The rest of the story…

I want to share what the final days in Beijing were like, as well as my travels. To make things a little easier, I’ve labeled each section, so skim and choose to what interests you most.

Summer Palace

I had a great time at Summer Palace. Most of the people in my group had already gone by the time I wanted to go, so I was really anxious to see it for myself.

The weather was beautiful – a slight drizzle and not cold.

(As a side note, I learned how to ask people if they can take my picture in Chinese. My posts will have a lot more pictures of me in them from here on out 🙂 )

A habit I wish I picked up earlier was getting pictures with all of the people who wanted a picture with the 老外 (foreigner), but I do have some nice shots from the Summer Palace.

    

Afterward I was going to visit the Old Summer Palace, but I got distracted by the discovery of a Starbucks (aptly named “Xing Ba Ke”)…

Final Days in Beijing

I didn’t realize how much I would miss Beijing until I was about to leave. Sure, studying for finals was brutal and I was excited to see more of China, but I really grew to love 北京. As part of our graduation ceremony, each class had to put on a performance. We (the extreme beginners’ class) read a kid’s book out loud and acted it out. I was the narrator and got complimented on my pronunciation…wow! (The story was about a giant turnip. I do still remember some of it.) We also sang with B ban (the less beginning beginners’ class) the popular song “Zai Jian” (Goodbye). It’s the equivalent of playing Green Day’s “Good Riddance” – the lyrics are actually pretty sad. We said goodbye to our teachers (though we were going to see them one more time) and talked about our class. I cried… 😥

After our performance (and 干杯-ing later), we were up bright and early to officially graduate. That’s right, I’m officially done with college!

That night, we all got together in the BNU courtyard to have our official goodbyes. We re-sang Zai Jian and shared our favorite moments from the program. It was really, really, REALLY difficult to separate from everyone.

Anyway, Alli put together this video for our program – you can hear a bit of our singing and see some of our adventures at BNU –

**Remember this song! It will be important in a later entry!**

Huhehaote (Hohhot/Inner Mongolia)

First stop after Beijing was Inner Mongolia. Our program was going to take a trip there during the program, but it was cancelled due to civil unrest. Of course, being a Berkeley grad, knowing that I was relatively close to what could be a revolution was too exciting to pass up. I’d also heard that Inner Mongolia feels different from anywhere else in China, and that it was worth a visit. The train ride to 呼和浩特 was pretty relaxing and not too bad. When I got there, I was excited to see what the city was like.

Long story short, I didn’t see a revolution. But I did see…

The Inner Mongolia Museum!

      

This museum was wonderful. It filled me in on a lot of the history of Inner Mongolia and had some really beautiful displays. As I inducted later, it was also the most Westernized area in Hohhot.

The Grasslands!

At my hostel, I met a couple from Santa Barbara (small world, huh?). They were planning on going to Xilamuren (the grasslands), and I asked if I could join them so we could all get a discount. They were also really warm people and in a land of strangers, and I’m definitely glad I reached out.

Despite the scams of Chinese tours (the itinerary changes on a moment’s notice and prices are often hiked up from the original offer), the grasslands were pretty cool. Along with Bradd and Shirley, Shirley’s cousin Yue Yue came with. On the bus, we met Atsuro from Japan. We rode horses, drank 马奶茶 (horse milk tea), saw the sunset and moonrise, played mahjong and slept in a yurt. Here’s the pictures…

                 

It’s official…

Here are my finalized travel destinations:

-Train on Aug. 13: Beijing to Hohhot
-Train on Aug. 17: Hohhot to Shanghai (23 hour train ride in a hard seat – yikes!)
-Flight on Aug. 21: Shanghai to Dalian
-Flight on Aug. 23: Dalian to Qingdao
-Flight on Aug. 25: Qingdao to Los Angeles

Not sure how accessible I’ll be for those two weeks, but I am excited now that the itinerary is almost complete.

Here’s a sneak preview in chronological order:

And of my preferred/most cost effective mode of transportation:

Just since my parents can’t scold me on this side of the Pacific, here’s a sweet little description of how lovely my seating arrangements are (courtesy of china-mike.com):

HARD SEAT (硬座): Unless you’re (1) dirt poor, (2) going a very short distance, or (3) want to “keep it real” and experiencing life with the masses, I’d recommend avoiding Hard Seat class. As you can imagine in a country with a large, poor population, the cheapest classes are typically crowded and uncomfortable. With no assigned seating, you’ll start by being out-elbowed by hundreds of Chinese locals as everyone squeezes shoulder to shoulder on benches. On longer trips, the floor fills up with trash, watermelon rinds, cigarette butts, seeds, etc. Similarly, the toilets get gross quickly since there are a lot more people using them (Tip: you can also sneak over and use the cleaner soft sleeper toilets, which include western-style toilets).

