Last Week

It's my last week in Beijing! I can't believe that ACC is almost over. It has definitely been stressful, but it has been worth it. My Chinese has improved more than I ever expected. Everyone at ACC strictly adhered to the language pledge, and as a result I feel that my Chinese improved at a much quicker rate than it would have if people occasionally spoke English. ACC prides itself on being a rigorous program, and the language pledge is taken extremely seriously. Four students who had already been there a semester were caught speaking English in a restaurant near the school. They were given a warning, but I think they really felt terrible about it. Two of them wrote a letter to all of ACC about the importance and purpose of the language pledge. They explained that when you speak English you are only hurting yourself because the main goal of this kind of study abroad is to learn a foreign language. I completely agreed with everything they wrote. I am here to learn Chinese and learn about Chinese culture. I will have plenty of opportunities to speak English when I come back to the US, but I won't have the opportunity to use Chinese as often.
We have our final oral presentation on Thursday and then our written exam on Friday, and then we're done! I will be sad to leave my teachers and all of the friends I have made at ACC. I do miss my family and friends in the US, so I am happy to go back, but at the same time I know I will miss Beijing.

Oral Project: A Trip to the Beijing Botanical Gardens

For our final oral project we were given the opportunity to explore a place in Beijing with a teacher. At first I thought I might want to go to a Hutong, but then I heard that a lot of other people had the same idea, so I decided to figure out somewhere a little more unusual. I was reading a copy of the magazine That's Beijing when I stumbled across an article about the Beijing Botanical Gardens. It was a eureka moment. At Yale I do research on plant phylogeny, so this would be a great opportunity to explore Beijing plant culture.

Pretty flowers! Buddhist temple within the gardens

Friday I went to the Beijing Botanical Gardens and despite the 2 hour commute each way it was a lot of fun. I left with Wang laoshi (I was worried we wouldn't have anything to talk about, but we had plenty to discuss and the silences weren't awkward) at 9 am. After taking the subway and then a bus we arrived at the gardens at 11pm. They are really nice, there is so much to see you could spend a whole day there and only explore a small niche. We first walked to the Wofu Temple which has a giant reclining Buddah. It was really pretty and Wang laoshi explained some of Buddhism's history in China. We then walked around a small medicine garden, that had medicinal plants as well as a ton of pretty flowers, so in total I took about 40 pictures, although I'll probably only have about 3 good shots. Then we wandered around until we stumbled upon a large lake. Part of the assignment of the trip was to speak with Chinese people and interview them. I was a little nervous at first, but Wang laoshi helped me and I ended up interviewing a mom and child, students, and a park maintenance worker. We then had a 2 hour commute back, but I think it was worth it. I had a wonderful time, I got to know Wang laoshi a lot better, and I got to practice my Chinese.

The garden included a lake My teacher Wang laoshi!

Beijing Night Market

On Friday night I went out with Jiaona to the Night Market, which is basically a jam-packed street with food vendor stalls, selling everything from spiced tofu, to meat on sticks. I of course had to get the scorpions on a stick. They didn't taste like much, mostly crunchy and fried, but we took lots of pictures. In China another specialty is candied grapes on a stick, basically fresh grapes dipped in sugar, very tasty. Then we finished it off with a coconut, basically they poke a giant hole in a coconut and give you a straw.

This brings me to the subject of food. When I first started out I swore I would never go to an American style restaurant because I only had two months to savor authentic Chinese food. I was good for the first month, but then I just really started missing American food. I was tired of eating rice and dumplings, I just wanted a sandwich. I think that it is only natural to miss the kinds of food you are used to. Now I have struck a balance. I mostly eat Chinese cuisine, dumplings, fried rice, mantou, noodles, etc., but I occasionally go to the nearby KFC or Subway and order the American food I've been missing.

Midterm Trip to Datong

Datong was both fun and incredibly frustrating, much like China. I was expecting an escape from the smog, but no such luck. Datong is about a 6 hour train ride away from Beijing, so we left Thursday at 11 pm and arrived in Datong at 5am. Datong is close to inner Mongolia, so it is pretty dry and there aren't a lot of trees. We went straight to the hotel and had breakfast. Everyone was really tired and pretty cranky, since it's hard to sleep on the train. After breakfast we left for our first destination. We took a coach bus everywhere, so we were quite obviously tourists. We went to the Hanging Monastery, which is built right into the side of a cliff. The views from the monastery are great. We then went to the Heng Mountain and most of the group took a ferrocarril up, but me and 7 others walked up, since the views were great and we had a lot of time to spend there. After our final destination of the day was the Wooden Pagoda, which was apparently featured in the movie Prison Break, which I haven't seen. At this
point we were exhausted, we went back to the hotel and it was already 7. We had to arrange our own dinner, so Jiaona, Alicia, Julia and I met at 8. We wandered around for a little until we found a place that looked good, at this point we were starving and so it didn't take much persuading. We ended up at a hotpot restaurant and it was fabulous! The waitress was really nice; the menu didn't have pictures, so she helped us order, but she wasn't obnoxious and didn't talk down to us, which happens a lot in Beijing when you don't understand something. In Datong they don't get that many foreign tourists, so we were an oddity, and people would ask to take pictures with us.

