first day in Beijing

My first day in Beijing, I took a bus from the train station to Tiananmen Square and looked for a hotel south of there.



The square is impressively huge, much bigger than any other open plaza I've ever seen. The north end is dominated by Tiananmen with its huge portrait of Chairman Mao.






After I dropped my bag off at the hostel, I went back to Tiananmen Square to visit the Forbidden City which used to be the home of the emperor. It has been restored and converted into a museum. Here's the main entrance.



The architecture inside is everything I expected it to be: restored traditional Chinese buildings



with lots of different levels



and fancy bridges too.



Inside the museum, you can get some sense of what life used to be like in the palace. This is a picture of what an imperial audience would have looked like:



And the chair he would have sat in:






A close-up of mushrooms on another banner:



Some concubines' dresses



For transportation:


There were also parts of the museum dedicated to imperial learning, including this sutra written in both seal and common script,



these geometric figures,



this machine to distill water,



and this astronomical model.



The ceramics collection was made up of impressive walls of pieces of ceramics made throughout history in different Chinese kilns.



Yixing clay teapots were also on display.



Outside, you had to be careful of the lion in the cage.



When I left the Forbidden City, I was amazed again by the sheer immensity of Tiananmen Square.

Beijing recap

I just got back to Xi'an this morning - a whole hour and a half before I had to teach. I had planned to arrive back here yesterday, but there weren't any tickets available.

I'll replace this post with a real description and some photos before I go to bed tonight - for now, suffice it to say that Beijing was a much better experience than I had expected.

Beijing

So far Beiing seems like a pretty nice city - much more cosmopolitan
than Xi'an. It's a big place, with lots of people, of course, as I'm
sure you already new, but most interesting is the contrast of new and
old mixed with a huge quantity of construction. They're trying to get
ready for the Olympics I suppose, but it's sad to see such great old
parts of the city being destroyed and replaced, I think, with a new
"old" buldings that look more like the pictures of China you have in
your mind.

I still haven't been to the Great Wall, so that's my plan for
tomorrow. Now I'm going to go see if I can find tickets for Beijing
Opera or some crazy Chinese acrobatic show.

May Day

As usual, it's been a while since I updated you all on what's going on, mostly because there hasn't been anything interesting to say.  Classes are still going well, much smoother than last semester, and from what I gather, the students are enjoying them more too.  My Chinese is still coming along slowly, but I have started studying some characters, so maybe by the summer I'll be able to read at least a menu or something similarly simple.

 

Next week is the May 1st holiday here in China, Labor Day I think they call it, so we have the week off of school.  I was unsure as to whether or not traveling would be a good idea because the whole country will be on holiday, but staying here probably wouldn't be very interesting, so tonight I'm taking an overnight train to Beijing.  I'll stay there until it gets boring and then either come back to Xi'an or head over to Qingdao, a nice city on the beach.  I'll write again from Beijing in the next few days to let you know how it's going.

 

Now, though, I need to go buy a backpack (my last one broke - yay made in China) and finish packing.

day in, day out

It's been a while since I've written (as usual), but really there isn't much going on here worth writing home about. Classes are going relatively well, though my sophomores are all a bit worried about their upcoming TEM-4 (Test for English Majors) which they have to pass on their first or second try to graduate. The same test is given throughout China, and is used I suppose to make sure that all English graduates have at least a minimum proficiency regardless of which university they studied at. It, like all knowledge-based standardized tests, causes many many schools and teachers to "teach to the test," ignoring the real needs of the students and greatly limiting creative lesson planning. There's no spoken part of the test, so they take my oral English class less seriously than I think they should, and they want me to tailor my listening class to the test. They only have another month or so before it to get ready, so I told them that our next few classes could be test-oriented. Their biggest weakness as far as I see it is their lack of confidence and excessive nervousness, but unfortunately I don't know how to change that. If they would only relax, they do a lot better.

Other than class, I don't really do much, usually just hang out with friends to practice my Chinese and watch movies or read when there's no one around. Last week I was without internet for 3 or 4 days and without electricity for two (not because the building was cut off the grid but rather because the Foreign Affairs Office couldn't get an appointment with the one woman who sells the prepaid electricity cards), but I managed to survive. I've been going for pretty regular bike rides, usual just to the nearest big grocery store (about half an hour away), and learning a fair amount about the traffic rules or lack thereof in China. The basic rule seems to be avoid stopping at all costs but collision, which fortunately coincides nicely with US college campus bicycle riding.

It's getting late so I'm going to get to bed - I'd like to try to ride into the city tomorrow.

trip photos

A mossy mottled rock in the Stone Forest outside of Kunming.



Looking down the wavy rock into a deep dark hole.



It really does look like a forest of stones.



The crazy-narrow path on top of some tall pointy rocks, complete with scared Chinese girls.



