I sent an email, and I am lazy

I am such a lazy son of bitch, I am just gonna copy and paste an email I sent to my best bed, and consider that a real update on my blog. Keep in mind that unless you are Jamie, you might now get some of the references in here, but that's okay. Just go with the flow.

开始！
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Yeah, that last blog entry way a bit of a bummer. I was feeling pretty out of it that day. Fortunately it was just a day or two day slump. What has been on and off annoying me is my lack of time to do things. However, once I cut the daily exercise out of my schedule I do okay with time. It's no lie to say that I stay pretty busy. I usually put in between one and a half hours and two hours of studying/homework each weekday. On Monday CET has a kung fu class that I have been going to, and after that I go to the Beijing juggling club. I teach an 一对一 English class on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and two on Sunday evenings. I also started taking a modern dance dance class with a Chinese company (really cool, it has been years since I have done modern dance! Not since high school, really.), which is on Thursday. With a test every Friday morning, the afternoon is free, so I end up spending it doing that weekend's homework, or hanging out with 张强. 张强 and I have gotten together two or three times since the beginning of this semester, and having a college student friend outside of the CET program really helps me to feel grounded in the city. (as if I don't have enough other stuff going on. Ha!)

Every now and then I get frustrated with the classes, usually on days when I have a commitment in the evening so I feel rushed for time, and days that class feels particularly useless. I believe that am indeed using the same book that you used last semester, the red one. Although I am occasionally dissatisfied with the practicality of learning about AIDS and world population problems, it is usually okay. The business class (and to a lesser extent the 一对一) really gets to me though. The teacher for the business class is just terrible. Every day in class we just read through the text and a list of words. I am not kidding when I say that half of the class is her saying a word and the students repeating it. Another factor is that so much of the stuff in that class is the kind of thing I would use in a business conference, or two companies negotiating prices, but these are things that I really don't see myself using. The 一对一 classes were fine back during fall semester, but now they feel like a waste. If I have questions about the grammar or stuff it is great, but I usually understand the stuff fine (it is wonderful how grammatically simple this language is, right?). In the fall it provided an opportunity to speak Chinese for a while in just free conversation, but now I know plenty of Chinese people out in the city, and I speak Chinese with the roommates and other CET students. Especially on days when I decide I want to exercise, I don't want to go to 一对一.

I think the combination of the tight schedule gives me the desire for more time, and the perceived uselessness of some of my classes really makes me wish that I didn't have to take those classes, resulting in a bit of simmering rebellion.

Meng Lili and I are doing pretty good. She is really romantic, and I think sometimes she wishes that I was more romantic too, but I am gonna planning a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant over in Chaoyang (that's on the East side, if you have been away from Beijing too long to remember. Hehehe. 我跟你开玩笑), and then go see a vidoe/dance performance in the 798 art district. I figured that I should do something really nice, since last time we got together it felt a little akward, and I am going away for a week for Spring break. Having a Chinese girlfriend really makes me realize what a fantastic resource TheBeijinger.com is. Every time I wanna do something cool with Meng Lili I just search TheBeijinger.com for an event on that day, and there is ALWAYS something going on. Ethnic Mongolian folk music, Beijing Improv shows, an environmental saving-energy party... It's a good method. I have learned a few new words from her too. Ya know how when you are hanging out with Chinese people, every you tend to pick up a few new terms or phrases every now and then, right? It's kinda cool.

You definitely influenced my flirtation skills and habits while in Beijing. I was never that outgoing in America. Now I need to constantly reel myself in whenever I find myself with a really strong desire to flirt with {insert pretty girl, Chinese or foreign, here}.

My neighbor is pretty cool, so we end up hanging a lot. It is nice to be right next to him, 'cause he is relaxes and fun. He likes to go to bars and drink and dance, but he doens't live for getting wasted. It's a good 情况.

By the way, my bits of Chinglish here remind me, you should hear some of the people here talk! A few of the girls say 'like' all the time when they are speaking Chinese. As in: "这个周末我想去，like， 一个新的酒吧"。 I get a kick out of it.

I have a goal: I want to juggle five balls. I just started working on it. I am a long ways away, but I can already see my progress. I also did some fire staff twirling last weekend, outside of Obiwan. A buddy put a clip on facebook. Check it out if you get the chance. It is super simple stuff, but it was fun!

