China Exchange 1999 - International Programs @ TCC

If there were no temples, no museums, no restaurants, and no Great Walls, China would still be a wonderful place to visit. The greatest joy of experiencing this country is, for us, just walking around. Wherever we are, if we have a few minutes or a few hours to spare, we set off walking. Walking the streets of Biejing is a delight for the senses, sights and sounds and smells abound.

A market street near BBI.

There is lots of good food to be found on the streets in and around Beijing. Many avoid this food for possible health risk. My philosophy is that I got a hepatitis vaccination before I left and brought a lot of expensive antibiotics and antidiarrheal medications with me. It would be a shame to let all of that stuff go to waste. So far we have had no problems. I think its a little bit like playing a lottery. I may do a web page about the interesting things we have eaten on the streets of Beijing. Among the most unusual are deep fried scorpions, roasted bird embryos, and squid on a stick. Most food that you buy on the street is very cheap, a filling meal for two usually costs less than two dollars.

A food vendor at a market in Beijing.

All kinds of services are available on the street, including haircuts and massage. A haircut costs about seventy cents and a massage is a couple of dollars. The haircuts are not for people who are fussy about hygiene. For me it was partly about haircut and partly about picture opportunity. During my massage there was a group of old men nearby playing traditional Chinese music. It was a wonderful experience.

A haircut in Beijing

Getting a massage on the street on the street in Beijing.

I have been busy doing portraits of all of the members of my classes. I have done individual portraits of each student with the digital camera, another camera loaded with slide film, and a third with print film. I download the digital images to the computer with each student's name. I want to make sure that I can connect a name to a face when I correspond with students later. We are also doing group portraits of each class. After I return to the U.S. I well send copies of these images back for each of the students.

One of my classes, the woman on my left is an honorary student in the class. She has turned out to be a bit of a discipline problem.

A major event of the semester was a competition in which Chinese students sang English songs and foreign students sang Chinese songs. (BBI has many foreign students studying Chinese. They are mostly from Korea and Japan, but from other countries as well, including the U.S.) Deborah and I were asked if we would like to sing a Chinese song for this event. One of our friends here volunteered to teach us a song. Zhu Chang was a great teacher. She taught us an up-tempo children's song.

We practiced for a couple of hours before the concert, incorporating a few dance steps in between the verses. We were unprepared for the scale of the event. It was in a huge auditorium packed with people, maybe 800. The acts were well rehearsed and professional. We were called up to perform at the end. We had difficulty hearing the music, remembering the tune, and recalling the words. Out of eight verses, we probably sang about eight words correctly. To us it was a disaster. The crowd was wildly enthusiastic, they helped us out by singing along and, in the end, gave us a standing ovation. The people here really are nice.

NEXT: 4/24 Trip to Tai'an

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ED GIBBS
egibbs@tcc.edu    

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