Return to China 回来中国 - Summer 2008
Posted by Trevor in Summer 2008, Beijing Olympics, China
I’ll be flying home on the 26th to go to Manhattan with Devin and look for some apartments, next fall I will be attending New York University. After that I will be flying to Shanghai out of Boston on the 1st. I’ll spend two nights partying out in Shanghai and staying with a friend who is studying abroad at Fudan University. Then I will take the train to Xi’an to stay with my friend Mengmeng and her family for about three days before I go to Beijing and begin my six weeks intensive language course.
Xi’an is known as one of the most important cities for China’s cultural history and is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China of China. Xi’an is also famous for being the start of the Silk Road from China to the Mediterranean and for the location of the Terracotta Warriors! I am really grateful to be able to meet the family of a good friend and see this great city.
While in Beijing I will be hitting the books hard to become more proficient at Mandarin. I will be taking class for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. A total of 120 hours of instruction which is about the same as two semesters of Chinese at Iowa State. I am lucky that my Chinese teacher, 李老师， who I have had for the past year lives in Beijing. She is going to show me all of the cool places and restaurants in the city. I’m going to be careful because she’ll probably try and get to me eat something crazy or say something really stupid to some people because of all of the jokes I played on her during the school year.
In addition, my really good friends Yu Pang and Yu Yang will be in Beijing this summer. They are American and grew up in Iowa but when they went to college their parents moved back to Beijing so they are spending the summer there. Having them in the city with me means I am going to have no trouble hitting up many of the bars and enjoying the nightlife. I’m going to have to be careful that they don’t distract me from my studies.
The 2008 Olympics will be taking place in Beijing while I am there, so I am looking forward to seeing what the city will be like during the biggest event in the world in four years. I want to get tickets to the gold medal wrestling matches and a few matches for ping pong. Also, I’m trying to think of something I can sell a million of for $1 to all of the people while they are in the city, if anyone has any ideas let me know!
That’s all for now
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Riot Against China
Posted by Trevor in Beijing Olympics, China
Hopefully you keep up on current events and heard about the riots in Tibet. Before I comment, if you have not seen the movie Seven Years in Tibet, you need to right away.
I read about the riots in the Des Moines Register yesterday morning, and the way the article was pitched made me come to an interesting realization. The people in Lhasa, Tibet protesting the Chinese government’s rule had tanks brought out against them and were put down by force. Official reports (from a spokesperson for the Chinese government) say the number of casualties are in the teens, however the Tibetan embassy in New York has been receiving phone calls from the community reporting deaths over one hundred and injuries around a thousand. This makes me reflect back to 11th grade when I read George Orwell’s 1984. With the Beijing Olympics coming up, China will be trying to put on the best image it can as a friendly and inviting country. If something were to happen that could interfere with China’s debut on the world stage, what do you think would happen?
That’s all I have for now, stay tuned.
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