好好学习，天天向上！

I love LA (we love it!)

2008-08-24T00:57:00.002+08:00

Ten points for the first person who gets the reference in the title.

I'm back in the states now, after almost three months abroad... Hearing English in public on a consistent basis is a little unsettling, but I'm sure I'll get used to it within a few days. The weather in LA has been amazing lately--sunny and in the low 80s. I guess it's true what they say: there really is no place like home.

I've had some time recently to think over my experiences this summer. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think my favorite part of learning Chinese in China was the opportunity it afforded me to speak informally with the locals, regardless of location or situation (e.g. in restaurants, at the bookstore, on the bus, etc). For one thing, I find it remarkable that I'm even able to do so now, since my Chinese was nowhere near conversational before this summer, as my language tutor can probably attest to. In addition, I found Chinese people to be extremely friendly and willing to converse about anything, from Korean celebrities to environmental issues--all without the close-minded attitude that I originally expected.

And, people aside, the city of Beijing is so obviously rich in culture and history that I feel like I could live there for the rest of my life and still not understand it all. I don't claim to know what the future holds for me, but I would not be surprised if I ended up back in China, either for further language study or for work. The country calls to me... as corny as that sounds.

So, I guess this is goodbye for now. I'll be leaving for Yale tomorrow, and after that I'll probably be busy with moving in, job training, and new classes. Hopefully though, I'll get another chance to use this China blog before long. 再见！

Fadtastic

2008-08-20T21:23:00.016+08:00

Greetings once again from Seoul, Korea, where the trends are plentiful and the conformity is high. I had an interesting experience today that I'd like to share with future Light Fellows coming to Korea for language study. I saw a girl in her teens on the subway wearing loose-fitting jeans and a black sweatshirt, with her unaltered hair in a simple ponytail. Like the rest of the passengers, I couldn't help but stare, the unspoken sentiment reflected in our gaping faces being, "What is this girl thinking, looking so unpresentable in public?" Only then did I realize how much just one week in this country had altered my mindset. To say that modern Korean society is extremely shallow would, of course, be a generalization--but it would also be fairly accurate. The younger women here, by and large, cannot be seen in public without high heels, the latest popular style of apparel, a name-brand handbag, and hair that has been dyed, highlighted, straightened, permed, or all of the above (try to figure that one out). The men are either in shiny suits, "hip-hop" wear, or tight-fitting clothes that wouldn't fit my younger sister. Oh, and they carry purses.

I generally don't like to talk about other people's appearances, since it's easy to start sounding judgmental and haughty, but a phenomenon this widespread is something that I can't pretend doesn't exist. Does it stem from a desire to appear rich and westernized? Is it self-perpetuating, despite having uncertain origins? Does it make a difference whether the brands they buy are fake or real? Most importantly, in long run, what sort of impact does it make on the progress of society? My good friend Jason Chu wrote a much more insightful post about all this on his own blog; what I have to offer to people coming to Korea for the first time, particularly Light Fellows, is this piece of advice: if you don't dress to match the very latest fashion fad, if you look like a foreigner, if you give off even the slightest air that you're not part of this society, then be prepared for awkward stares and whisperings behind your back. Trust me, I know.

On a happier note, I've finished all the shopping for souvenirs and gifts that I had originally planned to do, so I should have total freedom during the next two days to explore the city and
see the sights. I'm very excited to go back home; I've been away for almost three months now, which is the same length as the stretch of school from the beginning of fall semester to Thanksgiving break--that is, too long. If I experience any reverse cultural shock back in America, it's going to be a weird Korean/Chinese mixture. I guess I'll see how that goes.

And finally... Pictures! I haven't taken that many in Korea, but that's okay since the other Light Fellows here have done a fine job already. (Go Tyler!)

China

Bungee jumping at Ten Crosses. Credits to Cathy for this awesome photo.

Yum, scorpions!

王本星 with a bandage on his nose after Gustavo accidentally smacked him. I think it's a very becoming look, don't you?

Andy and Guo Laoshi. Andy's thoughts: "The program is already over! Let me free!"

For all the flak that Mu Laoshi gets, I thought she was actually a very awesome person.

Prizes. I haven't opened that electronic dictionary since the day I got it. Hrm.

Me with David and Victor, two of my best friends in Beijing. I'll miss their quirkiness, matched only by my own.

The other James Kim of DSICP, thinking about how much he plans to party back in Korea. Or just sleeping. It's hard to tell.

Aww. Yuan Laoshi and Bao Laoshi, two of my favorites.

We spent fifteen minutes just playing in front of this camera/TV. It was fantastic.

Sunny, once again unsuccessfully trying to hide from the inevitable.

Pretty fireworks #1.

Pretty fireworks #2 + random person with camcorder.

Pretty fireworks #3. It reminded me of popcorn.

After the fireworks, we were all exhausted. Fortunately, the subway was empty enough to rest on the seats like this.

More sleeping on the subway.

Carol, skillfully enjoying her 牛肉面-flavored ramen and watching women's handball at the same time.

Action shot!

A real fuwa and several... hunniebunnies?

The Bird's Nest. Where's the Olympic flame?

Korea

Tyler, eating Korean food like nobody's business.

A bowl of sundubu straight from heaven. No joke, quite possibly the best sundubu I've ever eaten in my life.

The obligatory patbingsu. Pretty, and delicious! Koreans sure know how to make desserts.

Tyler singing his heart out at karaoke.

"We love karaoke, yes we do!"

Jason came to hang out and sleep over in my hotel room, so we went to watch a movie. Here he is making friends with Wall-E.

There was a rose garden on the rooftop of the cinema building. Pretty flowers for the win.

The stuff on the petals is rain, which isn't quite as romantic as dew... Close, though.

Clearly explaining something very important.

Chillaxin' on the rocking bench thingy.

We got swept up into a huge protest against Lee Myung Bak afterwards. It was intense.

Breakdancers in front of a department store. They put my skills to shame.

That's it. See you back in America, probably!

糟糕

2008-08-15T01:21:00.003+08:00

I had hoped that having left China, I would no longer have the occasion to say "糟糕" (zao1gao1), which means something to the effect of "disaster" or “terrible." But my experience coming home tonight was pretty much the very definition of 糟糕. Here's what happened: after meeting up with Tyler and Andy (two Light Fellows studying at Sogang--more on that later), I decided I should head home since it was getting pretty late, and the subway would be closing. I was at Sinchon, and my destination, Euljiro-4-ga, was perhaps seven stops away with about fifteen minutes left. I though I'd make it, so I took said subway; it turns out, a 1:00 am closing time actually means all the trains stop taking passengers at 12:55 am. Consequently, the rest of the passengers and I had to get off at Euljiro Ipgu (three stops away) and go upstairs to call a cab. I was there for about half an hour before I realized that the taxi drivers only slowed down if there was a girl in the vicinity, and even then, they only picked up the prettiest girls.

Left with no other choices, I ended up walking all the way to my hotel--probably a twenty minute walk normally, but thirty minutes for me because I was tired, sleepy, and couldn't figure out if I was supposed to turn at an intersection or keeping walking straight. I arrived at the hotel sweaty, disoriented, and with a grudge against Seoul taxi drivers. On the bright side (if this story can be said to have a bright side), I did get to see the parts of the city that I usually miss during my commute because I'm underground. I'm not really sure it was worth it. Oh well.

In other news, my first few days in Korea have been relatively eventful. On Tuesday, my first full day here, I checked out COEX and unsuccessfully shopped around for some fobby clothes. For dinner, I met up with three other Korean Yalies living in Seoul, ate some heavenly pho and gelato, and watched a movie (눈눈이이). Yesterday, after hanging out in Apgujeong for a while, I met up with three prefrosh, ate sushi, took sticker pictures (oh the horror), and watched another movie (X-Files--I didn't even know this existed). Today, I went to Sinchon to meet with Tyler and eat dinner, which ended up being amazing sundubu. Afterwards, we met with several upperclassmen, though besides Andy, they ended up going to different places. Tyler, Andy, a Japanese lady in their year at Sogang, and I went to a noraebang (karaoke room just sounds silly) and sang our hearts out, then went over to a bar to chat. After that, as you know... 糟糕.

I never realized how much studying Chinese would help me with Korean until yesterday, when I was speaking with my uncle and he started dropping words like 전세계 (全世界, whole world), 모정 (母情, motherly sentiment), and 일반 (一般, common). It's actually more likely a sign that my Korean is just very bad, but nevertheless, I'm glad my Chinese is actually useful for something still. Another interesting phenomenon that I never noticed before was the abundance of Chinese characters in everyday Korean life; from the subway to billboard advertisements, Chinese characters are everywhere--albeit in traditional. The practicality of this practice is obvious: because Korean is nontonal, many Chinese words become perfect homophones in the Korean language, and the characters become necessary for easy differentiation. I've heard that many people support the completely abolishment of Chinese characters from the Korean lexicon. I wonder how that would work out.

I know I promised photos in the last post, but I'm way too tired to be bothered with resizing and uploading right now. My next post will have photos for sure, plus a commentary/critique on the superficiality of Korean people. Good night.

