Shanxi

I'm back in Beijing. I have been since Saturday, but I haven't found time to write about anything until now, sitting in the fishbowl, which is the only room in SYA where students can eat, among my fellow students, who are either eating, doing homework, or yelling stuff at their laptops. I guess I'll talk about my trip now.

On Sunday morning at 8:30 AM, SYA students met up at Erfuzhong and got on a bus to the train station. We were handed our tickets, and we received ominous lectures and stories about students who lost their tickets and held the group behind, which proved to be effective as we loaded into the station without a problem. Me and a couple of other students watched a mound of bags while everyone else went to get food, and then we piled onto the train. The train ride took 7 hours. It was a lot like the plane ride to Beijing in that it seemed to take about a year, but in the end it was still an entertaining, bonding-ish experience. After we got off the train, we headed towards our hotel and had dinner at the hotel restaurant. After dinner, all students were free to frolick around the city of Datong, but many of us just stayed in a room and talked and (I think) bonded. Curfew was at 10 PM every night.

On Monday, we got in our uniforms and headed to Datong High School, which is a school attached to Beijing Normal University. We were to spend a day with the high school students. The students greeted us with so much excitement. It was quite adorable. I was put in a group with two of my fellow students and three Chinese students who at first said "this is so awkward" in Chinese, but in a half hour were linking arms with us. I gave autographs to about seven middle schoolers, and we watched the basketball game where SYA played Datong. It was a tragic loss of 3 points for SYA. Afterwards, the small groups of 3 SYA students were led to their homerooms, and in our homeroom, our group stood in front of the classroom and sang "I'm Yours" and "What Makes You Beautiful," and we received flowers from our adoring Chinese fans. I sang "What Makes You Beautiful" once again during the talent show, in which both SYA and Datong students performed. After we said our goodbyes with the students, we went back to the hotel and ate dinner again.

The next day, we went to an inactive coal mine converted into a museum. It was a fairly realistic experience, as we had to put on a helmets, rain boots, and entire jean on jean outfit that was about 10 sizes too large, and we had to make a 100000 stair descent and ascent down a freezing--literally, there was ice on the steps--cold tunnel in order to get into the mine. After the mine, we were all exhausted and hungry and hoarded this place that sold food. Then we went to see gigantic buddhas carved into rock walls. Here are some gigantic buddhas:

It was a pretty spectacular sight, as you might imagine. Those guys have been around for awhile. Not exactly sure how long, though. I kinda forgot what the tour guide said... but it's been awhile since they got there. 

We took a 6 hour road trip to another city. On the way, we stopped by the hanging monastery:

Another amazing sight. Except for the fact that it was 3.5 times colder than the coldest place I've ever been. The wind was unreal, not just for the Californians and Hawaiians, but for all of the east coasters too. Not to say that people from the east coast are immune to cold weather. The point is, IT WAS COLD. Then we hit the road and after about six hours of listening to music, playing would you rather, and sleeping, we arrived at Pingyao, another city in Shanxi. The hotel we lived was probably the most Chinese place I've ever been. This was the outside of our rooms:

The inside had bathrooms where the showerhead was between the sink and the toilet, and the beds were wood with a couple inch-thick mattress pad. It was actually a fun experience, and humbling too. I'll be looking forward to sleeping on my memory foam bed in the states and remembering the bruises that some people got from sleeping in the hotel rooms in Pingyao. We spent a good portion of time in Pingyao shopping and bargaining with sellers. I bought a bust of Mao Zedong and a bronze sculpture of Buddha. 

Our last night of our six day long trip was spent in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi. After settling in our rooms, Ms. Turner had the APES students do a lab involving blowing bubbles. Chinese people surrounded us, taking pictures of us blowing bubbles and chasing them around. Afterwards, a few students and I went out to eat dinner at a not so Chinese restaurant, Papa Johns. Having a real piece of pizza was quite heavenly. I also bought a pair of pants at a not so Chinese clothing store, H&M. Not to worry, though rest of the night was fairly Chinese, as we went to the night market to bargain. Lily, Jing, Nadia, and I bought these ridiculous long-sleeved shirts that said "CoCo" in the front and all down the sleeves. Many people stopped and pointed at us, being waiguoren and all. We don't get a lot of that in Beijing, since there are a lot of waiguoren living in the capital of China, so that was fun.

