Today was literally Chinese class, lunch, break for homework, TCM class, back to the dorm. Nothing particularly unique or exciting happened today, but I will elaborate on TCM class because that's the unique and exciting thing about this session.
We continued talking about Yin-Yang Theory and talked about the 5 Phases/Elements. The conclusion to the Yin-Yang discussion was classifying ailments and behaviors as excesses or deficiencies of Yin and Yang. The five we discussed were staying up very late, indulgence in sex, addiction to hot foods, sitting doing nothing and eating too much, and drinking too many cold beverages. Basically, the inactive and cold things were related to Yin Excess/Yang Deficiency and the active and hot things were Yang Excess/Yin Deficiency. There are slight differences between the primary cause of illness, but since the two aspects wax and wane together, they are both the correct answer.
The five phases are related to the five directions (north, south, east, west, center) and five seasons (winter, spring, summer, late summer, autumn). The elements are wood, earth, water, metal, and fire. They are all interrelated with each other as well as Yin and Yang. The elements both promote and check each other to keep things in balance.
We also talked about the five major organs: heart, lungs, spleen, liver, and kidneys. Their functions in TCM are partly the same as in biomedicine, but there is a strong philosophical/experiential component to how they are classified. The entire body is connected through qi and jing, energy and fuel, and the flow of these essential components of the universe distinguishes each organ.
I really like this class. It is very interesting because a lot of the time this type of approach to the body and health is regarded as far out mumbo jumbo, but it is a very productive philosophy to think about how things are interrelated and see the body as a whole rather than organ by organ. I love the philosophical aspect to it because there is the constant reminder of humanity and that behavior is as important as putting a chemical into your system to alleviate symptoms. I'm really excited for class next week: we have two lectures and two field trips, one of which is to learn about herbs at the Great Wall.
It was overall a really relaxed day, which I needed because I'm still recovering from being tired during the intersession trip. We had normal bedtimes but consistently woke up at least three hours earlier than normal, so I've been pretty wiped. It's good to have relaxed today because I am afraid that if I take a whole day to stay in the dorm, I will miss out on getting to see something truly spectacular about this city.
Today is awesome because of our hilarious moment in TCM today. Our professor was trying to demonstrate how the heart and mind are connected, so he suddenly slammed his hand onto the desk, which startled all of us and raised our heart rates, demonstrating his point very clearly. It was really funny, particularly because we all jumped at the same time.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
The Start of Something New
I had class with my new Chinese teacher this morning. Yao Laoshi is teaching this class of now seven people by himself. He uses powerpoint to present the vocab and grammar, and writes on the board to show us stroke order instead of using the computer. I like that he presents the grammar in a clear way and has a syllabus that moves thematically. I really miss the smiles, laughter, and warmth we had in class with Zhang Laoshi and the TAs. For the next few weeks, we have daily dictations, lots of new vocab, weekly oral quizzes, and weekly written quizzes. I just have to keep learning my characters, and it will be fine. I don't think we will be doing any singing in this class. At lunch, my TA from last session walked by and called me over using my Chinese name, which I actually responded to. It was really nice to see her, particularly because I didn't see her in class for the first time in five weeks.
Traditional Chinese Medicine class is going to be so cool!!! We got a 290-page coursepack first thing that had a syllabus and day-by-day breakdown of what we will be covering in the class. Today's lecture was on Qi (Chi) and the Theory of Yin-Yang. Basically, Qi is the invisible particulate essence of what makes things thingy. The Theory of Yin-Yang is the dialectic in all things physical, and this extends to be applicable to health. I'm really excited about what we're learning in the class, particularly because it is more philosophical. We have the same lecturer for the first three classes, 1-2 field trips per week (pharmacy, health center, acupuncture, herb picking at the Great Wall, just to name a few), and a drop day each week. I'm very impressed by the organization of the class.
Knowing which afternoons we have off, we have already started planning excursions. I love that I know in advance when I'll have some extra free time to get around Beijing; it means that I can finish my tourist list!! I was starting to pare it down because I didn't think I'd have time to get everywhere, but it's actually going to happen because I'll be able to leave campus at 1 instead of 4. The things that are left on my list are visiting the Temple of the Origin of Dharma, the Niujie Mosque, Beihai Park, Jihngshan Park, the Lao She Teahouse, the Nanluoguxiang Hutong, and the puppet show. I'm planning on hitting the first two this Friday, the following three on another day, and then the last two will fit in on one of the other free days.
Being back at Bei Da has felt so good. I was walking to class, and I had room to spread my arms and not be pushed by other people. I am so comfortable in my room, and though I'm still catching up on sleep, it's really great to have my routine locations once more. It's so interesting how quickly this place has become my place, just a little bit. The constants of being a student help me adjust wherever I am.
Today is awesome because everything is falling into place for this second academic session to be amazingly awesome!
Traditional Chinese Medicine class is going to be so cool!!! We got a 290-page coursepack first thing that had a syllabus and day-by-day breakdown of what we will be covering in the class. Today's lecture was on Qi (Chi) and the Theory of Yin-Yang. Basically, Qi is the invisible particulate essence of what makes things thingy. The Theory of Yin-Yang is the dialectic in all things physical, and this extends to be applicable to health. I'm really excited about what we're learning in the class, particularly because it is more philosophical. We have the same lecturer for the first three classes, 1-2 field trips per week (pharmacy, health center, acupuncture, herb picking at the Great Wall, just to name a few), and a drop day each week. I'm very impressed by the organization of the class.
Knowing which afternoons we have off, we have already started planning excursions. I love that I know in advance when I'll have some extra free time to get around Beijing; it means that I can finish my tourist list!! I was starting to pare it down because I didn't think I'd have time to get everywhere, but it's actually going to happen because I'll be able to leave campus at 1 instead of 4. The things that are left on my list are visiting the Temple of the Origin of Dharma, the Niujie Mosque, Beihai Park, Jihngshan Park, the Lao She Teahouse, the Nanluoguxiang Hutong, and the puppet show. I'm planning on hitting the first two this Friday, the following three on another day, and then the last two will fit in on one of the other free days.
