we went to the Olympic Village at the weekend. the term 'village' is probably as far from the truth as could be mustered in Chinglish. I shouldn't really have been surprised, it was exactly as you'd expect a sports center to be two years after it's held its only event. very cold and empty. The scale of the outside area was enormous, but the Bird's Nest Stadium itself was surprisingly small. Some others joked that it had only seemed big on tele because of the size of the chinese crowd members. I didn't find that funny and would never make that joke.
On the weekend we went out in our area - mainly ex-pat bars but still very chinese. Met a very nice chap called Harry who i'll post a photo of later. He didn't speak any english but i told him, in chinese, what i'd learnt in my chinese lesson the day before. Had to stop because he thought i really wanted a menu! Anyway we swapped numbers so expect more of him. (although hopefully not)
Today was my second day and work and it's been really good so far. I'm correcting/drafting the english versions of the annual report and 2010 forecasts for the firm, so although it's not too riveting it feels quite important which is nice and i can do it, despite my legal experience totalling 3 days in the grotty bolton crown court. The journey to work is quite nice. The Beijing subway is quite a lot of fun - lines 3-13 were built post-2005 so it's all very new and flashy. We only hear about the negative aspects in the UK but when you see the rapid modernisation of Beijing in practice it's remarkable.
Walking to the station is a bit less relaxing. Lots of people gather outside the Workers' Stadium (just a sports ground but the government put 'Workers'' before everything) to do tai chi. This sounds relaxing, and i'm sure it is for them, but it's really sinister when you're watching. They all stand in formation, and when they turn to face you it looks like an army regiment of elderly people advancing towards you in slow-motion, like a slo-mo (slow-mow?) section of a battle scene in a film. Actually, it's not really like this at all but the martial undercurrent in bog standard chinese citizens seems to have become a Key Theme of this blog, so i'll keep it there.
In short, everything which is actually fairly normal in Beijing always seems completely terrifying to the ignorant foreigner, and it's quite fun wearing a suit and pretending to be a real adult like the rest of the people at the law firm. lots of love and i hope you're reading this mum and dad xxx
yaaaay! x
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