thailand tomorrow night...

...but midterms tomorrow morning!

i dislike this type of situation, because while getting super excited for my trip, i am also stressing about my test. my mind is just running in every different direction. anyways, i figured i'd take a little break from it all and write some quick notes about this week.

on monday, caroline mallory and i had dinner with a few thai friends that i made in the dorm. like i've said, BLCU is practically a united nations and you can meet anyone! i met "benz" (english name?) at the campus cell phone store early in the semester. i helped him buy a phone card and we stayed in touch after that. he and his friends were charming, SO excited for our trip to thailand, and wished they could come along. we left dinner looking forward to meeting more people like them :)

this week we've generally buckled down for school (an essay for econ, a presentation in sociology, and the chinese midterm tomorrow) but another fun outing was our class trip to sanlitun village for film class. thanks to our superstar professor who has co-directed films with chen kaige, we got a VIP tour of a chinese film poster exhibition. the famous, hong kong-based collector has tons of posters (domestic and international) from the 1940s onward. here's some old school bruce lee...


...and a german poster for zhang yimou's "red sorghum" (i think). red sorghum features my favorite chinese actress, gong li. ironically, i first encountered her as hatsumomo in "memoirs of a geisha," which was her first english film, but takes place in japan. i read her biography because we keep coming upon her in class. she has played hugely important roles in modern chinese film, thanks to her guanxi with director zhang.


another event that has dominated this week is the philadelphia phillies playoff series with the san francisco giants. those of you who have skyped with me know (by the excessive phillies paraphanelia on the walls), my roommate jen is a die-hard phanatic. she has been getting up at 4 am or 7 am daily to watch the games live-streamed on espn.com. i admire this and am downplaying my california residence out of sheer fear... eeyore, bear, and the phanatic might strangle me in my sleep.



so that's it for this week. boo studying (ok not really, because everything continues to be really interesting). yay thailand! i can't wait to share stories and pictures next monday. hope everyone has a safe and fun halloween at home! eat chocolate for me because there is a severe lack of it in the chinese diet!

thank you note

today i emailed a heartfelt thank you note to my shanghai roommate, sue, who sent the world expo uniform gift. SHE IS THE BEST. as i wrote, i realized one of the most rewarding things about my chinese progress: that i can better express my gratitude to her and others who have been so good to me along the way. just for kicks, i threw my email into the google translator after i sent it. i think you will (1) get the general idea (2) laugh a little! i enjoy mistranslated signs and t-shirts as much as the next girl, but i now empathize a bit more with their authors...

original text:

我亲爱的室友！

我怎么会谢谢你？！ 昨天下午收到了你真特别的礼物。现在，我也会当小白菜了！我没想到这么好的i事情。你对我太好了。我用 skype 给妈妈看看，她同意，真是最好的上海纪念品。她也谢谢你。

我的语伴帮了我翻译你的信。当然，你的意思几乎让我哭点儿。。。 我们俩太容易哭！我听着你的话，热情地学习汉语，交中国朋友，帮助我美国同学们。

我希望你还好，不太忙，不太累。担心你。。。又学习又教汉语。你的 alliance 学生怎么样？希望他们努力上课。啊！fish 怎么样？告诉她把，我也想念她。

发给我的爱！你的室友，
grace

ps: 通过你和我语伴的帮助，我决定了12月考汉语水平考试！我努力准备可是很害怕！

google translation:

My dear roommate!

How can I thank you? ! You're yesterday afternoon received a special gift. Now, I will when the cabbage it! I did not expect such a good i thing. You too good to me. I use skype to see my mother, she agreed that Shanghai is really the best souvenirs. She also thank you.

My language helped me with translation of your letter. Of course, you mean to almost make me cry a little. . . We were too easy to cry! I hear you, passion to learn Chinese, Chinese friends, to help my American classmates.

I hope you're all right, not too busy, not too tired. Worried about you. . . And learning and teaching Chinese. Your students how to alliance? Want them to class. Ah! how about fish? Tell her, I miss her.

