The Great Wall

So we climbed the great wall on friday and since then I haven't had much time to ruminate on it: Beijing is an active city, and since I'm only here for two months, I feel a sense of urgency that I've never felt before: I want to go everywhere, see everything, and meet everybody. Formal Chinese study has started to become auxiliary: the real practice comes from using language to get around. Sure I can xue some yufa with everyone else until late in the night(and very frequently do) but I find myself wanting to finish early and go meet some friends to speak to. I don't know why (I'm usually a little bit of a shy person), but im enjoying the feeling and having a great time.
Anyway back to the great wall...
Its largely about as old as the forbidden city, is equally if not more impressive to look at. Approaching from the point of view of a marauding mongolian, I see myself letting out a quick laugh and turning my yak around. It was hard enough to get to the top of the wall (I may have never climbed that many stairs in my life), but from the other side, would have been almost insurmountable. Not only is it tall, but its longer than anyone can see from any point where we were. Granted the "scenic mountain mist" (aka smog) does alot to obscure distant vision, but it's impressive nonetheless. The whole area of approach was extremely commercial: little independent stores lined the road up to the ticket area: there was even an option of some of the lazier tourists to take a gondola to the top(and a slide down). The juxtaposition of rampant commercial and ancient heritage really knocked me out: here you have the most massive surviving landmark of the old world and all around it are people using that fact to whatever advantage they can get. Our textbook is called "A New China" and I can't help but compare the old with the new. So many people have a picture of China as a land of tradition and often of repression, but strangely enough the places that should most confirm that impression turn it on its head. People may not be able to have political individualism but they definitely have a much more similar mindset to Americans than many people are willing to acknowledge.

alright i'm getting tired and i should start my essay(ugh): more soon.

some of that 长城

我的宿舍（my dorm）and language partner

The building at the center of this picture is my dorm, where myself and the rest of the DSIC kids live, along with some Chinese and alot of other international students. I don't know what I really expected to have here, but this place was not it. We are basically living in a hotel: we have a minifridge, a tv, A.C, a bathroom, and even a screened-in porch. Yesterday I was even surprised by two women coming in to change my sheets. The surrounding area that you can see basically feels like a college town: Beijing is so spread out that the neighborhood is pretty self contained.

In our textbook, we've just finished a few stories about how Americans and Chinese are not alike in their habits, mannerisms, etc. Its interesting how that has lined up for me in some ways but not in others. The students here all have the basic experience that I have had: moving from your hometown to come and live at a college with other people who share your age and interests. However the way the way they approach college is nothing like i've seen before. I know many western students that work hard in their respective spheres (cough cough premeds) but for people at 对外经济贸易大学 (the University of International Business and Economics), the switch doesn't ever turn off. My language partner, a German major from Hebei, all but laughed at me when I suggested taking one weekend off from studying to go out and have fun. He told me very simply that the 压力(pressure) of achievement here is huge: if you don't have the scores for an A level college(of which there are few all in very high demand), you're stuck in a low level job. And if you don't have the college scores for a high level job (of which there are also comparatively few in high demand), you're also stuck in the bush leagues.
Every day we're given questions to ask our language partner to practice our Chinese, and a large amount of them gear towards daily life and attitudes towards America, the world, China, etc. So far I understand that this is the typical life of a student: class from 7:30 or so until 5:00ish and then homework. When thats done theres a chance to review (right now theyre getting close to exam time) and maybe call their parents. If there is TONS of free time, they can maybe wash their clothes or grab a bite to eat with their friends.
As a side note on family--the one child policy is still very much in effect and I have yet to meet someone with siblings. This generally means that parents pin all their hopes on their single child to succeed, often getting extremely involved in their lives (so 贾斌 is very happy to be away from Hebei for awhile). If I ask my language partner what he does for fun, he'll tell me a variety of things: he likes to play basketball, watch tv, go out and have fun, and other standard answers for a young person. The difference is when I ask him when he does them, the answer always involves some degree of transference (I like to play but I'm too busy now, I wish I could do this more, etc).

Gotta go, more later

Tiananmen and the Forbidden City

Ahh-now I’ve finally managed to get some time to log into my blog and write I guess I ought to do some contemplation. I only have two followers at the moment (thanks mom and Erica heh), so until my blog becomes an internet phenomenon anything I write on here will just hopefully help me think about my experiences in Beijing.
I think the most important thing to do before I forget my initial impressions of China and start to get used to being here, I ought to get a few of them out. At the moment I am still a little in shock after spending the day touring 天安门 (Tiananmen Square) and 故宫 (the forbidden city): until you visit them you can’t really imagine the scale of both, and the intricacy of the second. In Tiananmen, you are completely enveloped in recent Chinese history on every side, from museums to Mao’s mausoleum, and “people’s monuments.” The whole place seemed designed to make visitors feel small, both in size (it is about 900m by 500m) and in accomplishment (nothing but enormous willpower and a mass of humanity could have created something that large.) A few large screens in the middle of the square echoed the square’s more recent history, playing soothing music and showing pictures of the Chinese countryside to try to take away from the otherwise harsh feeling of being in the square.
Even after Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City was surprising. I had expected to see a more Chinese version of a European castle, and what I got was indeed part castle (it is equipped with large walls and could have conceivably been pretty hard to get into), but it was also part temple in that the rituals our guide described to us were intensely complicated. There are bridges over which only the emperor or his family could walk and stairways that were built to only be used by the gods (interestingly enough tourists are allowed to walk over the emperor’s bridge but the stairways are still roped off.)
In addition, the scale feels as immense as Tiananmen and the craftsmanship isn’t comparable. Every building (and there tons of buildings with a total of about 9,000 rooms) is a work of art in its woodcarving and painting. A few of us found ourselves thinking that the place couldn’t have possibly been around since the 1400s. Its hard to adequately describe all of this in words but I forgot my camera (because of course I slept too late in the morning and had a bit of a rushed exit), so unless I steal pictures from some fellow DSIC students words will have to do for now. I will probably be on again soon to post about everyday life but for now, 再见。