A Day in The Life

{In the spirit of starting classes today, I felt a sample day of what classes and life are like for me was in order. Compiled over a series of a few days during our last session}

(Proof that I actually WAS up that early!) 

6:35 AM – I wake up at an entirely too early hour to go for a run before classes. Asta, one of the other study abroad students, meets me in the lobby, and we head to Renmin University's outdoor track. By the time we get there at 7:00, there's already 40 or so elderly people running and walking, including a group of old guys walking in a group that I see everyday. I think they come to socialize as much as they do work out!

 (Renmin's gym and track - the gym was used as a practice facility for the 2008 Olympics!)

7:55 AM- Back in my dorm, I take a quick shower and then get on skype to talk to my family back home in Montana, where it's 6pm. They update me on how many new calves have been born (7 this week!).

8:45 AM- I leave for class, stopping to buy a package of little bread cakes for 1.2 RMB, roughly 18 cents USD. They go great with the (free!) cup of coffee I'll make at the center!

8:57 AM – After walking for five minutes on the streets of Beijing, I take the elevator to the 20th floor and step onto the University of Chicago's campus. The Center in Beijing is brand new and absolutely beautiful - a UChicago oasis in the midst of bustling Beijing. I make myself a (free!) cup of coffee before class starts.

9:00 AM- First class of the day, which is a lecture on early diplomacy in China with Professor Tamara Chin.

(If it looks a little empty, it's because I took the picture before class actually started)

10:30AM- After a ten minute break, we re-convene for our next class, which is a discussion of the lecture and readings for today. We spend a lot of time discussing marriage diplomacy and the role of ritual in diplomacy, as well as on an extended metaphor comparing a kow-tow to a handshake.

(Again, before class started. Excited to discuss the use of Han princesses as diplomatic currency!)

 11:30 AM- After class ends, I head with a bunch of other students to the dining hall on campus, which has a lot of different selections. They had plain broccoli once, and it tasted so much like it would at home that I hold my breath hoping they'll have it again. No luck, so instead I get a big bowl of noodles with eggs and tomato sauce for 4 RMB (60 cents!)

12:30PM – After lunch, I head to the bus stop, where I take a 355 bus. Beijing's bus system is insane – they have over 800 different routes, and one day I plan to ride them all, but not today. Instead, I head to the ice rink, housed in Jinyuan Shopping Mall, the world's second largest mall. 

1:00PM- I greet the staff at the ice rink, who are getting to know my face pretty well at this point. Skating has proven a great way to meet Beijingers; today, I have a three minute conversation (all in Mandarin!) with a little girl who wants to know if I'm a teacher and where I'm from, and a longer conversation in a mix of Mandarin and English with another skater, discussing the pros and cons of China's national figure skating system (great pairs teams, not-so-great single skaters). She tells me where the national team trains, and that practices are open to the public. I feel a field trip coming on... :)

5:00PM- Back on Renmin's campus, I drop my skating stuff off and check email and Facebook, which although blocked in China, is accessible over my Chicago VPN connection. I begin writing this blog post, and then contemplate doing Chinese homework – ultimately, I decide to put it off until after dinner.(yay procrastination!)

(My room, in a picture taken when I first arrived)

 6:15PM – I meet up with a classmate, Kimberly, for dinner in the dining hall. Despite the absence of steamed broccoli, I enjoy my meal of rice with green beans in soy sauce and some kind of meat in some kind of sauce (I opted not to ask) very much. Kimberly recounts her adventures going to get a coat tailor-made for her, and we discuss our plans for the weekend, entertaining the possibility of going to the Beijing Zoo. (They have pandas!)

 (Kimberly with another of our classmates - this picture was actually taken at lunch)

7:30PM – After a quick run to the campus convenience store for chocolate milk (better here than at home, I think), I'm back in the dorm. I settle in to do my readings for tomorrow.

8:40 PM- I read the discussion questions for tomorrow online, and post a paragraph on the discussion board for the readings, getting distracted briefly by skating blogs and picture of LOLcats. I finish up my Chinese homework for Thursday, since we have a test and will turn in the week's homework. Not recognizing a couple of characters, I leave a section blank and finish everything else.

9:30 PM- Having finished everything except that section, I head over to Kimberly's room to get help, since she's in 5^th year Chinese. She recognizes the characters, and I finish my homework. Watching her paint her nails, we end up talking for awhile about studying Chinese and life in general.

10:45 PM – I head to bed, since we have a class trip to the Great Wall tomorrow morning. One of the best parts of studying abroad is the field trips, and getting to hear your professor say that she'll be holding office hours on the Great Wall. :)

Crescat Scientia...

...vita excolatur. Let knowledge grow from more to more, and so be human life enriched. As most of you know, it's the motto of the University of Chicago, and I figured that as I move into the second session of my study abroad classes, it was worth reflecting on it, especially in light of studying abroad.

Truth be told, I had never really contemplated the motto deeply, or even shallowly for that matter. But during this past class session, I drifted off a little bit, after my professor mentioned in passing the ancient Greeks, leading me to think about how cool it would be to really study them for awhile - not like skimming history studying, but an in depth study of them. I then started contemplating how short a time four years actually is - not nearly enough to even come close to studying everything I want to. This contemplation was followed by the realization that a lifetime is a very short amount of time to study everything I want to, which in turn made me slightly depressed and wishing I was immortal.

