Week 2 of Mom's Trip to China

March 25, 2011

                So much has happened this last week I needed to divide it into several different entries. So on Saturday we had dinner with my host family. We ate a lot of good food. Then, my mom taught Jessi how to play Skipbo. Sunday the Xu’s took us to the Badaling 八达岭 section of the Great Wall. Even though this was my third time to visit the Great Wall, I haven’t climbed this section yet, so it was still exciting. There were some sections that were pretty steep, but I did pretty well. I was afraid that I’d be really sore in the morning, but I was actually okay the next day. I was surprised at how well mom did too! She kept up with all of us and even passed us at some points. It was definitely a good workout for her, but she enjoyed it a lot. The best part was when we got to the “Hero’s Peak” which was the climax of the climb. The downside about going to the Great Wall on Sunday was that it was so crowded! But it was still really fun nonetheless.

                For my mom’s second Monday in Beijing, we decided to go to the famous art district known as 798. Here’s a nice little factoid: according to Chinatouristmaps.com, “798 Arts Zone is also called Dashanzi Art District, which is the site of state-owned factories in 1950s including Factory 798, originally produced electronics. Attracted by the Bauhaus Style buildings and convenient transportation in this tranquil area, artists began to gather to re-make the factory spaces, gradually developing them into galleries, art centers, artists' studios, design companies, restaurants, and bars.” I came here before with my classmates, but there are so many interesting shops to go into that I still got to see a lot of new things. Most of the art there is either very abstract and New Agy or can be interpreted to have some type of political or cultural message. Unfortunately, many of the studios were closed on Monday. There was still plenty to do. We ended up in an Australian-owned coffee shop that had probably the best coffee I have tasted in China so far. I wish I could remember the exact name. If you ever go there, I would definitely give it a try.

                Tuesday mom and I set off to Shichahai什刹海. In this area, there are many small lakes with temples and high-class homes. This is where many celebrities and important government officials live. The area was really beautiful. In the summertime, you can take boats out on the lake. It looks like a lot of fun and a great way to spend a sunny day outside. I saw people who organized dancing and singing groups outside. Anyone could join. If I was more knowledgeable in Chinese music I would have loved to spend the day with these people. I guess another goal of mine will just have to be to learn more Chinese music. J Another great part of Shichahai is a lake called Houhai 后海. I remember going here once when I was in Beijing back in 2008, but I remember it quite differently. Houhai’s night life is really wild with dozens of bars, clubs, and karaoke establishments you can go to. This time around, it was during the day when there are less people and it is very quiet and serene. There are also a lot of rickshaw drivers who are eager to take you on a tour of the old Hutongs胡同 from the Ming and Qing Dynasty. Our rickshaw driver didn’t speak much English, but it was still very interesting to see these old buildings that are still standing after 500 years.

                After our trip to Shichahai, we headed over to Crissy’s house for Bible study again. My mom suggested that we go to where I work and take the bus from there so that I can find my way next time when I am by myself. This is because I will be going to Bible study straight from work. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I am really good at taking the subway, but I have shied away from taking the bus because there are so many more buses and stops to figure out. Plus, it is not as fast. I am most worried about getting lost. Once I go a few more times and establish a routine to catch the bus and get off, I think it will be a lot easier. We’ll just have to wait and see…

                Wednesday we decided to travel to an ancient rural village about an hour and a half outside of Beijing. We took the subway to the end of line 1 (Pingguoyuan苹果园) and then hired a “taxi driver” to take us the rest of the way there. The name of the village was Cuandixia 爨底下 (Ya…try and write that first character. It has 30 strokes! Good luck!) This village was constructed mostly during the Ming and Qing dynasty, although I believe this area was settled even earlier than that. It is tucked away in the valley of mountains just northwest of Beijing. Many of the people’s homes have been turned into inns to host tourists who come to the town. It is a really pretty place to walk around. I’m thinking that this might be a fun summer weekend trip one day. After we got back into Beijing, my mom and I went to the restaurant across the street from the apartment and had roast duck. The restaurant was a very nice-looking building that was below ground, made from a redesigned bomb shelter. The duck was really good, but a little greasy for my mom. We had a lot leftover, so I brought some back to the Xu’s to make soup with.

