再见北京 - See you, Beijing

There's truth to the idea that you don't fully appreciate something until you have to let go of it, and that's kind of how I felt that last Sunday: quite, quite sad. The dorms felt empty. Most of the students had already left, including my roommate who, before leaving for Shanghai, had bequeathed me a bag of shrimp chips and a bag of Beijing-Roast-Duck flavored Lay's. I brought the shrimp chips on the plane with me and still haven't eaten them. That said there really isn't any shortage of mementos from our time in Beijing, from our book-shaped diplomas to the thousands of pictures we took. But there was still that nauseating feeling of nostalgia, brought on by the friends who for two months left their hometowns in America, Japan, Korea, etc, to share in an experience speaking bad Chinese in a strange environment.

Giant pizza with friends

A couple nights before, all the students went out, and apparently a certain weather-named friend of mine got drunk for what may or may not have been the first time, and I wasn't there to see it. But before that, our class came together for a final Chinese Table and then a final karaoke session with the teachers. Our head teacher had given a speech at graduation riffing on every member of our class (while the teachers of larger classes were only able to give more general speeches). At first I was apprehensive about being in such a small class, but I'm glad it worked out that way.

The entirety of 3rd year heritage - plus teachers

That emergent and ephemeral world of the PIB language pledge that reduced everyone's language ability to that of a five-year-old, that was what made this summer for me.
In the beginning of PIB, the program head, Zhou Laoshi (万岁*) referred to the language pledge as "a game, but one that's very important to play." At any rate that game's over now. Everyone's speaking English. One friend remarked on how good it was to finally get to know people for real. I don't think there was anything fake about these past eight weeks. There was something about living in another language, far from being restricting, something especially genuine.

再见亲爱的普北班，I'll miss you.

-令鑫

*Ten Thousand years, meaning "long live" - a joke referencing the slogan: "Long live the People's Republic of China" printed alongside Mao's portrait at Tiananmen

One Last Day at the Gym

Yeah it's really a post about going to the gym. There's also a bit about the Chinese mafia though.

A fifteen minute walk north of the East Gate takes you to Pulsation Fitness Club, which is this pricey gym that pretty much all PIB students went to this summer. It's around 600rmb for the two months, or 400rmb for me since I started late. Good times were had working out after class and going to the neighboring supermarket, Wu Mei, to eat dinner, which at their food court was cheap and delicious. The first time we went, the people working at the noodle stand at the food court, seeing our drenched clothing, asked us if it had rained outside.

It's been a month since then, and my card just expired. In a weird way, it's one of the first real signals that my stay here is really, actually, coming to an end. The gym is located on the 6th floor of that building. Also, these window cleaners were really bad-ass.

I had scheduled 5 personal trainer lessons at this place - something I never thought I would do, but I figure it was worth it: cheaper than America, and another opportunity to practice speaking Chinese. The guy was pretty good - habitually late, but also willing to go past the allotted hour. When I shook his hand for the last time, my simple 谢谢 seemed kind of weak in the way of goodbyes. I dunno, he was a good guy. 

There's this manager that hangs around sometimes. He wears these rimless rectangular glasses and tattoos - one of which is a Harley Davidson logo that I think he shows to every foreigner. His classic question is "where are you from?" One day my friend, from Philadelphia, was asked this. The guy, knowing philly, promptly said "ah, there are a lot of Chinese Mafia there!" This seems like some kind of trend, because when I told him I was from New Jersey he gestured and said something about guns.

Beijing I will miss you.

One Last Weekend In China: Crossdressing, Karaoke, China's Healthcare system, 等

Well, this weekend has been one of the most eventful of my recent history. I'll probably write everything that happened this week into one enormous post, since I'm too lazy to split them up. Unfortunately, I hardly managed to take any pictures, although there are a few that I'm not entirely willing to put online - which of course are the ones of me in a dress and makeup. That was Saturday, when half of the guys in our huayi 3rd year class got dressed in drag for PIB's Beijing Evening, which is a huge performance put on by members of all language levels, including quite a few teachers. As our male-teacher-in-a-wig said that evening (in an exaggerated Taiwanese accent), gu4 si4 si4 ze4 yang4: "the story goes like this." 

This gong1fu4 performance was pretty amazing

Beijing Evening:

We performed a mock dating show in which all of the contestants were guys dressed as girls: wig, makeup, lipstick, and in some cases even eyeliner. (Incidentally, the actual girls in our class were busy doing a live Backstreet Boys music video). Us guys, performing guy-type things, included a fitness demonstration, a Chinese rap, and a translated version of Marvin Gaye's song, "Sexual Healing." 

As for myself, I did a guitar cover of American Pie with made-up lyrics in Mandarin, with a Derek-Zoolander-esque runway pout thrown in there at some point. This I considered a success considering I've never actually played guitar, or sang on stage. I would recommend that likewise-shy individuals consider putting on a performance, either alone or in a group. Funny is good, and there really aren't any standards considering how low linguistic expectations are. (Although if you're a 5th year student, please try to make your performance understandable by people other than the teachers, even if it means using fewer than 4 chengyus per sentence). 

