It's like haze on your wedding day...

Things are getting busier here! I guess that is a good thing. It is a sign of settling in.

This past week was eventful. Last Thursday Chris and I ventured to the Military Museum. As you can guess, it was a bit heavy. The place was huge and we only walked through a very small part of it. We made the mistake of going right after lunch and didn't have another caffeine injection, so we were really dragging in there. We ended up leaving sooner than anticipated. We plan to go back at some point.

Here is a picture of the outside of the museum, complete with show-y tank



Here is a picture of Chris in front of the big Mao sculpture



On Saturday, we went to an event at Tsinghua University, which is described as the MIT of China. The event was about urban sustainability and integration. It was neat to see the school but it was a shame how awful the air quality was that day. Here is a picture looking out on the university:




There were parts of the event that were very interesting, but others that were really boring. I like their idea of a "Panel Discussion", which was a nice way of saying a whole group of people will call "shenanigans" on the presenter's entire project, trying to poke holes in it or show where they are lacking. I am beginning to think this tendency is cultural, because Chris and I have both noticed that our students will take any and every opportunity to point out if we have made a mistake on an email, handout, or PPT slide. A whole society of perfectionists! It's a tough crowd.. Here is some proof of how boring some parts of the conference were... ha!



Sunday we went to the Lama Temple with Leanne. Leanne is the niece of one of Chris's father's clients in NYC. I think she is our first official Chinese friend! We both really like her. Very sweet girl. She had never been to the Lama Temple either. Unfortunately, it was the coldest day of the year plus it was raining. Chilled to the bone! It was just a really cold and dreary day -- not a good day for the Lama Temple, most of which is outdoors. But we braved it! The Lama Temple is all about incense. In one of the pictures you can see a small fire burning where people are supposed to put their incense to show respect.



















Monday, Chris was on TV again! They asked him to go in again on Friday. Plus they called him today to ask him to come in on Thursday. That's three times in one week! More than David Gergen, I bet! =) He is becoming quite the regular on Dialogue. One of the other foreign teachers came up to him in the cafeteria and said he saw him talking about Gadhafi and what a great job he did =) I am just so proud! Check your local listings -- rumor has it they show CCTV all over the world! Here is the link to this week's show from Monday:
http://english.cntv.cn/program/dialogue/20111024/119132.shtml


While Chris was making moves on TV, I went with some CFAU students to check out another burger place. This one, Grandma's Kitchen, was more of an American food diner. I had read about it and heard about it from some people. It was not too bad! It was somewhere between a cafeteria burger and a diner burger back home.






Speaking of food, here are some highlights in the food for the past week...

This is the closest thing to a brownie we have been able to find. On a scale of 1 to Brownie, this was about a 6.5. Tonight, we wandered past a Subway Sandwich place in the hopes of finding one of their DELICIOUS cookies. The cookies looked insulting to any Subway back home, but they had brownies! Well, they LOOKED like brownies. They tasted like they forgot to add the sugar. Here is a picture of the 6.5 brownie (with pecans):




My official favorite food of China so far is this green bean dish, called gan bian dou jiao. It is dry fried green beans with garlic, chilis, minced pork and spices. It is so good!! This place up the road from us does it the BEST. At only 18 RMB for this big bowl, it is such a cheap, amazing meal! 18 RMB plus 2RMB for rice = 20RMB, which is about $3.50! Not bad!



Classes are going well. I am working on building my rapport with my economics students. Last week there was a school-wide sports day. Think "field day" in elementary school. Mandatory for all students, the school canceled classes just to make sure everyone would attend. Two of my students participated in the relay race, which was one of the last events and one of the most exciting. They told me about it and invited me to come watch. Luckily, the weather was not so great so we did not end up doing any sightseeing so I was able to come by and cheer my students on. They came extremely close to breaking the school record -- just missed it by one-hundredth of a second! It's ok though -- THEY are the ones who hold the school record! These boys are FAST. It was neat to get to spend some time mingling with the students outside of class. The last event was the tug-of-war between the law students and the economics students -- quite a rivalry I am seeing! Of course my awesome economics students won =) I am so proud!

I am really trying to get my English students involved in class more. This week one of our topics was music so I brought some songs for us to sing together. I tried to find songs that were easy to understand and that have concrete ideas in them. Many songs are just so abstract that I figured they would have trouble understanding. Since they are going to Canada, I also wanted to try to use a Canadian singer. I settled on Alanis Morissette - Ironic, because the ideas in it are very concrete and I can easily google-image them. I mean, rain on your wedding day? That one is pretty easy, even for a non-English speaker! I rounded it out by also including Imagine by John Lennon. I figured this is an International Affairs school so the message in Imagine is pretty relevant, especially with all the wars going on in the world today. They really liked that one and at the end of class they asked me to play it again for them.

