WangFuJing Night Food Market, Languages

So, I've been here for a bit over two months. I still haven't eaten dog, cat, or horse. I even found a restaurant that had dog meat on the menu, but when I asked them about it they said that they didn't have any. Probably because of Olympic things, with the city becoming more "western friendly." It kind of makes me wonder at what point making Beijing more hospitable to westerners starts infringing on Beijing life. If Europeans and Americans come to China and see kids peeing on the side of the street, is that China's fault that the Westerners are offended. In different cultures, I think it is the traveler's responsibility to adapt to the environment, not the local's responsibility to make the traveler feel at home. After all, nobody is gonna force Westerners to eat dog meat if they don't want to offend their delicate Victorian sensibilities. But, regardless of how much I complain about it, the Chinese government (understandably) wants to impress foreigners, and make Beijing more like Paris, New York and Berlin than a third world city. There has already been plenty of discussion on what they are losing in order to become a first-world city so fast, but I still find it interesting to ponder. How much of China is being lost, just to make it more Western, and what is gained and lost in that? It is interesting to study abroad in a place that is changing like this. Not that South America and Europe never change, but I think my friends who are studying in those places may not go through the same kind of things. ...I can't wait to get back together with those guys and hear all the stories. :)

A little while back two girls from Sweden got in touch with me, saying that they had just graduated high school and were traveling through Beijing, looking for someone to hang with. We were planning to get together and watch a traditional Chinese acrobat show. I had asked one of the people running the CET program here about acrobatics, and they said there was a art of town （天桥, tian qiao, kind of means heaven/sky bridge) that was famous for acrobatics. Apparently, back in the pre-revolution days there were all kinds of street performers and stuff there. Anyway, we went to check out this area, but the tickets were a bit more than we wanted to pay. After wandering a few more blocks to check out some other nearby theaters, but they were just various other kinds of theatricals, and we wanted to see some acrobatics (杂技, za ji). We went back to the acrobatics theater... and they were all out of tickets. Although we had planned on seeing an acrobatic show, I was kind of okay with not seeing it, 'cause money was a bit tight at the moment, and I have seen three different Chinese acrobatic shows in the past three or four years, so I think it would just be more of the same. So, we wandered around the Temple of Heaven area for a while, since that is right next to tian qiao, and then grabbed a bus to WangFuJing street. I had been here before, but it was a new part of China for the Swedish girls. They had been in Mongolia prior to this, sleeping in tents with coals in the middle, and starring up at the stars every night. Beijing is a bit different from that. We walked up WangFuJing street, and hit the night food market. This is where the real fun began.

The fact that the Swedish girls didn't speak any Chinese made me feel really cool, since I was kind of like their tour guide. We meandered down the aisle, eying tasty-looking food stuffs, having vendors shout at us, and playing with them lots. As we wandered we had vendors shout out their foods to us, from the mundane fruit-on-a-stick to the guys you couldn't take seriously because they were trying to sell you deep friend bull's balls and chopped-up pufferfish soup. We ran into a group of Westerners who were encouraging another Westerner to eat the bull's testicles, and while the large group was there, the girls I was with overheard the people talking and realized that some of them were from Sweden! Free bull's ball ensued for the Swedish girls. While chatting with people, I found another American, and apparently he was from Minnesota, same place as me! He asked me what I had eaten so far, and Igave him the list: snake, shark, and starfish. I told that I was eying the scorpions, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. He asked if I would eat them if given the chance, and I told him that I definitely would. Then he offered to but me a stick of scorpions (a lot of the food at that night market is on a stick), at which point I tried to barter with the vendor to get the price down a little, but to no avail. The Minnesota guy was really impressed that I was able to speak Chinese (although a claim that I am practically fluent from someone that doesn't even know the language seems to lack a bit of legitimacy). We exchanged quick stories of why we were in Beijing, and then went on our separate ways. The Swedish girls and I continued on and got fried ice cream, some sugared fruit, and a blowfish, before filling up our bellies. I had a really good time there. We wandered around the rest of WangFuJing a little bit, but most of it is nothing special, just a brightly lit street devoted to the worship of consumerism. Eventually bit the girls goodbye, wished them luck with the rest of their travels, and grabbed the subway back home.

Hearing the girls talk about the school system in Sweden really makes me want to raise my kid (don't worry, that day it still a LONG ways off) at least bilingual, maybe trilingual. In Belgium kids speak German, French, and English. In Sweden they all speak Swedish and English, and many speak a third language. In Hong Kong most students understand English, Cantonese, and Mandarin by the time they graduate high school. Maybe I could move to Belgium or something... At the very least, even if I end up having a family in the US, I'm gonna make and effort to raise a kid with both Spanish and English. Looking at some friends who are where I am (or above me) with Chinese, and also fluent in French or Spanish really makes me wish that I had another language under my belt. I'm still planning on doing a little French during Senior year when I get back to Kalamazoo College, but that is really no comparison to having had taken Spanish classes from elementary though high school, like Jamie, Alana or other people have.