Apologies, Winter, and Illnesses

Hello everyone,

First off, I’d like to apologize for not updating my blog for the past two weeks. I was going to update it last week, but unfortunately I got a virus and felt very sick until recently when I went to the hospital to get medicine. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t feeling too well and am sorry. I’ve also been busy trying to figure out where I should visit during winter break. PKU students don’t have Christmas off because that isn’t a holiday celebrated here, but from the beginning of January till the middle of February I have a month long vacation time. But this also means having to plan ahead and buy tickets as soon as possible, particularly if you want to travel during the Chinese New Year (also known as the Spring Festival), because train tickets and plain tickets become sold out very quickly. As such, I’ve been a little stressed with figuring that out. I do have one thing finally planned though. Right after my final exams, I am going to visit Harbin, a city in northern China which has an ice festival. I’m going to be traveling with some classmates and friends from school, so after I return from that (probably around January 10^th), I should have some awesome pictures for you.

So last week nothing particularly interesting happened, but the week before that I went to Sanlitun, a district in Beijing which is known for having lots of embassies and foreigners. My Korean language partner’s girlfriend, Min, my friend Janie, one of her roommates, and I all went out to see the shopping mall there. Janie had told me that there were really pretty Christmas decorations that I should see, but since it was during the day and the pollution level was over 400, it wasn’t quite as glamorous as she remembered it. Still, if one evening the air is clear and I have time, I might go back to see what it’s like. 

Here’s a couple pictures:

(My friend Janie and her roommate)

While we were at the mall we saw an exhibition of children's artwork which was being sold to raise money for disabled children.

(This statue is actually similar to two others I saw in Wudaokou. I actually have pictures of these other statues in an earlier post, but I have yet to find out who the artist of these sculptures is)

We also ate Persian food. There are actually a lot of Middle Eastern restaurants in the area we explored, and the food we had was fantastic!

Here’s what I ordered:

Don't worry, I didn't over stuff myself. The large platter has lamb, beef, chicken, rice, a tomato, and a tomato sauce. The large platter is also meant to be shared with two people, so I split it with Min.

Speaking of which...

(This is Min, my Korean language partner's girlfriend. She's really awesome!)

(Janie on the right and her roommate on the left. I unfortunately forgot her name because Janie has two other roommates, so I keep mixing up who is who)

Desert: Colibri cupcakes. Flavors (from the green going clockwise): mint, cookies and cream, chocolate, mocha. Mine was the mocha, and it was glorious to eat such a wonderful cupcake!

Dinner was delicious! It reminded me a bit of home when my dad would take us out to get Middle Eastern or Mediterranean food back home. It was also really nice to eat solid, real meat.

After looking at some of the embassies and exploring in general, I went back to Janie’s apartment to watch an Indian movie which we began in October but hadn't finished until two weeks ago.

Since the semester is ending in January we're all preparing for our exams, final essays and presentations, etc., which is a little sad because lots of people will be leaving to go back to their home countries (those who are staying for only a semester that is, most other people are just traveling during the month long break). 

I’m afraid I don’t have much else to report from here. Getting sick really sucked though. Everyone here at school is sick, and in my dorm everyone has the same type of illness I have. I’m worried that my roommate will be next (she’s already showing the symptoms I had), and the last thing I want is for her, or anyone else for that matter, to get what I had. It was miserable, but I’m taking medicine that the doctor prescribed to me which is helping a lot.

I wish everyone back home good health!

P.S.

I got a haircut today ^.^

Thankgsiving, Holiday Spirit, and Contests

Hello everyone! This week was more peaceful than the last, but definitely more eventful (if that makes sense).

Last week was the International Students Speech Contest, where one student from all the classes for Chinese as a second language compete by performing four minute long speeches. Because there are so man classes, the contest is divided into five days with about ten or so classes competing against each other, and because the contest takes place in the afternoon, all afternoon classes were cancelled last week (although that didn’t really affect me in the long run because I only have two days where I have afternoon classes, the rest are in the morning).

So our class, class 12, was competing against classes 11, and 13-18 I believe, and my best friend won second place! Her name is Janie, and she’s a brilliant student, so I’m not surprised. Our teacher was though. Apparently most winners are from the more advanced classes, seeing as they have more experience, their levels are higher, etc., but Janie’s topic also impressed the judges a lot too. Our kouyu teacher was so happy that she had our entire kouyu class go out to a restaurant together. It was a lot of fun! I think my kouyu teacher is my favorite teacher here. Not just because we went out to dinner, but because she’s a really good teacher and an interesting person. She’s really helpful when we have trouble understanding new material, and she doesn’t put up with nonsense, which is always a good trait in my book.

For the rest of the week I tried catching up on some of the material I missed last week, due to being sick during the midterm exam, and relaxing after the stressful period of exams.

So yesterday I went to a Christmas market with some of my German friends, which was a lot of fun. It was at the German embassy, out in a courtyard and partially within the main building. There were a ton of people, but the line to get in was moving pretty fast, and because we got there early, we got to go in fairly quickly. Since there wasn’t that much room, people were being let in based on how many people left every few minutes/hours. It was good we got there before they opened.

From what my friends told me the embassy definitely tried to make this event as authentic as possible. The stands apparently looked very much like those that were in the Christmas markets in Germany, the food tasted very authentic (from what I could tell, as I’ve only been to Germany once, and my mom’s side of the family is German so I have some experience in this department), and the music was like that played around Christmas time in Germany.

