Mystery solved

It turns out all that practicing and marching was for a school-wide sports competition the school had yesterday and today. The marching was all in preparation for the opening ceremony, which was yesterday morning.

Here are some pictures I snapped from my room of the opening ceremonies. Sorry they're not of the best quality.

 

 

Teachers are not exempt from opening ceremony performances either.

Marching, marching, marching

For several days now, the students at the high school next to my dorm have been practicing marching in their physical education classes and occasionally after school too. At first, I thought it might be apart of a program similar to the JROTC in the United States, that is designed to groom high school students for the military. However, it turns out all the loud marching and counting has been in preparation for an open house.

At the open house, spectators sat on the sidelines and watched as each class marched into the physical education area, around the track and onto the field where they lined up in perfectly-spaced, pre-designated spots. Now it has be to be said that these high school students' marching isn't the sloppy, slightly sauntering "march" American high school graduates do as they walk into a stadium or auditorium for graduation; this is real marching, similar to what you'd see at a military boot camp. The students are perfectly synced and impeccably spaced and they all have a chant they sing/chant in order to keep the rhythm of their marching correct.

In addition, each class adds a unique touch to their march around the track. One of the classes has all their students hold fake bouquets of flowers. In other classes, all the students wear hats or shirts of a particular colors. Others hold banners, have students on rollerblades or bouncing basketballs. Another one of the classes has four students playing (orderly) leap frog in front of the class as it marches along the track. Other classes classes even have a whole choreographed routine involving raising your arm on certain counts and waving on other counts.


Even the teachers have to take part in this exhibition. The teachers have an entire routine they have to do that includes various stretches, clapping and what looks like to me, kung-fu poses. The routine itself is set to a musical piece, most likely a march, with a male voice-over that enthusiastically announces the counts.

I'm not sure if exhibitions like this are normal for high schools in China or if it's just the school that's next to my dorm, but I have to say, you would never be able to pull off something similar to this in the United States. Yes, I know some schools have marching bands in the US, but marching band is voluntary and I have a hunch this exhibition is mandatory for these students.

Even if you were able to somehow organize an exhibition like this, I doubt you could get American students to take it seriously and really work as hard as these students do at making sure their routines are solid and marching is in sync. That's not to say that American high school students are all lazy or goofballs or anything, of course. It's just a different educational culture.

On one hand, the American education system is largely built around the idea that you should enjoy learning and learning should still respect each student's individuality. While on the other hand, the Chinese education system emphasizes more on the good of the whole, regardless of what an individual student may think or feel. Hence, here in China they can organize a big exhibition and have students march in it all for the good of the school's image, but in the United States, if you tried organize something similar, most likely, you'd have a large group of dissenting high school students who aren't afraid of voicing their strong dislike of the plan.

Personally, I'm glad my high school never made me perform in such an exhibition. However, I realize my reaction to this is very culturally based since basically all my schooling was in the United States. Perhaps if I grew up here in Beijing or maybe even in Hong Kong, I'd find this completely normal and maybe, just maybe, even enjoy it. Who knows.

That's all for now. I think the exhibition must be tomorrow since they have flowers, seats & a podium all set up already. Hopefully this means I don't have to listen to marching everyday anymore after tomorrow.

 Students practicing for the exhibition. 

They're very small in this picture, but do you see how orderly they are? And this is only the practice!

You're American?!?!

One of the very first thing we learn at BNU is how to say which country we come from and how to ask other students where he/she comes from. This makes sense on several levels since it's a good way to introduce yourself, and to get to know the other students; not to mention that it's generally a relatively easy statement (unless, apparently, you're from Kyrgyzstan, which is very difficult to say in Mandarin).

But when people find out that I came from the United States, their face often looks a lot like this:

Classmates, storekeepers, and cab drivers all tend to get this surprised, and somewhat shocked and confused look on their faces. It's not that they don't expect Americans to come to China; it's just when they hear "American," they expect to see someone who's Caucasian, not a clearly Chinese-looking girl stumbling to compose a coherent sentence in Mandarin.

It seems strange to me that my nationality is so perplexing to everyone. This is partially because I was raised in the United States, where they teach you from a very, very young age that "Americans" can all look very different from each other but it doesn't make them any less "American" than the other person. In the US there's also the idea of a duel identity. That is to say, you can identify yourself not only by the passport you hold but also by your ethnicity, e.g. Chinese-American, Italian-American, Palestinian-American, etc, which is a concept that doesn't really exist in many other places aside from the United States.

