Fragrant Hill (April 11)

On April 11th, we went outside Beijing to a place called Fragrant Hill, a scenic spot where you can look down on most of the Beijing area.
First, let’s get one thing straight. This place is called “Fragrant Hill.” The name is a lie. It is a mountain, not a hill.
So, on two hours of sleep (long story), I climbed up literally 1000 stairs (they had markers every 50 stairs—it was a little disheartening, but the stairs only started halfway up so I have no idea how far we actually climbed) to see just about nothing. A combination of pollution and fog made it possible to see just about nothing. I saw to bottom of the mountain and just beyond, but absolutely nothing of the actual city of Beijing. I hear on a good day, Fragrant Hill is stunning. Unfortunately, I climbed up that mountain to see more fog and dead trees. The one good thing that came out of it is that the air was a little fresher up there, so I was huffing and puffing in too much particulate matter. Here are some pictures of the view:

Once we got to the top, we had some lunch and then decided to go back down in a different direction. Bad idea. We ended up getting completely lost and had to create our own little path down the mountain through the trees. Somehow, after walking around the base of the mountain and doing a little rock climbing, we made it to the bottom. As soon as I got back, I took a very, very long nap.

Spring is finally here!

Ever since two weeks after we got here, our professors have been saying that spring has arrived. When it was snowing outside, I definitely did not believe them. However, as the semester continued, Beijing gradually started to look alive. Almost all the trees have leaves again, and flowers of all kinds have been blooming all over the place.

Usually, spring in Beijing means hellish sandstorms. I asked my tutor about them, and she said just last year she remembers a time when she looked outside and all she saw was the yellow sand. Pretty intense. Somehow, we seem to have missed this strange weather pattern. I have yet to experience the infamous Beijing sandstorms (I’m definitely not complaining about that). It has been windy, but fortunately not enough to fill the air with sand from Inner Mongolia.
I feel that Beijing’s weather also deserves a mention. One thing you can’t avoid talking about here is the pollution. I think it can be summed up by this story: my study abroad advisor from Notre Dame is from Beijing, and she said until she came to the U.S. she honestly thought the sky was grey. The big thing about the pollution levels is that it really does change every day. Some days I wake up and feel fine, and other days I wake up and hardly want to breathe the air. Some days you can see the mountains to the west of us, and some days you can’t. Some days you can tell where the sun is, and other days the sky is light but you can just barely discern that the vaguely shining orb in the sky is in fact the sun, and other days you can only just feel the sun’s presence. There will be those who tell us it’s just fog, but we know better. It’s pollution. Most of the other students here also have the “Beijing Lung”, a wheezy cough that never really goes away. I’m convinced the wheeze is what first gave me bronchitis.

Other than the pollution levels, I think Beijing’s weather is a lot like St. Louis’. If you don’t like it, wait 10 minutes—it will change. It has been gradually getting warmer, but periods of comfortable temperatures are always interrupted by days of cold or rain. Now it is starting to get actually consistently warm, which means all the foreign students are donning their t-shirts and shorts. The Chinese remain in their sweaters, jackets and long pants. I don’t know how they do it, but they seem just as confused by me. Every time I wear shorts (even Bermuda shorts), inevitably at least one Chinese person will ask me how I am not freezing cold (meanwhile, I have no idea how they are not sweating their brains out). Even in 80 degree weather, they still dress as if it were late autumn. As if we foreigners weren’t easy enough to spot already. On top of possibly blond hair and blue eyes, add our different clothing habits, and you’ve got a sure fire way to recognize a fellow foreigner from across the quad.

Before I came, I heard from other Notre Dame study abroad students that Peking University’s campus was a lot like Notre Dame’s: lots of old trees, a lake, and obsessive compulsive groundskeepers. When I arrived and everything looked dead and depressing, I wasn’t really seeing the beauty in the campus. However, now that everything is green and blooming, PKU is definitely starting to look like the garden I heard it described as.

Side note: the lake in the photos is called未名湖, (Wei Ming Hu), and it is on PKU's campus.

