No pictures this week, because I've been bad about remembering my camera, but the ones from the travel post should make up for that in the Light blogging requirements department.
This week, like the previous one, was extremely intense, though I managed to get a good deal more sleep. We had somewhat fewer characters to learn, by which I mean only 65-90 per night, instead of over 100. Monday started off well, as I did quite well on the test from the previous week, particularly compared to my dictation grades (dictations are near-impossible to do well on regularly here, there are just so many new characters to keep track of) and pretty decently on the presentation. In general, class for the week was fairly standard, which I guess I'll explain now, since I didn't last week. Each day we have 大班课(da ban ke/big class), with about 11 students, from 8:00 AM to 9:15 AM (having to get up at 7 every morning in order to get through a morning routine and cram in a few minutes of studying before class is one cause of sleep deprivation). It consists of one of the 3rd year course heads (王老师 - Professor/Teacher Wang - or 孙老师 - Professor/Teacher Sun or the third person whose name I forget and who isn't a course head) introducing the new grammatical concepts and drilling us a bit on them (making individuals produce/repeat sentences, some of which involve answering textual questions, etc). It's probably the most familiar to people who've done Chinese 130 at Yale - it's basically the same idea, but 25 minutes longer. The start of this class is also when we have our daily 听写 (tingxie, dictations), which manage to cram in a ton of new words and on which I and many others routinely do poorly (unlike at Yale, where I almost always did well; can I emphasize again how much 100 characters are?). Following 大班课, we have a 10 minute break before 小班课(xiao ban ke, small class, logically enough) begins at 9:25. This class has four students with one teacher and is broken into three parts. The first is reading, from 9:25-9:50. This is actually reading the text allowed while the teacher corrects your pronunciation, tones, etc. At that point you get a much needed 20 minute break before drills begin at 10:10. Drills are a more intense version of the bigger class - spending more time on each concept while the professor grills you on grammar and vocab (and you get grilled a lot - there are only 4 students in the room). This last 50 minutes, before another 10 minute break, after which you get another 50 minutes of the same thing, with class finally (mercifully) ending at 12:00. But class isn't really over because at either 1:30 or 2:20 (depending on your personal schedule for the day) you have a one-on-one class with a teacher for 50 minutes. This class begins with you reciting a short 2-3 line passage you had to memorize and continues either into chatting with the teacher (while being pushed into using new patterns and vocab) or being drilled somewhat more formally on grammar and vocab. You also get lots of pronunciation corrections and learn new words for all the things you prove unable to say during the conversation (many of which take a 2-3 minute round-about explanation in Chinese for you to get your point across). This is a lot of fun when the teacher lets you talk about interesting things (I loved talking about American and Chinese politics with 王老师) and is miserable when you don't (when a teacher is just making you produce formulaic and insipid sentences using new grammar and vocab). After class is homework, of which, if I haven't complained enough to make it clear, there is a lot. Monday-Thursday there is written homework, Sunday-Wednesday nights there's a new lesson to learn (which means all that new vocab). On Wednesday nights you also have to write a draft of your presentation for Friday (presentations are 450-500 character affairs on a topic related to one of the lessons, which have to be basically memorized when presented). Thursday nights you need to study for the test on Friday (there's a test every Friday) and prepare to give your presentation. Friday class schedule works differently than the other days - you have a test in your big class from 8-9:50, followed by the regular 20 minute break. Then you have your individual session from either 10:10-10:35 or 10:35-11:00, a which you practice your presentation with a teacher (and get informed of all your tonal mistakes). From 11:10-12:00, people present in their small classes. There's no class in the afternoon. Two days a week, Tuesday and Friday, we have 中文桌子(zhongwen zhuozi, Chinese table) which means lunch with your professors. This is actually pretty fun, and the food is always good (and, better yet, free). It's pretty leisurely on Fridays, but Tuesdays get hurried along a bit since some people have 1:30 afternoon class. There are a few more facets of class I could talk about, but I've already written quite a bit, so I'll save those for another week.
