The Great Wall - people shots

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to the Great Wall with the rest of the foreign student population of Beishida (the university I attend). It doesn't cost a thing to go when you go with the school, which is a nice bonus. We spent six hours in the bus (3 there and 3 back) and three hours at the wall and it was exhausting.
Me and a new Korean friend I met on the wall. Although he's Korean, he's been studying Chinese for three years already in JAPAN, so he speaks Japanese as well. And his English is quite good.
A mother and child posing while the father (out of the pic) took a shot.
Me on the Great Wall!
Me holding a Beishida flag - Bei Jing Shi Fan Da Xue.
Two Japanese girls we climbed with - very picturesque!
Me and a Korean guy who lives in my dorm and with whom I had dinner on Friday (his roommate's Japanese). We climbed the Wall together.
Me and my classmate who I happened to meet on the Wall. She's Korean.

The Great Wall - scenery

Some views...

We went to Simatai, which is where I ended up last year when I walked the Great Wall with Jessie. With Jessie, if you remember (May 2006), we departed from Jinshaling and walked the 10-11km to Simatai. With my school, we continued further along Simatai, so I was covering new (although familiar) territory.

I think the pictures speak for themselves. I had forgotten how steep some parts are...
Up and down, up and down...lots of up at Simatai, which in the end means lots of down, I suppose.


Some areas are pretty scarily not safe. :-) Adds to the adventure.

For 30 yuan (just under $5), you can ride the zip cord to a place nearer to the parking lot. Looks like fun, but you should see the zip cord: it's old and rusty and looks pretty damn scary!!!

My lovely class

Last Wednesday I organised a class outing - we all ate lunch together. The Koreans knew of a good hotpot place just north of the university (we went by taxi, although I came back on foot, which took around half an hour). Hotpot is boiling water that you put different ingredients in and it cooks immediately (or near immediately). I like it, although it's better in the winter because it warms you from the inside out!
Me on the left, Tina the British woman, a Korean girl, a Korean guy (Hao Jun), two Korean girls, an Indonesian guy, Jonathan, an American, Roni, a Czech girl, and another Korean girl whose name I've forgotten but we playfully call her Mian bao - bread.
Hao Jun and two Korean girls (both are really nice! I just can't remember their Chinese names...). Hao Jun's 23. He did his military service and fought North Korea in the DMZ.
Korean girl, Indonesian guy, and Jonathan.
Roni and Mian bao. I'm glad I got the picture because they don't enjoy being taken in picture...I love Roni's top: green ladybugs and red clover leafs.
Me and Tina enjoying our hot pot.
The two lovely Korean girls. The whole class didn't make it. Some students wanted to go to the test that would allow them to change classes (go up a level), which was taking place that afternoon.

My sister's artwork

My sister in Paris sent me this beautiful drawing. I really like it.

Web Addiction

I'm always surprised at the huge numbers in China. Because of its humungous population, there are that many more people affected... I read this article in the September 2006 issue of BEIJING TODAY, an English newspaper published by the Beijing Youth Daily.

"Boot camp for young web addicts"
By Han Manman

China's first camp designed to help wean Internet addicts off their surfing addiction saw its graduates return home Wednesday from the center in Beijing's Daxing district.

Over 60 web addicted youths, selected from 900 applicants from across the country, completed the five day course of treatment, at a camp jointly organized by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, Central Civilization Office, and the General Administration of Press and Publication of China.

Zhang Wei, from the Youth League, said only eight youths volunteered for the camp, with the rest coming only after being forced by their parents [that means over 50 were forced...]. The Internet addicts, ages ranging between 12 and 23 years old, were all 'typical problem youths' with experience of drug addiction, web love, suicide attempts or running away from home, Zhang said. Some suffered from depression, and most have dropped out from school.

Five days in healthy fresh air and sunshine is a world away from the average young Internet addict's darkened bedroom. Zhang said the youths were divided into nine teams of seven. Each team had a doctor, a military trainer and a volunteer care worker. The five days of therapy included military training, watching movies and psychological counseling. The trainees also played a real-world version of the popular online first-person shooting game Counter-Strike [I know some of you are thinking: how cool would that be??!!].

