A Happy Ending

Well, today is my last full day in Beijing before I leave to meet my mom in Shanghai to travel around a good bit of China and Japan early Tuesday morning. I'm really really excited to see her and the rest of China, but it's also going to feel weird leaving Beijing, which has in a weird, semi-sick kind of way, come to feel a little bit like home after 9 weeks, though I'm very glad its not! I'm definitely so grateful to have been able to spend the summer here. It's been spectacular, but I'm also really excited to get back to the states and say, see a whole piece of meat that's a size that would make it hard to eat with chopsticks (Xianzai wo hui young kuaizi, by the way!).

Yesterday morning, I slept in too late to get my usual MickeyD's pancakes and sausage (or "the big breakfast" on a hungry day), so I went to the basement of our grocery store to grab one of these 1.5 yuan egg on pita things that are really good before church. I went outside to eat it and a banana I had picked up quickly, and while I was sitting, some old Chinese men (the daily squatter type) were intrigued I guess, and came over and stuck up conversation (IN CHINESE!) and I actually could understand (ok, parts) and conversed back (ok, badly)! But still, it was just really cool to see how far I had come from clueless two months ago. I talked to them for a solid ten minutes or so (one of the men spoke a few words of English, as did some random and intrigued, eaves dropping passers-by, who helped out the flow of the conversation - at one point there was a group of about 7 just standing and watching us interact, ha), but by the end, he asked for my email, so I asked for a picture, which prompted him to want a picture with his camera, which was at his house in the hutong really near by. (Don't worry, Mom, I stayed outside where things weren't sketchy or dangerous, there were lots of other people around, and I could've easily taken this guy had it come to that...), but he lived in a classic hutong courtyard, which was REALLY cool to see. Anyway, a really fun morning.

Since its the last couple of days, I've been taking a lot of pictures, so here are some other snapshots from every day life over the past couple of months.

The office. And a close up of our classy motivational posters. Ha.

This is my Chinese teacher, Zhang laoshi (on the right). She's my absolute favorite person in China. LOVE her.

Xiao Xin's, one of our favorite cafes in the hutong. Home to excellent omelets, milkshakes, and free wifi. Also frequently plays Christmas music?

Here we are in the restaurant attached to our hotel with the menu they translated for us over the course of a couple of months and our favorite fuwuyan!!!

I'm not really sure what my internet situation will be like the next 3 and a half weeks or so, so I'll just say ZAIJIAN! for now, and hopefully I can talk to y'all in person/phone once I get back 'round September 10th!

Olympic Beach Volleyball and Basketball (as told by picture captions)

Fuwa outside of the volleyball stadium! I do love the Fuwa...

Beach Volleyball Stadium - empty and full of Chinese people during the hour that Team China was playing. They were pretty into it, even though I'm pretty sure 80% had never seen beach volleyball before. There's not a lot of beach happening in Beijing.

Game 1 was Team USA v. Norway - Misty May and Kerri Walsh. Sweet?!?!


Team China caught in a somewhat awkward moment

Let's be honest - this was the most entertaining part. Like a weird/disturbing/hilarious cultural fusion happening here. I laughed heartily.

Shane's parents were super nice and offered up their extra basketball tickets on Saturday. This is the outside of the basketball stadium, which looks strikingly much like it's made out of popsicle sticks.

B-ball from the inside: Argentina v. Iran. We all stood and sung both teams' national anthems before the games. Never really thought I'd be paying regards to the Islamic Republic of Iran's flag, but that's what the Olympics are for I guess...

Some Spewing and Some Soccer (i.e. the Olympics!)

Well, the first part of this post has very little relevance to China specifically (or does it?), but I think it might top the most embarrassing moments list for the trip (hard to do), so, I mean, why WOULDN'T I want to post it all over the internet for everyone to see?

