Blogs from XiCheng District, Beijing, China, Asia - page 2

Today we used a taxi and went to the Lama Temple. People there would burn three incense sticks, kneel, and bow three times. The largest Buddha in Beijing. Beautiful temples. Then we hopped a taxi and went to the Temple of Heaven. It was a temple and huge park where empowers offered sacrifices. There were beautiful gardens and pine trees with soft music playing throughout. Very relaxing! Our group of 17 all went out to dinner together. It was authentic Chinese. I ordered tea, thinking that would be easy. Cha in Chinese. They brought me hot water, no tea in it. When I asked about it,they brought me a scroll with all the different teas I could choose from. The only problem was that it was all written in Chinese characters! I told them they could ... read more

The train to Beijing was pretty uneventful - our carriage was entirely full of Western travellers but there was no vodka fuelled madness. Even the border was simple with only cursory checks, no smuggling of boots or anything else was visibile last time (though maybe in the other compartments?). Once again the wheel bogies had to be changed (as China uses standard gauge) but after Belarus we knew the process and it was all a little tedious really. As we rolled towards Beijing you could immediately tell China is a much richer country than Mongolia, there are visible paved roads and construction happening everywhere. As we approached the capital the smog visibly thickened! We arrived into Beijing Central Station (which isn't very central) and said goodbye to Cathy and Lianne who were staying in a different ... read more

And so my final week in Beijing began on Monday, July 16th. I spent the day working on a presentation I was asked to do about projects I’ve worked on at school. That evening, the Zach’s and the Portlanders were down for one last (for me, anyways) trivia night at The Bookworm. We got there early to secure some front row seats and it was great fun! We did really well though still didn’t make the top 3. Oh well, we had fun. Though I had to push myself from the table when the others started getting obnoxiously American. The sassy British host guy sassed them good which was great. The boys decided they wanted to stick around but I was tired so Shavaun and I headed home. I’ve had many cab experiences in Beijing, and ... read more

Hey everyone, I realize I didn’t post a top 10 last week so I’m going to make it up for that now! I’m currently at work and I was inspired by a rather hilarious occurrence to make this list. You see, we have this internal messenger system, and I’m often included in group conversations. I normally use google translate to understand what’s going on – though this is shady, especially for Chinese to English. But regardless, I can get the jist of a conversation. Well, this morning, I thought I had figured out that a group conversation was about a lecture happening on Monday. However, somehow the discussion devolved into pictures of (wait for it) CATS. I kid you not. The pictures do not lie! Anyways this got me thinking about some of ... read more

They call us ABC’s – American-born Chinese. And as an ABC, I’ve spent my life awkwardly straddling both cultures. My phenotype is evidence of my Asian descent, but my spoken English is almost impeccable and bleeds a thick Californian accent as I utter “ni hao”. During this past summer as an intern with the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design I’ve come to learn one lesson: to many Beijing locals, I’m not Chinese enough because I cannot speak Mandarin. Ok. So I can speak a little Mandarin from glancing through a few books and watching online video lessons, but my comprehension still wavers at 10%-15%. It’s a little confusing for people in China to approach me and discover that I’m not what they thought. And I tend to shock people (in a bad way) with ... read more