Living in Beijing

Landscape:
-Plenty of nice parks and public places. I can sit on a park bench older than my country.
-Lot's of coffee shops, tea houses, bars, and other places to study and chill.
-I like the subway system.
-The worst air pollution I've seen in any Chinese city. Supposedly getting better.

People:
-Hundreds of thousands of university students live in Haidian District, where I live. Qinghua University and Beijing University--the Harvard and Yale of China--are a few minutes walk from my university.
-All of these students can speak English (at varying skill levels, of course). There are many foreigners in China who speak little or no Chinese and have lived here for years.
-Beijingers have a reputation for talking about politics. This makes for some really interesting conversations.

Economic:
-DVDs for $0.50-$3.00
-hipster shoes, jeans, or tailor made pants for $10.00
-subway ticket to anywhere in the city for $0.30
-Really fantastic food. Ranging anywhere from $1-$20 per meal.
-No need to own a car. No need to pay for gas, insurance, and maintenance.
-In my opinion, China is a great place to make money doing creative or artistic jobs. ie: writing, making music, art & design, being the token white guy in a Chinese TV commercial or soap opera.
-Of course, work as an English teacher or tutor is widely available. The pay is quite good, even by American standards.

Other stuff:
-A jammin' music and arts scene.
-An absolutely fascinating political environment.
-Weird TV shows and news broadcasts, courtesy of the CCP.
-Suprisingly thriving churches.
-Much more.


I really enjoy living in Beijing. However, I know that my experience would be much drastically different if I was a working class Beijinger. My paycheck would be lower, I'd work longer hours, probably have to commute several hours a day to work, etc, etc, etc. For a young white male, life in China is extremely laidback and worry free. There is never a shortage of people wanting to be your friend (girlfriend). There are constant temptations to waste time, waste money, and think of yourself as the center of the universe.

But these temptations are not unique to my current living situation, they follow me around the globe. So how do I avoid living a wasted life? It starts with a force that many find irrelevant, imaginary, or plain insulting. The Grace of God. May I not take it for granted.

Anyway, the Olympics start tomorrow. Watch the opening ceremony, it will surely be amazing. There will be plenty of interesting news stories on Beijing in the coming days. Also, today I was sitting in a cafe next to members of the US Swim Team. Cool!