March 18th and 19th

Getting ready to get on the train

Bunkmates

Red Panda

A Great Panda in its natural state of corpulence, stuffing food into its mouth with both hands.

Pictures from March 16th

Fishing on West Lake

Riding bikes in the Hutong

Hutong Market

Pictures for m March 15th

Traditional Hutong Architecture

Little Boys watch the chess game with me

Deep in concentration

Friday March 18th, 2011

Today, I completed the usual routine of test preparation, in preparation for the test. Said test proceeded without a hitch, and we were left free for the afternoon! That meant no Chinese table, and no marginally palatable meals. I took the opportunity to get the best MSG-enhanced dumplings in the city – The Dumpling Shack. They were, as one would expect, great.

Then I made a trip over to ChaoShiFa (Grocery Store, literally) to get some sustenance for the impending train ride. I have to admit, I am a little wary of being on this train for that long. I approach the train ride as one might approach a rattlesnake wearing a tutu and sunglasses in the wild. I want to see, to investigate what is going on, but I don’t want to get to close. We, however, have little choice in the matter, and I want to see ChengDu. I bought some Ramen bowls, fruit, green tea, coffee, and Ritz crackers. I hope that I won’t get too hungry on the train, mainly because I don’t trust the food served on the train…

I went back to the dorm to gather the rest of my supplies and make some last-minute preparations. While I was in the dorm, a most interesting development occurred. Joy wanted to get the keys to my bike, so that she could use them while I was in ChengDu. I had no problem there, and I was standing in the hallway talking to Joy and Eric (JiangLei) about the program and their time in Beijing. At this point, we hear an unmistakably Chinese voice behind us: “Are you speaking English?” We were caught red-handed, English words on our lips. A teacher had come to the dorm to return a 100-Yuan note to Eric, who for some reason had lent her that amount of money a few days prior. She, quite frankly, freaked out. She was on the verge of turning red and getting hopping mad, and told us to confess our sins to the director of the program. Joy decided to send the director an email…

All was well, and I was on my way over to get on the bus, when I was accosted by a livid program director. She berated me for my foolhardy relapse into my accursed mother tongue, questioned my sanity, my allegiance to the Chinese language (which, by this point, was on the wane), and more… I patiently waited for the assault to end, and then she asked me if I had anything that I would like to say. I can say (laughingly, as I write this) that I really had nothing to say. I didn’t even know what to say in Chinese. I believe that we skipped the lesson “How to Counter Attacks on Your Personal Sanity by Your Program Director on the Friday that you Leave for ChengDu,” and so I ducked my head and took a seat in the bus. In the end, I have found this program most instructive, but I will save some observations for a later date.

We then traveled via bus to the Beijing West Train Station, where we prepared to board the train. I was getting hungry as we waited, and I bought a Big Mac at McDonalds. Don’t! Those of you who know me know of my stateside boycott of that restaurant, and I know that I failed. Just don't, haha.

We boarded the bus, and I luckily had a bunk on the bottom “bed.” Beds in Chinese trains are little more than a wooden plank with some cushion on top, and the bottom bunk is by far the best. Long-distance trains, such as the one in which we were traveling are divided into four sections. The first is standing room only, and is reserved for the poorest of the poor, who have little other option than to pay the extremely low fare for this traveling experience. The second is the “hard seat” section, which, as the name suggests, consists of wooden benches with no cushions. The third section of trains is the “soft seat,” where one can sit in a cushioned seat around a table, much like most European trains. The last section is by far the nicest section of the train, the sleeper section (although still a far cry from Western perceptions of comfort. The sleeper section consists of small, 3-walled enclosures lined with 6 beds. Three beds adorn the left well, and three the right. The beds sit three high, and the bottom bunk has the largest amount of space. One could sit Indian-style on the bottom bunk without difficulty. The other bunks had approximately 18 inches of clearance…

We played cards for a little while on the train, and around 10:30, the lights in our cabin were extinguished. I was dead tired from my run from the day before, and was only too happy to get some sleep. There were still a large amount of movement in the train itself, and a lot of my classmates were still hanging out. I took some of sleeping medicine, and fell into a sleep that would have been impossible otherwise.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Thursday March 17th, 2011

For reasons that I mentioned before, I do not have very much recollection of this day, and I am fairly certain that I studied some for the morrow’s test. It would appear that I did study some, as I did passably on the test.

After class, I ran long. I am trying to make myself good and tired for the 25-hour train ride that I will be undergoing approximately 28 hours after finishing the run.

Wednesday March 16th, 2011

There has been a problem of sorts. You see, I was planning on getting caught up on my journals while I was in Chengdu. I was doing well, and on the first day that we were there I spent about 2 ½ hours writing my journals. It was good for me to finally get caught back up, as I was missing writing my journals as well.

However, the next day, when I got up to write in my journals again, the power in the hotel surged. I couldn’t believe it. This was an exact replay of what happened the last time that I went on a tour with the last language program that I was enrolled in. My power cord was completely shot, and I had no way to even turn my computer on, as the only people who I knew with computers on the trip had theMacBook (65 Watt) and not the MacBook Pro (85 Watt) (I later learned that one of the people on the trip had a MacBook Pro, but that was right before I left to come back to Beijing. Most of these next few journals are second-time editions, as the first ones were lost when the computer lost power.