A hectic (but awesome) final weekend

2008-08-12T15:24:00.004+08:00

Wow, I'm done. After eight long weeks of intensive Chinese study, worrying about tingxies, studying shengci, struggling to understand the locals, experimenting--many times unsuccessfully--with Chinese food, ad nauseam, I have finally graduated from (the equivalent of) second year Chinese. In retrospect, I'm glad I spent as much time as I did studying rather than going out to party or even just exploring, because honestly, such opportunities presented themselves naturally and, in the end, still allowed me to both dramatically improve my Chinese and familiarize myself with the city. Final verdict on DSICP? Definitely the way to go for a Light Fellow studying second year Chinese, but only if he/she has the discipline to study hard at least some of the time. (This is assuming that said Light Fellow is actually interested in getting better at Chinese, which I discovered isn't necessarily true.)

On Friday after our final written and oral exams, we had a closing ceremony/party in the restaurant downstairs. I think the best part was the slideshow: Zhao Laoshi did a really good job putting it together, and it showed many of the most memorable moments from the summer. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that most of the photos he used were mine, I probably would have gotten a little teary-eyed. Shhh. Afterwards, we had a few skits and performances by students (including "Dui Mian De Nu Hai Kan Guo Lai" by the second year Yalies and "Bu De Bu Ai" plus a dance routine by me and my roommate). At the very end, they gave out various awards, and I ended up winning a really really nice electronic dictionary/MP3 player/video player/handheld game console. Then we took photos and said our goodbyes. I don't like goodbyes. Alas.

That night started off a little rough and slowly but surely got better. A bunch of us went to The Place (there's a place in Beijing called The Place, don't ask me why) to watch the opening ceremony, but once we got there we were told that they wouldn't be showing it on the main screen in front of the Place, so we hurried to Tim's Texas BBQ to watch it on a smaller TV. We ordered food and watched the ceremony, but found out an hour later that our food wouldn't be coming. So we walked back to The Place, got some Indian food, went outside, sat in a big circle, and watched the rest of the opening ceremony, which they were showing on the big screen after all. Interestingly, during our meal, a news reporter came and interviewed us, so we might have ended up on Chinese TV. Afterwards, we took the new subway line to the stop closest to the Bird's Nest (the main Olympics stadium) and watched the amazing fireworks show. Serendipitously, an area right next to where we were standing was also part of the show, so I was able to take some beautiful, up-close photos. Stay tuned for those.

Saturday was yet another new adventure. The awesome Carol Yu was able to secure tickets for women's handball, so all of us met up at the same subway station as the night before and walked over to the venue. We watched two games: the first was Romania versus Kazakhstan, and it was not very interesting, since Kazakhstan basically got slaughtered. But the second, Russia versus Korea, was incredibly exciting, not only because I'm Korean, but because of the history of the two teams--Russia was the 2007 world champion, and Korea was the 2004 Olympic silver medalists. As fate would have it, the game ended in a draw. It felt more like a victory for Korea though, because they were trailing by a lot with just ten minutes remaining and managed to pull off an awesome scoring streak to tie it up. After the game, we went to the far east side of Beijing for a farewell dinner with some of Carol's church members, since she was leaving for Hong Kong. The food there was tasty, especially the supposedly really spicy fish that I actually didn't think was that spicy. After dinner, we were all tired, so we took a cab back to CNU and I knocked out almost instantly.

On Sunday, I checked out and headed over to Devin's place to spend the night, since I foolishly had bought airplane tickets for the 11th rather than the 10th like everyone else. We hung out most of the day, just shopping and visiting random places in Wangfujing. The next morning, I took the airport express subway line (which, annoyingly, had no convenient space for really big luggage) to Terminal 3, where I passed through customs surprisingly smoothly and got on my plane--not back to LA, but to the Land of the Morning Calm: Korea.

And that is where I am now. My uncle owns Hyundai Residence Hotel here in 충무로 (Chungmuro), so he gave me a room with a really nice view of Seoul, in addition to spending money for the next two weeks. He even bought me laundry detergent and made arrangements for the restaurant down the street to give me free meals. It's nice to have good connections, sometimes. Also, although I'm technically done with my own Light Fellowship, I plan to continue blogging while I'm here, since I'm still in an East Asian country (and, at the very least, I'll probably end up meeting with some of the Light Fellows here). Photos and a report on my first few days back in the motherland coming up shortly. Bye bye!

倒数第二的 (Penultimate)

2008-08-07T17:37:00.011+08:00

As is evident from the title, this will probably be my second to last post about my adventures as a foreigner here in Beijing. I have three full days left: the final examination and closing ceremony tomorrow, then the weekend before I leave on Monday. Time is zooming along now--with every passing day, I realize more and more how much I will miss this city and its people. During my (final) 1-dui-1 today, I was telling Yuan laoshi how much more 热情 (warm/welcoming) and 友好 (friendly) Beijing people were than I expected, and I ended up using about five new grammar structures, which made her laugh with delight. It was a good way to wrap up two months of intense and incessant Chinese study.

In other news, I've been rather busy lately trying to do all the shopping for cheap stuff that I should have done during the first seven weeks. I went to Liulichang yesterday, and successfully managed to buy a guitar plus its travel case for about $38 (an example of how much my haggling skills have improved--the shopkeeper originally asked for around $60). That wasn't even the best part of yesterday, though. During the taxi ride there, I had, for the first time in my stay here, an actual, meaningful conversation with a Beijing taxi driver.

A little background about the 出租车司机 (taxi drivers) here: their Beijing accents are particular fierce, and, as far as I can tell, they don't close their mouths when speaking. It doesn't help that they all listen to the same radio program--some sort of monologue spoken in heavily accented Chinese. Fortunately, my driver yesterday was younger, and thus had not yet been too heavily influenced by all this. We started out talking about what I was doing in China, and ended up discussing anything and everything under the Beijing sun, from his wife's recent pregnancy to Olympics ticket scalpers to underground Christianity. Most remarkably of all, there was not a single word he said that I did not recognize, though, admittedly, there were certain words which I had to ask him to repeat before I realized what he had said. I was actually a little sad when we arrived, and we had to say our farewells. Perhaps we'll meet again in the future--the world is getting smaller and smaller, after all.

I haven't posted any photos recently, so I guess I'll do that now. First, a question for the office people back at Yale: for those of us Light Fellows who have opted to keep a blog, is there a set of standards by which you judge the quality of our blogs, and which we must have followed in order to not have to write a final report?

And now, my (possibly) final set of photos from China.

Random photo of two laoshis. Guo Laoshi is really tall.

Micah (BK '10, I think) surprised at something during the dinner with Zhou Laoshi and Dean Gentry.

Zhou Laoshi! I don't know if it's just me, but he seems to have gotten older. Teaching Chinese 115 must be stressful.

Unripe mango slices in Sprite (and a rose petal for no apparent reason). Peter and I ate almost all of this.

The main gate of Beijing Zoo, made famous by the Chinese 115 lessons on how to give directions. Embarrassing story: I asked a local how to get to the zoo, and he gave me a strange look before walking away. It turns out, I was right in front of this gate. Sigh.

标语! Two of them, actually. I like the second one: "I line up, I yield, I happy"

Very few things in my life have made me as excited as seeing this sign.

Living the good life.

This monkey was crying, but I'm not sure why. He probably saw my face.

Red panda. Not quite as cute as giant pandas, but close.

This lion bears a striking resemblance to me on weekday afternoons.

Hippo! (河马, or, according to Shirley 水牛 [water cow].)

A baby kangaroo, all alone. I wanted to be his friend.

Wow, S-T-U-D to the max.

Kung-fu/ballet performance. This place is called the Red Theater, imagine that.

Yay, Yalies.

Not an uncommon sight to behold in our dorm building lobby.

This car had an Olympics logo on its hood. It's not a taxi, so I have no idea what it's for.

On our way to Silk Market #2 (which we never found), we came across Man Shop.

And his good friend, Lady Shop.

Chinese McDonald's look exactly like American McDonald's, except they're all underground. And they have coconut pie on their menus. Blegh.

Derek and Victor sleeping on the way to Ten Crosses.

Someone's feet sleeping on the way to Ten Crosses.

Ten Crosses's crazy rocking bridge, which we decided to cross because we're crazy.

Manmade waterfall. I forgot to play around with my shutter speed. Next time, next time...

The platform from which we bungee jumped. High? Yes. Scary? Quite so. Worth it? Oh yeah.

Twilight

2008-07-31T21:33:00.002+08:00

Sorry it's been so long--relatively speaking--since my last update. Between studying our daily lessons (which are unfortunately but expectedly getting more and more advanced in their subject matter) and trying to explore all the parts of Beijing that I haven't gotten to yet, it's just hard to find the motivation to blog. There's no planned excursion this weekend, so hopefully I'll get a bit of time to rest.

Last Saturday's trip to 十渡 (shi2du4, Ten Crosses) can be summed up in two words: bungee jumping. Yes, whether you choose to believe it or not, I did indeed jump from a platform 180 feet above the water's surface with nothing but a rope to support me. I felt surprisingly calm until I was standing at the very edge, at which point my composure promptly turned to thoughts of terrible ways in which I was about to die. To be honest, I don't actually remember the fall since it was so quick, but others tell me that I was particularly bouncy. Pretty awesome. Shidu also had these incredibly fun water cannon boats for rent, which we of course took advantage of. My boat had me, Simon, my roommate David, and another Duke person named Victor. In the course of combat, I managed to board another group's boat, spray them with my water gun, and jump back on my boat--all while wearing a cowboy hat. Did I mention that I'm actually a pirate in training?

