Redraw the Memories of Beijing

One of my project under progress is a book on my trip to Beijing this summer. I decide to challenge myself to complete every single step by hand, including the binding. It has been months since my summer trip and now I am trying to recomposing all of my Beijing journey records. This is hopefully where I can come up with the body text for the book.

It's a bit hard to read here. My initial structure for the cover is so far named as "BEIJING • a summer journey". From my point of view, the cover feels minimal, playfully official (everybody knows I live in a oxymoron life) since the all-caps "BEIJING" is followed by an all-lowercase subtitle. I wanted to achieve a mysterious yet provoking cover (here we go again Miss Oxymoron, like I always say: the true power lies in between the two opposites). The cover enhances the desire to look into the trip story while not revealing the actual information- not sure if I have achieved there yet.

So, retracing back to the summer of 2009. I flew from the nonstop flight from Newark to Beijing. I first thought the 13-hour flight would be difficult to endure. Yet it wasn't so. Thanks to the collection of movies in front of each passenger's seat, which kept me out of boredom. I think during my flight to Beijing, I watched "The Devil Wears Prada", and something else- I couldn't remember.

Maybe it's a good thing that most of the airports around the world look alike, so the geographical transition wouldn't feel as shocking when you suddenly realize that you are now literally on the other side of the globe.

The time I got off the airport was suppose to be the midnight hours of the U.S.. I did swallow a cup of coffee on the plane, as all New Yorkers would do to keep themselves awake, at least look awake. However, the first day excitement always drives away the sleepiness. Dad and Uncle picked me up at the old Capital Airport and we chatted our way to Uncle's house. I looked out the windows and was not certain what exactly has changed the suburban area of Beijing since I hardly paid any attention to it during my previous China trip a couple of years ago. The notion of Beijing still wasn't quite strong, yet, because the trees and the grass fields look no different than the ones in Texas.

When the taxi finally drove into the visible parts of the city. The typical rectangular and majestic buildings of Beijing began to appear. The international retail stores which we passed along the way reminded me of New York, except they are now placed on much wider streets.

Interestingly, a few residential buildings were named "Soho". For me the name played an ironic sense of humor because the narrow and layered Soho in Manhattan looks nothing similar to these rigid apartment buildings, which I believe are not meant to be a designers' district.

The essence of Beijing has shifted by a large step, comparing my view on the city lastly as a 16 year old high school girl and now a 20 year old college, um, lady? In my past memory Beijing is known for its special Mandarin accents and a home location of all the domestic and international governmental stations. Now it has become an intertwining combination of imperial and modernity.

The first landing in China after 4 years was overlooked in somewhat of a rush. I took a short break in my uncle's house and soon after dinner, my parents and I were on our way to the West Train Station, taking the ride back to our hometown Wuhan.

It's still amusing to see that my first two sleeps of the trip were spent with one on the plane and the other on the train. I almost fell deadly asleep on our way to the train station because the rattling of the taxi finally called up my doze nerve. Yet what awoke me suddenly is the moving crowd and the full hall of Mandarin conversation, vocalizing subtly to me: welcome back to China.