our first big adventure around town

The day began with more of the same--we had textbook distribution (I placed into high intermediate classes, which is probably about right), a welcome luncheon and a group photo. When that was finally over, we were all clueless as to what we wanted to do. Finally, we decided on getting a traditional Chinese massage. Unfortunately, we had no clue where we were going.

Getting to the subway was an adventure in itself. We had been walking for quite some time in what we thought was the right direction, but we were sorely mistaken. We stopped to ask two young women where the subway station was, and they actually volunteered to walk us there. Without their help, I honestly think we would still be searching for it. When we finally got to the subway station, none of us really knew how to get where we needed to go, so that took even longer. Luckily, we finally figured it out and weaved our way through Beijing.

We eventually found our massage parlor, Bodhi. Most of us got a traditional Chinese massage, which was my first massage ever! They gave us cotton pajamas and everything, and I was so comfortable I just wanted to spend the night there. The massage was a little hard (I'm still sore in my lower back), but for the most part it was really relaxing.

The massage parlor was in the area of the Worker's Stadium, so we walked over to see that for a few minutes and got some pictures of the famous statue there. Next, we kept walking down that street and stumbled upon an area called Sanlitun, where a bunch of Western stores (like United Colors of Benetton and Apple) and bars are. We walked around for a while (it was freezing!), and then we found a noodle bar that we all wanted to try. However, said noodle bar was on the second floor, and there was no clear entrance to this place. No ladder, no stairs...hardly even a functioning front door. So after a while of staring at the place with confused looks on our faces, we decided to call them. The man came to the window and on the telephone guided us to his restaurant, which mean going into a dark, sketchy alleyway and finding the right door. There was no sign that even remotely advertised which one it was. It was definitely an experience. But the noodles were good, so I guess that is all that counts.

After that, we visited Wudaokou, a kind of student district with restaurants and bars. We didn't stay long because everything was so packed, but it was fun.

a little fall of rain

This morning (Thursday), we had our 2 hour placement test, which I'm convinced would be impossible no matter how long we had studied Chinese. Needless to say, I'm less than confident, given that probably over 50% of my responses were complete guesses. We'll see how they place me with THAT one. After that, all of us were supposed to meet our tutors, but mine didn't show. So I had a mini-tour of campus with one of the students from CIEE instead of with my tutor.
It's a rainy day in Beijing today, which is pretty rare because this city is so dry. Apparently, the rain will help with the pollution...I hope. We'll see tomorrow.


Well for lunch, we went to a hot pot place. This place had the strangest contraption for a hot pot I had ever seen--it had this giant chimney that sparks would fly out of while it was boiling. It was definitely different. Tasty, but strange.

Since it was wet and cold outside, my roommate and I had every intention of staying inside and cuddling up with our Asian Oreos and watching movies, but some girls across the hall wanted to go to dinner so tagged along. After walking around in the area a bit, we stumbled upon a Korean BBQ place that had a lot of locals in it, so we decided to give it a whirl. I know it isn't clear in the picture, but on one of the walls there were posters of Audrey Hepburn, Che Guevara, Bob Marley and The Godfather. ON THE SAME WALL. I love Chinese versions of American culture.

I had vegetarian fried rice and it was delicious. Everyone else had all different kinds of skewered meats--beef, lamb, chicken hearts, the whole shebang. I think I ate dinner for about 2 bucks, and each of the skewers for the girls was 1 RMB, which is 1/7 of a dollar. Food is just dirt cheap here--it's awesome!!

And once again, I found Santa decorations!

day 2: hutongs, bats, and smoked gouda

Well I discovered yesterday how unpredictable our internet here is...it was working one minute, and the next it decided to just not work period. For the entire day. So today, get to tell you about yesterday.

The day began with another orientation meeting (blech). However, in the afternoon, we all went on a visit to the 胡同 (hutong) area of Beijing. It's an area in which about 30% of Beijing's population lives, and basically they are just alleyway after alleyway of small "houses" (usually about 2-5 rooms, with about 6-8 families living in one compound). We got a rickshaw ride to our first destination, visiting a local.

