Welcome to Beijing! aka, "So, I climbed the Great Wall of China yesterday"

Hi everyone! (Da jia hao!)

This weekend we went to Beiijing on a whirlwind trip. Saturday morning we left around 6:30a and arrived by bus about 2 hours later. First, we stopped at Tian An Men (City of Heavenly Peace) Square (this is me, cheesing really hard, and my friend Katie, outside Tian An Men), where we saw several government buildings, memorial structures, and the actual body of Chairman Mao. Seeing Mao was an experience, because it is highly regimented and highly secure. Bags and purses aren't allowed, and neither are cameras. Metal detectors and x-ray machines are present, and an older man carrying a small boy on his back was yelled at by a guard to throw the child's candy away before entering the memorial. No lagging and "dilly dallying," as my parents would say, is allowed, and people are barely allowed to whisper once inside. There is huge support for Chairman Mao; several people were purchasing flowers to lay under his portrait inside the memorial while bowing and paying respects. The line is hurriedly ushered through a room that has the body of Mao inside a glass-enclosed area about 10' away from the lines of people, and you aren't allowed to stop walking. One elderly man bowed three times to Mao's body, and then fell to his knees and started praying, but guards rushed over and pulled him up, telling him to keep moving. Mao's body seems to be embalmed, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the body itself is a stand-in. It looks exactly like wax sculptures I've seen at Madame Toussaud's in London, but the body is far enough away that you can't tell for sure.

After Tian An Men, we drove over to the Forbidden City. Initially, I was actually really disappointed. Everything is so modern and commercialized, with a basketball court and makeshift parking lot in the midst of street vendors and shops. Here on the left, you can see soldiers performing some kind of training exercises in the outer area of the City.

We passed through the main gate and then I found I was not to be let down. It opened up into a vast area of palaces and relics, and the first view was this:
The picture here doesn't do it justice, but imagine stepping into this site and thinking about the history behind it all. Trust me, it's pretty breathtaking.

There is a lot of restoration and construction happening, but many things are in their original state (according to Xiao Ma, or Little Horse, our tour guide). If this is indeed true, I walked on 600 year old bricks, the same as thousands of royal family members, past emperors, and who knows what other historic figures!

The next stop was the Summer Palace, and by this time, the weather had begun to turn rainy and dreary.

Beautiful islands and lakes shrouded by mist and fog; it was an almost eerie feeling, but after visiting the two other sites, everyone's energy was beginning to drag. We took a ferry (see below, right) over to another side of the island, and then explored the longest walkway in the world. The area was gorgous, but the weather dampened the aesthetics.

Something happened after we disembarked from the ferry that has been happening to us actually quite frequently in China: a small boy, about 10 years old, runs up to us and says "Hello!" At first I thought he was selling something, because he was carrying several touristy-looking things. We said "hello" back, and then in perfect English, "Welcome to China! Will you take a picture with me?" Foreigners are few and far between, but definitely in greater amount at the popular tourist sites like the Forbidden City and Summer Palace. Even though there were plenty of other non-Chinese at this point, he appeared so fascinated and eager to capture his foreigner siting. This happens every time we leave Tianjin, without fail.

We then left and went downtown for an evening of the famed Beijing Opera. I studied a little bit of Chinese opera at Maryland, in my ARTH 489 class, and I was loving it. I can understand it was probably not too interesting for some of the others, because many of the sounds are piercing and not in accordance with Western music tastes. It was great to see how it is still revered after so many years, and I'm glad we were able to see it live.

Finally, we headed for the suburbs, staying near Sunday's destination, the Ba Da Ling section of the Great Wall. The Great Wall was definitely the most physically challenging destination so far, with insanely steep and what I would actually call treacherous terrain. Hundreds were there, and I'm not sure how so many elderly (70 year old's, plus!) were hiking around on the wall! It's actually kind of of dangerous, and I was worried with all the uneven bricks that someone would fall, but no accidents. The picture here doesn't capture the steepness, because each time I reached a peak or valley, I would look around to see if I could take a picture of the low/high points I started from, but they weren't visible in the mists.

