拉肚子

picture: Taken on Friday while walking along street in Beijing - no
where in particular.

Today was a surprisingly tough day. Firstly, because it was a
completely regular day. However, it was the second day of the second
week: week one was tough but constantly had exciting things going on.
Speaking Chinese all of the time turned out to be not that long, and
there was a quick jump in everyone's fluency as they started to use
the language to really communicate. The first weekend was exciting,
the Great Wall and for most PiB students, some adventures into the
nightlife of Beijing. Yesterday, class again - reminding everyone that
there is studying to do. Today, class again, yesterday was not a
fluke. It's also starting to get tough to keep everything that we've
learned over the past week up and active with all of the new stuff
from each day.

I, for one, am realizing that the exciting jump in my Chinese ability
last week is going to need to be backed by a lot of work. For example,
I opened my flashcard program to do some review, so instead of just
the lessons for tomorrow, I activated all of the lessons we've covered
so far. There were over two hundred flashcards that were scheduled for
today.

Another factor that made today tough was that I was actually hit by
the fabled 拉肚子! La1 du4zi literally translates to "pull stomach" and
the meaning refers to having bouts of diarrhea. The textbook we use
for second year Chinese was written by the head teacher of PiB and is
clearly about life at PiB. We had an entire chapter about 拉肚子 - so
thankfully I knew all of the vocabulary and my friends were very
understanding. That's all of the detail that I'm going into, I
promise. One of tomorrow's chapters is 厕所, ce4suo3, or a discussion of
public toilets in China.

书法课

picture: Entirely unrelated to today and today's entry. Just an
amusing sign that I saw - I don't really have any idea about what goes
on in the building.

Today I had my first 书法 (shu1fa3) or Chinese calligraphy class. Simply
put, it was awesome and I'm excited about it.

Of course the teacher was a nice young woman who just talked to us in
Chinese about calligraphy for a while � the meaning of calligraphy and
the essential components of it. Along with showing some examples (some
of them were the pretty classic examples) of how Chinese characters
started as pictographs and then moved on to talk about different
essential aspects of calligraphy. It is an distinctly an art, unlike
the mere writing of Chinese characters.

There is abstraction to calligraphy; it is always made of only two
colors and is composed of lines and shapes that don't attempt to mimic
world images. However, unlike other arts, employs words and the
meanings of these words to also retain the characteristics of
literature. Another important aspect of calligraphy is that it allows
for personal creation; the characters are a framework in which to
create. Lastly, the self and the emotions of the artist will show
through their paintbrush. Well, this is my understanding of what she
said.

After this introduction, we picked up our calligraphy supplies;
inkstone, paintbrush, rice paper, protective mat and got to work.
Apparently, there are eight strokes that, once mastered, are all that
are required to write every character. Of course it turned out to be
one of those things that sounds fairly simple. I had even been
thinking before class that it would be somewhat boring because I know
how to write Chinese characters now that I study Chinese, and well,
that's all there is to it. Right? Wrong.

Those eight strokes turned out to be very, very hard. All of them are
incorporated nicely in the character 永 yong3, (which means
everlasting, eternity, forever, etc � a pretty weighty character to
contemplate itself).
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/21/25638630_dffc02146e_o.jpg shows the
strokes in the character. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera.
Documenting our pathetic attempts at such deceptively simple strokes
would have been well worth it. Everything from too much ink on the
brush, misbalance of line weight or shapes made our marks on the paper
look like confused children's. After struggling through the strokes,
the teacher went on to discuss how looking at someone's calligraphy
literally gives you a window into their being � particularly when they
write their name. Therefore, our first project will be writing our
names. She then began to ask a few people for their names and
demonstrated writing them. It looked so easy � but don't be fooled.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures of this later.

南京南京！The City of Life and Death

It's Sunday night. I have class in less than eight hours and I
definitely haven't finished my homework. Tomorrow is going to be very,
very long and I definitely haven't started on any of my work for
tomorrow. Instead, this afternoon, I decided to watch a 南京南京！ with
some fifth year students.

