Safety is heavier than Mount Taishan [23-25]

My frustration phase has come and gone… for now. Mainly because I’m super excited for this weekend – I won’t give too much away, but it involves excellent landmarks, fireworks, and PANDAS!

Dr. Charlie Tuggle is visiting from UNC for a few weeks. He is a broadcast journalism professor and seems like a cool guy. He is giving a few lectures, one of which I went to on Monday, on video journalism. China.org.cn is a good news website but could use some improvement. Video is one thing that is becoming more prevalent in online journalism, so it will be good for them (and me!) to learn about how to effectively capture a story through film.

On Monday, the UNC interns had our last swim practice. I think this is where my frustration set in. After a week of training, I still wasn’t feeling confident at all.

I took it easy on Tuesday and finished a book that my mom gave me, Little Bee by Chris Cleave. It was an emotional read, and I definitely recommend it.

Wednesday was the big day, and I have to say, it went much better than I expected. We arrived at the indoor pool at about 8:15a.m., but our first event, the individual 100-m race, wasn’t until 10a.m. We were the ONLY white people there, and I felt extra white, standing there in my skimpy bathing suit with everyone staring.

The men’s 100-m was split into two heats. Brian was in the first one, and he got third place! I was in the second heat, racing against ONE other person. I had a great start, but got extremely tired about 60 meters in, and slowed down, but still beat the guy in the lane next to me. When times were posted, it turned out that I beat Brian by a HAIR, and got third place overall!

There were barely 15 minutes between the individual race and the relay race. My Chinese teammates offered me Red Bull and Dove bars between the races, which I declined for obvious reasons. Brian was the first leg of the relay, I was second, and our Chinese co-workers and teammates were third and fourth. We only had to swim 50 meters this time, which was much more my style. We were already in the lead with Brian’s start, but according to Courtney, I helped separate us from the others even more with my 50-meter swim, and we eventually won our heat! We ended up in second place, and the girl’s relay got first. Go CIIC! I was so happy to have that over with.



We celebrated with hot pot for lunch, and it was delicious. We all had our individual pot of boiling water with things like lemon, mushroom, and cilantro flavoring the water. The Lazy Susan was full of meats and veggies, some to be cooked in the pots and some to be eaten raw. My favorite was actually a salad with pig ears. Another highlight was rice-covered sausage dipped in garlic sauce (Chinese pork-rinds, if you will). After a few toasts and way too much food, we headed back to the office for work.

In the afternoon, I attended Dr. Tuggle’s second lecture. I enjoy being able to learn things that I cannot fit into my schedule at UNC. Just trying to make the most of my experience here in more ways than one!

After work, Annie’s Chinese colleague, Swatch, took us to the bus stop by work where we rode the bus to the subway station so that I could buy a transportation pass that works for the subway and the busses. It felt great to finally conquer the bus route, even if it was only once. It only costs 0.4 kuai to ride, which will save us LOTS of money in the long run!

We took the subway to Beihai Park, where we met Chris, my conversation exchange partner. He showed us around the lake, which had pretty scenery and was bustling with activity. We had some great conversations about national identity, learning languages, and personal tales. Chris took us to a Chinese restaurant that he really liked, and once again, we had great food. Sweet and sour pork, beef stir-fry, rice and Cokes. He finally let me pay for something, so I felt better about things. Such a nice guy!

Chris accompanied us to Salud, a bar near Keith’s apartment, where he left us and we met up with Keith and Ithzel. The bar was cool, with two floors, a live band (French, maybe?), and strong margaritas. We will definitely be returning with our bus passes for tapas.

We successfully took the last bus home and got in just in time before the gate closed. I needed a good day like this one to put me in a better mood. I have a month and a half left here, and I don’t want it to go any faster than it is!

The white elephant in the room [Days 16+17]

You can thank Annie for that title. Also, you should check out her blog, Courtney’s blog, and PA’s blog. Blogging is too hippie for Brian.

The cafeteria food is growing on me. If you know me, you know I have an intense sweet tooth. The buffet line here occasionally has sweet dishes that you wouldn’t expect to be sweet – like tomatoes with sugar or boiled peanuts with sugar. I’m especially happy when there’s watermelon, which is about every other day.

The work load has been picking up a bit, with us being assigned a whole zipped folder of articles to edit each morning. They are mostly for the travel section, so I’m keeping them in case I get to visit any of these places in China!

I made a Chinese friend on Monday! If you’ve ever read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, you know that she has a language exchange partner in Italy, whom she teaches English in exchange for Italian language lessons. I knew I wanted to do this when I got to China, but wasn’t sure how until I read an article in Time Out Beijing magazine that featured conversationexchange.com. It’s really simple – just post a profile with your name, age, sex, current city, primary language, and desired language, and wait for a response or browse potential exchange partners. I posted my profile and had five or six replies within the day. Apparently lots of Beijingers want to learn English! I e-mailed back and forth with the first person to reply, a 21-year-old Beijinger called Chris. He seemed to have good written English already but wanted to practice more. We decided to meet for dinner on Monday, so I invited Annie along, and we all met up at the office. I was a little nervous – not about meeting a stranger, but more about making a fool out of myself with Chinese etiquette (Who should pay? What will he think about our typical ordering method of pointing at the menu? Is the “noodle place” even a nice restaurant by Chinese standards?). I have to say, it went really well! We didn’t share much language pointers, but we shared cultural norms for college students and had a great meal. It helped immensely having a local point out good things on the menu. Annie and I could also tell that he was happy to be talking to English-speakers, as he ate very little but talked a lot. He also paid for the meal, which was unexpected. I tried to pay, but gave up when the waitress wouldn’t take my cash, as I had read that this could cause the other person to lose face. Chris said he would like to show us around other parts of Beijing, so it looks like we gained a tour guide as well!

Tuesday night was equally eventful, but not in a fun way. Brian and I had swim practice. I might have mentioned before how we got suckered into signing up for a company swim competition, which is Friday. Let me tell you, after ten minutes of swim practice, I thought I was going to die. We also found out that we won’t only be competing as individuals, but we will also be in a team relay. Kill me now. If I don’t come down with the flu (please!!!!!) in the next couple of days, I might lose my breakfast in the pool on Friday.