A Spring Afternoon in Bei Hai

Bei Hai's central point the white dagoba.

A small corner of the park where we happened upon a group of old people singing, very beautiful.

A doorway in one of the temples, thought it was very pretty.

My adventures in China continue. Just today I was discussing with friends how it seems as though we have been here much longer than five weeks. I think this is a direct result of learning so much in such a small amount of time. My brain is bursting with information, desperately trying to register all of it. Maybe I can attribute the excessive amount of dreams I have been having to this.

This afternoon An Jie and I decided that we needed to get out of our little neighborhood. We ended up in Bei Hai Park. We had a really great time and had lots of chances to practice our Chinese. Having An Jie to share things with is definitely nice, she and I have just clicked since day one. Tonight we had fun experimenting with new grammar patterns at a local restaurant. Some of our efforts were met with great success, others with confused stares. That's a pretty good metaphor for life here. I know how Americans and Chinese both love metaphors.

Hello Sunshine

Sunny street scene from earlier this morning, always lots of racket on Sundays.

If you look closesly you can see that this little girl is drawing a picture of the statue of liberty, quite adorable.

Modern art, eww.

Li Na with George Washington, I am sad to report that I think more Chinese school children know who he is than US school children. He was pretty popular at the museum.

My first Georgia O'Keefe, up close and personal!

If anyone missed it Spring officially began earlier this week. Much to my delight the wheather here has been wonderful. For the first time since I arrival I have been able to leave the dorm without my cumbersome coat. Saturday was also the first real sunny day with no haze over the city. Believe me Coloradan that I am, that alone could have made this my best weekend in Beijing yet. However there were several other contributing factors to this epic weekend.

On Friday night, my study abroad program took us out to see a Chinese acrobatic show. Yes, there was an overpriced gift shop and snack bar in the back of the theater, but I have to admit that the show was very impressive. The acrobats were all very young, a fact that did not seem to pass any of the Chinese roomates who expressed curiosity about what kind of parents would send young children off to Beijing to preform in an acrobatic troupe. It was entertaining regardless, and for dinner I bought a jian bing from a street vendor, it's definitely my favorite street food here and it kind of resembles a veggie omlette and spicy pancake rolled into one.

Saturday was also a blast. Li Na and I went to the National Art Musuem of China to see an exhibition of American art. I am aware of how ethnocentric this sounds, but Li Na wanted to get my take on the art. I was actually quite impressed at the pieces in the exhibit. They were well captioned and were a fairly decent representation of our nation's innovative art history. I also got to see my very first Georgia O'Keefe painting up close and personal, very exciting.

On the upper floors of the museum I also got to see more traditional Chinese art. The thing I find most fascinating about their traditional style of painting is that it is all done with water color. I think it really requires great skill to use the properties of water color to your advantage. We also stopped by a few calligraphy exhibits which of course blow my mind. Anybody who has attempted to weild a calligraphy brush should understand why a seven foot character is such an achievement. The museum was one of the coolest places I have been to yet, I will definitely be going back soon.

Today is Sunday, I better get around to handwashing my socks. Just another part of a great weekend.

Finding El Fogoncito

Night view from a pedestrian bridge we often use.

I would of course be making a gross generalization if I said that Mexicans love Chinese food, but my statement wouldn't be completely without merit. Anyone who knows a guy named Manuel who's life dream is to open a restaurant called Hunan Dragon can back me up here. So then I guess I shouldn't find it odd that one of the latest food rages here in Beijing is Mexican food, much to my delight. Last night my classmate Jordan and I went out look for one of Beijing's best Mexican restaurants.

Armed with only an address and a vague idea of what subway stop to get off at we set off on our adventure. After two hours of wandering around Chaoyang and then into the central business district we called it a night and returned to our neighborhood to one of the better small restaurants near the Xi Zhi Men subway station, settling for more local fare. It was one of the best dinners I have had in a long time, both food and conversation wise.

To top all of this off, on our way home we zig zagged through the square two blocks from school. This particular evening there were rollerbladers abound in the square. We had a great time watching them at their antics, some of these people could probably be professionals. The footwork was amazing. Also impressive were the elderly Chinese holding a small ballroom dancing event in another corner of the square. I tell you, when I get old I want to be like the elderly Chinese, they are my new heroes.

