Re-Starting This Blog/Recalling My 2003 Return to China

My last posting on here was in January 2003. I forgot I had even started this blog until earlier this evening when I was trying to use Google's blogging service. I discovered that someone had already taken chuckditzler.blogspot, was disappointed, and then figured out that I was the one. I don't think I tried to check this blog when I went to China in summer 2003.

It was just after SARS had been declared over, so I was able to take advantage of a relatively cheap fair--about $700 roundtrip between Chicago and Beijing. Going there was direct on United for about 12 hours; coming back included a four-hour layover at Narita in Tokyo--not enough time for me to take the chance to leave the airport to see something of Japan yet enough to get bored. I've been to Japan about a dozen times and still haven't been outside of the airport.

Returning to Beijing after five years away was a reverse culture shock, for it had felt like home while I taught there in the 90s. Many intersections that I was familiar with had been completely transformed by the destruction and new buildings. At least I was satisfied by the new Wangfujing, more openness, and better mass transit. But it was sad to see so much of old Beijing being torn down, and the traffic was horrible at times. When I was first in China, I sometimes walked by the Third Ring Road when there was almost no traffic. Even Changan Blvd often had little traffic around noon. I was so happy, though, to be able to eat foods I'd missed for five years, to browse in bookstores, and just walk again in the city.

I wish that the Internet had been bigger in China while I was teaching there so that I had email addresses of my students. Some have been able to track me down. That's easier for them because too many Chinese names are the same.

In 2006 I posted some entries at http://xizhimen.livejournal.com/ . I'm thinking about moving to Google's site.

Chuck