FUTURE/POTENTIAL HBA-ERS, THIS POST IS FOR YOU

Dear Future/Potential HBA-er,

I'd love it if you could read the rest of my blog, as I think that it will give you a more full picture of what to expect from HBA.  But, I remember what it is like to be a very busy Yalie, who doesn't really feel like reading through 20-odd posts on multiple blogs, so here is the short and sweet summary.  (Bear in mind that by short and sweet, I mean it will seem long and painful, but compared to what I could be writing....)

**This is mostly for people who are just coming out of Chinese 110-120, but if you aren't, you can still get a relatively clear picture of what things are like.

I. Daily Life.
6:45AM--> alarm.  This only works if this is actually when you get out of bed.  Otherwise, you best set your alarm earlier.  Eat breakfast in room.
7:00AM--> head over to the classrooms, since reviewing in my room is a bad plan when I can go on facebook (thank you, Yale VPN).
8:AM--> 听写 (aka, daily quiz.  Teacher says a sentence from the text you have reviewed from the night before, and you write it down.  It takes 5 minutes at the most).
8:03AM--> 大班课 (big lecture class).  1 hour and 15 minutes of new grammar rules and drills.
9:15AM--> Break
9:25AM--> reading drill class.  You break into your smaller section and practice reading aloud the lesson from the night before.
9:50AM--> Break
10AM--> 小班课 (small class), you work on the same grammar rules, this time with the local teachers.  It's a more relaxed and personal environment.
10:50AM/11:10AM--> Break.  (Second Semester, they change up the second hour of 小班课. Details below.)
First "semester": 11AM-->second hour of 小班课
Second "semester": 11:20AM-->dialogue class.  You, a classmate, and a teacher discuss/debate/role play in Chinese.  Topics relevent to the days lesson.
12PM-->Lunch.
1:30PM/2:30PM-->单班课 aka one on sessions with a teacher for an hour.  Broken up into two time slots.
3:30PM (most days)--> extra curricular activities/invited guest lectures.

II. Class-related notes
1) So, the first and major difference between the structure of HBAs curriculum and the structure of Yale's first year chinese curriculum (apart from learning between 50 and 100 new characters a night) is that you aren't learning individual characters.  You are learning words.  Upside: a lot of time, characters repeat themselves, so learn them well.  Downside: you feel less familiar with individual characters' meanings because you just don't have time to look all of them up.  It makes it a little harder to recognize them outside of the context of the word you learn them in.

2) Grammar.  This was, in my opinion, the more frustrating part of HBA.  I think that 周老师's first year Chinese class is an excellent one, and the grammar rules are not only clearly taught, but are taught in depth.  Grammar is taught less in depth at HBA, and the order in which you learn grammar rules is based not off of what the teachers think you should be learning next, but rather off of your daily lesson.  Because it is a very fast paced lesson, it's hard to go in depth into the grammar, so you don't really learn all of one rule's manifestations at once, but rather, scattered over the course of the two months.  I found this exceedingly frustrating and it left me feeling very insecure when I tried to use some of the ones that aren't used on a daily basis.

3) The Local Teachers.  They are your age, and they are wonderful human beings and great teachers.  Twice a week, you get to have Chinese Table with them, which is one of my favorite parts of the week.  I'm leaving here in a little over two day (scary thought) and I am not worried about missing my friends (who I can see in 美国 any old time), but rather missing my 老师们 who have come to become my friends and who, in all likelihood, I won't have the opportunity to see again.   That said, a few of them hop the Great Firewall of China and get/already have Facebook accounts, but most of them don't.

4) The Workload.
Yeah.  It's pretty big.  But it gets more and more bearable with time, mostly because you hone your own learning skills as time goes on.  Also, by the end of the program, around half of each night's new characters are characters you have already seen in new combinations.  It's both super fun and super gratifying, especially on light vocab nights.  Also, the back of your book has a CD.  LISTEN TO IT.  It makes your life soooo much easier.  I promise.  It also doesn't take long.  It's one track per lesson.

5) Office hours.  Unless you are like me (and even if you are) and you think you understand a lesson until you are taking the test and realize you don't quite understand this particular manifestation of it, GO TO OFFICE HOURS.  It's really chill, the teachers are really able to explain things to you, and, even if you don't have a question, you can just chat with them.  It's lovely.

6) Language Partners and Host Families: HBA assigns you language partners, who are paid for spending up to three hours with a week.  Some people don't meet with theirs.  Others meet with theirs every day.  It's up to you.  You can go over homework/grammar, or you can chat and have dinner.  Host families are also assigned to a pair of HBA students.  Your relationship with them is based on what you want it to be, although you should have dinner with them at least once.  Bring them a present, preferable something from America.  Don't give clocks, or green hats, or umbrellas.

7) Social Study Week.  This was some of the most fun that I had over the course of HBA, and it's one of HBA's specialities.  It's a huge bonding time.  Bear in mind that, unless you have just graduated from college, they arrange the project for you.  Also bear in mind (if you a graduated senior, especially in second year) the trips that they arrange are very fun, and you might not want to figure something out on your own.  LIGHT DOES NOT COVER YOUR SOCIAL STUDY TRIP, but you can usually fit some/most of it into your budget if you keep track of your money carefully.

III. Life related notes
1) You stay in the Conference Center.  It's a hotel like and you get to live in singles.  Singles are a mixed blessing.  It's nice to have your own room and your own space, but I sometimes feel a little lonely and detached from the rest of my classmates because of it.  That said, your bed is made every day by the wonderful maids and you don't need to bring towels, since they are supplied in your bathroom.

2) The Conference Center has two restaurants on the ground floor, a Chinese one and a Japanese one.  The cafeteria is also about a 3-5 minute walk away.  Bear in mind that the Cafeteria, whose food is good and cheap, closes after the social study week, making it a lot less convenient to feed yourself.

3) Extra-curriculars.  They are fun.  I took Taiqi and Calligraphy.  The lectures take up the same amount of time, and can be very interesting or very boring, depending on what they are.  The lectures and the extra-curriculars also take up a good amount of nap/work time, meaning you have to work more at night.  If you are a night worker, no problem.  I personally can't focus when the sun goes down...

4) HBA's weekend trips.  GO ON THEM.  THEY ROCK.  And you get to hang out with your friends and teachers.  Make sure to bring your own food.  And water.

5) Tourist life: if you want to have real relaxing tourist time, go to Beijing early, or stay late.  HBA is very tiring.  Also, BLCU is not in the center of Beijing.  It will take you about an hour to go anywhere you really want to go, except for the Summer Palace, which is quite close.  Forbiddin City, Tiananmen, Temple of Heaven, Silk Street Market, etc.  All about an hour away by subway.  Cabs are sometimes faster, but much more expensive.