I say all of this to say that I don’t remember too much of what happened on this day, which occurred almost two weeks before I wrote this entry (on the 29^th). Please bear with me, dear reader, as I do have some interesting aspects of the day that I would like to share.

After I got out of one-on-one class with Teacher Shi, I saddled up and rode southeast through the city. If I have not been sufficiently clear, there are 5 (or 6, depending on who you ask) roads that encircle the city of Beijing. They run from 2^nd Ring Road to 6^th Ring Road (or 7^th…?), and the first three are aligned on a grid. These ring road are the main arteries of traffic throughout Beijing, and I didn’t realize how traffic flowed through the city until today. I attempted to take an eastward path in between 2^nd and 3^rd ring road (at a point north of the inner city, while they run east-west) and I couldn’t find a path to get through. The ring roads are designed to be the only places that traffic can flow easily in some parts of the city. I can see how this design would be useful in a state of crisis, on in a situation where the government might need to control the flow of traffic from one point of the city to another. Want to stop cars from moving? Block a ring road, and the main thoroughfare is completely blocked, with very few other options for cars.

I noticed these things as I rode north of JiShuiTan, and I made my way over to the 2^nd Ring Road and up to ride past the ancient DeSheng Gate. As I learned from the Beijing Museum, DeSheng Gate was the point at which the Mongols attacked Beijing some 400-500 years ago. The Mongols were repelled by the city wall and the archers in the DeSheng Gate, and the DeSheng Gate has managed to escape unscathed from the massive demolition efforts of the CCP over the last 50 years. It costs 20 Yuan to enter the gate proper, and I didn’t feel like getting off my iron steed. I encircled the building once or twice, as cars whipped past me, and I was on my way.

I wove my way across 2^nd Ring Road and decided to swing past Rear Lake (which is a much better translation than Back Lake, as I wrote before). I was a little sad – albeit not surprised – to see the ice melted and the trees beginning to think about blooming on the lake. I rode my bike around the lake, and then rode through the peaceful Hutongs. I noticed several new things about the Hutongs that I hadn’t before I started reading The Last Days – like the old architecture being replaced by newer artificial architecture, the construction of new Hutongs made of concrete (and not wood), wealthy businessmen buying up several Hutongs and making houses, and the smattering of different people living in the Hutong. Pigeons flew overhead, and immigrants from the western provinces set up shop in the streets. The Hutongs by Rear Lake are not the real deal by any stretch of the imagination, but they are much better than the Hutongs that I saw after heading over to NanLou GuXiang (Old Drum Tower Hutong).

Old Drum Tower Hutong has been completely renovated by the CCP over the last decade. A large shopping street runs north-south through the middle of the Hutong, and there is no telling how many people were displaced while the road was being built. Most Hutongs run east-west, and a north-south construction very much goes against the traditional Hutong building style. The older, outdated Hutongs have been replaced with two-story constructions, made of concrete and steel. They look similar to the old Hutongs, but I have to agree with the rest of the Hutong fans in Beijing; the new buildings don’t capture the charm of the old Hutongs.

I rode through Old Drum Tower Hutong for a little while, looking at the government-issued plaques identifying the “certified” Hutongs in the area. I shudder to think of the amount of demolition that occurred to create a “certified” Hutong, and how many people were displaced in doing so. I must be careful about how much I write here, however, as I may soon find myself unable to send emails from my computer for the rest of my time in Beijing!

I then traveled back towards the dorm, again attempting to take an westward course through the Second Ring. My suspicions about traveling outside confines of the Ring Roads were confirmed: I couldn’t find a single course running east-west. I resigned myself to traveling along 3^rd Ring Road back towards the dorm, which took me through a large section of residential Beijing.

I would make up something about what I did for the evening, but I truly have forgotten. Rest assured, dear reader, that I made it through the evening safely, as I have survived to write this journal.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Tuesday March 15th, 2011

Today, we covered Chinese religious beliefs. The day’s reading was dismally shallow for me, and I believe I would have devoured a veritable treatise on the topic. I had to be content with a page-and-a-half article pulled from a magazine, whose author and the corresponding magazine were given no credit in the textbook. The lack of intellectual property rights in this country is sometimes rather chilling. I appreciate the rights of the States, even thought they may be prone to excess and inefficiency on occasion.

On the topic religion, the Chinese are quite non-religious. I take this lack of faith to be a vestige of the mid-century revolution and incentives by the CCP. You can’t get in the club until you renounce any faith of your own, save that of Communist Doctrine. However, ancient Chinese religion still persists in a rather diluted form today. The main facet of Chinese religion is, as we all know, ancestor worship. However, the mechanisms therein I did not appreciate until this class. Followers of traditional Chinese religion recognize three forms of existence – gods, man, and ghosts. Lesser gods are the spirits of great men of the past (the Chinese are sometimes nauseatingly nostalgic), while ghosts are the souls of “average” men, having passed from this life. These ghosts act as judges of life on earth, “rewarding good and punishing evil.” The Chinese also recognize a Great Creator an ultimate God, whose form is unknown and unknowable. Through the worship of their ancestors, the Chinese hope to pay tribute to this God, as their ancestors are naturally closer in relation to this God than living mortals.

