Sunday, September 22, 2013

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
 
File:Apart Together.jpg


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!

Saturday, September 14, 2013

First Week of Classes, and My Birthday


Wow, so much has happened this week. Where do I begin? Well, let’s start off with Monday. That was the 9th of September, when I began classes. I have two compulsory classes, and one elective class. I am required to have 18-20 hours’ worth of class work per week; my hanyu class (writing), is 8 hours, and my kouyu class (speaking), is 6 hours. My elective that I got to choose on Friday the 13th is an intermediate Chinese writing class. Judging by the textbook I had to buy for the class, it’s going to involve lots of reading and answering questions about passages.

For my schedule, I now call Mondays and Tuesdays “The Days of Doom and Despair.” On Monday I have two morning classes, one which is in a classroom close to my dorm near the southeast gate, but the other which is on the other side of campus at the west gate. And since there is only a short break (20 minutes if you are let out on time, but usually more like 15 or 10 if you need to talk to the teacher, have to deal with cars and bicycles trying to run you over on campus, people jostling this way and that EVERYWHERE, etc. I think you get the idea), you better run if you don’t have a bike (or in my case, can’t ride a bike very well). I have a similar problem for Tuesday, because even though my first class and second class are very far away, I have about a 2 ½ hour break between them. However, the 2nd and 3rd classes only have the 20 minute break, and the building I have to go to is almost as far away as my first class on Tuesday. In short, I will have very strong legs by the end of the semester (and if I learn how to ride a bike by myself, perhaps I’ll have even stronger legs).

Speaking of bikes, a couple of my friends are helping me learn how to ride a bike! I still have to practice a lot, but I’m beginning to get the hang of riding without people standing right next to me in case I topple over (I haven’t had any accidents yet, YAY!).

Back to my schedule. I’ve got 8 am classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but on Thursday I have two afternoon classes, and only one class on Friday at 10:10 am. Tuesday is when I have the most classes, starting at 8am and ending at 5pm. Friday is my best day, but then Wednesday is the runner up because I only have one class on each day, but like I said before, Wednesday is one of my 8am days (8am is an evil time in the morning…).

 Here’s a map of our campus (If the quality isn’t very good, here’s a link to where I found it  http://kiaa.pku.edu.cn/~disk2010/live_in_pku_map_small.jpg)

My classrooms are in the Russian language building, Shao Yuan #3, and #4 classroom building (It’s between #3 and Natural Sciences Building #5 near the Southeast gate)
 

I really like my teachers for both my hanyu and kouyu classes, and since we just chose our elective classes this Friday, I won’t meet my teacher for that class until Tuesday.

Since then I’ve basically been sorting out where I need to go for classes, doing homework, all the responsible things good little students do.

The 10th was teacher’s day (教师节快乐) there were lots of people selling bouquets, I think mostly carnations. Some were quite beautiful, and some were very large bouquets. I didn’t buy any for my teachers though because at that point I’d only had two days of classes, so I don’t know them well enough to give them flowers (and I didn’t realize it was this festival till I looked at the Google art for the day).

On the 12th I celebrated my birthday. I went out with some of my friends to a restaurant (I forgot the name though), and we ate some very delicious food. There was chicken with peanuts, liver, two mushroom dishes (one was a mushroom soups with thin noodles while the other was cold mushrooms), fried eggplant, and a huge bowl of white rice. It was so good to eat. My friend also got me a small chocolate cake! They really are wonderful people.
 
 (Above: Kim, Anna, Wanda)


(Above: Jule, Me, Teresa) 



(Delicious Chocolaty Goodness!)

I also splurged and got myself some chocolate to eat, and I also opened the presents my mom and dad sent with me to China. One was a beautiful bracelet and the other was a pack of Uno cards! They made me really happy!

