Slow Tuesday, plus an observation

Not much has been happening since I last posted. I haven't been assigned anything to edit all day. Apparently most of the translators are out of the office, so there's not any work for the interns. My story from yesterday is now online, which is exciting. I am a little bit concerned, though. We've noticed that certain things that are acceptable here in China would not be acceptable in the U.S., particularly concerning copyrights.

You might already be aware of this, since it's not unknown that people in China pirate movies and music, as well as clothing and purse designs. What I didn't realize before working here was how acceptable it is in China to take someone else's words and claim them as your own. Usually the reporters translate stories that we receive from Xinhua, a news wire service, and then claim the byline for themselves, whereas in the U.S. we would give the original reporter the credit, with a note that says, "Translated by..."

This lack of copyright also extends to online sources. Some of the stories or sections of stories that Dan, Brian and I have been given have been copy-and-pasted directly from Wikipedia or some other website. Not only is the plagiarism bad, but Wikipedia not a credible source to get information from to begin with.

So today when my story went online, I clicked over to it and saw that screenshots from the two films I viewed had been added to the story I wrote. There is a note that the photo is from each of the films, but there is no credit to whomever owns the rights to the films, and I doubt they asked for permission. I'm torn over what to do about this. On the one hand, I could ask them to remove the shots. It has my name at the top, and I don't want to take the credit for copyright infringement. On the other, I'm not sure it would do any good. We've told them before that copy-and-pasting paragraphs and other material is not professional, and they don't seem to understand. I'll probably end up leaving it as-is, but I would like some feedback from people who know better than I do.

On to my observation....

I remembered that yesterday during the video lecture, Dr. Tuggle asked a question that received an interesting answer. The question was something like, "What should you do to prepare your questions for a video interview." I think Dr. Tuggle was looking for answers like, "Ask open-ended questions," or "Make sure the answers to the questions would add something we don't already know about the story."

The very first answer, with almost no hesitation, was, "Make sure your questions won't irritate the person." This made me chuckle at first, but I started to think about it more later. At first I thought was that this was a reaction to the fact that press conference questions must be submitted to be approved beforehand, because some topics are censored.

Then, it reminded me of what my friend Karen told me about Chinese culture; that they aren't giving me much work because they don't want to push me too hard. It seems that it's the Chinese way to try not to make anyone uncomfortable.

Which, I just now mused, is exactly the opposite of what I feel has happened with the swimming competition. (Courtney chuckles sarcastically)

Swimming competition first thing tomorrow morning. Maybe they'll give me a prize for being the worst. Ever.

Workin' girl takes a break

This weekend was fairly uneventful, mostly because of some terrible timing and miscommunication. Friday night I went out with "the guys" from work--Dan and Brian, plus Stephen, John, Peng Li, and a couple of other men, who are all permanent employees. I was the only girl, but I had a pretty good time; we went down to the outdoor barbecue and bar area where I ate with Tim last week.


Later, Dan, Annie and I went out to a bar on the other side of town. It was called George's, and Dan learned from his amazing search skills that the bar was just opening that night, and they were serving free drinks. I had a few delicious (and small, since they were free) girlie drinks, and I even had a "glass" of Johnny Walker Red Label whiskey that was served "the right way" with a ball of ice. Overall, not too shabby, and the bar itself was definitely classy.

We were out pretty late, though, so we slept in the next day. I was assigned to see a couple of films across town at 7:00 p.m., which required me to leave before 6, so our plans to go to Summer Palace were ruined because we slept late, but we decided to go the next day instead. I spent Saturday reading until I got a headache, and then I took a nap until it was time to leave for the theatre.


The films were far less engaging than the last one I saw, but they weren't bad. They were both documentaries, one about children who had been abandoned and the other about a farmer and his wife who are the last people living in their village that has turned from a lake into a desert. I wrote a story today that should be up somewhere on china.org.cn tomorrow.

As a side note, I discovered that ramen in China is so much better than ramen in the U.S., and at 2 Yuan (30 cents) it's fairly similarly priced. It's cheaper and yummier than most things I've had, and I actually finish the whole bowl of food. Of course, I'll still be eating out, but it was a nice find.


Sunday I woke up early because I had to let in the guy who came to fix the hot water heater. We had to take freezing showers for three days, but it's all better now. The guy raked out a pile of rust-and-clay-like muck about 15 inches wide and 6 inches high. Gross.

Then I went to the gym because half my roommates were still asleep, and I went back and took a shower. When I got out, Dan said Brian was going to meet us at the apartment 12:45 and we'd leave for Summer Palace. We waited for him until 1:30, and then went up to the office to look for him. There was no sign of him, and we guessed that he went on without us. We learned later that he meant to leave from the office, and he just went without us when we didn't show up.

By this time it was 2, and since Summer Palace closes at 5 we were worried it was too late, so Dan and I went to a park that's about a 30 minute's walk from our apartment. It was really nice; it was quiet and peaceful, even though it's right in the middle of one of the most populous cities in the world. There was a huge lake, and beautiful willows and lilies, and lots of couples and families. Dan and I took books and blankets and sat in the grass for the afternoon relaxing.

Here are some photos I took while I was there. The second one really shows how close we are to everything.

