People
A story for recently grown up children
/novel/
All the people and events mentioned in the story are fictional.
Every resemblance of real people and events is accidental and unintentional
Part One
Told by Nikolay
Chapter One
A few e-mails:
To everyone
From Nikolay
Hello, everyone!
I already don`t know
for which time, I am trying to write to you. Every time when I press the “send”
button the Internet connection goes down and everything I have written is lost.
I hope that this time I will finally succeed. The conditions here are very
nice, it is just the Internet connection that is a problem. Of course the fact
that I can not bargain is a problem too.
I am ok, already for almost a week in China and for now I feel very
contented.
The flight was
pleasant, but there was nothing really special about the feeling, it was
almost like traveling in an elevator. There was only one moment, when we were
taking off when I got a really strange
feeling, like my neck wanted to enter my body. My seat was next to the window
and the view was always pleasant though.
In Moscow, they held our flight for two times, we took off 5 hours later than we
were supposed to, but it was very funny. The staff of the airport remembered us
and they were giving us advices where it is cheap to eat, the ones from the
security check were laughing that: “They are just going in and going out, going
in and going out…”. At the end, when for the third time they announced that our
plane is about to take off, it was only me and a Russian lady walking toward
the plane. It was strange that it was only us and she looked at me and said
“People just don`t believe it anymore…” It turned out I haven’t` really
forgotten the Russian language as I thought…
We arrived without any problems, but we
were really very late. They met us at the airport and drove us to the
dormitory. It is practically like a hotel, we live one person one room, they
bring us even tooth brush and tooth paste and slippers.
The laoshi-s (the
teachers) are very careful, they are all the time somewhere around suggesting
to help about everything.
My
colleagues are from all kind of races and nationalities. The ex Soviet Union
made a really tough group, speaking Russian. At the beginning I loved talking
to them, but lately I catch myself not thinking so fluently in Russian. My thoughts
are fluent only in Bulgarian and Chinese, the Russian and the English took me a
few seconds “to turn the button”. May be because I started dreaming in Chinese
at night, and I suppose that is good. :) Well, it becomes very funny if you
want to say “sorry” to somebody in here, you just don`t know if you should say
“Sorry”, or “Dui bu qi” or “Izvinite”. :)
I like China very much. Beijing is this really big city
with all the policeman ready not just to show you the way, but even to take you
there if it is not very far. Somehow I feel like I am at home. I supposed it will take some time to adapt,
that although I am prepared there will be some kind of a culture shock, but
there is really nothing like that. I felt like home at the Moscow airport too,
by the way, after so many hours spent in there, it feels like my second home
now. :)
For now, we are just walking around. Today we bought cards for the public
transport. The college is at Fu Cheng Men Wai Da Jie, between the
second and the third ring, closer to the second, right next to TianYi for those of you who are acquainted
with the geography of Beijing. We
decided tomorrow to go walking to Tiananmen and take a look, just like that,
they are taking us all there and we will have a detailed look then. At Sunday
we are all going to Wang Fu Jin(a shopping street in the center of Beijing).
They made name plates with contact information of the
college. They are really funny, like labels, we are supposed to put them on our
necks, so if we get lost, any Chinese could call the college and they would come get us. I guess it is
because most of the people in our course are just beginning to study Chinese.
I will not tell you about the bookstore, that we can go to
walking, because most of you know what I am talking about. For the rest I will
just say, 4-5 really huge floors, 2 days would not be enough to take a look at
everything. I made a list of what kind of textbooks and dictionaries I need, so
I can buy only one of a kind, because I am afraid my luggage on the way back
will be too heavy. Well, I still can`t find Chinese –Russian dictionary with
pinyin. I can take one without pinyin, but it is just not comfortable to use.
Doesn`t matter. I have to stop now, because it is a really very long letter.
Tell me how you are, what you are doing. I don`t know when I will be able to
write again, but it depends on the Internet connection, not on me. I give you
all my regards! Wish you a pleasant vacation and see you!
Nikolay
To
My Family
From
Nikolay
The
last one I sent to everyone, so now I am writing one specially for you.
There
is nothing really new here, we are studying, having walks and that is it. Today
for the first time I went all by myself to the supermarket. Getting up early in
the morning is still hard for me, but I am beginning to get used to it. Today,
for the first time too I had dinner with chopsticks, not with a fork. I usually use a fork, we always have
forks here, they are even trying always to serve some western style food. We
usually have a kind of bread too. For lunch, for example we had fried in egg
and bread crumbs fish, and for dinner they always serve French fries. Generally
I like the Chinese food too, it is not so heavy, like ours. Most of it is just
vegetables with some sauce. Sometimes I don`t really like the sauce, the
vegetables look just like boiled vegetables and I don`t eat them.
There
is meat too, of course, too much meat, I could say. They often give us sea food
too-like shrimps for example, but I don`t even want to try it. It is a nice
thing we always have a choice though. On two tables there are for example 7-8
different kind of food and you pass by with a dish and chose what you want. You
can eat how much you want, there is nothing like portions. We always have
something to drink too, Coca Cola or Sprite and on breakfast, you can chose
milk or tea. I always drink milk.