What better place in the world to watch a movie about the brutality of
Japan than China? It might be a once and a lifetime event.

I think it probably was.

My chest still hurts.

The Great Wall! 长城

Today we went to the Great Wall of China.

Yay!

In Chinese, the Great Wall of China is called "长城" which literally
translates to "long wall". Today, I realized how accurate of a
description that is. Yes, the wall is pretty great - but that's mostly
to do with its incredible length. It's very beautiful, but if it were
not as long as it is, I think it wouldn't warrant any "great" in its
title.

The reasons why I'm saying this are because I spent at least 3 hours
walking along it today and it was friggin' long, man.

Why is it always feel like if I want to write more, I have to
sacrifice more sleep? I think I'm going to go to bed - that was a lot
of climbing.

Pictures are pretty self-explanatory, no?

Friday night! 后海

Tests over for the week; homework over - we went out for an adventure.
I want to say that I'll write up a good account of things tomorrow,
but so far I haven't been very good at writing things up at all.

Pictures:
1. A street. We did a lot of walking.
2. A picture of the sun over Houhai, a pretty patch of water; I don't
really know the history behind it, but it's a nice tourist / anyone
relaxing area of the city. It has a lot of bars as well. It was
unbearably humid today, the smog was terrible. I didn't bother taking
a lot of pictures over the water because all of the color was gone
from everything and it was just smoggy a couple hundred feet away
across the water. So this is the sun, around 6:30. It is pretty
though...
3. After a good long wander, an a comparatively expensive dinner at a
comparatively not-so-good restaurant, we decided to have an adventure
on the way back to Bei Shi Da (北师大, our host university). We went
through some hutongs; which are some of the older, less modern parts
of Beijing. It was kind of dark and more than a little sketchy, but
not as sketchy as that alleyway to the park...

Tomorrow, the Great Wall!

个别谈话 "one-on-one"

picture: An older picture - I haven't taken my camera out of my pocket
often while in Beijing. I mostly see the same couple places right now,
but I should probably take some pictures of them to share. Anyway,
this is the town by Peng Lai. Peng Lai was a summer, oceanside retreat
built by an emperor (I've already forgotten which - but he was a
pretty long time ago, even by Chinese emperor standards). Many famous
poets traveled there to get inspiration and write poetry. I traveled
there with my parents. There were lots, lots of Asian tourists. There
is definitely a different way of touring for Chinese people. I found
it be very goal-oriented: it felt as though there was little point the
in-betweens; instead it is streamlined to "see famous sight!" and once
seen, get the hell out. I digress.

After we saw the pretty castle on the cliffside, we saw the home of a
famous general. (I wish I had time to look some of these things up,
but I'm already spending more time writing this than I should...) I
took this picture after we had left to go search for some food. As
much as Yantai is a rural outpost compared to Beijing, I think this
town was as much a rural outpost to Yantai. I realized that a picture
might be worth a thousand words to describe this scene. Just after the
picture was taken, I also saw someone on a bike, smoking a cigarette
and sending a text message while navigating a rotary. Only in China.

Right now, I'm busy studying for my first test tomorrow. I can't
believe that we already have a test. Then again, every day this week
seemed quite long. A large part of it has to do with starting class at
7:30 in the morning, I think. In the afternoons we have more class -
although it's not really class.

In the afternoon, we have 50 minute-long one on one sessions with a
teacher. It is by far my favorite part of the day - even better than a
good dinner with my friends. It's great because it's nothing like a
class: it's simply a Chinese young woman (okay, well there is one male
teacher for the second year students) who is very nice who will talk
to with a student for an hour. The topics are fairly varied, even
though our vocabulary after only having studied one year of Chinese is
very limited. Gaps in vocabulary can be averted by hand gestures and
attempting to describe related things until some understanding is
reached. It's quite fun and relaxing.

