One of the first things we did in Taiwan was go to the top of Taipei 101  (formerly the world's tallest building) to take in the views of the city.

While waiting in line for the elevator (which happens to be the world's fastest), each person must (MUST) take a green screen picture. They told us a picture fits a maximum of three people. Not satisfied with that answer, my dad did his best sorority girl squat so the four of us could squeeze into one photo. With his green shirt and gray jacket, curved shoulders, and smooth head, he strongly resembles a turtle poking his head out of his shell.

They then played on the television monitors all the green screen photos on a loop. I'd like to think they did that not for commercial reasons, but rather to keep everyone on the thirty-minute line extremely amused. The best of the photos could make for a cool tumblr.

For New Year's, we were at the bar of the W Taipei, which has an amazing view of Taipei 101.

Taipei 101: separated at birth from the Lhasa Apso

For ten minutes in the National Orchid Garden, situation in Singapore's Botanic Gardens, I took sweet, safe, conventional photographs.

And then my camera died. 

There were truly beautiful orchids, some of rare colors and patterns, and I wasn't able to photographs them. Instead of being pissed, I tried focusing on experiencing the garden: the sounds, smells, textures. Being without a camera might be a positive thing after all. 

But then I saw these flowers, and I knew that if I didn't photograph them I would have to:
1. go back to my apartment, charge my camera, and then return to the gardens to photograph them
Or
2. make a list of the photographs I wish I had taken, and obsess over it for a day or two. 

Instead, twice I asked my friend Mary to borrow her amazing Pentax camera, complete with a 50mm lens. 

Do you see what I was going for?

It’s been over a month and a half since I’ve returned from Beijing, and yet the experience still affects me every day. I no longer take a healthy sky for granted. Anyone who has lived in Beijing for over a month probably feels the same. For the six weeks I was there, the sky was blue for six days at most. The rest of the time it was gray and cloudless during the day, darker gray and starless during the night. I took these pictures out of the window of my dorm on the day after it had rained, which was one of the most clear days of the summer (same day I went running), and on a day when the pollution felt particularly bad. See the difference.

 I don’t think I’ll ever look at America’s skies the same way. And I don’t ever want to look at them the same way.



In Beijing, I knew I was leaving on August 15th, and so I had a very specific and narrow timeframe in which I had to accomplish all of my goals. I didn’t want to come back to America and regret not taking full advantage of my time in China, so in my downtime I forced myself to go to places even when I was exhausted and forced myself to go on every field trip even when I felt like shit. I also created an itinerary spanning the first week to the last, to avoid having to cram everything into the final week.

I do not think like this normally. But I had a similar reevaluation of my time when, on May 15th, I found out that I had been accepted to Columbia, and knew that I would be leaving Chicago and Northwestern for good on June 11th. I had put off participating in Northwestern traditions, such as Dance Marathon, since I thought I could do it the next year. I also had planned on going to Navy Pier and to Franklyn Lloyd Wright’s house the next year. In those final weeks of school I explored other parts of Chicago, but couldn’t make the time to go to those places.

When you have a specific day of departure, there is a sense of urgency, and you act deliberately. When you think your time in a place is limitless, you can afford to put things off until another day, another day. And so I've lived in New York my entire life but have never been to The Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island. I barely know downtown New York, and the other boroughs not at all.

It's hard to take advantage of every day when you're in the middle of schoolwork and classes. So I'll set a smaller goal for myself: to live at least one day a week with the same urgency I felt in Beijing and in the final weeks at Northwestern. To actually explore and take advantage of my surroundings.

I signed up for this program at the end of January. Once I knew that I was transferring, it didn't make much sense to go on a Northwestern program. I contemplated making other plans for the summer, or trying to switch to a Columbia study abroad program in Beijing. I am so happy I didn't.

I now have a more positive view of Northwestern, and actually want to go back some time. I learned a lot, more outside of the classroom than inside, and still had the most fun I've had all year. I made really good friends, friendships I see lasting indefinitely. I feel closer to my family. I learned about myself. I changed, and my worldview changed.

I miss Beijing and China, and want to go back soon. 

Until then,
Anna

If you go to Beijing, I recommend:

Restaurant: SALT- It's expensive by Chinese standards, but has delicious contemporary food
Bar: Q Bar- Great rooftop area
Place to shop: 金码大厦 (jinmadaxia)- Fabulous Korean clothing. In general I liked the Korean stores in China more than the Chinese ones; their items were higher quality.
Place to dance: Latte (no cover there) and Vix (Wednesday night is ladies' night)
Place for dumplings: this place on Wudaokou. Linda took a group of us here on the second night. After that I went back at least five times.

View: Park Hyatt

One of the best parts of the trip was having my entire family meet up in Beijing. My older brother David came as part of his fellowship, my Dad came for business, and my Mom and younger brother Daniel came to travel. They came in the middle of my sixth week; at that point in the trip it was especially great to see them.

One night we went out to dinner with my dad’s client, Mr. Zhang, and his daughter Tina. We begin, as customary, by exchanging names. At the end, Mr. Zhang says to my dad, “You are so lucky. I only have one child; you have four children.” My dad corrects him, “I have three children.” Mr. Zhang points at David, me, Daniel, and Mom and holds up four fingers. Dad explains, “That is my wife, not my child.” It was SO funny.

