On Saturday, Donna's graduate student Yu Yue was really nice and took us to a tea shop at Wangfujing 王府井. The area was really busy with shopping centers, though the only store we went into after the tea shop (there was such a large selection of tea we spent a long time there) was the flagship Olympic store that was by far the largest of the stores. If we had found out about it earlier, we definitely would have gone there more often. Afterwards, we had planned on going back to Kro's Nest for dinner together as a group, but were very disappointed to find that it had closed 2 of its 3 locations during the Olympics. The closing seems to be a general trend here, as we noticed that night vendors who usually occupy the sidewalks of Wudaoko in the evenings were also gone and merchants in a clothing market near Wudaoko were being forced to shut down during the Olympics. I'm unsure of the motivation for closing these popular areas during the Olympics and wonder what the impact on those merchants will be - whether they are compensated for their losses.
On Sunday, I went with Spencer, Zach, and one of Zach's lab mates to 798, a modern art district in Dashanzi. The area was filled with galleries of artists displaying their works. One of the pieces that stuck out was a large plastic bust of a baby, painted red, a symbolically Chinese color. The author described the piece as a political statement representing China's one child policy and its possible implications for the society and the future. Politics seems to be a topic rarely discussed, so it was somewhat surprising yet refreshing to see it openly on display. On Monday, I walked around Yuan Ming Yuan Garden 圆明园 near the north side of campus where a Lotus Festival was being held, then also through Tsinghua University, which was larger and had a lot more plants and trees than Peking University's campus. Surprisingly, we were able to enter Tsinghua University's campus without any security check.
This Monday, we also had our last group lunch at the Japanese restaurant and went back to the Joint Institute for a group picture. It's really sad knowing that we are leaving this city that we've come to know, but at the same time we're sad and nostalgic for home. Looking back, I realize that I've learned a lot from the trip, much about organic chemistry from my work in the lab, but also about living in a foreign country. I'm more independent, open to new experiences, and better at communication, especially the non-verbal type. The first time I took a public bus and people started speaking to me in Chinese, I ran away (Marko found it really funny). Now, I definitely understand more basic Mandarin and can clearly give a taxi driver directions to Wanliu. I am really happy that I also picked up some important Chinese characters, enough so that I can figure out which bus line will take me to where I need to go, but sadly still not enough to read a menu. I know that when I first meet people, they expect me to speak perfect Mandarin, and when I do not, they look at me oddly. I am proud, however, to have gotten past this self-consciousness, but happier when I manage to say and get what I want without others realizing anything unusual.
Actually working in the lab was also really worthwhile because it allowed us to interact with locals, many of whom were similar to us in age, and learn about the issues and activities that interested them. Many of those activities were similar to our own, so hanging out with my lab mates during lab dinners or at the movies was a lot of fun. Coming into the program, I had anticipated the language barrier to be a larger problem, but my lab members Yan Qifan and Xiu Yuan actually knew a lot of English that language wasn't really a problem. I do wish, however, that I had practiced Chinese more often with my lab members to learn more from them. Nonetheless, this program has been a rewarding learning experience in ways I hadn't expected.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
A star in the sky!
We saw a star in the sky tonight and the moon too. The clearing of pollution seems to be pretty effective, though the new restrictions on vehicles being allowed on the roads every other days are slightly inconvenient, especially during rush hour when the buses become packed. New subway lines have opened; there's an Olympic line to many of the Olympic venues, an airport line, and line 10 which is simply convenient because the Bagou stop is pretty close to the Wanliu apartment, within walking distance, but about 2-3 bus stops away.
Donna and I tested out the new subway lines on Tuesday, and we were unable to get onto the Olympic line (possibly still closed for security reasons?) but we did end up taking the light rail to see the Hutong in the outskirts of the city from view of the train, which was a suggestion given to us on the second week by the guest speaker on rural to urban migration. Security on the subway seemed to be making an attempt to get stricter, and though there were x-ray machines, they were easily bypassed and there were no metal detectors, so for the moment they seem pretty ineffective, but possibly that will change. Getting onto campus, however, is quite different, as all IDs are actually checked.
