Pre-Intro Introduction: This page is no longer up-to-date, as my
study abroad experience ended in the summer of 2001. Still, if you wish
to learn more about some of the journey, here it is.
The purpose of this Journal is to circumvent the need of writing
everything in my written Journal and allowing friends to view what's
happening in my life without force feeding it to them. This journal will
hopefully allow for the journalization of day-to-day thoughts and
occurrences with a higher degree of detail and at a faster pace.
My address at the study center is...
Kenneth Kao UC Center in China 5-501 Shaoyuan-low Peking University Beijing, PR China 100871 Cell: 011-86-1361-115-4389
For Chinese Characters, try here... Chinese Characters. My room at Beida is Building 8 room 212. Either 5-501 or 8-212 would work.
So let's see, I arrived in Beijing last night sometime around 19:00. It was not a very comfortable flight: the seats were too small and the time of the flight didn't promote sleep at all (it was an afternoon flight, technically from 3:30pm - 3:50am Los Angeles time). So when we arrived, we were exhausted. The airport was in itself an experience, because it was completely new. I was thinking to myself, that this airport seemed really new, and indeed it was. It was only completed not longer than one year ago. It was super-modern, and it still had a new smell to it. It certainly was well designed, and it was an interesting way of entering China. We waited a while for our luggage, then traded a broken one for a new one. Then my dad's friends met us at the meeting point and we were driven to the hotel. The trip to the hotel took about half an hour, and it was an interesting ride. First of all, I was separated from the other people; I was the only one in the first car. The rest were on another one that followed the lead car. I didn't have much to say - I was tired and still taking everything in from the change of environment.
Now that I was more formally trained in political economic theory, I was forced to examine the new country under a different set of ideas. It was interesting to see that everything is very much commercialized - much more than I had remembered from six years ago (the last time I visited China), and certainly even more than ten years ago (1990). The transportation infrastructure was also worth examining. There was a dedicated "expressway" to the airport, and the toll for that was 15 RMB. The expressway was close to interstate standards, although the exits weren't given sufficient space to merge both in and out of the expressway. Driving in China certainly would be a challenge. There are all sorts of vehicles on the road, from regular cars and taxis to large transport trucks and little mopeds and motorized carts. This makes driving very irregular, especially on the local roads within the city. Faster drivers frequently flash their high beams at other drivers. I'm assuming that this is to notify them of an approaching vehicle, and for the other driver to take heed. Even so, some drivers merge into lanes without signaling, and makes for situations that would make any driver annoyed. The infrastructure, being approached from a city planning point of view, seem very efficient. There are graded intersections with flyovers and all at each major intersection. This is only from my experience driving from the airport to the hotel, i.e. from the extreme northeast corner of Beijing to the southwest corner. The flyover that we went on was interesting in one regard: that both sides of the connector had pedestrian space for people to walk. This certainly would not be seen on the interstates, but then again, the flyovers have a much lower speed limit. No one was on the flyover, either, which might be something to think about as well. Nevertheless, the signage was standard with units measured in metric and having two languages: Chinese and English (Pinyin Romanization).
I noticed something very striking when entering the city proper. There were numerous high rises, mainly for residences, but as we approached the district where our hotel is, there were many restaurants (jiu jia). I thought that there really doesn't need to be that many, but when we talked with the owner of the hotel we were staying at, it became clear. Many people often go out to eat, especially on the weekdays. Therefore, it does make sense that there are so many restaurants catering to the demand of the 10 million plus Beijing residents.
Dinner was pleasant: it was in one of the private rooms of the hotel. The food they served was certainly high class; the only thing was that I couldn't eat half of it. For instance, I'm not a big fan of chicken feet, and I'm not the best eater of crab. At any rate, the red wine was okay, and the room was almost in a constant air of cigarette smoke. It wasn't too pleasant, but it was bearable because I guess the circulation in the room wasn't too bad. I had a terrible back pain during the dinner, probably because of the bad posture caused by the airplane seat. I returned to my own room in the hotel, cleaned up a bit, wrote a bit in the Journal, and then proceeded to go to bed. However, not 5 minutes later, my father came in with his friend. They wanted to discuss going to America to study for high school. I really couldn't add anything, because I didn't have first hand knowledge, but I did what I could. Then it was off to bed, for real this time.
The next day, today, rather, I woke up rather early by my usual standards. Given I slept at around 11:30pm and got up at 8:30pm, it was quite a normal sleep night (even though I was up almost 20 hours straight). Breakfast followed getting up, because my dad called on the phone, and then we did some miscellaneous stuff until lunch, for which we went to Coco's. It's the same Coco's that is found in the US, which I found to be interesting, and the food was extremely cheap. For instance, we all ordered steak, albeit a small cut, for 48 RMB, which is around $6. This included soup, salad, bread, and coffee. We also went to the bank to open up an account, and then back to the hotel. I've been here ever since, listening to a German program on the radio at 2:30pm. That was certainly a surprise: I was scanning the airwaves for something to good to hear, and I come across someone speaking German - or at least something that sounded similar or non-Chinese. After that, I continued to think and write in my Journal, which has occupied me more or less until right now, 4:30pm. I've got to meet Jeffrey (my father's friend's son who's also coming to Beida from Michigan) and give him some stuff soon. I have to walk all the way to the West Railroad Station, though, which was the only major landmark that I know around the hotel (Zhang Qiu Da Xa). I was supposed to go out after my dad went to the airport this afternoon to purchase an alarm clock and a hairdryer, but I decided to stay in because it's hot out! And besides, I'll be going out soon enough.
