A Week (or Two) in Review

What have I been doing? Where have I been for two weeks, other than at the Beijing Open? Well I'm sorry to have kept you all in suspense. Get ready for an epically long post I suspect...

Ok so last week was very busy with dinners and preparing for my midterm for our first module (our semester is broken into 2 "modules" so that we get to take twice as many classes, but also means we move really fast). Tuesday night I went out to dinner with Beijing Fulbrighters at Lost Heaven in Beijing. I walked in and they checked my coat (it was raining), and then personally showed me to the bathroom. This level of service is unheard of in China, at least at the places I frequent, so I was in reverse culture shock, haha. After accidentally walking into the men's restroom because I couldn't decide which old person pictured in front of the bathrooms was a female, I had a great dinner of Yunan food. Yunan, a southern Chinese province, has very distinctive food, with a lot of Thai influence. It was a great night of eating and schmoozing with other Fulbrighters and our US embassy hosts. Thanks US government for dinner!

The next night I went out with Wayne and his mom, and a bunch of our friends to a spicy Sichuan restaurant. Wayne's mom is visiting him for 2 weeks and they're travelling together this week. It was great meeting his mom, but I think the spice might have been too much for her as she was crying and sweating during the whole meal. But then again, so was I, haha.

Last Friday was our midterm. I did pretty well, and overall felt it was pretty easy. The afternoon after the morning exam, we all met with our teachers to discuss our grades, which was nice because we got to give feedback on the classes. After meeting with my teachers and giving them all mooncakes as a token of my appreciation for their teaching (and in accordance with the traditional practices of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival) , I officially began my week long break!

This week is National Holiday Week, kind of like our 4th of July but for a whole week. It's crazy busy everywhere, most businesses shut down, and everyone goes home so travel is insane. I had hoped to go to Guilin but I couldn't get tickets so instead we had a "stay-cation" in Beijing. Friday afternoon we celebrated Wayne's birthday. That night we went to the Digitalism concert, which is part of Beijing's Design Week festivities.

Saturday evening we got dressed up and went to the Tang Contemporary Gallery, the gallery where Zan is interning, and UCCA at 798. UCCA was having a fashion show and had lots of free wine so we enjoyed that a lot. Also the crowd at these openings was made up of Beijing's most trendy and beautiful Chinese, and expats (about half Chinese, half expat). Great people watching. After that, we went to a great mexican restaurant called Sandy Peebles. While I say it was "great", it was expensive (as in cost the same as it would in the US) and had something weirdly Chinese about it. Then we continued our evening at Temple Bar, where a Chinese drum-electro punk concert was happening. The band, called Jungle Mico Project, was made up of 3 guys: one drummer, one keyboardist, and one bass player. Again, great people watching. Most of the crowd was punk/goth Chinese, and 40+ white men. Not sure where the latter group came from, but they were there in force. Then there was us, a group of pretty foreign students all dressed up for our art gallery openings, haha. But we worked our way to the front row and all the press cameras kept photographing and taking videos of us so I guess we were exciting. After the concert ended, we got to meet the band because Zan's friend who invited is friends with them.

Sunday Zan and I went to Wangfujing Snack Street for lunch. This is where you bring foreigners to show them all the crazy things Chinese people eat:

Yes, those are starfish.

The entrance to the snack street

whole pigeons

scorpions. They were still moving.

Street Decorations

A great shop with funny coin purses

After we wore ourselves out there, Zan and I met up with some friends to see Looper, a new American movie (or new here at least). My favorite part of this experience was the movie ticket itself:

"The Diaoyu Islands belong to China"

The typical "I 'heart' China" on the ticket didn't really phase me, but on the back of the ticket (the second photo) was a very interesting phrase...So as anyone who's been following the news knows, Sino-Japanese relations are very tense right now due to controversy over the Diaoyu Islands**. Especially on September 18th, the day the Japanese invaded China during WWII (or the "Japanese War of Aggression" as the Chinese call it), there have been many Anti-Japanese protests. In order to protect themselves from boycott, or worse, many Japanese companies and stores have been hanging Chinese flags and banners that proclaim: "钓鱼岛是中国的“ or "The Diaoyu Islands belong to China", as the movie ticket does above. As I understand it, this is a move by the store or company for protection and not truly as a political statement. It may seem strange that a Japanese company would come out in support of the Chinese government, but, from my perspective based on articles I've read, many Japanese themselves do not feel passionately about this issue; whereas the majority of Chinese people are extremely passionate about the issue. Instead the issue remains because of extremely conservative members of the Japanese government, who refuse to compromise on the issue. On the other side, the Chinese people, in addition to the Chinese government, do not wish to compromise on this issue and have been expressing their feelings through large protests throughout the country. Despite some suspicion that people are being "bused in" or paid to participate in these protests, I do not doubt their passion about this issue.

Anyways, enough about politics before I get deported (just kidding Mom and Dad, I'll be fine)...Monday I went to the shopping markets by 动物园, or the zoo. I got a silly Chinese hat, a halloween costume, and some body glitter.

check out the panda heads on the shoes

my silly hat with ears

Tuesday, I went to the Beijing Open (see last post). Tuesday night, I went to another concert as part of design week- Nova Heart. They're soooo amazing. It's electro-pop, but on the chill side. It reminded me most of Class Actress, who I've seen a few times in New York and played at Vassar last year.

Wednesday I discovered that my phone was about to shut off due to fees that I hadn't paid (hadn't even known about actually...). So in China, phones work very strangely. You buy a "plan" that provides for a certain portion of what you're going to be paying for, but you still have to add money onto your phone like a regular go-phone. Unfortunately, when you run out of money or exceed the max amount of MB (data usage) or something, they just start secretly charging you and allow you to accumulate huge fees. Then they tell you right before shutting off your phone service that you have to pay them or they're shut you down. It sucks. After this shock, I needed a DQ blizzard to recover from the fees.

Thursday, a few friends and I explored one of the hutongs near the Lama Temple. A hutong is a series of small alleyways consisting of 1-story buildings that still exist in a few parts of "Old Beijing". This hutong had lots of really cute vintage clothes and knick-knack stores. Last night we went to a debate watch party at Kro's Nest, a really cool pizza bar. It was fun watching the debate with lots of other democratically minded expats.

And that's about it. Did I go a little link crazy?

**DISCLAIMER: I am not taking sides on the issue by using the Chinese name "Diaoyu Islands" as opposed to the Japanese "Senkaku Islands". I chose the Chinese name since I am looking at this issue from China and the Chinese perspective.