Arrival, People and First Impressions

I arrived in Beijing, China on Friday the 20th of August, 2010. Everything was normal: immigration, luggage, currency enchange, sim card. When I left the airport (obviously) is when things started to change.

I may have gotten lucky but the taxi driver I got was very helpful. Now you have to be careful with taxis but it sure wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. 'Clone' taxis and fake chinese drivers trying to hawk their ride on you. I bee-lined for the mess of taxis and quickly found a legit driver. He didnt speak a lick of English which is always fun (in a not very fun sort of way), but I came prepared with a piece of paper giving the building, street and suburb (province?) I wanted to go to in Chinese.. He was funny and laughed at my attempts to speak Mandarin, then got out of the taxi and pointed to the building where the paper said I wanted to go.

First thing I noticed upon leaving the airport (in Beijing anyway) is the SMOG. No, that's not fog rolling in, that's pure, adulterated, thick, heavy smog. But, I've already gotten used to it. Second thing is the driving. I thought it was bad in Thailand, the ammount of chaos on the roads is staggering. But, it seems to work and I've already gotten used to it. Thirdly, The ammount of people. Now, i realise 'Uhh, james. You do know your in China right?' Yes i know I'm in China with the largest population of 1.3 billion, and the population of Australia crammed in a tiny city. But it's the small things like looking down a side-street and being almost certain that your going to see at least a few people, a bicycle and a car. But hey, I've gotten used to it.

So far the people I've actually tried to talk to have been great. The language barrier is huge. In South East Asia lots of people speak at least a little English. So far, in China almost no one does and that's part of the charm. Learning little words doesn't really work. For example, if I asked someone 'Bar?' or 'Where to Bar?' they would be happy to give me directions, but it would be in Mandarin. Ex-pat bars and restaurants are a-plenty in this part of town, I've noticed.

So far I've been lucky enough to become friends with an english-speaking chinese girl who I've folowed around town. She's really nice and helpful with questions about China. Theres some really interesting recent histories.

Overall, after getting through the nervous pangs that start in my stomach and shoot their way into my chest I'm REALLY glad I'm doing this. So far China is overall what I expected which I'm glad for. However this is only my second day and I haven't even started teaching yet. I'm excited to meet my fellow TEFL'ers on monday and discuss my future here.

• China