Day 2 in Beijing

Still in a semi-jet lagged state of consciousness, I woke up at 4am. Walked out to the balcony to the smell of steamed rice filling the air. Bizarre to smell that in the wee hours of the morning. Still, I couldn’t help closing my eyes and smiling from ear to ear. I love the smell of it. I think I’m going to cook rice today. Tonight for sure. Reading 'The Good Earth’ made me appreciate the smell of rice and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Looking 20 storeys down below at the few people crossing the streets, I thought, how many hours  before the scene starts filling up with people, dust, haze and cars, and the streets blare the obnoxious sounds of the chinese horns on the motorbikes and cars?

Loved going through the old hutongs that were around the Beijing Train Station area of Jianguomen.

Not more than 2 days here and I’m already enjoying listening to the women do their small talk in the elevators. I entered one today with an older couple who were walking their horrendously overweight Spits. And another little old grandma who patiently walked behind the dog as it made its way into the elevator. The lady nagged at the dog as if it was a real person, “Come on! Walk faster! You eat too much! Look at you! Come on, hurry up!” Despite seeing the dog’s obvious health issues, the grandma commented a typical chinese retort as when one meets another, “Hasn’t it eaten yet”? to which the owner lady replied, “What? Eat? Him? It’s already eaten two times yesterday! Two times! No more food for him today. He’s way to fat. No more food for him anymore.” I laughed in agreement. After the couple with the dog left the elevator, I said, “That dog is way too fat”. to which the little grandma responded, almost mumbling to herself, “Oh yes, It’s too fat. Really too fat.” I remembered and missed my long passed grandmother as she walked out the elevator, her traditional chinese silk clothes clinging against her hunched back. Clothes my grandma’s generation often wore.

There’d already been two other occasions when I had opportunities to interact with the tenants that remind me of the nuances of small village mentality that still exists in this fast changing community. Once, a stylish older lady seeming a little bit of a snob, quickly demonstrating her familiarity with the usual comings and goings, telling me that she had not seen me before. And another one - a man with a cautious and almost rude demeanor, eyeing me up and down, who quickly turned into a helpful neighbor who patiently repeated directions I should take down the road to the closest internet bar. Despite the initial unfriendly demeanor, there’s still a certain level of deep seated curiosity and interest in being connected in some way to people around them. Something which I feel is sadly lost in many of our Americanized isolated and alienated societies as a result of our concepts of private space, individualism and independence. This is one of the charms that had brought me back to China. Candidness at its best, in the raw. No pretense. No superficiality. No political correctness. No notions of ‘proper etiquette’. Just simplicity perhaps at its best.