Brian's China Journal

Old Beijing Blog

2006-01-13T16:05:00.000-05:00

I hacked together an old blog page a few years ago to publish my experience studying Chinese in Beijing. I just finished moving all the entries over to blogger. (I used the Atom API, a perl script, and multiple calls to wget). Maybe a new crowd will find these entries and think they are interesting.

Good luck to anyone wanting to studying Chinese in Beijing. It was a great experience.

Here I am. Outside of Beijing. In Tokyo...

2003-12-09T12:00:00.003-05:00

Here I am. Outside of Beijing. In Tokyo right now. For anyone who has been in the Narita airport waiting a five hour layover, you should know where I am right now. I'm in the free Yahoo Internet cafe. There are probably 100 laptop computers in here. All I have to do is let them scan my passport. I wonder what Yahoo is going to do with my passport.

I have another picture flying over Mount Fuji. This one is much better. I like that my trip begins with a picture of Mount Fuji, and ends with another one. Now I just have to make sure I take no more new pictures.

It's sad leaving Beijing. I'm going to miss a lot of people. Fortunately, when I come back in February many of them will still be there. I'm also happy to be going home. It's a feal mix of emotions.

Last day in Beijing! I turned in my application,...

2003-12-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Last day in Beijing! I turned in my application, but of course I forgot the copy of my diploma and passport. Stupid me. Fortunately it didn't matter. They already have an old application on file, so I guess it wasn't important.

Next, I had lunch with Jane from my class. It was really nice. We talked a lot in Chinese. Her Chinese is much better than mine, but she speaks slowly and knows the same words I do. After talking to her, I felt like I really have improved since being here for three months. After lunch, we checked out a couple of stores for x-mas gifts, and then took a look at this private Korean school that teaches Chinese. It cost half as much as the BLCU, which in turn is about half as much as Worldlink charges. But the price isn't really the issue. The issue is that if I move to the B class next semester, then I will spend the first month reviewing 8 chapters we already went over in my A+ class. And I really don't think I am good enough to move to the B+ class. Maybe I could handle the grammar and characters, but my listening is way behind. Another reason is that I'm already very familiar with the teaching style of our book, and I know what to expect at ever new lesson. At a new school, it would all be new. Maybe better, maybe worse, but at least it will be new. So I think I will come to Beijing a few days early to check out the other school, before the BLCU starts and I have to pay the tuition.

Next, I did some x-mas shopping. I got a few more gifts. Some were gifts for people in China, and some were for people back home.

Finally, Nadine and I together had a joint fairwell dinner. Although many people have already left, a lot of people are still around a came to our dinner. It was a nice time. Unfortunately, my stomach didn't completely agree. I guess that is appropriate for a last meal in China though...

So many things to do. I only have a...

2003-12-07T12:00:00.001-05:00

So many things to do. I only have a couple days left. Mainly I just need to pack, buy some gifts, and turn in my application for study next semester. Instead, today I added all the photos to my website, and collected all the photos I could find from friends at Worldlink and also added them. Which is also an important thing to do. I've put a lot of work into this website. There are over 500 pictures. I think I'm really going to enjoy looking back at this. Well certainly that would be true if me coming to Beijing was really a once in a life time experience. But I hope it isn't. I want to have more experiences like this. That's why I'm coming back. So maybe that makes this experience a little less special and unique in my mind, but really that's not at all the point. Even after the specialness and uniqueness of Beijing wore off, I still really enjoyed myself.

Went to the Pearl Market to try and buy some...

2003-12-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

Went to the Pearl Market to try and buy some gifts. Most stuff just feels kind of crappy. And I really don't know what to get people or if I will have room to bring it back in my suitcase. I did buy a few things, but I'll still have to do most of my x-mas shopping back in the US. The market was interesting. Pretty touristy, but I still liked walking around and looking at all the stuff and all the people trying to sell me stuff.

Went to Propaganda tonight. It wasn't as much fun as Mix last night. It's a much smaller club near the campus. Seemingly there are lots of people to dance with, but it just wasn't that kind of night. We did have a lot of drinks and then stubbled home making lots of noise.

Geeze I cannot rememeber what I've been doing lately. ...

2003-12-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

Geeze I cannot rememeber what I've been doing lately. I think since I haven't been having class, I've been staying out late, and maybe it's hurting my memory. I also have a lot of other things on my mind right now, packing, gifts, shopping, getting my application in order for next semester.

Today I do remember that I went out to Mix. It's really crowded on Friday night. I had a great time. I think everyone had a good time that night.

Oh right. Today was the real last day of...

2003-12-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

Oh right. Today was the real last day of class. We haven't done anything this last week. We've been watching movies in listening class, and just talking with the teacher in the grammar class. She's been telling us what China is like. What it was like in 1960. What it is like for the people in the country side. The kinds of jobs people have. How much money they make. Apparently a bus driver is a really good job. Certainly my experience in Beijing isn't a typical Chinese persons experience, but of course I knew that. I wish I understood more of what my teacher was saying. I only understood about half.

I had a little panic today, because I thought for a second I had to move out of my room today. I'm no where near ready. I haven't even opened my suitcases yet. I was planning to maybe move to the Xi Jiao hotel for a couple of days. Especially since Worldlink wants me to pay $35 a night for the room I'm in. The room should only cost $15. I ended up getting it for $15. So now I can procrastinate on packing for that much longer.

Had a good bye lunch and dinner for a few people who just finished their 12 week program. My 12 week program is also finished, but I had planned earlier to stay a few days afterwards, so I leave on Tuesday. I'm feeling anxious. I'm looking forward to being home again for a while. Sleep in a soft bed again. Eat something besides Chinese food.

Last day of class today. In the evening our...

2003-12-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

Last day of class today. In the evening our class had a fairwell dinner. Not everyone came, but it was still fun. The best food I've had on campus. I got a certificate and a transcript that showed all my final scores. I got a 64 on listening. I just bairly passed. But in my mind I still failed.

I feel bad that as ban zhong (class president) I didn't organize a better gift for our teacher. One guy meantioned the idea to me like 2 hours before the dinner. We went and got flowers, but he only wanted to spend 10 kaui on flowers. We only got her a single rose. It looked really cheap. She's a better teacher than that. I wish I had thought to get her a better gift earlier, and got some of the girls from the class in on the idea.

After that dinner, I went to a music event at the Sculpting in Time cafe. Some people, namely Nadine, organized an amateur music performance. Everyone donated money, which went to the orphanage we visited a couple of weeks ago. It was a really big turnout. Maybe 100 people from Worldlink and friends showed up. Afterwards we had some drinks at propaganda.

I didn't go to class today, so I don't know...

2003-12-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

I didn't go to class today, so I don't know how I did on my listening test. I hear that I actually passed though. I don't understand how. I shouldn't have passed. I really had no idea what was going on. I don't feel good about passing.

In the afternoon I went out to buy a down jacket. I ended up buying one that cost more than an entire weeks worth of food and beer. It cost 418 kuai or about $50 US. Afterwards, we went to a nice cafe on the second floor of a building and hung out there for many hours. We were mezmerized by the large intersection below. So many people were seemingly almost killed. At some times it was really scary to watch.

Went to class today and got my first test result....

2003-12-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

Went to class today and got my first test result. I got a 90 out of 100 on my comprehensive test. Most of my mistakes where simple little things. I knew the test was really easy. But I'm sure I only got like 20 on the listening test... I feel like if I don't study Chinese now that I am just giving up. I obviously don't know it well enough yet. I want to be good enough so as to pass that listening test. I wonder if I will never pass though. If I move from the A to B class, is the listening test going to be that much harder? I think I might try some of the these Pimsleur or Rosetta stone programs to improve my listening over the break.

Woke up late again this afternoon. I really cannot...

2003-11-30T12:00:00.000-05:00

Woke up late again this afternoon. I really cannot remember what I did during the day though. Probably nothing. I know I went to bed early so I could wake up and go to class on Monday. So I probably wasn't awake for too many hours.

Woke up mid afternoon today. Got some late lunch,...

2003-11-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

Woke up mid afternoon today. Got some late lunch, and then a hot pot dinner just a few hours later. There was a really big group of us at the hot pot place, so we had to wait an hour to get a big enough room. Good thing I just recently ate lunch. After dinner we went to another bar and then to Mix again. The same basic nothing as last night happened at Mix tonight. Mostly I just danced by myself and drank some beer. Oh well. I was still pretty happy to go out.

Today was the speaking exam. Also very easy. ...

2003-11-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today was the speaking exam. Also very easy. It only took 10 minutes. She just asked us to describe a picture, and then asked us some simple question like where we live and what we do. I guess really it only took 5 minutes. No problem. So why was the listening test so much harder.

