I’m better now, thanks all who cared.
I’ve been crazy busy these past few days – don’t I always say that? – so apologies for not having written as much. I have crazy busy days coming up as well, but I’ll do my best to fill you all in on what’s been happening in my life, one day at a time.

2006-10-15 Sunday –

I woke up at nine AM, bleary-eyed and very much not up for a trek up some mountain. Then I looked outside the window, saw the massive greyness and realized I was not at ALL up for a trek up some mountain.
But what could I do? One of my newly-found Chinese friends, an LLM student, had gathered a bunch of people essentially on my behalf (unasked for, but I’m grateful anyway) to do something fun together during the weekend, and Xiang Shan (The Fragrant Hills) was my idea as well. Fall is apparently the best time to visit, and I had wanted to go for a while.
So I dragged myself up, put on comfy clothes and prepared for a not so fun day, already stressed about homework and work as well. I met up with my Chinese friend and we bicycled to meet the others on the other side of Beida.
My God, I’ve noticed this before, but the Chinese are SUCH slow movers. Students my age walk as fast as 80-year old Grandmas, and apart from the small clique that bicycles like maniacs, most people bicycle at a leisurely, barely-rolling pace. I easily outstrip everyone, whether it’s on a bicycle, in sneakers or in high-heels, it’s astounding. I might be a waddling fatty compared to some Chinese chicks, but at least I’m in far better shape. And I don’t even exercise! But I guess when even guys are thinner than I am, I’m bound to appear toned and in shape, not just a waddling fatty – sometimes it’s really freaky, some girls seem to have literally no muscles at all. How do they not faint walking up the stairs? Other Westerners have noticed this as well, so it’s by no means as if I’ve shaped up overnight, but it’s both annoying and bewildering to bicycle at what I think is a normal pace, just to encounter a road full of Chinese students uncertainly paddling along like lost little ducks. Because y’know, if you want to walk as fast as my Grandma, that’s fine with me, but at least have the common sense to walk in a straight line, on the side of the road! But no, Chinese have this mysterious ability to take up all the space available: even if it’s just two people in front of you, you can be sure they’ll be positioned as inconveniently as possible. It’s like gaseous substances. And even if they aren’t at the moment, chances are one of them will suddenly decide to stop/wander around the middle of the road looking lost/turn without even caring about possible traffic.
Anyway, that was a major digression on my part. But what can I say? Every other day, I have to swear loudly in Swedish just to keep myself from exploding and mowing them all down. Cuz you know I could with my impressive muscles and them being scrawny little chicklets.
Yeah. Um, right. Moving on…
We met up with her friends in Beida, six of us in total. They seemed a nice bunch, a fair bit older, around 30, but this only meant they actually had enough life experience and opinions to have interesting, intelligent, mature conversations. We took the bus out to Xiangshan, along with what seemed like half of Beijing.
I had heard a lot about Xiangshan and the red leaves it’s so famous for, but we should have gotten the hint from the lack of anything red on the trees in Beida – everything in Xiangshan was still green, except for the huge, tacky sculpted red leaf in front of the entrance. We went inside anyways and promptly started our trek up the mountain, and I promptly starting feeling like Superwoman. I don’t know why I was expecting the Chinese to be able to walk faster uphill than on level ground… anyways, there I was, skipping ahead up the slope, walking at a good exercising pace that made me sweaty but not exhausted. Then I looked back, and realized everyone else had fallen way behind me, even the guys. When I asked if they were tired, they said “No, why?” and looked confused. Why? Because you all walk like my Grandma, maybe? Actually, my Grandma walks pretty fast. More like my Grandpa, then.
Despite the exercise culture clash, Xiangshan was quite nice. The landscape wasn’t very impressive with me coming from Sweden – it was green, but the green was still that dusty, grimy green that characterizes all Chinese vegetation. Add thereto throngs of people, narrow, steep stairs and trash everywhere (due to the brilliant lack of trashcans) and it was OK, nothing more. The trek was nice though, and I would go there again just for that, but preferably on a weekday when it’s less crowded. (haha, I just realized I was saying that about China) Though it was quite fun to see the mix of people: old men and women taking step after meticulous step – looking a little like mountain goats – chain smoking young men, women in suit jackets and high heels laboriously climbing the uneven stone stairs, bawling children… it was also interesting to experience a Chinese tourist spot for Chinese people (though there were a few foreigners there as well) – the scenery was charmingly framed by ever-present souvenir stands, people selling ice cream and water bottles out of cardboard boxes every few steps, subtle tackiness in form of tree trunk-shaped cable boxes, and Chinese people in front of every random thing, taking Chinese tourist photos. Every once in a while, we’d stop, have a rest and a chat, and then keep on walking. It was much more fun than I’d imagined really – with my observations of the Chinese, the interesting conversations comparing Chinese and Western law and the steady, mid-intensity workout, I felt like I was getting it all. The weather was also a blessing in disguise – with no sun and a light breeze, it was pleasantly cool once you’d worked up a sweat. Towards the end I did begin to feel really tired, but mostly because I had to stop and pause and walk around people all the time. I’ve hiked very little in my life, but the tips from my high school trip to Crete are very useful to this day: when hiking, maintain a good distance to the people in front of you, so you don’t have to stop, slow down or otherwise adjust your speed to other people. It’ll interrupt your “flow” and you’ll get tired quicker. I don’t think I quite realized how true that was until this trek.
Before we knew it, we were at the top. It wasn’t anything special, with no grass to sit on and just crowded everywhere. People were pick-nicking on the gravel or in the shades of the few puny trees there – it felt like a cross between a skiing mountain top and a barren rock with lots of smelly, noisy sea gulls on it. The view from the top was better though, mostly due to the massive smog clearly visible from the height and distance.

We chilled out at the top for a while, eating snacks and talking. It was really nice – they’re a fun and interesting bunch, with backgrounds in both public and private employment. One worked as a prosecutor, another as a judge, a third as a lawyer, a fourth as an in-house lawyer at China’s state oil company… they had opinions, dreams and wishes of Chinese law and the future development of both theoretical and practical law. They had questions about the world outside China. They answered my very basic questions about Chinese law. They wanted to know about dating. All this was carried out in Chinese, with a few English words interspersed, either when I didn’t know a Chinese word or they wanted to try their English skills with me. To my surprise, I was having a genuinely good time – I guess I never realized that just because Chinese students my age aren’t on the same maturity level as me, doesn’t mean all Chinese students are my age. Both work and home work was at the back of my mind, but I was on a frickin’ mountain, nothing much I could do about it there…
Our day continued in much the same manner, with conversations about everything from Sanlitun (the bar street in Beijing) to abortion rights, and we continued on to a restaurant between Beida and Wudaokou and had a nice meal. The fish tasted like soap though, but everything else was yummy.
After that, I kind of started to panic about my stuff back home – it was already past 6 PM and I knew I had a long night ahead of me. I didn’t regret spending so much time with them, since I found out so much, but still, there’s a time and place for everything.