This weekend I went to the forbidden city. Also, I went to the Beijing Capital Museum with people from 百年, whom I've now known for 3 weeks and seen occasionally (it's important to note tthat I have no control over my schedule, APSA tells me what to do and when and I do it.) I saw some things and met some people, but all of that is on my camera and I can't get to it from here.
The forbidden city was really cool. The way we went through it, there weren't any opportunities to take a picture of the entire thing including 天安门(TianAnMen), but I still saw a lot of the place and took a lot of pictures.
There's only about a week and a half left of my stay here now. I'm going to enter a drawing to travel to Inner Mongolia (still in china) to work with an environmentalist effort for a few days before I come home.
27 July 2009
24 July 2009
Day 25
Yesterday we went to a shopping center literally across the street
from the temple of heaven. This is a panoramic shot from the balcony
on the building. Yesterday in brief was a long day, by the end of it I
was ready to go home. Today, after all, I'm still enjoying china.
Sleep helps.
from the temple of heaven. This is a panoramic shot from the balcony
on the building. Yesterday in brief was a long day, by the end of it I
was ready to go home. Today, after all, I'm still enjoying china.
Sleep helps.
23 July 2009
Day 22
Here's a picture of yesterday's smog, some of the worst I've seen in
Beijing so far. The lunar eclipse happened, but of course it was
invisible There was a huge rainstorm afterwards. After the rains
Beijing is a lot cleaner; that night the sky was a dark blue color for
a change. Today it's back to normal. You can't see stars at night
here unless you're in the country.
Beijing so far. The lunar eclipse happened, but of course it was
invisible There was a huge rainstorm afterwards. After the rains
Beijing is a lot cleaner; that night the sky was a dark blue color for
a change. Today it's back to normal. You can't see stars at night
here unless you're in the country.
Day 5 repost
I'm not sure if I sent this yet because I found it in my drafts folder, so I wanted to make sure.
Today was my first day of classes. I haven't written in a while so I'll cover the last weekend up until today.
On Saturday, we went as a group to Chaoyang park. We met migrant students whose parents are migrant workers in China -- workers who move from the countryside to bigger cities to get a better job -- and played typical games with them, except without much communication. It's interesting that I know more Mandarin than 4 of the chaperones and one of the program directors, all of whom were the administrators of the event. Despite this, they managed it very well and we as a group made lots of new friends. Personally, I met a guy whose american name was Johnny. He was from Guangdong in southern China, northeast of Hong Kong. I talked to him and his friend about my life in the US. They were interested to know about a lot of topics, such as city life, what work was like in big cities (i.e. the difference between Atlanta and NYC). Additionally, public transit, cars, driver's licenses (I showed them mine and we talked about the bad driving habits in the US and
Beijing) sports, computer games and video game addicts, and the higher-ups in corporations who are in part causing the global economic breakdown. We took pictures and he had a pretty nice camera phone for a migrant. After they left we Americans went to play basketball. In China, you pay for everything - we had to pay 5 yuan ($0.85) to get into the park and more money to rent a basketball court. So after sweating off about 10 pounds we walked around some more and left as a group. The park as well as the rest of the city was looking very smoggy that day, and has been getting worse ever since.
On Sunday, we went to TianAnMen square. TianAnMen roughly translates as "gate of the peaceful gods." It's famous for the 1989 protest incident. While we were there, we saw the famous tomb of Mao, as well as the iconic end of the square with his huge portrait looking down. As we took pictures in front of it (5 of us, 3 from Atlanta, 2 from other schools, and a chaperone) people started gathering to take pictures, also, and to get into the picture. After fewer than 3 minutes, there were about 40 people gathered around, taking pictures and posing in ours. Apparently Americans are a rarity, even at TianAnMen square. After leaving, we went through some shopping roads to meet for lunch at a place called Brothers Jiang, which is like a Chinese McDonald's (with Chinese food.) You get a plate of raw vegetables and meat and a raw egg first. On this plate there were also things I didn't recognize as well as a bowl of yellow flower petals. I stared at this plate and
tried to eat the raw things before they handed us a boiling pot of soup and rice noodles. So we poured the vegetables, egg, and meats into the soup and stirred it - eventually it was pretty good. Everyone sweated a lot over their soup and it began to get very hot in the restaurant - it was in a basement, anyway, and badly ventilated. Later, we went to the Beijing City Planning Museum. It was mostly boring except for the scale model of Beijing spread across an entire room, and various models of the olympic facilities and important city districts.
