Chinese Acrobatics and Host Family!

As part of the program we are given host families. These aren't families that we stay with; we just periodically have dinner with them and get a taste of a "typical" Chinese culture. Honestly, I like this way a little more because it avoids terribly awkward situations one might have while living with a host family. Anyways, so the first time I met my host family was for a "mixer" type deal and then New Year's Dinner at their home.

Their home was an apartment, of course, and was quite lovely. The food was delicious, albeit a little strange, but delicious. So, it's custom in China to drink. And when I say drink, I mean DRINK. China has the most disgusting, horrid, potent alcohol one could ever create. It is called Baijiu. This means "white liquor." It is, essentially, Chinese vodka. I remember back at UGA my first Chinese teacher describing baijiu. We asked him if he liked vodka and he responded, "It's not bad, but a little watery." I was confused as to what he meant but I now understand. Baijiu is like rubbing alcohol. It is awful. However, it is cheap. Its about 6kuai for a bottle which is 1 american dollar.

So, at my host families home they poured me a shot of baijiu. Now (sorry mom and dad), I had tasted it before so I knew what to expect. So, in typical UGA-fashion I tipped the shot to the back of my throat and swallowed. Everyone laughed at me. Why? Because they drink this shot slowly. So, he poured me another one and I had to drink it slowly. It was absolute torture. Three shots later, I knew I was going to get drunk and tried to tell my host father, "no that's enough." However, he responded, "we have the same liver," and poured me another shot. Really? Needless to say, my Chinese significantly improved and it was a great time. We're having dinner again next week but this time at a restaurant. However, I was informed that just because one is at a restaurant this does not preclude the ordering of baijiu. It might be a rough dinner.

Last night was a really exciting night! We all went to a Chinese acrobatics show! This was probably one of the coolest things I could have seen. It's also really interesting on a cultural and historical level because you realize that these same routines they are doing were routines created during the dynastic rule of China. Now there have been slight modifications with more advanced technology, but they still operate without nets or safety harnesses. The core principles of story telling and grand thematic elements of good vs. evil and duality are still present.

I have some pictures but they didn't turn out that well because the show was also accompanied with laser lights which gave it an awesome effect in person. For pictures, not so much.




Preparing for the flip!
Mid-action. Please note the blurred figure in the upper left-hand corner as that is someone flipping into the chair.
Tradtional Chinese plate-spinning!
Please not the girls that are standing on the platform is being supported by one girl balancing the platform on her head while plate spinning! Absolutely incredibly.


In other news, I'm doing well. The program is hard and demanding. However, I can definitely feel some improvement in my Chinese. At times, this is really demanding that I don't think I can take it, but my friends and I have made some "American" traditions that keep us sane. Before I left for China a good friend of mine told me that I should find one "American" thing while in China and when things get rough to go get that "American" thing and think of home and then forget about it. This is probably the best advice I've recieved. My one "American" thing are Oreoes! They are a tad expensive here but worth it. Plus, whenever I listen to Taylor Swift I think of UGA and Athens. haha. I think thats appropiate.

My time here has been rewarding so far and it's amazing to start to learn another culture intimately. We've been learning some interesting idiomatic expressions that seem to capture Chinese culture. For example, "luanzhongyouxu" which means "finding order in the chaos" and "renshanrenhai" which means "huge crowds of people." Sometimes, I'm amazed at the Chinese language.

Also, we have a field trip in about 3 weeks. We're going to Sichuan and Chengdu! Hello pandas!

--Aaron

Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year is probably one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. I guess I can give you all a little background on the new year. The Chinese New Year is set in sync with the lunar calendar which gives it a different time frame and year. I'm not too sure exactly what that means, I went to this lecture on it but it was all in Chinese, so I am just regurgitating what I heard and what I could understand. Anyways, as most of you know there are 12 Chinese zodiac symbols and they each represent some aspect of human nature. This year is the year of the Ox. Which in Chinese means prosperity and success through means of hard work. Well, with grad school applications, scholarships, job applications, and various other things...this is enormously reassuring.

Anyways, what was really amazing were the fireworks and the festivals. Beijing lifts the ban on fireworks in the city for New Year. Fireworks here are believed to ward off evil spirits. This is absolutely incredible. I did some research and in Beijing proper there are 12million people, in the entire municipality there are 18million. So, in the span of 48 hours from New Years Eve to the end of the first day of the New Year, there are non-stop fireworks. It is absolutely incredible. Furthermore, imagine other places like Hong Kong, Shanghai..etc. This is just so enormous that I don't think I'm doing it justice. This is definitely something that I will never forget.
Most of the students went to the bridge near our school to watch the fireworks and celebrate the New Year. Here are some of the pictures.

