100 meter dash. (9/30/11)

So this last week has been really busy.  Last Saturday I studied then went to Chinese class.  After class I went with Christina, Brenda, Carmen and Christina’s boyfriend to 798.  798 is an art district.  It used to be factories back when Mao was in charge and trying to get China to modernize.  Later they turned the area into an art district.  So there are all sorts of displays, and they are constantly changing.  Married couples will go there to get their wedding photos taken, many amature photographers will come and take photos of people.  Its pretty fun, and every time you go there is something new to see.  My new facebook photo was taken there.  We went out to eat, and I didn’t get back till much later. 

Dinner was great but I have learned something.  When I am eating with Chinese people, I will only eat one or two bites of each dish.  They tend to order a ton of dishes, and if I have four or five bites of the first dishes, by the time the last plates get out I’ll be full.  There were things that I didn’t try because I was worried I was going to get sick.  People here don’t seem to mind if I don’t finish something I don’t like, as long as I try everything.  Although they have been respecting the fact that I don’t like having staring contests with my food. I also need to stock up on snacks in my room.  A few hours after eating I’m hungry again….every single day.  I know that I probably ought to re-train myself to just eat large meals, especially when that’s what everyone else is doing, but I’ve been doing snacks for so long I’m not sure that I can do that.  For the record, I love hot pot and Korean BBQ, in both cases your food arrives raw, so you have to wait for your food to cook.  So you are forced to eat slower, which is the way I love eating.  Chinese people are more sharing when it comes to food.  You don’t order and eat separate dishes most of the time.  I kinda like this way better than the American-way.  Its more comfortable and I’m not sure why.  Finally I hate eating breakfast in the cafeteria’s around here.  I’m always alone, and I really don’t like it.  If seats run out people will sit with me (or I’ll join them), but they don’t seem to want to talk to me.  So I have been buying yogurt and eating it in my room.  I prefer getting up late anyway, and I also think that they give you way too much food for breakfast. 

Sunday night I went with Yaohui, his friend Wang (pronounced Wong for people who haven’t studied Chinese), Luoyolo and his friend Huang Mingxin to play Badminton.  Wang is a guy; Huang is a girl.  We had to reserve a court and we got there late, so we only played for a short while.  It was my first time playing.  For those of you (like me) who don’t have a clue what this sport is, it is like tennis, but its got a light ball that has feathers on it.  You are not supposed to let the ball hit the ground, just hit it back and forth over the net.  At first I was awful.  After about fifteen or twenty minutes of playing I did much better.  It is ridiculously fun.  I felt really sorry for Wang tho, he was my partner while Yaohui found Luo and Huang.  He’s much better than me, so he was able to aim it at me, so I didn’t have to work very hard.  I tried to do the same for him, but my victories mainly consisted of successfully hitting it, my aim is still pretty bad.  I had classes in the middle of the week, I have classes Monday through Saturday.  Only one or two classes each day tho, so its pretty easy. 

I really feel like I’m starting to make friends.  Classmates and random people on campus have been spending time with me.  I have really been having a great time.  But between updating online things (e-mail facebook this) and doing homework, and going to class, and hanging out with people I have been quite busy.  The good news about this is, starting this week it’s a national holiday.  The National holiday is a week-long vacation to celebrate the founding of the People’s Republic of China.  Basically it’s the Chinese Fourth of July-Independence day type stuff.  But it lasts all week, so we don’t have class.  Something I have noticed is a lot of people ask me if I have plans for the National Holiday.  I am not sure what the correct response is.  Are they asking me because that is some sort of greeting?  Like when we ask “How are you?”, we don’t really want an in-depth analysis of your life or psyche, we are just being polite and saying hi.  Or are they asking me because I’m a foreigner and they are curious how I will spend my free time.  Or are they asking me because if I don’t have plans they want to invite me to join theirs?  I have actually picked up this habit, now I am regularly asking people what they are going to be doing for the national holiday, because I am curious about how people will respond to it.  Most people say that they are going to visit their family.  Beijing is a huge city, and most of my friends here aren’t actually native Beijingers.  They don’t have many chances to return home, so that’s how they spend their time. 

There are many subjects that interest me.  Many, things I find conflicting.  Individualism vs. Community, what foods are safe and what are dirty and the role of the government.  In the first Amercians and Chinese differ drastically, but in the second they are somewhat similar.  Both Americans and Chinese don’t really trust the government, and they don’t really think that their governments are working in their best interests.  The government may have the intention to, but Americans and Chinese people both really are disillusioned with the government.  Almost every person I have talked to has said that they have no interest in politics.  I’d like to note, most of the time I don’t actually ask them about politics, its just a comment they make off hand, that they are not interested in politics.  But as they get to know me, they open up a little, and I discovered that like Americans they really aren’t happy with the government.  And like Americans they aren’t really changing it.  Sure America changes its President somewhat regularly, but a huge number of Americans don’t vote, and even when people do vote, the system itself does not change immensely.  We still have 3 branches of government that are stuck in a gridlock making it almost impossible for legislation to be enacted.  We are still run by two parties, and they are still opposing parties.  The Chinese don’t vote, don’t protest, don’t get involved in politics and don’t really change things.  Like Americans.  Their reasons for doing so are different, but its interesting for me how many people I run into who really don’t like the government. 