After the park, we were starving, so on the way home we stopped at this restaurant. I think it was called Xao, but the font was weird so I'm not sure. It was a noodle restaurant, and apparently fast food. We walked in, and were it not for the big photos of noodle bowls I might have thought we walked into a McDonald's. I ordered something that looked like noodles and green beans, and Dan got something that looked like hot peppers and rice. As it turned out, mine was really spicy and his was not, so we swapped. It wasn't bad, but I don't think I'd really want to go back.

That was about it for Sunday; the rest of the evening was spent with laundry, reading, and sleeping.

Today was pretty busy at work today. I worked on my story, which took quite a bit more research than I expected, because I thought that the papers I got at the film would be helpful (but since they were in Chinese I had no idea). It turned out that they were not about the films I saw, so I had to have my new friend and deskmate Fiona help me look online for the films' background information, which was scarce to begin with since some were made by students.

Dr. Charlie Tuggle, a professor from UNC who teaches video production among other things, arrived to the office today. He will be here for three weeks lecturing to some of the staff, and Dan and I sat in on his "class." It was interesting and informative, but I have had the same lecture before when he visited one of my classes this spring. He'll be lecturing over the next few weeks, so hopefully I can continue to attend and pick up some things about video, since that's one of the two things I wish I could have learned more about in the J-school.

I also edited a "story" today that goes on the "Learn Chinese" section of the website. It was awkward, because if you're learning Chinese, I think it's best to learn the literal translations, but they wanted us to change the English to be more how we would actually say it.

After work I had swim practice. The competition is Wednesday, and I plan to fail miserably. I couldn't even make it two lengths of the pool today, and they expect us to do four. Oh well. After that I went to the grocery store and bought a pack of chrysanthemum tea. I'm having a glass now, and it's delicious.

Despite the swimming, I feel like I had a pretty good day.

An American watching an Indian film in China

Last night, as part of my internship, I was sent to the opening of the 2010 India Film Festival, which is a part of the Festival of India in China. The film festival is to be a series of 10 Indian films shown in three different cities in China--Beijing, Chongqing and Guangzhou. I wrote my story today, and published it, so if you'd like to learn more about the event, click here.

The reception/dinner served before the film was fantastic. There were several Indian dishes, most of which I couldn't learn the names, but all of which were delicious. As usual, I should have taken pictures of the food, but I forgot.

The story I wrote about the festival was a news story. I had the choice to write a review of the movie or a report on the event. While the reveiw might have been more interesting I wasn't confident enough in my knowledge of film to attempt to write a professional review of a foriegn film, so I went with what I knew. I'm going to practice being a critic on my blog, instead.

------

Antaheen (in English, The Endless Wait) is a tale of two people in Kolkata, India, who have met online. The pair fall in love through their daily instant messaging, but they don't know each others' names. You might recognize the story as a remake of You've Got Mail. In fact, that's exactly what it is. However, The Endless Wait is much more complex and meaningful than the predictable Hollywood story you're used to.

Brinda is a TV investigative journalist, and Abhik is a policeman. They first come in contact when Abhik busts a large arms deal and Brinda wants to interview him. He says no, because he doesn't want to deal with the press, and she is outraged. For much of the movie, whenever they meet in public, she pesters him about the public's right to the information he has about his case, and they argue.

As online lovers, they have already decided that they don't want to meet, because they like the mystery that surrounds their relationship. But at several points, the characters long for one another, what they call an endless wait.

They finally resolve to meet, but put it off a little longer. "This endless wait is a hard habit to get rid of," Brinda says.

Their waiting evokes what I've been told is a very typical part of Indian film--a musical break. There are several scenes where the lead actress singsabout longing and loneliness, or where music plays in the background and the actors portray the emotion of the song in silence. These scenes looked as though they more MTV music videos than scenes in a movie, but it was a refreshing difference from the Hollywood standard.

Brinda dies in a car accident just after she realizes that Abhik is her Internet lover--bringing tears to several audience members, myself included. It is not explained if the crash is true accident, or if her overzealous investigations get her into trouble with bad people, but Abhik only realizes that Brinda is his online friend after she dies, at which point his wait for her really is endless.

The music used for the film seems to have been written for it; the lyrics are accurate and appropriate, and the songs are implemented at the best points in the movie. The movie is filled with symbolism and fluctuating forces: As the main couple's relationship changes, two other couples in the movie are also changed. In this way, there is much more depth in The Endless Wait than in You've Got Mail.

------

I really enjoyed the movie, and I hope I get to see more during the festival. I have been assigned to attend a Chinese documentary this weekend about the effects of pollution on farming.

I ran up to KFC for lunch today; I couldn't bring myself to take another day of the cafeteria. KFC doesn't have biscuits, and I didn't see mashed potatoes, so I'm not quite sure what the point of KFC is. I got an order of popcorn chicken, which wasn't terrible, but it wasn't nearly as tasty as in the U.S. It was mostly just bland, and it was made with scrap dark meat rather than white meat.

Work was busy today. I started the day writing my story about the film festival, and I spent the afternoon editing a Michael Jackson story. Whoo!

Slave labor

When we first got here a few weeks ago, all three of us UNC interns were asked to join in on a friendly swimming competition--"Just for fun," they said. A young woman in the office came over and asked for my birthdate, the swimming stroke I wanted to use, and whether I wanted to swim 50 or 100 meters.