After studying the last few nights, I really wanted to go out tonight. First we went out to a Beijing Duck dinner with all the Worldlink people. I got to meet a bunch of the new students who just arrived. Afterwards, we went to Huxleys, which was sealed air-tight because of the cold air outside, so the place was just filled with smoke. I couldn't stay in there for too long. My throat was burning. Afterwards we went to Mix, and stayed there really late.

I had my listening exam today. I failed! ...

2003-11-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

I had my listening exam today. I failed! Maybe I got 20 out of 100 questions correct. It was way too hard. I think for our beginning level they should have just read a sentence and then we choose which sentence it was that they read. Something simple like that. Or give us a sentence like jin tien si yue shi si ri, and then ask us what day it is. That would have been hard enough, just to keep track of the si's and shi's. Instead they would give us a sentence with two different names and birthdays and gifts, and then ask us when so and so's birthday was. Even if they gave us the passage on paper, and we could read it many times, it still would have been harder than the comprehensive test yesterday. They used grammar and phrases that we never heard before. Like for example, one question said yi jin ping quo shi wu kaui. How much is yi jin ban ping quo? Which I guess means how much is 1 and a half jin of apples, but I don't think I ever saw the expression before for yi jin ban. And this is a question I remember. The ones I don't remember are even harder... Oh well. No sense worrying about it.

Today is Thanksgiving so a bunch of us went to the Holiday Inn for a turkey dinner. It was nice to eat some good American food. I just wish that the stuffing was better. I was really craving some good stuffing.

First exam. Today was comprehensive. It was all...

2003-11-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

First exam. Today was comprehensive. It was all reading characters and multiple choice with some writing. The writing was easy though because all the characters could be easily found in the text. Really easy! It felt like it was only a test of chapters 1-20 and not 1-25. Which was good since I didn't study the later chapters as well. I'm sure I didn't get a perfect score, but I'm sure that I more than passed.

Mom and sis left in the morning. I went...

2003-11-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

Mom and sis left in the morning. I went to class for some final day preparations before the exam. In the comprehensive class that meant review. In the listening class that meant some examples for the HSK exam for the first hour, and then watching a really old jet li movie in the second hour. Something about Jet Li studying at the Shao Lin temple so he can avenge his fathers death, but the Shao Lin monks were telling him that Kung Fu is only for self defense.

I had class in the morning, and then mom and...

2003-11-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

I had class in the morning, and then mom and sis came to see me at Worldlink. I showed them my room, and the computer room where I spend too much time. We had a lunch of bamboo, fish soaked in spicy oil, and ginger fried rice. The waitress asked if we want to have dog meat. I told her no. After lunch we went to Bei Hai park. We got to the Lama temple a little too late, so it was already closed. We seperated from there. They went back and caught the acrobatics show, and I had dinner and kept studying.

I spent the day studying for my exams this week....

2003-11-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

I spent the day studying for my exams this week. Mom and sis were supposed to go on a bicycle hutong tour and then an acrobatics show with the CITS tour group. Not enough people signed up, so they ended up just finding stuff to do on their own. I think they went to the Summer Palace, and then the Pearl Market. They did pretty well on their own.

Mom, sis and I went to the silk market in...

2003-11-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

Mom, sis and I went to the silk market in the afternoon. They just bought a couple of things, a hat and scarf set, a few purses, and a silk robe. Then we walked to the same Beijing Duck restaurant that we tried to eat at last night. This time they were open, and we had a really good meal. After dinner we took a cab to Wang Fu Jing and did some more window shopping from the street. We didn't go into any of the big malls though.

I went home after that and caught part of the x-files marathon that some people were having at Worldlink. They've slowly watch seasons 1-3, and wanted to watch all of season 4 at once. I think they gave about 60% through.

Today my mom and sister went to the Great Wall,...

2003-11-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today my mom and sister went to the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs, and I think some kind of touristy jade factory. I met with them in the evening for dinner. We were both stuck in traffic so even though I was about 45 minutes late, we met at the hotel at the same time. I had lots of time to practice drawing Chinese characters in the air.

I had planned to take us to this Beijing Duck restaurant that Shaowen and I went to earlier. We left a little late, waiting for traffic to clear, and got there at about 8:30. Everyone was pretty hungry. However, Friday night, the restaurant is closed. I have no idea why. Someone met us at the door and said it was closed. It looked like maybe there was some construction going on in there. There wasn't anything else we could do, so we went around to look for another place to eat. But I had already had set in my mind to eat at a nice place, so we just walked past some of the places that weren't so nice. We couldn't find anywhere good to eat, so we ended up at this American place called Hank's, had hamburgers, and paid American prices. After dinner mom and I had a long talk about me staying in Beijing for a longer time.

I went to class and then studied, and ran some...

2003-11-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

I went to class and then studied, and ran some errands. My mom and sister went on a tour to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen square, and the Temple of Heaven. We met for a hot-pot dinner in the hotel. It was the first time either of them had eaten hot-pot.

The hotel is on the other side of Beijing. I live on the north side of the fourth ring road. They are staying on the south east side of the third ring road. It takes about 30 minutes to get there, 24 kilometers. I don't bring any books with me, so I've been practicing drawing the chinese characters that I recognize in the air. Other times the taxi driver is friendly and they don't speak with too many 'rrrs. Then I get to practice some conversation. It's hard though.

Spent most of the day studying. I think it's...

2003-11-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

Spent most of the day studying. I think it's the most I've studied in one day since being here. I was in the SPR cafe most of the time. But they played the same song over and over and over. For the first half an hour I didn't notice. The next half I hour I kind of liked it. But after that, the song was driving me crazy.

Mom and sister arrived today. They got in late, and went straight to their hotel. I luckly gave them a call just as they got in. We're going to meet up tomorrow in the early evening for dinner.

Went to lunch with a friend at a fast food...

2003-11-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

Went to lunch with a friend at a fast food Japanese place over by the Beijing Zoo. I didn't bring my camera with me, otherwise we would have gone in. We had a hard time thinking of what to do next so I suggested we go to Ya Bao Lu, which is also known as the Russian Market. I heard there is an indoor market area that sucks, like it only sells shoes or something, and that there is supposed to be another area on the street not too far away that sells lots of clothes and other interesting stuff... We found the crappy indoor market, but we couldn't find the outdoor street market. The only thing we found on the street was an area of about 25 stores that all sold milk coats.

Instead we just walked around. Lots of Russian stores, and Russian writing, and Russian people in the area. I saw lots of Chinese people speaking Russian. This place didn't feel like it was in China. People kept trying to talk to me in Russian -- I do look more Russian than Chinese. We kept walking around, and then came across an embassy, which I assumed was the Russian embassy. Nope. It was the North Korean embassy! It felt like something really special to the see a North Korean embassy. How many other countries have a North Korean embassy? Certainly I'm not going to find one the in US... In front of the embassy were large photographs of Kim Jung Ill with the common Korean folk. Here I was in front of the North Korean embassy in Beijing China looking at pictures of Kim Jumg Ill and laughing at his Buddy Holly hairdo. This event is almost on par with riding a camel in the middle of Inner Mongolia.

Our final (and only) exam is next Wednesday. It's...

2003-11-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

Our final (and only) exam is next Wednesday. It's going to be really hard. I need to get at least a 60% on all three sections in order to pass. That's listen, speaking and reading. The test is over three days. About an hour each day. I'm going to try to spend much of my free time this next week studying. Not crazy studying. Maybe three hours everyday after class. An hour listening, and a couple hours reading. It's not much, but still more than I usually do. After that, I can have a week and a half of fun before going back to the US.

This morning I walked to the ATM. I couldn't...

2003-11-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

This morning I walked to the ATM. I couldn't believe that there was no line. Usually on the weekends I have to wait at least 20 minutes to get up to one of the two ATMs. Since I had walked half of the way to the BLCU campus I thought I would just keep going and see what it is like on a Sunday. I ate lunch at a Western sandwich place. Even in the early afternoon there were a lot of people there studying.

I sat down at a table for four to eat my food (minute 0). Someone came up and asked if they could sit at my table (minute 5). Akward silence (minute 8). Asked her something in broken Chinese (minute 10). Some Chinese chitchat (minute 12). Discovered we could both speak English (minute 15). Conversation ensues... This is a usual problem for me. How do I know if someone speaks English? If they are Chinese or even if they are white they may not speak English. I think it's an unusual first question to ask in that kind of situation, 'Do you speak English?' Even if they answer yes, I don't necessarily know what to say to that person in English after that.

