Guys I am coming home tomorrow!
I've totally been meaning to post here over the past few days, but between the crunch of the final and the fervor of the Games starting and generally just trying to live up my last few days in Beijing, I haven't found the time. A full report to come once I'm safely States-side, though.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
t-10
Man, time flies. I've got less than a week and a half left to go before my flight back to the States, which is a weird thought. Plenty of things to do between now and then, though.
The past week has been pretty much the usual routine: class in the morning, lunch, language partner, internet/Everytime/nap, study, dinner, study, sleep. Luckily, the lesson topics have stayed reasonably interesting, and outside of class there's just enough variation and distraction to keep me happy.
Today I would like to introduce one of those distractions. Meet 泡泡:
(泡泡 is the fish.)
泡泡 is the protagonist of basically the best cartoon ever, 小鲤鱼历险记. Seriously. A friend and I spotted the series on DVD while out shopping a few weeks ago and bought it on a whim. The animation looked really good, and it was relatively cheap, so we bought it, despite it being entirely in Chinese. SO glad we did. It's as cute/awesome as it originally looked, and best of all -- I UNDERSTAND IT! Sure, there are things that go over my head, but I understand substantial portions of the dialogue, all the significant plot points, and even some of the more subtle jokes. It feels really good to be reaching that level of fluency.
Brief character rundown, using English transliterations because I'm lazy:
Paopao (the fish): the main character, who is ADORABLE. Recently obtained super bad-ass powers that let him turn invisible and things like that. Really loves bubbles (his name literally means 'bubbles').
Aku (the blue seahorse): a magician, who was kind of hot-headed and standoff-ish intially but has been getting more friendly over time. Also has bad-ass powers. His name loosely translates to "Mr. Cool".
Meimei (the jellyfish): a singer, who's generally very feminine and cute and helpless but also has a bit of a bitch streak when provoked. Her name is more-or-less "Miss Beautiful".
Shuang-mian-gui (the turtle): clumsy in an endearing way. He originally worked for the bad guys, but then fell in love with Meimei and switched sides. His name is actually a play on that fact: it literally means "two-sided (two-faced) turtle".
The bad guys are awesome too, and the whole show is /damn/ good for a children's cartoon, but I've given you more than enough boring info for now :P If you've got a spare minute, though, go take a quick look yourself -- it's well worth it. (I'm assuming that link will work outside of China. If not, well, dang.)
I've still got a lot of work to finish up tonight, so I think that'll have do for this post. I will leave you with this tidbit: I just checked, and I currently have 16 stickies (computerized post-it notes) on my computer monitor. I am becoming one of those people oh no
The past week has been pretty much the usual routine: class in the morning, lunch, language partner, internet/Everytime/nap, study, dinner, study, sleep. Luckily, the lesson topics have stayed reasonably interesting, and outside of class there's just enough variation and distraction to keep me happy.
Today I would like to introduce one of those distractions. Meet 泡泡:
(泡泡 is the fish.)
泡泡 is the protagonist of basically the best cartoon ever, 小鲤鱼历险记. Seriously. A friend and I spotted the series on DVD while out shopping a few weeks ago and bought it on a whim. The animation looked really good, and it was relatively cheap, so we bought it, despite it being entirely in Chinese. SO glad we did. It's as cute/awesome as it originally looked, and best of all -- I UNDERSTAND IT! Sure, there are things that go over my head, but I understand substantial portions of the dialogue, all the significant plot points, and even some of the more subtle jokes. It feels really good to be reaching that level of fluency.
Brief character rundown, using English transliterations because I'm lazy:
Paopao (the fish): the main character, who is ADORABLE. Recently obtained super bad-ass powers that let him turn invisible and things like that. Really loves bubbles (his name literally means 'bubbles').
Aku (the blue seahorse): a magician, who was kind of hot-headed and standoff-ish intially but has been getting more friendly over time. Also has bad-ass powers. His name loosely translates to "Mr. Cool".
Meimei (the jellyfish): a singer, who's generally very feminine and cute and helpless but also has a bit of a bitch streak when provoked. Her name is more-or-less "Miss Beautiful".
Shuang-mian-gui (the turtle): clumsy in an endearing way. He originally worked for the bad guys, but then fell in love with Meimei and switched sides. His name is actually a play on that fact: it literally means "two-sided (two-faced) turtle".
The bad guys are awesome too, and the whole show is /damn/ good for a children's cartoon, but I've given you more than enough boring info for now :P If you've got a spare minute, though, go take a quick look yourself -- it's well worth it. (I'm assuming that link will work outside of China. If not, well, dang.)
