Friends!
So my friend Gang, who's interning with at the American Consulate in Shanghai, came to visit. During that weekend (when I was supposed to be writing my social study report) we went around Beijing to try to see some of the Olympic stadiums and things. Conclusion: it's really hard. All of the stadiums are now fenced off and there isn't any public access. Clearly this is for security reasons, but at the same time, it's a little disappointing. More on the Olympics later. (I was also going to mention something about entering BLCU but I'll wait until my Olympic rant.)
The Olympic stadiums are mostly covered by these fences.
The tickets for diving events at this arena sold out within a couple of hours last Friday, I think.
We had to climb over a fence that send, Don't Climb, to get here.
...the Olympic Village. Kind of sterile, if you ask me.
At a Yale BBQ in Sanlitun.Touristy things
These are all kind of the same after a while, so I'll run through them briefly here.
Yuanmingyuan 圆明园
This is the Old Summer Palace which was destroyed by the allied British-French forces in 1860. Until it was destroyed it was used by the imperial family. It's a symbol of national humiliation because it was burned down in retaliation for Chinese execution of British diplomats. It's a great park, but after seeing a scale model of what it looked like in its heyday, it must've been gorgeous, and it does make you think about what it must've looked like at the time.
This is an educated guess on what it must have looked like before 1860, based on old paintings and diagrams.
This is part of the most famous ruins at Yuanmingyuan. They're artfully maintained remnants of the European-style palaces that comprised a small part of the palace.
More ruins.
There was some sort of lotus exhibition going on when we visited, so there were a TON of lotuses all around the park.
My language partner.
I don't know. What do you think?Summer Palace 颐和园
This was built by Empress Cixi 慈禧太后 as sort of a playground, and I think of all the palace-like things that I have visited in China, this is probably my favorite, as it combines water (growing up close to the ocean instills a lifelong love of water, I think) and beautiful architecture. It's also famous for Cixi's infamous stone boat, for which she diverted funds originally for China's navy.
One of the bridges that the Summer Palace is famous for. Also, note the terrible pollution.
Cixi's stone boat!
台灣同學 in the Long Corridor!
Back: the Temple of Longevity. Front: yet another popsicle 冰棍儿.Beihai Park 北海公园
One of Beijing's many "海" "seas" (the other ones are 前、后、中 and 南, "front," "back," "central" and "south," respectively), Beihai Park, which does indeed have a large lake in the middle, is famous for its white pagoda, as well as for containing one of the few remnants of the Yuan Dynasty-era palace.
China's new National Theater, which I saw on the bus from Tian'anmen Xi to Beihai.
It's beautiful.
The White Dagoba 白塔 up close.
Pollution sucks.Olympic madness
I don't even know where to get started with this. I'm trying to look at the silver lining of this and say that if I hadn't come to Beijing this year I wouldn't know about the craziness that surrounds an Olympic city, but I'll just draw a couple of examples.
- At the BLCU gate, they check student IDs (which, unlike in America, isn't a card but is rather this little booklet that I only manage to squeeze into my wallet), which proved really annoying when Gang came to visit and stayed over because I had to go through some logical/linguistic trickery in order to get him past the guards.
- ALL the various little 摊子 and 小卖部, basically the streetside stalls, have been swept away because the government is apparently worried that (a) foreigners will get diarrhea, dysentery and god knows other digestive ailments from eating here and (b) I suspect that they think these booths are an eyesore. While I don't mean to belittle digestive problems (trust me), I think this is a little overkill. It's also sad because this is much of what makes China China (at least from a food perspective.)
- A ton of bars and clubs are closed, and while I am not the biggest party animal, by far, I don't really see the link between the closing of bars and the Olympics.
- The annual speech contest for all the Chinese summer programs has been canceled, because we aren't permitted to have a gathering with that many foreigners in one place.
- Random little things that don't seem to have any particular connection with the Olympics. Example: there is a building between the Conference Center and our classroom building that used to be a convenient shortcut, but now one of the doors (it's open on two sides) has been closed.
- I don't think you can walk in this city without seeing some sort of Beijing 2008 view in eyesight. Even on the subway (which is absurdly crowded nowadays) as I stand, there are flashing Olympic ads that you can see in the tunnel. Wangfujing 王府井 is absolutely FILLED with Olympic ads. Okay, perhaps this is a little unfair, since the flagship souvenir shop of the Olympics is located in Wangfujing, but in the most random places there is SO much propaganda, errr, publicity, I mean. Of course in Chinese both are translated by 宣传, which I find to be an apt commentary on this situation.
- Not to mention that I don't even have it that bad, since my friend My Khanh at PiB who is living on a campus (Beijing Normal University 北师大) which is apparently going to host some events/home to American athletes or something has a ton more random restrictions, including the closure of bus stops right outside her gate and stuff.
Clearly, this is my soapbox, and I understand that the Olympics are a great opportunity for this city and for China as a whole. But I'd be willing to bet that in other Olympic cities the government doesn't show this sense of paranoia. Yes, security is something to be concerned about, particularly in China. But turning the festive atmosphere that normally precedes the Games into an atmosphere that reeks of paranoia and suspicion doesn't bode well for the Games. I'm actually particularly glad that I've been reading the New York Times, even though it's not especially good for improving my Chinese, because you need a break from the relentlessly upbeat coverage of the Olympics within China.
(Also, I just remembered -- don't even get me started on the Fuwa 福娃, which I'm convinced were conceived in order to sell five times the normal amount of products that a tourist would normally buy.)
It's commonly expressed that the Olympics are a "coming out party" for Beijing. It's easy to take this as empty rhetoric, as a marketing slogan, but it isn't until you actually come to Beijing and see for yourself that you realize how true this is. China really does see this as an opportunity to put its best foot forward, show the world that it can host as splendid and enjoyable an Olympics as any. Except at the same time it's using its other foot to kick away much that it views as undesirable, much of which I'd argue is what makes Beijing Beijing and China China (of course, I don't really know, considering that ever since I've been in Beijing Olympics fever has only ratcheted up, and it'll be at fever pitch by the 8th.) It's really a shame.
Dragonfruit
To end on a lighter note, I've started buying fruit such as dragonfruit 火龙果 from the market, even though it's absurdly expensive, because even though I have a really high tolerance for fried/oily/unhealthy food, at some point even I can't take it anymore. I love fruit.
Yay!总而言之
So this has, again, been another rather negative post. I probably sound like a broken record when I claim that really my life is not all that bad, but I really felt the need to counteract the neverending Olympics propaganda here. Besides, while I never really blog about what I'm learning at HBA, this only means that I've settled into a routine, know how it goes, and there isn't much to write about there.
To conclude, I've got two and a half weeks left in Beijing, a week and a half in Taiwan (I'm SO excited), a couple of days in LA and then Yale, which I will be in exactly one month -- my flight to New York lands on the morning of the 30th. It'll be an exciting month.
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