去北京的旅行

Because our program does not follow the Chinese school calendar—namely because we had a two-week break from classes to go on our Silk Road Trip— we have two extended weekends. The first long weekend was October 28 – 31, named our “independent travel” weekend; the second weekend will be for Thanksgiving, so November 24 – 27. For my independent travel weekend, Andras and I accompanied Karen to Beijing to visit her friend, Margaret, from the University of Minnesota who is studying intensive Chinese for the whole academic year and to actually see the Great Wall. We all figured it would be a shame if we went to China but failed to climb the Great Wall. 

The journey started a little rough. We rushed right after class Thursday afternoon to the train station and boarded the train maybe only 15 minutes before it left the station. I had thought Line 1 of the subway had been finished and was operating since it appears on the ticket machines; however, to our detriment, only Line 2 is operational, so we had to walk a bit further than planned. We had purchased “hard seat” tickets— trains usually have three options for tickets.

The most expensive and comfortable are the “soft sleepers,” which include not only beds but also a bathroom for the cabin and a door; the next level are the “hard sleepers,” which are merely six beds to a cabin without a door; the lowest level is the “hard seat,” which are four to six fixed seats around a small table. Hard sleepers are by far the most popular, as they provide a bed without being ridiculously expensive; however, this meant that when we bought our tickets about a week before our departure (you can only buy tickets up to ten days in advance), all the hard sleepers were sold out. We had the option of a “hard seat” for around ¥160 per ticket or around ¥450 per “soft sleeper” ticket. We did want to be comfortable for the roughly 13-hour train ride to Beijing, but not for that steep of a cost.

The train ride was rather uneventful. Some different Chinese people wanted to talk with us, though they seemed a little more keen on learning English from us than conversing in Chinese. Also, none of us slept very well, though I slept the best since I have the amazing ability to fall asleep in almost any position and conditions.

Snapshot of our car during the morning rush to disembark

After the train ride, the three of us made our way to the nearest subway stop, which required a short bus ride; luckily we were able to figure that out rather quickly, thanks to the helpful security guards stationed around the train station. From the nearest subway stop, we rode the subway for around 45 – 60 minutes, with either one or two rail changes. Beijing is definitely a lot more developed than Xi’an! We arrived at Peking University (北京大学, or “Bei Da” for short in modern Pinyin) and met up soon with Karen’s friend, Margaret. Before our rendezvous, we stopped by a bakery café for some much needed brunch. While we were eating, a little girl and her father walked by outside and began taking pictures through the glass. We gladly posed for her :P 

Since it was already the afternoon by the time we checked into our hostel, we decided it would be better to visit the Temple of Heaven （天坛） since this site is in Beijing. We took the subway over and started walking north to find the entrance. The Temple of Heaven is surrounded with a large complex of gardens and accompanying temples and other buildings used for religious ceremonies, so we knew there would be multiple entrances. One man with a rickshaw tried to tell us we were going the wrong way, without us even mentioning to him where we were going, and we just dismissed him as trying to get us to buy a ride. Well, he was right, in that the closest entrance (the west entrance) was south of us. Luckily, it was only a ten-minute or so walk to the north entrance.  

It was a beautiful fall day, with many leaves turned a bright yellow and the weather that perfect temperature between cool and warm. We also were in the complex during sunset, which made it all the better. Some brief background on the Temple of Heaven and then the much anticipated pictures to help explain.  

Constructed during the Ming and Qing dynasties (the two most recent), the temple and its accompanying ceremonial buildings were visited annually by the emperor to pray for a good harvest. Its breath-taking to see something constructed over 500 years ago standing in front of you!

Front view of the Hall of Prayers for Good Harvests

Inner view of the Imperial Hall of Heaven

Time hasn't been kind to the imperial dragons...

(Stone tablet on the steps leading to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest)

The Temple of Heaven complex has also become a hang-out spot for many elderly people. Luckily Margaret knew about this and led us to the area where they play instruments, card games, and even do some ribbon dancing! Since it looked like a good deal of fun, and they were playing Telephone by Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce, I was persuaded by my friends to jump in and join in. Needless to say, I looked like a fool, but at least it was an unforgettable experience-- not many people can say they ribbon danced with a Chinese lady in Beijing to Lady Gaga!

