Peking Duck and... wait, seriously? 14 chapters for the midterm?!?

It’s been a while since my last post.  Classes and other stuff have really been keeping me busy.  The weekend before this past weekend, I went on a field trip with my Sociology class.  We first visited an NGO affiliated with the People’s University of China, which serves to improve the quality of life of migrant workers in Beijing.  Then, we took a bus trip out of the city to a migrant worker community, where we walked around the old factory areas, had some talks about migrant life, and then visited a school for migrant children.  All in all, it was a very interesting experience.  The next day, I had intended to wake up to circumambulate (walk all the way around) the second ring road as an optional program activity.  If I haven’t mentioned it already, Beijing is connected by a series of five “ring” roads which encircle the city, with the Forbidden City at their center.  In any case, a long night on the town on Saturday night, and forgetting to set my alarm clock, found me sleeping until three in the afternoon on Sunday.  So, after eating a jian bing for “breakfast”, and feeling like I should still walk somewhere, I headed out on my own away from the city.  The next thing I knew, I was on my way to the Golden Resources Shopping Mall (as I mentioned in an earlier post, the second largest mall in the world)—not really out of any great desire to go to the mall, but really just because I was walking in that direction and happened to realize that it was only three miles away.  Besides, the day was beautiful.  So, I spent some time at the mall, mostly people watching rather than shopping.  Living in China really makes you think about things.  Whatever polarities we find in American society are magnified ten- if not hundred-fold in China.  Perhaps due to the fact that the day before I had just been talking with migrant workers, things seemed especially poignant.  I am continually amazed by Chinese society:  that in one part of the city people are parking their BMW’s heading to the mall to buy a new Rolex, while in another part of the city thirteen year-olds are borrowing older people’s IDs in order to bypass child labor regulations so that they can contribute to their families; that people remain in the dark about such issues as Tibet and human rights; that a completely overwhelming number of people has yielded clockwork inefficiency.

Last Wednesday (my day off), I went with a few friends to 798, the art district in Beijing, where most of the hip and controversial contemporary Chinese art can be found these days.  798 is an old factory area in North West Beijing, and the space is truly suiting to its purpose of an emerging Chinese art scene.  The place still has old factory equipment strewn throughout, and is made up of smaller scattered galleries, several chic cafés, and a larger art exhibit.  Most Chinese people are still very conservative when it comes to discussing sexuality (for example, one of my friends told the story of having been talking with some of our Chinese roommates (all guys), who were working up the courage all night to ask a big question which turned out to be:  “when… did you have your first date?” followed by giggling and a brief awkward silence), so the Chinese art scene really seems to be where you might consider the American art scene to have been in the 60’s and 70’s.  As a result, there are a lot of nude pieces, and a lot of pieces apparently addressing sexuality.  Still other pieces deal with society and human rights.  Many of the pieces were very revealing and interesting, while others just weren’t.  But, I suppose that’s art. 

This past weekend wasn’t overly exciting.  Friday night I went out with some friends to get really good Peking duck at a nice restaurant in Chaoyang (an area in Eastern Beijing).  We had a private room for the 13 of us, and ordered 3 ducks plus several other dishes including roasted eel, a veal stew, and a number of vegetables.  We wanted to get more duck, but we were feeling especially cheap (for such a nice and expensive restaurant), so we left slightly hungry, and a little disappointed at not having eaten more.  The problem about eating dinner in Beijing is that you get used to paying very little for a lot of food.  So, when you go out to an expensive (as in normal priced, if not even slightly cheaper) restaurant, things feel relatively much more expensive.  Our meal cost 100 kuai, which is really only around $14.00—what I might expect to pay for an average dinner in the States.  Saturday night was really laid back.  We headed back to Houhai with the hopes of sitting down at the East Shore Jazz club for some live music.  When we got there, however, the place was packed, so we found a small bar on the end of one of the bar streets, and then did a bit of dancing before heading back to campus.  We’ll have to show up a bit earlier next time for the jazz.

This Thursday will be especially busy.  I have a Chinese midterm from 8:00-12:00, followed by another Sociology field trip at 1:00 (ironically to the Golden Resource Mall), Business class from 3:00 to 4:30, and then we leave at 5:00 for a long-weekend trip.  Among all of this, I’m not sure when I’ll be packing, since I’ve yet to start studying and I still need to do laundry.

We had five trips to choose from for our long-weekend, and I chose to go to Anyang (interestingly the least popular trip this semester).  Anyang has over 3000 years of history as a Chinese city, and was home to prehistoric cavemen.  So, it is one of the centers of archaeology in China.  Anyang, which is in Henan Province about 300 miles south of Beijing, is a “quick” train ride away.  So we’ll arrive late Thursday night.  Friday, after breakfast, we’ll have a brief discussion about archaeology in the area, followed by a few tours around the area, lunch, and then archaeological digging all afternoon.  On Saturday, we’ll having touring and hiking of a mountainous canal area and a canyon, followed by sliding down the canyon on a giant slide, and then playing around on a lake in giant plastic bubbles.  On Sunday, we’ll do some more touring before heading back to Beijing on Sunday night. 

Next week shouldn’t be too bad since we’ll have just finished with our midterm (which, unlike our Chinese midterms at school that cover about 5 or 6 chapters, covers a very nice 14 chapters—we do a new chapter each day… no seriously).  Besides a badminton tournament on Tuesday, it doesn’t look too bad.  Anyway, I should probably start studying the 14 chapters for my midterm, or maybe do some laundry for my trip.