Ashok is back from China

A post I made a few weekends ago, but forgot to actually post

Some more on Chinese food: For some reason, many products formed into
blocks are classified as "tofu". This is sometimes wildly misleading,
as this includes such things as curdled duck and pig blood ("red
tofu"), and fish/starch blocks. Also, it occurred to me that one of
the most common Chinese dishes - tomatoes stirfried with eggs - is one
that I have never seen in Chinese restaurants in America. Kind of a
shame, as it's a simple yet tasty dish, not to mention inexpensive and
healthy.
Every so often, I discover some facet of Chinese language culture that
reminds me that I am, in fact, living with people from a different
culture. For example, in America, to describe something is "like the
stars" means that it is beautiful, but in China it means that it is
numerous/commonly found, because there are a lot of stars, and each
one looks roughly alike. Thus, in China, comparing someone to stars
to tell them you think they're pretty is a bad idea.

A bit more on my last weekend

So my post "Leaving China" was rather brief. The Saturday was rather
low key, but I did have an interesting chance encounter mid-afternoon.
I was in a bookstore in the Wudaokou mall when an American foreign
student and Chinese local student came in. I initially paid them
little attention, their conversation in the background, until I heard
"I've heard there was an Ikea around here? At my college everyone
goes to Ikea in the beginning of the year to get furniture." This
sounded oddly familiar. I listened a bit closer, and as I had a
hunch, she mentioned the name of her college - Yale. I walked over
and introduced myself - I was a little surprised to suddenly run into
another Yale student, though I had already done so once (Fellow HBA
student/Yalie Tory Jeffay and I ran into Chris Young, my
recently-graduated friend on the Yale-China Teaching Fellowship, on
the street at night in the Sanlitun bar district - completely
unexpectedly). I couldn't stay for long (I had to meet my friend for
dinner very soon), but I found she was a rising junior and going to be
at Beijing University this fall.

Chinese customs and treating others to dinner

Chinese custom while going out for meals is to take turns treating the
group (but everyone fights to pay nonetheless). I just read an
article from the Boston Globe that describes research concluding that
more money spent on prosocial behavior, such as treating friends to
meals, correlates with higher levels of happiness. Maybe we Americans
could adapt this custom?

Full article at
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/23/happiness_a_buyers_guide/?page=1.

Leaving China

Took the train back to Beijing Saturday morning, ate lunch with my
tutor and dinner with my engineer friend I met in Wudaokou. Leaving
for the airport shortly.

Ashok screws up his Circadian rhythms

Recently came back from Mt. Hua. I originally planned to get there in
the morning, climb to the East Peak, stay the night and watch the sun
rise from there, but I got to the base of the mountain later than I
expected, and, furthermore, learn that most people climb at night.
Since it's hot during the day, and food/lodging on the mountain is
very expensive, many choose to start the climb at around 11 or so,
getting to the east peak at sunrise. So, I slept in a hotel room at
the base for 8 hours (or tried - I might have only spent the first
hour actually asleep) and woke up at 10. Ate a meal (not sure how to
label it), then made my trip up the mountain with two women from
Jiangsu province. The climb was more difficult than Mt. Song, which I
climbed during the Shaolin Temple trip - much steeper, longer, and had
to hold on to chains on the sides of the path most of the time. Got
to the top at about 5, stayed for about an hour watching the sun rise,
then walked along the ridge back to a cable car station.

Ashok violates customs of his home country, is rewarded for his efforts

So I just got back from eating on the Muslim Street. Street food
tends to rank among the best I've gotten in China (never eat uncooked
vegetables or anything left unattended, and that contains most of the
safety tips). I also just saw someone selling kites fly a 60-meter
string with small kites strung along it. 60 meters is pretty long.
My ability to speak passable Chinese has drawn me into situations as
an interlocuter several times - about half an hour ago, I helped some
French backpackers figure out how to order food at a stall. I think
I've actually seen more Europeans than Americans on my trip so far.
One thing I enjoy in particular about the sweets I've had here so far
is that they aren't overwhelmingly sweet, but are mildly so.
Many districts have a local street where food vendors gather.
However, the ones near the front can attach a notable price premium,
simply because they are in front and often people go to the first
thing that looks good - it would take a lot of time to travel the
whole street, especially with the crowds (also, many foods are
similar). For example, the price of a skewer of meat might be 10 kuai
right at the front of the street, but decrease to 3 kuai further back.
Anyhow, this morning I took a bus to the train station and then took a
1.5 or so hour bus ride to Huaqing Hot Springs, where I took a look
around and ate lunch. I took another bus to the Terra-Cotta Warriors.
The sight of the warriors was impressive, but I think the most
impressive facet was the Qin dynasty's level of technology - some of
the bronze weapons where chrome-plated, a process developed by German
in 1937 and the US in 1950 - thousands of years later.
The title of this post comes from my bid to get on the bus home -
while queueing in China isn't non-existent, in some places it's
expected that you scrum around a location, for example, trying to buy
a ticket, or, in my case, board a bus. Maneuvering (sometimes not
entirely by my own volition) my way through the crowd and noticing a
ferocity in some old ladies not normally seen in old ladies, I managed
to snag a seat for the ride home.

Monday (leaving Beijing) and Tuesday (first day in Xi'an)

I'm writing from the Bell Tower Youth Hostel right now, across the
street from the Bell Tower in Xi'An.
Spent most of yesterday morning packing. I planned to go to the
Summer Palace in the afternoon, but ended up spending some time
reading and the rest exploring to the north and south of Chengfu Rd.,
where the development is less evident. In the evening, I took the
subway to Beijing West Train Station. On the way, I met a Guangzhou
student; to show just how much accents can affect understanding here,
at first I thought he said he was going to Tibet when he said he was
going to the west train station. In my cabin (soft sleeper - hard
sleepers sold out even 5 days ahead) were four others - a Xi'an man
and his young son sharing a bunk and two students from Xi'an who had
been to Beijing to sightsee and visit family. I experienced a tiny
bit of reverse culture shock on the train - walking into the bathroom,
I fully expected to see a normal squat toilet, but instead did a
double take when I noticed the toilet was western sit-down style.
Since my Chinese was better than the others' English, we spoke in
Chinese during the ride.
Arrifved in Xi'an this morning, found myself a place to stay, and
bought my ticket back to Beijing. Afterward, I headed to the Bell
Tower, a large building located in the center of a roundabout and
accessed underground. I next headed to its counterpart, the Drum
Tower, then walked through the Muslim quarter to get lunch. On the
way, met and talked with two English backpackers doing a 6-week trip
starting from Hong Kong, going up the east coast of China (to the big
cities), then making their way west into Chengdu, south into Yunnan,
and back to Hong Kong. They didn't speak any Chinese; so far, it
hasn't caused them problems, but it could in the future when they head
further inland.
After lunch, went to the Great Mosque, then took the bus to the Big
Goose Pagoda, a seven-story building in a large square outside of the
city walls. Going to eat dinner in the Muslim quarter again now.

