I always forget that I can't access Xanga/Blogspot in China, so Facebook must bear the brunt of this Pepys-esque account. (I will even tell you what I had for lunch!) I'll update these to my respective blog locations later when I can. But today, it's way too late and thus no time for Pepys behavior.

I missed a chance to be an extra for Jay Chou last night + hang out with Cindy Wu at the same time, because of bad timing. That's all I have to say about that. It was disappointing.

I got on a plane for Beijing this morning! Direct flight from Taipei is awesome. Here you can see the paranoia about H1N1 (swine flu) peeking out behind me. I thought that masks, the having to wait to de-board the plane until all of our temps had been taken, and the health forms/various checkpoints in the terminal were the worst of it all. I was wrong.

One of the Maymester students ended up stranded/quarantined in Shanghai because a passenger on his flight had flu-like symptoms. I spent an hour or two in an Internet cafe looking him up on Skype/video Gchat/AIM, trying to find his hotel room/name/number (because it was all in Chinese) based on information he remembered, like what the area sounded like. It was the most frustrating thing that's happened with Chinese communications yet, and we've had a lot of those (cell phone problems, no Internet in the rooms [which we need for this program], firewalls on blogging sites and more).

We finally found him with satellite view... Huzzah for beating The Great Firewall!

I have unfortunately been forced to purchase unwanted quantities of tea at exorbitant prices in order to access this free wireless in this [nice] coffee shop a 15-minute walk away from my hotel. Rawr. This better resolve itself... I do not want a repeat of 2008. (Also, this year I didn't get a cash stipend ahead of time, so must budget... must... budget...) Also, I am being drowned in the cloud of cigarette smoke that seems to pervade China. Ew, these people and their lung-killing habits! Although the air of Beijing alone is said to be as toxic as the equivalent of 70 cigarettes every day. That's a little extreme, although my boogers prove there must be some truth to the matter.

I also had to switch hotel rooms once within 10 minutes of getting here, and spend 3 hours attempting to figure out Why I Can't Get Online In My Room (not just for my sake, but for the team's sake). Um, I need to learn a lot of things - networking (not the social kind), simplified Chinese, and the simplified Chinese characters for networking terms. I'm just guessing at "proxy" and "server" and whatnot as it is... and then you want me to read hastily scribbled simplified Chinese characters describing these things as my solution for lack of Internet? I'm not a genius! Geez. :|

OK, I have to walk home in the dark now. So I'm going to get to work on that. See you tomorrow! (I plan to get up at 6 a.m. to go running. HAHA)

This year, there are no Fuwa Olympic mascots to welcome me in the airport. Instead, I find myself filling out a wellness health form on the plane, and walking through not one, not two, but three quarantine checkpoints where masked officials primly monitor my temperature as I walk past a heat-sensing camera. Forms are checked and stamped. People around me sport masks of all shapes and styles, a talisman of protection in an atheist country. As I walk past each checkpoint, I am handed pamphlets on H1N1 prevention and isolation techniques in both Chinese and English.

My direct flight from Taipei to Beijing is a welcome convenience unheard of since 1949. Yet the mood is unexpectedly somber when upon arrival, we passengers were told to stay in our seats until airport officials take everyone's temperatures with a "thermometer gun" and respiratory masks. We were still sitting in our seats 25 minutes after landing when suddenly, several officials walk briskly toward the front of the plane and 10 rows behind me, passengers stand up and look around in confusion. "Does someone back there have a fever?" the young mother of two beside me asked with alarm.

In east Asia, previously terrorized by the fear, if not the actual scourge of SARS in 2003, Influenza A (H1N1, or swine flu) is officially perceived as a very real threat - and understandably so. In areas with the population density of Hong Kong, Beijing and Taipei, an outbreak could International travelers and their unlucky fellow passengers are being quarantined left and right in Hong Kong and Shanghai. One of our China program participants spent a night in quarantine about 60 km north of Shanghai's Pudong Airport after a passenger on his flight allegedly exhibited "flu-like symptoms." I secretly speculated about the possibility of the entire hotel's occupants manifesting flesh-eating zombie tendencies within a week. But I probably watch too many movies...

But despite the masks, thermometers, and quarantines, plenty of people here view the situation with nonchalance. A young mother one row behind me placed a perky pink cotton mask on her five-year-old daughter's face as we left the plane. "If Daddy asks you whether or not you wore this while on vacation, you tell him yes," she instructed with a laugh.