Last day at China.org.cn

I can't believe it. Today is my very last day working in China. I have time off for the next 11 days, which is awesome.

Wednesday night I went back to Lush, the bar we went to on the Fourth of July. Brian, P.A., Stephen, and I had burgers and beers and formed a team for trivia. We didn't win, but we did pretty well, and it was a lot of fun.

My piece about the Beijing Enamel Factory went up yesterday. I decided to make the story more of a photo story than a written one.

But yesterday got even better: I had a very positive interview with the editor of the Huntersville Herald, in Huntersville, NC, just north of Charlotte.

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Of course, there's nothing official yet, but the interview made me think that he was pretty happy with me, and he said he'd be in contact in a few days. I've also been in contact with Greenville, Williamston, Washington, Shelby, and Southern Pines. Southern Pines has offered me an internship. Of course, I don't want my last week and a half in China to be focused on getting a job, but I might have to be moving shortly after returning to Chapel Hill, which is exciting!

In the meantime, I'm going to Mianshan, and then to the Great Wall again. Fiona helped Brian and me buy tickets yesterday. The round trip is about $40. Today, she helped us book a hotel, which is about $55 for three nights. Not each night, but total. This trip will be so much cheaper than Mount Everest would have been.

This morning we had to give a presentation about what we've accomplished here in China, and what suggestions we have for the future. Celine kept assuring us that this was a very formal affair, but then during our presentations, the bosses were all whispering and laughing with each other. Not sure if our suggestions will make it through to implementation.

Also, on my last day the two articles I was given to edit were fantastically translated. They each took less than 10 minutes. It's been a great day.

Tomorrow we are having a party at Celine's apartment, Sunday I will go with Fiona to have dinner, and then Monday night I leave for Mianshan. I'm taking my computer with me just in case, but it looks like there will be no Internet in the area. I'll catch everyone up when I return, if that's the case.

Not-so-impressive weekend

Friday night was ruined by an untimely headache, so I spent much of the evening napping, and then I didn't feel up for much else. I read for a little while, and ate dinner in the apartment. After the long week of sleep deprivation, it was nice to just rest. Of course my nap made it difficult to sleep that night, which seemed to throw off the entire weekend.

Saturday, I planned to get up bright and early and head to Summer Palace. I ended up getting out of bed around 8:45, but was determined to finally see the palace after having put it off for so long. So despite the fact that I had to work at 2, I headed off for the subway around 9:45, after getting ready and stopping by the office to grab some breakfast granola bars from my desk.

Because everyone else has been, and Dan didn't care to see it, I was on my own for the day. I hopped on the number 27 bus, which goes to the subway, and only costs 1 Yuan per ride. So getting to the palace and back only cost me 6 total, whereas taking a taxi would have added at least 24 more. Pretty awesome.

But when I got there, it was far less awesome. First of all it was a hot sunny Saturday in Beijing, which means two things: lots of people will be outside, and most of them will have umbrellas.

I got up to the ticket counter after having been cut in line several times (because in China, lines are for losers). There I paid for the more expensive ticket, which allows access to many more things in the park than I'll ever have time to visit, because I didn't know how to tell her I wanted the cheap one. I still paid less than $10, so it's not a big deal. It just added to my frustration.

The first thing I saw when I entered was this little market street below a bridge:

It looked pretty cool, and I planned to go down there on my way out, but unfortunately I wasn't able to go back.

Just a bit farther on, I came upon the palace. Now the beauty of Summer Palace is seen from across the lake, where you can take it all in. Since I wasn't able to make it that far, or anywhere near it, this is one of the best photos I have of the palace.

It was pretty massive, and well preserved. If you can imagine, this is less than half of it.

There were lots of fun photo spots, which would have been more fun had I not been alone. They were still pretty impressive. The palace was just built into this gigantic hill!

