Bob Schnieder you really cut to the core of me. I'm up late preparing a powerpoint for the class discussion I volunteered to lead in one of my english-speaking classes tomorrow. It's amazing how a room anywhere in the world feels like Rice when you're up past midnight studying. Culture shock indeed. Upon noticing that it had been a whole week since my last post, and seeing as I leave for the mountains on Thursday and will be gone all weekend, I wanted to write something before I get too busy. Mainly I enjoy bragging, and I feel good right now.
I have one day with nine hours of classes left, and then we leave for the mountains of northern Shanxi province, which involves starting at 7:45 a.m. for a day of riding a bus, a train, and then another less comofortable bus. Lunch will not be served. We visit an unpaved section of the Great Wall, and arrive in a small village and spend the night. Friday we take a short 6 mile hike south to the other side of the mountain chain, into Hebei province, to reach a small guesthouse for cold showers. Possible visit to a hot spring with a brothel built on the second floor. Don't worry, I'll wear a shower cap. Saturday we have classes and sucker an unsuspecting driver into taking us to an almost undiscovered Buddhist temple, on a road which has snared every other vehicle which used it, requiring the passengers to get out and push. Also, Happy Yom Kippur. Sunday we spend all day getting back to school. So really too many experiences to make sense of them all at once, but the main thing is people are pretty much the same everywhere: crazy. Still wrapping my head around what it means to be one of 1.4 Billion, in a nation where the government is seen as the natural solver of problems ( as opposed to individual or community action). Also a HUGE generation gap, as those over 50 here lived through the Mao era, but those my age were born after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
Had my first Beijing nightclub experience, and it was everything I thought it could be. Sweet dance moves are clearly an international language. We got a spot on stage, and proceeded to tear the club up. Home before dawn. Before theis club visit of course, we spent the day climbing the Great Wall, absolutely beautiful, absolutely impressive, mountains behind mountains behind mountains, with this thin ribbon of stone that took hundreds of years and thousands of lives, thrusting from the top Also filled with bodies of those who died building it. It was less crowded than it might have been. Only takes a half hour walking uphill to reach it. The best view was just past the Off-Limits signs. So overall my life is entirely too good right now.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Excitable Boy
There's a body of research on what happens to travelers as they experience culture shock, and like mourning, it's divided into several clear phases. The first is euphoria, followed by frustration or depression, then gradual adjustment, then bi-culturalism, feeling at home in this place. I am still pretty solidly in the first phase, and if you read on, I think it will be pretty clear I ought to be.
My flight was late, and spent a little extra time hanging out on the tarmac after we landed, so I missed the group transport to campus, and instead finangled a bus ticket, in Chinese, to take me within half a mile, then took a brisk evening walk with one hundred pounds of baggage. Awesome. I missed the group meal, but fortunately a couple guys drinking 20 cent beer in their room were kind enough to invite me in for a liquid dinner. They had just completed one month of teaching english in Yunan, and are in the same program I am. The night passed easily. In fact, just about everyone in this program is good company of various types.
Classes start in two days, we got our first homework tonight. That should give you some idea of the rigor of the program. Tough, but at least my Chinese should improve meteorically. The professors seem, without exception, phenomenal - calmly and unquestionably experts in their fields. Am also planning to do extracurricular classes in martial arts and chinese cooking, plus weekend trips to include the Great Wall and three days in the backcountry, sleeping with local families and hiking the mountains. Pretty optimistic about maintaining this euphoria for a little while. We visited a rebuilt Hutong this afternoon, and although the main road was converted into a tourist shopping strip, there were some pretty impressive old homes down the side streets, including that of the wife of the last Qing emperor. Kind of cool for an afternoon walk.
Before I start classes though, I have this weekend to get through. In what is quickly becoming my favorite tradition, I was dragged from bed on my birthday by pounding on my door, and after swapping my favorite silk pajamas for basketball shorts and a shirt, a dozen of us went out to the best little bar in Beijing. 3 RMB (40 cents) for a glass of beer on tap. Street food for pennies on the way back. Good preperation for tonight.
I realize I'm gushing, but I'm still pretty enamored with this behemoth of a city. And if anyone wants to follow my account, I'll try and update about once every other week, but probably more often at first while I'm in awe of Beijing, and convinced anyone's dying to hear about it.
Peace,
Tom
My flight was late, and spent a little extra time hanging out on the tarmac after we landed, so I missed the group transport to campus, and instead finangled a bus ticket, in Chinese, to take me within half a mile, then took a brisk evening walk with one hundred pounds of baggage. Awesome. I missed the group meal, but fortunately a couple guys drinking 20 cent beer in their room were kind enough to invite me in for a liquid dinner. They had just completed one month of teaching english in Yunan, and are in the same program I am. The night passed easily. In fact, just about everyone in this program is good company of various types.
Classes start in two days, we got our first homework tonight. That should give you some idea of the rigor of the program. Tough, but at least my Chinese should improve meteorically. The professors seem, without exception, phenomenal - calmly and unquestionably experts in their fields. Am also planning to do extracurricular classes in martial arts and chinese cooking, plus weekend trips to include the Great Wall and three days in the backcountry, sleeping with local families and hiking the mountains. Pretty optimistic about maintaining this euphoria for a little while. We visited a rebuilt Hutong this afternoon, and although the main road was converted into a tourist shopping strip, there were some pretty impressive old homes down the side streets, including that of the wife of the last Qing emperor. Kind of cool for an afternoon walk.
Before I start classes though, I have this weekend to get through. In what is quickly becoming my favorite tradition, I was dragged from bed on my birthday by pounding on my door, and after swapping my favorite silk pajamas for basketball shorts and a shirt, a dozen of us went out to the best little bar in Beijing. 3 RMB (40 cents) for a glass of beer on tap. Street food for pennies on the way back. Good preperation for tonight.
I realize I'm gushing, but I'm still pretty enamored with this behemoth of a city. And if anyone wants to follow my account, I'll try and update about once every other week, but probably more often at first while I'm in awe of Beijing, and convinced anyone's dying to hear about it.
Peace,
Tom
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