My humorous attempts --- notice how the woman in the back is twirling two at once

Later that evening, we went out with some of Margaret's friends to celebrate Halloween, sort of. None of us from Xi'an, quite understandably had costumes, though all of Margaret's other friends did. It wasn't a big deal, though, since we weren't entering ourselves in any costume contests. Needless to say, the nightlife in Beijing is much, much, much crazier than in Xi'an. We only went to one little section of bars and clubs, and that alone had many more options than Xi'an! Also, the taxi cab ride home cost around ¥60, whereas a ride home in Xi'an is usually around ¥17.

The next morning we woke up and prepared for our trip to the Great Wall. Actually getting to the Great Wall is definitely one of the most confusing and frustrating things I've ever done; luckily I had other people with me to help figure things out.

We knew from online and a guide book that the cheapest way to get to Badaling (八达岭) the stretch of the Great Wall that is the main tourist destination, is to take an hour bus ride for about ¥12. We walked to where we thought the bus stop would be and saw a good deal of buses parked across the street. After crossing the street Frogger-style (we’ve all become pros at this now; it might take some time adjusting to traffic law obeying vehicles when we return to the United States…), we wanted to double-check that this was indeed the bus to Badaling. Well, a helpful looking man in a uniform came up to us and told us that we needed a different bus at another stop (he also mentioned that a ticket would be ¥60). We assumed he knew what he was talking about and followed his advice, but halfway there, saw that the bus we knew we wanted actually was in the original parking lot. So we returned and walked past this man who almost successfully scammed us and into the correct queue for our bus. 

Of course the craziness cannot end there. When the bus pulled up, people came out of nowhere and began rushing the bus, thus destroying any semblance of order the line we had been waiting in created. They almost didn’t let Karen on because she got separated from Andras and I and they didn’t know if they had any seats left. I had to yell to the bus driver, “她跟我一起 She’s with me” before they let her on. (This isn’t the first time that we’ve had to reassure Chinese people that Karen is, indeed, another American and with us. She’s half-Filipino, but her features are rather ambiguous and so many Chinese people think she’s Uyghur.)

Well, the craziness couldn’t end there. After a long ride, we started to see rolling hills and fragments of the wall. Getting rather excited and anxious, the bus stopped and about the half of the bus started getting off. We knew that the bus went to other stops beside Badaling, so we assumed this was our stop. There was also a large sign that read (in both Chinese and English) Badaling Cemetery. Well, we should know by now not to do something merely because other people are. We followed the path and it was becoming more and more apparent we were in the wrong place. For one, there were no other foreigners where we were and I kept seeing signs for a National Forest Park. We had mistakenly gotten off at the 红叶岭 (Red Leaf Mountain Ridge) National Forest Park.

This was one of the main clues we were in the wrong place...

We asked around if we could actually get onto the Great Wall from here; we could see it in the distance, but the map of the forest trail wasn’t clear if it actually connected to the wall. To our disappointment, there was no way to actually get to the Great Wall from here. I think I also asked my question in Chinese in an awkward way, because it took asking two or three times before the ticket receptionist understood. It might also be that this is clearly not the main Badaling entrance, so they are used to having foreigners ask silly questions. (Having been on the Great Wall now, I think it would be a fun and exciting journey to walk this forest trail another time, especially during the fall when the leaves are turning their bright red. Perhaps the next time I’m in Beijing…) 

We walked back to the entrance and figured we could just catch the next bus dropping off visitors here and ride until the main entrance. We assumed we would have to pay for another ticket, but the price is so minimal we didn’t mind. Unfortunately, the buses don’t take passengers further down the road at this stop; they only take visitors returning to Beijing. We asked a guard how long of a walk it would be. He estimated around 30 – 40 minutes by foot up the narrow road snaking up the mountain. Or we could take a taxi conveniently stationed by him. Since we didn’t really know how to get there and didn’t want to be exhausted when we reached the Great Wall, we assented to take the taxi. Of course, being a heavy tourist spot, the ride was ¥100 for the three of us— which we all knew was outrageous, but he wouldn’t haggle and we needed to get to the Great Wall. So, we finally made it to the main entrance – which we verified with a large sign reading “Welcome to Badaling” along with dozens of hotels and souvenir shops (there were no sort of novelty stores at the first stop), and of course, tons upon tons of foreigners!