Imperial Palace Museum (Forbidden City)

Imperial Palace today. I took the subway to Tiananmen West again
today, and this time walked through Tiananmen itself (Tiananmen
translates to "Gate of Heavenly Peace"; it seems all of the Chinese
names of buildings in the Forbidden City translate to superlatives
like "Hall of Supreme Harmony"). After walking through a few more
large gates and getting a chance to look around, I saw that the place
was packed today – I'm not sure if this is a usual thing or not, but
everywhere along the main paths I had to weave between people (as did
others) to make my way through. Passing through more gates escalating
in grandeur, I finally reached the main courtyard, which contains the
vast Hall of Supreme Harmony on a multi-tiered white marble base. I
continued to explore the main north to south meridian, which contains
all of the big buildings, for most of the morning. There were so many
people that when I tried to approach the entrance of the hall to take
a picture of the throne inside, to move in any direction required
pushing against other people. Taking the picture itself was doubly
hard, not just because of the low lighting but also because I had to
stand still long enough to avoid blurs. It was almost like the crowd
at the front at Spring Fling between N.E.R.D. and Girl Talk, and if
people here were drunk it very well could have been just as bad. The
overall Forbidden City is huge – it would take at least a day to cover
everything, and that's if you went very fast. After the vast spaces
of the outer court, I headed into the narrower alleys of the inner
court, all red-walled and yellow-roofed (with one standout lone yellow
wall whose purpose I didn't discover).
Before getting to the park, I ate lunch, and some Colorado travellers
sat down with me to eat. We talked in English for a while about our
respective travel plans – they plan to go to places like the Longmen
Grottos, Shaolin Temple, and also the east coast, overall taking 3
weeks. We also talked about the street food; though they said they
regularly ate very spicy food, they thought street malatang was too
hot, so I need to check this out – it wasn't that bad when I tried it.
They also had bought some art from an "art student exhibition," which
I've heard is a classic scam front, but they've travelled to Thailand
before, so maybe they bargained for a good deal. Visited the imperial
park in the back after lunch, which had some interesting rock
carvings, unusually-shaped trees, and a pavillion built on top of a
pile of rocks 10m high. I saw one tree (lacebark pine, I think) whose
root was described as looking like a "crouching dragon"; despite being
curved, I didn't catch the resemblance. My theory is that whenever
Chinese people want to hype the beauty of a natural feature, they
liken it to a dragon – it's already been done with the Great Wall.
Afterward, checked out some of the small halls in the inner court to
the right side of the main path. These had been converted into
museums, and I got to see some beautiful examples of bronze, jade, and
gold/silver works; some of the goldwork was particularly fascinating.
After these, I went to a hall containing many highly ornamented and
large clocks; the opulence was stunning, as it was for the gold/silver
works. Some of the clocks in this exhibition had things like moving
figures as well, one clock was even a chariot that moved in a circle
when wound. There was also an ancient Chinese water clock. Near the
back was a small section designed to resemble an imperial living
quarters, where most everything had a clock built into it, down to the
armrests. The plaque said that it would let the imperial
family/concubines know what time it was no matter where they looked,
but I'm inclined to think that ten clocks in ten square feet is
overkill. Also, the plaque said they all made a "sweet sound" at
regular intervals; with so many, I think that would drive me nuts
after a while. Nevertheless, they were all quite well-made.
After this, it was nearly 5. Had initially planned to go to Jingshan
Park to the north, but was tired, so returned home.

Day One of the Trip - Tiananmen, Qianmen, Wangfujing, Silk Market

My post-HBA adventure starts with me heading to the Wudaokou light
rail station at about 8:30 in the morning. I took the subway for
about 45 minutes and landed in the northwest corner of Tiananmen
Square. I had once walked by the Gate of Heavenly Peace, an
absolutely giant gate that leads toward the Forbidden City, and had
briefly seen the square from there, but hadn't entered. The square
is, quite simply, vast. The north is flanked by the aforementioned
Gate of Heavenly Peace, to the west is a massive hall where the
People's Congress meets, and to the east is an equally-large museum.
A monument (a stone pillar) stands in the center of the northern part,
and Mao's mausoleum dominates the center. I joined the line to enter
the monument, but left when I saw just how long it was (doubling back
over a large fraction of Tiananmen). South of the mausoleum are two
giant gates, which I think show where the city walls were earlier. In
the square itself were lots of people, some walking around like I
were, and some just sitting there under umbrellas; I don't know what
for. Water sellers were prevalent, as were sellers of boxes of ice
cream sticks, which were somehow always cold, though I never saw a
fridge or freezer nearby. I started from Heavenly Peace to the north
and made my way south, noting the Soviet/European style architecture
to the sides of the square.
At Qianmen gate, one of the large gates at the south end, I found a
large street running south from there. It was wide, had no cars (but
a trolley), was very clean, and had faux-imperial-Beijing style
design. This was a shopping district, still under construction by the
looks of it. There were many American and European brands on the
storefronts, such as Haagen-Daas and Zara, and there were multiple
workers around keeping the street clean from any litter soon after it
was dropped. From there, there was an entrance to one of the more
well-travelled hutongs (alleys) of Beijing; a bigger, crowded (but not
too narrow) one which had loads of stores to the left and right such
as arts/crafts stores, dry-goods supermarkets, and clothing stores.
From there, paths to more hutongs branched off. I departed the main
hutong and looked down some of the side ones. These were even
narrower, and, in the region near the big hutong, had just as many
stores, but had fewer people (but were equally as crowded – the
narrower and fewer balanced out). Getting further away from the main
hutong, however, the streets got significantly less crowded. From one
of these side alleys, I walked into a very narrow, branching alley
with no shops. What most surprised me was the silence – though not
far away was the main street with lots of noisy shopping, this place
was very quiet.
I had originally planned to spend the afternoon exploring the
Forbidden City, but I decided to do some shopping instead, wanting to
flex my bargaining muscles a bit. I first took a bus one stop to
Wangfujing. This is a very upscale (and touristy) shopping region
centered around a wide pedestrian road, with TV-covered colorful
shopping malls to the side; however, it was not my final destination.
I went to a small alley to the side called Wangfujing Snack Street,
which not only has interesting (and cleaner, due to regulations, but
more expensive) street food, but also several curio sellers. I first
got lunch, which included trying "stinky" tofu (really, not bad at
all), some sort of fruit similar to a coconut where sellers drill a
hole in the shell and stick a straw in for you to drink the juice, and
a desert which consisted of a hot flour-and-water paste mixed with
sugar, sesame seeds, and dried fruit. The most famous items sold are
the skewers of odd meats fried and given to you, including scorpions
(still alive before frying), seahorses, and starfish, but there was
plenty of normal food as well, including all manner of sweet drinks,
eggy pancakes with vegetables, and plenty of standard Chinese and
Korean fare. Afterward, I went around and started trying bargaining
for things I didn't want as well as for things I did want. Some
things I discovered:
1. Sellers often sell exactly the same items.
I have seen dozens of sellers selling the exact same scroll
paintings, chopsticks, "antiques", etc.
2. The best way to get a seller to lower the price is to come to
agreement on a price, then suddenly turn around and walk away.
I discovered this by accident while practicing with things I didn't
want; I would reach my target for a given item, then drop everything
and turn around; they would then call towards me and start lowering it
even more, to prices I couldn't get through normal bargaining or when
I simply walked away before reaching an "agreement". My thoughts are
that once they say "OK", they've mentally committed to the deal, so
when you then walk away you have a "foot in the door" and they want to
finish the deal, even if it requires lowering the price even more.
I'm not sure if this will work in all circumstances, but it seemed to
work for me this afternoon.
3. The "1/3 rule" is misleading
I have heard of a rule that you should never pay more than one third
of what the seller wants. This is certainly true, but grossly
underestimates the seller's actual starting price – I was able to
bargain some items down to less than 1/10th of their initial asking
price. Sellers will ask ridiculously inflated prices, for example
asking hundreds of yuan for brown-paper Mao-era-style poster that I've
seen go for 3 yuan a poster elsewhere, or asking hundreds for
easily-mass-produced art scrolls.
4. The statement that "salsemen are pushy" is also misleading"
They are not just pushy; they will grab your hand and try to drag you
back when you start to walk away, especially after using point #2
described above. In some cases, I had to flatly state "don't touch
me."
I later headed out to one of the most famous free-for-all markets,
Silk Street Market. Housed in a large, multistory building, narrow
lanes separate multitudes of sellers all selling roughly the same
items. The first floors are standard clothes, such as jeans and
t-shirts, sports clothes and jackets; on the second and third floors
there are also rugs, carpets, silks, and materials for suits that will
be tailor-made for you. The upper floors have arts, crafts,
"antiques", and watches, sunglasses, and electronic stuff. I was
greeted with many "hello"s instead of "ni hao"s and was called out to
most of the time in English, as I am easily recognizable as a
foreigner (or at least definitely not Chinese). This enabled me to
have to have the fun experience of switching into Mandarin when their
English couldn't keep up with the conversation and seeing their
surprise. When I told some shopkeepers that I was looking for
t-shirts with terrible English, they even asked me to translate the
English on some of the t-shirts they sold and tell them if it was
correct or not, which I did until I came across one which had multiple
sentence fragments whose meaning I couldn't decipher – it could have
been a mistranslation, or it could have been a "fashion statement," I
really couldn't tell. A few hours later, I headed to a Xiabu Xiabu
hotpot chain restaurant for dinner, and took the subway across town to
get home.