I've still got a lot of work to finish up tonight, so I think that'll have do for this post. I will leave you with this tidbit: I just checked, and I currently have 16 stickies (computerized post-it notes) on my computer monitor. I am becoming one of those people oh no
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
the thoughts you think become unthunk
Things that have happened:
The Chinese speech contest was cancelled! Apparently because of the Olympics, you now need to apply for a special permit for any gathering of over 100 people. Hmm. That's...mildly unnerving, Beijing. I do not approve.
In better news, though: yesterday some friends and I stumbled across a /wonderful/ little Western pizza-bar-type restaurant about ten minutes' walk from the dorms. /Amazingly/ good and cheap to boot -- I got half a Hawaiian pizza and side of fries for 20元 (about $3), which is pretty decent for Beijing. The decor's really nice, too: it's a brick place where you're encouraged to write all over the walls, so the entire building is covered in awesome Chinese graffiti. I will bring my camera next time. You will appreciate it.
As far as actual study goes...well, I've been starting to feel a leet-le bit burned out over the past couple days. I think it was a turning point when I actually had to go buy a new notebook because I'd used up the first one practicing vocab. Beh. Luckily, though, today I hit a bit of a second wind, and now I'm feeling a bit better. Hopefully it'll be enough to carry me through these last 2+ weeks :P
Actually, today I felt sort of revitalized about life in general? I thought a lot about maybe taking a year off -- spending some time in the real world figuring out what it is I want to do with this whole Yale education business. It might be good to gather my thoughts once I finish my sophomore year. I spent the afternoon researching about a hundred different things: spending a full semester in China on the Light Fellowship, apartments and jobs in various cities, how much it would actually cost to support myself out in the wild. I mean, it's just a vague idea right now (don't freak out, parents), but I like it a lot. Something to mull over the course of this year.
Finally, check out what I bought over the weekend:
an extra life! useful in china.
Yes, I /am/ just that cool.
The Chinese speech contest was cancelled! Apparently because of the Olympics, you now need to apply for a special permit for any gathering of over 100 people. Hmm. That's...mildly unnerving, Beijing. I do not approve.
In better news, though: yesterday some friends and I stumbled across a /wonderful/ little Western pizza-bar-type restaurant about ten minutes' walk from the dorms. /Amazingly/ good and cheap to boot -- I got half a Hawaiian pizza and side of fries for 20元 (about $3), which is pretty decent for Beijing. The decor's really nice, too: it's a brick place where you're encouraged to write all over the walls, so the entire building is covered in awesome Chinese graffiti. I will bring my camera next time. You will appreciate it.
As far as actual study goes...well, I've been starting to feel a leet-le bit burned out over the past couple days. I think it was a turning point when I actually had to go buy a new notebook because I'd used up the first one practicing vocab. Beh. Luckily, though, today I hit a bit of a second wind, and now I'm feeling a bit better. Hopefully it'll be enough to carry me through these last 2+ weeks :P
Actually, today I felt sort of revitalized about life in general? I thought a lot about maybe taking a year off -- spending some time in the real world figuring out what it is I want to do with this whole Yale education business. It might be good to gather my thoughts once I finish my sophomore year. I spent the afternoon researching about a hundred different things: spending a full semester in China on the Light Fellowship, apartments and jobs in various cities, how much it would actually cost to support myself out in the wild. I mean, it's just a vague idea right now (don't freak out, parents), but I like it a lot. Something to mull over the course of this year.
Finally, check out what I bought over the weekend:
an extra life! useful in china.
Yes, I /am/ just that cool.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
internet filters ENGAGE
Guess who finally had the massive Tibet/Taiwan/human rights/censorship/American views of China conversation with his language partner today?
Lots of interesting stuff to discuss, but right now I gotta study for tomorrow's test. I'll post more about it this weekend, if I decide I'm not afraid of the Chinese internet police; otherwise I can always write a nice long entry on paper :P
Lots of interesting stuff to discuss, but right now I gotta study for tomorrow's test. I'll post more about it this weekend, if I decide I'm not afraid of the Chinese internet police; otherwise I can always write a nice long entry on paper :P
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
downloading: 50% complete
Guess who's not a failure! We just got our grades back for first semester, and I managed to pass all of my classes. (Yes, all one of them.) So...I'm halfway done! w00t!
Studying for my 'final' sort of dominated my life all last week, but as soon as that was out of the way, I got to head out on a weekend trip to the glorious SHANXI PROVINCE
Check out all that...majesty.
SHANXI QUICK FACTZ:
- Name in characters: 山西
- English translation: "west mountains" (and/or "west of the mountains". I should look at a map.)