I have been inspired by The Last Days of Old Beijing, and I decided to follow in the footsteps of Michael Meyer and check out some hutongs on my own. After one-on-one class, I rode my bike southeast through the city and across Second Ring Road in search of a hutong mentioned in the book. To be truthful, I don’t know if I found the hutong from the book, but I was certainly pleased with my find. I found a hutong near the Ping’An Li subway station and the Lu Xun memorial museum. This hutong looked newer than some of the ones that I’ve seen, and in fact, it was quite new, comparatively. The hutong was built in the 1980s, and unlike the residents of the hutong in the book, who spent their days wondering when the government was going to come through their neighborhood next and paint the feared character 拆 (demolish) on their door, the people living in this Hutong were proud of their neighborhood.

I met two ladies on the walk into the Hutong as they came back from a nearby market, and I asked them if they were afraid of the government demolishing their homes. “Demolish? Nobody’s going to come over to my house and demolish my house! This Hutong is protected by the government!” They were a far cry from what I expected in a Hutong resident, and I would suspect that the protection of this Hutong is the result of the efforts of quite a few people mentioned in the book.

So what is life like in a Hutong? First off, you probably don’t have a bathroom in your house. You have to walk down the street to get to the toilet. The same goes with your shower. You have to walk to yet another house to get to your shower, which you probably share with 50-100 of your neighbors. You might have a gas running to a burner in your kitchen, and that will probably be the only cooking appliance that you own. You have neither heating nor cooling, and in the winter you heat you house by burning coal honeycombs in your bedroom. Quite a few people die of asphyxiation every winter due to poor ventilation in their Hutong. With all of these things aside, life in the Hutongs is not without its benefits. For one, rent is dirt-cheap. One might pay $200 a year to live in a Hutong, but rates are steadily going up. Hutongs are also a great escape from the hustle and bustle of the city. Most cars can’t even drive down Hutong streets, and crime rates are extremely low. Partly due to living in such close proximity to your neighbors, theft rates are among the lowest in the city, and one seemingly never has worry about anyone snatching your bike from the street. Kids are never out of sight of a watchful neighbor, and there is a tangible sense of community in the Hutongs – a sense of community that seems all but lost in this giant city. All in all, I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to live in a Hutong if I had the chance.

As a strolled through the streets of the Hutong, I saw people chatting and walking their dogs, letting their pigeons loose for a spin, selling vegetables from carts and doorways, and just hanging out. Pigeon-raising is a popular Hutong sport, and many people keep pigeon roosts on their roofs. A ran across an old man who raised all sorts of birds from his house: pigeons, parrots, and wild Chinese birds. One of them would squawk “Ni Hao!” as you walked by.

I eventually walked over to a Markey area in the Hutong, and these sorts of markets are one of my favorite parts about China. Vendors sell anything that you could want, and there are expansive fresh fruit, vegetable, meat, and fish markets. Towards the end of the market street, I came across a group of old men playing Chinese chess. I couldn’t resist.

I had to walk over and see what was going on for myself. Dear reader, if I may elaborate, I can play with the most elementary of Chinese Chess players. I know how the pieces move, and I have a brain with which I can reason out possible moves. Beyond that, I am in over my head. These guys were way over my head, thinking moves ahead, calling out the theories of famous chess players, and smack talking. As I watched in bewilderment, a guy standing around the chessboard struck up a conversation with me. We talked about the game, and after one or two finished, he invited me to try my hand. My opponent, an unassuming geezer of what appeared to be 80 years, schooled me. I enlisted a number of watchers to help me in deciding a good move, and they argued and fought over the best move that I should make. In the end, our team of 4 men defeated the old man, no thanks to me.

After the game, I stood around the board and talked to the man whom I’d met earlier. Mr. Yu is a professor, and has spent time teaching and studying all over China and Japan. He went to school at the military university just up the road from MinZu, and taught there before beginning his Asian travels. Yu has a number of interests – business, chess, Chinese history – but his passion was literature. He told me about a different kind of traditional Chinese saying, one that I’d never heard of before. The sayings involve something similar to what we would term a “pun,” but accompanying this type of saying, there is usually some sort of story. The true nature of these sayings is beyond me, and it was all that I could do to keep up.

Mr. Yu was on his way to visit another market in the neighborhood to buy some rice. Would I like to come? Most assuredly. He chatted on about Chinese literature and life in the Hutong. He could have moved into a big high rise with his salary, living comfortably in one of the many apartments shooting towards the heavens in this city. “I like the atmosphere. It is quiet, and I get the chance to get away from all of the crap that goes on in the city. Here, I have friends, and the life of an old person in a Hutong isn’t bad at all. Markets, chess, safety, community, its all here.”

We strolled through the market, and I bought some doughy sandwich-like snacks filled with spinach. He headed back home, and I finished walking through the rest of this market, which was thankfully inside. I got warm and ate my steaming sandwich-things while I perused vegetables and wares for sale. My favorite was a guy selling tea in a little hut by one of the numerous doors. He was quite the salesman, trying to get me to buy some of his tea. His prices were pretty reasonable, too. I told him that if I were going to get some tea before I left, I would come and find him. I plan to do so.