Graduation

3 hour exam this morning, followed by a graduation ceremony. We had
speeches by Profs. Gu and Feng, as well as some people in connection
with BeiYu and some HBA students. I understood some parts - namely,
where other 2nd year students were speaking - and didn't understand
others - like when the 5th-year students were speaking. At any rate,
we all got our diplomas, and left to eat lunch, which was a large
banquet at the Conference Center with our Chinese families and
professors.
The language pledge ended without fanfare - Professor Feng simply
stated "language pledge is over" in the middle of a sentence, without
much prelude. Going back to speaking English, of course, presented no
problems, though I did slip in the occasional "dui" or "hao". It also
occured to me how unusual of a greeting "Have you eaten yet?" sounds
in English (it is a common greeting in Chinese). At lunch, we got to
hear the teachers speak English, when they chose to (we had a more
difficult time getting some to speak than others). There was a wide
range - most every teacher had an accent, but some were much more
fluent and had less of an accent than others.
Not sure what I'm going to do exactly these next few days, but plans
include Forbidden City, Tiananmen, Jingshan Park, shopping in the
larger street markets, the Summer Palaces, and the hutongs (old-town
alleys).

Official: Going to Xi'an

Yesterday, I bought my ticket to Xi'an, a city in Shaanxi province
near the terra-cotta warriors. Still working out some details, but
right now I plan to spend 2 and a half days in Xi'an, and 1 and a half
climbing Lao Shan, a nearby mountain.

Sequoia

Ate dinner with another BeiYu student today. I was eating at a
Japanese place in the student cafeteria and noticed we had different
types of the sushi that comes with a meal, so I asked him if we could
trade a piece each. He then came over and sat at my table. He is
also studying for the summer, although only one month. He teaches at
a university for training teachers to teach Chinese through English in
Shanxi province, and is a linguistics major with a very good knowledge
of English (good enough to explain the more difficult parts of
Chomsky's generative theory of linguistics which I couldn't understand
in Chinese). He also offered some interesting insights into current
Chinese events, such as why the Chinese fear swine flu much more than
Americans – while in pretty much all of America, swine flu is not much
more annoying than standard flu, in China, since seeing a doctor is so
much more expensive, even getting standard flu is a much more serious
matter; hence, the large amount of screening for swine flu going on
here. Also interesting was what he described as China's two big
medical problems: "chronic diseases, like diabetes, and pregnancy."
At first I thought he meant unmarried or teenage pregnancy, but I then
realized he meant pregnancy in general. However, what I am not likely
to forget soon is what he said shortly before we parted ways. We were
exchanging names; after I told him I was named Bao Yueran (a
meaning-based translation for the given name and very loose
sound-based for the surname), I gave him my English (Tamil? Not
really clear if "Ashok" counts as English or Tamil or perhaps both)
name. He told me that when first received an English-speaking guest,
he decided on the English name "Sequoia." His rationale was that
"John, Joe, Sam, all those other names are so common that everyone has
them and no one remembers them. I wanted something that would stand
out." I think Sequoia does the trick for memorability; I doubt I'll
meet another anytime soon.

China Night

Last night, China Night performance. First was the Shaolin Temple
group performing two of the three forms we learned while there, with
some choreographed mock-fighting in between. Next was a cross-talk
performance (humorous dialogue), followed by orchestral pieces. Next
was my group; we played a Chinese lullaby song by a recent artist (I'm
fairly certain). I can't remember the exact order afterwards, but
other performances included erhu (Chinese violin), Professor Feng
singing Beijing Opera and Professor Gruber playing the accordian, an
Irish dance, more skits and songs (including an elaborate medley by
the Chinese song singing class), Taijiquan, ballroom dance, and some
others. Afterward, pretty much everyone went to Vics, a club in
Sanlitun district (lots of bars and clubs and restaurants).

Ashok Fords the River, Oxen Die En Masse

Entering the final stage of HBA classes next week. Tonight we have a
talent show performance, and I'll be playing guitar to accompany a
Chinese song. We had a dress rehearsal this morning, and it was
raining very hard. The rain in China is unusual; it seems to rain
with about the same frequency as in Southeast Philadelphia, but
virtually all rain comes in the form of thunderstorms, not often light
drizzles or the like. Though clouds are often seen over Beijing,
during these cloudy periods, the rain comes when a cluster of raining
clouds passes overhead, showers very hard for a few hours, and then
leaves. Thus, rain comes in short, intense bursts. The net effect of
this was that during the time I had to carry my stuff over to the
auditorium, the roads were literally flooded with several inches of
water. Getting through a few portions was like wading through a
shallow pool. Luckily, caulking the wagon proved to be unnecessary.

More on Food (with pictures; written Saturday night)

Continuing my culinary forays throughout Wudaokou, yesterday for
dinner I ate hotpot again – but this time, at a popular chain (I think
it's been called fast food, but it's not really "fast") called "Xiabu
Xiabu" (tones unknown). This place is so popular that there is often
a waiting line to get seats. There is a long counter lined with
individual pots (hotpot usually has communal pot) that snakes its way
through the restaurant, separating the waiters from the patrons whilst
maximizing the number of seats. The restaurant is very thorough and
developed regarding its method – once you get there, you choose a soup
base, a dipping sauce (to cool off the food once you take it out of
the boiling broth; unfortunately, Xiabu Xiabu does not provide other
plates, so you are forced to put your food into the dipping sauce
after taking it out) to which you can add garlic, onions, and/or
coriander, and then you choose raw food, including several prepackaged
sets. Things overall went smoothly; I was helped a bit by the people
sitting next to me when I encountered characters I was not familiar
with and foods I saw but didn't know how to name (of which there were
many; for example, I don't know the names of many types of vegetables,
and I can only differentiate two types of noodles, though many more
exist). Finding myself still hungry afterwards, I bought a yogurt
drink from a street stall refrigerator. Though literally "sour milk",
this was anything but sour – it was loaded with sugar. It resembled
lassi, though a bit thinner, sugarier, and the taste was somewhat off,
like it was made with sugar substitute or sugar alcohol. I also tried
a strange dessert I had never encountered before from another stall –
it was some sort of clear viscous fluid (I think potato or some other
starch) mixed with sugar, nuts, sesame and dried fruit. Not bad, but
not amazing either – I asked that the vendor only put a little sugar
in, which leads me to believe that most of the taste comes from the
sugar (the dried berries were good, though not very prevalent in the
mix).
Today for lunch I went to a Yunnan restaurant. Yunnan's most famous
food is "across the bridge noodles," so named due to a story where a
woman had to make a long journey to bring her husband food each day,
including crossing a bridge. The dish is a noodle soup; because the
top is covered by a layer of oil, the soup would be insulated and thus
stay warm during the long trip. The cooking method is also
interesting. All the ingredients are brought to the table, then the
broth is brought, very hot; the ingredients (thinly sliced) are dumped
into the soup, where they are quickly cooked (including meats). That
said, the taste is pretty much exactly like chicken noodle soup. I
also had one of the better desserts I've had in China here – a "soup"
of partly-solidified gelatin with caramel on the bottom and sesame
seeds on top, which is then mixed.

