Bridge the World

I am so amazed about this country... And even more by people living here.
I am (almost) the only foreigner left in the office (only one for the "bridge the world" program).
I went in here trying to get rid of some pre assumptions. Trying to do "tabula rasa" in my brain to be ready for a full immersion in what it was expecting me.
But... but it's difficult to get rid of pre-assumptions.
I have been overwhelmed by the way people can take of you. Of the friendship and understanding they offer to you, even you are in all aspects a "stranger".
I've discovered chinese people are as close to their family as italians :O. They have strong sense of belonging to "la famiglia".
I have been able to go in so many wonderfull and amazing places, even just with my mind... And I am not speaking of the great wall or other turistic attractions. I speak about places where people live their own lives every day. I've seen them working, crying, smiling, laughing of the same things as I do and sometimes totally different. I tried to listen people even if we do not speak the same language.
We had quite a lot of laugh and then you understand, or, better, you feel, you are the same people and that there is really nothing important that divides cultures.
My experience in here is getting near the end. But I am keeping in my mind, a bit jelously, what it has given to me hoping to fully understand it and being able to transfer what I am learning

(new pictures uploaded! )
Signs that you are really going to be part of China when:
1. You feel the urgency of a calculator to bargain, no matter which kind
of shops and if bargaining is not allowed
2. Your Xmass dreamed gift is an electric bycicle
3. you go away upset from a shop if the DVD are 10 RMB (about 8 NOK)
thinking: "way too much!!"
4. You are extremly upset if the restaurant bill is more than 50 RMB each
-> about 40 NOK
5. if in your wallet you have only notes for 50->40 NOK or 100->80 NOK
RMB you think: "uff... I hate to have only high value notes!"
6. you think it's normal to use 2 wallets to contain all the note when
you take 2000 RMB -> 1600 NOK from the cash machine
7. if from Beijing you discover that in Shangai for 1 RMB (0.8 NOK) they
use coins instead of a note you start thinking "wow, maybe it's because
the inflation, life should be unberable expensive there!"
8. you take a very fully crowded taxi to save 9 RMB, 7 NOK
9. you take the bus and you are able to get out to the rigth stop!
10. you do not speak yet chinese, but you are able to reach the rigth
place by the taxi driver
11. you do not speak chinese, but you loudly laugh with waiters, sellers,
and taxi drivers
12. at Wallmart you look with suspect the "foreigners" and check in their
trolley what they are going to buy
13. to tell the truth... it's long since you went to Wallmart!!
14. You check pollution state looking outside the window and counting how
many buildings you can see this morning
15. you treat with the same indifference street marks, traffic lights,
police street
16. you find exciting trying to get into or exiting before the others in
the metro and on the lift
17. you ask yourself why the cars have so many noisy lights (arrows, stop,
nigth lights...) when the clackson is perfect to substitute all of
them
18. you consider part of ordinary life to order something at the
restaurant, listen to the waiter that repeats exactly the same thing and
to be served with something totally different (ehehhe it happens!!)
19. to tell the truth you find exciting to order the same meal every time
to see what you can get this time! (I could think about that)
20. you go back sad if no-one during a walk downtown tried to become your
friend by inviting to his wedding, have business together, in honeymoon or
at least to have dinner with old friends (no one invited me yet... too
sad!)
21. if they speak about a good cofee you think to Starbuck's (nope)
22. when you hear “baijiu” you get white and you tend to be in fetal
position
23. you do not think anymore "what kind of weird and crazy place I am in!"
for at least 2 hours (not consecutive) per day (YES!)
24. you start bargaining with your friends for 15 minutes about how to
share the taxi expense of 12 RMB, 10 NOK
25. if you meet other foreigners, you look at them with curiosity and then
you treat them as prisoners: "since when are you here? How did you end up
here? when do you go away?"
26. you do not understand how you can eat whatever food without sauces and
spices
27. to change a lamp bulb you call 3 friends since is quicker than doing
it by yourself
28. you took the train highest in the world, the train fastest in the
world, the cocktain highest in the world and you feel thatyou'll not be
able to live if you do not reach another guinness record ASAP

The time has come for Pavel to go back to Norway, after two months of chopsticks, language problems, great experiences and interesting food he is now on his way back to the cold and dark Oslo. Let's hope the flight is a bit more smooth for him this time.

Unfortunately we did not manage to persuade him to shave of all his hair and beard before going, guess he was afraid that they wouldn't recognize him on the passport photo and refuse to let him into Norway.

We have had a great time here together, but I'm sure he will be happy to get back to the less trafficked, less polluted and less crowded Oslo.

Luckily Chiara has come to replace Pavel on the Bridge the World program, she has already been here two weeks and has settled in quite nicely, her chopsticks skills are improving and she has figured out where to get the best Italian pasta already.

I will be going home in a month, just in time for Opera's engineering seminar and Christmas party (good planning! ). Chiara has planned to do all her Christmas shopping here, so she will be staying in Beijing until December 21st.

-walter-

We have tried eating a few strange things here in Beijing already, but yesterday Xiaolin and Thruth took us to a great hotpot restaurant and made us try some even more weird stuff, such as "blood tofu" and pig feet.

It tasted better than I thought it would, and we also had some great beef and lamb meat. More pictures from this restaurant visit can be found in the albums.