So I arrived in Beijing on Wednesday night (18th, Beijing time).
First Impressions: ugh why's it taking forever for us to find a gate to park at. It srsly took like half an hour. And eww, orange lights make it look poor. They srsly need white lights. I was at Terminal 2, the old one...didn't even get to see the new one.
The PEK airport is outside of downtown Beijing, so on the way to Mao Panyong's house, there was srsly nothing. Only half constructed buildings, lots of trucks carrying stuff (at 11 pm) and coal-flavored air.
People: Mao Panyong worked with my parents when they lived in Beijing. His wife is Liu Ayi and his son, a freshman at Wuhan University (where my parents and Mao Panyong went), is Mao Da. Ling (Alan) is the guy i practically grew up with in the U.S., he moved back to china with his parents in 6th grade.
The next morning, I ate breakfast with Mao Panyong and his wife, and then packed up to go to Ling's house. The pollution that morning was...uhh...disappointing. Mao Panyong said it was actually getting better. I suppose...it looked much worse than it actually felt.
I rode the bus. Beijing mass transit is very efficient. They instituted a new system, using reloadable cards that can work both for buses and the metro, at a discounted fare (unlike DC's use of the full fare for cards). All the buses have scanners at the entrance that can scan the card even though bags or wallets, making everything much more streamlined. It was impossible getting off the bus though. The doors closed, and I had to tell the guy to reopen them.
After going to Ling's aunt's house, we went to Wangfujing. Wangfujing's the equivalent of Shanghai's Nanjing Road or New York's Times Square. It's made up of quite a few (5-7, i would say) huge malls with designer brands (all real, rofl), plus lots of other department stores and small specialty stores. The bookstore there has basically everything in its 7 floors. Everything there's all flashy and w/e. The day I went (Thursday) also had bad air, so things were smoggy. I really want to see it at night though. There's also a Wangfujing Market, kinda like the markets of Old Beijing. You can buy all your Beijing snacks, from Turkish roast to sushi to lamb, scorpion, or even seahorse kabobs. For lunch I just got some takoyaki from the market...it tasted liek pork..=/ on second thought i prolly just ordered wrong =/
In the afternoon, we went to the Forbidden City. I don't have a student ID, but there was a lady standing outside selling tickets for 40 yuan (normal price is 60) for students who did not have their IDs (normal student tickets are 20 yuan). I bought hers, although the ticket lady would've probably let Ling and I both get the student discount anyways...
On Friday, we went to the Temple of Heaven, where Ling and I got by with discounted student pricing ;P. There's this really cool Echo Wall (Huiyinbi), a huge circular wall encircling a temple (not the main temple) and 2 annex halls. You stand at opposite sides of the circle, behind the annex halls and face north. Then you can have a "wonderful conversation," according to the sign. There was some ppl that obviously didn't read the sign, and just faced the wall expecting to hear and echo of themselves.
After the Temple of Heaven, we had lunch at KFC (the portions are sooo small) and then went to some electronics store. Ling bought a DS + empty cartridge + case for 1200 yuan. Later we found someone willing to sell that package for 1000...but oh well. Ling only has 2000 yuan though, to buy food for the next trimester of his school...After taht we went to Xiushuijie, or Silk Street. It probably used to be a street, but it now converted into a 5 (or 6?) story mall, but it still retains its market atmosphere. Vendors are individual, selling thingz like fake designer brands, tees, jewelry (real jewelry. things are called fake because of the brand labeling, not because of what they are made of), electronics, etc. I just got a couple touristy tees and also a 2 gig sandisk SD memory card. I bargained it down to 70 yuan (~10 dollars) so I'm happy.
About censorship: Wikipedia is not blocked in China, but pages like Tibet and Dalai Lama are. Potala Palace wasn't however. In Ling's copy of Natl Geographic (english), Dalai Lama was mentioned, bc of something he quoted, but his name was crossed out in black. Yeah...so I don't understand why the government worries about these things. Everyone (including Chinese) knows about what is happening in Tibet, and students are taught things like what happened in 1989 in schools (albeit underplayed). Instead, some censorship is just meaningless.
Saturday was REALLY CLEAR outside. You could actually see blue in the sky, instead of gray. There was this tower near Ling's house that I couldn't see the day before, but could see on Saturday. On Saturday, we went to Xidan, another market/commercial district. There were like 6 huge malls cramped together on 2 blocks of road, with many smaller specialty brand shops (Nike, Adidas, etc) plus many restaurants (there were 3 KFCs on that one block alone @____@). We weren't too hungry so we just bought individual things at KFC (he had coupons).