Beijing Evening ran up until 10:30PM. Afterward, the dorm was full of students scrambling to beat the increased post-12AM cover charges at various clubs around Beijing, myself included. A few students here had connections (guanxi) with the Spark club in Sanlitun, which I didn't find out until after paying. Although for others, there might be opportunities to get into places for free. A short comparison between the clubs (ye4dian4) of Wudaokou and Sanlitun: Wudaokou is cheaper and more student-friendly, though the places are not as fancy as those in Sanlitun. That Saturday, a friend and I visited a Sanlitun club for the first time, which I do count as a cultural experience. It's pretty jarring to see the modernity of these places, how well people are dressed, the DJs imported from other countries, and compare that to just about everywhere else in China. 

Apparently Kobe Bryant was there in the VIP section right behind where I'm standing. I had no idea oh well.

Despite the rapid pace of development in China, there are still longstanding problems that don't get addressed in tourist locations or foreigner-filled dance clubs. 

A Massage Parlor Story about Healthcare:

One such issue regards the uneven distribution of healthcare resources here. Under China's current houkou system, a family register system which has been around in some form for thousands of years, where you can go to receive healthcare depends on where you were born, or more properly, where you're registered under the system. Though my understanding is obviously limited, it seems that receiving care in Beijing or Shanghai, whose hospitals are the best by a huge degree, is made much more difficult (in terms of insurance/cost/other factors) if you don't have a hukou for the city. This results in cases where people receive sub-standard care, and is one of the few problems that Beijinger's will opening complain about in public.

There's a story to go along with this abstracted rant. This past Friday, after our test, I went to get a massage with some friends, at a local place with blind masseuses. An old Beijing resident was getting a massage across the room, and was talking to his masseuse about a friend (or relative) who had developed a serious illness. He commented on how "the resources at other hospitals are behind Beijing and Shanghai by 50 years," and about how his friend was unable to get a room at these hospitals because of his hukou. Instead, he was admitted to another facility, which the Beijing resident compared to "waiting to die." Sure enough, twenty days after the 50-something friend was admitted, he died. Western accounts (including mine) of issues in China are frequently obscenely biased, according to a teacher here (who teaches at a college in the states during the year). There's no telling whether the guy in the story would have fared much better at a top-tier hospital, but it does highlight the perception of inequality between places like Beijing and Shanghai, and everywhere else. 

The people here aren't as dedicated to complaining about their government as we are in America, but healthcare is one exception to that rule. (The perception that Chinese people don't involve themselves in politics very much was explained to me by a couple of college students here: it's not out of a lack of interest, but rather because there's not very much you can do in a one-party system where nobody votes).

I recalled this story at the Princeton-Harvard Alumni Association event, as there was a student there who had attended a Public Health language program in Nanjing who had witnessed hospital conditions firsthand. The event had recent alumni from various consulting, banking, start-up, and government positions. As a prospective BME major, I don't think it was a very good opportunity to find internships or whatever, but it was certainly informative and not-so-awkward with other students there. 

There was someone from the Gates Foundation at the event with a straightforwardness that was almost unsettling. Of what little he said to me, one thing stuck out as particularly memorable. I had asked him something along the lines of "how do you help people?" To which he answered, something along the lines of, "it's not enough to want to help people, you have to be able to help people - you yourself have to be phenomenal." It's not a groundbreaking statement (and not the whole of our short conversation), but I thought it was meaningful nonetheless. 

Karaoke:

A small left-out section of this weekend ran from 11PM to 5AM on Friday. The karaoke place near the university (called bao4mi3hua1, or popcorn) cost 580RMB (split between the 15 people that went that day) and comes with 630RMB worth of (expensive) non-Chinese drinks. There was a pretty decent selection of English and Chinese songs, and the language pledge may or may not have been put on standby for the duration of the night. 

Apparently Karaoke is a pretty popular activity in China, and at the very least it's a lot less expensive here than in the US. I would recommend it especially if you want to sing "Time to Say Goodbye" at 4AM in the morning, or even if your tastes are more normal. 

When we finally left, the sun had just begun to rise, and the streets were unusually empty but for a few elderly folks walking around. I'm going to miss this place.

孔令鑫

The Forbidden City is Not a Cool Place: Pagodas, Parks, and Recreation

This was a busy weekend, probably because this past week following our long trip was surprisingly light in terms of work. The realization that I only have three weeks left at PIB before returning to the states and Yale (note PIB ends relatively late compared to other programs) has sparked somewhat frantic sightseeing around Beijing. PIB tends to avoid the standard tourist sights in Beijing, so it's largely up to you to see things like The Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven Park, the Summer Palace, 等等。But first, we decided to visit the Beijing Language University 北京语言大学 to visit a few friends and see how the other half lives.

My friend Rain (Zhengkuan) organized the meetup, and I discovered for the first time the mystical 331 bus line (at least I think it was 331) that goes straight up to HBA. (Incidentally, the next stop on that line is Wudaokou 五道口, but more on that later).