All of the parks and the shrines also have festivals going on. Chinese New Year is also a time for prayer and for honoring one's ancestors. These pictures were taken at Di Tan Park which is a temple to the Earth and they have elaborate rituals and prayer services that start the first day of the New Year.
Chinese lanterns are everywhere and I love it. Red is a lucky color here.
This was one of the coolest dance shows that I have seen. I'm not too sure what its purpose was (you kind of get used to the Chinese mindset where EVERYTHING has a purpose and some significance).
Standing in front of Di Tan Park.
We also went to this amazing antique market in Beijing. It's the largest in Beijing and was amazing. I know where everyone's souvenirs are coming from!
Traditional Chinese vases.

There was also a wedding! This was incredibly exciting to watch the wedding party parade through the market in traditional wedding attire.
Today, I am going to explore some more parks. This is the first day of the New Year and everyone goes to pray at these many shrines. I am really excited to see these types of rituals and maybe even join in one! Hey, when in Rome do as the Romans do. Besides, being here and watching how Chinese people celebrate is amazing and an experience I will never forget. I wish I could describe it to you accurately and you all could have been here experiencing it with me.

I could wax philosophically on what it means to have the chance to, essentially, begin the New Year again, but I'll save that for later. I'm sure most of you know what this means to me anyways. I've only been here 3 weeks so far. It feels so much longer and so much has already happened. I still have a massive amount of homework to begin working on. I'll save that for tomorrow, though.

新年快乐！

-Aaron

Pictures and Commentary!

This is the south gate of the campus.
This is the shower and bathroom facilities. Please note the hanger on the shower as this is how I have to dry my clothes seeing as how dryers seem to be non-existent in Beijing.
This is the view from my porch. YAY! Industrialism as well as the black lung.
Obligatory dorm picture 1.
Obligatory dorm picture 2: it's spartan, but home for now.
The campus is located in a pretty industrial part of town, so there isn't much to look at, but here it is.

A park in Beijing. I forgot its name and the district it's in. Maybe tie shan hua?
The lake is frozen over! This is a rarity for me!

Jingshan park outside of the Forbidden city. The most famous park in Beijing.

View from the top.
Summer Palace.

Funny story: We saw these Chinese people playing with what appeared to be a Chinese version of a hacky sack. We asked to play and they lent us another one they had. It was a lot of fun. I think its called a "jianzi."
Taichi.
Tian'anmen Square.

It's Mao Zedong!
Wangfujin.

An awesome mall that had 8 floors!

YAY! Mission accomplished. Da Shi Dai food court.

These are a small fraction of the pictures I have. It takes too long to upload here in China. The internet sucks.

-Aaron

First week and a scavenger hunt!

Classes started this week and they've been pretty demanding so far. I've also been doing a lot, but I won't let my faithful readers down and will update!

Classes are pretty hard. I guess I can give you all a run-down of a typical day. So, I wake up at about 7am. I haven't been able to sleep much so I wake up at about 6:15-6:30 each day. Then we have class promptly at 8am. Chinese people are always on time. So class promptly begins at 8am. We have our large class that consists of about 8 people. We have a teacher that goes over the day's grammar and new vocab and she asks us questions. Then at 9am we have our small class. This has about 4 people and here we use the grammar patterns we've learned and do drills. Its very fun and really loud and I'm sure if any of you walked in you would all be incredibly scared because our teachers yell at us and its quite intense. Then at 10am we have our conversation class. This is where you and a partner have a conversation on last night's homework and she asks you questions from the homework and tries to incite debate. It's a pretty fun class. Our last class of the day is individualized instruction where it's me and a teacher and we have a conversation and go over the grammar patterns again and I can ask for clarification on things that don't make sense.

So, 4 hours of Chinese class a day and then about 5 hours of homework and preparation every night. All of this and then we signed a pledge to only speak Chinese. We've all adhered to it so far and its so frustrating. You all know how loquacious I am. I can't express myself and I certainly can't make witty or snide remarks. This is by far the hardest part of the program. Especially because it's always so tempting to use English when you're away from campus. But, thankfully, everyone else is also committed to learning Chinese so we're all suffering. The only drawback is you don't get to really know people. There's only so much you can say or express. Not to mention a lot of us, me included, feel embarrassed to speak Chinese because ours is so awful.

Aside from all of that I am having a great time. With every program there are aspects you enjoy and those that you don't. However, now I am trying to strike this balance of learning Chinese, getting to know other people, and experiencing Beijing. So far its been a pretty good time.

I must say that I love Beijing. I especially love the parks. Beijing is full of parks and they are such a good place to go and take a walk around. I went and found a few. They are always so meticulously cared for and people really use them. At any time of day you can find people singing, dancing, doing taichi or some various other part of their daily routine.

