Lao She Teahouse! 老舍茶馆

It's the Lao She Teahouse! Complete with on-stage Kungfu performances, Voice Mimicry, Beijing Opera (very different than western opera), Acrobatics, a magic show, Qing dynasty style dancing, Acrobatic-Tea-Serving (i'll post a video somewhere below) Monologues, Traditional Chinese Orchestral Music, oh and TEA (hence, Teahouse). It's a whirlwind of traditional Chinese culture, and definitely worth your time if you ever come to Beijing. I'll post a slideshow later on in the post, but I'd rather start out with a video.

This is just a compilation I made of a few different performances that I liked. There were other really cool ones as well, I just didn't get a video of everything.

This is the 生 Sheng (more specifically, 武生 Wu Sheng) role in Beijing opera, the main male part who is involved in several on-stage combat scenes with other male characters.

This next character is known as the 净 Jing role, played by a male and characterized by a painted face or mask. This particular 净 Jing was showing off what is known in Beijing opera as a "trick". Basically, he somehow alternates between 6 or so different masks in an instant, and I couldn't figure out exactly how--all of a sudden he throws his head back, or turns away for a second, and the mask completely changes. I would have taken a video, but it wasn't allowed for this part of the performance.

In addition to the performances, there are waiters who walk around serving the special Longjing tea 龙井茶, and filling up your plate with small traditional chinese desserts。It's slightly tourist-oriented (my host family had actually never been before), but it's definitely still worthwhile in my opinion. 

Making Silk for Dummies

During my time in China, I have visited two silk factories---the first in Beijing a few weeks ago, and the second in Suzhou, which I went to today. These silk factories are NOT to be confused with the Silk Market, which is the place to buy knock-offs that I mentioned in an earlier post. At these places, they actually make the silk, from start to finish. I was relatively unaware of the process prior to visiting the factories, so in case you don't know much about silk-making, I will do my best to relate the entire process to you with the help of pictures:

The process always begins with these guys: THE SILK WORMS. These ones here are actually alive, and squirming around a lot. As you can see, they are happily munching on their mulberry leaves, which are the extent of their diet. The mulberry plants are grown just outside on the premises, and leaves are also brought in from farms in the surrounding area.

Here you can see a close-up of TONS of silkworm cocoons inside a barrel, ready to be sorted. It's hard to tell from the photograph, but some of the cocoons are large (containing two silk worm pupae) while others are much smaller (containing only one pupa).  Each has a distinct purpose that I will eventually describe.

This is a machine that "cooks" the cocoons before they can be used. The cooking involves bringing the cocoons to a certain temperature in order to ...err... kill the pupa inside. It also involves adding enough moisture to the cocoon so that the silk filament may be more easily extracted.

This is the de-Pupa-fication station (most likely, not its real name), where the pupae are removed from the cocoons and deposited in the little basket. Don't fret, these pupae have not died in vain! In fact, they will be used to make some special sort of...face cream? OK. So now that the depupafication process is complete I will discuss the difference between the single and double cocoons.

Single Pupa Cocoons

This picture shows step 2 for single pupa cocoons. Each pupa produces a single silk filament that makes up the cocoon. As such, just one little cocoon alone produces a filament that is 1500 METERS in length (that's 4921.25984 feet). The cocoons are placed in boiling water, as shown in the picture, and the end of the filament is located and attached to this machine. Each reel on the machine draws out the filaments from several cocoons at once, spinning them to eventually be made into thread.

I'm skipping the intermediate steps where tons of filaments are put together to make thread, and also the step where the thread is dyed. The above picture shows the mechanical loom that weaves the patterns that make up the silk that most people think of when they think "silk".  OK, so now for...

Double Pupae Cocoons

These cocoons contain two Pupa, so therefore two 1500-meter filaments. It is too difficult to separate the two filaments to make thread, so these cocoons are generally used to make silk duvets / comforters. 

