"The Great Wall is long" and other obvious statements

You can pretend that's mist in the background if you like. Mm, air quality.

Apparently there are cushier segments of wall you can visit, but we at HBA went to the section at Simatai, about 2 hours away by bus (read: +4 hours of total sleep time, heck yes). Climbing up was tiring and down was scary, but all in all, great fun. I got my picture taken with a little Chinese girl at her mother's request, found my Chinese name carved into the wall (obviously by invading Mongols) and mustered up enough will-power to not buy extremely overpriced ice cream. All around success.

We were all a little jealous of that hang-glider-thingy.

Saturday night we went out to Houhai, which as our textbook promised was quite lively. There was one bar after another along the edge of the lake. And big red lanterns shining. The accuracy of this particular chapter of our book makes me wonder if Dawei's dysentery in chapter 7 actually is a legitimate concern. Hm...

Our new Chinese friends are in the background.

We wandered around the lake awhile and ended up at a surprisingly fun club, where we had fun dancing with the locals to American music. I think Chinese people are much more polite about personal space while dancing, which I appreciate.

Big something in the museum entrance. We climbed up it only to find whatever was up there was closed.

On Sunday I met up with my Chinese mom and sister and two of my sister's friends, and we all went to the Capital Museum, which was a nice history museum of Beijing specifically and China as a whole. It was overall very nice and modern, but rather shoddy at some parts in a way that I can't really describe, but strikes me as sort of symbolic of China's rapid modernization. The room with a great wall exhibit, for example, had a reconstructed side of the wall, which you peered over and saw...nothing. Some fake dirt and a rock or two. Awesome.

One of the cooler parts of the museum was how they had a running time line of Western history that correlated with the artifacts from Chinese history. My sense of history is...not the greatest, and I realized I had always assumed that the coolest parts of each country's history all happened at the same time, like one big era of badassery with pirates and ninjas and kings and queens (and dinosaurs and cavemen and astronauts...) and all that. Ok, so maybe I was somewhat more informed, but I didn't realize how recent a long of the things I was seeing were.

My host sister and her friend. Er, maybe not her friend. I never really figured out the connection there. All I know is she was rarely included in our pictures.

A good part of our museum trip consisted of taking pictures. My host sister had a really nice camera with an extra large lens in addition to her small pocket camera. My host mom had another. I think all together we had more cameras then people. Actually, I'm sure of it. My favorite by far were the fake candid pictures where we stood in front of the glass looking interested. I'm pretty sure I'm cracking up in all of them, it was so ridiculous.

After the museum, we went to a mall and waited in the Nike Kids store for my host sister to exchange some shoes, which took a surprisingly long time, then we went to a restaurant and I was forced to eat until far past the point of physical discomfort. Literally after everyone was saying they were full, my host mother ordered 3 more dishes. I didn't want to eat lunch today; I was still not hungry.

Well, onto week three.

A lot of things, among which are calligraphy and calcium.

My birthday on Sunday was wonderful. For lunch we went in search of a vegetarian restaurant, unsuccessed and settled for 成都小吃. I think that's what it's called at least. Then I went to do some homework because plan finish-homework-before-birthday was not properly executed. Before long, however, I was surprised by a knock at the door and friends bearing cake! A most adorable, intricate and delicious cake at that. It was quite the miracle of design, containing very little actual cake, and so. much. frosting. Oh so yummy.

Filled with sugary goodness, I headed off to meet my 辅导员, essentially my language tutor. She's (will be) a junior here at Beiyu, and we have to meet 2 hours a week to talk. We had our first meeting yesterday in the library cafe, and though she seems very interesting and we'd probably get along well if we didn't have this language barrier, our first two hours together were ridiculously tiring for me. So far I've been a big fan of the language pledge and have felt that communicating with both my friends and teachers isn't too difficult. Sure, there's a whole bunch of things I left unsaid because I don't know how to convey my meaning in Chinese, but as a whole it's been like one big fun game of charades meets Taboo meets mind reading. More and more I'm realizing how much comprehension has to do with shared knowledge, though. Because in second year, we all have essentially identical vocabulary sets and grammatical knowledge, we know our limitations. It's very easy to say "breakfast milk thing" for cereal and move on (or even better, "other-breakfast-not-milk-boiling-water-thing" for oatmeal). One step removed our are teachers, who come from a different place culturally, but understand where we're coming from grammatically. It's a completely different story with other Chinese people, though. I know that they're not going to understand me the first time I (try to) say 绿茶 or 旅馆. It's normally not too much of a problem because my interactions consist of "sorry", "this one", "thanks", but two hours with my language tutor was ugh. We talked about Tibetan independence, the Chinese education system, organic farming, the idea of individualism in American television, four main works of Chinese literature and probably more that completely went over my head. It was mostly her talking rapid-fire and me nodding, having no idea what was going on. I did understand some of it, and what I did understand was depressing. I told her my "Chinese older sister" was at Qinghua, and we talked about how much easier it was to get into a good school if you're from Beijing (she's from Hebei). She said all her friends want to make a lot of money so that they can send their kids to school abroad, like all the rich parents do.

