Cultural and International Helen

Happy late Easter and Happy late Tomb Sweeping Day! (Almost) everyone had last Monday off for Tomb Sweeping Day. The Chinese are supposed to go to their ancestors' graves, honor them, and burn paper money for their ancestors' after lives. Here's one problem I haven't solved, though - these days almost all Chinese people are cremated because they don't have room to bury them in the city, so do they just go to their urns? I don't know. Anyway, most people were just out and about in the city so everything was CROWDED! Rebekah, her mom, and I went to the Zoo market together to buy clothes. It was FUn, of course. Then we went across the street to the Beijing Zoo. I didn't really expect much, but it was actually still a little disappointing. First of all, the animals have some pretty bad living conditions - tiny dirty cages. The animals actually stared at us, just like the rest of the Chinese population, and we got philosophical and talked about how we are kind of animals in the zoo here in Beijing. I'll post some funny pictures of the zoo later.

Last Friday night I went to dinner with my Chinese class - my French classmate, his Chinese girlfriend, my Chinese teacher, and my Italian classmate who paid for everything (NIIIIIIICE). We got Italian food and drank red wine, it was delightful. My Chinese teacher is always "jianfei" - trying to lose weight, so she doesn't eat dinner. Like EVER. This was the most she'd eaten at dinner in five years. She didn't like the food very much, so I tried to make her feel more comfortable and tell her we didn't care if she ate it or liked it - I always feel pressure from the Chinese so I thought I'd be kind and not return that particular favor. She also hated the wine - she doesn't drink. Nonetheless, we had a great time! We sat at dinner for 4 hours and talked (my teacher and I talked almost totally in Chinese, which was fun). We bonded and she told me about her sort of boyfriend who lives in Chengdu. She told me it was her secret - "zhe shi wo de mimi / 这是我的秘密“, so I told her it was now my secret too.

On Saturday Sheila and I went to a market that has e-v-e-r-y-thing. We did a little decorating for our apartment, which still needs some work, but now has some artwork on the walls. Saturday night I went to KTV (Chinese karoke) with some friends. It was SO fun! I really missed some of my American friends, though, because some of the people I went with weren't into my pop and rap music. They didn't know most of the songs I chose, which was wildly disappointing. I still had a great time and performed quite a bit. I didn't even need to look at the words, no surprise there.

Sunday/Easter was great. It was a beautiful, warm day here! After church and lunch I went on a run - my first run in Beijing! I wore shorts, a t-shirt, and took my ipod, and the Chinese looked at me like I was crazy. I think it was a combination of my shorts, my whiteness/blond hair, and the fact that I was running outside for exercise. It felt good, and I ran again on Tuesday, and I'm running again this afternoon (Friday). Hopefully this is the start of a new habit. Post-run on Sunday I went to a friend's house where a bunch of us ordered some amazing Korean fried chicken, then went to the West side (Wudaokou) for an open mic night at a bar. Some of our friends beat boxed which was really fun! I spent time with a girl on Sunday and Tuesday from Hong Kong who is a senior marketing exec for Disney Asia. She is awesome, and now I have a friend in HK! She told me I could hang out with her when I went back and we talked about meeting up somewhere around China sometime. Plus, she works in TV - my dream. She's going to L.A. in May for a bunch of stuff and will be at the finale for LOST! She gets to handle the stars! AHHH!!!

I wasn't home at night one night this week. Tuesday I went to Rebekah's house for dinner and a movie. Wednesday night I went to the Rwandan Embassy for a memorial for the 16th anniversary of the Tutsi genocide which was really cool, then I had Chinese class. Last night, Thursday, I went to a concert that my good friend and concert pianist, Michelle, was performing at. It has been a fun and busy week, so I'm ready to relax this weekend!

Miss you all!