Social Study Week: Inner Mongolia: Days 1&2

As students in previous years have said, the social study week is what sets HBA apart from other programs such as PIB and ACC. I completely agree - it was a fantastic experience that gave everyone a good break from the rhythmic daily classes and quizzes. There were a lot of choices this year: ShanXi, Shanghai, Shaolin Temple, SiMaTai countryside, or to stay in Beijing. I chose, along with 18 other students, to go to Inner Mongolia.

The trip was organized so that it would be interviews coupled with tourist attractions and other fun. We left on Friday night and took an overnight train to Hohhut. We were in the "hard-bunk" car, which meant we were able to lie down comfortably (it's not as bad as it sounds - there's still hard-sitting!) The dreadful thing about the trip that everyone knew prior to going was the bathroom/shower situation. We were planning to sleep in traditional Mongolian tents on Saturday and Sunday night, which meant no showering or regular Western toilets for 3 nights. Furthermore, we wouldn't get to our hotel on Monday until evening. That was quite miserable, as nobody could shower for 3 1/2 days, but it was also a bonding experience where everyone complained and shared their misery. Gradually, our living conditions got better.

The first day, we interviewed mu ming, people who raise sheep in the countryside, and by countryside, I mean THE REAL countryside, where there is one or two houses every half mile or more. It was very humbling listening to them talk about their lives. The family we interviewed had 2 children who went to boarding school in the city. Tuition costs a fortune for these families, and the children are often removed from home at an early age because they can't make the daily commute to the city. Still, they were very welcoming, and this was definitely one of my favorite parts of this trip.

Still, the Mongolian tents were awesome! There was one big tent and a few smaller ones. I stayed in the big tent with 7 other people, and it was like a big camping sleepover where we stayed up and played mafia or just told jokes and what not.

The first night was really eventful. First off, we were served lamb meat...after we saw the sheep being killed just for the occasion. Let's just say it wasn't the best meal ever...they don't like to season their meat...at all.
Dinner was a lot of toasting. Mongolians LOVE bai jiu (white wine). Most Americans, however, do not. Yet, the toasting is really fun and it is a sign of courtesy as the Mongolians welcome their guests. So of course, everybody participated in the fun. They also made us sing before we drank, which was interesting because none of us knew many Chinese songs.

Look how happy bai jiu makes you...

At night, we watched (and participated in) Mongolian wrestling. Let me tell you - it is intense. Director Feng, who also came on the trip, made all the guys join in, and most of us acquired some sort of injury as a result. My shirt was definitely bloodied by my opponent...it was a fun experience nonetheless.

On Saturday morning, a few friends and I got up at 5 Am to see the sunrise. It was nice, but I don't know if it was worth such little sleep... Judge for yourself:

Some people couldn't make it up...

The second day, we went to Huang Hua Gou (Yellow River Valley). We got to ride horses (seen below), watch horse racing, and take a short hike down into a large basin with great views.
That's just a quick sprint through the first two days, which should give you all a good sense of how fun this trip was. I'll continue to update on the rest of the week later, but for now, I've gotta start by social study report. 2000 characters - rough draft due tomorrow! Great...

July 4th & Summer Palace

The internet here is incredibly shoddy. We (as foreign students) pay 140 yuan (about 16-17 US$), but it is pretty terrible. The service drops a lot every few minutes, so it can be really frustrating when you're trying to use zhongwen.com, check facebook, espn.com, etc. But besides that, this has been a great week.

This week, we had incredibly hard lessons. Both Ch. 7 and 8 in the 4th year curriculum cover history topics, so the vocabulary and sentence structures are incredibly formal and more difficult to use. Even the teachers and local grad students sympathized with us on this one, but as usual, we got through the week unscathed.

Thursday was July 4th, and the air was amidst with American pride. A lot of students wore red, white and blue and at there were excursions to McDonalds and Pizza Hut for meals that day. For dinner, I went to "The Sauce," which is a Western-style restaurant in the university's cafeteria. I had iceberg lettuce for the first time since Yale ended - it was a good break from the monotony of oily Chinese vegetables they usually have in the dining hall. We also had pizza there, and also we had to wait a ridiculous 50 minutes, it was surprisingly good. I'd recommend going to The Sauce as a good getaway from the typical rice dish. At night, a few of us headed out to Propaganda, which is a local club near BeiYu's campus. It was great celebrating July 4th there, because the club is notorious for attracting foreign students, and that night it was mostly American.

