Sunday, July 29, 2012

The air cleared a little today, and we got to see blue sky. That was a relief. The concern about storms and flooding in the city caused out outing to be cancelled yesterday, so I went to the flea market to shop a little.

There are a few things about Beijing that are very unlike the United States. Construction is one of them. Everything, and I mean everything, is under construction. I'm used to there being a lot of road and construction projects at home during the summer, but here it's so much more. There are also anomolies that make you wonder what's going on. For example, while we were walking to the flea market, we noticed that there as a pattern of large holes in the sidewalk for an extensive distance. Upon inspection, we discovered that the holes opened into deep nothingness below the sidewalk. Why are there holes? We just don't know.

Cars are the other issue here. There are simply too many of them. The city is intensely congested, even though access to owning a private vehicle seems to be restricted by a lottery of some sort. Traffic is tight and dangerous.

Most people have heard of China's one child policy, but I have, interestingly, been told that it's not true and that many families have more than one child. I can't account for the discrepancy. I just thought it was interesting.

And then, there's China's ice cream monetary policy. Really. We were told that ice cream is actually monetary policy. Luxury ice cream (like Hagen Das) is under government control, so buying a bona fide ice cream bar costs about $15. I've been buying a local bar, that has some kind of chocolate like confection in the center, with a thin layer of jam and ice cream. It's yummy, and it's only about 50 cents.

I tried to watch the Olympic opening ceremonies, but the station that I thought would have it was only reporting from outside of the arena. The Chinese stations are covering their athletes. They cover a greater variety of sports than the US networks cover. There was a lot of excitement about the first gold medal going to a Chinese woman in the air rifle competition.

After living in a cloud for a week, I decided that I needed to cut my hair off, so I located a salon. Their price schedule was tiered according to the experience level of the person who did the haircut. I tried to buy a medium tiered haircut, but they wouldn't have it. The American had to have the manager. So, I had a shampoo, head massage, and haircut by the top guy in the salon. Now I'm sporting a Chinese hairdo!

I have three weeks of study remaining, and tomorrow is another day of study. More later.
Ve