You might have noticed I’m keeping things really general here.  There is a gray area and I really don’t want to slip into the black.  I know the Chinese government monitors the internet, and I don’t want anyone to get into trouble for something that they said to me.  I don’t think that anyone said anything that they would get in trouble for, but the rules here are different from the rules in the United States.  Also I am seen as apart of the in-crowd in two parts of campus.  To the teachers, I am one of the English-speaking foreigners (they are not all Americans), and to my classmates I’m another college student.  This means that both groups tell me information that they may or may not want the other group to know about.  On one hand, this sucks a little cause I have to watch what I say and who I say it too, but on the other hand I am not an outcast.  Its also really nice to fit in.  I’m also honored that both groups respect me enough to share their thoughts, so I really don’t want to betray that trust. 

Finally, one of my friends Carmen helped me on my Chinese dialogue and she was relentless.  I had to memorize the piece word for word.  My teacher would give me hints, but I needed to say and remember it on my own.  Carmen spent literally two hours drilling me on the assignment.  She would start a sentence and have me end it.  She would read the Chinese, but out loud she would be saying the dialogue in English, and I would have to translate it back to Chinese.  When I got stuck on a set of words she would tell me to repeat it.  Over and over and over.  Ten times even.  The same sentence.  It was awful and it was exactly what I needed.  I could not escape her.  I kept hinting that she had done enough and that she should go and I would finish up, and that I thought this was really boring for her.  She didn’t stop till we finished it.  Then she made me say it twice.  I could not ask for a better tutor.  I have been doing well in my classes and I’m quite happy about it. 

I think I avoided culture shock.  I have been slowly but surely learning all sorts of info about Asia in general for the past 8 years.  I really feel like I was prepared for this trip.  I knew what to expect.  I knew how to use chopsticks and what a squatter toilet is, I knew that I would get stared at, I knew that people would want photos with me (hasn’t happened much here, but I haven’t been off campus much since school started).  I knew what I was getting into.  I am really enjoying it here.  Well its almost bed time.  ^_^  Night!~

Very fashionable

So I’ll be writing a blog post on how busy I have been, and what I’ve been up to (when I’m a little less busy), but I wanted to write a quick post that would explain something I have come across.  People keep calling me fashionable.  However when they are using this description, it isn’t what we mean by fashion (clothes), its my interests.  For those of you who don’t know, my favorite film is 赤壁 (Red Cliff), a two part, five hour long Chinese film.  I also listen to a TON of Chinese music, and watched 一起来看流星雨 (Let’s go watch a meteor shower together), a Chinese TV show over the summer.  So….I ask people what they are interested in.  They say Kung Fu Panda, Big Bang Theory, Lie to Me, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, or Taylor Swift.  The only Chinese artist that people here really like is Jay Chou, which is unfortunate because I am not a big fan of his style of music.  Meaning my interests in media do not line up with the interests of most of my friends here.  However the people here have actually heard of (some) of the bands I listen to, or the movies I watch.  I say some because I’ll listen to bands from Korea or Taiwan, and these bands are about as well known here as they are in the U.S., meaning almost not at all.  I am not sure how to take the description fashionable.  I don’t know if it is meant as a compliment or an insult. 

Or it could be like the word weird.  I explained to my friend Christina that I take the word weird as a compliment.  In most cases that word being used is a bad thing, however I have taken it and made it my own.  I don’t mind being called weird, I am proud to be weird.  Its sort of a calling card. 

I’m not going to try to change who I am to fit in.  Yaohui pointed out that I shouldn’t worry about what people think about me, that I should just be myself.  Its sad that I needed a reminder of that (people kept telling me I should dye my hair black), cause I have known it since highschool.  But I would like to know how people see me.  Which is why I’m over analyzing the word fashionable.  I’m trying to understand the Chinese connotations to this word. 

Over the national holiday when I have more free time I’m going to hunt down and watch 步步惊心, a new Chinese TV show that is popular here.  Also I’ll be making a trip out of Beijing with the ICB teachers.  We are going to visit the place where they filmed “Raise the Red Lantern”.  I am looking forward to it because I loved that movie and I have never been off the east cost of China.  That’s going to happen later in October.  I’ll give more details when it comes up.  I gotta go finish a quiz for my PR class and print out my essay (for the same class), and register as a foreign student with the main CAU office and go to class….yeah….this is what my day is like….run run run!!!