Thus far, the whole experience (less than 24 hours so far) has been interesting. I've had a lot of time to think and reflect on many things that are confronting me at the current time. I take comfort in the things that I'm familiar with, however, such as writing on the laptop, listening to MP3's, and watching the Lakers lose (well, this isn't too familiar, but it's interesting watching a basketball game narrated in Chinese for Game 5 the Lakers were off more than 20 points in the fourth quarter). So that has been my thoughts for so far, and I'm looking forward to being able to send email. I'm not expecting anything, but I wanted to write some - like to Lindsay who might still be in China. At first I thought that there would be many people in here while I'm here, like Lindsay and Hansie, but that doesn't seem to be possible anymore. That's too bad, but oh well, what can you do. At any rate, I should be going now. (end, 4:37pm)
So I left the hotel soon after ending the Journal entry, and I walked over to the Beijing West Train Station. It was an amazingly large train station; I wasn't expecting such a massive space was all dedicated to the train station. Well - it wasn't most of it was an indoor marketplace, kind of like a mall of sorts. The weather was fairly warm, but not hot. It was sort of cooler in the train station, though, because the floor I used to get to the main entrance (the North entrance, I think) was the bottom floor. So I went up the escalators to the second floor and met Jeffrey. It wasn't hard to identify him because he was wearing a stripe shirt and had a backpack not the usual cheng san with slacks and shoes. I wasn't sure if he had time, so I brought everything along, but it turned out he did, so we went back to my room. I realized what a long walk it was from the hotel to the center of the train station, but it was a pleasant walk. Once we emerged onto the street, I did notice that it was almost hot. But soon enough we were at the hotel, saved by kong tiao. We talked for a while about cameras and his singing stuff, and then he had to go. It was nice to have someone to talk to - it broke the awkwardness thus far in the trip, with all the meals and time spent with my father's friends.
Afterwards, I basically was scouring things to do. I accomplished a couple of things, like packing the small suitcase with some clothes that I'll bring to Suzhou if I go there in a couple of days to visit my grandmother. I watched some television and listened to my CD's. About 9:00 I was going to go out to McDo's across the street from the south entrance to the train station, but then my father brought by some food. It was pretty good from the restaurant downstairs. I couldn't finish all the salmon, so I put that into the refrigerator. Then it was basically trying to find something to do again. More television, more music. I'm getting a little tired now, so I'm thinking I'll go to bed. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I think I'll probably have to go to the hotel, if it's okay, to drop off my suitcases and let it sit there until I check in for the summer program. Jeffrey said that our accommodations at the Jimen Fandian were pretty crappy, for which I'm kind of sad. But what can you do. I just hope that if it's okay to store stuff there until the beginning of the program, that my suitcases will be safe. I have most of my film in the suitcases!!! I can't be losing any of my film, now can I? Then I think we'll be leaving either the day after or on Wednesday, at the latest. I'll take a train down to Suzhou - which is at least a 14-hour train ride. That's so long. But I think that's probably better than having to go down to Shandong with my father and going around helping him do his stuff. It's probably going to be unhappy and morbid, so it might be best if I avoid that. That's about it for tonight then. (end, 11:22pm)
There really hasn't been much going on these past couple of days. Yesterday was for the most part uneventful. I went to another big hotel to eat lunch with one of my dad's friend's friend. He was also the general manager of the hotel, so it was nice to eat really good food again. I was preparing to spend another boring day just kind of loafing around the hotel room, but then I started asking if there was any way to get online, so that at least I could check email and write some as well. After much probing on my dad's part, I finally ended up at the central offices. One of the workers there told me about this one service that apparently is free. I wrote down the number and the username and password. I tried it: the first time failed, but the second time was successful. It was extremely slow and I had to wait for a really long time for the server to respond, but I guess that's why it's free. At least I really do hope that it's free. I was thinking today that maybe what they do is charge you per minute, to your telephone bill, kind of like 976 or 900 numbers. I hope not, because then I'd feel bad for the hotel and the general manager - since it's they who are going to foot the bill. At any rate, I was able to connect and check email, however slowly. There weren't that many, but I was anxious to send out some email. I sent one to Lindsay - but I don't think she got it because today I received an email from her saying that she's around and for me to call her. I think she was using another account than the one I sent it to. So mainly, yesterday was dedicated to being online. This was a much greater pastime than just watching television and stuff. Most of the time, indeed, I was waiting, but oh well. I had access to the outside world. We went to the downstairs restaurant to eat dinner.
After dinner, I was expecting to go back to my room and finish up cleaning up my emails from the server, because I had to many there. I think because I changed time zones, the computer thought that all the messages on the server were new, so it redownloaded all the messages on the server. It took almost 45 minutes on and off, so I decided to go through my messages and erase all the ones that I really don't need. That took a while because I had so many messages to go through in multiple mailboxes. Nevertheless, I had to do it sometime, and this was probably the best time since I wasn't really doing anything else. So anyway, that took up time. But getting back on track, after I ate dinner, my dad when to a yeh zhong hui. I didn't want to go, because that would be kind of odd, so he said that I should go to the sauna. Now, I haven't ever been to a sauna by myself before... it was interesting to say the least. Kind of uncomfortable, but I was already in so far and it would be awkward to leave then. I spent an hour there, and I must say, I feel really clean now.
The rest of the evening was spent mainly online. I went on ICQ, but no one was on because it was still really early in the morning back on the West Coast. So there wasn't much chatting going on - it was still mainly dealing with the email situation. Which brings me today. So far, today has also been uneventful. I woke up fairly early, at 8:30am, because my dad wanted me to be at a meeting at 9:00am regarding going to the US for college. So I went, and I really wasn't of much use. I went back to continue packing my stuff into my two big suitcases which would be stored at Jimen Fandian, and then we were taken there. The traffic was fairly bad, at around 10:00am, but our driver whisked us there fairly quickly because he was riding the shoulder. It seems like many people do that, even though I view it as bu shou gui ju. We got there, and the hotel didn't seem that shabby, at least from the outside. We met with the general manager and dropped off my stuff. Then we were taken back to our hotel. Lunch soon followed, but not before watching the Laker game! Game six was, I assume, broadcasted live from here on CCTV-2. I'm not much of a fan for the Chinese narration, but it was fun to watch it. I was very happy that we won 116-111. I was getting a little nervous at the end of the fourth quarter when the Lakers were only leading by 2. Anyway, we're now the NBA champions, so hooray for us!
