It's 3:00 in the afternoon, I'm walking out of Beijing Airport baggage claim. Nacho’s dad is waiting for me outside customs somewhere and I have no idea what he looks like. To any person in my situation a couple of questions would inevitably come up. 1) why didn't Nacho's dad e-mail me a picture of himself after I kindly asked him to when when he has a decently fast internet connection 2) what the heck am I doing half-way around the world in China and 3) who in the right mind names their Chinese son Nacho!? After making it safely back to the U.S., I really still can't answer 1), the answer to 2) is my friend Nacho offered me a position at his family's school as an English instructor, one thing led to another, and now I'm surrounded by rather tall, shovey Chinese people at the airport, and the answer to 3) is Nacho isn't actually his name, but simply an alias I've christened him with after my spell-check corrected his real Chinese name to the surprisingly fitting Nacho. After combing the crowd, which is holding paper signs with names written in Korean, English, and a couple of other scripts I don't recognize, I see a short man holding up a paper with my name. This is Shushu*, or uncle, or Mr. G at work. After a quick glance at each other we realize who each other are and shake hands. He doesn't seem very pleased at my arrival. So, I begin fearing that Shushu’s solemn expression might actually reflect his personality and that I'm in for a 2 month long dose of harsh Asian parenting, you know the stereotypical kind you see in the movies where the parents start rattling on their kids for dishonoring them by doing something slightly stupid.(truth be told I only ever witnessed one instance of mother threatening to kick her son to death for having lid to her my entire two months in China, then again I didn't go out much..)
* It's customary to call an older man or woman you are associated with uncle or aunt even though they are not actually related to you.
It has been 2 months since I have made any contact or even thought about Mandarin Chinese, but I manage to use one of the canned phrases I learned back in Intro Chinese back in College to introduce myself. I soon find out Shushu's English is just as bad
as my Chinese, so I start a simple conversation regarding the blazing heat at airport as we head to the bus stop. To my relief, he is actually a pretty funny and kind guy who has the uncanny ability to transform his usual expression of grave seriousness to the kindest most genuine eye-wrinkling, make-you-feel-good-about-being-alive smile at will.
My first impression of the city, as we head to my new home for the next two months, is it is immense. Most buildings are at least four stories high and many much taller than that. The people are surprisingly thin. I may be wrong, though. You see my hometown, San Antonio, Texas was actually the fattest city in the U.S. a couple of years ago( Oh, look what you do to me you yummy tex-mex puffy tacos! ). So, naturally moving from SA to any other city would make its denizens look relatively slender. I got to hand it to Beijing, though, there sure are a lot of fat guys downtown with their shirts pulled up over their sweaty, glistening bellies aka belly flashers.
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| My first authentic Chinese homemade meal |
