We are leaving at 4:15am tomorrow morning. I'm quite a mix of dueling emotions-glad I was able to get my visa and passport back in time to go to China with the group, sad that I have to leave my new friends and a city I've come to love and hate at the same time.
I love the chubby cheeked Mongolian kids, hate when they try to reach in my pockets.
I love watching how fast the buildings around me were created and torn apart. I've seen a restaurant I once ate at torn to rubble, and a pile of rubble open up into a shop.
I hate when a car skids towards me with mere inches to spare, when I was crossing the street long before he even got there, and then he honks impatiently. This routine behavior makes me all the happier when a car actually STOPS for me. I still can't get over the fact that they don't stop for old people and children. Erica whole-heartedly agrees, even as she is driving down the road and not stopping for children and old people herself. I suppose I'll never understand.
I love buying yogurt at the State Department Store, I hate realizing that's its expired by a week.
I also hate how they elbow me so they can cut in line. I don't understand how cutting can be acceptable in any culture.
I love playing with happy puppies at the monestary, but I hate seeing hungry puppies on the road, or dead puppies thrown aside from traffic accidents. I befriended a street puppy once, and a Mongolian man was inspired to take it home to his kids after seeing that it was a "good dog."
I love our housekeeper. She greeted me this morning with a big smile, a piece of candy, an apple and a box of juice for no reason. She is sad to see us go. We bonded over sheet cleaning and door opening the weekend that I spent alone with her. I will get her a gift today.
I love my Mongolian friends: Erica, Oko, Zergo, and Mindai. I love hearing them talk and sing and make animal noises. Erica has decided she will miss us so much that she is following us to Beijing and possibly a little beyond.
I love my Pac Rim friends, and how supportive and involved they were through the whole passport/visa ordeal. They were all cheering and dancing around when I returned from the embassy successful, glad that we could all finally smile and talk about China.
Did you hear that China broacasted their rocket launch 3 hours before the actual event, complete with astronaut chatter and ground crew going wild? Because it worked so well for them during the Olympics with fake fireworks, fake ethnic children, a fake cute singing child and more recently with fake milk.
I am going off to eat some good ol' Mongolian ice cream before I go because someone poisoned the milk in China. I feel like I am heading into to some kind of insane asylum.
3 comments:
woah whats the deal with the milk and fake olympics?
Some milk producers were putting chemicals in the milk to make production cheaper, and it killed a few kids (4 last I heard) and hospitalized at least 33,000. And that's just China's official figures. So we aren't supposed to eat dairy here, which is really really hard. It might give you kidney stones, but only if you eat a lot. I had one ice cream popsicle, but I'm stopping there!
And the Olympics, part of the show was taped earlier and then added, complete with shaking that made it seem like it was coming from a helicopter or something. They didn't get away with that either...
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