Hitting the home stretch

There are less than two weeks of HBA left and my summer stay in Asia is also drawing to an end -- in nine days I'll be landing in Taiwan and in 19 I'll be in Los Angeles. Time definitely flies when you don't notice it.

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.

Mega-post part I: Inner Mongolia

So I feel like this is a good introduction to this post, as it sums up nicely much of my experience in Inner Mongolia: lamb, lamb and more lamb and lots of time sitting on that bus.

After thinking about what I wanted to write about for this post, I came to the conclusion that it would be one really, really long post, and also that because of my procrastinating habits it would be hard to find time to write it, and I wanted to write about these things before they got hopelessly out-of-date. So I've decided to split it into Inner Mongolia (and week 4) and everything after.

Week four wrap-up

The Saturday before leaving for Inner Mongolia I went with my friend My Khanh from Princeton in Beijing to Houhai 后海 to have dinner, and then the next Sunday I went to the Forbidden City 故宫.

There isn't really much to say about Houhai, but in a good way, as in I like it a lot. It's this area that centers around several lakes, fittingly called Houhai and Qianhai 前海. The architecture is deliberately reminiscent, and while I'm usually not the biggest fan of this -- think Xintiandi in Shanghai -- I think in this case it's tastefully done. Also Houhai is mostly bars and restaurants and not a ton of super-loud clubs, so I found that the atmosphere was conducive to conversation.

Stylized scenery. It kind of reminds you of Shanghai (I remember reading somewhere that this was intentional.)

Sunday was a gorgeous blue day like the ones at home -- I've yet to see another one as nice in Beijing.

The Forbidden City is huge, but the buildings are amazingly preserved. There really isn't much to say that you can't get from reading the Wikipedia article on it. The only thing that I can think is that we should be thankful that it survived the Cultural Revolution (more about this later when I get to the last couple of days in Inner Mongolia.) Oh, and now incidentally I have been to both "Palace Museums" 故宫博物院, in Taipei and in Beijing. (The one in Beijing is, of course, the Forbidden City; the National Palace Museum 郭禮故宮博物院 in Taipei is actually a museum that consists mostly of the art taken to Taiwan in 1949.)

Now for pictures:

THE flag. This is the one that hordes of Chinese tourists see being lowered in the late afternoon.

Some hall. After a while, they all start kind of looking the same to you.

For those of who you took Spence: this is where Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧太后 ruled from "behind the curtain," or something like that, in the late Qing dynasty.

I'm particularly proud of this picture. It's the northeast corner of the Forbidden City.

Inner Mongolia!

So I chose Inner Mongolia for my social study 社会调查 for a couple of reasons: firstly, I didn't want to stay in Beijing. As much as I felt, and still feel, like I didn't have a really good idea of what the city is actually like, I couldn't envision myself staying in Beijing nonstop for nine weeks. I can't still figure out why it is, but after a week in Shanghai and four in Beijing I still can't say that I really like the capital more than Shanghai. Secondly, I wanted to see Inner Mongolia, because I felt that after having seen Shanghai, unquestionably the most modern Chinese city aside from Hong Kong, and Beijing (which is pretty far behind Shanghai in some places), I wanted to see something really different and more genuinely "Chinese," although on second thought perhaps Inner Mongolia is not the best place to see these sorts of things.

Anyway, now for the detailed day-by-day, since I know you all are dying to hear this:

Day 0: Trains and real conversations

Why a day 0? Because I figure a day spent mostly in Beijing and on the train doesn't really count as the first day of the trip, and, more importantly, this is the way I've numbered my photos on my computer. So.

After surviving the midterm (let's not get started on this) and Chinese table 中文桌子 at the Muslim Restaurant at BLCU, I went to run a ton of errands and then we convened to leave for the Beijing train station. Perhaps representing China very well, the train station was packed to the gills with people and was hot and muggy and 闷. Our train was going from Beijing to Baotou 包头, a city in Inner Mongolia that I actually haven't been to yet.

