China Update 2

Greetings, all!

It’s been about two weeks since last I posted, and I believe another update is in order.  Since my last post, classes have begun–every Monday-Thursday we have class from 8:40-11:30, which consists of one period of large class and then two periods of small class (4 or 5 people), and then after lunch, we have elective class from 12:30-1:20, and two days a week we have one-on-one class with a teacher, for me 1:50-2:20 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The different grade levels are 100, 150, 200, 260, 300, 400, and 500 (500 being the highest), and I was placed in the 300 level class (though my roommate told me today I could have been in the 400 level class–probably not true, but it made me happy anyway 🙂 ).  The 300 level has 16 students, and the teacher is pretty nice, though a little intense.  We have three other teachers that rotate weekly for our small classes, and they’re all pretty good too.  My elective class is Chinese Newspaper, which has probably been my favorite class so far.  We’re learning strategies for how to scan headlines and first paragraphs to determine the subject matter/content, so that’s been a lot of fun.  Plus the teacher (Chen Laoshi) is what in America we would say “da bomb” (ah, how I miss my English phrases…).  Fridays we have testing, consisting of a written test (about 1.5 hours) and then an oral test, which consists of reading a text and a 7-8 minute speech.  Needless to say, I’m pretty busy already (probably a good thing).  Unfortunately my personality tends easily towards feelings of being overwhelmed, so I’m trying to remember that my grades aren’t really that important anyway, since Wake Forest doesn’t count my grades toward my GPA (as long as I make a C or higher).  My Chinese has definitely improved, though.  On top of learning about 250 new characters every week, I’m starting to think in Chinese (though not entirely), and I feel increasingly confident with my speaking ability.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t have to ask my roommate, “What? Say that again?” every now and then, but I’m on my way at least.

That’s the academic side of things.  I’ve also done so more sightseeing and exploring.  I have come quickly to realize that the part of Beijing in which our school is located is a rather dirty area, which is somewhat depressing at times.  Beijing actually does have some nice and even pretty areas, and even the pollution decides to take a break some days, producing a much-welcomed blue sky.  Since Zizhu Park, we’ve also been to Beihai Park, also a pleasant place.  Last weekend, two other classmates and I went to Tiananmen after dinner, and I got to see Tiananmen Square and the East Gate with Mao Zedong’s picture depicted thereon.  It was such an interesting feeling, knowing how much history there was in this place–long ago this is where the emperor (and later Mao) would appear to speak to the people, and where in 1989 hundreds of students camped–largely without food–for two months in protest of the government, a protest that sadly came to little fruition.  After Tiananmen, we walked to Wangfujing, a very commercial area that reminded me of (pictures of) Times Square (never actually been to NYC, so perhaps I’m wrong).  Wangfujing has many soaring buildings with expensive goods and many Western retailers (McDonald’s and KFC not to be excluded).

The next day (Saturday Sep. 12) we took a boat ride to Yiheyuan, The Summer Palace, which is where the emperor (I think from the 1700s on…?) would live during the summer.  The “palace” is actually more like a park on hundreds of acres of land, with old traditional Chinese architecture, a large lake, and hills in the distance–a very picturesque scene.  It’s hard to explain it all in words, so I’ll try to post pictures later.  The next day (Sunday) was my first church experience in China.  My roommate Bao Xin and I went to a local Chinese state church in Xisi, called Gangwashi Church.  The service was entirely in Chinese, so they gave me headphones with a Chinese lady simultaneously translating into English (more like Chinglish, really 🙂 ).  I talked to Bao Xin after the service and asked him if he understood everything (the pastor talked about a number of metaphors the Bible uses in relation to Jesus), and he said he understood, so that was exciting.  He seems fairly interested church/Christianity, and certainly not hostile towards it.  After that, I went to another church service in Zhongguancun, the Beijing International Christian Fellowship.  Due to government regulations, BICF can only open its doors to foreign passport holders, so Bao Xin went shopping for a webcam while I was in church.  It was a real blessing to be able to worship with believers who speak your language, especially with other students who are also studying in Beijing for a semester (or more).  Most seem to be from America, but I’ve met people from New Zealand, Sweden, Egypt, and Macau, and I know other nationalities represented include Namibia, Nigeria, Britain, Germany, Philippines, and others (surprisingly quite a few Africans attend the English service).  After church Bao Xin and I went to a nearby hotpot restaurant.  For those of you who don’t know what hotpot is, it’s a meal where you order sundry food items and then put your meat/vegetables/etc. into a boiling pot (all the meat is raw beforehand).  It tasted pretty good, though it was a somewhat frustrating experience since I don’t recognize many Chinese foods, and Bao Xin continually had to tell me, “No you can’t eat that yet.  Yes you can eat that.  No you can’t eat that at all–what, you already ate it?”  I still have much to learn in this country, so prayer would be appreciated 🙂 .