The Tale of a Dead Hard Drive

As of April 7, my computer as I knew it has been dead. (which may explain my absence from blog-writing, if you haven’t noticed).
It all began the week before April 7th. My computer had been behaving strangely, every once in a while suddenly jumping to a blue screen of death and requiring me to reboot my computer. The general consensus was that my computer caught a pretty nasty virus (as diagnosed by my mom and neighbor). I had run basically every virus scan that is possible, but they just couldn’t find what was going on with my computer. Then it all became clear on April 7th.
To begin with, it was a terrible day. Earlier that day, I had taken a grammar test that was so picky I’m not sure a native speaker could have passed it. Needless to say, I was not very pleased about that. Luckily for me, in addition to that 2 hours of sheer torture, I had four other hours of class, so by the end of the day my brain was completely fried. I needed to get some money that day because I was running low, but every ATM on campus seemed to be taking some sort of day off, and none of them were working, so I was frustrated about that. On returning to my computer, I pushed the power button, expecting nothing but the same black screen with the windows logo on it. Wrong again.
Instead of booting up, my computer stayed in black screen with just a few meaningless computer code words that I couldn’t possibly figure out, other than those at the very bottom, which read “No bootable devices found.” Not good, I thought. Well, at least I was right about something. (To add to my day of catastrophes small and large, in the subsequent panic, my terracotta warrior I got in Xi’an fell and shattered on the ground. As much as I wanted to throw it away, I decided to keep it. In its shattered form, it actually looks more authentic and more like the actual Terracotta Warriors than it did while it was in one piece.)
In a sheer panic, I went to my friend’s room to beg to use her computer to call my mom on Skype to see what could possibly be the problem. Call Dell was the solution, which I did next. After talking to several different Dell agents and nervously explaining my situation over and over again, I finally found the right one. He had me run a few tests, and in the end my computer started beeping and flashing. Once again, I thought “Not good.” The Dell agent shortly thereafter diagnosed the problem: crashed hard drive. And crashed in a way that all my files are gone. He was more than willing to send me a new one, seeing as how I have a warrantee for hard drive issues with my computer. Unfortunately, I am in China.
Well, this threw a kink in the plan. The Dell guy told me I had to call the Dell office in China and arrange for THEM to send me a new hard drive. He gave me the phone number, but then told me that the office is only open until 5:30 local time, and it was now 6 o’clock. I hung up, confident that the next day all my problems would be solved. Wrong yet again.
When I got back from class the next day, I called the number he gave me, except it wasn’t a functioning number. Frustrated, I again wove my way through the several Dell agents, explaining my situation time and time again, just trying to get the correct number for Dell China. The next lady I talked to gave me two numbers, just in case one was wrong. I hung up with her, slightly less confident than before, but reassured by at least having a backup option. Well, the first one was also a non-functioning number. Luckily for me, the next number was in fact a functioning telephone number. Unfortunately, it was not for Dell China. It apparently was 1-800-JUST-GAY, a gay telephone service offering “100% pure American beef” to its male callers. Not quite Dell China.
Seeing as how the phone call solution to this problem was just not working out, I set my sights on a new method. I found what I believed to be a Dell store in China, and shockingly it was within walking distance of my campus. (My campus is in the educational area of Beijing, and just outside its south gate is Beijing’s “Silicon Valley”, Zhongguancun.) I arranged for my tutor to go with me to what I believed was the Dell store, assuming that my Chinese computer repair vocabulary wasn’t quite ready for this level of conversation. The end was in sight.
The next day, my tutor and I walked to this place. Well, it technically was a Dell store, but it was also technically not. The second I walked in, I got the stares and the “Pretty Lady, you want computer? Sony? IPod?” that I have become so used to in China. It was not quite what I expected. We wove our way through the seas of salespeople and finally found the Dell station. Well, they sold Dells but were not in the business of fixing them, especially in regards to any warrantee arrangement. They took a look nevertheless, and were convinced that (even though the entire time they were telling my tutor about how they couldn’t understand it because it was in English), that they knew what the problem was, a problem that seemingly got lost in translation. I told them that I already knew what the problem is, that I just needed a new hard drive. In response, they were willing to fix my computer’s imaginary problem for 150 RMB, then I could be on my way. Not really keen on paying for a repair that I didn’t need, especially from someone who didn’t understand what my computer was saying, I had them give me the REAL Dell China phone number. My tutor did the talking (as it was in Chinese, and like I said my vocabulary just isn’t there yet), and basically they would not give me a hard drive unless I changed my service agreement to China, a change that would take over a month. No thanks.
Dejected and clueless as to how I would get a computer back with still half the program left to go, I left the market and went to go to a dinner with my fellow Notre Dame students and our program coordinator who was in town for the day. Oddly enough, there is another ND student from St. Louis in the program (Alex), and at dinner he mentioned how the next week his parents were coming to China. A light bulb turned on in my head. My new plan: have Dell USA ship my mother the hard drive and the accompanying goods to my house, have her drop it off at his parent’s house, and have them bring it to China. A complicated process, but it was my only hope. Thankfully, Alex agreed as did his parents. A large church choir singing the Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus repeated in my head. After dinner, I went home, had Dell ship the parts to the house and hoped beyond hope that they would arrive in time. Alex’s parents left on Tuesday morning at the crack of dawn for China, and Dell promised the hard drive would make it to the house by Monday afternoon, giving my mom an approximately 15 hours window in which to drop off the goods. Luckily, the hard drive arrived and the exchange was made successfully. Unfortunately, his parents were flying into Shanghai first, and wouldn’t be in Beijing until the next week. So I spent the rest of that week wishing Shanghai was closer to Beijing, but comforted by the fact that my new computer was somewhere in China.
The next week came, and on Monday I went to pick up my new hard drive. I got home, figured out which part of my computer actually is the hard drive (a very educational lesson in computer construction), physically installed it and did a happy dance when something other than a black screen of hopelessness appeared. I watched as Windows installed itself on my computer, anxiously awaiting the day I could once again log onto Facebook on my own computer. Well, wrong once again.
Windows installed without a glitch, but when I tried to install the disks that Dell sent me for internet, video and sound drivers, I ran into a small problem. In all the rush to send me my hard drive quickly, Dell was unable to send me CD’s for my actual computer. I now have drivers for all kinds of Inspirons except my own. This being the case, my hope for being able to use my computer that night flew out the window.
Once again, I had to resort to using a friend’s computer to solve my problems (I would have done it myself, but my computer was completely unaware that it had internet capabilities). I chatted online with a Dell representative, Lisa, whose first language was clearly not English. I asked her to give me a list of the drivers I would need to install onto my computer from the website, as the disks were clearly not going to work. I think my personal favorite moment from the entire conversation was when I asked her how to download the drivers, to which she responded “If you have any questions feel free to ask”. (I really wanted to respond with “How about the question I just asked you?” but I decided against it.) She was clearly useless, so I gave up and went to bed.
The next day was the two week anniversary of my computer crashing—a very important day. I used a friend’s computer and chatted with Dell again and downloaded the drivers I needed just to run the internet onto a flash drive to install on my own computer. Laudon, my Dell representative of the day, offered to “barge on in” and download them on my computer, but since my friend really wasn’t keen on having anyone barge in on his computer to download drivers that he clearly didn’t need, we said goodbye to Laudon. I got my internet up and running after installing those drivers, and then began chatting with Allen, my new Dell friend. He pretty much hacked into my computer and did all the downloading for me, which was simultaneously terrifying and convenient. It really freaked me out to see my mouse moving without me moving it, but I can’t lie having someone who knows what they are doing downloading drivers from who knows where is kind of cool. As it was getting late and I wanted to get to bed, I had Allen give me a list of the rest of the drivers I needed to be downloaded the next day.
Wednesday I finished downloading the drivers, installed my anti-virus software and ran Windows Updates, and then I was up and running. 15 days later, I finally had a computer again.
The recovery process has been a long one. I knew I was dependent on my computer for my life, but I didn’t ever realize just how dependent. Having to re-download iTunes and scrolling through its empty library, scrolling through my My Pictures and seeing nothing, well it is really depressing. But at least I have a way to communicate again, and I certainly appreciate it much more now. Being thousands of miles away without your one means of communication is quite an experience, to be sure.