6) Shopping.  Yes.  Everything is cheap.  Yes, you can haggle.  Yes, they teach you important haggling skills as one of your fairly early lessons (it comes somewhere after learning how to order food and how to tell people two different ways of saying "I have diarrhea").  BEAR IN MIND HOW MUCH MONEY YOU WANT TO SPEND.  Because everything is so cheap, it's sooo easy to justify buying things, and then not realize that you spent way more than you intended.  Silk Street Market: excelllent example of place you spend more than you want.  If you go to Silk Street though, you should also check out haggling markets that are not designed for foreigners.  There are some near BLCU, and a pretty good one in Xidan, about half an hour away by subway.  Also, if you intend to buy a lot of things, pack lightly on the way over, so that you have room in your suitcase to bring things back.

I think that's it.  I hope it was helpful.
Peace,
Celia

False Endings

So, this past weekend felt ridiculously like the end.  No, I'm not just saying that because I want to get home.  It really really felt like the end.  We had an end of HBA talent night on Saturday, as next Saturday night everyone will have gone their separate ways, and next Friday night, people will have be frantically packing and basking in the glory of their restored capacity to speak whatever language they feel so inclined.

It was gloriously fun.  People sang, danced, performed Chinese Martial Arts.  Pictures below:

(some second year students' interpretation of Romeo and Juliet--HBA style, with a Harvard Juliet and a Yale Romeo)

(Stephanie sings a Chinese Pop Song quite spectacularly)

(me, during the Taichi Performance)

(some of the students who went to Inner Mongolia, and Siodhbhra the HBA secretary, perform a song we learned on the trip)

(me painting a character on Alec's back as a part of the Calligraphy performance.  哈佛北京书院--Harvard Beijing Acadamy--was painted onto the backs of six worthy 男生）

What was the hardest part about the evening was at the end, everyone was taking pictures with the teachers.  It really felt as though we were never going to see them again--even though we definitely had class this morning.  While everyone was smiling and posing, there was still, lying dormant in the back of our minds, the fear of saying goodbye to the second year teachers with whom we have spent so much time and whom we have come to care about so deeply.  Except for the older, American University professors, we don't know if we will ever see these teachers again and it is so very sad.

(me with 冯老师 and 胡老师, two of the three 二年级 lecture teachers)

(me and 杨老师, thanks to whom I was able to buy this qipao!)

The next day, there was an inter-summer-program speech competition.  I did not compete, but a few of my friends and I went to support our classmates as the unofficial HBA 拉拉队 (cheerleading squad).  We used Scott's calligraphy ink and brush (I don't know why he had them with him) to paint black sports stripes on our faces, much to the amusement of our teachers, who hadn't seen such a thing before.  We even convinced a few of them to paint some on as well.  It hadn't occurred to me that this was a very American thing to do.

(HBA's 拉拉队）

My Brain in Mayhem

So, my brain is currently being drawn into about six or seven directions, on eight or nine different plains.

The first, and most important, is homesickness versus my desire to stay in Beijing.  Coming to HBA is not the best way to see Beijing.  By the time you are done with class, (2:30 or 3:30, depending on what time you have your one on one tutorial), it's late enough that taking about an hour's worth of subway to see something interesting in Beijing seems a little scary, since you have to do it both ways and you won't have started your homework by the time you get back.  It makes weekend time that much more precious.  Indeed, I don't really feel as though I have gotten as much of a feel for Beijing as I would have liked.  Maybe my expectations were too high, given that I didn't know precisely what I was getting myself into--both work-wise and size-wise.  Beijing is massive.  I remember in senior year of high school when we were discussing the capitals of China and Japan.  My teacher said that, unlike European capitals, which just kinda sprung up, when you go to Beijing, you know it is the capital of an immense empire.  She wasn't wrong.

For the first time since I was sixteen, I am feeling homesick.  I don't think that I am necessarily homesick for the space of home; living in the Conference Center is as much like living in a dorm as, well, living in a dorm.  I miss desperately the relaxation and down time of home.  I miss my cats.  I miss being able to watch TV without having to think too hard about language.  I miss being able to drift out into the living room and see my mom playing spider solitaire, or the dining room and see my dad sitting at the table with about twelve piles of paper around him.  I miss sleeping until I want to wake up, and I miss being able to give friends phone calls without having to worry about what time zone they are in.

So far, I guess my homesickness is winning, since I am leaving in just a little over a week and the anticipation is running hot through my veins.  But I know that I will miss Beijing when I am gone.

The second thing is linguistic confusion.

Dear Chinese,

I speak French.  You and French both like to use "de" and "le" in very important grammatical ways.  Therefore, sometimes I accidentally speak using French grammar rules.  Don't take it too hard.  I'm working on it as best I can.  Be patient.

Thanks,
Celia

Dear French,

I love you.  You and I get along very well.  I miss you terribly.  But will you please back down while I'm trying to learn Chinese?  The other day, I made up a word (treng--halfway between "trainer" (French: to drag along) and "reng" (Chinese: throw out)) because you won't leave Chinese alone.  Kindly play better with other children.

Gros bisous,
Celia

Dear English,

One week, and then I can speak you freely again.  I know you can't wait, but can you please leave Chinese alone.  Honestly, it's getting a pretty bad beating from French, and it doesn't need you invading during our new dialogue class.

Please apologize to Chinese,
Celia

P.S.  Can you please remember that when I am using you in emails, unlike Chinese, typing you phonetically is a bad plan?  It makes me look like a 12-year-old who is too in love with LOLspeak, and, while I'm ok with that sometimes, I usually like to choose when I write in LOLspeak.  I shouldn't have to tell you this.



This post is already getting pretty long, so I will leave out the other, lesser conflicts.
Time to study for tomorrow's test.

I had a nice weekend

I took over an hour of subways to go places each day, and the sun was out for a little bit today.  It was nice.

Friday, following our weekly test, five friends and I went to the biggest tourist trap of them all: 秀水街--The Silk Street Market.  This place is the definition of a tourist trap: tourists go, and they are trapped by what they believe to be good prices, but end up being outrageously 上当受骗 (tricked) by the very well practiced shopkeepers.  You see, China lets you haggle.  China also can mass produce many beautiful things for very cheap.  So, even if it is something that would cost the equivalent of 10$US, you probably could have gotten it for the equivalent of 3$.

As with everyone who goes shopping there, I bought much more than I intended to.  But I do not regret buying a single thing, and I got to see some pretty outrageously awesome things.

