It's been a while since I've written anything worthwhile. I'm sorry
about that. Let me tell you some stories of my adventures. Given the
epic amount of studying that one can* do at PiB, free time is a valued
commodity, but I am going to spend my Sunday night writing.
pictures:
天安门Tianan'men square.
Although there really actually isn't much to do here aside from look
at the big open space, the giant picture of Mao, etc, I really enjoyed
going. Truth be told, I think I was filled with more awe and feelings
of significance while walking around Tianan'men than while walking
around in Washington DC. I'm not sure what that means, but as we
slowly approached the great painting of Mao, I felt a swelling of
great significance. Perhaps the United States needs to reconsider it's
decorating scheme: use the White House as a big canvas for giant
paintings of our greatest - Michael Jackson and all.
农村，爬山 Countryside, Mountain climbing
This Saturday we took a trip typical of modern China city dwellers, in
Beijing as well as other large cities. The teacher that I asked said
that she thought this kind of excursion became popular about 5-6 years
ago. We went to the country side near Beijing and ate a 农家 (nong2jia1
- farmer home) style meal and then we climbed a mountain. City
residents like to do this when they have the opportunity because they
believe that life in the city all of the time, eating city food and
using the city food, air, etc. is unhealthy. I've been feeling that
myself recently: Friday night I was just thinking to myself - I want
air! I want real, clean air! Of course, it is not as though the
effects of the pollution and air quality are so intense that it's
consciously noticeable.
My father had basically described this activity to me once, including
the fact that there are actually steps in the mountain all the way to
the top. I had erroneously assumed that he must have just been
climbing a really often frequented mountain or tourist site. However,
I'm starting to think that, because there are so many people to come
to the mountain and because labor is so cheap, that this "pathway to
the top of the mountain" may be more the norm than the exception. It's
certainly not a common occurrence on mountains in the United States.
Despite the incredible humidity that made it feel (and look) like we'd
been swimming by the time we reached the top, it was pretty
incredible. I was vaguely under the impressions that Chinese landscape
paintings were from somebody's imagination, but there I was, looking
at those mountains and that fog. Also, there were some Buddhist monks
enshrined at the base of the mountain.
两种菜单
A quickie story: on Friday we went to Tianan'men square and the nearby
area Qianmen - an area with a lot of shops and restaurants, which are
obviously often frequented by tourists. The restaurant that we stopped
for dinner seemed to be at about our perfect level - a meat-containing
main dish around 20-30 yuan, vegetable dishes between 10-20 yuan. We
were surprised when we looked at the menu to see that the prices were
unexpectedly high, given the general atmosphere and situation of the
restaurant; also it seemed as though they didn't have a great
selection. There was a general mutter of "看起来有点儿贵啊... (oh, it looks
surprisingly expensive)" which the waiter overheard. After a little
bit she asked, "你们会看中文吗? (you can read Chinese?)" and then switched
our menus - which was when I finally noticed as she was taking away
the first menu that it only had English. On the second menu, there was
no English, but a price drop of 10 yuan for the couple dessert dishes
that I remembered the price for - I don't even know the differences in
the prices for the main dishes...
Other notes:
Next weekend is our long weekend. Even though I had originally thought
that I'd want to get out of Beijing, considering that there is still
so much that I haven't seen here, I've decided to stay in the big city
for the weekend. I'm pretty excited. Also, I apologize for awkward
formatting and typos in this blog - I email in my updates. Although I
can use some VPN clients to get around the Great Firewall, I'm really
too busy (and lazy) right now.
* Truthfully, this is a personal decision. There are some students
here who don't appear to value studying as the most important aspect
of their time in Beijing. I find this pretty surprising, considering
that PiB appears to be generally considered the most intense and most
demanding of summer study programs in China. With the amount of work
one could be doing, I guess I can see how some students appear to be
burned out and not studying (my roommate for example, seems to have
spent a greater part of today watching American TV on her computer) if
there isn't a great personal interest and drive in learning Chinese.
As a non-Princeton student, my grades will actually only show up on my
school transcript as pass or fail, so the fact that I study so much is
pretty unrelated to my grades.
Stories to look forward to (that I mean to write about when I get a chance):
没有菜单
街景
健康，老人，playgrounds
樱桃
交通
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