HBA
The program isn't over yet, but I feel like I should write this post now, before I finish the program and the veil of sentimentality gets pulled over my eyes and I start gushing about it.
I'm going to steal this expression from my friend and fellow Yalie Lena's blog because I think it sums up my HBA experience accurately: I have a love-hate relationship with HBA.
The constant workload and never-ending grind gets to you. It all becomes rather monotonous -- memorize characters, sentence structures, write essays, go to class, don't sleep much and just keep chugging along. The texts for the course as a whole were arranged in order of difficulty, so we're getting to some rather difficult and abstract texts, much of which are written entirely in classical Chinese 文言文, which, for those of you who don't speak Chinese, is something analogous to an French or Italian speaker being expected to read classical Latin, i.e. you can get the overall meaning but without specialized training you're not to get very far with it. (Though I am actually rather proud of having read Hu Shi's 胡适 "On Literary Reform" “文学改良刍议” in the original, since it's really cool to read this after having studied the May Fourth Movement 五四运动 in Spence's class.) Aside from that, HBA is just long -- it's eight weeks of nothing but Chinese, and no matter how enthusiastic you are about studying Chinese, after seven weeks of memorizing Chinese, I can say that it'll be nice when I can write in English and fully express my thoughts again.
But at the same time, HBA is an amazing opportunity and clearly (this goes without saying. 不言自明! Ha!) I would do this all again in a heartbeat if given the chance. The ample opportunities provided to practice your spoken Chinese 口语 are great. I've occasionally read copies of the Southern People Weekly 南方人物周刊, which is sort of this Time-like magazine that I've found here, and it's beyond gratifying to recognize sentence structures, four-character phrases 四字词 and chengyu 成语, and vocabulary words that I have learned. But perhaps what I love the most about HBA are the people, both the students and the teachers. The 5th years are great and I couldn't have asked for a better group of classmates -- even if most of them are Harvard students, ha. But what I'm really thankful for is the teachers. All of them are really young, and it's possible to relate to them on a personal basis, rather than simply as teachers, and I'm really going to miss being able to relate to people my age in Chinese.
Beijing
aka...the obligatory tourist portion. But if you scroll past the pictures I actually have some (hopefully) thoughtful reflections on Beijing.
Temple of Heaven 天坛
Last Saturday, after our self-organized trip to Tianjin got cancelled (ask me in person if you want to know the details), a bunch of us went to the Temple of Heaven, which has become one of the symbols of Beijing, particularly in all the Olympics propaganda, err, publicity. The most famous structure, the Altar-of-something-or-other, was built during the Ming Dynasty (but reconstructed in 1889 after being struck by lightning, if I'm correct) and the emperor used to come here to pray for good harvests or something like that.
Everyone exercise! This is in some playground randomly off the side of one of the paths after you get inside the park.
The altar.
Color scheme!Tian'anmen Square, the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park 天安门广场、故宫与景山公园
This was my second trip to the heart of Beijing, albeit this time with people. Although I remain firmly in agreement with Lonely Planet's description of Tian'anmen Square as a concrete desert (compared to Shanghai's People's Square, it is fiendishly unfriendly) I have to admit that it has been considerably spruced up in the month or so since I visited, due to You-Know-What.
New.
New.
...also new.
Let's be Chinese!
Gorgeous russet- (is that the color?) colored roofs in the Forbidden City.Then after speeding through the palace, we headed to Jingshan Park, which is directly north of the Forbidden City, and is largely known for a hill in the center of the park that affords a great view of the Forbidden City, if pollution cooperates. It also contains the tree where Emperor Chongzhen 崇祯皇帝, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, supposedly hanged himself when the Qing had entered the Forbidden City and Beijing (and hence China) had effectively been conquered.
Inescapable.
The pollution was actually under control for most of the day, so I was actually kind of irritated that it had gotten significantly worse by the time we got to the summit.
