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Hey everyone, I've had a very busy week and am just now getting a chance to update this. It's about 10:30PM here and we're leaving at 9 tomorrow morning to visit Tianenman Square and Silk Market, so i'll finish the journal tomorrow probably just because I'm exhausted. Right now, I'll just write out a brief bit about what my first several days on the other side of the world have been like, and then soon I'll post all my 100's of photos that I've taken this past week in a seperate journal. You know, let the pictures speak for themselves. But until then, a skeleton outline of maybe the most eventful week of my life--
Monday
1st day of class. Studying in a small building devoted to teaching Chinese to foreign students, basically equivalant to ESL facility in America. Class starts @ 8 a.m. every morning, goes until 11:30 with a 30 min break halfway thru. Teacher is very nice guy, wry + engaging. Classes are hard/fast-paced but manageable. First lesson appropriately deals w/moving and starting school. Tried to exchange traveler's checks in afternoon but bank we went to could only handle cash, luckily I turned $200 into 1350 Renminbi @airport, plus the 200rmb per week food allowance included in program fee, I'm more than fine.
2-5 p.m. we had a history of Chinese art lecture by Dr. Brown, who I found out is leaving after a week, will have to leech offer her culture knowledge as much as possible in these initial excursions while I have the chance.
Treated to dumplings for dinner, wish I hadn't had some for breakfast haha, very tasty but a bit of an overdose. I'll take a bit of a "jiaozi" break for a while. Came back to room for study and relaxation.
Tuesday
Showers not too bad, get hot water if you time it right, surprisingly good stream. Class much harder today, pace has picked up, subject matter itself not overbearing but just so much in so little time.
Another excursion today--Summer Palace!! Too beautiful, too much history, to explain here, just look it up and let picutes speak for themselves later on. Took like 150, only saving/putting the best up here.
We have basically no free time this week because Dr. Brown is here & we are therefore going on a lot of excursions etcetc. Been getting most of my studying done on bus to and from places haha
Wednesday
Working on new lesson in class today, about dormitory life. Grammar not too hard but a lot of new vocab, apparantly 300-level kid are even more screwed, like 170 total ShengCi (new words) this week.
So far find myself getting along w/art students more easily than language kids. Kyle is graphic designer, Daniel is monastic painter, still friends w/Hao from class last semester, + two vegatarian creative writing majors on trip: Wes (my room mate) and a 300-level student named David. Other kids also very fun but I have less in common with them.
Many excursions this afternoon, first we visited an ancient Buddhist incense temple called Yong He Lamasery. It's really interesting here, seeing old ancient men burning Indian incense at the same altars as trendy Chinese teens, w/tourism outside, price gouging +nonmaterialism, old&new country, enlightening blend of history & modernism.
Then group supposed to visit Confucious Institute at Imperial College, but left while I was in bathroon haha mah bad, should have told someone I was going. It was just down the street, so the group had walked to it, and I noteiced that the shuttle was still in the parking lot. So I just stuck next t it rather than try to follow, just chilled & people-watched for 90+minutes until group came back. Something to note about Beijing...the drivers here are insane. 20 seconds can't pass without someone honkng at someone, and I saw half a dozen near accidents, so is that really so different from and Amercan city actuallY? Maybe not.
Something@Korean BBQ reastaurant from Tues. night must have disagreed w/me, sorry to be so graphic but had "the runs"
all day, been drinkng a lot of liquids, borrow some Pepto from a girl on the trip/trying to eat, but can't hold anything in my system. At first seemed like no big deal but now a little more worried. Probably was this oddle-spiced hot cabbage dish called kimchi, if problem persists tomorrow I'll talk to teachers about it, until then just try to stay hydrated, get some study&sleep.
Thursday
Had our teacher from Tuesday again in class today, a MonWed//TuThFri schedule looks to be the typical. She's nice too, speaks well/fluid, but a litle less accessible/eccentric than other guy. All these in-class teachers are basic-level Renmin faculty training to beach English to Chinese students, I believe, or possibly abroad, not 100%!s(MISSING)ure.