In China, you often mix business with food and drinks. In the middle of appetizers, we broke out a bottle of Moutai, the drink of choice for Chinese business people, and David, my Dad, and Mr. Zhang began doing shots. Each time my Dad or Mr. Zhang would give the other a compliment or express pleasure doing business together, they would ganbei. (Gan is to dry or clean, bei is a cup, and together it’s cheers.) After seven shots each, David and Dad were gone. But of course it would be rude and embarrassing to not drink whenever someone suggested a toast.

After my Dad said something sentimental to Mr. Zhang, I raised my shot glass, to which to which Mr. Zhang enthusiastically also raised his. Five minutes passed before I did it again. This time Mr. Zhang gave me the thumbs up. David went, “Anna. No. Please, don’t.” Too late. By the time David, Dad, and Mr. Zhang each had done nine or ten shots, and I six, the bottle of Moutai was gan and we moved on to beer. Probably for the best. Mr. Zhang told my Dad to bring two bottles next time; my Dad responded he would bring three. I’d love to see that. 

Here are Daniel's pictures from his trip. Dad, Mom and Daniel started out in Hong Kong, flew to Xi'an and met up with David there, and then came to Beijing, where we were all reunited.

In Xi'an:
The first Emperor of China, the founder of the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE), created an entire army made of terracotta to accompany him in the afterworld. How do we know this? Around 100 BCE the Chinese historian Sima Qian, who lived during the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE), wrote about it in his book Records of the Grand Historian. He described the tomb on Mt. Li in detail: the half-size chariots with horses of gold and bronze. The warriors whose bodies were mass produced but who each had a different face. The mercury river that flowed in the tomb, as mercury was considered a supernatural substance. How the workers were locked in the tomb after the construction to prevent them from telling the location. 

Although the information about the tomb has existed for over two thousand years, the actual tomb was only discovered in 1974 by farmers. Sima Qian's description, even though he wrote over 100 years after the First Emperor of Qin, is incredibly accurate. The paint has faded, but the Terracotta Army is just as he described. The actual rivers no longer exist, but in some areas the soil has high levels of mercury. The bodies are the only thing that haven't preserved, as the climate is too dry.

The tomb is a testament to the wealth of the Qin dynasty and the belief in a literal connection between the present and after life. 

In Beijing:

In my history class at Tsinghua we discussed how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses international events that take place in China, such as the 2008 Olympics and this year's Shanghai Expo, to legitimize its rule. It's like only we can pull this off, look how impressed the foreigners are, we are strengthening China's international prestige etc. 

The creator of the Bird's Nest, the famous Olympic stadium, is openly opposed to the CCP. Art critic Barbara Pollack, in her book that I've mentioned, writes:

Ai Weiwei is best known for his role in the development of the Bird's Nest... a project created in collaboration with the Swiss architecture firm of Herzog & de Meuron. He boasted about this creation when it was in its inception and it looked like the Chinese government was not going to appreciate the outcome. But once Olympic fever took over and the project became a symbol of new China, he distanced himself from his success, telling reporters all over the world that it is impossible to celebrate this accomplishment as long as his homeland is not a democracy.
(The Wild, Wild East: An American Art Critic's Adventures in China, 23)

The Bird's Nest:

It's not clear what the function of the Bird's Nest will be in coming years. Currently, it houses a souvenir shop and this really creepy and unnecessary exhibition of wax figures of past Olympic chairmen. 

Next to the Bird's Nest is the Water Cube. 

The Water Cube just opened up as a water park this past August. It looks like a lot of fun. Wish I had had the time to go there.

Finally, here are some pictures I never posted, from the first week in China.

The Forbidden City, built during the 15th century and used as a palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties, is right behind Tiananmen Square.  According to Wikipedia, it spans 7,800,000 square feet and contains 980 buildings. The Wikipedia page has interesting information if you want to learn more about it. 
Here are a few highlights of the former palace:

I really wished there had been more Chinglish in public. I think that's one of the charms of China. Unfortunately, before the Olympics the CCP cleaned most of it up. It reminds me of how one of my cousins, when he was four, could not pronounce any 'R's or 'S's. It was adorable, but difficult to take him seriously. Speech therapy soon corrected these impediments and it no longer was enjoyable to hear him say "nake" (snake) or "wowm" (worm). He spoke just like everyone else. 

I remember first learning about the Summer Palace and Empress Dowager Cixi in ninth grade. The story went that the Dowager, ruler of the Qing Dynasty in the late 19th century, took the money that was supposed to be used to build modern ships for China's navy and instead built an ornate stationary marble boat in the Summer Palace. Because of this, the Qing was not able to stand up against foreign countries, and as result China was carved into various spheres of influences. It's a very simplistic story. In reality, China failed to fend off foreign countries for bigger reasons, and the Qing, the last dynasty of China, soon fell for bigger reasons.  But the story stayed with me because of the irony and because of the Dowager's destructive vanity.

Here are some pictures of the Summer Palace, the former imperial garden of the Qing:

Okay so the following might be a little controversial. Let me defend myself. First, Huggies features a baby's butt on its homepage. Second, this is educational:
In China, many of the babies do not wear diapers. Their pants are split (and so called "split pants") so, wherever they are, they can squat to relieve themselves. And you thought dog shit is a problem. China has over 265 million newborns to fourteen-year-olds. (FYI America's entire population? 307 million) If that population is equally divided up, there would be 57 million newborns to three-year-olds who would need to wear diapers. Split pants are lower in cost and more environmentally friendly than diapers. But it is uncomfortable to be confronted, frequently and without warning, with children's private parts. It is even more uncomfortable to photograph it. So yes, I feel weird.

Okay now back to normal stuff.

A few weeks earlier we went to Beijing's Beihai park, which also used to be an imperial garden.