Being back at Bei Da has felt so good. I was walking to class, and I had room to spread my arms and not be pushed by other people. I am so comfortable in my room, and though I'm still catching up on sleep, it's really great to have my routine locations once more. It's so interesting how quickly this place has become my place, just a little bit. The constants of being a student help me adjust wherever I am.
Today is awesome because everything is falling into place for this second academic session to be amazingly awesome!
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Intersession of Awesome!
Hello, friends!
It's been a while since I've posted because I've been away from internet for the last week! I had my first round of finals for Chinese and Public Health classes last Tuesday and Wednesday, and they both went well, but on Thursday I left Beijing for a 5-day trip to the South.
On Thursday, a group of 20 of us took a 20-hour sleeper train from Beijing to Huangshan (Yellow Mountain). Friday, we climbed up the mountain, which was a huge physical test. I climbed stairs for thirty minutes, then I had to go down all the stairs I had just climbed to take a cable car to the meeting point because that half hour was only a quarter of the way there. After lunch, we all hiked to the top of the mountain, where we stayed in a hotel/hostel/camp cabin type setup where we were ten to a room in bunk beds. The mountain was so cool. I have never really experienced mountains before, and this one was amazing. There were such interesting trees that I wished I had brought a Chinese tree identification book with me to figure out what they were. The rocks were beautiful, the fog made everything mysterious, and looking down on how far we had come up was a really great feeling.
Saturday, we woke up at 4:20AM planning on seeing the sun rise, but it was cloudy/foggy and raining, so we went back to sleep for another two hours and then did some more hiking after breakfast. Chinese breakfast is really interesting; there is rice porridge to which you add vegetables, fried rice, hard boiled tea eggs, pumpkin, noodles, and all sorts of sweet and savory pastries. It is very different from the yogurt I have been eating, but delicious in its own way. After climbing down the mountain, we took a bus to Huangshan City where we visited Tunxi Ancient Street for tea and shopping. We went back there after dinner to walk around as well. It was a really cool area that had the old Chinese look you go to China to see. The shops on the street sold tea, inkstones, and a lot of the same souvenirs and jewelry.
Our hotels for the other nights were pretty nice. We were two to a room and we each had our own beds, and the bathrooms were pretty clean. Bathrooms were always questionable on this trip. I haven't really talked about them much, but in China, public toilets are squat toilets. They are always messy and smell really bad and there are never soap or paper towels/hand dryers. You have to bring your own toilet paper and hand sanitizer. It tooke me a week to get up enough courage to even try to use one. This trip had a surprising abundance of western toilets, and I always celebrate when I find them here. Having that in the hotels was really amazing and if we had only had that, it would have been comfortable for me.
On Sunday, we left Huangshan City and drove to Qiandao Lake (Thousand Island Lake). The drive there was beautiful; I was sitting next to my friend, Andrea, and we kept pointing out pretty things to each other out the window. We went for a boat ride on the lake, and stopped at three of the islands. This excursion was a very Chinese experience because it exposed us to their internal tourist culture. It is cutthroat; there is a lot of pushing and horn honking. The first island is what our tour guide, Jaky (like Jackie Chan), called the best island. It was a hill that we climbed up and had an amazing view of the lake and other islands. To get down, we took the slide. They made tracks with fake grass and gave you a little wooden boat to sit in and slide down. That was a lot of fun. The second island was Snake Island which was a rather upsetting experience because we all went in with American expectations of animal kindness, but in China the animals are there to be entertainment for the humans, and we all rushed through that island because we couldn't handle the way people were treating the snakes. The third island had a temple on it, and I ran up the stairs to the top of this area that had an arch, and the view from up there was really pretty. After the lake, we drove to Hangzhou, where we spent the night.
Our last day away was spent at the West Lake on Hangzhou and the Ancient Street there. The Ancient Street, again, consisted of old architecture with shop after shop of the same souvenirs. The West Lake, however, was gorgeous. It is the location of many love stories and considered the most beautiful and romantic place in China. We took a boat ride on the lake, saw the fish pond, and then went to Ancient Street. From Ancient Street, we went to the train station, where we took the bullet train from Hangzhou to Beijing. That was a seven hour voyage in a car that was like an airplane if airplanes gave each person three times the legroom and one-third more chair space. For dinner on the train, it was funny because my Asian friend ordered the same food I did and was handed her box with chopsticks and I was given mine with a spork. I haven't used western utensils since my arrival, so we just laughed at that because it was so ridiculous.
I set a few goals for myself on this trip, and I met all of them. The first was to take a picture with each person I was traveling with. The second was to take at least 200 photos (I took 225). The third was to fill my journal with my memories, and I wrote all 40 pages. Each time I reached those milestones, which I hadn't shared with anyone, I felt really great and accomplished. They were goals that were important to me so I could document, remember, and enjoy the trip, and I did just that.
Tuesday was a free recovery day in Beijing. I slept in, did my laundry, and had an afternoon excursion to the Temple of Confucius and the Silk Market. The temple was pretty cool, it was the first one I've seen that has not been Buddhist, and it was a very nice place to walk around. We got a little lost on our way back to the subway and found this really cool hutong that had restaurants, cafes, and indie shops that we definitely want to go back to. The Silk Market was the same stuff as last time, and I didn't really need or want anything else, but I had a lot of fun watching my friend Haley bargain for the things she wanted. She speaks fantastic Chinese, but looks very blond and American, so the vendors are always very confused by her. She is also fierce with the haggling and generally gets her price, so we had a pretty good time. We found a restaurant nearby for dinner, and it was Shanghai style food that was absolutely delicious. We had cold cucumbers in a soy/garlic/peanut dressing, green beans, eggplant, a tofu dish, kung pao chicken, beef and mushrooms, noodles with scallions, a pork dish I didn't eat but the others enjoyed, and "squirrel fish" which is fish that looks like a squirrel the way they plate it. I loved the food, particularly the chicken and vegetable dishes.