Life just got busy.... (Thurs, 9/22/11)

So life has gotten pretty busy for me.  My Chinese teacher is back from her honeymoon, so my Chinese language and Chinese studies class will start on Saturday.  I am REALLY excited for both of them.  She is using the same text book that Li Laoshi (my Chinese teacher) last semester used at the end of the year, so I am already familiar with it. 

Lets see.  This afternoon I have class.  Then after class, the Public Relations class is going out for hot pot.  Yum!!!  I will take lots of photos, I promise.  ^_^  Friday I am meeting with Qiu Laoshi (my Chinese teacher) to get the textbook and the syllabus.  She is also going to be doing the Chinese studies class, and that will be more about seeing the sights of modern China and writing about my experiences.  Friday afternoon, all the ICB (International College at Beijing) teachers are going out to eat, and since I’m the only American student, I have been invited too.  I think we might be going out for Korean BBQ….I’m not sure.  Saturday morning I am going out with some classmates Carmen and Christina to 798, an art district in Beijing, then in the afternoon I have my Chinese language class.  Then my Intercultural Communication teacher Patrick wants me to meet his fiancé Beibei, but I’m not sure if I can because of my Chinese class and time overlapping.  So now I’ll have classes Monday through Saturday.  Also I was offered at job working at the ICB Writing Center, helping students writing their essays for their classes.  I was not sure if I wanted to do this because of time, but I might because one of my friends, Baiyun asked me to read her essay and give her advice on how to fix it.  The problem was she was translating her ideas directly from Chinese to English, using Chinese sentence structures.  So I would know that the sentence sounded wrong in English, and that the word order was off, but I didn’t know the grammatical rules as to why it was wrong.  Cause I’m fluent.  So I might do the writing center so that I can get the training to know exactly what to say to help them improve, and so that if someone wants my help I can tell them to see me in the writing center.  If I’m going to be doing it any way (I think that other students will ask me) I might as well be getting paid for it, and trained to do it properly. Baiyun also wants me to join the drama club…which I did sign up for, but I don’t know how frequently they will meet/practice, ect.  On Tuesdays before class I am meeting up with a random girl Wangke, (王可) because she is at about the same level of English as I am in Chinese.  So the two of us are going to eat noodles and practice together.  I think it will be better because her English is not as good as some of my classmates.  All the ICB students just use English around me because they are almost fluent (I mean they are taking college courses in English, so sometimes they have difficulty expressing themselves but most of the time they are excellent).  So they are not really letting me practice my Chinese.  A little bit, but not a whole lot. 

Last….Tuesday Carmen invited me to a “freshman welcoming party”.  It was not really a party, it was more of a show in an auditorium.  There were dancers, singers, martial artists and a play (most of which I understood) ^_^.  I got video of it, but I am still having difficultly loading videos onto my youtube.  I have been uploading photos on facebook but I am still behind on that, all of the photos are from about 2 weeks ago. 

I am going to have to do a post on community spirit vs. individualism.  People are interested in me because I’m different, and they say that they think that Americans are more free than the Chinese, that the Chinese are more traditional.  But because of them being traditional, they are a tight-knit group.  They share everything, they work together they are unified in a way that I think Americans will never be….unless they join a cult or something.  I want to analyze the conflicting emotions that my classmates are describing to me, as well as the conflicting emotions within me on this subject.  But I will do it when I have more time.

Finally I am going to be wearing my cat costume for Halloween.  The leopard.  Oct 31^st is a Monday, so I will have class.  I already told my teacher that I was going to dress up for the holiday.  He didn’t mind.  Apparently they have a party every year and carve pumpkins…I don’t think they know about trick-or-treating, or the costumes tho.  They seem to only associate Halloween with the pumpkins and the party.  When I told Baiyun about my plan to do the costume, she said that people would stare at me.  That is not a problem, I’m already being stared at.  I think in another month I will already be used to it.  So….yes….that’s what’s going on in my life right now….miss you guys!

Adopted at the Grocery Store (Wed, Sept. 13th 2011)

I learned a very important lesson today.  No matter how small the errand is, I should never leave home without a book mark.  For those of you who don’t know, my mom taught me how to make book marks by hand out of little glass beads.  So when I decided to go to China, I set about making as many of them as I could to give to people as presents.  My American friends helped me by eating altoids.  Since the beads are glass, they are breakable, so I wanted to put them into altoid tins to protect them.  Then my I commissioned my good friend Anja to paint the tins so that they would be pretty.  I have about 20 of them, and I brought the beads to make more.

