I know I’ve been terrible at keeping up with this the last few weeks, but it has been some of the most hectic—but fun—times yet. I haven’t really done too much in terms of sight seeing but we’ve been going out and about in the city more.

The characters in the subject are "huaijiu" meaning nostalgia.


At 798

We finally got to that silk market that everyone says you have to go to as a tourist here. Now I know why they say you have to go: it’s crazyily overpriced and you get ripped off on very nearly everything you buy there. You really do have to be amazing at bargaining to get these people to come down to reasonable prices. I feel like all of these people who spend their holidays here, a week or two at most, would really have no idea they’re getting washed. Though I did get a few really nice things there it was absolutely exhausting because you spend half an hour bargaining back and forth only to get to prices you could have gotten in Xizhimen (where I live). We’ll probably go back and wander around this weekend before we leave, but it’s just exhausting.


All of the 798 pictures are Julie's though this was taken by a passer-by, I love this picture of the three of us.

I also got to see the suit I was having made for me by a tailor. It was absolutely perfect, a few minor changes to the sizing, which is normal since its easier to take in a piece of clothing than to make it bigger. But the style is exactly what I asked for. They took it back to make the appropriate changes and then brought it back last week, supposedly finished. However, it turns out the legs of the trousers were entirely too long, by about 8 inches. I would have had to have at least 6 inch heals on to wear them, and even then it would be pushing it. So I had them send it back, and had the pants shortened. Originally I had intended to have slits in the sides of the pants at the bottom to give the suit a little more style, but when I stopped to think about it, it just wasn’t a practical thing on a basic nice suit. So I just had them style it after a Gucci three piece suit I like a lot. I finally received the finished product yesterday and I absolutely love it. I can’t wait until I get to wear it for the first time. And today I found a button up shirt that will go perfectly with it.


Perhaps modern art just isn't my thing.


We liked the graffiti better.


Two weekends ago we went on a group trip to this area of Beijing called 798, which was at one point an industrial area, but the government converted it into a giant district of art galleries and shops. Personally I think most of us were more interested in the graffiti on the walls around the place than the art within the galleries themselves. But the trip was a lot of fun. Julie, Laura and I just wandered around and looked in all of the shops and Julie took a lot of really great pictures of the three of us. (By the way all of the pictures of 798 are from her camera, taken by one of the three of us. I remembered to bring my camera this time, I just forgot the batteries).


I really love this picture of Julie, I'm pretty sure I took it, but the background, cigarette prop and placement was all her, and I'm pretty sure she edited it a little.


I made a particular effort to look pretty this day. The weather then proceeded to inform me not to bother.


After leaving 798 it started raining, and raining, and raining. And somehow we managed to get off at the wrong bus stop and were forced to run through the rain to the next stop.


I think it was this day that I realized I would actually miss these girls. It’s surprising how much you get to know people in the span of a month or so when you live everyday with them.


Drowned Cats in Beijing

On the way back from 798, we were taking a bus since we were only provided with transportation there so we had a lot of flexibility with what we wanted to do, we ended up getting caught in the most intense rainstorm we’ve had since we got here. Seriously it rained extremely hard for about an hour, just when we needed to be changing buses. It also didn’t help that we got off at the wrong stop and had to run through the rain to the next one. Yeah. And I had decided to be pretty that day and put on a nice dress and some makeup. We were like drowned cats. But it’s always the times you get caught in the rain with your friends that you remember the most. This was definitely one of those times, totally frustrating but in the end more fun than you might think.


This one was mainly for Ben. Just for kicks and the absurdity, and the fact that I managed to match the art, down to my shoes. I bought the shoes in 798, they were relatively expensive, but totally worth it I think, not to mention absolutely adorable.

We went and did Karaoke for the first time since we’ve been here about two weekends ago. It was fun, but really I think you have to go with people you know really well. The set up here is different as well because you are basically given a private room for your party and then pay by the hour, or pay for the whole night—as in 7am end time—which is what we ended up doing. I liked a lot of the music, it was fun 90s pop stuff, Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears etc, but a lot of the time people in our group were picking things that just don’t work for karaoke.


Laura modeling the "Sparkling Chardonnay" which was basically sparkling grape juice with a little alcohol added, they had grapefruit flavor too though.


Julie, Eric (Columbia), Precious


Me, Jen (from Columbia), Andrew (Columbia), Laura, Julie

We went with a few of Julie’s friends who are in Beijing, doing some Columbia program for language, which as I hear it isn’t that good (I’m so glad I did CET instead of some other program with less of a reputation). Her friends, Eric and Andrew, are nice and I enjoy spending time with them but I really think we should get a huge group of CET students together and go out to KTV sometime.







They were singing to The Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch". Yeah, great planning on the background video Chinese Karaoke people.

Precious, Julie, Sabrina and I tried a new Japanese restaurant last week sometime. We just decided to grab a cab some weekday and head out to this place we’d never been before called Matsuko. The food was good and I really enjoyed being out with my friends on a week night when we really needed the break from campus.


It's ALIVE! scared the crap out of me when it first came out.

The story on the restaurant is the most interesting part about the place though: apparently Matsuko is a Japanese woman who moved to Beijing and started this restaurant in the 80s. At that point Japanese was not a popular thing to eat here in China, so she spent a few months losing money like crazy. Eventually she started going to all of the Japanese company headquarters in Beijing and flat out telling them “I have this restaurant, authentic food from home, here’s a discount” and eventually the place became insanely popular. Its just an interesting story, and knowing that a woman—a Japanese woman for that matter—became so successful here so early is pretty cool.


Precious ordered the crab, and it was seriously some of the best I've had in a restaurant in years.


My sushi. I forgot what was in it but it was really good!

Last Friday we ended up not having a test, instead we had a language practicum, in which the teachers took our class to this park down the road from our school, which no one knew even existed before to find and talk to the retired people there. We were supposed to go back to school afterwards and write an essay which we would then recite in our small classes—but of course that didn’t happen.


The lake at the park we went to for class, it was absolutely beautiful

When I got up at 7:30am it started raining pretty heavily, so we had to wait about an hour before we could leave, so by the time we got back we ended up only having a discussion about the interviews we had with the people we met. I think most people were more interested in hanging around the park and seeing all of the beautiful things that American parks seem to lack the majority of the time. There was a lake filled with lotus plants and boat tours with willow trees all over the place. They certainly know how to build parks in Beijing. And the whole place was filled with elderly people dancing and doing Tai Chi and singing.


Lotus in the Lake. I actually had no idea that this was lotus, Laura had to tell me

Sometimes it really seems like the Chinese have the right idea about retirement, everyday these people get out of their homes and come to the park to exercise and interact with other people. It’s such an active subset of the population in a way I feel like most Americans wouldn’t ever consider doing or even understand.


Check out the skyscraper in the background.

Friday night I was going to go out with Julie, Laura and Precious but I ended up being so exhausted that I fell asleep instead. I felt really bad because I was going to meet Rebecca at some point, but it ended up being best that I didn’t go out then since they didn’t get back until about 5 in the morning and I definitely wasn’t up for that.


Panda Dances! Possibly my favorite skit of the night

I also really liked the Chinese Techno song they danced to.

Saturday was pretty interesting; we had a sort of CET party with teachers, roommates, and students. It was pretty much a talent show of sorts where each class showed off their language abilities. My class wrote a song essentially making fun of our text book and sang it in front of everyone. Xue Yu also had a part in the Tongwu (roommates) skit. She did a martial arts routine at the beginning of their song. She always amazes me when I see her do things related to her major.


Xue Yu doing Wushu for the Roommate Performance. There was a vote, she's the coolest roommate.

That night a bunch of people went out to Juicy spot. But it really took us hours to get anyone to get in gear and ready to head out. Some of the guys managed to get together a beer pong tournament in our Activity Room, so a lot of people just meandered around there for a few hours. Finally I got a few people together and headed out. However instead of going to Juicy Spot the cab dropped us off more than a kilometer away from the club. We ended up wandering around until with found this brand new street that looks like its designed to look like a European bar/club street, but it was totally dead, at midnight on a Saturday. The only place that even had people in it was a place called Bling, which a bunch of people had wanted to go to before we found out that it was invitation only or had a 150 kaui cover that night. But it turns out that Rebecca was actually inside. So at least we were in the same area.


Jason and Sara Chen.

Eventually we got in another cab and found Juicy Spot. It was like a CET planned outing. All of our friends were there and it ended up being probably the best night out that I’ve had in Beijing. Rebecca even made it out for an hour or two, she met everyone and we all had a great time together hanging out, dancing and talking on the patio. I really like that place, its just big enough to accommodate large groups but not a huge over the top club like you might see in other parts of Beijing.


A CET Juicy Spot Party.