- Not to be confused with: 陕西
- Famous for: lots of cool ancient things
- Population: I don't know, I can't access Wikipedia
- Awesome?: yes
So yeah, the Shanxi trip was really good, even though I spent a good portion of the time cringing at how touristy we all looked. (I still have trouble sometimes with the fact that I'm such an obvious 白人 -- people tend to assume I'm here for tourism/the Olympics, which can get mildly frustrating.) Still, all the places we went were really interesting, and a lot more /natural/ than many of the places closer to Beijing (which is in the midst of a renovation frenzy).
The first place we went was Yungong Grottoes, which is home to a series of massive cave-shrines, mostly to Buddha, carved into the side of a mountain over the last thousand years or so. Pictures were banned pretty much everywhere, so I wasn't able to snap a picture of the 17-meter tall Buddha surrounded by dozens of other intricate sculptures and inscriptions. I did, however, snag a pic of this city wall pit for size comparison:
See the little people at the top? This pit was 15 meters deep. To repeat myself, the largest Buddha we saw was /17/ meters tall. Kinda big.
Next on the itinerary was:
Yeah, fear of heights would be a problem here.
The Hanging Monastery, which is a pretty accurate name -- it's built on the side of a cliff. I am...curious how exactly the Chinese did this, X00 years ago. I am guessing it involved some accidental death. Nonetheless, climbing up there was really nice (getting exercise in a place without horrible pollution!), and the view was pretty fantastic, even if we had to rush a bit to get back to the bus.
It was worth rushing, though, to get to the Wooden Pagoda:
Can you count all nine floors? It's pretty tricky from the outside.
This was my favorite thing all weekend, even though we spent literally thirty minutes there before leaving. To begin with: it's a 900 year-old pagoda (one of the younger sites we visited actually) that's still standing strong and still looks amazing. Secondly, it's that old and it's entirely made of wood -- no nails, no iron supports, nothing.
"But Ryan," you ask, out loud for some unexplained reason, "then why hasn't it been totally 0wn3d by insects and the like?"
BECAUSE IT'S THE MOST OLD SCHOOL AVIARY EVER.
Unfortunately you can barely see them in my pictures, and you /definitely/ can't see them once the pictures have been shrunk for the web, but the tower is surrounded by thousands of birds, flying and cawing and doing everything else that birds do. People are only allowed on the bottom two floors because the birds own everything else. Birds inhabit the top seven floors -> birds eat all the bugs and then some -> no wood damage. Sweeeet.
My pictures are not going to do it any justice, unfortunately, but it was absolutely breath-taking, gazing up at this towering, ancient thing with several thousand birds swooping around overhead, unwittingly protecting it. It was like something out of a movie with /really/ good artistic direction and a massive budget, except that, um, it exists in real life and it just sort of happened by itself. SO COOL. Unfortunately, the pagoda's started to lean to the side over the past fifty years or so, and the Chinese government is looking into restorations that might include sturdier materials than just wood. (I guess they don't want it cramping the Tower of Pisa's style, or maybe they don't want people to die or something.)
After the Wooden Pagoda, we settled in for the night at a little inn in Pingyao. In the morning we set out for Jin Ci, a famous old garden-type place with some beautiful landscapes, a bunch of ancient sculptures, and oh, you know, 3000 year-old poetry, that kinda stuff.
See if you can find the character for 'person'.
More ancient wooden things! This guy was several hundred years old.
Only complaint for the weekend: soooo much bus-riding. I expected that going in (after all, Shanxi is a province, not a city), but it's one thing to know what you're getting into and another to spend 18 hours on a bus designed for people much shorter than you. Beh. My knees are feeling better now, though.
Other late-breaking news, before I get cracking on tonight's vocab:
- I've been asked to be in a Chinese speech contest? Apparently there's some sort of friendly/rivalrous face-off between all the US-based Chinese programs every year, and 大流老师 thinks I'm the best candidate for the third-years. Fame and fortune await?
- Speaking of third-years, guess who's started reading Harry Potter in Chinese? (Or 哈利・波特, as it's called here -- hooray for transliteration.) While we were traveling this weekend, I spent about three hours with the first book and a dictionary, and managed to fight through most of the first chapter before finally setting it aside. So woo! Looks like I may have an activity for the plane ride home next month.
- I really want a hamburger -- not 麦当劳, the actual thing. I think I might scrounge some people up to go looking for the nearest Grandma's Kitchen this weekend, which would be /wonderful/.
That's it!
Studying for my 'final' sort of dominated my life all last week, but as soon as that was out of the way, I got to head out on a weekend trip to the glorious SHANXI PROVINCE
Check out all that...majesty.