Today I decided I needed to go to the Merry Mart.  The Merry Mart is the largest store near campus.  Its very close, across the street from the northern gate of campus.  There is even a bridge so pedestrians can cross the busy street without worrying about traffic.  Trust me, that’s something to be worried about in Beijing.  So I had a list, in my head of everything I needed, shampoo, conditioner, a blanket (so that when nights start getting cold I’ll still be able to sleep), an umbrella, yogurt, juice, instant noodles, jello, a pair of scissors and a pair of slippers.  The shoes are to wear in my room.  I am slowly understanding why people here think the ground is dirty.  That’s cause the ground is dirty.  I’ve noticed I track in a fair amount of dirt when I walk into my dorm room.  I’m not the only one with this problem, one of the ICB professors, named Enoch, leaves his shoes out in the hallway so that he doesn’t track dirt into the room.  I had started taking my shoes off, but then if there is any dirt in my room, it gets in my bed when I go to bed.  So….I decided to buy some slip on shoes so that when I am in my room I can not only keep my feet clean, but keep the floor clean.  These shoes aren’t leaving the room.

I have been to the Merry Mart a few times now, but this was my first time alone.  I sorta learned the layout of the place, and I brought along my visual dictionary, cause I wasn’t certain I would be able to figure out the shampoo and conditioner (I never found the conditioner, but I got the shampoo which is more important to me), without it.  I also emptied out my back pack so that I could put most the groceries in it for the walk back, and headed out. 

When I was looking for the blanket, I must have looked very lost. I was in the correct section, scanning the shelves seeing if I could find them, and a sales lady came up and asked (in Chinese) if she could help me find what I was looking for.  So…I have 3 cats, and one of them is named Tanzerin, which is German and means dancer (this is relevant to the story I promise).  So Tanzerin sounds like 毯子人 (tanziren), and the first two characters tanzi mean blanket.  I would never have remembered that word (cause it was in the supplemental vocabulary), except it reminded me of my kitty.  So I told her what I was looking for, and although I used the wrong tone (she corrected me), she understood.  She asked me what size I was looking for, and what color.  She showed me where they were, and climbed up the most unstable looking ladder I have ever seen (I told her 小心/Be careful!), to find a purple blanket for me.  I went to hold the ladder for her, and she thought I was going to try to climb it, and told me that she would climb it.  It was held together with wire.  I really appreciated her help, and it was really cool cause I understood everything that she said, and I’m pretty sure she understood everything I said.  Happy day.

So the rest of shopping was pretty uneventful, I got just about everything I was looking for and I go through check out.  So the cashier asked me if I had a card.  I thought he was asking me if I was paying with a credit card, so I responded no.  And that’s when I was adopted by a Chinese grandma.  As I’m packing my backpack up with the stuff that the cashier had already scanned, this cute old lady comes up to me and hands me a card with Merry Mart written on it in Chinese.  So I handed it to the cashier.  I’m not sure exactly what it did.  I looked at the receipt and I don’t see anything pertaining to a card on it.  The cashier scanned it and handed it back to the old lady.  Maybe it made my bill cheaper, maybe it just gave her credit for my purchases (cause I paid in cash, it wasn’t a credit card).  When I asked the guy for a bag (cause my backpack was full) the lady repeated me, louder and with the correct tones, and made sure I got my bag.  Then she escorted me out of the store (picking up two merry mart ads, one for herself one for me), and pushed my cart for me.  She argued with two of the Merry Mart clerks when we got to the parking lot, because she wanted me to be able to take the cart out of the lot.  She kept saying my bags were too heavy.  I kept trying to explain that there was no need for her to worry, that although I didn’t have a car, I lived close, on the campus across the street.  She showed me where the bus station was, and I finally got through to her that I could walk back without any problems.  She pulled down the sleeves on my hoodie because it was cold outside, and I thanked her for her help.

This is where I get to the sad part of the story.  When I was leaving my room this morning, I had considered grabbing a couple of the tins on my way out.  But I assumed that it would just be a quick stop to the store, and I would not get lost, nor need any help, so I didn’t grab any.  The situation I encountered I had never considered.  Imagine at King Soopers, a little old lady helping a young Chinese girl go through the check out line.  I am pretty sure that wouldn’t happen.  Most people wouldn’t help a random foreigner out like that.  Also it felt very weird that this old woman was pushing my cart around for me.  I had the fight the part of my brain that was screaming hey you’re the young kid, help the lady out.  So now I know, no matter how small the errand is, I am always going to have a bookmark on me.  