I think the group I traveled with really bonded, and I feel a lot closer to the friends I made in the first four weeks of this program. We did a lot in a short amount of time, had a whole bunch of physical exertion, and came home with shared experiences and inside jokes. The intersession vacation was a truly wonderful experience.
We start our next set of classes tomorrow, so for me that means a new Chinese teacher and the beginning of the Traditional Chinese Medicine class. I am so excited to intensively learn about TCM! There are just a few things left on my tourism list, and I am thrilled about that because I think I can make them happen even on weeknights. This long weekend was really great, and I am so happy to have travelled to another part of this amazing country. I can't believe that this is week five of eight already.
Today is awesome because I got to explore some cool places and eat good food with great friends.
It's been a while since I've posted because I've been away from internet for the last week! I had my first round of finals for Chinese and Public Health classes last Tuesday and Wednesday, and they both went well, but on Thursday I left Beijing for a 5-day trip to the South.
On Thursday, a group of 20 of us took a 20-hour sleeper train from Beijing to Huangshan (Yellow Mountain). Friday, we climbed up the mountain, which was a huge physical test. I climbed stairs for thirty minutes, then I had to go down all the stairs I had just climbed to take a cable car to the meeting point because that half hour was only a quarter of the way there. After lunch, we all hiked to the top of the mountain, where we stayed in a hotel/hostel/camp cabin type setup where we were ten to a room in bunk beds. The mountain was so cool. I have never really experienced mountains before, and this one was amazing. There were such interesting trees that I wished I had brought a Chinese tree identification book with me to figure out what they were. The rocks were beautiful, the fog made everything mysterious, and looking down on how far we had come up was a really great feeling.
Saturday, we woke up at 4:20AM planning on seeing the sun rise, but it was cloudy/foggy and raining, so we went back to sleep for another two hours and then did some more hiking after breakfast. Chinese breakfast is really interesting; there is rice porridge to which you add vegetables, fried rice, hard boiled tea eggs, pumpkin, noodles, and all sorts of sweet and savory pastries. It is very different from the yogurt I have been eating, but delicious in its own way. After climbing down the mountain, we took a bus to Huangshan City where we visited Tunxi Ancient Street for tea and shopping. We went back there after dinner to walk around as well. It was a really cool area that had the old Chinese look you go to China to see. The shops on the street sold tea, inkstones, and a lot of the same souvenirs and jewelry.
Our hotels for the other nights were pretty nice. We were two to a room and we each had our own beds, and the bathrooms were pretty clean. Bathrooms were always questionable on this trip. I haven't really talked about them much, but in China, public toilets are squat toilets. They are always messy and smell really bad and there are never soap or paper towels/hand dryers. You have to bring your own toilet paper and hand sanitizer. It tooke me a week to get up enough courage to even try to use one. This trip had a surprising abundance of western toilets, and I always celebrate when I find them here. Having that in the hotels was really amazing and if we had only had that, it would have been comfortable for me.
On Sunday, we left Huangshan City and drove to Qiandao Lake (Thousand Island Lake). The drive there was beautiful; I was sitting next to my friend, Andrea, and we kept pointing out pretty things to each other out the window. We went for a boat ride on the lake, and stopped at three of the islands. This excursion was a very Chinese experience because it exposed us to their internal tourist culture. It is cutthroat; there is a lot of pushing and horn honking. The first island is what our tour guide, Jaky (like Jackie Chan), called the best island. It was a hill that we climbed up and had an amazing view of the lake and other islands. To get down, we took the slide. They made tracks with fake grass and gave you a little wooden boat to sit in and slide down. That was a lot of fun. The second island was Snake Island which was a rather upsetting experience because we all went in with American expectations of animal kindness, but in China the animals are there to be entertainment for the humans, and we all rushed through that island because we couldn't handle the way people were treating the snakes. The third island had a temple on it, and I ran up the stairs to the top of this area that had an arch, and the view from up there was really pretty. After the lake, we drove to Hangzhou, where we spent the night.
Our last day away was spent at the West Lake on Hangzhou and the Ancient Street there. The Ancient Street, again, consisted of old architecture with shop after shop of the same souvenirs. The West Lake, however, was gorgeous. It is the location of many love stories and considered the most beautiful and romantic place in China. We took a boat ride on the lake, saw the fish pond, and then went to Ancient Street. From Ancient Street, we went to the train station, where we took the bullet train from Hangzhou to Beijing. That was a seven hour voyage in a car that was like an airplane if airplanes gave each person three times the legroom and one-third more chair space. For dinner on the train, it was funny because my Asian friend ordered the same food I did and was handed her box with chopsticks and I was given mine with a spork. I haven't used western utensils since my arrival, so we just laughed at that because it was so ridiculous.
I set a few goals for myself on this trip, and I met all of them. The first was to take a picture with each person I was traveling with. The second was to take at least 200 photos (I took 225). The third was to fill my journal with my memories, and I wrote all 40 pages. Each time I reached those milestones, which I hadn't shared with anyone, I felt really great and accomplished. They were goals that were important to me so I could document, remember, and enjoy the trip, and I did just that.
Tuesday was a free recovery day in Beijing. I slept in, did my laundry, and had an afternoon excursion to the Temple of Confucius and the Silk Market. The temple was pretty cool, it was the first one I've seen that has not been Buddhist, and it was a very nice place to walk around. We got a little lost on our way back to the subway and found this really cool hutong that had restaurants, cafes, and indie shops that we definitely want to go back to. The Silk Market was the same stuff as last time, and I didn't really need or want anything else, but I had a lot of fun watching my friend Haley bargain for the things she wanted. She speaks fantastic Chinese, but looks very blond and American, so the vendors are always very confused by her. She is also fierce with the haggling and generally gets her price, so we had a pretty good time. We found a restaurant nearby for dinner, and it was Shanghai style food that was absolutely delicious. We had cold cucumbers in a soy/garlic/peanut dressing, green beans, eggplant, a tofu dish, kung pao chicken, beef and mushrooms, noodles with scallions, a pork dish I didn't eat but the others enjoyed, and "squirrel fish" which is fish that looks like a squirrel the way they plate it. I loved the food, particularly the chicken and vegetable dishes.