Send me the love! Your roommate,
grace

ps: you and me through with the help of language, I decided to HSK 12 monthly exam! I try to prepare but very afraid!

a fall weekend in photos

three posts in one day? i need to find another pastime while avoiding my homework on a gloomy fall day in beijing...

here's a little photo journal of our weekend, since my blog has been photo starved lately:

beijing skipped fall and went straight from summer to winter! this is the view of the basketball/tennis courts and confucius statue, on the way to class. it's picturesque with the leaves changing... but TOO cold! i learned this week, from my language partner, that the central government mandates when everybody can turn their heat on in china. so even though nights are in the 30s now, we all await the magic date. usually, that is november 15th, unless the party benevolently breaks the rules because of a crazy blizzard, etc.


the track (where old people do their walking/slapping exercises, and students play pick up soccer) and the gym... i will soon devote a post to "going to the gym in china" because it is so different and entertaining.


everybody bustling to class on foot or by bike. the entire country had the week off for the national holiday, but then had to return to work and school on saturday and sunday to make up for it. what kind of country is this!


caroline's 22nd birthday was friday night, so we celebrated at the usual wudaokou establishments, solutions and propaganda. they both cater to the hundreds of international students that come from tsinghua, peking university, beijing foreign language university, and our very own beijing language and culture university. seems like a little compromise... study the chinese way and we'll let you party the american way!


why 7 eleven, you ask? in sociology we are studying the rampant smoking problem in china, and in the nightlife we are experiencing it firsthand. when we've have been suffocated by second hand on the dance floor, we emerge for a break outside to drink and socialize (fast! before we freeze)


never fear, we were productive students on saturday, climbing the hill in jingshan park for this amazing view of the forbidden city smack in the middle of beijing.


also in the park, supposedly the very tree where the last ming emperor hanged himself when the manchus overran beijing and founded the qing dynasty. prof ferchen pointed this landmark out as an element in china's "national humiliation" narrative which is so important to its self-identity and outlook in foreign affairs.


in a central beijing residential area, an old-school olympic countdown poster from the "civilization campaign" to prepare beijing its 2008 coming out party.


weekend ping pong and ma jong in a park in the hutong residential area.

what's news

i have now devoted one semester at GW and two semesters in shanghai and beijing toward understanding china and its relationship with the united states. one of the coolest things about being IN china is that it is ten times easier to keep up on china news, and to see the rest of the world through china's eyes. information is always flooding in, but here are some quick examples from this week and their sources:

facebook (via my private VPN), wall street journal.com, sociology class discussion - chinese dissident liu xiaobo winning the nobel peace prize, the chinese government refusing meetings with the norwegian government, the placement of liu's wife under house arrest. none of this has been publicized in the chinese media. professor ferchen told us that when he asked his chinese students at tsinghau university about it, they chuckled and said they were aware of it (through less official internet sources). however, when i asked my language partner what she thought about it, she (a graduate student at a prestigious chinese university) didn't know what the nobel prize was, so i didn't get very far.

CNN international - just a day after the miners were rescued in chile, 20 miners were killed and another 17 are trapped in a henan province mine. in china, about 2000 miners die in accidents every year, but that's down from the 7000/yr of a decade ago. this is interesting because, in response to the chile media coverage, chinese people expressed skepticism in online message boards that miners in china would ever receive such attention or assistance. they guessed that those miners would have been dead men if they were in china. we'll find out.

CCTV english channel - protests in three major cities against japanese claims to the dioyu islands and the recent fishing boat controversy in sino japanese relations. also covered responding protests in tokyo, noting that they were led by a japanese military official who was sacked for publishing an essay denying japan as an aggressor in WWII. at least he was sacked... also, coverage of the shanghai world expo on the palestine pavilion's special exhibition day. the pavilion emphasized palestine's commitment to harmony, peace, and environmental protection, as well as it's "two major cities," bethlehem and jerusalem. not exactly how that information would be presented in the US but an interesting perspective. also note that my chinese teacher over the summer had never heard of "israel" as a country, only a terrorist group that had attacked palestine.

