July 13: The Chinese Opera!

Although everyone was recovering from the exhausting and wondrous experience of the walk on the Great wall we "toughed it out." Once we slept in awhile, we were on our way to attend the Peking Opera. While we were there we were able to see the beginning of the process as well as the final product. Before viewing the show we got a brief tour of some of the most famous costumes and their story in the opera. Then we got to see the actors and actresses put on their "faces" and watch how intense, careful, and focused they are when getting into character. One correct stroke of make-up matters because it helps give a representation of the character. A line of red on the forehead could symbolize that the character is evil. It was really fascinating to see the things being put together and it made for great anticipation for the show. The show was exciting to watch, but upsetting because of lack of comprehension on our part, but with what Chinese we did learn we were able to pick up a few things here and there.

The Great Wall of China

Today was the Great Wall of China!!!!!!!!!!!!! (or Chang Cheng in Chinese)

Even though it was sweltering hot and it seemed like there was no end in sight, I can proudly say that we all made it up to the top! On the way down, most every one took a different way .Some went down a really cool slide that went all the way down the side of the mountain, some took the "ski lift" down, and some took the traditional grueling walk all the way down. The views that were in and around the Great Wall were beautiful. When you were taking a break and got the chance to look around it was mind blowing that you were standing on such an important piece of history. Once we were able to make it down and into an air conditioned bus we were surprised to find out that Paula was going to treat us to a delicious BBQ!!!! It was such a good surprise! The restaurant was at the base of the Great Wall and was beautiful all around. We were in the countryside and quite a nice change from the busy city of Beijing. Most importantly of all though was the bathrooms :) They had western styled toilets and were very very clean!!! At the restaurant we were able to meet the owner and learn about her organization. Which was practically an organization that helps preserve the countryside style and look in a way that is practical for the people that live there as well as the many tourists that come. This also allows there to be job opportunities for the local people so that they will not move away. We also found out that there were many opportunities for internships there. Today was absolutely amazing and tomorrow we get to SLEEP IN!!!! Something that we all desperately want!

July 11: Chinese Dance and Cheerleading

This morning we woke up, but not really sure how because we slept through 2 alarm clocks! But after breakfast we had out Chinese dance lessons. It's kind of like cheerleading, so it was pretty cool. Then we had class and went over the format for our midterms. Yes, sadly, we have to take midterms and they are coming up pretty quickly. Instead of having our third hour of class, though, we had a geography class to teach us about the Great Wall and some other really cool places in China. During the class we were able to use Google Earth and were able to take a look at home as well! In the afternoon we had Kongfu again and it went really well. We all seem to learn really fast at it and enjoy it a lot!

July 10th: The Forbidden City and Clocks

Today was the Forbidden City, it was really neat. While at the Forbidden City we found out a lot of interesting things like how the Emperor had 27 Concubines and an Empress. We also found out that the Emperor and Empress had two separate rooms that were across from each other. At one point in time the Emperor ended up leaving the Forbidden City for one of his concubines and when he eventually left the city he caught smallpox and died. Before the Emperor had died he found an interest in clocks because he was introduced to them by a Westerner. His clocks are now in a museum but in total he had about 999,000 clocks. Also at the Forbidden City we got to look through the Imperial gardens. When we were there we sat down to take a break and a person just started to draw Lyla's (Yi Li's) picture on a plate and it turned out to look just like her. It was so cool because he only did it in about 2 minutes.

July 9: Coca Cola Sneak Preview

Today we had a full schedule. There was breakfast in the morning, then a dance class that showcased traditional Chinese dance. In this type of dance we have round pieces of fabric in our hands, that we twist and turn throughout the dance. After dance class we had our regular classes, lunch and then a great trip to Coca-Cola's offices. At the meeting we met alot of the interns that were currently working with the Olympics since Coca-Cola is a big sponsor of the games. We were able to see the new and upcomming commercials that were made for the games. So we can't wait to come home and see them on the TV. The interns were very cool and told us alot about the colleges that they went to (Middleburry and Penn State) and being a college student in Beijing. This was deffinitly the best meeting that we have had so far. They really knew how to talk to a group of teenagers instead of a focus group, and then once we got home we did our homework/studying and some went outside to play Basketball/ Soccer.

July 7th: Duck and Acrobats

After class today, we had a brief meeting with a Kodak representative who talked about their sponsorship with the Beijing Olypmics. After that we went with Ted as well as the Kodak Representative and got to see the inside of the Olympic venue (which was a very prestigous and wonderful experience for us as only a selected few and people with permission were able to actually go inside and check out the Bird's Nest and all the other buildings and towers built by people outside of Beijing who have been working on the venue for 3 years nonstop. We even got to talk to some of the workers and took pictures with them. They said that they've been working for 3 years on the venue for the Olympic and they're from all over China who've come from the rural parts just to work on it.