Speaking of gigantic hills, I climbed up near the top of the palace, and this is what the city looked like. Summer Palace is technically in Beijing city limits. I believe this is looking north, out of the city, which explains the lack of skyscrapers.

That photo also brings up the next annoyance of the day: smog.

After a small hike down some tricky stairs leading from the palace to the lake, this is what I found. I would remind you at this point that I said it was a bright, sunny day in Beijing. This photo wasn't taken in black and white. The pollution was just that bad Saturday. That distant shoreline was my goal. I walked for an hour and, because of all the trees surrounding the palace, I was nowhere near being able to see the beautiful, iconic photo spot. I think, though, that had I reached the other side of the lake, I would have been disappointed by the smog. If I couldn't see the other side of the lake from here, it wasn't very likely that I'd be able to see the palace from there.

So anyway, after being bumped, pushed, hit by countless umbrellas, annoyed by hundreds of people around me blowing souvenir whistles, ripped off at the counter, and after walking for an hour with no foreseeable chance to get my photo, I saw an exit nearby and took it.

I had to be at the office to do some overtime work at 2, and because I didn't spend nearly as long at Summer Palace as I thought I would, I had an extra hour and a half. I took a short nap because I was exhausted from the walking and the heat, and then I grabbed some Ramen for lunch before heading up to the office.

After my work, I spent a while researching for my upcoming trip. I've decided to go to Mianshan Mountain, an area not too terribly far from here that has lots of small things to do not too far away from each other, or from the hotel. According to George, the employee who spend the spring at UNC and is a former travel agent, Mianshan is not famous, which is just what I wanted after my crowd fiasco at Summer Palace.

Moving along.

Saturday night Annie went with a friend to hike on the Great Wall and spend the night with a rural family, so I had the room to myself. I watched a movie--Changeling, which wasn't bad, but was a little long--and then I slept it quite late. Actually I woke up around 9, and started reading and fell asleep again until about 11:30. But after not getting much rest all week, the sleep was really good.

I finally got up and I headed back to Yashow, a market in the east part of town I've been to a couple of times now. I had a pretty long list of people who needed gifts from China, and I got through almost all of them Sunday, which was fantastic. I went in, knew how much I planned to spend on each person and what items I wanted, and for the most part I got those prices/items. I even found some stuff for myself, which I had been sort of avoiding up until now. After spending almost all the money I carried with me, I returned to the apartment quite happy.

I came up to the office for a while to check email and such, and then I went back to the apartment and watched Big Fish, then slipped off to sleep.

Yesterday was pretty cool. I went to tour the Beijing Enamel Factory, where they make the traditional Chinese vases known as Jingtailan, Jingfa, Chinese Enamel, or Cloisonne. I'm working on a photo story about the factory and the process, so I'll share that when it's done. No more information until then. (Just to make sure you come back for more!)

Last night after work I went to the gym, to the grocery store to get some bananas, peanut butter, and apple juice, and then made a peanut butter and banana sandwich for dinner. After that, Brian, P.A. and I went up to the pool hall instead of our usual night trip to the office. This pool trip was much more productive than the last. The first game was over in no time. We were just all on point last night, which made for fun competition, especially by the third game when none of us could hit anything.

I've been feeling pretty sick today, so I wasn't too productive at the office. I'm also getting a real hankerin' for some home-cooked food. There's so much left to do in China, more than I could do in a lifetime, so while I'm not in a hurry to get home, I'm really starting to miss it. I've started realizing that I won't be able to do some of the things I planned to do, like Beijing Opera. They only has shows every now and then, between other kinds of performances, and the only one left while I'm here will be while I'm at Mianshan. So little time... and only three days of work left! Such a surprise!

My days are blurring together; only 3 weeks left

Be forewarned: This is a long update post. My workdays this week have been filled, so I'm behind on the blogging.

I left off my last real blog post at the end of our Forbidden City excursion Saturday. I was scheduled to do some overtime work at 2:30, so I was back at the office around 1 p.m., where I had a co-worker, Pang Li, order me a pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut, which just really hit the spot.