CCTV chinese channel - excitement over the announcement of kim jong-il's successor (his son) as the "dear leader" of north korea, coverage of the festivities in pyongyang. china is perhaps north korea's only friend. intriguingly, didn't make it into the news on CCTV english channel.

sociology class discussion - china cutting off sale of "rare earths" (periodic table elements that are difficult to find but key for high technology like hybrid vehicles) to japan, japan looking into filing a WTO suit. china is the only major source of these elements, but their indignation over the recent fishing boat controversy motivated this move. the rest of the world sees this is china throwing its weight around in asia and bullying its neighbors. my prof called it an awful foreign policy move. not in the chinese news.

anyways, trying to soak it all up! in the process, confirming (and disproving) some of the things i have learned about chinese censorship in the past. the most interesting thing to note is that if you have a computer, can read english semi-fluently, and can find some way around the great fire wall (there are proxies and other options) you can find out just about anything here. then again, those are all significant barriers. i also try to keep in mind that the world press freedom index rates USA as 20th and PRC as 168th out of 175 countries. so even though the distance is mind-boggling, we aren't perfect either!

studies in building 17

per my grandma's request, today i am writing about my academic routine at BLCU and my living situation in 留学生宿舍17号楼, or International Student Dormitory Building #17. i know these topics tend to fall by the wayside so i am glad for the opportunity!

i am much busier with school than i was during the summer, no surprise there. in shanghai, i had three hours of chinese each morning, and two additional hours some afternoons. here in beijing, i have three hours of chinese each morning from mon-wed (in almost exactly the same format), then i have english-taught classes in the afternoon. so my current schedule is:

M: Chinese 9-12
T:: Chinese 9-12, Contemporary Chinese Society 2-5 pm
W: Chinese 9-12, Chinese Culture through Film 4-7 pm
R: 1-on-1 meeting with Chinese teacher for 30 min. in the morning, Chinese Economy 2-5 pm
F: Chinese test or presentation 9-11 (alternates biweekly)

i knew the expectations of this program before i applied, but i can't help being a little bitter toward my peers who are "studying" abroad in europe and somehow doing a LOT less studying.... teehee.

in earnest, i'm not complaining at all, because those who know me know that i am a student to the core. i am loving these classes and their required readings. i participate vocally in all my classes (hopefully not too vocally). the classes are also convenient... chinese meets in a classroom ON our floor, IN our dormitory. english classes meet in a building across campus (pictured below) but it's only a 15 minute walk. the campus cafeteria, dry cleaner/tailor, fruit market and post office are all super convenient as well.


so far, one of the highlights of the sociology class has been looking back on the mao era, for both negative AND positive aspects. this reading and discussion challenged me because of my hatred (sorry, strong word) for mao. i tend to demonize and oversimplify this era, easy to do with the historical evidence against things like the leap and cultural revolution, and my own liberty-oriented political leanings, which revile authoritarian regimes. but i think this discussion helped me reflect more into that era and step into the shoes of people who were just desperate to lift China up and make it better.

now we are talking about more modern topics; the most interesting so far is the "human flesh search," a contemporary phenomenon that actually resembles the cultural revolution in some ways [read here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Human-t.html]. people use the internet to find and condemn people who have "done wrong" (it could be anything, but especially deadly if political). netizens then publicly reveal that person's information online, leading to all kinds of vigilante abuse... vandalism, blackmail, threatening phone calls, dismissal from jobs, osctracism, etc. it's terrifying and also helps me understand the cultural revolution in hindsight...some Chinese feel they have the right to do this (others find it despicable).

the professor himself is the highlight of the film class. professor teng is a prominent member of china's film industry, so it's a huge privilege to learn about it from him. he is the co-director of Chen Kaige's internationally renowned "Farewell My Concubine," which we watched last wednesday in class. this wednesday, he is taking us to a film festival in downtown beijing, which should be really exciting. the films we have watched so far have all been amazing (lei feng, hibiscus town, farewell). so far, i have mainly taken away (1) the complexity and trauma of china's modern history, (2) the continuing search and mystery for china's modern identity.

