Concerto: Basan Part 5

5:30AM again. This time, we rise for the sunrise. Cold mountain air greets me as I struggle to get up from my head. I search half-blind for my beanie, borrow Genevieve’s jacket to wear on top of all of my other clothes and rush outside. The sky is already turning a shade of ultramarine. We rush to the Sea of Clouds, our cameras dangling on our wrists. By the time we get there, we see Chinese tourists in huge thick overcoats flocking towards several feet towards the cliff fence. Nobody seems to want to get within five meters of the edge. Lying Buddha’s face is covered by a thin white blanket. To its right far into the horizon, the sun burns red. The clouds strangely seem to cling to it, encircling it to form a gray halo. The sun gains speed while shedding its red skin, changing quickly into burnt sienna. In minutes it is above me colored in blinding golden yellow. The challenge is too much – the sun needs a kick.

We decide to take a bus down the mountain. After an hour of swirling through curvy paths at the back of the bus among bamboo walking sticks, snoring men, crying babies and crammed hiking bags, we’re back at the main bus station in Emei town.
“You’re having lunch with us,” Xinyue commands.
“What?” I say.
“My aunt (mother’s friend) is treating us. Don’t say no – my grandmother is coming to talk to you as well. She really likes foreigners who like Buddhism.”
“I never I liked Buddhism.”
“Well, baichi, why’d you climb Emei Mountain then?”
“For the scenery?”
“Don’t tell her that.”
“But—”
“Don’t make me lose face.”
At the bus station’s main office, Xinyue’s aunt, the transportation manager, greets us and takes us to a local restaurant, ordering plate after plate of delicacies I have never seen in my life from potatoes deep-fried to the form of cotton-candy to every possible dish with the slightest hint of spicy red pepper. “Eat as much as you can!” says the aunt, “Eat more from the plates, less from your rice bowl!” I guess that phrase is universal among all Asian people.
Xinyue’s grandmother led us afterwards to Huibao Si, or Reciprocity Temple, the central site where monks pray around the clock for the victims of the recent earthquake. As we walk through the temple grounds, the grandmother explains karma, yinguo in Chinese.
“What a person does in his past will affect his next life in the present. What a person does now will affect his future life. If during the past or the present he commits many sinful actions, like stealing, raping or murdering, it will reflect in his future. Look at this man. In his past life, this man killed this innocent man by pushing him off the cliff. In his future, the case is reversed - the innocent person is the city official, punishing the man who committed murder in his past life. Everything happens for a reason, but the relation between cause and effects transcends one life - it is connected between the past and the present, the present and the future. How you act now influences what you receive later.”
We walk over to the giant Past, Present and Future Buddha statues in the back temple. Xinyue’s grandmother nudges me and asks, “How heavy do you think each of those statues are?”
“Judging from the size, I’d say each is at least five hundred kilograms,” I say.
“Try less than 5 kilograms,” she corrects, smiling.
I look at her as if she’s crazy.
“It’s true. Ask the monks.”

The bus ride back to Chengdu is silent. Liu Chang and I chat about video games, Chinese politics and the differences between Chinese and American girls. Genevieve and Xinyue are deep in discussion about something, but I can’t hear a single character over the noise of the bus engine and passing cars. The roads are badly destroyed everywhere. In the mountains, landslides force the driver to make wide turns around heaps of rocks. In rural villages, piles of wood planks, concrete blocks and red bricks lie next to tents reading “Emergency Use.” In cities close to Wenchuan, red banners hang from five-story office buildings’ roofs covering small cracks – “This building is dangerous. Stay Away.” Along the highway, billboards flash by, every fifth or sixth one shining the same four characters – “Many people, one heart.”

“Where are you all going after you return to Chengdu?” Xinyue asks.
“We’ll go to Jiuzhaigou. A couple of our classmates from Beijing will be flying to Chengdu and meeting us to go together.” I reply.
“And after?”
“Well, hopefully we can get to Tibet using our current residence permits. If not, we’ll break from Jiuzhaigou – a couple of us will be headed south to Yunnan, and a couple of us will head north to Gansu.”
“Wow…you guys are seeing a lot of China’s most beautiful places. You’ll love Jiuzhaigou. My dad and I went there once. In fact, when we get off the bus, I’ll let my dad know you’re going. He can probably help.”
“Oh, by the way, we need to pay you for all the meals and guesthouse fees we accrued along the hike.”
“No!” says Xinyue. “That would be rude. As a guest, this is my duty.”
“And as a friend in deep gratitude,” I retort, “this is the least I can do.
The bus ride concludes after more than twelve hours on the road. The rain outside doesn’t discourage any of the passengers from rushing towards the exit and breathing fresh air, despite the air pollution. In the short walk to her father, Xinyue and I squabble about money. In the end, she finally shoves the money Genevieve and I had given her into her bag. Xinyue leads me and Genevieve to her father. Most fathers ask daughters returning from long trips about their health, their adventures – here, it’s the opposite case. Xinyue bullies her father to tell her everything about her mother, her health, her father’s activities and his health. After a round of shaking hands, Xinyue tells her father of our travel plans and her father immediately brightens.
“Eh, let me make a few calls to Jiuzhaigou to see if I can get you some places to stay inside the park!” he says.
“You really are too kind, but you don’t have to do this. We can finally guesthouse around the park.” I say.
“Nonsense,” Xinyue says, “My dad works for the Forestry Reserve in Sichuan. He knows everybody who works in every park around here – it’d be a disgrace if he didn’t do this for a friend of mine.”
Speechless, we walk silently, guided by Xinyue for the final few minutes to a local restaurant.
“Are you going to miss me?” Xinyue says furtively.
“Well, of course!” I reply, “How can I forget all the kindness and generosity that you’ve given me over the past few days? I can’t imagine how the trip to Emei Shan would have been without you to help us through it all. When I go back to Beijing, I’ll look at my pictures and think of what I’ve left here.”
I don’t think that’s the reply that Xinyue was expecting. She immediately looks another way and slows down while I walk up ahead with her father, recounting her hike briefly with him.
“Whenever you’re back in Sichuan, be sure to give me a call. I’ll make sure that wherever you go you’ll always be in good hands. The parks here all know my name, so you’ll be covered.”
“I don’t know how to you thank you, or your daughter.”
“Nonsense, this is as it should be. We will stay in contact. Xinyue, say goodbye.”
Xinyue has caught up from behind. I can’t tell if that’s rain on her face.
“Zaijian,” I say.