SHANXI QUICK FACTZ:
- Name in characters: 山西
- English translation: "west mountains" (and/or "west of the mountains". I should look at a map.)
- Not to be confused with: 陕西
- Famous for: lots of cool ancient things
- Population: I don't know, I can't access Wikipedia
- Awesome?: yes
So yeah, the Shanxi trip was really good, even though I spent a good portion of the time cringing at how touristy we all looked. (I still have trouble sometimes with the fact that I'm such an obvious 白人 -- people tend to assume I'm here for tourism/the Olympics, which can get mildly frustrating.) Still, all the places we went were really interesting, and a lot more /natural/ than many of the places closer to Beijing (which is in the midst of a renovation frenzy).
The first place we went was Yungong Grottoes, which is home to a series of massive cave-shrines, mostly to Buddha, carved into the side of a mountain over the last thousand years or so. Pictures were banned pretty much everywhere, so I wasn't able to snap a picture of the 17-meter tall Buddha surrounded by dozens of other intricate sculptures and inscriptions. I did, however, snag a pic of this city wall pit for size comparison:
See the little people at the top? This pit was 15 meters deep. To repeat myself, the largest Buddha we saw was /17/ meters tall. Kinda big.
Next on the itinerary was:
Yeah, fear of heights would be a problem here.
The Hanging Monastery, which is a pretty accurate name -- it's built on the side of a cliff. I am...curious how exactly the Chinese did this, X00 years ago. I am guessing it involved some accidental death. Nonetheless, climbing up there was really nice (getting exercise in a place without horrible pollution!), and the view was pretty fantastic, even if we had to rush a bit to get back to the bus.
It was worth rushing, though, to get to the Wooden Pagoda:
Can you count all nine floors? It's pretty tricky from the outside.
This was my favorite thing all weekend, even though we spent literally thirty minutes there before leaving. To begin with: it's a 900 year-old pagoda (one of the younger sites we visited actually) that's still standing strong and still looks amazing. Secondly, it's that old and it's entirely made of wood -- no nails, no iron supports, nothing.
"But Ryan," you ask, out loud for some unexplained reason, "then why hasn't it been totally 0wn3d by insects and the like?"
BECAUSE IT'S THE MOST OLD SCHOOL AVIARY EVER.
Unfortunately you can barely see them in my pictures, and you /definitely/ can't see them once the pictures have been shrunk for the web, but the tower is surrounded by thousands of birds, flying and cawing and doing everything else that birds do. People are only allowed on the bottom two floors because the birds own everything else. Birds inhabit the top seven floors -> birds eat all the bugs and then some -> no wood damage. Sweeeet.
My pictures are not going to do it any justice, unfortunately, but it was absolutely breath-taking, gazing up at this towering, ancient thing with several thousand birds swooping around overhead, unwittingly protecting it. It was like something out of a movie with /really/ good artistic direction and a massive budget, except that, um, it exists in real life and it just sort of happened by itself. SO COOL. Unfortunately, the pagoda's started to lean to the side over the past fifty years or so, and the Chinese government is looking into restorations that might include sturdier materials than just wood. (I guess they don't want it cramping the Tower of Pisa's style, or maybe they don't want people to die or something.)
After the Wooden Pagoda, we settled in for the night at a little inn in Pingyao. In the morning we set out for Jin Ci, a famous old garden-type place with some beautiful landscapes, a bunch of ancient sculptures, and oh, you know, 3000 year-old poetry, that kinda stuff.
See if you can find the character for 'person'.
More ancient wooden things! This guy was several hundred years old.
Only complaint for the weekend: soooo much bus-riding. I expected that going in (after all, Shanxi is a province, not a city), but it's one thing to know what you're getting into and another to spend 18 hours on a bus designed for people much shorter than you. Beh. My knees are feeling better now, though.
Other late-breaking news, before I get cracking on tonight's vocab:
- I've been asked to be in a Chinese speech contest? Apparently there's some sort of friendly/rivalrous face-off between all the US-based Chinese programs every year, and 大流老师 thinks I'm the best candidate for the third-years. Fame and fortune await?
- Speaking of third-years, guess who's started reading Harry Potter in Chinese? (Or 哈利・波特, as it's called here -- hooray for transliteration.) While we were traveling this weekend, I spent about three hours with the first book and a dictionary, and managed to fight through most of the first chapter before finally setting it aside. So woo! Looks like I may have an activity for the plane ride home next month.
- I really want a hamburger -- not 麦当劳, the actual thing. I think I might scrounge some people up to go looking for the nearest Grandma's Kitchen this weekend, which would be /wonderful/.
That's it!
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