oops

I also forgot, my Chinese name is 美麗的秋天金發 which in pinyin is wei chinchuo, which roughly translates to beautiful fall golden hair.

Kubrick o-phile, Carreofour, and my new Chinese name

Today was very relaxing, and I think I finally got over that jetlag. I slept in until 7:30 (hey I've been waking up around four or five as of late) and got breakfast. I ate a very greasy breakfast of guan bing which is a kind of pancaked with eggs and vegetables in it. I might have written about this before but I don't remember sooooo sorry. I was still hungry after the first one so I got another which probably wasn't the best decision because it made me a bit queasy. After breakfast we watched a short film about China's independent film market, which was interesting. Then we had a lecture from direction Zhang Xiansheng (I THINK that's his name I'm horrible at writing out spoken Chinese), which was... interesting. He seemed like he sort of had better things to do, but when he really got in to a subject that he liked it was definitely more interesting.

After the lecture I went back to my dorm and took a long nap to shake off my jetlag and get rid of my stomach ache. Then we went out to dinner at a fast food noodle place. I need to start eating milder foods for a couple days at a time so that my stomach doesn't get upset, but the noodles were good. After dinner we went to grab some detergent and snacks to keep in the room at Carreofour, which is kind of like a Walmart but from France. I got about seven different types of Pocky, and bought steak flavored potato chips for Kelsey (you're welcome).

We took the subway home. The subway in Beijing is very clean, my roommate said that it is because they are all very new due to the 2008 Olympics. Stephanie (a girl from NYU) and I went to the DVD store where they sell pirated DVDs. ALL KINDS of pirated DVDs. I almost bought Antonioni's China but I saved it for another day. I bought 127 Hours, True Grit, In the Mood for Love, Norweigan Wood (Kelsey, we watch this together), and Kubrick's entire collection. all for 127rmb, about 20 US dollars. I love China.

walked a kilometer in my Beijing shoes

So after class Sam took a few of us to meet his girlfriend at a
Sichuan hot pot place near the Gulou. The food was GREAT, very spicy
and lots of quail eggs (yum). After waiting around trying to catch a
taxi for twenty minutes, a local told us to hop on the bus that took
us to Muyauhung (I'm sure I'm butchering that) station, about a
kilometer away from the BFA. So we walked. A kilometer. There were
about eight of us in the group so we were totally safe, and it was
quite an adventure. I am exhausted now after doing the hutong walking
and the walking back to the BFA from the bus terminal, so I'm going to
let my roommate use the internet, read a bit, and call it a night.

Hutong beat

Today I was woken up at 6:30 by Scott and Lulu asking me to get breakfast with them. I was somewhat in a state of undress and also extremely tired, so I went back to sleep until around 7:45. I went to a street vendor to get these sort of steamed buns with vegetables in them with Stephanie and Jen. On our way back we found the north gate was closed so we had to go all the way down XuTiCheng until we found another opening to get back on campus.

When we got to class we were surprised with a hutong tour by one of the students in our group (her name is escaping me now for some reason). Hutongs are a type of narrow streets or alley where people live in Beijing. After a presentation from her on the history of hutongs, we hopped on the subway and rode over to where some of the preserved hutongs are. In the same area is a Tibetan Buddhist temple and the Imperial College, as well as the temple of Confucius. We didn't get to go in to any of these, but we got a nice tour of the hutongs and ate at a really good Yunnan restaurant inside of an artist hutong. We rode the subway back and I finally got both a phone and SIM card, so I now have a telephone here. I doubt any of you reading this are in mainland China, but if someone is you should ask me for my numba~~

After we got back we had a very interesting presentation from Ackbar Abbas, a professor from UC Irvine. He talked about his idea of cyber kung fu in Lee Ang's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon compared to the slow, even pacing and futuristic elements in Wong Kar-wai's 2046. Now I'm back in my room relaxing a bit before I go out to dinner at a Hot Pot place and then for drinks with Sam and some other people from the program.

Today I learned how to say "water" and "breakfast" in Chinese. Water is shui de and breakfast is zaocan.

My first Tsingtao

I'm sitting in an internet cafe down the street from the BFA drinking my first official Tsingtao (that I paid like 20 rmb for which is apparently overcharging and it's not that cold but WHATEVER) and reeling in all of the looks that I got on my way over here. I'll explain this later.

I woke up this morning and skyped with my Mom, then went to class. We watched two films in the morning by director Ou Ning, then we had lunch. After lunch we came back and talked with Ou Ning. The films of his that we watched in class were about cities and city life. They were both documentaries, and the guy knows his stuff. He started out by promoting Beijing rock n roll bands through a rock n roll magazine, then moved on to be commissioned by various governments to make films. San Yuan Li was my favorite of the two films of his that we watched. It depicted a city in Southern China and it's day to day life there. He discussed his next project, which was to go to the villages around the now-tourist trap province of Anhui and build a second economy there surrounding making furniture from the wood that grows there. He was recruiting volunteers in the next month and if all goes as planned with my thesis and I enjoy the rest of my time here, I would really like to help him out with this project.