"Playing real-world Counter-Strike helps the young people distinguish between real and virtual worlds," said Zhang. "At least one of the youths' parents was asked to join the training camp and receive training with their child, because a lot of web addiction in the young is down to a lack of understanding between children and parents." [the sentence is grammatically incorrect in the newspaper]

Zhang said some positive results were already apparent after the five days of treatment. Some of the young people seemed more willing to make friends and to communicate with their parents. "We also created video and document records for each family to make it easy for us to follow up on trainees' progress in the future," added Zhang.

The total number of the Internet users across the country hit 120 million by the end of this June, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. The Internet's rising popularity is fueling concern that some surfers have become dangerously addicted to the Web.

According to Professor Tao Hongkai of Huazhong Normal University [I'm at Beijing Normal University!!!], who has conducted studies on Internet addiction, there are more than 10 million young Chinese people with problem surfing habits. In extreme cases, Internet addiction has been linked to psychological problems, violence against arents and crime. Many addicts drop out of school and become lost in a virtual world. Professor Tao said that online games have changed the fate of thousands of families and children.

*****

More than 10 MILLION with "problem surfing habits." Now, go figure what that actually means, but I can tell you that the internet bars around universities are packed in the evenings where I am at the moment. And so many of my male students last year spent entire nights at internet bars, playing internet games and then skipping class during the day. And this was a regular occurance. A Chinese friend and I were at a restaurant the other day and I remarked how bored a girl-sitting-at-another-table-with-two-guys looked. My friend told me the guys were talking about an online game, so of course she was bored....

I can totally understand how you can get lost in these kinds of games. When I was in high school my friends gave me a tetris-like computer game that I played for hours on end and even dreamed about the sequences I could make...and that's just a stupid tetris-like game!!! SimCity was pretty time-consuming too... I could see how people could get caught up in a game and not want to do anything else. It's like a good story that you keep wanting to get back to.

Oh well, glad I don't have that problem. :-)

Good night!

random

Last Friday I went to Beijing's one and only IKEA store with a classmate from England (her name is Tina). I would never have thought of going to IKEA but Tina's a great home-maker and she wanted to make her room look inviting and warm, so off we went. Oh right...that's not where I bought this bookshelf. I actually bought a closet organiser (very very useful, by the way!) at IKEA for a whole $5...Then on Sunday we went to Carrefour (big French supermarket chain) and that's where we both bought this very sturdy (I'm being sarcastic here...) bookshelf for around $15. Only thing is we had to build them ourselves and I'm not very patient with these kinds of things. Oh well, I built it Sunday and we're Wednesday evening and it's still holding out so I'm happy.

It really helps me. I was finally able to un-pack and put my clothes somewhere (the closet's too small to fit all my clothes). And now I can put my books somewhere other than on my desk (so I can actually use my desk!). All in all, it was a really good idea, and I never ever would have done it without Tina, so thank you Tina, for making my life easier.
Here's the birthday cake I bought for my roommate MinJi's and my Japanese friend Yosuke's birthdays. Both have their birthdays on September 11th!!! I dived right in and went to the bakery store myself to order the cake and everything...didn't realise the inside would hold pineapple stuff (which I didn't particularly like), but MinJi and Yosuke enjoyed it so that's the main thing, I suppose (at least they pretended to...).
Kenji and Yosuke on their last evening in Beijing. The evening started out all right with us just hanging out and taking pictures in my room...

Part II

So remember there was a group of Japanese students from the same university (in Tokyo) who all lived on my floor in my residence? They left last Saturday morning (early morning: 6:00 AM to be precise). I was sad to see them go. They were my first friends upon arriving in Beijing and it would've been fun to get to know them better and continue hanging out throughout the year. Oh well. There will be others. So Yosuke and Kenji came over to our room around 11 PM to say good-bye (others had come earlier) and they just stayed a while...and...we talked...and we talked...and suddenly it was 1 AM! And then everyone was hungry. So we decided to go for chuan (meat on a stick), but the small gates were closed so we had to go to the main west gate to get out of the university, and that was a big detour, so it took a while.

