Midterms over. Time for some Shanghai.

My midterms are finally all behind me. This semester's midterms consisted of one 21st century exam, one Ancient Chinese Philosophy exam, one Ancient Chinese Philosophy paper (comparing Mozi and Emerson....ugh), one Chinese written exam, and finally one oral exam this morning. Needless to say, it was a long stressful week, but it's over and my trip to Shanghai begins in about three hours with a bus ride to the train station. Our train leaves at 7:35 pm and is supposed to last for roughly 12 hours. Unfortunately, Muh and I will be sitting rather than lying for the entire night. The Z line, which is the quickest train to Shanghai from Beijing, had no more hard sleeper cabins available, and all of the soft sleepers were a bit pricey. Either way, I think it will be a fun night. Once in Shanghai, Muh's uncle, who lives in Shanghai, will pick us up at the train station and bring us back to his home. On either Saturday or Sunday, Muh's parents, who are visiting China for some sort of college reunion, will also arrive in Shanghai. So, it should be a fun week with the Muh family. It will definitely be nice to have free rooms and Muh's family's knowledge of Shanghai (and Chinese). I'm positive that it will end up being a really great experience. At this point I really have no clue what we will be doing in Shanghai, but its a big city surrounded by beautiful landscape, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find something to do. I may or may not have reliable internet at Muh's uncle's home. Either way, I will try to post on here at least once and send out some emails while in Shanghai (maybe a postcard too, if you're lucky). I should be back by Sunday the 28th just in time to start classes again on Monday. So check my picture site then for some pictures.
Sorry I haven’t had a chance to update for a while, but its been a boring/difficult week in Beijing. I hope everyone is having a great fall.

First Annual 饺子比赛

Tonight was the big competition. The Jaozi eating competition, or as it is locally known the 饺子比赛. The competition was inspired by the CET students' love for the tastiness that is jiaozi. Mike and Ian took the idea for the competition and ran with it. The plan was developed a few weeks ago, and had been bouncing around ever since. Finally, ground rules were set up and a date was set. The ground rules were as follows: The time period given for eating was 1 hour. The competition was about quantity and not speed. Secondly, everyone must use a meat filled jiaozi. The vegetable kind are too wimpy. Finally, no trips to the bathroom (unless you really have to go, then it is supervised as to prevent the offloading of consumed jiaozi).
The names were taken down for those of us wanting to participate in the competition a week prior. Zack, Muh, Dan, Ian, Mike, Kyle, and myself would be competing. Yesterday, Mike approached all of the competitors and asked for our desired type of jiaozi. Myself along with two of the other competitors chose pork jiaozi with chives.
Finally, at 7pm this evening all of the contestants and the audience met down stairs to head to the jiaozi restaurant. The audience for the competition was huge! Today we also had our weekly Chinese lunch table, where students must speak Chinese the entire time. We also sit with our teachers and teachers from all of the other levels of Chinese. So, word had spread to everyone throughout lunch of the competition. Two teachers (one was my grammar and drill class teacher) and around 25 students from a variety of the Chinese programs including one from England were in attendance.
We took a quick round of pictures and started our walk over to the restaurant. When we arrived, tables had already been pulled together for us outside of the restaurant and the first of many trays of jiaozi had already been placed on the table. Earlier in the morning Mike had placed an order at the restaurant for seven ins of jiaozi (roughly 50 jiaozi per jin). As we settled down for the competition, all of the contestants received their individual jins. So, began the contest. The first half hour was fairly uneventful. People were taking bets and fans were cheering for their favorite competitor. About 30 minutes into the competition, Kyle called quits and left the competition. At this point I had consumed roughly 27 jiaozi and was not feeling too hot. All of the other competitors stood up to stretch their bellies. This decision was the death of me. Minutes after standing up, I was hit with the pressure of 27 jiaozi and had the pleasure of decorating the street in front of the restaurant. However, the competition continued minus two competitors. As the end of the hour approached, Zack, Mike, and Muh were easily in the lead. 78, 61, and 54 jiaozi had already been eaten respectively. By the end of the night (we extended the time limit), Zack had eaten 90 jiaozi (good God.), Mike had eaten 70 jiaozi, and Muh had eaten a still impressive 61 jiaozi. The most impressive part of Zack's victory was that he had already officially won after consuming somewhere in the 80 range. However, he had set a goal of 90, and so kept eating after the competition was over. When he finally did reach 90, everyone was incredibly impressed, and he was incredibly sick. All in all, it was a great night, and it's always a nice bonus to throw up in front of your teacher. Check out the picture site for some action shots from tonight.