For example, this cat made out of pearls.

(jamey and andrew lookin' gangsta in their new panda hats.  andrew got down on his knees to knock off a few more kuai while haggling.)

On Saturday, we made the trip to The Temple of Heaven, another of Beijing's most visited places.  It was very beautiful, and we went on a the perfect day.  It was supposed to rain, so it wasn't too hot; it was overcast, and there was a breeze.  

On our way to the Temple, we passed a man painting water calligraphy.  He used water to draw characters on the ground and, by the time he was done writing something, the first characters had vanished.  

(a little girl gives it a try)

Naturally, Stephanie wanted a go, and we ended up spending about 20 minutes learning helpful ways to remember characters.  It was very fun, and many Chinese people took pictures of Stephanie as she painted her Chinese name on the ground.

(天坛--Tian Tan-- The Temple of Heaven)

At the temple itself, I ran into a friend of mine from High School which was beyond weird, seeing as I had had no idea she was in Beijing, and Beijing is one of the world's most populous cities, so the chances of us running into each other were tiny to begin with.  She is also in Beijing doing a summer program, but hers does not have a language pledge.  I was very jealous.

That evening, we went on HBA's arranged trip to a 茶馆儿--Tea House--where we drank tea, chattered, and watched Chinese folk songs, dance, acrobatics, music and kungfu.  It was very fun, although I was exhausted from my foray to the Temple of Heaven.

(中国的功夫--Chinese Kungfu)

Today, I met up with a friend of mine, Eric, who is at PIB on a Light Fellowship.  He was one of my first friends at Yale, being on my Harvest Farm during Yale preorientation.  We hadn't managed to meet up over the course of the past few weeks, and it seems unlikely that we will see each other before we go.    We went and ate dim sum, over-ordered, and over-ate.  It was wonderfully fun.  He also gave me a belated birthday present which I have named 小胖子(xiao pangzi - small fatty, a term of endearment).  It was wonderful fun to see him, and even more amusing that I ate more than him, considering that I have seen this kid put away two full Chipotle burritos without any problem.  

(我和小胖子)

A series of random thoughts

I am sitting in my room on a Tuesday night, having just completed my homework (less than two pages of 生词!) and, while preparing for bed, I am remembering a few things that I thought that I wanted to write blog posts about, but didn't end up doing.

So, here they are.

I. Soy Sauce

So, as a patron of New York's many Chinese restaurants, I expect every Chinese meal to include either a bottle of soy sauce on the table, or a packet of soy sauce in my delivery bag.  Well....

According to my new language partner (they switch at the "semester"), that's a Japanese thing.  (The Japanese need soy sauce for sushi, after all).  The Chinese, while cooking their food, use lots of soy sauce.  (Indeed, one of our earlier vocabulary words was 红烧--fried in soy sauce.  It was in the ordering food chapter.)  But on the table?  With dumplings?  On rice?  Nope.  Not there.  If you are eating dumplings, you dip the dumplings in vinegar, something which I find not in the least bit tasty.  Eating my dumplings with vinegar is the biggest problem I have ever had with 入乡随俗 (the Chinese equivalent of "when in Rome, do as the Romans").

I miss the soy sauce.  Even if it is "American Chinese food" and not real Chinese food.

II. China and Clothes.

So, it is summer in China, and the streets are filled with people.  The men dress very similarly to the way that men in the US dress.  There is only one difference.  When the days are hot and humid (which is pretty much every day), these men will pull their shirts up over their bellies to get a breeze on their stomachs.  While it is not a universal move, enough men do it to warrant a surprised glance from an american.

Small children (i.e. children under the age of two) don't wear pants or underpants.  If they wear pants, these pants have large holes in the crotch area.  They just hang out as if this is totally normal--which, in China, it is.  To be fair, it is probably great for the environment (no throwing out massive amounts of diapers) and money (no having to buy massive amounts of diapers, or pants that the children will quickly grow out of).  It also makes it very easy for these small children to go to the bathroom--well--anywhere.  I have seen children squatting down on the sidewalks to pee, and have seen a father holding his child over a trash can while the kid did his business (this parent was more a considerate one) simply because they can.

I guess it makes life easier for parents (and for children), but I--the 老外 (foreigner)--still feel exceedingly uncomfortable every time I see a pantless small child.

III. 六岁的汉字 (six year old's characters)

When I was in Inner Mongolia, writing letters on the over two days that I spent sitting in the HBA bus, I wrote a quick note in Chinese to a friend who would not be able to read it.  I later asked my friend Andi to have a look at my grammar to make sure it was kinda ok.  He looked at my characters and laughed a little bit.  "你的汉字跟一个六岁的小孩子的汉字差不多." (1.  This means "your characters are a bit like the characters of a six year old child." 2. I am definitely misquoting and probably botching grammar to the extent that my teachers would be very sad.  But I wanted to give it a shot...).  As he wrote his corrections onto my letter (telling the mutual friend who was the recipient of this letter hello), his characters, to me looked lovely.  But he laughed at his own characters and said "跟一个九岁的孩子的汉字差不多" (1. "nine year old child's characters"  2. also misquoted and incorrect grammar-wise.)

It was a very strange experience, having it driven home to me that, while I can read and write these characters, my self-termed chicken scratch is, indeed, chicken scratch in the eyes of the chinese, now matter what my teachers say as they correct my homework.

A day of art, a night of music

Before I get started, here is a quick thought that has been poking about in my head for a while: Beijing is a very hard city to get to know. It is, first of all, massive. Then, on top of that, unlike most of the European and East Coast cities with which I am acquainted, it is not designed for the pedestrian. Without a bicycle (a state that I am currently in), it is very hard to actually get to know your neighborhood, as they are so big. Blocks are massive, and, at least in Wudaokou (五道口--the neighborhood of Beiyu) there are not very many alleyways (胡同-- a Beijing center). Being so far from the center of town also makes it difficult to see the city on a weekday, when homework swamps our free time.

On to the actual content of this blogpost.

Yesterday, HBA organized a trip to 798 art district (whose Chinese name is a pun involving going to bars).  It is a part of Beijing that was originally filled with factories and was at the center of Mao's first five year plans.  In the years since, it attracted poor artists and now it is one of the most interesting parts of Beijing.  We went there for about tow and half hours, and I spent most of the time wandering the streets.  It was as much an outdoor area as it was filled with galleries.  It was so refreshing to be able to wander streets again (as it's proportions were not that of many of Beijing's quarters).

It was filled with people, and, given the heat of the mid-afternoon, it made an already fascinating area an even more bustling environment.