On Monday, I found out that former Light Fellow Devin Lau had come all the way from Hong Kong to Beijing, so he, Nie Laoshi (3rd year), and I went out to a Hunan restaurant (I think) to eat dinner and catch up. I tried some dishes I had never tasted before--for example, bitter melon and this one type of poached fish--and had an all-around good time. Naturally, I let Devin and Nie Laoshi do most of the talking, while I listened. I've started to notice that I can fairly readily follow Chinese conversations, even those between fluent to close-to-fluent speakers. It's hard to say whether this is simply because I've spent close to two months in Beijing, or because our curriculum is particularly effective, but it's definitely quite a thrill. While I do feel as though my vocabulary is a little lacking, this is a choice that I consciously made by going with DSICP--rather than staying in my room and studying 生词 all day, I have to freedom to go out, have fun, and practice my speaking and listening skills, which are as important as vocabulary, if not more so.

Speaking of going out, I had quite an adventure today trying to find my language partner's house on the outskirts of Beijing. As part of the program, every DSIC student is required to visit his/her language partners' home or dorm. However, my language partner is a girl, and males at CNU are not allowed to enter girls' dorms, leaving only the former option. The first leg of the trip was simple: I took a bus from the CNU campus two stops down to Hangtianqiao. This was where the difficulties began. I ended up getting off at Hangtianqiaobei, rather than Hangtianqiaoxi where I should have gotten off. After asking about four people, none of whom knew how to get from bei to xi, I ended up walking around on my own until I found the right stop. From there, I took another bus for close to an hour out to Shuangyuhuandaoxi, but not before getting a text message from my language partner saying there was yet another bus I'd have to take once I got there. So I took that bus--going the wrong way. After about fifteen minutes, I realized I was getting further and further from my desired destination, so I got off, crossed the street, and got on the right one. Eventually, I arrived at my language partner's area, Pudongxiaoqu; furthermore, it was all worth it in the end, because her mom made tons of incredibly delicious jiaozi (and other yummies) for me to eat. The scenery in the area was also very pretty; I guess this is a perk of living in a suburb, regardless of which country it's in.

Today's dinner was a different experience altogether. My roommate introduced several people, including me, to a barbecue restaurant near campus. The place had unlimited meat, dumplings, fruit, and drinks for only 45 kuai (~$6). The kimchi there was also very authentic tasting, which was a pleasant surprise. However, the thing that I will remember best about the restaurant is not the quantity or even the quality of the food, but the fact that the six guys who went all decided to take off our shirts halfway through the meal. We were actually following the example of some big Chinese men sitting across from us, and I was a little worried that they'd get mad and come beat us up; fortunately, they didn't notice--or, if they did, pretended not to. There is no way I would have done something like this in America, but I figured that such an opportunity only comes once in a lifetime. Don't worry, pictures are forthcoming.

It hadn't really struck me that I'm nearly done with my stay in China until I got departure instructions along with my corrected homework today. I approach the end with a rather ambivalent attitude: while I'm very excited about going to Korea and then back to Yale, my two months here in China have taught me more than I ever could have imagined--and I'm not just talking about language acquisition. I'll withhold my concluding thoughts until the real end of the program, but suffice it to say for now that I definitely made the right choice in coming here this summer to study Chinese instead of staying in LA to play or in New Haven to do research.

The government and me

2008-07-23T14:10:00.005+08:00

The longer I live in China, the more acutely aware I become of how tight of a grip the Chinese government/Communist party (it makes no sense to distinguish between the two) has on information and media that common people have access to. Exhibit A: I was trying to view the YouTube videos that accompany this article today, in particular the video in which two foreign pro-Tibet demonstrators are surrounded and beaten by PRC nationals in a hotel lobby. YouTube has been working relatively smoothly recently, so I felt hopeful. But, inexorably, Firefox yet again displayed the dreaded error message "The connection has been reset [by the government]."

I still cannot imagine what it must be like for a person to grow up his/her entire life being told by ruling authorities which opinions and sources of information are acceptable and which are not. Arguably, it is this very system that gives rise to unfortunate events of the type displayed in that video: the people are led to believe in a common worldview, and when they encounter situations that challenge this worldview, they cannot help but respond sincerely and forcefully. The government, then, knowing that allowing its people to know about said response and the negative opinions of people in other countries regarding said response may contradict the worldview that it has espoused, simply blocks all related informational pathways, at least until the furor dies down. This never-ending cycle, as it were, is only visible from the outside, and thus cannot terminate on its own accord.

It's fascinating to talk to my teachers and yuban about our views of government and human rights. According to my yuban, Chinese people value unity and harmony above all else, including the liberty and happiness of individuals--or rather, they believe that such liberty and happiness should arise naturally out of societal harmony. Furthermore, during my 1-对-1 today, my teacher told me that most Chinese people still consider it best for the government to personally handle any and every affair of the nation. On the one hand, I have enormous respect for these viewpoints, which are rooted in honorable ideals; on the other hand, I have to admit that when I listen to these opinions, a part of me remains in disbelief and feels suffocated with what it perceives to be the impracticality of the current Chinese state of affairs. I hope that this is not an intolerant foreigner mindset but rather a love for China and a hope for improvement of the aspects of Chinese society that are still lacking. At the very least, I'm glad for this opportunity to listen to and discuss beliefs that are different from mine.

Anyway, moving on... I realize that the "average day" post is way overdone, but I figured I should write one for my own sake; after all, five years from now, it's not my weekend trips to tourist destinations but rather everyday life that I'll miss the most about Beijing (if I'm not back here, anyway). So here it is:

6:30 am: Alarm (Backstreet Boys) goes off. Wake up, press snooze, and go back to sleep.
7:15 am: Wake up again when roommate gets out of the shower. Wash, change, and review characters for the day's tingxie.
7:50 am: Walk over to the classroom building and grab a few pieces of bread (provided free of charge) for breakfast.
8:00 - 9:00 am: 大班课 (big class). Lecture. Least fun part of the day.
9:10 - 10:00 am: 小班课 (small class #1). Practice new grammar. Also not very fun.
10:10 - 11:00 am: 小班课 (small class #2). Read the text aloud, improve speaking speed. Getting better.
11:10 - 11:35 am: 1-对-1 (1-on-1). Talk with a teacher about the day's lesson, or any other conversation-worthy topic. My favorite "class."
12:00 - 2:00 pm: Get lunch at the dumpling restaurant next to campus (10 dumplings for 4 kuai, unbeatable). Do homework.
~2:00 pm - 3:30 pm: Meet with yuban, go over homework, talk about life.
4:00 - 8:00 pm: Free time. Play basketball, go out exploring, eat dinner, etc.
8:00 - 10:00 pm: Memorize next day's vocabulary, and, if it's Wednesday/Thursday, write an essay for Friday's oral exam.
10:00 - 11:30 pm: Relax, shower, use internet, talk with roommate.
12:00 am: Sleep. Zzzzz.

That reminds me, I've been having pretty crazy dreams lately. Unfortunately, I can never remember the details, or whether the dream was in Chinese. I'll be sure to mention when I have my first all-Chinese dream. That will be an exciting day indeed.

Edit
Today, during my language practicum about 大锅饭时代 (literally "big pot food time," when everyone in China was guaranteed work), I discovered that I really enjoy speaking with the local people in a casual, non-academic setting. This is something I could not possibly have predicted when I first got to Beijing. I should try doing it more often from now on.

An Olympic weekend, sort of

2008-07-20T22:08:00.013+08:00

As you might be able to tell from the title's lame pun, this entry is a double feature! First up is my impression of Olympics-era Beijing. Then I have the usual account of my busy busy weekend.

So, what's the biggest change around here lately? Ask any DSICP or CNU student, and he/she will probably tell you that it's the increased security on campus. Starting about a week ago, the guards started checking for ID at any and every entrance of CNU. This means that if I want to get to my dorm, I have to go through the guard at the main gate in addition to the guards at either of the entrances I use to enter my building. They even check when my friends and I return from playing basketball, even though they clearly see us leaving an hour earlier. This is the very definition of mafan--I can only hope they don't get even stricter.

Other (probably more significant) changes I've seen including the following: longer streaks of what I refer to in my head as "mountain days" (that is, days when I can see the mountains from my room), increased prevalence of catchy Olympics slogans around the city ("同一个世界，同一个梦想" and "迎奥运，讲文明，树新风" being the two most common), more and more foreigners everywhere, less traffic because of the government's new even/odd policy, and the disappearance of the small vendors that before were ubiquitous to Beijing's sidewalks and bridges. I guess you could say that Beijing is starting to take on the characteristics of any other Olympics city--more hospitable to the incoming surge of tourists, at the expense of some of its own local flavor. It's unfortunate that I never got to experience pre-Olympics Beijing, but the city's current liveliness and atmosphere are exciting in their own right.

One last thing about the Olympics here... I have to say that Beijing's mascot campaign is brilliant. Dubbed 福娃 (fuwa, good-luck dolls), each of the five mascots represents a different sport, a different element, and a different aspect of Chinese culture. Furthermore, not only are their names (Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini) plausible nicknames for small children, but when strung together, they spell out "Beijing huanying ni," which means "Beijing welcomes you." Clever? Yes. Cheesy? Awesomely so. Of course, my favorite fuwa is Jingjing, who, on top of being a panda (my favorite animal), represents shooting (my favorite sport). I proudly admit that as of last Tuesday, I became the owner of my very own Jingjing, albeit a cheap version whose "Beijing" is spelled "Bejing." It's the thought that counts, anyway.

