Let it Snow, Let it Snow....

All day today, it has felt like it's about to snow. The overcast skies, the slight mistiness in the air - it must have been a sign that surely, snow was on its way. However, feeling and reality can be two very different things, as was the case today. It was not preparing to snow, and it was not "foggy" like weather.com said. No, the air quality was just so bad, they don't even have a word to describe it.

Today, the air quality index measured Beijing's air quality as being above 500 - which doesn't sound too terrible, until you realize the index stops at 500. 301 to 500 is considered "hazardous", with effects on the majority of the population. Last  night, the index of Beijing peaked at 525. Two hours ago, it was at 503, which the person writing could only characterize as "crazy bad", which is slightly amusing. The irony of it all is that I got this information from the Beijing Air twitter feed - aka, from a website that is blocked in China. The more I think about it, the wackier this gets. You can't make this stuff up!

Responses to the 500 + readings have been varied. Our TA - who kindly sent out the email informing us of the air quality - "believes that this means it's about to start raining coal", and a classmate said it feels like living in a post-apocalyptic world. I liken it more to going to school in a mythical land where you can't see more than a city block, because everything is engulfed in this misty haze. Another of our classmates kindly posted a link to an article about the health effects of smog on my Facebook wall, and suggested perhaps we should take up smoking cigarettes when we get back to Chicago - it would probably be better for our health. I am kind of curious to know what happens if it spikes even higher - do we leave "crazy bad" territory and go into "OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!1!" territory?

On Technology and Life

Oh technology, thou art a double edged sword.

On the one hand, the technological advances have been fantastic. When I was in Germany a couple years ago, the only contact I had with home is a once-weekly phone call. Looking back, I'm not entirely sure how I managed 8 weeks without email, but back then I didn't really use it, I guess (Besides, I should be able to survive w/o email for 8 weeks even now...but with school, it's kind of impossible). Nowadays, between Skype and Facebook, I'm not missing anything more at home than I would if I was in Chicago. Especially Skype is really convenient - first because it's free, but also because I can make my sister show me my room, to ensure that she hasn't taken over it or turned it into a storage facility.

Of course, the downside to knowing what's going on at home also means I know what's going on in Chicago. I've gotten so many Facebook invites to cool events that I would love to go to, save for the fact that I'm about 10,000 miles away right now. Realizing that life goes on without you is a weird feeling, though I hope that doesn't sound too arrogant. I had a RSO committee meeting that was in the Reynolds club, and I was on skype. Getting to see such a familiar landmark, and realizing that all my friends were having a normal school quarter in Chicago was kind of weird. Cognitively, we know life continues regardless of whether you're their or not. But actually seeing it going on is kind of weird...makes you realize that you're pretty expendable, and life won't stop when you die. This post kind of veered off topic from what I was planning, but I guess these musings could lead to a bold statement - studying abroad is like dying? :)

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. :)

Jinan Part 2, or, Climbing Mountains

So our last full day in Jinan, Bob, Charis, and I decided to go climb a mountain – more specifically, Mount Tai, located in the town of Taishan. Initially, I hadn't realized that Mount Tai was in a different city, so looking around Jinan and seeing only small mountains, I was anticipating this to be more of a long walk than actually climbing a legitimate mountain. However, after an hour and a half bus ride, I woke up to look out the window and see what was in fact a very legitimate mountain. At the bus station, we got a taxi to take us to the base of the mountain, and the climbing commenced.

At first, it was easy going – climb a flight of stairs, walk twenty feet, then climb another flight of stairs. It continued on this way for much of the trip to the top, about three hours. Halfway up, we stopped and had snacks at the Middle Gate to Heaven. The views were gorgeous, and we got to see the sun setting, which I got a nice picture of. It was starting to get dark as we left the middle gate to keep climbing, but we were far from the only travelers, and Bob had brought a flashlight, too. Still, living in Montana has made me healthily afraid of climbing mountains in the dark, but Bob and Charis assured me that there were no mountain lions.

For awhile, the stairs weren't too bad. I discovered that it's far easier if you keep a rhythm, and I tended to get ahead of Bob and Charis, who were walking a bit slower (Charis was getting a bit tired at that point). Finally, after about an hour and a half of climbing in the dark, I wondered aloud if we were almost to the top. Bob said, “Almost, but we haven't reached the 18 twists yet”. Now, considering that I had started this day thinking we were climbing more of a hill than an actual mountain, I had no clue what the 18 twists were.

