Heroine

Every week we have to write a 报告，or report, on that week’s topic and present it to the class from memory on Friday. It counts as our oral exam. We are allowed to have papers with notes jotted on them in case we forget a point when we give our presentations, but we are not allowed to read our reports line for line.

The main purpose of these reports is to obviously practice new grammar structures and vocabulary orally within a contextual structure that is not that of our textbook. In other words, this is our chance to show that we have actually learned the 语法 beyond memorizing sentences from the book. There is a rubric which considers new vocab used, grammar, pronunciation, and content. I think my strongest point usually is content, and my weakest grammar, which is the inverse of what I should be focusing on. There really is not point about crafting a well argued presentation, given that the audience is eight students and three teachers, but I think learning how to argue persuasively in Chinese is a skill which will not only raise my 中文水平but also improve my reasoning skills (on a complete side note, I have gotten to the point where I can think of the word I want in Chinese, but for a split second not remember its English counterpart. I think this phenomenon and that of dreaming in a language points to some sort of progress).

This week we went to a museum of contemporary Chinese writers and the topic is to write a brief explanation of one of these authors. Unfortunately, the museum was pretty unhelpful in providing anything but the most basic of information (they did have lots of desks and lamps). I decided to write about 秋瑾，the feminist revolutionary, because she can be considered an author although she is better known for her political activities. Since I didn’t learn anything about her from the museum, I did a slow Google search (wikipedia was blocked through and through) and eventually found a book which did a nice little analysis on her writing.

What was disappointing was that after reading for five minutes I knew there was no way I could possibly do秋瑾 justice in any sense of the word given the great complexity and depth of her life. This is something which has lately fallen latent, the phenomenon of wanting to say so much more than your language level will allow. I am comfortable enough to argue in simplistic terms about political issues and topics which interest me, and my language skills have not presented a very obvious barrier lately. Until I read this well written excerpt by Lingzhen Wang in English and realized that I could not capture the eloquence and lilt with which this author described Qiu Jin’s life and writing.

The Stranger

Last weekend after our midterm exam, we headed out for the mid-summer trip. You could choose to go either to Xi’An, Shaolin Temple, or Shan Xi. All the teachers said that if you hadn’t gone to Xi’An, then you should definitely choose that option, but if you’ve already been then there’s really not anything more to see. What I think they meant to say was that there are few tourist attractions in Xi’An other than the 兵马俑，or the Terracotta Army, and since we were only going to spend a weekend there it was extremely unlikely that we would see anything but the tourist attractions.

We headed out on Friday night on an eleven hour train ride in a hard sleeper. In China there are three types of trains: soft sleeper, hard sleeper, and hard seats. Price varies accordingly with comfort level. I traveled in a soft sleeper last spring break with my father when we came to put some family to rest.

As any DSICP student will tell you, the mid-program train ride out is extremely fun and silly. Given that everyone just finished a two hour written and oral exam on a semester’s worth of Chinese, the copious amounts of not-so-secretly smuggled alcohol onboard, and the fact that there are six bunks per sleeping section, things are bound to get crazy. It was a great opportunity to get to know some of the other kids in third and second year. Stories were exchanged, heartfelt discussions took place, and euchre was played.

In Xi’An, unfortunately the entire trip was arranged as part of a tour-bus. So, we would drive out to a place, stay for a couple hours, get back on the bus, drive for a couple hours, to go another place, stay for a couple hours, get back on the bus, eat at a buffet style restaurant, get back on the bus, drive to another place….(repeat). It was much more structured and touristy than the life I’ve been living in Beijing for the last month, so it was a little disappointing. However, from the perspective of our guide, I understand that our unflexible schedule was to keep everyone together and to prevent anyone from getting lost.

This brought up an interesting point. Although all of us have taken at least a year and a half of Chinese by that time, in Xi’An we were a liability. If someone had gotten lost or left behind, the tour company worried that they would press charges. Although we are all college students, legally adults, in some senses I do think we are children that need to be looked after. We are picky and 挑三拣四 about food, living conditions, classes, transportation, entertainment…

Our guide was very kind and accommodating to us vegetarians, and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit bad for making him go to so much trouble for our diets. I think the bigger picture behind the tour-bus experience was that although we are students staying for two months in China, we are still very much foreigners in this country. The hotel we stayed at, the restaurants we ate at, the show we went to on Saturday night are all well above the price ranges of actual Chinese people. The little luxuries and amenities that we enjoy as a result of being American and living on American dollars I think alienates us from what it is actually truly like to live in China. Although (almost) everyone is making an effort to really learn the language, many students are also here to party in a developing country with currency from a developed country.

This kind of expat culture, which I am certainly not exempt from, is a bit elitist and in my opinion a bit arrogant. Instead of finding commonality and common cause with the Chinese people, we are, by our own actions and others, elevated to a privileged pedestal from which we freely criticize the mistakes we see around us without ever having to worry about being truly effected by any of them. Kids complain about the pollution here, but then turn up the air conditioning to the point of wearing sweaters in their rooms and don’t take the little extra effort to recycle their water bottles. They want to take pictures of themselves in a beautiful mosque in the Muslim Quarter of Xi’An, but then refuse at the gate to wear the shawl given them to cover their arms and shoulders, which are all exposed in a spaghetti-strap blinding-bright pink dress. (There is one particular girl whose total disrespect and spoiled behavior in China toward her teachers and everyone around her really irks me).

