Ripped from an email to my friend Chris: "....Being back in Beijing is awesome. I've already randomly run into a bunch of Chinese people that I know and it's great to be on a university campus here because even though I'm not Chinese I can still feel a little like I'm part of the community. I think I'm going to take tonight easy as I've been out every night since I came thus far (all two).
It's weird being back because I really do know this small Beijing neighborhood pretty decently and everything really doesn't seem that weird. In fact, I think that if I hadn't been gone for a year it would still seem a whole lot more novel. Leaving creates the illusion of familiarity because you've seen it before. You have these "oh yeah" moments when you see something that while different from home you know what they're doing or why. For example, ordering food in the cafeteria is not nearly as strange as it used to seem. You just have to tell them what you want slide your card through the slot and presto. The food itself is still relatively familiar."
It's weird being back because I really do know this small Beijing neighborhood pretty decently and everything really doesn't seem that weird. In fact, I think that if I hadn't been gone for a year it would still seem a whole lot more novel. Leaving creates the illusion of familiarity because you've seen it before. You have these "oh yeah" moments when you see something that while different from home you know what they're doing or why. For example, ordering food in the cafeteria is not nearly as strange as it used to seem. You just have to tell them what you want slide your card through the slot and presto. The food itself is still relatively familiar."
keep postin... Try to put some pictures up.
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