The man we visited shared 5 rooms with himself, his wife and their adorable dog (who pretty much immediately jumped up on my lap and I petted him for the remainder of the visit). By hutong standards, his residence was very spacious, seeing that most families get only 2 rooms for many people. To give you some perspective, one of their rooms, the "kitchen", was literally as wide as the stove and had only enough room for one person to be in it. It was really more of a closet, but it technically counts as a room.

This particular man was on "welfare", meaning that the government subsidized his rent to make his life there affordable. He makes his money by selling his paintings, which are brilliant. He mixes traditional Chinese painting with oil painting techniques and the result is amazing. I really wanted to buy this painting of the cranes and blossoms, but someone beat me to it! His paintings of the lotus flower (the blue and red painting) won some national award from the government or something! (I didn't completely understand...he spoke really fast). He also had an Obama Biden pin in his cabinet and a longhorn on his wall. His wife was like nowhere to be seen the entire time.

Next, we left that place and went to another place for lunch. We had an old woman and her daughter cook us a homemade meal for lunch. They served us a TON of food, plus Tsingtao, coke or jasmine tea. One thing I have discovered is that vegetarianism is a very loose concept here. We were the vegetarian group (there were only like 5 of us so we were mixed in with the meateaters), so when we told the lady that we didn't eat meat, she asked if chicken was okay. Because it is still kind of an agrarian society, meat is viewed as a sign of wealth, so not eating it is not quite comprehensible to them. Anyway, she served us a bunch of food, including ketchup-marinated cauliflower (interesting), the REAL kung pao chicken (which I heard was tasty), and my favorite of favorites: veggie dumplings. Overall, it was a very tasty meal, and it was good to see how locals would eat/live.

After we 吃了午饭 (ate lunch...I'll have you recognizing chinese characters soon!), we went to a temple. Apparently, the temple used to be used as a private music conservatory, but recently was renovated into a public area. This temple was very much into bats--there was a bat pond (pictured...it's not actually a bat pond, but the pond is shaped like a bat), and most of the carvings on the walkways were shaped like bats. This is China, so of course there is a reason why. The reason bats are so important is because the word for bat (蝙蝠 bian1fu2), sounds similar to the word for to become rich (变幅 bian4fu2).

Inside the temple area was a government-owned teahouse, where we had a mini-tea ceremony. We got to try 5 different kinds of tea, my favorite of which was probably the lychee black tea. Here's something I learned: To drink the tea (not with our coffee mugs, but the actual small tea cups they use), you hold the cup with three fingers, with the middle finger on the bottom of the glass. Men fold their ring finger and pinky in, because this symbolizes the dragon (a symbol of masculinity and power). Women leave those two fingers out because it symbolizes the phoenix (a symbol of femininity and nobility). We took our rickshaws back to our bus stop and that was the end of our visit to the hutongs.

Last night, I went walking around the area with some other girls in the program to find a restaurant. After exploring a bit, we found a restaurant that looked tasty (i.e. lots of locals were inside), so we decided to give it a whirl. We ordered way too much food and paid about 3 dollars a piece for it. My favorite was a mystery vegetable pictured here...the only bad thing was that the tofu tasted like smoked gouda. Not my fave. But it was much better than last night's meal, so I'm happy!

first day

I'm not quite sure what day this counts as...my body is still definitely on Central time.

The plane ride was interesting--the movie selection was pretty terrible. The first movie I watched was A Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio. I have to say, I wasn't that impressed. After that, I watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was a really bad choice. It was a movie about a child who befriends another child...only the child is in a NAZI DEATH CAMP in WWII Europe. Baaad decision for a 13.5 hour flight. So I didn't watch any other movies. However, we flew over the North Pole and down through Siberia, so that provided some good window-watching. It was incredibly beautiful. I got a little concerned when I could start seeing the pollution in the air...once we started flying over the Beijing area, there was a distinct line in the sky between the blue and the more brownish air. Not exactly environmentally friendly.