wahhh this is turning into a novel! last thing: building 17 as an environment for all these studies. this is bound to be humorous because building 17 is quite a unique place. it houses a mishmash of foreign students so there is a world's worth of odd, college-student behavior. trendy japanese students are always on the go, in and out of the gate. as you approach the building, there are scantily-dressed french and italian students smoking and drinking outside. there are asian brits talking on their cell phones, which is always disarming because of the accent! you pass the internet cafe next to the lobby, where spanish girls are chattering into their skype cameras and drinking expresso. in the lobby, african students chill or hit the convenience store for snacks. in the elevator, korean girls who only leave their rooms in groups to get instant noodles.

our floor, for some reason, is dominately russian. this is entertaining but also leaves jen and i with the following complaints: second-hand smoke through our shower fan, drunken underwear-clad cat fights at all hours, REALLY loud female neighbors with even louder cell phone ringtones (dj khaled & ludacris, "all i do is win"), and people walking down the hall wearing full animal pelts as the weather gets colder. our question: are these people really studying chinese?

anyway, grandma, this is not meant to worry you. jen and i get everything we need to done in our cozy room! we love our living space and get along perfectly as roommates (keep totally different hours, but we both sleep like rocks, so it's a non-issue). we are also in the same chinese level (301) so we can practice speaking and do our homework together. altogether, it's a ideal situation!

maximum cuteness

this long overdue video (courtesy of justin soh) records our first encounter with the tibetan school children we visited in tongren, qinghai.

when we arrived, the kiddos were curious but mostly afraid of us... irresponsive even to outstretched hands offering candy and notebooks! watch to see how peter "solved" the problem and instigated the most adorable scene ever. this will make your day!

你永远的朋友。。。

translation: your friend forever

today i received yet another item in the mail from su wenjun (aka "sue"), my roommate in shanghai. since our traumatic parting back in august (tears, hugs, the whole bit), we have kept up exchanging text messages, phone calls, post cards, and packages. after mom and dad's visit she received a ridiculous amount of american instant jello pudding powder in the mail. as i have more time to reflect on the summer, i continue to realize just how much i learned through sue's instruction, plus just hanging out with her!

in the beginning, my chinese was so elementary that i couldn't even present her with my roommate gift on the first night! i said something along the lines of "happy meet you. t-shirt. california university. close to my house. parents there meet. give you." ouch...

when i reverted to english in the following days, sue made it clear that we were going to obey the language pledge. even though i was intimidated, i agreed because i too was desperate to improve. we discovered that it was hard for me to learn words just from hearing them in conversation. so from then on, she made me/helped me write every single word that i needed to use down in a notebook so i could studying visually too.

most importantly, we started EATING together! most nights a week, i would go out to dinner with her and her friends from school. sue is kind of like me in the sense that she is a hard-core nerd but hangs out with a variety of people... her friends also include easy-going athletes, hyper korean exchange students, and one certain hilarious, pudgy girl named "fish." from hanging out with all these people, i learned about what to eat, where to shop, how chinese students kick back, what they think of american tv, when the cheapest time slots to go to karaoke are, etc.

nothing can teach a girl to talk like gossip, and that proved to the capstone of this learning process. if we missed our dinner dates, sue and i would at least engage in a little "ba gua" in the evening, to catch up on the personal lives of ourselves and our friends ;)

i am spewing all this nostalgia because: sue's gift today was a Shanghai World Expo official student volunteer uniform. here's a photo taken with my laptop tonight, and below, one taken in our shanghai dorm back in august. sarah and i were sending her off to volunteer like proud parents on the first day of school!



it goes without saying, this gift is meaningful to me in so many different ways. among them: the pride and excitement chinese people feel toward the expo and the little piece of modern history that the uniform embodies, the significance of volunteering to sue herself, the fact that she is still thinking of me 2 months later even though she has new alliance roommates and students, the memory of making fun of her because expo uniforms notoriously resemble "xiao baicai" or small white cabbages...

