Elective Classes and the Mid Autumn Festival

Well, last week was my first week of having an elective class, and I think I’m going to like it better this week. The reason I say this is because last week was the Mid Autumn Moon Festival, which mean that we had off on Thursday. And since my elective class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, our teacher thought that she should cram in two days’ worth of class into one class period since we would have Thursday off. So it felt very rushed, but hopefully it will be less rushed next class since we’ll have a full week of classes this time. She seems like a very bright teacher with a no-nonsense attitude, yet still very approachable.

As for the class itself, it’s going to involve reading passages, answering questions about them, writing our own essays, and learning more about Chinese grammar and punctuation. I think it will be tougher than my other courses, but my goal is to learn, and this class is sure to teach me a lot.

On Thursday I went out with some friends in the evening to a place called Beihai (another lake/park in Beijing) and we saw a temple there. Apparently you have to pay to go to parks here in China, which I personally found odd because in the USA you don’t have to pay to go to parks, you just go to them (unless it’s something like a national treasure like Yellowstone park or something like that, but that’s not the same as a regular park). It cost us 10 Yuan, so it wasn’t particularly expensive, just strange. I also found it strange because the place we went to across the street was also a lake with areas you could walk around in, but for some reason that was free. Oh well, here's some pictures and a video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We also went inside a cave at the temple, which had lots of statues inside. Here’s a short video and some pictures of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this day in general to be rather strange too. You’d think that with all the hype people had about the Mid Autumn Moon Festival that you would have more people selling things like moon cakes, or setting off firecrackers or noise makers or something. Instead, it seemed very lack luster. The streets were crowded as usual, but it didn’t seem like any real celebrating was happening. And almost no where could we find a place that sold moon cakes. That was the really weird part. All our teachers were telling us to look at the moon and eat lots of moon cakes, but there weren’t any places selling them.

I remember in the USA when Washington DC would celebrate the blooming of the cherry blossoms. Lots of people would come to see, taking pictures, having picnics, playing music, lots of celebrating would happen. Here, it seemed like no one was interested in looking at the moon or eating moon cakes. I only got to eat a moon cake when my language partner gave me one the next day to share (and it tasted very good). Perhaps it’s like Thanksgiving is in the USA, where people spend time with their families instead of going out.

On Friday we had class again, and in the evening I went to see a movie with some of my German friends. It was a Chinese film called “Apart, Together” about an elderly woman in Shanghai who must deal with the return of her former lover from Taiwan because he was a soldier KMT who escaped to Taiwan during 1949 and wasn’t allowed to return back till years later, and the consequences this would have in regards to her current marriage and family. It was a great film, and I recommend it to everyone. Here’s two links with more information about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apart_Together

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587878/ 

 

Not much else to report this week other than doing homework and finally getting a moon cake, but I’m doing well all the same. Till next week!