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.
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
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!