A lot has also changed in the city, and the rapid speed at which improvements are being made is quite amazing. Within 2 weeks, we saw the shelter and the large hole where the new subway stations are being built completely disappear to be replaced by clean sidewalk, a trash can, and a public telephone. Trees and flowers are popping up everywhere, as are Olympic volunteers dressed in blue and white Adidas gear. Next year it will be interesting to see the remnants of the Olympics and whether the improvements remain in the long run.
Donna and I tested out the new subway lines on Tuesday, and we were unable to get onto the Olympic line (possibly still closed for security reasons?) but we did end up taking the light rail to see the Hutong in the outskirts of the city from view of the train, which was a suggestion given to us on the second week by the guest speaker on rural to urban migration. Security on the subway seemed to be making an attempt to get stricter, and though there were x-ray machines, they were easily bypassed and there were no metal detectors, so for the moment they seem pretty ineffective, but possibly that will change. Getting onto campus, however, is quite different, as all IDs are actually checked.
A lot has also changed in the city, and the rapid speed at which improvements are being made is quite amazing. Within 2 weeks, we saw the shelter and the large hole where the new subway stations are being built completely disappear to be replaced by clean sidewalk, a trash can, and a public telephone. Trees and flowers are popping up everywhere, as are Olympic volunteers dressed in blue and white Adidas gear. Next year it will be interesting to see the remnants of the Olympics and whether the improvements remain in the long run.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Hou Hai and Homo erectus
I had the last few days of last week off, which I tried to spend being productive, but that was only moderately successful. I did work on summarizing up the research that I've been doing on my days off, but in the end, boredom while being alone at Wanliu in a large city as Beijing while everyone else was at work finally took over. Work in the lab is such a large part of my life, and a meaningful and enjoyable one too, that on days that I was not required to go in, I found myself at the chemistry building anyways meeting people for dinner or making plans to hang out around the area.
This week at the lab I started what will likely be my last reaction, and my graduate student helped me with the poster, abstract, and presentation for the UMPKU program. For the Olympics, security will be checking for university IDs of everyone entering the campus starting July 21, but this week the checks were supposed to be random, and of course, I was called over for a check while entering the chemistry building gate. When the guard asked for an ID, I handed him my passport, but he kept repeating the request despite my saying in Chinese that I didn’t understand (which seems to be a general theme) until finally I said in English that I didn’t understand, and he just let me go. We sent in our pictures though, so hopefully by next week we will have proper IDs to wander the campus while it’s emptier.
The weekend was much more exciting, especially since we got two days of clear blue skies. Zhaleh, Kelly, Zach, Donna, Spencer, and I rented a pedal boat for a couple hours to go around the lake Hou Hai where we had gone through earlier in the trip to see Hutong, traditional Chinese houses. There were lots of other boats on the lake, as well as a group of men and boys swimming in it.
On Sunday, we went to the Peking Man site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, at Zhoukoudian at Zach's suggestion and got a unique experience exploring suburban Beijing. The 3 hr bus trip there required three different buses, where each time we would have to ask the conductor to alert us at our stop since we didn't know what we were looking for, and bus stops in the suburbs seem to be unmarked. For knowing minimal Chinese, we did successfully get to our destination and back in an unknown territory, which definitely made us feel accomplished, though it also helped that Julia had written down our stops in Chinese and given us directions for the bus routes. The exhibit at Zhoukoudian was pretty interesting, especially walking around knowing that 200,000-500,000 years ago, Peking Man, or Homo erectus, had lived in the area. There weren't many tourists, and it was refreshing to walk through the trees and caves. We mostly walked through the different localities where fossils and bones had been discovered, and there was a museum containing replicas, since the original bones had been lost during WWII.
Since the Wanliu shuttle has stopped running, we've been forced to take the much more crowded, longer public bus route to the university. I've been taking it to the west gate in the mornings because of my slight obsession with the bao zi that they serve at the noodle cafeteria, though it's only a noodle cafeteria for lunch and dinner. Inside the bus, there's a sign saying "Please take the initiative for bringing invalidity pregnant parks." Interpretation - ? The picture seems to suggest that the seats should be given to the disabled, pregnant, elderly, or small children, but the English was just funny.
