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.

07-21-13 | PIB Mid-Term Break - A Trip to Chengde

After an intense first semester and a 4-hour long final exam, 10 PIB students filed onto a train at Beijing Station to Chengde (承德), a small city north-east of Beijing where China's last dynasty of emperors spent their summer vacations in a mountain resort (bishushanzhuang) and held meetings with neighboring countries.

PIB gives all students a 3-4 day long weekend between the first and last four weeks to relax and see some China outside of Beijing. The trips are all planned by the students themselves, unlike Harvard's program which I believe offers week-long "social study" projects to various set locations. Though a bit short, PIB's break allows students to freely explore places like Shanghai, Qingdao, Xi'an, Datong, and Chengde.
--

The view from one of the platforms at Puning Temple

Our group spent two days in Chengde, arriving Friday afternoon and leaving Sunday morning. We stayed at the very nice not-so-expensive (only) hostel in Chengde, whose owner picked us up from the train station and gave us a map and recommendations on what to do in the city.

Our group spinning prayer wheels, which in Tibetan Buddhism
has the same effect as saying the inscribed prayer. These
also included helpful arrows to help those of us who don't read
Sanskrit spin them in the right direction.

We were a little dubious of this elephant's eyes

The inside of Puning Temple, with a stage for entertaining
visitors. I keep thinking those things are clotheslines

The view from the top of the Red Platform at the Little Potala Palace

 From then we toured three temples on the outskirts of Chengde, including Putuo Zongchengzhi temple (built in the style of the Potala Palace in Tibet), Xumi Fushou Temple, and Puning Temple (which contains a very very large wooden Buddha with a thousand arms and a thousand eyes. Actually each hand of each arm contains an eye, which I thought was interesting. No photos inside of course). At Puning Temple, I burned some incense in very awkward fashion. 

View from the bottom of the Red Platform at Little Potala Palace

Another view from the top of Puning Temple

Joe Package's Stewed Meat (lurou)

The restaurant that we went to for dinner that day had fantastic menu translations. We spent a while wondering who Joe Package was. 

"Mr Tat's Wing" We're
guessing he's friends with Joe Package

You can order "The Crabs"

We spent the next day wandering the Mountain Resort, which takes up an enormous part of the city. Apparently the emperors took all the flat ground in the otherwise mountainous area, walled it off, and over 90 years built a huge resort. The result was visually amazing the day we went, with the sun throwing off a dry heat over the many small lakes, buildings, and gardens. Needless to say I took a lot of pictures.

Spinning the water wheel.

 In the morning I visited a small shop selling name charms near a waterwheel. When we returned at the end of the day, despite my wearing sunglasses and this really peculiar rainbow paper hat, the salesman walked up to me and, pointing, said "I know you!" He was amazed that we had been there from 8AM to (eventually) 5:30PM, although I would say that one could definitely spend an entire day in the Mountain Resort.

The entrance fee was 120RMB, but although we had heard that student discounts wouldn't work, we managed to get in half-price anyway. I suppose the lesson is that it can't hurt to flash your Beijing Normal ID card (it's actually a lunch card) at all of these places.

A part of our group split off early and got a bit lost wandering huge, hilly forest that wraps around the main area, while my friend and I explored each island in sequence. In the afternoon, we regrouped, walked around some more, and ended the day with some boating around the lakes (unfortunately our motor boat had some weird engine issue and was quite slow).

Sometime during the day, a college professor from Chengde Normal University came up to us and asked us if we were foreigners. She was giving a survey about the state of Chengde's public toilets. Foreigners were unusually rare in the park that day. One of us asked how she'd known we were foreigners (most of us are Chinese American). "Did you hear us speaking English?" In the end it was our accented Chinese that gave it away - she thought I was Japanese.

All in all, it was heartwarming to see a teacher go to such lengths, apparently to satisfy the curiosity of her students, to find out what foreigners thought of Chengde's toilets - about their cleanliness, convenience, and artistic design. I actually think Chengde's toilets are pretty nice.

Older Chengde residents dancing downtown

Guinea pigs and a dwarf rabbit outside a pet store

We also visited the local beer garden for lamb barbecue of dubious origin. Aside from lamb we tried sugared bread, as well as BBQ cicada pupae (which has the texture of a shrimp shell on the outside and weird tofu on the inside).

Essentially what I wanted to get out of this long weekend were mountains, water, and history. (山，水，和历史). I'd say that Chengde meets these criteria without being too far away, and might be a good PIB midterm trip for those who'd prefer a relatively inexpensive trip and a relaxing break from the big city.

Cheers,
令鑫

07-16-13 | Week 3 pt2 - Delicious Menu Translations, An Awkward Houhai Bar, and Being Chinese-American in Beijing

Okay I am going to try using this post-by-email feature that blogger has because going through VPN is just not happening anymore. Good news is that my sick is going away pretty quickly it seems, maybe this afternoon I'll actually be able to make use of my 400rmb gym membership. (Most PIB students go to Pulsation Fitness, which seems to be the only nearby option if you need a treadmill, weights, etc. although there are a few outdoor weight machine things and tracks open to students.)

---
Last week's Chinese Table had us eating at this innocuous two-story restaurant on campus. The English translations on the menu were absolutely marvelous though, including classic dishes such as "Demolition of Flesh and Blood," "Dishes Beef," and "That Autumn Eggplant." Also, "Red Army Liver," and "Dismantling of Chicken Legs." If that weren't sassy enough, they also include a fine-print message on each page reminding guests that "the pictures on the menu are for your reference only, please taste the real food."