As for this week: in addition to normal stuff, this week was when we got to sign-up for our social study projects (what we do in the 5th week instead of class). I badly wanted to sign up for the trip to 内蒙古 (Nei Menggu, Inner Mongolia), but it already had it's full quota of 20 people when I showed up 15 minutes before class started on the day of sign-ups, so I chose to go to 山西 (Shanxi) instead, which should be fun as we get to go to 五台山 (Wutaishan) and 平遥古城 (Pinggyao Gucheng - The old city of Pingyao) plus, to fulfill my leftist requirement of the week, visit a coal mine (Shanxi coal mines have been the sites of some horrific accidents, and coal miners are, of course, a huge part of labor history). Also this week, we heard a speaker from the Beijing municipal government (I think he was vice-mayor). He managed not to really answer any of the critical questions that people had about Chinese policies, proving that Chinese politicians are just as good at avoiding answering questions as their American counterparts. Today I got to spend several hours at the house of my 中国家庭(Zhongguo jiating - Chinese host family), where my fellow Yalie/HBAer and temporary 哥哥(gege, older brother)谭朋 (Tan Peng) and I learned to 包饺子(bao jiaozi - make dumplings). We played some Chinese games with our 16 year old Chinese 弟弟(didi, little brother), and chatted with the family. It was a lot of fun, but meant I didn't get started on my homework, which on, account of blogging, I still haven't started. So I'll say goodbye for now - more to come next week.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Travel, Part II
Following a delicious (and cheap - 7 yuan/$1 for the two of us) breakfast of 包子 and porridge in the small restaurant that became our breakfast spot in the city, June 5th began with a trip to the Xi'an city walls, built in 1370, which are impressive tall, flat, and thick. So flat and thick, in fact, that riding a bicycle around on top of them is quite easy - so, of course, we did, riding around the entire walled portion of the city. 
The ride was fairly quick, but it still managed to exacerbate the sunburn I had picked up the previous day - we would later manage to find sunscreen - both rare and comparatively expensive in China.
Following the bike ride, we headed over to Xi'an's 回族 (hui zu, the Chinese Muslim ethnicity) quarter to wander around and eventually find lunch. We enjoyed kebabs and 羊肉泡馍 (yangrou pao mo - a sort of lamb soup with bread crumbled in it - one of the most famous local dishes). While wandering around the Muslim quarter after lunch, we found our way into a large old (Qing Dynasty, I believe) mansion that had been turned into some sort of museum. We were treated to a tea ceremony, which was free as they were hoping to sell us stuff. Despite my opposition to what I'm sure was a gross overpayment, my father did end up buying some paintings. It was fairly fun, except that the lady showing us around, after she learned that I spoke Chinese, kept testing my non-existent ability to read Chinese calligraphy, which was not at all fun (being unable to recognize very simple words that you do know and basically being mocked for it because they're so simple is not a good experience).
Later that day we took a taxi outside the walls to the 陕西历史博物馆 (the Shaanxi historical museum), which has a fairly remarkable collection of stuff from Shaanxi's Tang Dynasty heyday. That night, it was back to the Muslim quarter for dinner.
The next day, we had an afternoon train to 洛阳(Luoyang), a city in 河南(Henan) province. But that left us plenty of time in the morning and early afternoon for more sightseeing, beginning by heading down to the 大雁塔 (Big Wild Goose Pagoda), a tall 7th century Buddhist temple built to house sutras brought back by the Chinese pilgrim 玄奘(Xuanzang) from India.
After returning to the city walls for lunch in a 东北(Dongbei, or Northeast China) style restaurant, we headed over to the Stele Museum, which consisted, as the name implies, of massive stone tablets with hundreds of characters inscribed in them, many from Confucian texts. At around 4:00 that afternoon, we got on a train to Luoyang, arriving at around 9:00 that night, where we would spend the night at the 友谊宾馆 (Youyi Binguan, Friendship Hotel) a prime example of the Chinese "international" hotel where we were the only foreigners in sight.
The next day, before our afternoon train to 郑州(Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, from where we would fly back to Beijing), we spent the entire morning at Luoyang's most famous site，龙门石窟(Longmen Shiku - the Longmen - literally "Dragon's Gate" - Grottoes). This is a very impressive site with thousands of stone carvings of Buddha figures and attendants ranging from the tiny (a few cm tall) to giant statues of over 20 meters in height.
The grottoes had almost a total dearth of Western tourists, and I will swear to some of the Chinese tourists surreptitiously taking my picture. Westerners seem to be fascinating when they are scarce. Their was also the small disadvantage that it was swarming with Chinese tour groups, which are more annoying even than tours in other countries because all Chinese tour guides insist on using megaphones, regardless of how big their groups are. But, I shouldn't give the wrong impression. Longmen was awe-inspiring and well worth the trip for anyone who finds themselves in that part of the country. Also interesting was the long rant against Japanese and Western imperialists (incidentally, my leftists Chinese term of the week is 帝国主义-diguo zhuyi - imperialism) for the figures they'd some how managed to loot from the site. In general, the posted attacks on foreign behavior seem to be more prominent in places outside the foreign tourist circuit - though I'm not sure if the reason is that they don't want foreigners to read that kind of stuff or if they haven't updated the signs since 1978.