I'm sitting at my desk in the office on Monday, enjoying my PB&J for breakfast as I do every morning and drinking my little mug full of luke-warm water, when part of the last sip I had taken goes down the wrong pipe. This wouldn't have been too much of a problem (maybe I would've gotten some looks for coughing since no one seems to do that here - they only hack - loogie style, but that's beside the point), except that the other half of the sip was still in my mouth. So, we have a problem. My best efforts to suppress the cough were but futile, and, failing to think quickly enough to get a hand in front of my mouth, I was soon facing of a 2-foot-radius hemisphere of mist which had just been spewed somewhat dramatically from my mouth all over my desk, computer, etc...
OR SO I THOUGHT it was 2 feet. Until about 20 seconds later when I notice the girl who sits at the desk a good 5 or 6 feet in front of me in front of me wiping down all of her belongings. DOH! But, the whole time the whole office was SILENT, and she never gave me so much as a glance, and between the lack of eye contact and time delay (a good half a minute had passed by now) I felt weird apologizing, and she just went on wiping for a minute or two (she missed the little pieces of bread which had been carried out by the stream plastered to the back of her chair). Anyway, I thought maybe she was mad, but she gave me candy like half an hour later and we had a quite pleasant conversation after that, so I don't know. Maybe one of those "don't make her lose face" things? Whatever it was, talk about awkward moments... I basically spent the rest of the morning mortified in the elbow on the table, hand shielding the eyes position of humiliation.

...Which meant I was even more excited to get out of there and go to the Olympics! I left the office around 3 to take a taxi to Workers' Stadium (I guess a little most subtle than naming it Communist Stadium, but not a whole lot...), and we finally got through some pretty intense security in time to see the women's games Brazil vs. Nigeria (Brazil won) and Sweden vs. Canada (battle of the two most peaceful countries EVER? - Sweden came out victorious) Anyway, it was a pretty cool deal. Although the stadium was about 90% Chinese people who weren't particularly loyal to any of the teams playing. They've also stacked the stadiums with Chinese cheering sections full of volunteers armed with little inflatable noise making sticks, which they bang together in unison FOR BOTH TEAMS. Ok. Other highlights included the half time show, which was the giant inflatable Fuwa (Olympic mascots) marching around the track, dancing to HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL?! Really? In Beijing? At the Olympics? I mean, don't get me wrong, I loved it, but REALLY?! Check out these sweet snapshots of the jumbotron too :).

Who knew that the Mexicans had laid claim to the wave? Let me tell you, the Chinese people LOVE the wave...
also...CLAPPING!!

Outside the stadium, after braving security



Inside


The yellow sign in the middle of the picture says no open umbrellas...

On another note, as cool as it is to be in Beijing while it's all happening, I feel pretty out of the loop when it comes to the US Olympic stories, because all they show here on TV are the sports that the Chinese are winning medals in (i.e. A LOT of weightlifting and 10m air pistol). For example, my viewing choices right now are, let's see, Badminton on CCTV and what other than Ping Pong on CCTV2.
We're hitting up Beach Volleyball in the morning, so if you happen to read this before 9 pm (EST) Wednesday night and care enough, you can look for me in my Stanford shirt cheering on Kerri Walsh on the sand. (Also somewhat interesting is that Georgia beat Russia in Sand Volleyball today. Except the Georgians were native Brazilians, but still.)

ONE WORLD, ONE DREAM - Opening Ceremonies 2008

Jiaozi (dumplings), kuaizi (chopsticks), bananas (gotta keep it real…), “Zhongguo Jiayou” headbands, and flags in hand, we headed out about 3:00 pm yesterday for the Bird’s Nest to stake out a spot to watch the festivities surrounding opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. When we went to scout things out last Monday night, we had found a great spot in a plaza where we could set up a picnic within viewing distance of the stadium itself so we could see the fireworks, and a big screen so we could see what was going on inside. However, after braving the subway packed to the brim and walking around the barricaded area for 45 minutes or so (barraged like never before by picture takers – we’re talking every few yards), we found that they wouldn’t let us within a literal mile of the nest without a ticket. So, after enjoying some pretty sweet Olympic-style people watching, we enacted plan B, and headed for Wangfujing.

Pre-ceremony festivities, excitement, hats, and haircuts

We set up camp (i.e. laid down the free blanket you get when you spend $7 or more in the café near our Chinese school) in Wangfujing around 5:30, and sat back and enjoyed the excitement. It felt a little bit like a Chinese version of July 4^th… on CRACK. These people were excited beyond belief for the moment that was finally within reach. We watched mini-parades, took pictures with decked out foreigners, and schemed as to the best ways to bring these adorable Chinese babies back home with us. After a little while though, we found out that the giant screen we were set up in front of there wasn’t going to work (figures…), so we enacted plan B and a half, and moved a couple of blocks down to a different one, where the atmosphere was escalated from a crazy wild July 4^th parade to a nationalism-themed New Year’s Eve on Times Square…on CRACK. By the time the official countdown started (um, how COOL was that?!), we were in the middle of at least 4,000 Chinese and others from around the world, screaming at the tops of their lungs. Mass euphoria.