Friday of 7th Week

I just finished talking (in Chinese, of course) with another American
studying Chinese at a different summer program at BeiYu. It turns out
she went to college at Bryn Mawr, which is very close to where my
family is. We also had a lot of Romanians going through the hotel
this week; a "BeiYu bubble" definitely exists, separating the rest of
Beijing from the international BeiYu. In fact, one of the teachers
told us in class that BeiYu's nickname is "Little United Nations."
The air pollution here, for lack of a better word, sucks. Yesterday,
a visibly thick layer of smog blanketed the city, and my throat was
actually burning with particles when I went for a run. This might
have been mainly due the construction next to the track, but really,
the smog isn't helping.
Today we had a special opportunity. After the exam this morning,
three other students, two professors and I went to Qinghua university
to interview an Inter-Universities Program (another Chinese program)
teacher who is getting married in two weeks. We got to ask her a lot
of questions about marriage traditions and how marriage is done in
China. One thing I found quite amusing is that the morning of the
ceremony, the bride's family and friends will gather at her house.
When the groom comes to pick her up, they will try to prevent him from
entering or prevent the bride from leaving, for example forcing him to
sing a song to their satisfaction before letting him in or hiding the
bride's shoes. Probably the most interesting part was an exclamation
from our teachers - when we (the students) were explaining the concept
of a gift registry, they burst out, laughing, "Too direct!" (In
China, friends and family often give money to let the bride and groom
decide what they would like and less often give concrete gifts, but
nothing like a list of what the bride and groom would like so that
there will be no conflict/duplicates exists). Afterward, we went to
the mall in Wudaokou for Chinese table (at a pizza place - to be
frank, this pizza has a long way to go, as the kind we had would only
really pass for boxed and frozen pizza in America).
For those of you who have heard the phrase "the omnivore's dilemma",
of the places I've eaten at, this is nowhere better exemplified than
in the street food of Beijing (for those of you who haven't, it means
that omnivores have a dilemma in eating new, untried food - it may be
tasty and provide vital nutrients that you aren't already getting, but
it can also be bad for you or make you sick). There are two
prevailing opinions on street food - that eating it is pretty much a
guarantee of painful digestive tract problems, or that it's not only
the best food around but also cheap to boot. Both have truth. Street
food is very hit-and-miss - some stands are much better than others,
some cover up poor ingredients with an overabundance of oil, and some
are just flat-out unsafe - undercooked and other problems. The good
news is that not only is it fairly easy to tell what tastes good (look
at the number of people trying to buy a stand's food) but also you can
see the entire cooking process and notice if something's not going to
be good for you (for example, I saw a stall that didn't cook it's food
through and duly avoided it). Of course, this doesn't apply when you
can't see the process, but in most cases it is evident. The best meals
I've had have have been street food - specifically malatang
(ingredients cooked in a boiling spicy broth). I don't get the point
of "ma" (numbing flavor found in Sichuan peppercorns) flavor, though;
if you numb your mouth, you can't taste anything, which isn't good.
No planned activity this weekend, so I'm thinking tomorrow I'll go to
either the hutongs (old town), the Forbidden City, or just walk
around. I really need to decide this weekend where I'm going to go
for my post-HBA trip . . . Yunnan's looking good, though I need to buy
plane tickets for that (38 hours by train is really not worth it).
Sichuan's not bad, either.

Ayi

Interesting turn of events at lunchtime today. I went to Wudaokou to
get some Korean fare for lunch, and ate at a table near the big mall.
While I was eating, an older woman (about 50 years old) sat down
opposite me to eat, and we began talking. "Ayi" (aunty) works as an
engineer and lives near BeiYu. She has family in Canada, has studied
English for about as long as I've studied Chinese, and has also
studied ancient Chinese language. After we ate, she bought us each a
glass of beer, and we continued to talk for about an hour and a half,
covering topics from work and school to language and culture to my
plans to travel after HBA ends (like Baba, she says I should not go to
Shanghai, and instead suggested Sichuan and Yunnan, especially the
Giant Pandas. She also suggested I come to Beijing in the fall, when
the weather is nicer, though I like hot weather). We also talked with
a third woman sitting nearby for a bit near the end. I only had to
use my dictionary about twice, and we kept up a sustained and
interesting conversation for over an hour, so I think this marks a new
level in my Chinese ability.

End of 6th Week

Went to Longqing Xia (a gorge) today. The scenery was pretty nice.
Almost everyone took a boat around the gorge, and some went bungee
jumping/zipline-ing, but I climbed to the top of the gorge with
another HBA student – I think we were the only two to do so. This
also marks the first time I have been drawn into having a photograph
taken of me with Chinese people. There was also a temple on the
mountain, but the design was pretty much exactly like every other
temple I've seen so far. Before the climb itself, there was a long
escalator from the bottom of a dam in the gorge to the top, which was
covered by a dragon-shaped enclosure.
I'm reading, bit by bit, the Tao Te Ching, one of the central Taoist
texts, which is quite interesting. This book is highly ambiguous –
not only are there significant translation issues, as this book is
written in an old form of classical Chinese, but the content itself is
subjective and interpretive by nature. This is not a bad thing,
though. The subjective and interpretive nature of the book, along
with its reliance on paradox, challenges the reader to discern meaning
and resolve the apparent paradoxes it presents. Thus, not only are
there many different translations, but there are many different
possible interpretations of each passage; the interpretation depends
on the reader, and the reader's experiences, which the reader draws on
to try to understand the book. For example, one passage states
something to the effect of "when there is no knowledge, then there
will be wisdom," which can be interpreted (in context) as "common
'knowledge' is often wrong, and society at large might not have any
way of realizing," though there are many other possibilities. There
also seem to be several levels of supernatural flavor present in
interpretations, from the interpretation that the book is metaphorical
and does not require belief without evidence to the full-fledged
traditional Taoist pantheon, which came from I don't know where. That
said, parts of the book may just flat-out be wrong – the reader still
needs to use his/her judgment while reading. I'm still not very far
through, so I need to keep reading.
Saw a partial solar eclipse on Wednesday. Apparently Shanghai had a
total eclipse.
I just heard a Chinese woman say "drinking tea is a better habit than
drinking coffee." I am inclined to dispute this, and I did. She
offered no compelling evidence beyond "tea drinkers seem more
relaxed," which may be true, but is really shabby evidence on the
whole. (I'm not drinking coffee or tea anymore – I have to go out of
my way to get coffee, and tea is too much of a hassle to make on a
regular basis.)
Saw acrobats last Saturday. Quite interesting, with a tropical bird
theme, and sections like using springboards to flip onto high objects,
contortionism/balance, a giant ferris-wheel type device that acrobats
navigated around (including blindfolded), a diabolo (Chinese yo-yo)
segment, flipping through hoops, plate spinning, gymnastic static
holds off of other people, bicycles, etc.

Comments

I like 'em.