I ended up staying there for about 4 hours, talking with her, her Chinese friends, her American friends, with his American friends and so on and so forth. I probably met about 7 people that day. One was Chinese tour guide, one was a student, one was a equities trader from NYC, one was a systems engineer from Australia... Although I meant to practice Chinese today by studying my book, I ended up learning a lot more by practicing with all these new friends.

Today I had no money. I can just go...

2003-11-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today I had no money. I can just go to the ATM, but I haven't had a chance to. It's only about a 15 minute walk, but I'm so hungry. Usually I could just find a friend in Worldlink and borrow some money from him or her. As luck would have it, today they are cleaning the Worldlink lounge so I don't know where most everyone is. It wasn't so bad. I did find someone for lunch and then for dinner, but I still never made it to the ATM. I'll try again tomorrow.

This afternoon a group of us went to an orphanage...

2003-11-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

This afternoon a group of us went to an orphanage outside of Beijing. This orphanage takes in children from other orphanages who have special needs, like they require surgery or have been burned or injured in some way. Many of the children have cleft lips, but others have more serious problems that I don't know how to spell. Often times the parents abandon the child somewhere where it can be discovered, and then the orphanage takes them in. They call themselves a recycling center. They take in children with problems, fix them up, and then find homes for them or put them back in a good orphanage elsewhere. Currently, they can only handle about 75 children at one time. They have one 'mother' for every two children. The place is very clean. It's a couple of houses in a neighboorhood constructed to handle the flood of ex-pats that developers in China expected but never appeared... The one guy we talked with from America had left his job as a lawyer and brought his wife over to China to work in this orphanage. He likes to quote script alot. I realized while listening to him that one almost has to be the type of person to quote from the bible to do choose to do something like this. The orphanage have a couple of websites, but I haven't even looked at them yet. www.philiphayden.org and www.chinaorphans.org.

Then in the evening we went to a couple of clubs. One had a school uniform theme, but there was hardly anyone there, and even fewer in school uniforms. Then we went to another club, and stayed there until 4:30am. It was a good time. It's funny that we all dressed kind of preppy for the school uniform theme club, and then the club we went to afterwards was gangster asian themed (but it's like that everynight). My ears still hurt from the loud loud loud music.

After class I met with my new friend from the...

2003-11-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

After class I met with my new friend from the Internet Cafe. I figured I should get our first meeting out of the way to see if she's worth knowing. Fortunately, she's pretty interesting. She's studying computer science at the university across the street, and she wants to learn English so she can go to the UK and get a Masters degree. I had fun asking her about her computer classes, and why she is studying computer science. Mainly they do paper assignments. She knows C++, delphi, and VB. It sounds more like an equivalent vocational course in the US. She choose to study computer science because she recognizes that one day there will be 1,000,000,000 PCs in China. Also, she is from Hohhot, so we talked about my trip to Inner Mongolia. Mainly I let her talk, since she said she needs to improve her speaking score for her English exam. Next time we meet I'll have to speak more Chinese.

Stayed on campus and had lunch today. I haven't...

2003-11-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

Stayed on campus and had lunch today. I haven't done that in a long time. After lunch, I went with that same group of friends and played StarCraft for about an hour at one of the large Internet Cafes. This place has about 150 computers. I got my butt kicked. My score was about 1/5 the next lowest score. I'm actually kind of proud. Once I finished my game, this woman came up to me and asked me if we could get together sometime to practice English. It's so amaxing to have people come up and want to talk to me.

Getting back into study mode, listening to Mandarin tapes, writing...

2003-11-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

Getting back into study mode, listening to Mandarin tapes, writing charters, reading text. I haven't spent more than an hour studying in a long time. Also trying to catch up on long lost email.

I got Shaowen to the airport. No problems. ...

2003-11-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

I got Shaowen to the airport. No problems. I'll be back in the US before we know it. I only have one more month here. Time has really gone by fast. Especially since all of my friends have come to visit.

I don't know why the taxi cab drivers at the airport are such jerks. I've never had any problems with the taxi cab drivers anywhere else in Beijing. Mostly they are friendly, nice, and just seem happy to have the cab fare. However, the ones at the airport are mean, lazy and greedy. I came out to look for a cab without any luggage, and dressed in full winter gear. Did they think that maybe I didn't just fall off the plane, that maybe I just dropped a friend off, and that I would know that it doesn't cost 100 RMB to get to my hotel? So why would they say '100 kuai' when I get into the cab. Then the cab I finally got into, all the driver knew how to say was 'ugg', and seemed annoyed that I interrupted his smoking break outside the airport to give me a ride. In contrast, the driver who picked Shaowen and I up outside the hotel to take us to the airport seemed very happy. It was very early, so he was happy to have found such a juicy fare all the way to the airport. The cab driver I took back just wanted to smoke. (end rant).

Since I was up so early, I thought I would use this time to upload some photos. It took a couple of hours, and I only got about half up them up.

Shaowen, I and a big group of friends went out...

2003-11-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Shaowen, I and a big group of friends went out for lunch at this good place right near campus. Afterwards, a bunch of us went to the Xi Dan shopping area to buy assorted things like socks, hats and scarfs. It's getting really cold here. Fortunately the weather report said it will warm up over the next couple of days. They also just turned on the radiator heat in our rooms, and it really helps.

In the evening, we went to Wang Fu Jing with the same group and ate hot pot. Then for desert we ate a deep-fried scorpion, locust, snake, and beetle. The critters themselves just tasted like crunchy chips. The oil they deep-fried them in was nasty though. I don't think they've ever changed it. I'll add the pictures shortly.

Shaowen and I went to bed early tonight. We have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow to get her to the airport.

Went to see a Sandra kickboxing match tonight. There...

2003-11-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

Went to see a Sandra kickboxing match tonight. There were 3 prelim matches in different weight classes, then a match between two women, and then a semifinal match between two guys. It was pretty interesting. Sometimes the guys just kind of stood there; sometimes they would grab eachother for 2 seconds and be seperated by the ref; sometimes they would kick eachothers legs and it would sound like a wet towel snap; and sometimes they would get in a good punch or kick or throw. There weren't that many people there. Mainly I think everyone was from the same kickboxing club as the fighters.

Afterwards Shaowen watched some movies with some friends, and I worked on adding that cool table of contents page to my photo section.

Snow today! I think this is the first time...

2003-11-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

Snow today! I think this is the first time I've ever seen this much snow and not been skiing. It started in the early evening, and continued most of the night. I think there might have been 6 inches on the ground in the morning. Had a snow ball fight with some sweedes.

Went to Xi Dan to do some shopping today. It is a big shopping mall area with department stores and little markets. A bit more expensive, but nice. I bought a sweater and fleece for $40 at a cool clothing store called Samuel and Kevin.

After shopping we went and saw the new Matrix movie. It cost $6 for adults or only $4 for students (like me), which is kind of expensive for China. Even though it was openning night, the theater was only about half full. I bet most people here are just going to wait 3 days for it come out on DVD, and then only pay $1. I heard that the WB released the film simultaneously all over the world to help reduce piracy. Really they did it so the film would be out a few days in the theater before the pirate DVDs started circulating, but by seeing how full this theater was in Beijing, I'm guessing that the WB doesn't make much more money by doing this.

We went to a shooting range today. Before going,...

2003-11-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

We went to a shooting range today. Before going, we heard that you could shoot all kinds of weapons, hand-guns, rifles, AK-47s, machine guns, and artillery. They said you could even fire a rocket launcher at a live cow if you paid enough money. Once we got there, we learned that we could only shoot a couple of sport pistols and hunting rifles, and only at paper targets. This wasn't really a surprise though. Just like the sweater I was wearing isn't real cashmere even though the lady I bought it from said it was.

On the way back from the shooting range we came across a tank museum. There were about 50 tanks on display. One of which we could climb in and around. Pretty cool.

Today Shaowen went to the big Wang Fu Jing bookstore,...

2003-11-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today Shaowen went to the big Wang Fu Jing bookstore, while I went out with some friends after class. I had some tasty hotpot for lunch, and then went to this pastry shop/cafe that had this little river in the middle of the store with these cute little gondola's in it. Then I bought this interesting hand made scarf.

On the way back to worldlink we were in a bus accident. I guess our bus scraped the front corner of a car. We were only going about 5 mph. It all looking fine to me, but we stopped traffic on an on-ramp for about 10 minutes.

I mostly studied today and Shaowen went to do some...

2003-11-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

I mostly studied today and Shaowen went to do some shopping on her own.

First went to Wang Fu Jing with Shaowen and we...