In addition, all my life my mom has told me,"If there's a small opportunity to make money, then there are Chinese people living there," which basically means, no matter where you go, there will be Chinese people living there. Through people I've met and my parents' acquaintances alone, I know of people of Chinese descent that reside in Spain, Brazil, New Zealand, South Africa and Brazil. To me, it's not that unusual to be of Chinese descent yet not have spent most or perhaps, any part of your life in China (or Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau, for that matter).

However, for some reason, this concept seems very foreign to Beijingers and even to many of the international students I've met here at BNU. People never guess I'm American on the first try; normally they guess Thai first (probably because I'm still tan from the California sunshine) and occasionally Japanese. As a result, I've perfected a short explanation of how I was born in Hong Kong, but grew up in the States. I'm never sure though if the person I'm speaking to understands what I'm getting at although more often than not they do seem less confused after my short speech.

Either way, it's just another part of life here in Beijing for me. Onwards to tomorrow, during which I'll probably serve to confuse even more people.

晚安! (Wǎnān or good night!)

Great Wall Pictures

There are several sections of the Great Wall that are accessible from Beijing. The most visited portion is Badaling and its many past visitors include Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth. It is also the section I went to nine years ago when I visited Beijing with my Dad. Largely built during the Ming dynasty, it eventually fell into disrepair and was restored in the 1950s and 60s.

This time though, I went to the Jinshanling portion, which still has portions that are in ruins. It also is (slightly) less popular with most tourists so it offers a less crowded experience for those who want to visit the Great Wall without the giant tourist crowds that tend to descend on Badaling.


Hope you enjoy these pictures!

More pictures on Angela Photo Musings.

Guess where I went today...

Anyone?

That's right! I went to the Great Wall today. (Okay, so the photo on the bottom, gave it away. Oh well.)

Every month my school offers one free excursion for international students and this month's activity was a trip to the Great Wall. From Beijing, there are several sections you can visit, the most touristy and popular of which is Badaling. Originally, we were told we were going to the Simatai portion of the wall, but instead today I found myself at the Jingshanling portion. Not that I'm one to complain about a free trip.

By the way, for those of you who know of my giant fear of heights, steep stairways and steep sloped roads, you should be very proud of me. Despite my fears, I was able to walk pretty far on the wall, despite having to navigate many scary, steep stairs. In fact, I went farther than many of the other students on  the trip. I'm proud of myself right now, actually.

And for those of you naysayers who say the stairs couldn't really be that bad, then you clearly have never witnessed my irrational fear of heights. Trust me, it's bad. Not to mention uncontrollable. So don't make fun of me.

 Click for larger image

More photos to come later.

Running of the Cabs

When we arrived at Beijing Capital Airport, my parents and I decided that taking a cab would be the best way to get into the city, so we get in line at the taxi stand. Surprisingly, the line actually resembled a line. However, this orderliness would not last long.

Let me (try to) explain how their taxi queue system worked. First of all, there are two lines of people at the taxi queue. The cabs came in from a special entrance just for cabs and stop in pre-designated spots in the middle of the road. Then, after there a sufficient number of cabs (as determined by the officer manning the taxi queue) parked, the officer waves his hand at one of the two lines and lets a certain number of people walk up to grab a cab. Sounds simple enough, right?

Wrong.

As soon as that officer waves his hand, it's like mass pandemonium breaks out. If you're just a bit slower, because maybe your bags are heavier, they'll just run past you, even if they were 10 people behind you. It's basically like musical chairs, but with cabs and luggage. Not to mention there is NO actual shortage of cabs, unlike in musical chairs.
 
 Next time, if I need to take a cab from Beijing, I'm stretching before hand. And consider this a warning if you ever want to come to Beijing and plan on taking a cab from the airport.

See how the cab on the right is parked in the middle of the road?

Picture courtesy of www.tour-beijing.com

Suzhou!

Suzhou is located in the middle of the Yangtze Delta, and roughly 75 kilometers (46 miles) northwest of Shanghai. It's history dates back to the 6th century when the first canals were built to regulate the water level. The main canal, aptly named the Grand Canal, links Beijing and Hangzhou and brought both cultural and economic prosperity to the city itself. Nowadays, it's renowned for it's silk, and beautiful gardens. In 1997, the United Nations designated Suzhou's gardens as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.