Lunch was with some of my dad's factory people and General Manager Wong. I had already eaten some stuff while in my dad's room, so I wasn't very hungry. I tried the fried eggplants that Charlotte always says are really good they were okay. The flavor wasn't very egg-planty, but I didn't like the consistency and the texture of it. It was too slimy. The noodles, Lanzhou Lamien, were really good though. We also had red wine with lemon and ice, which made it kind of Sangria-esque. So now I'm back in my room and passing time until I leave for Suzhou via train at 6:30pm. It'll be a really long train ride, about 15 hours, from Beijing to Suzhou - so I'll be sleeping in the ran wuo. I'm still trying to contact Lindsay who's at Beida right now, but no one's picking up the phone. And I don't understand this whole pager thing, so I didn't leave a message successfully. I'll keep on trying. I think she'll be here until the weekend, so hopefully we can meet up by the time I get back from Suzhou. That's about all I can think of right now. I'm not sure if I should connect again to upload this. I don't have anything else to do, so I guess I will. I hope that I'll be able to SSH over to the Berkeley server. I couldn't earlier today, so I checked email through Yahoo. That is all. (end, 3:34pm)
I'm in Suzhou right now. The train ride down from Beijing was pleasant. I left the room at around 4:45pm to go to the restaurant to order something to bring on the train. I left the hotel with the driver at about 5:30pm for the Beijing Main Train Station. We entered through the backdoor, so there were some problems because of something going on that day. Anyway, I got on the train and everything worked out in the end. I took the ran wuo, which was comfortable and more secure. There were only four people per room, and the beds are larger than the ying wuo but they are about 100 RMB more expensive. At any rate, I passed the time on the train by reading the magazine article from The Economist about China that was included in our EAP packet. I hadn't yet read it, and so since I had some time, I decided to do it then. I ate dinner on the train as well - the stuff that was packed from the hotel. It was good, but not as good as when it's hot and you're eating it at the table. I was reading the really old Metro section of the Los Angeles Times from more than two years ago. I had always kept it in my laptop case it's kind of nostalgic to read something from home and from long ago. Soon, 9:00pm rolled around, and we dispersed to our own beds. I was in bed by 10:00pm, and asleep around 10:45pm. I didn't sleep too well, though, because of the train noise and stuff. Everyone else in the room was already up by 7:00am the next day. I was getting off the train at 9:00am, so I knew I still had some time to sleep in. But I decided to get up anyway at around 7:45am because I couldn't go back to sleep. I briefly talked to this guy that was in my room - he was a businessman in the auto industry with aspirations of creating a car web site. He left at 8:20am or so, and so I slowly waited for arrival in Suzhou.
I wasn't sure if we had arrived in Suzhou yet, because there were no signs saying so. But I figured it our and got off the train. I found my grandmother's sister which I'm not sure what to call in English - perhaps great aunt or something to that effect. She came to pick me up, along with one of my aunts. They had already purchased the return ticket back to Beijing, but my dad insisted that I take the later train. But as it turns out, my aunt goes and returns the ticket, which was also a ran wuo ticket, for the later one but only as a ying zwoh. This was later deemed unacceptable because there was a high possibility of not being able to bribe the train person to upgrade me to ran wuo. So that caused some fuss, especially since each time we traded in the ticket, some of the value was taken away as a service charge. The weather in Suzhou was somewhat unpleasant. It was cloudy and stuffy - and not really cool. They called this huang mei tian. It also periodically rained, which made it even more unpleasant. Nevertheless, we went back to my great aunt's house where I met up with my grandmother. We ate lunch and afterwards, my aunt took me out to see the gardens of Suzhou. I went first to the Administrator's Garden, which is one of China's famous four gardens. It was very pretty, but unfortunately, the lighting was horrid and thus not that many good pictures could be taken. These would be the first couple of pictures taken in China - I hadn't taken any pictures before this, except for a digital snapshot of my train room. At the Administrator's Garden, it would also periodically rain very hard, which made the experience even less pleasant. My pants got all wet and it sucked, really. Nevertheless, the garden was large and the architecture splendid.
After that we went to the Lion Forest Garden. This place had many stone "mountains" that were brought in and artificially made to resemble lions. There were also mazes of sorts, where you can follow one path that would take you up and down these stone mountains through tunnels and bridges. The views were very nice, and the weather was more cooperative there. We also took a break and drank some tea at a teahouse on top of one of the buildings. Afterwards, we took a rickshaw, I guess, to the shopping street in Suzhou. This street is now off limits to automobiles, and it was a nice walking experience. I enjoyed some Suzhou candy delights and xiao dian. I had some xiao long bao, but they were somewhat dry. I also learned some things about tea. We were pretty tired by the end after visiting the bookstore, so we took the taxi back home. We ate dinner and I went to my Uncle's place to sleep for the night. Throughout the day, I met many relatives and they all gave me hong bao. I was surprised at this because I wasn't thinking about custom - I was just thinking that I would be going to Suzhou to visit my grandmother. I didn't think that my relatives would give me hong bao and take me around to see Suzhou. It was nice, though. I slept really early yesterday night, at around 9:00 or 9:30pm.