After Ou Ning left we watched Still Life by Jia Zhang-Ke, which was a really typical Jia Zhang-Ke film. For those of you who haven't seen any Jia Zhang-Ke's films, they are slow, stately, and usually about common people in China. This one was a little odd in that there was a sort of supernatural element in it that never really got carried out. It was a bit of a tease, so to speak. Oh well.

After the film was over I went out to dinner with Lulu (who is from the University of Minnesota), Stephanie (from NYU), Scott, Jen, and Ellen (all from UW). Sam (from Oxford) walked around with us for a while, but left before we ate. We walked down an alley connected to the BFA, then through a really beautiful park and came out to a huge intersection. Lulu found us a good noodle restaurant, and we ate there. On our way back through the park we ran into this sort of group exercise--people of all ages got together and did some sort of calisthenics to techno music. It was awesome and I'd really like to film it soon, but I'd have to get up early in the morning for good light.

Once we got back to campus I walked to the dorm and grabbed my computer. I walked back to the internet cafe by myself and got a LOT of "looks" from the locals. I am blonde, short, and white. A lot of these people have never seen anyone like me before, and Chinese people are NOT afraid to stare. It's actually kind of refreshing because you can always tell when the people in America want to stare but are trying not to, you know? I don't mind people staring at me, it's pretty funny. I'm a little tipsy now (sry) and going to go surf the net and probably go home. The internet in my room is really awful so I won't be on it a whole lot.

That's all for now

There are a lot of people in China

My first official day in Beijing was mostly spent inside watching movies. I am incredibly tired right now, so this will be a fairly short entry. I wish I had some pictures to show you, but alas I do not. Yet. I woke up at 7:30 today, showered, and ate breakfast with my roommate, Di. We went to a street vendor around the corner from the dormitories and grabbed breakfast. I ate a sort of tofu soup, which was nice but I kind of wish that the food hadn't been hot because it was already so hot outside.

Being a vegetarian here is going to be totally fine. I eat most of my meals with a native speaker anyhow, so they usually order for me. It's funny though, people here assume that I don't know how to use chopsticks. Which I do... but I guess they think Americans don't eat with chopsticks? haha. 

After breakfast we had a sort of briefing and introduction to the course. We have our own special isolated classroom on the sixth floor of the buildings where our dormitories are. The first film we saw was I Wish I Knew by Jia Zhang-Ke, who also directed The World, which I saw in my contemporary cinema class Spring term. I Wish I Knew was a sort of oral history of modern Shanghai. I really enjoyed that film. Then we had a two hour lecture/discussion about the film, comparing it to the modern Chinese blockbuster After Shock. 

Then we had lunch, which was fun. It was my first meal with everyone and I got to know a lot of people better. All of the people on the program except for me speak some sort of Chinese, but everyone has been super kind about the language barrier. People always translate for me and I can always ask someone for help (like when the waitresses didn't understand that I wanted to buy a bottle of water. A phrase that would probably be useful for me to learn at some point). Chinese is really hard. Did you know that? I think you did.

We had a short break and some technical difficulties and then watched Wong Kar-wai's 2046, which was weird but in a good way. Then twelve or so of us (there's about 25 on the program) went out to a really delicious dinner at a fancy restaurant where they presented all of the dishes with an accompanying rhyme describing the auspicious things that would happen if we ate them. In Chinese, of course. Apparently they were all pretty hokey but I couldn't understand so I just laughed when everyone else did. 

Now I'm back in my dorm and my roommate has gone home to her parent's house for the night so I have the room to myself. The internet here is really slow so and it's like 7:30 in Seattle and I don't have access to facebook so I'm probably just going to watch some Family Guy on my iTunes and call it a night. I am still VERY jetlagged, and could use a few beers.

WOAH

I'm in China. I just got access to internet about five minutes ago and
I'm actually supposed to be in class right now but I was falling
asleep during the movie so I snuck out to have a snack and some water
and Internet. China is HUGE, there are SO many people here, it's
just.... really different. Everyone on my program is very nice. I
don't have a phone yet so I'm kind of out of the loop of everything,
but the food is really good and I'm safe and this is going to be
awesome. I need to buy another pair of shoes, I think. Please, if
you're reading this and want to contact me directly, email me at rachelcwells18@gmail.com
because I can't respond to comments on here (Blogger is blocked in
China. So is facebook and twitter.)

Ni Hao!!

oh my. goodness.

There are a LOT of people in China. I guess this isn't news to anyone but you can't really fathom it until you've been here. the good thing is everyone is really nice and I accidentally spent 50 rmb on a local only calling card that I'm probably not going to use a lot. hah. oh well. I'm sitting in the airport waiting for a girl from my program to come get me. I'm hungry but kind of afraid for my first meal in China to be airport food, so I'll just wait.
Sent from my iPhone

Vancouver got swag

I'm sitting in the Vancouver airport waiting until I'm hungry for lunch and a cocktail. This airport is REALLY nice, like.... woah. I kind of want to go duty free shopping but am restraining myself because I know that everything in China will be infinitely cheaper than it is here. I sat next to a REALLY cute family on the 50 min plane ride here, the Dad had a thick Irish accent and the little almost-two-year old boy was just the sweetest thing. This is what I look like right now:



I'm watching Canadian new.