Here's us still on campus, maybe around 1:30 AM. Yosuke in green, Kenji in blue, and Min Ji (my Korean roommate - she's staying for the year) in pink.
Kenji in the middle of a deserted Beijing street (right outside West Gate of our university) - remember it's nearing 2 AM.
At the restaurant we took pictures of our tired faces...that's my lovely Korean roommate and me.

Yosuke and Kenji...can't wait to eat!!!
Yay!!! Nothing beats meat-on-a-stick at 2 AM!!! Can't get a better last-experience-in-China moment!
Back on campus we walked around one last time (for them), checking out the main building (which has the library) and not really doing anything very productive.
There's a famous bell-shaped looking thing on campus.
It's lit up with green lights, so we played with the lights a bit. From L-R: Kenji, MinJi, and Yosuke.


Kenji and I discovered we could purse our lips to look like fish...yeah...it was a pretty wacky night. We went back to my room and played cards (after racing Yosuke in a couple of sprints) - a Japanese game involving slapping other people's hands and Crazy 8s.

Friday Night - Part 1

I think the problem is blogger will only allow me to put up a certain number of pictures (not sure what that number is yet...), so here's part one of my Japanese friends' last night in Beijing (Friday, September 15th).
Yosuke and I had a race, and of course he was much faster than I was, so the picture only caught me...the slow poke...
Tried to get a picture of our shadows on the road...flash went off and ruined it.
We had fun killing each other...


Youske and Kenji played...In Beijing, when construction's going on, there often aren't really any protective measures to avoid the public from injuring themselves on site. This machine was just there, right by the road...
Yosuke, Min Ji, me and Kenji in the elevator on our way home to the 7th floor (maybe it's 3-ish?).
We played cards on my bed, and then kinda laid about...

And Min Ji cuddled up in her bed... It was a nice evening. Kenji and Yosuke left our room around 5:40 AM, and the Japanese group left our dorm at 6 AM.

Last Sunday

My first week of class! I started on Tuesday. Here's my schedule:


Not that many of you can read that... I remember my work giving me the equivalent last September (2005), and I couldn't understand a thing, mostly because I couldn't read a word of Chinese (I didn't even know 1, 2, 3 - on the left - stands for the days of the week) and I also wasn't used to having the times up top (usually it's the days of the week up top and the time on the left; in China it's the opposite). But now I know... I was put in class 101-06. 100 is complete beginner, so I'm semi-beginner, what in ESL I would call B2 (Beginner 2). It's really tough, but I'm so excited. I don't understand a lot, but I'm learning tons. I have three teachers and they're all really nice (all women) and I think I like my listening teacher the best even though I that's the class I understand the least.

I'm learning how to write, which is an awesome experience. I'm learning how to write such things as "Not long ago, the roads didn't have as many cars," and "studying Chinese at the same time as studying English" and "Beijing's deepest impression on me is: lots of people, lots of cars, traffic is very crowded." It seems like the running theme among all the classes (Listening, Speaking and Writing) is traffic and taxi drivers. Fun!

So remember I told you that this park was closed to the public? Well here are people enjoying the green space in the evening. Nice lighting...
So last Sunday afternoon (September 8th), I spent with Yosuke, a Japanese guy living on my floor. He's doing a project on the environment and he wanted to go to Beijing's Environment Centre so we left our residence around 1:30-2 PM and walked around a lot, and asked a lot of people how to get there, took the bus, and Yosuke forogot exactly where it was so we had to walk some more...and we finally got there around three hours later!!! And it wasn't even very far!!!
This is us in front of the building we were looking for - we're very happy!!! Yosuke can't have a beard while going to university in Japan so he decided to grow his beard in China. We talk in Chinese to each other, although when there's a breakdown in communication we use English words.
So...we finally find the place and then finally find the entrance (another adventure because in China it's not always easy to find the entrance to buildings)...and...the centre's closed! Nobody from the centre comes in on Sundays! So we chatted with the security guard and took some pictures with his cap (there are his comrades' caps on the windowsill behind us too).
I hate how my face is so much whiter than the rest of my body. :-P
Yosuke being a monkey in front of the Centre's entrance.
There are pedestrian bridges that go over huge (kuan le) streets. Yosuke and I wandered around and took some pictures...
This is the other side of the street. It was a beautiful warm day. It took us one bus ride and maybe a 20-minute walk to get back home...

