fine arts in beijing

A good weekend for fine arts in Beijing --

Katharine, a sophomore Physics/Dance double major, has been dancing with a professional dance group in Beijing for the past few weeks. So we went to see her perform on Saturday! It was quite interesting; the choreographer is Chinese-American, so the dances combined modern dance and hip-hop with wushu and taichi. Although I've only gone to very few wushu classes before, I could definitely see its influence. Katharine was splendid, of course, and afterwards there was free food so it was good all around.

Then we went to a performance by the Big John Blues Band in a newly-opened venue in the 798 Art District here. The band is new, formed in 2007, but the members were all hand-picked by the frontman, and many of them have long and fruitful histories in the Chinese music scene. We chatted with the drummer afterwards (he lived in NYC for a year, so he and Franci immediately hit it off), and then went to Lush, where we end 2/3 of our nights.

I will now leave off with some pictures taken on some night of lounging, probably around 3 am. There is no reason for these pictures. I just think we look rather representatively sleepy and lazy:

Lazy Day

Between the two of us, Helen and I might have moved a total of 1000 feet today. Most of my total comes from going up the three flights of stairs to do laundry, and Helen's from going to a canteen (dining hall) for dinner.

Today's accomplishments are
- much progress on entrepreneurship conference planning
- demolishing half a box of milk biscuits
- watching 4 hours of Korean drama
- laundry

Entrepreneurship Conference
As mentioned in previous posts, we are planning a conference at the end of May, stated purpose to introduce and inspire local university students to entrepreneurship as a realistic career choice, Silicon Valley-style, perhaps? We initially conceived of the idea about two weeks ago, and at the end of last week we started contacting people. Amazingly it's all coming together. We've confirmed some pretty noteworthy entrepreneurs, VCs, and consultants; booked a nice conference room at Tsinghua University; and secured some sponsorship. I am very excited.

Milk Biscuits
Rozi discovered that the convenience store Wumei sells large boxes of "milk biscuits" that are very satisfying to snack on. Of course, Helen and I followed suit and bought our own box, which was finished extremely quickly... Yesterday night Helen retrieved a half-full box of Anuraag's biscuits and that box is also now empty. Oh dear.

Kdrama
Well, we watched episodes 9-12 of Samsoon. There are 16 episodes total, so I guess we can be proud of finishing 25% of the drama today.

Laundry
Part of my excuse for not going to the gym today is that my laundry situation was dire - but I successfully did two loads of laundry! Unfortunately I have no drying rack and also not enough hangers so my clothes are dispersed all across my room and the common room and the air is very damp.

chopsticks and massages

It has been very long (read: 5 days) since I have last blogged, and there are reasons I could give -- the planning of our entrepreneurship conference, which began in earnest last week and is scheduled for the way-too-soon date of May 24; the watching of aforementioned drama; the hours spent on Skype every day; the CS103B midterm which just ended an hour ago...but the real reason was probably just laziness. So I apologize.

Tracy and I had dinner at her language partner's house (he's a freshman Econ major at Beida) over the May 1 holiday weekend. As soon as we entered his house, his mom began berating him about how long his hair was (apparently it looked like the hair of a Taiwanese pop star instead of a Beida student, terrible). Then his parents showered me and Tracy with fruit, candy, tea, wine, massive amounts of food, Chinese paper cuttings, and Olympics phone charms. They were also amazed that we could use chopsticks. Why is everyone surprised at our ability to use chopsticks??

In completely unrelated news, Tracy, Kristine, Franci, Tayvin, Che and I got full-body massages at a spa this weekend. I think we should make massages a weekly tradition.

Fluff

One of Beijing's less pleasant surprises is its fluff. Here is a picture of a kid running happily through fluff:


Most of us are less happy when we are assailed by the fluff, which is actually flying pollen produced by poplar and willow trees in the springtime. In fact, Beijing has instituted a policy of sex changes for the poplar and willow trees to stop fluff production. Oh, Beijing.

In the meantime, I have discovered a good way to relieve my displeasure with fluff - burn it! It is highly flammable and burns quite satisfyingly when much of it has accumulated in drifts... I would write more about my adventures burning fluff but I am not sure I should document such activities.

My Name is Kim Samsoon

We have begun to watch this Korean drama to improve our Chinese. It is rather effective... and so interesting!



Edit by Helen: So interesting, in fact, that we are really tempted to stay up to keep watching despite its being 2:30 am. But we will be strong-willed students and resist. Must resist.

PKU 110

So it turns out the dementors were roaming around yesterday because President Hu Jintao was on campus. Something to do with PKU's 110th anniversary.

I also have my suspicions that the Chinese government seeded the clouds yesterday to make it rain and wash out the air before the celebrations today. Today the skies were blue (bluest in the morning, gradually graying as the day went on...) and visibility was high, unobscured by the usual smog. There was the matter of poplar fluff still, but overall the campus was quite pleasant for the visit of many thousands of visitors, including foreign university presidents and chancellors being transported in black Audis.

I attended some celebrations on Friday to commemorate the 110th anniversary. They were very much like the New Year's celebrations broadcast every year on CCTV. A good amount of singing, dancing, and recitation.

One act/skit was dedicated to Deng Xiaoping. I was informed that Chinese people like him because he got Hong Kong back for China. I was also informed that the next leader who can get Taiwan back for China will be very much liked. Dot dot dot.

Another act/skit celebrated the Lifeline Express, and the PKU graduates who work with the Lifeline Express to offer eyecare to Tibetans. There was a whole elaborate dance, highlighting a Tibetan woman's everlasting gratitude to the Lifeline Express for giving her eyesight.

Pictures and video to come :)

Night's Predominance, or the Day's Shame

By th' clock 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.
(Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 4)

At 9:30 this morning it was impressively dark outside. I actually did a double-take and checked my clock again, then checked my cell phone because I still couldn't believe the time. It was also thundering and pouring rain. It looked like it could have 3 am.

At 10:00 the sky had lightened but had also turned green. Frank suggests that it was the smog having a chemical reaction with positive ions.

Perfect conditions for zombies or other creepy supernatural things to take over the world. In fact, I did see a number of security guards dressed eerily like dementors...