I'm now on the train heading back to Beijing from Hohhot. We're taking a hard sleeper car, which means that there is a whole car full of bunk beds. There are three layers of beds: bottom, middle and top. We all have top bunks because that's all that was left when we bought our tickets. Our train left Hohhot at 9:23 PM and will arrive in Beijing at 7 something in the morning. It's currently about 10:05 PM which means I will probably have another 25 minutes until they turn off the lights. I'm definitely in very different sleeping conditions than [View Full Entry]

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I am currently writing from a yurt in the middle of Inner Mongolia. (Well, I'm writing in my journal, which I will then type into an online blog post upon returning to Beijing.) Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region in China and a yurt is a transportable circular tent used by Mongolian nomads. Our yurt is made for six people, so Michelle, Gabe, Angel and I fit in it quite nicely. There are no beds, but just a large wooden platform with a thin layer of wool or some other type of material covered by a giant cloth. There is no [View Full Entry]

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I know, I know, I haven't written in months! I'm sorry! I've actually started four or five entires that I've just never gotten around to finishing, so I'll try to finish them up and post them retroactively. My program officially ends on June 21, less than a month away. I'm going to travel from June 21 to July 1, probably to Xinjiang with my friend John and maybe some other people. Then from July 1 to July 22 I'll be participating in a Summer Service Learning Program with Tsinghua University, the school I'm studying at right now. If you're interested in [View Full Entry]

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I'm back in Beijing! After three weeks of traveling, I have finally returned to my cozy dorm room at Tsinghua. I'm planning on retroactively posting some journal entries that I've written out so make sure to check back and look before this entry to see what I've been up to the last few weeks. Here's a basic itinerary of where I've been: January 20-23: Xi'an January 23-28: Beijing (but in a hotel, not on campus) January 29-February 2: Shanghai February 2-5: Nanjing February 5-7: Wuxi, specifically Jiangying country February 7-8: Yangzhou February 8-9: Back in Nanjing for a short 24 [View Full Entry]

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That's right. I drove a car in China. You see, today started like any other day. I woke up, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth and got dressed. Then, it happened. Yinxi said to me, "Sarah you know how to drive, right?" I replied that I did, but that I could only drive an automatic. Luckily for them, the car was an automatic. My mind raced for other excuses. The roads in China are very different from the U.S. I don't have an international driving license. But none of it mattered. They needed someone to drive, and I was the only one [View Full Entry]

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Since January 10, 2007, China has experienced the worst snow it has had in decades. With the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday, the biggest travel time of the year in China, chaos has ensued. All forms of transportation have been cancelled or delayed at some point over the last few weeks. Upon arriving in Shanghai this week, we witnessed a train station full of people waiting for their delayed trains. As we exited the station, we saw that the police had closed off the entrance to prevent more people from coming in. Those people, eager to go home to their families [View Full Entry]

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The final journal entry of our two week travel seminar. One of the reasons I wanted to come to China was to see if all the rumors about China's economy and growth were true. After seeing the rapid building for the Olympics in Beijing and the new buildings in Shanghai I would say that everything I've heard about China's quick building is true. Just by looking at my China guidebook you can see examples of this growth. Written in 2005, the Shanghai section of the book warns that so much is changing so quickly in Shanghai that everything written in the [View Full Entry]

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When people in the U.S. found out that I was going to China, many of them said to me, "Don't forget your face mask," or "I hope you can breath with all that pollution." Truth is, all the U.S. media seemed to report about China was how bad the environment was getting as China raced to become an economic power. When I first stepped out of the airport in Beijing, I could immediately see the smog. Xi'an's pollution seemed about the same. However, the air wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The way the U.S. media portrayed [View Full Entry]

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As part of our travel seminar, we have to submit four journal entries to our professor, Caroline. Though these journals are slightly more formal than what I will normally post here, I figure I might as well let you see them. I only got a 9 out 10 on this journal entry. I'm hoping to do better on the next one. :-P Wo ai zhongguo! I realize that I've only been here a week, and that I'm still in that honeymoon stage, but so far I love China. Strangely enough, I haven't been surprised too much by what I've seen [View Full Entry]

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This is what I submitted for my second journal entry. It's kind of schoolish and has no flow, but it gets some points across. Enjoy! Based on the readings assigned thus far, it appears that a major concern in China right now is the growing income gap between the rich and the poor, as well as between the coastal cities and the inland cities. I feel that, as a foreigner to China who will spend most of her time visiting touristy places and staying around the Tsinghua campus, this disparity in income will not be very obvious. Therefore, I have [View Full Entry]

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