I should be doing my homework right now (when am I not supposed to be doing my homework?) but I’m taking a quick break to write this entry. This immersion program is tough; even though everyone told me it would be intense it’s still more intense than I imagined it would be. Tonight, for example, my homework is the following: learn 55 new characters for two separate dictation quizzes; fill out a worksheet about phrases used when buying fruit at fruit stands; complete a worksheet using new vocabulary and grammar that was covered in today’s class; and write a minimum of 100 characters about the topic of today’s lesson (female equality in the workplace/life in general). Basically, I spend my life either in class prepping for the homework, or outside of class doing my homework. Fun times, fun times.

Anyway. The first of my three firsts (I think I’m losing my grip on the English language) is that I bought fruit from a fruit stand today! I’ve seen my family do this countless times in Hong Kong, but I feel like the fact that I was able to successfully negotiate a fruit purchase in Beijing is an accomplishment. Mainly because if I had to buy fruit in Hong Kong I’d be be able to do it without issue as there is no language barrier there for me. But not only did I buy fruit, but I bought a 香蕉苹果！ It’s an apple, but with a banana taste. I was first introduced to such a fruit existing in the first book of the New Practical Chinese Reader textbooks, and I finally was able to buy one today. I haven’t eaten it yet, but that’s on the cards for tomorrow.

The second of my three firsts is what my friends and I witnessed when we were at dinner today. We ate at a restaurant near my apartment, which I had been to before, and it has very good food. Today, however, there was this loud, raucous bunch of incredibly drunk and half-dressed (men only, as it is not unusual for men to take their shirts off in the hot summer weather) Chinese who clearly were at the restaurant celebrating something. My friends and I figured out it was a birthday when they brought out the cake, complete with candles. By the time the cake was brought out, the group was totally wasted. They started flinging cake at each other and practically shoved the cake into the birthday girl’s face. (That was another weird thing – out of a group of about twenty people, only two were girls.) Then they started breaking the empty beer bottles, throwing more cake at each other (as well as the floor and the wall), and just being incredibly rude, disrespectful, and flat-out embarrassing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I was incredibly surprised to see that no one asked that party to leave.

The third of my three firsts is that I rode on the back of a bicycle for the first time today, in true Beijing (or perhaps it’s the same throughout all of China) style. Grant bought a bicycle yesterday, and he offered to give me a ride back to my apartment as it was on his way. I probably was not the best passenger because I had my backpack filled with my textbooks (will remember not to do that in the future), but it was still fun. It was a little nerve wracking at times, though. Not because of Grant’s bicycling ability, but because Beijing roads are just terrifying to begin with. I’m pretty sure everyone that uses Beijing roads, whether it be pedestrians, cyclists, or drivers, almost get killed at least three times a day because of how crazy the roads are.