This weekend I had a couple of those "Wow! I'm really in China" -moments. Most of the time, I go trough the days just living my life, taking things as they come, without giving it all that much thought. I mean, to me this is just my home, my city now. But sometimes, just for a little moment, I get this clear realisation that stops me to look around and say to myself: "Look at where you are!". Maybe you know what I'm talking about.

The first one this weekend was on friday, as I was taking the day to recover from thursday's Mongol traditions, I made my way to the supermarket to get a few things. On the way back, I was on the backseat of a taxi, waiting at the traffic lights. And I was looking at the people on their bicycles, all around me, on that long and wide road, and suddenly I realised that this was exactly the kind of image that I had seen on TV repeatedly over the years, usually to illustrate a news item from China. And I was there, in the middle of it! (I had time to think about all of this as I was actually in the car. Had I been on my bicycle myself, I'd have probably been too concentrated on survival.)

The other one was on saturday night, I went out for dinner with Griselle and afterwards we walked a cafe a few blocks away for some tea. On the way, we came across a dance performance. This was around 9 pm, in the dark. And in the corner of a small park, next to the road, a few people were playing on traditional Chinese instruments, including those big brass cymbals that produce this echoing rhytm. And then there were about ten women, dressed in red, performing a simple dance routine to the beat of the music. Next to them, other women had joined them and were learning the routine. A few people had gathered around to watch. And we stood there, too, for a while, just taking it all in. And just like that, I was reminded that this is China, China, China.

On sunday, over lunch with a couple of students from the evening class (Cathy and Sharon by their English names), I was learning to play Chinese chess. This game has just about the same principle as the Western Chess. Each of the two players has different pieces, with different moves, and the aim is to get the opponent's 'general' (i.e. the equivalent of the king in Western chess) into a position where it cannot move. I learned the moves, the pieces and played one game (which I won, but with some help from others, I have to admit) and got myself a chess set. Now my plan is to observe the old men who play chess in the streets, just about all over the city.

Olli is arriving in Beijing tomorrow morning, and I still don't know how I'm going to get there. My students asked the international department if they could spare a car, but the answer was no. They might be able to get a car from somewhere else though, but the problem is that as we need to go in the morning, there is a good chance that the highway will be closed because of fog. (In China, the main roads are not open if there's fog.) These days, the mornings tend to be really foggy. Today, the fog only cleared around noon, but now it's bright and sunny and the sky is beautiful and blue. No snow yet, though, so maybe we won't be having a white Christmas. But we'll see about tomorrow, my students are trying to figure something out. If worst comes to worst, I'll have to take the 5 a.m. train from Baoding, and then two buses in Beijing to get to the airport.

On a completely different note, I just got a phone call from Simon, an interesting Character, Chinese-Japanese, who had stayed in the whole week, sickly worried about having contracted HIV during a dentist's appointment last week. He said that he thinks his temperature is a little high now and he'd been looking for info on the internet about the symptoms after infection, but decided to call me as he knew that I know something on HIV/AIDS. I, of course, tried to reassure him that it's *extremely* unlikely that he would have contracted anything, and told him to take a deep breath and get out of the house.

It's beginning to feel like Christmas already, the city is full of decorations and staff in many shops and restaurants are wearing christamasy costumes. However, the Christmas here is practically a commercial thing, a celebration with a lot of byproducts and props, while many people are not even aware of what the original reason for the celebration is. I have to say that I'm getting rather annoyed by the neverending jingly music in the shops, but then again, this is the same thing in the West as well. With the exception, of course, that here most shops only own the same two or three songs, which they play over and over again. Or just *ONE* as we witnessed yesterday, while we spent a rather painful half an hour in a supermarket, where they kept playing a horrid version of 'Jingle Bells' over and over and over and over again. By the time we got out, my head was about to explode from all the 'dashing trough the snow'. Oh what fun!

But a much more Christmasy feeling was in another place, just one block down the street from the supermarket. We went to see the local catholic church, which was built in 1920 by some French priests, and is still host to an active catholic congregation, with smaller churches located in the nearby villages. From the outside, the church looks Western, but on the inside it has a peculiarly Chinese feel to it, mainly because of the red pillars that stand lining the two side walls. Stepping out of the church, we were summoned by an old Chinese woman to a smaller building next to the church, where some members of the congregation were preparing Christmas decorations. They were using the traditional Chinese method of paper cutting to produce these beautiful Christmas decorations. We then talked to the priest, father Joseph, who came in. The whole place felt very peaceful and warm, (although there was no heating), and made me smile.