Luoyang, October in Beijing, Fall Break

Hello friends,
It's a rather gloomy day in Beijing today.  The combination of cloud cover and smog pulls makes the visibility rather poor and lends a rather grim air to the city.  The temperature has been fantastic these past few days though, just cool enough so I can start wearing sweaters but not cold at all.  I'm currently sitting in one of my more favorite cafes in the city, a branch of a chain called Maan Coffee and Waffles started in Beijing (I think) by a couple of Koreans.  This is by fare my favorite branch, it's an absolutely massive building with exposed air vents/piping, chandeliers hanging everywhere, artificial trees and comfy chairs and yeah it's pretty great.  I got here at about 11 and ordered a waffle, as I heard they are fantastic, and I wanted something breakfast-y.  Unexpectedly, the waffle came with chocolate ice cream, so I guess it was more of a dessert waffle, but that didn't stop me from devouring it.  It was delicious.

I can't believe it's October already.  I only have 2 months left here and that time is going to absolutely fly by.  This is our last week before midterms (Monday-Wednesday of next week), then I leave for Sichuan on that Wednesday night.  More on my travel plans later.

Last weekend my entire program took a weekend trip down to Luoyang, in central-ish China (Henan province).  We took an overnight sleeper there on Thursday night, then returned on another overnight sleeper on Saturday night.
Our first day there, we went to Yuntai Shan (shan means mountain), a series of nature reserves and tourist attractions.  The place itself was beautiful; there was a small river running through a gorge in between the peaks, waterfalls, and other great scenery.  The thing is, while we were there, I started to get frustrated.  The Yuntai Shan tourist area was not my idea of an ideal travel destination. It was, in its entirety, completely overdeveloped, with concrete paths as the only way to navigate the area.  The entire area was packed with Chinese tourists (but no foreigners, we saw no other foreigners at all that day) in every corner of the area.  Every inch of the path was full of people.  The trail bases were completely commercialized, with large chain restaurants and stores everywhere.  It didn't seem natural at all, it felt so fake and man-made, and it started to really make me angry.  To make things worse, the pollution that Friday was absolutely dreadful, combining with already overcast skies to produce an incredibly bleak atmosphere (side note: I definitely get SAD [seasonal affective disorder] hard). On our bus from Yuntai Shan to the city of Luoyang, though, I realized that I was being the exact kind of entiled foreign tourist that I hate, that I don't want to be at all. My experience at Yuntai Shan was a very typical experience for the average Chinese tourist.  It was an authentic Chinese travel activity.  Yeah the crowds were immense, yeah the place was completely overdeveloped, yeah the weather/pollution was dismal, but these are all part of the reality of living and traveling in many different parts of China.  Of course there are alternatives, there are places where you can experience pristine and unpolluted landscapes on your own, but I can (and will) seek out those sort of experiences on my own.  A lot of my trip to Sichuan in the fall is going to be like that.  So in the end, I was glad that I got to experience this sort of authentic Chinese travel, because I'm not in China only to do and see and live as I want, but to experience authentic Chinese culture.
Not that the trip to Yuntai Shan was all bad.  As I said earlier, the scenery itself is beautiful, it's more the nature of the development that I didn't like.  Also, because we were the only foreigners there, we got tons of attention from the Chinese tourists.  One of our program directors, James, is a handsome, 6 foot tall, blond hair-ed, blue eyed white man that speaks excellent Chinese, and so he's naturally a hit with Chinese tourists everywhere we go.  Somewhat surprisingly, a lot of tourists were very curious/interested in me as well. The rest of the people in my program are of Asian origin so other travelers were much less interested in them. Tons of people would ask to take pictures with us (me and my white teacher), would ask us where we were from and what we were doing there and why we're in China.  They were always impressed by our Chinese, would call us handsome and cool and other very positive adjectives.  It was a pretty hilarious experience, definitely unlike anything I have ever experienced before, and it felt pretty cool.  There are now a ton of pictures of me (in my California flag t-shirt), James, and random Chinese tourists in camera memory cards all over China, which is pretty funny to think about.
The next day, Saturday, we spent at the Longmen Buddhist Grottoes and around Luoyang itself.  Man, the grottoes were absolutely magnificent, tons of sculptures of Buddhas and their disciples carved into the rocks on a canyon wall on both sides of a river.  Pictures are on facebook, if you're curious, and here's a panorama of one of the biggest sculpture areas nabbed from wikipedia. Anyways, it a magical sight, seeing these stunning sculptures, some of them over 1000 years old. The vandalism at these sites really made me unhappy though (not like recent vandalism, but the removal of massive portions of the sculptures for sale that happened for hundreds of years until the sites became more protected in the mid 20th century.  Seriously, there are portions of the grottoes where you can't see a single sculpture with it's face/head intact, with both hands present.  The robbers would just take their tools and hack off heads, arms, even entire statues and then sell them, often to wealthy international collectors and museums. The Japanese invading army also looted a ton of relics when they occupied the region during the Second Sino-Japanese War.  It's so sad to see an area with so much history that is so stunning so badly desecrated, it really makes me angry.
Luoyang itself wasn't a particularly remarkable city, but it definitely felt much more like an authentic representation of a Chinese city than Beijing.  Beijing is so cosmopolitan, so big and international and filled with foreigners and pretty inundated with most forms of Western culture.  Luoyang, not a small city by American standards with a population around 4 million, is not like that at all.  There aren't any foreigners walking around in the streets, English is even less common than in Beijing, foreign stores and restaurants are infrequent at best.  Their old city center, with streets made of slabs of rock, feels like it was transported to the present from a couple of hundred years ago, with street vendors and small roadside shops and authentic local food and buildings and architecture. It was quite nice.
Other highlights of the trip:
Playing pickup basketball in a park with a bunch of Chinese kids. Not to perpetuate stereotypes but they were all dirty (and also all taller than me).  Nonetheless, I had an absolute blast.
Chinese rail transport.  Pretty good, much better than I was expecting. Cheap, not that slow, and not that uncomfortable either.
This Chinese card game that we played on the train back with 8 people and 2 decks of cards, it is by far the best large group card game I have ever played.
Other things that I'm forgetting but it was a good trip so they're there.