If that's not the coolest image I've ever seen, I don't know what is.

So on to my weekend. Friday was nice; after Chinese table at the most delicious Chinese restaurant I've been to yet, and a long afternoon nap, I went to dinner with Zhou Laoshi (of Chinese 115 fame) and Dean Marichal Gentry (the new Yale Dean of Student Affairs). We ate roast duck, Beijing's signature dish, for free, so I was happy of course. I also got to meet up with some CET people, though I was a little disappointed because I thought all the Light Fellows in Beijing would be there. Alas. That night, my language partner, her friend, my friends, and I went to the KTV place near campus and sang our hearts out. It was pretty awesome, as evinced by the fact that we got back at 3:30 am.

On Saturday, I finally visited Beijing Zoo, surprisingly not with other DSICPers but rather with my Yale friend Keira Lu, who is currently living and taking classes in Beijing. The weather was unbearably hot, which made the animals (and me) a little sluggish. I did get to see the pandas in a marginally conscious state though, and was thus ecstatic. Afterwards, we rode a boat along the river that runs through the zoo, checked out a few more animals and a nearby Buddhist temple, returned to CNU and ate at the Korean/Japanese restaurant downstairs, and watched a Korean movie before Keira had to go.

That night was the big Yale Club of Beijing barbecue, which I decided to check out despite the steep entrance fee of 120 RMB. In retrospect, the little bit of meat that I did get to eat was definitely not worth so much money--fortunately, the opportunity to meet up with both old friends and new freshmen made up for it. After the BBQ ended, several of us from DSICP and CET went to a nearby Partyworld for KTV action. It was my second night of karaoke in a row, but I enjoyed it immensely anyway. Too bad karaoke is expensive and requires a group of people; otherwise, I think I'd be going nearly every night.

Today, I checked out a different location of the international church I've been attending. This one was pretty far away--about 45 RMB by taxi--but it was also much bigger and had more people I know (like Alice!). After service, I bought a new pendant for my necklace at the bookstore (恩典, endian, grace) and then went to a nearby restaurant called Peter's TexMex. Wow, so good. I guess the Los Angeles side of me has been missing Mexican food, because I ate two burritos and was still hungry. Fortunately, I was able to restrain myself (besides ordering a flurry for desert). Sigh, I already want more.

And that brings us to today evening, when we Yalies went to see the kung fu/ballet/acrobatics show that all the other DSICPers had watched on Friday. Despite my lack of enthusiasm (largely fatigue from doing so much this weekend), I thoroughly enjoyed the show, though not the storyline so much as the actual performances within each act. Some of the things that the monks pulled off were pretty superhuman--one of them lied down across several swords, placed a sheet of needles on his chest, and had someone else lie on top of that, among other things. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of dedication and training necessary for such feats. Studying Chinese is hard enough for me.

I'm a little behind on editing my recent photos, but I promise that the next entry will have at least a few. I also promise to have decided whether I'm participating in the upcoming speech competition by then. Farewell, farewell!

A Xi'an you can see!

2008-07-17T18:31:00.011+08:00

It's only natural and appropriate that I find myself at Yolanda Coffee uploading photos on the day before an exam. (Note to future Light Fellows: I'm being sarcastic. You're actually supposed to study for exams... or so I've heard.) Anyway, here's my trip to Xi'an, from my camera's perspective.

Beijing west train station. Very crowded. Beware of pickpockets.

My 硬卧 (hard bed). I slept very well, so it was either softer than the name would suggest, or I was very tired. Or both.

Nuclear power plant? What?

Ancient city wall + beautiful skies = good times all around

One day, David shall grasp that lantern and be a light for the world. Until then, he'll just look silly.

I don't really know what's going on here, but I like it.

One of the younger tour guides explaining how the pagoda got its name. Hand motions were essential.

Oh yeah. Fake kung-fu poses for the win.

I took this photo at their request, but they still haven't asked me for a copy. Boo.

The pagoda itself. B&W-ified for added excitement.

View large. Quite possibly the most complicated character I've seen to date.

"Happy is the tender grass, when here your feet do not trespass."

I think David's emerging flower pose compliments the ancient buildings rather nicely.

Huge Muslim temple from the Silk Road era. Probably the most underrated place we visited in Xi'an.

Me again. Sorry.

Da Wang laoshi, Wang Sai laoshi, and the illustrious Ro Ro.

Can it be? Duck shaped jiaozi with duck meat inside? You better believe it!

Tang Dynasty theater show. These guys had serious skill.

Our main tour guide. He gave up speaking only Chinese to us after about five minutes.

I didn't realize so many of the Terra Cotta soldiers are missing heads. I wonder where they've gone.

"Mao Zedong: Man, Not God." They were actually selling this in the gift store.

If you look closely, you can see the outline of an ancient carriage wheel.

The quintessential tourist photo, but B&W-ified because of white balance issues.

Cave home. Can you find Mao?

According to my roommate, these are 小兵马俑 (little Terra Cotta soldiers), and they brought their discoverers 小有名 (little fame). I don't know about the latter claim, but I'm pretty sure these statues and the real Terra Cotta soldiers are from completely different dynasties.

Playing cards on the train ride back. Who's who?

Right then, back to studying Chinese. Just a heads up, my next entry will probably be Olympics-themed, considering how crazy the preparations around Beijing have become recently. 再见！

西安, and inspired thoughts

2008-07-14T12:50:00.006+08:00

Because this past weekend was midterm weekend, DSICP gave everyone the option of going to Xi'an, Shanxi, or a Shaolin temple for a long 旅行 (sorry, I'm too tired to think of the English translation at the moment). I, like 90% of the students, chose Xi'an, despite Zhao Laoshi's insistence that it has nothing interesting besides the Terra Cotta Soldiers. In retrospect, he was largely correct, but I had a good time nonetheless.

First things first: the train ride to and from Xi'an was pretty awesome. It was a 13.5 hour ride, so our car had 硬卧 (hard beds) to sleep on. All the rooms were connected by a narrow hallway, where a lot of people hung out, drank, or just talked. We departed pretty late on Friday night, so after watching Il Mare with Eileen and Sunny, I pretty much knocked out and did not wake up until late the next morning, when the laoshis began taking pictures of me with my panda doll. (So not cool.) The train ride back was a little more eventful. First, I did some magic for my friends and ended up teaching them a simple trick, which they have yet to master. Then we played Texas Hold'em for jelly candies, and I won by a fluke. Afterwards, my friend and I tried checking out car #8, which was supposed to be a restaurant, but we found out that they had absolutely no food left. Most unfortunate. Since we had nothing else to do, Sunny, Eileen, and I ended up watching Taegukki, a very sad but excellently made movie about the Korean war. Then I slept, of course. I haven't taken a sleeper train since my trip to the UK in tenth grade, so this was definitely an interesting experience.

Now, on to Xi'an itself. The hotel we stayed at, besides being remarkably close to the train station, completely exceeded my expectations in terms of quality and service. The buffet style restaurant on the fourth floor had both Chinese and American food, in addition to... wait for it... fresh fruit! Our rooms were enormous, and the bathrooms had real shower stalls, though the towels' drying ability left something to be desired. We also got free (fast) internet service; unfortunately, I couldn't find the time to upload my photos, so that'll have to wait until my next trip to Yolanda. After arriving, eating at the restaurant, and freshening up, the group went out to visit a few tourist attractions, including the ancient city wall, Big Wild Goose Pagoda (or something like that), a terra cotta factory where we got to make (but not keep) our own miniature terra cotta soldiers, a huge Muslim temple, and a specialty jiaozi restaurant with seventeen different kinds of jiaozi and a Tang Dynasty theater show. That night, a bunch of people went out to visit the night market or check out Xi'an's nightlife, but my roommate and I just slept. I know, sort of lame, but sometimes it just happens.

The next day was the main event. We went to the 兵马俑 (Terra Cotta Soldiers) site and spent several hours visiting the various pits while listening to the tour guide explain the history and significance of the discovery. It's one thing to learn about the terra cotta soldiers in history class, and another thing entirely to see them in person. It still blows my mind how the ancient Chinese had the technology or the patience to create so many statues with such detail. It's a feeling that can't really be described with words, I suppose. I wish we could have spent more time looking at the figures and checking out the various exhibits, but there's only so much you can do in a weekend. After 兵马俑, we visited a cave house, which was not at all like the primitive dwellings depicted in dinosaur movies. The actual cave part of the house consisted of a bed, a small TV, and limited furniture inside a half-cylinder shaped room carved into the earth. To be honest, it looked rather cozy. Could I actually live in such a place? Who knows.

One thing I noticed about Xi'an is that the number of beggars seems to be much higher, particularly in proportion to the population. In addition, many of the beggars are crippled, some to the point that I can't imagine how they get by with even just everyday life. For example, at the ancient city wall, I saw a man missing his right arm and right leg, with just an old wooden cane for support. This in itself took my breath away, but afterwards I saw that he had only collected enough donation money to carry in one hand, and that most people didn't even give him a second glance as they passed by. If China's socialism couldn't address the existence of such huge disparities between the quality of life for the rich and for the poor, what happens to the disadvantaged now that China is becoming more and more capitalistic?

