Friday, July 17, 2009

Thank God for modern miracles: I was just able to visit with Jen, Ben, & Sam and then Kath, Lila, and Nico using Skype technology. It’s astonishing that I can be over 7,000 miles away from them and still be able to see/speak with them. How very, very wonderful. Everyone looks so WELL! I can’t imagine how olden day people did it...travel for months or years at a time without word from family and friends. Another point for the 21st Century!

I met some of my students today. It’s been pouring first and then drizzling all day, so everything got off at a slow pace and stayed that way throughout. We met in a private banquette on the top floor of Dio Coffee, where you know we’ve been before. (This time I got a cup of Colombian coffee and it was the best I’ve had since being in Beijing) One student canceled because of the weather and everything else was late getting started, but I was delighted to meet four of them, one after another. The first, Ran, is a lovely 19-year old who has finished high school and wants to improve her spoken English before continuing her studies. She is a championship swimmer--she said “Professional”--I’ll have to find out what that means. She was very shy and very pleasant. Her mother came with her, and smiled and nodded. The next was a 16-year old boy, Zhi, whose father is a friend of Ying’s family. He was very, very, very shy and it was hard to get him to talk to me. I think he understood more than he said, and I tried my best not to ask “Yes” or “No” questions, but he outmaneuvered me and gave one-word answers most of the time. My challenge will be to get him to relax and talk more! The third--yikes, I can’t remember her name--is a young woman who just finished her second year at Beijing Agricultural College, where she is majoring in Mechanical Engineering. She was lively and ebullient and talked freely about her hobby (mountain climbing) and why she wants to take this course (speaking English is very important in the world today!) Duo and Ying said she must be very bright because it is very hard to get into BAC. The last student has the same name as part of my Chinese name--Ting--and she was very funny and pleasant. She kept wanting Duo or Ying to give her words, and they were working hard not to. She, too, was lively and funny. She has finished college and works in an office. She is taking two weeks off to take this course because learning to speak English well is important. I asked her if she knew anything about the geography or history of the US, and she said she knows about Utah. “Utah?” I asked, “Why Utah?” “Because Ross went there...” “Ross?” “Yes, you know, Ross on Friends,” Turns out Friends is hugely popular with many Chinese. I can see showing an episode in class and then talking about it. Might be lots of fun! I told Ting I always loved Ross, too.

After our interviews with these students (I think we have more tomorrow or Sunday--Ying is arranging meetings as students and their parents request them), we went to lunch at a Japanese place. I kept trying to take pictures on our way there, we went through so many neighborhoods, but between the car window (couldn’t keep it rolled down because of the rain) and the speed and my not knowing what was coming up, the only ones I got were awful and I discarded them. Anyway, we did go by some hutongs--the old walled neighborhoods--and it was good to see that part of Beijing still exists in some of the city. Lunch was great, and then Ying went back to work at the University and Duo drove me to the Capital Museum, a new cultural museum built since my last visit.

One of the things that struck me was how very much I had learned in that Primary Source course I took twelve years ago--and how grateful I am that I taught Chinese history/geography as many times as I did. I did understand a lot of what I was viewing! Seeing artifacts from way back to the Xia (earliest) and Shang dynasties (c. 2000-1000 BCE) was amazing. Although the information cards did give the names of objects in English, most of the write-ups were in Chinese. You know, it’s not like being in a French museum, where you can sort of figure out what words mean because of cognates. I get incredibly thrilled here when I can recognize anything (白 means “white” and 人 means “person” and 中国 means “China,” but that just doesn’t get you very far in understanding a curatorial description of an object!) The MFA in Boston has a great collection of Chinese art, but Beijing has more! I hope my pictures made it to the web, for I did take numerous shots of some of what I considered most beautiful.

The Beijing Capital Museum has a really wild architectural style. It reminds me in many ways of the new Asian in San Francisco—lots of light and numerous levels. The one here has two distinctively different wings—the West is quite typical, with flat floors and walls and rooms. The East is a round and slanted, with a circular corridor and uneven floor winding up to each level. Those of you who know me can imagine that yes, I got a bit seasick walking up to the top. The exhibitions of ancient calligraphy and pottery were worth it, though. The lowest level, under both wings, houses the gift shop (I love museum gift shops!) and a gorgeous bamboo garden/courtyard.

I stayed at the museum for a couple of hours, and then Duo picked me up and brought me once again to Carrefour’s, where I did some grocery shopping. I need to make a video of this store. Unbelievable. First of all, it’s noisy like you wouldn’t believe. People are hawking their products as if they were on the city street—yelling, yelling, yelling. Customers bustle around, pushing carts and looking over—hah, touching—items. Grains—rice, beans—are in open bins and people shove their hands in and scoop around, looking at it and then using one of the plastic dishes to put some into a thin plastic bag. Fishmongers have their open-eyed prey on ice right in an aisle. There are no oats. No oats. No oats. I should have known…Duo told me he can get me better produce at cheaper prices at the open-air markets on the street. He was worried that I wouldn't get enough fruits and vegetables, and also that I would get good sauces for my rice. He helped me choose some that aren’t too spicy.

For supper, Duo bought me a Peking Chicken sandwich from KFC—found only in Beijing, it’s made to imitate Peking Duck of course, with meat, cuke, and scallions rolled up into a pancake-like bread.

That’s it—then I came home, then the kids an I Skyped, and now it’s taken me an hour to write this. Another interesting day in China