Spring break I am heading to Sichuan. To see the big Buddha in Leshan was my first goal, but when I learned that one of China's holy mountains was right next to Leshan I got put on my plan too. It it only about an hour bus ride from Leshan to Emei Shan, and I hear the monkeys on the mountain are absolutely wild, stealing cameras and drinks from hikers, and even not letting you pass if you don't give them a 'toll'. It is weird that I am totally hyped to be mugged by shaggy yellow-haired primates? I also wanna check out the panda breeding center, and spend a few days in Chendu, getting a feel for the city. I am flying out of Beijing on Saturday morning. Working on a regular basis is kinda nice, 'cause now I have the cash to spend on a plane ticket. :)

I am indeed still with learn first, doing 3-4 classes a week, pulling 260 a class. My spending habits have gone up like crazy this quarter, and I must be taking cabs half as often as Steph now! My students are cool though. I only have two, and one of them I have 2-3 classes a week. His English is pretty good, and he is going to high school in America in the fall, so we talk about American dating, youth culture, school, and that kind of stuff a lot. Pretty easy, and really fun. I love getting paid to do something I enjoy. That is the best kind of work, hand down.

My summer plans aren't finalized yet. But I am thinking about going to that acrobatic school south of 4th ring road. I figure that I am young, and if I don't spend at least a little time pursuing my dream then I will regret it later. I also emailed Madeline Chu to ask about SIP stuff, and she said that she thinks doing a bunch of research and interviews with the people at the acrobatic school would be a great SIP. I asked her if she could be my SIP adviser, but she hasn't gotten back to me yet, and it had been like two weeks. :( If the acrobatic school works as a SIP, then I will probably go for those study abroad SIP grants too. If going to the acrobatic school doesn't pan out, I am still at a loss for SIP ideas, and I am just gonna find a place to rent and hang out/play/work in Beijing for the summer until Fall quarter starts. I was worried about visa stuff, but a friend from juggling club is opening a business in about two weeks (a bicycle and juggling supplies shop), and she says that it would be pretty easy for her to list me as her employee. I'd like to even really work for her, but I don't know what my situation will be yet. With teaching English and my still fairly cheap lifestyle, I could make it work. It would also give me the time to do so many things that I have started doing, or have wanted to do in Beijing, like dance class, martial arts class, practice juggling more, go to community lectures/classes, read and research for SIP, read and research my personal interests, check out cool events, volunteer at NGOs, spend time with local friends, respond to some of those adds looking for foreigners to be in movies/adds, etc.

Wow, that took a while! I am gonna to teach an English class now. Good luck on your 期中考试!
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Disatisfaction. I am upset.

I am not terribly pleased with my academic program at the moment. I know that CET is about cramming a lot of knowledge into my head so that I have a good foundation for studying Chinese in the future, but I have my own goals for Chinese studying. My goals... well, are mostly already accomplished. I am able to communicate in Chinese with Chinese people, using no (or minimal) English. Every time I have a conversation with a Chinese friend I hear them use a word I don't know, and I want to add those words to a list study that, ensuring that the things I study are actually what people talk about. However, concerning the vocabulary I am actually studying now, very little of it is useful to me. I readily admit, there are a few words that are good, but the majority of the vocabulary in my class are not things that I am going to use. We are studying subjects that I am not going to talk about. I don't even have conversations about AIDS, lung cancer, or old folks homes in English, much less in Chinese.

That is just one factor of it though. The other is time. I don't like my schedule the way it is. Specifically, I would prefer less time spent studying, and more time with friends. There are friends in the city that I have wanted to get together with since this semester started over a month ago, and I still haven't had the ability to see them. There are half a dozen people outside of China that I want to skype chat with, but I have spoken to only one of them since starting my spring semester. That conversation (just last night) made me realize just how easy it is/will be to lose the friends that I was so close to in the past, and there are some people that I really don't want to lose. And Beijing still has so many parks and museums that I still want to see. Every week there are live bands, or lectures, or community clubs that I want to go to, but EVERY WEEK I am instead stuck studying a bunch of words, many of which I have no desire to learn.