That afternoon, we made it by train to Zhengzhou and then back to Beijing by plane.
The following day was fairly low key. We began by doing various errands - finding a laundry, buying train tickets to Chengde and scheduling a Great Wall tour - before heading off to the 北京古观象台 (Beijing Guguan Xiangtai - the Beijing Ancient Observatory).
Those who have taken Spence's class will recognize this as the place where the Jesuit astronomers employed by the Ming dynasty did their work. In case you're wondering, the main advantage of Chinese astronomical instruments over Western ones is the number of dragons. Western scientific equipment simply lacks in this area when compared to the pre-20th century Chinese, which is sad, because dragons are really awesome.
Following the observatory, we headed to the bell museum, which most prominently houses a giant bell that can be heard from quite a ways away when played. There was (as in the Xi'an bell tower) another bell performance, again featuring Auld Lang Syne. I'm still unsure why it seems to be such a staple of Chinese bell music.
That evening, we had a wonderful dinner at a Shanghai style restaurant with the parents of my Chinese suitemate at Yale, 杨歌(Yang Ge). The amount of dishes they ordered was staggering, though it was so good that we did manage to eat quite a good deal of it. They were also amazingly friendly and kind and generally wonderful. Hopefully I'll have time sometime later this summer to see them again (perhaps when Ge gets back to Beijing). Anyway, that does it for travel part two. Next week will feature the Great Wall and Chengde.
The ride was fairly quick, but it still managed to exacerbate the sunburn I had picked up the previous day - we would later manage to find sunscreen - both rare and comparatively expensive in China.
Following the bike ride, we headed over to Xi'an's 回族 (hui zu, the Chinese Muslim ethnicity) quarter to wander around and eventually find lunch. We enjoyed kebabs and 羊肉泡馍 (yangrou pao mo - a sort of lamb soup with bread crumbled in it - one of the most famous local dishes). While wandering around the Muslim quarter after lunch, we found our way into a large old (Qing Dynasty, I believe) mansion that had been turned into some sort of museum. We were treated to a tea ceremony, which was free as they were hoping to sell us stuff. Despite my opposition to what I'm sure was a gross overpayment, my father did end up buying some paintings. It was fairly fun, except that the lady showing us around, after she learned that I spoke Chinese, kept testing my non-existent ability to read Chinese calligraphy, which was not at all fun (being unable to recognize very simple words that you do know and basically being mocked for it because they're so simple is not a good experience).Later that day we took a taxi outside the walls to the 陕西历史博物馆 (the Shaanxi historical museum), which has a fairly remarkable collection of stuff from Shaanxi's Tang Dynasty heyday. That night, it was back to the Muslim quarter for dinner.
The next day, we had an afternoon train to 洛阳(Luoyang), a city in 河南(Henan) province. But that left us plenty of time in the morning and early afternoon for more sightseeing, beginning by heading down to the 大雁塔 (Big Wild Goose Pagoda), a tall 7th century Buddhist temple built to house sutras brought back by the Chinese pilgrim 玄奘(Xuanzang) from India.
After returning to the city walls for lunch in a 东北(Dongbei, or Northeast China) style restaurant, we headed over to the Stele Museum, which consisted, as the name implies, of massive stone tablets with hundreds of characters inscribed in them, many from Confucian texts. At around 4:00 that afternoon, we got on a train to Luoyang, arriving at around 9:00 that night, where we would spend the night at the 友谊宾馆 (Youyi Binguan, Friendship Hotel) a prime example of the Chinese "international" hotel where we were the only foreigners in sight.The next day, before our afternoon train to 郑州(Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, from where we would fly back to Beijing), we spent the entire morning at Luoyang's most famous site，龙门石窟(Longmen Shiku - the Longmen - literally "Dragon's Gate" - Grottoes). This is a very impressive site with thousands of stone carvings of Buddha figures and attendants ranging from the tiny (a few cm tall) to giant statues of over 20 meters in height.
The grottoes had almost a total dearth of Western tourists, and I will swear to some of the Chinese tourists surreptitiously taking my picture. Westerners seem to be fascinating when they are scarce. Their was also the small disadvantage that it was swarming with Chinese tour groups, which are more annoying even than tours in other countries because all Chinese tour guides insist on using megaphones, regardless of how big their groups are. But, I shouldn't give the wrong impression. Longmen was awe-inspiring and well worth the trip for anyone who finds themselves in that part of the country. Also interesting was the long rant against Japanese and Western imperialists (incidentally, my leftists Chinese term of the week is 帝国主义-diguo zhuyi - imperialism) for the figures they'd some how managed to loot from the site. In general, the posted attacks on foreign behavior seem to be more prominent in places outside the foreign tourist circuit - though I'm not sure if the reason is that they don't want foreigners to read that kind of stuff or if they haven't updated the signs since 1978.That afternoon, we made it by train to Zhengzhou and then back to Beijing by plane.
