西安: Part 4

7/17/11, Sunday:
On our last day in Xi'an, we decided to take it easy. However, before we left for Beijing, we still made it out to the Big (Wild) Goose Pagoda (大雁塔).

In front of the pagoda, there was also a huge fountain.

  

[pictures of the pagoda and the fountain]

It's hard to tell, but the fountain was so large these pictures don't really do it justice.

When we dropped by, we also had the fortune of being able to watch the music and water show at the fountain. Below is just a short segment.

Afterwards, we climbed to the top of the pagoda and saw the view from up top.

   

   

[view of the city from the pagoda in all four directions]

After our final excursion, we finished off our trip by eating biang biang mian, a Xi'an specialty. It's a wide noodle dish typically topped with eggs, tomatoes, and beef (and it's all delicious). The character for "biang" is so complicated that you can't just type it into the computer, but I've posted a picture of the character (from the wall of the restaurant) below. (I'm very thankful that PiB has not made us memorize any characters this complicated.)

7/17/11, Sunday evening through 7:25 am, 7/18-11, Monday :
Later that afternoon we made our way back to train station. In some ways, the train ride back to Beijing was very similar to our earlier train ride. However, the train actually seemed to be less crowded in our section and everyone on the train seemed to be pretty young (perhaps there's something to be said about the demographic who comes to or leaves the city).

The attendant (fúwùyuán, 服务员) for our train car was also super cool and friendly, although apparently, for the entire train ride, he thought I didn't speak Chinese. While I was fortunately able to rectify this mistake before I got off the train, it was certainly a reminder that perhaps it wouldn't hurt to speak a bit more Chinese in public (even if I've got a ways to go before I'm completely fluent).

As I mentioned earlier, most everyone on the train was pretty young, so riding the train turned out to be a really nice opportunity to talk with students our own age. We ended up discussing things such as China's traffic problems (e.g. overbooking on trains), how our (PiB students) accents were very "biāozhǔn“ (标准), as well as their aspirations for after college, among other topics. They were actually pretty eager to practice their English, so we ended up speaking in half English and half Chinese.

Although the entire conversation was pretty interesting, there was one thing that stuck out to me in particular. One of the Chinese college students (let's call him Steve, although I never actually got his real name, Chinese or English) had been on another train a few days earlier, and that train had also been quite crowded. On that train there was another Chinese student who had a standing ticket, and he were so tired that he ended up sleeping under one of the seats. Steve watched some foreign students take pictures of the student sleeping under the seat, and he thought that it was really shameless of them to do so, especially because the Chinese student really didn't have any better alternatives for a place to sleep. Steve seemed really upset by this, and I certainly sympathized with him.

As an aside, I had an experience similar to Steve's this past weekend, when PiB took us to the countryside. When the restaurant we went to served the chicken, they included the head (comb included) in the dish. While even I myself was a bit taken aback by this (I've seen duck heads before, but never a chicken head), I couldn't help but cringe when one of the students wouldn't stop taking pictures of the chicken head, adjusting her camera settings every now and then, repositioning the chicken head several times, and moving the plate around, before finally stopping so we could all actually eat the chicken. To be fair, I'm sure she was just very curious and didn't have any hurtful intentions.

However, these situations have served as reminders that as a foreigner, although it's important to learn about different cultures and their histories, visiting a country is not the same as visiting a zoo. While China is definitely not an exception to the general trend that we tend to see the good parts of our own country and the bad/weird/strange parts of other countries, I think it's important that we maintain at least some respect for any culture. I feel particularly strongly about this primarily because of all the stigmatized questions I've come across as a kid: "Do Chinese people eat dogs? Cats? Monkeys? Frogs? Females broke their feet from foot binding, right?" Of course, these questions do have some reasoning behind them. But fortunately, I think that over the past 15 years, America's view of China has changed, and it's all been for the better.

Anyways (lest I continue to digress), we finally arrived back in Beijing around 6:30 am on Monday (7/18/11). We had a bit of an issue of finding a taxi that would take us back to Beijing Normal University, but eventually we found a driver, who was also very sympathetic to our need to get to class on time. We arrived on campus at 7:25 am, just in time for my fellow 4th year students to take their tīngxiě (听写) at 7:30 am.

The trip to Xi'an was awesome.

. . . And now, life at PiB continues.

-艾琳

(in addition to photos from recent posts, you can check more photos from this summer at https://picasaweb.google.com/IreneCCai/Beijing2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCP23zIW8gdTuugE)

西安: Part 3 (Terracotta Army!)

Like most other tourists who come to Xi'an, I primarily came to see the Terracotta Army.