Somewhat kidding – the train I’m taking is more modern than the photo and blurb imply. Five days to go!

Life in Beijing – Sprezzatura

I’ve devoted most of my entries to sightseeing in Beijing, but the defining moments of my experience here are just my daily activities. One of my favorite activities to do with UC friends was getting together to watch The Bachelorette. In one episode, a suitor used the term sprezzatura – an Italian term which he defined as finding romance in the ordinary and performing excellence with nonchalance. Though I’m here to study Chinese (Italian will come later), I’ve also found beauty and intrigue in the sprezzatura – appreciating the small things.

This is my class:

Top row: Pong, Tony, Kyle
Middle: Me, Melissa, Lu Laoshi (our speaking teacher)
Front: April, Yasmin, Xu Laoshi (our writing teacher), Alli, Annie

We also gave our teachers English names – Xu Laoshi is Emily and Lu Laoshi is Leonardo. (I approve of Emily as an English name, but I feel like Leo is a bit too esoteric.)

Classes here are so different than America. (Although I have a feeling that it’s a characteristic of study abroad classes rather than the norm at a Chinese university.) Beijing Normal University is a teacher’s college, so many of the teachers here are also students. (Xu Laoshi is only a year older than I am.) It’s also a graduation requirement to be proficient in English, so the students here are as eager to practice language with us as we are with them. Plus, the class material is more fun than America – we even had a lesson on how to order beer.

Though Lu Laoshi is a full-time teacher, he loves teaching Chinese and is willing to let the class go off on tangents if he feels it will help us learn. On day he read us a kid’s book, and another he taught us a famous Chinese poem. Our class on Friday was not as funny – we got into a big argument about gender equality because someone joked that women are supposed to be the housekeepers and bring sandwiches to their husbands. At least now I can say I believe in 平等 – equality. (I also know how to say that men are inferior to women 🙂 )

Then there’s my Chinese friends – Alexandra, who’s studying to be an engineer, and my  tutor Lena.

Alexandra is a sweetheart – she comes from a province of China that doesn’t eat pork, so we bonded right away. She and I are also a bit quirky when it comes to pop culture – we like movies like Inception and she teaches me youth slang. She’s only been studying English for 5 years, and she’s preparing for a big exam, so in exchange for helping me with Chinese I tutor her in English.

Lena is my favorite person that I’ve met in China. We practice Chinese a lot, but we usually discuss relationships and culture instead of what the book wants me to learn. We’ve also been out together a few times – to the movies, to get Mexican food and to go dancing in Sanlitun. I also got to meet her boyfriend and she’s helping me figure out my post-Beijing travel plans.

Here’s the churros I bought for her (she’d never tried them before):

And here’s Lena herself:

Here’s the tacos we split:

Seeing a movie in Beijing was really different. Lena got a discount so each ticket was only 20 kuai – $3 for 3D will never happen again. Outside we ran into a huangniu – literally yellow cow, which is their term for a scalper. Movie theaters sell popcorn here, but it’s not the salty, buttery kind we are used to – virtually all popcorn is kettle corn.

However, I had a great time seeing Transformers 3! Besides the fact that it is a Fine Hasbro Product, the visual effects were very well done. I could read about 60% of the subtitles, and understand about 35% of them. (Action movies say easy phrases, like “let’s go!” and “no!”)

Then there’s just fun times hanging out with my friends here, or relearning how to do chores and tasks in a new language.

Who knew ordering food could make someone feel so accomplished? This is where I get chicken sandwiches:

Here’s some of the street food I like:

On Friday I bought a train ticket all in Chinese, and I can now have basic conversation with people here. I feel like I’m not going to get enough out of it yet because my limited vocabulary dictates what we talk about, but I am excited to reach the point where I can learn more from the people around me.

We also went out to see Harry Potter at midnight and Xu Laoshi came with us! So much fun.

Going out to movies is fun, but I lucked out and found Hercules in Mandarin on the Chinese version of Youtube. It’s so great to watch (over and over and over), and I am learning a little from it. That counts as studying, right?

On Friday people from our program went to Friends Cafe, modeled after Central Perk in Friends. The decor is identical to the show…

At first we didn’t all fit into the main area, so they took us to another area called Joey’s Room:

So cool. The cafe plays episodes of the show on a tv (it was hard for us to leave), and allegedly the owner comes in sometimes dressed as Gunther. We had a great time taking pictures and hanging out. (I enjoyed my kiwi milkshake, but apparently the coffee was sub-par.)