When I left my English class and walked to my Economics class, I realized that our weekly topic in econ was Conflicts. We were going to be talking about Israel & Palestine, and Syria. I thought they might be interested to hear the song Imagine, also. When I asked them, it was an overwhelming "YES!" so I played it for them at the start of the class. They definitely tried to pull an "Encore! Encore!" but I knew they were just trying to prolong class. It was cute, though. They had not heard it before, too, which was somewhat surprising. They knew about the Beatles, though.


That is all to report for now. Here are some random photos to close my post!

I mentioned to some people the signs for holding on to "oldsters" on the escalators. I finally was able to snap a photo of the sign




Tonight the bus we got on was incredibly full. I was literally standing pressed against the windshield. I was very afraid. I tried to take a photo showing the awkward position I was in, but instead I could only capture how crammed the bus was.




Lastly, here is my montage of hideous car colors here in Beijing. I decided to start taking pictures of the hideous cars only about two weeks ago and here is the amazing collection I already have. The reason I wanted to do this is because THESE HIDEOUS CARS ARE EVERYWHERE. Maybe in America you will see one every once in a while. Maybe the bright yellow car. But here, it is like, every block you see at least one. It is OUT OF CONTROL. The pictures here don't even begin to show how many of these cars we have SEEN during the past two weeks -- only those that I was able to whip my camera out and capture, which usually only includes the parked cars. Anyway, enjoy! =)

All white people look the same...

Last weekend we finally made it out to the 798 Art District. This area is a former military industrial complex that has been converted to an art district with many galleries and restaurants and shops. It is a bit farther out of town; no subways go there so it was an adventure to find the right bus to take. Even since four years ago when Chris was here, he said the area has matured so much and there are so many more shops and people. We also happened to be there during an annual festival, so I am wondering if maybe the extra people had something to do with that.

We got there sort of late in the day on Saturday and went to only a few galleries before having dinner at an AMERICAN restaurant(!). It was amazing to eat a sandwich. I never thought I would have been so excited for a sandwich. It was my first sandwich since getting here and it did not disappoint. The sandwich didn't last long on my plate so I was not able to think about taking a picture until it was too late =)

We had to head back after only a few hours there since it was getting dark. The area doesn't really have a nightlife scene per se. We plan to go back soon, though, before it gets too cold to walk around.

I did take a few pictures of the art district -- the most interesting ones being of the graffiti...
















Here are a couple more of nothing in particular in the district









Here is a giant head with me picking the giant nose



Here is a really cool tunnel made out of folding chairs (it's a little dark to see)






I have a funny story about my English class. Last week we had a class topic on Famous Places. I had them prepare for class by thinking about if they could go anywhere in the world, where would they go and why? I had some interesting responses. The most interesting were all somewhat related:

"I want to go to Miami to see James." (this means Lebron James)

"I want to go to Los Angeles to see Kobe Bryant."

"I want to go to Houston to see rockets."
This one I thought maybe the kid was into NASA or something so I asked him to explain. He said, "No, to watch the Houston Rockets play basketball." I didn't have the heart say, "Are you kidding me? Anywhere in the WORLD and you want to go to TEXAS??????" At least there are other things to see in LA and Miami that I could sort of justify wanting to go to those cities. But really, Houston?


One more funny incident is easily explained through pictures. We did some bootleg DVD shopping and found a nice box set of every episode of Seinfeld. Chris has a bunch of the discs already but not the whole set with him and we have been in such a Seinfeld kick lately that I wanted to just go for it and buy all of them since they would be so cheap. There is something about watching Seinfeld here... I miss NYC so much, and even though it's filmed on a soundstage in LA, there is something about their accents that reminds me of NYC, and even of my aunts! =) Just the senses of humor and the dialect. I think the fact that Larry David is a NYer just makes the show so much about NY.

Anyway, most of the discs look perfectly normal, with the original cast on the front of the DVD. A few of them looked a bit off...


Is that Al Bundy?



Cast of Frasier!



Maybe it's hard to tell us white people apart ;)





Here is one more picture, this one is for Lana =) I could see you spearheading a movement like this...





That's all to report for now. I will add more soon!

She's baaaack.....

For all of you who have been asking, she is back! Ding dong herself has returned! She was in my class today and I could barely contain my excitement. She said she was out for so long because she had the flu. Either way, she is back and that makes me very happy.