Most importantly it was just a good night, and slowly but surely life here is starting to make more sense. I am happy to be right where I am.

Gloomy Sunday

Today I got up early to attend Catholic mass in English. A ten minute walk and half hour subway ride later, An Jie and I arrived at Nantang, the Southern Cathedral. Originally constructed in the 16th century, the cathedral has been rebuilt several times. The interior decor is eclectic to say the least. But my favorite part of the entire experience was the communion line, or lack thereof. Basically, as soon as the communion ministers leave the alter everybody rushes to the front of the church, very Chinese.

It was a good week. However, I've finally come to the conclusion that the teachers here flat out refuse to give perfect scores. Oh geeze, I love Chinese concept of education. Actually, I enjoy my teachers a lot, they make me laugh. I also understand that they put a lot of time and effort into their lesson plans and truly want to help us learn as much of the language as humanly possible in the given time frame. I have to appreciate that, even if it gives me heart palpitations when I think about it for too long.

The weather here has been very nice. I haven't had to wear long underwear to class all week. That said, today is gloomy and cold, perfect for staying in and doing homework. And as luck would have it I have more than enough of that to go around. Best get to it.

A Good Monday

Truly excellent Mondays happen so rarely, but I am proud to say I had one of those just yesterday. So An Jie and I went to a park about fifteen minutes from school. The wheather was the nicest since we've arrived.

I really enjoyed the park. We people watched, and just enjoyed the landscapes in general. We also enjoyed talking with some children and eavesdropping on old people. It was a great afternoon...

A Fantastic Weekend

Apparently if Chinese parents want to scare their children they can just take them to a Taoist temple.

Let me just say that this week was a little touch and go. I had been feeling a bit blue, but Friday turned it all around when my classmate Wang Hui and I decided to go to this really funky Taoist temple in the middle of the financial district. There were all sorts of fun statues and interestingly translated english captions to read. The picture above is from the department of torture, very exciting. Wang Hui has already been here for one semester so her spoken Chinese is good and she knows her way around Beijing.

After bumming around the temple for a few hours we decided to go get some pizza. Now for anyone who has ever tasted the Chinese take on pizza, it is something like ketchup on a pita. But the place we went to in HouHai (a very beautiful yet touristy district) was amazing. It was some of the best pizza I have had in or outside the states. I kind of just needed a little taste of western food, and it was nice to have Wang Hui to hang out with. She invited one of her Chinese friends and we had a really good time. My Chinese is definitely getting better.

Saturay was also pretty cool. I went with some girls from my hall to one of the art districts. It was fun and kischty, but mostly fun. Later that night we all had a field trip to the Sanwei tea house to hear some Chinese classical music. This by far tops my weekend experience, it was really amazing. The tea was good and the music was superb, and it gave me a chance to simply enjoy my experience quietly, something that just seems rare here. Besides, there was no gift shop or awful costuming involved.

So now it is Sunday around noonish and after this I will get started on my homework. I have a four hundred character essay to write, exciting.

Two Weeks!

On the bus to the wholesale market.

One of my favorite classmates, Wang Hui.

I forced Gai Ming to take this picture after he bought a necktie for 10 kuai.

My proud purchase, a shower tote, scintillating.

Du Teng Fei in his smashing fedora.

Hard to believe it has already been three weeks. It seems like a lot less, and I am sure time will only continue to fly by more quickly. Today as a two week anniversary present to myself I took a leap and bought a Chinese cell phone. I am truly on my way to becoming a Beijinger! You would have to see how much these people use their cell phones to truly appreciate that statement. If you thought Americans were obsessed with blue tooth and text messages...

Above are a few pictures of my classmates and I out on a field trip to the wholesale clothing market, super exciting! We had to go out and see what we could buy for 10 kuai! Madness, a trip to McDonalds and fun with our teachers ensued. Enjoy.