On the other hand, as I go about living in China, as it were, I often catch myself feeling sorry for the Chinese people that I encounter on a day-to-day basis, simply because they don't make as much money as I do, and therefore can't afford to buy as any luxury products. This is incredibly arrogant on my part. Who am I to assume that because they can't afford luxuries, their lives are not happy? Sometimes I feel like this is a consequence of me not being able to really connect with them, which is easily possible given my relatively nice living conditions and painfully artificial Chinese language environment. I would love to be able to spend time living among common Chinese people, learning how they live, what they live for, and whether they're really all that different from me after all. Unfortunately, I realize that I won't have this kind of opportunity this summer, which is why I've seriously started to consider coming back to China in the future, or maybe even after I graduate.

Which brings me to my last point of interest. Having already spoken to several people who came to China after college, including an investment banker, a pastor, and, today, the CEO of McDonalds in China, I'm starting to realize that the opportunities for a foreigner looking for short-, medium-, or even long-term work in China are growing exponentially by the day. This may just be a fleeting fantasy, but seeing as how I'm aiming to earn a technical degree at Yale anyway (astronomy and physics, to be specific), I might come here to work at a company that needs people with critical thinking and problem solving skills for however long seems appropriate, and then return to America to continue on the traditional researcher route.

But for now, I should stop fantasizing and study for tomorrow's quiz. Thus, after a long and fruitful weekend, I sign off until the inevitable Xi'an photo post. Bye bye!

Edit
Ah yes, I forgot to mention one thing. On the train ride to Xi'an, my panda doll disappeared, which made me quite sad. On the ride back, I happened to find it on someone else's bed (most serendipitous, I'd say) and thus rather happily went to sleep, reunited with my friend. When I woke up though, it had disappeared once again, this time leaving a disheartening note describing the reasons for its departure. I hope it comes back before I leave China.

(Sunny, if you're reading this, I hope you know that you've unofficially declared war. Be forewarned.)

The past two weeks, in photographic summary

2008-07-09T18:18:00.016+08:00

Sooo... Today I discovered that I can use Mac OSX's Automator application to utilize Preview's hidden resize function, enabling me to batch resize all of my photos. I know I just updated yesterday and clearly stated that my next post wouldn't be until after my midterm on Friday, but I think in light of new circumstances, this monster picture post is justifiable.

By the way, if you own a Mac and would also like to know a simple method for batch resizing photos that doesn't require third-party software, send me an email at james [dot] kim [at] yale [dot] edu, and I'd be glad to send you the instructions.

One last thing: I'm terribly sorry if you're trying to read other posts on the Light Fellowship Google Reader page, and the text keeps moving down because of this post. I know how annoying that can be. Anyway, without further ado, here are the photos:

One more picture from the Great Wall. This is the "forbidden" section that a bunch of us explored anyway. Yes, the white stuff is actually fog.

At the request of my mom, I uploaded a photo with myself in it. Hi 엄마!

A duck/goose at the park we went to for our language practicum. They didn't fear humans.

The only picture I have of Sunny not trying to avoid the camera. Go Eileen for always being photo-friendly!

Awesome sword lady. I hope she didn't mind me taking pictures.

Chinese parks are definitely prettier than American parks.

Yeah, 打 that 太极拳.

For an entire five minutes, I watched this guy repeatedly body slam a tree and slap himself on the chest. What a man.

Chinese "disco." We like.

The view from my dorm room window on an especially clear day. The government's cloud seeding tactics must be working, because the incidence of clear days has gone up drastically recently. Awesome, except for the whole rain-every-other-day bit.

Behold, Pejoy. You know you want some.

Behind these pedestrians lies what I like to call the Intersection of Doom. "Why," you ask, "aren't those traffic lights in the background?" Turns out, they don't work. The ensuing congestion sort of defeats the purpose of the intersection.

Obligatory "blurry moving train" photo.

Eating Korean BBQ in Wudaokou. So much, so good.

The only photo I managed to take in Tous Les Jours before the fuwuyuan told me to stop. TLJ's 蛋挞 (egg tarts) are okay, but not as good as KFC's.

Enjoying the scenery at Yiheyuan.

The dragon boat we took to cross the lake. Scary, isn't it?

Jihoon, one of the first non-Yale people I got to know in China.

Can't you just hear the sound "Blaghhh!" coming out of his mouth?

Inside the dragon boat. David is probably explaining how important Mu Laoshi is.

The Korean posse, looking pretty slick.

View from the top. It's hard to make out in this small version, but the little dots in the background are all boats.

What, did you think the bathrooms in China were exempt from the Olympics reforms?

My language partner, 吗静 (Ma Jing). I forget what she was pointing at.

Pam, trying to hide behind my sunglasses (to no avail).

Aww. Awwww.

Happy! (We soon found out that the restaurant in the background doesn't sell ice cream. Not so happy, rawr.)

风景一定不错！

General silliness all around. Did you know that that giant dragon thing is actually a kite? I didn't.

Pam's yuban/my yuban's best friend, Meng Ran. She was amused by something, apparently.

Inspecting the label (probably the ingredients, since Chinese food labels don't have nutrition information).

Weekend, paddle boats, and contemplation, oh my

2008-07-08T15:41:00.006+08:00

How is it that I always end up blogging when I have the most work to do? Ahh! Then again, I suppose the rest of this week won't be too different from today--on top of usually long daily lessons, we have our midterm on Friday, which means I need to start reviewing all those 生词 (new characters/words) from previous weeks. 哎呀，糟糕!

I suppose the most interesting thing to note from the past few days is that I've finally started to explore Beijing on my own, rather then relying on my teachers to take me places or staying in my dorm and studying all day. On Friday, after meeting up with Grace Kim (CET) in Wudaokou, a few DSICPers and I checked out Chaoyang District's Club Babyface. It was a little small, but admission was free and the music was good, so the overall experience was pretty decent.

The next morning, I somehow managed to wake myself up by 8:30 to go to 颐和园 (Summer Palace) for a tour led by the teachers. It was definitely one of the most beautiful places I've visited so far in Beijing, and I enjoyed the morning there despite the intermittent rain and ridiculous heat. After getting back to our dorms, I felt pretty tired, so I took a nap (睡午觉!) for six hours. (Side note: I felt really really cold after waking up, even though the weather was super hot and my A/C wasn't turn up that high. Weird?)

That night, at the suggestion of some teachers and friends, I took a cab to Sanlitunr--first to eat, then to play. The restaurant I went to is called Bellagio, and it's pretty high-class, even by American standards. Interestingly, all the fuwuyuans were women with really short hair, so I spent a few minutes debating with my friend whether or not they were forced to cut their hair after starting to work there. Our conclusion? No clue.

Everyone else was tired, so my friend and I decided to check out Club Mix by ourselves. If you're not familiar with Beijing nightlife, Club Mix is probably one of the biggest and most famous nightclubs in the city; needless to say, I was pretty excited. The entrance fee was a little steep (50 yuan, about $7USD--clearly, my standards have dropped). However, the reason for this exorbitance quickly became clear: Mix has two huge dance floors, each with its own bar, DJ, and giant LCD screen. The floor was super crowded, so there wasn't much room for movement (or breathing), but I gradually adjusted to the atmosphere, and three hours later I had danced to my heart's content. By some strange coincidence, I later found out that some of the people I had danced with are HBA students, including a Yalie. Beijing sure is a small city.

Sunday was also very interesting. My language partner (yuban, hereafter) had asked me to show her what church in China is like, but since Chinese citizens aren't allowed to go to BICF, the international fellowship that I attend, my friend and I took our yubans and one of their friends to the state-run "Three Self" church. The service was all in Chinese, so I couldn't understand a single thing; however, it did seem like everyone else was pretty engaged, so I assume good words were spoken. Our ensuing discussion was also rather thought-provoking, particularly when my yuban's friend found out that I was a physics major. For some reason, she simply could not fathom how a person could study science and still be religious. Because my Chinese is still very lacking, I wasn't able to respond as well as I would have liked to; however, I still feel that even being able to initiate this kind of conversation with a Chinese native is one of the biggest benefits of coming here to study.

Yesterday, my yuban, her friends, their yubans, and I all went to a 小公园 (small park) to have a picnic. Apparently, "small" in China doesn't actually mean small: the park had an enormous lake complete with boat rentals, a bridge, and a scenic trail around its perimeter. We first rode paddle boats for an hour, during which I quickly discovered how out of shape I've become. Then we walked around the park and found a nice, shady spot to sit down and eat snacks. It was probably the first time I've really been able to relax and unwind since I got to Beijing, and I would definitely like to go back before I'm done with the program.

Speaking of coming and going, I've noticed an unfortunate but not-so-odd trend. Foreigners such as myself come to China to study Chinese language and culture, yet once we get here (I say we because I'm often guilty of this as well), we fall into the trap of only wanting to do things that are familiar, and therefore comfortable. For example, in my three and a half weeks of living in Beijing, I've probably eaten American and Korean food as many times as I've eaten Chinese food, if not more often. And what do I do with my block of free time every weekday afternoon? I stay in my air-conditioned dorm room and use the internet, as unreliable as it may be. My goal for the remainder of my stay in China is to integrate myself into the Chinese lifestyle more, even if it means sacrificing some conveniences and having to accept different viewpoints on what's "good" and what's "bad." Maybe in the end, those viewpoints will become my own. That would be a huge but awesome step in my studies.

