Interesting Article

Found this on NY Times while procrastinating writing my paper and thought is was extremely relevant given I can barely see the buildings out my window through the smog. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/world/asia/29china.html?ref=global-home

T-10 Days

I am finally back on the radar! Sorry for how long its been, but nothing truly too exciting has been going down. We have reached the "study" part of study abroad. The last couple days have consisted of class then barricading myself into my dorm room to work on my independent research project (due in 8 days). Its also nice to escape the heat, its been 90 - 100 degrees here everyday and since there has been little rain the air pollution is out of control. 

Despite the weather and the work load I have managed to squeeze in a few fun activities. 

I went to the infamous Silk Market which is basically a HUGE indoor mall with stall after stall of jewelry, silk, clothes, fake watches, purses, anything you can imagine. It is completely aimed for foreigners and they are known for giving the most RIDICULOUS prices ever. I went with some friends and we had the best time bargaining with them. We had an advantage speaking Chinese and some of the sellers yelled at us for bargaining too well. It was quite the experience, though I feel bad for the clueless tourists that end up paying over 100rmb for anything. 

I got to check out Beijing's Art District on a lazy Sunday afternoon! It was really cool, all the galleries are free and open to the public and they had an interesting mix of traditional and modern art. AND best of all they had all these cafes with rooftop seating! AND they had coffee, real coffee! It was fabulous :D

Our group got to go see a Chinese Acrobat show, which was amazing of course. I feel like they don't have the same safety standards as in the States. At one point they had stacked 3 huge men on top of each other and were tossing TINY 6 year old girls at them to stack on top/catch and toss back. It was amazing what they could do but slightly terrifying. I heard the act was pretty similar to what they do in Cirque Du Soleio.

I also got to go to a hot spring outside of Beijing with some Chinese friends I met. It was basically a giant indoor water park, but without a lot of slides. They had a huge standard cold pool with swimming lanes and 3 smaller slides. Then they had the hot spring pool, which was actually really cool. They had little geysers and shower head things to spray the spring water on you. It was definitely an interesting experience. I was the only white person there beside my friend AND the best part was we had to wear swimming caps the whole time.

I checked out the Summer Palace as well, which is about 30 minutes walking from my house. It was used by the last dynasty for relaxing and such. I made the mistake of going on a Saturday and there were SO MANY PEOPLE. In fact the Chinese have a saying which describes this perfectly: 人山人海 (rénshānrénhǎi) which in literal translation means people mountain people sea. The sights were super pretty, they have a huge manmade lake which we took a boat ride across and lots of old trees. But way too many people, think the most crowded day at Colonial Williamsburg times 70.

So yeah besides those outings its been all work, speaking of which its about time for me to lock myself into the good old dorm room and work on some research paper!

Engrish Spottings

I think its time to post my top 3 favorite examples of ENGRISH! Engrish is defined as the use of 

English that is either spelled wrong or uses incorrect grammar. I am pretty sure it is the result of sticking the Chinese message into an online translator to convert it into English. Which never really works out. I have tried it the other way and those translators really need to be improved. 

NOTE: I feel that it is okay for me to poke fun at these signs because I know for a fact I have written sentences/said things that are just as ridiculous.

Example #1: In my dorm room there are instructions for what to do in case of a fire:

 "The elevator was banned to use, when the fire happens" this hint is located under the "Evacuation picture of fire fighting"

Example #2: Our building passed out a flyer to warn us that the water would be shut off one day and it reminded us to "Please make prepare and arrange for the water using time"

Example #3: In the airport bathroom in Chengdu there was a sign on the Western toilet, which is usually reserved for handicapped that read "Deformed Man End Place"

There have been many MANY more examples, but none quite as good as the above listed. Time for me to go do some homework and write some of my own Chingrish - it really doesn't sound as well the other way.

Shanghai Pictures

Picture #1 View of Shanghai at night from our river boat cruise.

Picture #2 View of Shanghai from the top of the Shanghai World Financial Center - 492 Meters in the air!!!

Picture #3 The United States pavilion at Shanghai's World Expo.

Huangshan Pictures

Pictures of our rainy adventure on Huangshan!

Study Tour Pictures

Sorry it took so long to put these up! Its been a blur trying to get back into our schedule.

Picture #1 Me feeding apples to some hungry Pandas in Chengdu.

Picture #2 Visiting an ancient village to tour their famous arches.

Picture#3 Chilling in our village, Hongcun.

Link

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/13/news/companies/Yum_Brands/index.htm?postversion=2010071411

Back in Beijing

Hey Everybody!