The food here is amazing. It is so good. I was thinking that I would quickly tire of it and would need to find some American comfort. Not true. I have a new favorite dish. Eggplant. I know I've lost some of you, but hear me out. The eggplant here is so good. Its cubed and then fried and then put with other yummy vegetables and its amazing. The dish is called shaoqiezi. I never thought I would like eggplant, but I really do. Also, sweetened soy milk is like the best thing to have for breakfast. It is so filling and so good. I've had it a few times and have loved it. Food is also so cheap. So, 3 of us went out to eat dinner. Dinner was 82kuai for all three dishes, plus rice and tea. This is 11 American dollars. So, we split the check up about 27kuai each thats like 4 dollars. Its amazing. I can eat more than enough food here for 4 dollars. WOW!

The teachers here are all amazing. They are all fairly young and very intelligent and many of them have degrees in English or Communication. They are all pretty fierce too. Jill, Shannon, and Shelly would love their "yangzi" or style. It's great. They are as curious about American culture as I am about theirs. In my one-on-one class I tried to explain the differences between the southern US and the northern US. I think she got the gist, but it wasn't pretty. I also had to explain the concept of sweet tea. That was a very funny conversation to have.

So every friday we have a two hour test. ICK! I was so drained after today's test, but I think I did okay. Then we have our language practicum and then Chinese table where our Chinese teachers take us out to eat in small groups. Its a lot of fun. They have different activities planned for different levels and today we had a scavenger hunt! That was so much fun!

They gave us a place to get to and then we had to write about it. So, today's mission was: Find Da Shi Dai. Apparently, it's a world famous food court with many different cuisines and a lot of different places to eat. They told us we couldn't take a taxi and had to brave public transportation: gonggongqiche (bus) or ditie(subway). They assigned us groups and we were off. So, we decided to brave the subway. We had to immediately start asking people where this place was in order to get off at the right stop. So, being the un-shy person that I am, decided to give it a go.
Conversation 1:
Me: Ni zhidao da shi dai zai nar? (do you know where Da Shi Dai is?)
Woman: Bu zhidao. (I don't know) *YELLS AT ME.*

The woman started yelling at me. She was yelling at me in Chinese so I only caught some of it. She told me that she was not from Beijing and that I should have known the difference between a Beijing-er and a non-Beijing-er. After I sincerely apologized and told her that I was a student she told me I should study harder. Well that didn't exactly go as planned.The entire group laughed at me. Oh well.

So then we split up and started asking other people and hopefully someone knew something. After 30 minutes of people telling us they didn't know where this place was we were beginning to think that this place didn't exist. Finally, some one told me they thought it was in Wangfujin - a neighborhood of Beijing. We boarded the subway and rode it until we reached Wangfujin.

This neighborhood was huge and after about an hour of aimless wandering a guard finally told us it was in this mall. So we went and found it! Mission accomplished. They told us that the first ones to complete the assignment and get back to campus would get a prize. So, we finished the assignment and got back to campus as soon as we could. WE WON! YAY! We were, suprisingly, the first team back. I did not expect that. I mean, I may or may not have had something to do with that. We ran into another team on the subway and I mistakenly told them that Da Shi Dai was in Tian'anmen and not in Wangfujin. I didn't exactly know what the girl was asking anyway. Oops. Oh well. :) We get a prize later today. I can only imagine.

So far its been a great time. Tonight we meet our host families and chat with them a bit. Hopefully, tomorrow we'll go out and see more of Beijing. I definitely want to see the temples and some of the more interesting places like the 798 district, which is Beijing's equivalent to Soho or Haight Ashbury. Anyways, I have pictures and if you've read this far...thanks!

-Aaron

First few days...

Beijing is kind of awesome. It is super cold, though, and that will definitely take some getting used to. Anyways, the flight was pretty long, but I made it. I took some sleeping pills and it was glorious sailing from there. I had a semi-coherent conversation with the Chinese woman next to me on the plane! We talked about her home town of Hong Kong, the weather, and my anxiety about being in Beijing. First time in the Orient, it's pretty scary. There were a few people from my program on the plane so we all took a taxi together. The taxi ride was awesome. We were going so fast and somehow we managed not to crash. The drivers here have no concept of lanes or straight lines. Once we arrived to the campus, we were so incredibly lost. However, with our Chinese skills combined we managed to find the Foreign Students Dormitory.