2003-11-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

First went to Wang Fu Jing with Shaowen and we had lunch. We walked some and then went to the silk market (xiu shui shi chang). Before going there I decided I didn't like that place as much anymore. So it made it much easier to bargin. I really didn't want anything, so I found it much easier to walk away, and then end up getting a better price. But I did find one good store there. This place actually sells real cashmere, and not acrylic or polyester. It's just sweaters and scarves, with no name brands, but they are nice and soft and a bit more expensive. Then we went to get a foot massage. There was no one else there, and it was more like a chinese doctors office than a massage place. It still felt good though, and only $11 for 90 minutes. Afterwards we went to this good Beijing Duck place meantioned in one of Shaowen's Taiwanese Beijing tour guide.

Tasty hot pot for lunch. Afterwards a few of...

2003-11-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

Tasty hot pot for lunch. Afterwards a few of us sat around and watched Kill Bill on DVD. It was made with a camcorder, so we could hear the people laughing in the background, the subtitles were from Terminator, and the back of the box was from Spy Kids. After dinner, Shaowen and I got the 50RMB massage down the street. The girls were friendly, and I learned that China doesn't have blonde or ethnic jokes. They don't make fun of anyone in their jokes. After the massage we watched another DVD, 25th Hour.

Oh yeah. Today is Halloween. I really couldn't...

2003-10-31T12:00:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah. Today is Halloween. I really couldn't tell. It's nice to not be bombarded with images of Halloween and candy everywhere. In the evening I did see some bars with decorations and haunted houses set up. So I didn't completely forget.

After class, Shaowen and I went to the Old Summer Palace, which was 'destroyed on October 1860 by allied French and English forces.' Or at least that is what every plaque said on it. It was really pretty. All the wood buildings were completely destroyed, but there were a lot of Western style marble buildings palaces that had some good ruines to look at. They even formed the ruines to kind of look like the old buildings. The Old Summer Palace is half garden with beautiful willow trees, and half abandoned amusement park. Kind of wierd. Also, the pictures I took may look like we were there early in the morning, but that's not fog. It was really smoggy that day.

In the evening, we went to a Hakka restaurant in Hou Hai Park with a large group of Worldlink people. Some of the food was pretty interesting, but I wasn't feeling too good. I had a stomach ache and a head ache was comming on. Maybe it was from the pollution today. So after dinner I went up and slept, and Shaowen went out with some new friends to a bar. It sounded like she had a really good time meeting other Chinese people and getting to know my friends better. I'm glad.

Today Shaowen came to class with me today. On...

2003-10-30T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today Shaowen came to class with me today. On Thursday I have two hours of listening comprehension. Then the next two hours are comprehensive. Two different teachers in two different buildings. Shaowen seemed to get along well with both teachers. She learned that my comprehensive teacher has a sister who lives in Taiwan, and a grandson (or was it granddaughter) who lives in San Francisco. My listen comprehension teacher told Shaowen that I am falling behing in the class, which I am. It's a hard class. So after class, I bought the audio tapes and a cassette player so I cam practice more at home.

After class we walked around campus a bit, and then ate lunch on campus. Then we walked to a couple of markets, and then walked back to my room. Lots of walking...

Class today, and then Shaowen and I plus some Swedes...

2003-10-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

Class today, and then Shaowen and I plus some Swedes and another Beijing girl went to the Fragrant Hills park. This is the time of year to go there because all the trees start to change color. It was pretty. Lots of red leaves. Also pretty crowded. The Swedes had tried to go there over the weekend, but the path to the park was shoulder to shoulder full of people. It's much better to go there on a weekday. It's a pretty good climb up to the peak. About 2 hours, and mostly up hill. Then an hour or so up there, and about another 1.5 hours back. It was pretty dark on the path on the way back... I brought my camera, but it didn't have a compact flash card in it. Stupid me. I'll try to add some pictures to my website from Eskil's camera though.

Today we also did a lot. First to Da...

2003-10-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

Today we also did a lot. First to Da Guan Yuan, which is a garden constructed from the description in the Dream of the Red Chamber books. It was kind of fake, only constructed about 20 years ago, but it was still pretty. Interestingly you also couldn't take pictures in the fake buddhist temple, and people put money on the statue.

Then we went to the Chinatown of Beijing, called Da Shi La. I don't know how else to describe it. It looks like a Chinatown. We ate at two different restaurants there. First to 'Not even the dog will eat it'. It was supposed to be good, but the xiao long bao is better at the BLCU. Next to another restaurant that specialized in shao mai.

After class, Shaowen and I did a lot. We...

2003-10-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

After class, Shaowen and I did a lot. We went to Bei Hai Park. It was really pretty and windy. Then we went to Wang Fu Jing for an early dinner (/ late lunch) of Wontons. Shaowen reminded me that we had been here 3 years earlier. We stayed at a hotel just down the street. I totally forgot. I guess in comparison to the Bay Area, Wang Fu Jing isn't really memoriable (althought it very impressive). But in comparison to the Er Li Zhuang area, Wang Fu Jing is very memoriable. Next we walked to Tainanmen Square, and then finally to the Laoshe tea house to see an old time Chinese tea house show. Lots of famous people and presidents (like George Bush I) had been there. It was in Chinese, but Shaowen couldn't even understand much of it.

Simon left early in the morning. I've since heard...

2003-10-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

Simon left early in the morning. I've since heard that he had a terrible plane ride. Exactly one week in Beijing and then a meat stick the night before a flight spells trouble. (All of us here believe that the first week in Beijing is fine. It's the second week that begins the stomach trouble. By the fourth week everything is usually back to normal.)

Shaowen was pretty tired from all the stuff she had been doing at work, and then a week with the relatives in Taiwan. She took a nap most of the day. Just like old times. But we also talked a lot about what I'm going to do after I get back from Beijing...

We got a late start today since I slept in...

2003-10-25T13:00:00.000-04:00

We got a late start today since I slept in this morning. We walked in a straight line to the nearby bank, then to the BLCU campus, then to the next bank, then to the Wu Dao Kou area, then we were almost to the electronics area so we figured we might as well walk the rest of the way. It was a good 2 hour walk.

In the electronics district we were asked 'DVD yao bu yao' about 30 times. The stores were pretty interesting. It was like a market place of computer hardware. There were assorted old IBM 500mhz PIII laptops, and other old electronics. But there was also the latest flat screen monitors, laptops, computers and digital cameras. A few vendors were even selling the two Fujitsu Transmeta laptops, but compared to some of the other laptops there, they didn't look that much smaller. Still pretty cool though. (The bus stops also had Nvidia ads showing Dusk and some of the other CGI characters. Too bad the latest character by my sister isn't finished yet. It would have been cool to take a picture of that.) Overall I didn't see much there that Fry's doesn't already have, and Fry's is also much cheaper.

Then the two of us went to pick up Shaowen at the airport. She was easy to spot in her standard grey hooded sweatshirt and black backpack. We got dinner together and with Gordon and Amy. After dinner we watched the Peter Jackson movie Dead Alive. Really strange, funny and gorry. Too bad the DVD died in the middle and we missed the much praised pregnancy and lawnmower scenes.

Today Simon wanted to take it easy after all the...

2003-10-24T13:00:00.000-04:00

Today Simon wanted to take it easy after all the walking he has done the last two weeks in Tokyo, Kyoto and Beijing. So we went to a local salon and got a 45-minute head, face, neck, shoulder, back and arm massage for only $2.50. That's $2.50 for the two of us. Only $1.25 each.

Simon then took a nap while I did some studying. In the evening, we went out with about 40 people from Worldlink to celebrate 3 different birthdays this weekend. We ate at a 'French' restaurant and then hit the clubs, Poachers, Huxley's, The Den, and finally Vics. All of them were very crowded. Simon retired after Huxley's at about 1:00. Too bad, because there are too many foreigners at Huxley's. I think he would have really liked Vics. I stayed out until 3:00. It's so much fun to go to the clubs on Friday and Saturday night that I didn't want to settle in early.

Today Simon went to the Badaling section of the Great...

2003-10-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

Today Simon went to the Badaling section of the Great Wall.

I cannot remember what else we did. Maybe I just studied while he was at the Great Wall.

Today Simon went to the Forbidden City on his own...

2003-10-22T13:00:00.000-04:00

Today Simon went to the Forbidden City on his own while I was in class.

For dinner we returned to a restaurant I had been to earlier where I thought I might have eaten a big piece of dog. At least Jeff put that idea in my head and I kept thinking it. Turns out it was just lamb, and not one bit of dog. Good thing because it was so delicious, really juicy and tender and with tasty herbs. It melts in my mouth. Thank God it wasn't dog.