Nothing says "patriotic" more

Towards the beginning of our hike across the Great Wall

None of us expected the Great Wall to be as arduous as it was. We were all early to mid-twenties fit youngsters, but there were moments of ridiculous steepness that had all of us moving extremely cautiously. When we reached the highest section we could, around 2/3 of the way in, I was starting to get sweaty. The way to this highest part, the hardest obstacle was the mobs of people. However, there is a cable car that runs to this section and so afterward, there was a significant drop in climbers. However, the second part's hardest obstacle was the terrain itself. The wall mimicked the hill it was built atop too well, and some parts were so steep it doesn't make any sense why they needed to even build a wall here. Also, throughout the wall, but mostly during the first section's comparatively less steep sections, the wall is smooth and not steps. Meaning walking up is slightly difficult, especially if there are "traffic jams" so you lose your momentum, but walking down is especially scary as you're never sure if you might start sliding. I slid a little bit and decided to walk as close to the ramparts / handrail as possible to prevent this in the future.

One of the most steep parts, except the descent on the other side was even worse

But we all completed the Great Wall climb without taking either the cable car or roller coaster ride down. That's right, a little before the cable car station is a roller coaster that will take you down to the base. Apparently it's not that unusual to change this historic monument into part theme park, because at the end of the Wall was a bear zoo. There were around four or five pits of bears; you could buy apple bits to throw at them and watch them eat. Their living conditions are nowhere near as nice as animals in the United States; a pit that should be fore maybe three at most held around nine bears!

八达岭熊乐园

"Badaling Bear Paradise"

There was one pit with bear cubs and they were adorable. One kept sitting down and reminded me so much of Winnie the Pooh or a panda cub. Unfortunately (or probably for the best), we couldn't get close enough to touch or pick up the bears, because I think they would've been all too eager to escape.

Getting back to Beijing was a bit of an ordeal as well. We find the bus stop for the bus we had taken to Badaling, but unfortunately there was already a rather long line. If buses had been coming regularly, the line would’ve moved fairly quickly, but buses didn’t come. A few different buses pulled up already almost full of people that were willing to cram as many people in as possible. Once we decided that this was probably the best way to get back home, those buses, too, stopped coming. We ended up taking a taxi similar to the one we took for the last stretch earlier in the day, only this time we had ten people instead of three. We had some fairly coherent conversation with them in Chinese, though the open window made it difficult to hear.  

As we were departing the taxi, one of our new “friends” offhandedly invited us to go out and have a drink with them. We didn’t really respond, as we weren’t sure if they were indeed extending us this invitation, but instead of just asking them directly (which probably would’ve been awkward), we assumed that they meant it and intended to follow them to whatever restaurant or bar they went to, but then they asked us where we were staying and then pointed us in that direction. We hadn’t actually been invited after all. Luckily, we were fairly close to the Olympic Park and we all wanted to see the stadiums anyway. The subway line running through the Olympic Park wasn’t running so we had to walk the stretch above land, which I’m glad we had to do since we were able to experience a lot of street culture that don’t normally get in Xi’an. There were carnival games, roller skating, karaoke, vendors, street artists, you name it! We got scammed by some people dressed up as popular cartoon characters; we took some pictures with them and they demanded money. We should’ve known better!

We eventually made it to the Olympic Stadium, and the Bird's Next and the Water Cube are both impressive, especially lit up at night. After walking around a bit, we wandered to find food, which was a bit longer of a walk than we had expected. Along the way, we saw a group of Chinese women doing some form of traditional dance and decided to join in for a little bit. They didn't seem to mind, though they also didn't seem to notice. (The ladies Karen and I have joined dancing twice now were a bit more friendly and they definitely noticed us!)