Other random thoughts/experiences/plans:

• On Tuesday, China's Independence Day, we went to see the early rounds of the China Open here in Beijing.  I got to see Serena Williams, Djokovic, and Nadal in 3 separate matches for a $30 ticket, of which I'll get about $10 back in reimbursements from my program.  It was great to see live tennis, especially considering who I saw and how cheap it was.
• Last night, I bought a ticket to a performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, Op. 66, performed by the Shanghai Symphony and the London Voices Choir, with a bunch of notable vocal soloists.  It was absolutely magnificent. I haven't been to a classical music concert in a long while and the piece was fantastic and it gave me the chills on several occasions.  The people next to me must have thought I was crazy during the epic brass fanfare + belting choir moments when I sat there with a giant grin on my face.  I had a great time, and the ticket was 80 kuai ($12), which I should be able to get completely reimbursed.  As part of the same festival, Chris Botti's here in Beijing this Friday and Saturday night.  His concert on Friday is in a 100+ year old church (this is the church's like 4th iteration, as it was originally built in the 1500s but has been burnt down/demolished several times).  Saturday's is in a regular venue.  Unfortunately all tickets are sold out but I went to the ticket office to buy my tickets for yesterday's concert and they told me to call again on Friday afternoon because if people don't pick up their tickets they can give them to me.   Really pulling for people to flake becuase I REALLY WANT TO SEE CHRIS BOTTI IN AN OLD CHURCH IN BEIJING. I think I'm going to start seeing a lot more classical music here, especially if it's always this cheap, because I can just get it reimbursed and have it be functionally free. Also, I really miss classical music.
• HERBIE HANCOCK IS COMING TO BEIJING I AM SO EXCITED.  He's here on November 9th, and I threw down for a 500 kuai (divide by 6 for $USD, so around $80+) ticket because he's straight up in my top 5 artists of all time and I don't mind at all. Plus, I can get 80 of those 500 kuai reimbursed, so it's a little bit cheaper.  The tickets start at 300 kuai anyways and so the $20 difference between 300 and 420 kuai is something I'm willing to do for Herbie.  I'm seriously so thrilled folks you don't even know. 
• Schoolwork has been letting up a lot.  I'm definitely getting a little lazy though, so midterms next Monday-Wednesday are going to be rough.  It's nice to have a little more time to relax/explore/chill here though! 
• I've been reading like a fiend.  I've finished 6 books in the month I've been in Beijing! I've read some fantastic stuff. I got my start on Murakami's books, which I've been wanting to do for a long time, and man I'm glad I did because he is so fucking good.

 I'm pretty sure I've already briefly mentioned my travel plans for next week but I've finalized everything so I'll run through my itinerary here.