After figuring out how to get onto the top bunk (I forgot to take a picture of this, but envision three bunks on top of each other, with the top bunk only taking up about 20 percent of the available space and the other ones taking up 40 percent each), I settled in for our 11-hour ride to Hohhot. The thing that was most rewarding about the train ride was conversing with real Chinese passengers. Somehow I got into a conversation with a trader from Sichuan 四川 and we talked about the American perception of China, what China is like, the rich-poor gap, etc. It was really rewarding to have a conversation with someone who was authentically "Chinese," i.e. not a teacher who is going to correct your every mistake and speak exaggeratedly standard 标准. I wish I'd written down what we talked about because now after a week of whirlwind days I can't really remember what we talked about except that we mostly discussed Sino-American relations. It was also really interesting to get a glimpse into hard-bunk on Chinese trains and what it's like. Everyone's really chatty and feels free to offer their opinion about things ranging from Inner Mongolia's grasslands to the American south. You also have to do this weird ticket-exchanging thing where the attendants take your paper ticket and give you a plastic card at the beginning of the train ride, and when you get close to your destination you give them back the plastic card and get your paper ticket back, which to me seems like an entirely unnecessary process, akin to how I have to get a receipt for stationery products at Chaoshifa 超市发 market before I can actually buy them. Whatever. It's China.

Day 1: Grassland adventures

Early morning in Hohhot.

After arriving in Hohhot bright and early (and I mean early, like 5:30 am or so), we hopped onto a bus for the grasslands. The first thing that struck me about Hohhot and Inner Mongolia was the beautiful weather -- as I've already mentioned numerous times, the weather in Beijing tends to be really muggy and the sky an unappetizing gray, but the first day in Inner Mongolia the sky was a brilliant blue and the air crisp but not cold, like it is on mornings in late spring.

Breakfast place. Can you say globalization?

The rest of the day was spent interviewing herders 牧民, who live around the area. It was actually really kind of difficult for me to understand what a lot of them were saying. Listening comprehension 听力 has never really been my strength anyway, and when coupled with an accent that I couldn't entirely understand (seeing as how my southern Chinese 南方 accent, is apparently one of the most difficult things in the world to understand, as I learned later in Hohhot and will discuss later), it was really a sobering experience and made me think about how much more there is to Chinese than I thought.

Lunch: it's all lamb or lamb-milk (is that even what it's called?) based products.

Finally, I have never before in my life seen such empty grasslands. Particularly since I come from sprawling Californian suburbia and go to school in the East Coast, which seems to just be an endless megalopolis, it was amazingly beautiful.

The picture doesn't really adequately represent how empty and wide-spreading the grasslands are in reality, but it gives you an idea.

On top of some hill.

Warning: the next paragraph is a little gruesome.

Then at night we saw a lamb being slaughtered. The way they use to kill the lamb involves pulling out the heart while the lamb is still alive, fol. Yes, you read that right, all while the lamb is still conscious. Apparently this way the meat tastes fresher or there's less blood or something. Of course at the time I was a little reluctant to watch the whole thing, but later one had no problem eating the lamb.

Don't worry, this is AFTER the lamb's heart was pulled out.

I forgot to mention, before we ate there was a performance of Mongolian wrestling, which is apparently one of the three traditions (the other two being horse racing and archery) that is very important in Mongolian culture, followed by students participating.

Day 2: Stylized Mongolia

On Sunday, we headed off to a more touristy camp of Mongolian yurts and rode horses for a good part of the afternoon, from which I learned that riding trotting horses is actually kind of difficult -- you keep bouncing up and down on the seat; what you're supposed to do is stand up on the horse, but the problem is that after three hours of riding horses, my un-fit self is tired like none other, particularly my legs.

This is when the horse was, thankfully, walking.

This yurt camp was more stylized (I don't have any pictures on me at the moment, which seems like a gross oversight in retrospect) and it got me to thinking about the differences between historical Inner Mongolia and what it's really like today. Traditional yurts were made of cloth, I think, definitely not concrete. It really made me think about how the preservation of traditional culture, and how easy it is to say that through economic development we're preserving it but in reality only preserving a stylized version, custom-designed for tourists, with all the negative aspects taken out of it. Inner Mongolia has undergone some serious Sinification (Han-ficiation?) 汉化 over the last 60 years, and the diminishing of traditional Mongolian culture is a part of this. But more on this later.