Here you can not
drink the water from the sink, there are everywhere automatic machines for
water, the kind that a huge bottle is put top up and there two taps for hot and
cold water. We have one of those in every room of the hotel, at school too, I
even saw one at the bank, it is free everywhere.
Lately I feel like I am
becoming a huge fen of the Chinese television. Naturally I don`t understand
everything, but I get the general meaning. There is a funny Children TV series
that reminds me of our children series from the time before 1989. There is a TV
series that reminds me of “Home for our children” too. Everything is a kind of
more human, warmer, clearer. They are also advertising a criminal TV series,
but I never watched it and don`t know anything about it.
I couldn`t buy newspapers
at the Moscow airport, they wanted roubles, did not take USD. In there I had
the most expensive water in my life-4 USD for a bottle of half a litre. Now I
have to go. You should write to me about what you are doing too, the time on
the phone is never enough.
Regards and kisses!
Nikolay
To everyone
From Nikolay
Hello everyone!
Finally I am writhing
again.
Yesterday we went to
the Forbidden city. What should I say? It is just not possible to describe it
in words. You need at least a week to take a look at everything, and we had two
hours…well, we stayed five. We were literally running from one place to the
other, taking a photo and running again, but we still couldn`t take a look at
everything. We missed a calligraphy hall, where at the moment was a relative of
the last Chinese emperor Pu Yi, some of our class talked to him.
It is really huge,
with 9999 rooms and at some places, it looks like labyrinth. It is very
different from our European castles. It s not, that I have traveled a lot in
Europe, but as far as I know, our castles contain of one main building and a
few really smaller other buildings, while here, you have a few main buildings,
but they are not so big and it practically looks like a small city. A really
beautiful city! I didn`t expect to like it so much. When I watched
documentaries about it, I always thought that it is too ornate, that there are
too many colours and actually it is really very simple, but created with so
many attention to the details , so nifty to the smallest detail, that there is
no way not to like it. I made around 200 photos (the digital camera makes you
addicted, there is no way to escape this), and most of the time my camera was off
because the batteries went down and I couldn`t use it. The funniest thing about
our visit is, that we were in such a hurry, that we did not have enough time to
read the labels, I tried to take
pictures of them, but it is completely unreadable on the camera, hope it will
be possible to read it on a computer. Funny, eh? We had no way to stay longer
and the entrance ticket is really expensive, there is no way to visit it again.
Well, a few days earlier I watched for the first time “The last emperor” and I liked it. I didn`t suppose it will be that way, but it was really very human and
going to the palace shortly after you watched it is a really great pleasure.
We continue studying
and walking and getting to know the other people from our course. It is really
so strange to be in so international environment. For example you see some
strange language in the Forbidden palace and the classmate from Mongolia right
away explains it is Manchu, because the last Chinese dynasty was Manchu, and
the Manchu derives from the ancient Mongolian or at least it is very similar to
it…
Last week we went to
Tiananmen, this time officially, with all the people from our course., we even
climbed to the second floor. There are not many things there and I still did
not have a camera. The square is huge, really very huge. Someday we will go
again to take some pictures. At the moment they are repairing the Chairman Mao
Memorial hall and some other things too, they are preparing for the National
day.
What
else? Last week they took us to Wang Fu Jin (something like Vitoshka in Sofia
but with history) and we entered the bookstore and spent there the whole 2
hours. We didn`t see anything else, but at least we took a good look at the
books. We can go again, we don`t need tickets to go there.
Well,
my Chinese feels like closing, I think I can not say anything in Chinese… But I
communicate normally with the Chinese though. It is really strange. May be
because I started having my dreams in Bulgarian again.
For
now that is all. Wish you a successful school year and send you my greetings.
Nikolay
***
I
am rolling the suitcases, walking toward the exit. At the plane I thought that
I am really very tired, but it seems like I am not so sleepy now.
My guys from Student
city will meet me here.
Sofia is so… short
and muddy… I feel like I went back to a village. It has been snowing. Slush. We
are talking about something, they are telling what they have been doing lately,
they are laughing at my first impressions of Bulgaria. I am so tired, that I am
barely keeping my eyes open. They saved
me a bed in Student city.
For a long time I have been imagining how I
will come back and will tell them about everything in China with all the
details, and now I am there speaking about the things in generally and not saying almost anything from what I
have planned to. Everything here seems so familiar. It is like I left yesterday
and I am back today. We are going to bed. They are quiet and I, I can`t fall
asleep…
China, Beijing,
sending us off, the friends, the Moscow airport seem like a dream now. A nice
dream, but still a dream, not something real. A sentence that I heard at the
last party there from someone comes to my mind and obsesses it. “Finished. Time to go back to reality”. “Finished. Time to go back to reality.” “Finished. Time to go back to reality”...
I am so tired, but my
brain keeps working feverishly. I can`t realize where I am and how it is possible two absolutely
different realities to exist at the same time and me to be living at them both…
I am getting confused… My brain is still there, it refuses to accept that I am
here… The familiar room, on the second floor, under the “ forbidden floor” of
the ladies and over the first floor with the big hall, in an usual college for
foreigners, with a stadium in front of the building, on an usual Beijing street,
where everything is so unusual and dear for an usual boy coming from a distant
small country… What is happening there now?
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