So be patient as I post events from the past few weeks…it might take a bit.

getting sick in china

Living in a dorm, even in the US, is just asking to get sick. Well, I guess I asked for it.

One of my friends has had a bad cough these past couple of weeks, so she went to the doctor on campus (Chinese medicine) to try and get some medications. When she got there, they pricked her finger to test her blood and concluded that it was a very serious illness. They tried to get her to take an X-ray...all for what she believes is a cold. Even more, they speak Chinese, which is a little intimidating when you're not fluent and just don't have the mental strength to try. She refused the chest x-ray, which angered the Chinese doctor (cultural difference: Americans take responsibility for their own body. If we don't want a treatment, we can refuse it. Chinese people tend to do whatever the doctor tells them, without questioning his authority or the appropriateness of the treatment.)

So when I got sick on Monday, I had zero motivation to go to the hospital, having heard nothing but horror stories. However, having not gotten any better after a couple of days, I figured it was time to go to the hospital. The Western hospital in Beijing is all the way across town, so I was trying to avoid the inconvenience, but now I'm glad I went. They spoke English pretty well and were generally familiar with medication like Tylenol, so I felt much better. I had to go back and forth between two separate buildings several times. First, Building A to register, then Building B to see a doctor, then Building A again for a chest x-ray, then Building B again for diagnosis, then finally Building A to get my medications--very complicated. But in the end, I found out what is wrong (Bronchitis!) and got the proper medication, so now my main concern is not giving it to everyone in the hall! We'll see how the next few days go.

liulichang market

(March 29)

Today, we went to an area of Beijing called Liulichang, which is basically a bunch of streets with a bunch of tiny little shops selling everything. There were tiny stalls selling paintings, Chinese musical instruments, calligraphy sets, "antiques" (they would try to convince you just about anything was an antique), and just about anything you wanted. Of course, they were always good for a little bargaining, so it was definitely a good time.

