New TIME article worth reading
www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1938671,00.html
Snow：2nd Edition
Sunny September Morning (outside my bedroom window)
Snowy November Morning
Haiyan’s Birthday!
I just wanted to make a somewhat-belated note that Haiyan Wang’s birthday was November 2nd, and if you haven’t yet wished her a happy birthday, you can send her a quick note at hw365.
We recently had a CAPS information session for the freshmen and sophomores on campus (which drew a good 20-25 people, and NOT just because Professor Chen offered extra credit to his students!) and Haiyan did a great job of putting together a very helpful presentation for all of us. So this post is a shout-out to her!
All the CAPS students in Ithaca would also like to express their jealousy of CAPS students who are currently in D.C. and Beijing (the former being warmer, and the latter being, well…in China!). We can’t wait to hear more about your adventures in January! Just think about how warm it’ll be in Ithaca then…
The Internet at Beida
Why yes, how on earth did you guess? There are few things more temperamental than a fussy newborn, and one ofthose things is the Internet connection at Beida. You want to run a Google Image Search pandas? Why don’t I just reset your connection? Oh, and throw GMail off kilter for a good measure? I may be just a little bitter.
Couldn’t hide a smile when I saw this, though. Oh, Fox Broadcasting Company, why did you have to be so cruel?
First snowfall!
Okay, so it involved silver iodide missiles (which I didn’t find out about until three-four days later), but it snowed in Beijing! We weren’t here for it because we were out in Shandong Province (where it also snowed ridiculously, albeit quickly) for the weekend but there was still some left for me to enthusiastically take pictures as I remained blissfully aware of the previous days’ weather intervention.
Below: (Last remnants of) Snow! (and the Beijing University Library)
A Close-up on Some Snow (and slightly sorry-looking flowers)
Snow on the Library’s Hedges (and the Boya Tower)
I had a short paragraph all planned out to talk about how strange the snowfall was because it was only two weeks ago when the leaves, still firmly attached to the branches, started changing colors. I snapped the picture below, amused by the wrestle between seasons, nature’s order, and the passage of time. I like to think that M.C. Escher would’ve thought the composition of Gingko leaves and snow at least a little cool.
How I Saved the World (or My Computer)
It was a pretty mundane work day, until I realized that the Internet didn’t work and had to move to connect my laptop to a different LAN port. I got up, laptop in both hands, and there was this strange noise coming from the hardware, like something broke off from the motherboard and scuttling around like a pachinko ball. I stopped and shook the computer a bit from side to side to check to see if I was/was not going crazy (confirmed: not crazy), and one of the girls got up from the desk and said, “Oh my god, there’s smoke coming out of your computer!”
Cue, me calmly freaking out. I felt like I some form of a time bomb in my hands, with strange rattling on the inside and smoke coming out of air vents (do bombs have air vents?). The standard procedure would probably be A. sending the computer back to Dell in the U.S. B. Have Dell probably ship it to China (probably, because 75% of everything is now done in China) for repair, and C. Get computer back after four weeks. D. Plus a couple more for it to come over from the U.S. to China.
Cue, more freaking out. Now, I don’t exactly use my computer to its fullest capabilities (see: Adi), but the little use that I make of it is really, really important. How else would I write essays, do assignments, talk with my family/friends back in the States, and most importantly, check e-mail, which seems to be the center of my universe? My 250 kuai cell phone with text messaging capabilities (gasp!)* is not going to cut it.
Cue, sage-like voice of another girl: “Wait, the Dell headquarters is on the 5th floor, why don’t you go there and ask them to fix it for you?”
Cue, Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Wedding Overture. I got to the receptionist’s desk and frantically explained my situation in Chinese (only after asking if I can speak English, to which the receptionist answered, “Try speaking in Chinese.”), and the receptionist first gave me contact information of two repairing centers. I wasn’t happy being turned away at the headquarters of the company that made my ailing laptop, so I decided to switch into half-Chinese half-English mode, urgently arguing that I needed someone to look at my computer NOW because there was no way there wasn’t anyone on-site that could take a look. And VOILA Chinese skills and acting was convincing enough that a scruffy Chinese computer engineer-esque person comes out with a Dell ID card hanging around his neck with screwdrivers and a plate with cake (they were celebrating something I guess, there were some foreigners going in and out of the office) came to fix my computer. It turned out the problem was a tiny plastic component breaking off, so the guy just shook my computer and took out the piece.
And that is how I saved the world.
*the author does not text using her phone in the United States and plans on keeping it that way.
Insufficient Planning
It is freezing in Beijing and I did NOT bring enough warm clothes. Spending last fall semester in D.C. has inappropriately skewed my perception of fall weather (see: Pulling out the peacoat in late November) and my only source of comfort is the recently-acquired 149 kuai 毛毯 from Carrefour. I was pretty scandalized by the price (I still can’t believe it was that expensive), but you have to do what you have to do and I couldn’t go for another night shivering in bed. If you assume that because Beijing is practically THREE WHOLE LATITUDINAL DEGREES SOUTH of Ithaca, it will be loads warmer, you are wrong. Oh so, so wrong.