• Wednesday night, I take a 30 hour train from Beijing to Chengdu and arrive on Friday morning.  It's going to be a long ride but I'm looking forward to the time I have to just sit and listen to music and read with 0 distractions for a while.
• Friday morning, after I get to Chengdu, I'm taking a bus to Emei Shan, one of the most sacred mountains in China.  There's a famous temple at the peak, 10,000 feet up.  I'm hiking up during the day and then spending the night in a Buddhist monastery 3,000 feet up on the mountainside, it's going to be fantastic.
• Saturday I'm hiking back down and spending the night at a hostel in Emei Town.
• Sunday I'm taking a bus from Emei Town to Leshan, site of the famous Leshan Giant Buddha, a 233 foot tall Buddha carved into rock on a cliffside. I'm freaking pumped to see it, Buddha rock carvings are awesome as is and this one is massive. Afterwords, I'm taking a bus to Chengdu, where I'll be spending the night. 
• Monday morning, I'm taking a bus from Chengdu to Songpan, a tiny village in Northern Sichuan. It's a 7 hour bus ride, so once I get there it'll be late afternoon and I'll just be hanging around/eating/exploring, then I'm spending the night in a hostel in the village.
• Tuesday morning, I leave on an overnight horse ride into the untainted wilderness surrounding Songpan.  This part of Sichuan is said to be absolutely beautiful, with grasslands and evergreen forests and crystal clear lakes surrounded by snow capped mountains, and I'm psyched to explore it by myself with my guide on horseback.  I'll spend Tuesday night camping somewhere out in the countryside on horseback.
• Wednesday morning, I return to Songpan and catch the 1:00PM bus to Jiuzhaigou National Park.  I should get to Jiuzhaigou around 3, so I'll explore the village outside the national park and then make my way over to the Tibetan homestay where I'll be spending the night.
• Thursday, I'll spend my day hiking around the area around my homestay, which apparently has some beautiful areas.  I don't want to pay for two whole days in the park, which is a little expensive, and this way I'll get to explore a non-touristy area by myself, free from the throngs of tourists that usually prowl Jiuzhaigou. In the evening I'll move over to a hostel close to the park entrance.
• Friday I'll be in the park all day, spending the night in the same hostel.
• Saturday I take a morning bus back to Chengdu, arriving in Chengdu in the late afternoon.  If I can make my way over to the pandas on Saturday I will, otherwise I'll get to it on Sunday morning.  Otherwise I'll just eat some Sichuan hotpot and camp out in Chengdu's famous tea houses.
• Sunday I have the day in the city, then I fly back to Beijing that evening.

I'm pretty excited, it'll be incredible to explore this great province on my own.  It'll be hard for sure, I'm definitely putting myself outside of my comfort zone, but I know it'll be the experience of a lifetime.

Okay so that's all for now.  I know I tend to write essay length blog posts, so thanks for keeping up with my travels! Feel free to drop me a line if you read/enjoy these ramblings, it's always nice to know that people are following my life here.  As always, thanks for reading, I miss all of you dearly.  Hope your lives have been interesting and fun and rewarding! Don't be strangers.

Love,
Rithwik

Hey everyone,
It's hard to believe that it's only been three weeks since my last post, it feels like it's been a lifetime.  Simultaneously, I can't believe I've already been here for three weeks because time is literally flying by.  Here are some updates on my life, a few of which I have shamelessly copy-pasta-ed from an email I sent to Julia:

• Schoolwork is a slog.  We just finished our third week of classes and I put so much time into homework and studying that it's kind of scary.  I've definitely never worked this hard for school ever in my life before.  It's paying off though, my vocabulary is ballooning and I'm learning a ton. It's so funny seeing other international students, whether out in the city or at our university itself, because almost all of their programs are not very rigorous and so they just rage face all the time. On top of that, there's the language pledge. 
• The language pledge is simultaneously not as hard as I thought it would be and incredibly frustrating at the same time.  I struggle by, but it's doable.  The problem is that I'm a pretty talkative person and I'm completely unable to express myself even remotely as well as I want to do, and so all of these thoughts and emotions and everything just kind of pile up in my head behind the dam that is the language barrier and it is so taxing.  I'd definitely say that the worst part of the language pledge is how isolating it is though, in terms of our program and the others on our campus.  Because we're forced to speak Chinese all the time, because all of our classes are completely separate from all the other international students,  we can't really interact with them well.  They speak either English or their native languages when they're not in class, and it really makes communicating with them difficult.  There's another program at a different university in Beijing that also has a language pledge though, so I'm gonna ask our program director to arrange more joint activities because we ran into them at the great wall and it was really awesome to interact with other people that are going through the same thing as us.
• The great wall （长城）is absolutely magnificent.  There is no form of media that does justice to it.  Standing there, on the wall, seeing it stretch over the rugged hills in both directions as far as the eye can see was one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen.  Absolutely ridiculous.
• To reiterate, the other 3 kids in my program are awesome.
• I am really happy I'm here, but it's a different kind of happiness than I think I've ever experienced before.  Sometimes it's hard, thinking about how different my study abroad experience is from almost everyone else's, but there are those moments where despite the language barrier and the cultural barrier and the struggle, the shared nature of humanity's experience shines through and those moments, whether experienced alone or shared with others, keep me going and remind me that this is what I really want, that this is what is best for me. 
• My roommate is a great guy.  His name is Wei Hai, he's a 24 year old grad student from a province adjacent to Beijing.  He's super nice, funny, and moderately westernized.  He helps me with my homework, we talk about everything and everything cultural, we go out to eat, we watch TV together, it's a really simple but good relationship and is incredibly grounding when the rest of life gets hectic.
• Travel plans:
• Next weekend, our entire program is leaving on Thursday night for Luoyang, one of the ancient capitals of China. There are tons of historical sites like the famous Buddhist Grottoes, which are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We're taking an overnight train down on Thursday night and an overnight train back on Saturday night, and it should be a blast.
• For our week off in October, I'm planning a trip down to Sichuan. Most of it will be me by myself, but we're planning on meeting up at the apparently wonderful Jiuzhaigou National Park. Also on my itinerary is Emei Shan, one of China's most sacred mountains, where I'm planning on hiking up and spending the night at an old Buddhist Monastery on the peak; Leshan, site of the famous Giant Buddha; and Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.  I'll take a train down after we get out of class that Friday, with the transit time of 30 hours getting me to Chengdu on Sunday morning. It'll be a great opportunity to see a wide swatch of the country.  I'll bus over to Emei Shan on Sunday, spend Sunday and Monday there, go to Leshan on Tuesday, then head up to Jiuzhaigou for Wednesday-Saturday.  I'll be back in Chengdu on Saturday evening, and then I'll fly back to Beijing on Sunday evening.  It's going to be an absolute blast, I am super excited.  Fall is the best time to travel in China, and I'm super excited to be able to see the country in its full fall glory.
• Day/weekend trips that I'm planning, as of right now: Qingdao, Harbin, Tianjin.  I also really really want to go to Taiwan at some point but that's a little pricey so we'll see if it actually happens
• Particularly good/memorable experiences so far:
• The night I wrote my last blog post, my friend Forest and I went to a 65th story bar on the tallest building in Beijing.  It was super swanky (an SLR, a Phantom, and a Gallardo were parked in front of the lobby when we walked in) and the drinks were super pricy (by China standards, the cheapest drinks/cocktails on the menu were 90 kuai) but man the view was absolutely glorious.  We sat there and sipped and listened to their live jazz and chatted for like 3 hours. 
• 长城
• Sitting in a jazz bar in the Hohai area owned by a piano player who was formerly Wynton Marsalis and listening to local jazz.  The band that was playing wasn't particularly good, but I love jazz like I love few other forms of art and sitting there, sipping on a cold draft Hoegaarden and just feeling the emotion that I love jazz for was glorious.  I was at the bar by myself, but chatted up some new friends, who were very interested in my comparatively more experienced perspective on jazz.  
• The Onam party at a local Indian restaurant that my dad's good friend put together as the Beijing Kerala Association President.  So one of my dad's really good friends from college lives in Beijing, which has been fantastic for me.  I go to their house irregularly and eat fantastic (free) 地道 South Indian food and just chat with him and stuff.  Anyways, he is the president of the Beijing Kerala Association (which is surprisingly large), and they have a big Onam gathering every year, which he invited me to. Onam is a big festival in Kerala, the state in India that I'm from.  Anyways, at this festival, I met a Press Trust of India's China correspondent, who had been based in Islamabad and Colombo before Beijing.  I also met India's Deputy Ambassador to China, who was the special guest at the event.  It's super interesting to see the Mallu community abroad, especially in a place like Beijing, and everyone there was super welcoming to me.  I got quite a few invitations to peoples' houses to eat/visit, and I'll definitely be taking people up on that.  All in all, it was a good time #关系
• Far East Movement/Dash Berlin/Hardwell yesterday at Beijing Worker's Stadium yesterday (Thursday).  Yesterday was a national holiday, because it's a big festival called Mid Autumn Festival (中秋节), which is famous for its moon cakes (月饼).  On a side note, I've been eating a lot of moon cakes of all different flavors. Woke up at 8, did some homework out of necessity, and then raged from 10AM to midnight.  Pregamed in my dorm room, went to a fantastic craft brewery/bar called Great Leap that was very close to worker's stadium, bought more alcohol at 7-11 on the way to the venue (some of which was confiscated because Forest tried to smuggle it into the venue in her bag), ended up getting to the venue around 330-345, right before Far East Movement got on.  The venue was actually really well put together, with a fantastic stage and massive sound system.  Far East Movement, who I'm not particularly into, played a good set, and then Dash Berlin killed it afterwards.  Of course, the highlight of the night was Hardwell's closing set, which spanned almost 3 hours (after Dash Berlin's 2 hour set). When he opened with his Spaceman/Thing Called Love mashup, I almost died.  It was beautiful.  The cherry on top: I got a picture with him afterwards! It was his first ever show in China, and he seemed like a really good guy from the 2 seconds I talked to him. Afterwards, we went back to the same bar and ate and drank more and then headed back to our university.  I had an exam and a presentation today, and waking up after 5 hours of sleep on a day full of rage was not the most pleasant experience.  Side story: some rando that Forest hooked up with gave her a wooden talisman type thing, which she then gifted to me.  It is large and incredibly obnoxious, but I love it. I wore it today for my exam, and I think I'm gonna make wearing it to exams a tradition. Be ready. 
• Just today, on my walk to the magnificent cafe that I'm sitting at right now, I was wondering through some 地道 as of yet un-commercialized hutongs (the names for the small alleyways that crisscross certain parts of town that are a very unique part of Beijing's culture) and got completely lost.  I was wondering around asking people for directions, eventually finding my way to the cafe, but I quite enjoyed being lost.  It was eerily quiet, considering how incredibly loud and bustling this city is 100% of the time, remarkably peaceful, with not another 外国人 in sight.  The cafe that I'm sitting in right now is in a beautiful covered courtyard, with bamboo and other plants growing in the middle, with a classic tiled floor and comfortable chairs and cheap, decent Chinese beer.  I'm writing this post instead of doing the massive amount of HW that I have this weekend because I haven't blogged in a while, but as soon as I'm done I have plenty to be getting back to.
• Countless conversations with everyday Chinese people about all sorts of things.  Half the time they make me feel super on top of my game, and half the time they make me feel completely inadequate (again, in terms of my language ability). It's quite an incredible experience though, when you're able to transcend the language barrier and converse with someone in their native tongue when they expect absolutely nothing out of you it's pretty fantastic.  Also, Chinese people complimenting my Chinese always gives me a significant morale boost, even though these compliments are often doled out for seemingly no reason at all.
• I eat well. Here are some notable things I've tried
  
