The Ups and Downs of April
Tomorrow begins the one month countdown to my return to the US from China. As the clock starts to count down and I start to do all those things that I have not yet had time for in Beijing and China, I find myself starting to critically evaluate my time here. The analysis is not all positive, so I find myself often fluctuating between highs and lows in mood, perhaps egged on by the constantly shifting weather.
These past few days have been busy with school and work. Next week is the mid-term test for the Chinese classes I am taking at Beijing Shifan Daxue, though for me the results are less important as I will not be getting any official “credit” for these exams. The pressure from the studious Asians and Europeans in the class will probably push me to study a bit, but it is very unlikely that even with studying I could position myself in a reasonable position compared to my peers. Chinese is a hard language, and, though I am starting to be able to decipher the newspaper, I still have a long way to go till my reading and writing are up to 标准 (biaozhun = normal, standard) levels. The speaking is also still behind, especially with my tones and accents, so I am stepping up the pace by taking a class on Saturday mornings (leaving shortly) that will focus intensely on spoken Chinese. Sometimes I feel like progress is amazingly fast, and other times I just wonder what I am trying to get out of the whole learning Chinese deal. By returning to the States, I am basically cutting short the needed incubation period to get real proficiency in the language.
On the work side, since the death of Jim Brock two weeks ago, we have been working on preparing for a big multi-client roundtable discussion of the new China Energy study CERA is working on. The meeting went off without a hitch yesterday, and most of my Cambridge colleagues will be returning to the States this weekend. Still viewed as an intern, I find the office is still a good place to go and work on something besides Chinese. My two projects - autos’ oil consumption and renewables - will probably never be released as full papers, but at least I am learning something.
Last weekend was 清明节 (Qingming Jie = Chinese traditional holiday, called “Tomb-sweeping day” as the Chinese are supposed to clean and sweep the tombs of their ancestors and spend the day at the grave, enjoying some food, alcohol, and memories with their deceased ancestor). My friend Stacy (Fulbrighter from Hawaii) and I decided to travel down to Shandong province and climb 泰山 (Taishan = one of the five famous mountains in China, climbed by several emperors [incl. Qianlong’s 11 times] as well as Mao Zedong). Unfortunately, about ten thousand other Chinese had this idea. We were unable to get a hotel in the town at the base of the mountain, leaving us with some unpleasant options - 1) Climb the mountain at night and possibly catch the sunrise; 2) Sleep in a public park; 3) Go somewhere else. We, along with several thousand Chinese, decided the night hike was the best choice, so we spent the six hours from 11PM to 5AM hiking up the treacherous steps of the mountain. We met some fun Chinese friends, but the Chinese chengyu of “人山人海” (“People mountain, people sea”) was finally fully appreciated by both Stacy and me. When your goal of getting out of Beijing is to avoid the crowds and enjoy nature, it seems quite ironic to come across a mountain where hiking is analogous to pushing through the crowded metro stations Beijing at rush hour. We came home a bit early as we couldn’t figure anything else to do near the mountain. On the way back, Stacy was sick, and the bus was as hot as an oven. All in all, the trip did not meet expectations, but I guess it was another one of those “experiencing China” moments. Stacy put together an excellent blog article on the adventure, along with pictures.
In other news, I have started the application for Georgia Tech’s mechanical engineering master’s program (part of the GE Energy package). Realized that I need to make better friends with professors so that I can get recommendations and that I am not so sure about this whole mechanical engineering return. Anyway, off to Chinese class, so that’s it for this week. Cheers from Beijing!
Saturday, April 12, 2008