What a SPECTACULAR show. A day and 14 hours of sleep later (I was EXHAUSTED after 6 hours in that crazy adrenaline-drowned environment!), I’m still blown away by the sheet scale of the production (though I can give you my thoughts at another time as to a) exactly how wise (or not) I think their choice of style was in shaping the world’s perceptions of China, b) how representative (or not) it was of the position and life of the everyday working Chinese person), and c) how some of that money could have been better spent, BUT regardless, it was one of the most impressive scenes I’ve witnessed, and I’m incredibly happy for all of the Chinese people who had been hoping for and dreaming about those few hours for the last 7 years. They definitely didn’t disappoint.

For the first hour and a half or so, the soundtrack to the show was a 4,000 voice, goosebump-inducing Chinese choir screaming “Zhongguo Jiayou! Ao Yun Jiayou! Beijing Jiayou!” at a level of enthusiasm unknown in Chinese culture. The parade of nations was also super interesting, because each country that came out got different reactions from the crowd (Japan, for example, was not so positive), but for the most part, it was really cool, because every third country or so had a native present in the crowd, so when they would stand up and go crazy, all of the Chinese would start cheering in support of them. It sounds really corny, but if the Olympic slogan “One World, One Dream” could be manifested anywhere, it was last night in Wangfujing. The enthusiasm never waned up until the torch was lit (again, COOL?!?!), and after a frantic but failed rush to get a view of the city-wide fireworks show (the building the screen was on was blocking our view, but we did get to see reflections in another, and we definitely heard them), we finally made it home, exhausted and awed at about 1:00 am.

Check out the videos - they tell it way better than I ever could...

National Anthem

Team China Enters the Bird's Nest - the rest of China goes nuts

Torch Relay and THE FINAL COUNTDOWN to 8:00 08/08/08

Well, it’s official. I’ve caught the fever.
20 hours and counting until opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games!!!

The mood in the city right now is hard to describe, but pretty incredible - something in between electric and euphoric, and expectedly so. These games seem to be one of the biggest things to happen to China since the 80’s, and the people here have been doing everything they can for the last seven years to ensure that they’re an impressive success. Buildings have been razed and re-raised, subways built, the public “educated”, signs posted, people evicted, venues constructed, menus translated, anything “unsightly” plastered with a “One World, One Dream” Banner, factories shut down and cars taken off the road in an attempt to reduce pollution, and that’s just the beginning… Everyone is Beijing is excited and doing their part, including the members of “community watch” teams, people young and old with Yanjing Beer provided t-shirts and red arm bands, who are posted about every 40 yards over the entire city to take down anyone who tries to disrupt the “harmony” of the games. It’ll be interesting to see how it all turns out, and I’m sure the Western media will find things to criticize, but no one can say that the Chinese aren’t giving all they’ve got to put on the best and most impressive games they’re capable of. World leaders and foreigners have all arrived – we spent the evening people watching in Wangfujing, where we heard probably about 15 different languages being spoken in a span of 15 minutes – and security is in place. Add to the normal, everyday chaos which might as well be the thesaurus entry for China tens of thousands of jet-lagged, lost, excited, and just generally overwhelmed foreigners. Most Beijingers have the day off tomorrow. It’s like being backstage in the final minutes before a huge production. As one of my favorite Chinese friends says before he’s about to do cool tricks with the hackie-sack birdie, “It’s SHOWTIME!”

I got really excited after the Olympic Torch Relay passed by my office yesterday afternoon. I have no idea why they chose the street next to my building as part of the route (it’s in the middle of a (still very crowded) nowhere), but I was really lucky they did. About 1:30 in the afternoon, everyone left their computers, clamored to get the free flags and noise makers being passed out by volunteers and sponsors in the office lobby, and we were escorted to designated spots along the route to line it in red and cheer (“Zhongguo Jiayou!” the national cheer, of course). I’ll let the pictures describe it better. I also included a couple from our visit to the venues the other night. The buildings are pretty spectacular.

