It was worth not shaving for over a month just for the double-takes I'm getting now.And now for the... ummm... last weekend's update.
FRIDAY:
We went to a bar district that was located around a lake. I took a picture, but it was far too blurry. What is of note about this trip is that I did not actually make it into any bar, since there were two very drunk Americans who decided to join our group and get us a good rate on drinks at a bar. At each establishment, one would walk up to the person working the door and start speaking in very fluent Chinese. He would then turn around and list a very reasonable price for a beer that he had managed to achieve. The other American, misinterpreting this as an entrance fee rather than the price of a beer, would invariably approach the doorman and proceed to scream at him in English and Chinese about the proper way to treat people and how, if we were Chinese, there wouldn't be an entrance price. In every single case, there was, in fact, not. However, he apparently forgot this in the twenty steps that we had to take, in our embarrassment, between bars.
Dear US Government,
If you REALLY want to curb binge drinking, please find this American and videotape him on a random night out. It will be hilarious AND highly discouraging for anyone thinking of drinking to an equally stupid point.
SATURDAY:
Saturday looked like a warm day, so I didn't bring my coat, which means I didn't bring my camera. Other people have pictures of this day, but I don't have those pictures yet. When I do, I will post them. At least I say I will. Most likely, though, I will forget which day they belonged to and just lump them in with all of my China pictures and then, in twenty years while looking through my backup files, I will exclaim "there! there I am at the Temple of Heaven!"
So anyway, we went to the "Temple of Heaven" which is really an incorrect translation, since it's more like the "Altar of the Skies." It is an enormous structure in the middle of a concrete square that I can't really describe. Google it! It's really cool.
The coolest part, though, was the sprawling complex of gardens to the side of the Temple of Heaven. I have not seen so many trees and animals since I arrived in Beijing, and they were a welcome sight. Down one path, there was a small gazebo with an old toothless Chinese man playing the accordion. He could play the keyboard very well, but only knew one chord, it seemed, to play on the drones. There were a few older people around him singing a song along with the melody. One possible reason that karaoke is a much bigger success in Asia than in America is because Asians (Chinese people, at least) have no problem with singing as loud as they can in whatever pitch they find handy at the time. It was a lot of fun. As we were leaving, the Chinese man started to play an American folk song that we recognized but didn't know the words to. If we had, it could have been a great cross-cultural moment. Oh well.
Saturday night we went to see some acrobats. The show was amazing, and I can't really describe my mixture of fear and joy as I watched men jump and flip through hoops that were easily nine feet off the ground like it was the easiest thing in the world. There was no trampoline involved.
Also of note was a woman riding a unicycle on top of a large rolling ball while flipping bowls and spoons onto her head. What I hear is that there are certain cities in China where all they do is train for this stuff. I believe it.
After we left the theater and started walking back in the bitterly cold Beijing night, it struck me that there was another reason I was dumb for leaving my coat in the room.
SUNDAY:
On Sunday Will, Hillary, Alice, Nell, and I went by subway back to the Forbidden City area. It took us an hour and a half to get there, but we made it.
We went to a bar district that was located around a lake. I took a picture, but it was far too blurry. What is of note about this trip is that I did not actually make it into any bar, since there were two very drunk Americans who decided to join our group and get us a good rate on drinks at a bar. At each establishment, one would walk up to the person working the door and start speaking in very fluent Chinese. He would then turn around and list a very reasonable price for a beer that he had managed to achieve. The other American, misinterpreting this as an entrance fee rather than the price of a beer, would invariably approach the doorman and proceed to scream at him in English and Chinese about the proper way to treat people and how, if we were Chinese, there wouldn't be an entrance price. In every single case, there was, in fact, not. However, he apparently forgot this in the twenty steps that we had to take, in our embarrassment, between bars.
Dear US Government,
If you REALLY want to curb binge drinking, please find this American and videotape him on a random night out. It will be hilarious AND highly discouraging for anyone thinking of drinking to an equally stupid point.
SATURDAY:
Saturday looked like a warm day, so I didn't bring my coat, which means I didn't bring my camera. Other people have pictures of this day, but I don't have those pictures yet. When I do, I will post them. At least I say I will. Most likely, though, I will forget which day they belonged to and just lump them in with all of my China pictures and then, in twenty years while looking through my backup files, I will exclaim "there! there I am at the Temple of Heaven!"
So anyway, we went to the "Temple of Heaven" which is really an incorrect translation, since it's more like the "Altar of the Skies." It is an enormous structure in the middle of a concrete square that I can't really describe. Google it! It's really cool.
