Basketball Camp

Studying at Beijing Language & Culture University (BLCU) kinda feels like a summer camp. Each day has its structered list of activities including learning, recreation time, and eating cafeteria food. You also hang out with a bunch of people that you don't know very well.

I have Chinese class for 4 hours in the morning, eat lunch, teach English for 2 hours, and then come back to campus to play basketball until dinner. The time after dinner is reserved for doing homework and vegging out. Rinse and repeat, Monday through Friday.

One thing that has surprised me is how much I've been playing basketball. It seems to be the default activity around campus. Even some of the younger Chinese teachers come out and play. We've had some intense games too. A couple days ago I injured my eye when going for a rebound. I got a small cut and a black eye, but it's not too bad. My glasses pretty much cover up the bruise.

Today I was playing some 4-on-4 for several hours. Among the 8 people on the court, I counted 7 nationalities! Guys from Turkey, Nigeria, Vietnam, France, USA, Argentina, and China. Speaking of international sporting events, the Olympics start in 9 days. The anticipation is building...

Skadoosh!

Somehow blogging isn't as fun when you've lost your digital camera and your computer is broken, but I'll try to keep updating every once in a while.

I'm definitely moving out of the hobo-living-out-of-a-backpack phase of my trip. This week marks the start of school and work for me. I'll be studying Chinese Monday through Friday at Beijing Language and Culture University from 8am to Noon.

I also got a job teaching conversational English from 1.30pm to 3.30pm Monday through Friday. I've only worked for 3 days, but I think I'm gonna like this job. Basically, I hang out with 4 Korean kids, asking them questions and telling them stories (in English, of course) for 2 hours a day. The language school is on the 9th floor of a building that is a short walk from my university dormitory. There is a sizable Korean community in my neighborhood, and this language school is run by Koreans, hence the reason all my students are Korean. The kids are all between 12 and 15-- not the easiest age to work with-- but none of them are punks and their attention span is about as long as mine.

After teaching, I am free to hang out in cafes and internet bars, do my Chinese homework, and feed my Wikipedia, YouTube, and blog reading addictions. I've also been playing some basketball on campus. I feel so tall in this country.

On Sundays, I attend Haidian Church which has the best English-preaching I've ever heard in this country. I've heard some pretty wacky sermons at other state-controlled churches, but the pastor here is the real deal. He is an excellent preacher, speaks perfect English, and is not afraid to use the words "sinner" and "Jesus" at least 2 dozen times in every sermon. It seems churches are getting more and more freedom these days, at least in Beijing, praise God. I'm looking for ways to get more involved at this church.

So, I guess this is my life right now, and I must say I'm really liking it. I'm surprised that the romance of living abroad hasn't started to wear off yet, but I'm expecting it will start after a few weeks of school and work. Anyway, the Olympics will come soon, which is going to be crazy. I'll definitely have some related-posts. I'm interested to see how the Olympic coverage on TV will portray this fascinating city. More later. Peace.

Sensory Overload

Knowing exactly what to write about is difficult at times. I get a certain adrenaline boost from traveling that makes me go into super-analytical mode. Probably because I'm constantly being exposed to things that I haven't given much thought to before. My journal is filled with thoughts and outlines about theology, philosophy, Chinese language, politics, places to travel, poetry, sketches, crazy stories I've heard, profiles of people that I've met, etc, etc, etc. The last two months have been very intellectually stimulating. Perhaps more than any other time in my life.

Anyway, tonight I will leave the laid-back atmosphere of southern China and return to Beijing. A 40-hour train ride. It will be good to settle in and focus on studying Chinese for a little while.

Deep South

I've left Chengdu and just arrived in Kunming. Unfortunately, before I left Chengdu I lost my camera. I either got pick-pocketed, or my camera fell out of my pocket while I was in the taxi. Or I was pick-pocketed by the taxi driver, haha. Anyway, the Chengdu tourism office called all the taxi companies for me, but said they had no luck. I'm pretty sure it's gone forever. That's life I guess. Unfortunately, this means that all the pictures I took for the last 1-2 weeks are gone. I wish I still had the pictures from the village in the Sichuan earthquake zone.

