Hou Tian...

‘Hau jiao bu jian!’ I said to my only friend in Beijing when I came into the coffee shop she owns. It means, ‘Long time no see’.

It’s been two years since I was in Beijing and it does feel like yesterday. I have been here 2 days and since I arrived, I was where I exactly wanted to be and nowhere else. But reality bites and I feel the elastic of border restrictions on the ready to catapult me back to London in a few weeks. But before that, I still have time here, in Taiwan and in Hong Kong. Speaking of projectiles, I might become one of sorts on Saturday..

I have been loosely keeping in contact with a few people I contacted through a seeking friends in Beijing classifieds from an online magazine called The Beijinger. I met one of them tonight and she reiterated her invitation to me (one I got a month ago while in the UK) to go Bungee jumping. With many things not quite Kosher in China (many a contemporary milk powder included), I am a little dusious about the safetly of the Bungee Safety regulations, if any. It’s dubious at the best of places let alone here. I said I’d go but I would think about the actual jumping. I presume my best of intentions to remain sedate and sensible will not last.

Will be meeting up with a few more ‘internet made’ ‘friends’ this weekend and the week after too. I would not do this in the UK but it seems quite normal discourse here and I want to know new people here and it seems one way to meet more people. Why not?

My Mandarin, despite nowhere near as where I would like it to be is not bad. I can understand basic things and have been able to communicate the most fundamental of things such as food and prices and answering how old I am and where I am from. Largely and obviously though, most people think I am a Mandarin speaking Chinese person. And everyone is very helpful and friendly once they know you can’t speak the dialect.

I’m not sure when I can make it here to work and live for at least a few months a year. It may be years. I am here to get to know it a bit better. But I am where I want to be now and, in the future. I no longer want to say to anyone here, ‘Hau jiao bu jian’ but, ‘Ming tian jian’.

- J