Happy Halloween!

This is just a small post to wish everyone a Happy Halloween. I have a lot of posts to make about the last two weeks when my dad came to see me in Beijing and then we went to Guilin, Yangshuo, and Shanghai during my fall break.

For now here is me eating my 3rd banana in 20 minutes as DONKEY KONG! SMASH!

Radiance, Rock, and Recess

Well hello there again. I need to backtrack to Friday October 6th for this post. This day was the Moon Cake Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival. A group of us went to Longtan Park to see the biggest light show in the city. Stewart’s roommate Wang Zhan told us that the park would only sell 30,000 tickets and he made it sound like this was the only park with a light show. We didn’t understand how it could be possible that there would be only one park that all 15 million people in Beijing would want to go to.

We got to the park when it was still light out, so the lights weren’t turned on yet. After eating dinner we went over to the park and saw that this was like a huge carnival that wrapped around the lake with lots of light displays reflecting off the water. There were lots of weird displays too, like this statue of a little boy pissing on everyone. Most of the little shops were selling snacks, but we saw a couple of them selling unconventional things. One of them was selling toys, food, hammers, screwdrivers, baseball bats, and shovels. I can’t even begin to understand why someone would decide to sell tools at a carnival or why someone would see a hammer and feel the sudden urge to buy one.

Anyway as we were walking around the lake, we saw a huge fountain show going on, but unfortunately it was on the other side. We watched for a little while as we walked around, but when we got close it ended. At this point everyone in the park started leaving and the pathways were just seas of people with a few white guys towering over them. We just made our way through the crowds while holding our arms in the air so we could keep our eyes on each other.

That Saturday CET didn’t have any events planned, but they were giving out bigger reimbursements than usual because there were a lot of things to do in Beijing that weekend. That night a bunch of people decided to go to the Beijing Rock and Beer Feast. Yes, all the advertisements said Feast, but I think they meant to say Fest because there definitely wasn’t a lot of food to feast on.

I didn’t have my camera with me, so I’m going to have to try and get some other people’s photos. The stage these bands were playing on was immense. The first band that was playing had a singer, two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer and I don’t think anyone of them were standing within 30 feet of each other. None of us had any idea how popular any of these bands were, but it was pretty easy to pick out the crappy ones. The first band had a girl singer and was playing some bad pop rock songs, so they were kind of like Evanescence. While they were playing we watched the mosh pit in front of us get bigger as all the guys on the outside of the circle would hold hands and run as fast as they could to widen it.

The next band was more of a death metal band, but their first song was really bad and unusual. They just laid down a heavy beat with an occasional guitar riff while the singer essentially talked to us in growling Chinese. Eventually they would reach the chorus and actually play something. This probably went on for 8-9 minutes, so we got bored and decided to join the mosh pit. The Chinese guys loved this and soon after one of us got hoisted into the air and began to crowd surf. We were standing pretty close the front guardrail, so it wasn’t long before this kid was dumped over into the arms of all the security guards. Once I saw this I knew that any minute we were all going to be in the air. I think I was picked up fourth and there were still a couple of us to go. I knew my friends could hold me up, but the people in front of us were facing the stage and didn’t look ready to catch someone larger than usual. The guards did a good job of catching me though, so everything was cool. In a matter of minutes 8 or 9 of us were picked up and put over the railing, so I guess the guards told the last kid that went over that because we are Americans we would be arrested if we did it anymore. That pretty much ended the moshing for the night.

There were two more bands before the last band came on and they had their moments. It was easy to tell that the last band was more popular because I think people were yelling out song titles. They were definitely better than the other bands and even played a cool instrumental section. It was a really cool trip.

Last week when we were in class we found out that because lots of people were getting sick, the administrators decided that we would have a mandatory 20 minute recess between our second and third classes. I can safely tell you that recess is still awesome. We’ve been getting some good basketball games going. Then on Friday, instead of having our usual weekly test, we went to the park and had a picnic. After eating we played a Chinese game that was essentially a harder version of Duck, Duck, Grey Duck. I also found out that only people from Minnesota say Duck, Duck, Grey Duck instead of Duck, Duck, Goose. I really have no explanation for this and my friend Stewart from Iowa said there are lots of things in Minnesota that he doesn’t understand. After playing this, we rode bumper cars, jump-roped and hula-hooped. It was really great to do a bunch of stupid fun stuff with the whole class.