Anyway, the train from Chengdu to Kunming had some AMAZING views. I love taking the sleeper trains. Besides cheap transportation, you get a place to stay for the night and some incredible views of the countryside, small villages, mountains, farms, etc. You also get to hang out with some interesting people. An African man and his Chinese wife sat close to me with their three bi-racial children. They had immigrated to America, but were currently travelling in China with their kids. The three kids spoke a mix of American English and Mandarin. The entire train was staring at their family in disbelief for the first hour or so. I met this other guy who was returning home from college for the summer. We started talking and found out that both of us play guitar. He had a guitar stowed under his bunk on the train so we jammed in between the train cars for a while. We sang “Hotel California” in the middle of the night while everyone else slept. He was a really good guitar player considering he'd only been playing for a year.

I arrived in Kunming today and was surprised by moderate flooding throughout the city. I had a little trouble getting to my youth hostel. Some of the bus routes were altered due to the water on the streets. I finally found a good bus that took me to the hostel. The water was knee to waste high on one street, and the bus driver just plowed through it for a couple blocks. It was awesome. Everyone on the bus was laughing or taking pictures. This afternoon I walked around downtown and visited a couple mosques. Kunming has a sizable Muslim population. One mosque had a really inexpensive restaurant at the bottom. I completely stuffed myself for 5 RMB (less than a dollar)! It is interesting to see so many Chinese Muslims.

Sichuan

I left Beijing several days ago to come to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. In a couple days I will head to Kunming, which is a little further south.

Chengdu has an incredible vibe that I really enjoy. The food is delicious, and the culture is really laid-back. Buying street food at 2am, even on a weekday, is no problem since people stay up so late. Also, everything is much cheaper than in Beijing.

I've been really impressed with some of the expats here. Freelance musicians, magazine creators/editors, and others who have started small non-profits. All of these people are in their mid-twenties--not much older than me. It takes creativity and courage to invent a job for yourself in an unfamiliar country.

I went to a small, earthquake-stricken village about two hours outside of Chengdu today. I met some people who had been going there every Sunday for the last 5 weeks to play with the kids. There were about 20 foreigners in the group this week.

Many of the homes in the village had been completely destroyed by the earthquake, so lots of people stayed in tents next to the rubble. A depressing scene. Nonetheless, hanging out with the kids for a few hours was a lot of fun. Being able to speak some basic Mandarin also made my experience much more enjoyable. I'll eventually put up a couple pictures.

I think Chengdu ties Beijing as my favorite city in China. ASU has an exchange program with Sichuan University (located in Chengdu), which I'm definitely considering for the future. This city would be a great place to live.

Many more stories, but I lack the time and discipline to write them out. Perhaps I'll get in the mood once I stop travelling and settle in Beijing.

Alive and Kicking

So what have I been doing lately?

After finishing my teaching gig at Nanjing Medical University, I spent a little more than a week traveling to some big cities in Eastern China. These included Suzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai. I stayed in a youth hostel for one night, and the rest of the time I stayed in people's homes using the website Couchsurfing.com. This was an incredibly positive experience for me.

-Met some awesome people from all over the world. Musicians, intellectuals, world-travelers, country folks, common people, socialists, missionaries, artists, etc.
-Heard some unbelievable stories involving trans-continental hitchhiking, underground churches, the Chinese mafia, etc, etc, etc.
-Spent hours discussing Chinese politics, society and language. This country holds a very complex political and sociological environment.
-Ate some great (and not-so-great) food.
-Improved my Mandarin by wandering through old neighborhoods and talking to the residents.
-My iPod has been invaluable to me. I listen to lots of music, podcasts, and sermons as I travel by foot, bus and subway.

I am currently in Beijing taking care of some administrative details involving my school, which starts July 21st. In a few days, I will go to the deep (and not-so-deep) South to do some hiking, biking and exploring. The SD-card slot on my computer seems to be broken, so I have only been able to upload a few pictures and no videos. I am trying to remedy this somehow.

Olympic Torch Relay

Here is a video from when I saw the Olympic torch.

The Olympics are a major force in advertising in and out of Beijing and many Chinese people are kind of obsessed. I saw a grown man on the bus who had a cell phone decorated with the Olympic mascot cartoon characters. The equivalent would be a man carrying around a cartoon-themed lunchbox. This kind of enthusiasm is so strange to me.

I think the hypefest surrounding the Olympics is both a result and a cause of hyper-nationalism. Not to say that all Chinese are hyper-nationalists, but there are lots that are. This makes conversation very interesting at times.