Greetings from Beijing! Wow! It is really hard to believe that we only have six or so days left here! We are excited! We have learned so much and look forward to coming home and sharing it!
During our time here, we have been required to write papers for each of our three classes. I chose to write about the grain market and consumption as it relates to energy consumption in China for our Agricultural Class. If you are a farmer, you may be interested to read it. If not, the facts and statistics within still impact the general consumer so you may or may not want to scan over it. Regardless, here it is:
Feeding or Fueling China and the World....
It is a well known fact that China is home to 1.3 billion people. What isn’t so well known is that Chinese agriculturalists have ten people to feed per hectare of land which is more than twice the world average of 4.4 people. (Foreign Agriculture Service) On less than ten percent of the world’s arable land, the Chinese work to feed twenty two percent of the population. (Foreign Agriculture Service) These are just a few statistics to consider when thinking about China’s stance with the world energy crisis as it relates to agricultural production. All over the world, the human race is working to not only feed the people, but to fuel our energy needs. As a key developing country, China is in the heat of the “food or fuel” discussion. The Chinese are working to feed the ever-growing population and provide energy to their development. Over the course of this study tour, it has been my goal to learn about China’s methods and plan for feeding their ever growing population as well as learn their role in combating the energy predicament around the world. Throughout this paper, I will explain the factors of feeding and fueling China and briefly clarify the relationship these issues have with the United States.
Of course, the number one focus for the Chinese people is to feed their population. This process has changed considerably over time. Prior to 1978, when the commune system of production was in place, the people in rural communities were provided with what they needed or less. Now, after the abolishment of the commune system, each rural household owns a piece of land and provides grain to the local government at the state-ordered rate according to the household's contract. The producer can do anything he desires with the remainder. (Ministry of Agriculture) We learned in class that this has provided more incentive for producers and given them more of a sense of ownership. Additionally, this has caused much positive growth in the world food supply. In 1961, the grain output for China was only 143.5 million tonnes, but in 1990 the grain output was 446.2 million tonnes. That is an increase of more than 300%. (Foreign Agriculture Service)
Today the Chinese are still developing ways to improve their yields. The production of vegetables, which yield high quantities per unit of land, makes good use of scarce land resources. (Foreign Agriculture Service) Another example of yield improvement occurred in the Yunnan province when producers experienced rice blast, a problem that occurs when a fungus cuts off nutrients to the rice seed head and destroys the crop. It mostly affects the sticky variety of rice. When researchers from an agricultural university in Kunming came and spoke to the farmers in the villages, they taught the farmers to plant long grain rice between the rows of the short grain or “sticky rice” and the fungus seemed to not bother this mixture. That improvement raised the yields by 89%. This also cut down on the use of fungicides used to control the blast which were expensive and potentially harmful to the environment. Now, more than 224,000 acres of rice are planted this way. (Clifford)
Moreover, there is a race between biotechnology companies all over the world to develop new strains of corn and other crops that can thrive during a shortage of water. Just this past winter, Bill Niebur, global vice president for research and development at Pioneer, a division of DuPont said, "Equipping plants to be able to maintain productivity in the driest years is of critical importance. Drought is a global problem and we recognize the threat that comes with climate change. We've got our top talent in our organization working on this." We have learned that China is experiencing more of a water shortage than ever due to the ever growing population, increase of water contamination, and high temperatures. Syngenta and Monsanto are no different than Pioneer. They are working to develop these drought resistant crops through genetic engineering and conventional breeding. Since corn can be turned into many processed foods for human consumption as well as animal feed and of course, ethanol, it is the crop that is given the most focus. Water is a major limiting factor in agriculture, so improvements in resistibility to drought can make a major impact. China grows 19% of the world’s corn and they can definitely benefit from these genetic improvements. (Gillam)