Saturday's scheduled excursion with HBA was to the Ming Tombs, but I had already been and I also remembered that it was not very exciting. Not many students decided to go, and instead, I went to Yi He Yuan (Summer Palace) with a few friends instead. It was dreadfully hot, but the Summer Palace was very relaxing and a great escape from the business and constant action that the rest of Beijing provides. It was an easy bus ride (only 1 yuan or $.12) to get there, and the entrance fee was also very cheap. The place was very large, and we spent about 6 hours there, including an hour boat ride where we just went around the large lake and resting our feet after a long day. When we were coming back, we got caught in one of Beijing's notorious thunderstorms. We ran through the street in pouring rain to find shelter after getting off the bus, and just 30 minutes later, the rain had stopped. (Ridiculous) In any case, it was an eventful day, but now I am pretty tired and debating what to do tonight. A few PIB students are visiting BeiYu, so we might head out on an excursion somewhere. For now, here are some pics from Yi He Yuan.

The other kids...Jesse, Ming, Amy, Rachel

Marble Boat

Lazy Sundays

Ah, end of week 2 - I think everyone finally got more adjusted to our schedule/overcoming sickness/dealing with stomach issues. M-F is still pretty routine, class in the mornings, lunch, afternoon tutorial, then study, dinner, more studying. This week, we discussed Chinese students' perspectives on America. There are two main views: a hegemonic America and an America that is technologically developed and free society. Our essay for the week was to write about American college students' view of developing China. It was interesting, but I felt like everyone ran out of things to say by the end of the week.

This weekend, our HBA trip was to go see Beijing opera. It was actually really exciting and better than I expected. The singing itself was sometimes painful on the ears and hard to understand, but the stunts and the staged fighting was really entertaining. Below are some pictures.

PS - we keep running into random Yale kids in Beijing - whether it's ACC kids, PIB, or Bulldogs people. This includes random clubs, shopping centers, etc. It's quite fascinating how much Yale is invading Beijing hah.

The food they gave us.

Some cool/crazy acrobatic stuff with "arrows".

Some HBAers - more fun times to come...

In Good Company

So it's been almost a solid two weeks now at HBA, and let's just say when previous Light Fellows tell you the workload is a lot, they mean it! I'm getting about a solid 5-6 hours of a sleep a night after trying to memorize all the vocab words and doing the homework. Nonetheless, it's a work hard-play hard environment, much like how Yale typically is. Friday was both heaven and hell: we had our first zhou kao (weekly test) but no afternoon class, and our xiaoban teachers also took us out for lunch, so after a miserable thursday evening (it wasn't too bad actually...but it was pretty rough) we got to sleep on Friday before going out to explore Beijing at night.

This weekend, we went to the Great Wall and more specifically, SiMaTai. Rather than the more touristy and popular BaDaLing part of the Great Wall, SiMaTai was relatively empty and was a really enjoyable climb to the top. We had to pass 12 towers to reach the summit and although it was quite exhausting it was thoroughly mind-blowing and exhilirating. Here are some pictures from the climb:

This was at the beinning of the hike, when everone still had energy...

The Wall itself made for fantastic shots.

Uh...Yalies, go figure..

Here are a few random ones. The first is a shot of our classroom: my friend was returning my camera, and I managed to snap a shot before the teacher turned around. The second is what happens when you don't study enough for your daily quiz!!

What's going on???

Yes, it was out of 10 points...so it's really bad. But, luckily, they drop 2 of your lowest quiz scores, and I got a 10 today so it can't be too bad!

As for the weather, it's been really hot and humid the past few days and it's actually just begun thunderstorming in the past half hour and lucky for me I get to go to afternoon tutorial now, so I shall update you soon.

Oh China!