The next day, or rather, today, I got up early because of that. At 8:00am I went over to my great aunt's house and ate breakfast. By 9:00am, my aunt came over to take me to the other touristy spots in Suzhou. We first went to the Lion Hill and saw a leaning pagoda, the red stone that was supposedly bleached red from people's blood, as well as gardens and buildings. It was somewhat misty then, but it wasn't too bad. Today, I thought ahead to bring one of my fast prime lenses, but I still didn't bring my flash unit. At any rate, I hope I got some acceptable pictures there. We left at around 11:00am and went to get lunch. We went to a restaurant and ate much food. I couldn't eat that much, but we stayed there until it was more or less finished. There really wasn't anything else to do, so we sat there eating. It was nice to sit and rest for a while. The restaurant was located pretty close to two other gardens - the West Garden and the Lingering Garden. First we went to the West Garden, which was mainly a Buddhist temple. There was a building that housed many buddhas that were all carved. There was also a big temple, monks, and stuff. It was interesting, but it was there that I got bitten badly from the mosquitoes. Sigh, I've got to put on some of that bug repellant. The weather was much nicer and cooler, and there was no rain!
The next garden was the Lingering Garden, which I guess is the standard translation of liu yuan. We went in and bought some postcards because I had still yet to buy them! While we were looking, a whole slew of tourists came in, all with tours. We were competing with them for some picture space at the main attractions of Liu Yuan. I really liked this garden because it had a little bit of all the gardens in Suzhou. For instance, it had tings and lion mountain sculptures. It had gardens and buildings. It was fairly large and there were lots to explore. It was here that I found some American tourists - probably the first bunch that I've seen in China excluding the airport. There were some Dutch people, I think, yesterday. This bunch of Americans was a family with a tour guide specifically for them. I wanted to converse with them, because I missed speaking English (already, I know), but I thought that would be kind of dumb. Actually, there was an American tourist at West Garden, but she was with some Chinese people so she shouldn't count. Anyway, I'll be glad when I have some English-speaking people back in Beijing when the program starts to talk to. After going to that, we took a rickshaw to the mall. It's not really a mall, but a high-rise department store. I bought some stuff that I would need for the train ride back to Beijing, and also looked at clothes and shoes. It was so Chinese, all the stuff there. I can't imagine myself wearing the biao zwen, standard, Chinese attire. That is to say, leather shoes or sandals, silk or really thin socks, slacks, and a silk or thin kind of shirt. I would look so horrible, I think. I wonder what people will think if I did dress standard Chinese. Anyway after the mall, we went to the post office to pick up some stamps, then back to great aunt's house for dinner. Afterwards, I went to my uncle's house to talk a bit, and here I am on the laptop writing in the journal. I also wrote nine postcards to be sent out tomorrow. I still have to call Lindsay, though. Hopefully I'll get the time tomorrow and she'll be there. I hope we can do something the day I get back to Beijing, on Saturday, if she's still there. I've got the whole morning and afternoon, just about, because I don't think EAP is going to do anything on Saturday anyway, and my train arrives sometime around 9:00am on Saturday. We'll see what happens. (end, 11:29pm)
There hasn't been much time to let me write in this journal for the past week. I took the train back to Beijing from Suzhou, which really wasn't as long as I had thought it would be. Fifteen hours, the same as going to Suzhou. The only thing was that there were some rude people in the same room as me. They were loud and obnoxious one of them was smoking in the room, first of which is not allowed, and second of all really annoys me because I hate cigarette smoke as it is (yes, I know, smoke is so prolific in China). The good thing was that they left somewhere around Dezhou, which was around 11:00pm. I had the whole sleeper then to myself, but there was still a lingering smell of smoke. I arrived at about 7:40am, and tried to find a payphone quickly as to call Lindsay. She didn't receive the message that the train was scheduled to arrive earlier than I had said, so she was still sleeping. I took a cab over to Jimen Fandian, checked in, received some of the orientation stuff from Michelle, and then went to my room. My roommate was already there; he had arrived the night before. His name is Asher Gillespie, and he's from Michigan. He's got that Midwestern/Texan accent, however light.
I called Lindsay again and we met up at around 11:00. We went to get some food at the Lanzhou Lamien place outside our hotel. It was really cheap, and I found it to be okay. A big bowl of Lamien noodles cost 3 yuan about 40 cents. We went back to my room and watched some volleyball - China against Korea. Lindsay was cheering for the China team, who eventually won 3-2. We went over to Beida and she took me on a tour of the campus. It's a nice campus, kind of like Berkeley. Lindsay then saw some of her softball buddies and we went to watch some of them play. It was rainy earlier in the day, but it had cleared by late afternoon. I also met one of her friends, Jason, who I've heard so much about. Then I had to go back to my hotel to eat dinner with all the other EAP people. It was a nice and large dinner, and it was cool to see some of the people in our group.
That night was the first night in Beijing with everyone there. We went out to play at around 10:30pm. First we went to Bar Street (jiu ba jie), which was cool. We had a couple of beers, and then we went to the next bar. We decided that we wanted to dance a little, so we went to the Den, next to the City Hotel. It was a nice place and they played pretty good music. After a couple of Long Island Iced Teas and a Kamikazi, both my roommate and me were thoroughly buzzed. It was fun dancing there =). But people wanted to leave at around 1:20am, so we left as well. That was about it the first night pretty fun =). The next day we had this long meeting for EAP, through which Asher basically slept. I don't remember where we went to eat, I think at the place across from Parkson's, the department store close to our hotel. We then took a walking tour of the Beishida campus. Then it was another long meeting really boring. That night I remember going out somewhere, but I don't remember where. I think I went out to see Lindsay. Yes Jeffrey, Asher, and I went out to this Taiwanese restaurant and got really full there. Then we went to Bar Street again to meet up with Jeffrey's friend Caroline at Public Space. At 10:00pm I went to this one bar with Asher to meet up with Lindsay and some of her friends from Beida and other universities. Lindsay finally arrived at about 10:50pm I was going to leave almost because we had to leave at 8:00am the next morning. But anyway, I met Lindsay's new man in China but it's sad because she has to leave on Tuesday. I also met Lindsay's good friend Vivian at the bar. We left finally at 11:40pm - I couldn't wait for Jason to show up anymore.
