Aggravating Things about Living in Beijing

Recently I blogged “Beautiful Things about Living Here”, and the positives far far outweigh the negatives. I want that to be very clear. And regardless of how we feel, we are also here because of our confidence that this is where God wants us. But I have tried to be honest about the “sublime” and the
“slime” about living here.  I want a balanced account in what I interpret as part of our job in life: to communicate “here” to “there”. You have seen our stories and know about our enjoyments…and also the difficulties. So I am making a list of our frustrations.

Aggravating things about living here:

Air pollution (although it is not nearly as bad as what we expected)

Language difficulties (forever and ever, every day, and we even speak some Mandarin)

Centralized control of things like our heating and air conditioning (It is 80 degrees somedays and the A/C will be turned on middle of May at the earliest)

Consistent feelings that we need to be careful in what we are saying or writing

Masses of people everywhere, all the time (although, again, this becomes less noticeable the longer you are here)

Almost completely digitized paying for everything (but after you figure it out, that becomes a plus)

Movies are only adventure genre (but I can get those for $3 or $4 and as fast as in the US)

Coordinating meds from US to Chinese equivalents (but I don’t need prescriptions)

Grocery shopping using a bicycle as transport

Horrors of visa applications (We still are waiting to hear if we can return next year.)

Knowing that we are staying on borrowed time because we are over the age restrictions for visas

Distances in building friendships because of language and cultural differences

Necessity of speaking obliquely about our faith

Distance from family and travel time necessary to get back to the US  

I could certainly add to this list, but as said above, we truly do enjoy living here. It is one of the easiest assignments we have had in nearly 30 years overseas, and there is a tremendous sense of fulfillment.