After the pupas are removed, the cocoons are soaked in cold water and then stretched over a small u-shaped ring (a smaller version of the one above). 8 layers of stretched-out cocoons go onto the small ring, and then the result of that is stretched over one of the big rings (above). This is repeated 10 more times, and the final result is shown above, which contains 80 layers of stretched out silk cocoons. This is then air-dried and will eventually be part of the inside of a silk comforter.  

The result of the big ring is then stretched out into a large square that will eventually be the duvet. If you visit the factory, you get the chance to actually try and stretch out the silk, and trust me, this stuff is strong and its surprisingly difficult. It takes 100 layers of silk to make a single comforter (essentially, the result of 8000 cocoons). If you buy the comforter directly from the factory you can get a wholesale price, and it is actually very affordable (and guaranteed as 100% silk by the Chinese government, so no worries about it being fake). They are very light and warm, and I couldn't resist buying one during my second trip.

Whew! i hope that wasn't boring... it's actually very cool if you get to see it in person

Starting to Wrap Up Beijing...

Hey everybody! First of all, I want to apologize to anyone who has been sending emails to RBallard14@gmail.com. It hadn't occurred to me that it was the email sending out blog notifications, and I happen to rarely check that email address (my main email address is kovax14@comcast.net). I'll reply to all of you soon!

Second of all, I'm in Shanghai! However, before I move on to talk about Shanghai, I have a few things to wrap up with Beijing. 

The first thing is Yuan Ming Yuan (圆明园）, which roughly translates to English as the "Garden of Perfect Clarity". Construction for this old summer palace (which was originally known as the Imperial Gardens) began in 1707 and consists of three main gardens. The architectural style of the whole complex is very divergent from traditional Chinese architecture, and has a distinct Western influence as you will see.  The palace was, however, destroyed in 1860 during the Second Opium War. That it has since lain in ruins was entirely the decision of the Chinese government, whose intention for the site was that it would provide future generations with a reminder of foreign aggression against China. If you want to read more about its history, you may do so here: Yuan Ming Yuan (Old Summer Palace)

Here's the link to the album, and here's the slideshow: (take note of the print that shows the palace before it was destroyed)

The lotus flowers floating on the water in this garden are harvested and made into a special flower tea (花茶) that can be purchased at the gardens. I didn't buy any for myself but my host family bought a container of it so I was able to try it later on, and it was good！ 

This next slideshow shows the Temple of Heaven. It has been a while since I visited, so most of the particulars about its history are not clear in my mind. So since I would otherwise be paraphrasing from my favorite online encyclopedia, I might as well just give you the link if you are just that curious: Temple of Heaven

I will take note of one thing. As you will see in the photos there is a set of stairs leading up to the temple. The stairs are divided into three tiers, and each tier contains NINE stairs, which continues the trend that I started to explain in my post about the Forbidden City. Also, the Temple of Heaven is a popular place for Elderly people to come and do their morning exercises. You will usually see groups of people doing Tai Chi together or some kind of aerobics, and there are also usually several groups scattered throughout the park singing loud (and sometimes out of tune) karaoke...and shamelessly at that! Anyway, here's a link to the album, and here's the slideshow:

If you are interested, right outside the the gates to the Temple of Heaven park is a teahouse that performs tea very simple and traditional tea ceremonies that are worth stopping for. The tea of choice in Beijing is usually 茉莉花茶, or Green Tea infused with Jasmine Flowers. It's excellent.

This is a picture from the tea ceremony. Look a little bit left of the middle of the picture to see two glasses, a green one and a clear one with a brown thing floating inside. That thing is a ceramic sculpture of a little boy, fondly known as "The Pee-Pee Boy". He first has to float in cold water and fill up with water, and afterwards you stand him up and pour boiling water on his head and he shoots cold water out of a peculiarly shaped spout in his lower region. It actually shoots the water several meters, and the tea ceremony lady kept spraying me with it!  I got one free with my purchase, and when I get back I will do demonstrations at request.