 Speaking of friends, I had a mini reunion with Cece! She moved to Hangzhou after graduating Cal, but was in Beijing for the weekend for a work conference. I was so happy to see her again! Turns out, she knows one of the people in the advanced UC program, so we went out to get her some American food.

We also visited this really swanky club called Xiu – our mutual friend knows a lot of the classy places to go in Beijing. (It’s hard to tell from her shirt but we were unintentionally matching.) It was also so cool to hear her speak Chinese and be able to understand some of it.

Assuming I can get one more train ticket tomorrow, my post-program travels consist of visiting Huhehaote (Inner Mongolia), Shanghai (not pronounced SHANGhigh), Dalian (nicknamed the City of Romance, Oakland’s sister city and a hub of Russian and Japanese culture) and Qingdao (I cannot wait to visit all 6 of their beaches). I’m a little nervous to travel alone, but I know I’ll learn the most and have the most memorable experience that way. Counting down the days until travel and home!

The Great Wall of China

Last weekend our program had a field trip to Jixian, a county outside of Beijing. This post covers three days of adventures:

7/22 – Panshan Mountain
7/23 – Qing Tombs
7/24 – Great Wall*

Panshan Mountain
First day of our trip we went to Panshan Mountain. It’s known for being shaped like a dragon and having temples and other structures on it that are almost a thousand years old.

We had an hour and a half hike and then we could decide if we wanted to go up to the top. This part of the trip was filled with different sights, like Fascinating (written by Ronglu, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty):

And this monument, which was a thousand years old…

Plus my favorite – waterfalls!

  

The climb to the first stop was intense enough for me, so I decided to take the cable car the rest of the way up. Our tour guides told us that the hike up could take up to three hours, so I decided not to chance it. However, some people said that they hiked up in about an hour!

  

As a side note, our tour guides were really bad. Outside of metropolitan areas, it’s very hard to find people that speak English well. They didn’t understand questions like “how long does it take to get there?” but could still spout tons of information about the places we visited. My theory was that they memorized the facts in English.

After Panshan, we headed to a 饺子 (dumpling) restaurant. Dinner was really good – my favorite types were mu’er jidan (tree fungus and egg) and yangrou (lamb).

Our hotel for this night was supposedly very good, but when we arrived most of us thought it was really creepy! We spent the night playing Sardines (reverse hide and seek) and Mafia, and telling ghost stories.

Qing Tombs
For day two, our group went to a temple which held the temporary residence of Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century. Sadly, nothing too memorable from this one. It was still nice to see…

 

My new friends: (I named those two TV Bob and K Bells.)

 

Then, we stopped at the Qing Tombs, the resting place of many of the people (emperors, empresses, even important concubines) of the Qing Dynasty. As a quick history lesson, the Qing Dynasty lasted from 1644 until 1911 and. It was the last imperial dynasty and was responsible for many of the setbacks that China still feels the legacy of – seclusion and then subservience to the Western world, social strife, and the popularization of strict policies like foot binding.

The entrance to the tombs had statues of different animals guarding a long stone path in the middle. We quickly learned that it was not allowed to step on the path – it was a guide for the dead to go to heaven.

Another side note – I really like the people in my group, but some of them have the tendency to be immature. At this site, some people were climbing on the animal sculptures to take pictures, or posing inside the tombs. I won’t get graphic and post links to what it reminds me of, but I can’t help but think of how inappropriate the pictures from Abu Ghraib are and how disrespectful it is to use places of historical significance to take “funny” pictures.

The site also had a bunch of really odd tourist goods for sale, like chipmunks and puppies. You could also pay to take your picture next to peacocks, camels or horses.

  
We visited the tomb of Emperor Qianlong (whose rule was the peak of prosperity in this dynasty). Even after death, his rule held significance – he was buried with treasures and the tomb was bombed and ransacked in the mid-1920s. Though the bandit was apprehended, most of the treasures have never been found.

  

The walls inside his tomb were beautiful, and covered in Tibetan. Rarely do you see that in the mainland!

We also saw Cixi’s tomb. She was an empress dowager near the decline of the Qing, and defacto ruler for nearly 50 years. Originally a concubine, her role in imperial history is disputed – some believe she was responsible for the collapse of the Dynasty and a despot, while others think she was a more virtuous ruler.

The picture above is from a diorama on Cixi. The secret to keeping her young was relying on the milk produced by 28 imperial wet nurses, which she drank and bathed in.

My favorite part of the tombs is that they were underground, which meant we finally got a quick break from the intense heat and humidity!