大家好！

I know I haven't written in a few days, but I just got my internet set up - finally. HBA has been extremely tiring yet surprisingly enjoyable. Though it's only the third day, I feel like I've been here for at least a few weeks. I guess that's because we've covered three weeks of material already! So a quick rundown of the past few days...

Saturday - I arrived in Beijing at 3 PM but waited for my luggage until 4:30. Turns out I ended up missing the HBA shuttle at 4 PM (they'd waited for me for an hour...) and so I took a taxi to Bei Yu, which is the university where HBA is hosted. The ride was about 45 min and was only 94 kuai (equivalent to approx $13, much better than NY taxis, etc.). On the way, we passed by the Olympic stadium that's being built. It was pretty exciting, and the taxi driver was more than eager to talk about fun stuff to do in Beijing (although I missed about 75% of what he was saying.) I arrived at HBA and found my way to the conference center. Luckily, Ming yee, Lulu, and a few other Yale students happened to be coming out of the elevator. I quickly stashed my luggage in my room before coming back down to the lobby and sharing our first night out in the city. We went to a touristy place called "Hou hai," which is actually a large lake with lots of shops, restaurants, bars all along the banks. We had some delicious Beijing food then decided to go paddle-boating on the water. There was one, as we later learned, infamous bridge where all the boats get stuck under. The passage under the bridge was only large enough for one boat to pass through at a time, but being impatient people, everyone was trying to edge their way through the tunnel = DID NOT WORK and took forever. That was quite an adventure, though somewhat frustrating in the end haha.

Sunday was orientation day. We got introduced to all the teachers and signed the language pledge - no more English! An interesting note on this policy later on...

Monday was the first day of class. 8-12AM, then another 50 min one-on-one session in the afternoon = intense stuff. I was quite overwhelmed Sunday night with the workload as I didn't start until quite late at night... Luckily, everything is manageable as long as you put in the hard work.

So, today is Wednesday and I have yet to start preparing for tomorrow's lesson. Grrrreat. We also have an essay due Friday, not to mention a debate and a weekly quiz on the past 3 lessons. Once again, even better. Even with all this work, however, HBA has already been an awesome experience. From the ridiculously cheap Chinese food to meeting those disgusting (joking) yet actually cool Harvard kids to not speaking English to your friends! We've decided that sometimes, speaking Chinese is like charades. We can't say the word in English, so we make up English words. For example:

Facebook: face = lian, book = shu, so we get lianshu
Youtube: you = ni, tube = quan, so we get niquan
Preppy: pu + er + pi (phonetic)

and the best of all...

Hole-in-the-wall (when referring to a restaurant): qian li mian yi ge dong (literal translation)

Anyhow, Great Wall is this Saturday, and I can't wait! I just have to get through this week first; speaking of which, I should probably get on this next lesson. For now, ciao!

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

So tomorrow is June 15, meaning it is departure for China from L.A. day. Today has been a frantic amalgam of errands, getting everything together, and packing, and it's been really tiring. I have a 7 AM flight tomorrow, so it is going to be tragic morning realizing I didn't get my 10 hours of summer sleep haha. Beijing, here I come...get ready.

T minus 6 days...

wow i can't believe i am leaving so soon...my entire summer! And I suddenly just realized that I'm not using proper capitalization so I will start that from now... Yesterday, I went to Monterey Park with family. If you're from Southern California, you'd know what I'm talking about - it's like the new Chinatown, but much larger. I had lunch there and looking around, I realized that I couldn't read a lot of things on the menu or on the posters and signs in the restaurant. Furthermore, I am sure that I've learned some of those words before, so this made me realize that I actually might need to brush up on some vocabulary before I take that placement test haha.

On another note, I checked weather.com and it says it's 95 degrees in Beijing. That is disgusting, adding the humidity. It's a dry 80 here in sunny socal right now, and I can't imagine the sweltering heat...and the mosquitoes...but I am trying not to think about that. Reading some of the blogs from last year's Light Fellows got me really excited for the trip, especially seeing pictures from the Inner Mongolia trip. It'll be nice stepping out of my comfort zone and seeing what happens. A lot of Light Fellows are already in China, and their blogs are getting me even more excited - can't wait til next week!