Monday, November 2, 2009

Snow

I got back from Pingyao, and pictures are up! A lot of similar ones have been tagged on Facebook already from my friends, but most of the pictures I host should have a story in the caption, so check 'em out.

Being in Pingyao was a really good experience. I was a little nervous that it would turn out to be kind of kitschy, given that I'd heard that it had become something of a tourist town, but it actually had a lot of merit.

First, it has one of the best old city walls anywhere in north China, partly because they were so poor during the Cultural Revolution that they didn't have enough money to tear them down like everyone else was doing. Second, Pingyao hosts the oldest draft bank in China. Sounds a little lame on paper, I suppose, but it's actually pretty sweet. One of the ways they would prevent fraud when printing bank slips was to embroider silk into the bank slip, making it really, really hard to counterfeit. I'm sure partly because of the financial success that the bank brought to town, Pingyao also hosts China's first armed escort agency, which we got to visit. There's a few pictures of us toying around with weapons the escorts were trained with, starting here. Lastly, Pingyao still has a lot of old temples, including Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian, several of which we visited during our ample free time.

Since I've gotten back, life's been relatively quiet. I'm getting a better and better rapport with my host dad. I'm deliberately making time for myself every week to cook with him at least once, if not a couple of times. We have some really good chats, and it boosts my Chinese really fast. I actually just talked with him last night about staying in this same home-stay next semester, and he was game for it, so that's got me settled with a good home next semester as well.

Yesterday, we got the season's first snow storm. My dad mentioned that it was record-setting early, so I figured it must be just one of China's weather phenomena this year. Oh the naïveté. It was seeded by the Chinese government to try and alleviate the drought that's been hitting this part of the country for the last decade. I guess I see the logic in it, but seeing as the Beijing authority doesn't turn on the heat in most homes until November 15th, I have to imagine that a lot of people are kinda chilly. I lucked out; Shushu mentioned that BeiWai has separate heating rules because so many foreigners live on campus. Don't want to give the 老外 a bad impression, I suppose.

I've also been having a music revival, lately. Why? Because all of it's free. And legal. Turns out that Google has a sweet deal with a bunch of record companies. Since piracy had become so rampant in China that no record companies were making money at all, Google approached them with a solution: provide all of their music available for download, free on a Google-hosted site, and at least come away with the advertising profit. Only caveat is that you have to be in China to be able to download. One of the very few times that China's internet users have an advantage over the rest of the world... For those who are interested, I've been on a Simon and Garfunkel kick, lately. Those guys were good.

6 comments:

  1. ^^ How fun! I was enjoying the photos from one of the other students of all the pomegranates and roses frozen in snow and ice. It looks beautiful! We had some freak weather here last week where they canceled school for half a day because of all the snow. Now people are back to wearing sandals again. Gotta love Colorado.
    ^^ Simon and Garfunkel are amazing! I was just teaching Annika the rounds for Scarborough fair the other night while walking back from the grocery store!

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  2. S&G! Wonderful stuff. I also like the idea of going halfway around the world to get free downloads of 40-year-old counter-culture tunes. We live in interesting times.

    Right you are about Colorado weather, Lauren. My brother lives in Archorage...they haven't had that much snow yet, but when they do, it will stay longer than three days.

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  3. Hello! Just so you don't get weirded out, I'm Sara's roommate over in Minneapolis! I'm so excited to read your blog, enjoy the rest of your time there!

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  4. Dad mentioned that you'll be travelling over Christmas break. How long is your break? Where do you think you'll go?

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  5. I've become more and more curious about why today's youth is so hooked on my generation's music of youth. I think we appreciated it well enough when we were in high school/college. I've not really been interested in my parents' music. I guess we had it good! I've heard Paul Simon twice in concert...heavenly!

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  6. Hey, Charlie, I would love to see a blog entry about your experience at the migrant childrens' school.

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