Calligraphy club is awesome

Our campus was crazy crawling with people today. That's right, today the 8th of October all the Chinese students finally moved in to start classes. I thought Tsinghua started late, but seriously what have these Bei Wai kids been doing for the past month?? The Olympics are long over, and yeah there was that whole week-long national holiday last week but still. It's practically Christmas already and you're just starting?

Well at least it was a beautiful day out. Definitely the perfect fall weather, not too cold, sunny with blue skies, nice breeze... and us foreigners hiding out in our rooms so as not to be bombarded with friend requests. Ok I exaggerate BUT my friend tried to go outside to sit and read, but had to come back in after the 5th student asked for her number to practice speaking English. Oh the price of being exotically English-speaking.

Calligraphy club started tonight and even though we didn't paint a single stroke, I think it's pretty awesome already. The teacher is this 60 year old Beijinger who not only does wonderful calligraphy but is also a capable artist. Today he just gave us an intro into Chinese calligraphy, such as the names of the tools we're going to use and the different scripts that exist. That's right, as if Chinese characters weren't hard enough to learn already, there are 3 different ways to write them, provided you have to patience to study all that. Most people don't and can't, but those calligraphy scrolls sure look cool hanging on your walls. I'm pretty sure mine are going to be atrocious looking but at least this should help my stroke order awareness so that I can write faster/more accurately.

Work is piling up as next week is the end of our first block of classes. For our media class we had a photojournalist come in the other day and talk to us about his perspective on Chinese media. It was so so refreshing (and relieving) that he was really frank with us and acknowledged all the problems we had been discussing in class (government control, corruption etc). Actually it was really cool that I could mostly understand his Chinese even before our teacher translated (and I understood even more at calligraphy club today where there was no translation whatsoever). Go me! I don't need no Chinese roommate to improve my Chinese skills (though it wouldn't hurt, I know). ANYWAY back to media... well the sad truth is that freedom of speech here is a theory only, and unless the government personnel suddenly decide they need to kaifang China a little more, more and more Chinese are just going to turn to the Internet when they need real information. And yet journalist is still a desired profession because of it's benefits soooo again, a seemingly un-fixable paradox.

I'm about to admit something sad and true right here right now: I've become addicted to Desperate Housewives. I blame it on Chinese television, and its lack of interesting programming. This forces me to watch the one America program channel and one Sunday there was a DH marathon and well, the rest is history. So now I'm going to study my Chinese while getting my fill of terrible American suburban satire. Awesome.

Also, pics from Shanghai that I stole from other people:

The Olympics were here, did you know?

This past weekend I went online and bought some tickets for the Olympics for Wednesday morning. Only... I thought we weren't supposed to have class on Wednesday, but it turns out we still have our morning class, so since the tickets were for the marathon from 7.30 am till 11.45 am, this was a problem. But no matter, class doesn't start till 9.30 so we thought we'd go check it out anyway.

Sure thing, except then we had to find out where to pick up the tickets, since you can't just get them at the venue the day of. That would be too easy. So Tuesday after class we set out to the nearest Bank of China to pick up the tickets, our Chinese teacher having told us that was where to go. NBD, we rode our bikes like 5 mins and were there. Except they told us no, we could not pick up tickets there, only certain Bank of Chinas had the tickets. They told us to walk 200 meters to the next closest bank, we could get it there. Right.

So we start walking and still aren't seeing it, so we ask a group of people sitting outside their apartment complex. Sure enough, they are happy to help us out, because when in China if you ask for directions, a committee must form to help you out. (Note: I couldn't remember the world for bank, so my description was (and I'll translate this for Amy) "the china change money place" and they figured out we needed a bank). Anyway, the consensus was "Nei biar" as it always is, so we kept walking.

Turns out the bank was on the second floor of some mall around the corner of the street (aka not at all easy to find) and when we get there the lady tells us "Oh, BEFORE you could get tickets here, but NOW you can't." Luckily she calls someone who tells us in English that we need to go to this other bank and that this bank for sure has tickets.

Ah! So we try three different cabs and the third one finally knows the bank address that we give him. We get there and praise Jesus there's an actual window that says "Beijing Olympic Tickets." But of course, my luck being what it is, I apparently typed my passport number in wrong when I registered online so I had to re-buy the tickets. No great monetary loss, but still annoying.

Oh, it gets better. On our way back, it started raining. And then, pouring. And as we were truthfully warned, when it rains in Beijing it is impossible to get a taxi... but that was exactly what we needed. Well we ended up walking like 200 meters on the side of a busy highway (in the wrong direction, I might add) before we finally captured a cab that was letting some lady off. Only, the lady wouldn't get out of the car because it was raining! We were standing there, huddling in the rain and wind, glaring at her, but she took her sweet sweet time getting out. Ah! And then the taxi driver was like, "But, BeiWai campus is right behind us" and I was like "Well, we would walk there, but it's raining, so drive" or something to that effect. I mean, can you imagine a cabbie telling you to get out and walk in a storm because the place you need to go "isn't that far behind us"??? Crazy. And for the record, the walk would not have been a quick one.

We finally got back like 3 hours after we set out, victorious but soaking. Then we had cooking club, which was of course fun because our Chinese teachers were there and they are adorable. Plus we ate lots of jiaozi. Then the next morning we arose a 6 and set out for the Bird's Nest. It was really awesome being there and I'm sad we had to cut the festivities short in order to make it back to class (although we were half hour late anyway, because traffic apparently sucks again, especially around 9am). But as of last night with the closing ceremony for the Paralympics, the games are officially over! I guess all the old Beijingers are breathing a sigh of relief that life can return to its normal chaos and the cheap DVDs will reappear on the streets. But for my part, I wish the traffic and pollution restrictions weren't being lifted.