                Thursday was a very relaxed day. I introduced my mom to my friend from church named Zhang Lidan (English name Liz). We went out to lunch in Wudaokou. I think Liz really liked my mom. Later that night, we met up with Zhang Ying and Jessi and went out to Western food. That was the last night before my mom had to leave to go back to Seattle. It was a really good night.

                One time this week when it was rush-hour, I squeezed my way onto a subway train not realizing that there wasn’t going to be enough room for my mom. Before I knew it, I was listening to the warning beep coming from the closing doors. I am sure that my mom felt a moment of terror. I called her right away and told her to just go one stop and that I would be waiting for her there. It turned out not to be that big of a deal, but I can imagine how scary it would be to get lost in such a big city and not know how to find your way back. During the downtime of my mom’s visit, we watched Prison Break (finished Season 2!) and watched other DVDs that we bought from Fuchengmen. It was funny to see if the quality of the movies was any good. It is always hit or miss, but they are so cheap that it doesn’t really matter.

                Overall, I think my mom really enjoyed her time in Beijing. This was probably the first time since I was four years old that I spent 2 weeks straight with my mom without ever leaving her. I would feel bad leaving my mom alone in China since she doesn’t speak any Chinese and doesn’t know that subway system that well. We went everywhere together. It was really great mother-daughter time. I don’t get much one-on-one time with my parents because of my twin sister, so it was really good to spend this much quality time with my mom.

Chinese Word of the Day

Cuan 爨: to cook (traditional)

Verse of the Day

2 Thessalonians 3:5 "May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance."

Fwd: Stereotypical Tourists...

March 21, 2011

                Wednesday was a long day for us. We were able to join a tour group going to the Forbidden City 故宫, Tian’anmen Square 天安门, Temple of Heaven 天坛, and the Summer Palace 颐和园, respectively. It started out a little cold, but warmed up as the day went on. There was a Malaysian couple on the tour in their late 30s early 40s, and a young guy from Singapore with his girlfriend who also joined us. Our tour guide was really nice. Her name was Aili爱丽. Her English was pretty good and she was very knowledgeable of Chinese history. In between Tian’anmen and lunch, we stopped by a TCM hospital. A doctor gave us all a free consultation. I am fine except for a little cough that I’ve developed. The doctor told my mom that she not only has bad joints (of course she knew that already), but that she also has stagnation of the blood and some trouble with her kidney function. Maybe she should get that checked when she gets back to the States. Aili told us a story about one man from her tour group who was already diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and the TCM doctor could determine this only from checking his pulse, tongue, complexion, and asking him a few questions about his medical history. Chinese medicine is truly amazing. I don’t understand exactly how it works, even after studying it a little bit through my J-Term class, but those doctors definitely have something there. 2,000+ years of history can’t be nothing. It was a little annoying at the hospital because even though the consultation was free, it was really a scam to try to get us to purchase the medicine to go along with our “diagnosis.” Not saying that we wouldn’t benefit from it, but they didn’t need to pressure us as much as they did. They made the Malaysian woman in our group very uncomfortable.

                Between the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace we went to a pearl factory. Since I have been there before, I guessed the average number of pearls in an oyster and got to keep a couple small pearls. Yay me! Mom bought several pieces of jewelry, including a necklace for me and Crystal. It was a pretty cool place. I hate being poor. But I am rich in other ways! J 颐和园 is probably one of my favorite places in Beijing. I like to go and watch people play cards, sing Peking Opera, play games, and play musical instruments. An old man even let me try to play his erhu, a traditional two-stringed instrument. Even though I was horribly pathetic at it (and I have the video to prove it!), it was still really fun to interact with the local people. Tuesday was really fun and it was packed full of sight-seeing!

