Eric's Beijing Diary

The past couple days, Piano ("I like music!") has been helping me to get some important details taken care of. Yesterday, we went to the bank, so that I could open an account. I gave the teller my American money, and he proceeded to set up the account for me. When I had Piano ask him about an ATM card, he informed us that an ATM card could not be used to withdraw US dollars. That's when I found out that the bank was not able to convert dollars to Chinese currency. Well, an account strictly for saving US dollars is not useful to me, since I am being paid in RMB. So I had him cancel the account. I went to another bank to do the conversion, and came back to the campus bank to deposit my money. All of this stuff would have taken so much longer if I had not had Piano's assistance.

Most students like to practice their English, but Piano likes to practice his Japanese, "totemo onaka ippai ni narimashita." Very true. The food is good. Sitting in the cold campus cafeteria and eating from a hot pot with big chunks of meat, and a sample of every vegetable on the planet--ten yuan (a little more than a dollar) for the two of us.