More class

picture: Beijing's shiny, revamped subway. I believe one of my friends
described it as, "It's like being in the future! ...except it's now!"
Obviously the lines leading up to and nearer to the Olympic stadium
were better than the ones farther away, but the worst that I saw (not
that I saw that many stops) looked like one of the nicer Boston
T-stops. Also, there were flatscreen color TVs in all of the cars, as
well as on the platforms. There was also a TV in the bus that I rode.
I'm not really sure what they were showing, I think it may have been
mostly a couple looping commercials with a news report or something
equally boring. No one seemed to be watching them, probably because of
this.

Not much to report about today - I had class and then I did homework.

The use of westerners in advertisements and other imagery could be a
very, very interesting sociological research topic. In fact, I'm sure
lots of people are concerned with this. I'm working on collecting more
examples and some clear thoughts on this, but unfortunately, for now,
I'm tired.

Class at 7:30 in the morning is simply too early.

Second day of classes

pictures: After some exploration, it seems as though the best place to
study is our dormitory, which is a fairly nice building; not only does
each room have an air conditioner (very, very important) but the rooms
are also nice. It's almost a little bit too much that there are also
fuwuyuans ("service people") who change our towels, make our beds and
clean the individual bathrooms within each room. What you can do when
you have 1.3 billion people – service is so cheap that even students
have such luxuries. (Alright, not exactly normal. We are
comparataively very wealthy foreign exchange students. I have a good
story about this, but unfortunately, I should really get a little
sleep.) One picture is of the entryway – the characters in gold are
the building's name and translate to "New, Relaxed Apartments".

I'm a little nervous about how things will be going in the future.
Yesterday, I dawdled around a fair amount before studying – taking
care of lots of little things as well as spending a fair amount of
time for meals. Today, however, it seems as though I have done very
little other than study. I still have some more things that I hope to
look at before I sleep, but I'm taking a break to shower, drink tea,
and write this. If the rest of the summer really continues in this
manner, it will seem both very long – each day has been so long so
far; and very short – I will have a short list of my summer
activities, with "studying" at the top.

Also, the air quality does suck. I can't imagine what it was like
before the Olympics…

BEIJING

pictures:
1. Olympic Stadium: I took that picture, I've seen it in real life.
Part of a long wander about the city on Saturday.
2. An example of what the modernized, revamped areas of Beijing look
like. Another part of our wander around th city. It was Saturday
evening in a business district, which explains why there are so few
people in the picture. Usually, there are a lot, lot more people
around.
3. Eating tasty food: favorite pastime. :)

Unfortunately, I used my lack of internet access as an excuse not to write.

It will not happen again (as I now have internet access.)

I'm pretty busy right now, but I could certainly put in practice a few
simple time management strategies and I will definitely have time to
write and correspond with people and keep a better account of my life.

The short story - which I will hopefully expand:

I've settled into Beijing some; class has started and it appears to be
a decent amount of work. Whether that will change to "way too much" or
"not a lot" I'm still not sure yet. On Saturday, we didn't have
anything scheduled, so I went to explore the city with some friends.
There were many, many small adventures - most of which were based
around being rather lost. The process of asking directions, receiving
and following them was always a new and interesting episode.
Thankfully, we had a fairly veteran Chinese speaker with us, although
she was nearly as often confused by the answers we received as
everyone else was. In fact, our journey was likened to Pokemon - which
was described to me as a process of continually asking new characters
for directions.

The best vignette from this, although there were many worth retelling,
was when we were looking for a particular park we had heard about. It
had recently gotten dark - not just dusk, but truly dark. Given that
we were a group of five young people, albeit we aren't fluent in the
language, we are all pretty strong and healthy - we weren't too
concerned. However, our
attempt-to-ask-directions-and-then-follow-the-response: "nei bianr
zou, ranhou nei bianr zou"-plus-hand-gestures ("go that way, then go
that way") method had led us down some pretty dark streets. We had
asked at least 4 people already (some of whom had literally
unintelligible Beijing accents) and yet to find it. We were reaching a
pretty dark and pretty shady looking street and our best Chinese
speaker decided we had better ask someone again and find this place
quick.