I really started stressing out about everything that’s coming this year in the last two weeks. Particularly applying for Fulbright. I was scrambling around trying to get in touch with professors and universities here, but really there’s no one in their offices at this time of the summer. It’s vacation time and no one goes in to work. I really did get overworked about it, but I’ve realized that there is no reason to be freaking out—after an email to Dr. Hicks, an email to the program that runs Fulbright, an hour long conversation with Jeanne Ware who runs the Fulbright program at New College and a 3 hour lunch with Anthony (who is currently doing a Fulbright project in China and was visiting Beijing this week). It turns out that Anthony never actually had an affiliation to a school before he applied and he still got the award. I’m still going to try my hardest to get in touch with someone here, but I’m going to concentrate on the rest of the application instead of agonizing over this one part. I also realized that this grant doesn’t make or break me. I have other plans if I don’t get it, and I would be perfectly happy to do those things. Fulbright is a good opportunity, but it’s not the only one I have at my finger tips.

We have finals tomorrow. I don’t know how I feel about that right now. I really am glad to be going home. I miss everyone a lot and can’t wait to start this year, living with all of my friends again, having two rooms right next door to one another. Starting my thesis is daunting but also a little exciting. I also miss the ocean a lot I cant wait to just float in the Gulf, no matter how much it feels like bath water (because realistically I won’t have time to go to the Atlantic before I leave for school. Yay for arriving in the States the day before mini-classes). I miss my family a lot, obviously, talking on the phone has made it easier, but really I just want to be home in my bed with mom and Ben just a short walk away.

At the same time, it’s the end of an amazing and truly mind opening experience for me. I learned so much here and know so much more about what I do and don’t want in my life. I can’t help but think about if I had more time after classes end here, where I would go travel more in the country. But that will have to be saved for the next time I’m here.

Also, packing has now become a rather daunting task.

I finally got to play soccer on Wednesday! A bunch of us went out to the field right down the road from us (we can actually look directly down into it from our classrooms). It was a lot of fun, we played World Cup for a while, an I realized that my fitness level is totally gone. Then we merged with a bunch of Chinese guys and started a full game. It was little awkward, since I was the only girl playing, but just what I needed.

The field was that weird astro-turf, not very comfortable and really easy to slide around on. My roommate tells me that their soccer players aren't aloud to play on their real-grass field.


On the field!

I also had my first pick pocket expereince today. Whoever it was, they got my brand new electronic dictionary, as in, I had just left the store that I bough it at. I'm pretty sure it happened while I was waiting for the bus or on the bus itself. It's unbelievably frustrating, because I really have been trying to keep myself safe when I go out, and now I'm just going to be even more paranoid. Of course, I'm still going to go back and buy another one, it really was ideal, but I am so angry at myself for letting it happen.

Flickr finally started working again! Yay relatively fast internet! So I added the pictures from the Great Wall. This entry is really long this time, with a lot of pictures.

I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated, the last week and a half has been a whirl wind of trips, work and friends.

The title of this entry is "feng he long", Phoenix and Dragon, referring to women and men respectively. When getting married the bride is often referred to as feng and the groom as long. Of course, I was born in the year of the dragon, so I think I'll keep that designation despite the gender roles.

We had our midterm test last Thursday the 17th, and I did rather well I think, an 82.5%. I wasn’t expecting it, because I really felt like the test was pretty hard. But in the end I was so excited about the Dalian trip that I went and had a massage to relax for the train ride and the travel. I really don’t know what it will be like to go back to the US and realize there is such a difference in prices for things like that.

It turns out that my roommate, Yu, couldn’t go to Dalian, because she was actually going to be on television here. She is going to school at Beijing Ti Yu Da Xue, a physical education school. She’s majoring in Martial Arts and was presented with the opportunity to be featured on an entertainment show that’s really very popular. She was upset about not being able to go to Dalian since she is from the mountains and rarely gets to see the ocean, but it really was an awesome opportunity for her and could definitely open a lot of doors for her and job opportunities. I can’t wait until it airs, I’ll make sure to post a link to a video everyone can see.


My roommate kicking ass on a TV show. Her major is martial arts at her university, she wants to teach it eventually.

Dalian was an absolutely wonderful experience. Despite some bad weather, which to be honest I really actually enjoyed, I love the city and the ocean, and being in a city on the ocean. I really do believe that having an ocean or a large body of water within an hours drive makes me a better person.

We took an overnight train from the Beijing Train Station to the Dalian Train Station that left around 8 on Thursday July 16th. The trip really was an interesting experience, not too different from the US Amtrak experience. Every 10 feet or so there are a set of bunks, three on each side, bottom, middle and top. They’re actually relatively comfortable, and every bed comes with a pillow and a comforter, and the train is constantly filled with the sound of music and talk radio from the speakers in the ceiling. At ten o’clock PM the lights and music go off, somewhat suddenly, and everyone falls asleep. That is, except for the foreign college students on a trip to Dalian. It was nice though, quiet, and I had no trouble falling and staying asleep. I was on the top bunk so I had the benefit of the air-conditioning when it was on. I woke up a few times when the AC shut off, just to throw off the blankets.


Bunk mates!

It was an interesting experience to be surrounded by all Chinese people, going about something I’m so used to doing at home with Americans. The train has been an amazing part of my life since I was a child, something I’ve taken for granted and loved doing every chance I got, and to be able to experience the same thing here really does bring this trip home for me. I really loved it. I didn’t spend a lot of time wandering the train or hanging out with people from my program, I sort of just laid in the bunk and listened to everything. The music was nice, classical Chinese, and talk radio that I couldn’t understand, but I enjoyed being surrounded by the language and the people. There were even some kids in the bunk below me and they didn’t really bother me at all.

The next morning, the 17th, I was awoken by the sound of people completing their daily morning routines and the music and talk radio had started up on the overhead speakers. We were in the train station by 8:30 AM and out of the station shortly thereafter. One thing about China is that if there is one thing you can count on it’s the transportation system. I’ve never experienced a late train or subway or bus, it’s insanely scheduled, and even during rush hour the buses still manage to make every stop on time. It was, sadly—or not so sadly?—raining pretty consistently. I really do love the rain, so on one level I really loved it but there was also a plan for the beach both days—a conundrum indeed.

Our hotel (Bo Hai Ming Zhu 渤海明珠酒店) was directly outside the train station, literally a few steps and we were there. We checked in and went immediately to their restaurant, which is on the 30th floor and apparently is revolving—although it was completely stationary while we were in the city. It was a really beautiful view and while I wasn’t a fan of the faux-foreign food, the hot tea and coffee was certainly welcome.

We all then followed the token rules of group travel, and hopped on a tour bus. I have to say I really don’t enjoy traveling in large groups and I can’t really say this experience was much better. In general I feel like half of the activities you are taken on half (generally more, this time around) of the group has no interest in and the other half are too busy sleeping to care. But thankfully we did manage to go to two different beaches, and while I am not a fan of group trips, this one was free and the y were going to the beach.


Bangchuidao Island and resort. This was by far my favorite place we went to, I wish I could have gone swimming here, but it was too cold.

The first was Bangchuidao Island and Resort, which is a rock beach about 45 minutes outside of Dalian it really reminded me of Seattle, minus the large boulders. Big and small pebbles everywhere, lots of beach glass and clear clean water. It was fantastic, even with the constant rain and drizzles. I ended up only being able to walk the beach once because so many people had gotten back on the bus and the group decided to leave. Yet another reason I don’t enjoy group trips. I would have loved to explore the beach more and find more beach glass. In the end though I really loved that beach, it was small and secluded and actually private to some degree.


It reminded me of the Pacific North-west. Probably why I loved it so much.

After the beach we went back into the city to a place they described as a “5-Star Hotel” to eat lunch. I never saw a hotel and the food definitely wasn’t five-star. I think everyone was pretty disappointed with that bait and switch, but at that point I think everyone was just glad to get a break and some food.


This is the giant history book monument, half-pipe, this was the second time that day I got soaked to the skin, but as you can see it was so much fun that it was totally worth it.

Then we went to this place on the ocean, it was a monument of some sort shaped like a “history book”. It ended up looking like a very big half-pipe, and they actually told us that most of the time kids in the area do use it for skate boarding. Of course it was still pouring, but we all really enjoyed it, we all climbed up to the top of one side, slipping and sliding all the way. It was a lot of fun and there are a crazy bunch of pictures and videos…and once I get Facebook back I’ll post them all. Though, I must admit, it doesn’t look like the government is gearing up to open that part of the internet again anytime soon.In that same area was the most expensive apartment buildings in Dalian--$2,000 USD per square foot.


Yes, the wind was just that intense. I love this picture.



I don't think there's anything else I can say about this one...

It was probably around this point that our tour guide and our RDs figured out that most of the students were tired of periodically getting soaked through our clothes and then dried off by the bus’s neurotic air conditioner. So we headed back to the hotel to warm up and clean up and if we so chose, some free time in the city on our own. So a group of us went out for some fresh seafood, since we were finally close to the ocean. I wasn’t crazy impressed with the food, maybe because I seriously miss the Cajun spices I’m so used to on seafood. I also tried sea cucumber for the first time, which was to say the least and interesting experience. There was nothing wrong with it flavor-wise, almost like calamari or octopus—but the texture was just a little too rubbery, not because it was cooked too long or badly, I think it is just the general texture of sea cucumber.