Here’s some pictures:

(My friends Jule and Teresa with some mulled wine, a must at a Christmas market)

(My delicious bratwurst and black forest chocolate cherry cake)

(A choir singing German Christmas carols) 

(Santa came to give presents to little children, although he looks a bit skinny to me...)

(Another one of my German friends. I believe her name is Elizabeth, but I'm sorry to say I can't remember for sure)

(The food here was fantastic! I'm eating some sort of ham/liverwurst sandwich, which was extremely filling and hearty.)

All in all, it was a very fun event.

I have to say that I really needed something like this. Last Thursday was Thanksgiving at home, and while I had planned to go out with a few people to get Peking duck, those plans fell through. As such, on Thanksgiving, I went out with my German friends to a bakery and had some very yummy pastries.

But going to the Christmas market on Saturday really made me happy. Thanksgiving is a time to be around friends and family, and since I couldn’t celebrate it with my folks back home, I was very happy to be able to do something special with my friends here. I am very grateful to have them here, and to have a loving family waiting for me at home.

Something that I have been noticing recently is that I have a lot of German friends. I’m very tempted to start learning German in addition to Chinese. That would be very beneficial considering I already speak English, Chinese, and a little Spanish. If I could improve my Spanish and learn German, I could become able to speak four languages.

Well, we’ll see what happens.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone back home, and best wishes to everyone everywhere else in the world!

Being Sick and, French?

Hello everyone,

So the week before I didn’t post anything because I had a really bad cold, so I wasn’t feeling up to it, and I wasn’t doing anything particularly interesting other than coughing and feeling miserable. As such, no post for two weeks ago.

Last week, however, I was well enough to go to four days of class. I missed Monday because I still felt under the weather, which was bad because last week we had our second set of big exams. Here at PKU, we have three sets of exams for hanyu and kouyu classes; one major exam near the beginning of the semester, another set during the middle, and then finals. If you get sick and miss the first or second set of major exams, you can fill out a form explaining why you were absent, hand it in for the dean of students to approve, and if approved, you have to then pay 50 yuan to take the exam you missed. This is only applicable for the first two sets of exams, so if you miss the final exams for some reason, you can’t take them at a later date. That was an interesting policy to learn about.

Also everyone is getting sick here, so I wasn’t the only one from my class who missed an exam. And because I had to figure out how to reschedule the kouyu test, and had a test on Friday to prepare for, I wasn’t really doing anything very interesting that would be worthy of a blog post. As such, I’m sorry about not keeping you up to date.

I do have one funny story to tell you though. Last Thursday, I went to a small canteen near my dorm to buy dinner. They have really good food, and I really wanted to eat scrambled eggs with tomatoes. While I was waiting for my food (they cook it right in front of you after they take your order, this place is a “hole in the wall” kind of canteen), I heard the staff talking. And I understood what they were saying. They were speaking rather hushed, but I could still hear fairly well. Basically, they were saying this:

“Where do you think she’s from?”

“France, probably France.”

“Nah, she’s definitely from England, she’s so pale.”

“Maybe she’s from America?”

“No, her accent sounds British.”

And after a few minutes of this, the main woman in charge very loudly “Hey! What country are you from?!” Once I told her I was from the USA, she said “Oh really? You have such pretty skin. Really!” that last sentence kind of threw me off, but it’s always nice to get a compliment.

The next day though, someone else mistook me for a French person. When I was in the elevator heading to class, a student joined me and started speaking to me in French. I told him I don’t know how to speak French, and then he said he thought I was another French girl here at the dorm who always greets him in French.

So in short, people seem to think I’m French, and I apparently have a doppelganger living somewhere in my building. I would have expected most people to assume I’m German, considering I hang out with a lot of Germans, and because there are so many here, particularly at the university, but no, people first think I’m French. Who knew?

Well, I’ve got some homework, and I’m planning on doing some interesting things this weekend, so my post this weekend should be a bit more interesting. Again, I’m sorry about falling behind on keeping you up to date, but sometimes you just get bad, really boring weeks.

Vive la France!

http://europeantrips.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Eiffel-Tower.jpg

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!

Halloween Disappointment

So this post is going to be pretty short since last week nothing very exciting happened, except for Halloween. But that wasn't the greatest experience ever. In China, Halloween isn't celebrated very much, due to the fact that it’s a foreign holiday, and even when it is celebrated, it’s westerners who do most of the celebrating.

I thought maybe it would be fun to go to a Halloween party with a few of my fellow exchange student friends, but it was really bad.

The party itself was in a castle in Tianjin called Dynasty Chateâu, which was meant to be a recreation of the castle of Versailles, and part of the Louvre. It was very lack luster compared to the real thing. But that’s not the bad thing. No, the bad thing was that the people in charge of organizing this Halloween party sold more tickets than they meant to, leading to the place being over crowded, and police being called in to break up the crowds. My friends and I were forced to stand outside for over three hours in freezing temperatures with thousands of other people while being pushed around and nearly getting trampled because it was so crowded. Also, none of the buses which brought us there would leave until 5am, so we didn't get back to Beijing until 7am.

Needless to say, it was a bad experience, and I know never to go to anything like it again.

Here's a few pictures though:

My friend Alexa

My friends Alexa and Diana

I'm afraid most of my pictures were too blurry to make anything out, so here's a link to a picture I found online of it (so you get an idea of what this place was like):

http://cdni.wired.co.uk/620x413/a_c/china3.jpg

Other than that, I’ve been doing homework and trying to prepare for tests, and getting much needed sleep. See you next time!