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Published: February 16th 2010
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Kung Fu Panda!
I saw this life-sized Kung Fu Panda (Gong Fu Xiongmao!) near the Yaxiu Market, and I thought I should take a picture! Hi everyone!
China is in the midst of celebrating Chinese New Year, which starts Spring Festival. In case you don't know, Saturday began the year of the Tiger (老虎 - laohu), which apparently is unfavorable for marriages and having a baby girl (I guess girls born in the year of the tiger are too unruly? Too headstrong or something? I don't know exactly, but I think their science might be off a little...) In celebration, people have been shooting off firecrackers and other explosive devices every night for the past week and a half. It sounds like I'm in a war zone, but it's tapered off some since Saturday. At midnight on Saturday, the fireworks were huge and more legit, more resembling Fourth of July fireworks and not just people setting them off at the base of my apartment building (which did happen by the way, and they exploded into little firework things right outside my window. It was cute, but also terrifying.). The sidewalks are covered in red paper scraps and other firecracker debris. I am pleased to report that I still have all my digits and have not been scarred by a stray firecracker-- yay! Also, Chun Jie
Pretty Lanterns at the Ditan Market
This was one of the stands that was selling pretty lanterns and random plastic fruit. Most of the stands sold other things. Kuai Le means happy spring festival. You attach "Kuai Le" to things to mean "have a happy" as in "Zhoumo Kuai Le" (Have a happy weekend) or "Sheng Ri Kuai Le" (Happy Birthday).
It's been a while since I've written anything, so I'm sorry for the delay! I was feeling a little not good for a while, but I'm finally feeling better! Yay! Then, I've had this whole week off of school, which has been a nice break! Everyone in China goes back to their hometown, or to where their parents live, to celebrate. Consequently, a lot of places have been shut down and the street vendors are nowhere to be seen. The traffic around my apartment has been noticeably lighter, and the night market has disappeared! Most of the gyms in this area are closed for the month, and all the dining hall places on campus started closing the week before Spring Festival. Let me tell you, you don't realize how much you miss those jiaozi and noodles until they're not there! I hope they open up next Monday-- I'm crossing my fingers! Also, the Beida students don't start classes for another week, I think, so it'll be
Clear Day and the Mountains from my Window
I took this picture from my apartment window this morning because it was such a clear day! There's a lot of construction outside my apartment and let me tell you they work 24/7, literally! But the reason I took this was to showcase the lovely smokestack in front of the mountains. I literally did not know there were mountains there until several weeks after we arrived-- it was too "cloudy" to see them. interesting to see how lively and busy the campus gets when all of the students return!
I don't have that many interesting stories from this past week of classes, but I did some fun things this weekend, and then I'll just put up some pictures and muse about China. This weekend I met up with some of my best friend's relatives who are in Beijing, which was really fun!! I went to church with them, and I met some people who are family friends of the family that own the store where I first worked!! What a small world! Unfortunately, the big markets, Yaxiu, the Silk Market, the Pearl Market, etc, were closed this weekend so I was a little sad. But I know where they are so I can go back! Yaxiu and the Pearl Market aren't open air markets, as I was expecting; they're actually in big multilevel mall buildings. I think all of the big famous markets are indoors. I'll let you know for sure once I visit them all =)
On Monday I went to a temple fair, which was fun but cold =) There are 24 temple fairs going on this week in
Sunrise!
This was a lovely Valentine's Day sunrise that I saw from the window of my apartment. The green lights are on the Metro/Subway/Ditie that goes right by our apartment-- so convenient! The smog stuff that you see in the middle of the clouds is I think just that-- smog. Beijing (if you're interested, go to ChinaDaily online and look them up if you want to see where they all are.. you might not know a lot about what they are). I went to the Ditan Temple Fair. Ditan ( 地坛 ) (I think those are the characters) is the temple of the Earth. Beijing had four temples, to the Earth, Moon, Sun, and Sky, I think. I don't know how many of them are still standing, but I definitely know that not all of them do. We wandered around and saw lots of interesting food (yak yogurt, random Chinese desserts that I'm sure involved lots of red bean paste and sesame seeds, and lots of meat on sticks and jiaozi) and trinkets (some of which I took pictures of). We went to the temple part of the park to watch the parade, but I'm not sure exactly what was going on. I took lots of pictures, but I'm having difficulty getting those particular ones off of my camera! I don't know what's going on.. if I ever figure it out I'll put them on here. Bu hao! Anyway, I think a guy was dressed up as an emperor and
Some of the Parade
There were a lot of people in blue and red outfits and on the right you can see the yellow-clad emperor guy! That and the panda hat worn by the person in front of me.. he was supposed to make a sacrifice to the Earth? But my toes were I think literally frozen, despite many layers of socks, so we decided to head back.
Tomorrow I'm leaving to go to my laoshi's hometown! I think it's Suizhong... I just know it's cold and somewhere near the ocean. She's invited my roommates and I to go to her home for a few days, and I'm excited to see a genuine Chinese town! And I think on Friday night we might wrap jiaozi with her and her family!! If so, that would be really exciting and validate my first semester of Chinese-- we spent a unit discussing how good moms are at wrapping jiaozi and how I wrap jiaozi slowly (妈妈包饺子包得很好。我包饺子包得很慢。 mama bao jiaozi bao de hen hao, wo bao jiaozi bao de hen man). I will keep you updated! =)
Alright, I still have to pack and these pictures are taking a while to upload, so I think I'll save my China ramblings for my next post. I can hear your sighs of relief from all the way over the ocean(s). =) I miss you all, but I'm still having a good time and
Entrance to the Ditan Fair
You're only supposed to hang lanterns in even numbers! I'm not sure why odd numbers are bad... I hope all of you are having wonderful semesters/Februaries and have managed to dig yourselves out of the snow! For all of my William and Mary pengyoumen, jiayou!! (That means keep going, you can do it!! It literally means add oil, and I think because after you add oil to a fire it keeps going or gets bigger... yes. You get the idea, I hope). So jiayou and I love you all!!
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