Today was my first weekend day in Beijing, and I realized Beijing girls have a thing for American guys. One of my coworkers graciously took me out to dinner tonight, and then to a bar--I got rather heavily hit on.
But first, I went out with my MIT friends to some "hutongs," the traditional alleyways. We tried our bargaining skills, but it was pretty awkward, and pretty unsuccessful. We're not great bargainers, yet. But we had a pretty good, pretty spicy lunch.
After awkwardly stumbling through the Hutongs, we went through a Tibetan Temple today, my first major tourist site. I forgot a camera, though my friends have promised to send me pictures. Here's to hoping. It was rather peaceful, though it became apparent that the Chinese gov't was using the temple to solidify its claims to Tibet, which was unsurprising, but a bit dirty.
Anyway, I then walked to work, where I met a few coworkers, and the girlfriend of one. We went back to the hutongs and actually found a great place to eat (again, rather spicy). There, I talked about what I thought was the American perspective on China/Taiwan/Tibet/Human Rights, etc. In Chinese. It was awesome. Not only were they interested, but they actually understood my (mostly Chinese) Chinglish.
From dinner, they took me out to a bar that got pretty lively pretty quickly. Lots of pretty girls were dancing on the tables of the bar (I swear it was not a dance club--it advertised itself as a bar), hip hop was playing, and a few girls flirted with me and asked for my number. It was a bit strange, but the whole evening was very good practice for my Chinese. My listening skills are even getting better.
I recently got a text message from the girls ("hope to see you again,") but I'm now thinking more about writing about Chinese perspectives on international politics, as well as a summary of Chinese youth behavior. Tomorrow, I think. Tonight, I am drunk, and tired. It was a good day; real good day.
