Welcome to the 2009 Photo Diary for the UMPKU Summer Research Exchange Program between the US and China. This year, the program has grown again, and includes the biological sciences in addition to chemistry, and we have expanded to include participation with Tsinghua University. Organizing the logistics for 49 people is simply a multiplied challenge compared with 18 (there is no economy of scale), so we've been on the steep part of the learning curve.
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Thirteen students from around the US joined twelve from UM, in Ann Arbor, on Monday, May 25, for the pre-program in the US. Maybe some year we'll remember to take pictures in the US... Last year, the visa delay was centered around the Olympics of 2008; this year, it was around the swine flu. Extra documents were needed. The passports started to be returned in pretty good time, and all but one were in hand by Thursday. The last one was released in DC about 3 in the afternoon on Thursday, so it was zipped onto FedEx same day delivery and was in hand by about 10:30 PM... for the 6:30 AM departure to the airport. Another close call for 2009. Landing in Narita and Beijing, the planes needed to be cleared by quarantine inspectors. The majority of the pictures and their captions are from the students. |
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Crazy kids on a jetplane | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Food! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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First stop in Beijing, Tiananmen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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After the longest flight I’ve taken in my life, we had lunch at
an all-you-can eat vegetarian buffet! It was a neat experience, even
for a fervent meat-eater as myself. We then visited Tiananmen square
and the Forbidden city! I have a bunch of pics that I took below.
We found that some of the Chinese natives have never seen Americans
(or in my case, an Egyptian) before. One guy was extremely excited
to see me and asked me to take a picture with him!! Hahahaa, it was
hilarious! We had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant – it was pretty good. I love meat and I need meat in EVERY meal, but I must admit that this restaurant was not bad ^_^ Dinner was cool – I really like the communal style of eating. It really lets all of us bond quickly haha :D |
 Mike
Kheir |
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The Forbidden City. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Silly poses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This was taken in front of a building in the Forbidden City. In the picture are all the ladies on the trip and we are standing in front of the female lion. You can tell that the lion is female because it has a cub under its paw. On the other side of the building is the male lion, which has a ball (symbolizing the world) under its paw. This pair of lions are found all over the city. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Garden at the North End. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Being in China is like being in a different world because everything is so different than in the US. Things like food, culture, mannerisms, some values, etc. are all new. I've been here a couple of times before, but each time I learn so much more and my Chinese improves a lot too! Seeing Tiananmen and Gu Gong was fun, especially since we had a tour guide to tell us interesting history facts about everything. While I was there I thought about how awesome it is to live in Beijing and be able to walk past all this history on your way to work. Those buildings are hundreds of years old! On the other hand, one thing that I don't find very pleasant in Beijing is the bartering system. I feel like everytime I want to purchase something I have to argue for it. But it's been interesting to learn about; I definitely need to improve my bargaining skills .... |  Xue
(Rose) Tian |
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Several of the restaurants we have been to have tables like this one. All of the dishes are placed on the center glass table, which rotates. |
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This is a picture of a very small portion of the Pearl Markets. Each of the four floors are filled with rows upon rows of vendors. Like the name suggests, many of them sell pearls. Everything here can be bought forvery cheap compared to American prices, but you have to barter. The bartering process is very intense and fun to watch. I bought a scarf for 30 RMB that was originally 150 RMB. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This is a picture of the city at night. I was surprised by how many lights there are in Beijing! Also,notice how tall everything is! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The first impression I got from Beijing was the modernity of the city that I had not imagined in China. The economic progress can be seen on every street, and you can easily forget that you are in a "developing country". Once you start exploring the streets, you will see that still much of the city lives in poverty. The daily image of riksha's next to BMW's constantly reminds you of the immense division between rich and poor. As americans, we quickly realized how far our dollar goes. In the markets, paying anything over 100 kuai means for sure you are being ripped off. Note here that 100 kuai are barely 15 dollars. The language makes live a little more difficult, but the fluent chinese speakers are helping all of us who are completely lost when speaking mandarin. This has made for a couple of fun and adventure filled days, with lots of exploring and seeing parts of the city by day and night. |  Ellinor
Schmidt |
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Wh-aaaat? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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End of the day... getting checked for a temperature! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| (Ann Arbor orientation) It is amazing to me that a group of once COMPLETE strangers from all over the U.S. can get along so well over the course of 4 days. I was very doubtful as to how the group dynamics would work in the beginning, due to the fact that it was so large. However, I am incredibly happy that we are pretty much all getting along. (First impressions of China) What’s pretty interesting is that I didn’t really get the huge culture shock (in the traditional sense of the word) that I had anticipated, in the sense that sometimes I actually forgot I was in China – Beijing is very similar to what a large American city would be like, with the exception of Chinese signs everywhere and everyone having the same color hair and eyes. Haha. That is, I feel pretty much the same here as I do in Ann Arbor, except it’s hot as hell here. However, I came to the conclusion that it was really the subtle things in China that really made it so much different from the U.S. Such as: when going to the supermarket, it sort of dawned on me that Chinese people rarely shift their glance from straight in front of them in public – I asked LV Hong about this, and she says that it may partly stem from the old Chinese belief that looking straight in front of you is supposed to be representative of a straightforward and honest character. Which I thought was very interesting. (Later on, I also laughed out loud at something LV Hong had said – managing to attract some looks in doing so – and she told me that Chinese women would never laugh that loudly in public. She followed this up by a small giggle, hidden by her hand.) That, and just many other little ways that people do things here are really what, to me, makes Beijing so much different from Ann Arbor. (Edit to first impressions) After a couple more days, I'm gradually starting to notice more (big) differences between China and the U.S. During culture class today, Lai Sze Tso spoke to us about rural to urban migration and migrant workers in China. Essentially, they get paid very, very little money for long hours and difficult jobs. (It totally reminds me of the Grapes of Wrath.) This made me realize that I probably interact with these people many times a day, in the nice restaurants we go to and the places we go and even the place where we live. To me, this wasn't apparent at first. It's really subtle stuff (and yet, so wildly obvious in some respects - could you imagine a shantytown in the Diag??) like that that makes you really feel the disparity between socioeconomic classes in China... |  Han
Li |
Program Directors:
Prof. Brian P. Coppola (UM) bcoppola@umich.edu
Prof. Zi-Chen LI (PKU) zcli@pku.edu.cn
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