I told her I didn't really want to compete. She began to look nervous, and I asked her if it was okay that I didn't do it. She looked around and said she would have to ask. Of course, that made me feel like I had no choice, so I was pressured into the swimming competition. I signed up to do 50 meter freestyle. Later that day, she said there was no 50 meter event in my age group, and that I would have to do the 100 meter.

Then I realized that the only bathing suit I brought with me would probably be too revealing for the conservative Chinese swimmers, and since Debbie was headed back to the States and I brought too many clothes, I asked her to take some back with her--including my bathing suit. Of course, this gave me a convenient excuse to opt out of the swimming competition. I went over to Mike, the guy who has been coordinating the "friendly competition," and told him I had no suit. Of course, his first response was, "Oh, I can show you where to buy one." I told him I didn't want to buy a swimsuit, and he said that was fine, and I was out.

The next day, Dan and Brian started their swimming practice. (For the record, "friendly" competitions don't have practices or required strokes) Mike asked the boys why I didn't want to just go buy a new swimsuit, and in trying to cover for me, Brian said, "Oh, you know. She just graduated college and she doesn't have a lot of money." He tried, but it actually backfired.

The next day, Mike came back to me and said, "We really need you to participate because you are on a team and without you that team can't compete. The company will buy you everything you need--swimsuit, goggles, and swim cap."

It should be noted that I was not told about the team portion of the "friendly competition" until this moment. They expect us to swim 100 meters alone, and then 50 meters on a team relay. So have they not only been pressuring us to do this, but also keeping us in the dark about what he actually have to do.

At this point, I was sick of it. I said, "That's nice, but I don't want to do it." I know I repeated versions of that statement at least 8 times during our conversation. He asked why I didn't want to, and I didn't have a good reason to offer. Part of it is just that it doesn't interest me. I don't swim very fast and I'm not in shape. The other part, which I was afraid to say for fear of offending someone, was the water.

We are told not to drink the tap water in China because it's not clean. The pool has some chemicals, but it isn't chlorinated, so I have no idea how clean the pool water is and I didn't want to swim in water that wasn't clean. Apart from swallowing water in my desperate attempt at swimming more than one pool's length, there's something about knowing that the possibly gross pool water is all over me.

So after I told Mike several times that I didn't want to, he walked away. About 5 minutes later, he came back with the boys behind him and said, "Come on, let's go shopping." I wasn't being given a choice anymore, and it made me angry, but what could I do?

Of course, the Chinese women's bathing suits almost all looked like they were suits for 6-year-old girls, complete with tiered skirts, bows, and other frills. I found one relatively normal-looking one-piece suit, but they laughed at me when I asked to try it on. I was afraid that I would get it home and it would be too short on me because I'm tall, so I decided I would be better off with a two-piece that covered my torso.

As it turned out, the suit I selected is very cute (ke ai, in Chinese, as Fiona said later). But I still don't like being forced to do something I don't want to do.

At the pool after work, I made it one length of the pool (25 meters) with no problem. About halfway down the second time my leg started aching. I hopped over to the side of the pool (because fortunately the water is not over my head for most of the length), and stretched a bit expecting it to pass. Then I tried again after about 10 minutes of rest. The same thing happened--halfway down, my leg started hurting again. It wasn't a cramp, and it wasn't sharp pain, just a deep ache. I got out of the pool to stretch, and I realize it was my left knee, on which I had ACL reconstruction in 2003.

It's been a long time since I've been swimming, so I resolved to see how it feels the next time I swim. I swam the length of the pool once more, and then I sat out of the pool the rest of the time we were there. The competition was supposed to be tomorrow morning, so I was at least able to tell myself that it will be over soon. But just before I started this post, Mike came over to tell me that it has been moved to Wednesday of next week, so we now have more practice time. He's so thoughtful.

If they're going to force us to practice every night for a week and then particpate, they should at least be paying us overtime.

At any rate, I get out of swim practice tonight because I have been assigned a story. I will be covering the kickoff India Film Festival in Beijing (not to be confused with the well-known Indian Film Festival). I tried to research the event, but I can't find any information about it, except on the website of the theatre that's hosting it. I'll bring photos home with me, as well as a more accurate description.

Falling behind!

This weekend was nice; Friday night we went downtown to a tavern called Tim's Texas Barbecue. We read that they were showing the U.S. World Cup soccer games, and Beijing barbecue sounded interesting. Unfortunately, since the game didn't start until 10 p.m., we were a little too late, and the kitchen was closing right when we got there. But there was live music during commercials and halftime, and Chinese beer is pretty tasty.

We also went to another area that night after the game called Sanlitun Street. Sanlitun is a street that must have had 20 or 30 bars in just a couple of blocks. Each bar only had about 4 tables, but that didn't matter. After visiting a couple, we found that they were pretty much all exactly the same, and we headed home.

Saturday we slept in, but we headed to the Yashow Market that afternoon. The building was 6 floors, and each floor had probably at least 50 vendors with individual stands. They had everything: glasses and sunglasses, clothes, toys, shoes, "designer" purses, jewelry, tailors, electronics, art, tea, dishes, bedding and a food court to top it off. I bought myself a pair of sunglasses, because I left mine in Chapel Hill, but I didn't really get anything else because I didn't come prepared to shop.

