Sunday

With plenty of leftover grading trailing me from home, Sunday morning was spent reading a number of graduate papers. But first I ventured out to get some breakfast in a cafe at the international center and went to the on-campus convenience store to pick up some sundries. (I was challenged by trying to identify milk containers, since the Chinese package yoghurt to look like milk, but yoghurt makes an ugly lump in your coffee).
Internet access, I can already see, will be a source of frustration. On campus, the government's Great Firewall prevails, which means nothing but Chinese sites (except Falun Gong, of course), and anything belonging to Google. In advance of the Olympics, Google made a deal with China that allowed them into the Chinese market as long as they censored themselves. As a consequence, I'm able to use bogspot and gmail unimpeded, much as I loathe the reasoning behind making it possible. The solution for my access troubles, and for a good cup of coffee, will have to be the Starbucks with free wi-fi about a half mile from campus. And thus do corporations make cowards of us all.
In the afternoon, I met with Sebastian Li, Joe Graves' right-hand man, who is running things while Joe is in Arkansas, playing the doctor in The Elephant Man. Sebastian is, let's say, vague on a few details of the arrangement here, including when and where our play will actually be performed. I'm taking this in stride. Vagueness and a diffuse sense of responsibility are going to be the order of the day, and the more I drop my Teutonic expectations of order and simply take it as a game with uncertain outcome, the better things will work out for me.
Molly came by as well, and she gave me the cell phone we were promised, and helped me get an international access card. In the evening, I was finally able to talk to Caron at length, which did my soul much good, as I had spent most of the day by myself. I had ventured out of the southwest gate of campus (in search of the Starbucks, truth be told, but it was closed), took my life into my hands crossing the 4th ring road, a maelstrom of traffic nearby where, as I had been warned, anything on wheels makes sport of picking off anything on legs, and wandered into a buffet-style restaurant in an adjacent shopping mall, gamely pointing at a dish on the illuminated menu above the counter. 8 Yuan (a buck and a bit) bought me a noodle bowl with green onions, cilantro, mushrooms, and meat upon which I will not speculate, but delicious all the same.
Getting back into campus I was almost detained by the person of authority at the gate (I can't tell police from army, but uniforms are ubiquitous). It appears one needs an ID to get onto campus -- something no one bothered to tell me -- but showing my key to the PKU guest house with an air of confidence helped. This time...