又在中国了 Once again, in China.

Hello everyone! I see that I apparently haven't been anywhere interesting since 2006, according to this blog. Well, I'm back in China, so you get more posts. This time I'm here for an internship with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, which has a 3-odd-year-old office on the Beijing University campus, informally known as BeiDa. This is all very exciting. I, in theory, get to learn about how an international research foundation works, and in any case they research stuff I'm interested in (land policy, sustainable development, tax policy). However...my boss wasn't in when I went to work last Friday so I got put in an office and told 'ok, get to work' and then left by myself, haha. I acted like a good Chinese worker and browsed the internet to appear busy, and then acted like a good American worker and left early because I was jetlagged. SO: I still don't know what I should be doing exactly. Hopefully my boss will be in on Monday!

My flight here was uneventful: I didn't sleep, as usual, but Korean Air was super nice and had good food. Middle seat between two Korean businessmen, but I survived. The worst part was getting to Beijing and a) forgetting my debit card pin so I couldn't get money and b) getting the only cab driver in Beijing who doesn't know where BeiDa is. Let me explain. A) It's not that I didn't remember my code, its that I have it memorized by the letters, and Chinese ATMs both don't have letters AND they switch the keypad order (the 7 is in the upper-left corner instead of the 1). I know this. Its been this way every time. But for the life of me after this long trip I just couldn't get the code switched properly in my head. In the end, I desperately exchanged what US cash I had (like $30) for an exorbitant fee, hoping that this would be enough to make it to BeiDa. B) I get in the cab, and say I want to go to BeiDa. This is like showing up in NYC and saying you want to go to Columbia. Common and famous. The cab driver starts off, slowly, much slower than your usual cutting-through-traffic Chinese cab driver. Halfway there he pulls to the side of the road and gets out a map, saying he's not sure where BeiDa is. No, he doesn't want to call anyone. Could I also read the map? His eyes aren't good and can't see it. GAH! I end up looking all over the map for the tiny characters that say 'BaiDa' and then give the driver directions to where I *think* the east gate of the university must be (where I'm supposed to meet my people).

气死我了.

In the end, everything was fine. I met my people, I was taken to my home for the next three months, and met my roommate, who is from Inner Mongolia and very sweet. Also about five feet tall and tiny, its really funny when we stand next to each other. Funny things that have happened: the day after I got there, I took a shower and got dressed as usual, and she said 'wow! you look so stylish! yesterday when you got off the plane you just looked like a graduate student.' Also, 'your hair is NATURALLY that curly? no! really? no! I just couldn't figure out before why foreigners always permed their hair so much! you mean you guys really just have hair like that? many of you? wow!'

Here is where I'm living:This is what you see when you first walk in. I'm on the third floor of a 40-year-old apartment complex. The university owns it and many professors used to live there, I'm told. Since the people who the university gave the apartments to can't sell them (since the U still owns the rights, even though the people have the right to 'use' them, and I think pay for that right), all they can do is move and then rent out their old spots, which many do.
The kitchen is to the left once you walk in, and looks like this. The whole apartment setup is very, very similar to the ones my teachers had in Harbin and Kunming.
This is the other side of the kitchen. The box above the sink is the hot water heater for the house--yay! 24 hour hot water!
Here's the bathroom. Yes, that's the shower-head above the washing machine on the left. We cover the washing machine with plastic bags to help keep it from getting trashed. I don't think it helps. Also, the machine's not attached to the water line so we have to fill it with a hose from the sink before we start it. BUT...there's a washing machine to begin with, so I'm happy!
This is my room. HUGE!
And perhaps the best part, this is the view! That's right, its GREEN in Beijing! Amazing. The birds are loud in the morning, and there's this one type that I see everywhere--it's black with a blue head, very pretty and fairly large. I had no idea Beijing anywhere still had animals besides tiny dogs, bats and pigeons.