Introduction to The Smog Blog
Introduction
I have a simple goal in mind: to show what it’s like for a small American family to live in China for eleven months. I make no claim to be an expert on the PRC or its 1.3 billion inhabitants. I only offer the subjective experience of a writer spending his forty-fourth year on this planet. There are thousands of foreigners living in Beijing, so in many ways our life is not special, but I also feel that the country is charged with too much rich material to ignore (the woman in the mall dressed as Minnie Mouse; the man on the scaffolding welding without a mask). To put it another way, if the experience is worth living, then it must be worth writing about.
I have the privilege of teaching 144 sophomores in the International Business School at Beijing Foreign Studies University. I meet each class once a week for two hours in classrooms that seem like a throwback to Cold War China, what with the concrete floors, thick blackboards, and bars on the windows. Modernity comes chiming in every morning when I open up Microsoft Word and ask my student to please put away their iPhones unless they are using a translator app.
When class gets out, it’s a five minute walk to the Foreign Experts Building, where I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my wife, Julie, and our eight-year-old daughter, Amelia. This is our second trip to China. We lived in the same building two years ago but only stayed for five months. This period of ex-patriotism will be longer. Considering that the Chinese word yuè doubles for “month” and “moon,” and taking into account the blue moon of September, we can say that our intended stay is twelve moons.
Where I Live
I arrived in Beijing in hot September two weeks ahead of my wife and daughter. I was the last foreign expert to move into the Foreign Experts Building and therefore drew the last room, little #111, with its tiny kitchen and leaky bathtub.
Here are the notes on those first days: In one direction I have a view of a battleship gray wall, and in another direction I can peer through a caged window at a warped road behind a dormitory. In the kitchen, the propane stove intermittently blasts a huge blue flame or snuffs out, and there’s a hatch door on the floor that goes kerthunk every time I walk in to grab some almonds or fry an egg. I try to avoid hip-checking the small laundry machine that stands just inside the doorway. Not enough room in the galley for a fridge, so the fridge is in the living room, which means I’ve finally got my beer fridge after all these years. But I’m not drinking these days, what with jet leg and the unavailability of IPA.
I’m alone and not lonely—though it does feel at times that jet lag is a distant cousin to depression. I spend a lot of energy moving furniture and contemplating space, literally scratching my head over the small bedroom: two twin beds for a family of three and no room for a third chuang.
At times I feel heroically Spartan, thinking I can make the best out of this situation, fancying myself a true minimalist, moving furniture to create an illusion of space, getting clever with shelves and stick-on hooks. I tell myself I have everything I need: yummy food down the street, blankets, shelter, water, coffee, books, a Chinese dictionary. Five minutes later, I’ll find myself cursing the kerthunk sound of the hatch door, the idiocy of a laundry machine in the kitchen and a fridge in the living room. A rim of cockroach-colored mold greets me every morning in the bathtub. The old caulking makes it impossible to take a shower without leaving a puddle of water on the floor.
Every morning I study Chinese with my coffee, slurping between wen zi, “mosquito,” and fei, “fly.” If I pull the drapes to bring in the light, I see workers standing three feet from my window. They are polite enough not to look at me. I never wave. In the afternoon I arrange the furniture again. At night, I stay up as long as I can before collapsing into sleep under a mosquito netting.
Where We Live
We share the building with people from all over the world. Our neighbors come from Albania, Colombia, Holland, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, the UK, Italy, Thailand, Korea, and Berkeley—all here in Beijing to teach their native tongue to the Chinese. Many of us ride bikes and scooters to class. We eat lunch at the campus canteen, swiping our faculty cards and paying about one dollar for Chinese cafeteria food. We eat with green plastic chopsticks. The canteen, a laundry mat, food stand, and two mini-marts lie within a thousand feet of our door. West campus and east campus are separated by Third Ring Road, a busy six-lane street that would be hell to cross if not for the underpass.
On east campus we can run on the new track, play soccer or tennis, grab a meal in one of four canteens, or go for a swim in BFSU’s wonderful natatorium. The pools are fed by hot springs a thousand meters below ground. Maybe this is why the water smells good and feels so soft on the skin. After a day of walking on pavement and inhaling the grit of the city, nothing beats the floating sensation of the pool. Even the word “swim,” you yong, sounds good.
