Fast Times at China High

Like many things that go on at CET, nobody seemed to know exactly what we were doing when it came to our recent trip to a school outside of Beijing.  All we knew was that we would be presenting to students.  Some classes were told they would be presenting to eight year-old kids, while my class was told they were middle schoolers.  Turns out, they were all wrong, as we found out the day before that we would be presenting to sophomores in high school.  This was not welcome news for me, as I remember high school students, and they usually aren't the friendliest group.  Not to mention I would be speaking in broken Chinese to them.  The potential for embarrassment was almost limitless.  

We arrived to the campus to find that it was roughly the size of most small universities.  The track and field complex had me glowing green with envy.  The pictures above and below are of the main library.  We waited here for about ten minutes before we were escorted to our respective rooms.

 Every room had about 5 people, with each person presenting to about ten students.  The students themselves were fantastic.  They didn't even laugh when I messed up, which was often.  Frankly, they didn't seem all that interested in American car culture, the topic of my presentation.  Alas, this is my everyday life anyway, so I didn't mind.

 Afterward, we were given the chance to converse with our group in English, a rare treat.  I ended up talking mostly with the young man you see below, 曹一川.  He was a great kid, who's knowledge of American movies far outclassed my own.  In case you're wondering, his favorite actor is Michael Douglas.  I was expecting him to say either Daniel Day-Lewis, or Vin Diesel, so his answer was way out of left field.  We talked for a while about movies (mostly pretty actresses, because, hey, despite the fact that we don't speak the same language, we are still guys), and American sports.  After taking the picture below, I reached over to shake his hand, but he had already turned away.  Embarrassment accomplished.  No big deal, as he caught me on the stairs to apologize and shake my hand.  Clearly he was embarrassed too.

I went to this school expecting to be laughed at until I cried, but instead, when it was time to go I found myself a little sad.  I really wanted to stay and talk with these kids.   I hope to stay in contact with my new friend through instant message.  He wants to go to Hollywood to make movies.  I wish him the best of luck.

公园的白酒

Every other week here at Beijing Institute of Education, we have what are called practicums.  These are chances for us to get out in the world and use our Chinese skills to talk with real Chinese speakers.  Yesterday, our practicum found us in the nearby park, hoping to chat with Chinese about the 改革开放, "Opening Up and Reforming," that has taken place in China over the past 30 years.  I was partnered with my friend Nick, who, thankfully, as a sense of humor as well.  Normally in these cases you try to find the person that looks like they will speak the slowest and clearest.  So, why on earth, you might ask, did we choose the two old men sitting next to the empty bottle of 白酒, a white liquor that tastes like a mixture of gasoline and grapes, and warms your throat like whiskey never could.  What followed was 30 minutes of beautiful drunken rambling, of which we understood very little, and wrote down even less.  As it turns out, they had actually finished two bottles of liquor, the other being behind the bench where we couldn't see it.  This would explain why one declared, through the few teeth he had left in his mouth, that the opening up and reforming of China was a huge success because they could do exactly what they were doing then, sitting in a park and drinking.  It was hilarious.  We only escaped because our teachers came over and distracted them long enough for us to get away.  The best part is, I saw them in the park today, sitting on the same bench as before.  Apparently, they are there every day.  I'm looking forward to finishing our conversation soon.

Well, It's About Time

I finally found myself on the Great Wall recently.  On the Jinshanling section to be exact.  My classmates and I boarded a bus on a Saturday morning to take a 6 mile hike along the wall.  The Great Wall is one of those things that I've heard about since I was about six years old.  Everybody that goes to China seems to visit it.  Frankly, it's hard to miss, at about 5,000 miles long, give or take a few dozen miles.  The first tie I saw was as awe inspiring as they say.  I wouldn't say it's especially tall, but the way it snakes over the horizon is beyond description.  It almost seems to slither into the distance.  They fail to mention that, at least at the part I went to, you have to climb about a million stairs to actually get on the darn thing.  Not till I actually stood on it did the sheer history of it sink it.  It was definitely a "pinch me, I'm dreaming" moment.  Overwhelming is a good descriptor.  The following pictures are just the highlights that experience.

A Cowboy on the Great Wall!  Turns out he was from Texas, go figure.

 The above picture requires a bit of explanation.  The man you see in the picture is Jonny Lieberman, Senior Features Editor at Motor Trend Magazine.  Perhaps you've heard of it.  I walking on the wall when I spotted the parking lot full of Bentleys you see below.  Normally, that many Bentleys wouldn't be out of place in China, but the fact that they were all different colors was a dead giveaway for me that this was no ordinary convoy (Is there such thing as an "ordinary" convoy of Bentleys?).  You see, the Chinese seem to like there Bentley's in two colors, black or black.  Nobody here is going for the baby blue beauty on the right side of the frame.  It all became very clear when I heard Mr. Lieberman's voice in the background.  I instantly recognized it from the countless YouTube videos he has made, and I have enjoyed.  Turns out it was what they call a press event, in which an automaker, in this case Bentley, gets together journalists from all over the world to drive there car and review it.  There were French, Russian, English, and American automotive journalists there taking pictures and videos.  We chatted for a while and he was incredibly nice.  We discussed, as you would imagine, cars.  Overall, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the best part of the trip.  Oh, and the combined value of those five or six Bentleys?  Well over a million dollars here in China.