I think the group I traveled with really bonded, and I feel a lot closer to the friends I made in the first four weeks of this program. We did a lot in a short amount of time, had a whole bunch of physical exertion, and came home with shared experiences and inside jokes. The intersession vacation was a truly wonderful experience.
We start our next set of classes tomorrow, so for me that means a new Chinese teacher and the beginning of the Traditional Chinese Medicine class. I am so excited to intensively learn about TCM! There are just a few things left on my tourism list, and I am thrilled about that because I think I can make them happen even on weeknights. This long weekend was really great, and I am so happy to have travelled to another part of this amazing country. I can't believe that this is week five of eight already.
Today is awesome because I got to explore some cool places and eat good food with great friends.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
I am the Coconut Steward
Today was the last day of first session classes!! We learned some practical Chinese and a song in class today, and our bargaining phrases got us candy and seaweed. Our TA gave a presentation based on her trip to Hongzhou from last June, and it was a generally fun yet bittersweet class. I am seriously going to miss this teaching team. The public health exam was answering four of six questions in essay format. They each addressed some topic covered in the course, the Lancet articles, or both, and then asked for a description of the issue and proposed solutions. It was straightforward, which I appreciated. As an afterthought, though, I realized that my Chinese professors may not be able to read my cursive handwriting, but that's how I hand write essays. If they can't read it, we'll figure it out.
This afternoon, I ran errands with Maddy and then realized how much organizing I needed to do so I could pack for my week-long vacation. However, I had little time to deal with it because I was meeting Maddy, Helen, and Julia for dinner at 6:15. We were going to meet Helen's cousin in Wangfujing, and I quickly realized that on the last night of the entire group being together, we were having dinner in the same group as the first night we had to figure out our own dinner plans (Helen's cousin included).
Wangfujing is such a cool area. It is described as the Times Square of Beijing. The subway station is under a shopping mall that has western-style stores, and there are a lot of American stores like Gap, Zara (well, this one may not be exactly American, but they have it in America and it's not Chinese), and Forever 21 on the main road. We walked past the Dong Hua Men Night Market on the way to dinner, which was on my tourism list but I didn't think I'd get to it.
We ate dinner at a pretty great restaurant. I don't know what it's called, but we ate delicious food. The table was set with single use place settings that were wrapped in plastic and the walls had a shimmery silver circle patterned wallpaper. We ate cold peanut salad, the most delicious cabbage salad I have ever had and I want to eat it all the time, a cold sampler plate that I didn't eat much of, a tofu dish, peas and beef, Sichuan spicy beef, and fish head Beijing style with pancake. The sauce from the fish was extremely delicious, and the pancake is for dipping in the sauce. Maddy got to complete her goal of eating a face by eating the cheeks, eye, and tongue of the fish. I like fish, but here there are always a lot of bones, whereas in the US the fish tends not to have bones. The cabbage was my favorite, but the pancakes dipped in sauce were a close second tied with the peas.
Before and after dinner we walked through the Dong Hua Men Night Market. This is a row of food stalls that sell the things you think of when expecting exotic food in China: silk worm chrysalis, sheep testicles, starfish, scorpion, every type of tentacle. We didn't get that adventurous because we ate a safe dinner in a restaurant, but Maddy got a coconut to drink and disappointing fried banana that trickily didn't have any banana, and Helen drank a plum juice that had dry ice in it. The dry ice thing was really cool; the cloud of steam from it hitting the liquid poured out of the opening of the lid of the cup and the cup was clear so you could see it billowing from the liquid. When Maddy didn't have enough hands to eat her banana and carry her coconut, I held the coconut for her, and she called me the "Coconut Steward." I really liked the title, so it became the title of tonight's post.
After walking around Wangfujing some more, passing a church with a group of dancers who looked like they were having zero fun whatsoever doing a dance that looked wonderfully fun and a group of people singing about how much they love Beijing, I hopped on the subway home to get ready for my week-long voyage to the South.
Tomorrow, I'm getting on a train that will go overnight to Huangshan (the Yellow Mountain), then it will be a few days of hiking and nature toursim before coming back to Beijing on the train for another four-week session of classes.
Since this next week is vacation, I will not have internet access, and therefore will not be posting until I return from the trip. I will post about vacation when I get back.
Today is awesome because of finishing classes, being the Coconut Steward, and accidental tourism accomplishments.
This afternoon, I ran errands with Maddy and then realized how much organizing I needed to do so I could pack for my week-long vacation. However, I had little time to deal with it because I was meeting Maddy, Helen, and Julia for dinner at 6:15. We were going to meet Helen's cousin in Wangfujing, and I quickly realized that on the last night of the entire group being together, we were having dinner in the same group as the first night we had to figure out our own dinner plans (Helen's cousin included).
Wangfujing is such a cool area. It is described as the Times Square of Beijing. The subway station is under a shopping mall that has western-style stores, and there are a lot of American stores like Gap, Zara (well, this one may not be exactly American, but they have it in America and it's not Chinese), and Forever 21 on the main road. We walked past the Dong Hua Men Night Market on the way to dinner, which was on my tourism list but I didn't think I'd get to it.
