June 4th, 2014 - 11:35 PM HAST
I don’t have the slightest clue of what I’m getting myself into.
There’s a grand total of one hour before my flight departure and the reality of the fact that I’m going to be living in a foreign country and studying a foreign language has yet to hit me. Yes, I’m nervous. Yes, I’d like another day (or month) meandering along the picture-perfect shores of Oahu, all while steadily improving my Hawaiian word count (from one to three: aloha, mahalo, ohana means family). However, this is the opportunity that I’ve been eagerly awaiting since the beginning of my Chinese language studies that have spanned the previous two years. Shit is about to get real. Very quick.
Over the course of the next 10 weeks, I’ll be studying with Duke at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, hoping to vastly improve my Chinese speaking, reading, and writing skills towards my personal goal of native fluency. Linguistics aren’t my only focus; I also hope to greatly increase my understanding of the Chinese people and their rich culture, one that has seen a deep cultivation period spanning thousands of years. For this, I’m charging in with an open mind, (almost) always remembering that the personalities, likes/dislikes, opinions, and behaviors of others won’t necessarily align with my own…and that’s okay.
In terms of academics, and even generally, the acclimation to a society fundamentally different from my own, I most certainly expect that the “struggle will be real” multiple times throughout the course of my journey…and that’s okay. The hardships that we have encountered and overcome to this point are largely responsible for many of the robust qualities that help maintain our current form. Shit has hit the fan before, and it will continue to do so in the future. Up to this point, we have all successfully adapted to many of the conditions that have made us uncomfortable in the past, which explains why today you’re able to devour the once unappetizing and slimy raw flesh of those delicious but unfortunately fated sea creatures—even if it’s from Publix.
Point is, keep pressing on because the fundamentals of kicking ass stay the same:
“Adapt and Overcome”
In the departure gate and 20 feet to my two o’clock, an adolescent Chinese girl is on her second set of squats following a rather intense stretching routine, surely in preparation for the large amount of physical activity that’s about to take place on flight HA 897…and that’s okay.
The jolly Hawaiian woman is calling the economy-class seating zone for boarding. I believe that’s my cue, I’ll update you in Beijing.
Today marks my fourth day in Beijing. With the exception of the placement test that I just finished taking, academics haven’t really entered my life just yet.
In comparison to other study abroad programs, namely the European based ones that take place in Paris, Vienna, (Insert first world EU country here),…So far, Beijing hasn't been a vacation (that I’ve been hoping for) under the guise of a semi-relevant academic curriculum.
China isn’t particularly Western-friendly.
Now, that’s not to say that China has some sort of vendetta against the West, or that the people are unkind. What I mean is that the likelihood that you’ll survive in this country, if you’re a sheltered WASP from a quaint little town in the Bible Belt, is low. You’ll probably experience Death by Culture Shock.
China is 180 ° different from anything and everything we know in the United States. To put it into perspective, it’s important to remember that China has only been on the modern world (read: Western) stage for approximately 30 years, following the series of economic “Open up” reforms, led by “paramount leader” Deng Xiaoping. Although you can definitely note some intrusion of Western culture in aspects of Chinese society, the culture still remains intact and true to it’s origin. TLDR; China is still extremely Chinese, and if you can’t speak the slightest amount of the language, you’re going to have a hard time.
I’ve compiled a short list featuring some of the things I’ve noticed right off the bat:
1. The Toilets
If you’ve lived in America or the West for most of your life, you’ll shit yourself when you see the toilets here.
These squat-down-and-push toilets are pretty common in most of the bathrooms here and, in my opinion, comes with a bit of a learning curve. They’re supposedly better for your intestinal health, as it better simulates the natural poop method (what is that anyway?) expected of us as homo sapiens. I haven’t had any tragic accidents using these little things yet, but if I do, I’ll be sure to make a blog post about it. Anyways, on to the next topic.
2. The Large Police Presence
In case you didn’t know, the budget for China’s domestic security apparatus is larger than their official military budget. In layman’s terms, this means that the Communist Party of China is much more interested in maintaining domestic stability than they are in scooping up small islands in the Pacific (or so we think). This translates to the Beijing experience as, police…police everywhere. When I walked off my airport shuttle at the Central Beijing Railway Station on the day I arrived, the first thing I noticed was the lanky and camouflage-clad Chinese men carrying QBZ-95 assault rifles, always maintaining the “I’m pissed off at you” look as they surveyed the square. Especially given the recent ethnically-charged terrorism incident in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in West China, the large police presence in Beijing was hard to ignore. Now that being said, the policeman have been some of the nicest people I’ve ran into in China so far, and they’ve always been willing to point me in the right direction when I’m lost.