:-P

A friend of Min Ji's rang the doorbell this morning and I rushed to get it. I was barefoot and the cleaning lady had just passed the mop on the floor and I fell...hard...argh! It was bound to happen. I just hope I've learned my lesson and it doesn't happen again. I hate falling on my back on a marble-like floor.

Saturday night I went out in the Wudaokou area with Nur, a friend from Turkey, and some of the Japanese guys on my floor, and my former student, Yang Yang. Wudaokou is where Beida (Beijing University) and Tsinghua (AKA Qinghua) universities are; they are the two biggest universities in Beijing and there are a lot of foreigners who go there to learn Chinese. So the area is swamped with foreigners, which means a lot of Koreans. We went to a club I've never been to before, and it was a bit of an adventure trying to find it. The good thing about having gotten there so early was that we got seats. The music was African R&B and reggae - loved it! And rum & cokes were $1.50 Cdn (10 yuan) each.
Meng Jiu Sheng, me, Shao Long, and Yang Yang.
Yosuke and Nur, from Turkey.
Yosuke and Meng Jiu Sheng. I really like this picture. Although MJS was pretty drunk when he took it, the framing is perfect and the green light on top adds interest.
And this was when we went back to the club because I had forgotten my camera and we found it again and were so happy... I had put my camera by the DJ's music and when we left for Beishida I forgot it. We were in the parking lot of Beishida when MJS was like, "Where's your camera?" and the three of us took another taxi back to the club to get it.

Continuing On...

I was walking along a Beijing street (shopping with Ming Ji) when this ad caught my eye - what Chinese company would use a Hollywood movie about a man who has 12 children as its subject? Look closely...but of course! A sterility hospital!
Beijing is making efforts to become "green" - as can be seen from this newly-installed green space (not yet open to the public). The waterfall looks a bit too man-made for my taste, but it's a nice gesture. The whole riverbed should look quite nice when completed.
The four-storey cafeteria right across the way from our dorm. That's right, four storeys. And yet it's still packed during peak hours - one of the things I hold against the system here: you can only eat at certain times, which doesn't help the over-crowdedness problem since everybody's forced to eat at the same time.
The view of my dorm from the steps of the cafeteria.
The entrance of our room...only two pairs are mine.
Our bathroom is directly to the left when you come in. There's hardly ever a separate shower in China; it's just part of the rest of the room.
Our room!!! I sleep on the farther bed (not near the wall), and I have the desk by the window.

My room: Part 1

Blogger's not cooperating again, so pictures will have to come in two installments... I wanted to bring you from the exterior of our building to my room as if you were walking the same route I do...but since blogger won't let me put up the pictures I want, this will have to do.

Our entertainment area. The TV and fridge (bottom right) are gifts from the residence. The water machine's Ming Ji's (my roommate's) and it's great to have hot water whenever you want.
Our room...
You would have had the view from the entrance too, so you could see the window beside our two desks. Oh well, soon...
The two bags I bought while shopping with Ming Ji and Nur (from Turkey) last Tuesday I think it was. I bought the small pretty one for 50 yuan (70 yuan = $10 Cdn). It was my first purchase of the day and I knew I had gotten ripped off, so then I bought two Kate Spade bags for 50 yuan. One of them went to Nur. I also got a shop keeper to go down from 380 to 85 yuan for a very pretty beaded bag that Nur wanted. I was proud of my bargaining skills, even though it's like gambling, although you get the high of feeling like you're winning, deep down you know you're losing.
If we didn't have Ming Ji's water machine we'd have to walk down the hall with our "container" (two examples are shown on the bottom left; every room has one of these things) to this old thing, which constantly has hot water. Those containers are powerful things, though (although foreigners don't use them), keeping water hot for up to three days (I experimented last year)! Chinese students all have one of these containers and they have to go to a certain hot water dispensing area (often outside) to get their hot water. They also have to line-up to shower (the showering area is also outside their dorms).
The washing-machine area, right beside the hot-water dispenser. Our floor has this area, while the floor underneath has a kitchen with a microwave and hot plates.
Our hallway.
The view from our 7th floor. Not the view from our window, but from across the hall. In the distance you can see the sports grounds of the university across the street from our university. Our dorm is on the edge of campus.
The building in front of us. You can see the mountains in the distance. Last year that's where I went with my students and some friends to go "skiing." Sunsets are very pretty from this balcony that we have on our floor (public balcony).