The second day wasn't as interesting. We went to the Yungang Grottoes, which are caves that hold Buddah carvings, that was pretty cool. Then we went to another small monastery for about 30 minutes and ended the day at the Nine Dragon Screen, which was basically a large dragon mosaic. Then we had until 10pm to do what we wanted. My roommate and I slept until 6 pm, which was when you had to vacate the room. Afterwards Jiaona, Julia, Alicia and I took a taxi to the shopping district. We ate at a not very good restaurant and then wandered around afterwards, which was probably my favorite part of the trip. The street was packed on both sides with little vendors, selling everything from popcorn to clothes. Alicia ordered "chou dofu" which is basically aged tofu. It's really stinky, it smells like old socks, she and Jiaona loved it, I tried it, but it tastes much like it smells. Then on a whim, we all got a spray on skull tattoo. I was the first one to do it, and a crowd of people gathered around to watch, it was really strange. When we went back to the hotel, we played a joke on our favorite teacher Zhang laoshi. We told her Jiaona had a small "problem", her arm hurt. Then we showed her the "tattoo" and our matching ones. For about 5 seconds she actually thought it was real and then she grabbed our arms and took a closer look and tried to see if it smeared. That was really fun. Then we took the night train back and arrived at Beijing at 5am.

Beijing Kaoya 北京烤鸭

Peking Duck is a Beijing specialty, you can't live here and not try it at least once. First, it is inflated with a pump or other object, separating the skin from the body (in ancient times someone with strong lungs would achieve this by blowing through a straw). Then the skin is scalded with boiling water to make it drier and tauter and brushed with molasses so that it acquires a dark, rich color. After drying for half a day, the duck is hung by its neck in an oven where it is roasted for an hour or more, during which time the copious fat of the duck melts off and the skin becomes crispy. In order to finally experience Beijing Kaoya I went out with two ACC friends to eat. First we went to this really touristy place that was packed with people, I have never seen so many people in a building in my life, it was horrific. Colin had made the reservation, but it turned out it was at another place. So we called the restaurant and had them explain to our taxi driver where it was. The restaurant we ended up at was great. It was small, but the quality of the food was high. We ordered Peking duck as well as some vegetable dishes. We also ordered a small container of their cheapest "bai jiu" which is basically Chinese hard liquor, since I had never had it. It tastes like battery acid, not something I would ever choose to order. They brought out small plates of hoison sauce, scallions, and cucumber. Then they brought out the pancakes. Finally they brought out the carefully sliced duck on a really cute duck shaped platter. Along with the sliced duck, they put the head of the duck, I guess so you know you what you are ordering! It was so good. The skin was crispy and the hoison sauce was addictive.

Afterwards we wandered around and stumbled upon a huge outdoor shopping area. It's pretty easy to tell which areas are meant for foreigners and which are meant for regular Chinese. This had a Starbucks, Ferrari store, and a huge plasma screen overhead made up of thousands of small tvs showing underwater scenes. After gawking for a while we moved on. We had been wanting to get a massage all week and as we were passing a hotel we saw a sign for "anmo" or "massage". The place looked legitimate so we went inside. It was expensive, but well worth it. A full body massage was 150 renminbi for 100 minutes. We changed into what were basically pajamas and then were laid out on our own separate massage bed, but in the same room. Colin and David had female
masseuses and I had a male. It was so nice. They really worked every part, especially the back. Afterwards I just wanted to go to sleep. It was a great end to my Beijing Kaoya adventure.

My Chinese Host Family

ACC arranges for students to have a Chinese host family. It is a good way for us to learn about Chinese culture and practice our Chinese. My Chinese host mother called me and my "sibling" (a fellow ACC student) to come over for lunch on Saturday. Saturday afternoon I met with my Chinese family and we went to their house. They were so sweet. They had made two gift bags, one for me and one for Rita (the other ACC student in our family). It included bookmarks, a pretty green shirt, a small tapestry thing, and a decorative comb. I thought it was so thoughtful of them. In China it is extremely important to be a good host. As soon as we arrived they asked us if we wanted water or fruit. They have a 23 year old daughter, so while the "parents" cooked the dumplings, we talked with her. She went to school in Shanghai and now works in Beijing and lives at home. Because housing is so expensive in Beijing, many young people live at home, even if they have good jobs. Unlike in America that is accepted, even encouraged. The lunch was really nice, 5 cold dishes and then the dumplings. They were really polite and pushed food on us (which is considered the polite thing to do as a host in China), but they weren't aggressive about forcing you to keep plowing through dishes like I heard some host families can be. The atmosphere was really relaxed. We talked about our homes in America, studying in Beijing, American politics, the 2008 Olympics, and many other things. It was nice to be able to speak Chinese well enough to not just have to talk about the weather and other simpler things. This kind of experience makes learning Chinese worth all the while.

Students that stay at ACC for the fall semester have the option of moving off campus and living with a Chinese student and one other ACC student or staying on campus. Even though I am only here for the summer, I thought about what I would choose. At first I thought I would stay on campus, because the facilities are so modern, a maid cleans your room every day and the classrooms are in the same building. But then I thought about it some more and realized I would probably move off campus. If you lived with a Chinese student your Chinese would improve so quickly. Not only that, but it would give you an opportunity to make friends with actual Chinese citizens.

Chinese Acrobatics Show

The stage before the performance started.

This weekend was so much fun. On Friday night we went to the Chaoyang Theater to see a Chinese acrobatics show. The show was about an hour long and it was divided into multiple "stories". One involved a love story with two couples and a lot of fancy tricks. All of the troupe members were so talented, but my favorite part was the plate spinning, it looked so cool when a whole bunch of women walked out with five plates in each hand spinning on rods. The show also included bicycle tricks, balanicng acts, all sorts of things.

One of the interesting things about the troupe is that there are a lot of small children, many under the age of 15. I wonder how they ended up being in an acrobatic troupe, was it their decision, or did their parents try to give them a better life?