My Summer in Beijing: First day of "work?"

I left the office yesterday expecting to have some grand adventure last night. Unfortunately, I got back to the apartment and read for a little while, and then I had a massive headache. Around 5 p.m. I lay down hoping it would get better. Annie woke me around 7 because the four of them were heading out to dinner and to a bar. Of course my headache wasn't any better, so I stayed in bed, and I didn't stir at all until they came home after 11.

Unfortunately, that meant that I couldn't sleep. I ate a little, wrote a paper for women's studies and read a little while, and around 1 a.m. I tried to go back to bed. Of course I tossed for an hour and couldn't sleep, so I got up and wrote in my journal for a while, hoping that maybe writing out everything I was thinking about would make me stop thinking so I could drift off to sleep. It didn't really help, but I was able to sleep for maybe another hour or so. I had an alarm set for 6 a.m., but I got up around 5. I uploaded all of my pictures to my hard drive, since I hadn't done so since before graduation. Then I started getting ready for work.

Work started at 8:30 this morning. And by that I mean, I had to be here at 8:30. When we got here, we were told that the editor and others were in a meeting until 10, so we had to wait until then before we started anything. In the meantime, Celine gave me my very own China Internet Information Center reporter's notebook and pen, as well as the key card to the building and my cafeteria card. So for the first hour and a half, I sat playing on the Internet, chatting with Mom and Dad and checking email. Not quite what I expected.

We met with the bosses, and they went over the basic expectations: we are to polish stories, correcting grammar and spelling as well as structure, and so on. We are also being encouraged to share our ideas for our own stories and go out and interview people (if we want to). I'm not sure how I feel about that. I kind of liked the idea of just copyediting, but writing my own story could be cool. At the same time, that's pretty intimidating since I speak no Chinese; I don't feel familiar enough with the culture to just spout story ideas.

After the meeting, we went back to our desks. It was about 10:30, and we still had no work to do. I asked the managing editor what we needed to be working on, and she just told me to look over the website and get familiar with it--which I've been doing for two months--and that she would give us a story to edit in the afternoon.

So I spent another hour and a half not doing much. I sent some emails and started working on this blog. This is the point in today's story where things got really awesome.

The editor and Celine took me, Dan and Brian out to lunch at a nearby restaurant. It was incredible: elegantly decorated, delicious and, of course, fairly expensive. We each ordered, but then the plates were all placed on a rotating tray in the center of the table and we shared. The food we ate was Shanghai Chinese food, they told me. Celine said the difference between Shanghai food and Beijing food was that Shanghai cuisine is typically milder or sweeter than that in Beijing.

I ordered something that was duck. Actually, Celine ordered me something that was duck because I told her I'd like to try some. It wasn't the famous Peking Duck, which is more roasted, but it sure was good. It was lightly battered and fried, and it was really juicy. From the other plates, I had a pork dish that was really tender and served with the pig skin in a sweetish brown sauce, some beef that had been preserved and tasted like tender beed jerky, and a sort of China style country-fried steak dish. Those three dishes were delicious. I also had three different kinds of dumplings, and they were okay. A little too much onion and cabbage for me, but I made it through. There were also yams that were white that were covered in blueberries. I also had a dish with what I think were fish balls and a plant I've never heard of called a Towel Gourd. Based on the research I just conducted with Google, towel gourds look kind of like giant okra. The gourd wasn't bad, but it tasted a lot like grass.

Then there were the raddishes. I think that might have been the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth. Of course, because I was being treated to lunch, and because I was afraid to offend them, I ate the whole thing. But gosh, that was terrible.

After that (mostly) delicious meal, we came back to work, where we were finally handed a story to edit. We had to go down to the police station at 2 to register as temporary residents, but came right back to the office. I finished up my first story and sent it in. It was about 3:30 by then, so I asked if there was anything else I could do and Shan (the managing editor) sent me another story. So I got to do two today, but I think the other two just did one each.

At this point in my story, I'm going to start talking about the editing of the stories, so if you're not into copyediting, feel free to skip down.

The first story I edited was about the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival. It didn't seem to have very much information about the festival itself. Instead, there was some information about the spot at which the festival is held, and about the lake the dragon boats will race in, but nothing about what the Dragon Boat Festival is, or when it will be. And since we're supposed to be editing for a foreign audience, that seemed necessary to me.

The second story was about how India has lowered the bar to allow China to export telecommunications equipment. I'll have to admit some of this was a little over my head. I felt more sure of myself when I was editing the festival story. I'm a little worried I didn't do a great job with fact checking, particularly in one instance. There was a company that the copy said was a U.S. company. When I searched for it, the only thing that came up was a Swiss company that has a branch in the U.S., along with several references to the same story from other sources like CNN Money. In the end I went with what most other sources said: U.S.-based company.

So anyway, that was my first day of "work." I met a girl named Joanna. She was an intern last summer after she graduated from UNC, and they asked her to come back and stay, so she lives here now. She said that most days are kind of slow like this. So I guess we'll see. Maybe if I keep offering they'll give me more work to do. After all, I did come here for journalism experience.

Oh, here are some photo's I've taken. Not very many so far.
Here's the front door to the apartment building: