Eric's Beijing Diary

Took a walk into the village this morning to see if I could find a church. There is an old one, but it is used as a museum. I didn't see anything that looked like a church. But I ran into bunches of Chinese tourists. A bit annoying. Everyone wanted to take a picture of the Russian. I guess I can't blame them. Most of them have probably never seen a Russian. Most of them don't know they've still never seen a Russian. I'm not Russian. My ancestors came from Norway. To someone in China, perhaps that's not much different. In China, they have a word for people from my part of the world. "北欧 (Beiou)" It's shorthand for "Northern Europe." It's a tag Chinese people use to refer to a group of people who are distinct from other people groups, yet difficult to distinguish from each other. I suppose in that respect I am in the same category as Russians. I am northern European. But that seems to me a rather dubious generalization.