  • Beijing Roast Duck.  It's famous, and for good reason; it's served with veggies and an absolutely heavenly sauce that you wrap in a small tortilla like thing called bing.
  • Jianbing.  It's a Beijing street food staple, made of grilled noodle dough, wrapped up with scrambled eggs, chili oil, veggies, sometimes peanuts, into something vaguely resembling a breakfast burrito
  • Tons of hot pot, of all different styles.
  • Xinjiang style fried naan and mutton.  Xinjiang is the part of the country the Muslim Uighur minority hails from, and they make some mean naan and mutton dishes.  The classic mutton kebab is a stable, you can find it basically anywhere on the street and in tons of restaurants, but the Xinjian restaurants do it best (obviously).  They also have a fantastic dish where they fry their fantastic naan with bits of mutton and veggies, it is heavenly.
  • Duck hearts.  Not a big fan, far too gamey and tough for me. The taste was quite good, but the texture combined with the knowledge that I was eating duck hearts put it squarely in the "no plans to try it again" category.
  • Rabbit.  Not a big fan of the meat's texture but I had it served in an absolutely glorious stew that was spicy and flavorful and just all around delicious.
  • Tofu.  The tofu here is magnificent, comes in all shapes and sizes and flavors.  I will never be able to eat tofu in America again, it's really not even remotely similar. Quite sad.
  • Dumplings on dumplings on dumplings.  I eat dumplings probably 3-4 times a week, since there's a super small, kinda grungy place like 5 minutes from campus that serves 5 kuai (exchange rate is 6 kuai to a dollar) baskets of reliably good but not great dumplings.  It's the most convenient meal ever, and the lady that works there is awesome.
  • Moon cakes, because it's 中秋节 season. Aside from the classic traditional flavor, I've also tried blueberry and date flavors, as well as a very interesting one with chicken in the filling.  It was a surprisingly good combination of flavors (味道）.
  • There are plenty of other delicious things, but this is all I cgan come up with now.  As I continue my culinary pursuits, I will continue to update y'all of them.
  Anyways, I should get back to work.  As always, I miss all of you dearly! Hope things have been going great, don't forget to write/keep in touch.  Stay fresh, I'll be in touch sometime in the near future.