The coolest part, though, was the sprawling complex of gardens to the side of the Temple of Heaven. I have not seen so many trees and animals since I arrived in Beijing, and they were a welcome sight. Down one path, there was a small gazebo with an old toothless Chinese man playing the accordion. He could play the keyboard very well, but only knew one chord, it seemed, to play on the drones. There were a few older people around him singing a song along with the melody. One possible reason that karaoke is a much bigger success in Asia than in America is because Asians (Chinese people, at least) have no problem with singing as loud as they can in whatever pitch they find handy at the time. It was a lot of fun. As we were leaving, the Chinese man started to play an American folk song that we recognized but didn't know the words to. If we had, it could have been a great cross-cultural moment. Oh well.
Saturday night we went to see some acrobats. The show was amazing, and I can't really describe my mixture of fear and joy as I watched men jump and flip through hoops that were easily nine feet off the ground like it was the easiest thing in the world. There was no trampoline involved.
Also of note was a woman riding a unicycle on top of a large rolling ball while flipping bowls and spoons onto her head. What I hear is that there are certain cities in China where all they do is train for this stuff. I believe it.
After we left the theater and started walking back in the bitterly cold Beijing night, it struck me that there was another reason I was dumb for leaving my coat in the room.
SUNDAY:
On Sunday Will, Hillary, Alice, Nell, and I went by subway back to the Forbidden City area. It took us an hour and a half to get there, but we made it.
Our destination: that hill, which is entirely man-made.The park surrounding the hill was very peaceful and quiet, and on top of the hill was a very large Buddha and a great view of the Forbidden City. At the back of the hill, we found a great mass of older Chinese people dancing, singing, playing hackey-sack, and otherwise having a good time. I got some videos that I WOULD post on youtube.....
This guy is doing street calligraphy with water. We saw a few people doing this.We stayed for a while and then headed back.
View of Wudaoku from the Subway- in case anyone was wondering whatWudaoku was, since I reference it a lot.
Overall it was a very peaceful and green weekend- a much needed respite from the normal Beijing feel.
Before I close, Bobby had a question about my views on the Beijing Olympics.
The Beijing Olympics:
There are a lot of people talking about how we should boycott the Beijing Olympics in response to human rights abuses, Darfur, Tibet, and whatever else. I read somewhere that, according to the article's writer, Bush attending these Olympics (as Bush has promised) would be akin to FDR attending the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Here's the problem with all of that. We assume that boycotting the Olympics would be like taking a stand and telling them that world opinion is not on their side about the above issues. However, I don't believe that the message would actually sink in, and in fact I feel as though much more progress would be made on those things if the Chinese Olympics were strongly supported.
When Spielberg dropped out of the planning committee (he was helping design the opening show, and backed out because of objections over Darfur), the Chinese press had a week long "what an idiot" chant going along every media outlet. And the Chinese people, according to what I can see, completely and wholeheartedly agree. I have not heard solidarity like that since there was a bill about pasteurizing cheese when I was in France. They ALL thought Steven Spielberg was being childish, unfair, and ignorant. Now, I'm not going to go in to whether or not I believe they are right, because I don't think that matters in the least for this question.
What matters most, in my mind, is what the average Chinese person believes and what they WILL believe given a certain set of actions. The average Chinese person that I have met is extremely friendly, very likable, and super-excited about the Olympics. It has nothing to do with politics for them- it is a symbol that they as a people (not the government) have been able to prosper to a point where they can hold such a prestigious event. If you try to take that away from the, regardless of the reason, there will be more weeks of "what idiots they are" and the country will become even more sure of its own decisions (if the dishonorable idiots who pulled out of the Olympics are saying something is wrong, then obviously that thing must be right).
Again, this has nothing to do with right and wrong or what I would or wouldn't like to happen, but it's the most logical eventuality if Olympic boycotts are realized. Personally, I see the Olympics as a great thing for China, and I feel as though it will give the Chinese people more exposure to internationals (and more opportunities to make friends), which is a very good thing for both them and us. Also, I've never seen people so excited about the Olympics. They wouldn't "learn a lesson" from an Olympic failure- they'd just be really sad.
Besides, in my view, change comes from economic motives. If you strongly disagree with the government of China, and you disagree with human rights violations and unfair working conditions, etc, etc... then don't purchase Chinese manufactured goods. That makes a lot more sense to me.
Quote of the week, from Business Strategies, as always (from a competing team upset that everyone was voting for our market differentiation campaign):
"You can't just use George Clooney as a perpetual trump card!"
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