A really big forest of rocks - see the pagoda for size comparison.



Hmm, what's this rock look like?



Dali, seen from the mountain.



Looking out from the snowy mountain path.



Graves are scattered amongst the pine trees all over the mountain by Dali.



Independent rest. Clockwise, from the top: Jing Bin, Korean. Wu Xiaoli, Chinese. Alyssa, Minnesota.



The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, near Lijiang.



Watering the fields the hard way.



The "old" streets of Lijiang.



The grand and glorious beginning of the Tiger Leaping Gorge.



The opposite face of the gorge.



Dirt paths really make for the best hiking.



What a place to build a guesthouse.



Oh, I wish I were still there . . .



All the land is terraced - there are many mouths to feed in China.



The waterfall, from afar.



Up close and wet.



The water runs right across the path.



The highlight of the hike.









The Yangzi River, far down below.



The descent - it sure was sad to go down, leaving all that beautiful scenery behind.



Back on paved road, unfortunately.



Now that's what I call whitewater.



Lijiang at night.



Looking out the door at Lugu Lake.



Snake Mountain



Cycling around the lake.






Countryside from a moving bus.



A bath for Baobao back at Sun Island Cafe in Dali.



A drippy tree is really what that bit of wall needed.



Excellent place for the morning cup of tea.



Taro playing the tabla.



The view from beneath the cable cars near Dali. We walked up, of course, sneaking through the woods to avoid paying the entrance fee. What mountain has an entrance fee? And we already paid the first time.



On the way down, we went around a bend to find a roofless building with monkeys chained to the porch. They get vicious if you get too close.



Last afternoon in Kunming.



The sun sets on my journey.

first day of school

Tomorrow I have my first classes of the semester. Like I requested, I'm only teaching 12 hours per week, leaving me with plenty of time to study Chinese (I'd like to start learning to read and write since being illiterate is both limiting and embarrassing) as well as travel a bit more. I only have class on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, giving me four day weekends every week. I'm only teaching freshman and sophomore English majors - oral English for both, and also listening for the sophomores. I still don't have the book for listening class so I'm not sure what to expect, but it doesn't start until next week so I still have time to figure it out.

I'm more or less settled into my new apartment. There are still a few things to be worked out, like getting the kitchen ready to be used and making the pipe to the washing machine stop leaking, but otherwise it seems like it'll be an alright place to live. The other apartment was probably a bit nicer and certainly more conveniently located for shopping, but I like being here with the students, and not having to take a bus to class tomorrow will probably feel great.

I know you're expecting pictures, but right now the internet is incredibly slow making the task of posting pictures quite cumbersome. If I can, I'll get some up before bed tonight. Otherwise, if technology cooperates, there should be some tomorrow night, also known as tomorrow morning in the western hemisphere.

back home

I got back home the night before last at about 2 AM, safe and sound.
The trip was wonderful. I should have some photos for you to see in
the next couple of days. I'd do it now, but I'm moving everything to
my new apartment in about half an hour and there are still plenty of
things to pack, so I need to get back to that. I just wanted to let
you know I made it back without any problems. More details soon.

time to head home

My last day here in Dali. Tomorrow morning I'll take a bus to Kunming and hopefully buy a train ticket for the same night. You would think that you could buy train tickets easily, but no, you can only buy them from the train station you are departing, which is a real pain if you aren't in that city and don't want to spend an entire day or two there. Hopefully it works out - if not, I guess I'll hang out in Kunming for a day or two while I wait - it's a nice city, but admittedly I'd rather be here in the mountains than back in the city. It is going to be sad going back - I've enjoyed being outside, seeing new things and meeting new people. As such, I'm going to get out of this internet cafe now and head back out into the early afternoon sun, wearing sandals in February.

back in Dali

Apparently the post I wrote on the 18th never made it to the blog - it must have been eaten by a grue or something. I, however, managed to avoid death and am still happily wandering around China.

Yesterday we made the long journey back from Lugu Hu on a couple of van-sized buses with a 1.5 hour layover in Lijiang, considered by many to be a beautiful city. Don't count me among them though - there's really only one word to describe that place: Disneyland. Wide cobblestone avenues (pedestrian-only, of course) with streams running along them (not big enough to be canals but it's the thought that counts) lined with "old" store selling cowboy hats and other Western (as in the Wild West) trinkets mixed with imitations of minority Chinese clothing and jewelry. From sun up to sun down it's flooded with tourists, but at night, everything is closed - even the streetlights get turned off before midnight, which certainly makes for an interesting stroll home, bearing in mind the threat of the canals and the maze-like design of the "Old Town."

