Only Two Weeks Left

I am definitely sad to have less than two weeks left in China. I really cannot express how I would love to stay here much longer, but at the same time come back home to the American lifestyle. Thankfully, classes are about to end, so I'll finally have some free time to just wander around the city. Yesterday we had an in-class debate about whether or not preserving China's traditions and cultural relics slowed economic development. However, due my speech (described below), I was simply the debate's moderator. But it's better than our usual double tests on Fridays.  

The past week or so I focused a lot of time and effort on a speech that I must memorize for a Beijing city-wide foreign students speech competition. Unfortunately, since the competition is tomorrow morning at 7 am, I'm not able to go out tonight, I'm sitting here "memorizing my speech." My speech is 4-5 minutes long, the written version is approximately 700 characters, and is judged on tonal naturalness, grammar usage, and accuracy of pronunciation. While I personally don't care about it, since I'm representing my teachers and all of CET, I figure I'll try a bit harder than usual, even though I didn't get a say in choosing whether or not I wanted to compete. While it's "an honor" to be chosen, I don't like spending my limited time in China memorizing stuff in my dorm. 

Even though I was spending a lot of time on my speech, I did get a chance to make it to Tiantan (Temple of Heaven), and the Olympic Park, featuring the Bird's Nest and the Watercube, which you all probably saw on television in '08. We also stopped by Beijing University, the most prestigious university in China, to see the campus and library, but it wasn't too impressive.

Man at Tiantan playing a type of mouth organ, 

sounded like a flawless synthesizer

Bird's Nest

Water Cube

Giant Olympic Tower

Tonight CET held a "China Night" performance, where each class performed a short skit to demonstrate our new Chinese skills. Our class's skit was about the bad habits that Beijingers have, and was actually quite amusing. We showed how Beijing people don't like to line up, be polite, and in general show consideration for others. And of course, me and my newly-befriended taxi driver singing a rousing chorus of the cheesiest Chinese pop song I know.

Instead of describing our actual skit, I'll simply leave you with my thoughts of China, the pros and cons of Beijing life in my next post.