After Yashow, we walked a little farther down the street and we came to a more Western shopping area, equipped with a Starbucks and Adidas, Lacoste and Apple stores. I also went to a store called Uni Qlo, which I'd never heard of but it reminded me of The Gap. I bought three solid tops that were on sale for 49 Yuan, or about $7.25 each. Now, compared to some other prices I've paid in China, this is a little expensive, but these shirts were a good quality, and when I compares to U.S. prices I was satisfied with spending less than $10 on a shirt.

For dinner, we were planning to stop in one of the Western restaurants. I really wanted Italian because I miss pasta, but a glance at the menu showed that the prices were Western, too. Most dishes were about 120 Yuan, or almost $18. Not outrageous in Chapel Hill, but since we've been paying less than $5--and often more like $3--we didn't want to splurge. Instead we headed over to the all-American favorite: McDonald's. I had a yummy cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. It wasn't exactly fantastic cuisine, but it sure did fix my craving for something other than Chinese food.

Sunday we were planning to get up and head out to Summer Palace or the Forbidden City, but it turned out that we all just felt pretty lazy. I went to the gym around 11 a.m., and came back and spent much of the rest of the day doing laundry and reading Wild Swans. If you haven't heard me rave about Wild Swans yet, here's the short version: Buy Wild Swans and read it; it's an incredible book.

I came up to the office for a while to use the Internet, but otherwise I spent the day being pretty lazy.

I expected Monday to be another lazy day. I had taken the day off to spend with Debbie, Steven's mom, and we planned to go get a massage. When I met her Monday morning, I mentioned how much I want to buy a Qipao (pronounced Chee-pow), which is a traditional Chinese dress. So we headed back to the Yashow Market, where I found tailors Saturday. The dress that I wanted to make, they said, would cost 800 Yuan, or about $118. Of course, you never pay the asking price in China, so we started designing this beautiful turquoise dress. After going through the design, they decided that it would actually cost 1,200 Yuan, or about $175, and when we bartered they wouldn't go down below 800. I wasn't expecting to spend more than 300 Yuan, since I'd seen some premade for 250 Yuan in a store last week. We walked away.

So after they gave us the run around, Debbie and I wandered through the market and bought a few gifts. I found a pair of thin baggy pants that I really liked, and I got them for 35 Yuan, which is about $5. I'll need to have Grandma fix them to be Capri pants, because even the XL pants were too short for my long legs. But for $5, I thought it was worth it. I'm wearing them right now, and they're very comfortable.

All of a sudden it was almost 6 p.m., so we headed back to Debbie's hotel. We grabbed some dinner because we'd lost track of time shopping and skipped lunch. We ate with one of her Chinese exchange students who was nearby, who was very helpful. We had nuggets of lamb that was battered and fried with curry power; sauteed green beans, peppers and onions; and some very mushy--but delicious--eggplant. Debbie also ordered some chrysanthemum tea (ju hua, as my friend Fiona called it) and it was very good. It was the first time I'd had real Chinese tea since I've been here. I'm going to try to buy some later this week.

After the dinner, we walked over to the massage parlor, finally. It was about 9 p.m. by then, but we'd been walking all day and a foot massage sounded wonderful. We got Debbie's student to translate for us, and we ordered up a foot massage, back massage and cupping (which I'll explain later on).

The foot massage was great, and very relaxing. It lasted for an hour, and they massaged every bone and muscle in our feet and lower legs. The back massage was nice, but a little painful. I'm not sure if Debbie had this problem, but when the guy massaged my thin back, he put a lot of pressure under my shoulder blades, and they have really been hurting today.

Of course, for most of the day I thought the reason I was in pain was the cupping. Cupping is a form of traditional Chinese medicine. They bring in a tray of glass globe cups, then light a match inside it and quickly place it on the skin. The idea is that the flame burns off the gas inside the globe, and it sucks your skin up into it a little. The cups (there were at least 14 of them) sat on my back for several minutes. It felt like there was something crawling on my back the whole time; it actually felt pretty nice, if a bit strange.

The result is a line of huge black circles on your back. The Chinese believe that the suction from cupping pulls the toxins out of your body. They're really just gigantic bruises, which I knew ahead of time. Still, I thought it should be part of my experience of living in China. Even my deskmate Fiona said that she has it done a few times each year.

The whole massage was 2 hours, which was great, except that I got home pretty late. Great day, though.

This is the front lobby area of the massage parlor. We were afraid as we were walking up that the place might be a brothel. The parlor is underground, and down at the end of a market street. Despite the way the building looked from the street, I thought the place was very professional.

This is what my back looked like immediately after they removed the cups from my back. Debbie took some photos of me with the cups on, but I don't have those photos yet. I'll share when I get them. My back looks much worse now than it did then, because now it's bruised, not just red.

Today I was busy at work, which was nice. This week's editor brought me a folder with several mini-stories all related to one larger topic. Apparently China.org.cn also puts together a China travel website, where guests can go to see what different cities in China have to offer tourists. The "stories" I had today were all the sub-parts for a city called Luoyang, and they included lists of restaurants with short reviews, local colleges, hotels and shopping areas. Not exactly what I would have expected coming to work at a news site, but at least I was busy today.