When we got back from the Great Wall last week, we still had a few more days off for the National Holiday. It worked out nicely since we were able to be extras in a movie. My friend Ethan from NY lives here in Beijing and his girlfriend is directing a short movie about music. She needed some extras for the day on Wednesday. They had rented out an entire bar and had lights and expensive looking cameras all set up. It was definitely the real deal! It was fun to hang out on the set and meet some new people. We met a colleague of Ethan's girlfriend, who invited us to a an event next week hosted by the German Chamber of Commerce that we are excited to check out. It made Chris think about his friends back in LA who are working on a big movie right now with some legit Hollywood stars.

Wednesday night Chris also had his third television appearance on CCTV, this time discussing what is going on in Syria. Here is a link to the show:

http://english.cntv.cn/program/dialogue/20111006/105792.shtml

He found out this time that they ARE going to be paying him. Score! He also got another side job editing a foreign affairs journal that was translated from Chinese to English. He is staying very busy, to say the least.

This past weekend we had class, which was very strange. Classes from Thursday and Friday were moved to Saturday and Sunday. But I didn't know that when I was setting up my syllabus so I didn't have a topic planned for my economics classes. Instead of planning a topic, I just spent the time chatting informally with them and tried to find out a bit more about their lives here. They all love hearing about America so I explained to them some of the major differences I have already found in college life between there and here. The first thing I mentioned was sports teams and the whole concept of mascots. For me, this is a huge difference since where I went for undergrad was such a big sports school. Maybe other American students wouldn't point out the sports aspect as a major difference. I think about NYU... Does NYU even have a mascot? I could not tell you. Probably not. I tried to explain to the students how the whole idea of mascots has become such a business in itself -- anyone who has been to a school store at Miami or FSU or UF can back me up on that one. They have Sebastian the Ibis on EVERYTHING you could possibly imagine. I also tried to explain the excitement of College Gameday Saturdays. I explained tailgating but I don't think drinking around parked cars really expresses the idea -- you just have to experience it firsthand, I think, haha.

The other thing I tried to explain to them was the concept of fraternities and sororities. They followed the concept up until I mentioned you have to pay to be a member. Then they got confused. Rightly so, I think. I also failed to mention until the end of the explanation the philanthropic component, which goes to show you how relevant that aspect is compared with the drinking and partying aspect. I suggested they watch Animal House to really put it in perspective.

This week in my economics classes we are talking about the financial crisis of 2008 and what the potential causes were. I take every opportunity to share my own experience of being laid off at the beginning of the crisis since I think it really illustrates how many people were impacted by it if they can hear me talk about it firsthand. The newspapers here have been covering the recent Wall Street protests and they all want to know what I think about them. It's hard to get them talking or to have them give their opinions. I ask so many open ended questions to the group but normally I just hear crickets chirping. Then, someone will raise their hand and I will get excited and call on them to share their opinion. Instead of sharing their opinion, they will say, "What is your comment on that?" Or, "Can you explain a mortgage backed security?" They are always ready to ask questions of me, but they are less willing to share their own ideas. Chris calls on the students more without hesitation by just looking at the class roster of names and I think I am going to employ that method a bit more. I find when I do call on them, they will share their thoughts. They just don't want to volunteer. Which I understand.

They told me they all had to watch "The Inside Job" in one of their other classes, which was the Oscar-winning documentary about the banking crisis in the US. Chris and I had watched it in the theater in NYC earlier this year. I think it was very surprising they had watched a film like this since many documentaries here are banned. But after further thought, the film can be seen as somewhat anti-capitalism and anti-American so I guess it makes sense. The same can be said for the coverage the Wall Street protests are getting here.


A couple of pictures to leave you with:

This is a fish tank at a restaurant we went to with jellyfish and cool colorful lights


This one is for Aubry... See, they even love Justin Bieber here in China, too!



Laura, look! Charlie Brown Cafe!


Here were those pictures I promised when I went to Walmart. This is not Walmart but instead it's Carrefour, the French store. It was very similar to the Walmart here, especially the meat section =)







That is all to report for now. I will make another update soon!

Great Wall!

I just spent the past 15 minutes bawling my eyes out because I just realized I had my camera set on the lowest pixel count, to save memory. WHY DID I DO THAT? That means ALL of the pictures I took of our fun-filled, SCENERY rich weekend were basically taken with the equivalent of a kodak disposable camera. Why would an 8MP camera even have a 0.3MP setting?!?!?! Yeah, it's that bad. Not even a single megapixel... At least Chris had his mega nice camera and I was able to upload his photos to my computer. Still, I think I took double the amount of pictures he did and it is just a huge disappointment that they came out so grainy. =( Huge fail.