I have two Beijing posts left in me, one is short and will probably be tomorrow, the other will have to wait because it contains several videos, and I won't be able to format the video files correctly until I get home (but the videos are awesome, so wait for it). After that I'll do some posts on Shanghai, and then probably one post each for Nanjing, Suzhou, and Zhou Zhuang (each of which is a different city or town)

The Forbidden City! (Palace Museum) 故宫博物院

The Forbidden City, known more often to local people of Beijing as 故宫博物院 "The Palace Museum", is usually the third thing that comes to foreigners' minds when they think of China...after the Great Wall of course, and Sweet and Sour Chicken (of which I have seen very little). The seat of imperial power during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the palace is a testament to their immense wealth and power. There are nearly 1000 buildings, and the entire palace complex inhabits a 720,000 square meter (that's 7.8 MILLION square feet) bloc of land adjacent to the infamous Tiananmen Square. To start off, here's a slideshow of some of the photos I took: 

COUNT THOSE FIGURINES!!

One of the first things I noticed upon coming to China was the importance of lucky numbers, and there are many. The wedding ceremony I went to on my first day here took place on the 18th which is of particular significance because it contains the number 8, which is lucky. I probably wouldn't have paid too much mind to this if it hadn't been that I saw no less than 5 "just married" cars--all from different weddings--while I was on the way to the particular one that I was attending. ANYWAY, so the figurines. These things were one of my favorite things about the forbidden city because they were everywhere and also had to do with the idea of lucky or proper numbers. This first picture shows the corner of a sloping rooftop with exactly 9 figurines (you don't count the figurine on either side of the inner 9)

9 was the number of the Emperor, and only he could have things with the number 9.  10 was regarded as a perfect number, but in their minds, to reach perfection meant that you were already on the path to decline. 9 was believed to be rather the symbol of excellence, the pursuit of perfection, and the supreme power of the emperor. All of the doors on the inner palace gates have 81 door knobs (9 rows of 9 knobs), and the palace was long-rumored to have 9,999 rooms in total, although a recent count put the number at just under 9,000.  Within the palace you can always distinguish which buildings were meant specifically for the Emperor (9 figurines), and which buildings were meant for the Empress (7 figurines, see below)

This next picture shows the Duixiu hill that was built inside the imperial garden. The hill is built of rocks, and has a staircase inside leading to the top where there is a pavilion. On the ninth day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar (notice a trend?), the Emperor and Empress would climb to the top to view the festivities of the Chongyang festival, and it was believed that doing so would protect their people from diseases in the coming year.

Okay, THIS was probably my actual favorite thing. This next picture shows one of the inner walls of the palace and several entryways. First of all, all of the inner and outer walls of the palace are 8 METERS THICK (26 feet). The center entryway was only ever to be used by the Emperor, and nobody else.  

This law was to be strictly adhered to, and anyone who broke it would be met with severe punishment (I'm not sure if anyone was ever so bold as to walk through his tunnel). Oh wait, I totally broke the law. If I were a LOLcat, I'd be this LOLcat:

Very clearly, not a law anymore

Now, if you don't know what a "LOLcat" is, that means you clearly haven't spent enough of your life procrastinating on the internet, so here's your chance!

Click here for LOLcats

and click here for EVEN MORE

FINAL VERDICT: The Forbidden City is AMAZING, and is an absolute must if you ever find yourself in Beijing.

The Silk Market! 秀水街

(The following dialogue is a typical exchange between a buyer and seller at the 秀水街 Silk Market in Beijing. Keep in mind that the exchange rate is about 6 or 7 RMB / Dollar)

“HANDSOME BOY! You want to buy polo Lauren shirt! Good quality, good quality! Washable Cotton! You understand washable, yes? Very special model, you won’t find this anywhere else!”

“这个蓝色的多少钱?”（How much for this blue one?）

“For you? I give you special price. If it was anybody else I give you this price (she pulls out her calculator and punches in the number 1350 RMB, which is about 200 dollars), but you are so handsome and you speak Chinese so I give you very, very special price! (punches in 600 RMB) Only for you! Only for you!”  

“虽然这个衬衫很好可是我觉得太贵了。50元怎么样?” (Although this shirt is very nice, I think it’s too expensive. How does 50 RMB sound ?)