Oh! And the sky was bright blue this morning when I left for work. It was only the second time I've seen it really blue since I got here 17 days ago:

I'm off to bed now. Have a great day, U.S. pals!

Three-day break = awesome

First of all, when I got off work Sunday I wrote and submitted my very last college paper. I am now officially an alumna of the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication!

I've got a LOT to catch up on.

Monday we went to the Temple of Heaven in the middle of Beijing, and then we went to the Great Wall!

The Temple of Heaven was pretty, but what was more interesting was all the cool things going on in the park area surrounding it. There were women dancing with ribbons, some dancing with partners, people doing Tai Chi, and others playing instruments and singing traditional songs. Here are some photos from Temple of Heaven:

The Great Wall just felt unreal. It was really amazing standing on this enormous thing I've heard about my entire life. We went to the Mutianyu section of the wall, which I've been told has fewer tourists and isn't as crowded. Since the wall is more than 5,000 miles long, I didn't see very much of it. In fact, I learned that only about 1/3 of the original wall is still standing.

For the record, I put together this fantastic Soundslide show with detailed captions and a walk through of the whole trip. But I've discovered that Blogger is more trouble than it's worth sometimes, and it won't let me post the slide show. I'll have to share it with everyone when I get home.

There were mountains in every direction, for as far as I could see.

The UNC copy editing interns from left to right, Dan Byrnes, me and Brian Conlin, stand on top of a watch tower of the Great Wall of China.

You often hear about how great a place is, and the hype leading up to it makes you expect a lot more than you actually get. In no way was the Great Wall like this. It was everything I expected and more. I learned that my deskmate Fiona has never been to the wall. I can't imagine living so near to something so great and never going. I think if I lived here I would go every year, since there's so much to explore, and so many different portions of the wall to see.

Monday was a great day, indeed.

Tuesday I met Debbie, Steven's mom, and we decided to visit the Olympic Park. It was pretty hazy out, so even though it was very bright outside, and I almost got sunburned, the photos look dull and gray. It was kind of cool knowing that the Olympics happened there two years ago, but we were really just looking at 4 buildings for a few hours, so it wasn't that wonderful. I did enjoy Debbie's company; we chatted for quite a while, and she shared some of her knowledge of China. She's been coming here for several years as part of her job recruiting and maintaining connections with Chinese foreign exchange students for Troy University in Alabama, and she's been all over the country, so she really knows what she's doing.

After Debbie went back to her hotel, I met up with Tim Gubitz, who also happens to be in China. He's leaving today (Friday), but I haven't seen him since high school, so I think it's pretty amazing that even though N.C. State and UNC are only about 30 minutes apart and we never visited, we met up on the other side of the world.

We went back to that market street where we ate dinner last week. This time we ate outside and had kabobs cooked on the grill. It was delicious. I had chicken (I think) and eggplant, and I tried some of Tim's squid. It started raining in the middle of dinner, so one of the cooks brought us a big umbrella, which just made the dinner that much cooler. There aren't many outdoor restaurants in the U.S., or at least not that I've seen. I like it a lot.

Sitting under the umbrella at dinner, from left to right, me, Dan Byrnes, Annie Gray and Tim Gubitz share a plate of edamame.

Wednesday was the last day of our three-day break. Annie, Dan, Brian and I ventured to the middle of Beijing, which is where the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square are. We went to Tiananmen Square, but Annie told us it would take a long time to venture through the Forbidden City, so we'll get to that later.

As it turns out, Tiananmen Square is just a big open cement area with lots of tourists and not much else. There is a monument to the People's Heroes, which is the tall statue in the background of the photo above.

Just across the street from Tiananmen Square is the entrance to the Forbidden City, which I am standing in front of here.

We left the square and walked south to Qianmen (the Qi is pronounced chi) Street, which is a market street. The main road had many modern stores, including Starbucks, which you can see in this photo.

But of course, we didn't come to China to go to American stores, so we ventured to the street parallel to that, which was a much more traditional market street. There's not much you can't buy on a street like this. Clothing, furniture, food, jewelry, remote-controlled cars, pipes and art are just some of the things I can come up with off the top of my head.

In the middle of the tradition, there are also some foreign influences, like this restaurant attached to a hostel on that same street. Sakura has burgers, Italian pastas, sandwiches and salads, and almost anything else you might expect to find in a Western cafe. It was so fantastic to have American food. I ate mac & cheese, which I think was made with a goat cheese. Yum yum yum.

The atmosphere at Sakura was pretty cool, too. It had a kind of rustic international safari feel to it.

After lunch, which was at about 4 p.m., we continued down the road and then over to a different part of town. Wangfujing Street is a sort of Times Square of Beijing. There were bright lights and billboards everywhere, and the street was filled with stores like Rolex, Gucci, and of course KFC.

I'd been hearing about the "night market" off of Wangfujing Street since I arrived, so I really wanted to check it out.

It doesn't look much different from the other market streets we've visited, except that the night market has a few new surprises.

Yep. Scorpion. Past interns, as well as Beijing travel books and videos, talk about the market and the unique foods available there. I'd been hearing about these scorpions so much, that I thought it would be a waste for me to be there and not try it.