Today, Monday, was my first day of class. The placement test we took on Sunday helped the administrators the assign us spots in various classes - I was placed in the third class with one other student from the program. The rest of the students in my class were college-age and older, and they were all American, or Indonesian, or French. The entire program was split into four classes - a level 1 class, with about 8 people, a level 2 class, with about 9 people, and a
Today was my first day of classes. I haven't written in a while so I'll cover the last weekend up until today.
On Saturday, we went as a group to Chaoyang park. We met migrant students whose parents are migrant workers in China -- workers who move from the countryside to bigger cities to get a better job -- and played typical games with them, except without much communication. It's interesting that I know more Mandarin than 4 of the chaperones and one of the program directors, all of whom were the administrators of the event. Despite this, they managed it very well and we as a group made lots of new friends. Personally, I met a guy whose american name was Johnny. He was from Guangdong in southern China, northeast of Hong Kong. I talked to him and his friend about my life in the US. They were interested to know about a lot of topics, such as city life, what work was like in big cities (i.e. the difference between Atlanta and NYC). Additionally, public transit, cars, driver's licenses (I showed them mine and we talked about the bad driving habits in the US and
Beijing) sports, computer games and video game addicts, and the higher-ups in corporations who are in part causing the global economic breakdown. We took pictures and he had a pretty nice camera phone for a migrant. After they left we Americans went to play basketball. In China, you pay for everything - we had to pay 5 yuan ($0.85) to get into the park and more money to rent a basketball court. So after sweating off about 10 pounds we walked around some more and left as a group. The park as well as the rest of the city was looking very smoggy that day, and has been getting worse ever since.
On Sunday, we went to TianAnMen square. TianAnMen roughly translates as "gate of the peaceful gods." It's famous for the 1989 protest incident. While we were there, we saw the famous tomb of Mao, as well as the iconic end of the square with his huge portrait looking down. As we took pictures in front of it (5 of us, 3 from Atlanta, 2 from other schools, and a chaperone) people started gathering to take pictures, also, and to get into the picture. After fewer than 3 minutes, there were about 40 people gathered around, taking pictures and posing in ours. Apparently Americans are a rarity, even at TianAnMen square. After leaving, we went through some shopping roads to meet for lunch at a place called Brothers Jiang, which is like a Chinese McDonald's (with Chinese food.) You get a plate of raw vegetables and meat and a raw egg first. On this plate there were also things I didn't recognize as well as a bowl of yellow flower petals. I stared at this plate and
tried to eat the raw things before they handed us a boiling pot of soup and rice noodles. So we poured the vegetables, egg, and meats into the soup and stirred it - eventually it was pretty good. Everyone sweated a lot over their soup and it began to get very hot in the restaurant - it was in a basement, anyway, and badly ventilated. Later, we went to the Beijing City Planning Museum. It was mostly boring except for the scale model of Beijing spread across an entire room, and various models of the olympic facilities and important city districts.
Today, Monday, was my first day of class. The placement test we took on Sunday helped the administrators the assign us spots in various classes - I was placed in the third class with one other student from the program. The rest of the students in my class were college-age and older, and they were all American, or Indonesian, or French. The entire program was split into four classes - a level 1 class, with about 8 people, a level 2 class, with about 9 people, and a
21 July 2009
Day ??