7/16/11, Saturday:
So our friend who was able to hook us up with free lodging also got all of us a pretty decent deal on a tour package of sites around Xi'an. Although we were a bit restricted on the tour, it definitely gave some insight into Chinese tourism. I figured Asian tour groups in the States (e.g. at Yale) would make some sense, but I didn't realize that even within China, tour groups are really popular.

[Asian tour group! (on the bus that morning)]

Around 8 am, we headed out on our tour. Adhering to PiB's language pledge, we chose a tour completely conducted in Mandarin. Although at each stop we tended not to stay with the tour group, on the bus, the tour guide (导游,dǎoyóu) certainly had some interesting things to say. For the most part, I was able to get the general gist of what the tour guide was saying, but there were instances when I had no clue. One example in particular was when the tour guide kept saying "wenzi." Now, when pronounced "wénzi," this actually means mosquito (蚊子). I'm actually still unsure of what the tour guide was saying at that time, but I'm fairly sure she wasn't talking about nasty blood-sucking insects which happen to coexist with us in Xinsong Gongyu.

Before we actually made it to the Terracotta Army, there were a few stops on the way, a sort of tour group pre-game if you will. We first stopped by the 6,000 year old Banpo Village Ruins (半坡遗址博物馆). It's interesting to note that both at Banpo and the Terracotta Army, infrastructure was built over these excavation sites. Because Banpo is so old, not very much remains; having a good imagination seems to be key while visiting the ruins.

[part of the Banpo Village Ruins]

We then dropped by the Qinshihuang's Mausoleum Museum (秦始皇陵的缩影), which had a miniature replica of the mausoleum . I'm not sure if it was the lighting, the fact that everything was miniature, or both, but the display was slightly reminiscent of Disney's "It's a small world."

[replica of Qinshihuang's Mausoleum]

The next part of the tour was probably one of the most characteristic of Asian tour groups. On the bus, the tour guide first gave us some tips on bargaining in shopping in Beijing, and she also talked about the history surrounding jade. The bus then proceeded to take us to a store that sold jewelry and art pieces made with authentic jade.

[one year's worth of Yale tuition (actual price unknown)]

After the stop at the store, we were then also taken to a relatively expensive restaurant to try Xi'an specialties (being the frugal college students we are, we decided to bring lunch and eat outside). Having the authentic Asian tour group experience aside, I wouldn't have minded not having the built-in tourist traps. I was a bit surprised that our fellow Chinese tourists didn't seem to mind these extra stops too much. Admittedly I've also been under the impression that the Chinese are always pretty thrifty, but going on this tour was certainly a reminder that China's economic boom still has to rely on massive consumption.

After lunch, we took a cable car up Mount Li (骊山); besides the mountain itself, the view was pretty amazing.

[view from Mount Li]

At the foot of the mountain, we walked over to Huaqing Palace (华清池), which was also very pleasant.

[sign on the way to the palace]

[at Huaqing Palace]

And FINALLY, just when I thought we actual might not make it, we arrived at Army of Terracotta Warriors and Horses (兵马俑).

Admittedly, at first I was slightly concerned. (The site has several pits, and Pits 2 and 3 was the first ones we entered.) The pits were relatively bare, and many of the soldiers had already broken into pieces.

   
[left: Pit 2; right: Pit 3]

But then we entered Pit 1. And it was amazing, just like how you would expect the Terracotta Army to look like from all those travel guide pictures.

[Terracotta Army, Pit 1]

Quite honestly, I'm not sure what I expected to see. On the surface, just the sheer size of the Terracotta Army was overwhelming. If I had only gone into to see Pit 1, I think I would have been pretty satisfied. But seeing Pits 2 and 3 made me realize that the Pit 1 in its current condition probably required a lot of manpower, and there's still so much within Pit 1 that remains to be excavated. Moreover, it's so crazy that an emperor would be crazy enough to construct something of this size more than 2,000 years ago.

[soldiers in Pit 1, still in the process of being repaired]

Seeing the Terracotta Army was definitely one of the highlights of trip, so much that I'd say seeing the real thing in person was worth 26-hour round-trip train ride.

西安: Part 2

And the story of my trip to Xi'an finally continues!

7/15/11, Friday:
Around 7:30ish am we arrived in Xi'an. Although the train ride was fun, it was certainly a relief to finally get off. Once we got out of the train station, it was pretty amusing watching my American friends being approached by locals and asked in English about visiting the Terracotta Army. (Fortunately, being the smart students we are, we already had plans pretty well laid out.)