On Monday, the next day, we went to the Forbidden City. It was a hazy day, so I didn't get many pictures. We weren't given much time there, only about an hour and a half. Then we met at the north gate and walked over the Beihai Park to eat at a restaurant there. It was a good restaurant - although it was pretty oily. We took a boat ride at the lake there, which was pretty fun, and then we went back to the hotel. I really can't remember what we did that night, I think we went out somewhere, but I don't know where. I guess that's why it's still best to write it down sooner than later. I've got to go now, I'll continue writing soon. (end, 4:12pm)
So, let's continue the summary of what happened last week. Monday night, after coming back from Beihai Park, we went to an Irish bar in the San Li Twen area. The atmosphere was fun, although everything was very expensive. Asher and I hadn't eaten dinner, so we both got food. Certainly it was still cheap by American standards at about 40 yuan per plate ($5), but usually one can eat in China for about 10 to 20 yuan per meal ($1.25 - $2.50). Anyway, some of them went back while some of us stayed a bit longer to go to another bar. It was a fun night. The next day, Tuesday, was a day filled with academic matters. We went to Beishida and had meetings and meetings about all sorts of academic stuff. We went to a local restaurant for lunch for about 45 yuan for 6 people, and then continued our long meetings into the afternoon. Unfortunately for my roommate, he went home sick so he missed most of the meetings. On Tuesday we also met our tutors. We talked to him till about 6 and then went back to the hotel. I stayed home that night.
On Wednesday we took our language placement test. Poor Asher missed that because of his illness... which I suspect was caused by the dinner we had on Monday night at the bar. Anyway, most of us felt that we were slaughtered by the examination. It was mainly because, at least for me, the test was completely in simplified characters, so many of the most basic characters I couldn't recognize. Nonetheless, I somewhat redeemed myself for the oral part of the exam. That afternoon we went to Liulichang for more shopping. We were looking for some stamps that could have our names engraved on it, but we ran out of time. It also started to rain on us while we were hanging out around that shopping area. There was also a big Nikon store around there, which I happily visited. One of the girls in our group had dropped her Nikon FE, so we asked about how much it would cost to repair the loose reflex mirror. That night we went out to eat roast duck at supposedly one of the famous restaurants in Beijing. It was a nice restaurant, but it was clearly very touristy. It was nicely decorated and there were scores of tour groups coming into the restaurant while we were eating. It was a fun meal, though.
On Thursday we had a talk with someone from the American embassy. It was kind of like a lecture that I would get at Berkeley about the political situation in China and other assorted current-event stuff. It was an interesting talk, but I was glad to have left... it was beginning to sound too much like a lecture. We were then taken to Siusuijie, or the Silk Alley, for some bargaining and shopping. We had a Hong Kong style Western lunch, and then we looked around the little shops until 4:30pm. I didn't find anything that I really wanted to buy, although I might go back someday and get some short sleeve Polo shirts for 30 yuan if I can get it down that low. I was also looking at a London Fog trenchcoat that started off at 680 yuan. I got it down to 400 yuan just for fun... I didn't actually have 400 yuan on me, only 200. Friday was more of a housing day... that is, we went to Beida and got to look at the dorms that the current year students were living in. I think I would like to live in building 6 with single rooms in a suite of three, but I have yet to see the "posh" building 8 suites. It was exciting to see what we would be doing the upcoming year. At 2:00pm we went to the Summer Palace. It was really an awesome day - very clear and hot. Asher finally came out of his illness to join us on this day. The summer palace was a nice place to explore and shoot some snapshots, but the heat and tourists got in the way. I think that night, since it was Friday night, we went to this one bar called Vic's. There were free drinks the whole night, so it was pretty cool. The music was all right, and I thought it was a fun night.
On Saturday we were supposed to go to the Dirt Market, but we didn't want to get up at 8:00am to go to it. So we stayed in until 10:45am and left for the Independence Day celebration. It was fun getting there: we took the 375 bus to the subway which took us to Jianguomen. The subway was nice and clean, especially for Chinese standards. From the World Trade Center, we took a shuttle that took us to the party site. It was hosted by a couple of American firms. The ambassador was also there. We paid 95 yuan for "free" drinks and food. It was especially hot that day, so we were glad to have received water guns (and for those of us wanting more, bought larger water guns) for an ongoing water fight. We went back at around 2:40pm. The rest of the day as well as most of Sunday were a blur. I believe we had gone bowling one day, but I'm not sure when.