Friday - The Ride Back

Reviewed the 3 forms (5-Stance, 2-Change, Stance with Gun) this
morning after the conditioning part of the workout. Packed up and
departed at 9, reaching the station at about 11:30. Had "lunch" at
KFC (really not a bargain at all, as the cost of fast food relative to
other food is much higher in China, and almost nothing is edible), and
got on the train (though getting all of our guns stowed posed a bit of
an issue). It's about 5:00 now, I've been writing these posts for the
last hour or so, several people in front of me have worked out a way
to turn a row of seats around so 2 rows of 3 seats face each other. I
talked with others and read the Chinese military classic The Art of
War by Sun Tzu for a while, others are watching movies on their
laptops or listening to music or sleeping, and the group of 4 in front
of me is playing cards very, very loudly (surprisingly, loudest of all
are the teachers). My battery is dying, but I've finished. I'll post
these when we return to BeiYu.

[UPDATE: Saturday morning, July 17th - Finished uploading these
posts, written on the train]

Thursday – Longmen Grottoes, A Vegetarian Meal, and More Wushu

We rode the bus for about 2 hours to get to Longmen. We went through
a smaller, poorer city to get there – very dusty, cars, buses, trucks,
motorbikes, scooters, bikes and bike carts, and pedestrians
everywhere, often in the opposite lane and virtually always in the
center of the road between two lanes. Buildings all plain and
concrete, with color coming from large single-color signs littering
the roadsides. The bus driver started playing sing-along music videos
on the TV screen today – began with some very bizzare ones,
opera-flavored songs with happy-go-lucky military themes, though later
transitioning to the more standard sappy easy-listening songs, often
involving loved ones who have died or gone away, etc. Longshan itself
was very interesting – stone openings with statues carved into the
cliff face. Lots of Chinese took photos of (and with) Kogos aka Lin
Ke, our group's "hei ren" (he's from Kenya, and it seems black people
are an unusual sight). Drove back, and ate lunch at a nearby
temple/restaurant. The restaurant's specialty was its only-vegetarian
fare, so besides dishes without meat there were also a few dishes with
fake meat (meatless sausage in celery, fragrant shredded "pork" with
shredded carrot and cucumber, shredded "pork" with pancakes). The
majority of my meals here are vegetarian anyway, but for pretty much
everyone else this was a significant change from standard. Overall
very good.
Writing my report in the afternoon, followed by dinner and a wushu
review session, this time at 8:30. Our group learned relatively fast,
so we didn't need a full 3-hour review session.

Wednesday - Day Two of Wushu

The schedule for today was two 3-hour sessions of wushu again.
Started learning the gun (stick) in the morning, starting with basic
gripping and spinning and then moving into move combinations and a
form. Not as hard on the legs, as we didn't have to stay in low
stances for long periods of time, but still challenging, especially
the mental focus needed to keep hand positions in mind (not only
because moving through the form properly requires awareness of exactly
where your hands are, but also because failure to keep track could
result in you hitting yourself).

Tuesday - Song Mountain

So it turns out that my hamstrings have never taken quite the beating
they received on Sunday – although the front of my legs were mostly
recovered, my hamstrings felt just as sore as they did yesterday, and
this is 2 days later. Workout again at 5:30. At breakfast, had some
interesting soybean drink, which was a bit thicker than soymilk.
Wrote some of my report following that.
Scenery on the mountain was beautiful, especially the temples lining
the way up. Very foggy up top in the morning – at some flatter
points, impossible to tell I was on a mountain given the amount of
fog. Also passed an interesting spot where large characters were
painted on the side of a cliff face – I think the painter rappelled
down to it. One thing I gradually noticed was that the great majority
of the path, all the way up to the summit, was paved (with especially
flat stones) and had staircases built in. It must have taken a large
amount of effort to create such a smooth path all the way up,
especially in terms of carrying materials. Passed, was passed by, and
talked with laborers taking bricks and other building materials up and
down. One laborer mentioned it was his job to deliver a load of
materials from the bottom of the mountain to the top, twice a day.
The way down was much easier, especially compared to backpacking
downhill, as I didn't have a large pack. Fogginess cleared up a bit,
could see sun at some points. Got back a bit later than expected.
Overall fun, very interesting. Returned to the school, ate dinner,
worked on my report, and slept.

Monday – Talking with Tagou People, Taoist Temple and Confucian Academy

Really, really sore today. Moving legs difficult. Morning workout
again at 5:30. This time, rainy as we set out, and gradually more and
more as the morning progressed, such that by 7:00, we had to walk
instead of run back – too slippery. Listened to the president talk,
garnered some valuable info for my report about the influences of
Buddhism and Daoism on wushu, and then talked to one of the more
advanced students. Even if I didn't understand everything, highly
interesting. What he taught me about the Buddhism&Taoism/Wushu
connection expanded on what I knew, and he told me plenty I didn't
know as well. Also told me about life at Tagou – running every
morning, then the rest of the day alternates between studying
(broad-based stuff like math) and gongfu for several hours a stretch
each. Also told me that most of the people here go on to do or want
to go on to do "movies, competitions, demonstrations, etc." though
later one of the Chinese teachers on the trip told me a lot end up
working as security guards due to this thing called "supply and
demand" - there are a large number of students at this school,
numbering in the thousands, and a lot are sent here by their parents
for various reasons against their other inclinations (that said, some
genuinely enjoy the wushu lifestyle).
Bought a wushu stick, then took it with me to lunch. While at lunch,
another foreigner came up to us and mentioned how martial arts weapons
are treated more seriously in China – he once drew a sword to show an
official who was interested in it in an airport, and "everybody hit
the floor". He also semi-jokingly offered coffee to those who would
speak English, figuring one of us would be enough of a caffeine addict
to break the language pledge, but he underestimated the true caffeine
addict among us – namely, me – who brought his own coffee. In both
Beijing and here (and all across China), the coffee is either
ridiculously sweet or, more often, nonexistent. I've taken to
drinking black instant coffee (available at select store locations),
or just eating the crystals if I don't have hot water readily
available. Slept, then went to a Taoist temple. Architecture much
the same as the Ming Tombs area, to my view (though a person more
educated in this department could probably tell you otherwise).
Afterwards, went to some sort of Confucian school that was preserved,
which was a bit different architecturally. For dinner, the bus driver
took us to a hotpot place, which was, like other hotpot places,
delicious, though like all other Chinese food I've tasted, severely
lacking in the spiciness department where it is supposed to be a
specialty (double the amount of hot sauce they give you to choose how
much to put in the pot was still not enough). Again with the cultural
differences, the attendants kept trying to put large amount of beef
into my pot (with success one time), which I would find very rude were
I not in China, especially given that they kept doing it after I asked
them to stop (I had to ask several times, which is the custom here to
my knowledge). Especially tasty were the noodles which the attendant
pulled from slabs of dough at the table itself.

Sunday - Day One of Wushu

Woke up at 5:15 AM, downstairs at 5:30, running in two lines at about
5:40 to the stone plaza in front of Shaolin Temple. The run itself
wasn't very long. Once we got there, stretched out, did some
exercises (like running, then stopping dead and jumping straight up).
This session was actually fairly easy, a situation that would soon
change. Ran back at 7:15 and ate breakfast at 7:30. Breakfast was an
egg, white rice porridge, some ridiculously salty red tofu intended to
be mixed into porridge which I could not eat, even after mixing,
white-flour buns, and salty vegetables (which I also couldn't eat).
Ate 8:30 was 3-hour wushu session number 1. After warming up
(running, stretching), we worked out – sprints, jumping exercises,
etc. Very demanding pace. Afterwards, learned kicks and stances and
a basic 5-Stance Form – things I've learned (though certainly not
mastered) before with Yale Wushu. Lunch at 11:30. Practice again at
2:30. About an hour of working out, then reviewing 5-Stance Form and
working on 2-Changes Form. At the next break, the shifu talked about
how in 2003 the Shaolin Temple started building other buildings, and
most of the wushu schools in the area (except this one) had to leave.
Finished up by 5:30. Ate dinner, wrote out some questions to ask
Tagou people for my social study report, then we watched the movie
"Shaolin Temple". Entertaining.
Wushu is, quite simply, hard, to the degree that wushu and "gongfu,"
the term for any kind of consistent practice and hard work (not just
martial arts) are synonymous in common usage. The physical standard
required and amount of time spent practicing to attain even a basic
level of competence are both very high, well above the physical
standard of the average person and the amount of "free time" most
people have for their hobbies. Wushu requires high levels of static
strength and explosive power, especially in the legs (for the low
stances), flexibility (for the high kicks), endurance (to sustain the
long hours of practice required), etc.