Save the Kitties!!!! (Tuesday, September 13th 2011)

So yesterday Yaohui took me to the Old Summer Palace. I also discovered that moon cakes are gross. The Summer Palace was destroyed by the French and the British during the 2nd opium wars, and the Chinese government decided that they wanted people to remember that event, so they are not rebuilding the palace.  I gotta say, for not rebuilding there was a lot of construction going on.  They were creating new pathways all over the place and building new exhibits and making sure that the ruins were safe for tourists.  They just weren't rebuilding the main buildings. 
It was immense.  We were there for at least 7 hours and we didn't see the entire area.  Granted there were periods where we were too tired and just chilled on benches, but most the time we were wandering around.  I took 180 photos that day, which I will eventually upload on facebook when I have more time.  I think at this moment I am only on my second day, maybe my 3rd, so I still have a whole weeks worth of photos to upload.  Yaohui bought a ticket for a boat ride, which I then had to ask him to return.  I remember how I felt in the Pacific in a large boat, I really don't think my stomach could have handled a ride in a row boat.  I felt really bad about it, but if Yaohui minded, he didn't say anything.  We got to see a group of black swans, Yaohui said it was his first time seeing them, apparently they are one of the things visitors to the park look out for.  More importantly we saw kitties.  I think I was on a one-woman mission to find every cat that was living in that park.  I saw two right before we saw the swans, and then we went to a huge stone area where there were literally four cats just chilling.  I think that the park visitors must feed them, because they were not acting territorial toward one another, and if food was scarce they would have been.  
When we got back we saw Scrappy, and then later when we were talking in the lounge at the ICB building we heard a cat meowing.  It was more like it was crying....so we went out and found a little white kitten.  I named it Xiao Bai (little white, I know not very creative).  I also tried to give it food, but it really did not want to be anywhere near us.  This morning when I was working on the reading assignments to prepare for class Bobby (the Irish teacher who lives across the hall), knocked on my door.  He said that if I liked kittens I should come look, and Xiao Bai and two other kitties were on the roofs across from the ICB building.  Adorable.  Cute little balls off fluff.  I went back there after class and some students were throwing hot-dog looking things at Xiao Bai who had gotten down from the roof.  Scrappy ran in and grabbed it, and ran up to the roof.  So they threw another one at Xiao Bai who hid.  Scrappy came down about 2 seconds later and started ripping into the packaging on the things that look like hot dogs.  Then Xiao Bai ran up and grabbed it.  So I like to think that Scrappy is a parent and brought the first dog up to feed the other kittens.   I think when I go shopping next I'll see if there is any cat food.  There was a 5th cat that Yaohui and I saw outside of the ICB building, but I didn't get a good look at it.  
Because of the Old Summer Palace Escapade I missed dinner with Colin and his sister (they kinda adopted each other, no blood relation).  He showed up at the ICB guest house where I'm staying to pick up a paper he forgot, and I got to meet his sister.  He also gave me some carnations...5 purple ones.  A really nice gesture but I know I'm going to kill the poor things.  I wish I had known how large the Old Summer Palace was.  I would have asked Yaohui to go a little earlier, and would have tried to get back in time for dinner.  
Classes are going pretty smoothly.  Its a little hard cause the teachers try to use examples that are relevant to the Chinese students, so sometimes they are talking about things I have never heard of.  After this update I'm going to go and look up what SK 2 is.  Like I know now, but I would like to know more about it.  Also when we are working in groups the Chinese students automatically go back to speaking in Chinese, which is ok, but I still don't have the skills to follow the discussions.  I have been staying up on my readings though.  Yep that's about it.  

Happy mid autumn festival!!!! (Monday August 12th, 2011)

This weekend was a holiday weekend in Beijing, starting with teacher’s day (where you thank your teachers, present and past) and today is the mid-autumn festival, which means no school! 

On Friday, one of my classmates in my communication class, whose English name is Christina took me out to go shopping for new shoes and lunch.  We went to wudaokou (五道口).  The best American equivalent is a mall.  But Wudaokou is different because there are a bunch of little stores that are owned by different people.  They all rent their space in the building, and it is set up almost like cubicles in an office.  I would spend most of my time wandering around shopping there, but there is one problem.  At Wudaokou there are no set prices.  You have to haggle.  I am at a disadvantage twice because I am a foreigner and I am not experienced at haggling, and I don’t do it well, and I look like a foreigner, so everyone there will jack up their prices for me because they know that I don’t know what an acceptable price is, and just about everything over here is cheaper than over in the U.S.  This is why I don’t normally shop at the street stalls that crop up in the evenings.  Also you can’t be sure that the quality of the product you are buying is good or bad.  I will have to explore this more and get better at it.  That is why I asked Christina to come with me.  She is more experienced at haggling, and she knows what is good quality and what is cheap.  She said that most things at Wudaokou are pretty cheap, and said I shouldn’t pay more than 200 yuan for shoes there.  That it was not worth it.  She was brilliant to watch.  She is a impressive girl, very modern, and confidant.  She is also very mature.  She changes completely when she is haggling.  We kept looking at different shoes in different shops and when we finally decided on a pair and started haggling she turned into a four-year-old girl.  She kept calling the shop keeper gege (meaning older brother) and begging him to lower the price to 160.  That’s around 25 dollars for some sheep skin black shoes.  Her tactics worked.  He went down to 160.  I’m not sure that if I would be able to get away with haggling like that, but I might try it eventually.