The Water Cube, as made famous by Michael Phelps

The Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium

The next day we were departing Beijing, so we only had half a day for excursions. We tried asking the hostel for ideas, but nothing grabbed our attention. Neat the train station, we had spotted a Military History Museum (中国人民革命军事博物馆). As we were glad to find out, admission is free, though we were still required to get a ticket... Around the entrance were a variety of military vehicles, such as some planes, boats, many tanks, and some vehicles that apparently Mao Zedong himself used! These vehicles were from an assortment of wars, so some were made in the United States while othersw were from the Soviet Union. While we were walking around the outside, a little Chinese boy pointed at me and excitedly said to his parents, "外国人！ Foreigner!" It was adorable, so all I could do was smile and respond, "对，你是中国人。Yep, (directed at him) You're a Chinese person."

Imposing front for a musuem

Needless to say, there were many boys running to and fro on the outskirts of the museum. Inside the musuem, however, we found a few interesting things. In the Hall of Guns, we were having difficulty indentifying some countries (since the names were in Chinese), and tried asking some of the museum staff where the country was. The funniest one was 苏联 ("su lian"), which we found out was in Europe, but couldn't get a clear answer for what countries surrounded it. Another problem is my European geography Chinese vocabulary is extremely limited. We tried asking if it was by Russia, which didn't get us anywhere; neither did France or Germany. We eventually found it using an iPhone. It's the Soviet Union, which is why there was such difficulty describing where it is.

Also in the Hall of Guns, we found a dozen or so elementary age students, both girls and boys, plopped in front of a variety of weaponry and being instructed by some adults (parents or teachers, I'm not quite sure) to draw these weapons. Nothing is more fitting for a Sunday afternoon activity than to go to the museum and draw guns, right?

Cute little girl in pink... drawing machines of death

Other exhibits in the museum included Resistance to Japanese Occupation, which was heavily biased not only agains the Japanese but also against any forces that helped in this struggle other than the Communists. The help of the Nationalists and the United States was rather downplayed. There was then the exhibit on the Chinese civil war between the Nationalists and the Communisits, a hall exhibiting the variety of gifts received by foreign dignitaries and a Hall of Achievement, that lack any sense of order any signs, even in Chinese, that we are not quite sure what many things were or why they were there. It was a highly enjoyable and educational experience, nevertheless, so I'm glad we went.

After wandering around a giant underground mall complex that even had an ice skating rink and a quick dinner at Burger King, we headed to the train station and began our thirteen hour return train ride home to Xi'an.





你想加入吗？

Catch-up Post:
I apologize (again) for being so delayed in my postings. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to post in a timely manner at this point, so I’m not going to make any promises…

Since my last posting, there have been a few weekend activities, some random events worth noting, and one independent travel weekend. Since it’s taken me so long to write these down, I forget many of the dates of these events, so they are arranged chronologically as best I can remember. This first posting will cover everything aside from the independent travel weekend, which will get its own posting.

第一个周末活动 (Weekend Activity One)：

We went persimmon picking! A rather fun and normal Midwestern activity in the United States is to go to a nearby orchard or field and pick some fruit; as a family we went countless times to a nearby farm and apple orchard to enjoy the leaves turning and some apple cider with doughnuts. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything similar to this here in Xi’an, but there are some persimmon and pomegranate orchards about an hour outside the city. Some of my classmates not from the Midwest thought the idea of going out into the countryside to pick fruit was rather odd (it had never even dawned on me before that it’s a tad strange), but most of them came anyway.

The bus ride out to the field, not surprisingly, took much longer than we expected. A mixture of muddy roads, construction, narrow paths up and down hills and confusion on where exactly this orchard was (you wouldn’t think it wouldn’t be hard to find, but it was— the entrance was on the top of one of these hill paths,  though the orchard was much further down the hillside) all contributed to our delayed arrival. Apparently we had just missed when the pomegranates had been the ripest, so we went persimmon picking instead.  Since persimmons grow rather high up in trees, the method for harvesting them involves taking a large stick with a grooved end and using the groove to pull the persimmon off the branch. Ideally you catch the persimmon as it is falling so it doesn’t smash on the ground (through the mixture of grass, mud, and fallen leaves provided a fairly cushioned surface). 