I guess our main purpose isn’t to raise the 生活水平of the Chinese people, but I would like to think that sometime in the future I can count myself as equal, not higher or lower, than the 人民 of China.

(I had planned to write about the things we saw in Xi’An, but I think this post didn’t turn out so badly.)

Eat Your Vegetables

I am a vegetarian (I won't go into the reasons here). That’s not a problem at school, since the dining halls are usually very good about accommodating alternative eating habits (even some vegan dishes!) But because, as someone once told me, to be vegetarian is to be anti-Chinese, I was anticipating some culinary problems here in the Middle Kingdom. However, it has not been as difficult as previously anticipated, partly because I do eat eggs and dairy products. If you are vegan, do not plan on eating out if you come to China. That is a luxury that can be sustained probably only in North America and Western Europe.

The options at most restaurants are limited to two or three dishes, but if you know where to go you can happen upon quite a large selection.

RESTAURANTS

粥 (apologies, I don’t actually know the name)

One of the restaurants near school that we eat pretty much three times a week is a place which specializes in粥, a rice based porridge-soup that can be cold, sweet, or savory. Usually we each order one bowl of粥 and a couple of dishes to share. My favorite porridge has black sesame paste in it, with a couple peanuts mixed in. It falls in the sweet category. The menu also has brightly colored pictures of everything the restaurant offers, so if your knowledge of Chinese dishes is limited to 蛋炒饭 you can still eat eggplant (which is now my favorite edible plant, if cooked properly)! One of my favorite dishes here is Kung Pao Tofu, which they can make without meat. It is spicy and refreshing.

The prices are very affordable and we usually don’t spend more than 30 yuan (less than $5).

Pure Lotus

This is a very upscale, classy restaurant in Sanlitun, the ex-pat playground of Beijing. I love this restaurant because EVERYTHING in it is vegetarian. The waiters and waitresses are supposed to be dressed like monks (though I’m pretty sure monks don’t wear pink and blue tunics). The bowls are in the shape of large oyster shells, the tea is served in clear pots and cups, and the food is beautifully presented (as well as delicious). However, it is not cheap and even after sharing the price is about 8 times what you would normally pay at another restaurant in China. But, converted to American dollars it comes out to be about $13-14.

Pure Lotus specializes in imitation meat, using a variety of tofu, beans, mushrooms, and spices to make the most realistic faux-pork you will ever eat. I don’t actually really remember what pig tastes like, but my friend who is a meat-eater said that she couldn’t tell the difference. Many of the dishes ordered at neighboring tables had very elaborate displays, with dry ice and fire. The names of the dishes are also rather silly, like Time Present, Past, and Future. I guess its all part of the “atmosphere”. They offer fake fish, beef, chicken, squid…

Come here if you have money and time to spare (it takes quite a while just to figure out what you want to eat because of the number of selections)

aTea!

Di4 San1 Xian2

This dish is composed of eggplant, potato, and green peppers cooked in some sort of brown sauce. If done well, it is absolutely delicious—crispy, succulent, and wonderfully fragrant. A restaurant in Xi’An didn’t know what it was, so it might be a Beijing dish.

Xi1hong2shi4chao3ji1dan4

A staple of any Chinese meal, Tomato Cooks the Egg (a direct translation) is a slightly sour, usually sweet dish that leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy inside. It goes well with rice, and is very filling. I still think my mom makes it best.

The Wall

Last weekend we went to the Great Wall at 司马台 which is a relatively calm and quiet section of the wall. I remember last time, when I was 12 or 13, there were people all over and all along the expanse selling postcards, napkins, water-bottles, and all manners of souvenirs. At the base of the hills, there were two housing complexes and two restaurants that offered accommodations to a couple other backpackers.

The plan was to see sunrise on the Wall, so at 3 am we woke up to begin the trek. Expectedly, the pitch-black, luke-warm air was swarming with mosquitoes. There weren’t any streetlamps to guide our way, but luckily two of the girls I was with brought flashlights. Retrospectively, it was probably a good idea that we climbed the beginning stairs in the dark, because I’m sure it would have been much more difficult had we known the actual number and height of the stairs to even the first tower. In this case, ignorance was bliss, because every time we reached the top of a set, we figured we were almost done. Also, because most of the ascent is bare staircase, without side walls, in the dark we couldn’t see how far of a drop it would have been if we happened to slip.

At 3 in the morning, the Wall is unsurprisingly quiet. Other than the slight chirrups of anonymous insects, there is a complete and encompassing silence. It seemed fitting, given the temporal, spatial, and historical distances all embodied in a structure composed of so many stones, of so many years, of so many lives. I heard a rumor that if you died while building the Wall, your body was shoveled among the stones because there was no time or opportunity to bury the corpse.

Although it was too foggy/cloudy/smoggy out to see the actual sun rise, there was a gradual lightening of sky until suddenly we realized it was day. Hot, sweaty, bitten, and tired, the students gathered at the top of the 12th tower to snack and rest before the long journey back down.

On the descent we saw a single-lane wooden bridge spanning a placid body of water, with people fishing along the embankment. The Wall continued far off into the distance.

One of many benefits of climbing the Wall at night is that you miss the large groups of tourists and other travelers, so that when you are afraid you might slip and tumble down thousand-year old stairs to hit your head on thousand-year old stones, you can cling for desperate life onto thousand-year old walls and not have anyone else see how silly you look.

After the sun lightened everything, the clouds eventually rolled out a bit and we were rewarded with a green landscape of mountains beyond mountains covered in blankets of tree growth. A rooster crowed every once in a while.