While I was in class Simon went out on his...

2003-10-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

While I was in class Simon went out on his own to the Summer Palace. He spent six hours there and walked nearly every inch of that place.

Then we went to the Silk Market. Simon bought a fake rolex and a North Face backpack. I bought a jacket and traded a sweater that I bought earlier that was too small. Then we got ripped off on a pair of scarves. We paid 150 for 2, when we should have only paid 40.

For dinner we went to a dumpling place I had been to earlier. We did pretty well concidering I couldn't read any chinese on the menu, and I only understood about 25% of what the waitress said. Just keep saying 'Sui bian'.

Simon hung around the hotel and slept in while I...

2003-10-20T13:00:00.000-04:00

Simon hung around the hotel and slept in while I went to class. When I got back, we got lunch at a noodle place that is similar to Pho. Which is appropriate because that is what we would eat almost everyday for lunch back at Transmeta. Then we picked up Grace and went to the Temple of Heaven. We walked around for a couple of hours, and then got some dinner in the Wang Fu Jing area. Grace suggested this famous hot pot place. She hates ordering food, but when the menu is all in Chinese, we cannot help her too much. The food was delicious, and we were all stuffed afterwards.

Then we walked around Wang Fu Jing a while to burn off some of the food. This place is like Times Square. Lots of neon and people, but not too many tourists. The sidewalks are wide, but also the street is closed to cars. Lots of expensive stores, like Rolex, but also other mildly inexpensive malls and shops. Simon and I had a great time seeing all the people.

We're having a contest. I'm trying to convince him to move to China, and he is trying to convince me to go back to Transmeta. I think I'm winning. He says he's seen more pretty girls here in the past two days than he has the last three years.

Spent most of today working on my website. I...

2003-10-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

Spent most of today working on my website. I updated my journal for the last week and a half. Fortunately I didn't have to recall everything. Most everything was in my emails to Shaowen. I just never bothered to also add the stuff to my website until today.

Got a haircut today. 15 RMB gets you 1) 30 minute neck, face, arm, hand, and back massage; 2) a 10 minute hair washing and scalp massage; 3) a haircut. All that for only $2. I was supposed to go out to see a Beijing Opera with some friends today, one of which is the friend of Nadine who is the party official I talked about earlier. But we he wasn't able to get tickets for us. Instead we just went to this famous place in Beijing Duck. It was very tasty.

Maybe I'll go out again later tonight...

Thank God. The days are getting warmer. Looks...

2003-10-17T13:00:00.000-04:00

Thank God. The days are getting warmer. Looks like it isn't going to be an earlier winter just yet.

For the first time in a while, I actually got some good studying in. I also have nothing planned this weekend until Simon gets here, so I can spend it catching up on email and updating my website.

Today was a great day! It was beautiful out. Very sunny and warm. The leaves are turning colors, and the flowers are pretty. The seasons are changing. I felt very happy. Not as stressed. I really felt like I belong here today. Not like a tourist or a visitor, but that I could really live here... I really like Beijing. It feels very special to me. I know Beijing now. I feel very close to it. What a great day!

Had class. Went to this good dumpling place for...

2003-10-16T13:00:00.000-04:00

Had class. Went to this good dumpling place for dinner. They must have had 20 different kinds of dumplings, and each plate is only $.75. Unfortunately, I don't know what any of them are. When it gets colder again, I will definatly go bach there.

Then in the evening I went to this club called Propaganda. The watery beer is free on Thursdays. The real beer is only 10 RMB ($1.25) though. This was my first time there. I missed the last two Thursdays when everyone went. It was a lot of fun. Some people dance; some people just talk. I got to see people I hadn't seen in a while. It was a great time! I stayed until 1:30 on the dance floor. I must be turning into an old man, because I was really tired by then. But now all my clothes smell like smoke. I have to do laundry again.

Had class. Bought a new quilt. The nights...

2003-10-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

Had class. Bought a new quilt. The nights are getting very cold here. I wonder if it will get warmer again before winter really starts, or if it's just going to get colder and colder.

I contacted one of the girls, Grace, I meantioned much earlier who stopped me on campus for wearing green. We met for dinner, and I got to practice some Chinese. She is very nice, and a very patient teacher. She could see when I started to get frustrated, and would speak much slower, and give me more positive feedback. But she would also laugh very hard at some of the stupid Chinese things I would say. Like if 'tu zi' is rabbit, and 'hao zi' is monkey then I thought 'long zi' would be dragon. Nope. Also I told her at one point 'Wo gei ni deng le' meaning that I will wait for her, but apparently that's the way one would say it on their death bed. Crazy language. I think those couple of hours really helped. She also helped me go the store and buy that new quilt I talked about.

What is going on at Transmeta? How did we only make $2mil last quarter. Just when I thought things were turning around, we have one of our worst quarters ever. I know all the recent hype is about Astro, but are we going to have enough money in the bank that OEM's will want to invest in Asto designs. What happened to the 100mil we were going to try to raise by selling more stock? I don't think there has been any meantion of that.

Had lunch with Phil at a rice soup place. ...

2003-10-14T13:00:00.000-04:00

Had lunch with Phil at a rice soup place. All different kinds of kongee. Then I rode with him to the airport. Took it easy the rest of the day. Trying to catch up on studying and sleeping and email. Spent most of the day in my room.

Phil went to the old summer palace and the new...

2003-10-13T13:00:00.000-04:00

Phil went to the old summer palace and the new summer palace while I went to class. We met up for lunch and then went to Tianamen Square. Mao's mausoleum is closed on Mondays so we didn't get to go see his preserved body. Afterwards we went to an electronics store to look at cell phones and other cool gadgets. There are so many more different kinds of cell phones to choose from here. For dinner we went to Hou Hai park, the same place I had been a week earlier where there were lots of people out (wasn't Bei Hai park). But there weren't nearly as many people there this night. The food wasn't as good as our previous meals either. It was still a nice time though.

Went to the Badaling section of the Great Wall today....

2003-10-12T13:00:00.000-04:00

Went to the Badaling section of the Great Wall today. We joined a Chinese bus tour group that went to the Great Wall and the Ming tombs. The tour started at 9:30 and finished at 6:00, and it was all in Chinese. Phil could translate the important stuff for me, but since I had already been to these places, it was ok that I didn't understand her description. The tombs were kind of boring, so when we went to the second tomb, Phil and I hung out in a jade shop and Phil bought a small expensive piece of jade for his wife for their anniversary. I put it on my Visa so his wife won't see it before their anniversary. Hopefully she doesn't read my journal before her anniversary.

Good thing the weather was better. It wasn't rainy or windy, still cold, but at least the sun was out. There was actually snow on the ground around the Great Wall. We saw in the newspaper that yesterday was the coldest day in Beijing this time of year in 10 years.

We went out for some more good food tonight. I'm pretty tired from all the hiking though. I should study, but I'll probably just go to bed early instead.

We skipped the Great Wall trip this morning. We...

2003-10-11T13:00:00.000-04:00

We skipped the Great Wall trip this morning. We were both tired from last night, and it was still raining. Hopefully we will find another way to get there. Instead we had a good breakfast of xiao long bao, and then went to the Forbidden city. It was _freezing_ cold. Really windy and rainy. It was the coldest day here yet. I hope winter isn't already here. It wasn't this cold when Shaowen and I were here two years ago at this same time.

Next we went to Wang Fu Jing and walked around a bit. We went into whatever stores felt warm, just so we could get out of the cold. Finally we went to the Silk Market. I bought a couple of sweaters, but one I don't like that much now, and the other is too small. When I bought the sweater, the shopkeeper said I can return it if it's too small. I packaged it up nicely again, so my next trip there, I'll take it with me.

We went to a fast food hot pot place for dinner. We each had our own little hot pot, and enough raw food for a small army. We were stuffed afterwards, but at least we felt warm. The food here is so good. I finally understand why all my Chinese friends say the Chinese food in the states isn't as good as in China/Taiwan. I love the xiao long bao here.

Phil from Transmeta arrived today. He was previously in...

2003-10-10T13:00:00.000-04:00

Phil from Transmeta arrived today. He was previously in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and then made time to come to Beijing for a visit. We got him a room at the same hotel I am at for 110 RMB ($13) per night. Then we went and dropped off his laundry, went to the grocery store where he bought some fruit and snakes and stuff, and then went to an internet cafe to check email. He basically did everything I do in my day in about an hour. We had peking duck and this fish in a really spicy broth for dinner.