We ate dinner at a pretty great restaurant. I don't know what it's called, but we ate delicious food. The table was set with single use place settings that were wrapped in plastic and the walls had a shimmery silver circle patterned wallpaper. We ate cold peanut salad, the most delicious cabbage salad I have ever had and I want to eat it all the time, a cold sampler plate that I didn't eat much of, a tofu dish, peas and beef, Sichuan spicy beef, and fish head Beijing style with pancake. The sauce from the fish was extremely delicious, and the pancake is for dipping in the sauce. Maddy got to complete her goal of eating a face by eating the cheeks, eye, and tongue of the fish. I like fish, but here there are always a lot of bones, whereas in the US the fish tends not to have bones. The cabbage was my favorite, but the pancakes dipped in sauce were a close second tied with the peas.
Before and after dinner we walked through the Dong Hua Men Night Market. This is a row of food stalls that sell the things you think of when expecting exotic food in China: silk worm chrysalis, sheep testicles, starfish, scorpion, every type of tentacle. We didn't get that adventurous because we ate a safe dinner in a restaurant, but Maddy got a coconut to drink and disappointing fried banana that trickily didn't have any banana, and Helen drank a plum juice that had dry ice in it. The dry ice thing was really cool; the cloud of steam from it hitting the liquid poured out of the opening of the lid of the cup and the cup was clear so you could see it billowing from the liquid. When Maddy didn't have enough hands to eat her banana and carry her coconut, I held the coconut for her, and she called me the "Coconut Steward." I really liked the title, so it became the title of tonight's post.
After walking around Wangfujing some more, passing a church with a group of dancers who looked like they were having zero fun whatsoever doing a dance that looked wonderfully fun and a group of people singing about how much they love Beijing, I hopped on the subway home to get ready for my week-long voyage to the South.
Tomorrow, I'm getting on a train that will go overnight to Huangshan (the Yellow Mountain), then it will be a few days of hiking and nature toursim before coming back to Beijing on the train for another four-week session of classes.
Since this next week is vacation, I will not have internet access, and therefore will not be posting until I return from the trip. I will post about vacation when I get back.
Today is awesome because of finishing classes, being the Coconut Steward, and accidental tourism accomplishments.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
CHOLO
This was the second to last day of the first academic session! It has gone so quickly, and I have learned so much. We had our Chinese test today, and it went very well. We had to learn about 200 words, most of which have two characters made up of 1-4 radicals, so there was a lot to know, and while I did forget a few, I feel really good about the progress I have made in learning the language.
Before lunch, we had a lecture from the former mayor of a city one hour away from Beijing. The city is much less developed than Beijing, but it is ahead in its use of green technology because of this mayor's initiatives in office. He was a very interesting speaker, and he talked about why he thinks environmental protection is important and what he did in office as mayor to bring green technology to his city. He now works for the Ministry of Culture, so he has a new perspective on the problems China faces and how to solve them.
He thinks green technology and environmental protection are important because we have moved from an age of living in harmony with nature to an age of consumption, so now we are in a new age of preservation. He brought a solar panel manufacturing factory to his city, which brought many jobs, and the city uses primarily solar power to run things electrically and reduce carbon emissions. He repeatedly offered to take us on a tour of the factory, and overall it was a pretty great talk.
We had our last Public Health lecture today on Infectious Diseases in China, and the lecturer was really good; however, I found her presentation to be in the pattern of this is the disease, here are some numbers, this is what we are striving to do, this is what makes it hard. While the pattern was not the most creative presentation format, it was very organized and I knew what she was going to tell me about in each slide.
We have our test tomorrow, and we have no idea what will be on it. It is open note, so I will have my transcripts of the lectures with me as well as my laptop which has a series of articles from The Lancet that we can cite. It shouldn't be too hard, but I really wish we had been given a syllabus on the first day that outlined what the lectures were going to be about, when we had field trips, where the field trips were, and what/how we will be assessed.
I had an early dinner on campus with some friends, then spent the rest of the evening reading for tomorrow's test, doing laundry in preparation for this weekend's trip, and relaxing before bed.
I just want to throw in some reflection at the end of this event summary since I'm nearing the halfway point of my program. I really love Beijing. This has been an amazing opportunity to live and learn in a completely new environment. I have had such an amazing time being a student and a tourist, and I'm trying my best (and I think succeeding for the most part) not to let things pass me by.
The saying "you only live once" has been abbreviated by my generation to YOLO, and my fellow students have come up with our own version: CHOLO, which means "China only once" (though the initials don't work out as well. I think we each have our own version of CHOLO, and for me, I try to get sleep, keep up with all the things that Gu Laoshi programmed for us (because his programming is very purposeful), and make things happen so I don't feel like I missed out on something big after I return to the States. My CHOLO is staying in on Saturday night so I can revel in Sunday's tourism. My CHOLO is buying foods when I don't know what they are because the labels are in Chinese, but trying them anyway. My CHOLO is noting and appreciating for better or worse the everyday things that are different about China, like the grocery store, the signage, the disparities between urban and rural areas, the food, the traffic, the air, etc.
The air and traffic have been bothering me a bit lately, so it's good that I'm getting out of the city for a few days. There can be a whole free lane, but for some reason, the bikes and cars are steered toward me as I'm walking despite the free space. I had some trouble breathing as we walked to dinner tonight, and I'm thinking more and more seriously about finding myself a mask to wear for a few days.
On a different note, I find the grocery store to be really fun. In China, superstores that sell everything are very common, so after going underground on a rampscalator (exactly what it sounds like), you walk through a mall to get to the first level of Carre-Four. That floor sells household supplies like dishes and linens, bicycles and mopeds, and clothing. It's where I got my water bottle and Swiffer-like broom. The you take your cart up another rampscalator to get to the food level. The first thing you see are all the breads, then you turn toward packaged foods on the right and produce on the left. You weigh your produce and get a sticker before going to the checkout, unlike in America where the scanner is also a scale. I really like looking at all the packages because there are a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (lots of Korean) snack foods that all have flashy packaging. The grocery store is also one of the few places that accepts a credit card.
