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!

Week 2

Life in Beijing has been getting better and better every day. I feel as I acclimate myself more with the city, I grow to love it even more. I still spend most of my time during the week in class or studying, but this week was so much more manageable in that I found time to do a lot of other things besides study.

One of my favorite parts of the week is Chinese lunch table. Every Tuesday and Friday we go to lunch at a nearby restaurant with our teachers and eat the most amazing Chinese food, (though half the time I don’t know what I’m eating…) We spend an hour or two at lunch just eating and talking with our danbanke teachers, who are graduate students at BeiYu. They teach our small classes from 9:30-12 every day and the one-on-one session every afternoon. Chinese lunch table is a great chance to get to know our teachers on a personal level. Chinese people really are just so nice, I don’t know how else to put it. Learning about their hobbies, boyfriends, career paths and whatnot has really developed not only a new understanding of Chinese culture and way of life, but personal relationships I feel I will definitely value for the rest of the summer.

Another highlight of my week was Friday night. It was unreal to say the least. I feel like I saw more of the city that night than combined so far. After a night out, some friends and I decided head to Tiananmen Square to watch the flag raising ceremony. It was amazing how few tourists were there and I think most of the Chinese citizens were eyeing us with confusion or disapproval since we were… dressed differently to say the least, (aka from the night before). It really was a sight to see though. As dawn broke and light flooded the square, I could ALMOST see the sky for a moment, (I haven’t seen the sun in I don’t know how long. The pollution is really getting to me – I feel it every time I run and I’m starting to get a bit depressed whenever I’m outside.) Cop cars circled the crowd playing a recording that had something to do with safety. Tiananmen obviously wasn’t full but there were a good number of people there and I could sense a strong feeling of solidarity among the crowd as the flag was raised and the national anthem played. It was pretty cool to be a part of that.

After the flag raising ceremony ended, most of my friends went home. Spencer, JinA, and I, however, decided this was obviously the perfect opportunity to go to KTV (karaoke). After a few hours of bad 90s music, we ended the night/morning at the Temple of Heaven. We got there before the gates opened, however, so while we were waiting to go in, we wandered around the park taking in the morning’s events: we watched masses of people practicing Taichi, (JinA was brave enough to join in), learned how to play a hacky-sack like game which we were unbelievably bad at, and observed two men painting calligraphy on the sidewalk. The park finally opened and we spent some time roaming around the temples before the lack of sleep finally got to us and we headed home.

The night seemed kind of surreal in that I had always pictured myself going to Tiananmen, Temple of Heaven, and other tourist spots during the day or on a planned outing. I like the way I can freely roam from place to place here– it reinforces the sense that I’m not really a tourist, but a student. Studying abroad gives me a sense of purpose in this city, like I’m adding something to my surroundings. Or maybe not necessarily adding something, but at least taking part in it. Even though I’m still going to a lot of tourist attractions, I didn’t exactly visit Tiananmen Square and the Temple of Heaven during peak tourist hours. I feel like this freedom is a really unique feature of spending the whole summer in one city and allows me to fully immerse myself in the culture.

Week 1

It’s been a little over a week since I arrived in Beijing and so much has happened I haven’t had time to update my blog until now! My first week here was really intense… No other way to put it. I finally got to BeiYu last Saturday night and had about half a day to speak English before our language pledge began, (the pledge essentially bans any language but Chinese for the next nine weeks.) For me, the pledge is probably the most difficult aspect of the program just because I’m not nearly fluent enough to express my thoughts in Chinese, thus prohibiting me from talking to my friends without several hand gestures and games of charades. At first it was a little isolating, but everybody seems to be doing their best and I already see improvements in my speaking. I kind of feel like a little kid learning to read again in that every day I recognize more and more characters on the surrounding signs/buildings/etc.

The first week of class was also pretty overwhelming. Every day we have five hours of class and on top of that I’d say we have about four hours of homework a night, consisting of completing a homework sheet, reading a text, and memorizing about 100 new characters in preparation for the quiz the following morning. We also have a written test and oral presentation every Friday. This obviously leaves little free time during the week. In fact, I didn’t really leave campus until Friday with the exception of going to a few nearby restaurants. My jet lag definitely added to my stress last week, but I’m finally adjusting to the time difference and the work load is becoming more manageable.