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Concerto: Basan Part 4

I hear drums. A soft rhythm in the distance – no, make that downstairs. The old wooden walls, though, draw the monk’s beating of the drums far away. I glance at my phone – 5:30AM. So early, yet the ceiling, the walls and the floor are already creaking.
Outside, the mountain fog is thick - the statues and prayer fountains I saw the night before are barely distinguishable, visible because of light bouncing in the air. People bustle around - the resident cooks run to the kitchen to make breakfast, monks speed-walk to the temple to beat more drums, fellow hikers hobble to the bathroom to brush teeth. Some temple guards hold sticks prodded with apples as tribute to monkeys who terrorize the temple roofs.

After a quick breakfast of sour and spicy noodles, we are off trekking once more. At some points, we must rely heavily on our walking sticks to hike up because the stairs are destroyed by rockslides. Signs reading “Caution: Wild Monkeys Roaming - Do Not Display Food or Act Dangerously - Use Common Sense” appear every few kilometers. Xinyue slows at each of these signs, glancing warily into the surrounding vegetation as if a monkey might suddenly jump out of nowhere and steal her bag. Unfortunately, we see none of our curious relatives.
Within two hours, we hike up about nine hundred meters to Jieyin Temple. Xinyue talks with the trolley car manager, who turns out to be her mother’s best friend from high school, and tells me and Genevieve that we can take the trolley up to the summit for free. Genevieve and I exchange glances.
“We came up this much on our own,” Genevieve says. “It’d be a shame to say we cheated the last five hundred meters up.”
I agree – I don’t think Emperor Kangxi had an electric trolley at his convenience to ride to the Golden Summit.
“Alright,” Xinyue says, “But it’ll take about two hours – the trolley takes five minutes.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say.
“Fine. Baichi.”
The final few hundred meters seem more painful than the first 2500 meters. Is the oxygen quantity in the air already different? Why didn’t I just take the trolley? A middle-aged women walking down to the trolley station voices, “Kid, you’ve got more hell up ahead of you.” The stairs are drastically steeper and longer, with flat checkpoints drawn out further. The sun shines brightly through the trees and fog, the wet steps glistening. I see Genevieve about fifteen meters down. Over to the side, viewing platforms look out over the sky, neighboring mountains lost in clouds with the occasional cliff poking out every now and then. The ageless untrimmed trees along the stairs beckon as flies from nearby trashcans start to swarm around me.
After about two hours, I see Xinyue up ahead with the rest of the hiking group.
“About time,” she whines, “We’ve been waiting for you for so long.”
“Where’s the Golden Buddha Pagoda?” I ask, panting.
“We’re two minutes away. But first, you should check in at this guesthouse.”
After Genevieve and I stretch our muscles and crack our backs, we haul our hiking bags into our room at the guesthouse and head back out to meet Xinyue.
“Let’s go!” Xinyue says.
Without the hiking bag on my back, the hike feels feather-light, almost joyful. We come to a flat concrete-paved path lined with hotels and souvenir stands selling long-armed monkeys in yellow and pink shirts. Above the hotels and the trees, a golden statue stands in contrast to the clear blue sky. A few more minutes of walking takes us to the main ceremonial steps to the Golden Summit.
“Wow,” I whisper.
The Multi-Face Buddha Avaloskitesvara sits on a lotus flower supported by four golden elephants with multiple tusks. The statue faces’ expressions are empty, serene, neither smiling nor frowning, all the eyes half-closed looking down to the earth below. Ivory white elephants bearing golden wheels line the steps up to the golden statue, while smaller stone elephants circle around the statue facing clockwise. Behind the statue sits the Golden Summit Temple, the final prayer site for Buddhist pilgrims. Workers use thin metal slabs to force orange red wax off of the candle fountain in front of the temple.
Behind the temple, we face the Sea of Clouds, the name a literal translation of the Chinese name, Yun Hai (云海). White mist forms in my eyes, blending with the sky blue into other shades of white, gray and blue. The only mountain clearly visible poking through the clouds seems to outline Sakyamuni Buddha lying down in the clouds on his back.
Looking out into the distance, I feel a rush of ecstasy mixed with a moment of fear as a bout of wind rushes through me from my back but nearly carries me into the clouds. I look down into the sea of clouds – it’s too thick to notice people walking around. Not that people would be walking around – they’d drown in cloud. It would have been interesting to see people though, to see people walking around the pools of cloud like tadpoles in ponds on Earth.