She walked over to an elderly, somewhat unkempt in either an
old-man/poor-man/both-manner and asked him politely, "How do you get
to ____ park?" I didn't hear his response, but after a short exchange,
the man got up and started walking towards the building behind him. It
was even darker as we walked away from the street lamps - I don't have
any recollection of what the building even looked like. My friend
followed him hesitantly, still listening to him speaking and watching
him gesture. "Apparently, the park is right...through there?" she said
to the rest of us pointing to the dark, extremely narrow alleyway that
the man had led her to.

The minute of walking through that dark, narrow, crooked alley that
some undecipherable man told us was the way to the park was possibly
one the scariest minutes of my life.

And then we emerged into the park, as promised.

At the park, we found an adult playground. I promise to write more on
these. They're fairly awesome.
Alright - waking up at six tomorrow and I still haven't finished my
homework or preparations. Only the first day of classes, too. Oops.

Arrival in Beijing

I've arrived in Beijing and am alive. Unfortunately, I won't be able
to get my own internet until Monday, thus, I don't think I'll be
answering many emails or posting until then. This may also be one of
the longer periods of time that I have free, so I hope to do a little
traipsing around in the city as well.

It's very different from Yantai. Hopefully I'll post some more in
depth reflections on Monday.

三轮车 - why have four wheels when three will do?

In the United States, the realm of three-wheeled vehicles is reserved
for toddlers. Americans simply don't hold much stock in odd numbers of
wheels. My deep inspection of our culture (read: the thoughts that
popped into my head when I think of 3-wheels) has even discovered a
possible dislike and inferiority associated with vehicles that do not
possess only pairs of wheels. Phrases such as "third wheel" indicate
awkward and undesirable situations. This is not the case in China.

Vehicles of 3-wheels are perfectly acceptable and commonplace. Almost
any normal vehicle will also come in a 3-wheeled variety. I first
found it comical � afterall, I am subject to my cultural roots of
3-wheel ridicule. There are all sorts of tricycles ridden here, along
with many small cars of 3-wheels. Tri-wheeled cars appear to seat from
a mere two passengers up to a potential of five. My father and I once
spied a minivan possessing only three wheels � perhaps bringing a
whole new form of mini to the van. Most vehicles of three wheels are
good, common working machines. Extremely common are the 三轮车
(san1lun2che1 � literally "three wheel car") pictured above. It seems
to be the modern adaptation of the sedan chair or any other
human-powered mode of transportation. Everything about them eluded an
air of casual everyday life, from the variety of the operators -
grizzled old men, young men, a portly middle-aged woman or two � to
the variety of passengers � guys in business suits, young couples, the
ever-present grandparent and grandchild pair.

The tendency towards three wheels instead of four speaks to me of
China's ruthless efficiency. If three will work, why bother with the
fourth? Not only do you save on the initial cost, but on the
efficiency of having to move less mass for the entire lifespan of the
vehicle. Three-wheelism is therefore a perfectly reasonable
conclusion. Of course, this decision for efficiency is not
stigma-free. Those who can afford the fourth wheel will often indulge
in it, perhaps not simply for the additional stability but to show
their position beyond 3 wheels. Most 3-wheeled vehicles are those of
the hard-labor classes. Trucks transporting fruits and vegetables from
the local agricultural areas around the city are always of only three
wheels; motorcycles of three wheels are such that the last two wheels
support a large platform that can be used to transport everything from
workmen to marketwares. For these purposes, it appears as though
leaving off the fourth wheel is merely a matter of efficiency and
optimization.

Clichés

Today was my last day in Yantai. To say goodbye to this small pocket
of the world, I went for a long, rambling walk. I ended up in a small
park, tucked between some large roads, an apartment complex and a
banking center. I observed an motley caste of very regular people who
were also spending a Thursday afternoon in the park. There were some
old men who were also sitting serenely or napping. Several gaggles of
old women laughed and gossiped loudly. A few young people walked
through, looking as though they had just come from the shopping center
nearby. In the shallow pond that comprised most of the central area of
the park, a man waded through lily pads to collect plastic bottles. It
was unclear whether he was being paid to do this as part of the park
maintenance or whether he was doing it to collect a recycling fee from
the bottles. About 10 middle-aged people practiced some kind of
singing choreographed show in one corner. Several pairs of
grandparent-and-single-grandchild wandered about, playing on the
playground and everything else.