Our trip home took three hours, because instead of taking the regular old train, we took the bullet train. We really ought to have some of those in the US, because they are quite convenient. It was nice to be home, even though I dreaded going back to school, because I missed my mom. She let me sleep as soon as I got home, which I was quite good at, because I slept for 2 hours on Saturday, and 4 on Sunday.

Despite the freezing weather, it was a fantastic trip. For future SYA students who are reading this, and maybe having a tough time with the mid 2nd quarter academics, just know that this trip will make up for school. I do think that a lot of people got closer and new friendships were formed because of this trip, and I'm looking forward to the next 16 day trip to the Yunnan province in February.

Changes

My hair is the shortest it's been in six years. That's right, I decided to cut my long, beautiful, flowing hair. I should actually describe it as hay, because that's how dry and yellow it was after bleaching it. This is something I would have never done in the states, because the last time I cut my hair this short was in fourth grade, and I vowed to myself that I would never do it again. Here's a picture of the result of the bravest risk I've ever taken because I know you're all dying to see it:

I broke my promise with my 10 year old self only because I have really stopped caring about my appearance in this country. Something about wearing a shapeless tracksuit almost every single day of the week does that to you.

Before I cut my hair, I found a place to develop the film that has been sitting in my camera for about two and a half months. Just another comment about how much I love this country: It costs 40 kuai, or $6.66 to develop 24 pictures, whereas in the states it costs twice as much. Expect to see some film pictures on my photo blog!

The APEC (asia pacific economic cooperation) conference is today. Well, I think it's today, because we don't have school because of it. I'm not sure exactly sure why, but I'm not complaining, because I know that the US would never ever cancel school because of a government event. Anyway, because of the conference, China wants to make their capital look appealing, so it made people leave the country and stop driving and turned off the factories in order to get this result:

That's right, it's a blue sky with REAL clouds! Why would Beijing clear its skies for some dumb conference? you might ask. Well, I'll have you know it's probably cause the guest list includes Barack Obama, and you wouldn't want Obama to be talkin smack about your smoggy capital in your superpower country. Well, that's what I think. SYA won't be seeing much of Obama, though, because we will be leaving for a week long trip on Sunday to the Shaanxi province. We will do some things. Like visit the hanging monastery and go into an inactive coal mine. All the while carrying one bag for an entire week. It should be quite an experience, and I'm actually looking forward to it. Don't expect any posts or pictures until I get back, because we ARE NOT ALLOWED to bring our computers.

A couple Saturdays ago, I went to the silk market and bargained for the first time. I bought a light down "North Face" jacket for 300 kuai when it was originally 1150 kuai. 300 is not very impressive, but I took the deal because I had a lot of adrenaline because Angela, the sales woman, was getting me riled up. I shot for 150 kuai and she kept saying "Give me SERIOUSLY price!" The combination between her bad grammar and outrage made me give up at 300, even though I could have brought it down lower. I'm going back today with some friends to get a heavier coat, so we'll see how that goes.

The convenience of living here is something I'll miss going back to the states. When I'm done with homework, my weekends consist of going out basically whenever I want within curfew. When I go to dinner with friends, I never really end up spending more than the equivalent of $7. I can take a bus to the subway stop (.4 kuai), get on the subway (2 kuai), get off the subway (2 kuai), get dinner (30 kuai), and the same way back. Public transportation needs to spread more in the states, because not only will it save people a ton of money, but it will also be much more environmentally efficient. I won't go into an APES lecture but that's just my little blurb about that.

One of the places that I like to go on weekends are the hutongs. Hutongs are these alleyways that are filled with restaurants, clothing and convenience stores, bars, and other random stores. A more modern hutong has many restaurants with foods from a bunch of different ethnicities, ranging from Greek to Italian to American to Indian. In the same hutong, there are cat-themed pottery places, restaurants, cafes, and bars, where you will see cats randomly walking around the place or sitting on the tables. At an older hutong, there are a bunch of chinese restaurants lined up, one after the other. Last weekend, Miles, Lily, Nadia and I went to a restaurant where we could cook our own food on a metal pan which was heated up by hot coals. Lily had overheard a group of waiguoren making a language pledge to only speak Chinese, so we decided that for the rest of the night, we would only speak Chinese too. We lasted an impressive 2 hours!

It's almost unsettling to think that nine weeks have already gone by. One fourth of this insane trip is over. The semester students will be going home in less than seven weeks, and our group will be reduced to around 35 students. Hopefully some of the semester students decide to stay because it'll be hard to say goodbye.

By the way, check out SYA China's campus photographer page on flickr and see some of my pictures there!