The following day was fairly low key. We began by doing various errands - finding a laundry, buying train tickets to Chengde and scheduling a Great Wall tour - before heading off to the 北京古观象台 (Beijing Guguan Xiangtai - the Beijing Ancient Observatory).
Those who have taken Spence's class will recognize this as the place where the Jesuit astronomers employed by the Ming dynasty did their work. In case you're wondering, the main advantage of Chinese astronomical instruments over Western ones is the number of dragons. Western scientific equipment simply lacks in this area when compared to the pre-20th century Chinese, which is sad, because dragons are really awesome.Following the observatory, we headed to the bell museum, which most prominently houses a giant bell that can be heard from quite a ways away when played. There was (as in the Xi'an bell tower) another bell performance, again featuring Auld Lang Syne. I'm still unsure why it seems to be such a staple of Chinese bell music.
That evening, we had a wonderful dinner at a Shanghai style restaurant with the parents of my Chinese suitemate at Yale, 杨歌(Yang Ge). The amount of dishes they ordered was staggering, though it was so good that we did manage to eat quite a good deal of it. They were also amazingly friendly and kind and generally wonderful. Hopefully I'll have time sometime later this summer to see them again (perhaps when Ge gets back to Beijing). Anyway, that does it for travel part two. Next week will feature the Great Wall and Chengde.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
HBA Week One (featuring a lack of sleep)
I moved in to the dorm at HBA on the 13th of June (a Friday). Due to some logistical foul-ups, for the first two nights we were sleeping two to a room in what was meant to be a single, meaning one person on the floor, but, on Sunday, I was able to move into my current room, which is relatively nice, if a little messy at this point.
On Friday, after a campus orientation, a group of us, including my then-roommate Ilan (another Yalie), and several other HBA-ers who had already arrived (interestingly, most of whom were grad students), enjoying our remaining freedom to speak English, went out to dinner, and then to a club in 五道口 (Wudaokou, the local center of college activity). The club wasn't too interesting, featuring for a time an over-drunk Texan badly singing not very good music. On Saturday, Ilan, Lena (yet another Yalie), and I after lunch made our way by subway to the Pearl Market, a center for all things fake, a trip featuring several exciting bargaining episodes when Lena bought a bag and some shoes (all wonderfully fake name-brand merchandise). But it was the following day that HBA really got going.
On Sunday, at 8 AM, was the HBA placement test, a two-hour affair featuring multiple-choice, an essay, and a speaking component. Everyone seemed to get placed in the level they applied for, so future HBA-ers probably shouldn't worry too much about it, though none of us really knew what to expect going in. After the test, I went along with a group to set up computers for internet access (340 yuan for the 2 month period, which is actually a pretty large amount, around $50) and get cell phones - which are extremely cheap in China. The afternoon featured a lot of speeches, from BLCU people and HBA people, including 冯老师 (Professor Feng, the extremely long-winded, though mildly entertaining director of HBA), after which we split into class level groups to be introduced to the curriculum, given our course books, and lastly, to sign the much dreaded 语言誓约, the language pledge. No more spoken English for the next 9 weeks, except for phone conversations with one's parents (which HBA emphasized should be short, infrequent, and quiet - though mine haven't really met the first two requirements) is a fairly daunting prospect. And HBA, to its credit, enforces the language pledge strictly. My fellow third years put massive effort into avoiding even a single word of English with no teachers anywhere nearby, and everyone is really embarrassed when they let a few words slip, usually in an accidental outburst (on the order of "ouch" or "oops").
Sunday night, we already had homework, preparing for Monday's class. With no idea how long it would take, I mistakenly waited until fairly late to start it. It was a big mistake, I was up until 3 A.M. studying, giving me 4 hours of sleep before getting up at 7 for class the next morning. Those 4 hours of sleep, however, would prove to be the most I would get all week. I'll save a description of class format for a later week, given that so many other new things happened this week, but I'll say now that HBA cannot be called "fun," "enjoyable" or any similar word in any sense. It is certainly useful (at least, it looks like it will be) and perhaps even "rewarding." But it's not fun. I've spent every day since Tuesday (at least) longing for the weekend - and not to go out and do something, but simply to get enough sleep. If I were capable of working 12-13 hours straight (with only a lunch and dinner break), I could probably finish everything in time to get 7 hours of sleep or so (5 hours of class, 7-8 hours of studying, 4-5 hours of miscellaneous stuff liking eating, showering, errands, e-mail, talking to parents, limited internet use, etc) but I simply can't go home and start work immediately after 5 hours of class, so time gets wasted doing other things, and I end up not sleeping until 3 AM or later. Alternatively, if I can find a more efficient way to memorize 100 new vocabulary words a night (which, for those of you who haven't studied Chinese, is even worse than it sounds as it means learning a character or two, or three, as well as a pronunciation - which includes a tone) I'll get more sleep, but for now I'll muddle my way through.
