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