(a former factory)

From 798, I met up with a student, who is the friend of a family friend, and her parents.  I went with them to a concert that we believed was going to be a symphony conducted by a very famous Chinese conductor.  It turned out to be a benefit concert to raise funds and awareness for the disabled.  There were singers, dancers, and instrumentalists, who all had some kind of disability.  There were blind performers, performers who were amputees, and several dance troupes who were deaf and were conducted by two people on either side of the stage who signaled to them where they were in the music using Chinese sign language.

(one of the deaf dance troups)

The headliner of the show was indeed this very famous Chinese conductor.  His name is 舟舟 (Zhouzhou), a man who is very severely mentally disabled.  When he spoke, the Chinese could not understand him, and when he sang, he could not carry a tune, and yet he was a brilliant conductor, and was able to lead an orchestra brilliantly.  The orchestra consisted of Chinese instruments (except for percussion, cello, and bass from the west) and the pieces that it played were all Chinese pieces (except for their closing number: the Radetzky March.)

（舟舟）

It was a fascinating concert, and very moving on many levels.

I'd be in the money

There was a time over Magevet tour last winter where the subject of "if food were currency, which would be your currency？" came up. My mind immediately flew to the 包子 (the steamed stuffed pork bun), much to the chagrin of my kosher-keeping friends.

Today, I returned to my childhood. If the same question had been asked of 9-year-old Celia, she would have immediately said "dumplings!" (饺子） with a broad grin over her face. Today, instead of having our regular 中文桌子 (Chinese Table--a Tuesday and Friday lunch with our teachers), we and our teachers wrapped dumplings.

I wish I had had my camera. It was truly a phenomenal experience, salivating the uncooked dumplings. First, you put a little globule into a small pancake. Then you pinch it shut. Then it is steamed. Then you eat it. Our teachers dumplings were naturally the best looking. Then came a few of the heritage speakers, who had been making dumplings in their home most of their lives. Then...there were the goof-off ones. A few boys made oddly shaped ones, including a ravioli-shaped, 包子 shaped, and other shapes that cannot be easily described. One boy even put his meat in the shape of eyes and a smily face, and then put another pancake on top to make a face-shaped dumpling.

The only mild problem that we faced was that, on top of the rest of the 中文桌子 food that we ordered, there was no way we could eat all of our dumplings! But I suppose that this is the curse of the Chinese Restaurant. 眼大肚小。。。

My Inner Mongolian Adventure (AKA the Longest Blogpost Known to Man)

(This blog post is longer than some essays I have written)

Friday, July 9, 2010

8 AM – midterm exam.
10:40 AM – oral exam (skit performance with Yoonji, Stephanie, and Dan).
12 PM – 中文桌子 (Chinese table with our teachers at a Beiyu restaurant).

3 PM – our bus sets off for 内蒙古 (Inner Mongolia)

6:30 PM – Andi teaches us an Inner Mongolian song that he learned from his family.It is from Communist times as it mentions 毛主席 (Chairman Mao).
~8 PM – our bus stops moving, thanks to an incredible traffic Jam.
~9 PM – our bus turns off to save gas.

~9:30 PM – we step off the bus onto the highway because the bus is too hot and claustrophobic. Befriend a pig in the back of the truck in front of us. Look at stars. Translate English pop songs into Chinese (this is mostly Andi).
~10:30 PM – we get back on the bus.

~2 AM – our bus starts moving again.

~3:45 AM – wereach our hotel in 呼和浩特 (Huhhot – the capital city of Inner Mongolia). There is no electricity in the hotel. We have to climb 11 flights of stairs to reach our bedrooms, reminding me strongly of firedrills at Brearley.

~4 AM – our keycard doesnot work. I prepare to sleep in the hall because I refuse to go down 11 floors and then climb back up. A passing maid lets us into our room.

Saturday, July 10, 2010
We drove a few hours into the Inner Mongolian countryside to reach the place where we would stay the night (in Yurts!). We then broke up into afew groups and go to our first interviews. I was in a group with one other second year student, a third year student, a fourth year student, and Andi. We went to a small house across the road from where we were staying and interviewed a sheep herder.

It is both an upsetting and an empowering experience. It is the first time that I really felt lost for words. The higher level students were able to maintain a dialogue, joke around, ask intelligent questions, and the questions that I tried to ask tooka very long time to form, an

d were filled with grammar errors. Once or twice, they had to be further translated. And yet, I understood most of what was said. I was able to see the humor that cropped up, and felt very much as though I were present in the room. While I asked perhaps one 30th of the questions asked that afternoon, I still felt as though I was involved, andthe many questions I had before arriving at the interview were answered over the course of the hour and half, either through conversation or because I, or another student, asked them.

(Outside the house, there were some truly adorable lambs.)

(The herd comes back to drink water. And climb on a pile of their own feces…)

We went back to our yurts and had a dinner of sheep, whose death we witnessed. It was a very quick and clean kill. It was also a very tasty sheep. The people who ran the inn provided us with a mini-concert, and, at the end of it, some HBA students sang, or played on the keyboard.
We then watched a Mongolian Wrestling competition. Gordon, a Harvard student who is a part of the Kendo club there, tried wrestling. Then there was a (slightly drunken) men’s Harvard-v-Yale wrestling match (Harvard won…Yale wasn’t wearing

his Glasses), and a girls’ New York-v-Texas match (Texas won).

Sunday, July 11, 2010

We got to another location, where we also sleep in Yurts. In the afternoon, we go horseback riding. Little do we know that it will hurt for the next three days, since they didn’t teach us how…

We watch a showed of Mongolian song and dance. I was surprised to hear a minor similarity between Mongolian music and some of the Slavic music I sing at Yale. One song had an instrument maintaining a drone, and the singer sang a complicated melody using glottal stops. It reminded me of more “melodic” Bulgarian music. As Andi said, that’s legitimate as “the Mongols got there…”

Monday, July 12, 2010

We had our second interview. I felt more present in the conversation and felt as though I asked my questions more eloquently and frequently (although this might just be my perception…). This herdsman’s house was in an even more isolated area, but he had working electricity, cable, and a cell phone. My group stayed the same, except for the addition of another second year student. Ours was the first group to be dropped off, and the last to be picked up—a good hour and a half after we finished our interview. We hung out in the Inner Mongolian sun, without water or shade. It was fun, until found out how long we had to wait…and then realized we were all getting sun-burned…

(Solar and wind-powered street lights)

We took the bus to 包头 (Baotou city) and checked into a hotel.

Tuesday July 13, 2010

We went to a clothes factory and interviewed the female workers there. It was a much nicer place than we were all anticipating. According to Wang laoshi, it was a pretty average factory.

