Eating Scorpions and Grasshoppers Oh My!

I just finished another weekend in Beijing, time is flying by. Friday after class we went to a teahouse. It was in a hutong around Tiananmen Square. We went as a group with our program director, Chinese roommates, and a couple of our tutors. The house that we went to was very old but beautiful. It has a courtyard in the middle that opened up to four different rooms. The owner of the tea house took us on a house tour. The first room was a temple room connected to a study. Then we went to a room that looked like a family room with old photographs of families. Then there was another sitting room with old maps and pictures of Beijing. The owner of the teahouse grew up in Beijing and wanted to remember the old Beijing because he said it was changing so much. He also said that the house costs 1.5 million USD. We went into the tearoom and all sat at a large table and ordered tea off of a menu written on a fan. So the Chinese roommates taught us the technique of opening a fan (the hand gesture.) After tea and some weird snacks we went around the other rooms and collected the old toys that he had on display (during our tour he kept on telling us that we could play with the toys which made me very confused because I didn’t know when we were going to play with them during our tea drinking.) But after tea we had a lot of fun being taught how to play Chinese children games by our roommates and tutors. There were a lot of puzzle games like try to get the metal loop through the other metal objects on a chain, a board game that was like connect five, a hackysack made out of circular metal and plastic disks with feathers, and a hand-eye coordination game where you pick up bones while throwing a ball. After the teahouse we went to the Olympic grounds and walked around in the freezing cold looking at the gigantic birds nest and water cube. The architecture of the buildings are really cool. The bird’s nest glows orange and close up you can see the inner structure holding it up. The water cube is bright blue and the siding is made to look like bubbles. We really wanted to touch it but weren’t able to reach it. They had fences around the perimeter of the buildings. After seeing the buildings we ran back to the bus and drove back to beida.
On Saturday we took the subway into Qianmen (by Tiananmen) and went looking for the entrance to the Underground city, the bomb shelter that was made because of the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. I read that it can even withstand a chemical attack and is 33 sq miles big with tunnels leading out of the city. It sounded pretty amazing but as we wandered through a hutong looking for the entrance, it was showcased as some kind of museum in our guidebooks, a local informed us that it was no longer open because it isn’t safe (later I read it was undergoing renovations.) This put a dent in our plans and we were in turmoil over what to do next. We ended up splitting up with some people going to a park that has a great viewpoint of the city (that I hope to go to later when it is warmer) and the rest of us, Sean, Ben, Abi, and I went searching for silk stores. Using the guidebook as a map we wound up on Qianamen street, a bewildering tourist street that almost looked like it was out of an LA movie set. There these older fashioned Chinese buildings but there was nothing in them. There were a lot of people on the street too. (I later looked it up online and found that the street is currently being redeveloped to represent the architecture of the street in the 1920s and 1930s.) Two Chinese men clung onto Ben by starting a conversation with him in English and being extremely interested in getting his e-mail address. They followed us into the silk store that was on a street off of Qianmen Street. The silk was really soft and not too expensive but one of our new Chinese friends said that we were too beautiful to be shopping here and that only old women shop for silk. Eventually we got tired of the two Chinese men and we ditched them in a store. We found hidden in the back of a store and behind a shoe stand a man that was selling Chinese scroll paintings. Abi found a flower scroll that she wanted to buy so I tried to do some bargaining with the man to get a lower price. I was actually able to have a conversation with him. He kept on trying to sell multiple scrolls to us so I had a look at a few other ones he had rolled up and really liked this red blossom branch. I felt really good that I was able to convey what color flowers we wanted and that I was able to bargain down the price and get us a good deal. He was also saying something about the signature on my painting so I’m not sure but I think it might be special, like an original or by a good artist, who knows. So I felt pretty good about my speaking abilities after that shop even though I didn’t understand everything he was saying I understood a lot and was able to get my point across. It turned out that separating from the group was good for me because I was with three other people that didn’t know any Chinese so I had to step up and use what I could to communicate. For dinner we wandered around a hutong and found a family run restaurant. Here again I used a lot of my Chinese. I had to tell the waitress that we couldn’t read the menu (and it didn’t have any pictures) so we had to work with her to see if she had any of the dishes we were familiar with and knew the names of or that were in the guidebook we had. We ended up getting a stir fry tofu dish, garlic green beans, friend rice, and an egg dish. It was good and I felt good again at being able to communicate! After dinner we met up with the rest of the group at Wangfujing Street, a street with international stores, bright lights and a side street where you can buy anything you want and they will barbecue it on a stick. They had worms, lizards, starfish, seahorse, octopus, cockroaches, scorpions, grasshoppers, and more. Louisa, Anastasia, and I were brave enough to try the scorpions. They were very crunchy but pretty tasty. We decided to be more adventurous and try the grasshopper. They were big and juicy. Overall I enjoyed our exotic food on a stick. Exhausted we took the subway home and fell fast asleep. Today I slept in and had an overall relaxful day. Ben, Sean, Yasi, and I went to Wudaokou where we got full body massages. It was quite an experience. If I didn’t go to a rolfer before I would have been really surprised. But it was like a rolfing session but more intense. They really did beat us up. Three minutes into the hour-long massage my masseur stuck his fingers into my ears. That really worried me on the direction the massage was going in. We were also sketched out by the place because it was a 24 hour place. But it was pretty nice inside and nothing inappropriate happened just a lot of pounding on the head. Then we went to a nice little Indian restaurant and had some delicious Indian food and then took a cab back to our dorm and now I am writing this and doing some homework. I better focus my whole attention on memorizing this essay for Chinese class. ttyl miss and love everyone. kearney