This place had free watermelon so of course I ate like 30 slices.

We ended up eating some nice hotpot with some nice Harvard students (that other cultural exchange). Apparently, half of PIB was eating dinner at Pyro Pizza, which is the restaurant a floor below where we ate, though we didn't run into anybody. 

Afterward, while standing around the entrance of a club deciding what to do for the rest of the night, I met this surprisingly nice bouncer. He was like, "Of course entry is free! Yeah no cover until 5AM. You guys look around; come back if you want." Right now I much prefer Wudaokou to Sanlitun / Houhai (if you're looking for nightlife-ish things), since it's really geared more toward students (especially in terms of prices).

There was also this aptly-named coffee shop. Supposedly, the ridiculously 

high prices for drinks reflects the fact that these places are often used 

as dating locations where the guy can't come off as stingy.
As a side note I love the "+" after "twosome"

The place we eventually went to (Wu club) was quite good and not at all sketchy (which I guess is my standard for stuff like this). There was this Peking University student hanging around us asking all the Harvard and Yale kids for their phone numbers. I don't think any of us really knew much about masters/phD programs though.

Innocuous glowing red bar or ingenious solution for masking Asian glow? (click here for science)

Though many students might not consider Wudaokou a worthy way to spend their precious moments in China, I find that it's actually a good way to spend time in good company and listen to some really loud (western) music in a Beijing environment. After all, "must-go" tourist sites aren't always that great.

The sky was pretty cool that day though.

It was blistering hot the day we went to see the Forbidden City, which by Beijing standards is pretty average. The actual Forbidden City (故宫) was, in my opinion, not super-impressive either. To be fair, I've been there before when I was little. Visiting for the second time, I realized why my memories of the place are so sparse - the buildings are essentially all the same, exaggerated wooden structures glazed in red with golden roofs. The actual rooms are mostly empty, since the KMT ran off with most of the things - so most of it's in Taiwan.

Typical Gugong

The expansive squares and maze-like corridors between the smaller buildings on the side are worth a look if you've never been before - but be sure to go early. It opens at 8, and although we got there at 9, there were still quite a few visitors. Around 10/11, the crowd became absolutely ridiculous. A good chengyu to describe this is 人山人海 ("people mountain people sea").

The garden near the exit of Gugong. +1 Majestic pigeon

A good part of the non-central area was closed off that day, and we mostly just kept moving forward through the complex, which I would recommend given the traffic.

Jingshan 景山 park borders Gugong to the north, and I would recommend a visit if you decide to see Gugong, since the entrance to the park is one under-highway passage away from the exit of the Forbidden City.

Generic flower photo

Jingshan is great if you're like me and prefer green to shiny red and gold paint. Potted bonsai trees, lotus flowers, and an array of tree-lined trails up a steep hill compose this small-ish, pleasant area. You'll find elderly folks dancing in sync in the shade, and tourists clustered in the temple at the top of the hill, snapping pictures of the Forbidden City below. Its was the best view of Beijing I've had in my limited experience here.

Group dance activities: a common sight in China's parks

A photo from the top of Jingshan. Gugong kinda feels like Beijing's 

Central Park from up there

The west exit to Jingshan leads straight to the southern gate of Beihai park, where we didn't spent all that much time since some of us were really freaking tired, and the sun was beating down, etc. There was a great breeze by the expansive lake, lined with willow trees and filled with people operating all manner of boats (including this weird circular lotus flower thing). 

Beihai Park

Beihai's great, but don't pay to see the cave. Nothing but a small passageway lined with cheesy statues. It was actually surprising how bad it was.

Another PIB excursion that's worth mentioning is the Silver Mountain Pagoda Forest (Yinshantalin) 银山塔林 in the rural outskirts of Beijing. Things that this place offered for us that day included: rural Beijing food (not much different from regular Beijing food), an impressive array of Jin Dynasty towers, and a mountain (Silver Mountain) with a large bell you can ring.

Not pictured: horde of students yelling about how these chickens are crossing this road

That Saturday was rainy and humid. The mood of the towers, looking all stoic in the mist, stood in stark contrast to the horde of PIB students snapping pictures.

茄子！(Chinese equivalent of "cheese")

The mountain itself was a decent climb. On the way up, our group walked past a couple of girls carrying this big, Costco case of soda. Every few steps bottles would fall out of the plastic enclosure, and both girls would stop to pick them up. It felt weird to hear them chatting and laughing, dragging that thing up the slope, as we stepped around them like a parade of ghosts.

Indiana Jones-y kind of

Despite the recent rain, the waterfall along the way was depressingly dried up. We arrived sweaty to the platform with the bell other students had been ringing before. It was too foggy to photograph the view. That said there's something very appropriate about fog and mountains in China. At the base of the mountain, a small group of elderly ladies in clear competition with each other were selling ice cream, dried fruit, and water. I bought a green-bean ice cream bar for 3kuai and stood there talking and wondering how street vendors manage to keep these things from melting in their garbage bag lined cardboard boxes. Maybe one day I'll ask.