A ‘Crazy Bad’ Day in Beijing

As required by law, all of Beijing's heating systems were required to be turned on by November 15. But since most of Beijing's heating systems are coal-fired, the air quality naturally suffers as soon as the systems are kicked on. This, along with the offshoot pollutions from the industry-heavy cities north of Beijing, often creates what seems like an impenetrable cloud of smog and pollution over Beijing.

Apparently, the air quality was so bad last week, the US Embassy in Beijing tweeted that the air quality was "crazy bad." Unfortunately the term "crazy bad" isn't a part of the US Embassy's official air quality rating, so the tweet was later taken down and replaced with a more scientific wording.

Click here to go to a NY Times blog post on the air quality in Beijing last week.

And in comparison, look at a clear air day in Beijing: http://livinginculturallimbo.blogspot.com/2010/10/ah-much-better.html

Thanksgiving Misconceptions

It's definitely very indicative how of just prevalent American culture is abroad when most of the non-Americans here at BNU (and the teachers) know of Thanksgiving, which for all intensive purposes a very American holiday.* Not only do they know of the holiday Thanksgiving, many of them knew that Thanksgiving is in November and includes a turkey. However beyond that, their knowledge of Thanksgiving was limited (not that I can blame them for that). But they did have some interesting ideas about what traditions were apart of the holiday:

On Thanksgiving, everyone tells the truth.
One of my classmates asked me earlier this week if it was tradition that at Thanksgiving everyone sits at the dinner table and tells the truth. At first, I was very perplexed by her question, until I figured out that she was most likely getting this idea from a number of US television shows and movies. In many television shows and movies that feature Thanksgiving, all the family drama comes out at the dinner table while the family is all gathered together. Although family drama rearing it's ugly head is not a Thanksgiving tradition in the United States, I do suspect that perhaps for some families, it might be almost be the equivalent to a tradition.

After we gather for Thanksgiving dinner, we exchange presents.
Several people asked if we exchanged gifts after Thanksgiving dinner and each time I was asked, I said no and was slumped why they would think that presents are vital to Thanksgiving. At first, I thought maybe they were getting American Christmas and Thanksgiving traditions confused from what they see in US films and television. However, after some further questioning, they simply explained that with name of "Thanksgiving," they figured the name referred to the giving of gifts and giving thanks in return. Despite being incorrect, I thought their conclusions did make sense if you hadn't had the whole pilgrims-and-Native-Americans story drilled into your brain for most of your childhood.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the tale of (American) Thanksgiving, it begins with pilgrims from England fleeing to what was then the colonies to avoid persecution. However, once they arrived in Plymouth Rock, the pilgrims had no idea how to grow food and survive in the colonies. As an act of kindness, the Native Americans living nearby at the time taught them how to grow food successfully in their new home. As the tale has it, at the end of the first harvest, all the pilgrims and Native Americans gathered together for a big feast to celebrate the harvest, thus beginning the story of Thanksgiving.

It must be noted though that Thanksgiving wasn't recognized as a national holiday officially until 1863 when Abraham Lincoln announced his Thanksgiving Proclamation, which declared the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. However, in 1941, Thanksgiving was officially moved to the third day of Thanksgiving in hopes that lengthening the Christmas season would boost the economy.

And as for the term, "Thanksgiving," it supposedly refers to the pilgrims giving thanks to the Native Americans for helping them out with their crops.

Anyways, that's enough history (or at least, fabled history), for now. Here's a picture a friend sent to me that I think perfectly sums up what I think is key to any Thanksgiving (along with family and friends)....

Eating!

*Not #1: Yes, I do know Canadians have Thanksgiving too, along with a few other places. But for this message of this post, Canadian Thanksgiving (and the others) are irrelevant. I hope I didn't offend any Canadians out there.

*Note #2: I also do know that the whole Native American-pilgrims/Native Americans-colonists relationship is not as cheery as the Thanksgiving story suggests. However, for the sake of being concise and not opening a whole other can of worms, we'll just put those facts aside.