When we got to the airport, we had to get our passports checked before we could really go anywhere. I loved the sign--FOREIGNERS. Not Non-Chinese citizens. Very blunt. Very welcoming. But the airport is beautiful--and brand new for the Olympics!

When our shuttle bus pulled up to where we are staying, it was to this WICKED nice lobby area with marble and chandeliers and everything and all of us were just in a state of disbelief...we were soo excited. And then the guide showed us around the back and out to another building...no marble this time.

This is the hallway to my room...

So it was a little less than inviting. But once we figured out how the lights worked (I seem to have a problem doing that in Asia...), everything was fine. My mattress is as hard as a rock, and I'm too tall for the showerhead, but other than that the room is pretty nice. My roommate (Evelyn) is really nice, so that's always a good bonus.

So today we had to wake up really early for orientation (boo). Then we sat there for 3 hours and talked about life in Beijing and adjusting to culture shock and all that jazz. The good news was that they provided breakfast (dim sum) and "grape juice"(which was actually grape, asparagus, red pepper, bok choy, apple, carrot and various other produce items' juice).

After that was over we all went to a pizza/buffet restaurant, decorated with American cultural relics (including Audrey Hepburn, Jason X and Pearl Harbor...all on the same wall). It was also still decorated for Christmas...?

After that we had to return for one more lecture on capitalizing on our experience in China. The lecture was given by the professor of Intercultural Communication here, so it was mainly focused on understanding ourselves, our culture, and Chinese culture. Overall, I was just extremely tired and didn't want to pay attention to just about anything, but I thought he said something really interesting. He had a thing for using food analogies (cultures are onions), so he decided to use food to describe American and Chinese cultures. Apparently, as Americans, we are peaches. We have a soft exterior, but a very hard center. He used the example of talking for hours with someone at the airport, someone whose name he didn't know. However, he said, our private lives are kept very secret. If someone digs too deep into family, relationships or into our core values, we are generally more tough and unwilling. On the other hand, the Chinese are apparently like a coconut--a very tough exterior, but soft on the inside. The Chinese take a while to get to know you, but once you're allowed into their world, they are much more open.

I thought that was interesting.

Also, here is a short list of things I should not do (as far as adjusting to Chinese culture is concerned)

1) make eye contact with people

2) smile at a man (they get the wrong idea)

3) initiate physical contact with a man--even a handshake (they REALLY get the wrong idea)

4) mention the three T's: Tian'anmen, Taiwan and Tibet

5) freely express my beliefs about gender relations or sexuality (the Chinese very recently removed homosexuality from their list of mental illnesses...woo boy I wonder what the Gender Studies departments would look like over here if they existed...)

After that whole session was over, we went walking around town. We joined the local Bally's and exchanged money which takes surprisingly long when you just don't have that vocablary set...

Then we were supposed to go to a certain area of town and fill out a questionnaire about it (for a special surprise...a carabiner!)

Well we decided to go on the hunt for things we actually needed--like cell phones. Two hours and 4 very frustrated people (including a poor salesman who spoke WAY too fast for any non-native to even endeavor to understand him) later, we had successfully bought phones, Sim cards and minutes. It was intense...but at least now we have phones. On our way back, we saw the venue for the Olympic ping-pong events--it was a such a mega stadium for an event like ping-pong...apparently they take that very seriously.

After that, I went to dinner and had my first epic dinner fail. I asked for whatever on the menu didn't have meat or fish. Then they brought this small plate of veggies and little shrimp. Everyone thought it was just like a snack thing before we got our food, so they dug in. I didn't have any because of the shrimp...turns out, that was my meal. Sprite for dinner!

We stopped at a baker after that... "Delicious Cake"...shaped like a skull. This is Ace of Cakes gone horribly wrong...

Last, we went to the campus mini-mart, Wumei, where I found my life's desire: a life size stuffed Fuwa (the Beijing 2008 Olympic mascots) HUANHUAN! (they also had Yingying, but he's not quite as cute)

Fortunately for my bank account, that particular stand was closed. But I cannot tell you how much I want that thing. If they had the panda Jingjing, that thing would be SOLD.

And that was Day 1 in China...More to come!!