Tiananmen (天安门） Flag-raising Ceremony and Class Weekend Getaway

So here's what went down in Beijing this past weekend for me:

1. Tiananmen Square Flag-raising ceremony

So everyday when the sun comes up a bunch of Chinese soldiers ceremoniously marches out from the Forbidden City and put up the big Chinese flag on the flagpole and then watch it rise while loudspeakers play the Chinese national anthem. Okay, so I apologize for that summary lacking any romantic description, I'm just short for time here. I had heard that this ceremony was just something one should see if in Beijing, so I joined some friends in getting up at 4:30 am and taking a 15 minute ride on a bus at 5 am to Tiananmen Square..oh, and it was probably in the 20's or low 30's temperature wise :) . The ceremony happens daily, but on the weekends tons of people come out and watch. Freezing from head toe, we ran across the square once we got through the screening tent and ended up with the best spots in the whole place, front and center.


Too bad it was only 6 am and we still had another hour and 10 minutes to kill before the ceremony would take place. As more and more Chinese people (mostly tourists) gathered around us and and the other side of the street I began to realize the truth in what a Chinese friend a told me. He had said that this Chinese flag and the soldiers of the People's Army mean so much to the people; how, before the republic was established in 1949, people were suffering terribly in all kinds of ways. So flag and the army represent that renewed hope. And while Chinese will admit Mao's horrible mistakes, they still give him and the Chinese flag sincere respect for what they did to bring change to the nation.




So yeah, it was pretty sweet watching the soldiers do their special march from across Chang'an Blvd. (长安街) with the traffic stopped and put the flag up. When we had got to the square it was completely empty except the soldiers standing guard... now the whole place was packed with people. I parted ways with my friends Courtney and Helen and made my way back to BNU to meet up with my classmates. One of my Korean roommates had arranged for us to go to this Korean-owned campground-like place at the base of Xiang Shan, a series of big hills an hour outside of Beijing.

2. Camping with My Classmates

Ok...so we didn't really go camping. Basically, one of the Korean guys in my class knew of Korean-owned camp-like-ground-place-thing at the base of Xiang Shan and organized for us to go up there for the weekend to hang out. And now I realize that I just wrote this exact information in the last paragraph...huh...well that's kinda embarrassing... but I'm not going to delete it... it's probably just a side effect of drinking all the melanine-filled milk I've been drinking (just kidding Mom...I only drink the healthy milk...the kind with lead paint chips). Anyway, so we got to the Korean place after an hour in this 17 person van (I know it was a 17 person van because it said so on the outside... I'm quick like that). Since it's the end of fall and beginning of winter most of the trees were bare and didn't look that all appealing, but it was a chance to get out of the city and breathe some less-polluted air so I appreciate it anyway. After having a Korean-style lunch (lots of kimchee) we played some basketball on the dirt court, had a relay race on these rickety old wooden paddle raft things, and played a type of tag-game. I took a nap after all the fun and was woken up by another Korean classmate who told me to come to the recreation room. We hung out there for the rest of the evening as it was freezing outside (it was freezing inside too with only small heaters... but I think freezing inside is better than freezing outside, just a personal preference of mine). Dinner was some awesome Korean BBQ pork veggie wraps and, of course, kimchee. Just to give you an idea of the racial mix, off the fifteen of us there, 10 were Korean, 2 Indonesian, 2 Japanese, and me. The rest of the night was filled with funny Korean drinking games, a weird food eating contest (think whole lemons, kimchee Sprite, etc.), and karoake. I had a good time just getting to know them all a little better outside of the classroom, not to mention learning more about their countries while sharing them what America's really about... not what the movies proclaim. They were all really interested in American politics and Obama and things of that sort too.

We came back Sunday morning and when I got back to my room I realized that I had exactly 3 weeks left week in China... so exciting...

Sorry for the lack of pictures they aren't uploading at the moment. I'll try again sometime later this week.

Thanksgiving...Beijing Style

So yesterday EAP took us to the Kempinski Hotel in Beijing's Chaoyang district for an amazing Thanksgiving buffet. Our tuition fees included this buffet (thanks Mom and Dad), but just to give you an idea of this hotel's fanciness, the price of the buffet was like 300 something kuai... 45 US dollars. I didn't even mind that the turkey was a little dry because they had every other type of meat available. We got there around 5:45 pm and just seeing the array of food made me hyperventilate a little... but I recovered and just started out slow. Three hours later everyone was about 5 pounds heavier and passing around the Tums that my friend Matt had bought. Some people had even snuck in containers to bring some "Thanksgiving leftovers" back to the dorms.