okay. as sue would say... 过分了！ enough! i am getting too sentimental and need to study. AND think of some way to adequately 表示感谢, or show my gratitude, to the coolest roomie ever.

busy week back

the purpose of this post is to review our first week back from qinghai. i'm sorry if my writing makes zero sense this evening! our russian neighbors are at it again. at what, you might ask? jen and i wish we could tell you, but we don't know either.

on sunday, i was enchanted YET AGAIN with the opportunity to meet up with hong and liu, friends (1) met in namsto (2) ran into again in lhasa (3) spent a day with in xining (4) visited AGAIN in xining during our class trip to qinghai (5) now vacationing in beijing! every time i see them, it feels like the happiest dream. we went to the summer palace and had dinner in wangfujing.


on monday, we didn't attend our normal chinese classes. instead, we divided into groups and created power point presentations about our adventures in qinghai province. my group included peter (ke bi de), sam (dou da wei), justin (su wei jie), lauren (xiao ju, or sheng dan lao ren), and myself (wu xian fang). lauren's chinese nickname is funny... it began as "lao ren," which sounds like "lauren" and means "old person." it became "sheng dan lao ren," which means santa clause but is literally "christmas old person." on tuesday, we presented our photos and stories to our teachers, in chinese of course! even the students who have only been studying chinese since our arrival spoke about places we went and things we did. pretty impressive.

on tuesday, jen had a friend and fellow temple university friend visit. isabelle is studying abroad in tokyo, but came down for a trip in china and stopped through beijing. they went out together during the day, then in the evening we all chilled in the room for a bit. at one point i noticed her full name on a notecard, isabelle bourdain. because i am a devout travel channel fan (and a creep in general) i casually asked "bourdain. like anthony bourdain!" and she replied "ya that's my uncle." it totally made sense! she resembles him, same new york attitude... i was starstruck. i tried not to pry but i was SO CURIOUS about "uncle tony" and his life before the show (travel channel's "no reservations"). she confirmed that he was indeed a junkie earlier in life but was the coolest uncle ever. she would stay over on weekends and he let her do anything she wanted. ahhhh!

ok back to china. on wednesday and thursday we returned to the normal schedule of chinese in the a.m. and english classes in the p.m. in film, we watched "Hibiscus Town," one of the first films to be made about the cultural revolution (released 1986). it's a GREAT film to watch... especially if you are even slightly interested in china. it completely exceeded my expectations. in econ we talked about a bunch of things, but the most interesting pertained to current events, namely the great international debate over china's currency and its recent developments.

wednesday was also faith's birthday (a program mate). we went nowhere other than HELEN'S CAFE [THE BEIJING VERSION] for her birthday dinner! yes, my friends, there is a helen's cafe which is basically identical to the one in shanghai, just blocks away from my home here in wudaokou. had i known, i definitely would have taken mamie and dave there for free wednesday night draughts during their visit.

on thursday we had "cooking class" in the evening, absolutely my favorite. two of our chinese teachers casually run a class in our dorm kitchen for who ever wants to come. this week we made fried lamb and leeks, potato and pepper strips, and of course rice (that was a "prerequisite" haha). it's tons of fun and totally hands-on, so the lower level chinese students can easily follow along.

on friday we made a field trip to the beijing "minority culture park" for our sociology class - to observe how minority cultures are presented to the han majority. this wasn't anything we had not seen at the tuzu culture park in qinghai... "deserted" and "awkward" basically sum up the experience!

most important, on friday [drum roll...] I OBTAINED MY MULTIPLE ENTRY VISA! thus enabling me to travel to THAILAND with my ladies CAROLINA and MALLORY over our fall break later this month! *note, manisha, i am edging closer and closer to incredible india. someday!* my excitement for this trip spans so many aspects: going to a country i would not think of off the top of my head, going with people i adore, experiencing the rush of bangkok, eating amazing street food, laying on the beach in ko samui, rock climbing on ocean cliffs, riding the train down the coastline, and doing it all for about 25 USD a day. not to mention, we are the three "girls gone wild" as han bing affectionately calls us. i reserve the word "epic" for occasions like this.



