Chengdu, Sichuan part one of several...

So I'm really behind on posting, but I'm just going to do what's the most current and worry about the other things later (slash when I get home). Last week ACC had a one week break and we went to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. Sichuan is in the south western part of China, home of spicy food and many famous Buddhist and Daoist religious sites.

The Friday before we left we had our midterm exam (covering about the equivalent of of one plus semesters of Chinese at Oberlin), a 15 minute slide presentation in front of 3 teachers and 3 students and another 15 minute speech in front of 2 teachers. It was grueling, but before we'd even had time to catch our breath, we were on the train headed to Chengdu.

The vast majority of Chinese people travel by train, so we were not only saving money but were also experiencing Chinese culture by traveling through China's country side for 25 hours. Yes, that's right, 25 hours. As you can see above, it's a pretty small little area to be stuck in for 25 hours- 3 bunks stacked up with a little table in between. To be honest, I didn't mind the length too much- plenty of time to sleep and read and chat (in Chinese) with classmates. By the last 3 hours or so, though, I was pretty ready to get off the train.

China's country side. The reason the train ride is so long is because we had to wind through all the mountains which allowed us to see many different climates and scenery.

Terraced hills. There were lots of yellow flowers, which I am pretty sure are safflower, which are harvested and turned into cooking oil.

Chengdu was humid and a little chilly, but no matter, we were excited to be out of Beijing, out of a classroom and seeing green things!

Our hotel was right in downtown Chengdu, near a big flashy pedestrian mall. There were always huge crowds of people there, no matter what time of day it was. Our head director, Zhang Laoshi (professor Zhang) teased that Chengdu people never go to work, they just spend their days shopping and going to teahouses. Sounds pretty good to me. The pace of Chengdu is definately more relaxed than Beijing, regardless.

In the very center of the city is a beautiful plaza with fountains and flowers (unheard of in Beijing) and, of course, a statue of every one's favorite communist founder.

Sichuan is also famous for "xiao chi" or, basically, snacks. As I am sure everyone will agree, snacks are great. Above is an example of the many, many sidewalk snackeries (?). Hot pot originates in Southern China and at the above establishment you can select as many skewers of vegetables (all kinds of mushrooms, lotus root, bean sprouts, etc) and meat, tofu and then cook them in a broth (usually dark red and therefore extremely spicy). On the street you can also buy Chuar (kabobs), and it's the same excellent deal- you pick which skewers of meat/ tofu/ lotus root/etc you want and they will boil and then barbeque it for you right there. Delicious. The character for chuar is : 串. Great, right? It actually looks like a kabob! You can also buy all kinds of fruit, including beautifully pre-sliced pineapple on skewers, water chestnuts, mangosteens, mangos, rambutans, pipaw and jujubees. I made sure to try the last three since I hadn't had them before. All delicious. Jujubees are in the apple family but are shaped like a little torpedo and have a very delicate flavor.
There were beautiful fruit stores everywhere- open to the air and wildly colorful. In the foreground you can see that brown spiky fruit- those are Durian, a really strange fruit that smells a little like a sweet onion. They are so smelly that they have been banned on the subway in at least one Asian country.
This picture is for Viv- a store where you can buy things to use in your store... like manikins, steamers and hangers, haha. I saw at least 3 of these, actually.

Next up, Renmin Gongyuan (People's Park), a giant Buddha, monkeys and more.

Theora in Action

Look at that! That's me speaking Chinese- what I came to Beijng to do! I was probably making a "chu" or "xu" sound.

Last weekend I went out to dinner with two family friends, Bill and Sue, who were in Beijing for the weekend. We went to a wonderful Beijing Duck restaurant- it was delicious and glamorous. Because Bill and Sue don't speak Chinese, I spoke English with them (it's an exception to the language pledge, and oh man it was great to speak English) and then translated with the waitresses and cab drivers which was great fun.

On the topic of things to eat, this is a Mangosteen. Delicious.

The skin is very thick; the outer layer is tough, but the inside layer is very deep red and crumbly. The fruit is very small, white, and has sections like an orange. It is very sweet and mild, the texture is a little like a peach. The last week or so there have been many people selling them on the street off of their motorized bike carts.

ACC的日常生活 (Daily Life）Part 1

So, now that I've been here over a month, time for basic introductions. Firstly, my school is in Beijing's Chaoyang District (朝阳区）which is north-east of Beijing center. Beijing is made up of several ring roads surrounding the Forbidden City which is the traditional First Ring Road. My school is near the Third Ring Road, so relatively close to the center of Beijing. The subway map above is really confusing because (I think) the top of the map is South and the bottom is North, but anyways, my school is really close to the Dawangqiao station (大望路－我不知道为什么那个地铁图说“大望桥”？）on the Red Line #1. If you want to really have a good time- look me up on Google Earth! If you haven't used it before you'll have to download the program. Then search for Beijing, China, and then "Capital University of Economics and Business" (the school that ACC is housed in). You'll be able to see where I'm staying (the building in the north-east section of the campus), and if you zoom out to the west, you can see the CCTV building, too.