This will have to end this entry, but I have another one coming with last weekend’s events. So long for now!

Where's Team America?

So I just saw on CNN that there is a strong possibility that North Korea tested their nuclear weapon in North Hamkyung province. This is already big news, but over here we get to look at it a bit differently. From Beijing to the test site it is about 615 miles. That’s about the same distance from San Francisco to Portland, Minneapolis to St. Louis, or Atlanta to Miami. North Korea firing a nuclear missile anywhere would probably result in the extinction of North Koreans all together, so we aren’t too worried. Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, is already in Beijing right now, so I’m sure him and Hu Jintao are having an interesting conversation.

Well I was planning on making a bigger post to talk about what we did this weekend, but that will have to wait for now. I can tell you that at one point though I was crowd surfing on a bunch of Chinese rock fans. *RAWK*!

Happy Holidays!

Well maybe not for those of you not in China, but this last week is a big holiday here. I can’t really remember if I did anything notable the week after getting back from the Great Wall. What I do remember is that throughout the week only six of the twelve people in my class managed to make it to every class. Two of our teachers were on the Wall also so they were really sore. On Wednesday, we also had a cool language practicum where our class went and interviewed American diplomats in China. These diplomats were also CET students that would take class in the afternoons at another school in Beijing. It was interesting to hear their viewpoints on politics and the Chinese economy.

Last Saturday, we had a group trip to Beijing’s art district. I don’t normally like art galleries, but I’m here and heard there were lots of different types of art. A lot of the art was political and some of it I was surprised to see at all because of censorship laws. One gallery consisted almost entirely of big photos of a woman standing in front of Mao’s picture in Tiananmen Square holding a pistol to her head. While there I got exhausted all of a sudden, so I went back with some other people instead of going to Tiananmen Square.

Sunday was October 1st, which is the Chinese National Holiday. This was the day in 1949 when Mao Zedong declared the People’s Republic of China. Millions of people flock to Beijing because it’s a week long vacation from work. The traffic has been terrible all week and I guess every hotel is booked up. Stewart, Ben, Ken, and I decided to go to Stewart’s roommate, Wang Zhan’s, school. We got to see his high-rise dorm, which made me appreciate every place I have ever lived. I’ve seen high-rise dorms before. Penn has three dorms with around 25 floors each (I think) and they each have around 800 people living in them. Wang Zhan’s dorm was 14 floors and had FIVE THOUSAND… GUYS living in it. Each room has six people living in it with a bunk bed above every desk. I’m very glad we are in the international student dorms.

Anyway, the reason we went to his school in the first place was because he said his friends were having a party and wanted us to come. He said the party would have tea, coffee, and cookies. Well first he took us to a building next to his campus that looked like a hotel (and may have been), but I only saw listings for companies and restaurants. When we got to the “party room” there was a circle of about 16 Chinese people with five chairs waiting for us. They started asking questions in English and we responded with Chinese. Then the student in charge came over and said we had 10 minutes before the activities started. A few minutes later, about 25 more Chinese students came. It turned out that this was no party. This was their weekly, maybe daily, meeting where they all practice English. We broke up into groups so they could practice with us. One guy in my group spoke pretty well and said his roommate who was there wanted a language partner so he asked me. Another girl also asked if the four of us could come to their meetings every Sunday. We were essentially Wang Zhan’s show-and-tell. We played some games where we had to describe people in the room and tell stories to see if people could guess whether they were true or not. Stewart guessed my story was true, when it was false so he got punished. His punishment was to stand in front of everyone and act out a scene from the Lion King while the leader recited the lines. It was a very weird experience, but similar to many of the others we’ve had.
Well tonight is the Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Cake Festival. Tonight everyone will go look at the moon and eat moon cakes, which I can’t really describe to you. All I know is that all the supermarkets have thousands of them so the thousands of people in the store at the time can buy them. The whole week is really about buying lots of crap at discount prices, while blocking all forms of transportation.

I’m still insanely busy, but hopefully I’ll find a place to put all my pictures online. So again Happy Holidays! Post questions if you have them, bye bye.