It feels like I did more in the last 3 days than the last 3 years of my life!

Where to begin? The past 3 days has just been insane. This is going to be a fairly long post, just to warn you!

On Friday morning we got up and went to some media outlets. The first was people.com.cn. This is an online edition of a paper that as I understood it bloomed out and is now a lot bigger than the printed edition. The were talking a lot about convergence and how they were on top of new technology. It was very interesting and this paper is actually owned by the government. They had a whole room of reporters that are going to cover the Olympics and we quickly realized that their news is not the same as our news. On ever television I have see they are replaying the 2000 and 2004 Olympic games, especially events the Chinese won those years. It’s very interesting and they also have tv on the public buses that just play these in a loop. I am quickly realizing that their government is more like their religion and it’s very interesting. We went to a very fancy hotel for a buffet lunch that day and it was amazing. It was the first time I had had really good bread and butter and , I know this will sound stupid, but it’s the first time I’ve had salad on this trip. They have told us not to order fruit of veggies that aren’t cooked, and I didn’t realize how much I would miss a plain old salad. At all the really nice places we have also been offered watermelon for dessert, something we are only allowed to eat when served to us in a proper place. I eat a lot of junk food, but when all the healthy stuff you’re used to eating is taken away from you it kind of sucks! Mom aren’t you proud right now? We had a conversation about what I would miss most, and trust me salads did not come up in my guessing! I have realized what I miss most, but that is to come.

So after lunch we get back on the bus and go to Beijing Youth Daily. We had a tour guide named Tony that spoke really good English. We have a game on this trip to see who can find the Chinese person with the best American name. They pick their names by having an English teacher give it to them, or just by a name of a celebrity or character in a book they like. So far we’ve had Tony, Steve, Clever, and Sponge. We are guessing Sponge came from Spngebob Square pants, but who really knows! So after Tony gave us a tour (the building was over 20 stories and he took our group of about 10 to the 4th floor bar) we all got back in our group of 60 (it is really hard to travel with 60 Americans in a group and am very excited to have lots of free time to explore in smaller groups!) We had a presentation and instead of them talking about their newspaper they basically asked us to work for them for the next 2 months. Gave us their business cards and told us to call them with stories. This is not allowed at all by the Olympic committee, even my blog is pushing it! It was just funny to have that speech. We got back around 5 and I fell asleep to be woken up at 6 by Allie because we wanted to go see acrobats. We get all ready and run outside to grab a cab, but when we get outside it was a little dark to one side, I say, “we’ll be safe to walk to a cab at least”- NOPE starts pouring in about 2 seconds. I HATE wet jeans more than anything in the world and we realize we won’t make it in time, especially because we have to still by tickets and we don’t speak Chinese. We go back up to the room, lay down for a nap at 6pm and I’m woken up by Allie at 1:30 am and realize there is no way we weren’t jet lagged or no way we were going out that night.

Saturday morning we get up to go to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. First we realized we hadn’t eaten since lunch, and I was super grumpy so we go explore. What we find is a 24 hours McDonalds and for the first time on the trip I found breakfast food- pancakes sausage and hash browns! This is what I miss most about the US- of course I miss all of you too! But really I am such a breakfast person and they don’t have different foods for breakfast! McDonalds might become a weekly thing, especially because I got all that for under 3 US dollars! The things I realized here are:
1) these 2 places are a lot like D.C..- I thought that we would see a lot of foreign tourists (or anyone else that is white). Not to sound bad, but there are so many people here and I knew I’d be a minority, but I figured at tourist attractions there would be other people from Europe or the states. But there were just tons of Chinese people and we quickly realized that they came from many other providences to see this. I know, you’re probably thinking this is a really stupid Whitney comment, but the more I thought about it- there are a lot of foreign tourists in DC, but a majority are Americans coming to their country’s capital. Its just funny that sometimes I still don’t feel like I’m in China- this was a moment I realized it.

2) it is not like D.C. in the fact that instead of monuments to many different people and presidents- everything is for Mau. EVERYTHING. It’s funny to hear the history and stories our tour guide tells us and the stories students and people we get to know tell us about the history of China. But this can be similar to how they teach the civil war differently in the north and the south back home. It’s funny that as different as China and America are, I find myself drawing parallels to things in our past. I really knew nothing about China before I got here.

3) Their history is OLD. This is another, Whitney that’s the dumbest comment ever! But seriously, we were at the forbidden city and they’re like this all was build in 1420.........and I’m tthinking of Amy Grand singing “in the year of 1492, when Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” (I know, huge dork) It’s just insane to think about the history that I took in yesterday.

So that feels like it should be a full day, but it was only one-third of it!