At the highest point of the monument/half pipe. See all those other people that thought ahead? Yeah, I wasn't one of them. Though the umbrellas kept getting blown out, the poncho would have been good.

We ended up wandering around the city looking for a bar or a club to sit in for a while. We ended up at Starbucks. How predictable for a group of college students. But we did eventually find a small US style bar (complete with Harley Davidson themed posters all over the walls and a cover band playing “Hotel California” and some Kelley Clarkson song) it was really fun. To be honest it was pretty funny, since I never actually going into bars in the US, but my first experience in a “biker bar” was in Beijing, where Harley’s are generally too large to drive on the roads here (motorcycles and bicycles ride in separate lanes from the cars and Harleys are just too big for those lanes).

The next day, Saturday the 18th, my roommate and I (I forgot to mention that while I thought I wouldn’t have a roommate at the hotel it turns out they made a mistake with the names and had a girl listed to room with a guy, her Chinese name is apparently a male one) woke up to not one, but two wake up calls from the front desk, just to be extra careful, I’m sure. We had to go to a 2 hour lecture on the history of Dalian, which might have been really interesting if it weren’t entirely in Chinese. I think the lecture was primarily for the benefit of the people giving it, an opportunity to show off their knowledge of their city’s history and architecture, but for most of us, even if we hadn’t been exhausted wouldn’t have understood the majority of what was said.


We had lunch at the Golden Pebble resort, this was the view we were treated to: a Dutch Windmill, a tribal totem pole and a military maneuver. Actually the resort just had a paintball course...

The weather that day wasn’t bad at all, nice and warm, and no more rain—though there is always the perpetual smog. We first went to the old television tower which gave a 360 degree view of the city.


They're not shy at all to ask you for a picture. I think I took one with this woman's entire family. I think it was the bathing suit.

We finally headed to the Golden Pebble Beach, which is a resort and private beach on a different part of Dalian. I have to say, it really isn’t a pleasant beach to look at, and realistically not very safe for most people without a good basis in swimming. Most of the Chinese roommates didn’t even get into the water. It was all pebbles and rocks, a long beach without anything but tents and umbrellas and little tourist kiosks...and people. The water was freezing! Like jumping into Blue Springs, but with really strong surf. Within 10 feet from the shore there were major drop offs, and within 15 feet I could neither touch the bottom with my feet nor swim down to it. I certainly think its smart that a lot of our roommates didn’t get in, particularly since most of them have little to no experience in the water.


Freezing, but totally worth it.

I was unbelievably happy just being in the water, I loved every second of it, we were only there for about 2 hours and they made us sign a waiver if we wanted to get in, but I really, really loved it. I miss the ocean and large bodies of water so much living here. And I really do think that Beijing would be such an amazing city for me if I had an ocean to jump into a few times a week. I’m going to have to make my next trip to Shang Hai or Hong Kong, everyone I talk to says that the water there is gorgeous. I also couldn’t find any opportunities to dive in Dalian—they don’t have it at all in the northern part of the country yet—though I have been reading that the south is really opening up to water tourism. I had another jaunt in stardom while I was at the beach, I was consistently asked to take a picture with people, probably because I had so much visible white skin showing in my bathing suit, though honestly it’s the most conservative bathing suit I’ve owned in years just due to the fact that it’s not a two piece.


Cicadas in China! He was following one of our teachers around trying to make her touch it, but she really doesn't like bugs--even if it is just skin

When we left the beach they told us that due to a couple of the larger guys being uncomfortable trying to sleep in the bunks on the train, we would be flying back instead of taking the overnight train. I was kind of torn on this because I thought that the train was such an awesome experience and I really did love it (plus I had planned on taking a video of the entire train car for mom on the ride back) and wanting to get back to Beijing faster. And then they told us that our flight didn’t leave until 12am. It was 5:30pm. Bummer.


We were rock-stars

So we went back to the hotel and were given 2 hours of free time to grab dinner and souvenir shop. A bunch of us wanted to grab sushi since we were still so close to the water, so we went off with Julie’s roommate Li Ying leading the way. We ended up at a mall food court, which was insanely loud and not at all what we wanted. So Julie and I went off to find a sushi place that was easy and quiet, Cameron ended up joining us eventually. We wandered around the more touristy area of Dalian and then headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and meet the group.

We ended up waiting in the Dalian airport for about 3 hours, everyone scrambling to pull liquids and sharp objects out of their carry on’s and then sitting in one of the only little cafes left open by the gates inside. At this point I think everyone was just exhausted and ready to get back to campus. The flight itself was fine, a quick one hour deal and I was totally surprised by the landing, I didn’t think we were even close to the ground when we touched down. It was already 1:30 am and by the time we factored in the bus ride (which oddly enough I actually fell asleep on) we weren’t at the school until 2:30am.

All in all I really enjoyed the trip, Dalian was a wonderful experience and I absolutely loved being in the water again.


On the Great Wall. There are so many steps, but it was totally worth every strained muscle.

The next day, Sunday, Julie, Laura and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I was really very impressed, though I know a lot of people weren’t. But I really like the movie and I felt like this was the first time we’ve seen really good acting from the younger group of actors and there was little bit more humor to the film, bringing in a lot of the little things that Rowlings adds to her books. I talked to mom about it later and she made some good points about the lack of depth, we really didn’t get much of the back story on Snape that we might have expected, and I was a bit disappointed with the Weasley house being destroyed a book too early (does this mean we wont be seeing the wedding scene with Mr. Lovegood being crazy and Harry looking like a Weasley?). It was really entertaining for me though.


Me and Xue Yu

Monday night we had a local tailor come to the school to do consultations and measurements for suits and qipaos (the traditional women’s dresses that you see with the high collars and frog clasps at the shoulder). I am so excited because I’m gettinga three-piece suit. Its going to be beautiful and classic: pants, jacket and skirt, in black. I can’t wait to get it and post pictures. At the next fitting I’ll see if I can take pictures of the half way there product. I sort of wish I had gone all out and gotten the white linen suit, but really I can only where that to so many things, and the black will be much more versatile.


TongXue 同学 meaning "classmate" this is Oliver.

A friend of mine from school (Rebecca Stork) got into town last week, and we were going to try to get together Sunday night, but it turned out that I have over 70 Chinese vocabulary words to memorize before Monday, so that definitely didn’t happen. But also, my friend Kate Boeyen, who is in student government with me (we were going to run together in the Presidential election last year) was in Beijing for a few days too. She’s doing the 30/30 program, which commemorates the 30 year anniversary of normalized relations between the US and the PRC—each country exchanged 30 students and is giving them tours across the opposite country. If I hadn’t decided to do a language program this summer I definitely would have loved to go on that one. I ended up not getting to see Kate while she was here, sadly, we just couldn’t coordinate, but I did get to see Rebecca on Tuesday night. We met in Wudaokou for drinks and pizza at this place called Pyro. It was a lot of fun, I got to talk to someone from home, who understood how weird it is to actually have grades and graded homework, when all were thinking about is if we’ve improved ourselves. Its so awesome that she’s so close and we can get together and go out any time we want (when my homework isn’t killing me).


I love the views from the stations and towers, the Wall always ends up looking like a dragon.
This week was pretty intense class wise, we had three chapters with over 70 characters each and a test on them on Friday. Our professors finally decided to just have a review day on Thursday because it seems that so many different people mentioned that that was an insane number of words to be tested on without a little more time to study. Realistically I think everyone understands that there is no way we’re going to remember all of the two thousand or so words we’re learning here, but I don’t really think that’s the point. It takes time for words to be cemented into everyday speech. Though I really have to say that I think our book and our teachers do a really good job of using words from previous chapters in current lessons. That really helps me remember them. And really I think my grammar is turning out to be the best improvement here, which was the goal. I also am really proud of my listening skills since coming here, so insanely better than they used to be. I really think going back to school is going to be wonderful, because I will have so much more time to study the characters in our lessons there, and now I really feel like I’ve improved my study methods by leaps and bounds.


It was such a beautiful day when we went. I look like I'm in the sky.


Off on a little side area. Great views.


