Once the honeymoon was over and my husband went back to work, I had the days to myself. Okay, so what does an American, first-time housewife do everyday in China? I started out watching way too much TV instead of going out exploring my new neighborhood. Incidentally, we had satellite TV with several English-speaking channels that showed lots of reruns from the States. I became quite a CNN junkie. Other favorites were the History Channel and National Geographic. I confess that my close friend Shirley and I were hooked on American Idol. For me, it was probably more about connecting with American culture than about really caring who won the contest.
I’m not much of a shopper, and that being the case, shopping was not one of my favorite activities in China. You must barter with the local merchants for everything. It helps to not only know how to recite numbers in Chinese but to actually be able to barter in their language. Beijing is loaded with designer knockoffs – Coach, Gucci, North Face, music – you name the designer, it can be found. It was my experience that these fakes finds look nice but the quality is never on par. My formula for bartering was something like figure out what I would have paid for the item at home then I would never pay more than 25% of the U.S. dollar value. Consequently, you can get a lot of cheap goods there but you end up with cheap goods.
The point of my keeping this log of my travels is not to offer a lesson in Chinese history and certainly not any political commentary. However, it was fascinating to learn things from inside of the country and contrast them with what I thought I knew about it. It was also very interesting to read the newspaper, China Daily, and get the official Communist Party’s take on current events.
I’ve had many American friends share their understanding about life in China. For example, some thought it was illegal to go to church in China. Not true. Foreigners in China with a current passport are allowed to attend government sanctioned (tolerated) church services. Foreigners are not allowed to proselytize to Chinese nationals. There is no “official” religion in China since it is communist and members of the communist party are atheists. The communist party in China began with the New Movement during the early 1900s. Loads of information can be found in the library or online.