3. The Traffic
I’ll consider it a miracle if I can make it back to America in one piece without having been decimated to pieces by multiple cars, scooters, 3-wheeled scooter-cars, rickshaws, and donkey-drawn carriages. Yes, donkey-drawn carriages. The traffic here is varied and mostly lawless. Pedestrians seemingly don’t have the right-of-way, and the only way to safely cross the street is by following the locals who nonchalantly cross six lanes of running traffic without batting an eye. The traffic in Beijing makes NYC traffic appear tame in comparison, and if there’s anything that kills me in Beijing, it’ll be the rusty tricycles with a delivery load greater than any semi-truck found in the U.S.
4. The Size
China is HUGE. Yesterday, myself and a couple others visited the famous Tiananmen Square, and was completely blown away by the sheer size of the area. The country is still making its way towards true superpower status, and this is especially evident in the grand scale of the development projects. There’s not much to add to this, you’ll just have to see for yourself.
5. Beijing is Beautiful
Beyond all, I’m impressed by the unparalleled and unique beauty of this city. Beijing is an ancient city with a rich history that dates back over 3,000 years. Remnants of its past remain scattered around the increasingly modernizing city and really brings home the concept that China is evolving with time. Beijing is beautiful.
This week marks my third week of schooling at UIBE. I’m taking anywhere from 3 ~ 4 classes a day during the week and the content isn’t easy. We’re expected to learn and retain a week of material per day, we have a quiz every morning, and a 2-hour long exam every Friday. But I’ll be fine.
My Chinese language skills seem to be increasing exponentially everyday and given that it’s only Week 3, I truly can’t wait to assess my Chinese level via the ACTFL Oral Prociency Interview (OPI) at the end of the program. The teachers here are top-notch, and the kids here are pretty damn gifted. Surprisingly, I’ve yet to meet anybody with their head stuck seven leagues up their ass, so far so good.
But let’s stop talking about school.
The Great Wall of China
Let me preface this next topic by educating/reminding you that this man-made fortress-of-a-wall isn't for the weak. Brilliant me figured it was going to be a peaceful little hike up the mountain but as soon as I climbed my 7th flight of stairs I very much regretted not buying a cable car ticket up and down the bluff up to the Wall. To be honest, it made for a decent workout and I can definitely understand why the nomads of the North found the task of surpassing this fortification difficult.
“The Great Wall of China […]was built in part to protect the Chinese Empire or its prototypical states against intrusions by various nomadic groups or military incursions by various warlike peoples or forces. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC; these later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are now collectively referred to as the Great Wall. Especially famous is the wall built between 220 — 206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains. Since then, the Great Wall has on and off been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced; the majority of the existing wall are from the Ming Dynasty.” — Wikipedia
Walking on the Great Wall, I was protected by the walls that stood in between me and Genghis Khan’s arrows—parapets, for those who majored in Medieval History (sorry)—and every 150 meters or so stood a guard tower from which scouts surveyed the land for approaching enemy formations. As far as your eyes can see, the Great Wall stretches. It really is an astonishing feat of human ingenuity and engineering that began not hundreds, but thousands of years ago. Now for some random pix:
798 Art District
When you think of world class art destinations, the first location that probably comes to mind is…Paris, NYC (I don’t know any beyond these two), etc., but let’s talk about Beijing a little bit. This city is home to the 798 Art District, a compact and tight knit community of art studios and installations showcasing creations from all nooks of the discipline; whether you want to check out Edo-era Japanese art, contemporary avant-garde, or film photography exhibits, you can probably find it here. What makes this district particularly interesting is the setting in which it developed around: 50-year old decommissioned factory buildings newly renovated with the tightest graffiti artists repping their set. Casually strolling down the street, I couldn’t help but notice the multiple groups of Chinese women posing for unique pictures, looking Fierce in front of the large decrepit metal skeletons from China’s industrial beginnings.
The 798 District is also where famed Chinese contemporary artist, political dissident, and certified Bad-ass, Ai Weiwei, calls home. Unfortunately we didn’t run into him, however, we did accomplish the second best thing: visit the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. Incredible. Pictures below…
Also, I’m an awful person for forgetting to credit each author for their pieces of work. I’ll keep this in mind for the next time I visit.
We saw this amazing exhibit featuring human-sized sculptures made from steel frames and what looked like melted duct tape:
And some miscellaneous random pix from Ullens’:
The Summer Palace
Two Fridays ago, we had the opportunity to visit the Summer Palace in Beijing. This beautiful garden has an interesting and slightly tragic history.
The Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty first initiated the construction of the Summer Palace in 1749, in hopes of having a pleasant garden to retreat to when his superplex of a castle became too hot during Beijing’s surprisingly hot summers. Artisans assigned to the project tried to emulate garden making styles and techniques from all over China, and Kunming Lake, which the garden wraps around today, was created by extending and already existing body of water to imitate the West Lake in Hangzhou.
Unfortunately, this 720 acre garden suffered major damage during the Anglo-French allied invasion in 1860, and then again during the West-organized response to the xenophobic Boxer Rebellion.
In 1888, Empress Dowager Cixi (the mother and unofficial political representative of the last Chinese emperor, a young boy) decided that reconstruction and expansion of the Summer Palace, AKA her summer resort, was more important than fortifying and purchasing ammunition for the Chinese Navy. 6 years later, China suffered an unexpected defeat to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War.
Today, restoration efforts continue and you too can spend a leisurely day in this park and relive what it would have felt like to be King of China, minus the concubines (unless you accept a ladyba, might touch on that later). Some pix, mostly of the beautiful architecture:
Most of my photos are single subject because I’m a poor college student and I can’t afford a nice wide-angle lens. Maybe I can rent one for cheap somewhere in this city, we’ll see.
Whatever, here are some more pix from the Summer Palace day:
Last pic for the Summer Palace post, a nice view over Kunming Lake towards Longevity Hill.
Midterm Trip — Xi’an
The weekend of Week 4 marked our midterm trip to Xi’an, a second-tier city smack dab in the middle of Mainland China. A short 10 hour train ride away, we drank a little, slept a lot, and woke up in the beautiful and ancient city. By ancient, I don’t mean St. Augustine-ancient, I’m talking more than 3,000 years of history ancient. In China, I sometimes forget that the old shit I’m seeing is not just old but pre-Jesus walking the earth old…that’s some shit.
Xi’an is primarily known (by foreigners) for two things: the old yet sturdy city wall that envelops Xi’an, and the Terracotta Army Museum located an hour away in the suburbs.
As soon as we arrived to Xi’an we didn’t stop for nothin’; skipping the much needed morning check-in and bathing period at the hotel, we instead straight-shot it to enjoy the slightly less than par breakfast at some buffet and made our way over to the city wall.
You know, there’s something about riding around on rental bicycles atop the city wall of Xi’an that just tickles your fancy no matter who you are. Although the weather wasn’t particularly comfortable and the pollution index, actually…damn awful, the liberating feeling of peddaling a cheap little mountain bike down the everexpanding stretch of that ancient man-made…wall…really was something worth recommending to anyone. Not a care in the world was had about our rigorous classes or other real-life bullshit that we all deal with, for the morning, we all enjoyed one thing: circumnavigating Xi’an on Chinese mountain bikes.
Oh sorry, real quick…this lady is awesome. One of my classmates and a student at Duke, the first real conversation I had with her truthfully resonated down to my core. I’ll expand on that at a later date.
Ah, the soft and comforting fog that hug the cities of China…is actually pollution. Let’s work on solving this environmental problem together before this becomes a reality in our own cities.
Side note: Different parts of the world have different ideas of what beauty is. In China, a light skin complexion is preferred over being tan and oompa loompa-esque as seen on Jersey Shore or on the occasional college campus. That means that even on days when the sun is out, walking on the sidewalk is a constant battle between avoiding the all too common sidewalk scooter king and dodging the horde of metal-framed umbrellas that could actually take out an eye. I’m talking like Kitana from Mortal Kombat with the sharp fans…I’ve actually been severely injured (scratch) by sidewalk umbrellas, this is not a joke. But I digress, Teach was wearing that mask because she didn’t want that healthy Sunshine State glow.
On Day 2 of Xi’an, we ventured away from the city to visit the Terracotta Army Museum in the suburbs. Minus the unpleasant experience of entering the park (guest services in China blows for the most part) firsthand witnessing the historic formation of the stone soldiers was pretty incredible.
The handcrafted statues were built factory style, with different artisans working on a specific part of the stone body. The commonly mentioned trait of the Terracotta soldiers, their individually unique facial features, were made that way using a fairly small number of molds (I think eight), which were than refined to express the man-like countenances that rests on their faces to this day.
For the wide-angle view of the army, check out my Instagram!
Xi’an is uniquely beautiful. Although it’s certainly a large city by American standards (8+ million population), Xi’an carries a wise aura that makes it feel soft and quaint, and if you listened closely, you may be able to hear the Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty still echoing from its ancient past.
Alright, well I’m done with this blog post, for the next one, I’ll give you a day in the life of myself in Beijing.
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