How early is too early for a beer? I don't think it's ever to early for a beer in an airport.

oooooooops

I've been REALLY busy getting all of my stuff out of my apartment so unfortunately I have not had time to update. For three days. SORRY to anyone who is actually reading this, but I'll make it up to you I PROMISE. heh. maybe. Anyhow, this will probably be my last update from the US, Comcast is coming to take my internet away tomorrow and my friend who I'll be staying with tomorrow night does not have internet. And then once I get to China I don't think I'll have access to blogger, I'll only be able to email posts. I hope. We'll see what happens eeeeeeeeeeeekkkk

So, here's one last place that I'd really like to visit while in China.



Beihai Park is an imperial garden inside of the Forbidden City. It's one of the largest gardens in Beijing, and seems like it'd be a wonderful place to sit down and do some reading for class, or maybe just have a nice picnic. I leave on Saturday, the next two days will be filled with seeing friends, Mexican food, sleep, and making soy milkshakes for my friend who just had her wisdom teeth out. Xie Xie!!

Tiananmen Square-dancer

I feel like everyone in the world has seen this picture at least once:


And if you haven't, honestly.... are you an infant? There is really no other excuse.

Anyhow, I'm really excited to visit Tiananmen Square. SO much history has occurred there. Tiananmen Square was built as a gate to the Forbidden City (which housed the Royal family for hundreds of years). It has been the site of many important historical events, most notably the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (where the above photo occurred). These were pro-democracy protests that ended in the declaration of martial law in Beijing as well as the death of hundreds. Such protests have not occurred since.


Here it is:




Four days. four. days.

Summer Palace in the summer

One of the things that a LOT of people who have previously visited Beijing mentioned that I had to see was the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace was built in 1750 for the Qianlong Emperor to have as a summer home. In 1888 it served as a summer home for Empress Dowager Cixi, who put a lot of money that was supposed to go to the Chinese navy into rebuilding the palace.

Now it's not only a pretty big tourist attraction but serves as a recreational park as well.

Here is the Summer Palace:



six days!!

More things I want to buy in Beijing

So, day #2 of "What I want to see in Beijing" stuff. This series is really more so I actually write in this blog vs. just having it sit around for the next week like I'm going to be. Well, I won't be sitting around, I'll be moving out of the most awful apartment I've ever lived in, but still. Here it is.

I'd REALLY like to go to see the Silk Market. The Silk Market is in the Sanlitun district of Beijing, which is about 20 minutes from my dormitory in the Haidian district. It's famous for not only it's sale of many different kinds of silk but also it's wide selection of counterfeit designer goods. If anyone wants a fake Louie Vuitton or something (I'm not really up on the designers right now), this is where I would pick that up. Here is the outside of the silk market:


The Pearl market is also there, you can get REALLY cheap, beautiful pearls there. Or so I hear. This is the inside of the Silk market:



Now I'm going to go take a shower and drive my friend to work, then I'll be packing up all my clothes for the trip. So weird.

And thus begins the seven day countdown

So, I leave in a week. That really freaks me out more than anything...
I don't know, I had a dream last night that I missed my flight at
SeaTac (which has never, EVER happened to me before) and that when I
finally got to China they wouldn't let me in. HAH. Oh well. I'm going
to do a week long countdown of places I want to visit when I'm in
Beijing. The first thing I want to see there is definitely Dead Mao.

This is where he lives:

(thanks wikipedia.)

When Mao died in 1976, his body was embalmed and put on display inside
of his Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square. This is like, a REALLLY big deal
for the Chinese to see, it is their Great Leader after all. It's very
serious and you can't film or take pictures. Which kind of sucks but
STILL I get to see Mao. Dead Mao, that is.

Can I post a picture? will this work? Let's see.

this is me and Miranda July.

Does this even work?

I'm testing out this to make sure I can post via email. LET'S SEE

oh hai

It's been a while since I've updated. I booked a flight from Munich to Berlin, and I've applied for the language program I'll be doing in Munich. I need to find a hostel to stay in in Berlin because for some reason I thought it'd be a good idea to fly there two days before we're allowed to move into our apartments. I don't know why. Whatever, I'll figure something out.

I applied for my visa to Beijing, and will hopefully be getting my passport back soon. I'm in the midst of finals and final papers and financial aid mayhem so I really can't even think of the fact that I'll be leaving the country in about three weeks. I have a lot to get through before then.

I'm visiting my parents in California, I leave on Tuesday and get back the 14th. Then I'll be going to Pullman for a couple days to see Starfucker (for the third time lulz) and then I'll be headed back here. I think I'm going to have a going away picnic in Volunteer Park instead of attempting to have a party at my apartment because that never seems to be a good idea anymore.

hear, hear, xie xie, chin chin, danke.