I have a simple goal in mind: to show what it’s like for a small American family to live in China for eleven months. I make no claim to be an expert on the PRC or its 1.3 billion inhabitants. I only offer the subjective experience of a writer spending his forty-fourth year on this planet. There are thousands of foreigners living in Beijing, so in many ways our life is not special, but I also feel that the country is charged with too much rich material to ignore (the woman in the mall dressed as Minnie Mouse; the man on the scaffolding welding without a mask). To put it another way, if the experience is worth living, then it must be worth writing about.
I have the privilege of teaching 144 sophomores in the International Business School at Beijing Foreign Studies University. I meet each class once a week for two hours in classrooms that seem like a throwback to Cold War China, what with the concrete floors, thick blackboards, and bars on the windows. Modernity comes chiming in every morning when I open up Microsoft Word and ask my student to please put away their iPhones unless they are using a translator app.
When class gets out, it’s a five minute walk to the Foreign Experts Building, where I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my wife, Julie, and our eight-year-old daughter, Amelia. This is our second trip to China. We lived in the same building two years ago but only stayed for five months. This period of ex-patriotism will be longer. Considering that the Chinese word yuè doubles for “month” and “moon,” and taking into account the blue moon of September, we can say that our intended stay is twelve moons.
Where I Live
I arrived in Beijing in hot September two weeks ahead of my wife and daughter. I was the last foreign expert to move into the Foreign Experts Building and therefore drew the last room, little #111, with its tiny kitchen and leaky bathtub.
Here are the notes on those first days: In one direction I have a view of a battleship gray wall, and in another direction I can peer through a caged window at a warped road behind a dormitory. In the kitchen, the propane stove intermittently blasts a huge blue flame or snuffs out, and there’s a hatch door on the floor that goes kerthunk every time I walk in to grab some almonds or fry an egg. I try to avoid hip-checking the small laundry machine that stands just inside the doorway. Not enough room in the galley for a fridge, so the fridge is in the living room, which means I’ve finally got my beer fridge after all these years. But I’m not drinking these days, what with jet leg and the unavailability of IPA.
I’m alone and not lonely—though it does feel at times that jet lag is a distant cousin to depression. I spend a lot of energy moving furniture and contemplating space, literally scratching my head over the small bedroom: two twin beds for a family of three and no room for a third chuang.
At times I feel heroically Spartan, thinking I can make the best out of this situation, fancying myself a true minimalist, moving furniture to create an illusion of space, getting clever with shelves and stick-on hooks. I tell myself I have everything I need: yummy food down the street, blankets, shelter, water, coffee, books, a Chinese dictionary. Five minutes later, I’ll find myself cursing the kerthunk sound of the hatch door, the idiocy of a laundry machine in the kitchen and a fridge in the living room. A rim of cockroach-colored mold greets me every morning in the bathtub. The old caulking makes it impossible to take a shower without leaving a puddle of water on the floor.
Every morning I study Chinese with my coffee, slurping between wen zi, “mosquito,” and fei, “fly.” If I pull the drapes to bring in the light, I see workers standing three feet from my window. They are polite enough not to look at me. I never wave. In the afternoon I arrange the furniture again. At night, I stay up as long as I can before collapsing into sleep under a mosquito netting.
Where We Live
We share the building with people from all over the world. Our neighbors come from Albania, Colombia, Holland, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, the UK, Italy, Thailand, Korea, and Berkeley—all here in Beijing to teach their native tongue to the Chinese. Many of us ride bikes and scooters to class. We eat lunch at the campus canteen, swiping our faculty cards and paying about one dollar for Chinese cafeteria food. We eat with green plastic chopsticks. The canteen, a laundry mat, food stand, and two mini-marts lie within a thousand feet of our door. West campus and east campus are separated by Third Ring Road, a busy six-lane street that would be hell to cross if not for the underpass.
On east campus we can run on the new track, play soccer or tennis, grab a meal in one of four canteens, or go for a swim in BFSU’s wonderful natatorium. The pools are fed by hot springs a thousand meters below ground. Maybe this is why the water smells good and feels so soft on the skin. After a day of walking on pavement and inhaling the grit of the city, nothing beats the floating sensation of the pool. Even the word “swim,” you yong, sounds good.