As I walked out of the Hutong and found my bike, I stumbled across an upscale teashop. I had to look in and compare. The prices were twice to three times what one would pay in the Hutongs, and the whole shop looked entirely too sterile, too dead for my taste. It left me wondering, “Why would anyone choose to visit the upscale shop when a cheaper, more friendly alternative sat not 100 yards away? Why would you choose to pay to maintain a huge shop and not support the local vendors?”

When I finally got back to the dorm, I found out that we were supposed to have speaking time with the teachers, and I completely missed my time. I went by anyway, and one of the teachers took mercy on me. The life in the Hutongs of Beijing is a far cry from the isolated, sterile life that my teachers lead. They didn’t much care for the Hutongs. “Wouldn’t a shopping mall be better? I think that people living in the Hutongs are a little stupid…”

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Monday March 14th, 2011

I am sorry to say, dear readers, that very little of interest occurred on this day. Allow me to give you a rundown: Class. Bally. Homework. Preparation for the morrow’s class. Memorization. Reading of The Last Days of Beijing. Supper with Wes. Reading. Sleep.

Sunday March 13, 2011

On this day, I rolled out of bed at the apportioned time, showered, and studied for class tomorrow. I had a little bit of time before I was going to bike to church, and I took the opportunity to finish my homework for Monday.

I left myself plenty of time to get to the church on a normal day; however, this was no normal day. I took several wrong turns on the way to the church, and as a result, I made it to the service just as it began. I had to stand in the back, which I guess is a good problem to have…

As per usual, I got some lunch with Jesse and the crew at the underground cafeteria. In honor of the political instability in Beijing, they were making all of the diners sign their name on a sheet of paper as they entered. I asked myself, “What is motivating this surge in government control? Someone could simply write in a pseudonym on the sheet, and no one would know. And they can’t believe that making people sign in is going to catch any political dissidents. They will simply hear about the sign in sheet and not come to the cafeteria… Why?” In contrast to my expectations, none of the Chinese visiting said cafeteria voiced these concerns, nor did they seems to take notice of this violation of privacy, if one may call it that.

I rode back to the campus, with less hiccups this time, thankfully.

I stopped by Bally, and returned to my lair to read. I finished Critchon’s Five Patients, and started The Last Days of Old Beijing. Five Patients was written in the late 60s, and it is Critchon’s perspective on the development of modern hospitals. I would say that the most intriguing aspect of the book was how little hospitals have changed in the last 40 years, at least in the areas that he focused on. I would love to hear anyone else’s perspective on the changes in hospitals, dear readers, should anyone have any interesting information to present.

And that about wraps up the interesting points of this day.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Saturday March 12th, 2011

I was roused from my bed around 8:30, as is becoming my norm. I think that China does something to people, making them sleep less. I do not know a single Chinese person that sleeps more than 5 to 6 hours a night and this strange behavior is rubbing off on me. I went through the Saturday morning routine of checking emails and getting on Skype.

I went over to Bally for a long-ish run. I have developed a scheme for the coming weekend, in preparation for the trip to Chengdu. It involved me modifying my weekly long run, so that I could run much longer on Thursday, as we are going to be on a train for 25 hours beginning on Friday at 6:30.

I should also mention some of the political upheaval that has been going on in Beijing beginning last Sunday. Last Sunday there was a general protest for civil rights in China. This is the weekly norm, and the government has accepted these weekly demonstrations, more or less. However, beginning last Sunday, the Chinese president met with a number of other higher-ups in the CCP. The hotel in which they met was not very far from the location of the weekly demonstration, but the government took no mercy on the protestors, treating them as if they were directly protesting the meeting of President Hu. As was the norm, policemen drove street sweepers through the area allotted for the debates to scatter the protestors. People shopping nearby were locked in stores for hours on end, to that they could no participate in the goings-on. Being locked in department stores does not sound that bad in contrast to the fate of some protestors: hear tell that two foreigners – journalists or not – were brutally beat by the police, resulting in their hospitalization. Others claim that the police took water hoses to the crowd, but I don’t know very much about the validity of this claim. One of my classmates took a trip over to the demonstration, and the police made her register her camera, as it was “professional grade.” I believe it is safe to say there is some phobia of Western journalists cataloguing events in the Motherland…

What did these events mean for me? I had to carry my student ID everywhere, as there were about 4 policemen and random soldiers posted at each gate of the MinZu campus, and they would not let me, or anyone else, into the campus without said student ID.

Sandra and I met ours host dad – Mr. Wu – for a day at the Beijing Museum around 2:00 that afternoon, which turned out to be an interesting experience. I had not eaten at this point, and Mr. Wu swung by a Uighur BBQ shack so that I could get some lunch. I ate it ravenously on the ride, trying not to get any crumbs in the interior of his spotless VW.

Beijing Museum = awesome. We checked out the Beijing history and the folk history exhibits, but of which were informative and engaging. The Beijing history exhibit was a large room, and visitors proceeded around the edge of the room in a counterclockwise fashion. Maps of world history accompanied the artifacts on display, so that the visitors could keep a perspective on world events as China developed. As the last true Chinese emperor was haughtily forcing the British ambassador to kow-tow in Beijing, George Washington was president of the United States. The folk museum was even more interesting, as there were a lot of dioramas depicting life in old Beijing.