Huh? Where's the water?

Yep, the water's out in my dorm. I figured this when I was cooking my dinner, which was about an hour ago. It would've been nice though if they actually said something to those of us living here, though.

Never mind, according to the front desk, the water should be back on by 7. In reality, though, that may actually mean 8:30. Stay tuned to see what happens...

Update: The water is back on (and it's 4 minutes to 7) but it's got a brownish-reddish tint to it...lovely. 

Update #2: After running the water straight for about an hour (maybe more), the water finally seems to be running clear again, I think. Or maybe I'm just desperate for a shower....

Happy Thanksgiving!!

To those of you reading this in the United States: Happy Thanksgiving!! Sorry I can't spend the holiday with you all devouring some delicious food. 

As for me, I have class and I'm still not sure what I'm doing for "Thanksgiving" dinner yet. Perhaps it's better if I just pretend today's just any other normal Thursday. I'll just see what happens.
 

Tensions on the Korean Pennisula

Just in case you've been living under a rock (or haven't been paying attention to international news), yesterday North Korea shelled a small South Korean island that lies in a disputed marine area off the eastern Korean shoreline. As a result, the tensions between South and North Korea have once again heightened.

Many of the Korean students here are very concerned about the current "crisis status" (as the South Korean government calls it) on the Korean peninsula. Since all of age South Korean males are required by law to serve at least two years in the military, many are afraid that if the situation does escalate, they would all be recalled back to South Korea to resume their military service. (Most, if not all of the Korean male students have already completed their mandatory two, if not more, years of service.)

Personally, I highly doubt that the tensions will escalate to anything further. Every year or every few months, it seems like North Korea launches some sort of "attack" on South Korea and tensions escalate for a while but then die down to their normal level of tension. Also from an international perspective, it would be an unwise move on North Korea's part to try to escalate the tensions considering South Korea has the backing of the western powers, including the United States; while China, who historically has backed North Korea, seems hesitant to back North Korea for fear of hurting it's relations with the United States and other Western countries.

Hopefully, though, I will not live to regret that last paragraph.

For more information about the situation on the Korean pennisula, take a look at some of these links:
'Crisis Status' in South Korea After North Shells Island (NYTimes)
China Faces a Nettlesome Neighbor in N. Korea (NYTimes)
Two Koreas Exchange Fire (China Daily)
China calls for restraint from DPRK and ROK (China Daily)
US and S.Korea to Hold War Games (Al Jazeera English)
World reacts to Korea Clashes (Al Jazeera English)

Sorry for the link overload, but if my classes at NYU taught me nothing else, I did learn that the news source is just as important (or sometimes, even more important) than the news itself. 

Fragrant Hills

The week before last, after midterms were over, I went to Fragrant Hills Park (香山公园) with some friends. This park on the outskirts of Beijing is a popular destination in the fall for many people since it's a great place to see the fall colors.

Unfortunately for us though, the strong winds of the week before had blown most of the leaves off the trees. Nevertheless, it was nice to be out of the city and walking amongst trees instead of buildings for a change.

Since many of the pictures I took of things didn't turn out particularly well this time, here are some pictures of people. For those of you who've been complaining that there are no pictures of me on this blog...here you go. Click to enlarge the image, if you must.

Emilia & I

(Left-right) Me, Stephanie, Christine,
Emilia & Irene

(Left-right, top-bottom) Beichuan, Emilia, Paul, Yandi, Irene,
Christine, me, Arvin

(Left-right) Yandi, Arvin, Beichuan

(Left to right) Emilia, Paul, me, Christine & Irene

(Left-right) Arvin, Beihcuan, Yandi, Paul, me, Christine,
Emilia, Stephanie & Irene

Special Thanks to Yandi Santosa for many of these photos. 

