Last weekend (after getting back from social study week), HBA organized a trip to see an acrobatics show at Chaoyang Theater. It was pretty impressive (although of course nothing beats Circe du Soleil) since Chaoyang is an pricey locale in the city center. Like the Beijing Opera it struck me as a bit commercialized and catering to Western tourist tastes, but nonetheless a good show. A sampling of pictures can probably do better justice than words (videos even more so but that defeats the purpose of going to see it yourself one day):
(Setting the mood with lots of pretty girls and glitzy costumes)
(This one girl was ridiculously flexible and she showed up in almost all the acts so she must be pretty versatile too... if you can't tell what's going on in the picture she's got glass cups balanced on her feet, hands, and nose, and she's turning over.)
(Spinning disks, makes their arms really jacked)
(Around 15 girls or so on one bicycle... not dangerous at all...)Classes:
So this week was really rough in the sense that 1) we had to readjust to the hardcore-ness and monotony of HBA classes after a week of social study, 2) we had to write a 2,000+ word report for said social study on top of the usual homework, you'd think they'd decrease the workload or something to facilitate that but noo... 3) instead they give us extra work: reading test in addition to the regular tests on Friday, two person drill session during the first half of 小班课 instead of the usual four person class the whole way through (when are they going to stop changing the schedule on us?!?!), and of course harder texts with more complicated vocab/sentence structures. 4) Lastly, I think that we're all more or less reaching a saturation point with China and Chinese. Homesickness is kind of an insufficient term for explanation... it's more like we're sick of the HBA routine, learning Chinese all the time, seeing Chinese people everywhere all the time, and language constipation that comes with a language pledge. For the Yale kids, it's also getting really hard to keep up with the workload knowing that in the end your grade doesn't even matter anyway. On one hand we've barely scratched the surface of getting to know Beijing, and on the other we can't wait to go home and just get a move on with other things (like reading Harry Potter for me...)
Light Fellowship Dinner:
Regardless of stress levels, Light bought back our gratitude by sending Dean Farley and Xu Laoshi to have dinner with each of the Light-approved programs to check on the students and make sure the programs are 1) teaching Chinese and 2) not killing the students in the process. HBA got super lucky: they took us to this really fancy restaurant called Bai Jia Da Zhai Men 白家大宅门, which used to be some imperial garden of the Qing Dynasty so all the architecture is from that time period and the servants are all dressed in Qing garb. The place was REALLY expensive - $7,000 (American Dollars - that's A LOT of RMB) for 20 or so people... my tiny dragonfruit drink was 50 RMB, which is the equivalent of about 7-8 dinners at the student cafeteria. Service was ridiculously slow and the event took a really big chunk out of our homework time, but it was a huge relief to get to talk in English and about Yale with Dean Farley, and the food was excellent (how could it not be... costing so much of Light's money...)
(Our 3,000 RMB lobster... with shrimp sculpted out of carrots in the back... craziness o.O)
(清朝服务员）Wudaokou Clothing Market 舞蹈口批发市场：
Great place for quick and cheap shopping if you live near Wudaokou, don't want to deal with overpriced touristy centers like Xiushui, and are willing to weed through the fobbier items (although the goofy English words they print on things sometimes make them worth getting for humor's sake). By the time I'm done here I won't need to do summer shopping in the States for awhile ^-^
Tiananmen 天安门:
On Saturday we made the inevitable pilgrimage that every Chinese person probably has to make at least once in their life to Beijing's city center for a picture with Mao. Fun fact #1: Apparently there's some guy who repaints his portrait every 5 months or so for free because it's an honor to have such an important responsibility. Fun fact #2: There are A LOT of Chinese people in the world making the same pilgrimage, and apparently Saturdays during the Summer are prime time...