So we went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant and she ordered a lot of food.  I have a pretty small appetite, even in the U.S. but it is more striking over here because people over here eat a lot.  They also exercise a lot.  Since the food they are eating (in most cases) is healthier than American food, and they are getting more exercise, they are able to stay really fit.  They kinda have to be, because they can’t pay medical expenses.  So Christina decided that she wanted me to try all sorts of food.  She literally ordered 5 dishes for the two of us.  We could have shared one dish with the two of us, so now my fridge is loaded with leftovers.  All of the food was really good.  We had some veggie rolls, pork, beef, eggplant, and a root plant that sorta reminds me of jicama with blueberry sauce over it. When I came back to campus I noticed a stray cat lurking outside my building.  It’s a large tabby who I have seen around campus a few times.  He looks like he has seen better days, he needs shots, a bath, and a nice brushing.  He’s a long haired cat whose fur is really matted.  He is also missing an ear.  He was somewhat feral, I say somewhat because he was willing to come within two feet of me (don’t worry I didn’t want to pet him, not without him having shots and a bath first), and kept me company for a while.  I miss my kitties.  I also fed him some of the left overs, and named him Scrappy.  Yeah I am a sucker for cats. 

On Saterday Yaohui took me out.  We went to the national science museum and the Olympic forest park.  Its just a little bit east of campus.  The science museum was interesting.  I explained to Yaohui that I have an irrational fear of robots, and I’m really glad that I explained that before I went with him.  He acted like a knight in shining armor and guided me around all the exhibits that I would have a problem with.  There was one exhibition that we didn’t even go into at all.  There were also a lot of wax figures of famous people….that gave me the creeps (thank you House of Wax).  I tried to explain to Yaohui why I didn’t like them, but he hadn’t seen that movie so he didn’t understand.  Apparently the day after we went to the museum he watched it though, and he said that he understood why I thought they were creepy now.  Yay for corrupting the Chinese!  He had volunteered at the museum a few times, so he was pretty familiar with it.  There were many things there that were quite interesting, astrology, and playing with sound, and optical illusions.  There was a room that was filled with mirrors, which got confusing fast.  It was hard to figure out which Yaohui I was supposed to follow, and there were a few times I almost ran into a mirror.   It has been years since I have been to the museum in Denver, but I think that this museum is more interactive than the one back at home.  There were kids everywhere playing with all sorts of things.  It was neat because you could see them getting an interest in science.  One of my favorite parts was an exhibition where a trained museum staffer was showing different properties and effects of liquid nitrogen.  She took a raw egg, used the nitrogen to freeze it solid and then “cracked” it on the table.  It was completely solid.  It was sort of hard to see, cause the area was quarantined off and there was a crowd of people around watching.  To me, the language was almost as interesting as the presentation itself.  Her Chinese was crisp, and clear.  I would have found her easy to understand if she wasn’t discussing liquid nitrogen.  I loved listening to her though.

Then we went to the Olympic park.  We had planned on going there and eating lunch in the park, but the weather had not corroporated with us.  It was overcast (which was nice) and wet.  However one of the problems was with my shoes.  I had just bought new shoes the day before, and these shoes were not really built for wet weather.  So instead I decided to wear boots.  The boots I brought from the U.S. are excellent at keeping feet warm and dry in cruddy weather, but they also have heels, so they sometimes get painful to walk in for long periods.  I was aware of this, but decided that being warm was more important than being comfortable.  Honestly I would have been fine except on the right boot the bottom of the shoe started peeling up.  So I was starting to form a blister on my foot because of that one shoe.  I need to see if I can find insoles which will keep the bottom of the shoe down. 

The forest park is HUGE and it is filled with all sorts of different plants.  There is a lake and a running path and all sorts of things to do there.  We spent at least 3 hours there and didn’t see it all.  But I did see a closed shop that had a sign saying it sold ice cream.  More importantly is the fact that they had blueberry ice cream.  I have never seen blueberry ice cream ever….I’m a blueberry fiend!  But since the weather was overcast, there weren’t many people visiting the park.  So none of the stands were open.  Otherwise I would have bought some.  Yesterday I spent most of the day either hanging out with Colin, or in my room watching 死神少女 (Gloomy Salad Days), a Taiwanese drama.  Oh, and I did all the homework assignments for this week for one of my classes.  Watching a Taiwanese drama with English subs may seem like a waste of time, but since I watched 3 episodes in a row, it turned on the Chinese part of my brain, so I was able to speak Chinese much more freely that evening.  I automatically started practicing my Chinese with Colin without the ususal hesitation. 