We stayed till the museum closed, and Mr. Wu and I chatted on the long ride back to campus, while Sandra slept in the backseat. I read for the remainder of the afternoon, perfectly content to be lethargic after my morning of exercise.

Wes came by the room to awake me from my stupor and we jammed. We took turns playing guitar and rotating singing harmony and melody. A small contingent of us – Wes, Hannah, Lee, Shazeda, Joy, and I – went to dine at The West Pizza. It was a good meal and a nice escape from Chinese cuisine. I have but one complaint of the establishment: there was no ranch dressing anywhere to be found.

After the long meal – Chinese meals seem to last forever – we walked to the dorm to celebrate Tim’s birthday. The party was cool, and I would say that it was even more so for those who really like parties. I was very soon over stimulated and snuck back to the room early. When I got back to the dorm, I decided to watch a movie. This was a bad decision, as it was a horrible movie.

Sleep.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Friday, March 11th, 2011

As is the norm on test days, I woke up early to study and prepare for the debate. I ate my breakfast staple – a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and yogurt – but I was still pretty hungry when the test was over. Today’s test was not that bad, all things considered, but it left me with the same dead feeling after every test. I can only liken our Friday tests to running a 5K every week, a 5K that leaves me mentally and physically dead.

I returned to the dorm and fought of sleep before the debate and played some guitar.

At the enumerated time, I attended a lecture on the merits of keeping the language pledge. The incident from earlier – the slip of the tongue and implications of the “older” students – was the reason for the meeting. But that is not the best part. Director Zhang did not only make the two guys attend the lecture, but also made them give a presentation on keeping the language pledge. What an example of Chinese justice, and it rings faintly of the psychological torture that the Chinese were so fond of employing during the cultural revolution, against their own neighbors and family! I sat through the lecture smugly, and then listened to Director Zhang give us a rambling spiel on our un-studiousness.

Then, it was time for the debate. Allow me to expound on one aspect of the debate: we, the Americans, were to speak in Chinese for the debate, while the other team, consisting of Chinese students, was to speak English. This will be interesting. The two teams – one consisting of 3 hopelessly Caucasian youths and one brown college student, faced off against 4 very Han Chinese students. Two of them told us their names and ages – which I promptly forgot – while two of them didn’t bother telling us anything about themselves. The debate drew on, and I would love to give a play-by-play account of the debate, but I will refrain from doing so as of current.

There was a rather entertaining moment during the debate, which I will recount here. I told the opposite team that my Chinese name wasHou ZhiMin, upon which they demanded to know my English name. I told them that my given name was James, but they could call me Jamey. During the debate, I made some point about international marriages, and the girl across the aisle responded excitedly. “I would like to respond to something that Jamey Hou said…” I couldn't help myself from laughing, which brought some deathly stares from my teammates. It was only natural that she should think that my English last name was Hou, or something to that nature, but I still found the situation pretty funny.

In celebration of the Americans demolishing the debate – a fact that would be highly contested, I am sure – the entirety of the 4^th year students went to eat at Xiang YiFang. I sat at a table with Shazeda, Luke, and Teacher Shi. Teacher Shi picked the dishes for the meal, and I daresay that he did a fine job. We consumed fried rice, fried squid, potatoes, beef and gravy, and more, washing it down with cheap, lukewarm Beijing beer.

We walked back to dorm in twos and threes, where I occupied myself until riding to ZiZhu Park. There I was going to meet Biscuet, Stephen, and Jesse’s friends. Stephen was cataloguing the event with two very cool cameras, while Jesse and around 8 other friends played cards, sang, and kicked jianzi. I chatted with Stephen and Biscuet, and left the dorm around sunset. I had just enough time to eat my last PB&J from the bunker, and then board the bus bound for Beijing Opera.

The hotel in which the opera was held was as interesting as it was classy… This was my first opportunity to see Beijing Opera in person, and I sat in rapt attention for the duration of the show. I hope the pictures do justice to the opera performance. This I learned at the opera house: not all Beijing opera is equal, and the performance we saw tonight was only one of the 4 types of Beijing opera. The style opera that we watched tonight emphasizes martial arts and movements, somewhat lacking in the area of singing. This lack of opera singing was perfect for us, however, as the reedy tones of Beijing opera are extremely difficult to understand for those not born into the Chinese Club. I highly enjoyed the performance.

We rode the bus back to the dorm, and a group of us (Wes, Hannah, Will, Lillian, Marianne, James, Cailin, Joy and myself to be exact) went to eat at a hot-pot restaurant nearby. I didn’t know that such a place existed in such close proximity to the dorm, and I was pleasantly surprised by the meal. One perk for the females in your group is that, whilst your group is waiting to be served, there is a manicure service free of charge.

After this meal, I walked back to the hotel with Wes, Hannah, and Will. I hung out with Wes and Hannah for a bit, and then I retired for the evening.

