Several Ways to Die Trying

*This was edited for content and general competency on August 11th, 2008*

For the 3 or so people who will discover this blog and read the least bit of it, I'm going to lay it out right now: This will not be interesting. So stop now. However, if you wish to read on, I'm willing to bet that at some specific junctures, you might be, possibly, slightly amused. So let's get going, shall we!


Reach Out Group visiting Beijing University!

It's the 13th right now (move in day for the Duke program) and I've been in Beijing for the last 3 weeks. Doing what, you might ask? Well, the Reach Out program. Tidbits:

Picture on the left is us walking over to the site of the migrant school we were working at. The surrounding area was literally a dump, but the school itself was clean, somewhat.

The migrant situation in China is depressing. There are over a million migrant children in Beijing, meaning after they finish middle school, they'll have to go back to their hometown to attend a high school--but, since their parents work in the city, the possibility of a proper education is very slim. We visited numerous NGOs addressing the situation, but none of them can allay the root problem, unless the government changes overall policy.

The number of NGOs in China is rapidly booming. After the Sichuan earthquake, a deluge of groups have stepped up to help out in any way they can, laying the foundation not just for earthquake directed NGOs but NGOs in general. While they still have significant technical barriers to overcome--an NGO cannot have more than one office in China (they have to register in places such as Hong Kong, and open ancillary offices in China)--the situation is brightening.

Beijing people are willing to talk to you wherever you go. Whether it's a bored attendant working in a hostel or a stranger buying clothes in the same store or the waitress at the restaurant you happen to be eating in that night, conversation (in Chinese of course) is literally waiting for you at every corner.

The second part of my trip involved a backpacking tour throughout Anhui province. It might have been the best decision I made all year. Six days and multiple mountain ranges later...

Monkeys. At Jiuhuashan. As we were climbing down the mountain, a family of six monkeys literally ran onto the path, started climbing on each other, oblivious to the gawking humans ten feet away. This spectacle went on for at least three minutes before an unsuspecting hiker scared them away. For the rest of the hike down, we could hear their yells from the forest above us.

Nick puked. Self-explanatory. Picture this: all the steps we were climbing were at least at a 65 degree incline.

Chinese merchants are smart. Really smart. At the base of Jiuhuashan, there is an oval pond where literally hundreds of turtles and thousands of fish swim. The tiny shops around the pond sell turtles and fish, in small dilapidated boxes. Every morning, I've heard that there are less fish and turtles than the night before.

That's how narrow it was at the top. Straight 2000 m drop if you fall.

It's hard to see sunrises in China. At both mountain peaks we climbed, despite the fact that we woke up at 4:30, there wasn't one legitimate sunrise; either the fog was too dense, the cloud cover was too low, or there was just a lot of smog.

Hiking up in a thunderstorm is not pleasant. The 1300 meter hike to the hostel at the top of Huangshan was accomplished in pouring rain and occasional flashes of light. If you ever, be sure to buy raincoats before you get to the tourist sites. Whereas a yellow raincoat sells for around two dollars in the city, in the middle of a rainstorm near the entrance gate of Huangshan, they can only be bought for twenty dollars.

Always check if there are student discounts on anything. I probably saved $200 buying train tickets that were half off, and admission to tourist sites is at least half off, even if you only have a foreign student ID.

Cards are a great way to pass the time when it's raining outside.


<- Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Filmed There.
Shanghai people dress a lot better than Beijing people do. When you ride the subway in Shanghai, as opposed to Beijing, you'll notice that every single girl, no matter how old, is wearing stylish clothing. In Beijing, that's not quite the case. The people are more down-to-earth, friendlier, but not as well dressed. In Shanghai, I tried approaching this girl who had cornrows in her hair (and she was pretty good looking too) but when I walked towards her (from 2 o'clock) she looked at me as if I were going to steal the contents of her bag and, possibly, her dignity. I did the same thing in Beijing just a couple hours ago (except this time the girl didn't have cornrows) and I actually got some human interaction from the approach.

I met one of the Duke teachers while on the train back to Beijing. She was going to be teaching calligraphy, and her roommate is one of the full-time professors here. I even talked to her on the phone! She was really nice and told me how to get to Capital Normal University. Not only that, but the train compartment I was staying in taught me a lot of Beijing slang that I am totally going to use on the streets. Fo sho.



To end, I'm sitting in the lobby of Capital Normal University. I look around, and I see a gold-plated horse standing on a heart, a hotel lobby worker dialing into a phone and speaking Chinese, and bathing suits on sale in the general convenience store. I can't wait for the placement test tomorrow. Last comment: my three weeks in China have really made me appreciate this country, past the pollution, overpopulation, and lack of sanitation. In fact, the more I'm here, the more I think about getting an internship later on, possibly studying more Chinese. Obviously, I haven't even stepped into a classroom yet, but hopefully the next eight weeks will be as enriching as I think they will be.