After dinner we went out to Karaoke with some friends. We went to the nicest place in Beijing. It was about 150 RMB ($18) per hour. This place had like 8 floors, and each karaoke room had a big screen tv, leather couch, nice lighting, and the latest ultra modern karaoke machine. There are so many attendents there trying to help with everything... We sang some songs in English, and Phil did some in Mandarin and Cantonese. We even did one of the Chinese songs a couple times so I could try to learn it. The karaoke lyrics for the Chinese songs use the traditional characters. I think if they used the simplified characters that maybe I would have recognized more words... One of the girls that we went will had a really beautiful voice. I was really amazed. It was a great time!

Tomorrow Worldlink is taking everyone to the Mu Tien Yu section of the Great Wall. It's the same section I already went to, but I don't know any other way for Phil to get there. So he's going to ride the worldlink bus with the rest of us to visit it. I don't mind seeing it again. It will be good exercise climbing the 1000 stairs again. Hopefully it won't be raining though... He also wants to see some Museums and go to Bei Hai park and the summer palace. Good thing it is the weekend, so I can easily go with him to all of these places.

It's wierd seeing him. I probably had my first real feeling of being homesick when I saw him. I never really thought that I hadn't seen my friends for a month until I saw him. But he's trying to convince me to stay at Transmeta a little longer :) It's all about the money. He's a very responsible guy. We'll see... I just cannot decide.

Class today. Paid some bills online and added a...

2003-10-09T13:00:00.000-04:00

Class today. Paid some bills online and added a map to China website.

Today I went for a long walk along this path a few blocks south of here. I don't know the name of this park, but it is long a narrow, and a good place for a walk. It's very pretty and green, and runs along side a little canal. It was a great time! Lots of older people and little children. I noticed a lot more people staring at me there. The little kids were pointing, but I could see the mothers telling their kids that it isn't nice to point. I'm used to people looking at me. Most of the time I don't even notice. When I do notice it, I feel special, and not like an outsider. I think people are just curious.

I missed the business lecture today. I think this lecturer is too boring. I could stay in the class and fight staying awake, or I could just give in a spend time in bed. I chose to spend it napping in bed.

Class started today. It's been one week since we...

2003-10-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

Class started today. It's been one week since we had classes. One thing interesting happened in class today. Two girls were gosiping and laughing the entire time through class. I think they had too much to say to eachother since the week long break, but they were disturbing the entire class. Finally I got upset and asked them to be quiet. After class, the teacher thanked me. I'm sure they were bothering her too, but she maybe didn't know how to ask them to be quiet.

Went to the silk market today. I bought a light weight suede jacket, a cashmere sweater that feels like it might be a wool blend, and also a wool sweater. The two sweaters say they are polo, and one of them might be because the tag is cut in half. The jacket says it is Hugo Boss. It's probably fake, but I still like it. All together I paid about $40 US. I like shopping here! Unfortunately, the wool sweater is too big and I already took off the tag (because it was cut). I don't think I'll be able to return it, but at least I got two good things for $40.

I cannot believe the terminator is our new governor. That's another good reason to stay in China.

Went out tonight. It's the last day of vacation...

2003-10-07T13:00:00.000-04:00

Went out tonight. It's the last day of vacation before classes start tomorrow. This friend Jason and I hit 4 different clubs. On our way between clubs we met up with these two guys from Nigeria, and went around with them for a bit. None of the clubs had that many people because most people do return to work and school tomorrow. We went to this bar called Banana. Jason heard that all the girls in there really like foreign guys, and he wanted to check it out. As soon as we walked in the door, we realized that most of the girls were working. They wanted us to buy them drinks, but they couldn't even speak English. We left there, and tried a couple of places. I liked the last bar we went to, called 'The Den'. The waitresses were very nice and friendly and spoke some English. Everyone I've talked to since then who has been to that bar knows the waitresses pretty well.

Went out this evening with Nadine and a friend of...

2003-10-06T13:00:00.000-04:00

Went out this evening with Nadine and a friend of hers that she knew from business school. He is a high up party official. I think his title is something like vice deputy of the economic ministry. He said he had been to Washington a number of times. Invited by Congress. We went out with him, his daughter and girlfriend. They were all very nice and extremely hospitable. We went to Tianamen Square and the department stores in xidan. We talked a little about the issue of whether China should float it's currency, but mainly we exchanged pleasentries, like what I think of Beijing, and why I chose to study Mandarin. I think he may take us out to a Beijing Opera later.

Took a long nap in the afternoon. Then in...

2003-10-05T13:00:00.000-04:00

Took a long nap in the afternoon. Then in the evening I went around Bei Hai park. There is a really nice lake to walk around, and a number of nice restaurants and bars. There are all kinds of people out, old and young, but not to many foreigners. It's so nice to be around quiet night life.

Getting up was hard. Fortunately, I don't have a...

2003-10-04T13:00:00.000-04:00

Getting up was hard. Fortunately, I don't have a headache, and I already unintentionally emptied my stomach before going to bed. I guess I don't feel that bad, but I'm really tired, and dehydrated. Fortunately after a small breakfast and a nice bus ride to the desert, I am feeling much better.

The desert just appeared out of no where. And it really was a desert, not like Fresno. There were sand dunes as far as the eye could see. One minute, normal dirt. The next minute, sand. It kind of reminded me of the sand dunes near Monterey, but much bigger.

The highlight of the entire trip was riding a camel in the sandy desert in Inner Monglia. I think I will always remember that. And my little stuffed camel souvenier will keep me reminded. The camel ride was kind of short, but still very memorable. We then hung out on the dunes for about an hour, walking around and taking pictures.

Next we got back on the bus for the trip back to Hohhot to catch the train back to Beijing. In Hohhot I used my very first squatty potty. It was a good first experience, since I used it in a KFC. It was pretty clean. However, it's still not easy to do. I kept falling forward, but of course didn't want to touch the bathroom floor with my hands. It wasn't easy. I should practice squatting more often just in case I have to use one again.

Woke up from a cold night in the yurt. ...

2003-10-03T13:00:00.000-04:00

Woke up from a cold night in the yurt. Today we rode in the bus around Hohhot. We went to some pretty temples and stuff. Then we had a 3 hour bus ride to Baotou, where tomorrow we will explore the desert area of Inner Mongolia. Spent the night in a hotel. I got really really drunk with some of the Japanese and Koreans. Damn Bai Jiao. I'm not going to drink that stuff for a long while.

Arrived in Hohhot. We took a couple of hours...

2003-10-02T13:00:00.000-04:00

Arrived in Hohhot. We took a couple of hours outside of Hohhot to go to this grassland area. There are about 25-30 people in our tour group from Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea, and one other white guy from Austrailia. We are all currently studying in Beijing or Tianjing. One of the tour guides speaks entirely in Chinese, and the other one knows some English. Fortunately, the other students from Hong Kong speak good English so they translate for me.

We got off the bus in this grassland area. We were greeted with a shot of Bai jiao (some kind of hard alcohol) and song. We then ate assorted sheep and grass products for lunch. It wasn't that bad, but some people don't like to eat sheep for some reason.

After lunch we went to another area to ride horses. We did a 2 hour horse ride. I could handle it when the horse would walk, but everyone once in a while for some random reason, it would start jogging. That hurt. I don't know the proper way to ride a horse, but there must be a better way than just having your butt slammed repeatedly in the saddle.

Next we saw a short horse race, and some Mongolian Wrestling.

Dinner was the same food as lunch. It might have even been the exact same food. Afterwards the Aussie and I bought a bottle of Bai Jiao and passed it around to the different people around the camp fire. I got to meet lots of nice people. 'Wo he bai jiao, wo shuo han yu. Wo bu he bai jiao, wo bu shuo han yu.' (I drink bai jiao, I speak Chinese. I don't drink bai jiao, I don't speak Chinese.)

Tonight we sleep in a traditional yurt. I was in a yurt with 8 people, most of whom were Korean. I watched them play this unusual card game called 'Go Stop'. Then we all tried to sleep, but I was at one end, so I didn't feel any body heat from the others. It was damn cold. I don't think I actually slept that much. I kept twisting and turning trying to close all the little gaps in the blanket.

Today is National Day in China. I cannot really...

2003-10-01T13:00:00.000-04:00

Today is National Day in China. I cannot really tell though. Maybe there are lots of signs up celebrating it, but I cannot read them. I went out and did some shopping to buy a bag before my trip to Inner Mongolia. Also got some long underwear. It's going to be cold.

Got on a hard sleeper train to Hohhot.

Last of day of classes before the week break. ...

2003-09-30T13:00:00.000-04:00

Last of day of classes before the week break. I decided today to go to Hohhot, and Inner Mongolia. It's just a short four day trip, so I still have some days left to explore Beijing.

