Arriving in Beijing
January 21 in China ⋅ 🌙 19 °F
Today I arrived at the PEK airport! Getting through customs was a bit stressful because the staff definitely did not speak much English. It was a totally different vibe from the courteous and polite staff in Japan. It just felt a bit more cold and distant overall. I was the only one on the flight who utilized the “visa-free transit” to enter the country so I needed to go into a line all by myself separate from all the other foreigners on the flight.
The “visa-free transit” which allows people to stay in the country for up to 240 hours, or 10 days, without needing to get an official visa before arriving. To utilize this, you must be arriving and departing to separate countries. For my trip, I was going from America to China to Japan. However, if I had booked a flight from America to China and back to America, then it would not be classified as a “pass through” travel and I’d need to get some sort of visa. I believe they do this to deter people from pseudo living in China and leaving and reentering every 10 days. I’ve watched some Youtube videos where people live in countries like Vietnam but have to leave and come back every 90 days in order to extend their visa due to no official extension process. So, my assumption is that China truly only wants people to visit and not overstay their welcome.
When I arrived at the airport I was a bit confused on where my bags would be located. The app on my phone was telling me that the bags were in two separate terminals but the staff was telling me that they would all be at the final carousel. The staff ended up being correct, however I was very worried that there was a miscommunication between myself and the staff.
Buboli had traveled over an hour from his home to the airport to pick me up as I arrived. Confused about my luggage, I sent him a picture telling him I think I might have made a mistake getting on my current tram. He responds with something along the lines of “Oh no, I’ve made a mistake”. Buboli had gone to the other airport in Beijing (PKX) that was over an hour away and only realized after he had seen the frantic picture I sent him. I often make similar mistakes in my personal life so it was somewhat comforting seeing someone else have a similar mix-up. I thought, “wow maybe me and Buboli have similar personalities, or at least personalities that will understand each other”.
I spent the next hour at the airport testing out my payment applications, WeChat Pay and Alipay, which are the applications used for all monetary transactions in China. Apparently, using any sort of cash is seen as a nuisance in China and the staff do not want to deal with it. I also had a woman come up to me and ask me about the bag I use to hold my fursuit head. She said that she had tried to reverse image search the bag (apparently this is common in China?) but couldn’t find any results. I doubt she knew that the bag was actually for a fursuit head and thought it was just a creative shoulder bag. I let her know it was more of a custom item and asked if I could take a picture of her taking a picture of it. This was a friendly introduction to my time in China.
Once Buboli finally arrived, we took a mandatory selfie in front of the "Welcome to Beijing" sign before heading out. It was great to finally get to meet in person for the first time and I was pleasantly surprised by how well Buboli could speak English. Before this moment, I had not talked to him in a setting where only English was an option. I was a bit worried there would be a communication barrier, but at no point during the trip did I feel like Buboli was misunderstanding what I said or miscommunicating. This was comforting and I was excited to see what lies outside of the Airport.Read more
Beijing Hotpot
January 21 in China ⋅ 🌙 9 °F
After meeting Buboli, we headed out to the car where his father was waiting to take us to my first meal in China. We picked up his girlfriend as well on the way to the restaurant so there was four of us in total. On the way there I was looking out the window at the various buildings. There were so many apartments everywhere and they were all so tall. Many also had LED lights on them that made them look very planned and futuristic. I don’t think America has the same number of highrise apartments as China does. It just felt like I was constantly seeing so many high up buildings, all throughout the trip. Even in the more rural areas buildings like this seemed very common.
I was told that the hotpot place we were headed to was popular with Beijingers. One of the reasons it is so cool to visit a new place with someone local is that they can show you what people who actually live in the location like to do. I find it much more interesting to go to places that reflect the daily lives of those in a location rather than tourist attractions and restaurants of global acclaim.
Once we sat down, in the middle of the table sat this cool "witch hat" shaped hot pot. It uses actual fire underneath to boil the water, which makes this a less common method of doing hotpot in larger cities. Buboli explained that because of the open flame, you rarely find this traditional style in the more central parts of Beijing anymore.
Buboli was explaining the origin of all the food to me as every dish came out. Buboli is a botanist so he knows random facts about almost every vegetable, fruit, and dish that arrived at the table. I was reminded of my friend Poly in America who is also a botanist and does a similar thing when we go out to eat or discuss plants. This made Buboli such a fun person to travel with because he somehow knew so much about so many things, even beyond plants. I felt like I wasn’t just existing in a new place, I was really learning about it.