From there, we went to the offices of a cashmere clothing line. I found it rather boring, but the cashmere was beautiful.

In the afternoon, we went to a memorial to 成吉思汗 (Ghengis Khan). It was a place that he supposedly found to be very beautiful when he was alive, and, after his death, the cart bearing his body broke on the same hill and so they set up an altar in his honor, as well as seven white yurts. The area has been guarded by about 38 generations of the same family. In the 1950s, the Chinese Government sponsored a more solid building that would surround the Yurts.

(me with the statue of my ancestor—according to my mother’s obsession with geneology…)

What I found to be most interesting about the memorial was not the pride that the Inner Mongolian people took in having Ghengis Khan as part of their cultural heritage (although that was very fascinating). It was our tour guide telling us that the site was currently an AAAA tourist sight, and it was in the process of applying for the next highest level of tourist attraction. It is something that would bring more visitors to Inner Mongolia and therefore enhance the regions economy, but it also seemed to me to be missing the point of the very monument. It was a place that was devoted to the head of one of the most successful conquests the world has ever seen, and yet no one seems to know it is there except for the people of Inner Mongolia. After all, why would China have such a place when Ghengis Khan’s body ended up in (Outer) Mongolia? Also the fact that it had to apply for a tourist ranking at all seemed very odd to me.

We returned to our hotel in Baotou…and our fuse popped twice…Stephanie and I were moved then to a room with no air conditioning. Then, we were moved to a much nicer room on the 11th floor that was, for lack of a better description, a “shag room,” complete with window into the bathroom and prominently displayed condoms…

We were amused.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

We went to Desert Land (well..that wasn’t what it was actually called…)

Thursday, July 15, 2010

We went to the headquarters of Mengniu Dairy, one of China’s most prominent Dairy companies. We toured the packaging plant, and then saw the cows’ living quarters. All are grassfed (the concept of cows eating anything else is foreign to many people outside the US…), they listen to music while they are being milked, they can kick off the milkers when they feel like it. They looked happy.

In the afternoon, we went to a Buddhist temple. It was absolutely beautiful.

We then went wandering and shopping. It is funny how much of the things sold in Inner Mongolia look like they could be sold in the American West. Cowboy hats, leather work, silver things. It was very strange. I went with a few friends to a tea shop, which was very soothing, and we got to try a few teas. It was very enjoyable.

I started trying to read 哈利波特与密屋 (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) which I bought the night before. When I bought it, I misunderstood the price that the shopkeeper told me and I so I gave him two kuai fewer than I should have. When I tried to correct it, he wouldn’t let me. I think it was the first discount that I ever received because I was a foreigner without having to haggle. In any case, I say “trying” because it took me an hour and a half to read a page and a half. It was not that I couldn’t have figured out what was going on based on my own previous knowledge of the text and the Chinese that I already know, it was that I was reading it to really understand every word and sentence I saw. I would look up every word I didn’t know, and, at the end of a sentence, reread to make sure that I remembered what everything meant. It was both very fun and very tiring. It will also take me a very long time to complete my goal of reading all Harry Potter books in Chinese….

Friday, July 16, 2010

In the morning we meet and interview some high school students, who were incredibly smart and very sweet. Many of them wish to go to English speaking countries for college, and it was kind of jarring to think that these children desperately want to go to places like Harvard and Yale, and yet probably won’t get in, simply because Harvard and Yale take very few actual Chinese students every year (while they take many heritage students). It made me very sad as I sat and talked to a young girl whose name I couldn’t retain. She was wonderful and hopeful and patient, and will being applying to American colleges next year.

We also met with some college students. The one that I spoke to was an English major who spoke English very well, although she wasn’t as patient with my Chinese as my high schooler was.

We then got on the bus for 9 hours and ended up in Beijing.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

I spent most of the day chilling out. In the Evening, HBA took us to an acrobatics show, that was completely spectacular. From there me and a few friends went and sang Karaoke for a few hours.

Back from Inner Mongolia...

...with no internet in my room until Monday afternoon. I will post in greater detail then.

道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物

"The Way gave birth to one, one gave birth to two, two gave birth to three, three gave birth to a thousand things." -老子

If I remember correctly (and knowing the state of my memory, I could be completely wrong), I opened a 12th grade history position paper with this quote. In the paper, I was arguing that "Ignorance is Bliss" and that Daoism was the better than Confucianism and Legalism when it came to living life and setting up a Chinese Government.

Today, (大) 冯老师, "Big" Feng Laoshi, (not to be confused with 小(small/young)冯老师 - the head of the second year chinese section of HBA), the director of HBA, gave us a lecture about Chinese Religion. It was a complicated lecture and therefore was given in English (something that made all of the second year students, who made up most of the audience, mightily relieved). The first Wednesday afternoon lecture that we had two weeks ago was given in Chinese and, while the subject matter was fascinating (the lives of Chinese farmers) it went completely over my head and the only part that I understood was when, seeing the 二年级 students' perplexed faces, Feng Laoshi began translating every now and then.

After discussing Confucianism, Feng Laoshi moved onto Daoism, and this quote ("道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物") which opened Laozi's book was splashed up upon the projector. It seems so compact and happy in Chinese, where it seems kinda funny in English. But that's one of the beauties of seeing something in its original language.

Now for my own (rather bad) attempt at metaphor (or simile...): life is moving like a tire that that was just pushed down a hill. At the beginning, it kinda rolls/bounces along. Then it gets faster. Now it's moving really really fast because of it's increased acceleration and I think it'll hurt if it hits me.

In two days time, I will be on a bus out to 内蒙古 (Inner Mongolia), one of the regions in Outer China for HBA's week of 社会调查 (social study). I hope to research how Inner Mongolian raise their animals--as they are famous herders--and look into how they make their yarn, which is one of their specialities (and hopefully buy some too!). I'm really looking forward to it, but I won't have internet for a week, so don't expect blog updates until July 16th/17th (my birthday!).

Of course, in two and a half days, I have a midterm. Having a language midterm is a little more than I can fathom. In my brain, Languages are cumulative, so having a midterm seems kind of silly. A final, I understand completely, but a midterm? Really? Is that necessary?

No.

Well...Maybe... I mean, we have learned sooo much it is good to look back and really make sure we have absorbed.

In any case, I find this insanely frustrating. Especially since we have to memorize a skit. And because tomorrow night, I can't really study because I am finally meeting up with my host mother. It took us (my two HBA "siblings" and I) so long to contact her that we didn't dare say that we couldn't meet this Thursday because we are about to go away for a week. I am quite excited to meet her, but I am also nervous about my energy and stress level. I have noticed that they have an inverse relationship...which I find very perplexing.

