Getting Serious

Sunday Night - Well, orientation's over, and with it goes the leisure of free time and total socialization. Last week, on the first day of the Chinese New Year, we went to a miào huì (庙会 - temple fair [see my photo gallery]) and explored. The event really had the air of a carnival with games, rides, snacks, and vendors. But, there was definitely an underlying traditional aspect to it that set it apart from similar events in the US. As much as I love American holidays, celebrating Chinese New Year in Beijing really puts to shame our New Year's and Independence Day's celebrations. It's been four days since Chun Jie began, and still there's the constant bang and rumble of fireworks and firecrackers throughout the day and night (which I might add is quite annoying now that I have to study). On Saturday we went up to the Summer Palace and Kunming Lake, which is actually only three miles north west of the Beiwai campus. Once it gets warmer, I'll jog up to Kunming Lake.

Saturday night some of my friends and I ventured out to Wáng Fǔ Jǐng (王府井), which is east of the Forbidden City and is home to some fairly upscale Western shopping as well as an infamous nighttime food market. The market at Wáng Fǔ Jǐng has everything from scorpion, bee pupae, and sea horse on a stick to fried starfish. I picked up a coconut with a straw to drink the milk inside and managed to haggle for some sort of fried potato and egg concoction. You really learn quickly, especially having some background in Chinese, that foreigners are immediately offered an outrageous price. Today, for example, one vendor, assuming I spoke no Chinese, asked one of my Chinese friends if I was American (probably trying to figure out how much money he could suck out of my wallet).

Today, we headed down to Houhai (the back sea - a lake in central Beijing, also now home to one of the central areas of nightlife in the city) to go ice skating. When we arrived, however, we realized that there were very few people actually ice skating. After paying to get access to the ice, you can then pay varying amounts of money to rent skates, a chair with two metal poles to push yourself along, an ice bicycle with three blades and a back wheel, or even an electric powered ice "bumper" car. I coughed up 30 kuai (around $4 plus a 100 kuai depost) for an hour on an ice bicycle. The scene on Houhai made me recall a statement made earlier this week by one of my classmates about the traffic, that "there is order in chaos". Safety regulations are clearly not as strict here as they are in the US, but it's amazing how few incidents there are in relation to how many possibilities for disaster are presented. You have to wonder if anyone had checked the ice for stability that day, or when the ice just might not be able to handle the weight of all those people. But, it works out in the end, and you laugh about it later. (hopefully)

When we got back from the lake, I went and picked up my class materials. As I may have mentioned earlier, in addition to my four hours of Chinese class each day, I'm also taking a sociology course called "Contemporary Issues in China" which meets on Monday and Thursday and an international business course called "Doing Business in China" which meets on Tuesday and Thursday. We have Wednesdays off from class, though I'll still have Chinese tutoring.

Tonight, we had a Language Pledge kickoff dinner with our teachers. The Language Pledge is one of the largest parts of this Language Intensive program.  This pledge dictates that we must speak Chinese during class time (excluding my additional courses), around the buildings, in the bathroom, kitchens, lounges, and hallways, and in our rooms while our doors are open. The only places where we are permitted to speak English are in designated "English Safe Zones", which are primarily our advisers' offices.  The purpose of this pledge is to truly nurture an environment of total immersion for both ourselves and our peers. How well we keep to this pledge is our prerogative, but is tied in to our course grades and a competition that they've put in place to further encourage us to keep to it. In honor of the upcoming Olympics, we have all been divided up into teams (represented by continents and colors), and have been given livestrong-like bracelets in our team color (mine's green). Each team starts with 100 points. Whenever a teacher, RA, administrator, etc. sees or hears someone speaking English, 10 points is docked from their team's score. If someone neglects to wear their bracelet and is caught speaking English, an additional 15 points is docked. So, the hallway was somewhat quieter this evening, and I'm very interested to see how this all works out. I'm going to do my best to hold to the Language Pledge, since I really do want to get the most out of my time here. After dinner, I spent 5 hours doing homework that's due tomorrow (the first day of class), and I don't think it's going to get any lighter.

On a side note, I heard an interesting story related to the Olympics today. One of my RA's friends, who has been living in Beijing for several years along with another one of his friends, who has been living here for over 7 years and another American, went up to see the main Olympic stadium (the "Bird's Nest"). There, they managed to convince a security guard to let them onto the grounds (I've heard that you can also pay to gain access from the guards). They snooped around a bit and snapped some photos, but on their way out, they were stopped by a few real policemen, arrested, and taken into custody. They were held for 32 hours in a small cell without any outside communications permitted, after which point they were taken to a court hearing. All three of their Visas were revoked for a period of no less than one year. After pleading with the committee that their entire lives were in Beijing, they were each granted a four-day temp visa just to gather their things, and then were deported. It makes you realize how carefully we must abide by Chinese law, even if we're able to apparently overcome it. I just found this interesting. Anyway, it's getting late, and I have to be awake in less than 6 hours. I'll post more photos when I get the chance.

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