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?

Trip to the Great Wall

The Great Wall

Every weekend ACC arranges activities for the students. These are actually fairly well attended because we get the opportunity to go to some really interesting places. This weekend we went to Chang Cheng (also known as the Great Wall). The trip was a lot of fun, some people were expecting it to be unbearable because of the heat. We left the school at 8:30am, it was a 2 hour drive to the wall. There are three places you can access the wall that are near Beijing, I forgot the name of this one, but it is famous for having a lot of trees around and having beautiful scenery. It was quite a hike to get up to the wall. You walk up a path for about a 1/2 mile until with trees on either side until you get to the wall. Then we walked along the wall, taking pictures and stopping to look at the scenery.

It was hot! But also a lot of fun.

Strangely, one of the girls we were walking with saw a friend of hers from college who is studying in Beijing at another program walking on the wall. He was with 3 other friends and one of them was from Yale. It's really funny how you meet people you didn't have any contact with at school in foriegn countries. After walking back down it was 1pm and we had an hour before the bus left to go back to the school. Since it was super hot and we were all exhausted from the long trek, we sat in the shade eating ice cream. I have been searching for the past few days for Corn flavored ice cream, which they apparently sell everywhere. The two places I went to near the school were all out when I asked. There are so many little shops surrounding the Great Wall b/c so many tourists go there, so I knew one of the places selling ice cream bars had to have it. The first place I asked had corn ice cream, and it was wonderful. Next on my list to try is red bean, and then pea, although I have a feeling that it won't be nearly as good as the corn flavor. We got back to the school at around 4 pm and I was exhausted so I took a long nap. At 8 I went out to dinner. We went out for Japanese food and it was wonderful, I realized how much I miss sashimi and sushi.

Language Practicum

Every Friday we have a test on the week's lessons. Then we have a "language practicum" to use our Chinese in the real world. This varies from speaking with independent businessmen to visiting another nearby college and speaking with the students there. We went to visit Chinese families in groups of 4 as part of our weekly Friday afternoon language practice. They gave us directions on how to get to our house, but it was really hard to find. After taking the bus and getting off at the right stop we wandered around asking people and trying to find the street. We ended up going to a BMW dealership and asking one of the people who worked there if he knew where the street was. He didn't, but he nicely called the family b/c they had given us their phone number. The house was only two blocks away, but he nicely walked us over; this was either because he was really really nice, or really bored. It turned out to be wonderful. The "family" was actually one of our teachers (Zhu laoshi), she lives with her brother and his girlfriend in an apartment with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen, and one common room.

They were such wonderful hosts. We made dumplings, which was so much fun. They had earlier prepared a whole fish, cucumber salad and a tofu dish, so when we ate it was quite a feast. We ate and then went into our teacher’s room and just talked. She wanted it to be really relaxed; since they teachers are basically our age I think they want us to view them as friends, and not as authority figures. I really like that, since it makes class a lot more interesting when you feel you are discussing things with someone your own age. Part of being a good host in China is pushing people to eat beyond the point of fullness. So after our meal our teacher brought in ice cream bars, sunflower seeds and a whole bag of snacks to eat while we talked. We discussed so many topics, but the most interesting was our discussion of the Chinese government. This led Zhu laoshi to talk about how even though China has a lot of problems, many caused by the government, she still has a lot of faith in China. China has its own distinct history and shouldn't just blindly try to imitate Europe or America. I'de never heard someone talking so passionately about their country, she was actually very moving. We ended up leaving at 5 pm, even though we had expected to leave by 2:30 at the latest, since we were having such a good time and she really wanted us to stay.

Mmm...dumplings

Yowza

In Beijing I had a lot of trouble with the internet. I couldn't put up pictures and since the government restricted access to blogs, I couldn't even see my own postings. Instead I just wrote them all in a Word document to post after I got back and could add pictures. I'll post everything chronologically. And now there are pictures. YAY!