Went out clubbing tonight. First night in 9 days were I didn't have to study. We went to this club called Vics near the north gate of Workers Statium. Today was it's official grand re-openning after they completed some remodeling. It was a good time. Lots of people.

Hmm. I don't remember as I'm writing this what...

2003-09-29T13:00:00.000-04:00

Hmm. I don't remember as I'm writing this what I did on Monday. Probably went to school, and had some lunch, and then some dinner. Maybe I even studied.

Now I remember. I went to the 'Silk Market' in downtown. It's a place were they sell lots of knock off clothing a bags and stuff. I bought a 'Nike' jacket. It looks waterproof, so hopefully it will help if it rains again.

Yes. Finally feeling better. All these long naps...

2003-09-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

Yes. Finally feeling better. All these long naps in the afternoon may have helped. I thought I brought some kind of medicine with me, but all I could find is Advil. My sinuses were feeling really aweful, and I had a fever and a headache. The Advil helped with all that. It didn't help with the drippy runny nose though.

I don't think I'm going to go anywhere over the National Holiday. The group I was going to go with is now going to Wuhan for a cruise down the Yangtze River. I already did that 2 years ago, and it's pretty boring. Every other trip I know of is either to Xi'an or Shanghai, which I've also already seen. The only trip I may do is someone is thinking of hiking some mountain in Shandong. It would be nice to get some fresh air and see some nature, but I don't know if the trip will really happen. I'm fine with staying in Beijing. I haven't really gone out at night yet because I've either been sick or studying. With a week of no school I can explore some of Beijing before my friends start to come visit.

Also today a group of us from the class and the teacher went out for a Beijing Duck lunch and then to a shopping center. I was the only guy who went shopping, but it wasn't so boring. There were tons of people to watch and all kinds of interesting stuff.

Ugg, still sick. Don't worry. It's not SARS....

2003-09-27T13:00:00.000-04:00

Ugg, still sick. Don't worry. It's not SARS. I'm not going to be the first person in China to get SARS. Many of my friends here have had the exact same symptoms. They said it usually lasts like four or five days. Hopefully, I'll feel better tomorrow.

We had class today too. All the schools in Beijing and maybe all of China are having school this weekend. It's because the National Holiday has been extended to be an entire week. It's usually supposed to be just 3 days off. The amazing thing is that none of the teachers seem to mind. Most of the students don't like it though. I'm fine with it. I never know what day of the week it is anyway.

I felt really sick today. More of a fever...

2003-09-26T13:00:00.000-04:00

I felt really sick today. More of a fever and very tired. I even ditched class today. I did get a lot of studying done though.

Yup. Feeling worse today. Sore throat and a...

2003-09-25T13:00:00.000-04:00

Yup. Feeling worse today. Sore throat and a slight fever. I just came home after class and took a big nap.

Most everyone around Worldlink went to this party tonight at this bar called Propaganda (good name for a bar in China). I stayed home because I want to get better fast. I guess I should have just gone out though, because I got sick either way.

Went on a field trip today to the Great Wall...

2003-09-24T13:00:00.000-04:00

Went on a field trip today to the Great Wall with my chinese class. We went to the Mu Tien Yu section of the Great Wall. We walked 1000 stairs just to get to the Great Wall. It was very rainy and overcast that day so I couldn't see how far the Great Wall extended. You can see some of the pictures on my picture page.

I knew I was going to get sick after being on the Great Wall. On the one hand I was getting very hot and sweety from all of the climbing (the wall is very steep), but on the other hand it was very cold and wet. Regardless, I kept my jacket on, but I still got too wet.

Made a bunch of changes to the photos part of my website. Now you can look at small thumbnails of all the photos.

Went and got my hair cut today. For 25...

2003-09-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

Went and got my hair cut today. For 25 kuai ($3.5) I got a hour long scalp and shoulder massage, plus a hair cut. Whatever shampoo they used, I really like it. My hair feels really soft now, or maybe they just pulled out a bunch more out during the massage.

I'm going to the Great Wall tomorrow with my class. It's a field trip! I'll take more pictures and put those plus the Zhengzhou ones up on my website tomorrow (hopefully).

I think all this Chinese is making my spelling so much worse. Today in class I couldn't remember how to spell the word 'science'.

Arrived in Beijing at 9:30am. I missed my first...

2003-09-22T13:00:00.000-04:00

Arrived in Beijing at 9:30am. I missed my first class, but I was able to catch the last 2 hours. Class is getting a bit less difficult. I feel like I am understanding more and more everyday. I think studying some on the train really helped.

Today we went to the Shoalin temple near Song Shan....

2003-09-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

Today we went to the Shoalin temple near Song Shan. I think this temple was the birthplace of kungfu. The people at WLE who are studying wushu are going to train with them. Together we all saw a performance by some of the local wushu students (not by the monks themselves). Some of the stuff was impressive, but other things, like the breaking of staffs over limbs, looked kind of fake. Like it was just some kind of trick.

Next we went to this pagoda forrest just outside of the Shoalin Temple. I think there were 244 different pagodas. A pagoda is erected above the site of where a monks ashes are burried. The pagoda is taller and wider depending upon the status of the monk. The pagodas ranged in age from the Tang dynasty to a modern one with a picture of a video camera carved into it.

As the students trained at the temple, the rest of us went to the Longmen Grotto on the Yi River to see a rock face with hundreds of buddha statues carved into it. They ranged in size from 17m to 2cm. It was a 2 hour bumpy bus ride there, and then just 30 minutes of site seeing. Too bad we couldn't stay there longer.

Next we had dinner and back on the train. We are leaving from a different city, so this time it is a 13 hour train ride. Fortunately we sleep for most of it.

Riding on the train and on some of these bumpy roads on the bus, I saw people everywhere. There is always a farm or a village or something. No land is just baren. Also, I see that China really is a third world country. These villages looked so poor. But most everyone is working, either in front of a little shop or some kind of construction or demolition along the side of the road. They look poor, but not destitute.

I took a 9 hour train to Zhengzhou, the capital...

2003-09-20T13:00:00.000-04:00

I took a 9 hour train to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, but I slept most of the way. The train was not nearly as bad as I feared. No spit on the floor; no foul smell; no stained sheets; no bugs. The toilet was kind of gross at times, but everything else was fine. The beds are stacked three high and there is no door to seperate the compartments. The soft sleeper has nicer beds and a door, but the hard sleeper beds were also comfortable. No harder than the bed I sleep on in my room everyday.

First thing we did once in Zhengzhou was go to the hotel and take a shower. Next we took a bus to the Yellow River and rode across it on a hover-craft. The river is only 7 meters deep at the deepest point. The river is much deaper, but is all silt below that. It looks like a flowing mud slick. Our guide even told us that this was the high season for the river. It seems like such a waste to have such a long river running through the north of China and not be able to use it for commerce.

Next we went to Kaifeng, which is one of the ancient capitals of China. We went to some temple, and something called the Dragon Pavillion. The temple has this statue of some woman with 1000 arms and 1000 eyes (in case you know the story). The Dragon Pavillion is a large palace like thing with a large man made lake. Some Chinese men were swimming in the water, and one of the guys in our group stripped off his clothes and decided to join them. It looked like fun, but I didn't want whatever was growing in the water to start growing on me.

No big adventures in class today. However, after class,...

2003-09-19T13:00:00.000-04:00

No big adventures in class today. However, after class, four of us were standing together talking. Andrew walked away and said goodbye and accidently walked into one of the campus security guards as he turned around. Really he didn't even walk into him. Just in front of him. This must have upset this young security guard for some reason. A minute later he walked back and asked us to stand back a bit out of the road. At least that is what I guess he was saying in Chinese. This was really odd since the group group of people next to us were more in the road than we were. Very strange. We were guessing that maybe he was trying to assert his authority and save face in front of some of his other security friends. This upset some of the friends I was with. But we aren't able to argue with him, and we were about to walk away and find some food anyway. No big deal...

Today I leave for the Shaolin temple trip. I think riding the train will be an adventure. Hopefully I don't have to use the bathroom. I hope they also are putting us up in a soft sleeper car, and not a hard sleeper. I think it will still be 6 bunks per room though. It will be an experience. But if I don't take this first train trip I might not go on any of the future ones. There might be too many complaints... I'll take lots of pictures.

I'm also trying to think of where to go during the 7 day holiday in October. There are so many choices. Maybe Tibet?

While typing this journal entry in the Worldlink computer room a woman came up and asked me about a job helping to teach English. I wasn't planning to take a job here, but maybe I'll concider it. She said it would be 20 hours a week. I don't think I can do that many hours, but maybe I'll go check it out next week and see what it is like. I'm going to stop here and ask her some more questions. Ok really I'm stopping here .