The spot!Rambling through Beijing
This is where my pseudo-thoughtful thoughts come in. After heading to the Forbidden City, my friend Diana headed back to BLCU. I decided to north to Houhai in search of a copy widely-reproduced map of Peking drawn in 1936 (which I ended up finding). I ended up taking a bus from the east part of Tian'anmen Square north to near the Drum Tower 鼓楼, making my way to Qianhai through a little street that I hadn't noticed before, walking around Houhai for a bit and then walking all the way north to the Drum & Bell Tower subway station, heading back to HBA after that.
I'm actually really, really glad that I walked through Beijing and didn't cab any of the distance, because I have to say this walk did more for my understanding of Beijing than pretty much any of other trips have, including all of the touristy expeditions that I have taken myself on. Essentially, that Sunday I walked northward from the Forbidden City all the way to the Second Ring Road 二环, which gave me an understanding of Beijing geography that I had previously lacked. This city, which I had thought to be just one big sprawling mess, actually has some order and some character (with the serious caveat that this is within the Second Ring Road. Out here, past the Fourth Ring Road, Beijing could be any large city.)
What was the most valuable was being able to see things that I wouldn't have been able to if I had just sped through the streets on the cab. Most prominent is just the architecture within the Second Ring Road, which essentially is built where the old city wall once was. Outside, it's just faceless metal concrete blocks. Inside, Beijing actually looks like it has some character 特色. There are little hutongs filled with people, strung up with banners and lanterns, and even the architecture on the big streets is unique (that low-hung, gray stone style). It makes you reflect on what it must have been like to live in this city in imperial times. Two observations:
As I approached the Drum Tower, I overheard the familiar sound of Spanish, which I haven't heard in more than two months. I walked over to discover a couple of TV reporters who were reporting something about the Olympics in front of the Drum Tower. I just found the whole scene really interesting -- these journalists reporting about something very modern in front of an ancient imperial structure that has nothing to do with the Olympics, but is perhaps more "Chinese" than all the Olympic stadiums built together. Also, to hear Spanish so far from home is oddly comforting -- living in California accustoms you to the sound of it and it's nice to hear it.
The other thing that really struck me was when I was walking on another street and almost bumped into a laborer who was carrying a pile of bricks out. I looked to see where he was coming from, and realized that he was coming from a hutong 胡同 or siheyuan 四合院 that must have recently been demolished. It's one thing to read about all of this demolishment but another to see it in person. And despite all the substandard living conditions that I have seen in traditional Chinese housing, in both Shanghai and in Beijing, I can't help thinking that there must a better way to synthesize the urge to modernize and to preserve the traditional than to knock everything down entirely.
Olympics
Thanks to Shan Wang :D, I am going to the Olympics!
I have tickets to men's gymnastics Saturday evening and a field hockey game (USA vs. Argentina!) on Sunday. If I had stayed until the 17th (I'm leaving the 16th) I also would've had the chance to snag tickets to the men's 100 meter final, but as I'm leaving that same day that's sadly not possible. However, those tickets would've been $177, as opposed to the 100 RMB ($14.60) that I paid for those two tickets together.
Having gotten these tickets, I thought about the last post that I made -- specifically the Olympic rant -- and came to the conclusion that I still agree with everything that I said, although I do think that perhaps I shouldn't have phrased everything in such an argumentative manner. I just don't think four or so hours watching the Games justifies a summer of 麻烦 and paranoia. Although I can't deny that I'm really excited for those four hours.
Looking ahead
All that being said, I am still looking forward to leaving, but I think now it's more of a excited-to-get-to-new-places feeling rather than a get-me-out-of-here-now feeling. I remember Adam and Kelly mentioning during the Light Fellowship briefing meeting that we'd experience this dip in our motivation and feelings towards the host country that would coincide with the ending weeks of our programs. I don't feel as if I have experienced this, but perhaps at the same time it's not fair for me to say this since it's not as if Chinese culture is exactly new to me. I think perhaps instead I've grown to understand this country more, and my overriding feeling is that at some point -- post-graduation, perhaps? -- I want to find my way back here somehow.
And to finish off -- I will be departing Beijing at 12:25 pm next Saturday, landing in Taipei in exactly seven hours and am really excited for what is essentially the coda for my summer. :)
New Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九. Yes, I took this picture in Beijing.
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