Blogging from Beijing

I received a card in the mail yesterday. It was delivered to my work address. At first, I thought it was a mistake, but then I thought "How many Brandon Taylor's can there be in China?"

It was a birthday card from my aunt, and a most unexpected one indeed. My birthday this year had been dominated by the e-card, since mailing letters, not to mention packages, can be expensive.

It was a standard birthday card but it made my day. I showed my Chinese colleagues, who had been unaware that I had had a birthday, since it fell over the Mid-Autumn Festival week when we didn't work.

My one co-worker said I was very lucky to have family that cares about me.

Yes, I am lucky. Very lucky, I said.

The Fall weather here is just as crazy as it is in the States. A week ago temperatures dipped down to near freezing, only to rise again to about 70 this week. What makes the situation really interesting is that no matter how cold it gets, the Beijing authorities do not turn on the heat until November 15.

One of my colleagues jokingly (I hope) said: "Yes, until that magic date (Nov. 15) you have to find ways to survive - it gets quite cold."

My room in the attic, with its layer thin insulation, or lack there of, warms up during the day, so that when I go to sleep, it's relatively comfortable. But by morning, I'm usually shivering.

The only good thing about the cold is the fact that all the mosquitoes that had caused me many an uneasy night are now dead.

Coming from the Coal Region, and having spent four years of enduring the weather of Central Pennsylvania, I think I'm more than ready for the winter ahead. I just need to get out and buy a new winter jacket, gloves, Timberland boots and maybe even a scarf.

A former colleague from China Daily is searching for a sherpa jacket, or one of those Mongolian pure wool sweaters. I'll have to follow his lead on this.

I finally joined a gym yesterday. Conveniently located across the street/highway from where I live, the Powerhouse Gym has all my needs - a weightlifting area, relatively clean locker room and, as an added bonus, a tennis court.

It also has a pool, but that adds a few hundred kuai to the price of a membership.

Like all things in China, the price of the membership had to be bargained. A starting year membership, including full access to the pool, costs about 2980 kuai ($438). Swimming would be nice, but not necessary. Also, the presence of another gym in the area, with a much cheaper membership price, cut a bit more from the steep fee.

I settled for 2009 kuai ($295) for the year, including 10 anytime-use pool passes, a towel and a lock.

BLOGGER'S NOTE: "Wo" is Mandarin for "I" or "me"

This week has been chock-full of birthdays. My roommate, Vivian, had a birthday on Saturday, the People's Republic turned 60 last Thursday and I hit the big two-three (23) yesterday.

My roommate Vivian, her boyfriend and one of her co-workers took me out to a Muslim-type restaurant to celebrate the night before my birthday since they all had work the next day. Afterward, they sang "Happy Birthday" in English and Chinese and presented me with a massive cake.

But after the disappointment of spending most of October 1 inside watching the celebrations on TV, I didn't want a complete repeat of indoor festivities on my actual birthday. More importantly, I also didn't want to spend it alone.

I decided to call one of my friends and former co-worker, Marisha, at China Daily to see if she wanted to go to the China Open, the equivalent of the U.S. Open tennis tournament, on Tuesday. We'd been planning to go but hadn't decided on a day. Tuesday would be perfect. I joked about getting to see my tennis idol Andy Roddick.

We bought tickets for ourselves and another China Daily worker, Mike. Exclusive seating would have cost us about 300-600 kuai (between $50 and $100). We went for the lower end tickets, costing only 100 kuai ($14).

The seats for the Center Court weren't bad. The players on the tennis court weren't the minuscule ants I'd thought they would be, since the map of the arena I'd seen on the China Open's website made it seem like our tickets were in the nose-bleed section.

The first match started at 11 a.m. between Marat Safin of Russia and Jose Acasuso of Argentina. It was a quick two-set match. I thought our tickets were only good for one game, and as I was getting ready to leave the loudspeaker announced that the next player would be played against "someone someone" (whose name I couldn't hear) and Maria Sharapova. I sat back down. Holy crap - Sharapova?!?

Soon enough Sharapova came out to cheers and shouts of "Maria!" The three of us remained seated. We thought we'd stay until the next group ticket holders ousted us. But no one showed up. The match between Sharapova and No. 7 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus lasted about three hours, with Sharapova winning.

The courts cleared again and the loudspeakers proclaimed two more names.  Lukasz Kubot of Poland and... Andy Roddick. "Oh God," I thought. "Happy Birthday to me."

Andy must not have known it was my birthday, because from the get-go he played a lousy game. He just wasn't there. He missed shots and forced others into the net. He even smashed a racquet and yelled at one of the towel people. Losing in two sets, Roddick exited the court and my birthday was all but ruined.

It was going on 5:45 p.m. and we figured there would be one more match before the evening games, which began at 7 p.m. As a new set of line judges came onto the court the final two players were announced: Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus and Raphael Nadal. So my birthday wasn't completely ruined after all.

The match was intense, as Baghdatis took Nadal to three sets, almost forcing him into a tie breaker in the third set.

After a full day of watching tennis, it was finally time to go. Now freezing cold, since the sun had gone down and I hadn't anticipated staying the whole day, we made our way to the exit of the National Tennis arena.

All in all, and despite Roddick losing and being away from my friends and family, it was a great birthday.

Sixty years ago, from atop the Tiananmen Rostrum, former Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of a new  nation - the People's Republic of China. The first of October is China's National Day, similar to when the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. But to say that October 1 is the equivalent of America's Fourth of July is an understatement.

In America, on our national day, we have cook outs, get drunk with friends and family and shoot off a few fireworks. There's also the occasional parade.

In China, the same is true, minus the cook outs and beer, yet magnifying the intensity and importance of the holiday by about a thousand.

Celebrations are held throughout the day, with the main ones in the morning and evening.

A flag-raising ceremony commenced the events - and was much more elaborate than the one I'd gotten up to see about two months ago.

The military parade and National cultural pageant (also in parade format) that followed were over 2 hours. I'd been anxiously awaiting the military parade for a few months, having only seen clips on TV or videos shown at gift shops in Tiananmen Square. We just don't have events like this in America - tanks rolling down the streets, soldiers marching in line. Not to mention the nuclear missiles they rolled out for the parade. 

While it would have been nice to see the parade in person (it was only open to Party members and VIPS) seeing it on TV was just as amazing. You could even here some of the singing, music and aircraft flyovers from my apartment. And who knows. Perhaps in another 10 years I will be invited to the parade as a senior VIP foreign expert.