Of course, not before taking off the stinger. Brian just ate it, but for some reason it made me feel better knowing it wasn't going to sting me.

Oh yeah. I did it.

Yep. I ate scorpion. It actually wasn't bad at all. Really crispy and crunchy, and it sort of tasted like a potato chip. The worst part was that I had some flakes stuck in my teeth later.

So there's really nothing else I can add to this blog to top the Great Wall and eating scorpion. In fact, this could be the end of the blog, since I can't imagine doing anything else in China more awesome. (Just kidding!)

Thursday was back to work, but of course that didn't mean much since the holiday seems to have severely decreased the amount of news going on in China. I edited two stories yesterday, one of which was a review of Jet Li's new Chinese movie Ocean Heaven and the other was a profile of a tourist spot in southeast China. The profile was odd. I presume it was similar to the New York Times information pages, because there was no byline on the story, which was intentional, and there was no news angle. It sounded like it belonged in a brochure for a travel agency, not on an news website. Actually, after further investigation, I realized that our website actually has a travel section, with ways to plan your trip to China. This seems to support the idea that our publication is more like national public relations for China, rather than a news site.

I have offically been given absolutely no work today at all, even though I've asked for stories to edit multiple times. Fiona asked me to help her edit the commentary for a video she's making, but that is all I have done. I'm not sure what to do when the company that's paying me to edit things tells me there's nothing to edit.

I have decided to keep a Google Map of the places I've been in China, so the folks back home can get some sense of where I'm going.

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

First real published story ever!

Today I wrote a story about the heritage day exhibit I visited yesterday, and it's published, photos included! I know that what we were doing with the VOICE mattered, but somewhere in the back of my mind, there was always that thought that it was for a class, and not a real, established publication (sorry, Jock!). But this feels awesome!

I wish I could have done a better job with it, though. I didn't know when we were there that I was going to be writing; they told me I should be taking pictures. So I didn't interview (or try to interview) anyone. Instead I had to rely on the press release that was translated by Keen, the reporter who took me along. So the story doesn't have a reaction from anyone who was there, which it needed. Otherwise I think I'm happy with it, although I'd love feedback from any of my JOMC friends who have thoughts about it.

Last night I went with Annie and Dan to the gym. We were going to a Yoga class, but when we walked in, it was very intimidating, so we went to a spinning class instead. Spinning is a cycling class where an instructor guides you through bike exercises. It was quite a workout, and I'm incredibly out of shape, but I felt great afterwards. I think we're going to go again the next time the class is offered. I also want to try a Zumba class sometime soon, but I'm worried it will bother my knees since I don't have any Dance Design sneakers!

After the workout, we walked a ways to a place called Food Cube. The menu looked great, but apparently I ordered the wrong thing. "Hot and spicy duck wings" sounded good to me, and the photo looked delicious, but when I got my plate, there was almost no meat at all--just bones and gristle. Even in places where it looked like there was meat, I'd take a bite into another bone. Very disappointing. The food that Annie and Dan had was good, though, so maybe we'll try again.
I also bought instant coffee packets, which aren't very good, but they're not intolerable. I also got this cute little mug with bears and smiley faces on it. I'm really starting to crave some U.S. food. Lunch today was better, but only because they served chicken nuggets. They weren't what I'm used to, but they were better than anything else on the cafeteria bar today.

I'm pretty tired; It's been a very long week. But now I get three days off. Tomorrow Dan, Brian and I are going to Summer Palace, and then to the Great Wall of China. I'm really excited! Of course I'll be sure to share photos as soon as possible. I hope it's a pretty day for photos, and not rainy.

I don't have much else to talk about today, since after dinner we just walked back to the apartment. By then it was after 10 p.m., so we just settled in for the night.

I guess this is a good time to talk about Celine, as I promised a few days ago. Celine is basically the foriegn employee coordinator, although her job might be more complex than that. She is the person who has organized our stay, and she told us the first day that we should consider her our Chinese sister, since we have no family here.

A few days ago, she drove us to the mall, which took about 10 minutes. During the drive, we asked her about her life a little. She's been married for 4 years. We asked if she had any children, and she said no, and she wasn't going to have any. Maybe this is more widely known and I'm just oblivious, but apparently the Chinese government only allows couples who are not minorities to have one child, and there is a high fee to register a second child. Celine said that if you are a government employee (which she is) and you have a second child, you have to resign. They're doing this to help promote the growth of minority Chinese races, and to stop the massive population from growing even more. Celine herself was an only child, she told us. "I call the only child policy the 'lonely child policy,'" she said. Because she has no siblings, her child would not even have cousins to grow up with.

What's more is that her husband is a minority, and the law allows minorites to continue to have as many children as they want, but only "pure" minority children, not half. Finally, because of the social structure of China, Celine said that there would be a huge burden on her child. When the child is about 30, the responsiblity of taking care of the whole family--both Celine's and her husband's families--would fall on her child because she and her husband are both the oldest children.

It's very sad that Celine can't make this choice for herself, or that she would have to give up her job and a lot of money to defy the law. I understand the reason behind it, but the way the policy affects individuals is heartbreaking. Wikipedia has more information about this policy.

Well, because of the holiday, it's quitting time at 4 today. Not sure what we'll do tonight, but I imagine it will be fun since we don't have to work tomorrow. I'll share ASAP.

