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

06-28-13 | Tea Parties in the Rain, (aka. Smoking Cigars through Dust Masks), a First Week's Review

Seems like the Internet's back up with everyone out partying / sleeping after this week's exam. Tomorrow, PIB is going on a trip to the Great Wall (we actually do excursions. Contrary to popular belief, which has everyone in their rooms studying all the time). The laundry I tried hand-washing is hanging in the bathroom. China's washing machines and driers are reputably quite bad for your clothes... but I'm pretty sure I screwed up and used way too much soap anyway - let this be a warning for following generations of Light Fellows...don't be stupid like me.

On another note, today's pollution reached "beyond index" in Beijing (again). I was fortunate enough to have a pretty badass mask (pictured) courtesy of my dad. A lot of people didn't, though. Bring a mask. Seriously though. Pollution is cray here.

Saw a fellow PIBer and Student Tech
smoking a cigar outside the dorms in "above
index" Beijing.
恨不得...couldn't help but take this picture.
So much 意思.

The Alicia and I, trying not to die

On yet another note, I finished interviewing an ambassador for the Yale's The Politic (which is doing a project involving interviews from over 100 US ambassadors). Speaking of things that keep me working into wee hours, there's a 2nd interview coming around in a bit - postponed by stupid Skype problems (how hard is it to call Gambia?). So much excitement; I will be posting things when they go live. 

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It really feels like we've been here more than a week. As Third Year + students, (the plus denotes the slightly faster track for Asians), we've studied 10 lessons in 5 days and probably quite a few hundred words (it's hard to count). I would definitely say that the Princeton kids (and those whose grades are transferred) have it a lot harder. Personally, these few days have been saturated with late nights and coffee, but there's a certain lack of competitive pressure that I really like. 

Pictured: Our Chinese Table! Two Princeton kids and a Yalie
can't add dish prices. No tip to futz over though.

Total Cost: 172RMB (After -20RMB coupon)
<8$ per person (I.e. it was pretty pricey)

Asian(?) kebabs ("Chuar")

Sichuan noodles on recommendation from our teacher.

Little BBQ pieces in little bun things

The great thing is that I feel much more fluent speaking Chinese nowadays (though not so much with memorizing characters). Discovering new restaurants has been a great pastime, even if there hasn't been much time to get very far from campus. A lot of my Chinese has been asking waiters (服务员！) for recommendations. My advice to new PIBers would be to stick to the East Gate to start; there's a lot of stuff there. (The west side is pretty much barren as we found out the other day.) On that note, our Chinese Tables (中文桌子）have been great opportunities to try out some of the more expensive restaurants, although we happened upon this very pleasant sushi place (pictured) ourselves  (after I gave really shitty over-the-phone directions to everyone sorry). 

This sushi place though. It was so great and not so expensive and even though the waiter hated me (I think), I do believe I will be coming back. They randomly gave us a buy one roll get one free (买一送一) which was awesome. 

Commemorating the survival of PIB's first exam.
Pictured: amazing people. Not pictured: Another table of amazing people.

This was really really good.
Some kind of salmon roll

Also: Eponymous Rain

After dinner, we decided that Wudaoko bar-hopping wasn't worth getting lung cancer for ... so the rest of the night had us staying inside, having a literal tea party (with that Huangshan green tea I always talk about and force on people). The head teacher of our 3rd-year class even dropped by to say hello. Great times were had.

Tea in those cups but actually. #Somanypeopleonmybed

Here's to many more weeks as amazing as this one.

Yours,

孔令鑫