                The next day we didn’t do very much. I was a little sore from walking so much, so it was nice to just kind of lay around the apartment. We went across the street and ate some traditional Beijing cuisine. I tried to order some extra tofu wraps to put with the sliced pork 京酱肉丝, and the waiter brought out a whole new dish of it! My lack of Chinese combined the waiter’s impeding lisp made communication quite difficult. Oh well…I learned from it. From this day on, I will never forget the word doupi 豆皮 （tofu wrap）for as long as I live. Thursday night Mom and I went out to dinner with a couple named Larry and Cinia from church. Since we were both so busy on Sunday, I didn’t get a chance to introduce them to Mom. It was a really great time. They are both such genuine caring people. I am really glad to know them. I hope that we can spend more time together.

                Friday Mom and I decided to go to the Beijing Zoo and the Legend of Kungfu show. The zoo had a lot more animals than I was expecting. According to the zoo’s history, by the end of WWII and the Japanese invasion, most of the animals had been so neglected that all that was left were twelve monkeys, two parrots, and a blind emu. There are a lot more animals now. It was very entertaining. I especially liked the elephants and the lions. I never heard a lion roar in real life before, so that was cool. It was a little sad that the animals didn’t have much space to roam around. The Beijing Zoo is not like zoos in the U.S. that try to mimic animal’s natural habitats. Many of them are just in small, square exhibits with very little rock or foliage. I can imagine how boring it must get. They just pace around in their cages to the point of insanity. I hope that part of China’s 12^th Five-Year Plan is dedicated to improving parts of this zoo and others around the country. I was impressed, however, by how many different animals the Beijing Zoo has. It has come a long way since 1949.

Chinese Word of the Day

Dongwu yuan 动物园: "Zoo"

Verse of the Day

Psalm 62:7 “My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.”

My Mom is HERE!!! :D

Sorry I have been slacking on my blog everyone! Here is what has been going on these past few weeks...

March 15, 2011

                My mom has finally come to China!!! This past week and a half or so, we have been quite busy! She flew in on Friday the 10^th and I brought her to my host family’s house. I think that they like her a lot. Now Jessi has two English teachers! While my mom is here, though, I am going to be staying with her in the Xu’s other apartment where Mingyu’s (whose English name I just found out is Warren—after Warren Buffet) parents live for the other half of the year when they are not in Sanya. The apartment has a master bedroom that we are going to share, a kitchen, living room, and full bathroom. It’s a pretty nice set up. The wi-fi connection isn’t the greatest, but that’s ok. We are just a 20-30 minute walk from Tian’anmen Square, very near the Temple of Heaven, and not far from the popular shopping street called Dashilar 大栅栏. So far we have had a pretty good time. I think my mom likes China.

                The first full day my mom was here, Saturday, we spent the first few hours mopping the floor of the apartment. Since it is a brand new building, there was still a lot of construction dust on the floor. I am glad that we did it because now we don’t have to worry about dust and dirt everywhere. I figured that since my host family let my mom stay in their extra apartment for free, the least we could do is sweep their floor. After that we went shopping at my most favorite cheap, low quality shopping center called Fuchengmen 阜成门. It’s actually not that bad. Everything is just so awesomely cheap, I could go shopping there every day. I just wish I had money. I am down to $168 (1100元) to last me until June 1^st.  I have to say, my mom is not very good at bargaining, but that’s ok. She’ll get better with more practice. You can only get ripped off so many times…

                On Sunday we went to Haidian church. Mom took lots of pictures. We went to the English service and when we got there it was packed wall to wall. I decided that it would be better to go up to the media room to watch the sermon from the big screen. I think Mom really enjoyed the service. She was surprised at how contemporary and open the worship and sermon were. Afterwards, when I was blogging for the church website (http://english.hdchurch.org/), some of the media guys brought lunch. My mom is still getting used to eating with chopsticks, but she did alright. When I finished blogging, we decided to go to Wudaokou五道口 and walk around a little bit. I heard that it is a good place to go shopping and foreigners go there pretty often. It didn’t seem that great to me, but maybe I just don’t know the right place to go. It was still fun, though. Just riding on the subway with Mom is an adventure!

                Monday Mom and I walked around downtown area. We started out at Dashilar and just looked around. The main street has a trolley that runs up and down it. There are lots of name brands on the main road. At the end, there is Qianmen前门, the gate to Tian’anmen. It is really pretty. The best place in Dashilar to go, however, is in the alleyways behind the main street. This is where you can bargain for lots of chap goods. It’s a lot of fun. I like seeing how low of a price I can get even if I don’t really want to buy anything. This is how you find out what price to offer when you really do want to buy something.

