Friday, 2:00 PM, on the bus to Beijing
It’s been an interesting 24 hours. After finishing our game of Spades, I left Natalee and Florence’s room and crashed until 6:30 the next morning, when I headed down to the 5th floor for a Chinese-style breakfast buffet. Most of it was pretty gross, to my tastes. I don’t understand the Chinese tendency of pickling food, I really don’t. I also don’t get their preference for hot drinks. It’s not bad, but it just doesn’t taste satisfying. I had to ask the waiter for ice water. He thought it was a really strange request, but went to the kitchen to fulfill it anyway. He came back with a giant bowl filled with water and a few flecks of ice… I didn’t know if I was supposed to drink it or wash my hands in it.
After breakfast we hit up a dairy factory and watched milk production process from start to finish. Apparently we were at the biggest dairy factory in China and one of the most legit dairy factories in the world. Called MengNiu (Mongolian Cow), it’s obviously based in Inner Mongolia, and very famous. It was actually pretty state-of-the-art. I was surprised; it might be more advanced than many American factories.
The factory also had many... interesting... signs. They fit along the lines of what my friend called, "behavioral engineering."
They also proudly displayed a plaque our program must have given them some other year, probably just because it had Harvard's crest on it. It was cute.
Yesterday afternoon was all about seeing an old Buddhist temple and shopping at a local Huhhot market.
A local (regional) style of artwork is making a canvas out of sheep wool and then burning images onto it. I bought a couple to bring home to my sisters along with the gift I got for my brother at Genghis Khan’s place.
When we returned to the hotel we had free time for the rest of the night. After a small rest, nine of us met up to go find some dinner. To make it easy, we just went to a restaurant that another group of our classmates ate at the night before. They highly recommended it. Turns out it was a hotpot restaurant after the Mongolian tradition. Also turns out the menu didn’t have pictures. So… a third-year student did most of the ordering, with the help of a friendly Chinese gentleman who was at the neighboring table. Since he gave so much time to help us, we ordered a bottle of baijiu, which is a type of Chinese liquor, and sent it to his table. He and his friends reciprocated by sending a bottle of peach juice to our table, because he didn’t think Americans drank/could handle baijiu, as he explained to us. It was a pleasant little exchange.
Now, the hot pot itself was intense. We’re talking a full set of sheep vertebrae kind of intense… and some ribs… and a set of joints. Eating the pittance of meat off the vertebrae was difficult, and I flat out refused to drink the marrow out of the joints. I just couldn’t do it. We later added squid, which tasted pretty good, if a little rubbery, and noodles, which were green. Finally, they served up some watermelon for dessert. I can now say that I have had the true Mongolian grill experience. I'll be honest, I think I still prefer Kearney, Nebraska's take on Huhhot, Mongolia's food.
We left the restaurant in search of something to drink before we went out to do karaoke. After vetoing the single sketchy bar we found, we ended up just buying a few bottles from the local convenience store. It's amazing how cheap alcohol is here. We headed back to the hotel at this point to check-in and have a little social drinking before we set out. The karaoke was decent. I also did karaoke last night here in Beijing, and it was infinitely better. By the time I got back to the hotel, though, I was really tired. I fell into bed thinking going to sleep had never felt this good.
This morning we interviewed high schoolers, followed by university students. I had to deal with boys both times, which for some reason was a little more uncomfortable than speaking with girls. I think it's just because I'm so used to practicing Chinese with our female teachers. Anyway, it was a bit of a struggle. I was so embarrassed that I was having so much trouble. It's actually worrying me a little bit. Am I actually worse at Chinese than everyone else? I might be. I really need to work harder. I've let myself speak too much English on this 调查 diaocha (investigation). Time to go back to the world of 中文课 zhongwen ke (Chinese class).
It's now 8 PM. I obviously took quite a few breaks in writing from when I started. I hope this bus ride is over soon...
We pulled up to our dorm at 10:30 PM on Friday night. We were all extremely happy to be back in Beijing. I definitely don't regret going to Inner Mongolia and being exposed to such a different culture, and even though I complained a fair amount, I'm grateful to HBA for arranging such a unique experience for my classmates and me.
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