Arrival in Beijing - It's the Small Things

I've been in Beijing now for 2 weeks and am obviously a bit behind in my blogging. It's been a great time so far and I've started to adjust and feel at home. In the past weeks I've celebrated the end of Chinese New Year, gotten two massages, visited the Bird's Nest, walked by the "Harvard and MIT of Beijing" in Haidian, and ofcourse started work.

I'd like to share though a few notes about some of the small things that have taken a bit of getting used you that you might not come across in your travel book or even vacation trip in China:

1. Google is the new Napster
Remember Napster? Well it's now called Google. It turns out Google offers a popular free music streaming service on google.cn that is blocked to non-Chinese IPs. This is apparently to compete with Baidu and I'm not sure exactly how legal it is. But given that piracy is so rampant over here - no one rents DVDs when they're less than a dollar to buy - I'm not too surprised. Eat your heart out RIAA.

2. Going Which Way?
In my first 24 hours, I found it interesting observing myself and learning what a person's most basic needs are in a place completely foreign to them - above the classic food, shelter, clothes sort of stuff. It turns out that communication (phone, language, internet) and a map come pretty high on the top of the list.

I learned the hard way on the first day though that the street signs here hang on a different side of an intersection than the US. So if you're approaching an intersection in the US there are signs facing you marking the perpendicular street. But here the signs facing you mark the street you are already on. Watch out for this when navigating on the first day!

3. The Toothpaste Tastes Different
My studio was supposed to be "fully furnished" and sure enough it came with all the bare essentials. Including Chinese toothpaste, still made by Proctor and Gamble under the Crest brand. It, however, was "Chinese flavor." And strangest of all, this flavor to me tasted like the tapioca pearls in pearl milk tea. I plan to buy new toothpaste soon because I don't like the taste much but haven't gotten around to it yet, so every morning I leave my studio tasting pearl milk tea.

4. Cell Phone Messages from Mao
I signed up for a cell phone plan the second day I arrived. It turns out to be a whopping $8/month (hear the sarcasm). Unfortunately, it also comes with CONSTANT spam. Every time I send a txt message, which turns out to be extremely common here as since there's no voicemail (a much better system than the US in my opinion), I get a piece of spam sent right back to my phone 10 seconds later. In Chinese.

I've occasionally asked those around me to translate and some of them are news announcements, scores about a popular sporting match, and other random bits of info. One time though, I showed my phone to my co-worker and he burst out laughing. Apparently I got a piece of spam that said, "Mao says you should live a long and healthy life." Or something like that. Yes, Mao is sending me txts from the grave.

That's all for now but I've setup e-mail posting to my blog so hopefully I'll get in a habit of putting more up.