Summer Palace and Karaoke: Good Saturday.

As I stated in my last post, there was talk of going to a gorge somewhere near Beijing. I had heard that it was beautiful and that there would be bungee jumping. Unfortunately, the group who was heading out the gorge failed to wake anyone up before they left. So, a few of us decided to get together and head out to see the Summer Palace instead. After about 30 minutes of planning, Muh and I had devised a rather lengthy and complex route involving both buses and the subway to reach the Summer Palace. The palace and its massive lake are in the very northwest of the city and would be a very substantial walk of about 9 miles. So with this plan in mind we rounded up the group and headed out for some lunch. Thankfully, we bumped into one of the Chinese roommates who told us that we could just take one bus all the way to the entrance of the palace. Muh and I were kind of sad that our glorious plan would no longer be needed. After a delicious lunch at a nearby restaurant, we set out on a rather lengthy bus ride. When we got onto the bus, we had to struggle for breathing room and plow our way into the middle of the bus. After about two stops, the entire bus had emptied out and we were all able to get seats. Thirty minutes later we had arrived at the entrance to the Summer Palace and purchased our half-price tickets (thank you student discount). I was amazed as soon as we entered the grounds of the palace. There was a huge lake stretched out in front of me leading to the base of a small mountain range (maybe large hills is a better description, but it doesn't sound as cool). The lake was filled with boats: paddleboats, tour boats shaped like dragons, and a speedboat or two. It was so surprising, in the middle of this huge city, there is a lush lake environment surrounded by walls and mountains.
Across the lake there were several large landmarks that we all wanted to go see. One was a giant temple about a fourth of the way around the lake, which turned out to be the Hall of Dispelling Clouds. The other was a large cylindrical tower completely across the lake from the entrance of the palace.
I should clarify at this point that I am not really sure exactly where the "palace" of the Summer Palace actually resides. There is apparently another part of the Summer Palace that can be entered for a much higher fee, and I think that the palace is there. So when I refer to entering the Summer Palace, I really mean entering the grounds of the giant lake near the Summer Palace, which is surrounded by various temples and buildings.
So, we made our way around the edge of the lake until we reached the Hall of Dispelling Clouds and climbed our way to the top. The view was amazing. Not only could we see the entire lake, but we could also see most of Beijing. But as always, there were way too many people to get a really good view, so Muh and I decided to climb over a railing into a restricted part of the balcony surrounding the hall. While doing this, Chinese people were saying "Waiguo ren!" (foreigners) and staring at us with concerned looks, but everyday on the street I hear people saying “waiguo!” when I walk by, so it no longer bothers me. I got some good pictures and we headed back to the beaten path to continue our tour. Our next stop was the marble boat of the Summer Palace. One of the queens who summered in the palace apparently commissioned the building of a giant marble boat. For obvious reasons, the boat did not float at all and once in the water sunk like a rock....a large boat-shaped marble rock. Thankfully, it only sunk a few meters in the shallows of the lake and 90% of the boat is still above water, so the Chinese can make a nice profit offering people, for a minimal fee, the opportunity to visit the idiotic boat. However, at this juncture, we discovered that the large cylinder tower across the lake was actually much too far and not actually a part of the palace grounds. Exhausted, we headed to the entrance and caught our bus back to campus.
I arrived at my dorm room with one thing in mind, a nap. My roommate and his girlfriend had other plans however. They wanted to talk to me in English and ask about my photos. So, I let them. In actuality, I ended up speaking more Chinese than English, so it worked out well.

