Fly Me to the Moon

Like a Phoenix, I have burst into flames and been reborn. Yes, that’s right—I’ve changed my name AGAIN. Long story short, I got lots of comments on the strangeness of my name and a professor told me she would give me a Chinese name. And so I am
付 雯 莉
fu(4) wen(2) li(4)
Wen means ‘patterned cloud’ and Li is a type of Jasmine flower. Pretty, no? It’s a very girl name.

So with that out of the way, let’s continue.




As you can see from the photo, I have left CET, cashed in my plane ticket, and jetted off to Paris.



Ok, Jake, tell your heart to resume beating. Actually, on Saturday Victoria, Jason, Annetta and I went to Shijie Gongyuan, or as you English speakers would say, The World Amusement Park. The park is a bunch of to scale models of some of the world’s most famous landmarks, and also very convenient for endless puns, like “It’s a small world after all.” You can see the world without actually going anywhere, and you don’t even need your passport. Interestingly, there is a scale model of the Great Wall, which I guess was constructed for the extraordinarily lazy, since like 40 miles outside of Beijing is the real thing. The “Great Wall” also happens to be in the center of the park, giving new meaning to the name “Zhongguo” (China),which literally means “Middle Kingdom.”

Now, we four affectionately call ourselves ‘eating friends,’ because not only have we not picked a bad restaurant, we haven’t ordered a bad meal, and we’ve eaten pretty much every meal together. Adept as we are at ordering food, alas we are not so good at choosing days to go out. Saturday was freezing and windy and made walking around the amusement park not so fun, though we all relished saying things like “I’m walking over to India” or “Ooh, Egypt is behind the Sydney Opera House.” So we left after about an hour and went to eat (an amazing) lunch and go shopping.

I feel like by now I should be used to this waiguo ren thing. Sunday night as we were leaving dinner, I stood up and put on my jacket. A woman at the table next to ours not so subtly pointed at me with her chopsticks and alerted her numerous dining companions, who, of course, turned to look, to the presence of this wiaguo ren giant. According to Jason, people point at me everywhere I go; I guess I just don’t notice. I notice the stares as I walk by, but not the pointing. I remember after returning from Shanghai last summer, I had to get used to the fact that nobody looked at me anymore. It’s not that I missed it, it’s just that in China I condition myself to be looked at, or to getting weird looks from cab drivers. I also receive endless remarks about every facet of my appearance, which is stressful and tiring.

To some extent, I enjoy the attention. Most people like to feel important or special; I guess it affirms my existence, makes me feel like somebody in a country where somebodies are very few and individuality isn’t a big thing. I suppose it’s why some people enjoy being famous. And as someone who wants to work in Hollywood (albeit behind the camera), I suppose I must have threads of narcissism in my personality. But I don’t like being scrutinized, or noting that someone’s looking or pointing or staring at me, or having people comment on how I look. It’s quite complex and paradoxical. But when it really comes down to it, I don’t like it. It’s weird and uncomfortable.

But back to dinner Sunday night. Sunday we went out for Hakka , a Chinese minority cuisine. Phenomenal. One of the best meals I’ve had here (but aren’t they all).



I never eat fish, but this fish I ate multiple helpings of. It was sweet and a little bit spicy and sour.



We also had this tofu, which had a crisp outside and a soft inside. The broth it was in was a little bit salty and herby tasting.



Then there was this beef. If my taste buds had hearts, they would have gone into cardiac arrest from their euphoric rejoicing. The beef was served in a flavorful sweet/salty marinade, not a thick sauce, and the meat was tender and perfectly done and served in this cute leaf.

We also had these fat, clear noodles served with a salty sauce and salty, ground meat. Also fantastic. I must return to this restaurant!



After dinner we went for a walk in an attempt to counterbalance the obscene amount of food in our stomachs. And on our walk we ran into:



A film/TV show set! It was so exciting! They had a dolly track and some lights and a digital camera and lots of men shouting. We didn’t stay for very long, sadly. I would have stayed all night but I don’t think my friends would have gone for that. I don’t know what they were shooting because I didn’t ask because I probably wouldn’t understand what they said anyway. I know—I’m a wimp.

Monday was a rough day for me in more ways than one, but I definitely perked up when we went out for Japanese food. Unfortunately, to get to the restaurant we had to take a cab to the other side of the city (I’m so glad I found others willing to trek for good food!) during rush hour.

But isn’t every hour rush hour in Beijing? one might say? And one might be correct, but in Beijing there is rush hour and then there’s RUSH hour. We went out during RUSH hour. It took us an hour to get to the restaurant (it took us maybe 20 minutes to get back). It was stop and go the whole time. The drivers here like to play a game, and that game is: don’t let anyone else merge into your lane, just honk and flash your lights. They also do not drive in the lane lines—our driver straddled lanes for much of the drive.

Those of you who know me know that traffic gets me very irritated, and our driver wasn’t helping. Throughout the course of our pilgrimage, he smoked, picked his nose, repeatedly scratched himself, snorted, smacked his mouth continuously and nearly got us killed more times than I can count. He was awful.

But that all went away when the food came. I haven’t really had much Japanese before, I just know I like wasabi. My friends ordered lots of rolls.


These are called Pimp My Rolls:



These had salmon and cream cheese:



And these are called the Wasabi Challenge:



Clearly, lots of wasabi is involved, along with some crying, coughing, and intense blushing, that is if you’re a normal human being. Apparently I am not of the human form, because while it went up my nose and such, it really wasn’t that intense. I just ate the wasabi plain.

After dinner last night it was back to the study-Chinese grindstone, but, my pengyou, I’ll always have Paris.