(completely out of context)
”I like the way you say ‘mosquito’.”

(trying to balance my bicycle handle with 2 four-litre bottles in the basket)
Me (to Patrik): “Can you hold the handle for me? …. OK, thanks, I got it now.”
Patrik releases the handle, the bike crashes onto me, I straighten it up, and it topples over on its other side. Suddenly, there’s a lot of bike, too many wobbling, heavy bottles and me flailing about, trying to look like I can control my bike. Meanwhile, right next to the bike, Hannah is laughing her butt off.

Highlights:

- singing Uppsala drinking songs with Patrik at the top of our voices, in a Chinese pagoda in the evening in Beida.
- the people at the baozi place let me eat first and pay later today. In China. I’m floored. And honoured.
- (only my parents will get this) learning words like 扭秧歌 in class. And then have the teacher demonstrate. Several times. I was laughing so hard I almost cried.
(扭秧歌 is a kind of traditional Manchurian dance, danced almost exclusively by old ladies. It is very simple and uh, befitting old Chinese ladies. It is definitely not supposed to be danced by a 30ish thin little Chinese guy.)
- my Oral Chinese teacher is so fun and engaging, those classes are one long giggle-fest as we carefully write down slang for topless pornography alongside advanced proverbs.
- re-filling water-bottles for free with Hannah as Chinese students give us weird looks. But hey, we save 8 RMB per water-bottle. That’s almost two meals in the Beida cafeterias! (there are water dispensers for free in Beida, but it’s for re-filling small water-bottles and not our four-litre ones. The water isn’t so much streaming as trickling, which makes for a long wait and an even longer queue behind us.
- the water-heater works again. Now it’s no longer icy cold, but scorching hot. Yay.. erm. Still, I’m not complaining, I like being able to feel my toes after showering.
- the Beida cafeterias are dirt cheap (around 4-5 RMB a meal), the food is good and the options blow your mind away. I’m loving it! (except when I have to get my pizza fix, at which point the pizza place is just two minutes away and a 60 RMB pizza will last me three meals or more)
- I’ve seen a starry sky, and tonight I saw the new moon. I can’t recall seeing those things in Beijing before.
- the beautiful weather lately: warm but not hot during the day, clear blue skies, and comfortably chilly at night. Also, it helps that Beida is breathtakingly beautiful, mysterious and enchanting at night (partly because you can’t see the grime and dirt). The students look less busy and more ready to have fun – the night’s young! Even if the night in question is a Wednesday night and they’re probably going home to study. But still.


Oddities:

- why on Earth would a CAFETERIA close at 7 PM?? If it doesn’t serve dinner, have the decency to close in the afternoon. But 7 PM? 7 PM?! Is it because the cafeteria is schizophrenic and can’t make up its mind whether to close before or after dinner-time, so it decided to close in the middle of it?
- me and Hannah checked out the Marxist Theory Club’s evening get-together in Beida. Right next to it, a group of people were filming a scene. It was pitch-black and I didn’t see a camera.

In other news, I’ve done pretty much nothing except studying this week. I think by tomorrow evening, I’ll have learnt at least 150 new characters this week, and hopefully I’ll remember at least half of them. Even though I’m totally stressed out, I still like it. There’s something meditative and soothing about writing a new character over and over again, familiarizing yourself with the different strokes and lines needed to create that character. It’s so simple, yet so complicated, and whereas official titles can consist of ten characters and bore you out of your mind, set phrases (proverbs always using four characters) can convey such precise and reflective meaning, adding layers and layers of symbolism to a seemingly simple phrase. It is really a fascinating, if sometimes frustrating, language, and even I, who’ve spoken Chinese my whole life, make dazzling discoveries about the simplest things, every day. Or I connect words and phrases previously unrelated to each other, completing parts of the giant, unfinished puzzle that is my Chinese knowledge.

And even though I’ve encountered so many unforeseen difficulties and problems, when I think about the fact that I could be studying in Sweden, in Uppsala, doing the usual daily things there right now, I crack up in a huge smile when I realize I’m actually not. I’m here, in Beijing, in a gritty, grimy city filled with harshness and unexpected wonders, baffling rudeness and heart-warming kindness, rare blue skies and fascinating people. Every day is a small adventure in its own way, and the surprises – both good and bad – and new experiences are an unbelievable thrill. I’ve complained about things here, and I definitely will again, but I am so glad I came here, and suddenly, I’m looking forward to this year so much it’s almost dizzying.