by Amy Yu
Qingdao is a coastal city, located on the eastern side of Shangdong Province. It is the site of the famous Tsingtao Brewery (which manufactures the only Chinese beer I have noticed in America) and is also known for its beaches and various seafood delicacies. I lived there until I was about three years old, when my parents took me to America with them. My grandparents have lived only ten minutes from the biggest beach in the city for many years, and many of my childhood pictures are of me frolicking in the sand with my cousins.
My family and I arrived at Qingdao around eleven at night, local time, on June 4 and by then I was completely exhausted from a 32-hour trip, including layovers. We had spent over 17 hours in the air and I probably only spent four of those hours sleeping fitfully. My uncle met us at the airport in a borrowed Volvo, and as soon as our luggage was precariously fit into the trunk, he pulled out.
I had forgotten that here, cars on the streets make no attempt to stay in their respective lanes; honking is constant and pedestrians are commonly seen waiting impatiently in the middle of streets while cars zoom only inches by them. Taxis are common and seatbelts are ignored; many cars have covers on the seats, obscuring seatbelt fastners completely to my chagrin (but nobody else’s, it seems).
We arrived at my aunt’s apartment, where we’d be staying for the next few days. She has a respectable three-room apartment on the fourth level of a large apartment complex, decorated overwhemingly by rocks, which my uncle collects, and red Chinese knick-knacks. The kitchen is roughly the size of a small walk-in closet at home. I would be staying in the study room (which has a bed, incidentally. Every room in a Chinese apartment has a bed, I’ve found, no matter what. My grandparents even have a bed in the dining room because it doubles as three chairs when they have guests), and I promptly collapsed there after figuring out how to use the shower.
The first two days I was constantly tired from jet lag while my body struggled through the thirteen-hour time difference. I searched for days for a computer I could use to blog with (I had no idea how to type in English and I was about to give up when my cousin returned from college and showed me how to turn the Chinese typing mechanism off by simply pressing Shift. Oops). I was re-introduced to the wonderful world of walking and public transportation, and even though I miss driving my car, I would rather take buses than risk my life driving through the mayhem here.
Note: Senior County Line co-editor, Amy Yu, is traveling to China this summer and will post story updates on her experiences.