 

We headed up to the Huangyaguan section of the Great Wall after the tombs, and stayed in a hotel next to the entrance of the wall. The hotel was the most memorable part of the trip, but because it was AWFUL.

There were thousands of insects. We found three centipedes, some unidentified black bug and about a dozen mosquitos just in our room, and spent hours killing and catching bugs in another. Three of our friends also had the misfortune of being in the “unlucky room” – we smashed around 50 mosquitos (the rest were on the ceiling and unreachable) and caught three large grasshopper-like bugs. For the first few hours in the hotel, all we heard were girls screaming about bugs. (We were in a girl’s only building, and yes…I was included in the screaming.) In the hallways we encountered wasps that were several inches long and other creepy crawlies. But the scariest part were the window screens – they were covered in bugs trying to get into our building. Courtesy of Melissa, here are some pictures:

    
I understand that we were far away from the city, but I was not okay with all of these uninvited friends! Even worse, our hotel just gave us washcloths (no towels) for showering and planks covered in fabric as beds. I have never slept so badly in my life, but luckily I managed to escape without a single bug bite.

The Great Wall

Despite the setbacks to our “hotel,” I really enjoyed the Huangyaguan Pass of the Great Wall. The hike was grueling, but so enjoyable. (I only hiked one direction, and took a bus back like the majority of people in our group.) I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

        My one complaint (besides lodging) was that the weather was pretty bad. The temperature was perfect for hiking, but there was so much mist/fog/smog that we could barely see how high up we were or the sights from the Wall.

     
After the Wall itself, there were several temples to explore and some gift shops. For $7 USD, I got three “I Climbed the Great Wall” shirts and some postcards.

Though some parts of the weekend were not fun, overall it was a wonderful excursion.

In other news – I got a 98 on my last speaking test! Oh, and apparently there is a baby cockroach in our room but it doesn’t bother me. (I haven’t seen it yet, which could have something to do with my nonchalance.) I’m a little thankful we stayed in that (literal) roach motel – I’m glad to be desensitized to something that would bug me otherwise.

*Thanks Nate for catching my original typo!

Fragrant Hill and Azure Cloud Temple

I’m a little behind on blogging, but here’s my trip to Xiangshan.

Last Sunday I decided to adventure alone and headed to Xiangshan, home of Fragrant Hill and the Azure Cloud Temple. The ride there was exhausting (two hours and twenty six stops on crowded public bus), but it was an amazing spot away from the busy center of Beijing.

The site is covered with about a dozen temples and lots of greenery. First stop was the Azure Cloud Temple:

Better known as the resting place of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, this temple is one of the nicest I have been to thus far.

Dashanzi Art District

As much as I enjoy the historical spots in Beijing, I had an amazing time yesterday exploring the 798 Yìshùqū, or the 798 Art Zone.

 

Coming home

I am coming home August 25th. I know there’s time left but I want to make the most of it.

The Houhai and the Beijing Duck

This weekend has been the best thus far.

 

4th of July and Cooking

For the 4th of July, many of us were feeling a little homesick. We went back to Silk Street for some good, old-fashioned American consumerism.

Happy Anniversary

Instead of celebrating the 4th of July in China, we commemorate the 1st. Friday was the 90th Anniversary of the Communist Party. However, the big National Day is in October, so nothing special happened.

However, our group decided to go to Tiananmen Square at sunrise. Each morning, they raise the Chinese flag in a ceremony at sunrise. On a different day we’re going back to see the MAOsoleum, where you can actually see Mao Zedong’s body.

If you have about 8 minutes to spare, I think this clip from CNN’s 20th Anniversary special does a superb job of covering not only the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989 but what it was like to be an American journalist in Beijing at the time.

There were so many people! We arrived around 4:30am and there were about a thousand people piled into the Square, with more arriving by the minute. Almost all of them were Chinese, which also surprised me. I thought it would be more of a tourist attraction considering the anniversary, but nothing seemed that different at the Square. Well, except for this:

I really liked the sculpture…

 It was really hard to see the flag rise because there were so many people, but between the footage a few of us nabbed we can all remember it. (Video to come, hopefully.)

Also, there’s a thing here – if you’re white, blond and in Asia, people will want to take a picture with you. I got tackled by about five high school girls in Tiananmen Square.

Breakfast was at the Wangfujing KFC (a sad reminder that I don’t stay there anymore) and dinner was at Pizza Hut. We all needed some non-Chinese food. It was the fanciest restaurant we’ve been to – they even had escargot on the menu! Pizza dough has the perfect consistency in China.

It’s a little early for it back home, but Happy 4th of July. America is just an expensive import here.