People are still people.

That being said, I am going to mention how I've had quite a real,
clichéd China experience in some ways. I saw a dog meat store while
wandering around today. Yesterday, a little girl with three pigtails
ran past me and said; "您好阿姨!" (basically 'hello aunt' - a greeting
phrase used to address an older female stranger that we were taught in
Chinese class but that I actually never expected to hear), I've
haggled at night markets; I've watched people pee on the sidewalk;
I've used the infamous squat toilets. Some other little things about
Chinese people: they spit - and by that, I mean they wind up and hawk
spitballs; also, socks and sandals = absolutely acceptable.

First Two Days 第一天和第二天

Oh dear. I can't believe that I'm already a week behind in updates �
and I've only been here a week. That is probably about as bad of as
start to things as one can get. So therefore, I hope that it will all
be improvement from here. I will really try to post at least every
other day, even if it's just a picture or two and a quick thought to
let everyone know I'm still alive. There should be only two exceptions
to this: possibly this weekend when I relocate to Beijing and have to
settle things there; and the extended weekend that I have between my
four week "terms" of PiB. I have yet to decide what I'm doing for it,
but it could be without internet.

For everyone whom wants my physical address in China, I have been
waiting until I get to Beijing because it will probably be better when
I find out which dorm room I'm staying in at 北京师范大学 and I won't know
until I get there. (Also, I have no idea what they would do with any
mail for me if it was there before I was.) I will be flying north to
Beijing early Friday morning � however, I don't think that I have
class until Monday. The weekend is going to be a lot of orientation
and allowing for everyone else to get over jetlag, and may have some
large periods of free time for me to go on some adventures and get a
little acquainted with the city.

Alright � but what has been happening for the past week? It feels like
both a great deal and very little. I have been staying with my parents
in my father's new high-rise apartment. Considering that I haven't
started studying yet, I have few responsibilities. Which is another
way to say that I am on vacation and there may have been a day or two
during the past week in which I did little more than go for long
walks, take naps and eat. Each week day has the schedule of breakfast
and dinner before and after my father's long workday. The rest of the
day is relatively open for my mother and me to walk around the city of
Yantai. We are actually in the industrial development zone to the
north of Yantai, and we have yet to walk so far as all of the way to
Yantai.

I am very glad that I have gotten to see this part of China � although
I have yet to go to Beijing, it is already apparent that the life that
I have witnessed here is a world away from what I will be seeing
there. Yantai is considered by my father's coworkers to be a rural
outpost, akin to a bunch of shacks erected in the wilderness and his
company is among the first serious industries to move to the area to
colonize it. Mind you, now, that I am from a small town of
Massachusetts, and when I think of "The City" I am referring to the
Boston with its population of around 4 million. Yantai, therefore,
measures up as a lot more than a rural outpost, if it has a population
of "non farming" around 2.2 million (and around 4.3 million "farming"
people nearby). However, the gauging the size of the population,
particularly in the industrial zone is difficult. There are many large
buildings of all types that, only upon close inspection, are visibly
empty.

In many ways, the most outstanding characteristic of the city is its
devotion to attracting industry and foreign investment. The many empty
buildings are a part of this: some of them are still under
construction to house residents and businesses that the city hopes to
host. Many buildings are also being renovated � although I am a little
confused as to what was in place before the renovations. Many
buildings and businesses also seem to be completed and ready to use
with businesses all set up, however I never actually seen anyone
frequent them. This is true of many of the beachside hotels and
attractions that appear to be targeted at tourists. Given its position
along the coast in a relatively temperate climate, one of the main
industries that Yantai is attempting to attract is tourism. It appears
as though the main market may be Koreans � Korea is merely a hop
across the channel � or perhaps wealthy Chinese who wish to escape the
city. I am tempted to say that, things are either "just taking off" or
possibly failing.