Upon reaching one end of the Ba Da Ling section (about a 45 min, 1 hour hike), we turned back and had lunch (Peking duck!) and haggled with street vendors for souvenir prices. Apparently, the vendors told Dr. Liu (our professor from Maryland) that we were very polite and respectful during our time there. I am much more comfortable bargaining now, by the way, and usually you can get your price if you know how to act. I'm collecting a nice little treasure trove of souvenirs, and I'm sure I'll be adding to the collection this weekend when we head to Xi'An to see the Qin Emperor's terra cotta army of soldiers (SO EXCITED ~ I am thinking about doing research on Emperor Qin Shi Huang later on, maybe during my master's pursuit...)

Now I'm back in Tianjin, and pretty much exhausted. Several of us Maryland tongxue (classmates) are having some stomach issues, including me. Maybe it was Beijing, maybe it's being always on the go and having little downtime, maybe we just caught something going around, but it's not serious. It's just enough to feel under the weather and want to sleep all the time. Time to go take a nap and then get my homework done.

Hope you enjoyed the post!

Zaijian!
~Robyn

Week Two - Part Two

Ni hao everyone!



I'm having some camera picture loading difficulties, so no pictures this time, but more will follow soon, I promise. :)



Yesterday was my class's day of final exams, so there aren't any classes for the rest of the summer. As a result, Nankai University has graciously had two teachers step forward to personally teach myself and my roomie Monica for the remainder of our stay, beginning this morning. Classes are from 8:30a-10:10a and 10:30a-12:10p as usual, only this time it's like having a private tutor. The classes are entirely in Chinese, and let me tell you, trying to explain things like "luckily" and "movie director" in Chinese to us is quite amusing. I have learned a lot today alone, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how much I can absorb during the rest of my stay. One thing that's interesting, for those of you with a penchant for linguistics, is how varied the pronounciation is within ONE dialect. For example, the Mandarin word for "who" is "shei," which I've always been taught was pronounced "shay." But here, people don't recognize what you're saying unless you say "shui," which sounds more like "shway." I know that probably doesn't interest 90% of you reading this, but it just earmarks what a tough time learning a foreign language can be, especially when literally billions of people speak it. I've had so many different teachers, I wonder what I sound like to a native speaker; probably extremely geographically confused with my myriad of accetns, if nothing else. (high school Spanish students, you know what I'm talking about - the "th" thing, lol)

As a result of having virftually one-on-one lessons, I will be having a hefty amount of homework each night. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this is the time when I miss my instant internet access I was so accustomed to at home. No opening a laptop and having an immediate connection with the rest of the world. Also something I miss, my mom recently sent me an email about one of the best shows on American television these days, So You Think You Can Dance. I definitely miss my call-in-and-vote shows. (American Idol, see you next season!) :)

Today, I went and had my hair cut at a Kerastase salon (a well-respected international hair product and styling company, for those of you who prefer the $7 haircut and are unfamiliar with this particular line...ie Dad...lol). I had an AMAZING head massage, and they microscoped my scalp and hair (I could have done without that, you know I'm queasy with seeing my own cells), and then I showed them a picture in a magazine of the style I was looking for and...no. NOTHING like what the picture was. I'll have to post a pic next time, but let's just say, I'm as uber-stylish as the native Chinese girls here now. Which means I feel ridiculous with the result. Half of me feels extremely Chinese, the other half more like a 50s actress, with the volume and flips and rounded-to-the-side bangs. Short in front of my shoulders, long in back, my brother would definitely call this a not-so-distant relative of the mullet. I am undecided as to what to do right now...but it did cost me only about $10 US. Small price for all the hair they took off...I'm leaning more toward just keeping it completely tamed with clips and hair thingy's. To be continued...

Alright, that's all for now. Beijing Saturday!!

Zaijian!
~Robyn

Getting Into Week 2...

Ni hao everyone!