                Tuesday was also good. We just decided to explore around the apartment building a little bit. We found the north gate of the Temple of Heaven. Then we stumbled upon the Hong Qiao Pearl Market. There were more than just pearls there. There were lots of purses, Chinese souvenirs, and electronics. I bought Jeremy this rice paddy worker’s hat that he really wanted so I am excited to give him that. I found a huge (1-1.5 meters) decorative fan that I can hang on my wall. My mom and I also bought some tea made out of flowers and dried fruit that is really yummy! After shopping we went to the roof and took pictures. I am an utter failure when it comes to taking jumping pictures, but it was fun to try anyways. Today was also the first day of my new small group Bible study. We met at Pizza Hut and then went to my leader’s house. My leader is an American girl named Crissy who has lived in Asia on and off for almost ten years. There are six of us total. We are going to be studying the book of John. I am pretty excited about this group. All the girls seem really nice. I see Crissy as someone that I can look up to and ask advice since she is kind of doing what I want to do one day. She has a lot of experience living overseas and speaks pretty fluent Mandarin. So, I hope that I can learn a lot from her while I am here. Overall, it was a really fun day!

Chinese Word of the Day

San bu 散步 : Go for a walk; take a stroll

Verse of the Day

John 1:3-5 "Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Reverse Culture Shock??

March 4, 2011

 

          The third week of my internship is already done. Time is really flying by. I spent a lot of time this week proofreading the agenda for the summit. My boss also wants me to find current events for a monthly newsletter that they are going to start putting out. This task has been harder than I thought. I have had some difficulty finding events that are directly relevant to CEC. Important things that they also want to stay in-the-know about are high-profile business people coming to visit China, other green/CSR/internationally-related summits, and any major changes happening in politics (i.e. economic or foreign policy) that may have a direct impact on the members and/or constituents of CEC. There is a lot of information out there, just not always very good quality. I have been sticking to a couple major news outlets in China like Xinhua and Beijing Daily, as well as various foreign embassy and NGO websites.

 

         As I attempt to sort through how best to go about this new professional world I have found myself in, I have developed a few questions. The point of an internship is to prepare a student for life in the working world. However, I am afraid that Chinese business culture is too different from American business culture. Norms that I become accustomed to in China may not be at all what the norms are in the U.S. I already know that I am learning a lot about professional life, but I just hope that our two cultures aren't so different that I experience "reverse culture shock" when I go to work in an American company one day. I really don't have any point of reference to go off of. Everything is new to me, so it is difficult to figure out what is standard, universal business practice, and what is the Chinese business practice. I'm not too worried about it though because I think that common sense and common courtesy will more often than not lead one in the right direction.

          In other things going on in my life, I am really enjoying the volunteer work that I am doing at church. I have been going to the multimedia team's weekly Bible study meetings. Even though I don't understand a lot of what they are talking about, I am glad that I am able to form relationships with these people and start to develop a base of friendships outside of work and home. I finished editing the church's Christmas video. I also got to be on the camera during their evening worship service. Since the church is so big, the service is projected onto a big screen so that everyone can see. My job is to get different shots of the people on stage so that the congregation can see. It has been different serving more behind-the-scenes. At my church in America, I served on the worship team and taught Sunday School. The type of service I'm doing now is not always seen and appreciated. It is really helping me be more humble and to remember that I am serving Jesus, not people at church. I was also asked to summarize the English Fellowship's sermons every week on Haidian's website. I talk about the sermon topic and then give a little commentary on what I took away. It is really a great opportunity. Who knew that I would be able to have such an open chance to talk this freely about my faith in China? So long as I don't say anything too outrageous, I think I can pretty much say what I want. I am really excited. Also, my host mom has been asking a lot of questions about Christianity and I have had several opportunities to share the Gospel with her. She seems really interested in it, so keep my host family in your prayers. :-)

Chinese Word of the Day

Lang fei 浪费： to waste


Verse of the Day

Matthew 6:33-34
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."