Friday night Julie, Sabrina, Marlies, Precious and I went out to Sanlitun. We went to dinner at this awesome little sandwich place, where I scarfed down a mushroom and goat cheese Panini type sandwich and we all had a drink or two. It was a nice calm dinner where we got to talk and eat without the boys pushing everyone to go, go, go. Then we went out to Kokomo, the club we went to the night we hung out with Eric and Andrew and lost Marlies for the night. It was a lot of fun we picked up a pitcher of Red Bull and Vodka, which I will never get again, yuck. We ended up meeting these English guys who were living in Beijing. Rupert, George and Charlie, the token British names for boys—we all kept commenting that they all managed to have some connection to the Weasleys in Harry Potter, though obviously we didn’t say it to them. Charlie was gearing up for a bike ride to Mongolia, we was sort of the one of the group that was just traveling around trying to enjoy the country, we said he wanted to be a travel writer. He apparently was recently hit by a car, and damaged his arm somehow. Eek, I need to make a post just about the perils of traffic in Beijing. George was making a documentary on the water shortage in Beijing right now, as I understand it he’s not currently having his films shown on anything, but that’s a goal. Rupert is working in Beijing, maybe an internship, and learning the language. Julie hit it off really well with Rupert and I’m sure they’ll be keeping in touch. Sadly all of them seem to be leaving the city this week, Rupert and Charlie are traveling for a few weeks, and George is returning to the UK. So we might not see too much of them, since we’re leaving mid August. But we’ll see. They were all pretty neat guys.

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Going up the mountain to the Great Wall in a ski-lift was the best idea ever. Though we did walk down...the blue writing on the window behind me says "President William J Clinton took this car down the Great Wall on June 28th 1998"


We took some really great pictures that day. I really wish I had Facebook working so that I could put more of them up for everyone. Xue Yu took this.


This is about the time that my camera batteries died.


Yesterday, Saturday July 25th, we went to the Great Wall. I really wasn’t expecting too much, you know, thinking abstractly about a giant wall in the northern part of the country is really just, blah. But actually being there, and standing on it was awe inspiring, truly. That part of the country is gorgeous and has so much history, and then there is this giant beautifully constructed wall spanning thousands of miles across mountainous terrain. It is constantly rising and falling following the path of the mountains, all dark bricks and green covered mountains. I finally went ahead and did the touristy thing and bought a tee-shirt and a panda hat. I am currently sitting at my desk with said Panda Hat on my head. I think it now my new favorite hat (panda hat in Chinese is Xiong Mao Mao Zi 熊猫帽子 it’s pretty fun to say).


Yeah, that's a panda hat. What about it? It the patented Sabrina-panda-face. I love this hat so much. I bought this at the Great Wall in a great moment of Sarah-bargaining-awesomeness for 20 kuai ($3). It's my new favorite hat, and you bet I'll be wearing it this fall.


My roommate, being awesome. She has so much poise.

But I am so glad that Yu went with me on this trip. I did a really good job bargaining, but I went into one of the kiosks and was talking to this woman who kept saying “Shirts 1 dollar!” which was of course an outright lie used to trap tourists in the booth while the seller badgers them until the tourist just gives them 50 kuai. Not that I would have put up with that anyway, but finally Yu says “No we should leave, she’s lying” and we turn to leave. The woman grabbed my arm over Yu’s shoulder and held on with a death grip. I ended up screaming and flailing at her, just leaning backwards away from her and essentially falling out of the tent when I wrenched my arm away from her. The little group of French tourists and CET students behind us were a little shocked, but I ended up with red marks around my wrist from this woman. Yu tells me that the people there are “Xinku” 辛苦 or hard, I imagine their lives are pretty hard, but I have absolutely never had that happen to me before and all I wnted to do was get away from that woman.


Seriously. So many steps.


The steps here are worn away from use over the centuries.

Last night we went out for sushi in Sanlitun at our favorite place. I got an assorted pickles plate and tempura shrimp with mango sushi. I am so surprised at how good fruit with sushi can be, I’m guess I’ll have to be more open minded at home, I just can’t imagine it being better anywhere but here in Asia. The pickles were weird, mostly sweet, but I always love new ways to use vinegar. We had some eggplant that was absolutely wonderful. In the US I really feel like eggplant in generally only made grilled or fried. Here, every time I eat it I love it, seriously. I am going to figure out how to recreate these dishes when I get home. Also, wasabi, I am bringing the real stuff home.


It really does look like a spiny dragon spread across the mountains.


Xue Yu, me, and Wang Ya Xiu.

I went home after dinner. I was just too tired and I know I’m getting sick. I have had a sore throat for four days and have just started to get the congestion. And I know that I can’t do the “out ‘til all hours” ever weekend night. It ended up being a good call for me, since they ended up staying out until 4 in the morning last night. Apparently they ended up finding the guys we met Friday night and spent the night hanging out with them in Sanlitun. I probably would have fallen asleep on the table, so I’m glad I didn’t stay and hold everyone back. But I did get to sleep straight through 'til I woke up in the morning! That's a luxury we don't have here very often. Although I will say that it's nice that my body has adjusted to waking up at 8 rather than six in the morning.


Beautiful, beautiful, Mountain with a Wall.


One of my favorite pictures from the bunch.

Just a quick one, I'm back in Beijing, we ended up flying back because apparently some of the beds on the sleeper train were too small for some of the people on our trip to sleep comfortably. The ocean was fantastic and I am so glad I went.

Julie, Laura and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince today. I have to say I really do think it is the best movie so far. Very, very well done.

More details, and pictures to come, but I just found out I have to memorize 70+ new words before tomorrow morning.

The title of this entry is a phrase we learned last week that essentially means "not as beautiful as before". It's always interesting to learn these sorts of phrases, even though I know there's no way I'll be able to use it in actual conversation for quite some time. It'll take a while before I can be sure when something like that is actually appropriate!

Still no Facebook. I’m sorry for those of you who have sent me messages recently, I’ve figured out a way to at least be able to look at facebook, but I can’t reply to anyone, upload pictures, or add friends. So that’ll have to wait until the government decides no protests are going to be planned using the site.
I’ve been having a lot more fun recently. This past weekend Julie, Laura, Sabrina and I had a girl’s day out on Friday. We went to Sanlitun (pronounced sanlituar in the Beijing accent) to find a clothing shop, called Willow Willow, that we had seen in the Beijinger; they do a lot of custom clothes and feature artists regularly. I ended up finding a really cute tank top, with a girl on the front reading a newspaper that says “Girls and Bugs” and lady bugs on the back. I managed to turn all of my white clothes a nice shade of yellow the first time I did laundry, so I bought it in white. We went to a really fantastic Japanese restaurant in Sanlitun, and honestly had some of the best sushi I’ve had in my life. It had mango on it, which in general, I am opposed to since in the States I feel like so few people can make it correctly. But I was surprised at how good it was. I also had sea urchin sushi, but was seriously disappointed in that, I think I’m just not a sea urchin kind of girl, sadly. I’ll stick to the cuttlefish and eel, thanks.

This is the shirt I bought at Willow Willow. Love it!

At some point we met this guy from Holland. He was lost and trying to find a silk market neat Wudaokou, we had never been there but we told him we could put him in a cab and tell the driver where to take him. He said he had been working in Shanghai for an advertising firm and was now travelling around the country, he didn’t speak a nit of Chinese though, so I don’t know what he thought he would be able to accomplish. Unlike Europe you don’t find an insane amount of people who speak good English here, not just walking around on the streets. But I suppose that is just part of the experience, and I imagine he will remember it for the rest of his life as a crazy but fun moment in time.

When we returned to BIE, the school where we’re living, we got a bunch of people together and went out. A few of Laura’s friends from the states came along too, and we ended up going to the University where Columbia holds their language immersion program. Julie has a few friends (Andrew and Eric) in the program so we went to spend some time in their dorm. I like them quite a bit, they seem to be a lot of fun and know the city pretty well. I really enjoyed being out with new people, it’s a nice change. We went to a club in Wudaokou, never actually going in, we sat outside with some of the guys from CET and oddly enough bought subway sandwiches and a few beers.

Then we up and left for Sanlitun again. Here’s where the drama starts, we somehow managed to leave someone behind, my friend Marlies apparently gave her cell phone to Sabrina and went into the club to find other people, and when we got into the cabs (there were 12 of us in 3 cabs) everyone assumed she was in one of them. She wasn’t. At some point laura mentions that she doesn’t think Marlies is in any of the cabs because she had counted off the people in them and came up with an even number. Long story short we end up calling everyone we can think of that might be in the area, we have our friends from Carlton (Alex, Jake, and Cameron) wander down there from another club in the area to look for her. Finally, I call another friend Lisa, and find out that Marlies found them in the club. Merriment ensues.

I really loved the club we ended up at, it seems so many of the bars and clubs in this city have roof top patios and bars. It’s fantastic and absolutely beautiful, especially since most of the time all people can see of Beijing is from the street looking at tall buildings and heavy pollution. Being on top of the buildings doesn’t get you away from the pollution, but definitely shows you a totally different side of the city altogether. We danced a lot and I was hit on consistently throughout the evening, every second I stepped away from other people. I met a nice guy named Santiago, from Columbia (the country), who was pretty keen on dancing with me. We left shortly after I met him though, when I told him we were leaving he apparently didn’t believe me though. He saw us walking down the stairs and said “Oh! You really are leaving!” as if instead I had been lying so I wouldn’t have to dance with him. It was pretty neat, and I love meeting other foreigners here, it makes for such a different kind of conversation than I’m used to here.