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Concerto: Basan Part 3

“Do you know how to get to Emei Mountain?”
The middle-aged lady stares back puzzled. Was there something wrong with my question? Did I say it wrong? I repeat.
“Do you know how to get to Emei Mountain?”
She smiles, says a jumble of sentences in Sichuan dialect, and points to a younger girl next to her. The two switch seats.
“She’s not very good at standard Mandarin,” the girl says, “But I can help.”
I repeat my question.
“You’re on your way already,” she replied, annoyed. “Is that all you wanted to ask?”
I am taken aback by the directness of the question. I clarify, “After we get off this bus, are there other buses to get to Emei Mountain itself?”
“You can the taxi or take another bus – but they’re all expensive.” She glances at my hiking bag. “You definitely are a foreigner. I’m Xinyue.”
“I’m Jin Jianyou. Wait, you said your name was Xin-what?”
“Ugh, baichi. Xin Yuuuuue,” she exaggerates. “Understand?”
“What’s baichi?”
“Huh? How do I answer that question… wait, what did I learn in school… it means ‘idiot.’”
I don’t think I’ve ever been called an idiot by a stranger during a conversation that lasted less than five minutes. She seemed to joke as she said it though – I think. We introduce ourselves more – she’s the American-equivalent of a senior in high school, hiking up the mountain to see some relatives and friends who work at the summit. I say I’m just studying abroad in China.
“Ugh, so you are a baichi.”
“What?”
“Everybody who studied abroad in my family was a baichi. I don’t think you’re much different.”
“Great. Thanks for the classification.”
“No need to thank.”

The Lonely Planet: Hot & Spicy
The Chinese have a saying, “China is the place for food but Sichuan is the place for flavour.” Flavour starts with mouth-singeing peppers. With such fiery food the Sichuanese themselves have a reputation for being a little hot-headed and the local women are even referred to as là měizi (spice girls).

Xinyue is curious where I’ve been throughout Chengdu. As I show her pictures from my camera, I describe Wenshu Monastery, the main temple for Manjusr Bodhisattva, and Wuhou Si, a military temple built apparently by the characters of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. She wasn’t as interested my photos of statues and architecture as much as she liked the photos of the pandas and red pandas at the Panda Reproduction Research Center north of Chengdu. While looking at the picture of me holding a red panda, she asked, “Why didn’t you hold a baby panda?”
“To hold a baby red panda costs 50 yuan,” I explain, “to hold a baby panda costs 1000 yuan.”
“Oh,” she whispers as she scrolls through more shots of red pandas.
“You know, we’re both climbing the mountain to the same destination, so why don’t we climb it together?” she suggests.
“That sounds lovely. I’ll just have to ask Genevieve about it, but I don’t think she will disagree. I also heard that traveling in big groups will help us get by the monkeys.”
“Who said we’re going through the monkey path? That way’s dangerous.”
“But monkeys are cute, not to mention our closest biological relatives.”
“Not the ones on Emei Mountain.”
“How bad can they be?”

After we get off the bus, her uncle greets us. After introducing Genevieve and me, we all cram into his small truck and head for the Qingyin Lake entrance. The Emei city is unimpressive, the gray hue in the sky reminiscent of Beijing and Chengdu. At the entrance, nothing is really visible more than fifty meters away due to the thick fog. I hoist and fasten my bag securely on my back, buy a sturdy looking bamboo walking stick and start the climb.
Plenty of pilgrims make their way up to the summit every year, so the entire path is made of stone stairs for hiking comfort. Though, looking up at an empty staircase that seems to continue at the horizon seems to sap more energy than the act of hiking itself. We cannot take the monkey-free path (“Oh no!” says Xinyue) because the fog has made it too slippery and dangerous. At the first monkey zone, a few mountain guides stand around with skinny bamboo whips and packets of corn kernels. I try to feed the monkeys the red peanuts that I bought in Chengdu, but as soon as I take the package out the attendants yell at me in unison. Apparently, past hikers who have fed food not sold on the mountain were not only fined by the mountain authority, but also followed by monkeys seeking more exotic food for the duration of the climb. I reluctantly buy a couple packets of corn. As soon as I buy one, a young monkey snatches it out of my hand and hobbles away, stuffing corn kernels into his mouth while perched on the wooden fence. Annoyed, I open the other packet and throw a few kernels at it. The monkey catches them mid-air and eats them.
Monkeys.

I rush up the steps beyond the other climbers. Soundless echoes of coaches and runners from high school cross-country yell, "Don't look up, just get up, get up, don't look up!" Along the torturous climb, workers fix the fences, slabbing clay onto nailed oak planks. They shout words of motivation as I pant, grasping on my bamboo stick. One worker stares at my bird's-nest-excuse-for-a-hairstyle and says, "Are you from Hong Kong?"

"No, I'm from the States," I reply.

"You certainly don't look like a white man."

"Well, I was born in Korea."

"I knew it!" he yells at the others, "the moment I saw you I knew! You look like those actors in all those Korean dramas my wife watches! You know 'Full House,' right?"

"I think you're confusing me with somebody else then."

"Come now, I'm just joking. It certainly gets boring making fences all day."

"So the red clay on the fence is just to make the wood planks look like real wood?"

"This? Oh yeah, we just use the nails to run them through the wet clay and make it look like peeling bark."

"Ah."

"Yep."

The mountain is already starting to get hazy as the fog thickens. After a couple hours of hiking, I finally arrive at Xianfeng Temple, the rest stop for the night. I barely make out the stone gate in the fog. Near the door into the main prayer hall, I sit on a bench and wait for the others. My shirt, boxers and shorts are completely drenched in sweat, cooling me quickly in the mountain air. Thank goodness I packed three pairs of boxers.

The rest of the group arrives later broken in pairs. Xinyue yells, "Can't you wait for the rest of us? You could have at least helped me carry a bag. Agh, I'm so exhausted..."

After a quick austere vegetarian dinner of monk grub, we take showers and collapse on bed, barely exchanging words. Before sleep, I try to imagine the scenery at the Golden Summit, motivating myself to get over the soreness in my quads.