Monday was the day we started school. The first half of our four hours of instruction was reading and writing, which I was placed in level 3 (out of 4). It was somewhat slow, but we decided to give it a try for a while. The second half was speaking, which I was placed in level 4. We were taught some strange grammar rule that didn't make much sense to most of us there, though. For lunch we went to a place around the school, and then took the bus back to the hotel. That afternoon we also took an excursion to the post office. It began to rain really hard right when we left, so we got pretty wet. But we accomplished our task of mailing out our letters, so that's a good thing. On Tuesday (yesterday) night we went out to celebrate July 4th, so we went to TGI Friday's for dinner. I had two shots, a drink, and a sandwich for 180 RMB, which was a lot to our new standards. That could feed one person for five days! Afterwards, we went to a club called Green. It was nice and modern, but the music sucked. They were playing jazzy stuff, which is cool to chill to but horrible to try to dance to. It was an interesting night. (end, 11:35pm)
There has been much that has been going on for the past month or so, and it's a pity that I don't have enought time to write it all down and update it on the web. Probably the most important or interesting thing that has happened was our trip to the Great Wall and Chengde. We went this past weekend, and the first night I slept with a whole bunch of other EAP people on top of the Great Wall. It was really great to be able to say that I actually spent the night on the Great Wall, but the truth is that it was very uncomfortable and kind of humid up there at night. We slept on a slope, so every once in a while I would have to move myself out of the sleeping bag and up a little so I don't completely crash into the person downhill from me. The next night was spent in a farming village outside of Chengde in Hebei province. It was certainly a great experience living with the farmers and experiencing their warm-hearted hospitality. They certainly didn't hold back on the beer! The next two nights were at Chengde. On the night of the 30th my friends surprised me by buying a cake and taking me out to go drink and sing karaoke. It certainly was lots of fun, and I got fairly drunk. We celebrated until the karaoke bar closed at 2:30am on July 31. Anyway, there is so much more to write about, but I have to first write my Chinese essay that's due tomorrow. (end, 12:11am)
It's been a while since I last wrote in this journal. There has been lots going on, just not enough time to sit down and write it all down. Since there is so much to write about, let me categorize what there is to write about. I'll treat this kind of like an essay, with a thesis and all. The only thing is that I'm not proving anything. I'll start off with school, and then about the trip that we took to Chengde with EAP, and then graduation, and then the two-week vacation trip. That should take a while to complete, so let me start.
School was never really hard, I have to admit. After being upgraded to the advanced level, I found that the texts were hard to read and understand, but the homework wasn't too hard. Most of the homework that we had were essays... and that usually could be about anything you wanted it to be, as long as it followed some basic rules. My essays were usually always the crappiest, mainly because I don't plan the essays out and I write it the night before it is due. Another contributing factor is that my Chinese isn't completely up to par with the other people in the class, so I tend to use diction and grammar that is commonly used in spoken language, but not too much in written language (because it is too casual). And, I don't use idioms (chengyu). Nevertheless, our professor grades fairly easily, and I usually get 90's or the lowest an 85. The tests are similar to the homework. We have in class written tests, which are usually in essay form. For instance, he would ask us to describe why this piece is different from the other one, and what are their good points and bad points. Generally, the tests were easy to handle, because we could use our notes, our dictionaries, etc. And that was the written class. As for the oral conversation class, everything was pretty much the same from day to day. She would give us a topic to prepare on, and then the next day we would individually discuss that topic and have a general conversation. Occasionally we would have to suffer through the boring textbook, which was mainly looking at "new" vocabulary words and the like. My only regret, after taking these two classes and looking at my grades, is not had taken them for more units. Alas, the stupid Berkeley unit ceiling.
In the middle of the term, the EAP study center organized a trip for us to Chengde. This was a well deserved and very welcomed break from our tedious studies. We left on Thursday, July 27th. Taking the bus, we left our happy Jimen Hotel and drove for 3 hours to Jingshanling. This is one of the sections of the Great Wall. We ate lunch there at the hotel, and then it began to rain. Oh lovely. So after resting a while from lunch, we reluctantly left our dry room for the Wall. Apparently, we took the rocky shortcut and decided to turn back instead of walking through people's farms and graves. Back at the hotel, I was tempted to just stay in, but decided instead to go out again to find the Wall. We took the paved road up, and finally we arrived at the Wall. Once we were on the Wall, it stopped raining, so we rejoiced. There wasn't that many people on the Wall, which was a good thing because I hate going to very crowded places. There was a lot of people on one of the sections holding flags... we assumed that they were filming a commercial there or something like that. We had dinner at the same dark restaurant, and then by nightfall we were preparing for our trek back to the Great Wall. Many of us wanted to actually go up on the Wall and spend the night on it. By around 9:00pm, we were prepared with our sleeping bags and mats and ascended the wall with our flashlights. There was no artificial lighting, so it was pitch black. We set up camp about halfway up the first mountain. On that step there were two crowds... more people passed us and slept on their own levels or section of the Wall. The night was fun-filled, occupied by singing of English songs, and sometimes punctuated with old Chinese songs or Wong Faye. By 1:00am we were telling ghost stories and pick up lines. I finally dozed off at about 1:45am, only to be woken up at 3:00am. I didn't sleep the rest of the time on the Wall, but I was very sad: the view of the moon was spectacular! The moon was a big crescent, and it hung over the Great Wall as if it were a postcard picture. Alas, I didn't want to lug my big camera bag and tripod up to the Great Wall, because I was afraid it was going to rain. The sun rose soon after, and my that was a pretty sight. There were still a lot of clouds in the air, but it made for some beautiful colors in the sky. That mixed with the winding Wall poking up through the fog and mist... it was really beautiful. At 6:00am we climbed down. I took a cold shower (no 24 hour hot water) and went to sleep until 9:00am, when the bus was supposed to leave. There's more to this, but I'll have to continue after I eat dinner. (end, 8:40pm)
I'm so happy that a lot of people have returned from their travels. This past weekend, to say the least, was somewhat, oh what's the word, boring. Beida is so far from everything else and Beishida that once you're here, it's hard to leave. Anyway, allow me to continue with the "catching up" that I started last night. After leaving the Great Wall, we were driven to Chengde to have lunch. But we weren't staying in Chengde. Instead, we continued another 2 hours to a small village in Chengde county called Xiaofanggou. We were separated into families; Andrew and Tim were in my family. Our family was really nice: the parents sat us down in our room (which normally is the kid's room) and tried to have a little talk with us. But accents got in the way and they let us go around the village. The kids showed us around and took us to the water tower overlooking the village. It was a nifty place that all the kids seemed to hang out at. People (some of them our own) were playing games like "duck, duck, goose," and other diversions there. We also got to see their school. Jeff, Ben, et al and their kids were catching little critters and pulling their legs off. That was interesting. Soon, it was time for dinner, and it was very obvious that the dad was trying to get us drunk. Tim lucked out by saying that he didn't drink, but for Andrew and me, the rice bowl was filed with beer. And it was like the cheap ass beer, I think it was called Yunhu Beer. After a couple of bowls, we were pretty giggly. After dinner, we took an excursion to the next town, about a 15 minute walk. They had an outdoor karaoke machine that everyone was huddling around. Back at our village, everyone was huddled around Eugene, who brought his guitar. Even Prof Bell sang a song (she was drunk...). The night was an interesting experience... let's just say that the toilets are so disgusting in the village. I didn't know that there was a pig next to the toilet room, so I kept on hearing rustling noises... I thought it was rats or something. The next morning we woke up at butt crack of dawn, around 6. Breakfast was served, and it was much like dinner. Thankfully, I don't think beer was served. Actually, I think it was, but we just didn't have that much. It was 6:30am for heaven's sake! Later that morning we went up to a mountain adjoining the village and got a great view of the valley. We also went to one of the family's house and sang some karaoke. That was fun. And this is when I first heard that really famous song about 2 years ago (translated: the girl across the street look over here"). Lunch also involved some beer, but not as much as last night. I think we finished off their supply of beer, anyway. I was interesting: the dad sent his son to the market to buy us more beer, but we declined. This experience was very interesting and we all learned a lot about each other.