Returned to good old Beijing yesterday. It feels good to be back! Traveling is amazing but its nice to know I will sleep in the same bed more than two nights in a row. Unfortunately Beijing welcomed us back with some terrible smog. I guess it hasn't rained here in awhile, which means bad pollution. The average temperature while we were gone was also 40 degrees Celsius which is like 103 degrees Fahrenheit. From what I have heard from home the weather seems pretty similar.

I only have 3 and a half more weeks of class, which is exciting/terrifying. I feel like there is still so much more to see and do. 

The study tour was an amazing experience. We first went to Chengdu which is basically an up and coming city in China. It had such a different feel than Beijing, way less foreigners, much cleaner. There we  visited some museums, I got to see some ancient relics and an archaeological dig that I studied this past semester in my Art of China class I took! We visited the Chengdu Panda Research Center and got to be interns for a day! We got to clean out Panda cages, FEED the pandas and be super close to them! It was really cool, they are ridiculously lazy and cute. 

Then it was off to the country! We stayed in a small village most of the time called Huangcun. It was very quaint and a big difference from city life. We stayed in family courtyard inns and mostly just toured the local historic spots. We went for an overnight trip to Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) which is one of the most BEAUTIFUL mountains in the world. Its were they filmed Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The mountains are so different from the East coast here. They are so ragged and all around you are shear cliff faces with these crazy trees popping out of the cracks. It rained pretty much the whole time, but it didn't ruin anything, we still got some great pictures. I definitely want to return there though, I think there is so much more to explore.

Then we went to Shanghai! Talk about culture shock from the country to HUGE city! Shanghai basically feels like you're in a US city, like New York. Its very westernized, its filled with mostly western stores. I had some Starbucks while I was there, first decent coffee since I got here! We visited the Shanghai World Financial Center, one of the tallest buildings in the world, which was slightly terrifying but a great view! The last day we checked out the World Expo which was really interesting but SO CROWDED. I got to see the Norway, Russia and US pavilions. Then we took a night SLEEPER train back. It was so cool, I got to sleep in a bunk bed on a train! Its the simply things that amuse me :D

Well its class time for me, but I will try to post some pictures of the tour later!

STUDY TOUR

Hello Everybody!

Currently posting from Chengdu, China! The study tour has been AMAZING so far, we have been up to a lot of really fun things. I learned how to play Mah-jong, visited a silk factory, ate lots of interesting food, and saw some ancient Chinese relics I learned about in my Art of China class this past semester! Tomorrow we are going to spend the day playing with PANDAS! I am so excited, I hear we even get to feed them!!! 

Then tomorrow night we are flying to the country side, so I might lose email contact. BUT I will update and post pictures as soon as I can.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Everything I read told me to prepare for Beijing's pollution. Every person I talked to brought it up. And yet I thought, "I have been to New York and other cities with pollution, how bad can it be?"

HA! Boy was I wrong. Everyday I gauge how bad the air is by how much of the building, which is 2 city blocks away, I can see. The first week or so it wasn't bad at all, it rained a lot. But recently its been getting worse and worse. Today I could not see any of the building 2 city blocks away. In fact I thought it was raining it was so smoggy and dense outside. (NOTE: I am on the 10th floor, so its not too unreasonable that I can see far/would think it was rain). BUT NO! It was pollution. Everyone on our trip has been developing a steady cough over the past week or so. Its really fabulous. Its probably my least favorite part of the trip/Beijing so far. But all is good, the smog usually lets up by noon and my lungs are still kicking. 

Luckily I will actually get to breath some clean air this upcoming week! We are leaving for our 12 day study tour on Saturday and coming back the next Tuesday. I am going to Chengdu to see a Panda reserve and Huangshan a famous and beautiful mountain in China and Shanghai for the World Expo! I am really looking forward to it and I think I will have internet access here and there to update everyone! 

Pictures II

Picture of all the girls taken at the Forbidden City (There is a 1:3 ratio between guys and girls on our trip). 

Picture of some new friends at Yuan Ming Yuan. From left to right: Me, Li Cheng (My language partner), Kathy (My friend Erica's language partner), Kenneth (Another W&M kid, we both have Li Cheng as our language partner).

Side Note: Found this interesting article browsing CNN today. Hasn't happened to me yet! 

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/06/29/china.rent.white.people/index.html?hpt=C1&fbid=DtlxmwLiemF

Great Wall Pictures

Pictures!

Here is a picture of me at Tsinghua's on-campus garden and me and my snazzy bike!