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Concerto: Basan Part 2

The plane ride is unusually quiet – I suppose everybody on this flight isn’t used to waking up early for check-in. Genevieve, my travel partner, is also asleep, tired from staying up with a few IUP students. Surprisingly, Li Yun laoshi, the education director of IUP, sat next to me for the trip to Sichuan. After an aerial Chinese breakfast of white rice porridge with ham/cucumber and mayonnaise sandwich, we reflected on the summer session in Beijing. Li laoshi confesses she misses teaching. The administrative side of education means filing paperwork and scrutinizing over teacher salaries and sick day leaves, never really any contact with the students. For this summer, I have definitely attained my goal – to improve my Chinese fluency. I am much more comfortable and confident living in China. I can survive on my own while conversing with others about everyday topics. While traveling, I wonder if I can put everything I’ve studied this summer to test.
For the remaining time on the plane, I forced Li laoshi to teach me some Sichuan dialect. The differences are not very distinct – instead of saying “wo bu zhidao” for “I don’t know,” it is “wo bu xiaode.” However, profanity is on a different aesthetic plane.

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Concerto: Basan Part 1

My travel itinerary is complete. Unfortunately, I have not reviewed my Chinese textbooks for the final. I’ve been passively listened to the text recordings while perusing my Lonely Planet guide – anyways, language can’t be crammed, so what’s the point of glancing through thousands of words to stuff into my short-term memory? My ideal plan is explore Sichuan province and then travel through Tibet. However, my Chengdu travel guide is arguing that I cannot be granted a travel permit into Tibet using my permanent residence permit. In case I cannot go to Tibet, I will travel south to Yunnan province, but I sincerely hope that I can get in. My hiking bag is half-packed – I’m still debating whether to take two or three pairs of boxers.

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“中国加油”Cheer: 8 years in 8 hours

Every morning on the way to IUP I bike past a neighborhood park equipped for elderly ballroom dancing sessions, pick-pong matches and young late-night forbidden kisses. The red countdown board stands at the entrance informing everyone how much time is left before the opening ceremonies down to the second. I feel a surge of excitement reading "0000 days, 3 hours, 9 minutes and 53 seconds" - finally I'll see the fruit of years of preparation by China's Olympics Committee. However, the polluted sky suggests rain - where are the silver iodides that were supposed to rend Beijing's sky clear?

Jason and I take a taxi to Hardy's hutong near Yonghegong and Nanlouguxiang. Through narrow cobbleways and past stained windows we find a traditional siheyuan (four-corner roof hutong). We walk to the entrance with a row of empty imported beer bottles lined outside a window. The ambiance inside is beautiful, but I see no air conditioning machines. Two electrical fans swing its heads back and forth, weak breezes cooling sweat beads on everyone's noses. Hardy brings out a few cold beers.
"How much do you pay a month for this place?" I ask.
"1500," he replies.

As more people arrive and crowd the hutong, I escape outside for fresh air. An old man with a towel swung over his neck watches me as he cools himself with a paper fan. Untrimmed shrubs, two yellow parakeets and four red-eyed turtles surround him.
"Old man (courteously said), how long have you lived here?" I ask.
"About six months." he says.
"Only six months? You look like you've lived here much longer than that."
"Oh yes, I used to live north of here where that big building now stands. The government razed my hutong."
"Did the government give you enough compensation?"
"Meh," he chuckles, "it'll do, I suppose."
His wife brings out a bowl of green beans to snack on.

The group finally starts walking towards Ditan Gongyuan, a park about fifteen minutes away from the hutong. As we walk across an overpass, I notice the highway below is completely empty. Red and blue lights on top of police cars blink along the highway every fifty meters. I rest my water bottle and umbrella on the stone fence and prepare my camera, but a guard in full military regalia approaches me and tells me to take my belongings off the fence. "I'm just taking a picture," I say.
"Please remove it, or we will fine you." he warns. "And please don't take a picture."
"But when will I ever see Beijing's highways empty like this during rush hour?" I complain.
After staring at me for a couple seconds, he says, "Take it when there are no cars in the highway then," he instructs.
As he watches me carefully, I hold my water bottle between my legs and snap a photo. "Why are you guys here anyways? Why is this highway empty?" I ask.
"Government officials are passing through here. The officials from Austria just passed by. We cannot allow anyone to take pictures of these officials. Anyone taking photos of officials will be suspected as a terrorist."
"Did the officials from the United States pass by?"
"Yes."
While musing the thought of President Bush passing under my feet, we continue to walk to Ditan Gongyuan. Under the park gate, we see lit-up Fuwa mascots on a roller coaster made of flowers. Hardy and a few guys buy pizza and champagne from a local restaurant for everyone for dinner. After a few bites and gulps, we hurry through the park to the big TV screens. The gate to the closed TV area is already packed with people. Onlookers begin to cheer as the red countdown board next to the screen reads "5 minutes." Everyone quickly squeezes through and finds patches of grass to sit on. The TV darkens as the stadium lights go out. The drum countdown show excites everyone to yell in mixed unison, "Ten, nine, ba, qi, liu, five, si, three, er, yi..."

After Zhang YiMou's 80,000 cast show, portions of the crowd break into modest to crazy applause for various international athlete delegations. When Taiwan comes on as "China Taipei," the park breaks into cheers and claps. As soon as the camera pans to Chairman Hu, the claps die down to smatterings. When the American athletes come out, the audience goes nuts as some people swing American flags and shirts over their heads on top of fences and platforms. When the screen shows President Bush, the audience splits into claps and boos. Finally, when China's 1,600 delegation enters the stadium, the watchers all stand and roar for Yao Ming and the athletes donned in red and yellow suits (tomatoes and eggs, as my Chinese teacher calls them). As soon as Li Ning lights the scroll torch, everyone cheers as they runs toward the gate. I hear some people complain in pain about cramped legs and tired eyes. My friends invite me to a bar in Chaoyang - I refuse. Four hours of looking at a 10 by 12 TV has drained me.

On the subway back to Wudaokou, we share plans for the upcoming weeks.
"Are you going to see any of the events?" Anjli asks.
"No, I don't want to go to them," I say.
"What?? What are you going to do after your program ends?"
"I don't want to be in Beijing...I think I'll head south toward Sichuan or Tibet."
"Can you get into those areas? With the protests and disasters, will you be allowed to travel there?"
"Meh, better now than before the cultures there are China-fied."