The whole only thing they didn't have was eggnog, but come three weeks and two plane rides back to the States and that won't be a problem. Tomorrow morning at 5 am I'm joining some friends in going down to Tiananmen Square and watching the flag-raising ceremony. It happens daily but supposedly is a big deal and special to watch. Thennnn around 10 am I'm going with my classmates to some campground at this mountain called Xiang Shan （香山: Fragrant Hill/Mountain) to hang out for the weekend. I'll be back Sunday sometime and will hopefully be able to put up pictures a couple days after that. Hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving wherever you may be.

Last EAP Excursion: 爨底下村 (Dicuanxia village)

So some of you may be wondering, "Does Beijing have anything else besides Chinese food?" The answer's yes. There are restaurants of practically every country somewhere in the city. Most international restaurants' menus tend be more like western prices though, so I usually don't frequent them.. unless it's a friend's birthday! Friday was my friend Alice's 20th birthday (you may remember her from all my pictures while traveling... she was one of friends I trekked China with) and so a bunch of went to this Italian restaurant on the eastern side of town. It was a pretty fancy place, and besides the rich-man-style small-sized portions, was an enjoyable dinner. There were even two Chinese women playing the violin and cello in the corner of the room, but to my disappoint they only played classical music and didn't take my requests for Queen's "We Will Rock You" or AC/DC's "Back in Black." Oh well. The restaurant brought out Alice's birthday cake and stuck this huge dynamite-stick of a candle right in the middle. The sparks were like 3 feet tall; it was sweet.

Saturday EAP took us on last excursion to this place called 爨底下村 (Dicuanxia village), about 2.5 hours west of Beijing in the barren hills. I think there was some special explanation behind the village's name and how it had some historical significance, but I kinda ignored it. The small village it self was like any other Chinese tourist place, nicely rebuilt and crawling with vendors. The director of Beijing program had brought her husband so he took some of us who didn't want to listen to the tour guide on a hike outside the village. The trails weren't very clear and the map he had was a little outdated, but luckily after a half hour of walking through thick brush and getting whacked in the face by brush and tree branches we reached a steep hill of loose rocks. The only way was up, so up we went.
There was a road/trail at the top and we followed it to this cool looking abandoned village. There was an older looking man who was watching some sheep nearby that we talked to a bit. He said the village was abandoned a while ago because there wasn't any water, and when we asked him where he used the bathroom and threw away trash, he responded with "Anywhere, the whole place is trash can." We watched where we stepped a little more carefully after that.

We got back to Beijing around 6:30 pm that night and EAP took us to this dim sum restaurant. The food was good, but it for me it was just a pre-cursor of the Thanksgiving feast that will be happening this Thursday. EAP originally said we would have to find a place for Thanksgiving dinner on our own because the budget wasn't big enough, but last week the hotel the normally go to called and said they would offer us a discount because of the current financial crisis. Soooo, this Thursday we are getting hooked up with an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink thanksgiving dinner buffet at this sweet hotel (forgot the name at the moment). So by the time all of you in the States wake up on Thanksgiving Day, I'll have already stuffed myself with as much fire chicken as my stomach can hold. I'll post pictures of the inevitable Thanksgiving craziness this next weekend.

Weekend After Midterms

So last Friday I finished a set of pretty tough midterms; I was just glad to get them over. Friday night I went to this punk rock/hardcore show (concert) at this venue not far from school called "MAO Live," which probably holds about 300 people. It was was really sweet place, except that with everyone lighting up cigarettes I felt like I lost a few of years just by standing in the room for a few hours. The bands' music reminded me of some of the stuff I listen to back in America, except in Chinese. Then again, at times they were screaming so loud, even if they had been singing in English I don't think I would have understood. But overall it was cool time to see another side of Beijing.

