Week 4/5

It’s funny… My mom has always told me I have the keenest sense of smell. Sometimes it’s a good thing, in the case of eating yummy food or buying perfume, but a lot of the time it’s a bad thing, especially since I’m a pretty picky person and can get grossed out easily. Nonetheless, almost every part of my life is associated with a smell. For instance, every time I drink blue PowerAde I’m reminded of my thirteen years of gymnastics, and every time I use this one type of chapstick I for some reason instantly think of Milton. So naturally, I’ve finally found my “Beijing smell”. I don’t know how to define it because it’s not one smell, rather it’s a mixture of something rotten/stale with something sweet and popcorn-like. I know that doesn’t sound appealing whatsoever, but it’s actually become somewhat comforting. Every so often I’ll be walking down the street and get a whiff of it and I’m instantly reminded of so many aspects of this country – both the good and the bad. I’m reminded of the pollution which I hear is comparable to smoking five cigarettes a day. I also think about all the delicious street food that I come across no matter where I go. I’m not quite sure where this smell comes from, but it’s definitely become that smell that I’ll associate with this summer for the rest of my life.

Anyway, second semester started this week. Aside from our schedule changing a bit, (we now have a 30 minute dialogue section during which two students and one teacher debate that days’ topic), this week was pretty average. I like the new schedule a lot more because it makes the morning go by so much faster. Also, discussion is just more interesting than doing grammar drills…

Last week I was in Shanghai doing a “social study” research project for our week between semesters. I went with about 20 other HBA students and two teachers to study the economy, but since I really have little interest in economics, I choose to research the relationship between the economy and education. I interviewed a bunch of Shanghai University students and teachers and compared their interviews with those of the companies we visited, which included Kodak, Philips electronics, and the Shanghai 2010 world expo city planning center. Our research culminated in a paper which we presented today during our oral presentations. My thesis was basically that the Shanghai educational system is a mixture of modernization’s influence and traditional thought. I found this pretty interesting since I originally thought Shanghai universities would mirror western universities in their style of learning. Many of my teachers here at BeiYu confirmed this thought. I based this prediction on the fact that Shanghai’s history is unique from the rest of China. Shanghai grew to importance in the 19th century after the 1842 treaty of Nanjing and became an important port location since it was one of the few cities open to foreign trade under the Qing. Ever since, this city has flourished as a center of commerce between the east and the west. According to this logic, I thought many aspects of Shanghai culture, including its educational system, would show some western influence as a result of the city’s rapid modernization. While I did find research to support this argument, I could not ignore Shanghai people’s obvious attempt to hold on to Chinese traditional thought and customs. I think this best describes China’s mindset as it prepares for the Olympics and rapidly develops its economy. Although you can see the influence of the one child policy and the rapid modernization in most Chinese people, they still highly value traditional customs. It’s not just another contradiction in China like I discussed in my earlier post, but more of a balance every 老百姓(“common person”) is trying to achieve.

Aside from the social study, Shanghai was so much fun. While we did have a lot more project related activities than some of the other trips, there was plenty of time to explore the city by ourselves. It was a great vacation from BeiYu, but to be honest, in the end I like Beijing more. Shanghai just seemed to lack a certain uniqueness that Beijing possesses – a strong sense of history and culture. Everything in Shanghai just seems to be striving to be like the West and it just results in a somewhat fake mentality. The restaurants and clubs did seem nicer than in Beijing, but I could go to any other city and find those same places. Beijing, on the other hand, has so many interesting streets and historical sites that I treasure every time I visit because I know I’ll probably never get the chance to see them again.

Ok, well that’s my rambling for this week. Tomorrow we’re going to the Longqing gorge which is supposed to be amazingly gorgeous. I’ve heard rumors of bungee jumping but the teachers denied this… We’ll see. Then on Sunday my Chinese host sister is taking me to Tienanmen Square, which I’ve already been to a million times but it never gets old, and Silk Street, which is a huge shopping center known for its counterfeit designer brands... So send me an email if you want me to pick you up a fake Longhorn or Coach bag!











