Sunday: Just got back from a run to The Summer Palace about 4 miles away. Nice weather and I didn’t have to take a language placement test for obvious reasons. It would have been easy to grade though. Anyway, I ran along the canal that connects the Forbidden city to the Summer Palace. It is about thirty feet across with well maintained paths right next to the stone railing as well as up the embankment. Many men fishing, but I wouldn’t dare eat anything that came out of that water. There was a team of guys dredging the canal by hand. They were pulling two ends of the net from either side of the canal and just walking down the length. Older people were doing Thai Chi and stretching on playground equipment across the street at one point. I couldn’t go into the palace because I didn’t have any money for a ticket, so I took a dirt path over the canal that I thought might go around behind the entrance. It ended up not giving me any view of the palace because there are massive stone walls completely surrounding the grounds, but I stumbled upon a small hutong village. From Wikipedia: “Hutong represents an important culture element of Beijing city. Thanks to Beijing’s long history and superior status as capital for six dynasties, almost every hutong has its anecdotes, and some are even associated with historic events. In contrast to the court life and elite culture represented by the Forbidden City, Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven, the hutongs reflect the culture of grassroots Beijingers. The hutong are residential neighborhoods that still form the heart of Old Beijing.” It was awesome watching these people wash clothes and play with children who probably don’t care very much about all the hype to do with the Olympics. I would like to go back and ask them what they think about their changing city once I have the capability.
I fell asleep after the run and missed some orientation activities, haha. Ended up running to the gate and meeting up with the group right before heading off on a mystery trek to find some location of Chinese culture. Steve the RA gave us 4 Chinese characters and said go! The funny part was that I was mostly worthless with asking people for directions, and the two girls were mostly worthless with reading the map. So, together we almost made a whole person. We ended up not taking a bus and walking for about 1.5 hours to the nearest subway stop. The subway was very clean and took us very near our destination, The Drum and Bell Tower. We arrived 5 minutes after the ticket booth closed, so we couldn’t go into the tower, but we did get a few pictures from the outside. The 15 minute taxi ride back was much more convenient than the previous modes of transportation, namely our feet. One side note: They are anticipating opening a new subway line just one block from the dorm!
In the evening, we met with our tutors and kicked off the “Language Pledge.” This means that everyone that is capable is supposed to speak in Chinese 100% of the time. I felt ambitious and signed the 50% pledge. I have the feeling it’s going to be more like a pledge of silence. My first Experience with “round-table” dining.
