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Published: March 29th 2008
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Olympic countdown
This wasn't taken in Beijing, in fact it was taken on the other side of the country. I wanted to throw this up here to once again emphasize the Olympic fever. The event is so important for Chinese people that even a relatively small city in Guangxi Province has their own counter down to the second. The pictures from this entry cover the last stop on the winter break tour in Beijing up to the first plunge back into teaching for semester number two. My time in Beijing was well spent, getting a healthy dose of international cuisine, cultural/tourist sites and some pretty entertaining nightlife as well. The highlight of the trip was without a doubt Chinese New Year's Eve. A fellow Dongying foreigner who's spent the past couple of years here in China told me "if you're gonna be in China for Chinese New Year, you'd better make it Beijing." Imagine the greatest Fourth of July fireworks display you've ever seen and then multply that by a thousand. Walking around the streets of Beijing was like something out of a movie, non-stop explosions for 5+ hours. No pictures of that evening, but I took many at some of Beijing's most famous parks and tourist spots.
So far the second semester has started off pretty smoothly. I have a pretty similar schedule to last semester, with a little more free time to plan some trips. I'm pretty excited to go on some midrange weekend trips as the weather gets warmer and seeing more of the country.
Wangfujing area
The Wangfujing area (and of course Wangfujing street) is one of Beijing's many shopping districts. Most of the places are huge shopping malls type buildings, but this little side street maintains some of the old flair. Dongying continues to be very Dongying like so getting out of here periodically helps combat any cabin fever.
Two major stories have been circulating both in the domestic and international media: the Taiwanese presidential election and the unrest in Tibet. I gave a pretty basic, but thought provoking (or at least I hoped) homework assignment to my western culture class, in which I asked them to find any article in a newspaper and write a short opinion piece on the issue in question. Many students talked about these two aforementioned topics. I won't give my own opinions about the subject because they are quite politically sensitive topics, but I wanted to share some of my students' thoughts. You may draw your own conclusions.
"The peaceful reunification of China will be a great achievement in future, Taiwan is bound to come back eventually with the mainland, which will contribute to the stability of Asia and Pacific region as well as the world peace. As for Ma Yinjiu's success in campaign, it maybe a good signal of keeping the balance of all kinds of political powers. To some extent, i can be regarded as a great progress compared to the
串 Chuan
Chuan are basically shishkebabs of all different kinds. The most common kind is mutton, but you can find all sorts of things from squid to scorpions. Yikes! former governers... the success of Guomin Party gives us hope to make progress of the cause of reunification. After all, the straits can not prevent the culture links and civilization root."
"In 14th March, a terrible turbulence took place in Lhasa, which attracted much attention of the whole world. This event happened in a eventful period. The Beijing Olympic is approaching. People in Taiwan were going to elect their leader and vote to decide whether to seek independence. Countless eyes were focused on China to see how China leaders would deal with this affair. Many critics were well prepared to speak ill of China. At this point, leaders of the Communist Party made a wise choice. They showed much tolerance to the mobs and demonstrated sincerity in negotiating with those who are intending to split China, which prevented the situation from worsening. So i do think our government has made a pretty wise choice."
"As the Olympic Games coming near, taking this event in account, China may not take obvious action to Taiwan, but this doesn't mean China will leave Taiwan problem as it was. Now, the complicated situation in Taiwan results from some action of US and
Japan in a certain extent, as well as some Anti-China force. If they did not have a hand in Taiwan problem (especially Japan), China may deal with it on their won well. As far as I'm concerned, China may take some military action on Taiwan, just when China has a suitable opportunity. Before this, China should enhance their military force to evenly matched with US and Japan, win over more initiative on Taiwan problem."
"There happened some violence events few weeks in Tibet. As a university student, we have authority to protect our nation's peace. Also there are enough proof to tell us which managed the violence events, its Dalai Groups. They say "yes" on the unattached Tibet. So they managed the events to tell us they had some courage. Dalai Groups mastermind those elaborate events is doubtless to make pressure. Some principals indicated the devastating event has clear purpose, which destroy nation's social economy."
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