Olympics adventures

Upfront, I have to credit the posts in this pictures to Shan (gymnastics/stadiums) and to Lena (opening ceremony night) since I didn't have my camera with me this weekend and so I wasn't able to take these pictures myself.

This post is basically going to be about my weekend activities, aka the Olympics -- not that I don't do work (trust me, my eyes are about to shut on me involuntarily since I didn't sleep much last night), but rather that the saga of my memorizing vocabulary words is not the most thrilling material to read ever.

08.08.08

So this was probably one of the more interesting days that I have spent in Beijing. That Friday morning was the normal routine (two-hour weekly exam, followed by a workshop and then a debate in which all the students are basically waiting for Chinese table 中文桌子 to get here so we can get free food). Friday Chinese table, at a Korean restaurant in Wudaokou 五道口, was fun as always.

At 3, however, we had to take the HSK (汉语水平考试), or the Chinese Proficiency Test. It’s a test organized, I think, by the Chinese government designed to test foreigners’ and Chinese minorities’ 少数民族 command of Chinese, and is commonly used within China as a standardized yardstick for proficiency, particularly when you apply for university admission or jobs or whatever that would require a certain level of Chinese proficiency. Final scores range from 1 to 11 or 12, with higher scores meaning higher proficiency. When I got here, I took the intermediate-level test, which goes from level 4 to level 8, and scored a 7. At the time, I found some parts of the test fairly difficult. I almost even didn’t take the test last Friday, just because (1) I was positive that I wasn’t going to pass and (2) it was conveniently scheduled on the day of the Opening Ceremonies and that was something that I didn’t want to miss. However, I’m glad I took the HSK, because in the end I scored level 9, which is the lowest level on the advanced test and means that I can technically enroll at a Chinese university, although realistically that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Still, though, it’s nice to know that I have some quantifiable, physical evidence of my improvement in Chinese this summer.

That’s when the fun really began. After heading back to the Conference Center 会议中心 to rest for a bit, me and a couple of my 5th-year classmates (Joan, Charles, Lena and Timo, the HBA secretary) headed out to try to find a place to watch the Opening Ceremonies. After some discussion which would be kind of tedious to fully recount, we then headed out, determined to watch a giant screen on the Torch Tower (I think it might actually be called that) which is really close to the Birds’ Nest 鸟巢 (aka the National Stadium 国家体育场) and to watch the ensuing fireworks.

It turned out to be a ridiculous night. First, we get on a bus that is heading over to the Olympics area, since the subway will take too long and it’s nearly impossible to hail a cab. The bus is packed to the gills – we could barely squeeze on, and at this point I think I finally understand what 人满为患 really means. I didn’t even have to hold onto the handles in order to stay upright, which tells you a lot about how crowded the bus really was. Then, when we finally got off, we basically spent close to 40 minutes or so running around trying to get closer to the Stadium than we were, since like in any other crowded event the police were giving contradictory and conflicting instructions, what seemed like the entire population of China was running through the streets and all the while the clock kept ticking down.

This was actually taken by Shan. 中国加油!


I can't tell if those lights in the back are fireworks or not.

Security. This is China, after all.

Eventually what ended up happening was that we were on a huge bridge – which I nearly pushed someone off of in order to get on – and we saw the first set of fireworks, which was pretty cool. This was then followed by the sinking realization that the screen on the Torch Tower was not going to show the Opening Ceremonies (doesn’t it seem logical though?), so we headed back to Wudaokou. Joan, Lena, Shan and I eventually ended up watching it at Lush at Wudaokou, which was actually a really enjoyable experience although by the time we got there the parade of nations was starting and so I actually missed most of the cool – and apparently computer-enhanced – beginning parts of the ceremony.

After the ceremony per se ended, they started setting off fireworks above the National Stadium and so we basically flew down the stairs and outside trying to see if we could get to a high enough building and watch the fireworks. Although we didn’t succeed, I did see part of the fireworks above one of the shorter buildings on Chengfu Lu 成府路, which basically made my night.

It was really easy to get caught up in the fervor of the night – when the fireworks went off, when the Taiwanese/Hong Kong/Chinese Olympic teams marched into the stadium and when the torch was lifted, the crowds basically went crazy with excitement. It’s probably then that I understood how important these Olympics are to most of China, and while I don’t think I can ever really fully understand the way that Chinese people (aka, those who live in China) think, I feel like I have a more nuanced understanding now. Aside from that that night was also simply a blast, since the exhilaration of running around northern Beijing didn’t really wear off until the next morning.

