Hello everyone!

I finally have a free day (Saturday) so thought I would send an update.

So much is happening! This morning I had breakfast with mom’s friend Karen who is a professor at UCSB and head of the China division of Kodak. She was here on business and planted so many good ideas in my head. Part of the curriculum here is you choose a research topic and spend all four months working on it. You have to use first hand sources-meaning interviews, translating Chinese articles, emailing Chinese companies etc. Basically they really want you to figure out the Chinese perspective of your topic. She suggested that I investigate a company called Solar Tech. It’s a Chinese started and run business that makes solar energy products. I haven’t done any research, but it’s a huge company and I’m really excited about it! She knows all the big cheeses there, so I’m getting the hook ups.

My Modern history class just ended and I’m about to start Chinese Media in transition. I absolutely loved my history professor, and I’m hoping my next teacher measures up. So far I’m really happy with the faculty here. I’d say they are Cate quality if not better.

I’m also competing in a badminton tournament. I haven’t played that much, but I picked it up pretty fast and I think we have a chance for victory! The game is scored in Chinese, and if you speak English on the court people look down on you. All of the language professors are competing in the tournament as well.

The first day I moved into my room Katherine, my good friend, and I were lost trying to find a bus. A man came up to us and asked, in English, if we needed help. He ended up being a very nice anthropologist who is trying to open his own museum. He travels all over the country collecting artifacts. Anyways, he took us to the Capital museum (John, have you been there?) because it was the last day of a “5,000 years of Chinese history” display. The museum itself was one of the largest buildings I’ve ever been in. In fact all of the buildings here are incredibly large! The exhibit was really nice, and he was very knowledgeable about most of the artifacts. A lot of the pieces we were looking at were in his secondary school history books! The only bad thing about the museum was the number of people. In order to look at an old calligraphy parchment, you had to literally push and shove to get close enough to read it. I get reminded everyday that there are actually a billion-plus people here!

Another story: I went to the Paralympics! I found tickets online for 30 kuai ($5) so all of us decided to go! It took about three hours and three different banks to locate the tickets, but it was all worth it. It’s funny when you are asking for directions here, not just one person answers-there is a committee meeting about where the bank is. Even if no one knows where it is they say, “nai biar” (over there) in order to save “face”. The same phenomena happen at banks. If the teller you are with doesn’t know how to do your particular transaction, they will say that the bank can’t do it. Not that they can’t do it. Also to save “face”. This made getting the tickets a bit of a rat race. But we saw the end of the men’s marathon, which they do in three-wheeled speed machines. Their upper bodies were huge and they came racing in at very high speeds! Also, the shows in between events involved handicapped entertainers. There would be 60 wheelchairs making formations of lotus flowers in the Olympic stadium-it was great! The audience, as opposed to the water polo match I went to, was almost all Chinese-so the atmosphere was very different. It seemed less chaotic; I think a big part of it is that Chinese don’t usually attend spectator sports like this, so they didn’t really know what to do. They also didn’t drink at the Paralympics, but the Russian, Australian, German and British spectators did at the water polo game.

Things are exciting and rewarding here. I feel very comfortable with the people and the culture. I’m looking forward to learning and experiencing what this magical place has to offer. I never thought I’d say that about polluted Beijing, but it really is beautiful. I feel pleasantly energized!

I’m going to Shanghai next weekend, which I’m looking forward to! I’ll let you know all about it….
Bye for now
Lots of Love,
rachael