This weekend was a lot of fun and a reassuring break from the academic rigor of the previous five days. On Saturday, JinA and I went to an art district called “798”, which is kind of like an old-Soho with tons of old factories which have been turned into galleries. We somehow ended up participating in an auction where JinA almost bought a piece of art! “798” was really interesting because it serves as a rare case of freedom of expression among the up and coming artistic generation. I really got the sense that “798” was its own secluded community within the larger city and felt a certain tension between the two sides. “798” really welcomes open critiques of Chinese government and society through its art while a lot of the rest of Beijing remains very traditional in its mindset. In fact, I feel like Beijing is full of contrasts like this juxtaposition of the art district and the surrounding Chaoyang district.

For instance, I have especially felt a disparity in Beijing’s environmental issues and health in general. The smog here is unbelievable – more than half of the time it’s sunny out you can’t even see the sun. It constantly looks like a foggy day out because of all the pollution. Many of my friends even told me they can’t run outside because it hurts their lungs so much. At the same time however, I’ve noticed significantly healthier habits among Chinese people compared to those of Americans. An obvious example is in food. In addition to the food being prepared in healthier ways, it is also never wasted. This moderation seems to be applied in many more aspects of Chinese life than in American life. A trivial and somewhat stupid example is the fact that I only get two rolls of toilet paper a week from the 服务员in my dorm and everywhere you go you have to bring your own toilet paper because squat toilets don’t have it. This moderation creates a much simpler lifestyle and reinforces the feeling that we have everything in excessive and unnecessary amounts in the US. So, while on one hand China’s rapid modernization and industrialization have created many environmental problems, the country still maintains other habits which are significantly healthier and environmentally friendly than those in the US.

One last tension I have felt in Beijing is that between the Chinese and the ex-pat community. While the hotels/restaurants/nightlife in Beijing are really fun and high-class despite their inexpensive nature, I can’t help but feel weird about being in these places when the rest of Beijing is just so different. An extreme example of this occurred Saturday night when I found myself at a party thrown by a reporter for Time Magazine who lived in a very poor neighborhood in Beijing, (apparently he was the only person in the area with his own bathroom.) We had to walk down many allies and through several courtyards to get to his home and the entire time his Chinese neighbors kept pointing us in the right direction because they immediately knew we must be going to the only foreigner’s home in the area. It seemed very unnatural to me that at that moment I was in the middle of this neighborhood and that later that night I would be at these really nice clubs that were like a world apart. All of these contrasts have so far created a love-hate relationship with Beijing for me. I’m sure my feelings will change and develop in different ways over the rest of the summer, but as of now so many aspects of the culture seem to contradict one another.

Ok that’s it for now. Check out the pictures below!

My dorm - 会议中心

The track on campus right next to my dorm. At night, there are legit about 75-100 people walking around the track or practicing taichi.

Confucius! 孔子

Classroom building

The auction at "798"

At a photography exhibit of Olympic athletes - They had a ton of pole vaulting photos! This one is of Yelena Isinbayevam at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka.

JinA at another gallery

Last day at home

This blog will follow my summer in Beijing while I study at Beijing Language and Culture University with Harvard Beijing Academy (HBA). The Light Fellowship was kind enough to fund my summer abroad so in return I will be documenting my experiences here. I hope you all enjoy!

I'm currently at home in Boston. I've been here for about a month, just working and spending time with friends and family. It's been a great break but I'm definitely looking forward to getting to China... Despite the 30 hour trip that takes me from DC to Detroit to Tokyo and finally to Beijing! I leave tomorrow afternoon and get to Beijing Friday night. I will return to the US on August 17th.

I've been to China once before in 1996 with my family. We spent two weeks traveling China's major cities - Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, and Guangzhou - and a month in Hong Kong. Although I remember my general impressions of each city and the major tourist attractions, China has obviously changed so much since '96, including Hong Kong's return to the PRC. In addition, traveling as a tourist and living in Beijing as a student provide entirely different experiences. While I am somewhat anxious about the workload of my program, (I've heard horror stories...), I'm more so just excited to really get to know Beijing - it's layout, people, scenery, politics, food, history... I can't tell if I'm dreading or completely pumped for that moment when I get into a taxi or walk into a restaurant and actually have to talk to the driver or waiter in Chinese... Stupid, I know, but it seems so weird to me while I sit here in Boston. Anyways, I will be in Beijing for eight of the nine weeks of my stay, so hopefully I will be able to draw some insight on the city and its culture and blog about them here. The fifth week of the program consists of an "independent study" during which I can travel outside of Beijing and write a paper on a topic of my choice. I would love to travel to Hong Kong or Shanghai, but I'm not sure if that's possible yet.

OK, that's it for now. See you in Beijing!