February 2012
15 posts
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You can call me 罗拉
Unlike Coca Cola, I couldn’t hire a consulting firm to find me a name that both sounds like the original (Kekoukele) and has a cool, relevant meaning (tasty fun). Instead, my friend Kay picked a name for me that sounds as close to Laura as Chinese is going to get: Luo La (罗拉). No cool special meanings. That’s both my family name, “Luo,” which in China goes first, replacing...
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Being an expat is like being a little drunk
Remember that time I said a long day in Beijing made me feel like hugging the first Western-looking person I saw? I think I may not be the only one that feels this way.
Yesterday, I was hit on by two American men that I swear were just ecstatic to see someone else that most likely spoke English. Honestly, it had little to do with me. The way they did it was so bold for (possibly) sober people in...
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It's the little things
Beijing is a gargantuan city. At 19 million people, it has well over twice the population of New York City, the largest in the US. Full of super sleek skyscrapers and highways so wide they make me fear for my life several times in a single crossing, it is easy to think that the city has lost most of its old charm, its “Chinese-ness.” Except for a few pockets of hutong neighborhoods, monuments,...
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First real photos! (mostly of lanterns)
I finally took out my big camera! Here’s a few shots to start with:
This is where I’m staying until I find my own place. Needless to say, my own place won’t be quite this fancy, so I’m enjoying the luxury while it lasts.
This is in “Central Park,” one of the big residential compounds in the Central Business District (CBD). A lot of the richer kind of...
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Forgiveness and reconciliation
I think my first couple of posts about my new Chinese life did not seem the cheeriest, but let me assure you, Bejing and I are quickly falling in love (to be fair, I’m not sure how Beijing feels about me. But it hasn’t tried to kill me in the past two days or so, which I take as a good sign).
The weekend was good for forgiveness and reconciliation. After my last unfortunate attempt, I...
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Things that are not surprising: Chinese is really...
Of course I expected that sitting down and trying to learn how to write Chinese characters would be hard. Of course I know that it’s not like Italian and Portuguese where you sort of fake your way through the whole thing and it all works out. I knew those things, which is why this may be my most unoriginal statement of all time, but let me just say it again, guys: Chinese is really...
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WatchRush hour in Beijing is a terrifying experience.
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Not my cup of tea.
While trying to calm myself down, I made the firm decision to tell no one about this. I rationalized it as a way of protecting those who care about me, of not giving them reasons to worry. Lies to myself, of course, I was just trying to spare me the humiliation. But I guess if I’m going to do this blog thing, I might as well do it honestly, I might as well tell the unflattering stuff too, if I...
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Ni hao! (There goes about 50% of my Chinese vocab)
This is the beginning of Day Three in Beijing, and I feel like I have lived at least two or three months in the past 60 hours. Trying to decide what to write about is hard, since arriving in a new place means noticing and remembering details that go usually ignored in a world of routine and familiarity. From the sticker on your shampoo to the shape of light switches in every room, everything is...