Being a Tourist!

Hi all, this is Evan again. Sorry it took me so long to post! A combination of internet problems and a busy schedule, but hopefully I can keep updating more regularly now.  A lot’s happened since I last posted, so I’ll probably put up two posts relatively close together to cover more of it.  Also, these will eventually be less disjointed; the initial posts just have to cover a LOT of subject matter because it’s all so new.

Fun fact: Chinese universities have a lot of vacation days at the beginning of the year: I had class on the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th, then four days off for the Mid-Autumn Festival.  We had a full week of school last week, but after Monday, we have the rest of the week off for National Holiday.  So the first couple of weeks are less schoolwork and more visiting Beijing, seeing the sites, and generally getting used to living here, which is totally ok by me!

First off, classes have been difficult.  I’m glad I didn’t get put in a higher level; it’s hard enough to keep up with the teacher as it is.  I’m working on finding a language partner to help me out, and I’m mostly keeping up with the homework, but the teachers speak entirely in Chinese, and it’s very difficult to follow what they’re saying. 

On the 14^th, I got to eat Hot Pot (火锅, huǒguō) for lunch, which is really fun, if a little messy.  There are pictures in my “pictures” page (hopefully), but the basic idea is that everybody orders communal plates of meat, vegetables, noodles, etc, and puts it in their own “hot pot” (heated pot of broth, sort of like a fondue pot) and lets it cook.  It’s fun, and been a while since I got to eat that way, so I was very glad. 

On the 15^th, I got to go to church for the first time since my arrival; I’m planning on continuing to attend this church; it’s a Chinese church with one English service and four Chinese services, fairly close to campus.  It was encouraging to attend; the place was filled almost to capacity with some foreigners, but mostly with Chinese nationals, and from several conversations I’ve had, it sounds like the other services are just as well attended.  It’s good to see that God is moving here, despite difficulties.

Thursday the 19^th was the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节, zhōngqiūjié), equivalent in many ways to our Thanksgiving.  People go home to visit family, or if they can’t at least call and talk and otherwise keep in touch.  The upshot is that the campus gets very empty on this holiday, so there’s not nearly as much to do.  It’s also traditional to give gifts of moon cakes to others on this day, and some Chinese friends were kind enough to give me some (I gave them some Florida souvenirs in return), so I had a pleasant, if uneventful holiday. 

On Saturday the 21^st, a couple of friends and I went and explored a part of the city known as HouHai (后海).  It’s an older, prettier area around a lake, with a lot of restaurants, bars, and stores.  It has a couple of “Hutongs” (胡同), or alleys nearby.  They are an older, narrower style of street that one generally associates with older cities, and we got to explore them pretty thoroughly; they are a fascinating place; the smells and sights are vivid and intriguing. 

            I’ve been to church two Sundays, but today I had to miss it because our school organized a tour of the Great Wall!  They drove us a couple of hours to a section of the wall near Beijing, and let us loose to explore and hike up and down. One of the things that pictures don’t really convey about the wall is how steep it is to walk on; there are steps on some sections of it, but on others it just slopes up and down, and it can be a bit slippery. In addition, the section we visited was less well kept up than the parts that you see in pictures, so it was quite an exciting hike!  Not dangerous, but a bit of a workout.