Saturday I tried finding this open market that sells second hand stuff but ended up giving up when I couldn't find the right bus stop. Ended up in place called “国贸” （guomao), it's the part of Beijing with a lot of sweet looking buildings that house multinational companies and some embassies. I'd been there before but this time had my camera. Beijing doesn't have a skyline like Shanghai, but there are a few impressive skyscrapers. The first picture is almost-complete China World Trade Tower. Second and third pictures are of the almost-complete CCTV (Chinese government television company) Tower. This is, in my opinion, the trippiest looking thing in Beijing.
Fourth picture is just some random new building that I took a picture of from the bottom.
And the fifth picture obviously isn't a building; I took this picture just give everyone an idea of the stuff that people transport on those 3 wheel motorized bicycles that I was talking about before. They put everything on those bikes. This particular one has a lot of stuff on it, but I've still seen bigger and crazier.


One more thing: Moment of the Week

My roommate and I eating dinner together in the dining hall, I'm helping him practice his English...

Me: "How's your food, Joseph?"

Joseph: "I am spicy."


Don't worry, I corrected him. That's it for now, I suppose. It's getting to be pretty cold again (well, for me... I'm not as tough as my Montanan relatives). The highs will be in the low forties this week. This upcoming Saturday EAP is taking us on a day trip to some old village/tourist trap about forty miles outside Beijing. I'll try to post something after we do that.

Thanksgiving is Whennnn?

Ok, so I"m skyping with my girlfriend Mariel right now and was blown away/ utterly disappointed when she informed me that Thanksgiving is in two weeks, not one. Which meansssss.... 1.) I'm an idiot for not knowing when Thanksgiving is.... and 2.) I have wait 16 days 'til I eat some fire chicken. Dangggg it. Ok, that's all. Just wanted to vent to the world. And publicly own up to my mistake.

Six Weeks Left

As of today I have six weeks left in China. That's 42 days. That's insane. I'll be honest, this past week I definitely thought about home more than usual, and that number 42 is now in my head and will only be getting smaller. Definitely exciting. But maybe I was thinking of home more because I didn't wanna study for midterms, which are this week. I'm actually taking a study break/procrastinating from studying for my midterms; the first one is in 11 hours.

I don't have a lot to post this week, nothing really exciting happened. But here are some things that I saw/experienced around Beijing that you might or might not find amusing:

1. Man transporting a leather love seat and two matching leather chairs on a three-wheeled, motorized.... bicycle.

2. A Chinese dad holding his toddler son (wearing buttless, crotchless pants) on the edge of the sidewalk to let him, how do I say this... make it rain. Think about it.

3. I got asked for the hundredth time if I was from Xinjiang (新疆), China's farthest west province, borders a bunch of countries that end in -stan.

4. My 27 dollar bike got a flat.... and the kickstand came off. Bummer...

5. Our basketball team won both our games 48-17, 59-6.

6. Tried to explain the difference between the Catholic Church and protestants... in Chinese.

7. Found out turkey in Chinese is 火鸡 (huoji), which translates as "fire chicken." Gotta love that fire chicken


Since I'm starting to salivate at the thought of turkey and Thanksgiving food I'm gonna stop for now. There are some Western hotels having Thanksgiving style buffets next week, so hopefully I'll be able to check that out with some friends. Hopefully once midterms are done this Friday I'll have more time to put something more interesting on here.

My Campus

So these past couple of weeks I took a few photos of BNU's campus to give everyone an idea of where I'm spending a majority of my time here in Beijing. But here's some background on the school:

Beijing Normal University was founded in 1902 and is located in the northwest part of Beijing in the Haidian District (海淀区）. To give that some extra meaning: it's an old school and is about a ten minute car ride from Tiananmen Square (center of Beijing). The Chinese name is Beijing Shifan Daxue (北京师范大学), which means that it's a teachers' training college. I don't know how that translates into a "normal" university. Anyway, while a lot of students may end up teaching later in life, that doesn't mean that BNU doesn't have other majors. They have pretty much everything here; I've met everything from physics to film majors. There are about 8000 undergraduate and 8000 graduate students and I'd say 90% or more live on campus. They come mostly from the north and central parts of China. There is also an extremely nice elementary school connected to the university on the northern part of campus, so I see a lot of little kids running around with their parents. So yeah, that's a short little description of the campus and here are the pictures:


1. This is the East Gate entrance to the school. The big building on the left is one of the international student dorms (I don't live there). It was one of the buildings that U.S. Olympic athletes and American media lived during the Olympics. And it is has a McDonald's at the bottom. So yeah, it's a big deal. The next picture was taken just inside the east gate while I was riding my bike.