Persimmon picking on the hillside

Having never had a persimmon before, I didn’t know what to expect. I remember liking them a lot and tasting like a mixture of tomato (which I have grown to like a lot more since being in China, so hopefully the American tomatoes can live up to my new standard) and a peach. Strange, I know, but rather tasty, though particularly messy to peel and eat. 

 Beautiful landscape around the orchard –
you miss nature a lot when you live in a city constantly under construction

参观小雁塔 (Visiting the Small Wild Goose Pagoda):

As a field trip for our literature class, we visited the Small Wild Goose Pagoda 小雁塔. We’re all still a little confused as to why we went here, but none of us (including our teacher and our program directors) had ever been here before, so it was good, new experience for everyone. Similar to the Large Wild Goose Pagoda, Buddhist scriptures were stored and translated here as well. This pagoda is younger and, obviously, smaller, but has held up extremely well considering it’s weathered at least three large earthquakes. Somehow during construction in the early 8^th century, the builders made a large bowl-shaped base that allows the entire pagoda to rock with the earth vibrations and dilute the shock waves. This sounds rather difficult to do now, but over a thousand years ago!? However, the tower has sustained some damage, as the fourteenth and fifteenth floors have fallen off and there is apparently a large crack on one of the sides, though we were unable to find it.

Walking through a small courtyard on the way to the pagoda

“It’s THIS big!”

There is also a small museum located within the grounds that houses an intricate layout of Chang’an (as Xi’an was known when it was the capital during the Tang dynasty). There are also dioramas of different building and smaller sections of the layouts, but most of the exhibits lack any form of identification. Some at least had Chinese, so we could more or less understand what was in front of us.

  Large scale wooden 3D blueprint of Tang-era Xi’an

Wooden model of what we assume was the imperial palace

第二个周末活动 (Weekend Activity Two)：

We attended a “dinner theater” show of Tang dynasty inspired performances. Since the dinner tickets were rather expensive, we only bought seats; however, the food being served to other tables didn’t look very filling, so it all worked in the end.

The performance itself was broken up into three parts: an instrumental ensemble showcase, four dance numbers, and a showcase of the Chinese panpipe, as apparently their musician is particularly renowned and decorated. The ensemble also played throughout the entire show, which was rather impressive; the conductor’s hat resembled small rabbit ears, and so he was also fun to look at.

The dance numbers were all interesting. The first dance used long (longer than a person!) sleeves in a way similar to a ribbon-baton or rhythmic gymnastics. Needless to say, having half a dozen to a dozen girls on stage with these long sleeves arching to and fro in synch was impressive. The second dance was inspired by some ritual ceremony and thus contained a “priest” figure (though his costuming was rather warrior-esque and animalistic) and a troupe of either demons or attendants dressed to scare away spirits. The music was drum heavy and the movements very dramatic; the dancers also were blacklit and thus “glowed in the dark,” making the dance seem all the more demonic. The third dance was another female dance; the inspiration was a dream of a heavenly host of winged women, thus the feature woman had feather-like appendages on her arms and the rest had large feathered-fans. The fourth dance was allegedly (according to the narration of the performance) created by a general as a commemoration for his courageous and valiant soldiers. Fittingly, the dancers all had armor and weapons and danced in a stylized martial style; there were also three monk figures who did some form of dramatic and exciting martial art as well.

The Chinese panpipe performance was set in an imperial garden. According to the legend, this instrument grew famous because it was used to imitate the sounds of birds. It did sound very similar to bird chirping, though it went on longer and got much shriller and higher-pitched than any bird sounds I’ve ever heard. Maybe some Chinese birds sound this way… The performance then concluded with a large dance number that was supposedly a parade for the emperor, who graced us with his presence and a small dance himself with his queen.

Very entertaining, though part of me wishes the performance were more true to actual Tang style dancing; unfortunately, apparently the style in vogue then was rather slow and deliberate, and so probably not nearly as fun as seeing sword-dancing or aerial somersaults.

