hao hao xue xi, tian tian xiang shang

The weather's been great lately! Freezing, but very clear!

Last Saturday we went for a scavenger hunt around Beijing.

My roommate, Tan Qing, another roommate whose name I forget, Mao.

It was essentially the Amazing Race, Beijing style, where our roommates guided us through the essentials of Beijing - we saw Tiananmen, went into a shop or two, rode a bus and the subway, went to a passport office, the post office, rode a taxi, went into a minority restaurant, etc.

Watch out for that bike!

There were many times where I had no idea where I was or what was going on. But, because my roommates did, this was more entertaining than distressing.





The next day we were assigned our classes and met up with our teachers. I'm in 200, which is where I expected to be (phew). I have two teachers, or basically one main teacher and a TA. After meeting them and getting our syllabus, we headed on to a banquet.

Let's put things into perspective here to really illustrate the way it goes at Chinese restaurants:

We sat down at our table and there were probably five dishes laid out. I made the mistake of thinking that maybe this wouldn't be enough food. We passed it around, I asked my teacher what I could and couldn't eat (turns out she was a vegetarian before she had a baby), and what I did have was super duper. Some kind of tofu dish, some Chinese broccoli, and what else, I can't remember. Then they bring a huge thing of soup!

We passed that, and plenty of jasmine tea, around. I started getting a little full.

Then some wait staff came over and started putting more plates down. Every thirty seconds, a new dish. The lazy susan couldn't handle it! Eat! Eat! Clear the plates so they can bring more!

Luckily there was a reasonable amount of food that I couldn't eat, so I didn't stuff myself.

After what I thought was my last bit of food, I took a mental note that the comment "in China, eating is a way of life," is a very serious statement.

Turns out we hadn't been served our main dish yet - Peking (which is just an old way of saying 'Beijing') Duck.

Now, I didn't eat the duck, but I did use the various condiments around it, with some tofu, to make my own version. My teacher greatly appreciated my effort.

THEN, dessert was served. Which was really just a bunch of fruits, but man, they were good.


I passed out Sunday night probably around 9:00 PM.

My teacher, Li laoshi, is incredible. She has a little bit of a lisp, and smiles all the while. She reminds me of a character from Alice in Wonderland, but I'm not sure who. Jolly isn't the right word for her, because I'm afraid that's associated with... people of endomorphic persuasion. The woman is beautiful.

She drills us pretty intensely in class because the whole purpose of this program is to get us thinking in Chinese. If we're translating things in English in our heads, that stands in the way of us ACTUALLY being Chinese speakers. As I type this now I have difficulty not saying certain things in Chinese.

Though I'm happy here and I don't mind working, it's hard to see where I'd ever have free time.

Speaking of which, there are elective classes we can take, though we're only advised to take one or two. I have to pick between:

Ping pong
Wu shu
Chinese calligraphy
Chinese painting

I'm ruling wushu out immediately. Okay, yeah, it's cool, and the guy who does it is supposed to be legit, but I want to do something that I'll be able to use later on. Ping pong is a definite. I just don't know if I should study calligraphy or painting. Maybe I'll do painting... this could be my last chance to ever take painting classes... in my life! That's such a lie.


The past two days have been snowy and beyond freezing. Right now I'm wearing two pairs of pants, knee high socks, boots, a shirt, a sweater, a sweatshirt, and a scarf. Florida, I miss you. Florida, I love you.

Speaking of Floridian stuff, some people complained that their rooms smell foully. So, it's a common thing in China to buy a pineapple to soak up the smell. In the main office there are now 40 pineapples that we can take to sit in our rooms for the next few months and "soak up the bad smells". But be careful, they warn, after the pineapple turns black, if you don't throw it out you'll have a whole new smell to worry about!

That's it for now. Time for me to get to work.