 

After visiting the Olympic venue we went out for dinner and enjoyed it at a very nice restaurant where we got to experience our first Peking duck! Everyone loved and enjoyed it.

 

After dinner we got to see an ACROBATIC SHOW! It was just amazing! We've never seen so many painful positions that come out so graceful as the ones that we've seen today. In one of the acts they had as much as 12 people on one single bike that a single person peddled from underneath all those people. We saw another act where a woman supported 4 people on a stick that was placed on her chin, it was just astounding! We were also fortunate enough to see plate spinners and a huge wheel where two males were spinning around in what seemed like a hamster cage that were suspended in the air, connected together and spun. Can't wait to see what's more in store for us.

July 6th

Sunday! We have finally started to get used to the schedule here that it was sort of wierd that we had a free day today. We all slept in till about 10:30 and then after a brief lunch, we all headed out to a small bakery across the street from our dorm and basically bought up the entire store as everything was under a dollar and everything looked so good that we all thought that it was fake!

 

Today we were finally able to get some internet connection as Mike and Ted were nice enough to give us laptops that we set up with internet connections. We all scrambled behind each other to get just a couple of minutes on the laptops so that we could get in contact with the outside world and see what was going on with our families and tell them about our adventures here. 

 

After lunch, we went to a street with a lot of stores and we stayed there till about 5 o'clock., we headed back, had dinner, relaxed, went on the computer and went to bed.

July 5th - Palace of Discovery

Another interesting and fun-filled day in Beijing. What was different though was that we didn't have classes today. No weekend classes! We all ate breakfast at our regular time, which was around 7:00 and then went back to our dorms and prepared to go to the Summer Palace. We took a rented bus and arrived at the Summer Palace after 40 minutes. We saw amazing buildings and walked around a little bit with our tour guide, who was really nice and spoke very good English. The gates of the Summer Palace were just amazing and just the culture and the people amazed us. We walked down a corridor that held 4,000 paintings and climbed all the way to the top of the Palace where the Emperor stayed at. Of course we had fun along the way and bonded more over the experience. What was great and truly amazing about today was the fact that we got to take a boat back into the city on the same route that the Emperor took when his family and himself headed back from the Summer Palace. On the boat ride back, we were able to interact with some people on the boat, practice what little Mandarin we learned and waved to people from the boat. All in all, another wonderful day that we fully enjoyed!

Happy July 4th in China!

Since today was the 4th of July, we were able to celebrate it in the afternoon. After a morning of fun/interesting Chinese classes with Wang laoshi and Pan laoshi, we had our usual lunch and got on another rented bus and headed out to celebrate the 4th of July at the International School of Beijing. It was like being back home again, well sort of. Everything was pretty fancy (well a school worth $22,000 dollars a year gives you some perks) and there were food stands from different companies like McDonald's and Papa John's. They even hired a band to play and just so many things to do and eat. Unfortunately due to the rain, the fireworks were cancelled. However, we still had a fun time nonetheless and enjoyed each other's company. It was one of our more relaxed days since we've been here and I feel that we're going to get very few of these chill days so we enjoyed today as much as we could. Everyone's having a great time and we are each figuring out each other's personalities and establishing new relationships with each other. We can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring for us! 

- Liann

Corporate Connections

The students were treated to lunch by Greg Gilligan, the Head of Government Relations for McDonald's in China. This briefing was fascinating and delicious. It focused on how McDonald's is marketing and expanding their image and store chain in China. Mr. Gilligan has lived in China for almost 12 years. He gave students a lot of great advice about pursuing careers in China and honing their language skills. He also had McDonald's food delivered to our school for our meeting. 

The Great Wall of China

The climb up the wall took about an hour and included hundreds of steps. Our group had quite a work out. "The Chinese say that you are not a true man or woman until you have climbed the Great Wall." Our Chinese scholars all successfully completed this rite of passage. 

The weather was perfect for our trip to the Great Wall. We took a two hour bus ride from Beijing before arriving at the Wall. The part of the Wall we visited was more natural and less commercialized than some 

other parts of the Wall. We had to be careful climbing because each step is at varying heights because the wall is built on the precipice. The view from the mountain top was extraordinary!

A Village Near the Great Wall

After we visited the Great Wall, we were invited to a small village in the shadow of the Wall. A wealthy family has bought some of the property around the village, including a school house. They have converted the school house into a restaurant. We were invited to eat barbeque. This was a unique fusion of cultures. It shows how the face of China is changing. The villagers were all "hao ke" (extremely hospitable).