But there are some positive things - I'm definitely learning a lot, and it's kind of exciting to have a successful conversation in Chinese with my 1-on-1 teacher on a subject like how Americans view Chinese Tibet policy (note to my teachers: this is far more interesting than drilling me on grammatical concepts and vocabulary related to the day's lesson on, say, students' part-time jobs, 4 hours of that in the other classes, along with homework is enough).
Anyhow, as I said, I'll discuss the details of class and homework stuff at a later date. For now, I'll finish off with the remainder of the week's main events. After our weekly test and presentation on Friday, we were given the exciting (and you should understand this word as if I had said it in a voice dripping with sarcasm) opportunity to take the HSK (汉语水平考试) the Chinese equivalent of TOEFL. Needless to say, after several hours of testing already that day, and given the fact that the HSK is well beyond the level of any third year student, it was mostly a slaughter, though I'm proud of the questions that I was able to answer (or at least think I was). That night, we got to meet our Chinese host families who we share with another HBA student. Mine has invited us to their house next Sunday to learn to make dumplings, which should be a lot of fun. They also have a 16 year old son, whose accent I find, for some reason, nearly impossible to understand (I have no problem with the mother's).
Today, most of the program was at the Great Wall at Simatai, but I decided to skip it, given that I preferred not to get up at 7 AM today and I had already been to the same place about 2 weeks ago. But, since I have been, I'll include a picture for those who want an idea of what it's like.
On Friday, after a campus orientation, a group of us, including my then-roommate Ilan (another Yalie), and several other HBA-ers who had already arrived (interestingly, most of whom were grad students), enjoying our remaining freedom to speak English, went out to dinner, and then to a club in 五道口 (Wudaokou, the local center of college activity). The club wasn't too interesting, featuring for a time an over-drunk Texan badly singing not very good music. On Saturday, Ilan, Lena (yet another Yalie), and I after lunch made our way by subway to the Pearl Market, a center for all things fake, a trip featuring several exciting bargaining episodes when Lena bought a bag and some shoes (all wonderfully fake name-brand merchandise). But it was the following day that HBA really got going.On Sunday, at 8 AM, was the HBA placement test, a two-hour affair featuring multiple-choice, an essay, and a speaking component. Everyone seemed to get placed in the level they applied for, so future HBA-ers probably shouldn't worry too much about it, though none of us really knew what to expect going in. After the test, I went along with a group to set up computers for internet access (340 yuan for the 2 month period, which is actually a pretty large amount, around $50) and get cell phones - which are extremely cheap in China. The afternoon featured a lot of speeches, from BLCU people and HBA people, including 冯老师 (Professor Feng, the extremely long-winded, though mildly entertaining director of HBA), after which we split into class level groups to be introduced to the curriculum, given our course books, and lastly, to sign the much dreaded 语言誓约, the language pledge. No more spoken English for the next 9 weeks, except for phone conversations with one's parents (which HBA emphasized should be short, infrequent, and quiet - though mine haven't really met the first two requirements) is a fairly daunting prospect. And HBA, to its credit, enforces the language pledge strictly. My fellow third years put massive effort into avoiding even a single word of English with no teachers anywhere nearby, and everyone is really embarrassed when they let a few words slip, usually in an accidental outburst (on the order of "ouch" or "oops").