I strongly suggest you tune in to watch tomorrow night and throughout the next couple of weeks. The stakes are high, and from what I can tell, it’s going to be quite a show.

Decked out in our new free Go China gear. Cheryl tends to perform whenever I get out the camera...

Passing of the flame and torchbearer #322 (I think). He could be famous or important?

The Water Cube, Countdown Clock, and Bird's Nest Monday Night (from across a highway we couldn't figure out how to get across...)

The Communications Act of 1934 - An "Oh, China.." moment

Work in the mornings, before it’s late enough to do any kind of business on the phone with people in Europe, for the past few weeks has mainly consisted translating brochures from Chinglish into English. Sometimes, this is more challenging than it sounds, like this description of the function of an LED light on the front panel of some new product:

“DL: representatives from the expansion modules to RU or lower-level expansion modules (the lower level in this expansion modules connected expansion modules circumstances) The downlink (UL) the success of communications”

which according to my best guess based on context clues, means to say:

“DL: indicates the successful transmission of the downlink signal from the Main Unit to the expansion module (or RU, in the case that RUs are directly connected to the Main Unit)”

Other times, it’s just funny. For example, I’ve recently been talking to a distributor in Europe who is interested in buying a product called a splitter, and was also interested in the series of mobile phone jammers we produce. My supervisor gave me a brochure to send him, which I looked over before sending it out to find the phrases:

(copied and pasted exactly from a section describing places where you might use a certain one of the jammers)

*Church: Clear the noise of mobile phone and keep the church quiet

*Library: Keep the reading condition

*Court Yard: Keep the awfulness and heavenliness

*Examination Room: Avoid cheat

I mean, I don’t know about you but I’d buy anything to preserve the awfulness of my courtyard.

However, the other day, as I was finishing up the jammer brochure, I came to the last product, which is a hand-held jammer. (A jammer is a device that emits a pulse on the same frequency a cell phone works on, canceling out the signal within a certain range and rendering the phone incapable of sending or receiving any data or calls.) Now, with the hand-held one, the brochure advertised in Chinglish, you can have peace anywhere you want it. Hmmm, I thought to myself. That doesn’t sound very legal. So I started doing a little research.

Well, turns out that in the US and most of Europe it isn’t. In the UK, it’s ok to own them, just not to operate them – and no, I have no idea what the point of that would be – but thank goodness I’m working on Europe, because in the US, according to the Communications Act of 1934 (which has been updated to address this kind of issue), manufacturing, importing, selling, or ADVERTISING any kind of jamming device (i.e. what I’ve been devoting my mornings to for the last week), is punishable by a fine of up to $11,000 or one year in prison. Lovely.

Telestone "Team-Building Adventure"

I would tell you were I spent my entire day today if I had any clue. Actually, the Great Wall was right next to it, so I guess that means it had to be north of the city, but wherever it was, it was definitely the setting of one of my favorite days here thus far.

I woke up at 4:50 am this morning to go to a “team-building” day with my company. This was originally a beach trip when I first agreed to go, but I figured Chinese team-building would have to be a memorable experience no matter what, so I decided to stick with it, even though Pato is in Shanghai this weekend, so it’d just be me and the Chinese folks.

First hiccup happened when the bus I usually take to work (after the biking to the subway and subway transfer) didn’t come for 30 minutes (they usually come about every ten), so I had to call someone from my work to text me the location of my work in Chinese to show a cab driver. That didn’t work either, but after a somewhat extended phone conversation, she seemed to be able to convince him of where it was. Because I took a cab instead of a bus, I was about 30 minutes early in my empty Saturday morning work parking lot, so I grabbed some breakfast from a street vendor and hung out waiting for the rest of the “team” to arrive.