We finally went ahead and left the club around 3:30am or so. A lot of people decided to go to the changing of the guard and flag raising at Tiananmen, which happens at 4:30 (a little after sunrise). I honestly just had no energy left. But I think the best part of the evening was me, Julie, Sabrina and Precious climbing in though Mike’s window on the first floor, because we didn’t want to wake up the shifu (师傅sort of like our male house mother). A clarification I guess: we do technically have a curfew of 1am, but that’s just the time when the shifu locks the doors. Our RD actually told us its more of a soft curfew. However, the shifu does try and sleep during that time, so he gets a bit cranky if we wake him up to let in a few tipsy college kids—thus we climb in Mike’s window. It’s a lot of fun, unless his roommate is there—we risk waking him up too, but apparently he’s pretty cool about everything anyway.

One day it rained, our dorm became a safe haven for umbrellas. Nearly every rom had one outside the door.

Saturday Precious, Sabrina, Julie and I went to the Zoo! Mainly we went for the pandas, which were fantastic and Sabrina took an insane amount of pictures. All of which she’s going to give me so I have them and can put them up here. There’s also a video of me squeeing over the red pandas. I love those animals. We had the lapse in judgment and sat in an area that had hundreds of people walking by us constantly. Precious and Sabrina happen to be black, Julie has blonde hair and green eyes and I am very obviously white with red-ish brown hair. It was like we were part of the zoo exhibits. After one person asked us to take pictures with their child, everyone wanted one. And it was generally parents shoving their children at us and snapping away. I don’t mind it at all, it’s rather amusing actually. However, after living here for a month it becomes a little creepy when hundreds of people turn their heads as they walk by you so that they can continue to stare at you as they walk and then one after another people come up with their children. And one family absolutely could not accept that not only did their daughter not want to take a picture with us, she was terrified of us. The child went limp when her father tried to bring her up to sit with us.

We then went to Wudaokou to another shop Julie had read about in the Beijinger called Lara. I wasn’t very impressed with the store itself, the clothing was fine and cute, but I really wasn’t a fan of most of it. I found a wallet there that I loved, but the leather was such a light color that it was already showing wear. The style is fantastic and I almost bought it, but their credit card machine wouldn’t accept my debit card and I had no cash on me (a good way to stop myself from spending too much I think, don’t take any cash!). But I did go into a leather and bag shop next door and they had a very similar wallet in a darker color, the only problem is that it doesn’t have snaps that stop it from opening and flopping around. So, now that I’ve seen that style of wallet and I know it’s popular here I can start looking for it elsewhere and if I don’t find it, I’ll go back to the leather store and buy that one.
We walked around the sidewalk markets a little, and went into a few more stores, but really, I think choosing the weekend to go to these places is a bad idea. Entirely too many people are in the streets on a Saturday afternoon. I really just have such a problem trying to shop, or do anything but walk quickly, surrounded by people. And Beijing certainly has a lot of people.

Sunday was a work day. Whoohoo!

Today in my small class we talked about people choosing not to have children. It was interesting to realize that so many Chinese women and men don't want children and suffer the same, if not higher, levels of pressure from their family and peers, to reproduce. Talking with one of my professors in my one on one session this afternoon she said that most people will just give in and have a child because their parents put so much pressure on them to get married and immediately procreate. I'm just unbelievably glad that I don't face this problem with my family or friends. Everyone I know is supportive or at least keeps their mouth shut about it.

Julie also came by my room last night and mentioned that her roommate had never heard of let alone seen a tampon before. We asked my roommate and she didn't have a clue either. I had a relatively awkward conversation with her later about whether or not a virgin could use tampons, which it seems is the main reason that they are so uncommon here. There is such a premium placed upon a woman's purity that using products like tampons is just never considered. She seemed prettying interested, but again, culturally I think it's just not an option for her.

This week is midterms week, Thursday we have a huge written and oral exam that will take up most of the morning, then we leave for Dalian! Dalian is the coastal city to the east of us. I don’t know what they have planned for us, but I am definitely taking my bathing suit, I will be swimming in the ocean while I’m there. I won’t be taking my computer with me, for certain, but I will have my cell phone if anyone needs to contact me. We’ll be on a train for 8 hours I think (maybe more) on a sleeper train. Very exciting! It’s going to be an interesting experience, that’s for sure.

I will however, be missing the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince premiere, which I am very sad about. This will be the first one I wont have seen the first night it opens. However, I’m certain there will be a lot of people who will want to see it in Dalian while we’re there this weekend. I will find a way!
I got a message from Ilene on Facebook, she’s sending me a letter! I’m so excited! I can’t wait to get it, and I can’t wait to send out my post cards to everyone. I really want to find some nice stationary too, so I can write letters—but until I do it’s post cards for everyone!

Next week there is a tailor coming to the school to do fittings for those of us who want to have suits or dresses made for ourselves. I definitely will be going to that and having one made. I understand that he can replicate nearly any style and design and it will only cost around $100 for a good quality suit. I'm very excited, since there's no way you could buy a three piece suit, even off the rack, for that in the States.

I’m sorry for the short update I gave earlier, I just wanted to make sure everyone knew why I hadn’t been getting back to emails or posting to Facebook. The internet is just insanely slow here right now and more and more sites are coming up as blocked. It’s nothing to worry about, just a little annoying when I want to make a status update or relate the funny things that I’m seeing and learning, but don’t have time to write a full blown journal entry.

Waxberries or 杨梅. So tasty, with Jing Hua flower honey. Locally harvested in the mountains outside Beijing

This week has been pretty good. I’ve been here 3 weeks and in classes for 2. We don’t have an exam this week because next week is our midterm exam…sort of scary, but I realized with this last test, I’m getting much better and really am seeing an improvement in my work. I seriously thought I had bombed last Friday’s test and ended up doing better by more than 10 points. I was quite happy with that.

Since we don’t have a test tomorrow, a lot of people wanted to go out to Hou Hai, another one of the city’s many party centers, catering mostly to foreigners. I had planned to go tonight, but they weren’t leaving until after 9pm and to be honest I think I’m just an old fogey. At the ripe old age of 21 I have no real desire to go to clubs and dance to top 40s music. I’d really like to go to a few of the clubs around here that have live music regularly and maybe go to some of the clubs with live DJs and techno and house music. I guess I just get enough of the Top 40 music in the US, so experiencing it in Beijing just holds no appeal for me. I would really love to get a smaller group of people together and spend the night eating a good, slow dinner, having a few drinks and then going to a club to see a band play for a few hours or go to a club that has the crazy beats and music but less crazy college students flying all over the place. I found a few places in the Beijinger (a 老外 Laowai, a sometimes disparaging sometimes endearing term for foreigners, publication put out for English speakers living in the city) but to be honest I don’t know where they are and I don't want to end up at some place that’s absolutely not what I want without knowing of another place in the area that could be better. So I need to do more research before I try that.

This is a video of the Exhibition Center and the square outside of it near where we live. There's always a festival of sorts out there on weekend nights.

I finally gave up on my Martial Arts class. As good as it could be for me I really feel like I was hurting myself more than helping. I walked away from it with my ankle (which I have torn several ligaments and tendons in over the past few years) and my knees just throbbing, and not in a good way. I don’t know what it is, but the constant squatting and staying in low positions for extending periods of time just puts too much strain on those joints. Its such an odd thing that soccer never bothers me, I can run and run and play insanely aggressively, never damaging myself at all—but the most simple and supposedly easy things like laser tag and the slew of martial arts we had in that class just kill me. I think I’m going to ask Xue Yu to teach me a few things though, since I fell like Tai Chi is do-able. The class I was taking just included far to many different types of martial arts: we did some routines that used staves, a knife dancing one, and a Kung fu. Oh well, I still have calligraphy!

Yesterday (Wednesday, 7/8) myself and one of the guys from UNC Chapel Hill went to the national library, which is just down the road from our district a few bus stops. Turns out I won’t actually be able to do too much concrete research for my thesis here, since all of the books are actually in Chinese. We were told that they had books in English, but those all turned out to be dictionaries and encyclopedias. Not that I would ever expect the national library of China (or any Chinese library for that matter) to stock books in English just in case. I’m sure I could find some information on my thesis topic, but its going to be a lot harder than I thought (though not as hard as trying to read even just one page of the books on politics and economics in that library). On the other hand, the new library they built recently is impressive, it’s actually designed to look like a book, and has this fantastic area in the center—it’s a study area and houses the reference books, but there are different levels and centered around this large square of space in the center. It’s open to all five floors of the building. It’s a really beautiful, modern looking building. The old building, we couldn’t actually get into because they actually close at 5pm, whereas the new building closes at 9pm. But I suspect that we would have just as little luck with the old building as we did with the new. From the conversation we had with the guard at the door, they don’t have any books in English there either.