Living Under Fluorescent Lights

Pictures: me my chinese teacher and my roommate. The night street we ate dinner at. My room. Doing Taiji.

I’m about to start my second week of classes in Beijing. It kind of has been a frustrating week and a half. It’s very tiring not being able to understand what anyone is saying. I feel like I should be able to pick up on things but when I hear Chinese I still freak out and am unable to comprehend. I am hoping that with time this will go away and I will feel more comfortable with the language. I went to the post office to send some postcards and prepared the lines I was going to say, “wo xiang jin zhege” (I think that is “I want to send this.”) But when I said that to the post-woman while handing her the postcards she didn’t respond. In fact she didn’t say one word to me. She even expressed the price of the postage through the use of a calculator. I can understand numbers! It is the one thing I can comprehend! Oh well, maybe next time.
Friday was Louisa’s birthday so we all went out to dinner at a restaurant on Yandaixiejie, a street lined with restaurants that are open all night long. The street was packed with brightly colored signs and decorations. We decided to go to a popular-looking place that had rows of red lanterns hanging out front and a small fishpond. Obviously seeing the live fish made us want to eat one so when we were placed into our personal room, we had a party of 13, we ordered that, braised eggplant, spring rolls, green beans, sweet rolls with glaze, lotus root, and egg. Two whole fish came served on a stand with a fire underneath and a bazillion red whole chili peppers on top. It was delicious but very spicy. We were all in pain with tears running down our cheeks but unable to stop eating the deliciousness. After dinner we went to Houhai, a bar district that was recommended to us. Judging by the crowd it looked like a hot spot for the wealthier Chinese and foreigners. We were outraged by the prices for drinks, 50 kuai for a mixed drink. Of course we have become ridiculously cheap in one week, unable to pay 7 USD for a drink so we had a hard time settling down at a bar even though they had great live music and a great atmosphere. But we were able to bargain down and get a cocktail for 25 kuai at a smaller sketchier bar. Next time we go we will have to have a different attitude about pricing. Saturday we woke up at 10am for our Taiji class. We weren’t able to feel our fingers it was so cold outside. But we know now 18 of the 24 moves! It is starting to get intense, for the first time I was sore after Taiji practice. It might also be because of the run around the perimeter of the campus I went on but nevertheless the poses are getting challenging. There is one move, number 16 Snake Creeps Down, Golden Rooster Stands on Left Leg/ Zuo Jin Ji Du Li, in which you have to squat down and balance on one leg putting a lot of pressure on your knee. After Taiji we took a bus to Wudaokou Fuzhuangshichaung, a clothing, jewelry, miscellaneous items market. It was an opportunity to use my newly learned Chinese bargaining skills. I wasn’t able to make much leeway on the clothing and shoes that all looked way too small but I was able to knock down the price of a cute “I am Happy” mirror. Today after Taiji class we went to 798, the avant-garde, contemporary art district in North East Beijing. It took an hour bus ride to get there and it was freezing outside but we were very impressed with the quality of the artwork. We were able to go to an opening show and see an amazing multimedia art display.

I feel lucky to be at Peking University. First off it is a very competitive school and the most prestigious in China. Secondly it has a history that is intertwined with Chinese history. In 1919 the May 4th Movement (protesting the Treaty of Versailles’ article that gave Germany’s concessions in Shandong to Japan, not returning it to China) was generated by the president of Peking University, Cai Yuan-Pei and students. They protested on Tiananmen Square until June when the government agreed to not sign the treaty. The new culture movement, rise of communism, was cultivated at Peking University. Mao Zedong worked in the library at Beijing University as a librarian assistant. The library is the largest in Asia. I’m excited to check it out, and hopefully find an acceptable nook that can compare to the nook in McCabe.