Chris is being so nice about it. He keeps saying the pictures look fine, they look nice. It's just that the pictures aren't of any sights here in Beijing. The place we went to was not even where most of the tourists go when they go see the Great Wall. I found this other village for us to go to, in the North East where less tourists go and where parts of the wall are less restored (read: more authentic). If I wanted nice, crisp, clear pictures of ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, I would have this place at the top of that list. This is just so disappointing.

Anyway, I will try to remain upbeat as I go through our weekend. I will try to upload mostly Chris's pictures since they came out so much better. At least we have those...

Getting to this place was an adventure in itself, since it was off the beaten path. We ended up taking a public bus about halfway there, to the city of Miyun. The public bus left from downtown Beijing, about a 20 minute subway ride from where we live. That part was pretty seamless. When we got there we had to hire a "minibus" to take us to the wall at Jinshanling, which was another 60km. We saw no minibuses so there were a bunch of gypsy cab drivers and after much negotiation, which involved an old Chinese woman nearby who spoke decent English and could help us communicate with the drivers, we found a guy to take us for 230RMB, which is kind of a lot of money. But at that point we knew we needed to get up there and didn't want to mess around.

The drive up there was incredibly nerve wracking. The majority of the time we were on this one-lane one each side highway, which was a bit wider than typical American roads like that. It was wide for a reason -- the whole idea of waiting before you pass someone until you can see far enough ahead to determine no one is coming in the opposite direction is not really a "thing" here. The cars were going three wide easy, sometimes close to four wide at times. I was very nervous in the car on that road.

When we got up to Jinshanling, we checked into our hotel. The hotel was right at the foot of the entrance to the wall and it was the only hotel and only restaurant really around.

Here is the courtyard where our little room was...


Here is me in the walkway of the hotel...



When we got in on Sunday afternoon, it was about 4pm so we just relaxed and had an early dinner and went to bed early. There was a television in the room but it didn't work so we went to sleep very early to get a head start on our day.



Here was our "Western" breakfast, aka slightly toasted bread, over easy eggs, spam, sliced cucumber, jam, and tomatoes..



Here was a guy at breakfast who was taking so many pictures of the wall mural of the Great Wall, we were debating whether it even made sense for him to go up to the wall at all...






Here was the first view we saw when we walked up the many stairs to get to the wall for the first time.




Here are just some general pictures of the us and the wall:















































Here is a series of pictures showing the steepest section of the wall we experienced. It felt like a 20-story building. Part of the steepness did not even have stairs; you just had to walk up a very steep incline and not fall backwards. The steep incline is the lower part; the top part of the first picture is just stairs. When we got to the top, I knew the only way back was to go back down and I was freaking out at the idea of knowing we still had to go back down. This isn't like, afraid I might slip and sprain my ankle, this was afraid of slipping and DYING. Needless to say we were about two towers away from the end of the line so I suggested we start heading back since I knew I would not be able to enjoy myself knowing what we were facing.



























It was incredible how many old people were there, even PASSING us on those steep stairs. Small children were making the trek, as well. It was remarkable. Here is our attempt at "discreetly" trying to take a photo of one of the oldsters...






And of course there were crazy women wearing HEELS climbing the wall:







Instead of waking up early to watch the sunrise over the wall, we stayed on the wall all day and watched the sunset. Chris took a couple of pictures but I took a TON, all of which look so crappy... Ugh =( Here are some of both of ours..
















































We went to bed early again on Monday night after a late dinner since we were exhausted from hiking on the wall all day. We got up early again Tuesday for another round of our Western breakfast and our taxi to Miyun left at 10am. We spent some of the morning shopping for souvenirs but that was not even enjoyable -- there were about 10 booths of vendors selling pretty much the same souvenirs and they all PESTERED you without end if they thought you were going to buy something. We tried pitting them against one another to get the lowest prices and it worked. I am even one who enjoys the negotiation process but geez, this kind of shopping was not even fun. They were too aggressive. So we got what we needed and headed out back to Beijing!

Here was our view from the taxi to Miyun:



Now we are back in Beijing and we are exhausted! I feel a bit better about the picture debacle after seeing all of the great pictures Chris has. At least we have those. And his camera is really great so they came out even better than my camera would have taken. I did upload some of my more grainy pictures here so see if you can see which are which =)