Friday Night and Saturday - The Shaolin Temple

We departed for the train station at 8 PM on Friday night. We had
2nd class, "hard sleeper" seats, which I've heard are the best, as 1st
class is too expensive to justify the benefits and 3rd class is
uncomfortable. There are 6 bunks to a compartment, and each HBA
student had a low bunk. Fairly comfortable sleep.
Woke up on Saturday morning about 6:30 AM. Saw countryside coming
in; lots of flatness and greenery, lots of row crops. Mildly rainy.
Though from the train the buildings looked fairly plain, after
emerging from the train station we arrived in a very colorful square,
though the buildings were still cheaply constructed – lots of
brightly-colored signs and block lettering. Starbucks effect present
here – there were 2 KFCs across the street from each other very close
to the train station. Took a bus (about 1.5 hours) to Tagou Wushu
Academy, passing from the richer part of the city to the poorer part
to the countryside. Bus drivers here will honk under all
circumstances – when other cars are in danger of bumping, when they
want to pass other cars and use the opposite lane (with cars clearly
oncoming), when driving around curves with bad views to warn potential
cars coming the other way they can't see, and sometimes on straight
roads with no cars in sight for good measure.
Tagou Wushu Academy, which is withing walking distance of Shaolin
Temple, is clearly poor. Several buildings in disrepair, roads
uneven, etc., like most of the buildings in the area. By comparison,
the Shaolin Temple itself (and its related property – they obtained a
lot of the surrounding land, held by other wushu schools, in 2003) is
pretty well kept, and the road leading up to it is in very good
repair. After arriving around 9:30 AM, we got our wushu clothes and
went to our rooms. I ended up with a single room through some
confusing housing-draw practices. Ate lunch at the cafeteria (the
food was mostly the same every day, standard Chinese restaurant fare –
rice and/or porridge with dishes of various combinations of meat,
vegetable, and egg).
Went to the Shaolin Temple area afterward. This place is touristy,
geared towards entertaining visitors (like us) – I suppose it would
have to be, given the money they must attract to maintain the good
condition they wish to keep the temple area in. We started by viewing
a wushu demonstration at the exhibition center, which was very
interesting and fun to watch – there were various special
demonstrations, such as weaponry, contortionism, animal styles, feats
of strength (including breaking metal bars on the practitioner's head
and piercing a hole through a sheet of glass to pop a balloon), and a
segment where audience members were invited up to learn a few wushu
moves (HBA student Kong Rui, aka Brian Campos, learned a bit of
scorpion style). When I say touristy, I mean that Shaolin Temple
workers were walking in front and around the stage, trying to sell us
photographs, DVDs, and other things – while the demonstration itself
was in progress.
After looking around the exhibition/practice center, we went to
Shaolin Temple proper, where a guide showed us around. Afterward we
asked temple staff questions about our social study topics. This
wasn't easy, given that not only did I not have a large vocabulary
about Buddhism, Daoism, and Wushu, but also the staff didn't all speak
with the accent I've been listening to for the last 4 weeks, and thus
I often had to ask them to repeat. Afterward, we went to a pagoda
ground with a lot of stone towers whose purpose I am not entirely
clear on. We then returned to Tagou to eat dinner and sleep.

Couple quick things

For those of you I'm writing too, I'll write after a few days of
Shaolin Temple if I'm lucky.

Happy Birthday, Siddharth. How's Europe?

Amassed details over the course of last week

My toilet just clogged for the seventh time. Really, this is getting excessive.
More thoughts on the food here - grain carbohydrate is cheap. Really cheap. About 3 kuai (at most) will buy all of the grain you really need for a single meal. Green vegetables are also pretty cheap. At the Conference Center where I stay, about 5 kuai will buy a meal's worth of reasonable non-oily vegetables.
On that note, my diet has gradually been going more and more vegan, since I'm not the biggest fan of boiled eggs, all the milk is whole milk, and I can't attest to the quality of meat. The biggest problem, food wise, is general lack of variety (especially in the vegetable department).
I recently bought Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Not just a book about fighting, it highlights a lot of Taoist mentality as well (especially "action through non-action" and other such paradoxical ideas; the ideal of war is to "win without fighting" in the same way that, as an anecdote says, the best doctor is never known because cures no one,, because his patients are never ill).
I notice that a lot of the examples we use in class involve using new grammar rules to describe just how busy and tired everyone is. I think it's counterproductive - everyone always talks about how tired they are, but really, there's no reason to keep talking about it. We all know it, it's clearly evident, let's move to a better topic already, preferably one that challenges us to use different words. This goes .double for outside-of-class discussions as well, where others are excessivly wordy about their state of business.
Ate lunch with my Chinese "baba" and his daughter on Monday afternoon. His daughter works at China Mobile, and is very interesting. My Chinese is definitely a lot better - this time around, the conversation wasn't nearly as one-sided as it was last time, and my "backread" time, the time it takes me to comprehend a relatively complex sentence after it is said, is much shorter. That said, though some differences between Chinese and American culture can be considered "politeness" by both sides (like the level of moderation present in Chinese speech), there is a very big difference which, though Chinese people consider their side of the practice "polite", Americans (or at least me) do not. That difference is how Chinese hosts press food and liquor on their guests - not to do so is considered impolite, and not to drink to drunkenness (host and guest) is considered impolite as well. Though Chinese people consider this polite, Americans consider it rude to do so, and so this difference is not one of more or less polite but rather how politeness is defined. Baba asked me if I wanted a beer, which I agreed to out of politeness (despite having class in an hour, I felt that there would be enough time for the effects of half a bottle to dissipate enough). However, since we were at the Muslim restaurant on campus, there wasn't any, and despite his repeated efforts to obtain some, he wasn't allowed to bring bottles in, so I was saved from having to find another excuse to not drink much. He also repeatedly put food on my plate - to deal with this, I didn't say "no" or "I don't want it" (which is impolite) but rather just left it there.
I'm considering a longer stay during my sophomore or junior year (term or year, leave or term(s) abroad), though I'm a little frustrated by the sheer amount of time I spend sitting down here (even less than the last summer spent at Siemens).

