My sophomore year of high school, Yizhou came to the US from the Xinhua University High School. She stayed with her aunt, uncle, and cousin, and was a member of my class for the year. We became fast friends, but then she and her family moved to DC, and I haven't seen her since that year, but we've kept in touch through e-mail throughout these last four years. Yizhou is a wonderful person, and I was so excited to start planning to see her in Beijing when I got accepted to my program.
Tonight, we met at the East Gate of PKU at 5:30PM to go to the Olympic Stadiums and have dinner together. She told me to bring a friend, so Victoria came with me. Yizhou is a brave, brave soul for driving in Beijing, and after a big hug we went over to the stadiums. The Bird's Nest is HUGE!! You know that an Olympic stadium has to be huge, but seeing it in person really puts its scale in perspective. It is a real focal point, as is the Water Cube, which is now a water park open to the public.
We walked around the park, took lots of pictures, and generally chatted and caught up. After a while, we got quite hungry, and headed away from the stadiums to get dinner. We ate a a homestyle Chinese restaurant and ordered gong bao ji ding (kung pao chicken), spicy garlic green beans, the most delicious eggplant dish I've ever eaten, and a very mild dish with tofu, shrimp, peas, and corn. I thoroughly enjoyed everything we ordered. Chi hao! (very delicious) I did take what I thought was a piece of green bell pepper, but it was actually a spicy pepper, and it instantly gave me the hiccups. I had to hold my breath for a moment to make them go away, and it was pretty funny, if a little embarrassing.
I know I write about food a lot, but it is a pretty big part of my experience of China because the food is so different from what we eat in America. There are many types of Chinese food, but outside Asia, they are all clumped together as "Chinese." Here, any non-Asian food gets clumped together as "Western." In the US, we have a Chinese restaurant next to a Mexican restaurant next to a Middle Eastern restaurant next to a burger joint, and we can eat any of these things because there is no one prevalent style for "American" food. It's just a different way of thinking about things while I'm here, and I really love Chinese food.
I was so happy to reunite with Yizhou. Though we've both grown up a lot these last few years (and gone through a few different haircuts), it is really nice to know that friendships can last. People always say to their international friends that they will come visit, but the realities of life usually prevent that from happening. I am so lucky to be able to see Yizhou in her home city and have her perspective on the things I am discovering. I got to tell her about learning Chinese and the things I'm finding different and exciting, and she is sharing her home with me. It was so nice to be together again, and I can't wait until our next outing.
So, that was the highlight of my day. The ordinary part was that we have a new set of vocab words in Chinese, another dialogue to memorize, and dictation homework. We did a quiz in class where we had to unscramble words to make a proper sentence, and that went much better than the first time. We watched the extended video for the song "Beijing Huanying Ni" (Beijing Welcomes You) that had a bunch of celebrities in famous locations each singing a few lines of the song, and we're going to learn part of it in class tomorrow. Lunch was pizza and we got an update on tomorrow's Independence Day celebration, the trip to Hongzhou, and reconfirmed the field trip for tomorrow.
In Public Health we finished our lecture on food safety. I was very frustrated today. The professor gave us a rundown of how China successfully regulated food production to prevent any sickness due to food during the Olympics in 2008. There were subsidies given to the producers to have extra safe practices, but once the games were over, the producers did not find these procedures sustainable, so the food safety regressed to where it was pre-2008. I just don't understand why it was that they could go back rather than bring everyone else up to the proper safety standard. It was very interesting to have a breakdown of how the bovine milk industry has changed, though.
After class was homework then the meetup with Yizhou, and it was a really great day that ended with a nice skype home.
Today is awesome because I got to reunite with a great friend in a place I've been very eager to see!
Oh, and I want to give special greetings to my readers who have been keeping up with my adventures. I really appreciate that you care enough to read my posts, and I hope you continue to find them interesting/entertaining/a sign that I am alive. You rock!
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