My (first) photojournalism adventure

Today, I went out with Keen, one of the reporters who spent the spring semester in Chapel Hill, to the Capital Museum to see a press conference for the start of Chinese Cultural Heritage Day. The event was instituted a few years ago as an effort to preserve what they are calling intangible culture--things like music, dance, customs, arts and crafts, theatre and religion. I found out about this when I edited a preview story yesterday, so I asked to go. Based on the story I worked on, I expected there to be exhibits, shops and shows at the museum, where individuals or groups would come to personally share their culture with others.

Instead, the focus seems to be more on the preservation; the exhibit was in just one of the temporary exhibit rooms. And everything has been digitized, so it can't be easily lost when the culture dies. There was a film that was about animal sacrifice, several audio stations where you could hear opera and other songs, TV screens with other videos and statistics, lots of photos with audio explanations, and computers that had interactive edcational programs for sharing the cultural information.

There was one performance at the press conference. Women were dancing in traditional costume before the speaches began. I'm waiting on the translation, so I don't know what the dance is called or where it's from, but it's pictured below. There was also a woman who played a traditional string instrument called a Gu Zheng (check out this video if you're interested in hearing it: http://vimeo.com/7563501, or the Wikipedia site for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guzheng).

So I haven't done much work today, but I attended the ceremony as a photographer, and there's a chance my photos might be published on the site. I'm posting some of the best ones below.



The architecture of the Capital Museum was pretty cool. I didn't get to look at everything, but the green cylindar sticking out is a tower of exhibit halls.

These are the the traditional dancers. Compared to the dancing I'm used to, their dance was much more about hand and arm movements than leg movements.

There was a ribbon cutting ceremony for the exhibition. Because I haven't gotten a translation yet, I'm not sure who these men are, but they seemed to be in charge of the event.

The traditional Chinese opera masks represent many things, Keen told me. Most of them, he said, are gods, and the most scary faces are often the most powerful gods because they are frightening enough to scare the bad ghosts away.

This is a portion of wall of photos of cultural traditions and artifacts. The small brown circle in the bottom right corner of each photo is a sensor. There are pens with speakers below the photos, and if you touch the head of the pen to a sensor it will play the audio track associated with that photo.

This isn't part of the cultural exhibit, but is a regular exhibit at the museum. The paper lantern is commonly associated with China, and there are many different styles.

The figurine depiction is something I can't remember ever seeing in a U.S. museum. These people are at a celebration, I think. There were several other models similar to this one.

And finally, here's proof that I was there!

After the museum, Keen instructed our cab driver to circle through the center of town so I could see Tiananmen Square and other major landmarks in the daylight. I tried to take pictures, but they were terrible because I was in a car surrounded by other cars. We will be travelling there soon enough, though, so I'll share those photos when we do.

Then Keen took me to a restaurant across the street from the office that I'd never noticed. It's a restaurant that serves food made in Sichuan style. It was pretty spicy, but not unbearable. We had fish, chicken, corn and rice. The fish was fantastic! They basically cut the fish in half, put it in this baking pan with the really yummy sauce, peppers, onion, some beans and other veggies. The waitress put the pan on our table on a little stand with hot embers under it to keep it hot. Gosh it was delicious; probably the best thing I've had so far. I wish I'd remembered to take a photo of it, but there's no doubt I'll go back again.

The chicken wasn't as good, but it wasn't bad. It was cooked with carrots and celery, which was all fine, but the sauce on it was strange. It was a little sticky, and it had a flavor I can't describe.

The corn was also pretty delicious. Each kernel was covered in something that was sweet, salty and crunchy all at the same time. Keen said it was egg, but it seemed more like it had been given a flour-based coating and then fried. But it sure was good, especially with the rice and fish. I can't wait to go back to that restaurant!

Yesterday afternoon, Annie and I joined the gym, and after a workout we went to get her some real sneakers. The shoe store we went to had some flat cloth Chinese shoes, which I want. They were 25-70 Yuan, which is roughly $5-$10. I'm not sure if I will be able to buy shoes here, though. My tennis shoes say they are an EU 42, and they are a little big. But the largest size I saw in the cloth shoes was 39, so I might be out of luck. I'll keep trying, though.

Oh, and I had another fried dough (Chinese doughnut?) thing this morning. It's about the size of my forearm. Here's a photo of it, after I'd taken a few bites (it tastes better than it looks, I promise):

Well, that's my day. Hopefully soon I'll get a translation and can start writing the story about the exhibit. One more day of work this week and I get a three-day break. Because Wednesday is a festival (the Dragon Boat Festival), we had to work all weekend, but then we get Monday through Wednesday off.

Perhaps more adventure than I can share at once

So we didn't do THAT much, but I certainly adventured more yesterday than I have so far. And yesterday started off pretty bad, with a headache and a disappointing lunch.

But after work, we went back to the apartment, and Brian and P.A. were going with Celine to a nearby gym to check it out and to see if they wanted to join. Annie and I decided to come along. We pulled up to this building that looked like it was being renovated; there was broken glass in places, boards lying around, torn pieces of drywall littering the entrance. It looked pretty bad. But we followed Celine into this building, up the stairs, around a corner and up some more stairs.