China functions in a cash economy, which is very different from other parts of the world where cash is not generally carried and everyone pays with a card. From what I've observed of Chinese culture, it makes perfect sense that it is this way. The concept of debt and credit as they function in this system would not fly here, and cash is very straightforward. The bills come in denominations of 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 1, 0.50, and 0.10. The coins are 1, 0.50, and 0.10. The bills vary by size, with 100 as the largest physically and the "cent" bills the smallest.
Shifting gears again, I have been bothered by some sanitary practices in China. For instance, spitting is very common and about 60% of men smoke. People don't cover their coughs, and children are taken to the side of the path to urinate in public places. I'm not sure if I simply have high standards of clean behavior, but what I don't get is why they don't go to the nearby toilets. Yes, they smell, but it's not where people walk. I often think of all the saliva and other fluids that have dried on the pavement that end up on the soles of my shoes, and it grosses me out. A lot. And I wonder if people who come from a place with squat toilets are as confused by western toilets as westerners are by the squat toilets. I did figure out that handicapped bathrooms here are western style, though, so that's a comfort. And McDonalds has western bathrooms; more points for them.
I think I want to take more pictures of the cafeterias, cafeteria food, and campus in general. I once made a vlog of walking through a theater I was working in, so I might make something similar for Bei Da's campus. I'm starting to worry that there are things I'm taking for granted without properly documenting them when they are novel. Another part of CHOLO, I suppose.
I also finished the book I started on the airplane. It's called Anna and the French Kiss and it was about a high school senior whose father decided she should spend her last year of high school at School of America in Paris. There, she has many misunderstandings with pretty much all of her friends and ends up falling in love with her best friend. I really liked the book because it was fun, though Anna often frustrated me to no end. It started with her being in Paris and not knowing any French, which I read at the time I ended up in Beijing without knowing Chinese, so her adjustment to a new country was very familiar to me and I was reading her story parallel to my own.
Today is awesome because I had a really fun conversation with my Chinese TAs. It was a lot of giggling and "In America...?" and talking about books, movies, and celebrities.
Before lunch, we had a lecture from the former mayor of a city one hour away from Beijing. The city is much less developed than Beijing, but it is ahead in its use of green technology because of this mayor's initiatives in office. He was a very interesting speaker, and he talked about why he thinks environmental protection is important and what he did in office as mayor to bring green technology to his city. He now works for the Ministry of Culture, so he has a new perspective on the problems China faces and how to solve them.
He thinks green technology and environmental protection are important because we have moved from an age of living in harmony with nature to an age of consumption, so now we are in a new age of preservation. He brought a solar panel manufacturing factory to his city, which brought many jobs, and the city uses primarily solar power to run things electrically and reduce carbon emissions. He repeatedly offered to take us on a tour of the factory, and overall it was a pretty great talk.
We had our last Public Health lecture today on Infectious Diseases in China, and the lecturer was really good; however, I found her presentation to be in the pattern of this is the disease, here are some numbers, this is what we are striving to do, this is what makes it hard. While the pattern was not the most creative presentation format, it was very organized and I knew what she was going to tell me about in each slide.
We have our test tomorrow, and we have no idea what will be on it. It is open note, so I will have my transcripts of the lectures with me as well as my laptop which has a series of articles from The Lancet that we can cite. It shouldn't be too hard, but I really wish we had been given a syllabus on the first day that outlined what the lectures were going to be about, when we had field trips, where the field trips were, and what/how we will be assessed.
I had an early dinner on campus with some friends, then spent the rest of the evening reading for tomorrow's test, doing laundry in preparation for this weekend's trip, and relaxing before bed.
I just want to throw in some reflection at the end of this event summary since I'm nearing the halfway point of my program. I really love Beijing. This has been an amazing opportunity to live and learn in a completely new environment. I have had such an amazing time being a student and a tourist, and I'm trying my best (and I think succeeding for the most part) not to let things pass me by.
The saying "you only live once" has been abbreviated by my generation to YOLO, and my fellow students have come up with our own version: CHOLO, which means "China only once" (though the initials don't work out as well. I think we each have our own version of CHOLO, and for me, I try to get sleep, keep up with all the things that Gu Laoshi programmed for us (because his programming is very purposeful), and make things happen so I don't feel like I missed out on something big after I return to the States. My CHOLO is staying in on Saturday night so I can revel in Sunday's tourism. My CHOLO is buying foods when I don't know what they are because the labels are in Chinese, but trying them anyway. My CHOLO is noting and appreciating for better or worse the everyday things that are different about China, like the grocery store, the signage, the disparities between urban and rural areas, the food, the traffic, the air, etc.
The air and traffic have been bothering me a bit lately, so it's good that I'm getting out of the city for a few days. There can be a whole free lane, but for some reason, the bikes and cars are steered toward me as I'm walking despite the free space. I had some trouble breathing as we walked to dinner tonight, and I'm thinking more and more seriously about finding myself a mask to wear for a few days.
On a different note, I find the grocery store to be really fun. In China, superstores that sell everything are very common, so after going underground on a rampscalator (exactly what it sounds like), you walk through a mall to get to the first level of Carre-Four. That floor sells household supplies like dishes and linens, bicycles and mopeds, and clothing. It's where I got my water bottle and Swiffer-like broom. The you take your cart up another rampscalator to get to the food level. The first thing you see are all the breads, then you turn toward packaged foods on the right and produce on the left. You weigh your produce and get a sticker before going to the checkout, unlike in America where the scanner is also a scale. I really like looking at all the packages because there are a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (lots of Korean) snack foods that all have flashy packaging. The grocery store is also one of the few places that accepts a credit card.
China functions in a cash economy, which is very different from other parts of the world where cash is not generally carried and everyone pays with a card. From what I've observed of Chinese culture, it makes perfect sense that it is this way. The concept of debt and credit as they function in this system would not fly here, and cash is very straightforward. The bills come in denominations of 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 1, 0.50, and 0.10. The coins are 1, 0.50, and 0.10. The bills vary by size, with 100 as the largest physically and the "cent" bills the smallest.