Take out, Beijing Style.
More successful was the shopping part of the expedition. My roommate took me to what we might consider to be a flea market of sorts (shang dian 商店 ) a few weeks ago. They said they were closing down this month, so I wanted to go back before they did and buy some knick knacks and see if I could find a tea cup, and some stationary. I ended up finding all but the stationary, which made me immensely happy.

I found the most amazing beads, in the shape of Lucky Cats! I’ll explain this a little: while I was in Hawaii the summer before college I kept seeing these adorable little ceramic cats with all kinds of little designs and Asian Scripts on them, I finally asked Savannah and Aunt Linda what they were. Generally you buy one for new endeavors—but I suppose you can buy them just to have, I bought one for college—and there are often slots in them for you to place money, like a piggy bank. Some of them are for bringing luck in money, some for luck in love, general prosperity and I’m sure there are many, many other types. I kind of have a thing for them, so anytime I see them somewhere special I buy one. So now I have some lucky cat beads (also a few other cute little animals I couldn’t pass up). Xue Yu tells me they’re porcelain, handmade in China (although for the longest time I thought she was saying “they’re cheddar, they’re made in Cheddar”. My listening skills have since improved but I was greatly perplexed there fore a day or two).
I also have been admiring all of the different forms of tea cups they have here.

As for the cup, now I don’t mean china, tea cups and saucers. I mean portable ones used to steep and drink tea on the go. They’re generally set up similarly to coffee mugs in the US but at the top there’s a strainer that pops in and out of the cup to hold back the tea leaves and the lid oftentimes has no mouth piece, so you take the lid completely off to drink. Some cups are plastic and have snap on lids and others are glass and have screw on lids (the latter is what I wanted). So you put your dried tea leaves, flower, dried citrus etc… in the cup, pour in hot water, pop the strainer back in, put the lid on and let it steep. 5 minutes later you have tea, on the go, and you can just re-add hot water a lot of times if you finish and don’t have fresh leaves. I never see these sorts of things in the US, maybe I just don’t know where to look, but I’ve really wanted one of these cups since I got here.

My Tea Cup! The Script to the right of the fish design says 天天有渔
"Tian Tian Yoy Yu" Meaning "Every day have fish", basically a prayer for prosperity.

It seems everyone I know has one here and I had been looking for one I really liked but was unwilling to spend 100 kaui qian (about $20) in the department stores, first because they never really had any that I liked, and second because everyone kept telling me that I could find better deals at the shang dians. Lo and behold, I did. I found an awesome large glass one, with a koi fish pattern on the glass, for 35 kuai (around $5). I’m unbelievably happy and have been making my own tea all day, using my local mountain honey to sweeten it, happily munching away at a pile of lychee fruits—which I have decided are my new favorite fruit.

Dragon Fruit, it's prettier than it tastes
I suppose I’ll address the world shattering event that happened recently. Michael Jackson’s death. I can not believe the sheer amount of media coverage this is getting. I guess because I’m so close to everything that’s happening here with the ethnic conflict in Xinjiang I just see this media storm as completely insane when there are things going on in the world that could affect us in monumental ways. To see stories about this funeral today all over the web pages of CNN and the Times as well as the newspapers here in China, while there might be one story about the riots, censorship and police action here is boggling to put it mildly. I understand why it’s that way here, first no information is really getting out and no one here wants to take the chance to report on it risking the Very Bad Things that can happen. It’s a totally different culture, and understandably so. But seeing the US buy into this media market, and buy into the idea that it’s OK to not care one whit about the politics and happenings of the rest of the world, instead merely ogling dead superstar’s coffins and watching their families mourn—is just bizarre. I don’t think most people understand that tensions between ethnic and religious groups (particularly right now Muslims) don’t just happen in the Middle East. They’re happening everywhere, and there’s a reason the tensions are rising (not that I particularly know that reason). And instead of sitting up and paying attention and demanding that our media reports on things that matter to way we live our lives, we’re seeing which star just died and who gets what in the will.

I’m sorry, this is not supposed to be a political or social commentary blog at all and I really will try to refrain from adding that sort of thing in here, but I suppose at this point that I’m trying to sort out what I think about all of these things and writing them out is one of the most useful ways I have of doing that. I spent some time just now talking to my roommate and her friend about Michael Jackson and his kids and general life story, so that’s where the impetus to write all of this came from.

I love the little take out place this comes from. They have a store front but no seating, everything's set up so you walk up she puts everything in a box and you go on your way. I eat there at least once a week.
I think the best thing that came out of the conversation was that they taught me Elvis Presley’s name in China: Mao Wang 猫王 literally translated as: Cat King or the King of Cats. They couldn’t tell me the reasoning behind this name either. I giggled for quite a while on this one.

At the moment I can't access Facebook. It's been blocked by the government due to the riots and protests in the West. We've been warned that it's a bad idea to try to travel there, well, yes, particularly since the government probably won't allow foreigners into the province, let alone in the center of the region. They're also assuming any of us have the spare time to travel at this point. Which we don't.

But for all practical purposes I won't be able to post too many pictures. I can still get on Flickr, but the connection recently has been so poor that uploaded a lot of pictures is just not a possibility.

July 3, 2009

I promise I am trying to keep up with writing all of this but I have so much work that I don’t really have time to sit down and write except on Fridays it seems. Nothing really happens during the weeks so much, mainly classes and normal school fun and frustrations.
Last weekend was a lot of fun though. I was actually able to stay out relatively late (in by 2am) and not feel like I was falling asleep.

First though myself and Julie and Laura went out to have our hair styled, I just had mine straightened, but it took almost an hour because the guys in the salon really like seeing Americans and playing with our weird hair. I very nearly found myself a Chinese boyfriend too. My stylist seemed to really like me and at one point said “You’re hot!” and I thought, Oh well, translation problem, he’s using a straightener on my hair and wanted to make sure I wasn’t uncomfortable. But no, Julie and Laura and I ended up in a conversation about how you say “hot” meaning attractive in Chinese, our stylists insisted it wasn’t piaoliang 漂亮 (pretty), but they couldn’t tell us what actually was. At one point though I told my stylist that I really liked it (Wo hen xihuan我很喜欢), meaning my hair, and he took it as “I really like you”. And promptly asked me for my phone number. I told him I didn’t have one, a lie, but really we’ve been warned that dating locals could be really bad for the locals both in terms of reputation and hurt feelings and misunderstandings about what the relationship could mean. Plus, at this point we wouldn’t really be able to understand what the other person was saying.

We went to dinner at a really authentic Japanese Restaurant near the American ex-pat part of Beijing (Sanlitun). It was an amazing amount of fun. We sat in one of the screened rooms they reserve for large parties, there were a lot of us, in those low running tables with space for your legs and feet actually built into the ground. I had cuttlefish sushi, sea weed salad and a glass of plum wine. The sea weed salad was different from what I’m used to in the states—sweeter, but still good. The plum wine on the other hand was less sweet than what I’m used to, I can’t really describe the taste. Instead of a wine glass it came in a tumbler with ice, it was a really interesting flavor and I would absolutely have it again. The cuttlefish—oh the cuttlefish—was absolutely wonderful, if fish can be buttery this fish was buttery. The texture was amazing and everything was so fresh and neat. I was extremely impressed.


Everyone at dinner at the Japanese Restaurant before we went out. The food was absolutely amazing. I had cuttle fish sushi. Julie is the blonde on the left.


I also had real wasabi for the first time. Generally in the United States what we have in Asian restaurants is not actually wasabi but a mixture of different horseradishes made to taste like wasabi. It’s interesting the different kinds of spice and heat you get with different kinds of peppers and spices here. I love the spiciness of Chinese food. I hate the spiciness of Mexican food. With the food here in Asia its builds and builds, its actually really pleasant, I never feel like the cooks are shoving spice into the food just to shock you. It’s all part of the cuisine. But this wasabi, as good as it was, it made my brain hurt. Literally. The top of my skull was burning, beneath the skin, in my skull and brain. I swear. It was the most interesting spicy flavor I’ve ever tasted. How odd that eating something would make the other side of my head hurt.

July 5, 2009

Continuing on… I had to do homework this weekend so I had to take a break from the journaling.
About spiciness—I still have yet to try the Sichuan pepper here. This pepper, actually makes your mouth numb, it’s one of the key ingredients in “ma la” 麻辣 meaning “numb and spicy”. Yeah. I’m actually really excited about it, but I want to find a really good Sichuan place to get it so I can have the full effect. I don’t know whether or not I’ll like it as much as like the other spiciness I’ve encountered here. And I still have to find a good Thai restaurant to compare US Thai food.
Last weekend was really a fantastic experience. After we finished eating and merrymaking at the fantastic Japanese restaurant we all headed over to a club/bar called Juicy Spot, which was surprisingly a lot of fun. I really am not the clubbing/bar type. I like big, nice dinners and drinks with friends and then parties back at home. So it was nice to have a really good experience at this club. It was actually a white party, where most people wore white tee-shirts and at the door when they stamped your hand they gave everyone highlighters so that, if you choose to you can write all over other people’s shirts. I opted for a dress instead, so I don’t have that little souvenir, but it was intensely fun to see everyone else's tee-shirts and write on a bunch of strangers.