July 4th and Karaoke

Being July 4th, some HBA students decided to get some American food,
and so the general consensus was to go to a TGI Friday's located in a
hotel. I must confess, though, that I rather like Chinese food and
I'm not missing anything other than salad, fruit, and PB&J (and I can
get fruit here, it just takes time and water). As my friend Dai Si
Wen wrote on his blog, it seems that the cleanest and/or more
expensive restaurants don't necessarily have the best or safest food –
I contrast the TGI Friday's meal which, though it tasted good (grilled
chicken), wasn't anything special (and messed with my digestive track
a bit, I think), with the hotpot meal eaten with my Chinese Baba,
which probably cost half as much (and this is just for me – I think I
had the cheapest order at TGI Friday's) and was the best meal I've had
in this time zone (and among the safest), though the décor approached
zero (dimly lit, plain and some walls had dirt/stains, small and
just-barely-not-cramped).
For the more interesting part of the night, the group went to
Wudaokou to do KTV Karaoke. This is not the same Karaoke found in
America, where you're in a bar, there's a sign-up list, and one person
sings at a time in front of everybody – here your group gets its own
private room, with two microphones and a large remote and book of
codes you use to add songs to the queue. You can also order food in
your room (we ordered some sort of red bean, fruit, condensed milk,
and shaved ice confection). The most bizarre bit, however, is the
strange videos that play on the lyrics TV in the background. These
sometimes matched the song (animated dancers or scenes of a man and
woman meeting and falling in love/other standard music video tropes),
but often were out of place and thoroughly weird (fat Oceanians
dancing/one climbing a tree and cutting down a coconut, and a frontal
view of young boy playing on a beach, completely naked). Overall it
was fun.

The Ming Tombs, Laconically Speaking

Woke up today at about 7:30, and took a trip to the Ming Tombs. We
visited three spots - the Sacred Way, which was lined with large stone
statues, and two emperors' tomb areas. The first had a large museum
with artifacts from the period. The second had an underground burial
area that was excavated. Both had large red-lacquer pavillions. They
looked good.

My Room

Here are two pictures of my room. The one of the bathroom is to show
that there is no divider between the toilet and shower.

Tea

I got some tea and tea accoutrements yesterday. I'm using bottled
water only (boiled tap water from my tap still has particles floating
and the water has a grainy texture, so I'm not dead sure on its
safety, and it sounds like many Chinese people, including my tutor,
really only drink bottled), so I had to be careful about boiling times
to make sure I didn't lose much liquid. The result is in the flask,
which has a strainer such that I can drink the tea without the tea
leaves leaving the bottle. The current green tea has a somewhat
toasty flavor, and isn't too bad. It looks like I have finally found
a stable afternoon caffeine source.

Apparently I look like the Slumdog Millionaire guy

So I just had my first "fluent" conversation. It was a bit short
("You are from what country?" "America" "How long have you been
studying Chinese?" "Before coming here, 1 year, after, 3 weeks" "Your
Chinese is fluent" "Thank you"), and I had to close my eyes briefly to
remember something, but I did not pause, spoke at normal speed, and
understood everything that was said.
One of the things I have noticed is the surprising amount of
contradictions and disagreements that the teachers give me regarding
whether a word is suitable or not/is commonly said. I suppose I
should have to "break" the language as much as possible in order to
find out what word usage draws surprised looks from others, and thus
is not quite correct.
I met with a BeiYu student while eating lunch in the cafeteria. He
said, in somewhat broken Chinese (which he to is learning), "Yao Ba
Ling Ling" - 1800 - referring to the fact that China is now like the
American West of the 1800s - given it's developing status, China has
lots of business opportunity, and so he is learning Chinese.
The intense writing is starting to take its toll - not on my mental
state, but on my hands. So far, I've heard no one else have problems
with repetitive stress, but then I haven't really talked about it,
either.
I saw a woman teaching Taijiquan outside. She showed me a bit of
sword-and-tassel work, and was very enthusiastic about having me as a
student. However, I didn't have time to stay and chat for long (about
7 minutes).
Apparently my Chinese tutor's friend thinks I look like the lead from
Slumdog Millionaire, and thus giggles every time we run into each
other (mostly at the place I use the internet). I'm somewhat
flattered. Also, I don't think I look like him, beyond the fact that
I'm of Indian descent, but Indians are fairly uncommon in Beijing
(though I have seen some).
I'm getting behind on current events in America.
The Chinese have a reputation for politeness (discussed in Thursday's
lesson). So far, from what I've seen, it's not really all that
different from the American system of politeness - it's just a matter
of degree, and as long as you know the degree to which other members
of a conversation are moderating their speech, and do likewise,
intentions aren't any more difficult to divine than they are in
America (this view is subject to change if I learn information to the
contrary).
One thing I forgot to mention that's vastly different from America -
umbrellas. The vast majority of girls here seem to carry umbrellas to
protect them from the sun, something I've never seen in America.

Thoughts on Language Learning

There exists a stereotype of the tactless American, expecting a
foreigner to understand him when he speaks slower and louder.
Speaking slower and louder, however, can sometimes enable me to
understand a complex sentence that I could not understand at normal
speed (especially by breaking apart commonly elided words).
After finishing a discussion with my tutor (Wen Ting) on Sunday, a
first-year English student at BeiYu approached us, asking for some
help understanding his materials. He was reading the book Twilight by
Stephanie Meyer, and couldn't make out the meaning of "a still
figure." He was translating the words to roughly
"continuing-to-happen reckon/roughly-calculate," which are literal
translations of "still" and "figure" but make absolutely no sense
together when these definitions are used. Later, as I was walking to
lunch with Wen Ting, I found myself completely unable to adequately
describe why many people dislike Twilight – I do not yet know the
translations for phrases such as "flat characters" and "tedious
description" yet, though I can probably get at the individual meanings
of "flat," "character," "tedious," and "description," through long,
roundabout phrasing and luck.
Preserving short-term memory span is critical to learning language –
if you have to waste space in short-term memory on the definitions of
vocab, then you lose the ability to keep track of multiple nested
phrases and clauses, and thus the overall meaning of the sentence
you're trying to say/understand.
I had Beijing Duck at Chinese Table yesterday. Oily. Not really my
thing. I very much enjoy hot pot, though.
We first came across the concept of "face" in Chinese culture
yesterday. I've heard it said that there is no direct translation for
this concept into English (like the Japanese concept of zanshin, which
I came across in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash). This is perhaps so,
but it is possible to accurately describe what face is – I don't have
space/time to go into details here, but from what I've learned, it
roughly translates to one's reputation. Thus, though there is no one
word in English to describe "face," it is certainly explainable to
English speakers, and thus it is possible for members of each culture
to understand one another (as the main character also decides in Snow
Crash). This is a case where language doesn't constrict the
boundaries of thinking – it just makes this line of thought a bit
longer in one language than another.
On that note, I've been wanting to learn Lojban, a constructed
language that is grammatically unambiguous (an English example of an
ambiguous phrase being, for example, "the big dog catcher"). Though
it seems interesting, I have zero time to learn it.
Learning Chinese grammar is pretty easy – to my current
understanding, a given word can be used as several different parts of
speech, depending on where it is in the sentence, and the meaning is
easily understandable. Characters, however, are a major time sink,
especially since a character's appearance does not determine its
sound.

My Social Study topic is Martial Arts and the Shaolin Temples

The Great Wall (written Saturday Evening)

Great Wall at Simatai today. Bus departure time was around 8:15;
after about 2 hours drive, plus a bit more for refueling and a
bathroom stop, we got there around 10:30, the landscape changing from
city to rural countryside as we drove. Each person was given 2
bottles of water (and 2 eggs and packaged goods for breakfast, but I
already ate and brought my own water). A few people shopped for hats
at the bottom (myself included; this was my first time I can remember
bargaining for something with a vendor), and at about 11:00 we started
the climb. I originally planned to take the cable car one way, but
instead I walked both up and down. The climb started fairly easy; a
newly-paved path leading to the wall itself, passing by a river with a
few dams. Once we got to the wall itself, there was a path atop the
wall leading up and one leading to the bottom of the valley, then up
again; we took the one up. From here, the climb got more difficult.
It was much steeper on the wall itself (the pictures don't give a
sense of how steep it is, as they were all taken at an angle from
horizontal), and after awhile the square steps (which already were of
notably differing heights) gave way to steps cut into stone, which
were more uneven. If we had gone here when it was raining, it would
certainly have been dangerous. The climb was mostly uphill, with
occasional shaded spots in guard towers. I was among the first to
reach the "top" (the point where climbing further was off-limits, due
to the trail being too dangerous), and those up there took pictures
while we waited for the rest to mass up top.
At 12:30 or so we started down. Both on the way up and down, we
passed salespeople selling water, soda, ice cream, art (medals and
carvings), and t-shirts saying "I Climbed the Great Wall." We also
saw people parasailing nearby. At 1:35, I reached the bottom and went
with the rest of the students around to a nearby restaurant, where the
teachers bought us lunch. We left around 2:30 (most of the rest of
the students sleeping on the way back, or trying to, given the loud
honking) and returned at about 5. According to Mao, I have now
satisfied one of the prerequisites of being a true man (I'm not sure
if he specified any others, though).