Not exactly a birds’ eye view

Then the next day, continuing the Olympics bonanza, Shan and I skipped out on HBA’s Beijing Night 北京之夜 in order to go watch mens' gymnastics preliminaries! Beijing Night was the program-organized talent show, and while I vaguely regret not participating in it, I think the choice between that and gymnastics is clear…and it became even clearer once we got there and realized that because gymnastics are at the National Indoor Stadium 国家体育馆 in the Olympic Green, we were able to get ridiculously close to the Birds’ Nest and National Aquatics Center 国家游泳中心, which then replaced watching Opening Ceremony fireworks as the highlight of my weekend.

Gymnastics itself was a lot of fun as well – I’ve only ever seen it on TV and it’s something else entirely to watch it in person. Those guys made most of the exercises look really easy, even though you know it’s really difficult. (I’d say rings is the most prominent exception since watching that in person only impressed on me how difficult that actually is.)

Pictures can probably tell the rest of the story better, so:

We're off to the stadiums, on line 8 (what else would it be numbered)?

Gymnastics.

Outside the Indoor Stadium of the Games (where gymnastics was).

We got this close!

National Stadium.

National Aquatics Stadium.

Playing in the rain

The weather kind of took a turn for the worse on Sunday – it rained like it did the very first day that I arrived in Beijing – but we headed out to watch field hockey against the USA anyway. It was one of those experiences that’s fun in the retelling but miserable while you’re actually living it. Security at the north zone of the Olympic arena was absolutely ridiculous -- in the sense that it was really poorly organized and we basically didn't get to the match until the end of the first half. The Americans and the Argentineans tied, 2-2.

Red (well, pink), white and blue!

More fifth-years.

Miscellanea

- On Monday, I had dinner at Bellagio in Sanlitun with My Khanh and I had 滷肉飯, which I don’t know how to translate but made me want to get out of here even faster. It’s a kind of pork dish that my mom makes all the time and which I had never up until Monday found in Beijing.

- I’ve had this persistent cough for at least a week and half now that hasn’t gone away, which I’m going to attribute to the air pollution here.

- Foreigners (non-Chinese) clearly get a lot of attention here. But what’s even more interesting to your local average Chinese citizen is Chinese-looking people speaking English (aka, me). Their heads swivel around, particularly on the subway, and you can almost see the thoughts running through the head: who’s speaking English? He’s speaking English? But he’s Chinese! Etc, etc.

- Joan, 骆老师 and I went to this place in Wudaokou where I finally found my 飯團! Although it's square, which is kind of odd, I was unbelievably excited to see this. Two months of eating baozi 包子 and youtiao 油条 gets to you after a while.


- Finally, as you can probably tell from this post, my concentration for HBA and Chinese-related things is at an all-time low. At this point I'm basically going through the motions to crank out the work -- we've got an oral and a written final separating us from freedom, and from officially allowed English. Hurray!

I may or may not post again from Beijing – our final/graduation ceremony/English table (post-language pledge!) is Friday morning, Friday afternoon I need to run some errands at Wangfujing and definitely pack and clean and Friday night I’m planning to head out to dinner and enjoy my last night here. I think I'll close out here -- most likely the next time I post will be from Hong Kong or Taichung.

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 II: Tourism and the Olympics

Contents of this post: visitors, touristy things and my ever-escalating dislike of the Olympics.

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.

A quick update

I figured I'd write a quick blog post summarizing the things that have gone on in the two and a half weeks since I last posted -- I'm planning on writing a much longer post later (with pictures included) but I wanted to do this first.

- My computer is fixed! I've never been so glad to turn it on and see the Windows XP screen load-up.

- I have been to the Forbidden City on a beautiful (not just for Beijing, but in general!) day. That'll be mostly pictures.

- Inner Mongolia was a blast! In the week that I was there I visited Hohhot 呼和浩特, Erdos 鄂爾多斯, the desert at Xiangshawan 向沙湾, the grasslands and yurts.

- Writing my social study report 社会调查报告 was not, unfortunately, a blast.

- Remember when I said that I was excited to be in Beijing because of the Olympics? I'm not really anymore.

As for pictures, they're all on my external hard drive so I can't load them now. But I promise I'll write a mega-post when I get the time, complete with pictures and all.

