Day 14: Beijing (6/11/2009)

According to my faithful Facebook updates, I've been in China for two weeks. Unpossible, I say! But more than that, improbable!! And yet it is probably true. Oh, well, that's that.

I finally bit the bullet and installed Hotspot Shield for its proxy bypassing abilities. And then in the process of doing so, realized that I already had it installed. D'oh. :| I am a dummy. (I always wanna spell it "Dumby," because it looks like it would be so cute) At any rate, I now have access to all the Firewalled sites in China! At least, such would be the general idea. In practice, the Internets is still slow as a snail on a hot summer day. ...I don't actually know if heat plays a factor in snail speed. I digress. The point of this paragraph was originally to point out that, well, my travel adventures belong on this site. I will have to update the past two weeks' Facebook notes here when I get a chance, but for now, the least I can do is to start posting my updates back here on Blogger.

I'm feeling mildly better. The bugs in my stomach are a little less ferocious! It could also be that I've been starving them, but they only bother me now when I eat. This won't be a problem for another few weeks, because psh, who needs food?

We actually had a very chill day today. After our morning editorial meeting, we were free until 4 p.m., when we visited the Wall Street Journal bureau. Again, swanky building - this time in the same building as a shopping center, whoo whoo. It's not like I actually did anything there besides pick up hygienic products like shampoo and lotion and soap with Tracy, but knowing it was there was half the excitement. Oh, I'm talking about the shopping, not the WSJ - which was highly interesting, although the room was very warm. I'm really enjoying all of these briefings we have. It's too bad we're not really allowed to talk about half of them. Suffice it to say, though, that I have come out of everything this past week with the following information...

To become a foreign correspondent in this day and age:
1) The financial news market booms while the rest of the industry crashes, so if you can get over your fear of business journalism, you will not have to worry that journalists are a dying breed.
2) Know the basics of journalistic writing. Think fast on your feet and learn the local house style as quickly as you can.
3) Have at least some working knowledge of how to illustrate a story visually. Multimedia experience is only going to get more valuable as time progresses.
4) Learn a foreign language, and learn it well. Most places will want you to be conversationally fluent and able to comprehend a basic news article. Bonus props if you can write in said foreign language. Obviously, this is exponentially harder in most Asian languages than in, say, Romance languages.
5) Bonus sprinkles on the top include a working understanding of economics/accounting/finance, science/math, and being well-read.
6) 10-15 minutes of research before any interview can only make you look better.

We may or may not go to a jazz club tonight. When I say "we," I make it sound like it's a group thing... but really, I just mean Me and My Stomach Bug. I think I will name him Fred.