Start of Classes

The e-mail I sent after my first day of class:
So my first day of classes starts tomorrow! We had our first class meetingtoday and they gave us the books and our homework. For our first class tomorrowwe have to study two book chapters. This is going to be hard, but hopefully worth it. I guess I should backtrack a little bit. This will be a long e-mail,so you can skim if you want! Not taking the group flight was the best choice to make. Since we didn't haveto sign the language pledge until June 23rd at noon, I had time to meet peopleand make friends with them in English. I have a core group of 3 other girls, 2 of them are rising sophomores from Yale (Jioana and Andrea) that I hadn't met until coming to ACC and the other is from Brown (Julia). It is great because they all placed into 4th year and I placed into 3rd year (the level I wantedb/c I thought year 2 was too low) and 2 of them speak Chinese at home, so just by being around them my spoken Chinese has improved dramatically. Hopefully I will get to know the other ACCers better, but it is nice to already have people you know and are more comfortable with. On the 22nd we took the placement exam in the morning. The placement exam consisted of a written part and an oral portion. The written part lasted 2 hours and the oral part 20 min. Afterwards we went out to lunch. Since we have to eat all of our meals out we have an opportunity to explore the local restaurants. The food for the most part has been pretty good. In the afternoon Andrea, Julia, Jiona and I went to the nearby gym to buy a membership, which is $100 USD for 2 months, actually pretty expensive, but they have classes and nice machines. We went out at night andwent to the nearest party area San Li Tuan which has a lot of clubs frequented by expats. The next day we had our orientation meeting and had to sign the language pledge at noon. Since then I have been speaking nothing but Chinese, which is hard, butI've been making a big effort to just keep talking. It's not hard with my friends because their Chinese is good so they can usually fill in the vocab word I'm missing and I have never felt embarassed speaking in front of them. We chatted all the time in English so I was worried it would stop once we had to speak only Chinese, but we just switched over to chatting a lot in a different language. Our class assignment was posted at 8:30 pm on the 23rd and I was really relieved to see I had passed into 3rd year. I was afraid they might put me in 2nd year. Third year has the most students, and consequently the mostteachers.
Today we had a "field trip" that started at 8:30 am. We went to Jingshang Park which was fun because it was really crowded with people singing, dancing,playing the Chinese equivalent of hackey-scak etc. Then we went to Tian'anmenSquare, which was less exciting because it was around 11, painfully hot and so smoggy you couldn't see very far in front of you. We had convocation at 3pm,which basically consisted of various teachers giving speeches. I really am excited about the prospect of improving my Chinese so much, but I know that once the work load starts to pile on it will get a lot more depressing.

Arrival in Beijing

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been having some problems with the internet in China. Luckily, I wrote a lot of e-mails during this first week, so I'm posting pretty much what I felt at the time, although significantly after the fact. This is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to my parents a few hours after arriving at the ACC campus:
I just got into Beijing a few hours ago. I managed to make my connection inVienna with plenty of time, they didn't even start boarding until about 20 minutes after I got there. After getting my bags, I walked through customs,changed some money and walked over to the taxi stand. My driver wasn't surewhere the school was, but I told him what streets to take and we ended upgetting there pretty easily. I went to the foreign students dorm and recieved my key from the guard, went up to my room, unpacked, then wandered out and met some of the people living on my floor. The language pact doesn't start untilthe 23rd, so everyone is taking advantage of this to get to know everyone else in English, before we have to start soudning less intelligent in our less than fluent Chinese. The people I met seem really nice, and I went with two of them to buy a cell phone card. We are going to buy cheap cell phones later,apparently it's a good idea to have a cell phone while you are here, even if it is just for calls in China. I'm pretty tired right now so I'm going to take a quick nap before an ACC sponsored tour at 5pm. Hopefully it will be a good chance tomeeteveryone who is here. I'm excited to start diving into Chinese, although I knowit's going to be hard. Tomorrow is the placement test, so I'll probably be done with it by noon. I hope to place into third year, since that is the expected level it would really stink to be held back in second year.

My Very First Post

Well I've never had a blog before, so this should be interesting. Setting it up was pretty painless, so I imagine it won't be too difficult to post and add pictures. I just finished packing my things today. Before I start the ACC summer program I'm traveling around Europe for a week with my friend Anna. I leave on June 13^th for Vienna and then we take a train to Prague on the 17^th. I fly from Prague to Beijing on June 20^th. I am so excited to study in China and can’t wait to start the ACC program. Since I will not be picked up on the group flight, the most worrying part for me right off the bat will be giving directions to the taxi driver in Chinese to try to get to the correct campus. Hopefully after two years of studying at Yale my spoken Chinese will be good enough to get me from the airport to the Capital University of Economics and Business where all ACC students will be housed. Until my next post…再见!