I volunteered to come in to edit the mobile phone stories our site puts out every day. Most of them were taken from three publications in Britain, the BBC, The Guardian or the Daily Mail. They weren't necessarily completely copied, and they did usually--not always--say, "...The Guardian reported Saturday." But I still felt slimy about copying another publication's work, so I at least rewrote the stories, even though no one at China.org.cn did any reporting for the stories. There were about 15 of them, most of them about 100 words, so very brief. They paid me 300 Yuan, or about $45, for about an hour of work. Pretty good, I think.

After that I called up Fiona and we went to go pick up my Qipao. We got there and it wasn't nearly ready. They needed me to come in and try it before they put in the final stitches and lined it. They got the information they needed, and then Fiona and I did a little more shopping around the market, which I learned is called the New World Market. In the last week, I've gotten many more gifts for people back home. Please submit requests, if you have any!

We spent quite a long time together; we had dinner at a Japanese Noodle restaurant. I ordered these spicy beef noodles. The menu had a legend that gave the dishes a certain number of peppers depending on how spicy they were. The one I chose was four out of four. It actually wasn't that bad, and I know I've had worse, but I couldn't eat much of it before I was tired of the spicy--not that I couldn't take the heat, I was just sick of the same flavor. I can't wait to have a meal where the ingredients don't all come in the same bowl.

I enjoyed my time with Fiona. It's a shame that I'm only here for 10 weeks, because I think we are going to be good friends, but we'll be a world apart. Nevertheless, she makes my day at China.org.cn fly by. As an added bonus, she's really helpful with speaking Chinese and pretty good at bargaining. I got a huge suitcase for 180 Yuan, or about $26. I sent one of my suitcases home with Debbie when she left, partly because I wanted to get rid of some of the the things I brought with me, and partly because she needed the extra space. I would have liked a hard suitcase, one made of PVC or aluminum, but I would have had to splurge and spend more than $50 for it, because we couldn't talk them down any lower.

That night I got home about 10 p.m., and Pang Li, who ordered me the pizza, and Stephen were at the apartment hanging out with my roommates. Dan, Annie and Pang Li all went out somewhere, and the rest of us were to follow when Brian and Stephen's chess match was over. But another game followed, and then we played spades, and we ended up staying in the apartment all night--which was just fine because I had a great time.

Sunday was almost a great big blob of nothing. I did a load of laundry, napped for a bit and read almost all day. Then around 4, I called up Fiona because we had loose plans to make spaghetti sometime before I leave, and we decided to it then. So I went with her to the grocery store, and I bought a bunch of tomatoes (not enough, in fact), a couple of green peppers, an onion, garlic, beef, and noodles. The Chinese don't cook with spices like parsley, oregano, or basil, so the sauce was a little bland. And the tomatoes cooked to juice, so we mostly just had beef, onion and green peppers in tomato soup on top of spaghetti noodles, but it sure tasted like spaghetti, which was great. My first attempt to make spaghetti from scratch was a huge success, and everyone in the apartment got a home-cooked meal.

Buying the meat was interesting. They just keep all the ground beef in a big container, and when you want some, you go up and ask. The guy behind the counter asked if I wanted a big handful or a little handful. I tried to explain that we needed at least a pound, and maybe more, and then I remembered that China is on the metric system so I said about half a kilogram. Fiona was shocked by that amount, so I thought that maybe my conversion was wrong, and I settled for one large handful. As it turned out, as with the tomatoes, it wasn't nearly as much as I would have liked. Fiona also talked me out of buying more tomatoes, so I blame the problems on her. I shouldn't have let the person who's only had spaghetti a few times in her life tell me how to make it! I'll have fun teasing her about that for the next three weeks.