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David Bowie, Damien Rice, and Dave Matthews Band in a mixed whirl: Dongwangzhuang 东王庄

"你好. Please show us your student ID," says the service attendant.

"I'm just going to my room," I reply.

"We still need to see your ID."

"I don't have mine on me."

"It's for your safety."

"Against what?"

After a few more seconds of haggling with the attendants, I climb the three flights and tread the hallway down to my dorm room. The aftersmell of an overused mop lingers. As I take off my shoes, a droplet of water from the ceiling soaks into my shoulder. The air conditioner is still not fixed. The ceiling panel is darkening with spots of black and green. After a swig of Pocari Sweat (a popular beverage in Asia, also known as Monkey Sweat), I lay down on my hard bed. It is moist.

On the fifth floor whiteboard, someone has put up an advertisement - "2BR Apt in 东王庄, 3000approx./month, if interested call Wiley!" During my hour break, I call Wiley. Immediately we set up a meeting to look at the apartment and meet the landlords. The landlords are an old couple who live in the vicinity. The wife, Ai-yi, reminds me of my grandmother - the way she wields her fan threatens her timid husband, who doesn't collect money until Ai-yi spreads her fan.

Outside, I hear the hooting of pigeons and chirps of sparrows on the first floor balcony and overworked air conditioners groaning. The elderly yell at each other - the accent is too strong for me at this point. With the smack of a playing card on a makeshift wooden desk, a man showing off his round Buddha stomach yells "Wo Cao!" (Profanity) Around the wastebins, ladies squabble over the ownership of a few plastic water bottles.

As soon as I sign my lease agreement with the landlords, I bike back to my dorm and scramble to pack everything before the Foreign Student Affairs Office closes for the night. After an hour, everything is squeezed in two pieces of luggage, two bookbags and two boxes. Unfortunately, no taxis are around. A white unmarked car drives up.

"Where are you going?" he asks.

"Dongwangzhuang. I need to move a few stuff as well. Will your car handle the weight?"

"No worries."

The man looks like he was part of some Chinese gang with his huge tattoo on his deltoid enlarging every time he flexes. We quickly stuff all of my clothes and books into his trunk and are on the road. If all unmarked cab drivers are like this man, then I don't know why I'm still riding state-regulated taxis. He gives me recommendations on the best restaurants, best markets to buy household goods, and best places to meet Chinese girls. "My neighborhood has too many of them. Come by, we'll have some baijiu (vodka, but not really) and I'll introduce you to a few." We exchange phone numbers. He promises to call.

The first few days in the apartment I furiously organize my library, clean the kitchen, dust my bedroom, mop the floor and pay the internet bill. I have announced that I will hold a "happy hour" at my place for IUP students to mingle and bond over wine and snacks. Fortunately, I am sponsored by IUP with an allowance of 500RMB. After running around the Lotus Center and only finding disappointing Great Wall red wine (a soury excuse for vinegar), Jason and I head to the Carrefour store in Zhongguancun. The Carrefour store in Beijing is the size of Costco, but nothing is sold in wholesale. That doesn't seem to stop the locals from taking advantage of the lower than average prices and the wide selection of imported goods. Fortunately, in the evening lots of IUPers come to warm up the apartment. I'll admit it - the happy hour was a good cover for my housewarming party. Over Alcantra and Merlot, we pass the night identifying Chinese emperors and government officials on playing cards. I was hoping for a rowdy game of Kings.

As with any new environment, time is necessary to adapt. My daily commute to IUP has doubled. I actually have to learn to cook, force myself to go the market and buy cheap packaged noodles, or drag myself to the restaurants in the area - the cafeteria is no longer fifty meters away. Over Skype, I've asked my mother for a few recipes. Apparentely, to make a good stew, all I need is some vegetables, ground meat, cooking oil, spices and water. I've also been pestering the teachers to teach me some Chinese plates. In any case, would anyone like to be my foodtaster?

While at one of Beijing's best jazz clubs called the OT Lounge at Jianguomen, Carol told me of a doctor who learns another language to see life from another perspective and wrote a book about her reflections. I suppose I am attempting the same thing - to approach life from a younger perspective, to force myself in a strange environment that changes as fast my vocabulary and thoughts change. This past Friday, IUP held its Speech Day. I related my years working as a waiter in San Francisco. I expected the speech to be difficult because I was using Chinese, but because I was speaking about bundles of experiences and emotions buried in my mind and heart, the speech wrote itself on the podium. I am surprised how much clear my thoughts are when I speak Chinese now - perhaps its all due to more subtle adjectives and verbs that are now in my vocabulary, but I do not feel the need to memorize anymore. I speak from the gut.

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Suite: No Hands （无手）

The library – an easy haven for a student after hours of Chinese class on chairs that uses your sweat to glue you to the seat. Air-conditioner, big tables, plenty of books, magazines, dictionaries and movies on Chinese history, culture and medicine, cold drinking water fountain, fellow classmates to remind you that you’re not the only one confused between synonyms – the library is an easy haven. But for all its amenities, it asks you to pay a price that Chinese cannot do without – a voice. Silently writing characters is important for memorization, but not practicing the recordings with your voice and reading the textbook only allows for visual understanding of a language that depends on tones. The library is a false haven.