The parts of the city and surrounding area that I see most often have
been carefully planned, and are almost obsessively landscaped.
Overall, the efforts to create a modern, attractive city are
successful. On the first night, one of my father's coworkers who came
to pick us up at the airport remarked, "See, the city is nicely laid
out. The streets are wide and straight, similar to in America." To
which I laughed and vaguely tried to explain how far from the truth
that is in most American cities. The main roads of Yantai are perfect
perpendicular grids with two wide lanes going in each direction as
well as side lanes (on both sides) for bike traffic. They are
carefully lined with tree. Highways leaving the city are edged
color-coordinated shrubs for miles. I have never seen anything like it
in the United States.

Alright. I am going to stop here for now, though I have much more to
write. I need to get out today. I really hope to get better about
writing regularly, and hopefully will get to catch up some on the list
of topics that I have started that I mean to write some of my
observations on.

ps. My birthday today! Hopefully we'll eat something tasty � although,
I really don't know how much better the food can get…

Haier

Unfortunately, I wrote a pretty complete account of my first
impressions and my first day here yesterday but due to a technological
failure, I lost a lot of it and I haven't had the energy to rewrite
it. For now: Haier.

This is the brand of all of the appliances that my dad's apartment was
furnished with. This decal caught my attention for a couple reasons:
1. the logo; 2. the China energy meter. First off - what is that logo
supposed to imply? It's possible that it was an entirely random "cute"
image commissioned to serve as an attractive face to put on all of
their otherwise pretty boring and straightforward appliances. But I
still want to question why the clearly subordinate one is the
blond-haired, blue-eyed one clinging and looking adoringly at the
dark-haired, dark-eyed one. I don't know about the ice cream either.

Secondly, the China Energy Label: it's a little ambiguous as its exact
purpose. In the United States, it clearly would have been related to
environmental causes; the results of some hard environmental lobbying
to increase consumer awareness of their environmental impact. I'm not
sure if this is the case here. While in the Beijing airport, there was
a pretty decal on the paper towel dispenser in the bathroom that had
English saying something like "Use less, conserve more and be green"
(my understanding of the Chinese characters was more direct such as
"Please use only one sheet" and then something about green). Now, the
Beijing airport is likely not an indicator of "the Real China", so
much as "the China that China wants you to believe exists" due to the
Olympics. This apparently includes some degree of environmental
awareness.

Seeing this label, however, definitely leads me to wonder how much of
a facade that environmental awareness is. Is this label an indicator
of the movement extending further than a surface level? Or is it more
based on a goal of energy efficiency for pure economic purposes? It
might be a little clearer if I had any idea whether it was a voluntary
decision of the company or whether it was required of all new
electronics after a certain date of manufacture.

After all, in contrast to the cute face of this possible
environmentalism, there appear to be some pretty large storm drains
going down to beach, dumping runoff from the streets into the ocean
shore. Who knows what's in that water. I'm pictured trying to blend
into Yantai while standing on them. Also, I have definitely noticed
the air quality in my attempts to wear contacts. I read some warnings
about it generally not being a good idea, but I figured that I would
give it a try. I think I might give up a few days, but I'm still
trying. And if it's this bad here, I'm pretty sure that there is just
no hope for in Beijing.

Alright. I'm out for breakfast. More accounts, especially catching up
on the adventures of my first day, to come.

Traveling to China

picture: Health inspectors when we landed in Beijing. They took the
temperature of everyone on board with little guns.

I'm writing from Logan airport and I have a little while before I
board my first plane. I've seen two people wearing facemasks to lower
the chances that they'll catch the swine flu, nasty airport cooties or
both. I'm actually starting to feel the urge to put on mine, hearing
the way that someone is hacking on their mucus a few seats away. I've
also seen an Amazon kindle. But so far, I'm still in Boston and
nothing has gotten too foreign or otherwise exciting. So let me take
this time to talk of some other things.