On a rather unrelated note, I had a recent epiphany about one of the reasons Chinese is so hard. Like Japanese and Korean, it is also a syllabic language. That combined with the tonal aspect of the spoken language makes it VERY hard to remember new words, simply because you have already heard it in some manifestation or other. This is probably something that other people are already aware of, but I found it interesting, and thought I would share...

That's all for now...
Celia

My life as a spectator

There is one thing that I knew I would have to do when I came to China.

See Pandas.

I mean, how could I not? They are slowly dying off the face of this planet, why shouldn't I go see them in their homeland.

Going to the Beijing Zoo on Friday afternoon was an eye-opening experience. First of all, because it was so hot on Friday afternoon, all the pandas were indoors, and not outside. Second of all, they come from 四川 (Sichuan Province), and so they are actually about as "at home" in Beijing as I am...

But it wasn't the pandas that was astonishing. (I mean, yes, they were cool, cuddly, and adorable, but I had seen Youtube videos of them.) What was scary was where the great cats lived.

When we first went to see the tigers, we stepped into a rather stuffy room about the size of a big lecture hall. The tigers, lions, pumas, panthers, leopards, etc. were all in cages that were just big enough to let them pace about anxiously. One of the Tigers was indeed very anxious.

It was extremely upsetting. Sure, the only zoos that I really remember are the Bronx Zoo and the Central Park Zoo, both of which are quite good. But I had expected Beijing to have a pretty kickass one, especially given how hard the city was trying to impress the West during theOlympics. I mean, the Pandas had gotten a special "Olympic Building," why were these cats getting such awful treatment?

The answer was soon made clear to us: they didn't live in these cages. This was feeding time. Two workers made their ways through to each of the cages, and through large hunks of meat into the hungry animals.

When we left the enclosure to make our way to the Elephants, we saw one of the tigers who had been so frantic earlier outside. It bellowed, and I can't be sure if it was happy to have eaten, or complaining about the vicious sunlight.

On Saturday, several of us went to 北海公园 (Beihai Park), a staple of our first year Chinese course packet. It was ridiculously hot, but it was also wonderfully beautiful. We picnicked in the shade, and then climbed up a hill to get a closer look at the White Pagoda, and a birds-eye view of the lake. It was stunning.

(The View of the lake, and the Pagoda)

In the evening, we went to see the 京剧 (Peking Opera). We actually went to the same place where I met up with Brearley Folk for dinner, right before they themselves went to see the opera.

It was an incredible experience, and very colorful. They had English subtitles off to the side, some of which were very amusing (like when three characters translated to something like "stealing money from the corrupt local official").

The music of the opera was very piercing. I found it interesting that they only had one person singing, who was (I believe) a girl (she certainly only played girl parts). She was the only one who was micro-phoned, and her voice was so high and loud that she didn't really need it.

(An old man and a girl on a boat. He is helping her find her lover.)

The acrobatics were incredible. Several people did simultaneous backflips and, during a fight scene, they juggled weapons back and forth as though it were no big deal.

(A girl fighting off a demon and a soldier in order to deliver the silver she stole from the corrupt officials to someone who only wishes to help the poor and the dying.)

It was a truly fantastic thing to see.

Things that don't surprise me:

I love doing things that are creative and artistic. I love singing, I love playing my flute, or listening to others play instruments, I love to knit. I sing and I knit during the breaks between classes, and, I think I do both quite well.

There is one thing that I have never been able to do well: Draw. Never, in my life, have I been good at art. My crowning moments of drawing manifest themselves in classroom doodles, the best of which was the collection of Penguins I drew during my 12th grade physics class. (They are on my facebook page, if you are curious).

I have often wondered why, if I have no artistic talent whatsoever, I decided to study Chinese, a language whose written form requires some kind of hand-eye coordination. An even more relevant question, at the moment, is why I decided to take the calligraphy courses that HBA offers.

Today, we had our first class; well, technically last week was our first lesson, but we all went to buy the relevant equipment (brush, ink, paper, etc.) so we didn't actually try our hands at painting the characters. I thought that, because I know kinda-sorta how to draw characters in a kinda-sorta nice way, calligraphy might not be too hard.

Boy was I wrong.

First of all, writing with a pen/pencil and writing with brush and ink are 完全不同。Secondly, getting the character that you are painting to look nice--not easy. Add no artistic capability and insecurity and you have me during my first calligraphy class ever.

(my trusty 毛笔 (brush) and other things whose names I can't remember in Chinese or English. but you use them in calligraphy.)

It was scary, and the teachers were not second year student teachers, so they spoke quickly and used vocabulary that was not something I had ever come across. On top of that, because there were a good fifteen of us in the class, with only two teachers, they couldn't spend too much time helping out individual students, much to my distress.

At the end of the class, they collected our names that we ourselves had painted. They said that, at the end of the eight weeks, we would compare and see how far we've come along. I feel like I won't have made too much progress...but then again, that was how I felt about my Chinese at the beginning of this program, and I already can see noticeable improvements...Of course, I have far more confidence in my language learning-speaking capability than I do in my ability to develop as an artist.

(my first attempts at calligraphy. and my ipod.)

In other news, it rained today, and I can now see the mountain out of my window again. I've missed it. It's been super hazy for over a week.

Also, it's July? When did that happen. Golly things are going fast...

A Brief Epiphany

Today, one of our 单班课 teachers asked me why I was always so tired. I told her, I had no clue, as I wasn't sleeping that much less than I usually slept at Yale (seven, as opposed to eight hours).

Then it hit me: at Yale, I have down time. I can watch TV, I can chat with friends, I can nap, I can go to the gym and listen to Lady Gaga, and still have time to go to class and do my homework. Lack of relaxation time means that I am overloading my sleep hours with excessive tiredness and exhaustion, meaning that those seven hours, which would ordinarily suffice, are not nearly enough.

That's all.

Good evening to you all.

The Emperor of China lived in a nicer place than everyone in the world

Yesterday, I went to the Forbidden City. To quote (well...paraphrase, as I can't remember her exact wording...) my dear friend Emma, with whom I was g-chatting on Friday night "that had better be an excellent place, because it has an awesome name!"

It was incredible. Words can't really describe how lovely it is. First of all, it is a UNESCO world heritage sight--and deservedly so, as it, like the Great Wall, is a testament to the skill and power of the Chinese Emperors. It was the center of power during the Qing and Ming dynasties. It is also, naturally, incorrectly portrayed in the Disney movie Mulan (one of my all-time favorites), but I still found myself singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You" most of the time--in my head, of course, because it would have violated the language pledge.