In my class notes, I frequently make sidebar notations of things the professor mentions in passing or that pique my interest. These little notes range from book titles (The Monk and the Monkey) to subjects (Art History) to people (Alexander the Great). All are things I want to either read or study more, and I'm beginning to compile a list for when I have some elusive free time. Now, I've done this in all my classes (not so much in Chinese) throughout college, meaning that with roughly 4 notations a week in each class, 3 classes meeting twice a week, 10 weeks in a quarter, 4 quarters I've been in school =  960 subjects I want to study in more depth. Grant it, some of those things might overlap, but most of them won't, meaning I've got a lifetime of studying cut out for me. Suddenly, four years seems like an even shorter amount of time. Sure, I can still 'study' them once I graduate and have a job, but it won't be the same as having world class professors share their knowledge with you while you study full-time.

The growth of knowledge seems very tied to connections; my studying ancient Chinese civilization and how it interacted with ancient Rome made me want to learn more about Alexander the Great and read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, for instance. Even a small connection like that between the two can lead to the exponential growth of knowledge. And in the same way, living in Beijing provides me with a set of observations and experiences that I can connect with the readings and lectures in class - for example, the most recent reading for tomorrow mentioned the cosmos vs. the microcosm, which made me think about how much of Chinese culture is in relation to the microcosm, from the hutongs in Old Beijing to the iPod Shuffle  sized ancient pots we saw in the museum. That's one of the benefits of studying abroad to me: being in the culture enhances and solidifies learning; it allows you to make more "connections". Being here just makes everything more relevant - having been to the Forbidden City and discussing ancient court life lets me imagine it in more detail, or at least historical accuracy. (Though that's actually debatable, though that's a different topic - see, another connection!) Being here just offers my imagination a million different paths to considering a topic, and that's one of the things I've enjoyed about being here.

Crescat Scientia, vita excolatur. Let knowledge grow from more to more....exponentially through sidebar notes made during class....through connections made from living in a completely opposite culture....by encountering different perspectives on the same topic.... and even from thirteen weeks straight of Chinese food. And so be human live be enriched. :)

Getting to Know You....

On Friday, the rest of the Beijing Civ students got to Beijing for orientation, which excited me to no end. After the Center opening, I had a pretty quiet week- writing a lot of stuff for Model UN, skating, making sure I had enough money to survive in China, etc. As nice as it was to get to sleep in and not be running around constantly, I was excited for everyone else to get here and to start classes (TOMORROW!!!).

On Friday night we had a meeting at the center, which included a lecture on the Forbidden City, which we visited today (Sunday). However, the highlight of the evening was likely the announcement from Mr. Yuan, who works at the center, that we would have access to free coffee at the center during our entire quarter abroad! Coffee here tends to be a bit more expensive than in the States (it's still a novelty), so getting it free makes my cheap little soul immensely happy. :) On Saturday we had an orientation to the campus/center/neighborhood, and we got to have lunch with our Chinese language teachers (who are from Renmin, our 'hosting' institution here) and our language partners. The language partners are provided for us to practice conversing with, which is actually going to be tremendously helpful - I'm reluctant to randomly engage anyone in conversation, just because I can't have a full fledged conversation in Chinese yet, and they may not be able to understand my English substitutions. The lunch was great, and I spoke Chinese for probably 90% of it, which also made me happy. :)

Also on Saturday, I got a Chinese phone! Since I'm only here until December, I got the bottom-of-the-line model for 200 RMB, roughly 30 USD. It's actually a cute little phone, about the size of my palm, and I like it better than my phone at home. :) I also have texting, which is cheaper than calling here, something that I know will make my sister insanely jealous.

The other highlight of Saturday was getting to eat a banana split at one of the cafes on campus after the tour. Chocolate ice cream never tasted so good! :)

Today we went to the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. Even though I'd been to the Forbidden City before, it was nice to go back and see it again. Every time we visit a historic sight, I always wish I could be there either 1. when it was completely empty (no tourists) or 2. During its heyday, when the emperor still lived there and everybody was running around on official business. I love learning the history, I just wish I could actually be there for it. Same thing for the Temple of Heaven, which was also really neat - I wish I could be there when the emperor was giving the sacrifices, rather than learning about it hundreds of years later. That said, they didn't have banana splits or coffee (free or otherwise), so maybe just learning about it isn't that bad. Random fact of the day: The emperor had roughly 3000 concubines that lived in the Forbidden City.

After the Temple of Heaven, we went to the Pearl Market, which is right down the street. As its name would imply, they do sell pearls there, although I didn't buy any. They also sell a ton of other things, including electronics, clothes, and random little trinkets (such as mini statues of Chairman Mao). It was set up much like the electronics market I visited, complete with aggressive salespeople. They had everything from "Rolex" watches to "Puma" sneakers and "Louis Vuitton" bags, as well as supposed iPod Nanos (though the box said iPod Shuffle) and "iPads". It seems like a place a lot of Westerners go, and consequently you have to bargain down the price, which is fun to do and watch. I only bought a gift for my mom (can't say, since she might be reading this!), which I bargained down from 680 RMB to 100 RMB. When I named the price, though, the lady agreed instantly, which makes me think I probably still could have gone lower. But mom will like it, so it's ok. :) I think I'll go back in the future, though - I'd love to get a 'Burberry' scarf, and maybe some 'Puma' sneakers. They also have really cute coats and jewelery, too, so thank goodness I didn't have much money on me, otherwise I would have spent all the money I'm saving on coffee there!

Overall, it's been great getting to know all the other students in the program and our professors. It's also been nice knowing that I'm already over the jet lag, and watching/helping everyone else adjust to life in Beijing reminds me that I've come a long way since I first got here. I think my Chinese is most definitely getting better, and I know my way around the city pretty well, too. Tomorrow is our first day of class, I'm so excited to get back into a school routine with papers/readings/assignments/having to think! Our first course will focus on Ancient China and its development - did you know they used to use elephant carts as a means of transportation!?

Wishing I was taking an elephant instead of a bus to the ice rink,
Karissa