I lost count of the days, for some reason. Recently I was away from home and in a suburban Beijing community, and it was hard to keep track of the days there. I was sick yesterday. I woke up in the middle of the night shivering really violently, I've never done that before. I slept most of the day on monday and I felt much better. This weekend we went to a different migrant school for middle school students. It was a really different experience. These kids have nothing. The school is a nonprofit so they can go there for free. Here's a picture of the classroom where I taught English over the weekend (we spent the night there)
17 July 2009
Friday - Day 16
Today was a good day. I took my midterm (I think I did well) and went to a shopping districts and bought 东西。(stuff). Now, I'm at the apple store listening to Kanye west and writing about my day. Now, there isn't much more time to write, but I'll say what I can. This weekend I'm going to the dandelion school, a school for middle-school age migrant workers' children outside Beijing, to spend the night and do community service. Tonight I'm going to finally decide on my own what I want to do (almost) with the other people from my city- we'll go and have dinner as well as talk to one of the major sponsors of the program about our impressions of Beijing and the program so far. I've almost been here for two weeks: Beijing put simply is hot, crowded, dirty, glowing, and noisy. A perfect chinese word for this is 热闹 (rénaó).
Hear from me soon.
P.S. I bought a router for $10 (cheap stuff in beijing, apparently.) Hopefully I'll install wireless networks in the place I'm staying by the end of this weekend.
Hear from me soon.
P.S. I bought a router for $10 (cheap stuff in beijing, apparently.) Hopefully I'll install wireless networks in the place I'm staying by the end of this weekend.
15 July 2009
12 July 2009
Day 11
Today, Sunday, we went to the great wall. Yesterday, saturday, we went to WangFuJing. Also, we saw our migrant friends again ( whom we originally met at Chaoyang park.) That was the weekend in brief. Also this week, we had our first week of classes and moved from Boya, a 4-star hotel, to the Beijing Seniors Activity center, a hotel across the street with fewer amenities. Not that I'm complaining. A hotel is still far from most of the real beijing anyway. The schedule, at this point, is really packed and we don't have much down time, s so we don't stay at the hotel very often anyway.
On saturday morning, we visited the migrant high school where the students we met last week go to school. They learn vocational skills like mechanics, and stuff. Anyway, we did teambuliding and I made new friends. It' would've been nice if they had given us more time just to chat, because I made a lot more friends and learned a lot more about these people just from talking.
That afternoon, we visited a park not far from there. We had a great lunch at a restaurant and then explored the park. It turns out the park is in the middle of the russiatown of Beijing- bizzarely, more signs i couldn't read everywhere, but this time, in Russian. The first picture (001) is from a big courtyard in that park that I was standing in the middle of.
Later that day we went to WangFuJing, a huge commercial district like Times swuare. pictures 002 and 003 are from there. At one point (002) a huge crowd gathered to watch a friend of mine rap - over 100 people. He's good with the rhymes, but not that good. People were just excited to see americans. Then they took our picture (you can see people with cameras.) We also went to the night market and tried crazy kinds of food - squid, octopus, sheep, snake. Plus weird anatomy. I also bought a bunch of cool stuff at the market center of wangfujing, where you can change prices by walking away.
Today (sunday) we went to the great wall. It's a really tough climb. To get up, there are over 1000 stairs just to get up to the wall, before you evevn got onto the wall. Then, there are hundreds more steps to get to tower 20 (the highest tower that it's safe to go onto.) I took pictures there, too. After going to tower 20 and feeling clouds flowing past my head, i ran almost all the way downhill (on the wall) to tower 6 - about 2-3 miles. From there I rode a toboggan kind of sled down a metal flume to the bottom of the mountain. There's so much more to say about these things, but not enough time. I took lots of pictures. Clearly, 004 is from the great wall.
That's all I have time for now. Check later for more on this life.
On saturday morning, we visited the migrant high school where the students we met last week go to school. They learn vocational skills like mechanics, and stuff. Anyway, we did teambuliding and I made new friends. It' would've been nice if they had given us more time just to chat, because I made a lot more friends and learned a lot more about these people just from talking.
That afternoon, we visited a park not far from there. We had a great lunch at a restaurant and then explored the park. It turns out the park is in the middle of the russiatown of Beijing- bizzarely, more signs i couldn't read everywhere, but this time, in Russian. The first picture (001) is from a big courtyard in that park that I was standing in the middle of.