Finally dinner time rolled around, and it seemed that everyone, including my roommate and his girlfriend, were hungry for some pizza. Here in Beijing, there is a local chain called Big Pizza, which at this point in our evening, sounded delicious. It turns out its 39 Yuan for an all-you-can-eat buffet, AND the buffet included unlimited beer. Why don't we have this in America!?!?! We actually closed the place down. There were nine of us, and all of us were thoroughly taking advantage of the unlimited beer. At 9:30 we were politely asked to leave. My roommate and his girlfriend, being that they're Chinese, decided that karaoke would be a good next step in our evening.
So, we all wandered over to the KTV near our dorm. From the outside, the KTV looks like a small one room restaurant, and that is what I expected, a room with a stage and people singing their hearts out. However, when we entered, I thought we had walked into a five star hotel. The entranceway lead into a marble staircase, which lead down into a luxury lobby attended by multiple employees. We were told that it was 100 Yuan an hour to have a room. We couldn't pass this up. We were lead down a marble hallway with doors every 20 feet or so. Through the windows of the doors, we could see Chinese business men and families drinking, smoking, and singing. We finally got to our room and were let inside. The place was incredible! There was a huge red leather sofa, a giant television, three separate monitors and a small stage. Needless to say, we had a great time. My roommate, apparently a seasoned veteran, started us off with a nice slow Chinese song. Then it was time for songs in English, which lead to hilarity and embarrassment. Everyone was singing into the two microphones and singing badly. I can't lie; I have a tremendously horrible singing voice. After two hours of belting both English and Chinese songs, we all decided to call it a night. I do not have any pictures from karaoke, but a few people including my roommate took a few, so I will see if I can get my hands on some. I do have tons of pictures from the Summer Palace though, so head over and have a gander.

The underground city of Beijing.

For the first time in several weeks, my weekend has not been filled with field trips. So, as a group we decided to go somewhere that sounded interesting. Somehow, someone discovered that there is an underground city in Beijing, which Mao had built in order to prepare for atomic war and to provide an evacuation route for the leaders of China to the mountains surrounding Beijing. With only this information in mind, I was told to meet outside of the dorm at 12:15 pm. When I arrived downstairs, after yet another Chinese test, I was surprised to see a large group of about twenty ready to head out to see the underground city. Apparently, less than two years ago, access was restricted to the underground city and any citizens who wished to access the city had to register with the government in order to preserve national security. With this information on all of our minds, the city sounded very mysterious, and so our journey began. We took a bus over to the subway station (1 Yuan), and then took the subway (3 Yuan) from there (after switching to a different line) to a stop just south of Tiananmen Square. With no real knowledge of where this underground city was, we headed out with only the name of a street as our guide. Thankfully, we had a Chinese roommate with us, who was able to ask anyone--and he nearly asked everyone--about the whereabouts of the underground city. No one seemed to know. Discouraged, we sat down at a street corner and waited for the Chinese roommate to find out more information. While waiting, an elderly Chinese woman approached our group and began asking Sulhye (who is Korean) weather I was an American. She was very excited to find out that I was indeed, and then she went about her business.
After a short wait, we figured out the right direction to head in and set out. After reaching the edge of a hutong, we spotted a man carrying a sign that read "Beijing Underground City." We jumped at the opportunity, and asked him if he could tell us the location of the city. Unfortunately, he was a rickshaw driver and was only interested in us paying him to bring us to the entrance of the city. But, we had been told that the underground city was not far, so we trudged on, and so did the rickshaw driver.....right behind us. He followed us for about 10 minutes offering us a ride but never providing us with information about the location of the city. After asking half the population of Beijing, we weaved our way through multiple hutongs. We arrived at a certain alleyway that was patrolled by a husband and wife team of street vendors, who offered everything from Mao hats to Rolexes. Distracted by their intense sales techniques, we briskly headed on. Thankfully, one of the vendors screamed out "Under greand chity!?" as we walked away. We discovered that he was in fact correct, and that there was a sign that we had all failed to see marked in English. So we thanked the man (and I thought him how to properly say under ground city in English) and headed into the small hallway behind the sign. The room was fitted with camo wallpaper and the staff were wearing camo uniforms, though they obviously were not in the military. So, we paid the 10 Yuan entrance fee, and headed down a dank stairwell into the underground city.
After hearing about the underground city for the last couple of days, I was pretty unimpressed by the tour. The tour consisted of walking through dank tunnels for about 15 minutes. It was possibly the most bizarre tour I have ever taken. Our guide explained that the city could hold up to 30,000 people (though in English she said 300,000) and that all of the tunnels, if combined, were longer than the Great Wall. Then, all of a sudden we went up a stairwell and were in a silk mill. The guide gave us a few minutes to look at the merchandise, and then it was time to move on. I have now officially become immune to the commercialization of Beijing. There is a silk store in the underground city of Beijing; there were no other signs of life. The tour ended abruptly, and we were asked to leave through the same way that we had entered. Overall, it was a let down, but I had a good time and as they say, I guess that's all that matters. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera with me. Even more unfortunately, photography was not allowed in the underground city, so it wouldn't have mattered either way. Hopefully I have some more photographs up this weekend. There is talk of a trip to a gorge somewhere nearby tomorrow, so who knows. Check back soon.