After everyone got there decked out in their “outdoors gear” (for my supervisor that meant hot pink “Dolce & Gabanna” t-shirt and denim visor), we finally took off in our little charter bus about 7:30. Thanks to the 4:50 wake-up call, I was out pretty quickly, and when I next woke up, we were passing donkeys and sheep frequently. Things got pretty entertaining pretty quickly once we reached the place. You have to realize that all of the following takes place in Chinese, meaning I understand nothing and basically just imitate what everyone else is doing while they laugh at me. So first, we made “weather sounds” by rubbing our hands together and clapping and slapping one another on the back, and a played a couple of other little games like one where when he said a certain word, you try and grab the finger of the person next to you (at which I obviously failed miserably at because since I can’t understand the instructions I have no idea we are even listening for a word, much less what the word is, until after my finger was bleeding from my boss’s fingernails). After some yelling of some Chinese words in unison, we split up into two teams and did the classic make a team name, flag, cheer, and pose (that might be a Chinese addition). As far as I could tell from the picture on our flag and their attempted explanation, my team was the “roaches”. Regardless, everyone was SUPER enthusiastic and I was SUPER amused.

Our team pose. We're a cockroach. Can't you tell?

One of these names is not like the others, one of these names just doesn't belong...

From there, we took off for the day. For the next several hours, we hiked through a river (that means soaking wet tennis shoes and socks from about 10:30 am onward) and stopped ever so often to solve a puzzle or complete a task or something. My favorite was team jump rope. Please just try and get a mental picture for a second – these are 20, 30, and 40 something year old Chinese business people and engineers. Jumping rope. Together. Anyway, the river ran through a valley out in the mountains (like I mentioned earlier, right next to the Great Wall), so the views were gorgeous and it was a really, really enjoyable, albeit pretty arduous hike (although not apparently arduous enough for them to ditch the sun umbrellas, by which I swear I'm going to lose an eye before I leave this place...)

JUMP ROPE!

Hiking action...

Besides the awesome scenery, the highlight of the day up to that point was probably the following conversation:

Melody (a co-worker): Keer-steen (that’s me), you very tall but I still think you look like trout.

Kristyn: You think I look like a what?

Melody: A trout.

Kristyn: A trout?

Melody: Yes. A trout.

Kristyn: Like the fish?

Melody: Yes. In your face.

Kristyn: Hmmmm. Haha. (awkward pause because I don’t really know how to respond to this

comment). Ohhhhhhhhh. Wait, A CHILD?!!?!?

Melody: Yes, a choud. (I know, you wouldn’t think these two words would sound the same, but

trust me, Chinglish has a phenomenal ability to accomplish the seemingly unlikely).

Kristyn: Ok. So how about this weather…?

However, the most memorable moment of the day title was soon usurped by the few seconds during which my head was literally stuck between the wall of a cave and my co-worker’s butt. Why were you in a cave, you ask? Well, that would be because about 3:30 pm, just as we’re wading through the deepest part of the river (like thigh high), a storm hits. And we’re not talking breeze and a light drizzle. This is thunder. Lightning. Torrential downpour. Lovely. So basically everyone panics (in Chinese, might I remind you), and I find the “cave” (cave is a misnomer if it evokes an image of spaciousness of any kind – niche would probably be a more apt description) in which several of us take cover for a while. That is, until I discover that my head is ensconced in an elaborate tangle of spider webs and an inhabitant of said webs is about to attack my face, at which point I quickly attempt to remove myself from the niche, which is how I got myself into the cave wall- head – butt conundrum with which the paragraph began.

Trying to stay out of the elements (not dry...it was way too late for that...)

Anyway, we survived the storm (though much of the stuff in my soaked backpacked is a little worse for the wear), and we were then soaked and cold and still had about an hour and a half of hiking up a mountain ahead of us, but all was made better by the chocolate someone had brought along (“because it will warm you up” – I wasn’t aware of Hershey’s nuggets’ ability to change body temperature until this point… ;) ).

The day wrapped up with a big traditional Chinese meal back at the base camp. Like most of these kinds of family-style meals, there were literally 20 dishes on the table. Now usually, this is great for me, because statistically, there have to be at least a couple of things that I like, so I camp out on those, and life is good. But tonight, as it was me and all the Chinese people, they were all really curious to know exactly what I thought about EVERY dish, which meant I had to try every dish and then creatively come up with a different excuse for why I didn’t want more of it.

Overall, it was a pretty fantastic(ally entertaining and hillarious) day. I’m completely wiped out (I didn’t get back home until 10:00pm tonight, and I’m pretty sure my feet are more shriveled than they’ve ever been, having been encased in wet socks for 12 hours now) but now I’m good and bonded with the co-workers, and this might just be my favorite picture from the trip so far...