Meeting my "Chinese family" was a much more managable endeavor. I share my family with my friend Aina (psh, who uses English names anymore), which makes the whole thing even more fun. The purpose of our Chinese families is to show us life outside of the classroom, so we eat dinner at their house or go sight-seeing together, etc. Like I said, I have an older sister who's at Qinghua studying fashion design. She said she'd take us to galleries and things, so I'm excited about that. My Chinese mom is a reporter for CCTV. Haven't met the dad yet.

This week has been pretty much like last week class-wise. We're settling into the routine, getting to know our teachers better, and flying through the textbook. Because every day is a new chapter, my enjoyment of the day's class depends on the content of that chapter. The one where Dawei gets dystentery, for instance, was not my favorite day. Though I'm glad I now have three ways to say "has diarhhea".

Today was a nice normal day. It was graduation at Beiyu, so lots of people in black robes standing around taking pictures with bouquets. After class I went to calligraphy class. Why I put myself through even more frustration I don't know, but occasionally my efforts are rewarded by a particularly nice line...

I then headed to my favorite place ever: the grocery store, and besides an abundance of fruit (two dragonfruits, a melon, and a package of plums) I picked up a jug (yes, a jug) of yogurt. China doesn't do dairy products...at least not at restaurants. I also discovered that fake meat products that are ridiculously expensive at home are super cheap here. Win.

I think I like weekends.

Yesterday because our Great Wall trip (hehe, that sounds like we tripped over a wall) got canceled, a group of us went with Fu-laoshi to the market in Wudaokou, which is the area in which we're staying. Sure, I could have gone to see Tiananmen, or the summer palace or a number of other sites, but there's time for that later and honestly, I don't want to do laundry yet. So off to buy clothes at ridiculously cheap prices thanks to nonexistant labor laws! ...Yay?

And then the shopkeeper got mad at me for taking pictures.

It was quite the experience haggling. We had the best luck when Fu-laoshi would step in for us or mouth a suggested price from the sidelines. There was Engrish abound, my favorite being a t-shirt proclaiming the quality of "IDAHO SEEDS" in giant letters.

The snacks and tea provided were a much appreciated addition to our intended meal of Pocky/Pretz and juice.

Later that day we went on an HBA-sponsored trip to see 京剧, or Peking Opera. It was at a nice hotel and seemed to cater to foreigners, but nontheless it was interesting to actually see in person. Instead of one opera, it was a couple scenes, the longest of which being a battle between the monkey king and 18 warriors. The choreography and stunts were amazing, but I would have rather heard more singing, I think. Of course, none of our young teachers wanted to go and were surprised that we wanted to.

Can someone please explain to me how they do this? It's adorable!

Even if I didn't enjoy the show, it would have still been worth going for the free snacks! I brought back four nectarines and a bunch of individually wrapped sour green plums. No one else liked the green plums, which were sort of like fresher-tasting 梅干し (umeboshi). I plan on hunting these down at the supermarket.

We finished off the night with some karaoke, which was moderately entertaining. There's only so much fun to be had when you don't know any of the songs and can barely read the lyrics because they're all in traditional characters (thanks, Taiwan). I should really improve upon my knowledge of Chinese pop music....on second thought, maybe that's not the best use of my time.

Today is my birthday (!) and so far it's been great despite a failed attempt to locate a vegetarian restaurant. Tonight we meet our language tutors and host families. I'm unsure how much contact I'll have with either, but the more Chinese people with whom to speak, the better!

Chinese Table

On Friday we had our first test, which wasn't bad at all. Two hours was rather long though. It's incredibly frustrating when all these complicated characters you know appear elsewhere on the test, and the one simple character you can't remember doesn't.

After the test we had to memorize the short "compositions" we wrote about our impressions of Beijing. We then had a one-on-one session with a teacher to practice reciting them. Hu-laoshi kept trying to get me to gesture emphatically, which wasn't too successful, resulting in an awkward time delay between, say, exclaiming how hot it is and wiping pretend sweat off my forehead. Perhaps public speaking is done differently in China...or Hu-laoshi was just messing with me.