Does anybody else use that little side scroll bar to judge how much they've written? Mine is about a centimeter long now, which I take to mean that I've written just enough to be thorough but not enough to bore everyone (hopefully). See you after the midterm, probably!

Week three, plus laundry strife

2008-07-04T00:03:00.003+08:00

I figured I'd write another entry before the list of things I have to blog about got too long.

Last Sunday was fun. After church, a couple fellow DSICPers and I met up with Susie, Carol, and Cole in Wudaokou--home of Peking University, Tsinghua University, and, most importantly, many many delicious Korean restaurants. Carol took us to a nearby Korean BBQ restaurant for a delicious and long-forthcoming meal that included 삼겹살 and 차돌, two types of meat that I've been craving ever since I left LA. Afterwards, I went to a Korean bakery/cafe called Tous Les Jours near the subway station and ordered a huge (like, really really huge) bowl of 팟빙수. I also bought several types of bread (they have a Totoro roll!), which I originally intended to save for breakfast but couldn't resist eating that evening. This happens rather often, actually. Someone needs to invent a food safe that only opens in the morning. Yes, that would be good.

Anyway, after that Sunday and until today, my week passed by rather uneventfully. One notable thing to mention is that my Chinese has definitely improved from before. Not that I believed it wouldn't, but I never expected to be able to converse freely (albeit about simple topics) just three weeks into the program. Surprisingly, the most useful tools for my language acquisition haven't been classwork assignments, but rather the language pledge and the daily conversations I have with my language partner. It makes me wonder, with this rate of improvement, how fluent will I be by the end of summer? Hmm...

Today, I went to a huge Korean restaurant near campus with my roommate and two of his friends. While their beef and eggplant fried rice was quite delicious, the 불고기 left much to be desired. I'm willing to give the restaurant another chance though. Perhaps next time I'll try the 갈비. Afterwards, I was still a little hungry, so I went to the convenience store and bought a snack called Pejoy (百醇) which resembles Pocky, except it has cracker on the outside and filling on the inside. Absolutely delicious. More on Pejoy in a later post, when I can upload photos of the experience.

One more thing to mention before I go. I've discovered that doing laundry here is a huge hassle. At Yale, I only did laundry about once every two or three weeks because I had better things to do with my time, but here that is not an option, since I only have about a week's worth of clothes. So this is what I have to go through every time my sock supply starts running low: I pile up all my dirty laundry on top of one of my towels; gather up the corners and carry the entire load thusly; walk up and down the stairs looking for a free machine; realize I forgot to bring detergent and go back to get it (I've done this every time so far); stuff all my laundry in the machine and pour in the detergent; start the machine and head back to my room to study; come to pick up the laundry an hour later only to find that my white clothes have turned un-white; carry the load back to my room; lay out the (dripping) laundry on any and every open surface I can find; cry myself to sleep because I won't have dry clothes to wear the next day.

Okay, so I don't cry myself to sleep. But rawr! Anyway, I should go to bed since we have our exam tomorrow. Good night, everyone.

北韩

2008-07-01T22:03:00.000+08:00

As long as I'm not studying for my 听写 tomorrow, I might as well do something constructive instead of agonizing over how slow Facebook is in China. Before I go on though, I should say that this entry has very little to do with China, and most of it is actually rather depressing, so if you're just looking for more pictures and stories of my adventures in Beijing, it's probably a good idea to stop reading now.

I've been a little out of the loop in terms of US and world news lately, mostly because my internet is usually too slow or too restrictive to access news sites and because I can't read Chinese newspapers. So I was fascinated to read today that North Korea, as part of the six-party talks, has finally produced the nuclear declaration that was due at the end of last year. In exchange, the US has agreed to lift trade sanctions and remove North Korea from its list of countries that endorse terrorism. On the surface, this seems like rather good news; however, after looking into the matter a bit more, I discovered that the document is incredibly lacking, to the extreme that it might be doing more harm than good. As Donald Kirk writes in this Asia Times article, the document says very little about North Korea's uranium enrichment program and nothing at all about the plutonium produced for nuclear warheads at Yongbyon, nor does it mention North Korea's contribution to the proliferation of nuclear technology in the Middle East. Strikingly, the document does not mention the specific laboratories and facilities where nuclear research in North Korea is carried out. A little suspect, I would say.

And then there's the highly symbolic act of blowing up the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor for (almost amusingly) just one news network from each of the five other countries involved in the six-party agreement. I say "highly symbolic" because it really is just that--the cooling tower is just a cooling tower, and if I learned anything during my seminar about radiation and nuclear technology last year, it's that a cooling tower is not particularly difficult to (re)construct, compared to the rest of the reactor. On top of that, it's highly likely that North Korea has already used the plutonium generated at Yongbyon to build at least one, and probably more, nuclear warheads, whose whereabouts are completely unknown as of now. One pretty explosion should not be enough to appease those who are concerned about North Korea's entire nuclear program.

The politics are bad enough, but the cost of North Korean defiance in terms of human lives is a whole different monster. I read this particularly horrifying account of the torture and human experiments carried out at Camp 22, one of North Korea's largest concentration camps. Consider this quote by the former chief of management at Camp 22:

'I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber. The parents, son and and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing. [...]
'At the time I felt that they thoroughly deserved such a death. Because all of us were led to believe that all the bad things that were happening to North Korea were their fault; that we were poor, divided and not making progress as a country.
'It would be a total lie for me to say I feel sympathetic about the children dying such a painful death. Under the society and the regime I was in at the time, I only felt that they were the enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all.'

It's striking to note that his "opinions" weren't originally his; both victims and officials are brainwashed to believe that Kim Jong-Il is a deity, while the poor and homeless are the enemy of the state. This is not to downplay the individual acts of cruelty that occur daily in North Korean concentration camps, but it points to a larger and more widespread source of the problem--namely, the country's travesty of a government. North Korea probably has one of the most repressive regimes in history, and yet the US government is willing to overlook its atrocities for the sake of diplomatic relations. This isn't sustainable--it won't work because it can't work. The right to survive and live freely is not and should not be a political issue. It's good and all that we're trying to rid North Korea of its nuclear program, but if it comes down to that or improving the living conditions of the common people, I think it's obvious which issue is more pressing. (Not that I believe the dichotomy will ever be that clear-cut, of course.)

So, 怎么办？ What to do? It's very hard to say, and if I had a good answer to that, the State Department would probably hire me today. But I have some suggestions, which generally fall under two categories: (1) short and long term relief for those who are suffering, and (2) bringing King Jong-Il's government to a long-awaited and absolute end. NGOs like LiNK, which both provide aid and work with government powers to make a tangible difference in North Korea, are doing an awesome job, but there are not nearly enough to help every starving and homeless person in the country. The governments of free nations should continue to provide food, ideally more than they're providing now, and make absolutely sure that the food goes directly to the people rather than through the government, which has a long history of clandestinely reallocating resources away from the people and to high ranking officials or the military. In addition, other nations, but the US in particular, need to stop being cheated by North Korean lies and funding the government when it is most desperate. Given the country's highly weak and unstable economy, applying even moderate, but firm and long-lasting, economic pressure is sure to topple to regime in the foreseeable future, as Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu and Joshua Stanton suggest in this article. Finally, we need to give the North Korean people a sense of unity and let them know that being discontent with the government is not just acceptable but necessary in their situation. It is, of course, implicit that we would actually have to act on our promises to support them if the time called for it.

As discouraging as things in North Korea may seem now, I believe there is real hope for change in the future. Even the recent nuclear declaration, as much as I feel the need to criticize it, is a small step in the direction of opening the country for intervention. The tiniest step forward is better than retreat. My goal, then, is not to make huge sweeping changes on my own, but to spread awareness and show every person I can that there is a reason to care.

Addendum 1: Thank you Carol for introducing me to OneFreeKorea. It has a host of interesting and well-written articles about the situation in North Korea, including several about the current six-party talks.

Addendum 2: I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post an entry like this on my Light blog, so if I'm not, and someone from the office reads this, please let me know. I'd be glad to move it elsewhere.

Simatai Great Wall, and such

2008-06-28T19:29:00.000+08:00

We're already a quarter done with the program. How ridiculous is that?

Anyway... One of the awesome things about DSICP is that the teachers take us on a trip every weekend to explore the sights of Beijing/China. It's a great way to alleviate the stress of having to study one lesson per day during the week, not to mention take cool photos and get to know my fellow students better. This weekend, we went to Simatai Great Wall to spend the night and then "watch the sunset" from the wall in the morning. I know it's more interesting to view photos from the experience than to read about it, but just to mention some highlights...

Sleeping for the entire three-hour-long bus ride to Simatai
Going on a mini hike after dinner on Friday
Almost stepping on a centipede while showering (obviously, I use the word "highlight" loosely)
Starting the trek up the wall at 3:00 am
Struggling up what felt like a million steps, though in reality it was probably only a few hundred
Finding a quiet rest stop ahead of everyone else and being able to listen to the sounds of nature for a while
Millipedes... everywhere
Crazy Chinese children's TV show about colors, numbers, and nonsensical English
Five hour nap after returning to our rooms

Well, that's enough of that. Please enjoy the photos. I made sure to upload the correct ones this time.