I might have been the lead cook on this project because Fiona doesn't have a kitchen and doesn't cook very often, but she definitely showed me up in chopstick-use. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty good with chopsticks. But trying to load my plate with wet spaghetti noodles was almost impossible. I'd end up getting one noodle in the plate, and all the rest would just fall right back into the pot. She masterfully filled my plate with just two scoops (I guess it's not called scooping with chopsticks, but I can't think of what it should be called). Sunday turned out to be pretty fun, despite my laziness. And as I said before, I might not be going out to see different parts of the city every night, but I'm very happy with what I am doing.

Work this week hasn't been too slow or too busy. I've gotten something to edit every day. Monday we had some extra work to do, for which they also are paying us extra, so I was pretty much working--off and on--from the start of the work day Monday until about 7 p.m. They're paying us 266 Yuan per 1,000 words, and it was a pretty long document. I'll probably get at least 500 Yuan, or $75, from the extra work, which is very nice.

I spent most of Tuesday trying to plan my trip to Mount Everest. I know now that it can't happen. It's too expensive and will take too long to get there. Tuesday night after work I went to the Pilates class again, which I am really enjoying. It was over around 7, and I went back to the apartment, ate dinner, and then watched the new Karate Kid movie with Will Smith's son and Jackie Chan.

It was a really great movie! I was surprised, given that it's a sequel. It's not about Karate, but about Kung Fu, and it takes place in China. There's a scene where the kids go to the Forbidden City, which was cool to see after I just went there this weekend. There weren't any people at the "city" in the movie, though, so they must have gotten some super special permission to clear the area, because it wasn't like that at all when I went. There were other landmarks, too, like the Olympic stadium, and many of the streets looked exactly as they do here.

There's a scene where Jaden Smith knocks a stack of crates filled with beer bottles over to block the way, and the crates are just standing outside a building. The scene could have been shot almost anywhere in Beijing, because those crates are everywhere. I thought that was interesting because when I watch movies I think things like, "Oh, how convenient that those crates were just sitting there right when he needed them," but I know from experience that it really could happen.

I think Dan said this before, either in his blog or in person, but I think it will be a really cool memory, to know that I watched that movie while I was in the city where it was set. Now if only I can get Jackie Chan to teach me Kung Fu.

Wednesday I suppose was the most exciting day this week, but it was also the most disappointing. That was when I found out for sure that I can't go to Mount Everest, after a full day of planning and researching. I had ups and downs, finding out I could make it happen financially, only to discover that the tour I found is 12 days, and I only have 9. Then my former-travel-agent-co-worker George found out that we could get to and stay in Tibet pretty cheap, about $250, so I thought that adding on a trip over to the mountain wouldn't be that hard. I could do it, but it would take it from $250 to $950, and that would be the cost if we spend two days on a train, three days in a car, get out and see the mountain for a little while, and then turn around and come straight back. It's really hard to justify spending that much money to sit in a car/train for 8 days. So we're not going, and now I have to find a new trip. I'm welcoming suggestions.

After work, it was time to go get my Qipao! So Fiona and her friend YanFang and I headed out to the market once more. It fits perfectly, and it's beautiful! I also had an updated gift-idea list, so we spent the evening shopping again. We ate at a Korean fast food restaurant, where my food (beef, onions, carrots and green peppers with rice) was served on a stone plate that had been placed right on the fire. It was probably the most dangerous meal I've had here, but it was yummy. I think that of the meals I've had, it was also probably the closest to American-Chinese food (and yes, it was Korean).

We walked through a real shopping mall across the street, where I was torn. There were lots of clothes I liked, and they were admittedly cheaper than clothes in Dillard's or Belk's stores. Dresses that would have been $60 to $100 in Dillard's were $30. But since I don't spent that much on clothes in the U.S., I found it hard to splurge enough on myself to get anything. But I splurged on my Qipao, so there's no need to buy more dresses!