This was at a neat little club in the American ex-pat part of Beijing, it was three stories with an open air patio on the roof. I really enjoyed the night.


The club had 3 floors with music playing on two of them. The 2nd floor was top 40 and was where the majority of the white shirted people congregated since there were black lights all over the place, the 3rd was meringue/Spanish influenced (I know Sarah would really have loved this place). The best part for me though was the outdoor patio on the roof. They had a bunch of picnic tables set up and we all spent a lot of time out there.

I ended up coming back to campus around 1:30AM with a friend. We just grabbed a cab since the subway and the buses had stopped running at 11:30PM. The roads here are crazy, because despite the fact that there are probably some technical laws and restrictions, people drive any way they want to. People are constantly walking out into the road, painted lines mean very little to drivers, and every really loves using their horns. Generally the horns are just to let people know you’re coming, but coming from the US where honking your horn means anger it’s definitely something to get used to.

Monday was my first martial arts class. I don’t quite know what to think, since it really was just a huge survey of different disciplines. Tai chi, staves, knife dancing, and kung fu. I didn’t really enjoy it all that much because I really feel like I lack to coordination to remember a series of moves (which is why I was never very good at dancing with certain moves—though I do think that if there was music involved I would do much better). I just could seem to remember to sequence of movement and placements for my arms and legs. I definitely want to keep doing it since I think it can only help me with my coordination problem…maybe by the end of the summer I’ll feel like I can go to the Pilates class at New College.

Classes this week were really good, I actually really enjoyed them and didn’t get frustrated nearly as much. I think it just has to do with the fact that sometimes the classes seem so long. I’m used to having one or two classes in the morning, having a break and then maybe going to more classes later in the day, whereas here it’s just four straight hours of class lunch and then another class in the afternoon. Fridays, on which days we just have a written and an oral test in the morning, lasting totally maybe 2 hours, are pretty enjoyable. I don’t think this week’s test went quite so well for me, but I know it’s because I didn’t study as hard as I should have on Wednesday or Thursday’s chapters. Better this coming week, I think.

Calligraphy with Julie

Thursday afternoon I had my first calligraphy class. I definitely think it will be one of those cathartic things I do while I’m here. Basically we all sit in a lecture hall in silence and draw out characters with a brush listening to the teacher explain exactly what we’re supposed to do in Chinese—not that we understand the majority of what he’s saying. It’s calming and despite the amount of time it takes up I really think I should keep up with it. Even if I do feel like all my artistic ability has dripped out of my ears of the past 3 years.

Mom and I have been having a lot of trouble with Skype recently and I can’t figure out why. But we can’t keep a call on for longer than 20 seconds before it goes silent and eventually drops out. And I don’t think it’s just Skype, because I talked to Hannah (who is in Germany right now) for two and a half hours Thursday night. That was really fun, and really good for me, to talk to one of my friends and remember that I am going back to New College after I leave here, and things will still be as awesome as they have ever been.

Overlooking Cuan Dixia village is a temple, this is the view from the side of the temple into the little valley

Saturday was an interesting day. We took a day trip out to a little village in the mountains about 3 hours outside of Beijing. The village, Cuan Dixia, is built into the side of the mountain and is mostly intact and maintained. It’s a definitely tourist trap, run by the government of course, but it was really neat to see what mountain life in this part of the country could be like. I bought a package of loose tea to add to my meager collection, but it was locally grown and my roommate recommended I try it, so as soon as I get a tea cup (these are so neat, I never see them in the US, as soon as I buy one I’ll post a picture) I’ll start making my own tea, since the water here is good to use—though it does apparently have higher levels of iron and other metals, so I don’t know that that is necessarily a good decision. The water definitely doesn’t have bacteria or yucky organisms in it, but I do wonder about those “other metals”. I also bought some local honey, which has a really interesting flavor, almost smoky from the flowers the nectar comes from (Jing Hua Flowers 荆花). It’s definitely different from the clover and wild flower honey we get in the states, but I like it, and I can’t wait to start drinking tea sweetened with it.

This is out in front of the temple, there's a big bell under that canopy.

I think the coolest part about being in Cuan Dixia was the rock formations about a mile outside of the village. The mountains in that area have a high level of calcium and lime in the rock, so it erodes pretty quickly in some areas. In this particular area it looks like those formations out in the Western US that are all curvy and water- and sand-blasted. It reminds me a little of all the springs Tom and I dive in Florida, except with fewer and less extreme ledges.

The rock formations outside of the village.

It gave me a good preview for what one of our options for the weekend trip will look like. And it made me even more adamant that I go on the one to Dalian (coastal city) and not Yuxian (Western village). As interesting as all of the small traditional villages and cultural throwbacks are, I really just want to see China’s oceans, and see what coastal life here is like. I miss the ocean, and lakes, and rivers. I talked to mom about it and she even said, “I know how you are about water”. I love it, and to some degree I really think I need it. Maybe it’s being a Pisces, or you know, living in Florida all my life with a pool on either side, but I really can’t see myself living this far from a good body of water that I can just jump into whenever I fancy a dip. It helps that my roommate is from the mountains in the South and really wants to go to the ocean too—I gave her a necklace with a dolphin charm and she told me she had never seen one, so I definitely want to take her there. She also can’t swim.

The Village is rounded and built into the side of the mountain so there are theses walk way son some levels with one house or shop after the other

My Favorite picture from the trip. They grow and sell a lot of corn in Cuan Dixia, so there is corn hanging up to dry in just about every house. This is an alleyway that lead out to a house.

Also, the bus ride out there and back was not too bad, but I swear the bus drivers here honk their horns every time they see another car, or person. It’s insanely annoying when you were naive enough to sit at the front of the bus.

Last night I went out to dinner with some friends and afterward we went to a bubble tea place (I think you're going to have to Google that one if you don't know what it is, I can't explain it). I got red Bean Milk Tea with Caramel, it had red beans in the bottom of it! But coolest thing yet? They had swings for seats as some of the tables.

Bubble tea cafe, the name had something to do with a rabbit, I think. Swings!

Today was pretty intense. I woke up around 9:30AM (after waking up at 6, 7, 8 am—I don’t think I’ll ever get used to 4AM sunrises) wrote an essay and then went with some friends to Tiananmen Square. What struck me about the square wasn’t actually anything about the square, I’m used to all of the propaganda by now—the pictures of Mao and the nationalism (on a side note, I actually had one of my professors ask me if I would talk about politics with her, which I totally thought would never happen here), but all the people covering the square. There were people everywhere, not just foreigners, but Chinese people too. I’m sure it’s just like when families in the US go on a vacation to Washington DC but for some strange reason I just did not think that it would be the same here. No reason why really, it was just some weird thing that occurred to me.

I also had no less than 3 Chinese people ask me if they could take a picture with me. First one of the guys walking around selling pictures to people came up to me and asked if I would take a picture with on of his clients. I said yes, of course, and I suppose other people saw me taking pictures with them, so as we walked across the square I was stopped by various other groups for a photo-op. It was really amusing, and everyone really got a kick out of it so I’m glad I did it.

Tiananmen Square. Giant Mao Face

What really stood out in my mind about the trip though is the way the hawkers, people in and around the square would try and force you to buy their products. I watched two different people give little Chinese flags to small children and then follow their parents around demanding 2 kuai. I’m sure that this tactic is used everywhere, but I had never seen it so widely used and so insistent.

We also stopped in a few shops before we went to the square. I had my first ever H&M experience in China. It’s like every other mass production trendy clothing shop in any mall in America. This one was 3 stories and stuffed fill with clothes. The prices we’re about on par with the US stores. I bought a little black dress anyway, because really, I can never have enough light weight dresses, either here in Beijing or at home in Florida. But I definitely will be going to the silk markets (general term for these huge flea market-like buildings with hundreds of stalls selling clothes by the bag for pretty cheap prices, generally knockoffs, but good quality) to buy any more clothing or shoes.

We also went into this little shop with a bunch of other, smaller booths inside it, where this guy was trying to convince us to buy one of those little personal massagers, about the size of a mini Maglight. Except the massager was obviously a vibrator. Like the kind you buy at an adult shop. He kept touching people with it, trying to get them to feel the massaging power. We all got a kick out of that one.

As for more pictures, I've realized that I can't put nearly as many pictures on Flickr, so most of the new pictures are going to go on my Facebook page, so just follow the link below to that if you want to see more. I've also made a Flickr account for just pictures of food, once I get that organized I'll post that too!

Also, Please feel free to comment here. You don't have to be a member, just click the comment link in the bottom left. I would love to hear from every one, tell me what you think of the pictures, give me recommendations of things I should do while I'm here, comment on any of the funny or weird things I encounter.