 
 I also finally got the package of books I left at home by accident. One was a pocket dictionary, and the other was a Chinese slang dictionary (because whenever you study a foreign language, you need to know the words that aren’t always taught in the classroom). They also packed my purple raincoat and a shirt I ordered but didn’t think I would get to wear till I got back from China. Getting this package though was a real ordeal though. My roommate told me that she got a phone call from the front desk of building 4, and that they said there was a package for me. This was weird because we had been told that someone would slip a notice under the door saying that there was a package, mail, etc. that arrived and that you would have to bring that with you to prove you had a package. Despite this we went to building four and said that someone had told us I had a package. The people there looked at us as though we were crazy and said that we had to go to a different building and that we were wrong. But my roommate Bam and I adamantly said that we were specifically told to go to building 4. Eventually they asked to see my passport, but since it is being processed along with several other documents because I’m a foreigner, we showed them my Beijing student ID. Then they showed us the package, which had my name and current address, looked at me very suspiciously, and when I read my name in English, they finally believed it was mine and let me have it. Good grief! Isn’t it irritating when one person or group tells you to do one thing, then tells you that you are wrong, and then tries to make you do something that obviously isn’t right? At least I got my package from home though.

Today I also went out to Carrefour, the large supermarket which comes from France, but is really popular here in China. I bought a lamp and a thermos that isn’t made of cheap, unsafe plastic (YAY)! I also got some small snacks to eat in the morning with me because I’ll need the energy to run to class.

Well, I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. Here’s a video of the bridge I cross to get to the campus,
 
 
and a video of some scorpions on sticks that I forgot to upload (it’s from when I went to buy a dictionary with Bam and her friend).

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Wandering through Campus, and Pictures for Yesterday's Post


Yesterday I promised to post some pictures, so here they are!

This set is of Yonghe temple (also known as the Llama temple), one of the most famous sites in Beijing. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the insides of the buildings, but I took plenty of the outside.













Inside Wanfuge Pavilion, there is a large, golden Buddha with holding what appears to be a tree in one hand. It is an extremely tall and imposing statue (it’s too bad you aren’t allowed to take pictures of it, it really was quite impressive).

That same day I went to Houhai with my roommate Bam and one of her friends. Houhai has a lake, where you can rent paddle boats (which we both thought were overpriced), and has lots of shops and restaurants. It's a very beautiful area, with lots of trees and in part of the lake there were lots of lotus flowers.



That's me (kitty shirt) with my roommate Bam (Stanford shirt)







This is Bam with one of her friends who joined us.


All around the area, people were eating HUGE amounts of cotton candy. I seriously doubt I could eat that much.





There were quite a few strange things in this area, both in shops and outside of restaurants. I’ll just let you look at these three pictures to get a general idea (I saw some other things which were far more bizarre, but I think it would be in bad taste to post them).


 

I finally got around to taking pictures of PKU’s campus, which is really quite nice once you know where you are/need to go. There’s a lake on campus called Weiming Lake, which you can walk around or sit and relax while reading a book or doing homework. There are also a few pavilions around the lake, which have wonderful architectural details (I could spend hours taking picture of every single detailed painting on a single building). This area is very peaceful compared to the rest of campus, which is constantly buzzing with people, bikes, motorcycles, and cars nearly hitting pedestrians. It’s very loud too (whenever I return to my dorm I’m still surprised at how quiet it is compared to outside). I’ve been to very noisy place, like New York City and Athens, but Beijing is definitely noisier, and more crowded.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 






 
 
A few noteworthy buildings are the library (which, like almost every other college library I have been to, looks impressive from the outside), the multimedia center (where concerts and the like take place), Shao Yuan (which is where some international students live, and where international offices are), and Zhongguanyuan Global Village, where I live with other international students.

 
one of many cafeterias on campus (with two floors!)
 
Library
 
Shao Yuan
 
 
 
Multimedia Center
 
Where I live (seen from the campus)
 


One thing I noticed in particular while running around campus taking pictures was that there are really big spiders here. I have no idea what specific species they are, but they are quite large, and spin HUGE webs (I saw one extend from the top of a lamp post about 2 ft. away to a bush on a diagonal, but I couldn’t get a clear picture to show you all).

 

I begin classes on Monday, and in about a week I get to choose my elective classes. My compulsory classes are speaking and writing Chinese, and I’m not sure what class I should choose as my elective (I’ve heard that some of the options are history classes, culture classes, etc.).

Well, that’s all for the moment, so I’ll probably update you all next week about what’s happening here!