“50 RMB! Are you crazy, I make no profit! You are so hard to bargain! Come, look—very good quality. Cotton! You are so handsome, this color—just for you! How about 400 RMB?”

“太贵了！” (Still too expensive!)

“Because you are so handsome and you speak so well Chinese, I give you my best price (she punches in 300 RMB into her calculator) Only for you!”

“不用了，谢谢” (Thanks, but—no thanks) At this point I strategically started to walk away, and she got really antsy.

“Ok Fine, 100 RMB!”

“60!”

“OK 80!”

“好的，我买这个衬衫” (Okay, I’ll buy it)

“Wow, you good bargainer!”

(End Dialogue, and FYI, this is a very abbreviated version, it can easily go back and forth for 10 minutes or more….it's really so much fun)

The Silk Market in Beijing can easily provide hours of amusement, as you might be able to tell. Some of the fake clothing is actually very convincing (I won’t tell you which ones are fake when I get back), but the real fun is not in the purchases, but in fact the purchasing. The silk market is an indoor venue that houses around 1700 vendors that sell everything from fake designer clothing (like for instance, Ralph Lauren polos, or items that are clearly just plain white t-shirts with a logo from Versace, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana etc.), to fake watches (which are “Automatic!!” –meaning that you have to shake them to make them work…well, kinda work for maybe a day or two, at which point the clock hands fall off), to handbags (genuine Plada bag! Good Quality!), to pearls (which generally are actually pearls), bedding, assorted jewelry, electronics(not recommended)….really, pretty much anything you could ever want. 

The vendors start out with absolutely ridiculous prices, and if you accept their initial offers, SHAME ON YOU. Their first prices are usually marked up 500% if not more, and it is really not that difficult to get down to 1/6 of their asking price, or even cheaper. Before going, I read several online bargaining guides specifically for this market, but it really just takes practice once you get there. (The techniques mentioned in the online guides are really effective!). This place is FULL of tourists from all over the world; I think they get something like 60,000 customers per day on the weekends.

When making deals with vendors, they do their best to keep the negotiated price a secret between the buyer and seller—that way, they might still have a chance of tricking other buyers into paying high prices. As such, they always punch the prices into a calculator rather than saying them out loud for others to hear. I did all my negotiating in Chinese, so we actually talked about the prices out loud (I guess they assume that most buyers won’t understand the Chinese), and I think I may have gotten some brownie points for using Chinese. They will compliment you to the end of the earth, and really do anything to make sure you buy it from them. Don’t believe them when they say things like “you can’t get this model anywhere else! Very special!” …because in reality you can find the same exact shirt at 30 or more different vendors. (AP Econ-ers: think perfectly competitive market!)

One word of caution, make sure to double check the quality of the particular item you are receiving before leaving the vendor. I was bullied by some vendors  (more like guilted, the girl pretended to cry!!) into buying a “real 100% cashmere very good quality” Burberry scarf, and the one they were showing me was actually pretty nice and soft. Just after I handed over my money, she told me, “Hold on, let me get you a nice new one, only for your 妈妈!”. I didn’t realize what she was up to and didn’t think to check the quality again, but when I got home I realized that the second one she gave me was total garbage…

It’s definitely worth it for the experience, I went twice! Just make sure to bring your bargaining cap and you’ll survive. Also, be polite and smile a lot, it goes a long way

The Great Wall at Simatai 司马台长城!!!