Our hotel looked really ancient, but I don't think it actually was.

My two roommates. So sensitive and in tune with nature.

Water droplets on the table at the restaurant we went to. The food was mediocre, unfortunately.

This one is particularly intense. I'm going to try to document all the different faces he makes in pictures.

I like how everyone is looking in a different direction. Sai Laoshi wins for looking at my camera.

Scenic view.

Behold, the reason why "watch the sunset" is in quotes. The fog made for some pretty photos though.

The internet is not being my friend today, so I'll have to cut this entry short. Before I go, I just want to mention two China-related articles (by the same author) that I find particularly interesting. One, which my friend Ricky mentioned in his latest blog post, is about the legendary "Great Firewall of China," how easy it is to bypass, and why it's effective anyway. The other looks at the opportunity for improvement inherent within the environmental crisis in China, without being naively optimistic. They're a little long, but definitely worth the read if you have some free time.

Bedtime for me. 晚安！

The post you've all been waiting for

2008-06-26T14:38:00.000+08:00

I'm currently at Yolanda Coffee, which is about a five minute walk from the CNU campus. I found out today that they offer "free" wireless internet, though it's not really free since you have to buy something from the relatively overpriced menu first. Anyway, the connection seems pretty fast and reliable, so I'm going to attempt to upload some of the photos I've taken so far.

A lovely way to start off: the pollution in Beijing is so bad that you can literally look at the sun (though you probably shouldn't). This is the sun as seen from the main entrance of our dormitory/classroom building.

My room when I first arrived. My side currently looks more or less the same as it did then, which is surprising, considering how cluttered my room at Yale was.

Some friends I met during the tour on the first day.

A transaction taking place in Hypermarket. That's right, it's not just a supermarket, it's Hypermarket.

A bicycle cart thingy outside the Thai restaurant I went to on the first weekend.

Yummyyy.

Yay for new friends!

My roommate, David. I'm pretty sure he's incapable of keeping a straight face on camera.

Awesome calligrapher in Gugong.

Another photo of Gugong.

Yet another photo of Gugong. I like the colors in this one.

Zhao Laoshi! The only male teacher for second year.

Roland, or as everyone here calls him, Ro Ro.

Mmm cheap, delicious jiaozi. You know you want some.

There he goes again.

Apparently KFC is a delicacy in China. We did not treat it as such, as you can see.

I'm about to run out of battery, so I'll upload more photos later. We're going to the Great Wall tomorrow and spending the night there, as long as the weather holds--pretty exciting stuff. But for now, I have to 好好(儿)学习 for my exam tomorrow. Until next time!

Edit
Back in my room, where the internet is spotty and the air is stale. Sigh.

So I was wondering why all my photos were the same size and looked underexposed/desaturated... Then I realized that I had uploaded the raw image files rather than the touched-up photos, which are in a different folder in my hard drive. (For any photography enthusiasts out there, I use Aperture v1.5.6.) Talk about 麻烦... Two hours of uploading--that is, two fewer hours of studying for my exam--and all I have to show for it are a bunch of washed out, 很难看 photos. Oh well. I hope you enjoy them anyway.

Week one, check

2008-06-22T17:11:00.000+08:00

This entry may be a little long. Just a warning.

Where to start, where to start... I finally got some exercise on Thursday playing soccer with some DSIC and CNU students. I was exhausted after playing for just half an hour, though I'm not sure how much of that was because I'm out of shape and how much was because of the air pollution and lack of sufficient oxygen in my muscles. It was definitely fun though, especially getting to know the local students.

We had our first exam on Friday, and it was about as difficult as I expected it to be. The last question was an essay in which we had to use several of the grammar structures we had learned during the week. The prompt asked for 100 characters, which I thought was a lot at first, but after writing for a bit I realized that 100 characters wasn't even close to enough to express what I wanted to say. I guess I need to learn how to make my writing more concise. Afterwards, we had an oral exam during which we had to talk about our interview with a CNU student. We had all written a 200+ character essay about the interview, but many of us (including myself) didn't realize that we weren't supposed to look at the essay during the oral exam. I suppose it was silly of me to expect that we'd simply reading our essays aloud--it is an oral exam, not a reading exam, after all. Anyway, I was fortunate enough to have very nice teachers grading me, and they let me take a peek at my essay from time to time. I think I'll be more prepared next week.

That evening, the teachers treated us out to dinner at a pretty nice restaurant for our weekly "中文桌子," or "Chinese table." I got to sit with my two favorite teachers, which was pretty awesome. Amusingly enough, one of them ordered suanlatang and made the Yalies eat it. It wasn't as delicious as I expected, but I ate my fair share anyway. (For those of you who haven't taken Chinese 115, suanlatang is hot and sour soup, and it was in one of our dialogue about ordering food.)

Some fellow Yalies (but not DSICPers) were meeting up that night at Huixinqiaobeikou for karaoke, so after dinner, Lei Laoshi took us to the Chegongzhuang subway station on her way home, and we slowly worked our way to Huixinqiaobeikou from there. The Chinese subway system is surprisingly clean, modern, and convenient (and cheap of course), so I'll probably be taking it again in the future. Our friend Carol met us in the lobby of Partyworld, the karaoke place, and we spent a good couple hours singing and dancing and being silly in general. One thing I noticed was that all the Chinese songs at KTV are in traditional characters, but that's okay since people who sing those songs usually know the lyrics already (e.g. me singing Tong Hua). Afterwards, we said our goodbyes and took a taxi home, since the subway station was already closed.

Saturday was also a lot of fun. The teachers took us on a winding tour through Gugong, ending at Tiananmen. There was a lot of construction and repair work going on, which I can only surmise was because the upcoming Olympics. Fortunately, there were still many opportunities to take pretty photos, so my camera saw a lot of action. I really wish CNU's internet would stop being so slow and unreliable--at this rate, I'm not going to be able to upload pictures until I get to Korea in August. Anyway, after Gugong and Tiananmen, several students went to Xidan to eat and shop. I almost didn't go, but it's a good thing I did. Not only did I get to know my teachers better, but I also got to buy some good Chinese books (especially one called I Am Your Friend of Panda, whatever that means) at the huge Xidan bookstore, and really cheap clothes in the nearby shopping center. The title of master shopper goes to my friend Arjan though--he managed to buy a pair of shorts that were originally 400 yuan (~$60) for 100 yuan (~15). China is awesome like that.

After returning to CNU, my roommate and I watched 200 Pounds Beauty. Yes, that is the Korean movie about plastic surgery. No, I did not have to force him. I was actually pretty amused because he was able to guess a lot of the things that happen in the movie before they actually happened. His Korean movie watching skills are already well-developed, it appears. I wish I had Korean movies dubbed, or at least subbed, in Chinese, but I guess I'll have to satisfy myself with the two Chinese movies in my hard drive for now.

Today was my first time doing laundry at CNU. I had to search for fifteen minutes before even finding a machine that was free, after which I spent ten minutes trying to figure out how to put in detergent (Yale spoils us) and make the machine start. Actually, I should probably go get my laundry soon. I had to wash my whites with my colors, so I really hope the whites don't turn... not white. That would be very unfortunate. Wish me luck.

Edit
My socks and white shirts are now light sky blue. Fantastic. I suppose it could have been worse--at least they didn't turn pink.

因为语言誓约的关系，我不能说英文

2008-06-19T09:08:00.000+08:00

The dreaded language pledge has begun. They passed around little sheets for us to sign before the 听写 (dictation) today. Somehow, giving up the ability to speak English (and Korean, I suppose) felt like giving up a part of my identity, or even my existence. Surprisingly, though, getting by with just Chinese hasn't been too bad so far. It's remarkable how much more useful hand gestures and body language seem can be they're used deliberately.

But anyway, going back to where I left off in the last entry... I did quite a bit of traveling by taxi during the first weekend. A bunch of us went to a Thai restaurant on Saturday--the food was pretty good, but a little on the expensive side. On Sunday, after meeting with our language partners (more on that later), three of my friends and I took a taxi into the heart of Beijing and checked out a very modernized shopping center/department store. The prices there were sort of ridiculous, even by American standards. I had heard a lot about the huge disparity between the wealthy and the poor in China, but seeing the difference for myself was pretty shocking. Also (not nearly as surprising but worth mentioning), I discovered that I'm starting to get used to drinking hot tea with my meals instead of ice water. This is a very good thing. Some people I know, after drinking restaurant water, have had 拉肚子, which literally means "pull stomach." The English meaning of that idiom is pretty clear.

Monday was the first day of classes, and thus Monday was the day I realized how sad my Chinese skills really are. This is how DSICP works: the first hour is 大班, which has about ten students per teacher and is mainly used to introduce the lesson's new grammar structures; the second and third hours are 小班, which has about four students per teacher and is more for practicing the new material; finally, twenty minutes are dedicated to each student for 1-对-1, or 1-on-1 conversation. I felt pretty good during 大班 and 小班, but once I got to 1-对-1, I promptly forgot everything I had ever learned and had to ask my teacher to repeat everything three or four times. I've never been a fan of "hot seat" activities, even in English, so 1-对-1 scares me to the extreme. I hope I can get used to it eventually.