Reverse Culture Shock

I know this might sound strange... but I think I am experiencing "reverse culture shock". William and Mary was the first international student summer program to start at Tsinghua University (Go Tribe!) and for the past two weeks I have become very used to being a minority. AND now all the other summer programs are moving in and I have to say its weird to see other white people again. Its weird to hear english walking down my hall and it was definitely nicer to not have competition over the Western toilet. Not that its a bad thing that more and more Americans are here learning Chinese, I just was enjoying being part of a small minority of Waiguoren (foreigner or literally outside country person)

Thats my mini tangent for the day! 

PS. I finally figured out how to post pictures! So I have included a random assortment above (hopefully).

Time Flys When You're...

... trying to keep up with that Chinese work ethic, exploring Beijing, researching, oh AND having fun!

I am ashamed its been almost a WEEK since I last posted. But it has been a very VERY busy week!

I have been working hard: two tests and a ton of dialogs under my belt, a couple essays too! I can now more or less go through our Taichi routine without major problems, and we consistently draw a decent crowd of gawkers that watch us. I have been speaking lots of Chinese, meeting lots of friends here! The W&M kids have even gotten into a habit of speaking "chinglish" with each other. We are gearing up for Midterms at the end of this week, then we only have 3 weeks of class left!!!

I have seen a lot more of the city. I went to the Forbidden City, it was very big. But seriously, that place is actually a city in itself. So many courtyards and buildings. It was very impressive, but I have to admit a tad repetitive. The garden was amazing though, a typical Chinese garden full of oddly shaped rocks and old tress. I went to Yuan Ming Yuan, the old summer palace from the Qing Dynasty that was destroyed by the French and British troops during the Second Opium War in 1860. It was beautiful! All the structures have been destroyed but the gardens and lake/ponds are breathtaking. The Chinese never do anything small, its always extravagant and overwhelming. I visited the old part of Beijing to one of the last remaining Hutongs. A hutong is an alleyway between two old courtyard style housing full of little shops and vendors. They are really only found in Beijing and have been rapidly disappearing to new construction. I found lots of fun souvenirs there and the boys on our trip ATE SCORPIONS there! I declined the invitation to try one, but they described them as salt and crunchy, almost like a potato chip. I also  experienced my first bit of Beijing Opera... its unique but it was actually really interesting! You should all look it up on Youtube (oh how I miss youtube).

Eating here is always entertaining. We have found some really good restaurants, we finally know more or less what to choose at our cafeteria AND we have even sampled some street food! I know it goes against my policy, BUT you can't pass up a fish shaped waffle filled with chocolate, especially for 2RMB or 29 cents. 

I think that is all for now. I will try really, really hard to post again soon! 

PS. Thanks to everyone that has sent me emails, I enjoy hearing from you!  

The Wonderful World of Street Vendors

你好大家!

So I have had some time to settle in and learn the lay of the land by now and I think one of my FAVORITE things to do is shop. You can certainly find some interesting things to buy on the street, and I am not including food in this statement. But speaking of food I have a very strict policy of not eating from anything that is mobile, for example the street vendors that bike around food stalls. It just doesn't seem like a good idea. 

BUT back to the main point: Several times we have seen street vendors selling small adorable animals like bunnies, hamsters, and mice, standard pets like fish and birds, and scary pets like snakes and scorpions BUT by far the most unexpected animal has been chipmunks! Thats right. One night we were coo-ing over the cute bunnies and in the cage next to them were like 4 chipmunks! Of all the things to sell as a pet. Also where in the world do you locate chipmunks in Beijing?!? The only animals I have seen in the wild here are stray cats and the occasional bird, but they are rare. Needless to say we didn't buy any animals.

My favorite stands are the book vendors! (Surprise, surprise I know) The have all these knock off books in Chinese and English. Some of which haven't even come out in the US yet. I was hesitant to buy one because they come shrink wrapped and I was afraid it would be in Chinese when I opened it or be a different book entirely. But then I saw Super Freakonomics! I really wanted to buy it in the States before I left but it was still in hardcover and kinda expensive at $30. At the stand it was only 10Renminbi which is only $1.50. So I risked it AND no problems! It is obviously photocopied, but printed fairly well. Not fabulous quality but for a buck fifty I think its well worth the money. I will have to stock up before I come back!

BUT my ALL TIME FAVORITE PURCHASE, to date that is, is a FAB T-Shirt that reads "Free the Beatrice" in big bold letters. So yeah. I don't really get it, but I think its the complete randomness that makes it so good. 

Anywhoo its off to bed for me, I have Taichi at 7am tomorrow! But I will update you on anymore fun finds!

 

Chang Cheng

So I survived my first week of class! It was a bit rough around the edges, but I think the get up at dawn to bed by 10 thing is starting to work for me. It was only a 3 day week though :D We moved our weekend to thursday/friday for a Chinese holiday. But that means next week is a 7 day school week! Wooohooooo. Its gonna be rough. 