Now for the pictures:

Craving more photos? More on Angela's Photo Musings.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Today is the first day of the Mid-Autumn Festival here in China and as a result, I have three days off from classes (five, if you include Saturday and Sunday too). Hopefully during my time off, I'll be able to blog more and work on some more photos for all of you. As for now, here's a little info on the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The Mid-Autumn Festival occurs annually on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. Traditionally, people gather with their families during this festival to gaze at the full moon and eat mooncakes. There are many different types of mooncakes depending on where you are living or where your family is from. The most traditional form has a thin skin around a sweet, dense filling usually of lotus or red bean paste. Sometimes there will also be one or two salted egg yolks in the middle. Personally, I like the salted egg yolk with the sweet filling but some people find it strange.

Traditional mooncake

Traditional mooncake with lotus bean paste & salted egg yokes

In Shanghai though, they eat savory mooncakes that have a thin, filo-dough-like outside and savory meat (pork?) filling on the inside. When my parents & I were in Shanghai, we were lucky enough to be purchase some from some famed mooncake-perveyor on Nanjing Lu. Needless to say, they were delicious.

Box of Shanghainese mooncakes

 

Shanghainese mooncake with savory meat filling

For more information about the mid-Autumn Festival: http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/festivals/mid-autumn-festival.htm

More information on mooncakes: http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/mooncake.htm

First Week of Classes

Last week was the first week of classes at Beijing Normal University. The Saturday before classes began, I received my class assignment and purchased my books.

Upon receiving the class assignment, I found out I was put in the level two class, even though I told the school at least 10 separate times I really need to start from the beginning level. But of course, they didn't listen. I think they were jaded by the fact that I could speak a little bit, understand most of what people are saying to me and read a very tiny handful of words, since some of Mandarin is similar to Cantonese and I still remember some things form Chinese school. But I figure, well, its their Chinese program so they probably know best; maybe the first level would be too easy for me.

I show up on the first day of class, and that class was way beyond me. There were a lot of words I had never learned. Not to mention that they study simplified Chinese in mainland China and I had previously studied traditional Chinese characters, so half the words I do know are unrecognizable to me now. (Traditional characters are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and maybe Macau.)

So after some explaining to the teachers and a visit to the College of Chinese Language and Culture, I was able to switch into a beginning, level 1 class. Truthfully, I might have been okay in the level two class had I worked really, really hard but I knew had I stayed in the class I would become increasingly frustrated and unwilling to learn. Plus, my basics of Chinese language are very faulty as is and you can't build a house on a faulty foundation and expect it to last.

Now, I'm in the level 1 class and it's much better. Currently, it's a bit easy for me when it comes to reading & writing and listening, but I'm sure in a few weeks it'll get harder for me. There's a few things I'm kind of "reverse-learning" as I call it, especially when it comes to pinyin. Pinyin is a phonetic system that uses the English alphabet to spell out the sounds of various words. When I studied previous, my school didn't use pinyin to teach us, so now I'm formally learning it. Sometimes, the teacher uses words that I already know the character and pronunciation of, to teach the pinyin so occasionally, I feel like I'm learning things backwards. Nonetheless, pinyin is very useful since all the street names here in Beijing are both in characters and pinyin.

However, I'm horrible at speaking Mandarin, so it's nice to be in a class with others who are struggling as well. I think my main problem with speaking what many would call performance anxiety. Often times, when I'm alone, I can think of the correct words to say and in the correct (or almost correct) tones, but when it actually comes to speaking, my mind goes blank and my tongue moves on its own. Hopefully though, I'll get over this soon...

Okay, gotta check if my clothes are dry, again.

Please form a queue here---or not..

 On the last day of our tour, the tour guide brought up a point about line etiquette (or the lack there of) in China that had never crossed my mind. In short, she made the point that, culturally, part of the reason people often cut lines in China is due to the country's history of famine and poverty. Although she doesn't believe that excuses their behavior, it does bring up an interesting point that lines are a product of prosperity.

As the tour guide pointed out, not so long ago, people in mainland China needed to fight just to have food on the table. Food and supplies were scarce and people had to fight with everyone who also needed food and supplies when it was available. It was first come, first served. If the supplies ran out, then too bad for you. In those times, people couldn't afford to be polite and wait in line because if they were, it's likely they'd receive either very little or even nothing at all. When you're that poor and in need of basic supplies, survival overwhelmingly beats out politeness.

