Back in Beijing

My train from Chengdu got into Beijing yesterday morning around five, and I have to admit it is good to be back. Despite how much I hated to leave my friends in Luguhu - I indulged in looking at photos and listening to sentimental music for longer than I'm going to tell you yesterday - there are nice things about being in the city. It's nice to be back with my books, for instance. Before I came to China I was told that we wouldn't be allowed to read English. This turned out not to be true, and I am so glad, because if it weren't for reading and writing I'd have succumbed long ago. I've filled almost my entire journal, in addition to this web-thing, and I've read quite a lot - Anna Karenina, Sense and Sensibility, Psmith Journalist. I've acquired a lot of books since I've been here, and though it pains me, I expect I will be obliged to leave most of them behind. I will give them to ACC to help other bookworm students stave off madness. In the meantime I get to play librarian to my new acquaintances, which is always a job I enjoy. Last night I got my roommate to start reading Moby Dick, and now I am watching her with the air of a mother hen, hoping she gets it.

(When we were travelling together I often thought Zheng Xiaoxue and I were a bit like Ishmael and Queequeg - people weren't surprised to see a foreigner, especially in Lijiang, and they weren't terribly surprised to see a foreigner with a Chinese. But they found it very difficult to believe that we were friends, that she wasn't being paid to translate for me or something, and that in fact when we were together we spoke Chinese.)

Met some nice people yesterday, including my roommate, a brother and sister whom I envy somewhat, a Chinese boy named Cedric, and another boy whose Chinese name I will never forget, since it is pronounced the same as White Pig. Why do Chinese people do these things to us? My friends in Luguhu wouldn't even call me "Ou Aimei," for reasons they were never able to make completely clear, and so Xiaoxue eventually gave me a nice nickname: Jingwen. The "Jing" is homophonous with "quiet" and the "wen" means (written) language - taken together, they indicate that I am quiet and like to read. I like this nickname but I've been Aimei for so long it might be hard to get used to.

Last night my roommate and her friend and I went to dinner at Fuyuan, whose Gong Bao tofu I dreamed of in Sichuan (between dreaming of peach pie and blueberry pancakes), then hung around and talked until fairly late. It was wonderful - we were still speaking English, as the language pledge doesn't begin for a few hours, and we talked about IDEAS! How long has it been since I've had a conversation in English about ideas? I think it has literally been months. And it will be months before I have another one - but only two months, which, as I keep telling myself, is not a long time.

We are in the home stretch.