[signs of Westernization in Xi'an]

After taking a quick break at the hotel, around noon we explored the center of the city. It's definitely been Westernized, i.e. McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robins. (There was also a Chinese McDonald's KFC hybrid which was also interesting.) For better or worse, the city center has definitely capitalized on Western tourists. Example number one: for lunch, we each ended up paying 17 kuai for five jiaozi at a restaurant. Example number two: later in the day, we found out that on the city wall, a bottle of water costs 15 kuai (at a supermarket you can usually buy a bottle for 1 or 2 kuai). Of course, these prices are reasonable for an American, but for your average Chinese citizen, it's just slightly ridiculous.

After lunch, we visited the Bell Tower (钟楼, Zhōnglóu; located in the center of the city) and the Drum Tower (鼓楼; Gǔlóu), which both gave nice views of the city. However, entering the Bell Tower, although both of the boys easily got through, both of us girls (both huayi) were requested to show our student ID's since we had student-discounted tickets. The guy at the door almost didn't let me in, saying that 1) my picture didn't look like me and 2) that the person in the picture looked like a guy. Luckily for him, I was slightly at a loss for (Chinese) words. Fortunately, the Bell Tower was also definitely worth the trip.

      
[top: the Bell Tower; bottom, left to right: 1) bell at the Bell Tower,
2) view from the Bell Tower, 3) drums at the Drum Tower]

Afterwards, we biked on the city wall (城墙), which was pretty awesome. Renting a bike was 20 kuai for 100 minutes, which was definitely worth it. The city wall is exactly as it sounds; it's essentially a wall that encloses the core of the city and since the city itself is pretty large, the wall makes for a pretty nice ride. As a personal aside, I did have the mishap of almost passing out on wall, due to a combination of that afternoon being particularly hot and myself being pretty dehydrated (this is also when we learned that tourists can be charged ridiculous amounts for water and popsicles). Fortunately, my friends were super awesome in helping me out and made sure that I didn't end up dying during my ride around the city wall.

[south entrance to the city wall]

That evening, we checked out the Muslim Quarter, which was definitely one of my favorite parts of the city (we ended up going a second time the next day). There were lots of souvenirs, lots of dried fruit, as well as a lot of delicious street food. In addition to eating some chuànr ( 串儿, kebabs which are pretty common to other parts of China), we also ate yángròu pào mó (羊肉泡馍, very small pieces of bread soaked in a bowl of lamb broth) and shìzi bǐng (柿子饼, deep fried persimmons stuffed with filling, typically black sesame seed paste), both of which are Xi'an specialties. While eating yángròu pào mó, a couple of locals sat down with us and discussed doing research during their recent trip to France (apparently they thought our two American male friends were French...). Although I'm unsure of whether they said they were professors or had some other academic profession, our conversation with them was definitely interesting (Andy Warhol was somehow included in the discussion). After dinner, we were also able to visit the Grand Mosque (清真寺; Qīngzhēnsì), the first mosque to be built in China.

[prayer at the Grand Mosque]

Despite being quite sleep deprived, Friday was a pretty good day; we were able to hit up a bunch of different places, and the shìzi bǐng were quite tasty.

西安： PiB Intersession Break in Xi'an， Part 1 (of many)

At 11 am this past Thursday (7/14), PiB's official intersession break officially started.

Destination: Xi'an!

So here's the first part of how it all went down.

7/14/11, Thursday afternoon:
At about 3 pm, three other PiB'ers (all 4th year students) and I (a 3rd year student) get on a taxi to get to the train station. Not only does the train station look busy on the outside, but it's packed at every waiting area. We wait in the half-formed line to board the train. People are sprawled about everywhere, and there's even a party of several people sitting on newspapers and eating sunflower seeds to their heart's content.

[waiting for the train]

[boarding the train to Xi'an!]

When we finally get on the train, the crowd issue actually seems to get slightly worse. Although we weren't able to grab sleeper seats for the ride, we were still lucky enough to get actual seats. For the duration of the ride, there were actually people in aisles, subjected to a combination of standing and sitting on tiny foldable stools.

Also, did I mention that the train ride to Xi'an is 14 hours?

Nonetheless, I think the train was definitely quite an experience. For one, I was a bit worried since the tickets we got were for the so-called hard seats, but fortunately they were actually covered and padded, and about as comfortable as sitting on an airplane with cafe-style seating.

Although I think we were pretty content keeping to ourselves at the beginning, towards the middle of the night we broke out the card game of Set and a couple of people on board joined in. One of the 4th year PiB student gave a really fantastic explanation of the game, and later on, I was able to participate in the conversation instead of acting just as a spectator. In addition to discussing topics not directly tied to politics or economics (which often seems to be the case at PiB), it was also nice (and admittedly challenging) to speak with people with an accent not from Beijing.