Lugu Hu, fortunately, has yet to be cannibalized by the tourism industry, but it's close. Biking around the lake we realized that most of the villages on the shore are not propped up by tourism but rather agriculture or whatever else small villages do in this vast country. Once we were away from our tourist boulevard, the mountains and lake almost seems undiscovered, except for the honking cars full of helloing Chinese tourists passing by and the occasional dugout (tourist-laden as well) cutting across the rippled surface of the lake. Apparently in the summer there is no wind and the lake mirrors the mountains, but it being winter, we had to brave biting cold winds that occasionally made riding the 3-inch too small mountain bike down the cobblestone and gravel road a bit more challenging than we'd hoped. Regardless, the exercise was good for us and the views incredible.

Being back in Dali is nice - it's warmer, there are wonderful people who live here to hang out with, every cafe has good music, and the food is cheap but phenomenal. If I could live here for another month or two, I would, no doubt. Unfortunately, school starts the first week of March and my time here in China is not unlimited. I think I'll hang around here for the next few days and then head down to Xishuangbanna in the southern part of Yunnan Province, along China's border with Laos and Burma.

For now, I'm going to seek out another glass of fresh strawberry juice.

Happy new year!

Today is the first day of the Chinese new year, also known as the spring festival. I'm sitting in a cafe on the shore of Lugu Hu in the northeastern corner of Yunnan province, which as I already told you was in the southwest of China. This lake is a really amazing color of blue, and the sky above it somehow manages to complement it, and in between you have snow-covered forested hills with a mountain or two in the background. Amazing scenery.

I'm traveling now with a group of three people who I met in Dali, one of whom is from Minnesota, one from Japan, and the other from a different part of China. It's nice to be forced into speaking Chinese again since it's the common language we all share, if weakly. The day after tomorrow we'll be heading back to Dali, and I'm not sure what I'll do after that. There should be more internet connections there than there are here so I'll let you know where I'm headed before I leave.

Last night for the spring festival we went to a friend's family's house here near the lake and ate a wonderful dinner and stayed up snacking until midnight when of course we had to set off fireworks which looked amazing in the starry, moonless sky. It was mostly a peaceful night with the family, unlike new year's eve in the U.S., but it was very enjoyable and I did learn a little bit about the minority group that lives here. I'll write more about that when I get home. For now I'm going to go rent a bike and ride around in the hills surrounding the lake.

Dali

I've been in Dali for 2 days now and it's quite a nice city. There are a lot of cafes and other small restaurants to peacefully spend time in and meet people, and there are mountains to climb around in. The atmosphere here is quite different from the rest of the places I have visited in China. The people here are less hurried, less pushy, and much more welcoming. That isn't to say that other parts of the country aren't nice, but here, after just a few hours, you feel almost at home. Unfortunately, the weather has been cloudy and rainy for the past few days, but like I said, there are plenty of great places to read or have a conversation.

I'll probably stay here for a few more days and then move on to Lijiang, an old town not too far from here that has some more mountains to wander around in. Now, though, I'm going to get back to my fresh strawberry juice. Yummy.

Train ride

Oops - I forgot to mention the train ride. It was much better than expected, and the time went by pretty quickly, all 37 hours of it. I probably slept for about 24 hours of it, leaving a mere 13 to find something to do. I talked a lot with the people in the berth next to mine, all in Chinese of course. There was a woman with her daughter who was about 7 and another woman with a 2 year old, which of course made for excellent entertainment, at least when the younger one wasn't crying. It was also nice to watch the scenery pass outside the window - it seems that railroads are closer to the surrounding country than highways. It was my first ever trip on a train, and I gladly take another, and no doubt will before I leave China.

Ok, now back to the hotel and some sleep, finally.

Kunming

I've been in Kunming for a day and a half now - it's a pretty nice
city, with lots of trees and plenty of plazas, parks, and pedestrian
streets. It has a great feel to it and seems like it would be a nice
place to live. Yesterday I just wandered around the city and visited
the university which has buildings built in the 1920s which resemble
the ideal university in my mind, not the modern, impersonal
monstrosity where I teach. For those familiar with the U of I, think
Altgeld Hall, not the Foreign Language Building.

Today I went to the Western Hills, grandiosly called mountains in
Chinese. I spent 5 or 6 hours walking up and down them nonstop,
enjoying the views of a nearby lake and just generally being in the
forest. The dirt here is red, like in Georgia, so I'll have to wash
my shoes when I get back to the hotel. There are a number of Buddhist
and Taoist monastaries in the hills, but I only stopped at the one
started by a Chan (the Chinese version of Zen, which is Japanese) monk
in the fourteenth century. The gardens there were really peaceful,
and had it not been for the construction going on in other parts of
the monastary, I might have rested there for a while and read my book.

Tomorrow I plan to go to Shilin, the stone forest, which is, I'm told,
fields upon fields of limestone fingers formed during/after the area
was under the ocean. It's supposed to be one of the premier natural
wonders of this area, so I'm looking forward to it. If I can get a
bus ticket, I'll head out to Dali tomorrow night. If not, I'll stick
around here until I can.