Disclaimer: If I spelled your name wrong in the captions, I'm sincerely sorry. Let me know and I'll make the necessary changes.

Classes & classmates

Looking back at my blog posts to date, I realized I haven't really mentioned much (or really, anything at all) about my classes here at BNU. Seeing as that I came here to study Mandarin, it's high time that I enlighten you about my academic life here, since up until now it's been a bit of a mystery.

From Monday through Friday, I have class everyday. My three classes here are Mandarin intensive reading （精读）, conversation （会话） and listening （听力）, each of which meet three times a week for roughly an hour and half each time. On top of that, I have an additional class on Fridays that basically acts office hours where I can ask my head teacher (my intensive reading teacher), any questions I have concerning class material or Mandarin in general. All in all, it adds up to approximately 18 hours of class a week.

Unlike in the United States where each one of my classes is with different people, here at BNU everyone in my class remains the same except the teacher. The only exception to this is my conversation class, which also includes three students from the 101 (level 2) class.

For the most part, ensuring that our classmates remain the same in every class really helps our learning process. It allows us to become comfortable enough with each other so that when we mistakes it's no big deal. However, on the flip side, there's often a lot of chatter going on during class time since we all know each other pretty well now, and this sometimes can be obnoxious.

Regardless, meeting new people from all around the world is always the best part of studying abroad in an international program, whether it be here in Beijing or in Paris. According to my teacher (and reinforced my my own personal observation), the program here at BNU is overwhelmingly dominated by Korean students, followed closely by Japanese students. However in the last few years, the program has seen an increasing number of students from Indonesia and Thailand.

In my class, half of the students are Indonesian. The rest of us come from Thailand, Sweden, Japan, the UK, Botswana, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, and the US. Despite Koreans making up the majority of BNU's international program, my class only has one student from South Korea. I'm also the only one with an American passport, although Tom, who's English, now calls the United States (North Carolina) home as well.

Now for some photos of my classmates from the classroom and around Beijing:

My class with our listening teacher

(Top-bottom, left-right) Robin, Jessica, Emilia, Tom, Janar

 

(Left-right) Teddy, Janar, O, Jane and I at Hongluo Si

(Left-right) Emilia, me, Christine, and Irene
at Xiangshan

Special thanks to Florensia "Gina" Regina , Jessica Lee and Yandi Santosa for the photos.

Dear Thanksgiving,

I miss you.

So much so that even this would be a worthy replacement:

Thanksgiving Dinner Hot Dog

Alas, the Thanksgiving Hot Dog is also in the United States.

I have a little over a week to figure out what I'm going to do for "Thanksgiving dinner." There's a good chance I'll be at Subway Sandwiches, since that's probably the only (cheap) place I might be able to find turkey in Beijing.

For those of you in the United States, I hope you guys have a good Thanksgiving and make sure to indulge a bit more in all that turkey-potato-stuffing-pie goodness for me.

Rules are merely suggestions

 

 

I think this picture speaks for itself. This isn't even as bad as the guys who stand next to the "No Smoking" signs everyday with their hourly cigarette. I'll see if I can get a picture of it one day for you guys.

Someone is playing...

...Chinese old folk songs really loudly outside of my dorm. I can hear it loud and clear from my room.

Just thought I'd share.

I hope this doesn't become a regular thing. I can deal with the musical "bells" of the high school next door every day & night but not Chinese folk songs on top of that.

Correction: I believe now that the music is actually a guy singing outside of my dorm with a microphone.

Hongluo Temple

Last month's BNU-organized student outing was to Hongluo Temple (红螺寺), located in the outskirts of Beijing's Huairou district at the foot of Hongluo Mountain. It is the largest Buddhist temple in Northern China. Many people like to visit Hongluo Temple in the fall when the leaves turn red, yellow and orange. Unfortunately for us, our excursion was too early in the fall season so many of the leaves were still green.