Nowadays, for most people getting food and basic supplies isn't a problem anymore. Yet, that mentality about lines still seems to permeate.

Here in China, lines seem to merely a formality for the most part. "Lines" often instead take the form of a massive crowd or an uneven blob of people gathered around a specific desk, machine, person, etc. And even if a line (or a queue, as the British would say) exists, line cutting is very prevalent and considered completely normal. In fact, in order to be helped in a timely matter, you often have to push yourself to the front of the line.

On the flip side, Americans, if nothing else, are very good at forming lines, even when there isn't a sign or personnel to tell you to form a line. For instance, when waiting for the subway in New York, people often form lines just to board the train, and wait patiently for people to get off the train first before boarding in a orderly fashion.*  In this instance, there's no fear that you won't able to board the train so people can afford to be patient and wait in a line to board.

For the most part, in the United States, we can afford to wait in lines. Aside from tickets to a big concert or perhaps some big Black Friday sale items, things are not going to run out and we can always find somewhere to obtain the necessities. The United States and Americans are prosperous enough to not have to worry about running out of food and basic necessities.

Of course, China's history of famine doesn't completely excuse there lack of line etiquette, particularly with the younger generation who mostly, if not completely, grew up as China has become increasingly prosperous. But it does help me understand a little bit about where a lot of people here are coming from.

Lastly, it must be noted that this post is just a generalization of lines in the US and China. There are plenty of places in the US where people have problems forming lines and plenty of instances in China in which I have seen people wait in an orderly line.

That's all for now. Time to check to see if my clothes actually dried in the dryer this time.

*Note: New York subways during rush hour are a totally different game, especially on the 4/5/6 trains. 

Water, water everywhere...

Prior to arriving in Beijing, my parents and I took a whirlwind tour of Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Nanjing (among other places). Aside from Shanghai and Nanjing, this part of China is particularly famous for its lakes, rivers and gardens. I haven't had a chance to really sit down yet and go through my photos from the trip, but here are some unedited, teaser photos below. Hopefully I'll get a chance later (maybe this weekend) to do some editing blogging about the trip. Until then, enjoy!

 The Bund, facing Pudong, Shanghai

The Humble Administrator's Garden, Suzhou

The Grand Canal, Suzhou

Tea gardens outside of Hangzhou

Nanjing Road, Nanjing

View from the Giant Buddha at Lingshan Temple, outside of Wuxi

Living in Cultural Limbo

In case you're pondering the name of this blog, "Living in Cultural Limbo," let me explain it to you.

Cultural limbo, at least for the sake of this blog, is the term I came up with to describe my current situation. I'm a Chinese girl who was born in Hong Kong, raised in the United States and now, temporarily, resides in mainland China.

On one hand, I'm very American: I call California home; I speak English; I carry an US passport and I celebrate American holidays and traditions such as Thanksgiving and Halloween (yes, yes, I know it's not originally American...).

Yet, I am ethnically Chinese; I speak Cantonese and I celebrate and honor Chinese traditions as well. So what does that make me? A Chinese-American expat who moved back to China?

And on top of all of that, I was born in Hong Kong and half my family still calls Hong Kong home. To many here in mainland China, they view Hong Kong Chinese people as separate from mainland China, although not necessarily in a bad way. Due to over a hundred years of British colonialism, for all intensive purposes, Hong Kong is very different from the rest of China, and as a result Hong Kong-nese people are different from those in the mainland.

So what am I exactly? American? Not totally. Chinese? Not completely. Hong Kong-nese? Nope, not that either.  In the end, I'm just stuck in a cultural limbo, not that it's necessarily a bad thing. It's just something for me to ponder during my time here in Beijing.

Good night & sweet dreams from your favorite Hong Kong-born, California-grown, Beijing-living friend.

Welcome, welcome!

Hello all! Greetings from Beijing!

Sorry it took so long for me to begin posting. It's been a very busy first two weeks here. (More on that later.)

Anyways, I assume if you're reading this, number one, we've met and number two, you're aware that I am spending the next nine-ten months in Beijing, where I'll be partaking in an intensive Chinese language program. I'll be blogging during my time here to record my experiences in Beijing and to share them with friends & family. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog regularly; so check back once & in a while for updates.

Hope you're all doing well. I'm off to cook some dinner.

Angela