Referencing what Jamey Hou said…

Love,

Jamey

Thursday March 10th 2011

This morning, like every other weekday morning, dear reader, I went to class. And in this class, we surprisingly had a interesting topic of discussion: modern Chinese concepts of marriages an relationships. Our class reading mirrored much of what I’d already heard and read about marriage and divorce in China: men can get away with pretty much anything and women have very little rights to get divorced of their own free will. On divorce, many scholars view the lack of women’s rights in maariage to signify that the Chinese system of law and morality is “behind,” and that the Chinese will “catch up” to Western countries as they continue on the path of economic and political development. Women’s rights will continue to grow in importance and, in a logical train of events, this will lead to complete gender equality and even elections  in China.

However, I don’t think that is going to be the case. In this area, as with so many other facets of culture, the Chinese are picking and choosing exactly which Western mores they would like to follow, and in some cases, are choosing a course unlike their Western counterparts. China, as a whole is rejecting many “Western” aspects of marriage and dating – a romantically involved courtship, freedom to choose your spouse without a large amount of influence from parents, or premarital couples living together.

I was chastised on this day for “being unprepared” for my class of the morning because I used the opportunity to study and memorize characters for the morrow’s test. I was studying and memorizing characters in class while participating in the class discussion, which is something that I frequently do while I am at Ole Miss. It helps me to memorize the characters while using the characters in discussion, and I did not think anything of doing it in class. Why should I? But the teacher thought that I was being “extremely disrespectful” and that I was interrupting the class. I decided not to postulate that no one had noticed that I was studying in class until she stopped teaching and made a ruckus. I mention this rather unimportant event because, to me, it represents just one way that professors in the States and China are different. If you may forgive my generalization on this matter – albeit a rather accurate one in my opinion, Chinese professors and teacher expect their students to be extremely deferential to their whim, which involves learning in the way that they would like you to and no other way.

I had a break in between classes, in which I went over to the dumpling shack and got some food with Alex. On a whim, I walked over to a “used book seller” not far from the dumpling shack that sells English books. Although I still had several books to read, I went to take a look. I do not know if you are aware of this fancy of mine, but I am rather fond of Michael Critchon books. I have read nearly every one of them, but on this day, I found a copy of a Critchon book that I had never even heard of before: Five Patients. The book was one of Critchon’s earlier books – from 1969, and I bought the copy with zeal.

I returned to class, satisfied with my purchase, to attend one-on-one class with Teacher Sun. I will say this about Teacher Sun: she is a tough teacher, and always grades hard. Today was no different.

Then, I came back to the dorm and intermittently studied, checked email, skyped, and read some in The Stiglitz Report: Reforming the International Monetary and Financial System in the Wake of the Global (Financial) Crisis. This book was written by the chair of the UN commission on economic development, in coordination with economists from all over the world. It book is turning out not to be as interesting as I had hoped. The book is rather dense – and while denseness is not something that usually deters me from reading a book – the dryness of the book did, and I do not agree with many of the claims that the book is making. I would love to talk more about the book, should anyone desire to expound economic theories.

I again went over to Bally, which, again, saved me from boredom and getting cabin fever. I am rather proud of myself at Bally today, I have been steadily increasing the pull-ups, and I would say that I did a respectful number today, although Doc Severe might not have been too impressed.

I had just enough time to run back to the dorm and change clothes before getting food at Ma La Tang (Make-Your-Own Soup). The reason we all keep going back to Ma La Tang is the vegetables: One can hardly find good, not-overcooked vegetables and Ma La Tangsells vegetable in plenty. I then rode my bike over to the fellowship, making the land speed male record from MinZu to HaiDian on an undersized girl bike.

When I got there, I met Biscuet and his friend Stephen – a professional photographer from Birmingham. We chatted while the team got ready to play for the evening (it was not my turn to play). While we were waiting, I also met Dustin and his wife Márcia, who is from Brazil. It was great to talk to other Westerners. As none of them could really speak Chinese and it seemed that the presence of so many Westerners was interrupting the service, they planned on going out to eat. There was one problem; they didn’t know anywhere that they could go. I volunteered to serve as translator and pseudo-guide to them, and we ate at the BBQ restaurant near the HaiDian Church. They ate lamb chuars, chicken gizzards, grilled bread, and some cucumbers – a fairly good BBQ meal, if I may say so.

Over dinner, I learned some more about the workings of ELIC and also the nature of Stephen, Dustin, and Márcia. I could write a lot about the discussion from that night, but I will refrain from doing so as of current.

After dinner was paid for and duly consumed, I rode with Dustin and Márcia to their apartment in RenDa. The route to RenDa was almost identical to the route that I would have taken back to MinZu, and taking my leave of Dustin and Márcia, I proceeded to follow 3^rd ring road back to the dorm, where I studied some more for the test. In preparation for the festivities of test day, Shazeda and Lillian came by the room to discuss tomorrow’s debate on international marriages. This debate will surely be interesting, and I am looking forward to debate with a Chinese person. I have the sneaking suspicion that they are going to eat our lunch, but I am ready.

Today had been nothing if not a fruitful day!

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Wednesday March 9th, 2011

The best remedy for not studying the night before a class is to wake up the morning of that class and study. Well, it may not be a very good method… Retrospective analysis reveals that it may be a fairly bad practice. This I know for sure: I did horribly on the quiz this morning, possibly setting an all-time record for quizzes in college.