Sunday night, we already had homework, preparing for Monday's class. With no idea how long it would take, I mistakenly waited until fairly late to start it. It was a big mistake, I was up until 3 A.M. studying, giving me 4 hours of sleep before getting up at 7 for class the next morning. Those 4 hours of sleep, however, would prove to be the most I would get all week. I'll save a description of class format for a later week, given that so many other new things happened this week, but I'll say now that HBA cannot be called "fun," "enjoyable" or any similar word in any sense. It is certainly useful (at least, it looks like it will be) and perhaps even "rewarding." But it's not fun. I've spent every day since Tuesday (at least) longing for the weekend - and not to go out and do something, but simply to get enough sleep. If I were capable of working 12-13 hours straight (with only a lunch and dinner break), I could probably finish everything in time to get 7 hours of sleep or so (5 hours of class, 7-8 hours of studying, 4-5 hours of miscellaneous stuff liking eating, showering, errands, e-mail, talking to parents, limited internet use, etc) but I simply can't go home and start work immediately after 5 hours of class, so time gets wasted doing other things, and I end up not sleeping until 3 AM or later. Alternatively, if I can find a more efficient way to memorize 100 new vocabulary words a night (which, for those of you who haven't studied Chinese, is even worse than it sounds as it means learning a character or two, or three, as well as a pronunciation - which includes a tone) I'll get more sleep, but for now I'll muddle my way through.
But there are some positive things - I'm definitely learning a lot, and it's kind of exciting to have a successful conversation in Chinese with my 1-on-1 teacher on a subject like how Americans view Chinese Tibet policy (note to my teachers: this is far more interesting than drilling me on grammatical concepts and vocabulary related to the day's lesson on, say, students' part-time jobs, 4 hours of that in the other classes, along with homework is enough).
Anyhow, as I said, I'll discuss the details of class and homework stuff at a later date. For now, I'll finish off with the remainder of the week's main events. After our weekly test and presentation on Friday, we were given the exciting (and you should understand this word as if I had said it in a voice dripping with sarcasm) opportunity to take the HSK (汉语水平考试) the Chinese equivalent of TOEFL. Needless to say, after several hours of testing already that day, and given the fact that the HSK is well beyond the level of any third year student, it was mostly a slaughter, though I'm proud of the questions that I was able to answer (or at least think I was). That night, we got to meet our Chinese host families who we share with another HBA student. Mine has invited us to their house next Sunday to learn to make dumplings, which should be a lot of fun. They also have a 16 year old son, whose accent I find, for some reason, nearly impossible to understand (I have no problem with the mother's).
Today, most of the program was at the Great Wall at Simatai, but I decided to skip it, given that I preferred not to get up at 7 AM today and I had already been to the same place about 2 weeks ago. But, since I have been, I'll include a picture for those who want an idea of what it's like.
Travel
Between travel and the start of classes I've been too busy to post over the past few weeks, but I'm planning to make up for that now. I'm splitting this into two parts - first a description of my pre-HBA travels in China (with lots of pictures) and, second, my thoughts on the first week of HBA.
To begin. I left the US on May 31st, rather early in the morning flying from Los Angeles to Beijing by way of Vancouver (where I spent 4 hours). Vancouver, incidentally, from what I saw of it flying in and out and looking out the airport windows is an amazingly beautiful city - I'd consider moving there if I ever decide to give up on the whole US - thing. Anyhow, by the time I got to China it was the afternoon of June 1st (thanks to the International Date Line). I navigated myself into the city by way of the airport bus and a short taxi ride to join my father who had arrived at our hotel (前门建国饭店=Qianmen Jianguo Hotel, for those who are wondering) early that day (why he couldn't schedule us on the same flights is beyond me). That night, we went out into a 胡同(hutong, roughly neighborhood, but of a specific traditionally Beijing type - see the Wikipedia article) near our hotel to find hot pot, which proved to be a very successful first meal in China for me.
The next day we walked from our hotel into the center of the city and 天安门广场 Tiananmen Square. While taking pictures of a statue honoring the revolutionary glory of the Chinese people (or some other emotion that is entirely out of place in modern, un-revolutionary China)
we were approached by a guide interested in showing us around 故宫 (the Forbidden City). The tourist budget while travelling with my father being a bit higher than when I'm on my own, and given the relatively reasonable price (200 kuai, or about $30), we decided to do it. It proved to be a mistake. Though the guide was interesting to talk to, willing to speak Chinese with me (by which I mean, willing to speak Chinese with me in a way that I could understand), and helpful when we were in Beijing later, he hurried us through the Forbidden City in only a couple of hours, meaning that what we saw was relatively little and that I only have a few pictures, but hopefully I'll make it back sometime in the next several weeks. After leaving the Forbidden City, the guide led us up into 景山 (Jingshan Park), the hill rising behind the Forbidden City, from which he had quite good views of Beijing in all directions of what was, I've now realized an improbably-pollution free day (note the blue sky in the photo above).
The photo below looks back down onto the Forbidden City - it's really huge, as you will notice. Having completed the apparent itinerary of our tour, our guide helped us navigate the public buses back down to near where we were staying and showed us a restaurant at which we had a fairly good lunch.