And then it was like walking into another world. Everything was clean and carpeted; there was an elegant pool hall with deep colors, stone columns, dim lights, and gold trim. And just past that, the gym. Not nearly as elegant, but not unlike walking into any gym in the U.S. The membership is 410 Yuan ($60) for 3 months, so we're thinking we'll probably do it. They have Zoomba and other dance classes, which would be awesome, but I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to understand anyone in the class.

My decision was dependent on whether or not Annie wanted to join, too. I don't want to go alone, and I don't want to just go lift weights with the boys. She said that she wanted to, but didn't bring sneakers to China. So we set off to the mall to find sneakers!

Celine drove us to the nearest mall. During the ride she told us a little more about herself, about which I will comment later.

The mall was definitely not what I was expecting, but it was pretty cool. There were 6 floors, divided into categories like grocery, shoes, clothes, housewares and the food court. But rather than having a mall with tons of different stores, this mall was just one big store. Here's a picture from the escalator:

The escalator also had an interesting feature: fake grass and flowers. There were strips of it most of the way up between the railings.

No luck finding shoes, so the gym is still up in the air. But it was a cool experience. After that we walked around outside for a while, looking for other interesting things to see. There were a bunch of peddlers outside of the mall, and one was selling books in English. He offered Alice in Wonderland for 20 Yuan, or about $3. I didn't really see a book there that I wanted, but I'll keep an eye out in the future for more books. Then I saw a man who was selling handmade Chinese shoes. They were really cute, but he didn't have one that fit my huge feet.

We also almost adopted a dog. He was small and adorable, and he followed us around for a while looking up at us with a really happy face. Of course, I know better, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to.

After discovering that there wasn't much else that was interesting around the mall, we caught a cab back to the apartment. It was my first ride in a Chinese taxi, and from Annie and Dan's reactions it seems it was a good one. The very nice driver spoke a few English words, and he was very courteous.

We went upstairs, and Brian and P.A. were back from the gym and ready to go to dinner. There's an older Scottish man who works at the office named John, and I asked him at work yesterday if he knew of a bar or fun place to go to dinner. He directed me to the place we went last night.

It was a sort of market street a few blocks from the office. There was a little room for a car to get through on the roads, but there weren't really any cars there. The restaurant we went to had a big outdoor buffet-like setup; there were 3 or 4 different tables, each with different types of food. It wasn't clear if they all belonged to the restaurant or if they were owned by individuals. There were grilled meats and vegetables on kabobs, lots of shellfish, and mixed veggie dishes.

We decided to eat inside because we weren't sure what the system for paying or ordering was outside--but we'll go back soon with someone who speaks Chinese. Inside the restaurant, the ordering system was more Japanese-style; that is, there were bowls with plastic versions of their dishes, and all you have to do is point at the dish you want. I had a rice bowl with chicken, carrots, green peppers and onions. It was probably the first dish I've had that's similar to American Chinese food, but it tasted much different. It was delicious, but I couldn't finish it all. I need Steven around to finish my meals for me! :)

After dinner, we decided to explore this little market street. There were lots of small stores with just about anything you could want--from socks to dishes, cleaning supplies to cigarettes. There were also tons of small restaurants and several hair salons. We stopped at one shop and bought ice cream. It wasn't any different from our ice cream, but it sure hit the spot.

We kept walking until we came to the end of the little road, and when it ended we were standing at one of the busiest roads in town. I don't think I've ever experienced such a drastic change in so few steps. The road busy roads looked pretty cool at night. We were at the intersection of two major roads. There are walkways over the major roads, so we got to get up over the traffic, which was neat. There's something about a city at night--no matter how busy, hectic, cluttered, or industrial it looks during the day, I love the way it looks at night. My pictures don't do the scene justice, but here are a couple of them:

This is the intersection. You can see that there are three levels here, the ground, the crosswalk bridge, and then an exit road above.

This was taken from the crosswalk bridge. I wish the background was better illuminated, like it was when I saw it.

Needless to say, when we first left the little market road, we weren't entirely sure where we were. But my keen navigation skills told me which direction we needed to go. At the very least, we knew how to get back the way we came, but I guided us back.

On the way, we passed the fancy restaurant we ate in the other day. I took a picture of it from the outside at night.

We went to the office for a while, where I watched the season finale of Glee, which was AWESOME, and then we went back to the apartment. End of adventurous day! It's 4:57, so I won't have time to talk about Celine today. Maybe I'll come back up here after our adventure tonight and share.

Here are a few more photos I have taken:

The English part of the newsroom for china.org.cn, taken from my desk. The guy in the foreground is Steve. He's a permanent employee from Missouri.

This is my desk! It's not much, and it needs some decorating, but it's mine for 9 more weeks, and it's my first desk in a real newsroom!

This is the front desk of the office.

Finally, by request, here is a picture of our bathroom at the apartment. The hose in the top right corner is the showerhead. The small gray square is the drain. The floor looks dirty most of the time, because if we walk in there after someone has taken a shower, the whole floor is wet.

Oh, and I will have some fun tomorrow: Keen, one of the writers who spent the spring semester at UNC, will be going to the Chinese Cultural Heritage Day exhibition tomorrow and I'm going with him! I'm so excited!