We walked around for a while before finally finding this cute little tea shop owned by a former professor of tea (that's right, they have schools that teach everything you could ever need to know about tea, including how it's picked, how it's supposed to be poured, everything). She made us countless batches of tea, letting us taste just about anything we wanted to sample. Apparently, as women, we should drink fermented tea and not green tea. According to this woman, this is because women are the "yin" part of the yin/yang, which means we are more like cold temperatures. (Men are fire, the "yang", so they have more hot temperature things). Apparently, fermented teas are warmer, so they can counterbalance the coolness of womanhood? These teas also tend to be better for the skin. She also convinced us of the necessity of putting tiny rosebuds in our tea. Apparently, adding rosebuds to your tea increases your luck substantially. Plain rosebud tea is delicious, but added to the Lychee Red Tea I bought, it's even better! When I tasted the plain rose tea, the best way I could describe it was to say it tasted pretty. If pretty had a taste, it seriously would be rosebud tea. After spending over an hour talking to her about everything from brewing tea to potentially teaching her child English, we left and moved on.

The next big place we went was a small shop selling just about every kind of traditional Chinese musical instrument imaginable. Being the band nerd I am, I couldn't help but go in, and after sampling several of the woodwinds I ended up bargaining my way into getting a mystery instrument that consists of a large gourd with small bamboo pipes coming out of it. It definitely has a unique sound...I have some practicing to do. My roommate is currently studying the erhu (a two-stringed Chinese instrument), so I'm thinking by the end of the semester we should be able to make some very...interesting music.

After that we walked around for a bit, and after a while I found a piece of art that I loved. It is pretty big so I figured it was going to be super expensive, but out of curiousity I asked anyway. I would have been willing to pay the price she started with (it was about 1/4th of what I was expecting), but I talked her down an additional 25%. It really is a beautiful painting--I don't know where I'll put it, but I'll definitely make space! So those were my purchases for the day. The shopowners just loved the fact that we spoke Chinese. Some of them spoke a little English, so they would speak in English and we would respond in Chinese. The most exciting part though is having a complete conversation with someone in Chinese, and then while you're having that conversation, realize that they're speaking Chinese...and you're understanding. I've been in Chinese-speaking countries for a while, and I still get excited when that happens :-)

a night in the hutongs

(March 20)

Tonight was my friend Suling's 22nd birthday. Since she is from Malaysia, we searched high and low for a Malaysian restaurant in the Beijing area and finally found a tiny restaurant called Cafe Sambal. When we made the reservations, we had no idea it was in a hutong (if you don't remember, hutongs are large residential compound structures with several alleyways and small house in them), so our cab driver had no clue how to get there. Some serious Chinese phone-calling later, we arrived at our destination and wound our way around the alley to find the Cafe. I had never eaten Malaysian food before, so it was definitely a new experience. I have to say, I think I may like Malaysian food better than Chinese food! It was delicious!

After that, we asked the waitresses (I don't think I've seen a single waiter in China...must be "women's work") if she knew any good places to hang out in the area, and she directed us to a place called "床巴" (literally, Bed Bar). So, after a bit of wandering around the alleyways of the hutongs, we stumbled upon the Bed Bar. (I think you can only stumble upon this place--there's no way you could ever find it if you were looking for it.) Inside was definitely something new--technically it was a "bar," but it felt like an old opium den. The hostess led us to a back room that originally was going to cost 1000 RMB to rent for the evening, but complained enough so she agreed to let us just stay for free (Sometimes, it pays to be a foreigner). Inside the room were benches, comfy chairs, three dressers, and a giant bed covered in pillows. It was a slightly odd concept, but overall it was a fun night just sitting and relaxing on that bed--definitely not something I would stumble across in the U.S. :-)

"i feel like this would be pretty in summer": the great wall at mutianyu

the following are pictures from my trip to the Mutianyu portion of the Great Wall on March 14--enjoy!

basically all anyone could say was "I feel like this will be really pretty when leaves are on the trees?"

do you see that guard station at the top of the next hill? I climbed all the way up there--the view was incredible! I was so exhausted by the time I finally got to the top, but it was worth it!

the stairs are treacherous! not only are they all different heights, but they literally feel just like a wall they are so steep. We got out of a guard station and were faced with this wall of stairs and were just so discouraged.

This is technically a little "out-of-bounds", but the view was incredible! Back here are a bunch of ruins of the wall that they haven't rebuilt yet, but it was so worth it!

I explored some of the ruins from the guard tower.

These were the steps back down from the top. As if getting all the way up wasn't hard enough, one wrong move on the way down and you're a goner.

For the rest of the way down, they had a toboggan ride, which I turned into more of a bumper car game. It was by far the best way to leave the Great Wall ever created.