It was fascinating learning about what we were eating. For instance, I was told the mushrooms I really liked were apparently a recently cultivated breed. Buboli also explained to me that one of the dishes was called “Yellow Pea” and for a moment I had to figure out if he meant “Yellow Peas” or “Yellow Pee”. These are the kind of translations that are great for making jokes but at the moment I was still trying to gauge everyone’s english level so I let it slide.
The various vegetables were almost all new to me and tasted very good. I remember the salad being one of the best I’ve ever had and being a bit jealous of how good it was in comparison to the ones I’ve had in America. Something about the freshness of the greens along with the sweet dressing made it taste so satisfying. This would be a recurring theme in the trip as China has some amazing vegetables and fruits.
The dipping sauce was a unique sesame paste. Buboli explained the creation process of this but I don’t remember it at all. Sometimes all of these new things are just information overload. We tried different tofu types, including fried tofu and a specific kind made by skimming the dried skin off the top of the soy milk and rolling it up. I'm not sure what it's called exactly, but the texture was great!
Since Buboli’s birthday was recently, they ordered a "cake" to celebrate. This wasn't a normal cake though, it was a pulled meats "cake"! The meat was adhered to a plastic mold to keep the shape. It was very cute and I had not really seen anything like that before.
The restaurant was extremely loud, more loud than I’ve heard American restaurants be. It made the restaurant feel a bit familiar in a way that restaurants in Japan do not feel. Everyone is so quiet in Japan and this was my first time experiencing such a loud boisterous place in Asia. The table in the room next to us also had one of the members with his shirt pulled up to his chest exposing his rather large belly. I guess this is something men in China do sometimes, which I was not aware of and is definitely not common in America. After doing a little research I found that this is called the “Beijing Bikini”. I think in America people would either wear their shirt, or take it off completely. I didn’t see this phenomenon often, but I did see some youtube videos mentioning how it’s a common thing to see in China and Vietnam. Since I’m here in winter, I think that prevented me from seeing it more frequently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_bikiniRead more
Fox's Den
January 21 in China ⋅ 🌙 12 °F
We headed back to Buboli’s place after finishing the hotpot, unloaded my various luggages and walked down a small alley to get to the front gate. Buboli gave me a tour of the house and his various plants and art that he had all over. Knowing that Buboli loves plants, I wasn’t surprised that he had so many. However, taking care of that many plants seems like such a daunting task to me. I have enough trouble taking care of the ~10 plants I have of my own at home. It was cool getting to see the various arts that Buboli had created or received as well. I was getting pretty tired by this point and had absolutely zero trouble getting to sleep later in the night.
The following morning, I found that Buboli and his father had also grabbed some snacks and fruits that I may have not had before to share with me as well. One of these being durian-filled mochi. I had never had Durian before so it was one of the items on my “to-try” list during my stay in China. It tasted creamy like milk but the flavor was quite different from anything I’ve tasted before. I’m at a loss for words on how to really describe the flavor but I encourage you to try it if you ever get the chance!
Buboli’s father actually had a very pleasant accent that didn’t quite match his speaking ability. I think this made me overestimate his ability to understand what I was saying on multiple occasions. He had studied vocal accent for singing various songs in English, which is why I believe his accent sounded so natural. I appreciated that he would attempt to talk to me and have small conversations. This is actually something that most people in China I met were a bit too shy to try to do. I assume this is due to a lack of confidence in the English language. There were many times that I wished I could at least understand a portion of the conversations being had in front of me. If I’m able to visit again, I’d like to have enough understanding of Chinese to at least guess what the conversations are about.Read more
Forbidden City
January 22 in China ⋅ ☀️ 28 °F
We got into a rideshare car, called DiDi in China, and headed off to the Forbidden City. On the way there, Buboli explained how we were penetrating different layers of the Beijing rings as the ride continued. There are a total of seven rings surrounding the city with the smallest innermost ring being the Forbidden City itself. These rings are actually roads that completely surround Beijing in increasing diameter as the ring’s number increases. The second wall was actually built along the Ming Dynasty city walls that once protected the capital city of Beijing. As we got closer to the forbidden city, we could actually use these rings to indicate how close we were getting to the Forbidden City.