Ni Hao, everyone! I finally made it to the Great Wall of China! I'm going to post another slideshow here because the pictures will go way beyond my words, but I do have one word for you: GO! I'm serious--if you ever have the opportunity, don't miss out. There are several portions of the great wall that you can visit and each has its own distinct personality. The closest to Beijing is Badaling. It's the most well-restored portion, and it is also packed with tourists generally. I chose to do a little bit more of a trek and head over to Simatai, which is about 3 hours from Beijing. It's generally more popular among locals because its less touristy and more isolated. I enjoyed it because we were some of the only people on the wall that I could see for long stretches, so it was much more personal. That said, Simatai is also not as heavily restored (which I think is cooler anyways--more ancient looking), and it is known for extremely steep stairs, of which there are sometimes stretches of 400 in a row. If you are up for the workout though, Simatai is the best. So go. Here's the link to the pictures: The Great Wall of China at Simatai and here's the slideshow: 

So again I'll highlight a few key pictures:

First of all, I feel the need to introduce you to the local farmer lady in the orange hat, of whose name I'm not entirely sure. She followed us all the way up and back, and on the way she and I became best friends--gabbing endlessly about, oh I don't know, all the important details that make up the basis of any real friendship, like for instance which number tower we were on and just how hot it was outside. I was later deeply hurt when I came to terms with the fact that she was only using our friendship to gradually sell me her various wares. She wasn't shy to use the struggling peasant farmer story to soften me up--but I didn't buy it. Wait, just kidding, I totally bought her story, and also everything she tried to sell me. I did, however, benefit from the fact that she was eager to take photos of me with the great wall. So here's the woman herself, among other people.

If you are planning on venturing out to the Simatai portion of the Great Wall at some point, just something to take note of: the stairs are extremely steep and lengthy at certain points, as the next picture clearly shows. 

I actually had a can of spray paint in hand ready to write various and sundry chinese characters all over the wall, but then I saw this sign and immediately came to my senses. PHEW. Just something to keep in mind: if you are looking for a good place to practice some graffiti, The Great Wall just might not be it. 

This is the Great Wall by the way, maybe you've heard about it, or something.

O, HAI MOM! There's a huge dropoff behind me! But dont worry, this is just my latest endorsement deal with Coca Cola

The Summer Palace

So I'm going to start a series of sightseeing posts, in which I'll highlight some key things I enjoyed at each place, and provide links to my pictures, as well as a slideshow within the post. First of all, you can find all my pictures at this link: Russ Ballard's Picasa Web Albums , and also on my Facebook, if you have one. I have about 800 already to sort through at this point, and I'm trying to pick out the most representative ones, so I'll be gradually posting up more as I go. Anyway, here's the first slide show:

I'm not going to go into extensive detail about the history of the Summer Palace, but mostly because I was given a tour exclusively in Chinese courtesy of Lao Lao 牢牢 and Wai Gong 外公(grandmother and grandfather). I politely nodded and repeatedly commented "是吗?!" (Really!?) but for the most part I was baffled. If you are interested, I can recommend an incredibly reputable website that will give you a brief history-- Wikipedia:Summer Palace. (I hope you're reading this, Ms. Wassall!)

The pictures mostly speak for themselves, but here are a few that I think are particularly interesting:

In the background you can see the "Tower of the Fragrance of Buddha", which is really the centerpiece of the entire summer palace.  It stands at 41 meters high and consists of a three-storied octagonal structure. To get close enough to really see it you need to rent a boat and go out on Kunming Lake

This is the Marble Boat, or the Boat of Purity and Ease, whose solid marble frame was intended to represent the everlasting Qing dynasty. It was, however, destroyed during the second Opium war, and later restored. 

These guys were AMAZING. There's always tons of old men at the Summer Palace writing chinese poetry on the pathways. Some of them carry buckets of water to dip their brushes in, and some have water bottles attached that keep the tip damp I guess. Anyway, they write characters for hundreds of meters sometimes, its ridiculous.

This guy is extra cool because he does it double-time! Any of you who may have attempted traditional Chinese calligraphy before, you know its not easy--try doing it with this level of ambidexterity!

The Solution

So I solved America’s obesity problem yesterday. No big deal. Well, I guess it was maybe really China who solved it, but that's beside the point. Here’s the secret: fill every playground with exercise equipment in disguise. To add a note of subtlety, throw in a slide or two here and there to give it a semblance of an actual playground.

