Street vendors in Beijing

Out on the streets of Beijing one gets to see lots of interesting things. One thing is the street vendors and their goods or produce. I have seen all kinds of things sold including jewelry, kitchenware, clothes, DVDs, calendars, toys, artwork, and all sorts of interesting food. As I mentioned sometime ago, I have even seen a guy selling sugarcane.

Just recently, I have seen vendors selling lotus flowers seeds. The vendors just throw down a tarp or some bags and put their stach of seeds out for sale. There are never any prices listed. It seems that sellers and buyers have some fair idea of what price to pay and will bargain at the point of sale. I tried the lotus seeds and discovered they are pretty tasty. I think lotus seeds naturally have the most interesting shape.

I think farmers are amazing. They come by truck or horse buggy and sell on the street right from their trailer. They have their scales to weigh and sell by the half-kilogram called a Jin. Common knowledge is that these farmers always use scales that are out of whack and overcharge on their produce. However, the prices are still much much less than the cost in the supermarkets.I bought a whole half watermelon for 5 RMB! Geez, that is only about 62 cents.

I got some new freelance work that I am happy about. I met a girl who works for a translation company at English Corner last week. She told me her company needs native speakers who can proofread and polish up English translations of Chinese letters, speeches, and reports, etc. The company first gives me a rough translation of a Chinese text and I check it against the Chinese original and correct any mistakes and spice it up with better words. I have done two assignments for them already and they said they were very pleased with my work!

The advantages to the job are that I can use my Chinese skills and earn money! Since I have to check the work against the Chinese original text, I can continue to study Chinese. It’s also super convenient because I can correspond with the company and send all documents by MSN and e-mail. Thus, I can work from home. They pay per assignment and send money directly to my bank account! No paychecks to pick up. I am free to take assignments whenever, I have a flexible schedule. They pay decently, about 120 RMB for 1000 English words. After a few weeks that should go up to 150 RMB. For the time I spend doing the proofreading, that is better pay than teaching English.

Finally, I saw a couple of new apartments today. The second place I visited I really wanted. It is in downtown Beijing near a place called Jishuitan. Its just a 5 minute walk from the Subway station. Its central location is great for any job I may be able to get in Beijing. The room is great, pretty new and clean. Its bigger than where I live now. The whole south wall is a big window that faces south, that is important in the winter! It has heating and cooling and comes with high-speed internet access. It is in a nice apartment building that looks like it was built recently and has security and elevators. All this for only 2200 RMB (about $275 a month!) That is very reasonable on my salary. I make about 1950 RMB a week working 19.5 hours since classes at Renmin ended. But I will probably have quit working at the branch I have been working at this past year because it will now be kind of far away. But this new location will be so convenient to so many better places. And if I finally get a super quality job, I will be in a prime location to get to work. Plus I am happy with the room itself. BUT, I have to do the contract and make the payment tomorrow. Hopefully everything will work out fine. It should be alright. If it does I will be that will be great!