家常便饭？

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家常便饭 - jiācháng biànfàn

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Roughly translated, this little idiom means "home cooking, simple meal," or at least that's what our textbook tells us. I'll admit, I haven't really done as well as I could have at assimilating to Chinese cuisine. It's actually pretty delicious once you become accustomed to it, but I realized I was just too used to the American style of eating a variety of food from all over the world. So I might have missed out on the whole "home cooking, simple meal" aspect of Chinese food. Here, in pictures, are some of my eating experiences in Beijing, and yes, Binh Doan, this is (almost) entirely for you.

Eternal Gratitude

Before I go any further in this blog, I need to write a post that is long overdue. After all, it's only the last week of my program. I need to make clear my eternal gratitude to the Richard U. Light Fellowship Program for the unparalleled opportunity they gave me this summer of studying Chinese in China without any financial burden whatsoever.

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For those who don't know what the Light Fellowship is, you can go to their website (see above link) and read about them, but I'll also give a brief little summary. Its history is a pretty important component of the overall purpose of the program.

中华民族园

Alright, busting out one more since I know I'm not going to touch my blog this weekend. Luckily it's mostly pictures.

This past Saturday I went with my 中国家庭 zhongguo jiating (Chinese family) and another HBA student to the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, sometimes called the China Nationalities Museum (locally known as 中华民族园 zhonghua minzu yuan). It was definitely interesting and informative, but I think more could be done with it. It's just one of those under-appreciated treasures in Beijing; much of the time it felt like we were the only ones in the park.

So Tell Me...

The main point of every type of class we have throughout the day is to practice the grammar and vocabulary of the day. To that effect, the teachers prepare a long list of questions to ask us that allow us to practice. However, sometimes the grammar and vocab of the day limit them to asking some pretty strange questions for the sake of practice. In class, it always seems like we're laughing over the implication of one weird sentence or another.

I think, I just think, the teachers might have heard about the Yale-Harvard rivalry, because the first month or so, every day had a few questions about Yale and Harvard sprinkled in.

Hitting the Upswing

Well, it's finally happened. This past weekend, with only two weeks to go before our much-anticipated graduation, I finally hit the upswing of the study-abroad curve. I realized I was really, really happy about being in Beijing. Given the tenor of some of my past posts, this may come as a surprise. It certainly surprised me.

When I got back to Beijing from Inner Mongolia, I found that I was fed up with everything about the city: the constant humidity, the awful smells, the pushy people, the miscommunications, the food, the transportation issues, the distance from home, and the incredible expectations of our teachers. I was scared that I was making the mistake of my life committing to spending another FOUR MONTHS here in the fall.

But then, all of the sudden, everything wasn't such a Greek tragedy.

Party in the PRC

So... Friday was my 21st birthday. Yep, the big 2-1. And ironically, I celebrated shedding the restraints of many American laws in China, where said laws don't matter at all. But my friends were not about to let that little detail stop them from giving me a night to remember in Beijing :)

First, of course, all the teachers somehow knew it was my birthday (I had told a couple, but I guess word spreads fast), so they kept wishing me happy birthday throughout the morning. Although, I have to say, waking up to a 考试 kaoshi (test) was not the greatest way to start my 21st birthday. But it definitely got better. At our bi-weekly 中文桌子 zhongwen zhuozi (Chinese table), everyone sang me "Happy Birthday" (in Chinese of course), and proceeded to hoist their glasses and 干杯! ganbei! which is the Chinese equivalent to "Cheers!" Given the number of birthdays that have occurred over 中文桌子 during HBA (mine was either the fourth or fifth), Friday lunch has almost become the unofficial birthday lunch.