Alright, so this post is infinitely more comfortable as I've discovered the computer lab on campus, and no longer have to sit in an environment of greasy keyboards, obsessed gamers, cigarette smoke (it's apparently fine to spit and throw cigarettes out on the floor), and generally suspect activities. It's raining very heavily outside, and three classmates and I swam our way over here after a dinner of fried pork and pineapple, and pork and seafood dumplings. I've never had so much pork in my life since being in China, by the way. My earlier thoughts of considering being a vegetarian have been put on hold for this month, as it would be virtually impossible to stay fed here were I to not eat meat.





The rain is welcome, as it's usually quite muggy and humid, and it is actually causing the smog to disperse temporarily. This is a picture of one of the bridges into Tianjin. Two things to notice: first, the sculpture is in the style of Western art, but maintains Chinese physical features, and second, the hazy slightly brown air is actually accurate of what we see every day.

As an aside, during the same bus ride we went over that bridge, we came across several amusing signs like this, warning against drunk driving (there is a car inside a wine glass, with various alcoholic beverage containers flying out the windows).


This past weekend we went to Tai An, the hometown of Confucius, or Kongzi. We were able to view the Kong graveyard, which currently contains 74 generations, from Kongzi himself, his son, grandson, and so on. Apart from the graveyard, there were many sites for prayer, and the compound was filled with several separate houses for the members of the Kong family to live. The picture on the left is of the main gate to the Kong compound.

The area has become quite comericalized, with countless vendors selling the same things - personalized name "chops" and fans, fake jade jewelry, small figurines of Confucius and Mao, etc. We ran into hundreds of other tourists, all of them Asian. Aside from the historical sites, our group seemed like the main attraction everywhere we went. After leaving Confucius's town, we visited a site that had been erected in honor of the achievements and contributions of another great Chinese philosopher, Mencius. This was a much quieter and less busy area, and non-Chinese are rare here. The elderly and children especially would stop walking/biking/playing and just stand and stare as we walked by, with expressions as if saying "they really do exist!" These reactions have become the norm for our group, and the following day, Sunday, when we ascended Mount Tai (Tai Shan), a child asked us if we would take a photograph with him. It doesn't bother me, and I always wonder what runs through people's minds when they are one of those with the incredulous looks on their faces. I wonder what kind of international exposure children receive in different areas of China. It's interesting to contrast with my own life; one of my groupmates Mike commented that for us in the U.S. to have such a reaction it would take something extremely exotic, or perhaps a celebrity. Even then, living in the Washington, D.C. area, celebrity sightings are not so rare.

The weekend was amazing, so many historically significant and culturally filled sites, I feel honored to have had the chance to see one of them, let alone all of them. This coming weekend were are headed to Beijing and the Forbidden Palace and Great Wall, and the following weekend is what I am really looking forward to, Xi'an and the terracotta soldiers of the ruthless Qin emperor Shi Huang.

I have found Chinese class to be tough to keep up with, both in class content and the actual class itself! This morning after t'ai ch'i and breakfast, I headed for class as usual, only to find for the second time that no one was there. Class schedules are highly dependant upon the teacher's schedule, and we somehow were not on the same page with the frequent changes. It turns out class had been moved to 1:00-4:40, instead of 8:30-12:10, so my roommate Monica and I took advantage of the free morning to go to the ever-reliable E-Mart (Yi Mai De) for some grocery shopping. The country is getting ready for the summer Olympic games, and logos and the five Olympic mascots can be found just about everywhere you turn, like this kite we found in Shandong province while learning about Confucius. Our taxi to E-Mart had its seats covered with an Olympic-themed motif, and tiny mascots hanging from the mirror and the ceiling. The city of Tianjin has also constructed a huge enclosed stadium to house Olympic soccer matches, but is closed for tourists at the moments. Olympic fever is permeating the radio and television too; every morning on the tv news we hear about the preparations and excitement surrounding the Games.


Thanks for your comments! It's time to get down to homework and then bed; tomorrow we have 7am t'ai chi as usual, and then our second round of wushu in the afternoon following classes and lunch. Sleep tonight is crucial, as last week's intro to wushu on Tuesday sent all of us into a week of pain and strained muscles! I'm looking forward to it though, I miss martial arts and getting a taste of it once more has convinced me to take it back up when I return to the U.S.

