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Wow, I have definitely been slacking when it comes to blogging! Even though I’ve been in Croatia for two weeks now, I still wanted to share my last week in China and my overall thoughts about the country.
I watched a lot of the games in the World Cup’s qualifying stage during my last weekend in Beijing, even though some matches (i.e. US-England) were at 2:30AM. I wanted to take a trip to Xi’an and see the Terracotta Warriors that weekend, but I decided the 24 hour (total) train ride was not worth the 12 hours I would have in the city. (I rationalized this by concluding I’ll have plenty of time to see Xi’an when I move to China.) The Monday before we left, Arsene and I went to the Llama Temple, an important temple in Buddhism. People from everywhere make pilgrimages to the temple, burn incense, pray and do other religious things that I am ignorant about. Truth be told, it was an interesting place to visit, but I should have done my homework before. We did not get the headphones you can use for a self-guided tour and I felt somewhat strange touring a place that people
consider an important religious location. After walking around for a bit, we had dinner and took in a Kung-Fu performance at the Red Theatre. I believe the average age of the performers were early teens. Whatever their age, they were truly impressive. The coolest routine was when a group of little boys did back flips across the stage… using their heads as pivots on the ground (as opposed to using their hands). It looked freaky, but awesome.
My Hong Kong friends, Sarah and Shelia, treated me to a Peking Duck dinner/performance at Quanjude, a famous restaurant on Hou Hai Lake on Thursday night. (This was also the night before our final; a final whose existence I refused to accept until a few days before.) It was like having dinner with a professional version of Star Search on stage. We walked in to a quartet of women playing Chinese music and the hostesses sat us down right in front of the stage. Other acts included a lady singing while holding a contraption with her teeth, a puppet show, and a lady dancing with a Chinese fan. I became an audience participant for a magician that made puffed rice from nothing
in front of my eyes, which was cool. (I thank Sarah for “volunteering” me…) There were two very impressive performers that evening. First, a lady twirled at least 50 silver hula hoops around her body. After a couple of different acts, the lady came back and began to juggle things with her feet. “Things” included a table and a huge vase. She then twirled a pole with a girl sitting on each end of the pole. I thought she was super awesome, but the final act topped even this impressive lady.
A masked-man came out and swirled his cape around stage. (Sarah smacked me and told me to stop eating so I would not miss this guy.) As I looked at the guy, he waived his hand in front of his face and his mask changed color. Even though I was about 15 feet from this guy, I did not believe what I saw. But I continued to stare at this guy, and again, he changed his mask. He even went into the crowd and changed his mask several times while standing at people’s dinner table. At the end, he took his mask off so he was just wearing
a black Zoro-type mask, then he took that off, then put another colorful mask back on, then off! I was floored. It was by far one of the coolest things I’ve seen. (Note: I later learned it’s called Bian Lian and part of Sichuan Opera. These guys train and pass down their secrets to others in their family. So cool…) Between the performance on stage, the great food, and the laughs and conversations I had with the HK Girls, I definitely had the best meal an American can have in Beijing.
My last day in China consisted of a four-hour exam, English Corner and the night turned out to be a return of my first night in Beijing: karaoke down the street at K-Box. I met up with three cool people, but people I did not really interact with much during our time in China. We then met a larger group of students that was bringing down the house with their singing skills at K-Box. (Fortunate for us... and other patrons... karaoke takes place in individual rooms.) After most people left, I was still rocking it out with the people I came with. I tried to convince the staff
at the joint to join us, but their boss would not allow them. The workers also turned down my request to go through other rooms and find people to join us. After a bit, we walked outside to find the sun was up. After a quick meal, we returned to our hotel rooms. I slept for about 3 hours before I had to speed-pack and shower to catch my plane.
I was looking forward to my next destination, but I was sad to leave China at the same time. Sarah asked me after dinner at Quanjude what was the coolest thing I experienced during my time in China. I told her it was the people. Learning and exchanging ideas from Fey and the other local law students, Sarah and Shelia, and the nearly hundred interesting people I talked to at English Corner are things I could not have imagined I would experience. Even the one-off interactions I had with people at restaurants or on the street were awesome. While Beijing clearly is not the only thing in China, I loved my time in China and definitely will be returning in the near future. Sure, you have government control of
media and everything that comes with that, but the benefits of being there for a few years outweighs the not-so-great things about China.
I believe getting to China to learn the language and the culture even more may prove key to fulfilling my desire to do something in the international realm after I graduate. From a geek aspect, seeing how the law has changed and is continuing to change to accommodate a more open society (relatively speaking of course) is cool to see and it would be cool to be part of it. Awesome people, great food and a low cost of living seems like an excellent recipe for a broke law school graduate with tons of debt. And depending where I move to, I already have cool friends to help make the transition easier.
I hope to fill you in on Croatia, and my 12 hours in the Motherland (Germany), soon.
Happy Independence Day, America!
(and viva Espana… for the World Cup)
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Sarah
non-member comment
Nice to see ur blog
Jason, What a nice sharing, hahah. Have fun in Croatia :)