i will conclude with a silly sentiment, but one that i feel nonetheless. i am living my childhood dream right now! from my first road trips with my dad, from my family's experience hosting AFS students studying abroad in america... i have looked forward to traveling and being a student abroad since elementary school. what's more, after all these years of hyping it up, i have still learned and experienced even more than i anticipated... and still have two months left. aiya! i better save this mush for december ;)

biking, camping, digging!

qinghai travels, continued...

DAY 6
-drove from xining to qinghai lake, 青海湖. qinghai hu means clear sea lake. it's the namesake of qinghai province
-with the help of our [awesome] support team, we biked 15 km with the gobi desert dunes and snowcapped mountains on our left, and qinghai lake on our right... with some pretty intense climbs too! wishing i was lance. enjoyed a few high-fives from passing tibetans on motorcycles.
-had a delicious hot lunch at our campsite of fresh carrots, peppers, potatoes, squash, and cold KFC chicken legs. there's nothing like eating outside
-group nap time, instigated by han bing
-some of the group went for a second bike ride, another 15 km down the lake. we stopped at a tibetan camp and rode horses on the beach. it was fun but we didn't actually have much of a choice... they were aggressive salesman!
-at dark we ate dinner and the weather became freezing fast. to cheer us up, bing arranged a bonfire, and we traded off with our hosts, singing english and tibetan songs. tibetan singing is beautiful and really unique, it's a high-pitched, opera sort of thing that comes from the throat. once again, so homesick for lhasa...
-HAILSTORM! just as we went to bed :)









DAY 7
-arose at our campsite, freezing.
-wang shifu (master wang, our insane bus driver) make us fresh fried eggs to eat with bread and instant coffee. i don't really know how to convey wang shifu's charisma in words. he is a happy, middle-aged man from xining that drives like a maniac... making blind passes in tunnels and around turns on cliffs. he will come within inches of running over innocent tibetan families, without even blinking. he can drive a tour bus off-road like no one's business. he can also set up a tent, sing, dig an oven in the dirt, make fierce fried eggs, and force you to take successive shots of moonshine liquor. he's the man.
-drove to one more scenic spot by the lake, then everyone passed out for the ride back to xining
-celebrated china's national holiday in our own fashion... drinking tsingtao and tibetan barley beer in our PJs! way too exhausted to go out





DAY 8
-on our last day, we were lucky enough to be guests at a farm in rural qinghai. the travel agent who had helped han bing plan our trip invited us to his parents' home, where they grow potatoes and brew backyard barley liquor.
-we spent the morning digging up potatoes (hamstrings were sore the next day!) and then learning how to roast them underground. the family made a huge lunch for us and then we all toasted our trip with their homemade moonshine... strong stuff! [see wang shifu, behind bing making the toast]
-in the afternoon we drove to the airport :( it was a sad moment when wei xiansheng, our guide, refused to say goodbye to us! we can't even speak about the loss of wang shifu...





and so. now we are all back in beijing. on sunday we did laundry and got settled back at school, on monday we prepared powerpoints of our adventures in qinghai, and today we presented them to our chinese teachers (in chinese, of course). everyone seems so happy with the trip... we all learned so much, became much closer as a group, and had opportunities to do so many things we could never have orchestrated ourselves. biking in the desert? playing with tibetan elementary schoolers? i don't think it's a stretch to call those once in a lifetime experiences.

return to qinghai

september is over and it was a blur. i arrived in beijing fresh from 3 weeks of independent travel in western china. experienced some reverse culture-shock meeting my 20 new classmates from america (but became fast friends nevertheless!!!). sat through orientation #2. spent a week getting vaguely acclimated, then poof! andrew was here. a day later, mom and dad came for two weeks. a whirlwind trip to qingdao, a few more days in beijing, then on a friday afternoon they were gone.