(If I waited a second longer for this picture to be taken I probably would have gotten run over)Forbidden City 紫禁城 and Palace Museum 故宫:
Right behind Mao is the Forbidden City, which includes the Palace Museum, and is basically as much of a must-see. There were several problems for us that day though: 1) Too much reconstruction going on because they have to finish it before the Olympics, so a lot of things were either closed or covered, 2) Too hot and humid... everyone sweats buckets within minutes of being outside and it's gross, 3) Too tired from heat exhaustion and a week of sleep deprivation, 4) Too many Chinese people. Again, apparently Saturday is a popular time to go, but in general there are just simply too many Chinese people in this world - you don't even realize it until you come here and there are just waves upon waves of Chinese people everywhere all the time pushing and shoving and being disrespectful of the public good and being ugly because of malnutrition and pollution and the like and so on... I get exhausted just thinking about how many Chinese people there are. Anyway, in short we didn't get to see much or learn much, so I am definitely coming back sometime later in my life when there are less reconstruction efforts and less Chinese people.
(故宫前门)
(This thing is called the Large Stone Carving... I'm not even kidding...)
(紫禁城前门)
(We stumbled upon a garden in the Forbidden City, which was a pleasant surprise)
(More Engrish!)
(Too many Chinese people... see #4 above or Chris Lin-Brande's blog for details about the crazy mess that is a huge a chunk of our world and it's history)Hanging out with Duke Yalies:
In the evening some of us HBA Yalies met up with some Duke Yalies for dinner at Kro's Nest, a popular expat pizza place. Afterwards we went to Capital Normal University where the Duke people are staying and then a small karaoke place nearby. The major conclusion of the night was Duke people are definitely more relaxed than HBAers and they are definitely more familiar with Beijing (because they have the time to go out and explore), which aroused some envy. On the flip side, HBA's social study was definitely worth it, and now we have Cantab friends to meet up with at the Game.
Lush:
At Duke people's suggestion, we got Sunday Brunch at Lush, a cozy little expat lounge/bar that has won That's Beijing Best Student Hangout three years in a row and is situated right in Wudaokou, so I'm surprised we didn't figure out that they serve American breakfast sooner. Let's just say it was a great cure for American cravings.
(Disregarding my funny expression, that's me going "OMG toast!")Bell Temple 大钟寺:
After brunch I met up with my host brother and a high school girl he's friends with who's become sort of a Host sister. They first took me to see this old Buddhist temple with lots of bells (exciting, I know). I'm starting to come to the conclusion that all of these ancient relics lack a lot of meaning without explanation, but a lot gets lost in language barriers with Chinese guides or lost in translation with English guides and I don't understand a lot of it anyway because of all the historical/philosophical/cultural/artistic background that I never learned.
(A really big bell... I'm very lame and wasn't in the mood to actually try and learn something or pay attention to what I was looking at)Old Summer Palace 圆明园:
My host brother and sister also took me to Yuan Ming Yuan, which was supposedly even more impressive than Yi He Yuan (The Summer Palace) back in the day, but then the Europeans came and burned everything and they didn't bother rebuilding Yuan Ming Yuan because it's supposed to be a reminder of how much China was bullied in the past. Yuan Ming Yuan was surprisingly big and picturesque, not unlike Yi He Yuan, but of course with the exception that the featured sites are mostly ruins. This is another one that I need to come back to after learning more history. (Take Spence's History of Modern China with me next year!)
(With the host brother and sister in front of the lotus garden at the Palace Gate)
(Scenery not unlike the other, more well-known Summer Palace)
(The Labyrinth 迷宫)
(Which to my surprise actually did turn out to be a maze)
(In front of the Exhibition Center of the Ruins of European Palaces)
(Da Shui Fa 大水法 Grand Waterworks)Hotel Dinner:
I mention this just to brag about the great deals you can get from putting up with a host family - for some reason mine had free meal tickets to a really posh hotel near Wudaokou that served real Western-styled five star meals. It was really random and a great continuation to my American food cravings :-9
(There was no one else eating... and our meal was free... so I wondered how on earth this place could survive and then remembered that they're probably going to make a fortune out of the Olympics alone)
1 comment:
Oh gosh that is a large stone wall.
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