Orientation, the Impending Language Pledge, and My Life

Hello friends!
It has been an insane few days here in Beijing.
Move in was initially an incredibly intimidating experience; I got to our host university, and was immediately overwhelmed by the massive amount of Korean and Italian students that were checking in (I know that there's over 100 Italians alone).  The check-in counter for my program was closed and so I floundered around for a little bit, looking completely lost, until it opened back up when the workers returned from their lunch break. Since then we've sat through quite a few orientation meetings, met our Chinese roommates, and wandered around a few different parts of the city.  More on that later.

First off, I want to explain a little bit about our program. It's super intense (and small too, there's only four of us). We're the only group to have the language pledge, a commitment we make to speak only Chinese during our semester here in Beijing.  They're super serious about it too; if you violate the pledge 3 times, they fail you in all your classes and send you home.  Also, all our classes and trips and everything are completely separate from all the other programs.  We're also the only foreign students here with Chinese roommates. I asked our assistant director, James, about it, and he said that the seperate-ness was for "quality control".  This is gonna be the hardest academic experience of my life, I have no doubt about it.  My Chinese skills are not strong, and interacting exclusively in this incredibly difficult, intimidating language is going to be a monumental struggle.  We're already speaking a lot of Chinese and I find myself asking for translations of English words every few minutes, asking for more simple interpretations of our Chinese roommates' sentences, fumbling through menus in restaurants, and the like.  It doesn't help that all of the other kids in my program speak significantly better Chinese than me. This might sound a little cocky (not intending to), but I'm not used to being the worst at things and it's pretty rough, such a freaking humbling experience.  Probably good for my ego in the long run though. I'm unbelievably nervous for the language pledge and classes to start on Monday, almost as nervous as I've ever been for everything.  My mood and my emotions fluctuate wildly; after a good interaction in Chinese, when I'm able to effectively communicate my thoughts, I feel great.  I believe I can handle the pledge.  Then, often no more than a few minutes later, I'll pathetically struggle my way through a conversation, and my morale will be devastated.  I question my ability to learn and speak the language, my ability to stick to the pledge, my ability to stay sane for the next four months.  It's been quite a roller coaster, and it's only going to get more intense from here. 
There are upsides though.  The people in my program are absolutely fantastic.  The other exchange students (2 more from Tufts and one from Bennington) are really good people and share a lot of my feelings.  It always helps to know that you're all in the same boat, because a lot of the time struggling with the language can be an incredibly isolating experience.  I've had so many fantastic conversations in the past few days, like the one I had with Forest and Logan sitting on the rooftop section of an incredibly overpriced KTV bar in the HouHai district.  The four of our Chinese roommates are also really really cool people.  They're incredibly patient with our (especially my) language struggles, they're funny and kind and understanding and really good people overall. I'm really looking forward to making some lifelong friends here.  The stories and experiences that I'm going to make over the next four months here are going to be etched in my memory forever, because when else am I going to move to a completely unfamiliar country and be forced to study and speak a language that I'm barely proficient in full time for four months? I already have one: the day we met our roommates, I was talking to one of the Chinese guys in absolutely elementary Chinese about basketball as they were showing us around the neighborhood. I asked him who his favorite player was, and he said it was Tracy McGrady. We then proceeded to struggle through a conversation about T-Mac, his recent retirement, and his legendary 13 points in 33 seconds. What made the interaction even more comical was that one of us American students, the aforementioned Forest, didn't know who T-Mac was and hadn't heard about the previously mentioned feat.  Watching/hearing us struggle to explain the event in Chinese together must have been absolutely hilarious.  When the conversation drew to a natural close though, I was left with quite a unique feeling. It showed me that no matter how difficult language boundaries can be, certain feelings and emotions can transcend them.  That was on the second day of the program.  It's going to be moments like those, which hopefully happen in increasing amounts as my language skills improve, that get me through the difficult days/weeks.  I already know it.
I knew coming into this program that I was putting myself out of my comfort zone, that things were going to be difficult.  I had no idea how far out of my comfort zone it was going to be, how bad the struggle really is.  These next four months are going to be a defining test of my resiliency, of my confidence, of my self-esteem. The key is going to be reminding myself that this is what I want, that the rewards (both personal and academic) are going to be worth the difficulties. I'm proud of myself for putting myself in this situation, because now that I'm here I'm gonna be forced to make the best of it.  Right now, floundering is not an option for me.  I will struggle, I will persevere, I will succeed.
This test actually comes at a remarkably appropriate time in my life.  In the past two months or so, I've decided to commit to changing the things I don't like about myself, about my life, about the way I think and act and speak.  This is going to test that commitment in a way that few things can.  One way this commitment has been manifesting itself that I've been thinking about a lot is in the way that I pray.  I think I've gotten a lot more religious over this summer, due to a plethora of factors that I won't go into.  When I was home over the past few weeks, I realized that my new relationship with religion has come hand in hand with a dramatic change in the way that I pray.  I no longer ask god for good things to happen to me, I no longer ask him/her/it to make me strong or give me good luck or help me be a better person.  All I ask from god is that he/her/it keeps the things that I can't control about my life stable, keeps them in a condition that optimize my ability to help myself, to change myself for the better, to make good things happen to myself.  This was a big change for me, and I think it represents a much larger way that I think about and interact with the world.
I will pass this test. It comes at a perfect time and I am completely determined to make it one of the best experiences of my life.

