Katy in China

Today Professor Zhang Da took us to the “old city” part of Beijing, where we got a bicycle-cart tour of traditional streets and famous places.

We went inside a courtyard-house, where a tour guide told us about the every-day life of the people who once dwelt there. The house consists of four buildings (North, South, East, West) surrounding an open, square courtyard. They had a bird who supposedly says Ni Hao (hello in Chinese) when he’s happy… I guess he wasn’t happy, but he was still cute.

Next, we were taken to a famous garden-palace constructed by the brother of the king. The tour was in Chinese, but Tao translated for me. Apparently this brother accepted bribes and got very rich, enabling him to construct such a fabulous place. There were fountains and ponds and gardens and man-made caves, and a theater where we were able to watch some amazing acrobatics.

Tomorrow evening we depart for the US, so this may well be my last post from China. I’ve been debating whether I should turn this into a general travel blog, though, so I would update the next time I go somewhere. We’ll see…

Today we went on an expedition to the Great Wall. We took a 2.5 hour train ride to Badalin, one of the most famous locations for visiting the wall. Ba-Da-Lin translates to “eight big peaks,” because in this area the wall crosses (I think) 8 mountain tops. It was somewhat crowded, sunny, and the walk along the wall is steep, but the view was amazing, even though it was a bit hazy.

The Chinese are also really into promoting the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. This kind of reminds me of the Hollywood sign.

I was even lucky enough to witness a freak dinosaur attack!

On our way back to the train, I couldn’t resist an iced coffee. And, of course, where there are tourists, there is always:

Today we went to Wang Fu Jin, a famous shopping street in Beijing. There were all sorts of stores- both touristy and not, and I found a good many souvenirs there. I had Tao bargain for me, so I didn’t get ripped off. We stopped for lunch at a cute little Wonton place, which was very yummy.

After lunch we went over to BeiHai park, which was once a place of entertainment for the King and is very close to the Forbidden City. The park is beautiful- gardens and buildings surrounding a temple with a bug white tower, which overlooks a lake. We walked up to the top and over, and then around the lake, and then rented a battery-powered boat for an hour and cruised around the lake.

To be honest, I’m getting a little homesick. Just four more days until I head for home.

Lawford (another USC Prof) arrived Monday, and on Tuesday we all went to the Forbidden City. It was a hot day, and the tall buildings offered only a little shade, but we were in good spirits regardless. I found it to be less exciting than the Summer Palace, since there were no gardens, only buildings and statues, but is was still beautiful. We started from the North (back) gate and made our way south, exiting into Tienanmen Square.

Just so you know, there is a Starbuck’s Coffee in the Forbidden City.

Last night Meng Fan, who will be coming to USC this year as a new grad student, invited Judy and I to a bar called Propaganda. The population was at least 30-40% foreigners- most of them American, and the bartenders spoke English. We met up with three of Meng Fan’s friends, and danced the night away.

On June 19th, we took an overnight train from Beijing to Hankou (Wuhan?), and drove for three more hours to the Dabie Shan hotel (don’t know the name of the town). The overnight train was cool. We slept in 3-level bunk-beds and all got the bottom bunks on the way down. (Photo?)

The area we went to is in the northern part of Southern China, as I understand it. It was humid and rained a little bit almost every day, and pretty hot the rest of the time. Also, the views were spectacular. We drove by rice patties and hiked up mountain sides pushing our way through dense green foliage. The geology was amazing and like nothing I’ve seen before, so I was sad that we only stayed three days.

We drove back up to Wuhan yesterday and spent half a day in a really bad hotel before taking an overnight train back to Beijing. I got a middle bunk surrounded by snorers and the reek of cigarette smoke, so I didn’t sleep very well. Now I’m settling back into our hotel in Beijing… taking naps, doing laundry, and enjoying internet and central air conditioning.

Our last day in Fangshan was yesterday. We finished field work early in the morning, and then went to the Peking Man museum (where they discovered Homo erectus pekinensis). June 19th is the Dragon Boat Festival this year, so we ate the traditional food, which is a rice ball with fruit or red bean in it wrapped in bamboo leaves.

This morning we left Fangshan for good. We get half a day in Beijing, which is why I’m online now, and then we take an overnight train down to Dabie Shan, where we’ll get to see a pluton which intruded Ultra-High-Pressure rocks (really cool stuff!). I probably will not have internet access there, so don’t expect a post for another 5 days.

June 17, 2007

Tomorrow’s the last day of fieldwork on the Fangshan, and I’m glad. Even when it’s not too hot, it’s always humid, and the smog is unbelievable. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy my stay here. It’s been really interesting to see what small town life is like in a town outside Beijing.

The people stare at Scott and me wherever we go, which is funny. I kind of like being an odd anomaly. I’m continually amazed by the efficient use of space. Along even the steepest slopes, walls are built and little terraces less than a meter wide host a whole array of crops. Wherever there’s dirt, something is growing. Everywhere we go, even in the woods and mountains, there are roads and bridges and paths and statues (and quarries, and pipelines, and garbage).

Despite the lack of untouched land and the abundant smog, some of the views are still absolutely stunning! Today we went hiking up a steep ridge and saw row after row of mountains in the not-too-far distance.

Below are the missing entries from my time in the Fangshan area when i did not have internet. Enjoy.

June 9, 2007.

Today was the last day of the pluton course. We packed up and went to class in the morning, then dragged our stuff down from our rooms, had lunch (gong bao “kung pow” chicken, eggplant, pork dumplings, veggies, soup…), and departed for Fangshan. On our way, we had a few dead ends, but we ended up getting here by 3. Short nap, then a meeting with our Chinese collaborator deciding how we want to work on this project.

The hotel we’re staying in tonight is closing for remodeling tomorrow, so we have to move in the morning. I’m glad, since the electricity is spotty and the only internet here is dial-up and my poor little MacBook has no port for an ordinary phone line. Though who’s to say we’ll even have internet at the next place? {obviously we didn’t}

June 13, 2007

Field work has been going well. The new hotel’s a bit sketchy. No internet of course, no phone in the rooms, and a complicated system of valves to turn on to get the toilet to flush. Yay!

It was really hot the first day (June 10), and we spent the day going through a large quarry to see the pluton exposure. Judy fell and gashed up both her knees pretty bad. The second day (June 11), we were working in the metamorphic rocks, on which many trees like to grow, and so it was nice and shady. We went back to the hotel for lunch and then went back out to the field area after 4 for some more work. Tao and I decided we would like to make a transect across the field area following a set of train tracks which run roughly north-to-south.

June 12 we continued our transect along the train tracks, and decided to anchor Scott to the tracks when a train was coming. Scott went back to Beijing this morning, along with He Bin, so that he could take care of some administrative issues. So it was just me, Tao, Judy and Yan Bin (He Bin’s grad student) out in the field. We finished our train track transect when we ran out of exposure near the southern end, and even got to witness a big explosion in a nearby quarry! Goodbye train tracks, I will miss you.

More coming soon…

We don’t even have a phone in our hotel room, so don’t even ask about internet. The computers at this internet cafe have no USB port that I can get to, so pictures are out of the question. Also, I’ve already spent an hour working on emails and planning for the team research class I’m teaching later this summer, so time is limited as well.

I’ve been writing entries in word in hopes of uploading them, but I guess that will have to wait until I get back to Beijing (on the 25th). For now, I’ll just let you know that I’m doing fine, eating well, working hard, and I haven’t touched any live poultry. Sorry to disappoint those of you that have been waiting on pictures. They’ll be up but not for another two weeks.