Later that day we went to WangFuJing, a huge commercial district like Times swuare. pictures 002 and 003 are from there. At one point (002) a huge crowd gathered to watch a friend of mine rap - over 100 people. He's good with the rhymes, but not that good. People were just excited to see americans. Then they took our picture (you can see people with cameras.) We also went to the night market and tried crazy kinds of food - squid, octopus, sheep, snake. Plus weird anatomy. I also bought a bunch of cool stuff at the market center of wangfujing, where you can change prices by walking away.
Today (sunday) we went to the great wall. It's a really tough climb. To get up, there are over 1000 stairs just to get up to the wall, before you evevn got onto the wall. Then, there are hundreds more steps to get to tower 20 (the highest tower that it's safe to go onto.) I took pictures there, too. After going to tower 20 and feeling clouds flowing past my head, i ran almost all the way downhill (on the wall) to tower 6 - about 2-3 miles. From there I rode a toboggan kind of sled down a metal flume to the bottom of the mountain. There's so much more to say about these things, but not enough time. I took lots of pictures. Clearly, 004 is from the great wall.
That's all I have time for now. Check later for more on this life.
06 July 2009
Day 5
Today was my first day of classes. I haven't written in a while so I'll cover the last weekend up until today.
On Saturday, we went as a group to Chaoyang park. We met migrant students whose parents are migrant workers in China -- workers who move from the countryside to bigger cities to get a better job -- and played typical games with them, except without much communication. It's interesting that I know more Mandarin than 4 of the chaperones and one of the program directors, all of whom were the administrators of the event. Despite this, they managed it very well and we as a group made lots of new friends. Personally, I met a guy whose american name was Johnny.. He was from Guangdong in southern China, northeast of Hong Kong. I talked to him and his friend about my life in the US. They were interested to know about a lot of topics, such as city life, what work was like in big cities (i.e. the difference between Atlanta and NYC). Additionally, public transit, cars, driver's licenses (I showed them mine and we talked about the bad driving habits in the US and
Beijing) sports, computer games and video game addicts, and the higher-ups in corporations who are in part causing the global economic breakdown. We took pictures and he had a pretty nice camera phone for a migrant. After they left we Americans went to play basketball. In China, you pay for everything - we had to pay 5 yuan ($0.85) to get into the park and more money to rent a basketball court. So after sweating off about 10 pounds we walked around some more and left as a group. The park as well as the rest of the city was looking very smoggy that day, and has been getting worse ever since.
On Sunday, we went to TianAnMen square. TianAnMen roughly translates as "gate of the peaceful gods." It's famous for the 1989 protest incident.. While we were there, we saw the famous tomb of Mao, as well as the iconic end of the square with his huge portrait looking down. As we took pictures in front of it (5 of us, 3 from Atlanta, 2 from other schools, and a chaperone) people started gathering to take pictures, also, and to get into the picture. After fewer than 3 minutes, there were about 40 people gathered around, taking pictures and posing in ours. Apparently Americans are a rarity, even at TianAnMen square. After leaving, we went through some shopping roads to meet for lunch at a place called Brothers Jiang, which is like a Chinese McDonald's (with Chinese food.) You get a plate of raw vegetables and meat and a raw egg first. On this plate there were also things I didn't recognize as well as a bowl of yellow flower petals. I stared at this plate and
tried to eat the raw things before they handed us a boiling pot of soup and rice noodles. So we poured the vegetables, egg, and meats into the soup and stirred it - eventually it was pretty good. Everyone sweated a lot over their soup and it began to get very hot in the restaurant - it was in a basement, anyway, and badly ventilated. Later, we went to the Beijing City Planning Museum. It was mostly boring except for the scale model of Beijing spread across an entire room, and various models of the olympic facilities and important city districts.
Today, Monday, was my first day of class. The placement test we took on Sunday helped the administrators the assign us spots in various classes - I was placed in the third class with one other student from the program. The rest of the students in my class were college-age and older, and they were all American, or Indonesian, or French. The entire program was split into four classes - a level 1 class, with about 8 people, a level 2 class, with about 9 people, a level 3 class with me and one other person, and a level 4 class with one person. To my credit, the person I'm in class with and the person who's in level 4 are both Chinese. The class went well - I met my teacher, classmates, and started dialogues and did homework. Instead of being close to the top of my class, I'm now almost at the bottom of my class in reading, and at about the middle in speaking. Hopefully that'll change.