2. This is the “主楼” (zhu lou: main building). It has a bunch of the departments' offices and the library is connected in the back (it isn't that great). In the mornings and evenings , the open area out front is filled with people, young and old, exercising, playing Chinese hacky sack (the older Chinese women usually play this), doing taiqi, riding bikes, or taking roller blading lessons. I took the picture on a windy afternoon so it's kinda empty. I'll try to get a picture of that scene later.


















3. The blue building (教二楼: education building #2) is where some of my classes are. It's about a two minute walk from my dorm. That bigger tan building behind the blue building is part hotel, part offices. Big building on the right is the Zhu Lou.




4. This is one of the two little supermarkets (超市：chaoshi) on campus. This particular one is about 2 minute walk from my dorm and is connected to some little small snack stands. Pretty convenient.





5. The American media/ U.S. Olympic Committee dubbed this facility the "High Performance Center." It was training center for almost all the U.S. Olympic athletes. Everyone from the U.S. "Redeem Team" (men's basketball) to Michael "The Flying Fish" Phelps, practiced in this enormous facility. It has two full length basketball courts, a swimming pool, combat sport facilities, a tennis court, and other stuff I don't even know about. During the summer it was surrounded by fencing and security guards and an X-ray machine that checked baggage for whoever was visiting. Now it's not and looks way better. So far only the BNU official sports team can play in there, but it's still cool to look at from the outside.




6. I took the following pictures around 11:30 am, when everyone starts going to lunch. BNU is kinda like high school in America in the way that it has period system, and that there aren't really any classes between 12:00 pm-1 pm for everyone to eat lunch. And I mean evvvvveryone. From 11:30 am-noon the paths and roads going to the dining halls are filled with students and staff heading to the dining halls. It pretty cool to see this sea of people just moving along, reminds me of Bruinwalk back at UCLA. Of course there are vendors on the sidewalks peddling their goods, or different food companies trying to push their new product (Nescafe is really pushing to get Chinese college students to switch from tea to Nescafe). Most of the vendors' stuff is crap but there are some good deals at times. I bought a pair of "real" Adidas (yeah, right) warm-up pants for about 8 US bucks. Anyway, all the student dining halls are on the southwest part of campus, away from all the classrooms, so this part of campus gets pretty crowded but fun to move through. Just try not to get hit by a bike or car. There are 3 main dining halls on this part of campus not including the smaller eateries and stands. You can always buy fruit, nuts, yams, etc. from the people who set up camp outside the dining halls with their bicycle-fruit-stand-things.













7. This is the outdoor ping pong tables between two of the Chinese students' male dorms. For Chinese students here at BNU, the whole dorm experience is quite an experience. Each room has 8 people and those 8 people live with each other all four years of undergraduate studies. We're not allowed to go in their dorms, but I've seen pictures and they are quite cramped for space. They hang laundry inside the room, in special rooms in the dorm building, or on tree branches out in the courtyards. There is a separate shower building where all the students walk to to shower and get distilled water for drinking. One of my Chinese friends told me though that BNU is probably one of the worsst universities concerning this dorm experience; I guess other schools have better situations, but I'm not sure.





8. Here are some of the public athletic facilities on campus. During the evening they are packed with people of all ages getting their exercise, whether it's playing basketball or soccer, walking around the track, using the outdoor weightlifting machines, or just playing badminton on the side of the track.






9. This is the room I share with my roommate, Joseph. It's on the first floor of a five story building called XinSong （新松）. "Xin" means new and "song" can mean "pine tree" or "a condiment made of finely shredded preserved meat" or "relax" or "loose"... so come up with an interesting meaning for yourself. Our room isn't too big but it‘s good enough for me. Our bathroom is connected to the room (Western style toilet, makes having diarrhea a lot easier) , and there is a washing machine down the hall. We just hang up the clothes to dry them. Joseph grew up in Korea but went to high school in southern China and is starting his 3rd year at BNU, so his Chinese is pretty good. I'm helping him with his English and he helps me with Chinese. He plays guitar for his Korean church is amazing on it; and his singing is just as good. Sometimes he'll be playing some American church songs that I'll recognize and he'll be singing them in Korean... pretty sweet stuff.