Archive for June 22nd, 2010


Some logistical stuff

Time info:
Beijing is on UTC+8 time, which means it’s 13 hours ahead of US central time, 12 hours ahead of eastern time, etc.

Hours that I am in class: 9-12, 2-3:30 pm.
Hours that I am busy on Saturday: usually 9-3, maybe later depending on the trip. This is the day we travel around to all sorts of random places in china. I’m free all day sundays.

Contact info:
Skype: kevin.g.shepherd (Skype me! I have a new microphone so it should work just fine. I’ll be on skype pretty much whenever I’m in the room)
Email: kevin.g.shepherd[at]gmail (Checked very frequently)
Phone: 15010674857 (Dont know how to text internationally, but I can call internationally. Can text and call domestically)

Trips incoming:
June 23rd:           Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City
June 28th:            Cruise in Longqing Gorge
July 10:                 Great Wall
July 15-20:          Shanghai World Expo
July 24:                 Jingshan Park and Beihai Park
July 31:                 Antique Market and Temple of Heaven
August 7:             Summer Palace
August 15:           Vacate dorm
August 16-29:    Attempt to survive in Beijing. A little terrifying.

Dinner soon, but today has basically been completely nuts. Really, the prices here are the hardest things to adjust to. For instance, today at breakfast we fed 6 people for a combined 20 yuan, which is about 3 dollars even. Everybody got an egg, some oatmeal type stuff, two steamed buns (包字), a drink, and a sticky bun. Granted this was a little cheap even for china, because this particular dining hall is government subsidized for tsinghua students only. You need like a special card to eat there. Fortunately a woman took pity on us this morning because the grocery store beneath our classroom was closed and we had nowhere to eat, so she gave us a meal card with 35 yuan on it. This card is rechargeable. Foreigners are really not supposed to have them. Did someone say 50 cent breakfasts for the whole summer? Because I hear the chinese communist party is paying. Hell yeah.

Mmm, tastes like subsidies

The Communist dining hall. Delicious.

Then later, I got both a cell phone with 200 minutes and a bike for a combined $50 USD. Basically, this country is incredible. I mean granted the bike is flimsy and terrifying and the brakes aren’t what one might call “reliable” but hey, it’s China.

Some people study abroad for noble reasons; they go to some underdeveloped hellhole and try to Make a Difference. The ones who aren’t in Africa or South America are in the room across from me, studying Chinese public health, ostensibly with the intent to be able to do something about the miserable state it’s in.

Some want immersion; they live with a host family, try to go native. They’re a few miles away at Beijing University, cramming Chinese down their throats for five or six hours a day.

Still others don’t really care about the “foreign” aspect at all. They go to Western Europe or Australia just for a change of pace, or attend renown universities that excel in a given area of study. The equivalent here is the native Chinese speakers who’ve come along to pick up a few Northwestern credits and have a good time. They don’t face a language barrier at all, generally have already lived in China at some point in their lives, and are the reason I was able to eat breakfast this morning.

I can’t honestly say I’m here for any reasons as understandable as these. This is easily the most ‘foreign’ place I’ve ever been, I’m living in an English-speaking international dorm (only studying mandarin two or three hours daily), and certainly am not attempting to change China. China wouldn’t want what I’d give it. This culture is one of the oldest and highly ingrained on the planet; it’s in many ways as overwhelming as the pollution that fogs your vision and turns your snot black. I’m just along for the ride.

God, I wish this was just fog

The view from our dorm. That's not cloud cover.

So why am I in Beijing right now? Course credit, I guess (i’m majoring in econ and asian/middle eastern studies, and i’m in the “Emerging Legal and Economic Structures” program) but also just to see something entirely different from anything I’ve experienced before. I may not be ‘immersed,’ but i’ll still be studying a bunch of Chinese, and hopefully becoming relatively conversational. If I fail at this, i’m going to have a tough time when august 15th rolls around — that’s when the program ends, and I have two more weeks in china with my roommate. No schedules, no school, no job, no responsibilities at all — just me and a bizarre new country.

I’m more excited for this summer than I’ve been for pretty much any experience in recent memory. I’m with about fifty other kids from Northwestern from all different majors and backgrounds; everyone I’ve met so far seems interesting.

I’ve gotta go change some currency and buy a bike now. Have a pretty funny story about breakfast (we cheated the chinese government after only maybe twenty hours in the country. hell yeah) that i’ll tell in the next post probably.

Tiananmen square and forbidden city tomorrow.