Daily Essentials in the Northern Capital

Ni men hao. It is Tuesday here in the northern capital, very exciting. Today my posting will be brief. I have laundry, studying and general mischeif to get about to. I will probably get around to writing more later in the week. But the honeymoon is officially over, things are starting to become a little more normal and there are innumerable Chinese characters to memorize.

Today I wanted to share with everyone my Beijing Essentials, some are present in the photo above. Let's start with the head phones. Now, I love my roomate but she is obsessed with watching Friends. Anyone who has known me for a while is most likely aware that Friends may be my least favorite television show of all time, right next to Dawson's Creek. She watches Friends everyday, and though she tries to keep the volume on her lap top down, sometimes irking little bits of base humor manage to slip from her headphones into my ear. I politely combat this with my i-pod and head phones.

Essential item number two is the fine point marker. It is for labeling everything I can find in an effort to teach myself better Chinese. Even my camera has a little piece of label tape on the bottom with the correct chinese characters. So far I'm not sure how well it's working. However, the marker is also useful for writing down directions, names of landmarks around the city and putting my name on documents and personal effects. Hen you yong.

Essential number three is toilet paper, pretty self-explanatory. Forgetting it and not realizing until after you've finished your business is a real pain in the... well you know. Moving on, number five is the brown envelope containing my monthly meal stipend. Each month CET gives each student about $130 for dinner, breakfast and weekend meals which are not provided. Believe it or not, you can stretch that much money really far here. Daily breakfast for me is about 50 US cents.

The sixth essential item is my key chain complete with red knot for good luck, and a key to my room and desk drawer. My roomate was sweet enough to give me the knot the first night we met. I take the darn things everywhere, they have become something of a security blanket. And of course my last pictured Beijing essential is my bright red student ID card. This gets me discounts at the bus station and into the gate should I happen to return to school after curfew (midnight).

A Brief List of Other Items I Couldn't Live Without:
1. LONG UNDERWEAR
2. Medicated chapstick
3. Hand sanitizer
4. Giant print map of Beijing
5. Earplugs

Springtime at the Summer Palace

The large Buddhist temple at the center of the palace.

One of the many mythical guardians keeping watch.

My adorable roommate, Fu Li Na.

Me outside a rock garden.

Suzhou Street, a small town like place connected entirely by canals which are apparently

only fully operational during summer months.

Today we woke up to rain in Beijing. According to my roommate this is very rare during February and March. But as I am writing this at 5pm the rain persists and making everything damp, cold and just generally terrible. Now, I have nothing against rain. In fact, as a native Coloradan I usually seem to find it novel and exciting. However, today was our scheduled field trip to the Summer Palace, which presented some problems.

When we arrived at the Summer Palace around 10am it looked like the rain was going to let up. So we bought cheap little rain ponchos and preceded to explore the enormous compound. For those of you unfamiliar with the Summer Palace, it is an enormous compound of temples, gardens and royal residences. It sits outside Beijing on Kunming lake, and it is probably one of the most beautiful and generally impressive residences I have ever seen. It was most notably headquarters for the Empress Dowager Cixi during the late Qing dynasty, during the summer months.

At first I did not realize how large the compound was. I thought it would take no more than an hour to see everything. Yeah, I was definitely wrong. We walked around from 10am to 2pm and only saw about half of the compound. It was really amazing and the decent English captions made it pretty darn interesting. Fu Li Na also did a good job of explaining things to me. You have all most likely at some point seen pictures of the Summer Palace if you have ever picked up a travel guide or picture book about China, and now I understand why. The grandeur and scale of the place makes imagining people actually living in such incredible luxury difficult. It is also daunting when you consider the time period in which it was built. A good deal of it was actually closed for renovation, but I did get to see some rather interesting things. I saw the first automobile that was brought to China as a gift to the Empress Dowager. Sadly, tourists are not allowed to take photos of many of the most interesting artifacts.

The down side to all of this is that throughout the entire trip the rain did not let up for one second. While we were walking around and viewing things it was not much of a problem but when we got back into the tour bus all of us realized how incredibly soaked we were. It was a cold ride home. As soon as we got back to the dorm all the Chinese roommates raced to get into the shower. Apparently the common idea is that if you are cold and damp the best way to warm up is to take a shower. I don't know why but this first struck me as strange, but the more I think about it the more it actually makes sense.