Demolition of Flesh and Blood

That Autumn Eggplant

---

Houhai

This Friday afternoon, after all tests and important work, some friends and I went to Houhai for a visit. It was a nice if slightly foggy day and on the lake were small electric boats that visitors had rented and were driving. Watching them bump into things as the sun set somewhere out in the distance made for a pleasant walk.

This dog thing though. 

I love cylindrical animals

After sundown saw yet another one of my awkward linguistic slip ups. As more and more people began to crowd the streets, we finally sat down on the roof of a bar. Each of us ordered a minimal amount of alcohol to justify our existence there, and each time the waiter would arrive to ask if we'd like anything else, I'd just reply "I think we're okay." So when the waitress came and asked us something, I thought she'd meant if we'd like to order anything else, to which I replied "I think we're okay." Her asking "what do you mean you're okay?" and seeing the look on her face let the awkwardness quickly sink in -- she'd wanted us to pay.

Houhai at night.

--
Awkward encounters like these, though minor, seem to nicely reflect what it's like to be Chinese-American here. On the streets of Beijing, everyone assumes you're Chinese. Haven't-even-boarded-the-boat Chinese. Nobody asks to have their picture taken with you, or wants you on their TV show (these things actually happen). Bus operators look at you funny when I can't read schedules. And you can't always explain my (lack of) background, that you grew up in a mostly-white neighborhood in a suburb of New York and almost exclusively spoke English at home.  

But of course I can only speak for myself. There are a lot of other huayi students in my classes (well of course since I'm in the Chinese-American track but also at PIB in general), and plenty of them speak, write, and read a lot better than I do. A few probably rightly think this kid should spend less time whining on his Beijing blog and more time doing his homework. 

But as Zhou Laoshi (the author of our textbook) said, your commitment to learning a language is often longer than your marriage, especially in the United States. And everyone needs a good reason for studying Chinese (because it's hard). Up until college, I didn't think there was a point in my studying Chinese. Even though I could barely spin a sentence in Mandarin, it seemed that the linguistic proficiency (among other things) got assumed in the shape of my eyes, and that it was never going to be "impressive" if I became fluent in this language.

In the end, (and this is something of which I sometimes need reminding) it's not about what's impressive. Whether or not you're a huayi, I still think it's worth it. It's worth it to experience China in Chinese, to get to know your relatives beyond language barriers (for those to whom this applies), or even just to develop the alternative perspective that a second language brings. It's worth it to get out of the American bubble (sort of like the Yale and Princeton bubbles but larger and with fewer salmon-colored pants), and take a look at the rest of the world.

And there are advantages to being a Chinese American in Beijing. Whether you grew up in a bilingual household or lost your command of Chinese by age 3 (me), it is easier to pick up a language if you spoke it even a little as a kid. You have a feel for the grammar from those pre-12-language-sponge days, a bit of vocab, and a family's worth of people to practice with. You don't get stared at on the streets or accosted for pictures. It's a different perspective, but a worthwhile one as well.

Blah blah blah,

令鑫

07-13-13 | Third Week in Review pt1: 798 Art District

It's finally happened. I'm sick. Not the usual kind of sick that everybody here gets involving a lot of time on the toilet, but the kind of coughy phlemmy sick that comes with a chronic headache and a desire to stay in bed and hand in tests without looking them over. (As a side note, I think the prevalence of stomach-related disturbances in China accounts for how liberally people talk about having diarrhea here. You 拉肚子, I 拉肚子，and pretty much everyone else).

I haven't been sick like this since the beginning of freshman year when our fencing coach informed us that sickness was a product of mental weakness. It's okay though; I'm drinking this Ginseng root dry mix thing.

Speaking of fencing, I don't think I've ever seen an ad like this. I think it's for a mechanical pencil?

Last week, we went to the 798 Art District in Beijing (north of Sanlitun) to view the galleries. Taking the bus there was a bit of a nightmare. First we lost Wen Si and then we found out we took the wrong bus. When we finally got to the place, it was nice although not as lively as I had imagined. Perhaps if we had walked through the entire complex...

Posing in front of the entrance. The thumb makes it artsy

798 used to be a (I think Soviet) factory

Some semi-traditional Chinese watercolor

 

Some street art

More semi-traditional art from the same gallery

I wish I had some pictures of this oil painter whose name I don't know. His work is essentially bright colors in large works with plenty of detail. This is hardly descriptive, but I remember a couple of paintings - one of America with every national symbol you could think of cramped into one painting (statue of liberty, bald eagles, the moon landing, the founding fathers, and the milky way galaxy in the background for some reason). There's a similar (larger) one of China.

The Silk Market

Afterward, we headed (by taxi this time) to the Silk Market, which is a multistory shopping mall that actually reminded me of the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, except everything is fake and everybody is trying to rip you off. The entire time, I wondered if foreigners actually bought things at the 10x markups they were being sold for.

I must admit I bought a few things there. When I got back, I think I gave Zhen laoshi the impression that I like spending loads of money... I personally think I'm pretty conservative in that respect.


Anyway, that was Sunday of the previous week. Everything else, including 3-day weekend planning, gorgeous Chinese menu translations, and freaking out waitresses will get put up at some point when I don't feel like dying.

Cheers,
令鑫