Well now I'm going to get out of this internet bar and probably head
back to my hotel - my legs are tired from all that walking.

time for a trip

This evening at 10:30 I'm going to take a 37 hour train from here to Kunming (pronounced Quinn ming (rhymes with king)), a city in the southwest of China where the weather is perpetually spring-like. There're also lots of other natural attractions in the region, which is why I'm going: to get away from this city for a bit. It's a nice place and all, but I'd like to see some trees and mountains, and maybe a blue sky that wasn't ringed by smog. I'll post again when I get there, maybe with some more details of the area and a few pictures from the train if I can manage it. For now, I need to finish packing.

last day of school

Tomorrow's my last day of school for the semester and the next one doesn't start until the beginning of March so I finally have some time to travel. Unfortunately, I can't leave right away since my passport
is still in the possession of the government so they can extend my visa. I should have it within a week so that I can rent hotel rooms and do other such things that need identification, like maybe take a plane. I'm thinking of going somewhere south of here where the weather is nicer and the pollution not so bad - I'll let you know once I have definite plans.

Not much else is new here. Last weekend I got to go to a student's house for some good home-cooked Chinese food. We rode bikes to get there, which was a great time - it reminded me of how much I enjoyed biking around Urbana. I hope to buy a bike of my own in the next couple of days so I can explore this town and get some exercise at the same time.

Oh, the school got a new foreign teacher last week, an Australian named Wayne. He seems like a nice guy, and it might be nice to have some foreign company, though I'm not sure how good it'll be for my
Chinese. He is studying it too, though, so maybe we can find a teacher and have class or something.

Well now I'm going to get to bed since I want to be awake for my last exams. G'night.

holidays

As you may or may not have heard, a couple of weeks ago there was an earthquake off the coast of Hong Kong (or Taiwan, I forget) that broke some undersea cables, rendering the Chinese connection to the internet more or less useless. As such, I haven't been able to update you all on life here in China.

Christmas here was nowhere near as nice as it would have been in the States. On both Christmas and Christmas Eve I had dinner with some friends, which was nice, and afterwards, on Christmas, we went and wandered around the city so that I could see what Chinese people do to celebrate. There were lots of people out walking around, shopping, setting off firecrackers in the street, and there were a lot of little stands set up selling local food in one of the plazas. Basically the Chinese use Christmas as an excuse to have a party, usually with friends rather than family.

The new year's celebrations were similarly uneventful. The biggest holiday in China is the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, which isn't until next month, and perhaps because of this the solar new year is pretty much ignored, except for the three-day holiday for all students and teachers. Unfortunately, the school somehow felt justified in making Saturday and Sunday two of the three days off, even though we wouldn't have had classes anyway. Everyone was pretty angry about that trick, but there's not much we could do.

The past few days I spent being my friend Katie's tour guide. She's here on a "study abroad" trip with her school, touring China for three weeks with 31 other students. They were only in Xi'an for 3 days, but nonetheless it was great to see her. We went to a few tourist sights, drank tea, and ate some good local food. I tried to be her interpreter, but I'm afraid I didn't do that good of a job. It's really difficult to be an interpreter and participant in the same conversation, and even more difficult to interpret a language you aren't fluent in, but it was excellent practice and good for my confidence too.

I guess I could elaborate a little bit of what we did, and in doing so maybe entice you to come and visit too. On her first day in town, my friend Mr. Shi invited us to his apartment for dinner, which, since he's a chef, was amazing. We had who knows how many dishes, including soft-shelled turtle soup, which was quite delicious. Afterwards I escorted her back to Xi'an where we found a decent bar/coffee-shop with comfortable couches where we could sit and talk about this crazy country we're in. The next day she went to see the Terracotta Army, so in the evening we just wandered around the neon-lit city, enjoying the strangely warm night air. The following day she was completely free, so we wandered more extensively, making it as far as the Big Goose Pagoda which was built to house Buddhist sutras a long time ago. We also went to a few tea stores, which as you know I like to frequent, where we could try any tea we desired. Lunch and dinner were traditional local foods, mutton soup with bread in it and a hot pot respectively. I may not be a professional tour guide, and my knowledge of Chinese language and culture may be lacking, but I can guarantee that you'll understand my English.

I finally have a key to my new apartment, which was nice since the cab fare from Katie's hotel to there was about half of what it would have been to my old apartment. It's still not all fixed up, and of course only has half of my furniture and none of my personal possessions, but it's nice to have a bed there. I'll continue to have these two apartments until after the Spring Festival when I'll be forced to move everything to the new one.

My classes are coming to an end, with the following two weeks being my students' final oral exams. After that's the winter break and the Spring Festival, but I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing or where I'll be going for that. I'll let you know as soon as I do.