(You can't tell, but when I was typing that sentence, there were so many points when I wanted to write Chinese, with the effect of something like: Chuantong menggubao were made of cloth...how easy it is to say that tongguo economic development...with all the biduan taken out of it. Sigh.)

Day 3: More interviewing

The third day of our trip was more interviewing of mumin 牧民, and then followed by an agonizingly long ride to Erdos 鄂尔多斯, not a particularly interesting city.

Although we did find time to take a jumping picture.

Day 4: Propaganda and publicity

After getting to Erdos, we got up early in the morning to take a tour of a cashmere factory in Erdos and interview some workers there. To tell the truth, the cashmere factory wasn't the most particularly interesting part of the trip ever, but I did take some awesome pictures of the propaganda--I mean, worker motivation signs. The funniest ones are those in which the English doesn't really match the Chinese, in that the Chinese is a lot harsher-sounding than the English. The impression I got from the cashmere factory is that there is a lot of Han influence in Inner Mongolia and that this cashmere brand is apparently really famous, but I still don't know that much about it. Also, it was one of those rather soulless corporate tours, which didn't make it very interesting.

Also, there was this series of really interesting signs:

Meaning something like: "One percent of my mistakes equal 100 percent of loss for the business." Ouch. Talk about pressure.

Yeah, there's an English translation, but it doesn't really equal the Chinese, which is something more along the lines of: "If you pass nervous days in the factory, then you'll pass rich days at home."

Later that day we went to Genghis Khan's Mausoleum 成吉思汗陵墓. Apparently, although the current whereabouts of Genghis Khan's body are unknown because he was buried with little fanfare and his grave is not marked, this mausoleum is still home to a lot of his possessions. What I found the most interesting, though, was not really the mausoleum itself but what it represented about Inner Mongolia. First off, I found it to have this vaguely fake aura, since all of it had been spruced up several years before, and the huge building housing a lot of the remains and things actually replaced a collection of yurts that had previously been there. Second, the concept of building a mausoleum when you don't have the body is a little strange, to say the least. Third, there's extensive Sinification 汉化 here -- all the guards and tour guides speak Chinese, and there's incense to burn in front of some of the possessions; although I don't know much about Mongolian culture, that strikes me as somewhat culturally inaccurate.


The same day, we went to interview this family, called 达尔扈特人, Da'erhute, I don't know how to say this in English）who have apparently guarded the mausoleum for generations upon end since Genghis Khan's death in the 1100s. We were supposed to interview three families, but we were only able to interview one, the reason being since these 达尔扈特人 have not been traditionally very Sinified AND because apparently there was some trouble with the Olympic torch as it went through Inner Mongolia (I haven't even gotten started on how irritated I am at the Olympics. This can be exhibit 1), we were restricted, all 20 of us, to only interviewing one family. Apparently there are a lot of restrictions on them by the Inner Mongolian government, I think, and they're not supposed to leave the province. The man we interviewed also said that since these people have been guarding the mausoleum for so long, they'd like to let the world know about this contribution, but again because of some cultural issues it isn't really going to happen, which gets you to thinking about Sinification of these regions and how political cultural issues can often get.

Finally, on something of a random note, the front gate at the mausoleum reminded me of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall 中正紀念堂 in Taipei. To a certain point all Chinese architecture kind of looks the same to me.

Taipei, anyone?

Day 5: The desert!

This was one of the best days of the trip for me. We went to Xiangshawan 向沙湾, which is so named because apparently when you slide down the sand it is supposed to make this crackling sound. Not true -- I slid down (a la skiing) the sand and only discovered that the sand is really, really hot. Duh. I'll let the pictures/captions speak for themselves, since I think that that's the best way to describe it.

On the cable car across to Xiangshawan.

Amazingly, more comfortable than horses.

My camel!

So many camels!

Desert yay!

I spotted this toilet on camel-back, and wondered who was going to use it.

Archery.

More archery.

Too cool for school. Haha.

About to get into this ball-thing, which then rolled down this chute thing. It was really fun.

Then at night we went back to Hohhot, which I don't really have much to say about except that it looks like any other large Chinese city, with the exception of Mongolian words throughout. I did, however, go with a classmate of mine and Timo (the HBA secretary) to have hot pot in individual hot pots, which Ｉ now find to be one of the more convenient arrangements that I have seen.

