我终于有照片！

Guys this is so great! The internet is letting me put up pictures again. I heard the internet is always patchy here in October...why that is whoooooo knows. These pictures are in backwards order, so if you want to match them with earlier posts about my adventures in these various places, think reverse chronological order. The first two pictures are from our trip to Xi'an.

What is this building? It is the not-so-secret headquarters of an evil alien empire who is planning to take over the earth by brainwashing the Chinese and then using them as it's earth-destroying tools. Okay actually it is outside of a beautiful Buddhist temple, and one teacher told us that the relics that are currently in the temple will eventually go in this building, and it is supposed to be two praying hands. Seriously though...I don't know. It is huge.


These are the world-famous terracotta warriors. You should look at the picture in close up because they have different faces. I really liked the building they were in. It was built over them, it is massive and it has a huge arched ceiling. This is the kind of tourist place you have to go to, but then you are afraid it won't be that good because you've already seen lots of pictures, but then you are blown away by the hugeness of it and the history of it. It really gets your imagination going to think about what sort of person would want this stuff with him when he dies and what sort of society you'd have to have to actually achieve it. What the heck? was a question I asked a lot in Xi'an.


This is me doing a cartwheel on the beach in Qingdao. Please don't look at this one up close, I'm sure it's awful, I haven't even looked at it up close. But I loved Qingdao. This cartwheel is a cartwheel of pure joy.


This is from our trip to the "countryside" outside of Beijing. It was pretty awesome, because we got to see all of these old pagodas, and climb a mountain that was not too intense, and sleep in hotel add-ons to people's houses. I forgot what I wrote about the countryside before, so we can all go look at it when we are done writing/reading this.

This is the now world-famous 鸟巢，Niaochao，Bird's Nest. During the Paralympics (a while ago), I went with some friends to see 7-on-7 soccer. It was a lot of fun and I got to see Olympic Park. If you look really closely they still have the flame going up on top. Sorry about the fence, but we didn't go any closer.

Well all of this pictures are from a long time ago, so a quick update on how I am now: just fine. Getting weirded out that there are only three weeks of this semester left. Most of my friends here are leaving, so I have to start over with that in January. The trip to Huangshan Mountain was less than ideal--it rained the whole time and I got sick. But I did talk to an old guy in a store about his cat for twenty minutes. So it was worth it.

Enjoy, and now that pictures are working I should be able to share more more often, working my way up to the present.

P.S. Title of the post is "I finally have pictures!"

Halloween Wandering

Today I took my weekly Friday test, which I felt went pretty well.

Then I started filming a movie with two other students--it is homework--we had to write it, plan it, and then act in it. Thanks to Jake for giving me some experience with this sort of thing. I made a lovely stickfigure storyboard, and bossed everybody around, and it was really fun. I think our teachers are going to put the movies on Youtube. If so, you will be able to see it but not understand it because it is all in Chinese.

After that, we had our Friday lunch, which is when students go out to lunch with teachers and our program pays for it. I really like this experience because there are usually eleven or so of us, so we order eleven dishes, and then we all share.

Then the weather was great again, so I went to my favorite park, and went back to explore Russiantown a little more. Russian town was cool because all the people trying to sell things spoke Russian to me, also every other store was a fur store, which was cool and scary. Also some people looked really tough. I would not want to cross them.

I bought a hat and scarf for the winter for about a dollar fifty US each. Tonight I am going to have dinner with my Chinese family, then go to our school's Halloween party. I plan to dress up in black and red with fake red eyelashes, I guess it will be a little devilish?

I don't think I am going to make it to nine posts because I really have nothing else to say today.

Seven is pretty close though.

想家

The title is, xiang jia, or homesick, approximately. I remembered this is the thing I wanted to tell you all right as I signed my name, but I cheated and decided to put it here. It is very hard to say what homesick means. It doesn't mean I want to go home, exactly. It doesn't mean I regret coming here in any way. In part it means that when I love the weather, I want to share it with people that I love. In part it means that after about two months of getting adjusted, I finally had time to realize how far away I was. I think in Pittsburgh I go to Ohio every two months or so, so maybe it has something to do with that. But what happened this week is that I started to miss everyone, and rivers, and trees, and hills, and corn, and food, and even maybe reading hard articles and writing long essays, and everything I love from home all at once. So I wanted to tell you because if you are reading this I probably thought of you. And I miss you.

OHctober, I will miss you.

Well I am a little disappointed in myself because tomorrow is the 31st and I will not have 9 posts unless I am very silly today and tomorrow. I haven't decided yet whether or not to go for it. We will wait and see.