Shifting gears again, I have been bothered by some sanitary practices in China. For instance, spitting is very common and about 60% of men smoke. People don't cover their coughs, and children are taken to the side of the path to urinate in public places. I'm not sure if I simply have high standards of clean behavior, but what I don't get is why they don't go to the nearby toilets. Yes, they smell, but it's not where people walk. I often think of all the saliva and other fluids that have dried on the pavement that end up on the soles of my shoes, and it grosses me out. A lot. And I wonder if people who come from a place with squat toilets are as confused by western toilets as westerners are by the squat toilets. I did figure out that handicapped bathrooms here are western style, though, so that's a comfort. And McDonalds has western bathrooms; more points for them.
I think I want to take more pictures of the cafeterias, cafeteria food, and campus in general. I once made a vlog of walking through a theater I was working in, so I might make something similar for Bei Da's campus. I'm starting to worry that there are things I'm taking for granted without properly documenting them when they are novel. Another part of CHOLO, I suppose.
I also finished the book I started on the airplane. It's called Anna and the French Kiss and it was about a high school senior whose father decided she should spend her last year of high school at School of America in Paris. There, she has many misunderstandings with pretty much all of her friends and ends up falling in love with her best friend. I really liked the book because it was fun, though Anna often frustrated me to no end. It started with her being in Paris and not knowing any French, which I read at the time I ended up in Beijing without knowing Chinese, so her adjustment to a new country was very familiar to me and I was reading her story parallel to my own.
Today is awesome because I had a really fun conversation with my Chinese TAs. It was a lot of giggling and "In America...?" and talking about books, movies, and celebrities.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Surprise Field Trip and Spontaneous TCM
Today I had Chinese class and a surprise field trip for public health. In Chinese, we went over the vocab for the final chapter of the textbook that we will be covering and wrapped up before tomorrow's "quiz" wihc is actually our midterm. I had 160 characters to learn for thi stest (that's the vocab from just three weeks of class), and I knew half of it before I started studying in earnest, so that was good. It was just more than a tad overwhelming to have to learn another 80 in time for tomorrow's test, but it's going to be just fine.
At lunch, Gu Laoshi informed us that we were leaving at 1:30 for our last site visit. We went to a district CDC that reminded me of a US public high school like the ones that hosted my speech tournaments, then a gorgeous township community health center that was essentially a smaller, less crowded, more calm version of the big public hospital we saw, then a very small community primary care clinic that was the opposite of the township hospital. We were given VIP treatment when we arrived at the centers, being taken straight to the conference room, served tea and fruit, and spoken to by the heads of the centers. Being placed in such a privileged status made me self-conscious because of where we were; the lack of privilege in the area was very noticeable, and I did not want to call attention to myself in that way.
The spontaneous TCM was at the township center. We passed through the clinic, and everyone was so interested that they offered to let us try one of the treatments. They heat glass jars and place them on the skin and the heat gradient causes a suction to happen, which coupled with a massage relieves tension. It was really cool to see and the people who tried it say it was good and worked. I was curous if it would help with the scar tissue from when I broke my hand last October, so I tried one on my wrist, and while I'm not sure it helped, it certainly did not hurt. It was really cool to experience that, and I'm more excited than ever for the TCM class next week!
After a quick dinner of baozi, I hit the books to finish learning my characters for the test tomorrow. I will finally successfully go to bed early! Or at least earlier than I have been :)
Today is awesome because by Chinese teacher said I'm good at learning the language.
At lunch, Gu Laoshi informed us that we were leaving at 1:30 for our last site visit. We went to a district CDC that reminded me of a US public high school like the ones that hosted my speech tournaments, then a gorgeous township community health center that was essentially a smaller, less crowded, more calm version of the big public hospital we saw, then a very small community primary care clinic that was the opposite of the township hospital. We were given VIP treatment when we arrived at the centers, being taken straight to the conference room, served tea and fruit, and spoken to by the heads of the centers. Being placed in such a privileged status made me self-conscious because of where we were; the lack of privilege in the area was very noticeable, and I did not want to call attention to myself in that way.
The spontaneous TCM was at the township center. We passed through the clinic, and everyone was so interested that they offered to let us try one of the treatments. They heat glass jars and place them on the skin and the heat gradient causes a suction to happen, which coupled with a massage relieves tension. It was really cool to see and the people who tried it say it was good and worked. I was curous if it would help with the scar tissue from when I broke my hand last October, so I tried one on my wrist, and while I'm not sure it helped, it certainly did not hurt. It was really cool to experience that, and I'm more excited than ever for the TCM class next week!
After a quick dinner of baozi, I hit the books to finish learning my characters for the test tomorrow. I will finally successfully go to bed early! Or at least earlier than I have been :)
Today is awesome because by Chinese teacher said I'm good at learning the language.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Four Tourist Spots in One Day
I hit four tourist spots in one day today. I and three of my friends, Caleb, Jeremy, and Marissa, left our dorm complex at 10:30 and arrived at the Fragrant Hills Park by bus around 11:30. We walked from the bus stop near McDonald's to the East Gate of the park, and I asked for directions in Chinese when we weren't sure if we were going the right way. I was so excited to say "xiangshan dong men zai nar?" and my friends congratulated me; Jeremy and Caleb are also in Chinese 1 with me, so they know where we started this trip language-wise. I'm always so happy and proud when I get it right.
We entered the parking lot that led to the gate, and there were a few casual chicken coops around. It was unexpected and made me smile. We bought our tickets to the park and took the Northern Path that brought us past some gardens, a waterfall, and took us to the Azure Clouds Temple, which was the second sight we wanted to see.