To say that the train ride was long would be an understatement, but it was definitely worth it.

(to be continued in the next post)

马可波罗与哈利波特: Marco Polo and Harry Potter

And so another weekend passes . . .

On Friday night, a few of us Yalies went to a coffee shop for a mixer with some students from Peking University (Yale-PKU Language Partners). It was certainly a nice opportunity to speak with people our own age and not in a classroom setting. However, there were certainly moments that night when I realized that if an American student has half-decent Chinese and a Chinese student has half-decent English, it's not exactly equivalent to having a full-fledged conversation. Particularly when we played "two truths and a lie," (Yalies spoke Chinese, PKU students spoke English), the complexity/strangeness/ridiculousness usually present was admittedly lacking. But, the game aside, it was interesting to know that Chinese college students also have an appreciation for "The Big Bang Theory" and "Desperate Housewives" (in addition to "Friends").

On a miscellaneous note, unfortunately that night was also a prime example of China's "early to bed, early to rise" lifestyle. In addition to the subway closing by the time the mixer ended, many of the cabs were turning in for the night or already occupied. Fortunately though, we eventually made it back to campus, tired but unscathed.

On Saturday morning, I went with PiB to visit the Memorial Museum of the War Against Japan and the Marco Polo Bridge. The bridge, also known as Lugou Bridge, was recognized by Marco Polo during his travels and also served as the backdrop for a battle during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The bridge itself has more than 450 stone lions, all of them unique.

Saturday afternoon, I took my second trip to Wangfujing, but this time I had a chance to visit the bookstore.

With six floors of books, the bookstore is one of the largest in Beijing. I bought a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (in Chinese of course) as well a poster of the Periodic Table (with Chinese characters as well). Much more interesting than purchasing books, however, was just watching other people in the bookstore.

While not every aisle was filled people trying to read through books, the bookstore was not short of people. It's certainly quite a sight to see as well as something that I've never seen in the States.

This weekend I also had the chance to bargain for tourist-y souvenirs in Wangfujing and clothes at Dongwuyuan, but I'll save the details for another post. Overall, this weekend was pretty enjoyable.

-艾琳

第二个周末: Weekend number two

Week number two has passed.

But that also means . . . week number two has passed!

Needless to say, I'm starting to realize that eight weeks was not as long as I thought it would be.

Admittedly, the past week has been pretty full of studying, in addition to having the unfortunate luck of getting a nasty cold. Our daily readings continue to be slightly random (some of them awkward/strange enough that I won't mention them on this post), but as I go around Beijing, I'm starting to realize that I can recognize a decent number of characters.

Schoolwork aside, this weekend was pretty full.

[Kungfu at the Red Theater]

Friday evening, PiB took us out to watch kungfu (using pinyin it's gong1 fu) at the Red Theater. I didn't take many pictures inside since the fuwuyuan's were pretty uptight about photography during the show, but you'll have to take my word that it was beyond awesome.

[the picture speaks for itself]

Perhaps the only annoyance I had with the show was that it was presented primarily in English. Of course, this certainly makes it easier for us foreigners to follow along. However, discussing this with a teacher after the show, we both noted that while the translations for the show were not wrong, subtleties found within the Chinese language were certainly lost. Nonetheless, I have never seen that many backflips all in one go.

On our way back to Xinsong Gongyu, we passed by Tiananmen Square.  There was a huge marker recently planted on the square, and I learned that July 1st was the Communist Party of China's 90th anniversary.

[CPC anniversary marker on Tiananmen Square]

The next day, PiB took a trip to the Summer Palace (Yi1 he1 yuan1), which was absolutely beautiful. I also learned that Kunming Lake, a 2.2 square kilometer lake within the palace, was actually man-made.

[just part of the Summer Palace]

On Sunday, some of us Yale kids and a few other PiB'ers took a trip to the 798 Art District in Beijing. I've posted a few pictures below, but in addition to the sculptures outside, there were also the many galleries within the district.

 

Towards the end of our trip that day, we also had a chance to take part in a work in progress. A group was asking for passersby to store their secrets (mi1 mi1) in colored vials, which they were going to take and use for an upcoming piece. They actually gave us handouts as well, but I'm still in the process of completely deciphering it.

[storing secrets]

This weekend has certainly been action-packed, and I'm still in the process of digesting everything that's happened. Additionally, I posted quite a few pictures in this post, but if you'd like to browse through more of them, you can check out my ongoing album.

-艾琳