This week at the lab I started what will likely be my last reaction, and my graduate student helped me with the poster, abstract, and presentation for the UMPKU program. For the Olympics, security will be checking for university IDs of everyone entering the campus starting July 21, but this week the checks were supposed to be random, and of course, I was called over for a check while entering the chemistry building gate. When the guard asked for an ID, I handed him my passport, but he kept repeating the request despite my saying in Chinese that I didn’t understand (which seems to be a general theme) until finally I said in English that I didn’t understand, and he just let me go. We sent in our pictures though, so hopefully by next week we will have proper IDs to wander the campus while it’s emptier.
The weekend was much more exciting, especially since we got two days of clear blue skies. Zhaleh, Kelly, Zach, Donna, Spencer, and I rented a pedal boat for a couple hours to go around the lake Hou Hai where we had gone through earlier in the trip to see Hutong, traditional Chinese houses. There were lots of other boats on the lake, as well as a group of men and boys swimming in it.
On Sunday, we went to the Peking Man site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, at Zhoukoudian at Zach's suggestion and got a unique experience exploring suburban Beijing. The 3 hr bus trip there required three different buses, where each time we would have to ask the conductor to alert us at our stop since we didn't know what we were looking for, and bus stops in the suburbs seem to be unmarked. For knowing minimal Chinese, we did successfully get to our destination and back in an unknown territory, which definitely made us feel accomplished, though it also helped that Julia had written down our stops in Chinese and given us directions for the bus routes. The exhibit at Zhoukoudian was pretty interesting, especially walking around knowing that 200,000-500,000 years ago, Peking Man, or Homo erectus, had lived in the area. There weren't many tourists, and it was refreshing to walk through the trees and caves. We mostly walked through the different localities where fossils and bones had been discovered, and there was a museum containing replicas, since the original bones had been lost during WWII.
Since the Wanliu shuttle has stopped running, we've been forced to take the much more crowded, longer public bus route to the university. I've been taking it to the west gate in the mornings because of my slight obsession with the bao zi that they serve at the noodle cafeteria, though it's only a noodle cafeteria for lunch and dinner. Inside the bus, there's a sign saying "Please take the initiative for bringing invalidity pregnant parks." Interpretation - ? The picture seems to suggest that the seats should be given to the disabled, pregnant, elderly, or small children, but the English was just funny.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Na + H20 = Boom!
Work in the lab has been going well - I've been working on total synthesis and even though I've had experience with it in lab class, doing it in an actual lab is still exciting, especially since I have to be much more precise and careful. One of the reactions to convert an oxime to an amine involves sodium, which is very reactive/explosive when exposed to water, so my graduate student keeps a fire extinguisher nearby...just in case. Apparently there's a YouTube video showing what happens when cesium, another element in the same family as sodium, reacts with water. The other reactions are slightly less exciting, but their products are necessary in the overall synthesis, and I'm really sad that experiments are going to be cut short due to various factors because I would really like to make a significant contribution to Professor Zhao and Yan Qifan's research.
Even with another 3 weeks left on this trip, things are already slowing down, not only because of the dwindling supply of solvents. The labs on the fourth floor are being forced to vacate by Friday due to the beginning of renovations, so this week my lab will be working on packing things up and moving and working up the reactions that have already been started. Since we couldn't start any more reactions, we read journal articles and textbooks that were lying around, while doing our best to escape the heat, humidity, and rain engulfing the city.