We were supposed to have a tutoring session this afternoon @2, but instead wil go down to Beijing Arts District and look @exhibit/streets. It's been very fun but could have used the study time. District called 978, very avante/trendy but still cool. Unfortunately no pix allowed in museums/private displays. But very interesting, a lot of play w/types of canvas/materials/art mediums. One guy built sand castly replica of Presidental Palace, so it will actively deteriorated/crummble while display. ALso a guywho did Warhol-esque pix in the same pop-art style as infamous Campbell's paintings. However these pix w/coca-cola bottle outlines and Meo-era propaganda posters. Also saw a lot of odd po-mo film clips, some camera obscura, etcetc.
Got to know Daniel a little better on this excursion, he kid knows his art. Good taste in books/movies too, we talked Vonnegut a lot.
Weather is gorgeous in Beijing. Unpredicable. Sometimes rain, sometimes warm/muggy, usually cool/breezy/comfortable though, improvement over PHX. very smoggy w/in city so horizon view not so grrrrrreat, architecture here is curious though, almos a naive yet more progressive suburbia, but spreading across whole city.
Hard to get enough sleep, very busy, a lot of studying, also lots of fun. Held down 3 square meals today, good to be back, either a 24-hr thing but much more likely Kimchi. Just need to avoid Korean spicy cabage haha. It was bad yesterday, visibly lost weight, but will gain it back w/all this delcious cheap-ass food. Check it:
Breakfast--"cha dou" = tea egg (hard-boiled in green tea/soy sauce, then served warm/still in sheel, delicious light flavor)..."Dousha zongzi" (glutenous rice steamed in a bamboo leaf wrapping to make it super-sticky, moreso than anything stateside, w/creamy yet nourishing red bean paste filling inside, served still in leat wrapping)...can get one of each w/unlimited "Dou jiang (steamed soy milk) for under $1 US at downstairs student diningroom!
Lunch--found build yr own plate section @ student cafeteria, choose between several types of veggies, a few types of noodles, some variaties of tofu and other extras, then boil concoction in semi-spicy broth to make meal hot served w/out like a normal plate, got full plate of spinach/baby corn/thin linguini-esque noodles/spongy tofu for only 5rmb (~$0.80)!!
Dinner- nothing special but teacher's treat yet again...
Fruit discoveries--orange juice is made from mandarin oranges here, not the Florida/Cali versions of America, giving it less puply/saccrhine taste, a little more tart and orangy though, very delicious drink...discovered a new kind of fruit all my own: a Pearapple. Looks like a golden delicious yellow apple from looking and holding, but the flavor/texture is decidely that of a pear. Basically my favorite natural creation, rivalling Strazzberies (which I've found out are actually called "Wax Berries."
Friday
Our first exam today. Writing portion not too hard, but I made dumb little mistakes, forgetting small parts of characters I'd already learned etc. However, did well on oral portion, Laoshi had me read a passage aloud in Chinese, then look at two pictures and identify what was in the rooms and where, e.g. "There is a chair on the left of the room next to a window." Overall I probably got a B or A-, which is about the same boat as everyone else is in I think. A lot of smart kids here of course, most of us would've put more time into it if we'd had it.
Today was our first free afternoon, as in no planned group excursions. However I think it's been one of my most exiting days yet. Didn't take a lot of pictures though so I'll explain as much as possible in narrative...
I had gotten back from my test and ran into Daniel in the main lobby (art kids had no test--total free day). He had been researching bus routes all morning and was planning to trek out alone to the National Art Museum of China to see some particular exhibit. Well, going out alone in a foreign city is a bad idea, especially since he has no Chinese courses under his belt, and also an adventure sounded fun, so I agreed to go with. So we set out around 11 to conquer Beijing public transit, and that we did.
At the bus stop we had pulled out our huge street maps that apparantly signalled to everyone that we were tourists, because this young little guy came over and asked (in English) if we needed help. We talked to him for a bit, and he turned out to be a senior at Renmin University studying Finance&English, and wanted to practice speaking with us. He had time to kill before work, which was close to where we were heading anyway, so he offered to guide us through the bus routes. We gladly accepted and also made a new friend. Liao HouKun loves American movies, and quoted us Forest Gump lines ("Life is a box of chocolates" in the accent of a Chinese student learning English is a real treat, real ear candy haha). Then he recommened us some Chinese action films. It was a great chance for me to practice my Chinese speaking and listening as well. He told us the subway is slightly more expensive but somewhat faster/easier. Each bus ticket is only 1rmb, but you have to buy a ticket at each transfer. HouKun told us though that there was a place on campus where you can get a student bus pass that lowers the rate to 0.2rmb ($0.03) a ticket. Daniel and I promised ourselves to look into this. It was also fun to ask our new friend Q's about Chinese POV's, learning things like how enthusiatic they are about American tourism, yet how much most of them actually hate the McDonald's/other fast food chains that are popping up all over as a result (his words were "rubbish food"). His favorite expression was "Awesome! Very cool!" and we exchanged emails.