Turns out, they're the steepest part of the climb.

Also turns out, I have an extreme fear of steep stairs.

My active imagination had no problem contributing to my thought of what would happen if I slipped. I'd fall down roughly a hundred stairs at a very steep angle, cracking my skull open on the rock below. Being in a remote area, it would take forever for a helicopter to get me out, and I would end up dead in a small Chinese hospital, only making it back to America in a coffin. Entirely unrealistic and entirely too morbid, but such was the picture my imagination offered me.

Bob, however, found it amusing that one of his climbing companions was wearing an oversized sweater and carrying a cane (Charis, who with the addition of the cane I started calling Grandma), and that the other was clinging to the railing for dear life. Halfway up the 18 twists, we stopped at a small platform house for dinner. Since food is fairly scarce this high up the mountain, we ended up getting big cups of Ramen noodles, which at that point tasted incredible, and helped warm us up. There were a lot of these small houses on the path up to the top, usually made up of a small family who sold water and food to people climbing. As you get further up the mountain, it also starts to get colder (obviously), so a lot of the 'checkpoints' have coats you can rent for the evening. The coats are huge army green communist style coats, and it felt a little surreal eating ramen noodles on a mountaintop in China, surrounded by people in Communist-era coats. It was as if I had gone back in time. :)

After making it to the top (with me clinging to the handrail all the way), we bought a bowl of porridge, which tasted like cream of wheat, except kind of chickeney, and played some poker. The views from the top were gorgeous, but because we were so far from the valley bottom, my camera couldn't adequately capture them. :( After awhile, we went to see about checking into a hotel for the night, planning on seeing the sunrise and then coming down the mountain the next morning. We went to a building halfway up the mountaintop village (which was awesome and adorable, by the way), where we were showed a room that had three separate beds. Charis seemed a little leery of it, but at that point, a pillow and a down comforter sounded fantastic. We paid, and apparently got the last room in the hotel, because a lady started screaming at the front desk; from what I understood, she had been shown the room first, but hadn't decided to take it when we got there, so when we made a quick decision, the staff gave the room to us.

After paying and getting a room key, I was excited to go to bed (silly me!). Going back into the room, it became a little too generous to call it a “hotel”, as that implies some kind of cleanliness to it. It wasn't until after paying that I saw the bathroom and smelled the mildew and realized why Charis had been uncertain about it. I sat down on the bed, and not only was it hard (which I've come to expect in China), but it was damp! You could practically feel the grime on the pillowcase, and the floor was in shreds. It was the first place I've stayed where I fully expected cockroaches to come crawling out and bedbugs to bite viciously. Climbing into our beds for the night, we all made sure we had as much clothing on as possible, trying our darnedest to avoid more contact with the sheets than needed. This made for some hilarious pictures which should be on facebook soon, but it did not make for a good night's sleep. We ended up not even brushing our teeth, preferring instead to wait until we got home to Charis's house. Moral of the story: if you're planning on climbing Mount Tai, just rent a tent at the top. Just as warm/dry, and far less bed bugs.

We woke up (although woke up might be a bit generous, as I think we were already awake) the next morning to go see the sunrise. Surprisingly, a ton of people who also climbed the mountain also decided to, which I wasn't expecting, based on the earliness of the hour. We climbed to the absolute tippy top of the mountain, where again surrounded by people in communist coats, we waited for the sun to rise. Unfortunately, there were clouds surrounding the mountain that morning, so we didn't actually get to see the sun rise; we just sat on a rock for thirty minutes staring into the fog. We opted to not go back to sleep, and instead took a cable car and a bus down to the base of the mountain. After we got out of the mountain top clouds, the view was again spectacular, making climbing 7,000+ steps the night before completely worth it.

We took a bus back to Jinan that morning, and left for Beijing that afternoon. Although we had taken a train to Jinan, by the time we bought tickets back to Beijing, they were completely sold out. We had to take a bus back instead, which was supposed to take 4 ½ hours. With all the traffic, however, it took eight. We got to back to our rooms by midnight, and then were up by six the next morning, to start helping with the grand opening of the University of Chicago Center in Beijing! :)