For more information on Hongluo Temple: http://www.chinatravel.com/beijing/attraction/hongluo-temple/

BNU: Home of the US 2008 Olympic Team

You know what I found out this weekend? BNU's gymnasium was the training center for the United States 2008 Olympic team for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Yes, that means Michael Phelps swam at the same pool I swim in every week, among many other notable Olympian swimmers. Pretty cool, huh?

(This explains why the gym here at BNU is so nice and why they have a long-course--50 meter--pool instead of the normal 25 meter pool.)

Picture courtesy of: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25937455/

For more information about the BNU gym & the 2008 Olympics: http://www.bjreview.com.cn/olympic/txt/2008-07/31/content_137510.htm

Midterms, midterms, midterms

...yep, It's midterm week for me at BNU. Until I'm done with midterms, no new blog posts for you. Sorry.

I'm off to memorize a million (okay...more like a couple hundred) vocab words.

Wish me luck.

If you thought boxed wine was bad...

...meet wine from a can. Or more specifically, "Sparkling Chardonnay" from a can.

 

Note to China: wine shouldn't come from a can.

And no, I didn't taste it. I think my taste buds deserve better than wine from a can.

The Gender Divide

Before coming to China, I never really considered myself a feminist. Sure, I believe that women are equal to men and (for the most part), whatever a man can do, a woman can do just as well. But this hardly qualifies me to declare myself an adamant feminist, at least in my opinion. Instead, I'd say my perspective on is quite the norm for many people living in the 21st century. 

Coming to China, though, has made me re-think how "normal" my perspectives on gender really is. Now before you get the wrong idea, I'm not saying that Chinese people or the people I've met here in Beijing are sexist and don't believe women should be in the workplace because that's not what I'm saying. It's just that here in China, and with many of the people I've met here, there's still a concept of inherently male & female things and activities.

Take smoking, for instance. In the United States, if you're a female smoker, for the most part, you're not treated or viewed differently from a male smoker. Smoking is an equal opportunity activity (to kill yourself). But here in China, where smoking exponentially more common, the majority of smokers are male. I'd say, from my personal observations at BNU, male smokers probably out-number the female smokers 10 to 1, perhaps even more. In addition, while a male smoker elicits no response from passerbys, a female smoker elicits looks of shock, disapproval or disgust (not that I know form personal experience since I do not smoke). As one of my Chinese friends explained to me, males smoking here in China is considered the norm, but a female smoking is considered trashy.

Example #2: At the beginning of my time here in Beijing, I was speaking to one of my (male) classmates, Robin, about what I like to do with my free time and the topic of shopping came up. Robin was shocked to learn that I wasn't particularly fond of shopping and in response said something along the lines of, "Don't all girls love shopping?" Jokingly, I retorted back at him saying, "I bet you like shopping more than I do. You look like the kind of guy that likes to shop." He, in return, was quick to say that he didn't like shopping either and that shopping was a woman's activity.

Example #3: The a week or two ago at lunch, the concept of a housewife came up in conversation. Prior to our lunch, we had our conversation class in which we learned vocabulary concerning our parents' professions and one of the words we learned was the Mandarin term for a housewife (which I've since forgotten). That day at lunch, I said that I didn't want just to be someone's housewife later in life, at which point several of my classmates looked quite surprised. Their shocked looks in return shocked me. Considering it's 2010 and several of my classmates at this particular lunch were (college-educated) females as well, I hardly thought my declaration was in any way surprising. But apparently, it was.

(Disclaimer: It must be noted in the above scenario, something might've been lost in translation or perhaps a housewife is a very respected position in their home countries. I don't know and I don't mean to portray my classmates in a negative light, I'm just telling you about what happened from my personal perspective.)

Now before I get ahead of myself, I am not saying that we've completely erased gender differences in the United States; that's hardly the case. But distinguishing boundary between what belongs in the so-called female sphere versus the male sphere is much more blurry. Sure many girls like shopping in the United States, but so do many guys. Nor is a female smoker considered any different from a male one.