Finally we got to the closest bus stop. The museum, it turns out, is right across from Tiananmen, and we walked through the center plaza out front instead of crossing the street. They check your bags just to walk across. Very large and impressive and full of Communist Red posturing, I love it, Mao must have been a very insecure little guy.
We wandered around the area for a good 1/2 hour, asking directions multiple times (again, great chinese practice for me), and end up finding the museum--which is closed for rennovation and remodeling until 2010. Turns out Daniel got a little mixed up and his exhibit must be displaying at a similarly named musuem. It was getting a little humid out, and we were running a bit short on bottled water, so we decided to just try the subway now and finish our adventerous fix by exploring our huge campus.
Subway system actually very easy to use, just a few large intersecting routes that kinda wind through the city like the Loop101 in PHX. A ticket is 2rmb and that covers transfers luckily, becuase we had to do so twice. Only real difference between this and American subways is that there are long walkways at the transfer stations to take you from route to route, sometimes even leading you upstairs or underground. It was a great experience though, Daniel and I got a chance to have more in-depth conversation, mostly about the relationship between different kinds of art creation, like how the mind of a writer and painter can work in very similar ways although they're at work in different capacities. Fruitlessness of worrying too much about our futures also discussed. We were getting stared at openly by many of the passengers, especially some of the younger ones--apparantly our American fashion is exotic here. After all I guess my clothing choices weren't normal even back home, haha. I was wearing my faded, naturally-ripped old jeans out of superstition (it was test day and they're lucky), and the Asian youth was apparantly unprepared. I felt very much like the equivilant of a suave Italian exchange student studying Design in NYC or something.
Get back to RenminUniv. about between 2 and 3, decide we want to try and find Racquetball EQ/bus passes. Unfortunately sports store was way too pricy for a 6-week investment, can't find a bike rental shop on campus (we want to embrace the bicycle-friendly nature of our city, also expanding our range of movement and partaking in the incredibly irresistable bike styles here). All I'd been able to understand from HouKun's (chinese) instructions on bus passes was that you get them at "the place were you can also deposit money." There's no on-campus bank, so we assumed Post Office, which had been relocated. We eventally found it on the opposite end of campus, and there was a seperate room devoted to such off-shoot things as bus passes and apparantly cash withdrawls etc. However it was swamped and understaffed, so Dan&I decided to return another day, now that we know where it is. We had some other great finds on campus (abandoned street soccer courts, a hidden bakery that sells mini 3-slice wheat bread loaves) and other disappointments (Daniel saw an advertisement for pitch black soft serve ice cream, but it was closed that day), but all in all an incredible adventerous afternoon. Most others spent it buying overpriced electronics across the street it seems.
Split off/rested awhile then went to something called "English Corner" w/Hao Wes, Danial and others around 7:30. It's an every-Friday event at Renmin where people studying here and elsewhere can get together and socialize, practice their English skills on each other, and just relax in general. Naturally, us American Liu Xuesheng were a smash at this little gala. Each of us was swarmed/surrounded by 7-10 overly eager students bombarding with questions and goofy smiles. They wanted to hear everything about America, and what we thought of China, and practice speaking to us. I got so much experience in holding conversations in Chinese too, and met many more people, including the cuties of course. Once again the mannerisms of us American boys were a huge exotic success. Apparantly to the fellas also, because one guy was for sure coming on to me, and another from our group said the same thing happened to him hahaha.
But the night was still great because it forced me to talk to people not from our original group, and ask Chinese natives their honest opinions on topics that would be taboo otherwise. English Corner has a very honest, uninhibited feel in the atmosphere. Some interesting things I found out:
-- As soon as I mentioned "Olympics," the group swelled with national pride and was uproarious/enthusiastic. If China wanted to acquire the Games as way of supporting cultural solidarity, they've for sure succeeded, the city's feverish with...well, Olympic Fever.
