Sight-seeing, Day 1

First, I'm going to back up a day, because I forgot to blog last night. Oops. Fortunately, not much happened yesterday. Those of us who know some Chinese took our placements exams - 2 hours in the morning and 2 more in the afternoon. The morning exam consisted of a listening portion and a reading portion (all multiple choice), plus an essay portion. The afternoon exam consisted of a computer section asking questions about your Chinese learning background, a written vocabulary exam (fill in the Chinese counterpart of this word in characters, pinyin if you don't know the characters; and choose the meaning of these Chinese characters), and an oral exam (again, asking questions about your Chinese learning background). The rest of the day was rather quiet. It was very nice to have a day to just relax after the few busy days we've had. My roommates and I were all asleep by 10 (some of us by 9), and slept until almost 7. We would have slept longer, except we had to get up early to catch the subway...

At the subway we met our tour guide who took us to the hotel where the leaders were staying. There we met the people who will be studying in the Sichuan province through the same program provider (different program, of course, since they won't be at Minzu :-P). There are 18 of them, and the larger group took a little bit of getting used to, since our typical group so far has been no more than 8-9 people. From the hotel, we went to Tienanmen Square, and it is massive! The most interesting thing about being there was watching all of the other people who were there. We got many stares, and it was so different than any other place we've been so far. Usually we might attract a stare or two, or maybe catch a cell phone taking a picture out of the corner of our eyes, but nothing more than that. At the Square though, many people wanted to take pictures with us, and would arrange themselves so that our group would be "in the background" so that they wouldn't have to ask us to take a picture with them, or look like they were taking pictures of us. We would also get a lot of people just coming up to us, almost acting like they were part of our group for a few minutes. That was definitely a new experience. I'm flattered, but I'm still trying to decide what I think about it. It might take some getting used to.

After visiting the Square, we crossed the street to the Forbidden City. It was sooooo beautiful! It's very large, with several courtyards, and unfortunately we were only able to catch the highlights of it. Our tour guide said you could take a week going through it if you wanted to see everything. Now that I've seen it, I definitely want to go back and take my time, stroll around, maybe talk to a few people. It was so interesting to learn about the history of the place, and it made me want to study more of the history of the dynasties, and life for the emperor. I've always been interested in the lives of royals from several cultures. I think it's the drama of their lives that piques my curiosity. It could also be because of the completeness of the information we have about who they were.

Following the Forbidden City we went to a Beijing noodle restaurant. The noodles were very good, but for me, that wasn't the highlight of the stop. Say what?? That's right. It actually sticks out in my mind as the first place I have used a squat toilet. Without going into detail, I didn't fall in (I was worried), and I can now say I did it :) Probably won't be the last time though.

I think my favorite part of the day was our afternoon activity. We went to the Beijing Opera school and watched the kids practice. The youngest child we saw was about 3 years old, and the oldest was probably around 12. They were soooo adorable! And very talented/hardworking! They sang and danced and performed for us - everything was traditional, none of it was Westernized (for those of you who have studied music). I enjoyed being around the children (I think I have to say that Asian people have some of the best smiles I've ever seen, the children especially), and I am so glad to have had the opportunity to hear traditional Chinese opera. It has been around for a very long time, and I have heard from several sources that it is a dying art. 

Finally, we ended the day with dinner at a famous Peking Duck restaurant that has been around for 400 years. It's called Bian Yi Fang, and the duck was delicious! There's a trick to eating it too, which I will share with you:

1. Take a wrap from the plate of wraps and lay it on your palm (they look like small soft taco shells, but they're soft and a bit doughy)

2. With chopsticks, pick up a piece of duck and dip it into the sauce

3. Wipe some of the sauce on the wrap and place the duck in the middle. Repeat steps 2 & 3 once more

4. Place one chopstick above and one chopstick beneath an edge of the wrap, running parallel to the meat

5. Turn the chopsticks until you have a nice "burrito-looking" wrap. Pick up with the chopsticks, and eat it :)

Well, that has been my day! Hope you are all doing well - thank you for reading!

周末快乐！！ (zhoumo kuaile - have a joyful weekend!!)