Saturday, July 12th 2008

Tony and a group of IUP students suggest a trip to Panjiayuan (潘家园) for a change of scenery. After train-hopping at Xizhimen and a quick taxi trip, we end up in front of a huge outdoor market. Scrolls, calligraphy brushes, paper posters from the Lei Feng, monuments and miniature dolls of Mao Zedong, statues of Buddha, and antiques from the turn of the 20th century are organized in neatly filed rows throughout the market. Rows of merchants sit leaning on walls or big statues, or if they’re unfortunate to be on the sunny side of the row, madly swoop their fans across their faces. I approach one stall to find a motley of broken Buddhas, rusted Cultural Revolution hair clips for women, old bronze coins, and a stone dildo flanked by two miniature forms of goddesses that remind me of India. One long aisle in the back of the market features millions of books sprawled out on the ground, including plays about model CCP children and love lost for the glory of the Party and countless copies of The Outlaws of the Marsh and Dream of the Red Mansion. Unfortunately, this aisle has no roof, and sellers are forced to rest on small stools or a sturdy stack of books squeezed in metal closets that every seller has.

The same evening, I rush through subways to meet my friend Danni (丹妮) at a famous hutong (胡同，the northern way of saying alleyway) called 南楼鼓巷，or Nanlouguxiang. I get off at the wrong subway station, and ask countless passers-by, elderly people and police officers, running through narrow alleyways with classical courtyards saved from bulldozing. Old men crouch together in front of small stores yelling at each other – the accent was too strong for me to figure out the conversation’s main points. Children run in the opposite direction, kicking a soccer ball amongst themselves and against the walls of the alleyway. Finally, I find 丹妮, and together we browse through the hutong, lined with restaurants, tea shops and specialty stores geared for tourists. Over dinner, Danni reveals that she is an intern at the Olympic Rowing competition site, and hints that she can get me a seat at the finals for a ticket price of about four dollars. As an Olympics intern, she gets to wear the red uniform. Volunteers wear blue, judges wear gray – I’m still trying to figure out who can wear green, yellow and orange.

Friday, July 18th 2008

The midterm is today. The weeks of not having tests to prepare have allowed me to relax and just read poems from the Tang Dynasty and listen to random radio broadcasts about classical music, the dangers of walking with flip-flops and love stories. A couple hours after I am finished with the test, I talk with all of my teachers to discuss mistakes I’ve made on the test and possible improvements to my study methods to make greater leaps of progress.

After the test, I meet with Zhou Laoshi, my first-year Chinese professor, and Dean Marichal Gentry, the Dean of Student Affairs at Yale. Fortunately, the rainy weather broadcast is wrong, and we enjoy a humid but still pleasant afternoon walking around the royal playground of the past dynasties. The scene isn’t different from last year – hundreds of people and local elderly circle Kunming Lake to glimpse at Empress Dowager Cixi’s stony vision of the Chinese navy (in the background, right). To avoid the tourist crowds, Professor Zhou buys us tickets to ride a boat to Suzhou Jie. Suzhou Jie reminds me of Venice, but with a broader waterway, more trees, stone bridges and oriental architecture that do not float. We wander into a store covered with Guilin fabrics. Dean Gentry buys an orange cloth with two dancers, reminiscent of African tribal dances - pity he couldn’t bargain for it.

In the evening, we meet the Light Fellows at the Duke Chinese program and IUP, Yale alumni in China and Yale-China Teaching Fellows at an amazing roast duck restaurant. The Duke Light Fellows have tests every Friday…I’ve forgotten that I had to endure the same torture while at the Harvard program.
I won’t see Professor Zhou or Dean Gentry for an entire year – while I am curious what China will be like after the Olympics, I wonder what I’ll be like after a year in China, what Yale will be like in a year. It’s more than a year away, but I wonder if I’ll be ready for the culture shock that Kelly talked about.

At Sanlitun, I lounge on a rooftop bar with Jason, a classmate, and a few of his friends from the States. Upon asking him what China will be like after the Olympics, he responds in similar confusion, “Thinking what China will be like after the Olympics is like thinking what life will be like after having sex with Madonna.”

Saturday July 19th, 2008

IUP hosts its second field trip to 798, the modern art “factory” of Beijing. The area was originally a weapons factory zone built using money from East Germany, but eventually factory owners rented the area for artist seeking studio and exhibition space. While there are still some active factories, it has become more economical for owners to rent out space to the artists than to manufacture products.

I never really learned how to appreciate art, but 798’s art seems to have two paradoxical purposes – to criticize China and to praise China. Some exhibitions clearly try to preserve classical art techniques, but juxtapose Western motifs like Salvador Dali’s melting clocks with calligraphy. Other exhibitions express frustration towards the government. One painting features a few Chinese men with similar shirts that have a logo modeled like Tiananmen Square, but their smiles are horribly exaggerated, simply fake. The only common thread throughout all the works is confusion – everyone knows the country is developing, but nobody knows where the country is headed. Repeating the title of a famous Chinese history book, everyone seems confused where to search for modern China.
The only exhibition that really stood out and related to my thoughts on China “The Dustproof Cloth” by Yao Lu. Yao uses dustproof cloth manipulated by computer art editing programs to form poetic images of beautiful green mountains that remind one of an ancient mystical China, but upon closer inspection, the green dustproof cloth covers mounds of shoveled dirt and disaster sties – it covers the ugliness. The mountains, mounds of dust and theft, is Yao’s symbol of contemporary China.

I met with Danni in the evening to go to 王府井, or Wangfujing, to enjoy the street food. Wangfujing is like the Times Square of Beijing - lots of lights, huge TVs covering building walls, lots of people. At one point, the TV played the Chinese Olympic cheer. All of a sudden, the children around me clapped and cheered in unison along with the commercial. Even the adults around me muttered the cheer under their mouths. After wandering around the huge bookstore and specialty stores around the plaza, we went to the street food stalls. I had legs of octopus, lotus rice, and strange balls filled with fish, sticks of candied grapes, and coconut milk. According to one of my teachers, eating scorpions is beneficial for skin quality. I don’t know about the scientific proof behind that relation, but the scorpions were delicious. They tasted like potatoes. Jason says that Xian has better street food – I wonder if I’ll have an opportunity to go there in the future. The scorpions are supposed to be better there. The seahorses looked at me with these pathetic eyes, so I skipped them for today.

