A Taste of Americana in Beijing

It’s 7a.m. on a Monday morning. It’s the second to last day of vacation for Chinese New Year. Where would you expect a group of American college kids studying abroad in Beijing to be?

Why, at the local foreigner-friendly pizza parlor, watching the Super Bowl between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, of course!

For many of us, it was our first taste of Americana since leaving the States to study abroad in Beijing. We watched a live stream of the U.S. broadcast, and while we didn’t get the commercials the Super Bowl is famous for, we still got U.S. commercials. It was so weird to watch U.S. television; the last time I had seen any U.S. television was in mid-August, back when I was in the States. I had forgotten how outlandish some commercials in the U.S. can be (although I did like Volkswagen’s commercial about the new Bug).

I gotta say, there’s nothing like nachos, pizza, French fries, onion rings, and beer while watching American football at 7am. (Yay day drinking!) I am a little sad that the Packers won, though. As a Chicagoan, I was rooting for the Steelers on principle!

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.