Work today was busy in the morning, and not busy at all in the afternoon. We have an intern here who is studying English at a Beijing university, and I was given one of her stories to edit this morning. When Nanlan, the editor, walked up she said, "I'm sorry, this opinion piece was translated by our English intern. It's quite long, and I'm afraid it will be a lot of work."

She was right, but it might have been the "easiest" piece I've edited so far, in that I had no problem following the meaning, there was a purpose to the article, there was nothing superfluous, and, unlike most of the opinion pieces I've edited here, the opinion was evident from the beginning. Most of the others spend 500 words listing facts and figures, and then present an opinion in the very last paragraph or two, making all the facts seem unnecessary. This one was good, the facts were mostly all there, the tone was nice, and I enjoyed the work a lot.

I have been recruited to work this weekend again. I work one day and Brian has the other. I want to go on a hike to the non-restored part of the Great Wall, which I can do for less than 300 Yuan ($45). But I don't really want to go by myself, and the others have plans, and either I'll be working or Brian will be working, so I can't go with him. I might suck it up and go on my own. Don't be alarmed. It's with a tour group, so I wouldn't be totally alone, just not with people I'm familiar with. I tried to recruit Fiona, but she didn't like the hiking aspect of the hike up the wall.

I'll make a decision tomorrow. I'm also planning to finally do Summer Palace this weekend. I think that if I get up and go first thing, like we did last week with the Forbidden City, I can have it done in the morning, and then after work I can go off to do other things.

I still can't believe I've less than three weeks left. I kept telling myself that 10 weeks was nothing, but the time has really just fallen away. Here's the breakdown of my time left:

6 workdays

6 weekend days

7 vacation days

That's it. I can't believe it. I need to try to jam-pack these next couple of weeks. Who knows if I'll ever be back?

Oh, one reason I hadn't updated this week was that I have been playing with my Google map. I've updated it, so now you can see more of the places I've been! Hopefully I'll add some more to it in these last three weeks.

View Places I've been in China in a larger map

Forbidden City Photos

As promised in my previous post, here are photos from the Forbidden City.

Here's the first hint that the day was going to be ridiculously crowded.

It really was beautiful, despite umbrellas and crowds.

In Chinese architecture, the importance of a building is judged by the number of animals on the eaves. This building has 10 between the large dragon head at the back and the Buddha in the front, meaning this building is at the most important level.

Just a glimpse of how impossible it was to see anything of importance.

Some things have been incredibly well preserved, and I was very impressed.

Notice the difference in preservation of these two columns. One is still very detailed, the other almost smooth. I started paying attention to the degradation of some parts of the "city."

This eave hasn't been restored like most of the rest of them.

There was a small park at the back of the "city," and there were trees in the park that were so old they needed to be held up with huge poles. Some of the threes there are more than 300 years old.

Not all that exciting, but not dull for a moment!

So I must apologize for the recent infrequent posts. I believe the last time I posted anything was Wednesday, and since nothing happened between Wednesday and Friday night worth of writing about, there wasn't anything to share. There is now.

First, my story about the painting class I attended is now available for all. It's easily my proudest work I've done here.

I spent Friday afternoon trying to figure out what to do with my vacation week. I chatted with George, an employee of China.org.cn who spent the spring in Chapel Hill, and who used to be a travel agent. He listed a bunch of historical cities that would be great to visit--that is, if I had more time. Given that I only have five days to travel, I really don't want to spend my days walking through monuments and museums. Please don't misunderstand, I would love to visit these sights and take in the centuries of history that China has to share. But with five days, I really need to go big, I think.

So after a long chat, I narrowed my options down to two: A Yangtze River cruise or a trip to see Mount Everest! Both of them sounded amazing, but I was leaning toward Everest because if you asked me a year ago, before it was ever likely that I'd have the chance, I would choose Everest in a heartbeat. It's always been something I've wanted to do, and I might never get the chance again.

