Today was just another ordinary day in Beijing. I woke up and 5:45, went for my morning run, showered, dressed, ate, talked to mom and then went to work. Nothing unusual yet. However I haven't told you that I have created many jobs in this area since I started performing my daily routine, which could also be called a show! The first job I created consists of siting on the side of the street at roughly 6am on the courner of Tianjian North Lu and Tianjian south lu. This is the corner I run by, which has a daily market. They all now know I am coming, and it is as if I was starting the marathon at the Beijing Olympics just a year early. They get so excited, start clapping their hands, some even wave their produce in the air! So yes, at 6AM the new show called the "Redhead American Jogger" goes through town, and if you are interested tickets are free. Your job......to watch. This is the Chinese best performed occupation.
The Second job I have created however is a little specific to the day. Today's highlight was one funny enough to write about.
On the walk/bike ride to the kindergarten their are several houses that are being renovated by Chinese workers. This includes men climbing up the sides of scaffolding, Single hands using rope to lift a container full of bricks, and several bodies working at extreme heights with no hard hats and no harnesses. The strategy I have discovered is "If he dies, there is someone waiting in line to take his job." Sad, but the truth unfortunately. Anyways, so I go by these workers everyday about 4 times. They know who I am, I say hello and I keep walking. I think they like it because they get about 5 mins a day where they have a reason to be standing around doing nothing, the rest of the time they just do it with no excuse! Anyways, as I walked today, I said my friendly hellos. They laughed, chuckled, said I was American under their breath, and took their few minutes of break. One Guy must have been new because he started saying, "hey you, look at that, girl with red hair," he said more but I didn't understand it. So no biggy right....Well that should have been the end of it, except this guy was pushing a wheelbarrel. He was looking right at me, and ran the wheelbarrel into a huge pile of bricks, which he knocked over completely. If you could have seen how hard I was laughing! However this wasn't the end of it. A man on a bike(another worker) turned to look at me to and rode his bike right into the guy who had knocked over the brick pile. I know it is one of those things that you have to be there for, but I am pretty sure, I almost died on the spot it was so funny. So the second job I created in China was a job to pick up bricks, because when I walked home from work today at 5pm, the brick pile was back to perfect height as if nothing had happened. Should be fun to walk by again tomorrow and see what happens!
