Was that English?

No, that was NOT English. Of course it wasn't, you're not allowed to speak English. So we all ask each other to either repeat our sentences several times or, if things are desperate, perform a quick game of cherades to pantomime our thoughts.


Since no one knows wtf anyone else is saying, things are pretty entertaining. Only about 15 people, myself included, can have a decent conversation, because quite a few people either haven't taken chinese yet, or have only taken a year or less. In my opinion, it would be completely impossible to communicate with anyone if I didn't know at least some Chinese, but there are about 10 students who came here with zero chinese knowledge, and they seem to be doing fairly well. While they have no idea what most of us are saying, they can already say basic phrases and express ideas pretty accurately, which is really impressive.


But I'm not complaining. I love the fact that English is banned, I can't imagine learning much if I could just say whatever I wanted to in another language. That's exactly why I picked this program, and it's already paying off. In three days of class, I learned about three solid weeks of material, so things are really fast-paced. 1 day = 1 week, essentially. 


Here's a run-down of an average weekday at CET:

• Get woken up by the sun at approximately 6 am. The sun has fully risen by 6:15, which is SO ANNOYING. So I never ever get enough sleep. 
• Try to sleep in until 8 am, but fail miserably. 
• Leap out of bed with a spring in my step and twinkle in my eye at 7:45 am.
• Go downstairs, walk for 25 seconds outside and I immediately hit several 小摊 (street vendors), where they serve some pretty interesting breakfast items. I usually pick up a type of fried pancake filled with veggies or pork, or an egg roll-up with lettuce inside. (it's kinda hard to translate what these things are). 
• Anyhow, they're all delicious, and breakfast typically costs between 1-2 kuai (RMB), which is approximately 15-30 cents. Yep. 15-30 cents.
• Go to class, where the teacher reviews the new words we "learned" (taught ourself) the previous day, which is about 50-75 new words. This is the rough part. She reviews by speaking three sentences, which we have to write down. This is called 听写 (dictation), and is a pretty challenging way to test our vocabulary memory.
• We then learn new grammar structures, which consist of 20-30 new sentence patterns and ways to say things. I've already covered over 100 new patterns in 4 days, so.... 
• After a short break, which usually involves us going back to the street vendors for some snacks, we split up the "large" class of 6 people into 3 and 3, where different teachers drill us on what we just learned. The idea here is instant memorization, which... is a bitch.
• Oh, and pretty much every teacher here is attractive. (I can practically hear trang groaning...)
• Anyway..... after we finish the first small class, we come back for another round of getting owned by the teacher. This usually consists of her quizzing us on both old and new material, and testing how fast we can speak and how fast we can listen. Definitely not easy.
• Class is over at 12:30, 4 hours later. After a free lunch at the CET cafeteria, which is soooo much better than any cafeteria food in America, we head to 一对一，or one-on-one sessions. 
• 1-on-1 sessions are 30 minutes of oral drilling. 
• Then it's back home to do about 2 hours of writing homework, and then memorize 60 new words and read a 4-page story for the next day. We have way too much homework. :(
• My roommate gets back at around 7 pm from work (he's a lawyer's assistant), and then we usually go grab dinner with some people. A typical dinner is 4-10 people, everyone orders a dish, and we share them all. Costs about $2.30 each (including drinks)
• At home, more word-memorizing. Bedtime at midnight, which is usually too late. 

Our first test is tomorrow: a 2-hour written test, followed by two 30-minute oral tests. 

Fun picture of the day: this huge bottle cost 3 kuai, about 44 cents. (It's a 21oz beer)

The Forbidden City

On Friday, about 30 of us took a day trip to Tian'anmen and the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City is beyond massive -- from entrance to exit it took over 30 minutes to traverse it. Instead of wasting my metaphorical breath, I'll let some pictures do the talking. (click them to zoom in)

The architecture is so ornately detailed

The Imperial Garden

The ladies love us.

(when we offered to take a picture with them, it was like Christmas came early)

a panorama of one third of the Forbidden City.

the sheer size of it is just baffling.

We spent about 5 hours here, and after we couldn't take another step, we forced ourselves to go to the famous Silk Market. The Silk Market is a 7-story indoor market, with approximately 400 little shops, selling everything from knock-off purses and clothing to CDs, DVDs, and electronics. One guy even tried to bargain an iPad down to $150, lol. I haggled a cell phone down to about 250 RMB ($37), but I couldn't get it lower, so I had to hold off on buying one until today. I ended up buying one for about $30 USD.

Which brings me to Sunday. My roommate arrived, and he's pretty awesome. His name is 何洋 (He2 Yang2), and his English is essentially non-existent, which is good for me because I'm not looking to be an English teacher. Since he lives in Beijing, he showed me some great places and we went out for lunch. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to explain the difference between what America calls football and what everyone else calls football. 

After some pointless program activities, we had a traditional Chinese BBQ, which was completely different from the Chinese BBQs in America. There was about 30 different kinds of snacks (北京风味的小吃), and they were crazy delicious. The main courses were 4 different kabobs, a type of soup, and rice. The food display consumed about 25 standard-size dinner tables, so... yeah. It was insane. 