This morning, the lead story on China.org.cn was about the upcoming flood season for the Yangtze River. Needless to say, I should have just gone with my gut. But then this afternoon, Celine pointed out something I'd forgotten. Foreigners aren't allowed to just go in and out of Tibet whenever they please. Instead we have no choice but to book a tour through a travel agency and apply for a permit to enter the region. This means paying probably four times what I would pay if I could just catch a train there and go on my own. So now I'm not sure that my dream trip is going to happen, and I'm feeling pretty sad about it. Tomorrow Celine will try to help me find a travel agent, and I guess we'll see what happens.

Moving on. Saturday, the three UNC interns headed out bright and early to the Forbidden City, a historical landmark directly in the center of Beijing and right across the street from Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City was the site of the Imperial Palace from around 1420 to the 1920s. I say landmark, but in fact it's actually quite large.

View Forbidden City in a larger map

It took us about three hours to make down through the middle and back. We didn't spend a lot of time branching off to the sides, partly because, to be frank, all the buildings looked the same, and partly because I was scheduled to do some overtime work. I took lots of photos, but I've left my camera at the apartment tonight, so I'll upload photos tomorrow.

Overall, the Forbidden City was very beautiful, and it was cool to be walking around in a place with so much history. But It was a sunny Saturday, so despite how enormous the place is, it was very crowded, and because many Chinese women work very hard to not get tanned, I was getting hit with umbrellas left and right. Whenever there was anything worth seeing, there were masses of people surrounding it, and I would be pushed and elbowed if I attempted to go over and see the throne room or other interesting artifacts. In the end, I decided to view most things from afar, which made every building pretty much look alike.

I wanted to say that I was upset--I'm not sure that's the right emotion--by how much some of the palace has deteriorated, but I guess 600 years can do a lot of damage. There were clearly renovations and restorations going on all around, so I don't feel that it's not being taken care of. Time is just a very peculiar thing, for me at least.

Well, it's 10:30 now, so I'm going to stop for the night. I'll pick up where I left off tomorrow, and I'll be sure to bring photos to share as well.

Work AND play!

After a very dull Monday (I was given neither anything to edit nor any story to write), I decided to do some research. I was looking for a tour or some trip I could attend and also write a story about. My search led me to this website, www.chinaculturecenter.org, a cultural center that offers classes in Chinese culture and tours across the country.

While of course I really wanted to attend these classes and learn to paint and make Chinese noodles and anything else they could teach me, I thought it might be a better use of my time to write a story about the place or about a class, and attend as an observer rather than a participant. I proposed the story to one of the editors and waited.

That was about it for Monday, except for a satisfying gym workout and grocery store trip, which I think I mentioned in the last blog post.

Tuesday I came in to more non-work, but was told that I had to have more information before the important people in the office would approve my story. I called the culture center and found that the class I wanted to attend for Thursday night was cancelled but they had a similar class Tuesday night. Well, why not?

There was no charge because I was not participating and because I'm a journalist, but I had to have a press pass to prove that, and because I'm an intern I don't get one from China.org.cn. As a compromise, Lu Na, one of the sweetest and most soft-spoken people in the office--maybe even in the whole of China--was asked to come with me, since she has an I.D. pass. I'm glad she did; the hour-long cab ride flew by as we chatted.

Lu Na is from a province in the middle of China. She thinks that her English is not so good, but we didn't really have any problems communicating, and I was particularly impressed given that she's never studied English outside of China. I discovered that she and most other employees in the English department here are actually language majors, not journalists. She studied English as her first major and Japanese as her second. I could communicate with her in two languages that are both foreign to her! I also learned that she loves Japanese anime shows and movies, which made me like her that much more.

The culture center seemed very professional. The class was small, and the instructor really seemed to know what she was doing. Her English was pretty good during her lesson, and I was surprised to find when I interviewed her afterward that she knows a lot of English to talk about her craft, but not much else. I was glad that Lu Na came along.

Here are some photos I took during the class:

The class was from 7 to 9 p.m., so we returned to the office very late, and after cleaning up my notes I went to bed.

