I can’t believe it’s already been another week. This is an amazing country and time really
does fly. I must admit I suffered from
some culture shock for the first 24 hours or so after I arrived. While Beijing is a fairly westernized city,
it still takes a little time to get used to everyone around you speaking a
language you don’t understand. However
after getting settled in and meeting my roommates, it didn’t take long to get
comfortable with the city and be perfectly at ease. Ordering a meal is one of the few complicated
parts of a day, but to my surprise a vast majority of the restaurants we have visited
have English on the menu right next to the Chinese words so pointing is
frequently used to help with ordering. One
of the things that surprised me early on was the amount of English we have encountered:
the subway broadcasts messages in both Chinese and English, signs on stores all
over town have names in both languages, and the ATM’s I have used have English
as an option. However, despite the prominent
display of the language across the city, it is still rare to find anyone who is
able to speak more than a few words. I
am continuing to work on my Chinese, and have another lesson this coming
Tuesday evening. The nice thing about
being in a foreign country is every new word you learn can be practiced almost
instantly.
This week was actually fairly eventful. On Wednesday night, I went to a karaoke night
with about 70 other interns who are working with different companies across
Beijing. I’m not normally one to get
into karaoke, but the Chinese experience is extremely different from American
karaoke. Instead of one person singing
to a whole bar, you actually rent out private rooms so it is just you and the
people you’ve come with. I forgot to
take my camera to this event, but if I can find a photo I will definitely post
one. It was a lot of fun and I got to
know a lot of people better. I’ve already
become friends with a number of people from all over the world.
On Thursday night my manager took me and a few co-workers
out to dinner at an authentic Mongolian restaurant. This was not a typical restaurant
though. Instead of a building, you
entered a small hut barely larger than the table you sit at. There were dozens of these huts spread across
a large open area. Just like with
Chinese food, the dishes were brought in one by one and placed in the middle of
the table for everyone to share. The
food was quite good especially the lamb.
During our meal, a few performers came in wearing historic Mongolian
clothing and played some amazing music for us.
During one of the songs, I was presented with a blue silk scarf which
was placed around my neck and given a small cup of wine. I was then shown to dip my finger in the wine
and touch it to my forehead. Next I was
shown to dip my finger again and flick a few drops both high and low in the air
before finally consuming the rest of the bowl.
While I did not understand the meaning behind the ritual they were
re-enacting, I was amazing to feel as though I was transported to another time
and place. After the performers left,
our group talked for hours. I remember
feeling that this was in many ways the most rewarding night since I had
arrived.
The weekend was filled with more exploration of the
city. On Saturday I woke up early to
travel to the Summer Palace. It was
about a 45 minute subway ride from where I live, but it was definitely worth
the trip. For those of you not familiar
with the Summer Palace, it was essentially just what it sounds like, a summer
retreat for the emperor. Unlike the
Forbidden City which is one massive enclosed area of buildings, the Summer
Palace blends in with the landscape around it.
Most of the buildings are on Longevity Hill and overlook Kunming
Lake. We spent about 4 hours at the
palace and probably could have stayed longer if we had more energy. It frankly is impossible to explore the
entire area in one day, but what we saw was very impressive.
On our way back from the Summer Palace, we swung by the Olympic park area, and took a few photos of the buildings which were also impressive, but could hardly compare to what we had just seen all day. One thing that did impress me though was the number of visitors to the Olympic park area. Admission is free unless you want to tour inside one of the buildings so many locals come just to stroll around. There was also a large number of vendors selling food and souvenirs.
It seemed like nothing could top the Summer Palace, but
early Sunday morning we woke up and boarded a bus which we had rented out for
the day. We drove about 50 miles outside
the city to a section of the Great Wall of China. While this was definitely near the top of my
list of places to visit, I must admit that I thought the claims may be
exaggerated or that having seen so many pictures and video of it would in some
way ruin or lessen the experience. I
could not have been more wrong! I hope
everyone reading this blog will one day have a chance to visit it. It was such an amazing experience that I
think it is worth visiting China even if the wall is all you see. No amount of pictures or video will prepare
you for the sheer size of the wall. I
was speechless sitting there wondering how anyone could have built this wall or
how much something similar would cost to build today. You really get an idea of the wall’s size
though when you start trying to walk it.
The wall more or less follows the very peaks of the mountains. At some points you are almost climbing
vertically rather than walking and the steps can get quite narrow.
I was glad that I went with such a large group (about 25 people) because what ends up happening is many people wear out and decide to not go any further. I was determined to get to the end of the “mint condition” area though. You see, the tourist areas typically have been heavily repaired over the years for obvious reasons, but I wanted to see areas of the wall which have not been touched. It took nearly two hours to cover what looked like less than a mile visually. When we finally got to the deteriorated areas it was really cool to see what the vast majority of the wall probably looks like. One moment everything is nearly perfect with barely a stone missing, and the next moment you’re wondering where the wall went. You’re walking through small bushes and even trees which are growing right inside the wall!
Instead of walking back down the wall when we were ready to leave, we paid a little bit extra to take advantage of an alternate route. We took a toboggan slide down! For those of you not familiar with toboggans, we essentially took a giant slide which flies you down the mountain on a small kart. It was amazing! It took nearly 3 minutes to get all the way down and is something I will never forget.
I was glad that I went with such a large group (about 25 people) because what ends up happening is many people wear out and decide to not go any further. I was determined to get to the end of the “mint condition” area though. You see, the tourist areas typically have been heavily repaired over the years for obvious reasons, but I wanted to see areas of the wall which have not been touched. It took nearly two hours to cover what looked like less than a mile visually. When we finally got to the deteriorated areas it was really cool to see what the vast majority of the wall probably looks like. One moment everything is nearly perfect with barely a stone missing, and the next moment you’re wondering where the wall went. You’re walking through small bushes and even trees which are growing right inside the wall!
Instead of walking back down the wall when we were ready to leave, we paid a little bit extra to take advantage of an alternate route. We took a toboggan slide down! For those of you not familiar with toboggans, we essentially took a giant slide which flies you down the mountain on a small kart. It was amazing! It took nearly 3 minutes to get all the way down and is something I will never forget.