Since I bought a bicycle in China, I’ve been practicing to ride without touching the handles. After nearly crashing into speeding cars, actually crashing into a couple pedestrians and replacing one ripped tire after a nasty crash into a tree, I can now comfortably bike without hands. My experiences and reflections in China can be, I think, summarized by my bike. While talking with Dean Gentry, I realized how confused I still was about what I wanted to study at Yale and do later in life. I’m done with my premedical studies and MCAT, but I’m not sure if I want to pursue medicine. Throughout sophomore year, studying Chinese was an escape, a source of procrastination, from studying organic chemistry and physics. But here, all I do is study Chinese. As Dean Gentry summarizes, “You can think of the path you’re biking on as your Chinese education. In the beginning, you’re getting used to the environment, your studies, so it’s completely understandable that you hang on tight to your plans, to the handles. Everyday, the people who you come across encourage you to try their jobs, to try new experiences. As the let go of what you’ve considered as your life plan, it’s natural to feel uncomfortable, so you’ll force yourself to refocus on your original studies, on your original path – you’ll hold the handles. But as you grow confident in your ability to communicate and relate with the people around you, you let go of your own plans – you let the bike curve as the front wheel curves about. However, you’re still moving on one path – Chinese. No matter what job you pursue, in China you have your Chinese education as your foundation, your path.”

Biking back to my dorm late at night, I see nobody in the street, so I let go of the handles. I’m still uncomfortable if the wheel turns too much, and to be honest, I’m still not sure what to do with this language that I’m dedicating a year to, but at least I’m experiencing and learning something new everyday.

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An American Sings the Olympics Theme Song: 北京欢迎你

Mondays are never great. After a weekend of not having someone hound over my grammar, my danbanke(one-on-one) teacher rips my sentences to pieces and assigns pages of grammar assignments, topping off with a note of encouragement, "Your Chinese is a little better."

Tuesday are awesome. I review everything the night before, I make sentences without missing predicates or objects and without confusing nouns for verbs or adverbs for adjectives. The teacher is more benevolent with the compliments: "Not bad."

Thursday is unusually unusual. On the white communication board, Cui Laoshi (teacher) has a message, "Are you interested in talking to elementary school students? Contact me!" Hey, I love kids. I leave her my cell phone number, and by five in the evening, a man calls me to plan the event. Plan? What plan? I'm just talking to elementary school students, aren't I? Regardless, I agree to meet - anything beats the studying routine. At the Tsinghua East Gate, I am greeted by the man, Mr. Shang and the host for the event, Ms. Danni Zhang. Together, they explain I am talking to school students about American high school life, how to study English and my opinions on the Olympics. They want me to prepare crafted responses ahead of time "to avoid misunderstanding." Mr. Shang further requests that I sing. I don't know many songs, so I blurt out the first song in my head, "What a Good Boy." They finally mention I need to memorize the Olympics theme song, "Beijing Welcomes You." I figure, hmm, still nothing much - a few questions and a couple songs for a few students. Mr. Shang says he will give me 300 yuan for my efforts. It's just a small talk, I say.

The next day, I excuse myself from class and head for Beijing Transportation University (北京交通大学). Mr. Shang leads me to a big building, and soon I find myself in the backstage of a large auditorium. I cannot see the seats in the audience, but the raucous noise of impatient children echoes to the back. "Didn't you say I was talking to a handful of students?" I ask uncertainly.

"Yes, a few students selected for their English speaking levels. They are the only ones asking you questions," says Mr. Shang. "Danni, quickly introduce Ricky!"

In seconds, I walk onto the center stage of the lecture hall, facing hundreds of students and teachers. I stand next to Danni for a bit, and then she hands me the microphone for me to introduce myself. Well, what the hell, I think, might as well make the best of it.

The entire activity seems like a TV talk show - cameras and camcorders near the stage click and flash, while the audience laughs and applauds. After going through the prepared questions, the students ask their questions in accented English: "Why are there so many presidents from Yale?" (Because Yale is awesome) "Where have you been other than Beijing? Where do you want to go?" (Henan, desperately want to go to Yunnan) "Do you have a girlfriend?" (Next question - "Your English is very good," I compliment)

We play a guess-the-word game, themed around the Olympics. I do well, except for one phrase ("Citius, Altius, Fortius" - do all Chinese kids know this too?) I give a less-than-thrilling performance of "What a Good Boy," but everyone claps anyways. As some sort of sick joke, Mr. Shang plays some incredibly fast Indian-Chinese fusion rave music and asks me to show everyone how Americans dance. (Note: I graduated from the only high school in the San Francisco Bay Area that banned freak-dancing.)

Finally, the students on stage and I sing "Beijing Welcomes You." Fortunately, Mr. Shang hands me the lyrics. After Danni formally announces the conclusion of the event, the students in the audience stand up in relief. The students that I spoke to push me to give them my email address, but Mr. Shang points me from camera to camera to pose for group pictures. Junior high school girls seemed especially eager. (Yay?)

I related all of this to Mr. Laughlin, the program director, over lunch. "Typical," he says, "for the naive foreigner to get caught surprised by the grandiosity and scale of Chinese affairs."

Hardly typical, methinks.

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The Yankee Doodle Theme Song from Barney: Let's go to Class - Everywhere

This cold is not going away. Runny nose, fever, hoarse voice complicated by constant Chinese practice everyday, has made the cold drag on.

The first week of Chinese was appropriate for my sickness. The first two lessons basically covered health. By the end of the week, I was able to tell everyone exactly what symptoms I had, the details of a restless sleep and my sensitivity to light.

