Beijing's CBD

I am now in the middle of my second week of Chinese classes at the Capital University of Economics and Business. My days feature four hours of class before noon and more homework than I'm used to. I share a room in the foreign student's dormitory with a nice Californian with whom I  haven't been able to communicate properly in over a week. English is forbidden, so our conversations stay pretty simple. The teachers are surprisingly good and are thorough about correcting pronunciation and grammatical errors. This makes for frustratingly slow and deliberate conversation on my end, but I have faith in their methods.

The school's small campus is surrounded by the many gleaming new buildings that make up Beijing's Central Business District. Yahoo's Beijing office is across the street from our south gate and foreigners are not uncommon sights. Walmart, Starbucks, and the fancy gym I joined are all within walking distance. It is, all together, not the Beijing I remember. From windows on our dormitory's west side, the nearly complete, ultra-modern CCTV headquarters can be seen.  The building will be, if I understood my roommate, the most expensive in the world. Those with uncensored internet can check this out if they're curious. 

With the Olympics now less than two months off,  I've seen evidence of government initiatives to prepare the city everywhere I've been. In restaurants I have seen signs asking people not to smoke or spit. On the road, drivers' patriotism is appealed to by roadside banners which beg them not to honk. The Olympic logo is absolutely everywhere. I have seen the little red man prancing on everything from snacks to household appliances. I'll be curious to see if any of this changes once the games have passed. The two-week break I have between semesters falls in August, in the middle of the festivities. I plan on getting out of the city.

That's all for now. I have a few hundred characters to write.