The weather here was beautiful all month except for a few overcast pollution-y days. I heard Pittsburgh has been really cold, so I guess that means Ohio too maybe? I spent lots of time outside, going to parks, walking, studying in too-expensive cafes, etc.

You might like to know whether or not I will celebrate Halloween. The answer is yes. I have not had much time to think of a costume so right now it is a black dress and red tights. I did buy fake red eyelashes though. We are having a party with our school at the gym most of us are members of. it is a pretty cushy place so it might be okay. It might just be really awkward. It is weird to go into grocery stores and not see candy and decorations everywhere. I went to a foreign grocery store in the embassy district to buy my eyelashes and a halloween-themed present for my Chinese host family, who I am visiting for dinner tomorrow before our Halloween party.

Also, Molly! the foreign grocery store is on a street with lots of Russian restaurants, I guess it is sort of a Russiatown? Today two women asked me if I was Russian.

Also, it was Jake's birthday this past Tuesday. Happy Birthday Jake! I am jealous of your having a birthday in my favorite month, but I guess since I can celebrate it with you that is okay.

I am nervous because I am writing the first draft of my research paper this weekend, and excited because on Wednesday morning we are leaving for Huang Shan （黄山) 。Check out the pictures, because I don't know if I will be able to post any. Goals for this weekend include researching other picture posting options.

I had one last thing to say but now I forget it. At least I know if I want to post again, it will only bring me one step closer to my goal of 9 posts by tomorrow at midnight!

Love,
Jen

Midterms!

So it's midterms week, which is pretty stressful. I probably should not be writing you all. But I have my October quota, also this is a nice break from studying.

This past weekend I went to the Mu-seum of NATURAL HISTORY! (that is for my dad, from that dinosaur movie-We're Back!) It cost about a dollar fifty and was pretty fun--they had formaldehyded sea creatures and amphibians, taxidermied mammals, and pinned up insects, some unbelievably large. I am glad I don't live in a place with unbelievably large beetles. All the signs were in Chinese, but they had English titles. Also, it was for kids, so the Chinese was sort of simple, which meant I could understand some of it. The English titles were also fun--translations here are often sub-par, which means hilarious. "An animal protecting starts within each of us."

Also, there was an eight year old girl there giving speeches like she was a tour guide--it looked like maybe a school assignment because there was an adult there taking notes? She just talked and talked so professionally for a few minutes at each "stop" on her tour, and she didn't seem to be the least bit nervous.

After the museum we went to a huge park nearby with a rose garden and Tiantan Temple, where the emperor used to go to pray for good harvests.

Things I like in China: Visiting my donut friend, eating a Korean dish called Bibimbap, yoga, parks, translations, spicy food, small restaurants, using Chinese to talk to storekeepers, roses everywhere, fall weather, street cart food, the fact that my Chinese is actually getting better.

Things I am starting to not like: classes being the same every day, missing American food and friends, forgetting tones, forgetting words, trying to remember everything, not knowing what people are talking about half of the time, only being able to say really simple sentences and ideas because my Chinese is not good enough for more complicated ones.

Think of the above as descriptive more than complaints.

P.S.

I noticed today I had 9 entries for August and September, so I've got some catching up to do now that it's halfway through October and I only have 2. Also, I am getting more used to studying and life here, so I can take a break every now and again to write you all. So check back for more good times and long sentences from Beijing!

In Xi'an

Pictures still are not working :( I guess when I come back to the US I will just upload all 1,000 plus of them to Flick'r or something and you can look at them when you have more important things to do that you don't want to do.

It's been a crazy few weeks, first Qingdao, then two days back in Beijing, then Xi'an for a week. Xi'an is in the middle of China approximately. Xi'an was the capital of China during different times in its history, but most famously (as far as I can tell) during the Tang Dynasty. You could probably say the Tang Dynasty (around 700AD) was China's heyday--a lot of what we (Americans) think of when we think of Chinese art, silk, poetry, architecture, etc, is from around that time.

Xi'an has ridiculously beautiful parks with pagodas (I especially liked the Small Wild Goose Pagoda, or 大雁塔). The old city walls are still standing and you can walk or bike around the top of them (imagine the Great Wall sort of only in a square shape around a much smaller area). Also, in part because of it's location on the Silk Road, Xi'an has a largeish Muslim population and a Muslim Quarter. We found a restaurant where they seemed genuinely afraid we would only speak English (It was a little out of the way from the tourist areas) and ordered a spicy noodle bread lamb or mutton (it is all sheep in Chinese) soup thanks to our Lonely Planet guidebook, which has pinyin with tones (Chinese romanization), Chinese characters, and English descriptions of food, so you can say anything and say it about right.