After lunch, we made our way down to 天坛 (the Temple of Heaven), where, after getting mildly lost inside the quite large complex, we managed to see another of Beijing's most famous sites.
That night, after making it back to our hotel, we saw a performance of 京剧 (Peking Opera) at the theater inside our hotel (I've already noted that the travel budget is somewhat higher when I'm with my father).
The following day, we left Beijing for the first time, following a nice (and exceptionally cheap) breakfast of 饺子(jiaozi, dumplings) and 包子 (steamed buns) in the local 胡同 by flying to 西安 (Xi'an, the capital of 陕西 - Shaanxi - Province) about 1,000 miles to the southwest. After arriving, we had time to visit the local Bell and Drum Towers (located at the center of the city, the former at the intersection of the two roads that run North-South and East-West between the cities 4 main gates). At the Bell Tower, we saw a 10-minute or so performance of traditional Chinese bell music, which, oddly enough, included Auld Lang Syne. That night, we went to a massively overpriced performance/dinner combination (the dinner may have been the worst food I had before I ate at the university cafeteria), though there were some cool acrobatic tricks.
The following day (the 4th of June), we decided to set off to see the most famous site near Xi'an - the 兵马俑 (Terracotta Army). We walked toward the Xi'an train station, the departure point of the public buses to the site, but just before reaching it were accosted by a tour tout offering trips to the warriors for only 35 kuai each (about $5-6) - only slightly more than the public tourist bus to the same site but without the hassle of riding a public bus. But either my Chinese proved faulty, or we were misled by the salesperson - I think it was the latter, because some of the Chinese on the bus seemed surprised as well - because what we ended up with was not a bus ride to the Terracotta Army, but a tour, in Chinese, of no less than 6 sites (including the army) around Xi'an. It was probably the strangest experience of my trip so far - travelling from place to place in a minibus full of Chinese tourists, then following around a Chinese guide (who I could basically not understand - fast speaking and lots of words I don't know are not the most conducive to my understanding). It also prompted something like 4 different Chinese people to want to take pictures with me (one of them with the misconception that I was a Russian, but since he was from 黑龙江 - Heilongjiang - in Northeast China, perhaps that's just what white people meant to him). Anyhow, among other sites, we saw the site where Chiang Kai Shek hid out during the Xi'an incident of 1936 (though I skipped the chance to have my picture taken in a 国民党 - Guomindang - military uniform) and a temple in honor of some military leader or emperor about whose identity I remain unclear.
The below is Chiang's supposed actual hiding place, accompanied by a nice bit of CCP historiography in the official tourist description of the location.
The tour also provided me with a picture of one of the most egregious Chinese mistranslations I've seen here (that is, one that was simply wrong, not just terribly grammatically convoluted, as most seem to be),
when they stopped us at a tourist store. Anyhow, after nearly a full day of this, we finally reached, as promised, the Terracotta army, which lived up to expectations about as well as one could expect. It is really an amazing feat to have produced such a large number of figures, each one of them unique, and the effect of seeing them all together is quite impressive.
After returning that evening, we made our way into Xi'an's extensive Muslim quarter for dinner, which presented a new and good set of flavors.
I've now realized that travel description is taking more time than I've really got, so I've decided that I will stop here for now (I've only made it through June 4th, and have to make it to June 13th), and include the next installment of travel descriptions when I post next week. Highlights will include another day and a half in Xi'an, the Longmen caves in Luoyang, and perhaps another day in Beijing. There will then be a third and final installment with the Great Wall, Chengde, and the last day in Beijing.
To begin. I left the US on May 31st, rather early in the morning flying from Los Angeles to Beijing by way of Vancouver (where I spent 4 hours). Vancouver, incidentally, from what I saw of it flying in and out and looking out the airport windows is an amazingly beautiful city - I'd consider moving there if I ever decide to give up on the whole US - thing. Anyhow, by the time I got to China it was the afternoon of June 1st (thanks to the International Date Line). I navigated myself into the city by way of the airport bus and a short taxi ride to join my father who had arrived at our hotel (前门建国饭店=Qianmen Jianguo Hotel, for those who are wondering) early that day (why he couldn't schedule us on the same flights is beyond me). That night, we went out into a 胡同(hutong, roughly neighborhood, but of a specific traditionally Beijing type - see the Wikipedia article) near our hotel to find hot pot, which proved to be a very successful first meal in China for me.
