On this, the two-month-iversary of my arrival in Beijing I’ve decided to write a blog/essay/novel that is around 98-99% likely to be my first and only for this year. Please try to contain your disappointment!

My life having been pretty much a complete mess thus far, for a few years now I have held this year in China in my head as a chance for a fresh start, a new beginning. Tabula rasa, if you will. I foolishly assumed upon arrival I would transform into some kind of beautiful, self-sufficient butterfly with an excellent work ethic and huge muscles. The reality was, however, that the more realistic, non self-sufficient and small muscled me was faced with this insane country, and had to figure out how my life was going to work here, 5000 miles away from home, with little help or organisation from anyone else.

Being the way I am, once fronted with these obstacles I immediately dragged my feet. I was brimming with regret and indignation that everything wasn’t going smoothly for once.

The first thing that will trip up any unsuspecting new arrival in this city is just the sheer number of people. The roads are pretty much completely un-maneuverable. Just picture like, complete mayhem. Literally no rules at all. Sides of the road have very little meaning here and it’s pretty much kill or be killed. That doesn’t exclude the university either. The roads in Tsinghua are arguably worse than outside. Between classes a sea of slow moving, swerving bikes emerge, their riders unfazed by the seeming inefficacy of even trying to cycle.  Being a Londoner who loves fast and uninterrupted walking/cycling I was of course, horrified.

A list of other complaints includes:

• The paper trail system. Tsinghua seems to be run solely on a system of thousands of offices and staff members all with a specific, slightly different purpose. All of the visa admin I had to do when i arrived was conducted by different people located on different sides of the university, all of whom required a different specific piece of paper with a certain signature in order to complete their job. It was a month-long crazy spiral of running back and forth to different offices, having various sheets signed and stamped, to and fro, to and fro. Upon my failure to complete one handing-in and signing of one random sheet, I subsequently came home to find the locks had been changed on my bedroom door. This was my punishment. Being deprived of a bed to sleep in. Which brings me onto my next point:

• The rules here are strict. Massively strict. When you’re used to having complete adult independence, it can take some getting used to. The halls I live in have visiting hours. All guests have to sign in on arrival (no earlier than 8am) and sign out on departure (no later than 11pm). If you try and stay, they come up to the room and make you leave. Which means Adam was booted out when they discovered he didn’t live here. (We had them fooled for a while). There’s also allotted showering time. 7am-9am, and 7pm-11pm. If you’re not in during those hours then you’re out of luck. No shower for you.

• The university, contrary to their advertisements, has no rowing team. It took about 1000 emails and questions to actually find out. But yeah. I mean. This will mean nothing to some of you. But to others… Ya get me. I was devastated.

• Finding stuff to kill all the free time is hard. There’s so much of it. I know this can hardly be considered a negative but, having not made a huge amount of close friends here (everyone moves at pretty different paces), being alone on a limited budget in a foreign country and trying to find things to do, it can be tricky.

But after I had gotten over the initial jet-lag and culture shock, I realised I had to grab life here by its big, dusty, smelly horns. I came to embrace the new changes. (Of course life here could not be the same as life at home. Which is probably a very good thing, considering.)

The crazy streets I have come to block out. All you have to do is dodge duck dip dive and dodge around the cars, ebikes and thousands of other pedestrians. Theres also a certain buzz to it, which can be exciting. I’ve come to recognise the skill in the Tsinghua student’s laid back style of cycling. It’s a virtue, their complete unflappability in a sea of weaving bikes and people walking in and out on all different sides of the road. My nerves are also becoming steely, learning complete deadpan in the face of the headlights of a car that will not stop until it is half an inch away from you. There is much to be learnt from this relaxed attitude.

I also realised after about 3 days that the paper trail is pretty much the only way it can be done here, and it works. This is a country with a population of 1 billion. They need jobs to fill. When explaining the system to my parents they just said ‘oh okay,  so the way the UK used to be in the 1950s’ which makes sense, before there were computers to do the jobs for the people. It is effective, it just puts the responsibility on you. You will not be coddled here. Don’t expect people to sort that shit for you. You gotta run around desk to desk and it will take time, but it will be sorted. There is a big sense of gratification from that which you don’t get back home. You feel completely unstoppable. You’re like bloody Bradley Cooper in Limitless, for God’s sake.

The strict rules were probably the hardest part to acclimatise to. With some work I saw it as a challenge. It’s like, I can become the most organised and self disciplined person ever if i only have a 4 hour window in which i can shower. Life will kneel to me.

Ah, China, you have surprised and disappointed me in a number of ways, but the rowing thing has got to be the cherry on the proverbial cake. I mean, there’s pictures of your rowing team on Google, there’s recent blog posts about its races, there’s even direct mention of it on your student sports page! All this would surely be enough to convince Poirot of its existence! But ah! Alas. It does not exist. How did you manage this, China? Who knows. ‘Tis but a mystery. Did I feel like smashing various objects? Perhaps. But I will allow this to pass in a forced gust of life-embracingness. (I have resolved in the end to continue lifting weights and erging (…) for the entirety of this year. Bring it on.)

Finally I have learnt to love the lonesomeness of life here. I can see Adam 3.5 days a week, the other 3.5 spend wandering the campus and old hutongs, learning chinese, eating, sleeping, taking photos. There’s loads to do here. This is a 3000 year old city that is 10x bigger than London. Free time is a blessing.

China is strengthening me. You have to be somewhat of a fighter to survive here. Anyone who knows me will know that I have an (actual) stupidly lax attitude towards most aspects of my life, often leaving things to the last minute and scraping my way by, usually with a lot of luck. Somehow I had a vague expectation in my head that life would go on, if a tiny bit similarly to how it did in Manchester. I was wrong. But I’d be crazy to fight it in the wake of the hideous ruins of my life in 2nd year. With the help of China and a boy I met almost one year ago now, my life is becoming less of a pile of trash and more of a beautiful, flower-shaped trash sculpture. Stay tuned (maybe).