Qiming Jie and Exams

Hello everyone,

On April 5-7, I had an enjoyable three day weekend because it was a holiday called Qingming Jie, or Tomb Sweeping day. Originally I had planned on traveling to Xian during this week, but due to complications, I had to scrap those plans for a later date. Instead, I went to the Beijing botanical gardens, which were quite beautiful.

The three day weekend was from Saturday to Monday, and like many holidays in China, had lots of people traveling. I had planned to visit the gardens on Saturday around 10 am, but when I went to the subway station, there were so many people that I decided it would be better to leave around 6 am the next day to avoid being so closely packed together with a crowd. It felt like I was in a can of sardines people were so squashed together. As such, I decided to go to Carrefour instead to buy some groceries and return home for a relaxing, crowd-free rest of the day.

The next day I went to the botanical gardens around 6 am, and arrived at about 8 am. I still had to deal with a crowd, but not nearly as large as the other day.

The gardens were beautiful. The site itself sorts many different species of plants, but one of the more common ones was a tree called “mei hua,” which literally means “pretty flower.” This kind of tree comes with a variety of different colored blossoms, many being light pink, but also white and dark pink.

Here's some pictures of the gardens:

There is also a conifer garden with lots of different kinds of conifer trees, close to Liang Qichao cemetery. This area was far less crowded than the rest of the gardens, and was quite pleasant to walk through.

Here are some picture of a restaurant near the conifer gardens (and some more plants):

After walking for a while I went to the Wofo Temple, which has several magnolia trees surrounding the sides of the walkway up to the temple. The temple itself is situated on a hill, and was very impressive. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the insides of the buildings, but I was allowed to take pictures of the outsides, as well as of the fish and turtles in the fish pond near the entrance.

The gardens also have a very large lake in the center. Some areas of the lake were quite beautiful, but others seemed to be either polluted or just trashed, as I saw trash in a few areas near the edges of the lake. That was unfortunate.

Here's some more pictures, and some people dancing:

This is the conservatory (and the surrounding area):

While I was walking around, quite a few people were staring at me, particularly children. I should be used to people staring at me because I’m a foreigner, but sometimes it’s still unnerving, or at the very least annoying.

I stayed at the gardens till 1pm, when I decided to go home after taking in all the beauty the place had to offer. However, I had to spend about an hour waiting for a bus back to the summer palace (where I could get to the subway), due to all the people surrounding me. When I did get onto my bus, I started feeling claustrophobic due to so many people pushing me, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get off the bus when we arrived at my stop. I had to push multiple people out of my way, and while I hate having to be so aggressive, it is a common occurrence here in China on buses. When I got back from the subways station, I bought myself some ice cream, returned to my dorm, and slept for four hours straight. I was physically exhausted from walking around all day, and emotionally exhausted from having to deal with crowds.

Over all, it was a very fun weekend, and I spent the next day doing homework and relaxing.

The past two weeks have been rather busy because in addition to my elective class midterm and a group presentation for my kouyu class, I have also been preparing for a competition. All of the hanyu classes have to prepare either a skit or song to perform for everyone, and the best classes will win a prize. My class will be singing a song called “Let it Go,” performed by Idina Menzel in the movie Frozen.

For those of you who want to hear it, here’s the English original, and the Chinese version in the links below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjhr8qwPgfc

Our class will first perform it in Chinese, and then each of us will sing a verse or two in either our native languages, or a different language. For example, since I studied Spanish in high school, I will be singing my part in Spanish, while two other American students will sing a different part in English. We’ll have seven languages for the second part: Swedish, French, Spanish, English, Japanese, German, and Korean.

Speaking as an actor, violinist, and someone who simply loves music, I enjoy singing, and think singing this song for the competition would be fun. However, most of my classmates are not particularly good singers, and do not want to compete to begin with. Since this competition is mandatory for all the hanyu classes, there’s nothing else to do except our best, but many of the students have spent most of our class time complaining. As such, practicing with them has been less than enjoyable.

Also, I am supposed to be a judge for the day that our class competes, and provide a short introduction to the rest of the classes about the song we’re performing because no one else from our class wanted the responsibility. Sometimes I regret feeling the need to pick up the slack of others.

The one nice thing about this competition is that we don’t have any afternoon classes, meaning Thursday, my busiest day of the week, will be a great opportunity to relax, and prepare for my exams during May 5^th – May 9^th.

Another fun bit of info for everyone. I will be traveling in Xian from May 1^st to May 3^rd, so after my next set of exams I will write a post about my travels there.

Also, since I will have extra time this week, I will finally make a post about my travels in Shanghai. I promise.

Until next time, take care and enjoy life!