I like the three part combination of study, work, and play, but right now the time I have to play is not enough, and the time spent studying is too much. (Working 6-8 hours a week is just about right for now) There are so many more things I want to do in this city, but every day I spend learning half of a new lesson. And it is not even that I spend that time studying, but more that I don't have to time/energy/motivation afterward to study the words I feel I need in order to round out and fill in my vocabulary. I seriously have a few lists of words (of food things, of political issues that I would like to be able to discuss, of words that are useful in personal relationships [trust, commitment, and the like]) that I want to learn on my own, but I am so busy being force-fed the words from the text book that by the time I am done learning those each day I am sick of studying, and would rather just zone out with a movie or on facebook rather than learn more new words. I like to think of myself as a person of impressive capabilities (obviously not true all the time, as any reference to reality will prove), but there is a limit to how many words I can (want to?) learn and retain in a single day.

I am so ready for spring break. I am gonna climb a holy Buddhist mountain in Sichuan and hug a panda. I don't want to be a full-time student anymore. I would rather be a part-time student. Rant over.

Kung fu, dance, and other things I do when not studying

Life has been busy. Actually, that is a bit of an understatement. The only reason I have the time to write this update is because one of my students decided that he didn't want to have English class tonight. The longer I stay in Beijing, the more friends I make, and the more things I want to do, so the academic schedule becomes more and more restricting on my life. However, although there are opportunities for activities and community classes every week I can't go to, I am still managing to find time for a few of the most important things.

So, CET (the academic program I am in Beijing via) has these extra evening classes. They are optional, and focus on various cultural things specific to China, like calligraphy, ping pong (a big thing here. Huge really. It is the national sport.), Chinese painting, and Wu Shu. Wu Shu is different from many other martial arts that I have practiced, in that many of the martial arts I have practiced can be used in a combat situation. Now, I am sure that a devoted Wu Shu practitioner will tell you other wise, but from my experience (personal experience, and research) Wu Shu has considerable less which can be applied in a fight that, say, Judo, Karate, Jeet Kune Do, Escrima, or a dozen other martial arts. It is kind of like fighting moves were taken, made prettier, and then strung together in a choreographed dance. That being said, I get to use a staff, two knives (don't worry mom, there not sharpened), and to pretty jumps while at Wu Shu class. Although there is a minimal amount I am learning that I will be able to use next time I spar (or in the eventuality that a am attacked and need to use my body to fight), the class is still enjoyable. It is closest thing to a martial art that I have done steadily since last summer when I had Jeet Kune Do classes in Kalamazoo. Also, when I asked the teacher what style we were doing, his answer roughly meant "Were kind of doing Shaolin long fist," which is at least reputable as a cultural thing, even if I am not learning combat applicable techniques. Another nice part of it is the opportunity for other people to see my MAD FIGHTIN' SKILLZZ! I mean, I don't show off or anything, but the teacher has a good enough eye that he can tell that I know what I am doing with my body, and that I have more control over it that the other students. Every now and then the teacher will have one student do a section of a form alone, and he picked me the other night. I was pretty happy for the opportunity, since it was a form with a knife in each hand. Going through it, a lot of it felt really dancey, and I definitely heard some "oooohh"s when I did the jump in the form (not gonna lie. That kind of recognition of my abilities from my peers felt pretty good). It is interesting to watch some of the other male students, and how their faces get so serious, like they are trying to fight off a bunch of terrorists with Bruce Willis or something. Comparing that to how I feel when I do the form brings such a contrast, since I am not even trying to make it a fighting thing, I am just going with the flow of the moves. Really more of a kung fu dance.

But speaking of dance, my first chance to do some modern dance in about two years is just around the corner. I found the Beijing Dance LDTX Modern Dance Company online, and I am planning to check it out. The classes are all in Chinese, and from what I got from a phone call, although some of the teachers were trained in the west, it has distinctly Chinese elements, making it different from modern dance that I would take in the US. The best part is that CET will reimburse students up to 70 RMB a week for cultural activities, and I just got the stamp of approval today for these classes, meaning that I get free modern dance classes in Beijing until the end of the semester. WOOHOO!!