Last trip to the countryside before leaving Beijing (June 2006)

Hadn't been able to put up pictures on blogger for a few days, which is why the second installment of pictures from our last trip to the countryside is so late. Plus, today's beautiful outside, I'm hoping to get myself out and about, discovering more of Beijing.

We made this trip because there was going to be a "terrific" music concert out in the countryside on a Saturday, about an hour away by bus from Beijing. It was a package deal, where we could stay a night and do all of the activities on the camp grounds. So we went on Friday, did all the activities, then waited for the concert all of Saturday. We were hugely disappointed with the concert Saturday evening, not least because it was an outside concert and nothing had been prepared for if it were to rain - and of course...it rained. Then we left very early Sunday morning (we didn't reserve a cabin for Saturday night). Needless to say we were pretty exhausted. And when we left the place early Sunday morning it was under a downpour and there weren't enough busses to take everyone back to Beijing so people were fighting as usual to get on the busses. What an ordeal... Not the week-end we had been expecting, but adventurous nevertheless.
This is the BBQ pit where we ate dinner on Friday.
The pig roasting. It was pretty delicious pork!!!
Go-carting. Only three people could go at once.

We also went horse-back riding, which I hadn't done in years. We went twice around a ring-like path - wasn't all that exciting. We galloped a bit. It was fun being on a horse again. Katia and Eva had their horses walk around with a guide holding the reigns...
It was Gaetan's first time on a horse. It was pretty funny to watch his reactions. He had no idea what he was doing....
Loic had a good-looking horse! The horses knew what they were doing and just had to be encouraged by the guide to go faster to start galloping.
We did a little archery. Katia looks like a pro! Archery took some getting used to...it's hard on the arms!!!
And some paintball...point a gun at a cardboard man and shoot. Wasn't very thrilling. Loic's taking aim in this picture.

Last trip to the countryside before leaving Beijing (June 2006)

Eva (on the left), Loic and Gaetan checking out Katia's mini-golfing moves.
Look how hard some of the holes were!!! That's a lot of bumps... Gaetan and Katia look on as Loic concentrates.
Believe it or not, this small village had a tourism centre, which we went to and got a ride for 30 yuan (each person paid 6 yuan) in this funny-looking bus. It took us all around the small village (to a store for snacks, to a restaurant to eat, to the important sites (like the farm with the ostrich!) etc.).
View of the grounds where we stayed - one of the concerts took place down where you see yellow to the left. We lived further behind in a cabin in the middle of the forest.
A farm we visited with our funny-looking bus.
The ostrich!!! There were actually two of them, but this was the better-looking one.
A cat being lazy, its feet dangling...so funny.
The same cat a bit later, guarding the entrance to a lovely path to the unknown.

Branko the Croat, giving me a hug on my last night in Beijing. He looks better with longer hair (which is the case in this picture, taken in early July). When he arrived in Beijing in February, he had a shaved head.

BACK IN CHINA!!!

So I'm back in China and I must say I'm enjoying it as much as ever. I'm living with a Korean roommate in a student residence on campus. I haven't had a roommate in five years and it's going pretty well so far (I arrived Tuesday night and it's now Sunday). We speak in Chinese because although she understands some English, she can't speak it.

We live on the seventh floor and there's a group of 21 Japanese foreign exchange students who arrived in July and are leaving September 16th (my Chinese classes start September 18th), who dominate our floor. They're friendly and I spent all of my Saturday with a group of them. We went to Yueheyuan, the new Summer Palace, which I've been to three times already, but it's so unbelievably huge that there's always something new to see. It's different every time.