Exhibit A: The Elliptical

Exhibit B: The Leg-press

Exhibit C: The Rowing Machine (and one of those swivel machines in the background)

 

Aren't they just FUN and COLORFUL?! I’m serious though, I have seen maybe 4 or 5 playgrounds so far, and they all have the same equipment. The pictures I put up represent just a small sampling of the available equipment—there are maybe 10 or 15 different machines to choose from on each playground. Lewis was hopping from machine to machine like it was nobody's business, so I guess little kids really do enjoy it?

 It may seem pretty funny, but the reality is that their obesity rate is roughly a quarter of the United States’. So there you go

As a side note, here is the birthday card that Lewis gave to me :

Pretty much the cutest thing ever. He goes to a drawing class a few times a week, so he was totally showing off his mad 画画skills.

Earthquake Benefit Concert

So I need to backtrack a couple of days because I have been really busy/tired again and lazy about posting. On Thursday after work, I got ready to go to this earthquake benefit concert with several of my coworkers. Beforehand, we went to a restaurant near the concert venue, and it was the first time since I’ve been here that I have been able to identify a dish that we ate!

I am at least somewhat convinced that the dish on the left is sweet and sour chicken! (I was beginning to wonder if they actually had sweet and sour chicken in China or if it was only part of the westernized Chinese food repertoire)

Now here’s an interesting illusion. At the restaurant, every place setting has a shrink-wrapped set of plates and bowls etc. Now, you might think to yourself “Hey, these plates and bowls aren’t just sterile, they are brand new!” Think again. I mean, I’m sure they are sterile, but they have very clearly been more than gently used (even the chopsticks). I’m just curious where they are hiding this shrink-wrapping machine in the backroom.

As both a frequent passenger and pedestrian, I’ve been wondering about something every since I got to China, and I have finally narrowed down my conclusions to these: either there are no such things as traffic laws in China, or they are just wholly ignored by all parties involved. I mean we have our “right turns on red” law in the U.S. I guess, but I have observed an unwritten “Do whatever you want at red if nobody’s coming, or even if they are” law here. Pedestrians are more daring than I have ever seen—walking directly into fast moving traffic, and stopping in the middle of the road while cars whiz by on both sides—and the cars don’t pay them too much heed either.

What does oncoming traffic really mean anyway?

So on the way to the concert I was in the car with a guy who only speaks Chinese. Since our conversations were extremely limited, we decided instead to bond over a well-balanced blend of Jay-Z, Fiddy-Cent, Eminem, and Wyclef. You know, the good stuff.  He was eager to learn the Crip walk (apparently known as the C-walk in China), so I gave him a pre-concert tutorial.

 Ok, so the concert. Here’s a brief recap of some of the performances:

 This guy's name was Zheng Jun, and I have a feeling he’s a pretty big deal among Chinese teeny boppers, because everybody seemed to know the words. He did an all-Chinese rendition of Coldplay’s “Yellow”!

This next guy  (I forget his mingzi) seemed the most popular, because the audience desperately called for an encore at the end of his performance. Again, practically everyone knew all the words.

 

This woman—apparently not so popular. She made several desperate attempts to coax the audience into singing along, but was met with no response. Kinda awkward. She also made an attempt at starting an audience clap-along. It failed—again, awkward.

 

Now if all that wasn’t already enough, this next guy provided us with a taste of Chinese gangsta rap/reggae flava….

Some Pictures and other stuff

So yesterday I met up for dinner with someone who is also going to Georgetown next year. We became acquainted through the  Georgetown 2012 facebook group, and realized that we might cross paths in China! He lives in Nanjing, but happens to be in Beijing during this week while he's getting his visa for the fall. We went to a restaurant called 便宜坊（pianyi fang), and I had my first real Peking duck!

(Near downtown Beijing in the Chaoyang district, close to the restaurant)

Work is a little bit slow at the moment, because it is an entertainment-based company, and since the Sichuan earthquake most entertainment has slowed or been completely cut off. At the end of the day my supervisors invited me to go to a Chinese rock concert tomorrow night that will raise funds for the earthquake relief. 

