A suprisingly liberal girl, and an amazingly usefuul website

Well, my first week of classes for the new semester is almost over. I like the guys I live with a lot. I haven't been spending much time with many of the other students on the program, mostly because I have been busy with studying, working, and getting together with 孟利利 (Mèng Lìlì). I have gone out to dinner with groups of CET students two or three times, but when a group has ten or twelve people, it starts to feel kind of impersonal, and each person just focuses on two or three people that they find interesting. Well, that is what I do, anyway. There are maybe five or six students that I think are particularly interesting who attract me for whatever reason, so I may try to become friends with those people over the course of the semester. The language pledge does create a bit of a barrier though, especially for those who can't say so much. My writing sucks, but I can talk pretty well compared to most of my classmates. I am in the second highest class here, and I am one of the more comfortable and fluent speakers in that class. I am actually one of the more competent Chinese speakers on the program, maybe in the 80th or 90th percentile here. Anyway, even I have a fairly limited ability to express my thought, emotions, feelings, and tell stories, so I imagine it is even more difficult for people who are less comfortable speaking Chinese than I am.

I already mentioned that my roommate, Wèi Dèngyǔ is of the Huí ethnicity, and that the guy living in the other room in our apartment is Japanese, I didn't mention Lǐ Xuān, the Japanese guys roommate (I actually don't know the Japanese guy's Chinese name! Ack!), at all. Lǐ Xuān and Dèngyǔ are both fourth year students (Seniors in college, as people normally say in America), and that means that they have no classes. Seriously. That means that half of the guys that live in our apartment have no classes, ever. Granted, they don't just slack around or anything. They both have huge theses to write, and they are working on various other things too. Lǐ Xuān, for instance, a big friendly guy with a big wild head of hair that makes me think he would be a great Asian equivalent to Larry (minus the receding hair line, of course), is teaching himself Dutch. When I asked him why, he replied because he wants to go to Holland. I gotta admit, that is a good reason to learn Dutch. My own roommate, Dèngyǔ, is majoring in city planning and control, and he, although not the tallest Chinese guy I have ever seen, is still pretty tall. Especially for a Chinese guys, who usually make me feel pretty average height (except for the young folk, who are getting taller nowadays, possibly due to a more Western diet, but I am just speculating here).

Most of the time that I spend in my room I am sitting at my desk studying, or sitting at my desk using my computer to waste time online because I am bored of studying. The work load is pretty heavy here. We are getting about thirty new words every day to learn, and although there are usually some that I already know from other classes, and some that are partially composed of characters that I am familiar with already, I still end up spending most of my time studying. In fact, I have a test tomorrow (we have a test every Friday), so I should probably be studying right now, but I have been studying on and off since about 1pm (it is 6 here now), so I am gonna get some food after this to get my mind out of this study mode. Not all is lost, however. The other day a wonderful man came to the CET program to give a presentation on his group's website, iKnow. Free, more enjoyable that doing my own flashcards, and some vocabulary are pretty easy to find associated images, audio, or sentences for. It also gets pretty scientific on learning science, with optimal times to review being recommended and all that, but I just think it is a nifty way to study new vocab. Mostly though, it is free. That a winner for me. I have been using it a lot the past day and a half, and I have already made vocab lists for the first two lessons of our text book, as well as a miscellaneous list of vocab I want to learn above and beyond the scope of class. It is nice because it makes it really convenient and fast to study, and it is focusing on visual recognition of the characters (and knowing the meaning of course) instead of my own personal writing of the characters. I enjoy this because I am fairly convinced of the very limited use in learning to write characters and I would rather focus on spoken communication.