This is the view of our South entrance from outside. The gold characters say Shoudu jingji maoyi daxue (首都经济贸易大学） or CUEB. There are guards on watch 24/7 to let cars in and out and monitor the people walking in and out.

This is inside campus looking at the South gate. On the left are steps going to the library (which I haven't been to- no art books, just economic books in Chinese), and on the right is a small park 公园 which occasionally has a few old people doing their morning calisthenics (my favorite is the clapping and reciting rhythmic sayings. 功课很好玩！

Dis eez the outside of my dorm building- a little glassed in entry way. We have classes and live in this same building, which seemed like an awful idea when I first got here, but it's actually not that bad.

Outside of the building. Everything is dead because it is winter and dirty beause it is Beijing and until last thursday it hadn't rained in 3 months! Today it snowed a little bit too, which means it's cold, but I'm just glad to have some precipitation. A little snow is actually kind of nice (I never thought I'd say that).

This is a car. And also the view of the North gate from inside campus.

Outside the Bei (north) gate looking west. The angular building in the distance is the one that caught on fire a week ago Monday. Apparently they didn't completely put out the fire until Tuesday morning (when I took this picture). The sky was really hazy until the afternoon, and the building was pretty charbroiled-looking.

That same day, a picture from inside our room looking out. Horrible! Our room has a little balcony, which is nice to go out on when you want to take a break from studying.

Ze rrrooom. Katie bought some little New Years delibops, but it still is pretty boring and spare. Unfortunately I did not bring my art studio with me, but I'm hoping in a spare minute I can work some Theora Magic on the walls. hmm. Siena, you know what I mean.

Each room has it's own bathroom, which is great.

Next up, pictures of my homework- another balanced part of daily life at ACC.

photo assortment

Firstly, more photos from 798 taken during my second trip there. Above and below, beautiful courtyard where a tree had been entirely wrapped with red string. This curved concrete bit is actually an entrance to a gallery. Very cool and minimalist.

Haha! Duchamp goes to the chinaware factory.

Yes, Ally, I went here! The coffee shop with a coffee cup filled with (real!) coffee beans for a door. They played American country western music, which seemed a little odd to me.

Another door. For the "weird signs in English" photo album. For some reason the Chinese characters are traditional which are not used in mainland China.

798 is pretty grungy, but that's what makes it so cool. Artists looove the grungy grimy.

Factory which is still being used as such.

Tonight is the last night of celebration of the Chinese New Year (the lantern festival), and also the last night to set off fireworks. Fireworks and firecrackers are readily available during this time of year, and anyone can buy them and set them off, anywhere, anytime. Since loud noises are believed to scare away evil spirits who might be lurking at the start of your new year, it would seem that almost everyone in Beijing participates in this ritual. Although they are beautiful and New Year's Eve at midnight was incredible, after about 3 weeks of constant booming (daytime, too!) I'm really quite ready to have it come to an end. Earlier tonight there was quite the upset in the ACC dorm because we thought that the new CCTV building had caught fire from the fireworks. For a panicked 15 minutes or so we were all leaning out the windows trying to see through the haze and smoke (caused primarily by the fireworks, and only somewhat by the fire). Turns out it was a nearby building instead, and the fire was put out fairly quickly. Still, this is why letting a city of 17 million people set off fireworks at their leisure and discretion is not entirely without risk. The CCTV building is an architectural marvel and was only recently finished. It looks like this: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/12/china_wonders/image/cctv.jpg (there is a current name-the-building debate going on, and the vast majority of Beijingers are already referring to it as "The Big Underpants")

These are Longgan- a fruit I'd never seen before coming to China. Since I'm all about rare/ unusual fruit I was really excited when my roomate brought these home. On the inside they are sweet and translucent like a grape but have a pit like a cherry. A little obnoxious to eat but it's worth it.

Time for shower and review the characters one more time and then sleep.

Meat

Don't worry, Dad, I'm eating plenty of meat in China. Last Friday I went out for huoguo with a bunch of friends from the dorm. Huoguo literally means "fire pot" or, commonly known as "hot pot".



From left to right: Piper (a.ka. Shaopei), Katie (Kangtian, also my roomate), Jennifer (Yunzi), Oscar (Oule? He is from Norway!), Me (Ruofei), and Nitt (Ande). It's weird to be learning two names for everyone- it's very easy to pick up people's English names, of course, but we have to call them by their Chinese names so the professors don't give us the evil eye. It's so hard to remember Chinese names!



We ordered raw meat (pork and mutton) that was cut into very, very thin slices and uncooked noodles and vegetables (lettuce, mushrooms). The waiters pour broth into your little pot and since it has some sterno under it, it quickly starts to boil. You cook the meat in the broth and then dip it in the peanut sauce. mmm. I'm sure this type of meal is not unfamiliar to many of you- we have this kind of 'fondue' at home.

