First post

Three weeks have passed since I arrived in Beijing and I am ready for my first post. My first post ever! Will I grow to become a big Beijing blogger? Will the first post lead the way? Well I can either start abruptly or modestly. Maybe modestly and I will skip the manifesto part. This blog though is for my friends, so they can keep in touch with me no matter how far.

Today I visited for the first time down town Beijing with the friendly guidance of a colleague. My favourite line of today is about the bridges connecting tian an men with the forbidden palace. His English is not too bad, which means we can exchange the essentials. So I usually expect him to tell me things that are more important than random talk:
- there are 5 bridges altogether!
- ah that sounds interesting, so why exactly is that?
- there are 5 gates on the other side..
I started laughing. I was expecting some symbolic explanation and he did please me a bit, explaining how 5 is not too much and not too little.

Later on I asked him if he knew of the famous photograph with the tank and the protester. Yes, he did. He found wrongs on both sides concerning the incident. He excused himself for not speaking good enough English to talk about a complicated matter. He is right that his English (or my Chinese) would be a problem.

I also succeeded for the first time to pay the bill. Usually this involves some arguing, but I was determined to pay for once.