From here it's mainly downhill. We took the bus back to Chengde. We ate dinner at the hotel, and that evening we went to the night market. The next day we went to some temples. I especially liked the Tibetian one. I think we also went to the Summer Palace that day. That night was a surprise. I didn't think anyone would remember my birthday... in fact, I almost forgot about it. We had planned to meet to sing karaoke, and when I got downstairs, I saw Pei-jej coming in with a cake. She had remembered! We went to a nearby hotel that had a karaoke bar (not individual rooms), which was fine because a lot of people had accumulated, almost 40. We sang and drank. I started off with Baijiu, which was so nasty. People kept on toasting me. I had two beers, I think. That was a pretty incriminating night, because it seems like in every picture, I had a green beer bottle in my hand. What an interesting way to spend my 21st birthday - in a karaoke bar in a hotel in Chengde, China. I'm just glad that I didn't have too much as to make me want to throw up. I was almost there, but I stopped just in time. The next day we went to the thumb rock, and then we were on our way back to Beijing. What a fun trip. I look forward to our future EAP planned trips!
So classes went on, and finally we took our finals and were done with the summer ILP. Graduation was on August 16th, and it was kind of sad, because many people were going to leave because they were only here for the summer. The banquet started off with a Chinese food buffet, and then we stopped for speeches of appreciation and the handing out of "diplomas." I made a speech for our speaking teacher, because for some strange reason I was chosen to be the class president. I didn't prepare anything because the night before we were out till late partying at Banana's. After the graduation festivities, we went back to Jimen to get our stuff to our respective universities for storage for the two weeks that we would be traveling. That evening, Pei-jej's mom took us out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Beijing. It's very local, and I don't think Pei-jej's mom was used to that. The next morning, we got up really early to catch the plane to Guilin.
We arrived in Guilin and checked in at the Minhang Hotel. We had a rip-off lunch and then went to Diecai Mountain. It was a little rainy, but nothing we couldn't handle. From this mountain, we could see all of Guilin and the mountains surrounding it. It was a nice park. We tried to go to the Seven Star Park, but by the time we got there it was already getting close to dark. The next day (18th) we took the boat through the river gorge and saw what Guilin was famous for. It really wasn't all that... I think that's because there were a million other boats along the way, and it was a little hazy (not foggy). We arrived at Yangshuo, which supposedly is a great town to relax in, but our tour group didn't permit too much time there. Instead, we went around to some of the other famous sights, such as a minority village and some moon crescent park. On the way back, we were subjected to our first experience with "gou-wu," or tour-forced shopping. Oh that was so annoying, and took up so much of our time. That night, we ate at a mall... hoping that it would be safer than the lunch that we had on the boat. The next day (19th) we went to a cave with interesting rock formations, and then to the Seven Star Park, which also had a cave. We also saw the big elephant stone in the middle of the city. We didn't have time for lunch that day, because we had to catch our flight to Kunming at 6pm.
The flight was fine... we arranged to get picked up at the airport and stay at a four-star hotel for Y100, but that fell through. Instead, we walked around the city finding a hotel. We finally found one at Y60 a night, but only if you waited until after 11:30pm. So to pass the time, we got a karaoke room and sang! It was so fun. That night Andrew had a little bit of stomach problems, but was okay to go out the next day (20th). We ate some famous noodles there called "crossing the bridge" noodles, and then we took the bus to the Dragon Gate Park overlooking Lake Dian (in Chinese, it sounds like "battery"). That night we didn't do anything, we just rested, especially since Andrew still wasn't feeling too well. The next day (21st) we went to the Stone Forest. I think I was the only one who liked this park. Andrew was extremely tired so he went to take a nap (he had no interest in looking at rocks), and Pei-jej lost her phone there. I just wandered around by myself and got lost among the strange rock formations. It was nice, I thought. That night, we took the train to Dali.