The only good thing about the sharp temperature drop as of late is that the leaves are changing colors! It’s one of the things I miss most about New York and I was afraid that Chinese trees didn’t change colors (or didn’t change into pretty colors, specifically). I saw some maple trees on my way to work today as I cut through campus due east, so I’m excited to see the autumnal foliage.
Streetside Quirks
Almost every day, there’s something small I see or hear outside that makes me smile. The other day, it was a little boy squatting on the sidewalk, Chinese-style with ankles firmly planted on the ground, poking the sand with a skewer. Today, it was hearing Yann Tiersen’s music on the subway platform. Amelie aside, I really do think that something about the impishly playful nature of the song evokes an image of running through a city and seeing curiously fascinating things on every street corner. We’re all stressed out this week because of midterm assignments (going to Zinck’s night on Thursday seems pretty unfeasible), but I hope I don’t lose sight of the fact that I’m here halfway around the world and that I need to learn and experience as much as I can while I’m here.
潭柘寺
Trekking out to the Western Hills to check out Tanzhe Temple was…an adventure. I was thinking about it the night before, on whim, and decided to go only just the morning of — which just happened to be the mid-Autumn festival. It’s funny, because I know myself to be the risk averse, planning ahead type, but I find myself becoming more and more comfortable with planning on the fly. Where ‘fly’ is defined as reading the guidebook, quickly confirming the travel route online, and leaving an hour later.
We first went on the subway to Pingguoyuan Station, which was a trek in itself. It was a long subway ride on one of the older, dimly-lit trains, but a middle-aged couple from Heilongjiang started talking to us, intrigued by Matt and Nick’s A. Caucasian-ness and B. Chinese-speaking skills. The conversation circle got a little bigger, and by the time we got to Pingguoyuan, we were invited to lunch by a lady who lived in the neighborhood. It’s funny, because if this happened in New York, I would have internally panicked and walked away as fast as possible, but the easy-going, congenial nature of meeting and talking to people you’ve never met is just so much more…natural in China.
After we got off the subway stop, we met up with another international student, and proceeded to look for Bus 931 that would take us to the temple. I saw the bus, just by chance, going down the street, and ran to the stop, slowly climbing on while waiting for the guys to catch up (probably angering a solid crowd of passengers in the interim). The bus driver asks me where I wanted to go, and then told me to get off because apparently that Bus 931 doesn’t stop at the temple.
So there we were, 4 very confused foreigners chilling on the side of the road, trying to figure out how to get to the temple, at which time we were practically ATTACKED by a crowd of black taxi drivers. It was terrifying, with all of the screaming, yelling, arguing that 10 yuan per person was a good deal. We weren’t sure what to do, but when one of the drivers proposed 8 yuan per person for a total of 32 RMB for the ride (less than 5 American dollars), we went.
It might’ve not been the safest route, but it got us to where we needed to go. The ride from was a little more than an hour — a bit of a distressful hour, really, because the driver was a little aggressive with his steering technique, and the car, which was functional, was definitely straight from the 70s or 80s. We took a regular taxi back from the temple to the subway stop, and the fare turned out to be more than twice than that of the black taxi.
The trip to the temple was probably one of the most relaxing moments I’ve had so far. The weather was beautiful and the scenery was just gorgeous. It’s just an hour and a half away from the city, but after we got off the highway and started driving up the hill, occasionally winding through small towns, we passed by people on the roadside selling fruits, tall persimmon trees with ripe orange fruit juxtaposed against the light green leaves, and saw seemingly endless waves of hills upon hills. There was one part of the ride while racing by the branches and leaves, we could see Beijing far off in the background with its hazily outlined buildings. I tried taking pictures the best I could, at 40 kilometers per hour, with a standard point-and-shoot (digital) camera and calling my inner Henri Cartier-Bresson. Haha, who am I kidding.
There were also ladies selling honey on the road — oh, how I miss good honey. Can’t wait for the Ithaca Farmer’s Market.
When we started seeing incense vendors lined up along the road 10 feet after one another, we knew we were getting closer. We didn’t know whether we were actually close until the driver pulled into a crowded parking lot, because there were a lot of incense vendors, standing next to towering carts, waving around packages as vehicles passed on the road.
If you are in Beijing for a period of time, I highly recommend checking out the Western Hills, especially Tanzhe Temple. There was also the Jietai Temple, which we half-heartedly considered going to, but we were tired, hungry, and wanted to go back to Tiananmen to check out the floats from the National Day parade. Pingguoyuan seems to serve as an access point for a lot of things to see, besides the temples, like the eunuchs’ mausoleum. Not sure if I’ll go there myself, but it certainly sounds interesting.
China National Day Parade in Time-Elapse
This is a little late in coming, but a friend recommended this very interesting time-elapse video of the China National Day celebration, and I thought it was worth sharing! Brace yourself for the dramatic music!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/oct/01/china-national-day-timelapse
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