Now (on a much lighter note), I'm gonna talk about some of the little things that I've noticed/done here.
First: you don't know big, you don't know crowded, you don't know bustling til you've been to Beijing.  It's a completely different world. The main surface arteries in the city are 6 lanes in each direction, with additional bike/scooter lanes on the side.  The subway currently has 17 lines and continues to expand.  The amount of cars and traffic during all hours of the day/night is absurd. The city stretches out in every direction for miles. On my way over to the expat bar/cafe that I'm currently sitting at to mooch off of wifi, at about 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, the subway was absolutely packed.  I had to transfer twice on the ridiculously massive subway and stood in subway cars packed to the brim with people (I was often the only foreigner).  I continue to be amazed/overwhelmed by its size, by its energy, by its character. It's awe inspiring, and rather scary as well.
Second: there are a lot of expats here, and the culture is pretty hilarious.  On Thursday night, we went to an expat bar in the heart of the university district (WuDaoKou) called Pyro Pizza.  They have weekly pong tournaments on Thursday night.  The crowd inside was the most eclectic mix of expats and Chinese I could have ever imagined, all playing pong and drinking and dancing to the ridiculous ratchet music they were playing.  I felt like I was in a frat basement.  Some interesting characters I met include: Joe, the native Kansan, who was wearing a tucked in Kobe jersey with matching Lakers athletic shorts, wearing a black and pink snapback with a giant marijuana leaf and "BLUNTS" written on both sides; and Kate, the intimidatingly large, short haired Dutch manager of the bar who destroyed people at pong, yelled at anyone she didn't like, and had an I <3 WU (WuDaoKou) tattoo on her right shoulder.  I'm currently sitting at another expat bar/cafe, enjoying their wifi with some cheap beer and coffee, eavesdropping on the conversations (a mix of English and Chinese) going on around me, and enjoying their interesting mix of American mega-hit music of the past 15 years ago.
Third: food here is magnificent. It can be cheap or expensive, and you can find anything you could possibly want.  Highlights since my last post include the Yunnan food that our assistant director James treated us too last night, the 5 kuai (less than $1) steamed dumplings I had for breakfast by campus today, and the famous Beijing Roast Duck that we had with our roommates on Thursday.
Fourth: you'd think Chinese people would have a decent exposure to Indians, but most Chinese here seem to think that I'm black. Unfortunately, most Chinese people also have quite a stereotypically negative perception of black people as well.

After I get dinner somewhere around here, I'm headed to the Hyatt in the middle of town to buy an expensive cocktail and just watch the Beijing skyline and chat with the other Americans in my program from their 64th floor bar.  It should be beautiful with how good the weather has been around here. The day I moved in, Wednesday, was incredibly bleak; it was cloudy and the pollution/smog was everywhere. It made visibility miserable; you could smell it; you could feel it in your lungs.  Since then though, it has been absolutely gorgeous outside. We've been able to see the blue skies and the stars every day/night (which apparently is a rarity in Beijing). James recommended that we go to this bar and take advantage of the clear skies, so we're doing just that tonight.  I really hope the weather stays this good, fall is supposed to be the best season in Beijing after all.