--Chinese are very self-concsious about their appearance to other nations and cultures. I was repeatedly asked what the perecptions/stereotypes of Chinese are in America, and if I could tell them apart physically from Japanese people/each other.
--Sports are very popular here and they were all very curious what sports I like to play. Running/walking/basketball seem to be very common pastimes, but Ping Pong actually does seem to be the favorite sport of China. Weightlifting/etc not very popular at all here, more emphasis on fun group exercise, which I embrace.
--Apparantly Sunday is a national holiday which celebrates a special type of rice ball with a datefruit filling. Legend has it a very respected old man fell into a river one day, and the town saved him from being eaten by fish by throwing these into the river for them instead. I still don't understand why this is such a National Traditional Celebration but okay knock yourselves out, guys.
--They have a concern for politics here and asked a couple other kids from our group at length about the Obama victory/Clinton concession. They in turn wanted to know what we thought/knew about Chinese news, especially the earthquake trajedy.
--Most were very polite and excessively complimentary of my rudimentary Chinese language skills. Also almost every student was either Finance or Business International Relations majors.
--Many, many other things which I do not have time to write down at the moment, as we're heading on a group trip to TianAnMen and Silk Market in 1/2 an hour. Silk Market is a huge area of downtown Beijing where you can barter for imported goods and haggle ridiculously cheap prices. This is where I will be getting most of your gifts.
Saturday
Went on day trip to Great Wall. Will once again let pictures speak for themselves as my words would be highly insufficient. Webshots for some reason doesn't work in China, so I'll just have to make a seperate photo entry here.
I will share a couple experiences from the Wall now though. We went to the part not so highly rennovated for the public, the rugged part, the part you're still allowed to go to but have to explore on your own. Also the part that's on a mountain, which means you're exploring vertically at times haha. This section divided up by the guard towers en route, 12 in all. Two groups made it to the very top--the group of big athletic guys, and also a couple of us small wiry but determined folk: Daniel, Melissa (drawing teacher on trip), David, and I. Best hike of my life.
I made it to the top of the Great Wall of China.
I made it to the top of the Wall.
Other interesting things about the area--little salespeople/sherpas that follow you around and try to guilt you into buying knickknacks. One guy who said he was 56 but looked 86 trailed us all the way to the very top without breaking a sweat. We all felt like passing out. We still didn't buy anything from him.
On the way down very near the base we noticed a zip line you could take across the canal to the bottom, where a small ferry boat swam you back across the canal to the exit. It was 45rmb each, but that's only like $6, and we all thought, what a perfect way to end a perfect day. So we just did it. I rode a zip line over the canal at the base of the Great Wall, and it was marvelous.
Dinner at 5, everyone was ravenous, Pang Laoshi's treat again, she's been very generous this whole trip. Went to a Muslim Chinese restaurant, which is a rare type of culture indigenous to the country's Northwest, which we will visit on our 2-week exploration of the Silk Road. Cuisine was still very chinese, but threw in some middle eastern flair/spices. Also a lot of lamb, which wasn't my thing, but a delicious roasted tofu dish, some sort of squash jasmine rice, an egg white/boiled mushroom fungus concoction, and many many many other dishes, too much for even ravenous hikers to stuff down. Sunflower tea also delicious.
Treated to a dance show after dinner by the restaurant, showing off native styles like bellydancing, and some other very Indian-influenced types. Very interactive, they started trying to drag students into the middle of the restaurant. And then all the sudden, our most shy and cloistered student volunteered and salsa-danced with the main girl. We all whooped and cheered and were so proud. The guy then dragged me out there and I matched him move-for-move in some pseudo-Russian style line dance. Daniel and Hao cut a rug also. Great group experience.
Came back to the room and just crashed, slept so hard. Well I'm leaving for another trip in 15 so this journal's gonna have to end now, but look for an enormous deposit of pictures in the next day or two.
My love and enthusiasm to all,
-Tye
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dad
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dancing with the stars
Tye, I am just wondering if by any chance we will be seeing this..."pseudo-Russian style line dance" any time soon on you tube?