The morning of the 22nd we arrived in Dali. Only later we found out it was actually Xiaguan, and we had to take a 20-minute bus over to the "old-town" of Dali. We were tricked by one of the people at the train station. He said that for Y10 he would take us there. Once we got to our hotel, he wanted Y20: Y10 for the bus fare (which was only Y7 anyway) and Y10 for "guiding" us there (we didn't need to be guided on the bus). Originally, our understanding was that he was going to drive us there all for Y10. So he got all fussy about that, but we weren't going to pay: it was the principle of it all. The hotel people were also helping us get him off our back. I guess the guy was unhappy because the hotel didn't give commission to people who "introduced" us to their hotel (which we wanted to go anyway because it was in Lonely Planet). Anyway, so at least that was behind us. That day rode horses up the Cangshan (mountain), but it was pretty bumpy since it was very uphill. We didn't want to ride the horses back down, so we took the cable car. While up on Cangshan, Andrew and I went to a waterfall about 30 minutes away from where we were dropped off. That evening we just chilled at coffeehouses on the "Westerner Street." It was such a nice atmosphere. The next day (23rd) we took a boat tour of Erhai, the adjoining lake. It was a pretty lake, but there were lots of touristy things on the boat. We got a massage on the boat. After the boat ride, we went to the Butterfly Spring, and then we visited Xizhou, which has great examples of traditional Bai architecture. We went back to Dali and no doubt relaxed at a coffeehouse again. The next day (24th) we got up early and ate breakfast, and then caught our bus that took us to Lijiang. And I'll stop here and continue at a later time. (end, 8:10pm)
Well it's been a while since I last wrote in this journal. I wonder actually if anyone really reads it, though, because it is really detailed. And normally people just don't want to know everything that I did over my breaks and my day-to-day activities. Anyway, there really have been a lot happening since last month. Things that I should accomplish sometime in this journal is: 1) finish describing the summer trip, 2) describe starting school at Beida, 3) Inner Mongolia Trip, and 4) Korea Trip.
Well, first thing's first. Lijiang, I think, is where I left off. Lijiang was really pretty. We stayed there two nights, I think (see - the bad thing about writing this now is that the details become fuzzy). We explored the cool streets of old Lijiang and admired the traditional local minority architecture. We were trying to find a good tour to take us to Hutiaoxia, and we participated in that the next day. But I do remember that that night we went to a karaoke bar in Lijiang, and we were thouroughly disappointed. The place was pretty seedy, and it wasn't that good, either. Nevertheless, we tried to make the best out of it. So anyway, the tour the next day took us to the first bend of he Yangtze River and to the spectacular place known as Hutiaoxia. This place is where the Yangtze becomes rapids. Technically, the best place to go is through the actual gorge, but that would take at least one night of camping... and we weren't really up for that. So we snapped some pictures and went back to Lijiang.
The next day we went to Maoniuping - which is a mountain north of Lijiang. We got our own cab and he took us there. We went up the tram and were at an elevation of 11,500 feet. And then my phone rings - Charlotte was calling from San Jose! It's so interesting - I'm in the most pian-pi place and I can still get reception. She called to tell me that she was heading out to DC, and I wished her luck and thanked her for calling. Afterwards, we dressed up in some minority costumes, and took lots of pictures. We also tried to continue down the trail, but our time was limited, so we turned back. We went to the bus station and ate around there, and then we caught the afternoon bus to Zhongdian.
The bus ride there was miserable, as I'm sure Andrew can tell you. After that bus ride, we were kind of wary of busses, to say the least. It took 5 hours, three of which were on unpaved or in the midst of construction. We got there and looked for a hotel for an hour or so, and then just ended up at the place that was suggested by Lonely Planet. We explored the night life (i.e. the two street vendors) and got some fang-bian-mian, or instant noodles. The next day Andrew fell sick, so Pei-jej and I went to eat and go to the Tibetian monastery which was the main reason why we were there. I loved the monastery - it was so photogenic! Then we went to a grassland where we rode horses. I didn't want to because I didn't find any meaning in it (mei-yo-yi-shi), but I gave in and paid Y50. On the way back we had to call for a taxi, and we waited in the performance hall of the place. We were befriended by some of the performers, and it was really neat talking to them and getting to know their backgrounds and lives.
The next day Pei-jej and I went to Shangrila. The bus ride there was also miserable... I felt as if I was going to die. The ride was about three or four hours, but the scenery there was really magnificent. It reminded me of an unspoiled Yosemite or something similar. There wasn't a valley - it was just a river with granite rock walls on one side and lush trees on the other. We rode horses down the path because the path was muddy... I would have prefered to walk because then I could take my time and compose pictures. But this way I felt really rushed because I had a guide and a horse waiting for me. Then we headed back and had hot pot for dinner. It was very spicy! No more Ma-La-Huo-Guo for me.
I don't think we spent any more time in Zhongdian, which would mean that the next day we flew back to Kunming. I must admit, though, I loved the airport in Zhongdian (aka Diqing) - the scenery was really nice and we had to walk out to the airplane. It was really neat. Anyway, we arrived in Kunming and we split up there. Pei-jej went to Xi'an, but Andrew and I didn't want to go, so we went to Qingdao instead.
Qingdao was cool - the first night we stayed at a supposedly five-star hotel (it wasn't worth it) and had Korean food and walked down the coast. The next couple of days was mainly spent just exploring the city, like Zhongshan Lu and the pier and stuff. The last day we were invited by my dad's friend to go to the city of Jimo. The mayor of the SEZ there met us, but he was drunk so couldn't have dinner with us. We ate with some other people after taking a tour of the city, and got a little buzzed. On the way back we stopped by the Qingdao beer festival got got more beer. It was lots of fun!
The next day we took the train back to Beijing. We got back at 8:00pm, and ate at McDonald's (like the last three days). What can we say, we missed Western food (or in Andrew's case, safe food). I went back to my Beida dorm and that was the end of our summer break vacation. What a great time we had! And that's about as much as I'm motivated to write right now from a telnet terminal in an internet cafe, so I'll end it here. I'll continue the other three points at a later date. (end, 8:57pm)