My previous travel experiences include many family vacations around
the United States. I've been to most of the contiguous United States,
thanks to my parents (primarily my mother) and her enthusiasm for
planning awesome vacations which include everything from National
Parks to amusement parks and an infamous "fossil museum" (which turned
out to be an oversized school report of dioramas staffed by a local
teenager). Our family trips included excursions to Canada almost as
frequent as ventures into the other states – after all, the exchange
rate used to be in our favor and passports weren't even required a few
years ago.

However, aside from an hour-long frolic into Mexico one time when I
was probably under 2 years old, I have never gone beyond the
English-speaking realms of North America. As much as there are
important cultural differences between the United States and Canada
(enter a slew of clichés: curling/hockey vs. football, maple syrup,
public health care systems and some French people), I have become to
feel this as though my understanding of the world has been fairly
pigeon-holed due to this lack of travel.

---

Now writing from the plane, a little bit more than halfway to Beijing.
So far the trip has been pretty smooth and uneventful – so much so
that there's really not much to talk about. I'll continue with some of
the rambling that I started.

By the end of high school, I was frustrated to find myself with what
felt like a remarkably small view of the world. I am lucky to have the
privilege of being a student, a role that I have begun to view with
increasing seriousness. If this is the time that my primary
responsibility is to learn about the world, I had better take full
advantage of it. Literally, an entire world is out there to be
explored.

I've got my eyes, my ears, my camera and my two semesters of Chinese.
Come on, Middle Kingdom, let's go.

Also, a shout out to Joe for the name inspiration. He made a twitter
account for me under "outofharmsway" which I liked. However, while
considering it further, I realized that it didn't really make any
sense for my accounts of the world – thus, the slight alteration.

---

Safe and sound. Only casualty so far - dropped my camera in the
Beijing airport. Although it makes an unfortunate noise, I think it's
still working. The zoom is broken, but the regular autofocus seems to
be functioning reasonably and it can take regular pictures.

However, I'm not set up to charge my laptop battery yet, so I'm just
going to post what I've already written for now.

The First Post

Hey there! Welcome.

My first post - how exciting! I'm half an hour away from embarking on my
9-week trip to China and this will hopefully be a place for me to
document my travels. I'm not sure how the writing here will be -
considering it's be a very long time since I've tried to keep up with my
life in a journalistic manner. Also, it's been a long time since I've
been writing, for pleasure or otherwise. So, be easy on me, readers who
may be of a much background in the use of the English language.
Hopefully, I'll have enough interesting stories to tell that it will
hide the learning curve as I remember how to write - assuming that such
skills ever do come to me.

I plan to write a much more complete introduction to my trip to China
while in transit over the next day (helped along by the time zones
changing - although I won't actually be traveling for 24 hours, I won't
be arriving in China until Tuesday.) Here is the basic idea of things
for now:
A little bit more than a year ago, I was considering my goals for my
freshman year of college and for my experience in college. I began
thinking about how much I wanted to learn Chinese. Fast forward a few
months to my first day of classes at Brown University and my Chinese
professor says something along the lines of "It's never too early to go
to China." The thought, simple as it may be, changed the potential paths
that I saw stretching before me. A few months later, I've researched,
selected and applied to programs to spend the summer in China. studying.
Some hefty payments, some immunizations, a lot of packing later and here
I am.

I am flying first to Washington D.C., then from there across the north
pole to Beijing, China. From Beijing, I will fly to Yantai, where I'll
spend a week with my father - who lives and works there
(oversimplification - he actually travels very frequently but he is
supposedly based in Yantai). After that, I will fly back to Beijing to
study with the Princeton in Beijing program (through Beijing Normal
University.)

My travel companions will be my mother (for the first week, then she'll
stay in Yantai), and the little bird pictured above.

I think that it is time for me to eat some breakfast and contemplate
whether my packing is complete. Hopefully, I'll be updating again from
the other side of the world.