Today I spent most of the day writing my story. It wouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did if I wasn't sitting next to Fiona--and that's not a bad thing. In addition to our fun, friendly conversation, she also asks me to help her with headlines and sentences every now and then. She works for the environmental section of China.org, and many of her stories come from the World Wildlife Foundation or other similar organizations that post headlines that sometimes need to be cut in half because they're so long. Alternatively, some of her sources use words like "whip" instead of "hit" to describe the weather, and in situations like these she'll ask me if those phrases are correct, and why or why not.

I suppose the story will go up tomorrow. I submitted it this afternoon, and when I asked what to do with the photos, the editor said to hold onto them until it was time to publish, and someone would get them from me then.

Tonight I'm off to Lush, the bar my friends and I went to for the Fourth of July. I'm going with Brian, P.A. and Stephen, the permanent employee from Missouri. Wednesday nights Lush has trivia night, and I'm hoping my old quiz bowl days will give me an edge. :)

A wonderful, assimilated weekend.

This weekend wasn’t filled with sightseeing, but I really enjoyed it. It might be my favorite weekend so far, if for no other reason than I didn’t have to feel too much like a tourist.

Saturday I was supposed to be meeting Fiona to go to Chaoyang Park for a “beach festival” in the park. It poured Friday night, and was still drizzly Saturday morning, so I called Fiona and we decided there probably weren’t going to be many people out at the park. Instead the two of us made plans to go shopping!

Here’s Fiona, by the way:

I told her that I wanted to buy some souvenirs for friends and family, but I didn’t want to go to the tourist markets where everything is very expensive. She took me to a market about 10 bus stops away, and while the selection was different, it most definitely was not a tourist market. I think I saw one other foreigner the whole time I was there.

Fiona was great; I told her how much I wanted to pay and she did all the hard bargaining. I got about 5 gifts for less than 100 Yuan ($15). She also helped me design and negotiate the price for a Qipao, the traditional Chinese dress that I’ve been wanting. I paid a little more than I wanted for it (500 Yuan, or about $75), but I didn’t pay nearly as much as the tourist market was asking for. Not to mention, $75 for a tailor-made silk dress isn’t bad at all. It should be ready by the end of the week!

After that, Fiona had a date so we parted. It was about 4 p.m., and since the other interns were nowhere to be found I came up to the office to play on the Internet for a while and see if I could find something to do. I was just about to give up and go home to read, when I got a call from a strange number on my Chinese cell phone. I almost didn’t answer but I’m glad I did.

The call was from George, one of the employees who spent the spring semester at UNC this year. He called to say he had an extra ticket for a show that night and wanted to know if I was interested. Uh. Yes!

I already knew about the show— UNC journalism school former-dean Richard Cole (who heads up this exchange program at UNC) was going with Brian and Dr. Tuggle to a show called “The Legend of Kung Fu.” I was jealous that I couldn’t go, so I was elated when George offered me this extra ticket.

After a cab ride that must have taken at least 45 minutes, we arrived at the Red Theatre near the center of Beijing.

The show was awesome, but I think it wasn’t what the guys were expecting. It turned out to be a ballet mixed with Kung Fu choreography, with a little bit of real Kung Fu thrown in every now and then. Having danced for 13 years, I was quite entertained. The show tells the story of Chan Yi, a boy who trains in Kung Fu and becomes incredibly strong, but doesn’t learn to balance the exercise of his body with the exercise of his mind, and when life gets tough he can’t handle it. Pretty cool.

From left to right, Brian Conlin, Dr. Charlie Tuggle, Me, Kung Fu Photo Guy.

Sunday the UNC interns attended a dumpling party at Editor Karen’s apartment nearby, along with Dean Cole, Dr. Tuggle and Johanna, a UNC alumna who interned last summer and was later asked to come on as a full-time employee of China.org.cn.

This is Celine!

Celine's dumpling filling had pork and pumpkin, along with green onion and a little ginger.