There are many famous sites outside of Xi'an, archaeological sites, temples, and a hot springs bath resort (I think it was used as long ago as the Tang Dynasty, if not earlier). The most famous site by far is the Terracotta Warriors--thousands of soldiers and other objects arranged perfectly to protect the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, or 秦始皇 in the afterlife. I saw some of these at the Dayton Art Museum in a travelling exhibit as a young Jen, but it was pretty amazing to see them all in their original habitat.

We also saw a beautiful Buddhist Temple, Famen Temple, known for holding four of the Buddha's fingers, among other things. The temple still has an active monastery with around 300 monks. I can't describe how peaceful the atmosphere was, or how beautiful the gardens were. In particular, I liked their huge vegetable garden, bordered by persimmons, and their cute, if shy, cats. At the hot springs I soaked my feet for 3 dollars, 20 minutes, which was probably still too much, and saw a neon light up picture of magma so I could learn about how the hot springs worked.

The countryside around Xi'an is very fertile, so agriculture is huge. I don't know why, but since I always pictured China as very industrial in my mind, I assumed agriculture would be more industrialized too, sort of like Ohio with giant tractors clogging up the roads. Instead, I saw mostly "manpower"--people's rooftops were covered with bright yellow drying corn, and the front yards were filled with cornstalks. I saw people shucking corn in their front yards, and putting it into carts in the fields. Also! They grow pomegranates, and people sell them at most of the tourist sites. Pomegranates are really tasty and really annoying to eat. In class, almost every new grammatical structure we learn has an example sentence that refers to China's economic development. I have definitely seen that development, but it comes in so many different forms, from giant upscale malls with genuine European designers and prices higher than the US, to fakes markets, to small temporary booths, to individual sellers on the streets. I could get my bike or my shoes fixed on a street corner for fifty cents, or buy a BMW down the street for I don't even know how many tens of thousands of dollars. A cup of coffee in a coffeeshop costs almost twice as much as a huge meal in a standard restaurant.

Bottom line: China is really interesting and I'm glad I'm here.

Qingdao Tsingtao

Pictures haven't been working lately, so I'm going to take a break from them and just write. I spent the weekend with four friends in Qingdao, a city on the Pacific Ocean, about 6 hours by a fast train and 10 hours or so by bus from Beijing. It is famous for producing Tsingtao Beer and for its history as a German port city (yes, the two are related). Tsingtao is an old romanization of the city's name, like Peking instead of Beijing I really wish I could send you pictures.

We went to Qingdao for a few reasons--it's not far, it's pretty, and they were having an international beer festival. Aside from some trouble getting tickets on the way back (we eventually did), the weekend was pretty great. First of all, it has always been my dream to travel by train (a fairly simple one, and now realized!). It was just as I had hoped it would be--cheap, a good view, and very comfortable. We stayed in a youth hostel that was located in an old observatory (hint hint Jake and Billy--the future?), with a restaurant/bar on the roof patio, and very nice conditions. We met a Slovenian guy and his Korean girlfriend on the roof. The guy had been a Chinese major in college and now works in business in Beijing--he was very "cool" in a cool kids kind of way and gave us the downlow on how to get work in Beijing. I think it would be a pretty sweet job to own and operate a youth hostel. There were people there from all over the world as well as Chinese people. Imagine the conversations you would get to have every day.

Speaking of conversations, my Chinese is getting better to the point that I'm not afraid to talk to people anymore, which is really important when traveling in a new city. Also, even though the staff at the hostel could speak English, once we used Chinese to speak to them they used Chinese to speak to us. They assumed we knew what they were saying, and for the most part we did!

While exploring Qingdao I had my first experience with bargaining (I am not so great at it), ate fried scorpions (two because the first one was pretty tasty and my friend bought a bag of 15), ate lots of fresh seafood, went to a great park with a hill where you could see all of the German, traditional Chinese, and modern architecture, and of course, the beer festival. At the beer festival a group of Chinese people cleared a table for us, and proceeded to give us free beer, chicken necks, regular chicken kebabs, and bread, and we all took pictures and hooted and hollered and had a good time. The most common things shouted were "China Welcomes You, Qingdao Welcomes You, and Best Friends, Best Friends."

The beaches were nice, peaceful, the water was warm, lots of wedding pictures were being taken, and my favorite thing was a 3km walking path along the beaches that had willow trees and occasional snack stands.

We came back on an overnight bus and arrived at Beijing around 5 Monday morning. Now, Tuesday evening, we are heading out at 7:30 on an overnight bus to Xi'an. That means, next week I'll have stories about the world famous terracotta warriors and more, because Xi'an has a long long important history. One of my teachers has a friend who is a history teacher there, and I think she invited me to go with her when they meet up. I hope so!