Unfortunate events

As depressing as this may sound, this is unfortunately a rather good summation of this week's events. Also as a warning to all my devoted readers (ha, ha) this entry won't have any pictures, for reasons that will be summarily explained below...

Bengkui

Or, 崩溃, which means something along the lines of crumble, collapse or fall apart. This word, along with many other computer-related vocabulary, has unfortunately become part of my vocbulary...since, you guessed it, my computer has 崩溃了. To be more exact (and in English), the registry and/or the hard drive both have problems, are hopelessly corrupted and are now useless. This happened last Monday, so in the last week this has resulted in several different phenomena:

(1) In contrast to the questionably-useful vocabulary I have been learning (I know how to say "gibbon," several different synonyms for "miserliness," and how to describe Chinese prosody, as an example), I now know much computer vocabulary that I didn't know before! (Including, for example, how to say "registry," "backup," "hard drive," "file," "copy," etc.) They say there's nothing like a superbly inconvenient situation in a developing foreign country to make you learn vocabulary faster -- or something like that, anyway.

(2) In the last week I have hailed a cab more times than in the previous 20 years of my life. I am now an expert on how to get to Zhongguancun 中关村, which is this super-tech-heavy area of Beijing, and can describe to you numerous buildings on the route. More about this later. That is, transportation in general, not Zhongguancun.

(3) I am now an expert at using 201 cards and IP cards, which are both telephone cards. Having bought a 30 RMB ($4.35) card and used it directly to call the US, I now know that that is a bad idea, since calls using the 201 card are 8 RMB ($1.17) a minute and that call ended in approximately three minutes. I'm also now a speed demon at using the phone in my room and find a certain pleasure in clacking away at the numbers (since I have to dial 2012, input my 201 card number, then the PIN, then the access number, then the IP card number to call abroad, then the actual number) on the phone.

(4) Finally, I have discovered that I have much more free time than I did in previous weeks, not having a computer, the conclusion of which is fairly obvious...

In any case, this is the reason why there will be no pictures in today's post (because I'm borrowing someone's computer and it will take forever for me to upload pictures, resize them, etc. and plus because I'm lazy and want to go to sleep soon.)

Muttering in the rain

On Friday, my friend My Khanh (who is studying at PiB) made plans to meet up at Wangfujing 王府井 after she got back from watching Beijing opera that night. That night was a complete disaster (but not because of My Khanh! In fact, we successfully met up the next day!), and again I think I will summarize by giving you the list of the lessons that I have learned from this experience.

(1) Making plans to meet at the "only McDonald's" on Wangfujing Dajie 王府井大街 is a bad idea when there are two McDonald's. Enough said.

(2) Well, I suppose there are really only two lessons, but this second one is that that Friday night trying to hail a cab in the rain was hands-down absolutely the most god-awful miserable night that I have spent in my entire month in China so far without exception. After failing to meet up with My Khanh, I decided to head back to BLCU to get some rest. Unfortunately, last night it had been pouring rain for hours. I knew that hailing a cab in the rain was difficult, but Friday night was absolutely ridiculous. I was waiting at Wangfujing Dajie and Chang'an Dajie 长安大街, which is this major thoroughfare through central Beijing, and I waited for a full hour and a half to catch a cab, all the while while it was still raining. The experience went something like this:

1. I'd stare miserably at the traffic on Chang'an Dajie racing by and cursing at all those people sitting warmly in cabs racing home and muttering under my breath at the incompetence of subway lines that close before midnight, and one that closes before 9 pm (don't even get me started on this. Actually, I think I will, just a bit later.)

2. Cabs would turn onto Wangfujing Dajie, and I'd raise my hand to try to hail them. At first, I only waited for ones that had For hire 空车 in them, but soon it became a reflex to just push my arm up when I saw a car that had a bump on the roof.

3. The cabs would race by and I imagined the passengers inside laughing at me, a thought which started in my second hour of waiting. In the rare event that a cab was actually stopping on Wangfujing Dajie, a horde of people would descend on the cab. As soon as the passengers inside got out, people would squeeze in amid arguments about who got their first, and the cab would race away. Needless to say it was very difficult to be the first one to get to a cab.

4. All the while, I was wading through streets that were flooding with rain, etc.

Finally around midnight or so I was able to hail a cab, and effectively collapsed in exhaustion and sheer joy after getting on one.

