Lectures, German Pastries, and Antiques

Hi guys! Wow, so much has happened this weekend that I don’t know where to begin. Well, first off, I practiced riding a bike on Friday with my good friend Jule, and I have some pictures and a short movie of me riding the bike. I’m getting a lot better, and can start on my own without any help (like a push from behind to steady my balance when I start riding), which makes me very happy.

Here are the pictures and two short movies (I’m wearing a mask because the pollution was a bit bad that day, around 190):

On Saturday I went to a University of Minnesota event at the umn Beijing office, which was a lot of fun. It was officially an alumni event, but the woman in charged said I should definitely come, and I’m glad I did. The event was a lecture about Chinese and American relations, and the guest speaker was Professor Patrick Mendis. The lecture was officially called Peaceful War and Sino-American Relations: How to Reconcile Confucian Ethics and Democratic Values. I’ll give a short summary of who Dr. Mendis is, but if you want more details about him, he’s on Wikipedia:

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

Dr. Mendis is a professor and has worked as a diplomat and executive for the US government, and has taught many courses regarding foreign policy at the University of Minnesota, University of Maryland, and Yale. A lot of books and articles written by him focus on trade, American and Chinese relations, and about his home country Sri Lanka.

Here’s a picture of me with Dr. Mendis and with Wanling Qu, the woman in charge of the event (I’m afraid I don’t know what the Chinese characters for her name are since she responded to my emails in English):

And here's some pictures of the umn Beijing Office:

(The pictures on the wall of of umn's campus in Minneapolis. I admit I was happy to see them.)

The lecture was pretty interesting since it was about a book he recently wrote, and apparently all the proceeds are going to a scholarship he made for the Humphrey students at umn. While all of us were listening to the lecture Wanling Qu’s one and a half year old daughter started running around and speaking a mix of English and Chinese, which was pretty adorable, but eventually Wanling Qu took her daughter away so she would distract people from the talk (I thought she wasn't causing that much trouble though, it’s what one year-olds do).

On Sunday I went out with my friend Jule to an antiques market, and to a German bakery. The bakery was apparently so-so according to my friend Wanda, because there were mainly pastries from South Germany and weren’t that great, plus she’s from the North so she was hoping there might be more variety at this particular bakery.

Here’s a picture of Jule and Wanda outside the bakery:

 And here's a picture of my apple pastry (although there wasn't much apple in it):

I went with Jule to the antiques market, which was pretty interesting. People were outside selling things, and it was a good opportunity to bargain with people (especially since both of us were westerners, so a lot of vendors were trying to rip us off). We spent a few hours there looking at antiques, and at some Buddha heads Jule was thinking of getting for her mother to put in the garden at her house in Germany. When we finally decided to leave though, we saw a fight break out. We couldn't see too much because about five seconds after two women were yelling at each other about forty or so people had surrounded the pair to watch the fight. And then about ten policemen came to break up the fight and the crowd. That was a little scary, but Jule and I were okay.

I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures to show you guys because my camera battery died before we got there.

Well, not much else to say except Happy Singles Appreciation Day! That’s right, it’s Singles Appreciation Day here in china, and it’s a much bigger deal here than anywhere else I've been. On PKU’S campus, there was an event today which is designed to help singles find boyfriends/girlfriends. I don’t know how effective this event really is, but apparently it’s a pretty big deal.

So, Happy Singles Appreciation Day!