第三个周末活动 (Weekend Activity Three)：

We went cooking! We visited the Shaanxi Tourism Cuisine Professional College (陕西旅游烹饪职业学院), which apparently is one of the only schools of its kind in all of China and has even hosted such famous people as Laura Bush! We were shown some demonstrations on a few noodle dishes, some appetizers and a fish dish. Naturally we were able to eat all that we made. :)

 Master chef at work making a dim sum dumpling

Since there were a limited number of ingredients and counter space, we took turns trying to make the food; I tried my luck with the deep-fried meat stuffed eggplant and hand-cut noodles. The eggplant appetizer was not very difficult luckily, though I sliced my eggplant shells too thickly, which meant I made less to eat later. The eggplant we were using is completely different from the purple, squash looking vegetable I was used to in the states. This was green and harder, so that we sliced it into small shells, very similar to a taco, though finger-sized. We then stuffed a little bit of a meat and vegetable mixture—we unfortunately didn’t make this part, so I have no idea what was in it— into the eggplant shell, coat in batter— again, do not know the ingredients— and then drop into a pot of boiling oil.

The hand-cut noodles were being prepared for a noodle dish that had some vegetables and meat. The noodle dough is taken in its “loaf” shape and placed on top of a small wooden board that rest on the cutter’s shoulder. Using a special knife that looks like a gardening spade with the end flipped up, you slide the blade down the length of the dough and cut off a long, thin noodle. When the chef did it, it looked really easy, but of course it’s not. The dough was a lot harder than I thought it would be— I’ve never worked with noodle dough before, only bread dough— and you had to the hold a certain way otherwise it would refuse to cut. We made a lot of short, wide and misshapen noodles, but they still tasted good (mostly). Apart from the food which we all thoroughly enjoyed (we ended up making five of the fish dishes altogether, so this little trip ended up being my dinner), we also were given pamphlets about the school and aprons. They also offer classes on Saturdays for the public, which would be a lot of fun to attend, but I think my weekends are going to be rather busy with possibly still volunteer teaching English, working on end of the semester projects and papers, and practicing / performing 相声 (xiangsheng).

排练相声 (Practicing Xiangsheng):

Originally, Andras and I were asked to perform by one of the roommates; we at the time did not know what were possibly doing or when. We later found out that we would be performing 相声, which is a type of Chinese comedy originating in the northeast that features two people talking with each other and cracking jokes through word play. This is a lot easier in Chinese than English since there are a more limited number of sounds that comprise words, and so puns are rather easy to make. We then found out that this was a part of a foreigner’s competition. Andras decided he didn’t want to participate after we found out another foreign student at our university wanted to perform. He is Vietnamese, but I only know his Chinese name, Chun Jiang 春江.

Well, things have recently become interesting. Our original script was a little over three pages long. We had just memorized the skit almost perfectly when the next day we met with a Chinese friend to help us work on our performance. I was looking forward to this, since I still don’t quite understand everything that we’re saying, so I don’t always know how I’m supposed to be expressing myself. Also, this script contains a lot of references to well known 相声, but I, being an American, am highly unaware.

We actually went to the new campus to meet with this friend (I’ve forgotten his name unfortunately). The new campus is about thirty minutes by public bus away from the main campus where I’m staying and is much larger and more spread out. There are a lot more trees and greenery and the buildings are massive. The library is larger than any library I’ve ever seen, and is literally the first thing you see when you walk through the main gate.

But back to the 相声. We actually received very little direction in terms of acting, though we did go over some expressions, how we should be sitting for the performance, and the always helpful reminder to deliver lines to the audience, because over two more pages had been added to our script. Our performance was not intra-college like I had originally thought, but rather an inter-college competition. So Chun Jiang and I are representing our university. But that wasn’t the surprise. Apparently, all the other teams from our province have dropped out, meaning Chun Jiang and I get to go straight to Beijing to compete... While he is rather excited about this— his Chinese is much better than mine and I would venture to say fluent; he definitely speaks as quickly and confidently as all of the native Chinese people I’ve met— I’m a little bit terrified as I don’t know if:

1) I’m going to be able to pull through and perform well as I still have difficulty articulating certain tones

2) I don’t really know how we’re supposed to get to Beijing; also, no one really know when the competition is somehow. (UPDATE: Sounds like it’s going to be at the end of November, paid for by the university, and with a chaperone.)