The next day we walked from our hotel into the center of the city and 天安门广场 Tiananmen Square. While taking pictures of a statue honoring the revolutionary glory of the Chinese people (or some other emotion that is entirely out of place in modern, un-revolutionary China)
we were approached by a guide interested in showing us around 故宫 (the Forbidden City). The tourist budget while travelling with my father being a bit higher than when I'm on my own, and given the relatively reasonable price (200 kuai, or about $30), we decided to do it. It proved to be a mistake. Though the guide was interesting to talk to, willing to speak Chinese with me (by which I mean, willing to speak Chinese with me in a way that I could understand), and helpful when we were in Beijing later, he hurried us through the Forbidden City in only a couple of hours, meaning that what we saw was relatively little and that I only have a few pictures, but hopefully I'll make it back sometime in the next several weeks. After leaving the Forbidden City, the guide led us up into 景山 (Jingshan Park), the hill rising behind the Forbidden City, from which he had quite good views of Beijing in all directions of what was, I've now realized an improbably-pollution free day (note the blue sky in the photo above).
The photo below looks back down onto the Forbidden City - it's really huge, as you will notice. Having completed the apparent itinerary of our tour, our guide helped us navigate the public buses back down to near where we were staying and showed us a restaurant at which we had a fairly good lunch.After lunch, we made our way down to 天坛 (the Temple of Heaven), where, after getting mildly lost inside the quite large complex, we managed to see another of Beijing's most famous sites.
That night, after making it back to our hotel, we saw a performance of 京剧 (Peking Opera) at the theater inside our hotel (I've already noted that the travel budget is somewhat higher when I'm with my father).The following day, we left Beijing for the first time, following a nice (and exceptionally cheap) breakfast of 饺子(jiaozi, dumplings) and 包子 (steamed buns) in the local 胡同 by flying to 西安 (Xi'an, the capital of 陕西 - Shaanxi - Province) about 1,000 miles to the southwest. After arriving, we had time to visit the local Bell and Drum Towers (located at the center of the city, the former at the intersection of the two roads that run North-South and East-West between the cities 4 main gates). At the Bell Tower, we saw a 10-minute or so performance of traditional Chinese bell music, which, oddly enough, included Auld Lang Syne. That night, we went to a massively overpriced performance/dinner combination (the dinner may have been the worst food I had before I ate at the university cafeteria), though there were some cool acrobatic tricks.
The following day (the 4th of June), we decided to set off to see the most famous site near Xi'an - the 兵马俑 (Terracotta Army). We walked toward the Xi'an train station, the departure point of the public buses to the site, but just before reaching it were accosted by a tour tout offering trips to the warriors for only 35 kuai each (about $5-6) - only slightly more than the public tourist bus to the same site but without the hassle of riding a public bus. But either my Chinese proved faulty, or we were misled by the salesperson - I think it was the latter, because some of the Chinese on the bus seemed surprised as well - because what we ended up with was not a bus ride to the Terracotta Army, but a tour, in Chinese, of no less than 6 sites (including the army) around Xi'an. It was probably the strangest experience of my trip so far - travelling from place to place in a minibus full of Chinese tourists, then following around a Chinese guide (who I could basically not understand - fast speaking and lots of words I don't know are not the most conducive to my understanding). It also prompted something like 4 different Chinese people to want to take pictures with me (one of them with the misconception that I was a Russian, but since he was from 黑龙江 - Heilongjiang - in Northeast China, perhaps that's just what white people meant to him). Anyhow, among other sites, we saw the site where Chiang Kai Shek hid out during the Xi'an incident of 1936 (though I skipped the chance to have my picture taken in a 国民党 - Guomindang - military uniform) and a temple in honor of some military leader or emperor about whose identity I remain unclear.
The below is Chiang's supposed actual hiding place, accompanied by a nice bit of CCP historiography in the official tourist description of the location.The tour also provided me with a picture of one of the most egregious Chinese mistranslations I've seen here (that is, one that was simply wrong, not just terribly grammatically convoluted, as most seem to be),
when they stopped us at a tourist store. Anyhow, after nearly a full day of this, we finally reached, as promised, the Terracotta army, which lived up to expectations about as well as one could expect. It is really an amazing feat to have produced such a large number of figures, each one of them unique, and the effect of seeing them all together is quite impressive.
After returning that evening, we made our way into Xi'an's extensive Muslim quarter for dinner, which presented a new and good set of flavors.I've now realized that travel description is taking more time than I've really got, so I've decided that I will stop here for now (I've only made it through June 4th, and have to make it to June 13th), and include the next installment of travel descriptions when I post next week. Highlights will include another day and a half in Xi'an, the Longmen caves in Luoyang, and perhaps another day in Beijing. There will then be a third and final installment with the Great Wall, Chengde, and the last day in Beijing.
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