(Lion suppressing Cub? Demon? Not too sure....)

Everything was insanely detailed, and spending over two hours there, we didn't even get to see everything. What we did get to see were some of the Emperors' many thrones, the living quarters of the Emperor, and where Dowager Empress Cixi lived during the end of the Qing Dynasty.

(just your average wood paneling in the Forbidden City)

I wish that we could have gone on a clear day, as I can only imagine how the golden roof that signifies an imperial residence would have glowed.

(Golden Roof...and one of the HBA flags held by each of our teachers.)

Our plan for the rest of the day had been to go to 北海公园--Beihai Park, a staple of Yale's first year Chinese packet. But the Forbidden City was so massive that we were completely exhausted and ended up returning to Beiyu for lunch and naps. We plan to go sometime soon, hopefully with our classmates who are participating in the Duke and Princeton programs.

Today, I met up with many friends from high school. First, I went shopping with my friend Melanie, who is in Beijing visiting her family. She took me to a more-western style mall (although a nicer mall than I have ever seen anywhere in the west), and then to a nearby Chinese shopping area. Together, we haggled for earrings, and scouted out bags, shoes, and odd-bits. It was a very interesting place, and one that I hope to go back to at some point. What was kind of annoying was most of the shopkeepers assumed that I couldn't speak Chinese and would address themselves to Melanie, who speaks Mandarin at home. I could understand most of what they were saying, although sometimes they spoke a little too quickly for me. After we finished shopping, we walked around, and she showed me where her grandparents live; we tried to find where her father grew up, but were not able to do so.

Second, I had dinner with a group of students from my High School, who have been in China for the past three weeks, traveling and studying and experiencing a different way of life. They leave for the US on Wednesday, and they all thought it was very odd to think that they have been in China longer than me. It was so lovely to see them all, especially after a very difficult week--educationally and emotionally--that has made me miss home very much.

But I can already feel that next week will be better. Things are moving incredibly quickly, and I can only imagine they will move even more quickly now: we all now know where we will be going for our 5th week social study research project. I will be spending the week leading up to my birthday in Inner Mongolia, and I am so excited I can hardly think straight!

(I feel as though this is where I could be living...except I am not...)

Moving Toy People

I was asked a few days ago, in an email, why I don't post more often: the answer is that, mostly I am just going to class during the weekdays. If something interesting/non-routine occurs, then I will share, but I feel as though writing about my daily life would be (at least to me) remarkably tedious after a while.

Weekends are much more fun.

To round off a rather tough week, a group of us went to see 玩具总动员三--Moving Toy People 3 (AKA Toy Story 3). We saw it in English (but with Chinese Subtitles!) and it was a wonderfully heartwarming movie. Because we were seeing an American movie, some of us went and ate at a McDonalds that was just across the street from the movie theater. It was exactly the same as American McDonalds, unlike Pizza Hut, which looks like a nice, sit-down restaurant with waiters and wine.

Following the movie, we tried to take the subway back to Beiyu. I say try. The first time I took the subways in Beijing, I was very impressed. The stations are clean, the routes are clear (because of the 2008 Olympics, according to the HBA secreatry.) Perhaps I am a spoiled New Yorker, who expects subways to run at all hours of the day and night, but the subways in the part of Beijing where we were stopped at 11PM, which seems to me unreasonably early. I understand 1AM, I even understand midnight, but being trapped a 45 minute walk away from my bed when I was tired was an unpleasant situation to be in. Luckily, I was in good company.

We learned two things as we stood outside the subway stop for 30 minutes, trying to hail a cab. The first was that Chinese people are vicious when it comes to getting cabs on a Friday night; on at least 3 occasions, we hailed a cab, and someone else took it right as we were opening the doors to get in. The second was that the cab drivers have a bias against foreigners. We were blatantly foreigners standing on the street, and, while we were plainly all trying to catch cabs, the drivers would move past us, a little further down the block, to where other Chinese people were standing. It was exceedingly frustrating. But it wasn't until about 11:30, after waiting for half an hour, that we got really annoyed. We were all basking in our joy at having seen Buzz Lightyear in Spanish mode.

I'm sure that I will have more to post later this weekend, as I have a lot planned.

Now, to bed!

加油

There is a Chinese phrase, 加油 (jiayou--add oil) whose closest equivalent that I can think of is the French phrase "bon courage." It is something that our 老师s always say when we head off to do our hours and hours of Chinese homework every night. And, because it sounds so alike, I always thing of the song from Slumdog Millionaire "Jai Ho."

This week, I heard some very distressing news from home, and have been having a great deal of difficulty focusing on my work. Indeed, yesterday during class, I could hardly understand what my teacher was saying because my mind was so completely elsewhere. Feng laoshi and Hu laoshi asked me if everything was all right, and after explaining the situation to them, they were very supportive. I was grateful that they understood what was going on in my head.

Now of course, I must 加油, because I have to make up for work that I was unable to focus on given my state of mind--a task that is unbelievably daunting given that I have a test in a day and a half, and a personal philosophy that sleep and mental health come before all else...

Of course, I have the thought of the weekend to keep me going: this weekend, HBA is taking us the Forbidden City, a place I have been dying to go ever since seeing the movie Mulan (one of my first "introductions" to China) when I was about eight. I already caught a glimpse of it this past weekend. Siodhbhra, the HBA secretary, took a group of us out to 天安门广场 (Tiananmen Square) last Sunday, on a day that was unbelievably hot and wonderfully clear. Now, I can't wait to go through the gate and see the inside. I wonder if Disney got any of it right...

(Me, in Tiananmen Square, beneath the bountiful gaze of the good chairman.)

Alors, on se bat, 好了。

So, something very strange is going on in my head. One of my favorite movies in the world is the French film, "L'auberge espagnole," which I watched for the first time during my year in France. It is a film that perfectly captures what it means to study abroad, and what one goes through on an emotional and psychological level when returning home. At some point in this movie, someone tells another person that something isn't a big deal, and I cannot, for the life of me, remember exactly what she says. In my head, I hear her voice saying “没关系，没关系." It is weirding me out. A lot. Whenever I don't know a Chinese word, I search through my head and, instead of looking through my English Lexicon, I look through the French one. I keep trying to let people know that my French and my Chinese are mixing and muddling, but I don't know how to say that just yet, nor do I know how to say that they are fighting each other. All I can think of is the French phrase: "Alors, c'est la guerre..." which, of course, I am not allowed to say aloud on this program, as it is not Chinese.