Celine and Karen made the filling for the dumplings—pork and carrots, and pork and pumpkin—and Karen also made the dough. We got to help put them together, which was both challenging and rewarding, because those dumplings were delicious! We made some fried and some boiled. They were both good, but the fried dumplings were awesome. We made more than 100 of them, and there were absolutely none left.

From left to right, Johanna, Courtney, Dr. Tuggle, Dean Cole, Dan and Brian grab a UNC photo after the dumpling party.

Work today was slow, but I did some research and found both a few of story ideas for the next few weeks and some travel ideas. Details about those to come as they develop!

I’m feeling pretty good right now. I went to the gym after work and really pushed myself, and I feel accomplished. I also had a huge egg sandwich and some Easy Mac from the States for dinner. Yum!

Photo Adventure Day 2

I'm feeling pretty tired and absent-minded today, so I'm not really in the mood to give a long explanation of the photography tour I had yesterday. I'm posting pictures with brief descriptions instead. Sorry for the convenience. :)

Our first stop was Taoranting Park, where we saw people dancing, playing instruments, exercising and just enjoying the sunny weather.

This was one photo I entered into the competition. I had one that was better, with the Daddy looking down at the girl, but there were distracting people in the background, and I couldn't get him to look down again.

This man was one of four or five men playing with this rhythmic instruments. The bang together, and mostly sound like noise, but when several are played together it sounds nice. I also entered this photo in the competition.

It was pretty hot, which causes pretty Chinese girls to pull out all the stops to block the sun.

At the end of our park visit, we met at a tea house to have some very very strong tea. P.A. and Celine are the two people in the background.

And just for fun, I got Annie to take a photo of me in front of the lilies.

Our next stop was this temple-turned-museum. Unfortunately the organizers of the competition must not have realized how uninteresting it can be to take photos without people. I didn't take many photos at the temple for that reason.

Lunch was the next stop. We had a traditional Uyghur meal. I don't know much about the Uyghur culture, but suffice it to say that Uyghur is an Asian race of people who primarily live in Southwest China. According to the packet we received yesterday, they are Muslim. Please note how much food was left on the Lazy Susan in the picture. This was after the meal, and probably half of the dishes that were served have been cleared.

Lunch was accompanied by a traditional dance, which was pretty!

Then they came out into the audience and asked us to come try! You know I couldn't resist. It was pretty different from the Mountcastle School of Dance.

Thanks to Annie, by the way, for taking photos without being asked!

Our next stop was the Diabolo Museum. The diabolo is the hourglass-shaped "toy" the women are holding. It's suspended on the string, and as it slides up and down, it spins. The spinning causes a whistling noise, which varies greatly depending on the type of diabolo.

After going in the museum, which wasn't that impressive, we came outside to play with them ourselves! I wasn't too bad, but I didn't get to try the cool tricks like Annie. The diabolos come in a wide range of sizes, from golf-ball size to beach-umbrella size (not an exaggeration, Annie couldn't pick it up).



Next to the Diabolo Museum was an antique museum, and surrounding that is an antique market. Although, it appears that not everything at the antique market was antique. In fact, this whole row was for stands that make bracelets and necklaces and other things in front of you at your request. That's like the opposite of antique.

But they seemed to know what they were doing, and created some beautiful works. This was a submission.

And just for fun, here's a cutie vendor! I submitted her in the contest for her selling appeal. Nothing sells like cute. :)

That was the end of the tour. The top prize is 10,000 Yuan, or around $1,500. I don't expect to get anywhere near that, but it was a pretty good day, anyway. I was exhausted, and annoyed by our hour-long attempt to catch a cab back home at rush hour when they dropped us off at the meeting spot. After being so unsuccessful we went to a nearby food court and grabbed some food--I had curry beef, which I was not happy with at all. Then we went back outside, finally got a cab and went home, where I did nothing for the rest of the evening.