Midterm Mayhem and Massages

This past week was my very stressful midterm week. I spent my whole week
working on presentations, reading and rereading assignments, memorizing
over 100 Chinese characters, and memorizing a speech in Chinese. By far
the hardest studying I’ve had to do, maybe in my whole college career,
is Chinese. Everything about it is just so different – the characters,
the sounds, and the grammar. I stayed up late and woke up early to study
Chinese, and I hope it paid off but I’ll have to wait to find out. It
was strange because having midterms week made me feel like I was at
Loyola. It was just like midterm week in Chicago with late night
studying and stressing out, spending the whole week cooped up in the
library and study lounge, but instead of coffee breaks I took regular
milk tea breaks. I bonded with my Chinese tutor since I spent extra time
with her studying Chinese and even though it was stressful it really
made me realize how much I’ve already learned this semester. In all my
classes I was able to reflect on all the research, reading, observing,
and learning I have done.


I finished my midterms on Thursday so on Friday my friend Molly and I
decided we needed and deserved a break. We went to do a little shopping
and then went to get pedicures. After reviewing the prices we decided to
add a massage to our pedicure since it was only 30 rmb, which is the
equivalent of five U.S. dollars. The pedicure was amazing! I’m not a big
fan of my feet, but the pedicure made them feel amazing, and the massage
was exactly what I needed after a week of stress. So I guess even though
midterms were stressful and there isn’t any good coffee in China I got
to end my week with some much needed relaxation.


Tomorrow I am leaving for the Sichuan province of China on another trip
sponsored by my program. We are going to see the giant pandas and
hopefully some other wonderful things! So unfortunately that means I
won’t be blogging for another week, but I will be sure to write about
my Sichuan adventures as soon as I return.

China makes me feel like a poet...

Sometimes China makes me feel like a poet. When I’m walking through the
ancient cypress woods at the temple of heaven, walking up to a
templehall that is centuries old, or simply experience the joy of
savoring adelicious milk tea from the mom and pop stand by campus I feel
like I could break out a Tang Dynasty style poem.

Walking in ancient woods
Ancient arches speak
Tea refreshes my mind
How long have my thoughts wandered?

Sometimes just the vast number of emotions I feel at one time makes me
feel like a poet. One time when I visited a temple I was overcome by so
many emotions I felt like I could just start spewing beat poetry
right then and there. Looking at a gorgeous temple I was struck by the
beauty and tranquility and felt peaceful, but at the same time I was
struck by the disrepair and desertion around me and felt a sadness and
melancholy. Then just the thought that I was standing in front of a
beautiful centuries old temple in Beijing made me excited and happy, but
then realizing I’m standing alone in front of a temple in Beijing, China
made me feel lonely and disconnected from the world. There are some
movements like these that I feel like Beijing is slowly striping away all
my preconceived notions, thoughts, and feelings and instead dissolving
them to reveal raw emotions. I can’t help being honest with myself in a
place where there is no familiarity. China makes me feel like a poet
because sometimes the only way I can express my thoughts, even to myself,
are in disjointed ambiguous lines of poetic verse.

Sometimes China makes me feel like a poet and sometimes China makes me
curse. There are times when I am riding the subway, smooshed body to body
with Chinese people and I think, “why am I doing this?” There aretimes
when I am in a restaurant and can’t read anything on the menu and
nothing ever comes out looking like it does on the picture menu. There
are times when I am haggling in the market and I am being pulled at and
yelled at by all the vendors and I just want to yell in frustration.
There are times when I need to get laundry tokens and try to ask for them
in Chinese and the girl at the counter just states at me blankly, and
then when I point to the phrase in my book she laughs at me before
handing me the coins. There are days when a couple minutes after having
eaten lunch I start to realize that lunch will shortly be leaving my body
and I want to use a couple four-letter words.

But whether China is producing poetry or swear words it is definitely an
amazing place. It is a place that is challenging me and forcing me to
learn more about myself. And one of the scariest things is that
I’m really starting to like China. Beijing is growing on me. Yesterday
when I went to buy my favorite green milk tea from the mom and pop stand
the women greeted me with a smile and already knew my order. It is those
kind of things that are making me at home here and letting me see past
the stress and frustration to see that I’m enjoying Beijing.

Real, Rough, Rewarding Research

Now that I am back into the swing of things in smoggy Beijing I have
begun to do more onsite research for my Ricci project.. Last week I
began by visiting the Guangji Temple. It was much smaller than the lama
temple and significantly less touristy. The gift shop provided tons of
religious materials in Chinese and with the Chinese Buddhist Association
headquarters being located there everything seemed a little more
authentic. There were monks clad in muted orange robes walking around
the temple complex, inside the temple halls, and in the offices and gift
shop. There was no admission fee but I felt like much more of a tourist
here since I was the only one standing in admiration at the beautiful
temple halls instead of praying or engaging in conversation with one of
the monks. I loved the sense of reverence, prayer, and peace that seemed
to fill every corner of the Guangji Temple. When I was standing in one
of the temple halls simply staring at its beauty and observing the
devout Buddhists pray I was reminded how extraordinary it is that I am
getting academic credit for doing that. I am in love with my research
right now, and am so thankful that I have the opportunity to do original
on site research. I love that instead of hearing a lecture or reading a
book I was standing in a Buddhist temple surrounded by Buddhists
learning and observing and soaking in more knowledge for my research
than any book could have offered me.

Today I visited the Zhihua Temple, which turned out to be much more of
an adventure than I thought it would be. After getting off the subway in
an area I’ve never been before I consulted my map and headed for what
looked like the small side street that should take me to the temple.
Thus commenced what felt like one of the longest walks of my life.
Choosing the most direct route on the map I headed down a side street
(which in America would be considered an alley) and immediately
tightened my grip on my purse. The fact that there was only a few
Chinese people walking down the road just made me feel a little nervous,
but I decided I had already gone to far to turn back. So I kept on at a
brisk walk down the seemingly never-ending “road” which I quickly
discovered was the location of one of Beijing’s hutongs. Hutongs are a
type of narrow streets formed by lines of traditional courtyard
residences. A couple times the Chinese residents passing on bikes slowed
to nearly a stop to stare at me. I doubt they often see a white person
wandering down their street. After what seemed like a really really long
time I finally got out of the hutong and hit a major street.
Unfortunately I was only half way to the temple and had to walk through
another hutong. With trepidation I headed down another small
street/alley and again attracted the stares of all the locals. I finally
saw the roof of the temple rising above the hutong and let out a sigh of
relief since I had begun to wonder if I was on the right street or if
the temple even still existed. I am extremely proud that when the
Chinese man opened the ticket window I said 我是学生 (I am a student) and
got my ticket for half price. I said something in Chinese and a Chinese
person understood it! When I entered the gate and walked to the “ticket
check” the women in the office was eating lunch with a group of other
temple volunteers. When she took my ticket she asked me if I wanted to
eat with them. I declined the offer due to my inadequate language skills
and the contents of her bowl, but I was extremely touched by the
gesture. From the absence of English speakers in the general area let
alone the temple I think I might be the only foreigner they had seen in
a long time. There was a steady stream of small guided groups of Chinese
people in the temples. I stood in one temple hall for a long time and
watched as one of the guides showed a small gof Buddha. Being in the Zhihua temple made me feel so blessed and privileged – to be able to go and spend time in a gorgeous sacred place that is rarely seen by Westerners is awesome. Although it was a rough trip getting to the temple, it made it even more rewarding when I got to see its beauty and experience the hospitality and happiness of the people in it. It reminded me once again how amazing it is that I am doing real research and researching something I find truly beautiful.