IUP is thorough. At HBA, I remember covering hundreds of words, knowing definitions of characters but glossing over usages. Here, the teachers grind each word's usage into you. For example, I know about ten ways to express going to sleep. Each term is used in a slightly different way. While the locals will understand what you want to say, they will not correct your words with the correct synonym. Fortunately, all the IUP teachers are patient and eager to help, whether I take their class or not.

Yesterday, a group of students and teachers went to a village preserved since the Ming Dynasty called 爨底下, or Cuan Di Xia. The village is shaped like a round bowl filled with rice, with the landowner's house on the highest spoonful. Most of the structures were maintained for more than 400 years. Tourists come to eat the local cuisine, which is supposed to be unique. My hunger didn't detect anything outstanding, to the cook's disappointment. However, I saw an old lady making cornbread in a great big metal bowl over an open fire. Her hands must be like insulated gloves - she would touch the bowl to flip the patties with her bare hands! Although the fresh bread was meant to be served to the awaiting customers in her restaurant, she sold a couple for the IUP troop to share. The unsweetened bread was the best thing I've had since living in China. The American southern cornbread cannot compare.

Everyone explore the town on their own. I found myself with the teachers, talking in Chinese throughout the day. Had I been with the other students, I don't think I would have appreciated or understood the town's culture, religion and geography deeply. The local geography is confounding - some places are labeled "Eight Mysteries Pool" and "Nine Meditation Stones," but when I actually hiked to those areas, all I found were cesspools dark with algae and nine boulders. I bet if I made a sign that said "Tree of Richard" next to anything resembling a branch, someone would take a photograph. Others areas were breathtaking - river-cut passageways with caves and cavities, single bell temples surrounded by vast green mountains.

Back in my room, I can only imagine my hike through fading memories preserved by these photographs. Outside, I hear American students in drunken stupor. There are a lot of foreign students on campus now as the actual university students leave and summer language program students move in. My opportunities for a Chinese-only environment dwindle in Wudaokou - with English in one ear and Korean in the other, hearing Chinese is a luxury. Maybe if I willingly try to not understand English and Korean, I can get by. Realistically, however, I have told other Koreans and Americans who see me as foreign that I am Chinese. It works - unless I'm talking with another Chinese.

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Etude: Nuts and Bolts

Finally I am able to log onto my blog. I wrote a test message lest my entire entry gets deleted by clicking on "Publish Post."

The Ministry of Public Security in China has changed their internet traffic monitoring methods over the past year. I am not only hopping over the Great Firewall, but over three other hurdles, collectively coined "The Golden Shield Project." From DNS address redirecting to mirror sites to site-by-site regulation, the government is really bottlenecking the flow of information. I can't help but think of Professor John Wargo in the School of Environmental Sciences ingraining the adage "Whoever controls information controls fear and security" when I think of the measures that the MPS has taken to prevent me from accessing this blog.

For any Light Fellows and Yalies in China, this is how I am accessing the internet:

1.) Download and install the Cisco VPN Client (Ver 5.0.01.0600) from the Yale Software site.

2.) Connect to "Yale resources and home networks." You may have to log onto your school's network site before you connect through the VPN Client.

3.) In the statistics box, you should see no packets discarded under "Packets" and Transport Tunneling "Active on UDP Port xxxxx."

To test, I've tried Wikipedia, BBC, NYTimes, Facebook, Youtube and other sites traditionally blocked. I haven't had a hiccup.

This entire week I've been in transit or in bed. My flight, though long, was merciful. Every few hours, I looked outside the window to see the world below - Canadian forests, Alaskan mountains, Siberian tundras, Japanese islands, Chinese farm fields - and looked around the plane, which was filled with anxious high school students wearing bright orange shirts reading "Explore China Camp" and sleeping tourists from Philadelphia and San Francisco.

At Tsinghua, I've run around all over the campus, the Haidian area, and Wudaokou to get a cell phone, books, toilet paper, medical checkups and a bike. Yes, a bike. Last summer, I thought bike-riding was suicidal in Beijing because of everyone's disregard for traffic regulations (imagine a taxi skimming your back wheel while a pedestrian walks across you and a bus honks at you to get out of the legal crosswalk area). However, Tsinghua's campus is at least five times the size of Beijing Language and Culture University's, which hosts HBA. Granted, I've gotten the cheapest strolling bike I could find and had to repair it twice already (the damn seat kept bending and pushing into my thighs). I've been hit by a taxi and hit a few old ladies because the brakes are a joke, but the bike is wonderful. I'm not quite ready to hold an umbrella in one hand and talk on the cell phone with the other, but I'll get there.

The students at IUP are all, to some degree, crazy about Chinese culture, philosophy, history, literature and/or food. I'm one of the very few who's interested in public health in China and North Korean refugees, but even so I find myself enlightened by conversations with my classmates over meals. Almost everyone has just graduated college, is pursuing a M.A. or Ph.D., or already in the workforce as a journalist, film critic, historian, lawyer or consultant, looking to refine their Chinese skills. Though we are all united by our love/hate relationship with China, our life experiences define us individually. One guy who was in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan had to work at a U.S. Air Force Base as a head chef when the government failed in 2003. He didn't have to know how to cook - he just had to keep the Kyrgyztani ladies away from the American soliders, and vice versa. Another classmate, a recent graduate from Georgetown's famous International Relations program, has traveled the world, has no upper tolerance for spicy food, and knows more about the Korean media star Rain than most Koreans know.

For now, I can't wait for classes to start. My textbooks, called Thought and Society and Frankly Speaking, seem very interesting. My room still needs some furnishing, but whenever I'm in here I feel like I'm in jail, with the cold floor, hard bed and stale air amplifying the sense of entrapment. I'd rather be outside, bike around town and breathe in polluted air. Unfortunately, a sore throat from the pollution and a night of karaoke with Yalies leaves me no choice but to watch some Chinese soap operas and chew Vitamin C pills.

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