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| Although I have only been in China for less than a week, I can confidently say that I strongly recommend this program to anybody who might be interested. This is my first time travelling abroad and one of the things that I appreciate so much about this program is the first few days are very structured so that you can get to know the city and adapt to the culture without knowing anything about it. The most difficult part, I would say, is the language barrier. A lot of things are written in English, many are not; while quite a few people here speak English, many do not. The Chinese language classes that we have daily for the first couple weeks definitely help and are fun. My favorite part about the program so far has been the sight-seeing. On our first day we saw Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City, and we took a trip to the Pearl Markets. During some free time one afternoon, a few of use went to see the Summer Palace. We also took a trip to the biggest electronics store I have ever seen or imagined. Of course, we have taken tours of the local universities. The most surprising thing to me is how many people are in Beijing. Everywhere--in the shops, the markets, the streets, the buses, the restaurants--there is so many people! The city is also a lot taller than I expected. There are so many buildings and they are all very tall! |  Christine
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oh,oh! If Steven sees these... |
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... yes; too late. |
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Urban Planning Museum, we are HERE |
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A picture of PKU's campus. It is difficult to capture PKU's campus in a single shot because there are so many different types of buildings and landscape in the campus. This also makes the campus very aesthetically pleasing. |
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Tsinghua Old Gate - We had lunch with some students from Tsinghua, and were taken on a tour. Tsinghua has a beautiful (and large) campus |
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Language class - Angela is NOT sleeping. It only appears that way |
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The sun setting over one of the many buildings in the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is a very large area that contains many beautiful sights and many beautiful buildings. It was also surprisingly cooler than anywhere else I have been to in the city so far. That is probably why the Emperor would go there during China's hottest months. |
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Justin - Hahahahahhahahahahaha (Dr. Coppola, could you please put this on the website? It is Justin's favorite pictures of himself...) |
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Pizza at the Kro's Nest! |
After our lecture, I stayed a few minutes to ask some more questions. Adam stayed with me and we left a few minutes after everyone else did. We went to the entrance to PKU and were stopped! Hahaha The guards wouldn’t let us get past the gate of PKU campus – so after a lot of talking and calling around, they finally let us in and we arrived to lunch an hour late. Luckily, we were still able to get lunch and talked to Professor Coppola for a little bit about life in Beijing so far and the REU program Dinner at pizza place – food eating competition :D. Me vs. Yifang. Yifang vs. Me. The battle was intense!! Well sort of hahaha….nah, I basically destroyed Yifang on the first competition for who can eat a slice of pizza. Then we competed again with half a slice and he beat me by a little bit hahaha with his AMAZING victory ROOOAAARRRR lolol |
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| After my first week in Beijing I can't help but admit that it was nothing I ever expected. Since my family is from Guangzhou, China I've been to China four times already. The first time was when I was barely two years old so I can't remember anything from that trip. The second and third time was when I was 9 and 11 years old and both times were not that great. For the majority of both trips we stayed in Guangzhou and I didn't get to see the rest of China. Although Guangzhou used to be more advanced than either Beijing or Shanghai the last president who was Shanghainese pumped a ton of money into his home city. Also, Guangzhou has the highest rate of overseas Chinese which means that most Guangzhou people that are still living there today are legal and illegal migrants. Of course migrants are important for building the city and providing services that native Guangzhou people would never do, but they lack a sense of belonging and respect for the city. This creates problems in terms of city cleanliness. People would randomly spit on the street, throw garbage at random, and steal without fear of getting caught. Overall, I wouldn't recommend visiting this city because of the pollution and crime. Finally my last trip to China was six years ago when I was sixteen. My mom had booked a seven day tour of six major cities in China, including Beijing. I remember that the schedule was tightly packed. For the two days that I was there I was particularly taken by the color of the sky. It was always either gray or yellow. Both are signs of extreme pollution. Given my dislike of pollution I expected that I would have a hard time adjusting to living in Beijing. I expected that I would get sick from the heat or the food, that I would get bitten by a mob of mosquitoes, and that I would be robbed blind. But this has not been the case..... |  Wendy
Luo |
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Bus rides -- daily life of the people in Beijing |
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subway during rush hour |
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Justin and Dr Coppola headed to Tiananmen Square on June 4, 2009, the 20th anniversary. |