Also, here's my address:  
Rithwik Hari 
Middlebury School in China 
Capital Normal University International Culture Plaza 
83 Third Ring Rd. 
Haidian District
Beijing, China 100089

Please write me/keep in touch with me via any medium possible.  I miss all of you dearly, and continued communication with you will help keep me sane over the next few months.  Being a stranger is not allowed.

That's all I have for now.  Thanks for powering through a rather long and philosophical post, I've had a lot to think about over the past few days, and it's nice to get it all out.  There will undoubtedly be more of these posts, especially as I'll soon be forced to speak exclusively Chinese. The thoughts and ideas and emotions that build up behind the dam that is my language barrier will need an outlet, and this will be it.
I hope all of you have been doing well, wherever you are and whatever life has brought you.

Day 1

I arrived safely in Beijing yesterday evening, and was met at the airport as planned by my good friend Logan.  We proceeded to take the airport subway connection to the Beijing Metro, then rode the subway itself back to his apartment near Beijing Normal University.  The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane was the humidity and the unique smell that always accompanies it; it reminded me a lot of getting off the plane in India.  Logan said that yesterday wasn't even particularly humid, even though it felt like an incredibly warm 77 degrees to me. The metro was fast, clean, fantastically cheap (~2 yuan, which translates into $0.33), and not nearly as crowded as I was expecting it to be.  There's TV screens all over the stations and the trains, with CCTV constantly playing some combination of news, cartoons, and other miscellaneous programming. 
After dropping off my luggage at his apartment, we took a taxi to the 鬼街 (Ghost Street) area, full of bustling restaurants overflowing into the streets, cars parked all over the sidewalks, paper lanterns hanging from the trees, and restaurant vendors heckling pedestrians.  We ate at a fantastic Uyghur restaurant; Uyghurs, for those of you who don't know, are one of China's officially recognized ethnic minority and come from the 新疆 (Xinjiang) province in the northwestern most part of China.  We ate a bunch of different preparations of mutton, from mutton kebabs to mutton fried rice to stir fried nan and mutton.  It was all glorious.  There was also a delicious spicy fried green beans dish that had the most peculiar tingling and mouth-numbing aftereffects, due to its preparation with Sichuan Pepper. We washed down our massive meal with a few Yanjing Fresh Beers, one of China's big two mass market beers that was surprisingly good.  Afterwards, we walked around beautiful old Beijing for an hour or so, and I got a nice mini-tour from my history-buff friend. 
I'm currently stuck in my friend's apartment for another hour or so.  I can't move into my program until noon, and though I would love to go exploring I can't leave the apartment without my massive suitcase because I have no way of getting back into his place.  I'm planning on just leaving here and heading straight to Capital Normal University, where my program through Middlebury is located, and checking in early. 
The city is intimidatingly large and the language continues to scare me, especially knowing that starting Monday, I'll be basically speaking it exclusively.  As I walk around though, I'm constantly thinking about how to say certain things in Chinese, looking and reading posted signs and billboards, and just trying to get a grasp of the language's day to day use.  It's somewhat comforting that I can pick out words and phrases all around me, and it'll only get better with every passing day that I spend here.  I'm really looking forward to getting to know this city, and the Chinese language, really well over the next 4-ish months!
That's all for now, I'll check back in a few days.

和力宏去到北京

你好朋友们,
Here, you'll find random chronicles of my time studying abroad in Beijing and my travels throughout China and Asia.  For those of you that don't speak/read Chinese, the title of this blog translates to: "He Lihong [my Chinese name] Goes to China: Studying Abroad in Beijing. I'm writing this sitting at the gate of my flight to Beijing from San Francisco International Airport, filled with both excitement and nervousness.  The amount of Chinese that I'm hearing already is pretty scary, but it's also somewhat reassuring that I can pick out words among the rapid conversations taking place around me.  I'll be arriving in Beijing at around 6PM local time on Tuesday the 27th, which is 3am PST/6am EST.  Logan, one of my good friends from high school who is currently spending his summer interning in Beijing, will be meeting me at Beijing Capital Airport, and I'll be spending the night with him.  Then, on Wednesday the 28th, I'll be moving into Capital Normal University's International Student Dorm and starting my program with Middlebury University's Middlebury in China program.


It's going to be an incredible four months, filled with incredible experiences of all sorts.  I'm already preparing for the intense struggle that will be speaking almost exclusively Chinese during my time in country, but the fruits of my labor will (hopefully) be worth the trouble. 
Thanks for following along!
-Rithwik