Then we all headed to a nice restaurant for Chinese table, which is always great fun because the food is delicious and we get to actually learn what the dishes are called. I think half my time at this program is spent either eating or talking about food. Maybe because our recent lessons have all been food-related. Not that I'm complaining.

Afterwards, Wang Ping and I headed to 超市发, our neighborhood grocery store to buy fruit and bowls. Most exciting discovery of the day:


The weather then decided to get ridiculously hot, which must have burned off all the smog (because that's how it works, of course) allowing us to see blue sky! Miraculous. Alas, even though the sky was blue, my lungs still died when I went running. Boo, Beijing, boo.

By far the most interesting part of the day was the taxi ride to the dance party last night. As we were told to, we struck up lively conversation with the driver, but before long we were lost, confused, and stuck in a cab with a driver rather pissed off at us. To top it off, we were trying to give directions to another cab, perhaps more clueless than us. At one point, everyone was talking at once, and (sorry Kai Xin!) Kai Xin exclaimed loudly "Give the phone the driver!". It was definitely a test of our language pledge. A few minutes later, we stopped to consult the mini map on the back of our tickets and the cab decided to stall. Thankfully, we eventually made it. The abandoned factory location was pretty cool, but it made me think about labor conditions of factory workers, which was kind of a bummer.

Off shopping today!

Having finally made it to my destination...

I've come to the conclusion that Beijing weather is absolutely disgusting. Today the sky has gone from white to grey to green. Of course, I decided today would be a good day to take some pictures.

Our class building. It's nice and big and new and shiny and filled with people speaking all sorts of languages.

I've seen almost nothing of Beijing because classes started right after I got here, and anyway we're not supposed to leave campus until China decides we don't have swine flu. I saw the Bird's Nest from the highway on the way from the airport. It looks like it did on TV.

The campus we're on is Beijing Language and Culture University. It's not very big unless they're hiding some parts, but it's kind of pretty.

The big trees are my favorite part! There are cute little stone stool and tables dispersed around them where people eat and study.

Classes are wonderful but rather intense--we start at 8 and go til 12, then there's a fifty minute one-on-one session in the afternoon, which is my favorite part of the whole program. The teachers are all young and fun to talk to. Even though my language skills are so limited, we're somehow still able to have substantive conversations.

We have our first test tomorrow, so I ought to be studying for that instead of writing this! One last picture:

My room is itty-bitty! I'm glad to have a single, though. And what's more, the 服务员 changes the towels, makes the bed and takes out the trash every day. Amazing.

This weekend we're going to the Great Wall, and it's my birthday, so it should be all sorts of fun.

Closer, but not quite...

Here's an entry I wrote this afternoon:

I'm on a plane now from Atlanta to Salt Lake City, and though it was supposed to have Wi-Fi on board, that doesn't seem to be the case, which is unfortunate because my flight from Salt Lake to Narita has probably been canceled. There were conflicting opinions on this issue. All I have to say is that this is quite the auspicious start to my adventure. It's okay, though. All will work out, I'm sure. At least I have an aisle seat on this plane. Which totally makes up for the baby sitting in front of me. Sure.

Despite these travel misadventures, I'm getting quite excited about China. I've been sitting here practicing my characters--it's disappointing how fast I've forgotten. They'll all come back, though. Right?

Oh gumdrops, we're landing. I'd rather not actually, if that means I have to go find out my flight has been cancelled. It would have been nice if they had told me before...well, they haven't yet. The friendly Delta man said it was all on schedule. I'll hope he's right and the internet is wrong.

Well, turns out the internet was right. My flight was cancelled, and now I'm in a hotel in Salt Lake City. I was pretty pissed off about this at first for obvious reasons. Changing everything logistically was a pain. By the time I made it to my room (this hotel is a labyrinth, and moreover there's a muscular dystrophy conference happening, and the hallways are clogged with children and wheelchairs.) I made it exactly this far before dropping everything:


Then I de-stressed in the greatest way possible:


And admired the scenery. And some factory/office-like buildings:



I think the dramatic sky really reflects my inner feelings. Oh sure.

And now I'm writing this. With any luck I'll be in China tomorrow. Or at least Tokyo. Baby steps.

Preparations...

Haven't started....typical.

One week to pack and review all my Chinese! Go team! I'm excited to go, but I keep forgetting it's so soon... at least I finally got around to setting up this blog, yes? Baby steps. And I got my visa in the mail, so I should be able to get into the country, even if I end up quarantined.

More insightful posts to come. This blog was just looking pretty sad and empty.