cultured beijing

i paid 33yuan (S$6.60) for my "western craving" pizza, and got scolded for being 奢侈 extravegant!! because for the same price i could have got 10 TEN plates of jiaozi 饺子:

today we went book shopping - there's a huge bookshop (book building 图书大厦 to be more exact) spanning 4-5 storeys. books in china are SO cheap and there was still a 80% discount. i would load cartons of books back if i read more chinese books. for now the target is to find nice picture books ;P
Beijing gives me a very 'cultured' feeling... the way their signs to say simple things like "under construction" or "don't step on the grass", even their campaign slogans for more 文明 behaviour are phrased... and especially 浓浓的读书风气 !

this is what we saw one morning walking to class - students standing in the numbing cold reading. are they trying to keep themselves from falling asleep in their rooms?

there are many elderly folks in 颐和园 (summer palace) who are doing their morn exercise by writing calligraphy with water on the ground. elderly graffiti!

right beside them are ladies dancing so professionally and joyfully, with many people gathering round to enjoy the performance. and as we walked a little further, another old gentleman was practising a traditional art of top spinning (don't remem what it's called...sth luo?)

ambidextrous culture

i mean people do spit on the ground freely, and i've seen pple cutting nails on the bus & even in class beside me, but that's about it. everyone, even the cab drivers, here speak such lyrical mandarin... and all the random pple we asked directions from, the classmates here have all been super nice. somehow i just think beijing (china?) is not what some people imagine it to be!