我非常喜欢北京

So I have been living in Beijing for about two months and I think it’s about time I updated you all on where I have been.

I have actually not been to that many places because I have been so busy with classes and generally being lazy, but I have been to a few pretty cool sites.

I have gone to the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Silk Market, and Zhongguancun.  Each of those places were awesome in their own way; however, I’m going to tell you right now that the Silk Market is quite possibly the worst place on the entire planet.

The Forbidden City (故宫) is probably the coolest place that I have been since being in China.  There is so much history there along with a lot of traditional Chinese architecture.  It seemed as if every building that I walked into had some kind of Throne that people were all gathered around.  The Forbidden City also had what was probably the highlight of my trip so far: The Mountain of Accumulated Elegance.  It is not really a mountain as it is a large natural stone edifice, but it is still really cool.  The Chinese do a lot of really weird things (that I’ll talk about in my next post), but one thing that the Chinese do VERY well is naming things.  When you look at a sign and realize you are about to see a Mountain of Accumulated Elegance, you know that whatever that mountain is, it’s going to be amazing.

The Temple of Heaven was another traditional Chinese historic place that was split into three sections in addition to having a very large park.  The literal translation of The Temple of Heaven from Chinese to English is ‘The Sky Temple’ and that is because Chinese people do not believe in Heaven.  (Chinese fun fact, instead of saying “Oh my God!” Chinese people say “Oh My Sky!”)  The highlight of the temple of heaven was standing on a rock.  That may sound really lame.  History Time: Back in the olden-days, only the Emperor was allowed to stand on this certain rock and everyone had to listen to him when he was on that rock.  I stood on that rock.  I’m not clear on the whole process, but I’m fairly confident that I am now a Chinese Emperor.  I’ll be sure to let you all know how that turns out.

The Silk Market is where you go if you want to by fake clothes, shoes, watches, games, and just about anything fake that you would ever want other than computers and cell phones.  I needed to go buy a pair of dress shoes because I didn’t bring any and there were probably about 30-40 stores where I could have bought the shoes.  I went up to the first store I walked to, picked out a pair of shoes, tried them on, they fit, and so I began to negotiate.  Negotiating should be a fairly simple process of exchanging desired prices until a mutual agreement can be reached.  Not in China.  The first price I was given was 1,850 Yuan (over 340 US Dollars).  I responded by saying 100 Yuan.  That’s when things got interesting.  The more I talked with the store owners and talked about price, the more physical they got with me and they were refusing to allow me to leave the store.  I got pretty mad (I like my personal space) and so I was finally able to shove the owners out of the way and leave the store.  As I was walking away they agreed to give me the shoes for 255 Yuan.  I paid, and ran away.  I’m never going back there.   Ever.

Zhongguancun.  You probably have no idea what this is.  It is actually a street; however, on this street is where you buy everything that needs electricity.  Everything sold there is fake.  If I were to use one word to describe Zhongguancun in one word, that word would be Heaven.  This place is amazing.  It has tons of cell phones, computers, Playstations, Xboxes, and just about everything that I could ever want to buy.  If anyone wants me to get them a fake iPhone while I’m here, let me know.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be sure to post again soon!

 

我爱美国！

我的学校很意思！

So it has been way too long since my last blog post.  I’m going to try and have a post at least once a week form now on so keep you all up-to-date on my China travels (or lack thereof).

This post is going to be all about classes and school because, after all, that is why I am in China.  Do you remember how in my last blog post how I said that I had finalized my classes? If not, go check.  Good? Ok.  I lied.  My classes were not finalized then.

My classes are now:

1. Marketing Research (MBA)
2. Human Resource Management (MBA)
3. Doing Business In China (Undergrad)
4. Service Marketing (Undergrad)
5. Primary Business Chinese (MBA)
6. Consumer Behavior (MBA)

In addition to those classes I am also doing an independent study of Chinese 202.  That is being run through Miami because I need to get credit for CHI202 this semester but there was no equivalent class at PKU.

I’m sure some of you are wondering: “Why is Daniel taking so many classes?  Doesn’t he want to explore China and stuff while he is there?”  You would be right.  I do want to explore China.  And there is so much to see in the Beijing area alone (more on that in a later post).  However, of the classes listed above, 1, 2, and 3 end after the 10^th week of the semester, and 4 and 6 end after the 12^th week of the semester.  That leaves me a decent amount (read: over a month of 6 day weekends) of time to go and travel around China.

The MBA classes that I am in are actually easier than the Undergraduate classes.  My Marketing Research professor went to school at UIUC (small world).  Him and me had a pretty good talk about Illinois, which was pretty awesome.  My HRM class is quite possibly the most boring class known to man (closely followed by Doing Business in China).  My Service Marketing Professor… How to describe him?  The only way I can describe him is that he is The Man.  He blatantly favors foreign students, loves America, and spends class time occasionally recommending restaurants and talking about how the service industry (Restaurants, Airlines, etc.) in China sucks compared to the service industry in America.  The only downside to the Service Marketing class is that there is so much homework that I really just don’t want to do.

Because of my Chinese Minor at Miami, I should be taking the class Chinese 202 right now.  The only Chinese language class I can take here though is Primary Business Chinese, and that is for people who have NEVER studied Chinese.  So after berating Miami’s administration for months, I finally got an independent study of Chinese 202 approved so I can make progress on my minor while abroad.  My advisor for that is actually my PBC teacher.  My PBC teacher thinks I know so much Chinese and thinks I’m a genius because my Chinese is so much better than the rest of the class (no one else in the class has studied Chinese before, I’ve taken 2 years- it’s not really a fair comparison) and I’m not bothering to correct her. 

My Consumer Behavior class is just weird.  I’ll admit that the teacher is good looking.  But some of the Chinese students are just plain weird (read: messed up) about having a good-looking teacher.  One of the exchange students in my class was talking to a Chinese student in the class and according to the exchange student the dialogue went like this:

 

Exchange Student:  I’m really glad I got into this class.

Chinese Student:  I know.  She’s really beautiful isn’t she?

Exchange Student: (with blank stare) Not what I meant.

Chinese Student:  (Pulls out camera phone and takes picture of teacher)

Exchange Student:  (Goes to find new seat)

 

Overall, the classes are pretty easy.  The worst part is just having class on Sunday nights.  That is probably the worst part about being in China.  I’ll be sure to post updates more often- I am going to try and make my next post about general travellings around Beijing.  Beijing is a pretty awesome city and while it is very different from dinky little Oxford, Ohio, it is still a very exciting city with a lot more to do than Ohio.

 

再见!