that friday night, i nursed a sinus infection (exhaustion, no doubt) and packed for an 8 day journey around qinghai province with my director and classmates. on saturday morning (sept 25), we were off!

i had ended up in qinghai by accident over the summer. i couldn't buy a train ticket directly from lhasa to xian, so i had to buy one to xining and then continue to xian. turned out to be the greatest blessing in disguise that i have ever received. i spent what may have been the most carefree day of my life playing in xining with hong and liu.. friends made in lhasa.. then continued on xian that night. needless to say, i could not wait to return to xining and see them, as well as fully experience the city.

because our director han bing is AMAZING and packed so many INCREDIBLE activities into this week, i cannot possibly write about the entire trip. i will try to have a few pictures a day, with captions.

DAY 1
-raced to the airport after peter and alex failed to wake up for the meeting time (hilarious in hindsight), flew from beijing to xining (3 hours)
- met our driver, wang shifu, and tour guide, wei xiansheng. throughout this week, these two men became our heroes...
- wandered the produce market across the bridge from our hotel, vendors were so much friendlier than in beijing! the photos below are indicative of my chinese baby obsession... the little ones learn how to bargain for bbq snacks at an adorably early age
- group dinner at an amazing muslim restaurant, hands-down best lamb skewers i have ever eaten
- had a joyful reunion with hong at a tibetan tea house





DAY 2
- jen and i met up with hong and other teachers from her school for yangrou pao breakfast! mmm
- the group toured kumbum monastery.. my second time! the smell of tibetan brush incense made me "homesick" for lhasa
- a lama hosted us for lunch in his home and let us ask questions about his life at the monastery. he came when he was 10 years old, because he didn't like school and wanted to run away from home! now he is 27 and one of the monastery's leaders. he also has a REALLY nice canon SLR camera...
- went for dinner and hit the bars with hong and her friends! peter and sam joined and essentially got hazed by a bunch of elementary school teachers






DAY 3
-toured xining's great mosque and listened to an a-hong (leader) talk about it's history and current use. if i remember right, it has about 20,000 members. in a city of 2.2 million, that's a good number!
-toured a tuzu (chinese ethnic minority that follows tibetan buddhism) "culture park." an eerie look into the way minorities are often presented in china. the "village" was completely deserted, the hosts were grumpy and unenthused. then we watched a blaring techno performance of local customs! ai ya.






DAY 4
-a dream come true. we left xining early in the morning, bound for kanbula national geological park. passed by takster, the birthplace of the 14th dalai lama. it was pouring rain but we convinced bing that we wanted to go through with our hike...
-weather miraculously got better as the day went on, our picnic lunch was lots of fun, and the views were more awe-inspiring by the minute
-stayed in small tibetan city of tongren over night





DAY 5
-i thought nothing could be better than kanbula but i was mistaken! we spent the morning at a tibetan elementary school and experienced something like pure joy...
-we broke up into groups and went to different classes. my group participated in P.E. exercises with the little ones (toooo cute), then "taught" class for a bit (helped kids choose english names, sat in a circle and let everyone introduce themselves in english, and let them teach us tibetan words). in younger classes, they sang "head shoulders knees and toes" ha!
-a 12 year old girl, "becca," gave me a tibetan name in return, "say rang la mo" after the buddhist goddess of letters and music. can't really explain how happy that made me :) she also named caroline "say rang joh ma," after the goddess of feminine beauty and longevity
-in the afternoon, toured longwu and wutun monasteries. our guides were 12-15 year old monks! playful keepers of the keys...
-at wutun we were able to buy some gorgeous tibetan thangkas, hand-painted scrolls of buddhist deities. i bought one of my namesake... la mo






THIS POST TO BE CONTINUED! too too much. biking in the gobi desert, riding horses at a tibetan settlement near qinghai lake, and digging potatoes to roast on a farm... all to come