Wudaokou (written Saturday evening)

Explored Wudaokou yesterday evening, a shopping center and
entertainment center which a lot of students and expats frequent. I
started by trying to find a heavily Korean-owned neighborhood which
"Baba" described on a side street I went down, but no luck. I
proceeded west, passing by movie theaters, street sellers selling
fruits and sauteed skewered meats and various goods (handbags and
beads, for example), and a large mall. Around this time I walked down
an alley with a lot of restaurants and shops using Korean writing,
which I think was the street Baba mentioned. Walking further west, I
passed by more shops and apartment buildings and food sellers,
including several American chains like Pizza Hut (Bishengke) and KFC
(Kendeji), and an American-style bakery, as well as Chinese places.
Near the mall area, I went to a kind of food court place outdoors,
with sellers framing a central area, where I got a hot pot dinner – I
selected vegetables, noodles, and meats, and these were boiled in a
clear broth and then put into sesame sauce and hot peppers. I talked
with two Koreans working in China, spending a little while explaining
the nature of the summer program – they mostly used English, so our
relative understanding of Mandarin was about on par (though one used
"s" instead of "sh", so he wasn't using a Beijing accent). Afterward,
I went into the mall to find a particularly spicy restaurant one of
the teachers mentioned, and saw a large supermarket in the mall
basement.
Social study options were displayed – I'm thinking of going to
Shanghai, the Shaolin temple, or Inner Mongolia.

Pictures from around BeiYu and Dinner with Baba

I had dinner with my Chinese father yesterday (I think I made a
mistake earlier - he teaches at universities, not elementary schools).
We went to a small hotpot restaurant a little ways outside of the
west gate. The food was very good - we had a boiling pot with a
divider, with one side containing spicy broth and the other containing
clear broth. We got many types of foods, from leafy vegetables and
mushrooms to noodles and mutton meat, and put them in the broth; after
a few minutes, they were cooked. Baba was very interesting; during
our conversation, he introduced my "sibling" (another student, Chang
Xun) and I to many Chinese metaphors and sayings, for example "If we
are happy, 1000 glasses is not enough, but if we are not happy, half a
sentence is too much."

My Chinese Family

I met my Chinese "baba" on Sunday morning (he's the one on the far
left). He teaches PE at an elementary school, and seems to know a lot
about Taijiquan. At our first meeting, he explained (and we partially
understood) some of the philosophy behind Taijiquan. Hopefully, we
will meet today for dinner.
I realize I wasn't clear about the Great Wall - the weather on
Saturday was poor, so we went to the Opera instead. If all goes well,
this Saturday we will go instead.
I've learned most of the Harvard vocabulary; since then, the work has
become relatively easier, as I understand the entirety of sentences in
class now without needing to ask if certain words can be substituted.
However, I'm still far from fluency - if, for example, one adverb is
swapped for a different one with an identical meaning, the meaning of
the entire sentence is very hard to divine. Since Chinese is so
different from English, when I hear a new word, it's almost impossible
to tell what it means without context, and the word in question might
be the one providing the context. Nevertheless, making great progress
- I can understand far more now than I could even a week ago.

Saturday Night, 6/20

Well, the first week's finally over; by Thursday night, I managed to
get ahead of my work, and so things started to slow down a little
(even with Friday's exam). The limiting factor in learning Chinese
seems to be vocabulary; at least for now, the syntax/grammar isn't too
difficult to grasp, but the sheer volume of words we don't know is
ultimately what limits conversation (this view may change as I learn
more). For example, given a random object, I won't know several words
to describe its parts; for example, I know how to say "bicycle," but
not "wheel," "spoke," "handlebars," "chain," "gear," "brake," "rim,"
etc.
We just took a trip to the Beijing Opera. It was quite a spectacle.
There was a short opening play, which I think was a traditional style
opera scene between a woman and an old fisherman, but the next part,
"Monkey King Fights 18 Warriors" in English, was very fun to watch.
It featured heavily painted characters (many resembling animals)
acting out choreographed fights – very complex ones, including flips
over stick-swipes, lots of tossing back-and-forth of weapons
(including one move where the weapons of five actors were laid in a
pile, four scattered, and the lead pulled up the bottom weapon of the
pile so that each weapon flew to its owner), and the inverse-ninja law
(the fighting ability of a group of fighters is inversely proportional
to the number of fighters in the group; the Monkey King easily
defeated the 18).
For some bizarre reason, casterboards seem unusually popular here;
I've seen far more casterboards than standard skateboards. I have no
idea why.
I can't access my blog behind the Great Firewall, so I'm not sure if
my recent photos have made it up. I didn't bring my camera on the
trip to the Beijing Opera, but my friend (Chinese-named Lin Ke) took
some photos for me, which I will hopefully be able to upload soon.
It's my dad's birthday, so Happy Birthday! Sunday for me . . . I'm
going back to study.

A Few Photos

4 Days Into Classes

This is definitely the hardest I've worked in my life, at least in
terms of time spent on work; when I'm not eating, sleeping, or working
out (or blogging), I'm either in class or working on one of the
lessons. I also have a very early-shifted schedule; whereas I
normally go to bed around 11 and wake up from 7-8, I am now going to
bed at 9 every night and waking up at 5. One of the biggest
challenges is the differences in vocabulary sets between Harvard and
Yale students; the teachers tend to use Harvard vocabulary, so things
that Yale students have learned using one vocabulary set are mostly
unintelligible when other words are used. That's a good thing,
however, as we are being exposed to a wider range of vocabulary than
we would otherwise hear, and we have to know all the ways to say one
phrase for the ultimate goal of fluency.
I got here on Friday afternoon, where I met a group of other students
while waiting for a full busload to go to Beijing Yuyuan Daxue
(Beijing Language and Culture University). When we got here, we dealt
with some matters of setting up first. I went with a group of other
students to the Wudaokou area to eat dinner, then returned to the dorm
and slept. Saturday morning I went on a tour. Later, I took a bus
into the city with some others to eat lunch, then explored the (very
touristy) Wangfujing area. The other students wanted to stay in the
mall area longer than I wanted, so I took the subway back; the subway
system was very easy to navigate, even for someone who has only
studied Chinese for a year (the English option on the terminals also
helped). I forget what I did the rest of the day.
Sunday we signed the language pledge; I haven't conversed in English
since. Learning Chinese without using English poses special problems,
as we cannot ask someone the meaning of a sentence they just uttered,
instead asking them to describe it using other words or structures. I
think the most important part of learning Chinese will be vocabulary
accumulation, as if I do not know any words for a certain object or
action, I have to look them up or describe said object/action in a
roundabout way. If I can't do either, I simply have to switch topics.
This coming Saturday we will go to the Great Wall.

Night of the Final Day

12 Hours Remaining