BUT over our "weekend" we went to the GREAT WALL OF CHINA! It was pretty spectacular. It is SO old and so intricately made and it goes on FOREVER! So many sets of stairs and towers. But the views were worth it. The mountains in the states seem pretty lame compared to these. They are all around you and in the far off distance you can see shadows of MORE mountains. There will be pictures to come, I promise! 

The only other "news" is the thunderstorms here are pretty insane. They come on really fast and are HUGE. They make for exciting bike rides let me tell you. 

Hope I survive this week! Hope everyone else enjoys there weekend! Think of me sitting in class...

Chinese Work Ethic

Its no joke. In China you have to work hard or get out of the way. 

I had my first day of classes yesterday! I have 4 hours of Chinese language class everyday starting at 8am. A reading-writing class and a speaking-listening class, then an hour for lunch then back to the class room for a tutorial review session. Some days we have a Chinese culture class after our tutorial session and other days we have free time to work on our independent research projects. AND when thats done its time to do homework! They don't kid around here, study abroad means STUDY and then study some more abroad. I might sound like I am complaining (okay I am a tiny bit) but its actually really good. The professors are great, the classes are so small we get so much one-on-one attention and it will really help improve my Chinese. Which was the point of studying abroad, I think :D

OH Did I forget to mention Tai-chi? Tuesdays and Thursdays we get up SUPER early and have a Tai-chi class at the lovely hour of 7am. My favorite part is that our class is held on this huge public field in front of several academic buildings. So its really just public embarrassment class. Today we had a crowd of about 5 people standing and gawking at the waiguoren or foreigners attempting Tai-chi, which is usually an activity for those over 60. 

Its really a strange experience to be a minority and be openly stared at. The other day we (the group of W&M students I am with) went to Tiananmen Square to do some touristy stuff and one lady followed us around for about 15 minutes taking pictures of us. None of us have been asked to take pictures with people yet. I hear that after the olympics people got more used to foreigners. 

Well thats all for today. Homework time!

Bad Habit

Hey all! Sorry I have gotten in a bad habit of not posting. Ahhhh I will post a BIG one tomorrow, I promise! 

But here is a quick update: I have not died of time difference, stomach problems, or culture shock. Big surprise I know! 

But I have learned (and will never forget) the Chinese word for Watermelon (long story) AND I purchased I fabulous Chinese bicycle (in chinese 自行车 or zixingche) for the high price of 140 Renminbi, or $22. Its really great, I have only had to fix it once in 2 days!

Okay more tomorrow. I still have to finish my homework!

China

From door to door my journey to China took 26 HOURS 32 MINUTES 13 SECONDS AND 3 MILLISECONDS. It wasn't as awful as it could have been but I don't exactly want to spend another 12 straight hours on a plane anytime soon. 

First impressions: I have NEVER seen so many bikes in my life. I swear around each corner there are hundreds more lurking. The traffic on campus due to cars is basically nothing, but there is always a steady flow of bikers. Speaking of which, I will become one of the hundreds tomorrow when I venture off to purchase one. The decent ones that include a basket and lock run about 130 Renminbi which exchanges to about $19. The last bike I bought in the states was about 400 times that amount. And don't worry Ma I will wear my helmet.

First authentic Chinese meal was very tasty! Seriously. I tried everything, except for the eel, including a dish a black flaky things with an interestingly chewy texture that turned out to be tree fungus. They say its very healthy for you. Everything else was more or less normal looking and tasting. 

Gate S8

It has been 11 HOURS 20 MINUTES 25 SECONDS AND 9 MILLISECONDS since I left my house.

I have read 384 pages of the book I have been reading. (I recommend Watership Down by Richard Adams if you're looking for a good book to read)

Currently sitting in the Seattle Airport at Gate S8 as you might have guessed. Only ONE more flight to go! Its only 11 plus hours...

First incidence of culture shock: I found my gate because all the passengers were Asian and speaking Chinese. So far I am the only white person sitting at the gate.

AHHHHH I AM SO EXCITED.

T-2 Days

The To-Do list is dwindling down... only about 50 more things to do! Getting excited/nervous! Thinking I maybe should look at a Chinese textbook for the first time in a couple weeks. That way I can procrastinate on packing some more :D

Still Optimistic... Maybe

Interesting article on the unique challenges of learning Chinese to native English speakers. Found and passed on by Aaron.

Click Here to Read it

Hello Everybody!

Welcome to my blog! I will be documenting my travels in China from this summer here.

I am currently in the packing phase.