Anyway, I'll have more pictures after the concert tomorrow, and a lot more after this weekend, as I will be doing some major sightseeing. For now, I figured I would at least post a few pictures of where I am staying:

The apartment complex from the outside

The living room / TV room

The Kitchen

.

My room (which needs some tidying)

So the family has a Wii and many games to go with it. For some reason, however, Lewis only plays this one mini-game in "Wii Play", over and over (the tank game, for anyone who has it). Now, I thought at first, 'hey I own this game too and have played it a fair bit, I should probably go easy on him'. Little did I know that it was pretty much the only game he has played in the last two months. So even when I started trying my absolute hardest, he beat me with a score of 70-odd to 10...

WATCH OUT! Things are getting intense!

(seriously, this kid has ridiculous amounts of energy, its awesome)

First Day of Work!

(river that I cross when I walk to my internship)

Today was my first day at my internship. I am working for a company called the “China Film Group Corporation” which is the leading film production company in China, according to Google. They also do some production for TV and are currently working on coverage of the earthquake crisis in the Sichuan province, as well as some pre-Olympics coverage. Today, my main task was research, and I spent a few hours perusing the New York Times and other American newspapers for information regarding the earthquake. I have also been polishing up several different letters that are being sent out to thousands of the company’s friends to encourage them to make donations to the earthquake cause. Additionally, the company had recently conducted a series of interviews with the Australian men’s Olympic swim team. Because of the heavy Australian accents, the people working here had difficulty transcribing the dialogue to translate for subtitles, so I helped out by listening to the interviews and transcribing them to English. (Though, to be honest it was a bit of a challenge even for me!).

 

I wasn’t aware beforehand, but at 2:28pm, the entire country stopped for 3 minutes of mourning for the victims of the earthquake (a staggering 50,000 people at current estimations). I have generally been accustomed to observing “moments of silence” in remembrance of those who have died, but this particular moment was quite the opposite. Everyone at work stood up at once and suddenly there was a deafening wailing noise coming from the outside. All traffic stopped, and millions of car horns and air raid sirens around the country blared for 3 minutes straight. The TV kept flashing clips of people crying over lost family members, and clips of military troops lining up in Tiananmen Square.  It was extremely eerie and intense.

 

I had a meeting with my boss today, and he was so cool! On the side of his regular work, he has been working for a number of years on an exhibition of photos relating to Jewish presence in the Harbin and Shanghai regions of China in the last century (of which I had no prior knowledge). During the early 20^th century, thousands of Jewish people fled Russia to the northernmost province of China called Harbin. Later on during World War II, at a time when the entire civilized world closed its doors on the Jews seeking refuge, Shanghai welcomed in 30,000 Jews without even requiring visas. At the time, Shanghai was occupied by Japan, and so the Chinese were under persecution. The Jewish and Chinese people formed a kinship over this commonality of persecution, and their good relations have carried over to present day. The exhibition consists of a compilation of 500 photos that he selected from over 10,000 photos, and it has been endorsed by the United Nations (In the past he met several times with Kofi Annan to negotiate to make the exhibition a reality). It is going to premiere in Los Angeles this June, and then it will travel to D.C., Boston (hosted by Harvard), New York (Hosted by Yeshiva University), and to several other U.S. cities.

 

This company does a lot to garner cultural exchange between the entertainment industries of different countries. My boss has attended the last few Academy Awards, and was struck by the fact that there has never been a Chinese broadcast from the red carpet. This past year he has been negotiating with the Chinese government to allow a Chinese crew to be present at the Oscars, and next year will be the first that the Chinese people will receive an all-Mandarin broadcast from the red carpet.

If all that wasn’t cool enough, one of his close friends is Jackie Chan. Badass, huh?