So, I got something pretty big to talk about outside of my studies too: I officially have a Chinese girlfriend now. Yup, that's right. I had been contemplating my girl problem for a while (very recently I have felt like I had a lot more options/choices than was good for me), and when Mèng Lìlì and I went out together on Saturday (which just happened to be Valentine's Day, which I assure you was purely an accident) to see a goofy variety theater/vaudeville-sque show called Dirty Dancing: One Night in Beijing that some people I know were organizing, I guess some things just went right. She loved the show, saying that she would have never seen anything like that if I hadn't invited her, since generally Chinese people were not so open and wild as foreigners (her opinion, although I do agree with it to an extent). After the show we were both in high spirits, and she said she was hungry so we headed to a 24 hour restaurant that I knew and sat and talked while slurping up our noodles. (in retrospect she didn't eat much of her dish, and when I asked her why she responded in this riddle-like way that she was too hungry to eat. Maybe her wanting to go to a restaurant was just an excuse to spend some more time together?) We talked for a while, and eventually headed out. At this point it was maybe 11:00 or 11:30, which is really late for Beijing, 'cause the subways stop at 11:00, so other than the foreigner-heavy bar districts there is basically no-one out and about. We walked for a while, but it was clear that I had not worn enough clothes as I was basically shivering to death, so we decided it was best to part ways and go home. We found a nearby area with a bunch of taxis and parting ways time arrived. There was a nice goodnight kiss (which I wasn't really planning or expecting, but she seemed pleased enough with it), and I was pretty surprised when she so readily returned my kiss. Then I hopped into a cab to go my way, and she hopped into one to go hers. I was pretty damn pleased. On a personal level I was really happy to see the potential for a close relationship blossoming, and it was nice to kiss a girl again (I actually hadn't kissed a girl in more than six months now, which was the longest that I had gone without since I started kissing girls back in 11th grade!). On another level, there are a couple of guys from Kalamazoo I know who spent half of there time in China trying to get dates with Chinese girls, or trying to turn a one-time coffee dates into big relationship plans. I feel kind of happy that they didn't ever succeed, cause I am pretty sure it wouldn't have turned out that great for the girls (the guys I am thinking of both have American girlfriends outside of China). Not gonna lie: I am also happy that I beat them in their little "get a Chinese girl" game. However, I wasn't really sure what the kiss meant. So I decided to get together with her and have a "我们有什么关系？" ("what kind of relationship do we have?") talk.

We met at a local bar/music joint which I was familiar with, and listened to some Mongolian folk music. I saw a horse head fiddle, and throat singing. The throat singing was amazing! I would never have imagined that a guy so small, about the same size as me, could sing so deeply and so strongly. When we had enough of the music, Mèng Lìlì and I sat down a table and talked. We talked about lots of different things, coming back to the "us" subject every now and then only to meander away from it. I was again surprised by how open and liberal minded she is. At one point she leaned forward close to me and asked me if I thought T i_a.i-w./ia^n should be independent. (just so you know, I am spelling it like that so that Chinese government search engines don't easily find it and close down my blog, and possibly track down Mèng Lìlì, although I am sure I am being overly-cautious) That prompted me to talk about my views on independence, which started with me talking about the important of being able to make your own decisions, and ended with me "confessing" to her that I had been really influenced by anarchist though when I was in the US. She said her too, although I think that was more of agreement with a general radical mindset and dislike of the government rather than telling me that she had also read anarchist literature. After talking about the Dah-lie la.mma, his old home, and how Chinese viewed the history of Chinese going there and taking over, we eventually meandered back to the "us" topic. I could go on for another page or two on discussion and decisions, but I am just gonna cut to the chase: in the end she said okay. I didn't stop smiling for a while. ;) We went outside and walked for a bit, but it was about midnight or 12:30, and snow outside (Beijing's first snow in a few years was just the other day. It has been coming down lightly but steadily since then), even with my big winter coat, was a bit chilly. After walking for maybe 10 or 20 minutes, we grabbed a cab. I got off near my school, and she went on back to her home.