Also Colin shared some videos with me, of a recent trip that he took to Tibet, and of one of the schools that he went to.  The school video really tore me up.  All of the students are poor, they have to go through multiple examinations to get into the school.  They are from all over the country, and they have nice rooms (6 students to a dorm room, but larger and cleaner than anything they had at home), 3 meals a day, each student uses a computer, it actually seems like an excellent school.  However there are some parts of that video that really really bring out the American in me.  As I was watching it, I thought that it was an all boys school, because everyone had short hair.  So I made a comment about not knowing it was an all boys school.  Colin informed me that all students were required to have short hair.  They were required to wear the school uniforms, they were forbidden to date, otherwise they would be automatically expelled.  They were required to participate in physical education, running every day.  This is where I became conflicted.  On the one hand, this school is very well run, very clean and is offering an opportunity that these kids would never have had.  They would never have been able to learn in labs, they had never seen a computer before.  A lot of them were orphans.  They had a clean safe place to stay, got three full meals a day and they were really grateful for the opportunity to learn.  But they had to follow the rules.  The Chinese are experts at the group mentality.  All the students looked the same.  They were the same uniform, they had the same haircut, when they were running they were in step.  No individuality, no personality.  I was put off by the idea that they had to give up what made them unique in order to go to school.  However by giving up the individualness…yes that’s now a word…they blended in.  They were all from poor backgrounds, so since they were given the same uniform, and had the same haircut, they probably weren’t bullying each other as much because they were all the same.  Its easier for me to wrap my brain around it if I think of it as a military academy, and not as a normal school. 

So today is the Mid-Autumn Festival.  It is celebrating the full moon, a good harvest and families.  During the mid-autumn festival everyone buys and gives each other moon cakes.  I have quite a collection now.  All the moon cakes are different, some have bean paste, some are coffee flavored, some have duck meat in them, some have fruit in them.  Everyone buys them, everyone gives them to people, and so far everyone I have asked said that they don’t really like them.  Kinda reminds me of fruit cake.  I have tried one from my collection.  It was not very good.  Today Yaohui and I are going to go to the Old Summer palace, which was destroyed by the British and the French during the opium wars in 1860s.  I think that parts of it were rebuilt though.  So I will bring my camera and I will take lots of photos.  I’m working on trying to upload photos either here or on facebook.  Alrighty, that seems like a long enough update for now.  Talk to you guys later!

Shopping and Marching (Wed, Aug 31st 2011)

So this is another mass e-mail that I am sending out.  I also am still having problems uploading photos.  As soon as I get that figured out I'll post photos to these.


"Yesterday was a very big shopping day for me.  I literally bought 150 dollars of stuff.  I got towels, a water boiler, detergent, a power strip, a cell phone, and most importantly a bike that is so pink it matches my hair.  Patrick helped me a lot.  I definitely would not have been able to buy the bike or the cell phone without his help.  He also gave me a map of Beijing, so I'll be able to get around easier.  The first two days the air was very thick.  Heavy pollution combined with the moisture creates what Patrick calls sauna days.  Hot, stuffy and gross.  There is good news though.  It rained last night.  Raining makes all the difference.  The air is clear today, you can actually see the sun.   

Last night one of the professors Kyle took me out.  He's got two kids, and we picked up his daughter from day care.  She was stunning, she switched between Chinese and English without a problem at all.  It was beautiful.  Also they showed me a place where I could start studying martial arts three times a week, in the evenings.  I might do it, I just want to wait till I get my school schedule down.  I'm also a little intimidated because there is no guarantee that anyone there would speak English.  This is both good and bad, forces me to practice my language, but also might make me miss some important info.  

I'm still not signed up for classes.  I believe that Rose Zhang (my Chinese professor in the states) was supposed to be responsible for that.  She's in the hospital right now, having stomach problems.  Hopefully she'll get better soon!

Breakfast was a roll thing with meat and green onions in it.  It was yummy, and it only cost 30 cents.  It was my first time eating in the dining room.  I still haven't gotten a food card yet, but its ok cause I can pay with cash.  This morning I got up and went around campus taking photos of everything.  I'm a little concerned though because I took about 20 photos and they are no longer on my camera.  Like the first half of my photos got deleted and I'm not sure how.  I'll go back out and take more of them, at least to replace the ones that got deleted.  I think they might....victory is mine.  ^_^  I just figured out what happened, I was fiddling with my camera and dropped it.  It wasn't damaged at all, but it loosened up the memory card enough so that it wasn't registering.  So after that point any photo I took was saved to the camera's memory, not the card.  So I took 59 photos/videos this morning all around campus.  After lunch I'll wander around inside the buildings so I won't be lost finding my classes on the first day of school.

The campus here is a little different than colleges in the states.  When auraria was becoming a campus, everyone who lived in that neighborhood was forced to move out.  That is not the case here, so there are all sorts of apartments and people of all ages running around campus.  Also the campus is surrounded by a fence, with gates.  There are guards at each gate, but they pretty much ignore everyone.  I think they are only really there to monitor cars coming in and out.  Patrick informed me that the classrooms that my classes take place in will change from day to day.  Again this is good and bad because I'll definitely get lost, but that means I'll be forced to ask for directions.  