The park was absolutely beautiful. There were tall, tree-covered hills, temples, pagodas, flowers, and lagoons everywhere. It is in the northwest corner of Beijing, the absolute limit of the city, and it felt like an entirely different place. No, the air wasn't clearer or anything, but it was not urbanized at all. It was nice to be in a less bustling place for the day. The park was not a huge tourist attraction, so we were the only Americans we saw. There was a Chinese family who even asked to pose in a picture with us, which was really funny and they were very nice.
I really liked the waterfall in the park, and after spending some time there, we moved onto the temple. This was a Buddhist temple that was built going up a hill. The special thing here was the memorial to Dr. Sun Yat Sen, and I was very happy to be able to visit that. The final building of the temple is a pagoda, and you have to climb a lot of stairs to get to the top. The view from up there was the most beautiful thing all day, and it was certainly my favorite part of the entire excursion.
After the Temple, we went back into the park and headed to one last spot before going to lunch. We went to the Tranquil Heart Studio, where there was just a large pond with carp surrounded by a gazebo-like structure. It was a very peaceful place to sit and regroup after an energy-consuming climb.
We walked back toward the bus stop and had McDonald's for lunch because it is a place that is friendly to a friend with food allergies, then we bought more bottled water and got on the bus to the Botanical Garden and Wofo Si Temple. The Temple was a 1300 meter walk from the gate of the Garden, and we went there via the rose garden, music fountain (where we played with some children at the sprayground), and other lagoons and gardens along the way. The Temple was the smallest I've been to so far, and it was very nice. There were a few buildings with Buddhas, and the final, featured one was the Reclining Buddha, for which the temple was named. It was lying on its side with its hand propping up its head, and it was wearing a red velvet robe (but it also might have been a blanket; two views gave two different impressions).
I really like seeing temples, mostly for the scenery. The striking thing about the Lama Temple was that people went to pray there, but these were more remote, so while there were people observing rituals, it was more about taking in the scenery. Both Temples today had ponds with fish and turtles in them, and I got to observe the 9 sons of the dragon king as described to me by yesterday's tour guide.
We got back to campus by bus around 6:00, and I proceeded straight to dinner, then taking a well-earned shower (it was so hot today!!), and finishing my homework for tomorrow.
All in all, it was a really fantastic day. I covered a lot of amazing ground with some spectacular friends, and we had wonderful weather in which to do it. All four of us took tons of photos, and I can't wait to upload them and see everyone else's.
Oh! And I just want to note something I forgot to write about yesterday. I had two extreme moments of how small the world actually is. (1) On the Lugou Bridge, there was a young boy wearing a jersey from my home basketball team. (2) There was a Sarpino's Pizza in the Silk Market. These two things were just shockingly American, but more than that, American in my America. You can never really be too far from home.
Today is awesome because I saw Fragrant Hills Park, the Azure Clouds Temple, the Beijing Botanical Garden, and the Wofo Si Temple.
We entered the parking lot that led to the gate, and there were a few casual chicken coops around. It was unexpected and made me smile. We bought our tickets to the park and took the Northern Path that brought us past some gardens, a waterfall, and took us to the Azure Clouds Temple, which was the second sight we wanted to see.
The park was absolutely beautiful. There were tall, tree-covered hills, temples, pagodas, flowers, and lagoons everywhere. It is in the northwest corner of Beijing, the absolute limit of the city, and it felt like an entirely different place. No, the air wasn't clearer or anything, but it was not urbanized at all. It was nice to be in a less bustling place for the day. The park was not a huge tourist attraction, so we were the only Americans we saw. There was a Chinese family who even asked to pose in a picture with us, which was really funny and they were very nice.
I really liked the waterfall in the park, and after spending some time there, we moved onto the temple. This was a Buddhist temple that was built going up a hill. The special thing here was the memorial to Dr. Sun Yat Sen, and I was very happy to be able to visit that. The final building of the temple is a pagoda, and you have to climb a lot of stairs to get to the top. The view from up there was the most beautiful thing all day, and it was certainly my favorite part of the entire excursion.
After the Temple, we went back into the park and headed to one last spot before going to lunch. We went to the Tranquil Heart Studio, where there was just a large pond with carp surrounded by a gazebo-like structure. It was a very peaceful place to sit and regroup after an energy-consuming climb.
We walked back toward the bus stop and had McDonald's for lunch because it is a place that is friendly to a friend with food allergies, then we bought more bottled water and got on the bus to the Botanical Garden and Wofo Si Temple. The Temple was a 1300 meter walk from the gate of the Garden, and we went there via the rose garden, music fountain (where we played with some children at the sprayground), and other lagoons and gardens along the way. The Temple was the smallest I've been to so far, and it was very nice. There were a few buildings with Buddhas, and the final, featured one was the Reclining Buddha, for which the temple was named. It was lying on its side with its hand propping up its head, and it was wearing a red velvet robe (but it also might have been a blanket; two views gave two different impressions).
I really like seeing temples, mostly for the scenery. The striking thing about the Lama Temple was that people went to pray there, but these were more remote, so while there were people observing rituals, it was more about taking in the scenery. Both Temples today had ponds with fish and turtles in them, and I got to observe the 9 sons of the dragon king as described to me by yesterday's tour guide.
We got back to campus by bus around 6:00, and I proceeded straight to dinner, then taking a well-earned shower (it was so hot today!!), and finishing my homework for tomorrow.
All in all, it was a really fantastic day. I covered a lot of amazing ground with some spectacular friends, and we had wonderful weather in which to do it. All four of us took tons of photos, and I can't wait to upload them and see everyone else's.
Oh! And I just want to note something I forgot to write about yesterday. I had two extreme moments of how small the world actually is. (1) On the Lugou Bridge, there was a young boy wearing a jersey from my home basketball team. (2) There was a Sarpino's Pizza in the Silk Market. These two things were just shockingly American, but more than that, American in my America. You can never really be too far from home.
Today is awesome because I saw Fragrant Hills Park, the Azure Clouds Temple, the Beijing Botanical Garden, and the Wofo Si Temple.
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