Today my roommate taught me how to say, 'I wet my pants.' How's that for useful Chinese?

A Bristling Experience at the Silk Market...

Hai Ling (Halley) and me at the subway station.

An Jie (Angela) and me ... I know I look about 30 pounds heavier in this picture.

Me and the guy who sold me an overpriced silk bathrobe.

As our CET program director so wisely told us on the first day of orientation, 'Some days you will have completely positive cultural exchanges with the people around you, on those days you want to stay in China forever. Other days everything will go wrong, you will fail to communicate and want to leave the next day.' While today wasn't exactly the latter I did have my first really non-pleasant exchange.

After my test went really well this morning, I decided that it would be a great idea to go explore the silk market with some friends. I know it is a tourist trap and full of people trying to charge you about three times what anything is really worth. Nonetheless, I thought it would be interesting and excessive kitsch is always fun to look at. Besides I had not yet made it out to that side of town. So An Jie, Hai Ling and I all set out for foreign embassy district.

Getting there was fine. The subway system is very navigable, but once we got out to that end of town we were all a little disappointed. There were lots of foreigners and expensive western restaurants, not exactly the adventure we had imagined. But we did make it to the pearl market, where we found TONS of knock off hand bags, designer jeans, shoes...you name it. Due to our apparently adorable Chinese speaking skills most merchants were pretty willing to make a deal with us. Each of us bought one item, and we were getting ready to leave when a pair of Vans slip ons caught my eye.

For those of you who don't know my lovely younger sister is a Vans slip on fanatic. The pair I saw were so cute, and were even in Joie's size. I was very excited. First of all the stall merchant wanted to charge us 280 yuan for the shoes . Way too much, for shoes that I know aren't the real deal. I figured I could work around it, so I had Hai Ling try them on since she is about Joie's size in shoe.

Now I wouldn't consider myself bad at bartering but I think Hai Ling is definitely an expert. So I let her do most of the talking. We had nearly reached an agreement, when the merchant just started sort of chatting up Hai Ling. I kind of phased out and was looking at other shoes when I heard her say very plainly in Chinese, that Hai Ling was much smarter than me, in fact she said it twice. I know she thought I couldn't understand. Most days something like this probably just would have made me laugh, but it ticked me off that she would say right in front of me. I promptly turned around and told her in Chinese that I was probably not even smart enough to take her good offer on the shoes (the offer wasn't really that good).

She just sort of looked at me stunned. As we pushed our way out she tried to apologize but I just brushed past. I don't feel that was a cultural misunderstanding. I feel it was a really presumptuous and stupid thing for her to do. I wasn't about to buy shoes from someone who just insulted my intelligence. Besides I know there are plenty of other places to buy knock off Vans for my little sister, and I want to make sure they are the ones she wants ;) Hai Ling and An Jie agreed that I did the right thing, which made me feel a little less irrational.

Other than that our trip was pretty fun. It was great pretending that we didn't speak any English, it made the market a little more navigable. There was tons of 'lady, lady come lookie' and 'i make cheaper for you because you beautiful.' But I just had to buy something from the merchant pictured above. He was too cute. When he figured out that we would only speak Chinese, he really started speaking with us. He asked how long we had been in Beijing, where we were from etc... I know he overcharged me about twenty kuai for the bathrobe I bought from him but I have two feelings about this. One is that these people are just trying to make a somewhat honest living, and I can't fault them for overcharging well off foreigners. The other is that twenty kuai to me is less than $3, but here it can go a long way, and while I don't want to get ripped off, sometimes overpaying just a tad is probably not such an awful thing.

I feel like my spoken Chinese really is getting better everyday. My exchanges with my roommate have gotten much deeper, and though my pronunciation is still a little shaky I feel like I have a good idea of how to express what I need. Of course, all in good time, I know I can't learn it overnight. So even though I had one not so great encounter today, I also had some very positive ones with my teachers, my roommate and my friends. And hey at least my listening comprehension is good enough that I can realize I'm being talked about! ;)