Although I end up spending more time that I want to every day preparing for the next days lesson, I recently started exercising every day. I returned to my old standby for an extensive list of stretches, combined with various simple strength-building exercises (sit-ups, push-ups, the basics) and ballet/kung fu style leg stretches for 45 minutes each afternoon. Not gonna lie: it feels good to get back into my body. Yesterday I even did my first front-handspring since arriving in China. It has been more than six months since doing gymnastics, and it felt SO damn good to do some again.

Another thing I have somehow managed to find time for it hanging out with Meng Lili. I suppose it doesn't take a genius to guess that if I am gonna go through the hassle of having a girlfriend whom I can only %70 communicate with, I am gonna make it a priority to spend some time with her. This weekend got together in the afternoon to walk through 圆明园 (Yuán míng yuán, the Old Summer Palace). I really enjoyed that place, since I learned about the history behind it during my Sophomore year at K, and it holds such symbolic importance to China. In 1860, during the second opium war, the British and French destroyed the Summer Palace, and the Chinese government has left it as ruins ever since to serve as a reminder of Western barbarism, imperialism, and to remind people how much China was humiliated and made to suffer during the hundred years of shame (a century of time preceding the CCP's revolution in the mid-20th century, during which China was subjected to foreign rule by Japan, America, and the European Powers). It was really cool to look at fallen pillars and the remains of pavilions, knowing that a palace had stood there long ago. After strolling thought the Old Summer Palace and getting some dinner, Meng Lili and I watched 非诚勿扰/If You Are The One The English title has nothing to do with the Chinese title, actually. An accurately translated name might be something like "Dishonest, But Not Hasselsome." Of course, that doesn't sound nearly as cute and romantic. It was a really nice movie though, so I definitely recommend that you check it out.

Believe it or not, I am wiped. I am gonna get some rest. Chinese class, kung fu class, juggling club (still awesome! I learned how to toss two balls behind by back), working as an English teacher, spending time with Meng Lili (only on weekends, it is too difficulty during the week), and soon to have dance class... I feel really ready to be done with full-time school. If I had my choice I would just graduate right now, and then continue my education on a part-time basis, so that I could satisfy mjavascript:void(0)y thirst for knowledge while allowing myself enough time for other passions, hobbies, and desires.

EDIT: I forget to mention, but you totally need to check out my new favorite cartoon. It is called "Three Monks".

Time with friends

So, it is Sunday morning here in Beijing, and my weekend has been really awesome so far. I'll give you the play by play breakdown.

Friday, after my Chinese test was over, I arranged to meet a friend, Zhang Qiang, from fall quarter (she has been the roommate of another CET student) over at ShouShiDa. ShouShiDa is where I lived and had class during the fall semester, but I have moved away to a different part of the city now, so I haven't seen Zhang Qiang in a while. Before I headed out to meet her though, I had a mini-adventure of my own: my first Chinese haircut. I was a little scared, because I don't know how to talk about volume, cleaning up the curly and shaggy part in the back and on the sides. Furthermore, a friend of mine had recently gotten a haircut and she came out with the typical Chinese young-girl hairstyle: bangs. Intense bangs. So I was a little worried that when I walked in and told them I don't want too much of a change, just 'clean it up' a bit, that I would walk out with some punk-rocker hairstyle that is popular with the young hipsters guys of Beijing this year. It probably wasn't made any easier by the fact that I don't know vocabulary specific to cutting hair, so when I told him to clean it up I actually used the word that I would use if I was talking about sweeping the floor, 打扫, dǎ sǎo. However, when I said that I didn't want too big of a change, I think that put me into the safe zone. No matter what my hair-cutter did, it wouldn't be much. All in all it came out good. Just what I wanted: a little clean up and trim so that I didn't look so shaggy.