The group. From left to right, starting with the back row: Kenji, Yosuke, Meng Jiu Sheng (Chinese name), Shao Long (in white beside me), and two Chinese women who are Yosuke's friends (I don't know how they know each other) who came along. The one in stripes is studying politics at BeiShiDa (my university).
Near the end of our visit we found a type of "sanctuary" that I find really beautiful. It's quiet and peaceful.
Yosuke and I.
Meng Jiu Sheng with his dictionary, which he carries around with him everywhere and takes out at every opportunity (it can be just a tad annoying at times...) and the two Chinese women resting. I love those pretty walkways!!!
Yosuke admiring the view...
Shao Long being a top model in a Chinese setting.
We took two boats and set off around the huge lake in the centre of the park for an hour. I wasn't able to paddle because I was wearing a dress and everytime I paddled I'm sure everyone could see everything under my dress...so I didn't paddle at all, lazy bum!!!

the New Summer Palace - people

Yosuke (left) and Shao Long (Chinese name) - my boat companions who did all the work of peddling the boat around for an hour: thank you!!!
"The other boat" - Meng Jiu Sheng (Chinese name), Kenji, and the two Chinese women friends of Yosuke's.
Kenji and Meng Jiu Sheng knew a photo was being taken, but not Yosuke (green shirt) or Shao Long (in white)...
Kenji, me, and Yosuke inside a pagoda. There is supposed to be a view but...

Kenji & I. Kenji probably spoke the least Chinese; well, he spoke the least period, of all of them. Silent type. But has a great smile!!!
Can't delete specific pictures without deleting all of them, so here's the same pic over again...
A group picture. Shao Long's making a face and Yosuke's laughing at him.
Kenji and Shao Long goofing off. There are a lot of boulders that are fun to climb, even though we're technically not supposed to.

New Summer Palace - scenery

There's a beautiful lake in the middle of the Summer Palace and a 17-arch bridge that's very famous. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that great, but you still get a good idea of the splendour of the place.
A rock courtyard. Chinese people love these rocks that have many holes in them. I once heard that the "uglier" the rock the more value it had in the Chinese way of thinking...
A decorative gate. Yosuke and Meng Jiu Sheng are down on the bottom left.
A view from a pagoda on the man-made hill at the north side of the park.
Same view but close up. Large boats in the ancient style (seen to the right) carry passengers from one side of the lake to the other.
Yosuke.
Some impressive architecture by the North End of the park.

I'm taking a distance education course on the social history of modern China and there's this one phrase from one of my readings that I enjoyed: "...to purchase everything needed for the morning and evening meals means the members of the family will merely sit and eat. Is this the way things should be?" The moral of the story: you should work in the fields and eat what you harvest and have made on your own. This of course questions the way our modern society works, but I can tell you, that in my present position, I can't imagine spending half of my day toiling in my fields and preparing my own food. It'd be impossible. "Purchasing everything needed" and "merely sitting and eating" is my fate.

Beihai Park

We went to Beihai Park on Friday - "we" being my roommate, Min Ji, and Meng Jiu Sheng, who lives across the hall from us in our residence and is Japanese. I'd already been to Beihai, but agian, these parks are so big - even the "small" ones seem big! - that you can go over and over again and have the impression you're seeing things for the first time.

The famous "Nine Dragon Screen" wall - the original's in the centre of the Forbidden City.
There's a huge lake that we walked around to get to that centre island you see behind us.
Workers working - all of Beijing is either under construction or renovation in preparation for the 2008 Olympics.
Meng Jiu Sheng resting in a pagoda.
The weather these days isn't too great. I remember last year I arrived on August 22nd and for a week the weather was pretty bad, but then, on September 1st, the sun came out and hardly ever left after that. Every day was beautiful. Hasn't been the same this year...
The roof of the pagoda.
In the bus on the way home. The bus on the way there and back had air conditioning, but because buses are often crowded it can get pretty hot...