The following pictures are all from Shanghai. We watched a traditional tea making ceremony and I got to try!

Week 3

Two weeks have passed since my last entry. We took our midterm this morning and now I’m getting ready to leave for Shanghai in a few hours. We spend the next week doing “social studies” which will conclude in the longest essay I will have ever written in Chinese. There are about 8 different options including traveling to Inner Mongolia, studying martial arts at the Shaolin Temple in Henan, and staying in Beijing to research various topics such as the Olympics, architecture, or education. The Shanghai trip focuses on economics and modernization. I’ll write more about it when we get back.

One of the highlights of the past two weeks is the fact that FOUR different people have complimented me on my Chinese, three of whom proceeded to ask me if I was Chinese/what in the world my background is. I get this question a lot considering it’s pretty hard to tell my background from looks alone. I’ve finally mastered my answer and Chinese people tend to get very excited when they find out I'm half Chinese, usually leading to further discussion. Yesterday I was buying dinner and I had a 15 minute conversation with the fuwuyuan about my life and she couldn’t stop smiling the entire time. It was so adorable. Immediately after, I was walking back to my dorm and another guy stopped me to talk about America's education system. We were chatting for a few minutes before I realized he wanted to be my tutor in exchange for helping him with his English. He was a bit sketch, though, and considering I already have five different tutors, I told him my friend was waiting and had to leave. But anyway, the point is I am constantly being bombarded with these situations to improve my speaking ability and as a result, I’ve seen huge improvements.

I’ve also visited my “Chinese host family” twice. Most students have a standard family consisting of a mom, dad, and siblings, but my situation is a bit unusual in that I just have an older sister. She’s about 28, teaches English at a nearby school, and is just plain awesome. She used to work at BeiYu and that’s how she got involved with this program. The first time we met her she took us to meet the rest of her family. We ate for 5 hours straight at their house while the dad made side comments about how I don’t look Chinese, thinking I couldn’t pick up on any of it. I felt they were constantly judging my speaking/listening ability, which was undoubtedly very questionable two weeks ago but made me feel uncomfortable to say the least. Nonetheless, everybody else was all really nice and it was really interesting seeing a typical family in Beijing since my only exposure has been my close relatives, and almost off of it, minus our one trip to China in 1996, has been in the US. The thing I took away most from the night was in regard to Chinese eating customs. I already understood how important food is to Chinese people since my grandmother is literally OBSESSED with food. I’m serious, I could go a year without seeing her and the first thing she’ll ask me is, “What have you eaten today?” and immediately shove some food my way. Actually, I was Skyping with my parents a few nights ago and my grandmother came into the room to say hello and without fail, the first words out of her mouth were “Are you eating there?” I mean, what does she think? It’s difficult because although I know she treats food as means of expressing her love, I can’t help but get frustrated. So when my host family pretty much refused to eat until the three HBA students had a good 10 minute head start, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. They literally take food and put it on your plate and 90% of the conversation consists of “Eat more! Eat more!” I guess it really is true for the entire culture! But when I look at it from a different angle, it’s actually a pretty amazing part of their culture. Family relations pretty much revolve around eating meals together. As I said earlier, this meal literally lasted five hours and when I compare this to America, I can’t help but note the contrasting importance of family to each culture.

But back to the Dad’s weird comments… It’s funny because I’ve encountered this attitude before, but it’s one of two extremes – the people here tend to be either really annoyed that you can’t understand them, (like my Chinese dad), or extremely friendly and will engage you in conversation like the fuwuyuan I wrote about earlier. I’ve had some pretty awesome cab drivers, some of whom have expressed surprisingly honest views about their government and taught me most of what I now know about Chinese culture. Others have kept me laughing by teaching me the most absurd words from the Beijing dialect – for example, “Jerk Mmm-ya” pretty much means “Today I…” The majority of people I interact with are on this “really nice” side, but still, seeing the other side has really shocked me. I know not everybody in the world is nice and I’m obviously going to run into different kinds of people here, but it just seems like more than I expected.

Ok, we’re leaving for Shanghai soon so I have to go finish packing. I’ll be sure to update when I get back!