End of the line.  You don't to be able to read Chinese to know that you shouldn't be climbing over this wall.

Meanwhile, in Beijing...

Alright, back to the humdrum day to day goings on.  No more exciting spring break adventures.  It's eleventh hour and the workload is showing it.  For the last three weeks hear, we will be doing not one, not two, but three chapters a week.  Good times will not be had.  Thankfully, this is in a new book, which I refer to as the 大人书 (Grownup Book).  No more pictures and inane dialogues for us, it's all essays and black print, nothing to distract you from the fact that you have no idea what this character or that character means.  Sounds bad, but I was getting tired of hearing about the same four imaginary people and there imaginary problems.

Just to keep the happy train rolling, I decided to clean the air filter in my air conditioning unit today.  This was based on my friends advice, which he offered after he noticed the fact that my neck was breaking out.  This is an allergic reaction to the all the 空气污染 (air pollution) we've had the last few days.  I had no idea what I was about to face.  I should mention that I have yet to clean the air filter since I arrived.  That means this filter was jammed with three months of the dirtiest air on earth.  Even knowing that, I was still taken aback at how bad it was.  I took a side-by-side comparison shot after I had cleaned one.

Not for the faint of heart.

They looked like they had been eating small animals.  I think I saw most of a bird go down the drain when I was washing it out, but I can't be sure.  It has been running non-stop since I cleaned it, hopefully filling my room with clean air.  Well, relatively clean air.  

It's not all bad, though.  I find myself working for the weekend , as they say.  This Saturday I will be headed to the Great Wall for the second weekend in a row (stay tuned for a photo essay about the first trip).  That's cool enough, but I'm not just going to sight see, I will be there to watch a concert.  On the Great Wall.  The. Great. Wall.  (Am I being clear enough?).  It's not exactly my favorite artist, but I would go if it was somebody like, I don't know, Michael Bolton. (No offense to you Bolton lover's out there, or Boltheads, which I assume is how you refer to yourselves).  The only thing that stands between me and living the dream is some new vocabulary, a test on Friday, and...oh wait, this is getting depressing... I'll just stop there.

Spring Break: Day Six

After the stress of the day before, all we wanted for day six was a little bit of relaxation before we flew home at 4:00 that afternoon.  To accomplish this, we slept in until 9:30 (that was amazing for us, because we had been waking up around 5:30 every morning for the past five days), and then headed to an old shopping district.

The entrance to the shopping district

Somebody is an Al Pacino fan..

Not sure what this guy was doing, but it looked like he was poking this man's ear with a needle.  I respectfully declined to participate.

The crowning jewel of the entire day was the discovery of a random restaurant, on a random side street, that happened to have the best beer selection I have ever seen in China.  The Pint Beer Villa was like a sweet breath of fresh air.  I chose a delicious Delirium Noel and sat with my two friends, just talking and enjoying the weather.  It was a fitting ending to this amazing trip.

The Karl Marx statue was an interesting choice...

Sweet, sweet nectar of the gods.

From the shopping district, we headed to the airport.  The only noteworthy point of that ride was when my friend left his phone in the taxi, the driver of which, thankfully, was a real upstanding fellow, and drove back to the airport to give it to him.  He even tried to refuse a tip for doing it.  As we waited at the gate, we met a young boy from western China and his father.  The boy was the most outgoing kid I've ever met, and only served to make me miss my own nephew even more.

Even funnier than him, was the number of travelers that simply weren't interested in him at all, and just stared at their phone till he left them alone.  Their loss.

Playing with him was like the cherry on top of this amazing trip. 

Looking back, I can't say that I enjoyed every moment of this experience.  That's hardly a measure of success, however.  In my mind it was more about being memorable, than being enjoyable.  This is not to say that I did not enjoy myself immensely, or that it wasn't an amazing experience.  But, no doubt, over time, my memory of the pandas will fade, and the places I visited in Jiuzhaigou will blur into one beautiful image.  The hard parts, be it the bus rides, the bad food, or the cold hotel rooms, won't be going anywhere.  I take a little bit of comfort in that, because, in the end, it wasn't the beautiful views or the good food that brought me together with these people, it was the terrible bus rides, and the awful food.  Those are the things we will laugh about long after the pandas are forgotten.