Blue Sky in Beijing

The sky is blue. Yesterday was a beautiful day, sunny and blue sky. This was a surprise to me as I thought that I would be gasping for air in the heavy smog, gray air. There have been days I can look directly at the sun through the smog and it looks like a fiery red orb. But i'm not having a problem breathing. So yesterday in the beautiful weather we traveled into the center of Beijing, Tiananmen Square about an hour away from Beijing University. To get there we had to take a bus, lightrail, and subway. All forms of transportation were sparkling new it was one of the best public transportation experiences i have had. And they even re-use the subway tickets! So this adventure was an assignment from our teacher, a "scavenger hunt." We made it there with no troubles, thanks to the fact that my partner speaks Chinese and everyone was more than willing to help us. While I was buying my light rail ticket a Chinese man came up to me to gesture that I was doing it wrong, the machine does not accept 1 yuan bills only 5 yuan bills or 1 yuan coins. He thought it was pretty funny and had a big smile on his face. It seems like everyone I see has a big smile on their face. I guess its because they are staring at me in amazement, pretty cool I think but I will definitely never feel like an insider here no matter how much Chinese I know. After our pleasant Beijing mass transportation journey we arrived in front of a big portrait of Mao at the Forbidden Palace. We didn’t make our way into the outer gates of the palace but instead went under the street to Tiananmen Square where we observed lots of Chinese tourists taking pictures and waiting in line to see Mao’s body. Outside the mausoleum we, and by we I mean by partner Anastasia, talked to a man who came here from Shanghai to see Mao. He arrived yeterday and recommended that we go inside. So we did. On our first attempt we were denied because there are no cameras allowed, but we made it in on our second attempt. You had to have some form of ID to get in, I think passport would do, but we were able to use our Beijing University ID cards. The guards seemed impressed that we went to Beijing University. We were all shuffled through the grandiose building that Mao’s actual body is believed to be held in. It was a quick experience with no time for stopping and staring. My immediate impression was that he looked very will preserved, waxy, and big. He seemed larger than life, which I guess is fitting since a lot of Chinese people view him as God. I was surprised at the wide range of people I saw on the square. There was a whole spectrum, older Chinese, young children, middle aged and even young couples in their 20s. We also saw two tall Canadian guys. We observed them struggling to interact with the Chinese people who kept on coming up to them and asking them for a picture with them. It was quite a sight, they were truly perplexed but I guess the Chinese told them that it was because they were handsome. For some reason no one approached us with this same request. I had a funny interaction with some people that were staring at us while we asked for help from an officer. Anastasia was communicating in Chinese with him and multiple groups of Chinese people came to listen in, they were getting awfully close so I said ni hao, and they responded with I have no idea what so I say bu zhidao and then they said some more stuff with some laughing and the gist that I got was they were telling me not to say ni hao if I couldn’t speak any Chinese so I said duibuqi, sorry. Then we found a hutong, one of the hundreds of older Beijing neighborhoods, to explore and have lunch. For lunch we had noodle with egg and tomato and a tofu dish and some beer to drink. All together it cost 23 kuai which is $3.50, for two people! The standard of living here is much lower as our taxi drier told us on our way back to beida (beijing university). Anastasia started a conversation with him and he commented on how bad the US economy is and how that effects China's economy but how it is easier to live without a job in China, etc. When we got back to the dorm, we are living in an international dorm on campus in suites with three people in each suite, we passed out. There are 9 people on the program. In each suite there are 2 American students and 1 chinese beida student. I really like my chinese roommate. Right now she is in the room reading the Dog racing book that I got for christmas, yes her english is that good, but I help her improve her english and she helps me learn Chinese. It is great. But I can't get internet in my room so I am heartbroken not to hang out with her right now. Her name is Ling Li and she is a Senior at Bei da. She is a math and finance major from some city north of Beijing. She takes really good care of me, when we cross the street she links arms with me and stands on the side closer to the cars. I joke around a lot with her, I'm not sure if she completely understands me but I think she does. Today we went to a section of the great wall and hiked through about 9 towers. It was an hour drive from beida. It was amazing, I can't imagine what went into building it. It was on top of mountains and we took a cable car up to it and a toboggan down!
Well that's all for now. I'm having lots of fun in China and miss everyone! Tomorrow we start classes. Chinese class at 9 for two hours and then taiji (tai chi) in the afternoon. ttyl. xoxoxo