07-06 | The Great Wall, Tienanmen, Beijing Opera House, and Marco Polo Bridge - Week Two In Review

Before I arrived in Beijing, I had assumed PIB was going to be devoid of any scheduled excursions or activities other than the 5 hours of class each day, but the scary warning in the PIB pamphlet (essentially, you will not have time for sightseeing) belies the multitude of things that go on here outside of the classroom (even more so if you're willing to do some planning). Apparently PIB is actually even better at HBA at scheduling speakers and things like that. These two weeks have seen 2 calligraphy lessons, an international affairs speaker, and a talk on Chinese art.

This week's Chinese table was ridiculous.
Somehow we ended up with so
much food that we couldn't fit it all on
one table, so in addition to all of
this there are two dishes
that are not pictured.

Here's that sushi restaurant I absolutely love for their
buy one get one free offer...

Our concert ticket. 

Obligatory picture with the Chairman

Some art at the Opera House

Some friends and I went to this place to bargain for
running shoes among other things. If you tell them you
come from America they'll double your prices.
If you don't look Chinese you'll probably want to ask
for a 50-60% discount to start... 

Rain.

Drinking milk tea at the Nanluoguxiang Hutong in Beijing

The Great Wall. It pretty much looks the same no matter
where you are, but since we went out into the
countryside, there were hardly any other people. 

As for excursions, we've visited the Great Wall, and today we toured a WWII museum as well as Lugouqiao (the Marco Polo Bridge). Afterward, we visited Tienanmen, took some pictures, and then watched an orchestra perform with traditional ethnic instruments at the Beijing Opera House. They played quite a few arrangements of western songs, including this one Russian piece that sounded exactly like the Tetris theme. 

Deng Laoshi (left) I cannot believe you did that :(

Marco Polo Bridge (Lugouqiao) The lions have been
repeatedly restored over the many years the bridge
has been in existence, so they're all different.

At the Marco Polo Bridge WWII museum. Some stories
don't get told enough. 

Posing with Traditional Beijing Yogurt as well as
Zhen Laoshi

PIB Yalies. The Beijing Opera House in the background
is colloquially called the "Birds Egg" for obvious reasons.
The entrance is underground, and all that water flows over
a clear ceiling. This we found out after walking around the
entire perimeter of the damn thing. 

They were very strict about taking cameras, but not cellphones.
It was really a great performance, especially the Tetris. 

The Light fellowship sends out email blog prompts every week, and the last two have been "what are your goals" and "what kinds of cultural missteps have you made." Language-wise, my current goal is increasing my vocabulary (which is not-so-great). Surprisingly I think I've gotten that speaking thing down all right. Personal goals include seeing more of Beijing, planning a day trip somewhere, and doing more of that 交流 thing. 

As for missteps, apparently half of the teachers here thought I had a lover in China. A got a tone wrong in one of my individual discussion sections, so "why I want to study Chinese" switched from "getting to know my relatives (qin1 ren2)  in China" to "getting to know my lover (qing2 ren2) in China." No wonder all the teachers were like, "that Ed Kong he's so liberal and open." 

In other news, I walked into a Subway the other day, and some kids from a Boston College exchange program or something saw my Tshirt, and started asking me with large eyes and slow English whether I went to Yale, to which I couldn't help but break the language pledge to tell them that I live in America and that English is my native language. The sad thing is that most Chinese people on the street assume I'm local, and when I can't read bus schedules they look at me really weird. On the other hand, I get slightly-less-outrageous pricing when bargaining. 

Anyway, it's 3AM and tomorrow we're going to the 798 Art District. 

Cheers,

孔令鑫