Love,
Sarah

More Pictures at: My Flickr Picture Account
and: A Facebook Album

Our roommates moved in yesterday. Mine is pretty interesting, it seems (I think) that she is going to school in order to learn how to teach Physical education of some kind—Tai Chi, I think. Granted a lot could be lost in translation. Her name is Xue Yu 薛宇。 So far we’ve stumbled along trying to get to know each other, we had dinner at a Uyghur restaurant last night (Uyghurs are the Muslim minority that live primarily in Xinjiang Province, I really enjoyed the food a lot) and spent one night sleeping in the same room. She may or may not be back tonight since she goes to school a little ways away and should be getting out of class pretty late tonight. On the plus side, she and her friends said they would take me to their school’s soccer field to play if I want to, one of her friends plays also, so maybe I want get a bunch of CET kids together and go have a scrimmage sometime this weekend.

This is my roommate!

Today we had our first test day. It really wasn’t bad at all, I feel really good about the written portion and the speaking didn’t go too terribly…she said my grammar was very good, but that my pronunciation needs work—which is odd to me because my professor at New College always comments on how careful I am with pronunciation. Nonetheless I still need to do a lot of work, obviously. I really feel like the book we’re using for this program (Integrated Chinese) are so much better than what we use at home (New Practical Chinese Reader). They are so much more…practical. The vocabulary is actually useful and the grammar is explained in a way that actually makes sense instead of just thrown at you in random bits. I’m quite happy with everything we’re learning.


Today is Julie’s birthday, so we’re all going out for dinner (like we do every night) and then going out to a club. I haven’t actually been able to stay awake long enough to stay out late yet, so I’m really going to make the effort to get out and do something fun tonight. Reward myself for a successful week of work, quizzes, and tests. I have osme homework this weekend, plus a 300 character essay, but I don’t feel like that’s too much to ask myself to do Saturday night and Sunday.

This is the grocery store in the basement of Ito Yokado (think the biggest Macy's you've ever been in. Now bigger with a grocery store in the basement). There are 5 or 6 stories above this one.

Saturday (tomorrow) CET is hosting a scavenger hunt for all of the students and their new roommates. Sort of like a get to know you activity around the city. I don’t feel like I’m going to be able to do too much or win any of the prizes they keep talking about, but it will be good to spend a day wandering around the city with a new friend.

Walking back to campus from a cab ride into our district one night I took this picture. I quite like it.

Today I was looking into options on how to get around the Chinese censors so that I could start a blog on another site, but realistically I just feel like I’d be going to too much trouble just for a prettier layout and better formatting. As it is I’ll probably post my blog on a new Livejournal account, put in a few basic formatting things, pictures, and learn how to imbed videos from my camera. Other pictures and videos I’m thinking I’ll just add to my flicker account and distribute that way. It will work out, I’m sure.

More Pictures at: My Flickr Picture Account
and: A Facebook Album

Beijing is one of those places in which you would think you would find endless things to do to pass the time. But when you’re in a program like mine where everything is so hectic, you don’t have an insane amount of downtime, and what you do have you feel like you should be spending on work. Of course the city is so huge that it really will take a while to figure out where everything is in order to actually go out and see things properly.

I had thought that we would have every weekend to ourselves, but it seems that the program directors have organized a bunch of optional activities that students are invited to attend. One weekend we’ll be visiting a historical village (either a western, or coastal city—I’ll probably be going to the coastal one, Da Lian). Other weekends there are performances and art gallery trips. I’ll probably end up taking a few extracurricular classes, like Martial Arts (wushu 武术) and Calligraphy.

The subway system here is amazing and downright useful. I don’t quite have a good construct of the entire thing in my head, but just the line we have in our area seems like it could really make getting around so smooth and simple that you wouldn’t bother to walk anywhere. So far I’ve only been on it once, and we ended up getting off and taking a cab the rest of the way—but the experience was pretty interesting nonetheless.

I can walk to pretty much everything that I might need, grocery, department store, fast food (including a 4 story McDonalds and several KFC’s—the first fast food introduced in China), all sorts of local food types, including Uighur (the Muslim minority in China) which I am extremely excited about. I’m rather sure I’ve experienced most of the local types of food and can’t wait to move on to Chinese Thai, Uighur, Vietnamese etc, etc…

I suppose I'll recount the week from the beginning. The flight from Orlando to Los Angeles wasn’t bad, as usual. From LA to Shanghai was grueling to be quite frank. I might have fallen asleep for maybe 4 hours out of the entire 14, and after waking up found myself rather nauseous. This is most likely because I didn’t sleep more than 3 hours the Sunday night before I started traveling and I continued to take an antibiotic that I knew could make me ill. I fully admit that was my fault but was extremely put out that I had done it to myself. Luckily my seatmate on the flight was actually a Fulbright Scholar to the United States from China and is pursuing her Ph D at the University of Arizona in Tucson (she plans to teach Chinese in the US), we talked a lot and I found out that she is visiting friends and family in Shanghai for a month and was really interested in what I was doing with my studies at New College and with CET. She made the flight bearable and we exchanged emails. We’ve actually sent a few messages back and forth of the past week and hopefully we’ll keep it up.


The Flight Crew Checked our temperatures and then these people came on the plane to do it again!

Needless to say my nausea didn’t subside when I switched planes, but at least the second flight from Shanghai to Beijing was only 2 hours long. However, since my flight from LA had been late into Shanghai, China Eastern Air had to delay the flight to Beijing—after which air traffic control had us sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off. I got into Beijing around 1:30AM Wednesday morning rather than the 12:55PM Tuesday night I had been counting on. Getting into Beijing, the largest airport in the world, was interesting. I would find out later that the domestic terminal is not nearly as nice as the new international one built for the Olympics, but it was still pretty simple to find my way to a hotel. It was checking into the hotel that took some doing—you see I apparently chose the only hotel in the area that didn’t have an English speaking worker on the overnight shift. With the help of a really, really nice young woman I was able to stutter and stumble my way into a room with two twin bed and a bathroom with a shower.

The shower was right in the middle of the bathroom and there was a drain in the floor, pretty neat space saver.

I really wish I had remembered to take a picture of the beds though…they were actually two box springs stacked on top of one another. I was extremely glad I didn’t try to flop down on one. As it was I just pulled the comforters off of both beds (down comforters in duvets) and layered them as much as possible to lay on while I used my own blanket (thank you mom for helping me pack!) and added my pillow to theirs. I ended up not sleeping much there either, a combination of the jet lag and the nausea, I’m sure. I tried taking melatonin, and then some Nyquil, but it only served to make me worse. While I didn’t have internet in my room, one of the bell boys (who was very, very excited to help me) let me into another room that did so that I could shoot off a quick message to mom letting her know that I was alive and well in Beijing. I slept for a few hours around 10:30AM-12:30PM. Checked out, caught the shuttle back to the airport and entered the most amazing airport terminal I have ever had the privilege of waiting in. This is one of the most unbelievably constructed buildings I have seen in a very long time. I was heartily impressed. And promptly plopped myself down at a Starbucks with my 3 kuai (less than $.50) bottle of water and played Spider Solitaire until the group flights started coming in.

As an aside, I have absolutely learned my lesson with flying long distances: take the most direct flight available, cheaper is not always better! Seeing the Shanghai airport was not that much fun and there really was not that great of a view at midnight. Maybe if I had spent a few days in Shanghai before I came to Beijing, which apparently a lot of student here did, it would have been alright, but realistically if I’m just trying to get somewhere, I’m looking for fewer layovers and direct flights from now on. Adventures can happen in airports, but not by yourself after 24 hours + of no sleep.


Pretty Nice considering most US dorms are terrible. It faces a courtyard so there is very little noise, though I'm smack dab in the middle of the hallyway and across from the bathrooms--that's why they made earplugs though!

Meeting everyone in the program has been interesting, the majority of them are rising sophomores and juniors with only a few of us in our fourth or fifth years. They are all obviously driven and adventurous, and you can tell most of them attend good schools with high tuition rates. I’ve had a lot of fun meeting everyone and learning people’s names (only to have to start all over when we began the language pledge this morning). We all spent most of last week wandering around, following our Resident Directors through the neighborhood around here and touring other parts of the city on planned excursions. Thursday we had the worst day of smog people had seen in a very long time, I really wish I had take a mask out with me while we walked around, it was almost like it was just a misty, pretty day—but the burning, gross smell gave it away. Friday we saw the first blue skies since I’ve arrived here. We went to Jingshan Park on Saturday which is in the center of the city directly in front of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. There is a hill at the center of the park that when you climb to the top of it you can see the entire city. It was absolutely beautiful. At 7AM, while we were there, the elderly people in congregate to exercise, write calligraphy and sing. It was such an interesting gathering, since you never see something like that in the United States


This is me on the hill overlooking the Forbidden City!

More Pictures at: My Flicker Picture Account
and: A Facebook Album