Coming to Beijing....Three Months Later

So after 3 months of living in China I've finally decided to make a blog. This way everyone can keep updated with my studying abroad experience; it'll reduce the time I spend sending emails and I can also show everyone pictures of the things I've done and places I've gone. Since it has been three months since I came to China Ihave a lot to update on, especially on the month-long trip I took with four friends across all of China. So, although I just got back to Beijing Normal University and will be starting classes on Monday, for the next week or so I'm going to try and give a summary of what I've done the past three months, then I'll be caught up and can share about what I'm doing in the present time. I hope that through this blog you'll be able to share my experiences with me and become exposed to a China that you can't fully get in the Western media. 

June-July: School and Beijing Life

I landed in Beijing on June 27th on a humid and rainy night and spent my first night in a nice hotel trying to comprehend the fact that I'd be spending the next six months of my life in China. It was a little overwhelming. The first couple of weeks at my new home, Beijing Normal University (BNU), were spent acquainting myself with my fellow summer Intensive Language Program (a University of California program, though some Michigan and Wisconsin students are here too), getting to know the neighborhood, and checking out Beijing. Having visited Beijing once in high school I had a small idea of what to expect, but a lot had changed in those 3 years, and it was totally apparent. It's hard to describe the Chinese anticipation for the Olympics that seemed to

 permeate every aspect of city life in Beijing during those summer months. Everyth

ing on TV was Olympics related, everyone I saw was wearing some sort of patriotic Chine

se or Olympic clothing, and there were the actual physical changes going on in the city: the "clean-up" of street-vendors, the sending away of millions of migrant workers, the Olympic signage appearing from every light post and bridge, I could go on and on. Then t

here were the environmental changes: from July 22nd onward certain factories closed, all construction stopped, the number of cars allowed on the roads was cut in half, and I'm sure there were more changes that I wasn't even aware of. Oh yeah, and how could I forget the rain-making. Summers in Beijing are usually incredibly hot and humid, not to mention a lack of blue sky and sun (pollution and haze creates grey skies that can last for weeks). I'd heard of the government "seeding" the skies (shooting up silver nitrate rockets to make the clouds empty their moisture, resulting in rain and clear skies), and the first week of July I finally got to experience it . During that week the weather was really strange: normal grey skies would suddenly turn dark and just downpour for twenty minutes or so, and the next day would be beautifully clear and sunny. This happened every other day and we had really nice weather for a stretch. We'd hear stories from our Chinese teachers saying how it had only rained in one district of the city while the rest of Beijing was dry. Sometimes I couldn't help myself and would just laugh as I walked to class under my umbrella with the huge raindrops coming down; it was as if we were living in a weather machine experiment. For those curious, the Chinese government supposedly shot up approximately 1100 "ran rockets" the night of the opening ceremonies in certain parts of the city to prevent rain over the Bird's Nest. Anyway, whether it was the palpable pollution, the huge rain drops, the overall Olympic excitement, or a combination of all three, there was definitely something in the Beijing summer air that made it an exciting place to study. 

Speaking of studying, we all did a lot of it those summer months: 5 days a week, 8 am-11:30 am, plus two hours of private tutoring a week. We did a chapter in our book everyday and learned 25 words a day. To be completely honest, I don't feel like my Chinese improved as much as I would have liked over the summer month program. Granted, we had a lot of class every week, but we were still living with other Americans, speaking primarily English outside class, and anyone with language learning experience will tell you that the best way to learn a language is complete emersion. This was sadly not the case for us. Despite my initial frustration, I studied my hardest and had an overall enjoyable time learning Chinese from a set of extremely dedicated and caring BNU teachers. Besides learning from these hard-working teachers, I also learned a simple but powerful lesson from the local Chinese on the streets, in the stories, in the restaurants, on the buses, etc: studying Chinese for two years at UCLA means jack until you start using it with these real Chinese people, who, unlike my kind professors, will make you so embarrassed that your pronunciation is wrong, even if just by a little bit, that you want to learn fast. It's this daily humbling experience that will both bring you down and motivate you to study harder and speak more. 

I'll admit, though, it was a little hard to study with the campus going at light speed to prepare for the Olympics. Because BNU was going to be the living and training facilities for a majority of the U.S. Olympic athletes during the Olympics, the campus was undergoing a complete facelift during our entire summer program. It was really quite amazing to witness how within weeks every campus road was newly paved, every building newly painted, Olympic decorations were put up, thousands of flowers planted, and, of course, the incredible increase in security. By the time the U.S. Olympic Committee delegation arrived at the end of July to install all the sports and weightlifting equipment in the newly built "High Performance Center" (HPC), the campus was closed to all outsiders, and we students had to scan our student IDs into a computer to get on campus. Hundreds of security guards walked around campus or stood at different posts...don't think these were trained delta forces or anything, these "guards" were simply teenage boys following orders (I doubt they would know what to do if someone did try to harm an athlete or student), but I think their main purpose was to give the American Olympians an image of security, which I can personally say was accomplished. Besides guards, hundreds of feet of wired fence went up around special buildings around campus, like the athletes' living facilities and the HPC. As we witnessed these changes and finally saw the U.S. Olympic Committee (wearing Nike products head to toe, of course) come to prepare for the athletes, I can guarantee you that each of us began to imagine our dream scenarios of walking around campus with U.S. athletes, getting free tickets, becoming their best friends, maybe getting into Michael Phelps' will, you know how it goes. Unfortunately, none of this happened. During a break in class some of us would go to the East Gate of campus and see if any new athletes were being bussed to the HPC for training, but for the most part that was as close as we came to seeing athletes. They were vanned from their fenced off living quarters to the fenced off HPC and track, so it didn't go according to our imagined plans. It was a mix of both worlds I'd say: on one hand, it was so awesomely surreal to be living and studying at the campus as the U.S. Olympians, seeing the U.S. Olympic presence everywhere. On the other hand, the security and fences were a major nuisance, it made the school really inconvenient to get across practically all of it (small shops, bookstores, libraries, public basketball courts and track, etc.) was shut down for security reasons. 

Alright, I don't wanna make any of you bored by writing too much at a time, so I'm going to stop here. Next time I'll talk about the two incredible program-sponsored field trips we took in July.