Midterm and other matters
Friday was... quite the day. It began at 6 am, with some quick studying for my midterm and some more rehearsing of my oral final with the other members of my group at 7 am. 8 am brought the midterm itself (at least the written part), and 10 am found us all collecting in the Hui yi Zhong xin for the performances of the kou shi (oral final). Our oral presentation was called “Beijing Tanlian’ai de Dasai,” which means something like “Beijing’s Dating Contest,” and featured me, the hostess and eligible bachelorette, choosing from two equally horrible contestants on the show – one, an absurdly over-the-top Don Juan type who ignored my questions about his beliefs to shower me with compliments and hard-to-follow innuendos, the other, an odd-ball premedical student who came to the show still dressed in mask and scrubs who assured me that our first date together would be to the hospital so I could get a good idea of his lifestyle – and ended with my rejection of both and their decision to become friends (or something more…?) having been spurned in love by the same woman. It was goofy beyond belief, but lots of fun, and while I still got absurdly nervous and forgot a bunch of my lines and stage directions, the audience seemed to enjoy it, and I certainly loved seeing all the other students’ skits as well. After the presentations were over, we had lunch in the restaurant in my dormitory’s first floor, which was delicious and rather fancy, too. All of second-
year was there, students and (xiao ban ke, or drill session) teachers alike, as well as the three da ban ke (lecture) teachers and the head of the entire program, Professor Feng. After lunch, Kevin and I met up with Sara for some fun in the big city – me to de-stress after my midterm, Sara to get away from her volunteers for a little while, and Kevin to see as much of Beijing as possible before his departure on Wednesday – and headed together down to the subway station after some much-needed catching up and orphanage-talk between Sara and Kevin. We crammed ourselves into, out of, and into
The park is named for Sun Zhongshan, perhaps better known as Sun Yatsen, was the key figure in the 1911 revolution which brought down the Qing dynasty and ended imperial rule in 
8 to honor Sun Yatsen. Unfortunately, the temple is gone now, but some elements of ancient architecture still exist in the park, like the Altar of Land and Grain, which was set up under Ming emperor Yongle in 1421, and the white marble memorial archway to the north of the park, erected by the Qing government in 1900. We had a lovely afternoon strolling through the park, looking at the architecture and gardens, and just relishing our escape from the commotion and bustle of the city beneath the cool green trees.
As 5pm approached, we made our way to one of the outer gates and hailed a taxi back to BCLU, where we all headed back to my room, I to finish my card and wrap my present for Zhao Bo, Sara and Kevin to reminisce some more about Chinese orphans and to look at some more of Kevin’s pictures. After that, Sara left for her apartment and Kevin and I met up with my jie jie (Chinese for “older sister”) for some dinner at a nearby restaurant, one of the most famous dumpling restaurants in all of
The restaurant was packed, as it nearly always is, and Zhao Bo hurried up to the counter to place an order for fried peanuts, Sichuan-style vegetables, and three different kinds of dumplings, none of which I had ever tried before. My favorite ones were the ones my jie jie had told me were her favorite – pork with chopped green onions and fennel – although the other ones we got (mostly pork, I’m not sure what else was in them; and ones with mushrooms and some other kind of meat) were absolutely delicious, too. Zhao Bo broke with Chinese 
custom and opened my gift to her (a pretty little Harvard T-shirt which was perfectly her size) in front of me at the restaurant. I rather dislike the Chinese practice of waiting until the gift-giver has gone before opening a present – I suppose in a way it seems rather greedy to start ripping into a present the moment it’s handed to you, and I also suppose that opening a gift in this way spares the recipient from awkward thanks if the gift is unwanted, but I really do think that most of the fun of giving a gift comes from watching the person open and enjoy this special gift you’ve picked out just for them, so I was glad that my jie jie did so.
Her card, which featured paper cutouts of a superlatively American-style red-kerchief-patterned tank top, denim skirt, and red flop-flops next to a cascade of letters spelling out t-h-a-n-k-s, matched both the wrapping paper and, in a way, the gift giver, not only because I made the card but because it is very USA. I made the card a long time ago and kept holding off on giving it to someone, because I just had a feeling that I wanted to give it to someone special and I knew I ought to wait until that occasion arrived. I never dreamed it would be given to someone on the other side of the world, nor that the inside would be written not in a lines of neat little letters matching the handwriting on the front and back of the card, but in the tiny, intricate, box-like forms of Chinese characters, signed with a flourish in an adopted name six thousand miles from home.
posted by Kelly @ 11:56 下午
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