Wednesday, July 04, 2007

First Impressions

by Ricardo at 11:45

First of all I want to thank Dani for letting me write on his great blog and report on my experience here in Beijing. He's been a great friend and don't forget, tomorrow it's his birthday :-)

So a few days ago I landed on this chinese city by the name of Beijing. And here are my First impressions.

The city is huge, full of life everywhere, and you can sense a dynamic on the economy that is not normal, it's like if everyday something big was happening in town that elevated the status of the economy.

One of the first myths to be broken: Bicycles. Yes it's everywhere, yes there are millions of them and most of them are quite old, rusty and dirty, but the most amazing is Cars. It seems like everyone in this town wants one. The ads are everywhere for cars, even elevators, toilets, ice cream shops... There are now around 3 million cars in Beijing, and the growth is at 2 thousand new cars on the streets everyday. Yes, everyday.

The organization of ISU has been great, we are in the Beihang University, one of the top Universities in China and we are staying in the dorms of the Athlete's Village, 10 buildings of 15 stories each. I'm on the 10th floor. It's good conditions, and we are 3 in each room. But now the chinese students are also here with us, but instead of 3 in each room, they are 12 in each room. I mean, they can really squeeze chinese people everywhere.

Another curious thing about the dorms is that all the beds are high on the ground, so like a beliche (portuguese word) but without the lower bed, only the one on top. And for I don' t know which reason, everywhere there are Big signs saying "Warning: Don't fall from bed". Even the campus director told us this today. :-|

Another figure is the Campus. It is enormous. Yesterday I went for a run around the campus in the morning and saw how big this thing really is. Not only all the facilities of the University are here, but the dorms as well. And there are at present 40 thousand students here now. Yes 40. But the biggest number is not that. It's that this University is only for related subjects of Aeronautics and Aerospace. Needless to say that the Chinese Space Agency (CASC) here in Pekin has 70 thousand employees. And that 300 thousand chinese work directly on the Space Industry. Now imagine this country's Space Industry in 5 / 10 years time. :-0

During my run, and this was at 6 in the morning, the life outside was already at full speed. The temperatures are around 35 everyday and the humidity is huge, so it's hard to do most of the things, that's why life starts early. I don't even want to imagine August. That's going to hurt. But during my run, I found hundreds of old people doing exercise everywhere. They have all the facilities here, most of it is brand new. They do all kinds of sports, running, walking, volley, ping-pong, badminton, but specially Tai-Chi. I did 5 minutes just to try, but I have to learn the moves first. After 5 minutes they took out swords, so I thought it was time to move to another place.

Our facilities for the classes are all brand new, we are the first people in, and are really amazing. The main building is so big and so tall that you feel really tiny when you enter it. The way of the chinese of saying "We are here to conquer"

The people are extremely friendly, although it is not easy to find people speaking english. Since I arrive, I feel like a rock star. The chinese are always starring at us, the foreigners, and never look away. Then they come and ask if they can take us a picture, or sometimes, they just take a zillion pictures. Then they come with friends to show what they have just discovered, this tall guy with a funny face, coming from this distant planet called Portugal. The best way to react, to give them your biggest smile. :-)

And one last story to finish my first report of events, is that there are no restrictions whatsoever, except one: That all men cannot walk with flip-flops, or show the fingers of the feet. That's forbidden. :-( So I can't use my Hawaiian Flip-Flops.

Cheers to all and send some news please,

Ricardo

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