In terms of moving equipment from the lab, I haven't been able to help much, so I joined Zhaleh's lab to play badminton on Wednesday afternoon. Peking University has a gymnasium behind the Olympic Table Tennis Stadium that has about 9 nets set up just for playing badminton. I'd like to play there more often since badminton is my favorite sport, but a student ID is required, and right now we don't have any unless we go with a student. Afterwards, Zhaleh and I decided to head home but the traffic was pretty slow even though it was only 3pm, so we walked towards a busy area with some malls that we usually pass on the bus. It was an electronics mall, and as soon as we stepped in, all the salespeople heckled us to buy computers and one even followed us up the escalator; I'm pretty sure he thought I was lying when I said I didn't understand Chinese just by that look of disbelief on his face. We ended up going back down the escalator right away anyways and headed instead for the "Wu-Mart Hypermarket" that was just a regular supermarket Wal-Mart type store. The traffic was still bad when we left, so we kept walking along the bus route to Carrefour where we found food from all over the world. They had cheese and pesto (sadly no hummus) but at pretty high prices compared to the Chinese goods, so all I got was a "meat floss bun."
On Friday my parents and my sister came from Thailand to visit me and see Beijing, so I met up with them and showed them around. Saturday evening, I attended a lab dinner with Donna hosted by Professor Zhao and Professor Ma, which was a good occasion for us to get to know our professors and lab members better...all 32 of them. On Sunday, I joined my parents' tour group to the Great Wall at Badaling, which also stopped at the Ming Tombs and Jade Factory. The section of Badaling that the tour took us to was much more crowded with tourists (and was a semi-zoo with bears that you could feed) than the place where Dr. Coppola had led us earlier in the trip, which definitely made me appreciate his experience of traveling in China. Even though that section was harder to walk on, the broken stones and lack of tourists made it feel more authentic and peaceful, though I still have mixed feelings about the Mongolians who had followed us since they were helpful in guiding us but pressured us into making unnecessary purchases. It was one of the few sunny "blue sky" days where you could see the clouds in Beijing though, so I decided that it was much too hot and didn't go up to the top of the Great Wall again.
Even with another 3 weeks left on this trip, things are already slowing down, not only because of the dwindling supply of solvents. The labs on the fourth floor are being forced to vacate by Friday due to the beginning of renovations, so this week my lab will be working on packing things up and moving and working up the reactions that have already been started. Since we couldn't start any more reactions, we read journal articles and textbooks that were lying around, while doing our best to escape the heat, humidity, and rain engulfing the city.
In terms of moving equipment from the lab, I haven't been able to help much, so I joined Zhaleh's lab to play badminton on Wednesday afternoon. Peking University has a gymnasium behind the Olympic Table Tennis Stadium that has about 9 nets set up just for playing badminton. I'd like to play there more often since badminton is my favorite sport, but a student ID is required, and right now we don't have any unless we go with a student. Afterwards, Zhaleh and I decided to head home but the traffic was pretty slow even though it was only 3pm, so we walked towards a busy area with some malls that we usually pass on the bus. It was an electronics mall, and as soon as we stepped in, all the salespeople heckled us to buy computers and one even followed us up the escalator; I'm pretty sure he thought I was lying when I said I didn't understand Chinese just by that look of disbelief on his face. We ended up going back down the escalator right away anyways and headed instead for the "Wu-Mart Hypermarket" that was just a regular supermarket Wal-Mart type store. The traffic was still bad when we left, so we kept walking along the bus route to Carrefour where we found food from all over the world. They had cheese and pesto (sadly no hummus) but at pretty high prices compared to the Chinese goods, so all I got was a "meat floss bun."
On Friday my parents and my sister came from Thailand to visit me and see Beijing, so I met up with them and showed them around. Saturday evening, I attended a lab dinner with Donna hosted by Professor Zhao and Professor Ma, which was a good occasion for us to get to know our professors and lab members better...all 32 of them. On Sunday, I joined my parents' tour group to the Great Wall at Badaling, which also stopped at the Ming Tombs and Jade Factory. The section of Badaling that the tour took us to was much more crowded with tourists (and was a semi-zoo with bears that you could feed) than the place where Dr. Coppola had led us earlier in the trip, which definitely made me appreciate his experience of traveling in China. Even though that section was harder to walk on, the broken stones and lack of tourists made it feel more authentic and peaceful, though I still have mixed feelings about the Mongolians who had followed us since they were helpful in guiding us but pressured us into making unnecessary purchases. It was one of the few sunny "blue sky" days where you could see the clouds in Beijing though, so I decided that it was much too hot and didn't go up to the top of the Great Wall again.
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