked more like a college student than staff. She graciously showed
us two rooms very comparable to a clean Quality Inn motel in America.
There is a TV which speaks exclusively Chinese (although I understood
the soccer game) and a microwave, but no Internet connection, wireless
or wired, so we're handicapped there as far as sending these messages
out. Neither was there a refrigerator which Yulin was counting on because
she brought us three big bags of groceries including cheese and fruit.
I did also find an English speaking news station: CCTV.
I'd been reading on the plane that Chinese are collective and family oriented and so relationships are more important than business so we chatted for a bit before laying out the plans for the future. Having done that we went out to a restaurant as a end of the first day in China treat. They negotiated a fare with a driver and for ten yuan (about $1.35, our exchagne rate was about 7.5 yuan per US dollar) we rode for about four minutes to a large four story building with signs adversitising several businesses. We were told it was a country club. The restaurant was modest, we seated ourselves (seven of us) and the Chinese hosts ordered but turned out to be more than we needed. The setting was a pair of chopsticks resting on a small marble stand, a small plate and a napkin.
The first
two plates contained a fish appeared to be dried and sliced into bitesize
pieces appropriate for chopsticks, and what appeared to be a bread and
unknown vegetable soaked in a dark delicious sauce. After this the dishes
came continuously until the table was full. A beer was split among the
three Americans, tea tea was served around and Zhu went ot the car to
bring us some cold red tea. The red tea reminded me of the red tea from
Mississippi. One plate was whole kernal sweet corn fried in the shape
of a large pizza and coated with sugar. A pot of soup on a flame was a
tomato beef which I think was recommended by Jary and Sally. Another soup
came in individual bowls. In my bowl was a backbone of the duck; in Mary's
a webbed foot and in Zhu's the duck head cut in half. Mmm!
By now it was a mere 7:30PM locally but some 30 hours after getting up for the flight on Sunday morning. We were not ashamed going to bed early. Actually I have not adjusted to the local time as I awoke about 2:00AM and am writing this entry. More on that in day three, Tuesday
Here's a picture of Tang
and Philo, our new friends in Beijing.