Side note: This week I started working with the 400 level Chinese teacher on extra lessons and it's going really well. Of course I have my completely dumb moments where she gives me this look of incredulity like "I have no idea what you're trying to say/you really don't know what I'm saying?" but I think it'll really be good for me. Also I have a new friend who randomly came up to me on campus and wants to help me with my Chinese. She's a recent grad looking to teach English, so her English skills are good, and we're meeting tomorrow to figure out how this language partner thing is going to work. Also, Cheng and I spoke mostly in Chinese over dinner. It was fun! Well, he did most of the talking and I did a lot of listening and nodding, but still, I think my listening skills are getting better. Bring on the Chinese (but please don't kill me with memorizing hanzi...)!

Dalian, China's "green" city

Don't worry, I made it back alive and almost in one piece! Traveling via train in China on my own was definitely an experience, and I'd feel pretty confident having to do it again, but I definitely learned some things along the way. Like, don't ever ever travel overnight by hard seat (which was all they had left by Friday for my return trip on Sunday). And hard sleeper is not the epitome of luxury, but it's definitely doable and preferable to the other options.

My journey started at the train station, where I waited in this line:

Yup, this is a line in China. It didn't make sense to me because we all had assigned beds/seats, but there was a wild crush to get on first. (Of course on the way back I learned not everyone had a seat and storage space was limited. Oh how blissfully naive I was with my hard sleeper ticket). We left at 10pm and arrived the next morning at 8, when Cheng and his aunt met me at the station.

Then Cheng and I went off to the seaside for some grand Dalian canguan. Which, coincidentally, does not mean there is a giant shopping mall, it means we did some touristy things.
Suffice it to say, but 2pm we had had lunch and we a little bored of walking around and taking pictures. So we went and sang karaoke for a couple hours, then headed back to Cheng's aunt's apartment for some home cooked foods. My favorite. But first! There was a Walmart across the street from the apartment, and I had to go.

Look, Cheng's head is bigger than a watermelon! Haha :) Wo ai ni!

But back to the story. We had a wonderful meal with his aunt and her 15 year old daughter Yanhua. Yanhua was cool to talk to because for the most part, I could understand her Chinese. And at dinner they asked me what I thought of China, so I got to break out my newly learned sentence patterns: Wo di yige yingxiang shi... etc etc. And they wanted to know what the West was commonly saying about China, and all that. I've noticed that I can have good conversations in Chinese as long as there is someone else around to help translate/do most of the talking. I like to listen to people talk in Chinese and try and figure out what they are saying. But more and more I'm trying to figure out how to express my own ideas, though this usually takes too much time and by the time I have a thought formed in Chinese in my mind, the conversation has already shifted. Oh well, I try.

We watched the opening ceremony for the Para-Olympics on TV and then I passed out. I still have that annoying song stuck in my head though: Women yiqi qi fei!!!!!! Well, at least Andy Lau was there, that was pretty cool. Couldn't compare to the regular Olympics though, but it was pretty cool to watch. I wished so badly to be back in Beijing then, watching the fireworks from Tiananmen or something. Hmmm maybe the closing ceremony...

The next day Cheng's aunt took us shopping. OMG it was madness. It seemed like every single person in Dalian descended upon the mall that day. We braved the crowds for a little while, and I got an impulse manicure, but then I had had enough. Since there's nothing I really need to buy right now, meandering through the stalls and crowds wasn't very appealing. So we stopped by a friend's tea shop and drank some green tea. The way they brew the tea is really interesting, and we sat there for awhile, sipping from our tiny cups, eating pumpkin seeds, and shooting the breeze. The tea shop owners' 6 year old daughter was running around the mall and I absolutely loved her. I wanted to take pics of her but she wouldn't let me. However, she did point and every person and tell me to take pics of them, and then she would laugh and be like, "wo zhao le ni!" Adorable. Here's one that she made me take:
Cheng and his aunt. Now, don't even get me started on the train ride back. It was just awful. There was not much space for those of us sitting, and some people didn't even have seats and were just standing the whole time. For like 10 hours! Our train was also apparently a local (not express) because ever hour or so we'd stop somewhere and more people would get on. Crazy. Also, the air conditioning was blasting and I was wearing shorts and a tank top, so that just made it even less easy to fall asleep. Fortunately the man next to me took pity on my and offered to switch seats so I could sleep by the window (instead of the the middle of two people (and the other guy was really fat so he took up a lot of space)). He said this in Chines and when I got up and was like, Hao xie xie, some other guy was like, Oh it's like she understood! Yes, actually, I can understand some Chinese... but I didn't say that. I was too exhausted and had mentally given up on the situation to try and make any conversation, so I left everyone else assume I was a stupid foreigner with no Chinese skills. Oh well. I couldn't stop thinking about my hard sleeper bed on the way there and how much I missed it... even imagining scenarios where I stole into the hard sleeper cabin and paid someone 150 kuai to trade tickets with me. But alas, I stuck it out, and by 6.30 am the next day (today) was safely tucked into my own bed back in the dorm... only to wake up for class 2.5 hours later. Needless to say, I think I'll stay in Beijing and enjoy the sights around here next weekend (and Cheng will be back by then, anyway). But I'm glad I went, because of the cool people that I met in Dalian, even though Dalian itself seemed a little bland.