A Family of Yalies

So it's a late night again, and what do we do on late nights? We reflect. This time, maybe not so much about China-the-big-picture, but rather China-as-experienced-by-one-foreign-student. It's no secret that studying abroad can be a lonely, isolating experience. You're transplanted to an entirely new environment and forced to deal with an alien culture. You go through highs and lows, depending on your experiences at any given point. Sometimes it's almost too much to deal with and you just want to... oh, I don't know, get yourself deported.

But luckily enough for me, I ended up studying abroad with a fantastic group of Yalies. I mean, look at them, don't they look pretty awesome?

Beijing Half-Marathon

No, I didn't run it. Only someone completely out of their mind would run for miles along the streets of Beijing.

Luckily, there's one person in the program who fits that description, and his name is Miles Grimshaw (blogger extraordinaire... I guess). You can read his much more personal account of the morning here.

Miles, whether due to his captivating charm or outright bribery techniques (the promise of buying us food), convinced my friend Liz and me to wake up at 6 AM this morning to travel to his race's starting point at Tiananmen Square. As if the 6 AM wake-up call wasn't bad enough, one look outside indicated that it was going to be a gloomy, miserable day. And gloomy it was. The only brightness to be seen amongst the racers were the points of fluorescent yellow that marked the officially distributed tote bags. You can see as we're exiting the subway just how many tote bags were on their way to the starting line:

Tianjin! 天津！

Was the previous post a bit of a downer? I thought so too, so here are some fun pictures of my day trip last Friday to 天津 Tiānjīn, a coastal town just 30 minutes from Beijing by train. I love the quaint atmosphere there; it's like a happier Beijing in some ways. The shopping was great, the air was cleaner, and the food was... really really interesting. It was actually a colonial town for a while when the British occupied it back in the Opium War days. Now, I would normally be very excited to show you all the pictures, but I must sadly report that my beautiful camera has succumbed to old age and now blurs pictures around the edges, so Blogger won't accept some of them! :(

But still, enjoy the pictures (and two whole videos)!

College Kids and Cultural Conflicts

Caveat: This is not the nicest of blog posts, but the purpose of this blog is to let friends and family know about my experience of living in China, and this topic has played a major role in that experience. Therefore, this entry might not be very PC. Apologies.

One thing about the Yale-PKU program that had me very excited was the opportunity to live with a real, live Chinese college student. I was so excited to learn about Chinese culture first-hand. Now, I knew there would probably be times where our cultures would bring us into some conflict, but I was excited for that too. It would be an opportunity to open dialogue on the differences in our cultures and allow us to help understand each other better.

No. Conflicts are stressful, especially when both parties are operating under different sets of rules. My recent conflicts with some of the Chinese students, while certainly not indicative of Chinese culture as a whole, has illuminated just how wide the cultural gulf stretches. As you can guess, one of these instances was very recent. But first, I'll give you a general sense of some of the more stress-inducing characters in this little drama.

The Great Wall of China

You might have heard of it. You might have seen the pictures. You might have been there yourself. But no matter how many times you've heard it described, no matter how many pictures have flown before your eyes, no matter how many steps you've taken up its steep sides, there is nothing that ever extinguishes that incredible rush of awe when you behold the Great Wall of China unwinding before you in all its glory (and there's nothing to be done about my poor poetic efforts when I'm writing on sleep deprivation).

Today's trek to the Jīnshānlǐng (金山岭) section of the Great Wall was... humbling, to say the least. My group consisted of a small contingent of people affiliated with the Yale-PKU program in one way or another, including all of our Yale professors (and some of their kids!) and my Chinese language teacher.

T.G.I. Friday's

I'll elaborate after posting on the Great Wall, promise!

Also, I'm trying to beat Miles. :)

Didn't See That Coming

A friend sent me this news article, which has me blogging during a break in class:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11529920

Chinese veteran politicians call for reform

"A group of 23 Communist Party elders in China has written a letter calling for an end to the country's restrictions on freedom of speech."

Crazy, right? And right on the heels of very blatant critique of Chinese oppression through the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo. The goverment's got to be having a great time right now. And by great time, I mean they are probably feeling very off-kilter, being attacked by multiple fronts in such a short period of time, and right before their big "Let's plan the future of our country" meeting.