(Me on the Great Wall of China, courtesy of HBA, photo Credit Stephanie Brandon)

Today was the weirdest. HBA took us to the Great Wall. It was particularly hot today, and by the time we reached the wall (after an extremely long hike up) most of us had drunk at least one of our 3 bottles of water. Almost instantly, all around, I could hear English (for the first time in a week) and French (for the first time in a few months) and my brain started whirling and whirling. It almost made the experience of walking along the wall less painful, because I was so in my own head.

(Andi tries--and fails--to pick up a Butterfly)

I say almost. It was a grueling walk, filled with steps and steep climbs and people. It was also extremely hot. Our teachers had warned us that it would be particularly hot today, but we weren't expecting the sun to be as powerful as it was. The guard towers that pop up every now and then were surprisingly cool, but not enough to last.

(Stephanie on the Wall...it was a long climb...)

Of course, the ever-present haze covered the scenery. If the light had been different, if it had been later or earlier in the day, if it had been cooler, the haze would have looked like mist.

(The haze...)

At the base of the wall, there were tons of tourist stands, and, of course, many of us just had to try our haggling skills. I bought a Mao t-shirt, a Lenin cap, and a painting for about a tenth of what the salespeople were trying to get out of me. Most of them were impressed that we were haggling in Chinese instead of English.

By the time we returned to the BCLU, we were all so tired that we immediately went back to our dorm rooms, 休息休息。

Structure and Whatnot

So, as I was skypeing with my mother earlier this afternoon, I realized two things:

The first is that my first of eight weeks of classes (+one week of 社会调查--Social Study Research) is over.

The second is that I haven't yet given a really good explanation for the structure of the program that I am on.

There are four kinds of classes that meet every day at HBA. The first is 大班课, a larger drill section of about 12-15 students. The first one was a little bit traumatizing. The Harvard students were all used to that style of class, as it was something that they experienced at Harvard. The teacher (one of three, who rotate every day), without any warning, will ask you a question, and you have to answer quickly or they move on. Most of the Yale students the first day were so tense and out of our element that it was very hard to respond. They have since gotten much better, especially since we are now more acquainted with teaching styles and the textbook we are learning out of.

After 大班课, we break into smaller sections (小班课) of about 4 or 5 and have a twenty minute read-aloud class. Then we have two grammar classes, taught by local teachers who change every day, that round off four hours of Chinese classes. Then we have an hour and a half for lunch (in my case, two and a half hours) and then have an hour of 单班课--one-on-one tutorials with our local teachers. Since there are more students than teachers, there are two time slots.

Every Friday, we have a written and an oral test. Both were different from what I experienced at Yale, but not necessarily harder.

Apart from classes, HBA has language partners and host families. Most students met with their host families this evening, but the host mother I share with two other students couldn't make the meeting. Next week, we will start extra-curricular activities, something most of the students (myself included) are extremely excited about. The biggest problem is that I want to do four extra curricular activities, but there are two pairs that meet at the same time, so I don't know if I will be able to do both.

Let us talk briefly about the weather...

This is the third night in a row that it has thundered and lightninged in Beijing. There isn't much rain, just noise and light. And the lightning is purple--something which amuses me greatly, which in turn amuses Yoonji in whose room I study for a little while each night. Every time that the purple lightning crosses the sky, my head jerks around and I stare out the window, and Yoonji laughs at me. I think that it is the haze that covers Beijing that gives the light such a strange color. Or else China is magical. Either or.

Today is Yoonji's birthday. We were in our second semester of Yale Chinese together, and we are in the same 小班课 (Small class), so I see a lot of her every day. On top of that, her room is right next to mine. A group of Yale-HBA friends went out to dinner to celebrate Yoonji's birthday. Four of us from our second semester class, and a few others, went to a Mall and ate at a rather nice restaurant. At first we thought that we were spending a ton of money on our dinners (about 30-45 RMB) compared to what we usually eat for (less than 10), but when we converted it to dollars in our heads, we realized that we were spending about six dollars at a fairly nice place. It was an astounding realization. The restaurant was really fun. The waiters were very patient with our broken Chinese, and, noticing the birthday present that Andrew (another 老同学 from Yale) had given her, brought her a piece of free cake and played birthday music. It was a really wonderful and relaxing experience, and allowed us to take our minds off of our first piece of free-response written homework that is due tomorrow.

Last night, I met with my 中国朋友 (Chinese Friend). HBA arranges BCLU partners for us, so that we can really talk to someone who is not a teacher and who can help us if need be, or show us around. We went to a Muslim (Xinjiang Province) restaurant on campus that was absolutely delicious. As 67% of my conversations tend to do, we wound up talking about Harry Potter, which made me very happy. It was very fun, but I struggled with bits of vocabulary, which I found highly frustrating.

What's the most fun thing so far about this program is it's incredible how each day, it gets noticeably easier to talk in Chinese. The sign-language and facial communication of level two students is steadily decreasing in a very heartening sort of way.

Of course, there is still tons left to do learn...

我在北京

I am currently sitting in the BCLU, and I am so glad to be here. The actual travel was very stressful. Our flight out of JFK was delayed by about an hour, and, by the time we (Stephanie and Paul—two other Yale students who are on the same flights as me) got to Shanghai after 15 hours in the air, we had to sprint to our connecting flight, which we boarded at Last Call.

Then, after we sat down, the pilot informed us that there was a Sandstorm headed towards Beijing and that we would have to wait 5 hours to fly out, which would mean that we would get to Beijing at something like 4 in the morning. About ten minutes later, they informed us that we would be taking off in twenty minutes. We arrived at the Beijing airport at the same time we were supposed to…even though we took off 45 minutes after our scheduled departure.

We arrived at the BCLU at 1:45, I got into my room at 2, prepared for bed, lay down and, after over 20 hours of travel, was no longer tired.

(My room)

I did fall asleep though, and woke up at 7:40 for my placement test.

What I find to be the most astonishing thing about Beijing thus far is how smoggy it is. I knew that the pollution was incredible after the controversy surrounding the Olympics held in Beijing two summers ago, but I hadn’t anticipated not being able to know where the sun was in the sky. At a Light Fellowship mixer at the end of the school year, one of the students I met told me that it would be the most astonishing thing, and he was right.

(The view from my room)

We took our Language Pledge a few hours ago, and already the second year students are finishing most of their sentences in shrugs and “ugh!”s. It is very bizarre to be in a state where I can’t say what I want to say. When I went to France with SYA three years ago, my French was good enough that I could understand everything and communicate most things. Not the case now. My French also has a tendency to invade my head when I am searching for a word that I feel I should know, but I don’t…