This week has been basically been uneventful besides it being the week of the family. On Wednesday, I met with my mom's cousin, Xiao Jie. She's a really cool lady, in her mid 50s, retired, and basically goes around having a good time. She loves singing karaoke, and although her English isn't terrific, she's pretty good at singing songs in English ( Read more... )

Today, I had an excursion to the Beijing Blue Zoo. Basically it's their aquarium. I really do like zoos, but I've heard that Beijing's is really depressing because the animals look really depressed in their small cages. The aquarium was better. They had some pretty good exhibits. I have to say, as a spoiled Bay Area resident who has access to the ( Read more... )

Last semester, a bunch of students would go out on "Adventure Wednesdays" and basically go exploring around the city. Some would even simply get on the subway and see where that took them. I was insanely jealous of these students, since I couldn't go because a 1:30 class impeded my ability to wander off in Beijing. After complaining that I never do ( Read more... )

Mahaprajnaparamitsasatra is a word I just found in my reading for China in the World Economy. It refers to the cheif of a number of texts the Emporer Yao Hsing translated and expounded. It may be the longest word I have ever seen.

So Chinese will easily be the hardest class that I take abroad. Already it's kicking my butt. It doesn't make it better that most of the Chinese students are in the midst of finals, and with 12 classes apiece, that doesn't leave much time for anything else. Consequently, it's been hard to get in touch with my tutor.This afternoon I am planning on ( Read more... )

So yesterday began the new school year. Last night I had my first class of the semester--China in the World Economy taught by Frank Hawke. It seems really interesting, although that 7:30 pm-10:15 time block needs to be mastered. I think I will have to turn to caffeine. Anyway, we will be looking at China's history in order to understand its present ( Read more... )

You know that you're jetlagged when you fall asleep at 6:30 pm and wake up at 5 am the next day. Oh man. I'm tired, but I can't really sleep. I need to get ready for my 7:30 pm class anyway ( Read more... )

So I arrived in Beijing yesterday! It was a very long flight. For some reason, I couldn't really sleep on the plane. Maybe it's because the flight attendants dropped a bottle of closed alcohol on me--the lady next to me wanted to buy some duty free items. Unfortunately, she was very vocal and loud about it, and I couldn't sleep for the rest of the ( Read more... )

Start the races-- I'm flying to Beijing at 11 am today, arriving around 11:40 pm California time, 3:40 pm on Friday January 8th.

See y'all in the future!

New Year's resolution: to post more often instead of massive blocks of text because that's too difficult to read. Already I'm behind because it has been 5 days into the new year and I haven't posted anything. A good point, as one of my friends who is also studying in China says, there's so much happening everyday there's at least one good story ( Read more... )