Today, also, I went onto American soil for a day at the American Embassy. It was ok, although they talked a lot, even though they had interesting things to say about careers in foreign affairs and general precautions about the city life. Although I won't openly oppose APSA or my sponsors, it seems that much of the information given (precautions about the subway, cabs, being alone, buying things) won't be an issue as long as we aren't allowed to go anywhere outside of our rigid schedule.
There's nothing else today. I just finished my homework- to write 10 sentences about Beijing - and now I'm writing about it. Later I'll go hang out with friends and then go to bed.
PS - The sun rises at about 4 AM every day here. It's bizzare. Also, when we got here it was possible to see they sky and your surroundings. Now, the smog obscures seeing more than ~6 blocks in any direction. Also, it rained yesterday. That's all.
On Saturday, we went as a group to Chaoyang park. We met migrant students whose parents are migrant workers in China -- workers who move from the countryside to bigger cities to get a better job -- and played typical games with them, except without much communication. It's interesting that I know more Mandarin than 4 of the chaperones and one of the program directors, all of whom were the administrators of the event. Despite this, they managed it very well and we as a group made lots of new friends. Personally, I met a guy whose american name was Johnny.. He was from Guangdong in southern China, northeast of Hong Kong. I talked to him and his friend about my life in the US. They were interested to know about a lot of topics, such as city life, what work was like in big cities (i.e. the difference between Atlanta and NYC). Additionally, public transit, cars, driver's licenses (I showed them mine and we talked about the bad driving habits in the US and
Beijing) sports, computer games and video game addicts, and the higher-ups in corporations who are in part causing the global economic breakdown. We took pictures and he had a pretty nice camera phone for a migrant. After they left we Americans went to play basketball. In China, you pay for everything - we had to pay 5 yuan ($0.85) to get into the park and more money to rent a basketball court. So after sweating off about 10 pounds we walked around some more and left as a group. The park as well as the rest of the city was looking very smoggy that day, and has been getting worse ever since.
On Sunday, we went to TianAnMen square. TianAnMen roughly translates as "gate of the peaceful gods." It's famous for the 1989 protest incident.. While we were there, we saw the famous tomb of Mao, as well as the iconic end of the square with his huge portrait looking down. As we took pictures in front of it (5 of us, 3 from Atlanta, 2 from other schools, and a chaperone) people started gathering to take pictures, also, and to get into the picture. After fewer than 3 minutes, there were about 40 people gathered around, taking pictures and posing in ours. Apparently Americans are a rarity, even at TianAnMen square. After leaving, we went through some shopping roads to meet for lunch at a place called Brothers Jiang, which is like a Chinese McDonald's (with Chinese food.) You get a plate of raw vegetables and meat and a raw egg first. On this plate there were also things I didn't recognize as well as a bowl of yellow flower petals. I stared at this plate and
tried to eat the raw things before they handed us a boiling pot of soup and rice noodles. So we poured the vegetables, egg, and meats into the soup and stirred it - eventually it was pretty good. Everyone sweated a lot over their soup and it began to get very hot in the restaurant - it was in a basement, anyway, and badly ventilated. Later, we went to the Beijing City Planning Museum. It was mostly boring except for the scale model of Beijing spread across an entire room, and various models of the olympic facilities and important city districts.
Today, Monday, was my first day of class. The placement test we took on Sunday helped the administrators the assign us spots in various classes - I was placed in the third class with one other student from the program. The rest of the students in my class were college-age and older, and they were all American, or Indonesian, or French. The entire program was split into four classes - a level 1 class, with about 8 people, a level 2 class, with about 9 people, a level 3 class with me and one other person, and a level 4 class with one person. To my credit, the person I'm in class with and the person who's in level 4 are both Chinese. The class went well - I met my teacher, classmates, and started dialogues and did homework. Instead of being close to the top of my class, I'm now almost at the bottom of my class in reading, and at about the middle in speaking. Hopefully that'll change.