After talking with Buboli some, I found that the numbering of these is quite confusing. There is no true “1st ring” so the 2nd ring is actually the first looping road that surrounds the center of Beijing. The 6th ring is the final looping road that surrounds Beijing. So technically, the 6th ring is the 5th loop surrounding the city. Similarly confusing, the 7th ring is a highway that circles the city of Beijing but does not do a full loop. So it is colloquially called the 7th ring but it doesn’t have an official ring name like the other ring roads do. This confusion results in a situation where depending on who you ask, Beijing has 5, 6, or 7 rings.
What I’ve learned from all this, is that this scene must have been inspired by Beijingers.
https://youtu.be/se21HBRG_YI?si=TX0_0ajei7CqKXYA
I also learned that these rings can be an indication of socio-economic status. The closer within the rings you live, the longer your family has probably lived in Beijing and the more money your family is likely to have. This is similar to most modern cities where the people who live the most inward of the downtown area seem to be the most affluent. However, having these rings makes it seem a bit more literal because the higher your ring number, the less affluent your family may seem. It may be harder in other cities to really understand the geography based on various neighborhood names, but these rings make it explicitly known how far away you are from the center of Beijing. There is also a system designed to favor original residents called hukou (户口) which is a type of house registration system that gives longer term residents more rights than those that have moved to the city for work or other reasons in recent years. I think this is a similar system to rent-controlled housing within New York City which is designed to prevent the rich from pushing out people who have spent multiple generations living in NYC. No system is perfect though and there will always be people who are excluded and people who are able to take advantage of a system that is meant to help the disadvantaged. I have plenty of opinions on this topic but I’m not sure I have any perfect solutions. I think it is interesting though that these sorts of systems and problems are not isolated to any one country or region. The more I learn about China, the more I see the same sorts of cultural behaviors and systems that exist in America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou
Talking about these 7 rings and socio-economic status reminded me of the song “7 Rings” by Ariana Grande as well 😆 Listening to this now as I write the rest of the journal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYh6mYIJG2Y
Another honorable mention is this song which is actually about the rings in Beijing. I don't think I'll be jamming to this one but I thought it was interesting to include https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aobXmIzKosM
As we approached the Forbidden City, I saw so many women dressed up as Imperial style Empresses. It was more rare to see someone dressed as an Emperor, but I did see at least one. It’s hard to express just how many of these women were cosplaying as Empresses. It felt like more than half of the groups exploring the Forbidden City were dressed like this. Having so many people dressed like this made it feel like they were actually part of the Forbidden City’s exhibit. It didn’t feel like a bunch of tourists walking around the Forbidden City, it felt more like the Forbidden City was still in operation today and there just happened to be some modern tourists around as well.
To enter the Forbidden City, we had to purchase a ticket in advance and I also needed to present my passport to the front gate. There were few times where I actually needed to present my passport during the trip, so I was happy I remembered to bring it along with me. When looking through our bags, they stopped me to ask what the fursuit head bag was for. Buboli explained to them in Chinese some things and we were able to make it inside without much fuss. Buboli explained that he told them my fursuit head was a toy and that because cosplaying within the Forbidden City is common, they let it through without much questioning. This is definitely one of the moments where I was so grateful to have Buboli by my side. I would never have attempted to bring my suit to a place like this but with a local’s blessing it was no problem at all. From then on, we went to explore the Forbidden City and take many fursuit photos alongside the many Empresses trying to get their perfect Qing Dynasty pictures.
I didn’t learn much about the Forbidden City itself while we were there, but I don’t think that was totally necessary. Learning about the Chinese dynasties is so difficult because the names sound very similar and it’s hard to keep the order of events and dynasties straight in my head. Maybe if I ever dive more into Chinese history I can try one of the guided tours or something, but I doubt I’ll make the trip a second time unless I travel with a friend. Walking around the city, it made me realize that it truly was the size of a village and that people could live within these walls. In pictures I don’t think the size of the City is conveyed in a way that evokes the same emotional response as seeing it in person. It felt like a place where many people had lived, many people had died, and many important ceremonies had taken place at. If this place were not packed with tourists it would have an eerie feeling that one should not be here. However, since there were so many children, cosplayers, and the like it felt more like a big photoshoot.