Piper and Katie.

Excellent diagram of The Cow near the door.

Available Job Opportunities in China

Since, as you all know, Beijing has a huge population, there is always someone willing to take a job that another person won't. Therefore, I have thought of a few new opportunities that could be implemented to better use the man power of Beijing's everyday person.

- What Not to Wear Zhongguo: a Chinese version of the US's tv show with Stacey and Clinton, except geared towards Chinese aesthetics. I.e.; in China it might be okay to wear a puffy, furry panda jacket to work, but there are rules! For example, a panda jacket must never be paired with pink butterfly boots. (Unfortunately I don't yet have pictures of this phenomenon- this isn't the Sartorialist.)

-Official Map Maker for the 798 contemporary art district. Description: help people find their way around this confusing neighborhood. Making maps, by definiton, is not the same as making art. Visitors can't find the art with out a map!

A view of 798 art district. I went there last weekend with Katie and Margaret (my friend from Oberlin who is also in Beijing for the month of January). 798 is a really fascinating district- all of the buildings were built as factories in the 1950's and 60's in conjunction with Soviet Russia. They are all giant, with Bauhaus architecture and giant saw-tooth rooflines. Many have huge windows, providing a perfect space to make art, which is why in the 1990's the Central Academy of Fine Arts moved their sculpture studio into the then-vacant factories. This jump started what is now Beijing's most thriving contemporary art neighborhood. It's a really exciting place, and even though I don't think the three of us chose a good day to go (since many galleries were closed and there weren't many people around), I can't wait to go back! (http://www.studio-international.co.uk/reports/beijing_798.asp- a nice brief history of the area, if you're interested)

We weren't exactly sure what this space was- we walked into this gallery (museum?) that was open but in the midst of putting up a new exhibit, and they had this really swank lounge area that probably becomes a bar on the weekends. That giant brick column is actually a giant smoke stack that goes through the ceiling.

- Pollution Particle collector (description: picks the dust and grime out of the air with a large, wet cloth). Apparently many of these people were employed before the olympics, but now they've gone back to their day jobs.

This is the view from my room on a pretty bad pollution day. This isn't a bad photo, and the window isn't that dirty- you just can't see buildings very clearly when it gets so smoggy. Uck.

This is the view with my back to the entrance to Tiananmen- the furthest left building is Mao Zedong's mausoleum (pretty sure). Gross, right?

Looking towards Tiananmen (note that the sky is white, not blue)- this is the entrance to the Forbidden City (aka gugong), which I also went to last weekend. The Forbidden City was home to the emperor during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

A close-up of a door in Gugong- very beautiful.
Me standing in front of one of the facades- it was so cold I think it made me smile weirdly.

开始 - kaishi - Start, beginning

I have really struggled with how to start this blog- I've been in Beijing for almost two weeks now and only today have I actually decided to sit down and post something (little tidbits of writing have been in progress for a while). Many of the people who will be reading this already know a lot about what I'm doing and I don't really have the time to go into details; I guess they will come gradually. Short version: I am spending a semester in Beijing doing an intensive (think cram school) Mandarin language program. There's not much time to do much besides study- four hours of class every day, and then the entire afternoon/ evening is spent preparing the next day's lesson which can have up to 90 new words to learn, plus homework and other assignments. There's also an extremely strict language pledge- aside from calling home, I will not speak English for the next four months (and my program takes it seriously here- they have actually put pledge-breakers on a plane back to the US). It's hard and at times simply awful, but there are moments (which I hope will grow increasingly more often) where I am thrilled to be here, and feel that I'm mastering this ridiculously challenging language. When communication actually happens, I feel my motivation and energy to continue study revived.

Plus, of course, I get to experience a country on the other side of the world! It is really surreal to finally be here, after preparing to study in Beijing for two and a half years now. For as many times as I've had textbook lessons about the American student who just arrived in Beijing (including all the lovely vocabulary of airport, suitcase, customs, roomates, taxi, first impression) and as cliche as I felt walking through the airport, explaining to the driver how to get to Capitol University of Economics and Business, nothing anyone ever says or describes about China can really prepare you for what it's like to be here. And, I can't even claim to know what it's like to be here- maybe let's wait a few months for that one.

One of the biggest yet most obvious differences about Beijing is the unbelievable density of human beings. Yes, this is home to over 17 million people, but I have never seen an urban density like this before. People all over the street, crowded subway tunnels, packed buses. If you stop to think about how each one of these people (presumably) has somewhere they sleep at night, an apartment, owns a pair of slippers and a bar of soap, and eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it's really mind-boggling. It's like trying to imagine the Big Bang Theory. It also makes me wonder, how often do people here randomly bump into someone they know? With all of these bodies trying to get to their destination, and everyone with their head down (and right now, buried in a scarf) trying to move between each other, how would you ever know to look up and look for a familiar face?

Yours truly, freezing cold in front of, uhm, whatsitcalled.