We went back to Ling's aunt's house because my uncle was going to pick me up at 3 to go to my maternal grandparents' house in Pinggu District. Pinggu is part of Beijing administrative region, but is about 1.5 hours outside of Beijing city.
People: My mom has two younger brothers. The older is my Da jiu. His wife is my Da jiuma, and his 10 year old son is Song Qizheng. The younger is my Xiao jiu (or lao jiu) and his wife is my xiao/lao jiuma. Their 13 year old daughter is Song Boyu (or Niuniu).
We went back to Ling's aunt's house because my uncle was going to pick me up at 3 to go to my maternal grandparents' house in Pinggu District. Pinggu is part of Beijing administrative region, but is about 1.5 hours outside of Beijing city.
People: My mom has two younger brothers. The older is my Da jiu. His wife is my Da jiuma, and his 10 year old son is Song Qizheng. The younger is my Xiao jiu (or lao jiu) and his wife is my xiao/lao jiuma. Their 13 year old daughter is Song Boyu (or Niuniu).
We got to Pinggu, and basically ate food. My grandparents live in a village, so I was surprised to find out that they had internet. And their bathrooms changed as well. Instead of just stoop holes in the ground, now there are 2: a stoop toilet WITH PLUMBING and a western toilet. Surprisingly, I only used the stoop toilet @____@. Maybe i felt that a little straining in my thighs was better than having my butt touch someone else's.
I have 2 cousins on my maternal side: a 13 year old girl and an 8 (or maybe 10?) year old boy. My grandparents currently raise 6 dogs:
1. Xiaolifeicha: i love his/her name. and its an uber cute dog also
2. Lala: Qiaoqiao's mom. lala's pregnant by dabao again...her vagina's all drooping and stuff from the first delivery =/
3. Dabao: qiaoqiao's dad
4. Xiaohua
5. Xiaobu: the watchdog that bit my mom 3 yrs ago
6. Peipei (?): i think they gave this dog away. its one of lala and dabao's children
7. qiaoqiao: lala and dabao's daughter
There's a cat also but no one talks about it.
1. Xiaolifeicha: i love his/her name. and its an uber cute dog also2. Lala: Qiaoqiao's mom. lala's pregnant by dabao again...her vagina's all drooping and stuff from the first delivery =/
3. Dabao: qiaoqiao's dad
4. Xiaohua
5. Xiaobu: the watchdog that bit my mom 3 yrs ago
6. Peipei (?): i think they gave this dog away. its one of lala and dabao's children
7. qiaoqiao: lala and dabao's daughter
There's a cat also but no one talks about it.
Sunday was similar. We went to the market in the morning, ate food the rest of the day. At night, I left with my aunt to her house (the 13 year old girl's family), because she said I would be too lonely in the village (my other uncle and his family, the 8 year old boy, were leaving back to their home in Beijing Sunday afternoon, and my grandfather was going back to the hospital. Uhhh so basically we left my grandma home with the dogs. and the cat.
My aunt lives in Pinggu City. Today is Monday, and so my aunt went to work, but she comes back home for lunch. My cousin, Song Boyu went to school in the morning. She has a 3 day break now, and then goes back to school for finals. So in the afternoon, Niuniu took me to an internet cafe with her friend, cuz my aunt's internet (which I'm using now) doesn't let me sign in on Duke's online thing. Well, it lets me sign in, but freezes if I try to access my Duke email, etc.
My aunt lives in Pinggu City. Today is Monday, and so my aunt went to work, but she comes back home for lunch. My cousin, Song Boyu went to school in the morning. She has a 3 day break now, and then goes back to school for finals. So in the afternoon, Niuniu took me to an internet cafe with her friend, cuz my aunt's internet (which I'm using now) doesn't let me sign in on Duke's online thing. Well, it lets me sign in, but freezes if I try to access my Duke email, etc.
So I got my Duke stuff cleared up at the internet cafe. Except, apparently there was a questionaire that my parents compelted for me. I was wondering what essays some other Duke people were talking about, and when I saw online today that mine was completed, I saw that my parents had written one word answers for some, and even left others blank. Ugh, i was pretty pissed when I first saw that.
Well, my aunt's gonna be taking Niuniu and me (the dad lives in Beijing city during the workweek) to various restaurants this week...lamb kabobs, korean barbecue, hotpot, etc. I will be going back to Beijing city on Sunday night. On monday night robin and I will be leaving for Nanjing.
