Fri, June 20, 2008

We are flying to Beijing today so our report to the busses was 6:15am. Everything went smoothly and quickly at the airport and we had a short flight into Beijing. Finally we arrive! It is going to be a very busy week full of many great opportunities!!

I am all alone for the next seven days! No roommates for me, but I’ll have a lot of people over, I’m sure. One problem, though, is the fact of the Internet. Since Hong Kong, this is the first time we’ve had to pay. Go figure! It costs 0.5RMB a minute with a max of 80RMB a day. Therefore, I’m sure people won’t be using it as often to cut down on costs. Sigh … we have seven days here and we don’t even get free Internet. At least I have music to keep myself entertained. We do get to unpack everything and try to feel at home in our room. It’ll be a long week, but we’ll keep busy with sightseeing. Unfortunately, I almost overslept our meeting time. I had leant out my alarm clock and didn’t get it back during the break. When I awoke and looked at the time, it was on the dot of the meeting time. I rushed out quick (forgetting a few things, like my camera) and found the group gathered together giving announcements. Of course, I find out there were two other people who overslept so I wasn’t the only one – and thankfully not left behind! I made sure to get my alarm clock back!

Our first stop for sightseeing was the Tiananmen Square just outside the Forbidden City. The Mao Mausoleum is only opened in the morning, so we were unable to go inside. We wee given fifteen minutes for picture taking, then we walked down to a nearby shopping center. It wasn’t too bad, but nothing really grabbed my attention, so I just followed others around. Those shop vendors were rally aggressive. I got grabbed several times and they don’t let go. I’d just look at their thinks, say no thank you and quickly get out of there. After thirty minutes, we had to report to the bus to head to dinner. It seems like meals are getting a lot lighter and shorter. It’s not as unique, but it doesn’t even come close to filling us up.

Tonight, we were able to go see a Chinese Opera!! It was the story of the jewelry pouch teaching the lesson of good fortune coming from good deeds. Two and a half hours with no intermission! That’s not too bad, and I’ve been to shows like that, but there were many comments from the other dancers who couldn’t take it. It was hilarious on the bus afterwards!

First, my opinion on the opera: Being a theatre major, I really liked it! It was different then I expected, but I may have confused some aspects with Japanese theatre. It was impressive how simple the set and lighting design appeared, but they compensated with costume and movement. I enjoyed the story and really did not think it was too long, for I have been to and seen operas. One of the things I liked was the actors showing stairs or the step over at doorways. Although they forgot at times, there were some specific movements to show them going down stairs or transitioning from room to room.

The response from the dancers was shocking. The liked the first hour and a half, then thought it just went on and on and on and on and on … Then, they couldn’t help but laugh at the way they clapped – I do not feel it to be appropriate to state how one dancer put it, but it is too excited of an applause with a lot of sounds. Then the moments the people clapped was confusing because it was every time the singer did a scale and did a traditional movement of the sleeves, and other moments we couldn’t figure out.

Now on the bus, we make fun of the applause constantly, speak/sing in really high voices, and consider Peking Opera to be a torture treatment. It’s sad since I enjoyed it so much, but oh well ….

It took an hour to return to our hotel, and when we returned at 10:30pm, we walked to the market a block away and bought snacks – it began as a small group but ended up to be the whole team!