We checked in and moved in to our rooms. Well, the dorms are...spartan. The beds are like rocks. Apparently, the concept of comfort doesn't exist either (insert "serious Asian" joke here). We were all starving and decided to try out a local restaurant. We asked the guard for some places cheap, yet delicious. He directed us down the street to a nice looking restaurant. We walked in and it was so hot and the waiters and waitresses were spiritedly yelling at one another. It's difficult to describe to you because Chinese people just yell at one another and it sounds like garble. They gave us a menu and we decided to do this traditional Chinese style. This involves us getting like 3 or 4 dishes and then putting them in the middle of the table and eating it communal style. The menu was a massive book and we couldn't really read the descriptions of the meals. We just pointed at the pictures and ordered. The first dish looked like chicken and we each took a piece and proceeded to eat it. However, it was a different part of the chicken and none of us could really figure out what exactly it was. It was just fried gristle and what, we assume, were chicken kunckles. It was an interesting first dining experience. We had some other dishes like beef with mushrooms, kong pao chicken, and traditional Chinese broccoli.

The combination of jet-lag and a full stomach made us all extremely tired and we all came back and immediately passed out. Then we woke up early for some breakfast and our campus and local area tour. It was a brisk 28 degrees and a good 2 mile walk. Needless to say, I was dying. Everyone else was having a gay old time. Northerners...

After our tour we had our placement exams. A 2 and half hour written Chinese exam wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it certainly reminded me that I am here to study and not just hang out. We also had an oral component. There were 3 teachers in front of me and I was being recorded and it was incredibly nerve-wracking. I made them laugh...a lot. I don't know if it was because of what I had to say or if it was because of my terrible Chinese.

We then went out to dinner and then to the another district where we sampled local watering holes. Chinese bars are pretty interesting. It's definitely a different atmosphere than American bars. Many of the Chinese people were playing local drinking games. Note to self: Learn Chinese drinking games.

Today we have a free day to do what we like. I think a bunch of us are going to go to the grocery store and buy some snacks, etc... Also, I really want to go to Wal-Mart. Oh, globalization. Today is our last full day of speaking English. Tomorrow we have a Beijing city tour and then new student orientation. Then our language pledge starts and it's all Chinese from there. I should have some fun translation stories.

Adjustment hasn't been too bad. There are some things that are definitely different, but once classes start on Monday things will be better. I will have a set schedule and a lot of homework to start doing. It has been interesting trying to get in the mindset of school. I am here to study and not on a vacation. This will be the longest time I've spent in a foreign country and that's exciting to me. Especially a country like China. If I had time to get literary I would, forgive me. This place really is a world away. China is everything that I'd imgained and yet somehow completely different at the same time. It's fascinating, really. I wish I could bring all of you here with me.

Off to breakfast. Sorry I don't have pictures yet. I'll start taking some and will figure out how to post them here. Hopefully this wasn't too boring. I feel like this should be an audio blog as there are some things I say and you just need to hear me. So, imagine my inflection and large hand gesticulations.

-Aaron

PS.
Did you know there are no time zones in China?!? So, its 8:37am now. In the western parts of China, its 8:37am, too! That's weird.

Leavin' On a Jet Plane....

So, I'm kind of at a loss for what to write about. I mean, this is my first blog since high school. Yes, I succumbed and had a xanga in high school. C'mon gimme a break. I was angsty and emo and raging against the machine. I had a lot to say. I guess, given the title of this blog, it should be about me getting "lost in Beijing." Which, I am sure, will happen on many occasions. But, it feels contrived to be writing in a blog now. Forced and awk (real awk). Maybe it won't be that way once I am in China and have something to say or something to tell my faithful readers about.

I leave the day after tomorrow and am pretty nervous. I didn't think I would be nervous, but it's a new year and I am starting it off by fleeing the country. This can only spell doom. Well, I hope not. I'm nervous about my classmates. I hope we get along and I make some good friends. I am also nervous about my Chinese skills. I've tried to review over break...but, you know how those things turn out. I guess there's only so much I can do to prepare. I've just started to pack. Which basically means I've thrown things on the floor and made piles and brought suitcases in. I haven't put anything in them yet. I'll be packing all day tomorrow and running some last minute errands.

It feels very weird to not be heading back to Athens and getting into "school mode." People I know are heading back and gearing up for another semester and I'm not. I guess that's when you realize that people are going to move on with or without you. Which is another thing about study abroad that is interesting. When I come back people will be different and situations may have changed and, hopefully, I will have changed. Perspectives are new, time has passed, and a number of things will be feel... strange. We'll see. I feel like this will be a theme I'll return to while in China.

All in all, I am pretty excited to be in China. It's weird because when I've gone out of the country before I can imagine where I'll be. I can imagine what its going to smell like...feel like. But, as for China, I can't even imagine what I'm going to see or feel. It's like I am headed to this imaginary place that doesn't really exist - a place that only exists in the realm of photos or literature.

Well, regardless, I have a 13 hour flight there and have no idea what I am going to do for 13 hours. Hello, Tylenol PM.

Here's to a new year, a new adventure, and a new perspective. I'll update once I'm in China.

-Aaron