Today, also, I went onto American soil for a day at the American Embassy. It was ok, although they talked a lot, even though they had interesting things to say about careers in foreign affairs and general precautions about the city life. Although I won't openly oppose APSA or my sponsors, it seems that much of the information given (precautions about the subway, cabs, being alone, buying things) won't be an issue as long as we aren't allowed to go anywhere outside of our rigid schedule.
There's nothing else today. I just finished my homework- to write 10 sentences about Beijing - and now I'm writing about it. Later I'll go hang out with friends and then go to bed.
PS - The sun rises at about 4 AM every day here. It's bizzare. Also, when we got here it was possible to see they sky and your surroundings. Now, the smog obscures seeing more than ~6 blocks in any direction. Also, it rained yesterday. That's all.
02 July 2009
Day 1
Toxay's my first day in 北京. I got here about 4 hours ago after an
excruciating plane trip. I've been awake for 22 hours and counting.
This is the view from my hotel room where I'm staying for the next
week. Because they have free wi-fi I can update my blog daily until we
move at the end of the week. We're watching TV; so far, the acting and
camera work is pretty lame. Next we're going to dinner and
orientations at the high school where we're studying this summer. My
first impressions of Beijing are suburban, lots of bicycles, and nicer
and more modern cars than I expected, a nice but very tourist-y hotel.
I was also able to negate many obvious American misconceptions, such
as that of the unlivable air quality and deadly criminals etc. The
streets were cleaner than American streets, from what I saw anyway.
Hear from me when the dinner and orientation is over.
excruciating plane trip. I've been awake for 22 hours and counting.
This is the view from my hotel room where I'm staying for the next
week. Because they have free wi-fi I can update my blog daily until we
move at the end of the week. We're watching TV; so far, the acting and
camera work is pretty lame. Next we're going to dinner and
orientations at the high school where we're studying this summer. My
first impressions of Beijing are suburban, lots of bicycles, and nicer
and more modern cars than I expected, a nice but very tourist-y hotel.
I was also able to negate many obvious American misconceptions, such
as that of the unlivable air quality and deadly criminals etc. The
streets were cleaner than American streets, from what I saw anyway.
Hear from me when the dinner and orientation is over.
photo.jpg
Yesterday was our last night in DC. This afternoon I'm sitting on the
plane and writing this as we finish boarding and prepare to taxi.. This
is a direct 12-hour flight to Beijing; from now on my timestamps will
make sense in context. I'm texting people and listening ti the flight
attendants make announcements in Chinese. Yesterday we visited the
residence of the Chinese ambassador to the US. This is a picture with
him and the group from Atlanta as well as qi mei ran. Presently
they're telling everyone on the plane to stow their electronic
devices; the next time I write will be in 北京. As a last minute
decision, they're placing us in a 4-star hotel for the first week,
necessitating more unpacking and packing, but the amenities will ve
nice. They told us not to complain when we get to the final
destination, also, which is kind of funny. Here on the plane, they
just distributed the 21st Century Business Herald in Chinese. I got
one and we'll see what I can see. You'll hear from me in Beijing.
plane and writing this as we finish boarding and prepare to taxi.. This
is a direct 12-hour flight to Beijing; from now on my timestamps will
make sense in context. I'm texting people and listening ti the flight
attendants make announcements in Chinese. Yesterday we visited the
residence of the Chinese ambassador to the US. This is a picture with
him and the group from Atlanta as well as qi mei ran. Presently
they're telling everyone on the plane to stow their electronic
devices; the next time I write will be in 北京. As a last minute
decision, they're placing us in a 4-star hotel for the first week,
necessitating more unpacking and packing, but the amenities will ve
nice. They told us not to complain when we get to the final
destination, also, which is kind of funny. Here on the plane, they
just distributed the 21st Century Business Herald in Chinese. I got
one and we'll see what I can see. You'll hear from me in Beijing.
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