After class, I was itching to take my wheels on a spin, and I rode over to the west side of 3^rd ring road. This section of the city is much more residential and looks a lot better than our neighborhood. There are quite a few park areas and there is actually grass in some places. While riding around, I found a very cool farmer’s market, where you could purchase anything from your typical vegetables to eggs by the crate load, to every species of mushroom imaginable, to nuts to kimchi. I ate lunch in a quaint-looking residential district, eating a beef-cookie and some egg soup.

I had just enough time to ride back to my one-on-one class, park the bike and run upstairs for class. When I got there, Teacher Shi was milling about the room, “Do you want to take a smoke break?” I had no problem with that, but I let him keep his carcinogen-filled cigarettes.

After that, I set up a Zinch account and a LinkedIn profile, with the hope that they might help me find an internship for the summer, as well as when I look for a job in the future. We’ll have to see how that goes. If you get the chance, friend me!

At this point, I had a mad case of cabin fever, the only cure for which was a bike ride to the south of the university. I went on a search for a TV tower that I espied from atop the mountain at the New Summer Palace, and this led me on a twisting path through Beijing. I found myself, on more than one occasion, traveling down a one-way street filled with cars, and once invoked a near freak-out by the guards of a facility that I mistakenly took to be the entrance to the TV tower. The facility must have had something to do with the massive government apparatus of Beijing, but the purpose of the building remained a mystery to me. I also passed the Beijing Center for Water Purification. What does one do at the Beijing Water Purification Facility? I concluded that they must do very little.

I found the TV tower after having to ride my bike through some very sketchy-looking housing projects. It was interesting looking, but I was in no mood to pay the entrance fee to go inside the tower. I rode on and found where the writers of TV series for CCTV (Beijing’s – and China’s – premier TV station) work, and also a very interesting residential area that looked like a museum from the street.

I returned to the dorm on a winding path through the city, and I then proceed to Bally. After my workout, I got some food at Ma La Tang to alleviate my colossal hunger.

When I returned to the dorm, I was greeted by the sound of Teachers Shi and Wang at the end of our hall. Teacher Shi is perhaps the coolest teacher in the program, closely followed by Teacher Wan, who looks exactly like Jack White to me. When I got there, Jiang Lei – one of the other 4^th year students was there, and we talked to the teachers about everything from Sherlock Holmes, to British Literature, to the nuances of Chinese. The teachers finished their tutoring session at 9:30 and left Jiang Lei and I with Joy. We chatted about the program and they got a kick out of my package story. Joy said that I would have been better off looking for the things in my package myself (coco butter, deodorant, peanut butter, earplugs etc), but Jiang Lei took my side and said that any search for something foreign was near futile.

Jiang Lei then told us about his shoes. He wears a size 13 shoe, and when he got here last semester, he realized that he needed another pair of running shoes. He went on a series of expeditions in search of suitable shoes, and after a few weeks, he gave up. Everyone seems to know someone else who sells shoes that “should fit,” but none of the vendors had a shoe that big – even in this city of 14 million people (or however many live here now; no one can keep track). He concluded that to find shoes, he would “need to find a cave in the remote hills north of Beijing and find the hermit who lives in a cave. If you can answer his three riddles, he’ll let you have your shoes.”

Then, there arose a party on the 6^th floor, in which I did not participate. Instead, I went to do some homework for tomorrow. When I started, I realized the immensity of the homework but managed to put a dent in the workload before going to bed.

I didn’t get to sleep until well after 1:00, but I still went to bed before my roommate. When sleeping in my room, it is helpful to get a t-shirt and drape it over your eyes, so that you cannot see the grating fluorescent light emitting from his desk.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Tuesday March 8th, 2011

The day before, Yuki slept almost incessantly. Literally, he did not even go to class; he laid in his bed and did nothing. And when I got back to the room around 8:30 yesterday evening, he was already asleep. This fact does not bother me. If Yuki wants to stay up and sleep at strange hours of the night, that is fine with me. What does bother me, just a little, is that he got at 4:30 this morning, started turning on lights and doing homework. That does not make me happy, nor does it make me restful.

I was a walking zombie for class today and for the rest of the rest of the day, no kidding. The teachers gave me a thousand little remedies for my sleeplessness, including getting my homework done earlier, eating more Chinese food, drinking hot water, and rebalancing my chi. At these times, it is best to just nod one’s head and continue with the conversation, unless you would like to launch into a conversation about your inability to balance yourchi due to the fact that you have no idea what that is…

I got a hearty lunch at the Ma La Tang restaurant, and then went to Bally eating such a large lunch, while perhaps being necessitated by my lack of sleep, reduced me to a stumbling and potbellied exerciser.

I came back to the dorm and did some homework until my hunger got the best of me. I went to the dumpling shack again and shared a meal with the boss there. In Chinese custom, you should offer a cigarette to someone that you have recently met, as this is a sign of acceptance and friendship. I was backed into a corner – I wanted to befriend the owner with the awesome dumplings but the cigarette looked dubious at best. It was a horrible cigarette, but I grimaced through it and made friends.

Then, I returned to the dorm to do homework, but was so tired that I was about to fall asleep reading the text. Please keep in mind, dear reader, that it is 9:00 PM that this incident occurs.