Monday was also the first day my language partner and I really got to hang out. I'm still in the process of getting to know her, but I do know that her name is Ma Jing and that she's a first year English Lit major studying at Shou Shi Da (DSICP's host institution). She's also extremely patient and doesn't get an annoyed look on her face whenever I say "什么“ （what?) or "请再说一次" (please repeat that again) like a couple of the teachers in the program. Anyway, on Monday she took me to a nearby electronics store to buy a cell phone. I won't repeat the procedure here, since it's sort of complicated--suffice it to say that I was very glad I had someone who could speak Chinese to help me.

One of the interesting aspects of DSICP is that we have a weekly language practicum during which we're supposed to use the week's lesson material to interview a Chinese person. Today, I spoke to a Shou Shi Da student about the differences between college life in America and in China, and some pretty interesting topics came up. For example, when I asked her what her impression of American students was, she said that she felt like American students are all "slaves to time" without offering further explanation, yet her description of an average day for a Chinese college student seemed much stricter and bound to time constraints than what I'm used to at Yale. I guess it's something to keep in mind as I become more familiar with the Chinese lifestyle and the things Chinese students value most.

And here I am again at the end of another picture-less entry. I'll have to post a monster entry with many many pictures one of these days, once I get used to the daily schedule and have enough free time to go out and find faster internet. Bye bye for now!

First impressions

2008-06-14T13:27:00.000+08:00

The past thirty-six hours have been a crazy blur of traveling, meeting new people, seeing new things, and getting oriented and disoriented (simultaneously). I guess it would make sense to start with my exciting, thirteen hour red-eye flight over to Beijing:

I slept. The person next to me also slept.

I know, my life is wild. Here's how it went down: I was in the window seat, a young Chinese lady was in the aisle seat, and the middle seat was empty. As soon as the plane took off, she lifted up the middle armrest and proceeded to lie across the two seats with her feet toward the aisle and her head resting on my own armrest. I stayed awake long enough to be mystified by this behavior, and then I knocked out as well until we landed thirteen hours later. My camera was in the overhead compartment, so no pictures unfortunately. Just use your imagination.

It turns out several DSIC people were on my plane, and several others arrived in the wee hours of the morning like I did, so there was an early pickup for us at Beijing airport. While we were waiting for the teacher to arrive, I reviewed Colloquial Chinese. Fun times.

The bus ride to Capital Normal University was slow and uneventful (Chinese rush hour, anyone?). Once we got there, we paid a deposit fee of 300 yuan (about 45 USD) and received our room assignments and keys. I didn't know it at the time, but the program never assigned me a roommate, so I'm living alone in a double right now, and it's pretty sweet. It remains to be seen if they'll move someone else living alone into my room. Anyway, I forgot to bring a towel from home, so after getting settled in, I went down to the convenience store with a couple other Yalies and bought a towel, then took a nice, hot shower. One major difference between showering in China and showering in America is that there's no such thing as a "stall" in China--there's just a section of the bathroom with a drain, curtain, and showerhead. I quickly learned that this means the entire bathroom floods if the water is on full-blast. Good thing I brought slippers.

Everyone who arrived early ate lunch with the teachers in the restaurant/cafeteria downstairs, and then we went on a quick tour around campus. Afterwards, a few of us ventured off on our own and did some cell phone searching/grocery shopping. I bought water, another towel, and a delicious pound cake. Dinner was Peking Duck (北京烤鸭), and it was as delicious as everyone had led me to believe. Hooray. After returning to campus, I was pretty jet-lagged and tired, so I pretty much went straight to bed. (But not before helping Peter Lu set up his blog--check out the link in the sidebar!)

Then today, I woke up at 6:30 am (jet lag helped), showered, and grabbed breakfast downstairs before heading over to the language labs to take the placement exam. It was hard. Like, really really hard. I felt like I deserved to be placed into first year after finishing it. Fortunately, the program only offers second year and above, so I should be okay. It actually made me sort of excited, since I saw how much I'd be able to improve in the span of two months. After the exam was the program orientation, which honestly didn't give us any new information (except maybe that the weekly food allowance would be 350 yuan, though I still have no idea if that's a lot or a little). We ate a pretty tasty lunch at a nearby restaurant, then most of the students went on the tour that I had gone on yesterday. I'll be going to "check" my placement result in about half an hour, after which I'll probably head out to find dinner with friends somewhere. I hope we don't get lost in the streets of Beijing.

So, going back to the title of this entry. The first thing that I noticed about Beijing was definitely the air pollution. As a native of Los Angeles, I'm not unfamiliar with smog--in fact, just before I left, the smog got particularly thick for unknown reasons. However, the pollution here is on a whole different level. The sky is literally not visible, and even nearby campus buildings are often obscured. It's hard to believe that the people who live here have to breathe this air their entire lives.

Another thing I've noticed is the rain. I don't know if it's natural or if it's the government seeding the clouds with silver iodide, but it rains frequently and heavily here. I normally don't mind rain too much, but because I brought my huge DSLR, I can't really take photos outdoors unless there's a pause in the downpour. (Though that's not why this entry has no pictures--the internet here is currently just too slow to upload anything.)

Finally, there is an incredible number of Korean nationals at CNU, doing either DSIC or whatever other programs there are here. It's a very strange feeling being in the elevator with people who are speaking what I think is Chinese, and then realizing that I understand what they're saying because they're actually speaking Korean. I guess that'll be happening a lot less often once the language pledge begins.

Anyway, sorry about having so much text with no pictures. I'll upload them as soon as I find a better connection. Wish me luck exploring the city tonight!

Edit
Interestingly enough, it appears as though sometime between last night and this afternoon, the "*.blogspot.com" domain was blocked by whoever does that stuff around here. Posting and editing are still not a problem, since they're done through "blogger.com"; on the other hand, I now have to use a proxy to actually view blogs (Yale VPN would be preferable, but I can't connect to it for some reason, so I use CoDeeN). I wonder what's going on.

Predeparture tribulations

2008-06-12T09:06:00.000+08:00

Okay, so I lied. I'm still in America, but something happened today that merited another entry, and I wanted to get it all down before I forget the details.

It began at 4:40 pm, exactly nine hours before my scheduled departure to Beijing. I opened my confirmation email from Vayama Travel Agency to print out my itinerary just in case, and I happened to read this line for the first time ever: "A separate email will be sent shortly containing the Federal Express Tracking number which will allow you to track the shipment of your Paper Tickets." Fedex? Paper ticket?? What?? I never received anything. After a momentary freakout, I went to both the Vayama and Air China websites to see if I could print something out that could serve as a replacement ticket. Nothing. (For future reference, don't try to do anything useful on Air China's website: it has enough broken links to make you cry tears of web design agony.) At the suggestion of my dear friend Wen, I called Vayama customer service, expecting to hear the worst. After holding for about five minutes, I got to speak with a real human being, who, with some searching, discovered that either Vayama or Air China had changed my paper ticket to an electronic ticket without telling me. I said thanks, hung up the phone, and decided that I was more relieved about having a way to get to China than I was annoyed about not being told that I'd be able to pick up my ticket at the airport.

I learned a few important lessons from this experience. First, read the emails that I get from airlines and travel agencies thoroughly and ahead of time, or risk not knowing about something crucial until it's too late. Secondly, not everything can be resolved through email or the internet; sometimes it takes real human interaction to make things happen. Finally, customer service doesn't always have to be painful (although it often is).

Anyway, I'm finally all packed up and, largely due to my mom's insistence, done reviewing the past two semesters of Chinese. My excitement is building by the minute, so I better stop writing before I explode. See you from China!

Not really a test post

2008-05-06T17:39:00.000+08:00

As the end of the school year approaches, I find myself daydreaming more and more about my experiences to come in Beijing. I seem to alternate between excitement and anxiety about the summer--excitement about finally visiting the country whose language I have been studying for the past year, and anxiety about how quickly and fully I'll be able to adjust to the Chinese way of life. Certainly, everything we were told at the predeparture orientation meeting about thinking and not just reacting to differences in culture sounds reasonable in theory, but it's just starting to hit me that I've never actually visited a completely foreign country before. Even when I visit Korea, my "motherland," it's sometimes hard for me to deal with the little changes such as stricter table manners and higher emphasis on physical appearance. In the end though, I always manage to adapt; and having spoken with former Light Fellows, it seems as though I'll definitely enjoy this experience immensely, as long as I go in with an open mind (and an empty stomach).

Before I get too ahead of myself though, some acknowledgments are in order. I give many thanks to the Light Fellowship and Yale for financing this opportunity to immerse myself in the language and culture of China. I also thank the Duke Study in China Program for accepting me--all of my Light money would have been of no use, otherwise. And finally, I thank my Chinese 115 teachers for their excellent instruction over the course of the past two semesters and for encouraging me to apply for the fellowship.

I am still amazed at how smoothly everything came together to allow me to go to Beijing and study Chinese this summer.

Some logistical details: I'm leaving LAX at 1:40 am (!!) on June 12 for a nonstop flight to PEK. Duke Study in China Program starts on June 14 and ends on August 8. I'm flying to Seoul on August 11 and returning to Beijing on August 22, then immediately flying back to LAX. I get to spend two more days with my family before flying to New Haven for Camp Yale. It's all rather convoluted, but I think/hope things will work out when the time comes.

This will probably be my last post until I'm in China. For now, I must finish off freshman year with a bang. 加油！