As we walked around and took photos, I eventually just kept on the head because it was so much effort to put it away and brush it when I took it out each time. Buboli said there were many people making comments or trying to guess what species of cat I am. I could even overhear some of the people saying the word furry in Chinese because it sounds very similar to the English word for furry, 福瑞 which is pronounced similar to “fu rui”. 福 is fortune and 瑞 is auspicious, so these characters actually show up quite commonly in the various gate titles throughout the Forbidden City too. This led to me getting some photos where in Chinese you can see references to “furry” in the gate names seen in the background. Since this place already felt like a big photoshoot for the people visiting, I didn’t really feel out of place at all while walking around.
The palace is so large that you really could spend an entire day walking around it and still not see everything. I was still a bit jet lagged so even walking from one end to the other left me a bit exhausted. I was so exhausted that later on this day we ended up going to a coffee shop where I had a Vietnamese coffee, put my head bag on the table, and passed out on top of it for a period of time. These first few days were a bit rough because of the time difference but I’m glad that we used the time to its fullest and were able to knock out the Beijing “essentials” during my limited time in China.Read more
Beijing's Famous Mung Bean Milk
January 22 in China ⋅ 🌙 27 °F
After the Forbidden City, Buboli and I went to a Russian restaurant not too far away. In America, there are very few Russian restaurants. So few, that I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to one in my entire life. This may be the closest I ever get to authentic Russian food with the current international relations between Russia and the United States. One of the dishes was a crunchy cold potato sort of thing and it hit me with a wave of nostalgia. It tasted like something my grandma used to make, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it would’ve been called. She and my mom have both passed away in recent years, so having something that unexpectedly brought back memories like this was a pleasant experience. I may try to go through her old cookbooks and try to find the recipe now that I know it’s something that can evoke such memories. This was also my first time trying a Russian beer. The one I selected was very strange, it had a malty taste but somehow had the texture of a stout. I’m not a big fan of the thick texture that stouts had and I wasn’t trying to get tipsy, so I ended up leaving a large portion of the drink undrank.
Buboli had a small sip of his beer and his face turned red almost immediately. I’ve never seen someone get so red so fast before after just a single sip of alcohol. He mentioned being allergic to beer and having what is called alcohol flush. In America, this is often called the Asian Flush because it’s so common for Asians to have this particular genetic trait. It seems that about 30-50% of Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have this which can include getting a red face, headache, nausea, and increased heart rates. This percentage is also higher within American Asian communities. Coming from a family that drinks way too much alcohol, it seems like it would be nice to have a built in deterrent from drinking too much. At the same time, it’s also sad that we are not able to enjoy a drink together and have the same experience.
Afterwards, we went walking around the Beijing streets to pick up some street food. This trip had lots of food and I’m not surprised to find that I did not lose any weight after arriving back in America. While we were on our way to a place that sells various street foods, Buboli noticed a restaurant that was selling a well-known Beijing specialty called Douzhi (豆汁). This juice has a history of being produced for over 300 years as a common breakfast drink that promotes healthy digestion. That means that the age of this drink is even older than the entire existence of the United States!
Upon laying eyes on the restaurant, Buboli said something along the lines of “It would be a shame for you not to try this Beijing specialty” in a somewhat sarcastic way. While it is famous, it’s also famously pungent. It’s made from fermenting mung beans and then draining the liquid from the beans. Buboli mentioned that none of his friends that had tried the drink had actually finished the bottle. I took this as a sort of challenge and made sure to drink it all so I could be the first. I wouldn’t say it was horrible, but it was definitely not enjoyable. It tasted a bit like a watered down version of Indian Raita naan dipping sauce. This made me think of how all of the locals in Chicago want people to taste Malort even though it is the most disgusting form of alcohol in existence. I guess having a harsh tasting local specialty is not something limited to one region of the world!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DouzhiRead more
Hotpot with Friends
January 22 in China ⋅ 🌙 23 °F
The Great Wall of Cats
January 23 in China ⋅ ☀️ 30 °F
Chinese Texas BBQ
January 23 in China ⋅ ☀️ 32 °F
Final Beijing Breakfast
January 25 in China ⋅ ☁️ 28 °F
Chongqing Homemade Food & Drawing Party
January 25 in China ⋅ ☁️ 46 °F
