Second Week

Well, the start of the second week finds me pretty well exhausted; we've been moving non-stop since I got here last Saturday(or Friday, in Seattle time). We've watched several movies, toured parts of the old city, shopped at anenormous antiques market filled with tourists, etc. etc. etc. The past coupleof days I've been kind of keeping to myself. My body's starting to rebelagainst the sudden change in diet (although it wasn't so dramatic, since I ate mostly rice and veggies before I came), the upside-down sleeping times, and the stress of being around so many people ALL the time. I'm normally pretty congenial, but I need my alone time. And I just haven't been getting it.

We went to the Great Wall yesterday. Frankly, Richard Nixon's infamous quote("It sure is a great wall") pretty well sums it up. It is pretty cool, though,and quite a tickler for the imagination to think that you're walking on astructure that was there before Jesus. That's pretty old. And I'll tell you what, that sucker is STEEP. In some places there's a good 60% grade at least, I'd be willing to guess steeper in some areas. Sometimes it looks like it just goes straight up. And there were so many people! At one point I was trapped against a wall inside a guard house, pressed at from all sides by a flowing river of people, unable to move. Once outside I actually cried; I think I just narrowly missed an all-out panic attack, as absolutely claustrophobic as I am.

That's one thing about the Chinese: they really aren't afraid to shove you. I'm not sure it's so much that they're rude, but when you live in a city this large you get used to just going before someone else does. That and I'm sure that the fact that I'm a foreigner doesn't help much. For the most part they've become pretty accepting of a blue-eyed stranger, but there are still a few people who look at you distrustingly. And of course there are always those who will jack aprice up 500% because they think you don't know any better, which of course you usually don't. I'm embarrassed to think of all the times I've probably been taken. They always get a little surprised, though, when I start speakingChinese, and once I start haggling in their native tongue the price usually drops pretty dramatically. Either way, they're still a pushy people. I've hadpeople cut in line in front of my five or six times at the grocery store (which is pretty much every time I've gone). And you should see the way they drive!

This week I have:
1. spent an exhorbitant amount of money on shamelessly tourist-oriented crap
2. been hit on by a guy with a camel at the Great Wall, who told me in Chinese that he thought I was very beautiful, and whose friend followed me up the walltelling me the camel-guy wanted to kiss me
3. become a tourist attraction at the Wall in my own right: people wereliterally lining up to have their picture taken with me
4. slaughtered the Mandarin language more than any tourist ever had a right to
5. interpreted for a German family who didn't know how to order dinner and
6. not slept, studied, or done anything else even remotely useful, except forgorge myself on Chinese food. And, of course, shop, although whether it's actually useful or not could probably be debated. Here's hoping everyone at home is happy and in good health. I can't wait to get home so that I can get some pictures posted for everyone to see.

Zai Jian!