3) I don’t know how well we will travel together, as he knows no English and my Chinese is still rather poor, especially for casual conversation.

But, if there was ever an opportunity to take advantage of being in China, this would be it. I’m finding that when I’m thrust into new situations like these, I immediately withdraw a little bit out of feeling overwhelmed, but fairly soon become more comfortable and a lot more receptive. I’ve noticed my listening ability is strongly affected by my comfort level, in that if I’m uncomfortable in a situation, I find it extremely difficult to understand what’s going around me. I guess it’s a little like skiing: you have to let go a little bit and follow how the course wants to take you in order to really appreciate the run.

等等 (Et Cetra):

The day that I found out about all the changes in the 相声 was a highly eventful day. The day, this most recent Saturday, November 5, had my emotions yo-yoing. The day started with the Xi’an City Wall Marathon (西安墙城马拉松赛). I have been training with Cora for the past three weeks, which has been good since I haven’t run much since high school and Cora has never run a race of this length before. We obviously were not prepared for the marathon length, but rather were both running the 5K (3.1 miles). My best 5K time was 19:27 my freshman year of high school, so I figured if I ran under 25:00 I would be proud of myself. Despite running around 10:00am in the rain on a November morning on top an ancient city wall, I was able to run under 23:00; I don’t know my exact time, as I didn’t see the time when we started the race, but know I finished around 33:15 (the timer had started for the 13.7K race and the last I saw was around 7:00). 

 Victory pose and still dripping wet from the sweat and rain

So the day started on a high note. However, when Cora, Karen and I went out for lunch that afternoon, the restaurant we tried was rather crowded, took a while for our food to be made, and we unfortunately didn’t really know what were ordering. Usually that works out fine, but we somehow ended up getting three pepper-based dishes. None of them were especially spicy, but it was a little more than I think any of us wanted. A little after lunch I went with Chun Jiang and Karen’s Chinese roommate who has been helping us practice to the new campus and learned about our script change, so I was feeling a bit more down then. However, later that evening was a pumpkin carving activity that ended being a lot of fun; we also got a good number of the roommates to come out with us dancing, which was a good pleasant surprise as well.

Now, we’re all aware that Halloween already happened, but we were told that the group is just a tad disorganized. We actually were “tricked” into advertising for this group one Saturday morning. Its goal is to educated Chinese people about different cultures around the world and to help foreigners at the university have a more organized way of meeting Chinese people. We were told that we were going to be attending one of their events, which turned into introducing American culture a bit, which actually was standing around their booth and trying to get students to join the club. I ended up sitting at the booth and was told to ask people as they walked by, “你想加入吗？”(Do you want to join?).

This Halloween event was the first event we heard about since that day, so we were all excited to help teach Chinese people how to carve a jack o’ lantern. It was a little more difficult than usual because the pumpkins were relatively small and we had some rather bad knives; luckily no one seriously injured themselves, though there were a few bloody fingers. Each table was given two pumpkins to carve. One of ours became a cute panda face and the other one was a more traditional jack o’ lantern face. However (not surprisingly considering eighty percent of the participants were girls), the panda face won first place and earned our table some candy. 

The “other” pumpkin, given to me as a gift

After pumpkin carving, we played a game called “007”. Without explaining how to play, whenever someone messed up, they had to grab a post-it note from the jack o’ lantern and perform whatever “punishment” was written on it. Luckily everyone was a pretty good sport about it, and some of the punishments were rather hilarious, such as making funny faces or pretending to walk down a runway. Afterward, I was literally swarmed by people asking random questions and asking for my name (they were always impressed whenever I wrote it in Chinese, even though I should be able to since I’m in China…) and email, so maybe the club is successful in bringing together people from different cultures after all.