Day 6: Hohhot happenings

On the second-to-last day in Inner Mongolia, we went to Mengniu 蒙牛, which is a factory that makes a ton of products, most famously popsicles 冰棍儿, at least among the fifth-year students. The tour was your run-of-the-mill standard factory/corporate tour, with the only oddity being that we had to wear these shoe coverings (what's with the shoe coverings in Inner Mongolia?) in order that the factory floor didn't get wet. It was admittedly pretty interesting to see the processing of all those dairy products, however.

...

It's really cool, actually -- if you look at the back of the picture, apparently the cows walk into this revolving thing by themselves, get milked as it turns, and then walk off.

Yeah, so we get bored during the tour.

Later that afternoon, we went to the Dazhao Lamasery 大昭庙, which was built in 1579. However, like so many other things in China, much of it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and rebuilt later, and the only reason that the most famous hall (which also includes some really cool dragon sculptures and the requisite Buddhas) survived the 60s and 70s in China was because it was used as an arms storehouse. It's one thing to read about these things in history books, but another to come face to face with all this architecture and realize that the Cultural Revolution's impact on Chinese history was really profound.

A Tibetan prayer-wheel at the lamasery.

There's a matching one with 寿 on it as well.
Ouch.

Finally, that evening we went to watch this musical performance thing at Ruyi Square -- basically, it's a huge backdrop of water fountains with music ranging from contemporary Mandopop to Communist-sounding songs.

I don't know why, but this picture reminds me of Christmas.

Apparently this happens every night (I'm guessing it doesn't happen during the winter though?)

Fifth-years!

Day 7: The end

I'm running out of energy at this point to describe the rest of the trip, so this day is going to be somewhat shorter in description (and hence the non-clever description of this day). We went to Inner Mongolia University 内蒙古大学 and Inner Mongolia Normal University 内蒙古师范大学 to interview students. I actually found this to be the most valuable interviewing experience, not so much because it contributed much to my social study report (which by this point was pretty well-defined in my mind) but because we were able to talk one-on-one for an extended period of time. It was particularly interesting discussing the Olympics, because from this I was able to see how important the Olympics really are to so many Chinese people. Perhaps it's only Beijing that's organizing them, but there are so many Chinese people, including these university students, who really felt as if it was something that entire China should be proud of. I also discussed Sino-American relations, gaokao 高考, Taiwan (of course) and general economic change in general.

There was a ping-pong contest going on at Inner Mongolia Normal University, an annual one that goes to a different place every year and this year happens to be in Inner Mongolia. No wonder Chinese people love ping-pong so much.

Finally, later that day we headed off to the provincial museum of Inner Mongolia, which was basically your standard museum, with exhibits on minority nationalities added.

Charles and I.

I couldn't resist taking this picture.

So, Inner Mongolia...

All in all, I had a really good time in Inner Mongolia. I can't even begin to describe what a relief it was to escape the haze, pollution, smog and general crowded-ness of Beijing and see the huge grasslands, blue skies, white clouds and generally gorgeous landscapes of Inner Mongolia. The cities, Erdos and Hohhot, weren't so impressive, but then again they were your standard run-of-the-mill Chinese city. At the same time, I had a vaguely uneasy -- that's not really the right word, but I'm not really sure what would be -- feeling about the whole commercialization of traditional Mongolian culture. Yeah, we stayed in yurts and rode horses on the grasslands, but I'm pretty sure traditional Mongolian yurts weren't made out of cement and the horses didn't trot around on a predefined path. Of course tourists can never fully experience an authentic cultural experience, but there's something about how unabashed the commercialization of traditional Mongolian culture is in Inner Mongolia that bothers me. This is clearly also not limited to just Inner Mongolia/China, but going to Inner Mongolia made this thought stick out rather prominently in my mind.

In part II (hopefully to come in the next few days, which means that I will finally be caught up on blogging): Gang's visit, my ambivalent thoughts about Beijing and the Olympics, the Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace, Beihai Park and my thoughts on HBA and life in general. Stay tuned.