Class was good today too. We have class MWF...

2003-09-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

Class was good today too. We have class MWF all in one class room, but two different teachers, two hours each. TuTh we go to this language lab in another building. Tuesday during the second half, and Thursday during the first half. In the language lab they play a tape recording and we have to listen carefully and then answer questions. It's all very interactive. The teachers are really good and seem very happy to be teaching. But it was a hard lesson today. The language lab lessons seem to be out of synch with the other lessons. The vocab used in the language lab is so much harder. And it's all in hanzi characters. The other book uses easier vocab and also has pinyin. oh well. At least everyone else in the class was lost, so the teacher spent a lot of time on it. The teachers aren't like the kind of mean chinese teachers that I always heard about in China and Taiwan.

I took my laundry to get cleaned today. Only 25 RMB. They have a big washing machine there, or I can pay extra and have the old woman there wash it by hand. She seemed awefully excited to wash my clothes. Maybe next time...

I had Peking Duck for the first time in Beijing on this trip. They use the little tortillas instead of the little buns. It was tasty. We also ordered a fish dish which they brought out in a red bucket for us to look at before they cooked it. The food was all very good. After we finished eating, I saw the waitress cleaning up at a table and putting all the dirty dishes into the same red bucket. hmmm. Good thing we didn't order sushi.

Rained today, and I didn't have a yusan (umbrella). The...

2003-09-17T13:00:00.000-04:00

Rained today, and I didn't have a yusan (umbrella).

The A+ class is so much better. Everyone seems to be at about my level. The sentences are simpler, and the teacher speaks much slower. Most of the words are familiar, but there are still lots of new ones. This is definitely the right class for me. Also had lunch with a couple of my new classmates.

While walking to the library a couple of Chinese students accosted me and asked me to speak English with them. They are sophmores studying English at another college. They said they could tell I was American because I was wearing green?! We talked for a couple of hours at a pastry shop. I used some Chinese, but I only know how to say stupid stuff like \"Do you like to drink coffee or tea?\" Next time I'm going to have them take me to some cool local place in Beijing, and hopefully I'll know more Chinese then.

Had my first class today. Yup definately in the...

2003-09-16T13:00:00.000-04:00

Had my first class today. Yup definately in the wrong class. It was way too hard. People were asked to introduce themselves and talked for about 5 minutes each all about themselves in Chinese. I could just say my name and that I am American. It was pretty bad. So I requested a transfer to the A+ class, which is what they originally said they would put me in. Now I still have to wait one more day to start my real class.

Also started the Business lecture courses. He started by given a overview of Chinese history so we can see the connection between the past and the present.

Met someone today who also graduated from Berkeley. She is in the B class with me, but wants to move to the B+ class. Watching her talk with the administators, I learned being humble is probably the best way.

ATTENTION: Don't worry I'm not really planning to stay here a year. I just mean that I'm having a really great time. Other people here are thinking about extending it for a year, but they are mostly college students. Maybe I'll come back here after returning to the US for a while, depending upon how much mandarin I can learn in 12 weeks. I'd say that so far there is only a 10% chance of that happening.

Went to the BLCU campus today to find out my...

2003-09-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

Went to the BLCU campus today to find out my classroom assignment. They put me in level B15. I think that is too advanced. I should be in a high A level or a low B level. Oh well. We'll see what happens tomorrow. I can always change into a new class for the first week. I'm just glad to finally have class. Also took some new pictures of the campus.

Went to a really nice Mongolian place to eat with Robert (England), Greg (Maryland and fluent in Chinese), and Barb (seattle). It was listed as one of the top 10 places to eat in Beijing $20 US each gave us a big private room with our own private waitress, and enough beer and food to feed an army. We had lamb, other specialty mongolian dishes, and a salty milk tea, which we guessed was made from yack's milk. Other WLE people were supposed to join us, but they couldn't make it. We ended up eating all of the food ourselves. We were stuffed! It was very good. We'll probably go back a second time and see the Mongolian dinner show. It's also supposed to be really good.

I see that the Transmeta stock jumped up a lot today. I wonder if I should sell a bunch and then stay here for a year?

Spent most of the day today at Nadine's host family...

2003-09-14T13:00:00.000-04:00

Spent most of the day today at Nadine's host family with four other WLE people (Josh, John, Wayne, and Yan-Dee) along with a cousin of the host family and her classmate (aka boy friend). Only the father was around. The mother and son were out at some study lesson. The father is a radiologist at a military hospital so they have a pretty nice apartment. Not nearly as nice as a radiologist in the states, but comparively it's probably as equal. We ate grapes and little berries that tasted like apples. Nadine is from Holland and she made fried apple friters. We talked with the cousin and friend about China and Beijing. They practiced their English and I practiced a little of my Chinese. Then we had dinner. There was chicken feet, cray fish, fish, kim chee, jiao zi, and a couple vegetable dishes. It was a really nice evening.

Put together this daily jounral. (All of the previous entries are from memory).

Didn't do much of anything today. It was really...

2003-09-13T13:00:00.000-04:00

Didn't do much of anything today. It was really hot, and I think it zapped all of my energy. We were going to go to the Silk Market but then never got around to it. We sat down to watch a movie (The Dancer Downstairs directed my John Malcovich), which was really good except for the ending, which was bad at so many levels. First the DVD was skipping really badly, secondly it was just bad. Too hollywood. That's really about all that happened. Still it was nice because it further reinforced that I am on vacation and don't have to do anything. No work and no chores.

The BLCU had a chinese acrobatics show in the auditorium...

2003-09-12T13:00:00.000-04:00

The BLCU had a chinese acrobatics show in the auditorium today for all the new students.

In the evening, We all had dinner at a Russian/Chinese restaurant, probably from the kazakstan area. The food was good, and then there was a good dancing and singing show afterwards. Some of the girls on stage were very sexy. The place was very touristy so, for example, a pitcher of beer cost 80RMB instead of the usual 15 or so at a local place. Dinner usually only costs at most 20RMB per person including beers (that's about $2.50).

Then we went out an ex-pat bar area. That was lot of fun. Lots of people there. It was a real meat market though. Afterwards we went to this club called the Mix. There was a few rice rockets in the parking lot, but it was a safe place. Not at all gangster. Got home about 2:00. That was my latest night yet.

Finally had class at the BLCU. It wasn't actually...

2003-09-11T13:00:00.000-04:00

Finally had class at the BLCU. It wasn't actually class, but just the placement test. We were given a sheet with 200 characters and asked to identify the ones we know. I circled about 30 of them. Then the teacher talked to me a little in Chinese, but I'm very bad at listening. I can speak and read much better than I can listen. Class doesn't actually start until Tuesday. Friday is some kind of show at the auditorium for new students, and Monday we find out what class we are in.

I walked to the BLCU this morning with Gordon (it's only a 20-25 minute walk, which isn't bad if it's not too hot). He's married and both he and his wife are here. He works at Oracle and lives in SF. There are about 6 people here from Bay Area here. We were both bitching about our old jobs, and how pointless and dead-end it seems.

I used quite a bit of Chinese today. I helped someone buy a swim suit, you yong ku zi. I also talked with the guy who runs the pool table area in the BLCU. He was very nice.

Today is Moon Cake Day. A lot of us (about 20) organized ourselves to go to the summer palace. We heard that there would be many people there. There was also some kind of concert there that cost 3000RMB to attend. Crazy! Most everything else is so extrememly cheap.

Also, the craziest thing happened at the Summer Palace. I ran into my language exchange partner. What are the odds?!?! Beijing has like 12 million people in it, and I run into the one local I've met. I bet she thinks were are somehow destined for eachother now.

Worked on getting my web-page up, and upload pictures. ...

2003-09-10T13:00:00.000-04:00

Worked on getting my web-page up, and upload pictures. It's very easy. I can get about 60k/sec in the morning when I upload. Not too bad.

Had WLE orientation today, then we all went to lunch together, and afterwards we met our language exchange partners. My language partner speaks pretty good English, and is nice. She is studying industrial design. Some people got some very pretty language exchange partners. I wasn't so lucky. She says she likes really really spicy food, so here complexion isn't so clear.

Ordered a muffin and an orange juice. Even the...

2003-09-09T13:00:00.000-04:00

Ordered a muffin and an orange juice. Even the little things are an adventure here.

Met some new friends, Andrew, John, and Wayne. We went on a bus ride around the Haidian area. Not intentially though. We really just tried to get to the BLCU, and got on the wrong bus. Eventually we got there. The campus is very nice. Lots of trees.