I spent a couple hours watching the students marching.  At first when I saw it I thought it was dumb, but the more I watch the more impressed I am.  I'm guessing that it promotes unity, and discipline while also forcing every student to get exercise.  The students probably don't like the tans they are getting though.  It really reminds me of marching band.  You can tell which students take it seriously and which don't.  They are separated in groups of about 50 and they are organized by height.  There are two extremely large groups (one boys one girls) who practice martial art forms.  It reminds me of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics.  I met two other Ex-pats (Ex patriots, people who live or study abroad for a long period of time).  They were from South Africa and spoke 9 languages.  They haven't learned any Chinese yet, but with that many languages already under their belt they will definitely be able to pick it up quickly."

Start Up (Tues, August 30th 2011)

So for those of you who do not know, the Chinese government pays attention to what is being posted on the internet.  They use a firewall, and many sites (the most notable being Facebook, Youtube and Twitter) are blocked by the government.  So, since I am in China it took me a while to figure out how to get a VPN running on my computer so that I could create this blog.  So the first two posts are mass e-mails I sent out.  Also it might take me a while to figure out exactly how to post photos.  So now I'm posting these old e-mails as updates.


"The plane rides were pretty uneventful.  I stayed up and read Captian's Fury and Princeps' Fury.  I was having problems focusing because I was sleep deprived and un-caffeinated.  A guy on the plane complimented me on my Chinese.  I don't know how to react to compliments in English, so I have decided to take the modest approach with compliments here.  I would rather people underestimate my communication abilities than overestimate them.  Also modesty is more culturally acceptable here.   When I wasn't reading I was reading the Chinese subtitles that they had on the American films that they showed.  I'm still not sure why they decided to do traditional characters on a plane that was going to mainland China, but it made my life a lot easier.  

I helped some other students after we got off the plane.  They have never been to China before, so they weren't sure what they were supposed to do to get through customs, or where they were supposed to go.  Beijing's airport is really nicely set up, it isn't confusing at all.  Its a straight shot to get from the plane to taxis.  Also all the signs are in simplified characters and english.

My room is larger than I thought it would be.  It even has a fridge.  I also am about 30 seconds away where I will need to do my laundry.  I bought a card so I can do my laundry.  It costs about 78 cents a load.  They even imported a dryer.   And there is a microwave available on this floor.  I need to buy soap, toilet paper, towels, cups, a water boiler, laundry detergent and a cell phone.  I would like to have most of those done today.  My room has AC, a large TV, a fridge and a shower.  The bathroom smells odd because of the minerals and stuff in the water.  The bathroom gets really really slippery, and there is a sign that informs me I should be careful when I slide.  The water pressure isn't really strong, but its clean and there is a hot water heater in each room so it heats up really really fast.  

Its more humid here.  It isn't really warmer, its just muggy.  Yesterday I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and it was pretty toasty.  Today I'm going to be wearing lighter clothes.  I'm really glad that I brought a lot of light clothes.  They just installed AC in a bunch of the classrooms, so they aren't working yet.  Maybe by the time classes start.  I haven't really had a chance to take a lot of photos, I might do that this afternoon.  

Patrick took me and a new econ teacher (whose name I have forgotten) out to eat dinner last night.  We had sweet and sour chicken, kung pao chicken, potatoes (think hash browns that aren't crispy), and spicy green beans with evil spicy peppers.  It was delicious but every time I travel my appetite crashes, so I had a little of each and mainly rice.  Oh and I had some more coke.  Man I miss that crack, it is so yummy.  Real sugar makes all the difference.  I went to bed around 6 or 7pm, and I woke up two or three times in the middle of the night.  That's cause at 2am here its noon in Denver.  So other than the jet lag I slept really well.  The bed is very comfy and the pillows are amazing.  I might look into getting dark pillow cases so that I can sleep after I have taken a shower, cause right now my pillow cases are dark and I'm worried about dying them pink.  I also don't have a towel or a brush, so atm I am air drying.  Its just after 9am here, so I'm going to go nuke last nights leftovers and eat them for breakfast.  Then hit up an ATM.  

Something sorta interesting though.  The freshman have to march for 8 hours a day for the first two weeks of school.  They start at 6am, and I can hear them from my room.  Patrick said to think of it as saying the pledge of allegiance except bigger.  They aren't doing marching like marching band marching though.  Its kinda interesting.  I might take pics/video of it.  But I better go eat breakfast first."

Hum....I keep adding photos....or trying to, and I keep getting the message "Error, please try again".  I'm not sure if this is because of the VPN (made it impossible to upload videos on youtube) or another reason.  I'm going to post this, and see if I can edit it later to post photos.  Cause I want to share photos of my room.