where have I been?

Ack. I was doing a reasonable job of updating the blog until the last couple of weeks. I have a pretty good excuse for week 1 - I spent it in Inner Mongolia doing our social study report, as per HBA mandate (I feel like the longer I'm here, the clunkier my prose becomes...apologies). Without much advanced knowledge of any sort, I decided to do my report on Mongolian (the language, that is) because it's the sort of topic I've always been interested in, and I thought that my background knowledge on language preservation was enough that I might be able to produce something whose importance extended beyond exceeding the word length.

But really, for all the talk about producing the report, that's not what the week was about. Writing 1200 characters isn't really going to be that much of a challenge - I think a lot of people took two or three hours. I had to handwrite mine (remind me to explain sometime while my computer is still broken) and then type it up, but that probably took...6 hours total? Beyond that it was just an unbelievably fortunate week where I had the chance to explore somewhere beyond the boundaries of what I had ever encountered before. And it's not that Inner Mongolia should be exaggerated as some distant ultima thule (see nabokov) because it's really very much like the rest of China in lots of respects, which is a lesson in itself. But I also saw the most remote terrain I've ever seen in my life, inhabited only by shepherds and goatherds. I have the pictures if I ever find a way to put them on the internet - but maybe a better description is that I'm pretty sure I could pick most directions and then walk for a hundred miles without encountering another human being, except maybe for a flock of sheep or two. overlying the rapidly desertifying grasslands you can see distant, jagged red-purple mountains, which we crossed once on a somewhat terrifying return trip to the citified part of inner mongolia.

The experience deserves to be better described, and I hope that it will be in more detail at some point, but it stacks up with any of the most fortunate experiences of my increasingly inexplicably fortunate life. I'll go as far as saying that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I was lucky enough to stumble open. I hope I get to go back some day.

Currently going through somewhat of a Chinese music binge, again tricky given that I don't have a computer. Ends up leading to a lot of frustration most of the time as I turn on V, china's answer to MTV, and hope that they'll play a decent song or two. For now, check out here for what's currently on my mind. Actually, I normally don't have youtube at my internet cafe, so I'll take the opportunity to link up to this as well (watch the whole thing...although I promise the lyrics are very moving as well if you don't speak any chinese)

I seriously have at least 8 topics for blog posts in one of my coursebooks right now, but just no time to write them down at all. Shawn (a.k.a. 少华） is consistently unbelievably friendly in letting me barge into his room and monopolize his computer for long stretches of time, but even so I barely have time to keep up with whatever happenings are in the outside world. the blog is high on my priorities list, but so are the other things I don't have time to do. As of right now I'm already neglecting a particularly challenging new lesson. Probably another hour and a half tonight to memorize, and then wake up tomorrow to review/复习...so, that's it for now. Pictures could be coming if I ever get around to taking up weimin on his offer of loaning his computer so I can start uploading.

post of the time period

It's sort of hard to figure out exactly what to write when everytime I want to post I'm put on the spot with about twenty minutes to write down the things I've been stewing over for the last few days. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with our blogging prompts. what are you going to do.

 

The biggest thing on my mind is that, on and off, I'm starting to feel like I have some idea of what Iw ant to do with myself. Truth be told, if you'd asked me why I was here, the simplest answer would just be that I really like learning Chinese. But the more I'm around here, the more the puzzle pieces begin to interlock. Of course, it's often just a passing revelation and the next day I have no idea what I was thinking. But lately, I've been thinking that the best way to combine my interests might be to go to geophysics grad school, get involved in climate issues of some sort, and then try to get involved in a job in China with some sort of environmental capacity. The longer I'm here the more I am, first and foremost, blown away by how quickly life moves around here and how fast things are changing, and as a result just how much damage china's environment is taking. One of my teachers mentioned that when she was a kid, the city centers were all cooler than they are now because widespread use of air conditioners has raised the ambient temperature. We're talking about a country that is developing rampantly, and will continue to do so even as shanghai and beijing settle down, thanks to the "Develop the west" campaign. If there is a battle against global warming to be won, it will be here in China. So why not try to get involved?

 

Beyond that, I've mostly been musing about the places I want to go. Last night, I didn't sleep too much because I postponed studying for my test, instead reading my china lonely planet, courtesy of the kind folks at light. For any of you who have ever read my travel blogs in the past (maybe two of you, but then again there are about five people reading this, so there) I actually dislike using guides to navigate once I get somewhere. But this one's a little different, because its pages contain hundreds of cities I had never even heard of, but now get to contemplate visiting, a distant fantasy in case the fellowship money lasts. Did you know there's an actual town called Shangri-la in China? Some enterprising local politicians in Yunnan renamed their city in a bid to draw more tourists.

 

Trips that I've contemplated: trying to go to korea by boat to meet up with jason kb, going to qufu, confucius's home (this one I expect to happen), getting to india by going through tibet and nepal, traveling to western sichuan, going to inner mongolia...except that the last one is really going to happen!

 

About ten minutes worth of ramblings

There are times when this city can be frustrating. First of all, the scale of the place makes getting anywhere a matter of concerted effort. This isn't like Boston, where a good half hour will get you to Southie, or New Haven when about half an hour of biking can get you clear across town. Though the subway system is far-flung and fairly quick, Beijing is quite simply huge. In the States, the only city I can think of that comes close is New York City - a much better analog than LA, where people drive everywhere, because really Beijing is just a series of neighborhoods, one after another, turning toward the fringes into farm towns, all growing the same crops. My botanical knowledge is sorely lacking, but rather than the rice paddies of Vietnam, which are essentially my only good comparison, these are rows after rows of what look like cornstalks, with the occasional root vegetable or orchard of peaches all growing in paper bags (pollution induced, perhaps?). I'm not tired of the food at this point, but it's becoming a possibility whereas before I wouldn't have worried about it.

The weather as legitimately beautiful yesterday. Blue sky, interspersed with clouds. Warm but not drenched-in-sweat-inducingly so. The rumor has it that August will see the haze return in style, but for now, I can't complain.

Planned to write more, no time as usual. Now if dell would just get their act together...