Likewise, chivalry, at least in my experience, is largely a thought of yesteryear in the United States. Perhaps it's just the people I keep company with but from my experience with my male friends, they rarely, if ever, hold the door open for me or offer to help me with my books*. In fact, a while back I commented to one of my friends in the United States that, "You know chivalry is dead when you feel oddly uncomfortable when a guy opens a door for you." However, here in China the idea of chivalry still prevails. It's pretty common to see males carrying their female friend's or girlfriend's books and/or purses for them.

Not that I'm really one to complain about a lack of "chivalry," since I've always been the type of independent person that much rather take care of herself, include matters concerning opening doors and the such. But the fact that I don't expect (nor really feel comfortable with) such gestures is pretty indicative just blurred or perhaps almost completely nonexistent traditional gender roles are in the United States.

Of course, I don't mean to say that the American concept of gender roles (or lack thereof) is any more correct or better than the more traditional concepts of gender here in China. Personally, I'm more accustomed and prefer the American perspective on gender and gender equality, but since I was raised in the United States, that's hardly surprising. However, I also realize that there are many people who prefer maintaining the more traditional roles intact. Neither of us are wrong for the most part, it's just different and learning to accept the differences in culture is half the battle when you're living abroad.

So on that note, I'm going to end this very long, slightly rambling blog. Enjoy the photo below.

*To my male friends back at home: don't take that statement as poor reflection on yourselves. I like our friendships the way they are. 

Retirees relaxing and flying kites at Ritan Park. Notice none of the retirees are female.

Don't they look so happy?

Victory of the day:

being able to hold conversations completely in Mandarin with two train ticket agents, and two front desk people  in Mandarin without any of them giving me "What-is-this-crazy-girl-saying-to-me" looks.

And on top of that, today I also called a travel agent to ask her if she could help me book my winter break travels. We actually spoke on the phone for a good two minutes at least and we were able to communicate pretty well. Considering the fact that face-to-face communication in itself can sometimes be tricky with my terrible Mandarin, this phone conversation is pretty impressive. Not to mention the fact that I hate telephones & calling people in general, even if the person I'm calling speaks English.

Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of myself right now.

Now for a completely unrelated photograph from the Wangfujing Night Market:

Old Gold Mountain

Do you know what they call San Francisco in Mandarin Chinese? 旧金山(Jiù jīn shān).

Literally translated, it means "Old Gold Mountain". I'm serious. It hails back to the California Gold Rush of 1849, when many Chinese people sailed to California in hopes of striking it rich.

I had no idea that people still referred to San Francisco as "Old Gold Mountain" until I came to China. But they still do, go figure.

If you wondering why this is the first time I've heard the term 旧金山 , it's because in (Hong Kong) Cantonese we call San Francisco 三藩市 (Sān fán shì), which is  a phonetic translation of the city name, San Francisco. If you hear the word for San Francisco in Hong Kong Cantonese, it's obvious that the term was phonetically derived from the city name itself. Literally translated, the characters have no relation to each other at all. 

 

P.S. Yes, these are my own pictures.

Tears of Joy.

That's right, THE GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES!! Finally, SF has a world series title to call their own.

Sadly though, I had class this morning so I couldn't follow the game online, although I was sorely tempted to skip. Upon returning to my room though and finding out, I'll admit I shed a few tears of joy.

Who would've thought  at the beginning of this year that the Giants would go all the way? Not many. Regardless, that's the beauty of sports. So go ahead and celebrate San Francisco, it's definitely long-over due. I'd give anything to be there now myself.

But since I can't, I'll celebrate here on my own in Beijing (where no one I've met follows baseball).

PS. For those of you who couldn't care less about baseball, you'll be happy know that the World Series marks the end of the baseball season in the United States. After today, there shouldn't be any more baseball-related posts. Well..at least maybe not until the spring agian.

So long Giants! Amazing job this year and we'll see you again in 2011!