Hair trimmed (and washed!), I hopped on the bus to go see Zhang Qiang. We met at the front gate of the campus, and walked to, of all places, a KFC to get lunch. (If you want to know about the cultural differences in the percepton of fast food places, check out the book Golden Arches East. McDonalds and KFC are viewed very differently in China than they are in the US. We munched on (mediocre tasting) chicken burger thingies, and gossiped about the latest stuff, her messed up roommate, my new girlfriend, out buddy Jamie that left Beijing for the freezing north. She had a gym class that afternoon, so eventually we walked back to campus, but her gym class just happened to be a badminton class. Badminton is super popular in China, and you see people playing it outside in parks or in the street all the time. I didn't have anything planned for the afternoon, and I am actually getting more into badminton and other popular Chinese past times, so I stuck around for her gym class. Zhang Qiang and her class mates had to run for 10 minutes to warm up, and when the came back Zhang Qiang and I just started hitting the birdie back and forth. It was pretty awesome that I was allowed to just jump in on a Chinese gym class. When the class was over, Zhang Qiang and I wandered around and talked some more. It feels good to have a fairly close friend like this. Before that day Zhang Qiang just felt like a regular casual friend, but now I really feel like we are 好朋友 (hǎo péng you, good friends). But that was not the last of cementing good friendships that day!

I actually had an appointment to meet Fan Rong that evening up in the North Eastern part of the city, so after bidding Zhang Qiang goodbye I got on the bus, which took my to the subway, which took my strait to Fan Rong's part of town. We had dinner, she complained about her co-workers that didn't like her, and I did my best to convince her that she is not cursed. She has had a bit of a rough month though. She was robbed on the street, so she had to get a new phone, new ID cards, the works. She also happened to her her co-workers trash talking her behind her back, so I think it is a bit understandable that she hadn't quite been on top of the world lately. He headed back to her place for tea, and hung out for a while. I helped her with her English a little bit, and when we were exchanging vocabulary that you wouldn't learn from a classroom or a textbook, I made a horrific discovery: Chinese has no phrase for 'making out.' That has to be put up on the list with the other human rights abuses over here. I asked Fan Rong and the friends that she shared her apartment with what Chinese people call what they do between holding hands and having sex, and they replied that there really isn't anything between holding hands and having sex. Wow. Talk about cultural differences. In the US, a high school or college student CAN'T HAVE a romantic relationship without knowing what making out is. But I guess they are kind of all-or-nothing here. After this kind of 'language exchange' (she taught me how to say the Chinese equivalent of "so fucking cute" or "so fucking fast", basically the use of a curse word as an adverb) we headed out to another friends place. This was a French lady that was a friend of Fan Rong, and she was having a house party (er... apartment party, I guess). It was mostly standing around and talking, drinking, and munching on crackers. I still don't like the taste of alcohol, despite having tried sips on multiple occasions, so I ate a lot of crackers and drank a lot of the orange juice that was there, assumable as a mixer. However, I am not as much of a late night person as Fan Rong, so I ended up bidder her goodnight and leaving earlier, maybe around one or so. End Friday.

Saturday morning can mainly be described by productivity. I studied, wrote my required essay (we have one every weekend, getting progressively longer), and happily watched the latest two episodes of heroes. Early that afternoon, lǐ xuān, the guy I share an apartment with (he lives in the room next door) came into my room and said that he and some other folks were going to Jing Shan park that afternoon. Being one of the places in Beijing that I hadn't been to yet, and one that I really wanted to see, I jumped in on the group, and we were soon on the bus to Jing Shan Park. We didn't spend too much time at the park, but there was a great view of the Forbidden City from the top of the park. (Jing Shan Park is just to the north of the Forbidden City)
I also got to see the tree where an emperor hung himself. That was the end of the Ming dynasty. There was a rebel army of peasants converging on the capital, and there was an army of Manchu barbarians at the North-Eastern frontier about to break through, so the emperor was just like "Crap. This sucks. I don't wanna be hear when that crazy rebel leader arrives." So he hung himself. Dinner time rolled around, and lǐ xuān said that he knew of a vegetarian restaurant. One of the people in our group was a veggie, so she was very pleased, and the rest of us had no objection. The restaurant was very Buddhist-y, and the ambiance and atmosphere was really cool. And the foo d was really tasty, and lǐ xuān was happy to show his joy.

I had planned to go to a local bar for to see the monthly break dancing/hip-hop party/competition, but my buddy that was gonna go with me had to back out due to an upcoming test, so I decided just to check it out next month instead. Arriving back at the dorm/apartment, lǐ xuān recommended that we three who lived together hang out some more and watch a movie, which we did. By the time the film was over we were all 好困 （hǎo kùn, so sleepy), so it was straight to bed.