(Sorry this first post took so long--I've been really tired from the time change and just really busy in general...ill try to be more faithful)

I’m finally here in China! It has truly been a whirlwind of an experience right from the get go. The moment I stepped on the Air China flight, I was no longer part of the majority, but rather a 外国人(waiguo ren)，that is, a foreigner. Upon arriving, I had difficulty filling out the arrival card for the immigration checkpoint, having lost both my plane ticket and the address of where I would be staying. I sought out an employee and asked in Chinese: “请您可以帮我一下吗?”(qing nin keyi bang wo yi xia ma?), essentially asking for help. Apparently my simple question had given her the impression that I could in fact speak Chinese, and I was immediately met with a barrage of lightning fast Chinese. Shaking off the deer-in-headlights look from my face, I managed to figure things out in extremely broken Mandarin. Finally meeting up with my host mother, Helen, I took my first steps out into big bad Beijing. After a quick meal at a vegetarian restaurant we returned to their beautiful apartment and I fell fast asleep.

 

Anyway, today was quite an experience. I woke up around 4:45 because I couldn’t sleep from the time difference. Helen had told me that at some point today we would be attending a Chinese wedding, and I was really excited. I threw on some clothes and flip flops, and then the four of us (Helen, her husband Leo, her son Louis, and I) went out to Cantonese-style breakfast. It was by far the most elaborate breakfast I have ever eaten—mango and papaya porridge, shrimp dumplings, vegetable dumplings(教子),  cream puffs, custards, tropical fruits that I had never seen, among various other dishes I couldn’t describe—the table was covered. Walking out the door of the restaurant, I was informed that we would be going directly to the wedding from breakfast—I guess something must have gotten lost in translation, otherwise I probably would have thought to wear more than cargo shorts, a polo, and flip flops…(thankfully, as it turns out, Chinese weddings typically require much less formal attire, and my choice of clothing didn’t draw too much attention. However, the fact that I was the only non-Chinese person present did attract an intrigued stare from just about every person at the wedding)

 

Now, the last time I was at a wedding, I was young enough that I can hardly recall any specific details. Nonetheless, I can assure you, today’s wedding was COMPLETELY different than any I, and perhaps you may have been to. When I say different, I mean: fog machines, people dressed as angels walking around with candles, bubble machines, and an aisle lined with contraptions that started shooting sparks in the air when the bride and groom began walking towards the front. (I really wish I hadn’t forgotten my camera at home, it was quite a spectacle). Incessant jokes made by the MC, coupled with several impromptu singing performances from toddlers who stole his microphone filled the event with laughter and light-heartedness. After the bride and groom exchanged rings, and then kissed for as long as the audience continued clapping, they started to make their way around the room, stopping at each table of people.  As per tradition, they took a shot of rice wine with every guest present (that is, hundreds). A little confused as to how they were able to walk in a straight line after all the wine, I later found out that usually they simply take shots of water and pretend that it’s actually wine!  Though certainly not the type of wedding I’m accustomed to, I found it to be an exciting way to celebrate the union of two people.

 

Following the wedding, Helen brought us to her parents’ house because she had forgotten her set of keys for the apartment and had to wait for Leo to bring them. We started to walk through the gates into the neighborhood where her parents live, but I was suddenly stopped and told that I wasn’t allowed in under any circumstances. The neighborhood is guarded by military personnel, and for some reason foreigners are strictly forbidden to enter. Helen did what she could to reason with the guard, but eventually she went inside with Louis to drop him off with her parents, and then she and I went and sat in a teahouse while we waited. I found the whole situation far more intriguing than offensive. I had never been the subject of any kind of inhibiting racial discrimination in my life, and this gave me a real perspective about how people within even our own country face this in varying degrees on a daily basis.

 

Later on, we went with another family to go walk through the botanical gardens and throw around a Frisbee. It was incredibly beautiful, but I still didn’t have my camera with me, so I’ll talk about it later on when I have pictures to go with it.

 

Tomorrow is my fist day at my internship, and I will be working at a Chinese film production company that is called the “China Film Group Corporation”, so I will have more to talk about after that. Thanks for reading all of that if you did! I promise my posts won’t be all this long., and they will also feature more pictures. Goodnight!

 (P.S. if the formatting of my posts is kinda screwed up i'm sorry, for some reason I can only edit my blog and not actually see it, so i have no idea what it actually looks like)