8.09.2006

Conference in Beijing


Okay, so the number one grossest thing about killing mosquitoes has got to be when you squash them on something and rather than sort of crunching out of existence like most little black bugs they make a huge blobby red smear and you realize -- not for the first time, but always to your horror -- that the blobby mess is composed not only of mosquito innards but of human blood which was sucked out of someone else's skin as the bug's last meal on earth. Everyone, all together now, EWWWWWWWWWW.

Anyway, can you tell news is slow in these parts recently? Of course news is slow, it's the middle of the week and every second not spent actually in class is devoted either to eating, sleeping, or studying for the next class. (Occasionally, for added excitement, some combination of the three might be attempted, though this usually results in ice-cream-sticky notes and bad dreams filled with droning Chinese text recordings). BUT all of this is beside the point, since this post is meant to fill you in not on the humdrum details of my second-to-second existence of absorbing as much Mandarin as I possibly can, but rather on the exciting details of this past Sunday, which featured the second annual Conference of American Students in Beijing at Beijing University (Bei Da, short for Beijing Daxue). Students and teachers from HBA, PIB (Princeton in Beijing), Columbia, and a few other summer programs attended a speech contest for students of all levels (from second-year to fifth-year and above).

Anyone who knows me might be wondering at the fact that I attended this conference thing at all, knowing how deeply and profoundly I dislike public speaking in foreign languages. Public speaking isn't a big deal in English -- I mean, I get nervous like anyone else, but it's usually fine and can even be sort of fun -- but public speaking in other languages, particularly Chinese, is one of the worst things on earth. Anyway, to make a long story short because this post is becoming too long already and I need to get back to studying, I was coerced against my will to attend this contest, and had to memorize and perform an essay I had purposely not written that well because I knew that this competition was in the offing and absolutely. did. not. want. to. go. Moreover, on Sunday all of my friends were going to the Hidden City and Beihai Gonguan, the two places in Beijing I wanted to go to most, and I not only missed out on fun activities Friday and Saturday night because of memorizing this stupid thing, but had to spend all of Sunday at Beida doing my least favorite thing on earth. I thought that a huge number of students were going, but it turned out that besides myself there were only three other second-year students and all three of the second year lecturers: my friends Bai Ge (Parker), Xiao Bai (Casey), and Mi Ankang (Andrew), and Wang Laoshi, Yan Laoshi, and Tian Laoshi, respectively. [Picture above, from left to right: Andrew, Casey, Parker, me.]

Complaining aside, the contest could have been lots worse. It lasted for six hours (!!) but Tian Laoshi, sensing our increasing ennui (and probably harboring some of his own) led us on a covert mission to have some fun in the area of Beijing around Beida as other students droned on with their speeches. We bought some melon from a street vendor and found our way to Zhong guan cun, often called the "Silicon Valley" of China, a technology hub I'd visited during Social Study week. We wandered around, bought some bai jiu and some KFC, and I found a giant Sephora that was basically identical in all respects to the ones in the States, with the small difference that a salesperson who saw me eyeballing a set of powder-filled compacts asked me what color I was looking for: did I want one that was the natural color of my skin, or one that would make it a few shades lighter? Never, ever, would that question be asked of me in the States. Oh, China, and its longing for pale, pale skin. Why do I live in America, home of the golden tan?

Anyway, after hanging out and hitting the town with Tian Laoshi, we found our way back to Beida in time for the awards ceremony and dinner in a Beida restaurant, before piling into taxis back to Beiyu to begin studying for Monday's class, in the few hours still afforded us. The one good thing was that, since all three of the da ban ke teachers came with us to the conference, they would understand if we missed a few vocab words in class tomorrow, since we were sort of busy for most of Sunday!