Hope you all are well, I miss all of you!
Zaijian!
~Robyn

China!! Week One.

Well, life in Tianjin is different, but not exactly like what I expected.

I arrived at Nankai University around 2am Monday morning, after a turbulent flight from DC to Minneapolis, a long and cramped flight to Tokyo (Tokyo's airport is amazing, so cheerful and technologically advanced), a smooth flight to Beijing, and a hair-raising 2hr bus ride to Tianjin.

Traffic here was the first thing I noticed - there are 8-lane freeways mostly, some with lane lines and some without (there's constant construction here, and our route didn't always consist of fully-completed highways). In town, there is a constant flow of vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles. Traffic lights seem optional, and I would guess the average speed is about 30-40mph. Honking and bike bells are the communication used on a VERY frequent basis, but to alert other vehicles of your presence, not as an expression of road rage like the U.S. All mesh with each other on a dangerously fluid system, and I'm always amazed there aren't more collisions and deaths than there are.

Aside from the traffic, the pollution here is not as bad as I expected, but enough so that I am coughing at night, and walking in brown air during the day. The joke here is that there is never a sunny day in Tianjin because the sunshine hardly ever makes it through the constant artifically overcast air.

We as Americans stick out pretty obviously here, and the locals have no qualms about staring you in the face until you pass by. Interactions have all been very friendly, and very few people speak English. My Chinese is not at a functional every-day level, but the people of Tianjin are more than willing to help me get by with my "Chinglish."

I ventured to "Yi Mai De" aka E-Mart today by myself, armed with a shopping list of fruits, a calling card, and laundry detergent, and my limited knowledge of Mandarin, and made it there and back in one piece. The cash registers are stationed by two employees, not one; one does everything the one employee at grocery stores at home would do, and the other stands next to him/her and simply checks to see the items on the belt are properly on the belt. Maybe they do more; I haven't seen them do anything else yet. E-mart is this amazing business that is the equivalent of a Wal-Mart (but they have a real Wal-Mart here too, next to KFC and McDonald's and Starbucks, or "Xing Ba Ke Kafei"), but more upscale and with much friendlier personnel. As I was checking out, I noticed the Tesco logo, a United Kingdom chain, so I'm guessing they are partners or perhaps E-Mart is a subdivision.

Nutrition here is an active pursuit. Meals offered here are rich in carbohydrates, salt, and oil, with the occasional vegetable and meat, which I am not always in the mood for. It's mostly chicken and beef, noodles, rice, and tofu with some beef concoction on top. Dumplings made-to-order are abundant, and by far the best tasting dish on campus (so far). Breakfast is mostly different forms of bread, although omelettes were served once too. To get fruit and water isn't impossible, it is simply a separate action. No fruit is offered anywhere in restaurants; you have to go to grocery stores or outdoor markets and haggle for them. I was always diet-conscious at home, but it was generally satisfied by making differentiating decisions from within the refrigerator, not "what vitamins and minerals are now totally absent from my diet that I need to make a separate trip for?"

My time at the internet cafe built into the concrete wall under a freeway a block from the university is about up, so I will post again as soon as I can.

Hello to everyone from home, hope you all are doing well!

Zaijian!
~Robyn

T minus 12...

Well, less than 24 hours until I'm in the air, on the way to literally the opposite side of the world. I have traveled internationally quite frequently prior to this trip, so I'm used to air travel and long, not always comfortable, trips. I'm usually not nervous at all, except during take-off and sometimes during landing. Hopefully this time will be the same.

As it's so close to go-time, I of course should be packed and set to go. Those of you who know me know that of course, there is not a single thing in the two empty suitcases I have sitting outside my bedroom. There ARE however two loads of laundry going, and all the necessary documents have been organized and photocopied, so that's a bit of progress. Or so I am trying to convince myself...

It's around 8:30pm right now, so since we're all meeting at 8:45am tomorrow, I guess I should get to work. I'll probably post again tonight, once everything's (fingers crossed) sorted and stored. Until later!

PS ~ Thanks for dropping by and reading! I'll try to make my blogs as closely entertaining and informative as the trip will undoubtedly be for me in "real life." :)