Getting around

Which brings me to the of the week, public transportation. As a southern Californian, this is a topic near and dear to my heart, since it effectively lacks any as such. The same things that I mentioned in one of my posts while in Shanghai about the subway system there hold true for Beijing. After last night, the one thing that really sticks out in my mind is how absurdly early some of the subway lines close, and how New Yorkers (and I think Londoners?) are spoiled for having a 24-hour subway system.

There's actually only one more observation I want to make, I realize, which is something small but I think very telling. New Yorkers have the reputation of being an unfriendly, brusque people (this is going somewhere, bear with me). But in all my experience of taking the subway in New York, people never fail to wait for the passengers to get off before getting on. This is absolutely not the case in China, not even in Shanghai, which I consider by far to be the most modernized city in China (perhaps I'm a bit biased at this point against Beijing, haha). As soon as the subway doors open people rush into the car as if it's going to depart imminently, leaving the departing passengers to fend their way through the masses.

I don't really know what the greater significance of this is. Perhaps I'm a spoiled Westerner who doesn't know how to approach life aggressively enough. The thing is, habits like spitting on the street or old men wearing questionably little clothing doesn't even bother me. But somehow I feel like this shows something about Chinese society, but right now I'm not exactly sure what.
I have another little anecdote that I've been meaning to write about for the last couple of posts but which I keep forgetting. Before I left for China, I read about Beijing Capital Airport's terminal 3 (which I flew into! Sparkly and new it definitely is) and how it was completed in record time, and no construction project like that could be completed at anything near that speed in a Western country. I think the comparison was Heathrow in the UK. The conclusion drawn was that the authoritarian nature of the government ensures that public hearings, community meetings, etc., are all entirely unnecessary in China, which has the result that construction projects like the airport's terminal 3 can be completed much faster than they would in a democracy.

Anyway -- my example is, when I came to HBA, the street that BLCU is on, Chengfu Lu 成府路, had no paved sidewalks at all. It was all dirt and mud. Keep in mind that this is three weeks ago. Now this stretch of Chengfu Lu is 95% paved, in less than three weeks. The reason, of course, is that the Olympic Village and many of the stadiums are down the way (and one of BLCU's gymnasiums is going to serve as a practice gym for Olympic basketball players), and so the government, of course, doesn't want these muddy, dirty streets to be the impression of pedestrians who may be around this area. I don't know about the rest of you, but construction projects of this sort in southern California always take ages to complete. But in communist China, if the government wants it done, it gets it done, fast. (Not that I'm complaining. My flip-flop-wearing self is super glad that the sidewalks are all now paved. :) )

Fill 'em up

I think I have mentioned food in every one of my posts in Beijing so far, so this won't be an exception. My continuing impression of Beijing food hasn't really changed, which is that everything around BLCU is rather greasy and oily and that I'm still not a big fan of the northern school of Chinese cuisine. I read in the Lonely Planet guide that Light gave us that the northern school is hearty food which is supposed to fill people up in the winter, or something like that, but written more elegantly. And I think it's true. As much as I like my baozi 包子 (dumplings of sorts) in the morning, the food here is rather monotonous. There's a lot of bread and meat. I think part of the reason I'm somewhat dissatisfied is that I don't get out of BLCU that often, but by the same token I think if I were in Taiwan, for example, and restricted to a small circuit I don't think I would be as dissatisfied with the culinary scene there.

I'm really starting to miss all the fresh fruits. Particularly: grapes, which I don't eat here because you have to peel fruits to stay on the safe side and I don't have the willpower to peel every grape before eating one; mangoes, which are a quintessential summer fruit; and lychees and longans, which can be found here but are ridiculously expensive compared to the south. I'm also hankering after a good cup of boba 波霸奶茶 and a rice-roll 飯團 that is one of my all-time favorite Chinese breakfast foods anywhere. Sigh.

Time to do homework

Haha, which is true. But again to sum up, after reading this post I realize that it has been mostly a series of complaints, which I think stems partially from the fact that (1) this week has been particularly unfortunate and (2) they're more fun to write about that spectacular successes. :) So if you're reading this, I just want to say that my life here in Beijing is not really all as miserable as it's made out to be by this blog. But by the same token, Beijing also falls short in a lot of ways which have proven to be more serious than I would have thought. So, to use an expression that I have (re)learned here at HBA, you can't look at this situation with only one viewpoint, or something like that, or, you can't 一概而论 life here in the capital.

Coming next week: hopefully, the recovery of the computer. And, Inner Mongolia!

(On second thought, that post may come next-next week, as I'm leaving for Hohhot 呼和浩特 on Friday.)