I went off to memorize my 65 words for the day (shittttttt), and then we went to what you might call a public party at this park. It was in this cemented space about half the size of Tian'anmen (huge), and there were tons of little kids rollerblading (apparently that's very popular here), older Chinese people doing country-western square dancing (lol), middle-aged people line dancing, and then vendors everywhere selling food and a wide-variety of light-up toys. My first thought was that it was some holiday celebration, but my roommate informed me that they do it every night. So cool. No one does stuff like that in the U.S....

Next time, my first day of class .....(I got pwned HARD)....

I'm a Beijinger (?)

Close your eyes, and imagine the busiest street you have ever encountered. Cars fuming, horns blaring, people swarming across sidewalks and intersections, and crazy one-armed old ladies grabbing you by the wrist with a shockingly-powerful grip and insisting that you "buy a big pink balloon animal for your girlfriend." 

Now open them before you get hit by a three-wheeled tricycle truck. 

If I could sum up the people of Beijing in one word, I would say: aggressive. The drivers literally have no concept of braking or traffic rules, and the car horn is used more often the the word "is." It's as if they don't honk their horn, their car will cease to work, and longer, more drawn-out honks where they lean on the horn for a good 12 seconds makes your car run even faster. 

Even better, the people have no idea of what it means to stand in line. Just because you got there 45 minutes before everyone else doesn't mean that an old toothless grandpa can't shove you into a bush so he can get to the ATM first. And just because you were about to leave the subway doesn't mean that six giggly asian girls can't interlock their arms and thereby create a Great Wall of Chinese blocking you from your exit. 

Now for some fun pictures of random things by my campus:

trike-in-a-box

(yes, this is a full bathroom)

So, for the past few days we've been getting oriented to the city, and to our program. Luckily, after each painfully-boring 3-hour long orientation session, we get a free meal at the campus cafeteria. The cafeteria serves real food, which i know is absurd for a school cafeteria. And it is true Chinese food, basic but tasteful, and very easy to like. 

After each campus activity, a bunch of us go out and hit the town. We found a bunch of amazing bars, and with the help of a few native students, got some crazy discounts on drinks while watching the World Cup matches. In addition to the sights of Beijing, just observing how people go about their everyday lives is truly eye-opening. 

We took a trip to Tian'anmen and the Forbidden City today, but excursions of this nature deserve their own post. 

晚安。

Touchdown!

我才来了!


(the following actually happened last Wednesday, June 16, but I wasn't able to circumvent China's internet censors too easily, so I couldn't get on this site until now..... thanks, china.)


After touching down in Seoul at the crack of dawn, I had to waste 4 hours until my final flight to China. No problem. I ate my way through the airport... BiBimBap, Ramen, etc....yum. The most interesting thing by far was kimchi-filled, seaweed-filled, and chili paste-filled chocolates. I'll let you come to your own conclusions about those. 


Then I finally get to the Beijing airport, expecting it to be awesome or something because of the '08 olympics, and there isn't jackshit to do here. Just a few stores, some restaurants, and that's it. So, I did what the locals do.... went to Starbucks. Typically this would go against my travel motto of "try new things," but I managed to get my hands on one of these, which is apparently insanely popular this summer (huge line to get one). 

Not bad for a drink with actual sesame seeds in it. Oh, and this Starbucks had waitress service, which I feel is a bit unnecessary. You can sit across the terminal and some little asian girl will bring you your drink. Definitely the easiest way to confirm the stereotype that Americans are fat and lazy: order a 1000-calorie drink, but get someone else to make the 50-foot walk to and from the checkout line. Classic.


After three hours of people-watching, I noticed that not a single fat person had walked through the airport. Not even one. Good job, Asia, for keeping the world a little less .... fat. (I would've used the word "ugly" instead of "fat," but the teeth on some of these Chinese girls are just AWESOME.)


Five hours later, and CET finally is here to bring us back to the dorms. Luckily, it's well worth the wait -- this dorm far exceeds what I had in San Jacinto at UT, and probably what anyone else had in any other dorm. It also absolutely defies the living standard in China -- up to 8 students can live together in a space twice the size of your average bedroom.


Message of the day: be thankful for what you have. Oh, and in America, people don't randomly take a shit on the street. More on that to come....

Zoom Zoom Zoom

"$&@# school, I'm going to China!"

Has this thought ever crossed your mind? If so, you and I have at least one thing in common. In fact, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's make it two things: we both breathe oxygen for survival. 

Don't feel comfortable yet? My apologies. Allow me to offer you a tasty dumpling as a welcoming gift. Oh, wait a second...

Due to shortcomings in current technology, you won't be able to appreciate the tastes, smells, sounds, and feel of Beijing, but I'll do my very best to deliver the sights of China right to your (probably Chinese-made) computer screen. I might even occasionally toss in my opinion, if you ask nicely.

I'll take this opportunity to describe my study abroad program in detail. I am attending the CET Beijing Chinese Language Program, which is the most intense language study program I could find. I get to attend class from 8am-Noon every day (sooooooo early), get some private lessons, and then I'm free to explore Beijing. The main reason I chose this program is that English is strictly forbidden, and I get to live with a Chinese roommate!

If they catch you speaking English, you get kicked out of the program. 

Anyway, my flight leaves today at 8pm, which works great for me, as I am hopelessly nocturnal. I plan on using my 24 hours of travel time to review my last three semesters of Chinese, as well as playing some Angry Birds. 

Next time you hear from me, it'll be through a thick, hacking cough, as I will be inhaling the beautifully-polluted air of Beijing. 

再见！