Next weekend (Sep. 17) we went to see Chinese Zaji (acrobatics).  The performance started at 7:30 and our bus left two hours in advance in anticipation of bad traffic.  The traffic was worse than we had thought… to give you a picture of what Beijing traffic is like much of the time, we crawled only 1.8 km (1.1 miles) from CET to Guan Yuan bridge (west 2nd ring road) in approximately 1 hour before deciding to forgo the bus for the subway.  But the performance itself (when we finally arrived, though late) was incredible.  We saw ladies with five sticks in each hand, each stick with a plate on top, which they kept in constant motion without dropping.  Moreover, they would climb on top of one another and flip from one person’s shoulders to another without dropping any plates–pretty incredible.  Similar feats were performed with girls (couldn’t have been more than 12 years old) doing a handstand, balancing a bowl on their head and one foot, all while balancing on the hands of other men holding them up.  At one point they even had five people stacked on top of one other, the girl with the two bowls on top.  There were also hoop-jumpers and bicyclists (they even fit 10 people on one bicycle–if we could do that, we would never have to buy a family van again!).  That night I went to Sanlituan, the “bar district” populated mostly by foreigners.  I’m not sure why I ever agreed to go–I didn’t necessarily have a bad time, but I was the only one not drinking (and not drunk), so it was kind of an awkward situation.  But now I’ve been to Sanlituan, so I can say I’ve been–but I still don’t seem to fit in with this group of American students.  While I enjoy spending time with some of them, the worldview rift is definitely there.

Today (Sep. 19) Bao Xin and I planned to go to Gangwashi Church again, but we were both so exhausted that we didn’t get up in time (Bao Xin had spent all week studying for the TOEFL, which he took Saturday, so he needed to catch up on sleep).  I did, however, return to BICF.  I didn’t see many of the people there I had met the first week, but I did meet I guy named Lawson (son of a lawyer, funny enough) from Knoxville, TN (yay Tennessee!).  He knows where Franklin is, since he played baseball in high school and traveled throughout the state, and he even knows one of the old RUF interns at Wake Forest–what a small world!  He wants to study law himself and has already been working for his father’s law firm in the US.  He graduated from Colorado Christian this year and is spending a year in Beijing interning with an organization whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment.  It’s a Taiwan-based Christian media publishing company that produces magazines, movies, and I think even radio programs to help people learn English.  We went out to lunch after church, and he showed me where he works, so I got to meet his boss and colleagues.  Next we went to a guitar store so I could by guitar strings (finally, no more five-string guitar!). He plays guitar himself, so he knew where to go.  He’s living with a host family while he’s in Beijing, but he doesn’t know any Chinese, so he’s using Rosetta Stone (in addition to learning from his host family).  He’s a really nice guy with a passion for the Lord, so I was grateful for the chance to meet him, and I hope I’ll get to see him again next week.

All in all, I’m enjoying Beijing more as I become more acquainted with where things are and how things work.  I’ve been to most of the restaurants in the area surrounding our school, so I know where to go to eat.  I’m certainly enjoying the cheapness of everything in Beijing–tonight I ate a full dinner for ¥12 ($1.78).  There are certainly still aspects of Beijing I can’t get used to–the incessant beeping of horns (yes, car, I see you coming towards me, and you see me getting out of the way very politely, so WHY must you lay on the horn for 30 seconds straight?); the uncleanliness of many areas (yes these 24 bottles of water are only ¥18, but are they really safe?); the mosquitoes (in my room alone I’ve killed at least one a day since I’ve been in Beijing–and as if to mock me, another just flew past my head as I was writing this sentence); the hotness of Chinese food–not just spiciness, but the heat: my tongue is often numb when I go to bed, just from that night’s dinner, and I’m usually sweating rather profusely by the end of every meal; and the crowds–China really does have a population problem (the other night it took 15 mintues for 8 of us to take an elevator from the 5th to the 1st floor of a mall, just because there were so many people (none of whom care about your place in line, by the way) that we had to go 2 or 1 at a time, spending most of our time waiting for an elevator without 15 people on it already).

But life goes on.  I know my blessings are greater than I know, my opportunities far exceed my disadvantages, and my God’s love for me is greater than I can fathom.  A verse that has really been a comfort to me not only during my time in China, but even much of this summer, has been Isaiah 41:11, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for i am you God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”  When I think I shall surely fail–when the mosquitoes are too numerous, to food too hot, and the car horns too strident to bear–I remember that he WILL uphold me and sustain me.  When I feel I have a grip on things and begin to think I can do things on my own, He calls me back to Himself and says, “I will uphold you, not you yourself.”  When no real friends are to be found, how true are the words “What a friend we have in Jesus.”  What a friend indeed.

P.S. I said two weeks ago I would post pictures, and I didn’t.  I’m really going to try soon to post pictures–only I’m trying to find a convenient way where you can view them all together, sorted by event, and without me having to upload 500 pictures one at a time.  I was advised to try iWeb, so we’ll see how that goes.  And feel free to ask any questions you have about China–I’m sure I’ve left out some details, so much has happened since my arrival.