Outside of the regular feeling of happiness I get from having just gotten a girlfriend last night, I also feel that this is gonna be a really interesting cross-culture experience. So many things are different between Chinese dating culture and American dating culture. For instance traditionally, not much physical affection is displayed, the boy pays for everything (don't worry, she is pretty modern in that sense, so taking her our isn't gonna run my bank account dry. Besides, I am working, so I am making about 1000 kuai a week. When a NICE dinner costs 100 kuai (the most expensive Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing has duck at about 250 or 300)... well, I think I'm okay), "dates" involve going to the movies, going out to eat together, and lots of talking walks in parks, to which I will add my own "foreign flavor" with listening to bands (there is actually a decent amount of folk music in Beijing), going to theater and dance performances, and maybe a weekend trip or two out of Beijing... Okay, so maybe that part isn't so different from American dating culture as a whole, but this "dating outside of your school in a big city" different from me, since almost every girl I've dated/hung out with and likes has gone to the same school as me, so it has been convenient and easy to spend time together. Now I have a girls friend that lives in a different part of a huge city than I do, so it will actually take a bit of planning and effort whenever we want to get together. Furthermore, I am going to personally experience one of the side effects of China's enormous population: lack of private space. I do not have my own room, and she lives with her teacher, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was not just lots of going over to the other person's place to hang out, read, watch movies, or whatever. Most (umm, knowing China, I would say nearly all) of the time we spend together will be in public places, like theaters, parks, or restaurants. Not gonna lie: I can't wait for the weather to get warmer. That is gonna make taking walks a much more enjoyable past-time.

Interestingly enough, this is the first time I've told my parents (and who knows how many other people via this blog, but probably not too many) about a romantic relationship of mine since I told my dad about my "girlfriend" when I was in 8th grade. (I don't remember too clearly, but I think that was a "girlfriend" that I didn't even hold hands with) I suppose my parents both knew about Kasey the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years of college, but I by no means explicitly introduced her as my girlfriend. Actually, our we didn't really restrict our relationship with those kinds of labels. You should however, either ask myself or my dad how He and Kasey first met. I think it was a F**king HILARIOUS situation. Don't worry mom and dad: Mèng Lìlì is NOT my first relationship since 8th grade.
EDIT: Oops. I just remembered that they met Michelle when I was a Sophomore at Kalamazoo. That's kind of embarrassing: I forget about an ex-girlfriend. But on the bright side, she is one that I had a really hard time getting over, so maybe it is good that I forgot about her.
I also can't help but think what an interesting exercise in self-control this relationship will give me, in two ways: first with Mèng Lìlì herself, since I can't let things get intense or serious with her (I am again and again surprised by how open she was. She, like me, said she wants something very relaxed and low-pressure, accepted fully that I am leaving in the summer regardless of how good or bad our relationship is. And if you are concerned about the standard American definition of a "casual relationship", don't worry. We talked about that too and we aren't walking that path). But also it will be an excessive in self control with my having two lives: the CET on-campus life and my with-Mèng Lìlì off-campus life. I will readily acknowledge that there are three or four really cute girls that are CET students, a some of whom have really attractive and funky styles that I like, the kind of hippie/vegetarian/wearing bright colors with a fun-loving attitude. I know that if I wanted to I could try to become friends with them and see what kind of people they are (meaning: if I wanted or not to date them), so it feels kind of weird to have that kind of opportunity/chance/potential so close but to make myself ignore it. I don't have to by any means (not a single person at CET knows who Mèng Lìlì is), but I certainly don't want to be that kind of slimebag. Like I said before, this will be an interesting experiment in self-control for me, as well as an experiment my commitment to my morals.

I haven't posted any pictures for a while, but I promise that I soon as I get some (Mèng Lìlì and I will surely get them sooner or later. I is practically a right of passage for couples here) I will post them.

Yeah. This was a long one. In summary: the two biggest things in my life for the past 24 hours have been iKnow and my new Chinese girlfriend: Mèng Lìlì. I'm gonna alternatively study and look for tasty restaurants to go out with Mèng Lìlì to now. Bye bye!