Nabianr, 那边儿, or ‘over there’ in Chinese was a phrase unknown to me before today, but I won’t forget it anytime soon.

The first few days in Beijing were jam packed with orientation and ‘ice-breaker’ activities. This gave all the students the chance to conquer the immense jet lag, and to get to know each other. Tuesday however was the first day that we actually got to explore Haidian, the neighborhood in which the university is located. Mind you, when I say neighborhood, this is a neighborhood with over two million people. This means it was a really big area to explore. We split up into pairs, and were given a destination somewhere in Haidian (without the address, in Chinese characters only), and we had to first figure out what the place was, and then ask for directions, and use public transportation to get there. When I asked people right outside the university, I didn’t have much luck. This is because Beijing is so large, that people aren’t very familiar with area’s in which they don’t live or work. Deciding to start walking in an arbitrary direction, I finally found someone who had at least heard of my destination. When asking him how to get there, his reply was: nabianr, over there, and he vaguely indicated somewhere down the street. I kept walking in that general direction until I found someone else to ask. They indicated a side street, and said again: nabianr. Walking down that side street, I reached a major intersection, asking another person for direction, who indicated I had to turn left, and then: nabianr, after an hour and a half of walking, I asked if the destination was within walking distance, the person said yes, just go: nabianr. In the end, it turned out that I could have taken a subway to my destination, and that it was NOT within walking distance. But overall it was really cool to walk around in the area. Everything is so different here that it was a blast seeing all the people and how they lived their daily lives. Really every time I go out into the city and walk around, it’s an adventure.

Anyhow, lesson learnt, if you’re going somewhere, find out where the general area is, and then ask for directions once you arrive. Nabianr can be really, really far away.

Location: Beijing, China