Next we went to lunch then on a Hutong tour. This started at the bell and drum tower (two huge tours that were used to tell time for all the people of Beijing years ago.) We went up the drum tower and I will try to post pics very soon. Then we rode a rickshaw (no clue if I’m spelling that right at all). We went to a Hutong and went into a lady’s section.

Ok, not what is a Hutong (and mom and dad, no I didn’t celebrate the 4th, some people went to pizza hut- but if you remember I was in bed by 6) A Hutong is translated into narrow allies. Basically how I will describe it (probably not well, but I have pictures) is a neighborhood- or a block (smaller than a block in the US- but I don’t know what else to call it.) Anyways it’s surrounded by walls and has many different rooms or “houses connected”, and they’re all connected by allies- but it’s all out in the open. The Hutong we were in yesterday had 28 rooms and there were 5 grown brothers that lived in it with their families. So we sat in one room- which was like a studio apartment but the size of a dorm room, which was one of the brothers, Next door there was a kitchen on one side and their sons room on the other (he was 28- mom and dad aren’t you glad Wes just bought his own house?) across the “street” was the eating area. They all share bathrooms and kitchens (we found out today some don’t have bathrooms).

Crazy- then we moved on to some guys garden- I believe his name was Gong and he is known as the most corrupt politician in China. We found out today that he was friends with one of the emperors- really strange story, but he was a man with very girly features and I guess he looked like one of the emperors wives (well not a “wife”, because they only had one but they had many other wives so to say that just didn’t live in the main palace) Anyways she died and he became the emperors lover. Somehow I don’t see this being a story that would be talked about in America, if it was an American politician. Anyways he took a bunch of money because he could and when the emperor died he was 3 times more wealthy, so the emperor’s son had him killed and all his money went back to the government. – more on this in a second.

So after that trip we came back and went to dinner, then we decided it was time we tested out the night life. We (Allie and I) went with 2 of our guy friends, Matt and Mark to the bar district. We walked around and found that workers and what would be like our bouncers on the outside of bars would come up to us because we’re American and try to get us in their bar. We went to a few- all with live music which was fun. We had a fan club at one because Allie got up and did the Solider Boy dance (mom and dad I’m not going to explain this one because it would take too long- just ask will). We also went to a Reggie bar- interesting (Wes I got woowoo shots in honor of you) We mostly stuck to bottled beer- because 60% of alcohol in Beijing is counterfeit and could have really bad stuff in it- thank you Allie’s travel book! We cap off our night with what else- 24 hour McDonalds! Amazing the give us our own picture menu so we can point.

Sorry this is super long I’ll try to blog more frequently and shorter!

Today we had our first off day, so Allie and I wake up at 7 and go on another Hutong tour, which ends up being just about the same as yesterdays and we get nervous when we start off again at the Drum Tower. Anyways we have a guide who is a girl about 27 I would guess, went to college and was an English teacher before moving to Beijing 2 years ago to start giving tours. I think she will move back to her original city and do something else soon- she didn’t seem very happy. She rents a room in a Hutong with a friend- very small and she has to walk 3 min to a public restroom to use it day or night because he Hutong doesn’t have one. She was so interesting and although we had taken a similar tour- it was so much better to go as 2 people than 30 and we got a lot more stories and could ask a lot of questions. We talked about where historical artifacts could be found and she said the government gets them and sells them for money and I explained to her that most of ours are kept in museums in DC or around the country so the people could visit them. We talked about how many young people in China celebrate Christmas- when she was in college they have a big party with her friends on the night of the 24 and give each other apples. But basically it’s a party.

We visited 2 Hutongs, the first being a very wealthy family- I can’t describe I’ll post pictures later. The seconds a working class family, who we got to have lunch with. The guy was an artist and I bought an original painting- for a whopping 200 rmbs, which is like 25 dollars (dad I’m sure you’ll do the official math)- its beautiful I’ll post it in a picture too. Other than that I just am hanging out in the room relaxing after a few busy days. I’m going to go get a snack with a girl pretty soon- Allie’s working out and I eat- then we’re going to try to figure out how to do laundry tonight! Should be a great time.

Also I figured you all would like to know I’ve mastered the taxi’s we go to the front desk and show a picture or map and they write it for us in Chinese we give that paper to the driver. To get back we have a business card with a mini map and the address in Chinese and we just hand that to the driver. I actually know my way around pretty good now after buses and taxis and walking. I feel pretty good. Also no traffic laws really- sometimes there aren’t even lines on the road. For anyone who has seen elf- “the yellow ones don’t stop”- well none of them stop here. Bikers don’t follow traffic signals- everyone honks (even though we found out today in the city that’s illegal) and nothing yields to pedestrians.

It’s great! The athletes won’t be happy in a month when they get here with the smog! But it will sure be interesting to watch it all take place! I’ll write again soon- and don’t worry not so long! Send me a message or email- I’d love to hear from you all!