I decide that unless I wish to end up with Yuki’s irregular sleep pattern, I needed to find something to do that would allow me to sleep at an appropriate hour. I watched a movie to stay awake, maintaining my fragile hold on sleep and successfully escaping Yuki’s trap.

Sleep.

I’ll write soon!

Keep it classy!

Jamey

Monday March 7th, 2011

This morning I got up and went to class, oh joy! It really is sad that I write off the half of my day for 5 days out of the week with a sentence or two, but there is really nothing terribly interesting to the outside reader that occurs at this time. I am learning an inordinate amount of Chinese, and sitting in chairs that were never meant to be sat in by someone my size! I got a little lunch at the make-your-own-soup restaurant, and then headed back to the dorm for by one-on-one class.

The, it was time for Bally. This place has really been my saving grace for the program. I don’t know what I would do if I couldn't exercise while here at the program, and I think that sentiment is echoed by the rest of the students in the program. It is also great to have somewhere that we can speak English unhindered. No teacher from our program would ever deign to pay money to do something so basal as exercise. We thus use the opportunity of being at Bally to hang around and talk after running on the treadmills, whilst we are working out on the machines or cooling off.

I returned to the dorm and finished Sherlock Holmes, finally. The Sherlock Holmes stories are simply brilliant. Then, I set to work writing and revising an essay that is due on the morrow about Nobel Prize. I worked until fairly late, around 8:30. No one wanted to accompany me on a dinner quest, so I took my supper at the dumpling shack. I didn’t know that the shack officially closed at 9:00, and I was the last customer there. However, I had the opportunity to talk to the owner of the shop, and he is a really interesting guy. He wakes up every morning at 4:50 to open the dumpling shack at 5:00, to a line of construction workers eager to get some breakfast.

He asked me what I knew about making dumplings, and I had to confess that I knew desperately little. “Who would you say has the best dumplings in the neighborhood?” He was boasting a little, but the owner was not lying when he says that he has the best dumplings around. I’m not kidding when I say that they are the best dumplings that I have ever eaten. “You only need to put four ingredients in dumplings: pork, green onions, joy sauce, and MSG.” I was a little appalled at the large quantities of MSG that I had been unknowingly consuming over the last 2 months, but that may have had something to do with the otherworldly tastiness of the dumplings. “And how does one get to make dumplings this good?” I was again in the dark. “You make them everyday from morning to night for 11 years. That’s how you make the best dumplings.” That is one way to do it.

While at the dumpling shack, there was a most peculiar incident in which a foreign-looking girl, who I presume was British, ordered 4 dumplings. One does not order dumplings by asking for one or two or three dumplings, but rather by the basket. This is a very essential part of dumpling culture, and people will look at you funny if you can’t order dumplings by the correct terminology. So the owner put on 4 baskets of dumplings, which was the closest thing that we could determine that she wanted. She disappeared sometime during the steaming of the dumplings, and we never saw her again. She must have thought that the owner said he didn’t have anymore dumplings or something… So, he had 4 extra baskets of dumplings, and I did the only humane thing to do in this situation: I ate another one, to the astonishment of the owner. Evidently ordering anything more than two baskets of dumplings is unheard of.

I rode back to the dorm, and studied for class on the morrow. When I was sufficiently prepared, I played some guitar. Then I caught up on some journal writing and got some sleep.

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey

Sunday March 6th, 2011

I got out of bed after a restful 9 hours of sleep on my rock bed. Construction work outside the dorm began at 7:30 that morning, and the entire building shook as the industrial demolishing device pulverized the concrete foundation of the parking lot that once lay outside of the dorm. I wondered, internally, what could be so pressing that construction had to start that early in the morning – because soon after it appeared that all forward progress on the site ceased – and then realized what country I was in… Oh China. One has to smile to keep from going crazy in the face of the ridiculousness of this place sometimes.

I made an assessment of my homework situation, and decided that I had way too much homework to do before I left the room to do anything fun. The teachers were pouring the workload on thick, and I worked on homework until 2:00 in the afternoon.

I had had enough of homework at this point in time and went to Bally for a recovery run. Then, I came back to the dorm, and read some. I was brought for from my literary reverie by a knock on the door: Trevor, my neighbor, asked if I would like to play a little Majiang and assist him in procrastinating on his homework. I told him that I would like nothing better.

After said procrastination, I finished the last of my homework, and followed-up on an invitation to meet some fellow students while they studied at a neighborhood café. I am well acquainted with the ploy of college students – going somewhere and pretending to do homework, while in reality doing nothing of the kind – but given that I had already completed my homework, I was immune to their futile attempts to bring me down into their pit of unpreparedness. Instead, I read some Holmes.

Soon, it was time for supper, which I consumed with Shazeda, Lee, Wes, and Hannah. We ate sweet and sour pork, eggplant, dumplings, and an assortment of Chinese vegetables. It was a great meal, and met my criteria for being a non-sketchy restaurant. Then, I pedaled by bike back to the dorm, checked emails, and went to bed. Today was pretty much the ideal recovery day after my working out yesterday and destroying my feet.

Peaceful sleep (for real this time).

I’ll write soon!

Love,

Jamey