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There were lots of securoty details. The usual copes and military, but also color-coded squadrons. |
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And these guys, with pins and umbrellas... umbrellas that would be used to passively block journalists and their cameras, as it turns out. |
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Guys with umbrellas. |
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| It's been a week since arriving in Beijing and finally got over jet-lag. Upon arrival, the culture shock immediately hit me when I realized everything was in Chinese although I should have expected it. Also, my driver who picked me up a the airport did not speak any English, so I realized that my experience was going to be a difficult one. One positive thing about arriving to Beijing is the room. Students in the REU program are extremely lucky to have 2 LCD TVs, wooden floors, refrigerator, large beds, etc. I assume this is living arrangement is an exception to what most students deal with when they come to China. This week, we basically toured places within Beijing and shopped for necessary supplies to get us started for the summer. Shopping is especially interesting when you go to places that are open to bargaining. Workers are not afraid to grab you to shop in their stores and are also not afraid to call you crazy when you suggest a price that is too low. Shopping is definitely an exciting experience. So far, I have enjoyed my trip and have adjusted to the extremely loud atmosphere of Beijing. If there is any difficulties, it has been being mistaken for being Chinese. Often times, people come up to me expecting to know Chinese, which may be confusing for them. Anyways, I expect the rest of my trip to be exciting and challenging. I have yet to meet my mentor, but I think once I get started with the research, I will gain a much better perspective on the Chinese culture at a more personal level. |  John
Foote |
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Visit to the Lama Temple |
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And a visit to the Confucious Temple |
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Bypassing rickshaws, tours in Hutong |
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A nice feature of the Hutong tours is a stop inside a family house.
And, this trip... an extra special guest... |
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..... the CRAZZZYYY cricket man |
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Riding in a rickshaw on a Hutong tour. You can see the width of the alley, which is not very wide |
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making hearts at the Bell Tower |
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Learning tea etiquette |
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Students eating dinner at a hot pot bar, and this was right before we went to the acrobatic show. It was in a food court on the top floor of a shopping mall |
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The Acrobat Show was AMAZING!! |
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angela's amazing bargaining skills always paying 10% of what the sellers ask for!! haha |
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We are superheros for climbing the Wall all the way to the TOP!! |
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Ellie and Ruby at the Great Wall |
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The beginning of this section of the Great Wall -- man we look good. ;) |
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Emperor Brendan and his court |
| We've only been in China for a week but it seems like we've been here forever. By now, we know where the places are to eat around the Wudaokou area, experienced a bit of the nightlife, know how to ride the subway (which basically opens up the entire sprawling city of Beijing, have already tried to bargain our way through things (now it's quite boring to go the supermarket, where all the prices are already set and you don't feel any sort of victory and/or sense of having gotten ripped off). I joined this program because I was a chemistry major who was also interested in things China. I took a year's worth of college-level intro Mandarin, but nothing could have really prepared me for what was here. For the most part I still don't know what people are talking about when they speak to me because they do it quite fast and not in the standard textbook manner, but I'm able to catch a few words here and there. I don't know; you just have to be here. I now have my set of eating and bargaining vocabulary. And to people in future--make sure you know your numbers in Chinese, or a simpler alternative would be to just carry around one of those large-display calculators (you always deal with numbers--money--when you're here, for almost everything). Right now we're doing a lot of touristy stuff, but I feel that we really need to know why we're here--the research. A few days ago we met our mentors and the students who are going to go to the US in our places. I have already met my professor and he was very welcoming. In the next few days we're given time to visit them in lab and prepare for our remaining two months of research. In the meantime, we're getting our fix of the sights around Beijing |  Maria
Victoria Abrenica |
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ming tombs, w00t w00t! |
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the bird's nest |
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7-star hotel -- wish i could afford just one night... |
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the water cube |
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Program Directors:
Prof. Brian P. Coppola (UM) bcoppola@umich.edu
Prof. Zi-Chen LI (PKU) zcli@pku.edu.cn
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