Seventh Week

Wang Laoshi did indeed coerce me into participating in the speech competition between the various study abroad programs. There were different categories for different levels of Chinese, and participants were separated according to huayi and fei huayi status, those with and without Chinese heritage. I was entered in the third year huayi group. We all had a maximum of 5 minutes to speak about anything. Most people described some aspect of Chinese life/culture/economy and the improvements needed. Although I didn’t win, HBA as a whole had a very good showing.

August is the rainiest month in Beijing, and it lived up to expectations. On Tuesday, rainclouds gathered overhead, turning the sky an eerie brownish color and poured rain over us. It was still raining during danbanke and the power went out for about an hour. When we went outside, we found everything to be flooded. The water was nearly a foot high and we waded through trash and mud to get back to our rooms.

On Sunday we went to Long Jing Xia, a touristy part scenic wonder part amusement park nestled near the Badaling section of the Great Wall about 2 hours away from Beijing. Not only does it cost money to get in, but we also had to pay for everything we could do inside. There was boat riding, sky-car lifting, slot-car sliding, and my favorite, bungee jumping. I don’t know what came over me, but I decided to do what I would have never thought of doing in the United States. Not only am I afraid of heights, but willingly falling off of a ledge hundreds of feet up with nothing but an elastic piece of string attached to my legs isn’t very appealing. But it was inexpensive (according to US standards) so I decided to get it over with. It was thrilling, but I don’t know if I would do it again.




Sunday night I ordered my ticket from Beijing to Shanghai. I was originally going to be on the same Hainan Airlines flight as Lulu, but when I checked the prices online, it had been raised from about $60 to over $190, so I decided to find another deal on my own. The website I ended up using was elong.net, an experience you won't find in the United States. The site is very easy to navigate (I think it's expedia's partner), but since it is an exclusively Chinese destination search engine, all prices are in RMB. That's not really a problem either. The sketchy part about it is that as of now, there is no online credit card payment system. When you book the ticket, you enter your mobile phone number so an agent can call you for your credit card number. You can either do this an pay a 3% surcharge, or you can pay in cash when a courier on a motorcycle-scooter shows up at your door with your ticket receipt.