Some consumers are against these types of genetic modification, but when they see the improvement in the food supply they are becoming more and more tolerant. Not only are they able to make crops tolerant of lack of water, but there are crops that can resist pests and withstand weed killer, drastically improving crop yields. Opponents to bioengineering of crops think that there could potentially be heath problems from using these crops and that the big companies will have a control of the food market with their technology. Still, this allows for more production of food and minimal research has showed us that the genetic modification actually makes an impact on human health. Syngenta is also working to develop crops that could grow on soils that normally would not support any crop and hopes to have the seed on the market by 2011. This is the future of the world’s agriculture. (Gillam) China is just working with the actual growing conditions and susceptibility of the plants. They are doing so much more to produce food and supplies. One website I found stated that for 2008, “The central government will use 40 billion yuan to subsidize farmers to raise fine breeds of livestock and plant improved variety of crops, and to renovate agriculture infrastructure such as roads, bridges and reservoirs.” (Hongjiang )
However, these improvements combined with the increasing yields in grain crops will not match the increasing demand. Despite the fact that the Chinese are the world’s largest agricultural producers by volume (Foreign Agriculture Service), the total planted area and the total production is decreasing as the population rises. The Chinese population has very interesting characteristics when it comes to overall food consumption. The Chinese consume mostly grains consisting of wheat and rice and most of the remainder of their consumption is vegetables. Those commodities are mostly self produced and account 70 percent of per capita food consumption in China. Comparably, this is a much higher share than in the United States. (USDA) On the other hand, China’s per capita meat consumption exceeds the world average, but is less than half that of the United States. (Gale) Protein from meat is consumed on a minimal basis even though China produces slightly over half of the entire world’s pork. (Foreign Agriculture Service) More than sixty percent of China's consumers live on farms and many of the agricultural commodities produced in China are consumed on farms by the rural population. (Gale) \
Currently, the U.S. exports 4.1 billion dollars in soybeans to China every year (Foreign Agriculture Service) and this is the number one export of all products at 356 million bushels in the 2005/2006 marketing year. (U.S. Soy) China has purchased a record-breaking 436 million bushels of soybeans from the U.S. already for this growing season. This figure is more than double the amount of soybeans grown in the state of Missouri alone last year. (China buys) Importing soybeans, which produce less per acre than most other crops, allows China to use the land normally planted to soybeans for growing higher yielding crops. (Gale)
As a matter of fact, United States has the world’s largest economy and China has the world’s largest population. (Gale) The United States’ economy is largely dependent on the production and consumption of the Chinese population. For American agriculturalists, this population’s ever-growing need for grain will have a huge impact on our market. China is a major importer of wheat, and the United States is the largest exporter of the world’s wheat. (Gale) As I mentioned previously, China imports over four hundred million bushels of our soybeans, about 4.1 billion dollars worth.(Foreign Agriculture Service) Minimal corn is exported to China as they produce their own and we consume a great deal of it in the United States. As corn is becoming of higher value, soybeans are being planted less. This creates a lack of supply increases the soybean value even more. As China runs out of land to produce these products, but continues to increase in consumption, the Chinese people will have to get their supplies from somewhere. The United States will continue to be a major provider of soybeans to China, no matter what the price.
As the Chinese continue to focus on their food production and purchasing, throughout the world, the production of renewable fuels such as ethanol is impacting the food supply and market prices. Previous to the recent influx in production of ethanol and biodiesel, the energy market and food market had little to do with each other. (Foreign Agriculture Service) Now, with the building of so many ethanol plants, they are becoming more hand in hand. As long as grain stays below the value of fuel, the market energy market will make use of it for fuel production. (Foreign Agriculture Service) As the price of oil goes up, the price of grain will follow after. The price of grain has more than tripled over the past ten years and is still rising. The demand for grain combined with the price of fuel for transportation of food sources, grain, and energy; and the cost of operating these facilities, will drive the price of grain and food. Grain prices are also increased due to droughts or flooding all over the world, this year specifically in Iowa, which is a major grain producing state in America. Also China, Russia, and India have trade restrictions which impact the price due to having less grain in the market. China and India are also increasing demand for more calorie rich food, which requires the use of grain for production. (Sturm)
Regardless of the action taken to feed the country, China is also working to provide fuel and energy to the country. According to the world BioEnergy News website, “China's remaining exploitable reserves of petroleum and natural gas are merely 7.7 percent and 7.1 percent of world averages, while those of coal are 58.6 percent of the world average and accounts for 75% of China’s current energy situation. (DuVergne Smith) At the current rate of extraction, China's proven reserves of these resources could last 15, 30, and 80 years, respectively, compared with world averages of 45, 61, and 230 years.” (China Speeds) Eventually, China and the rest of the world will have to combat this energy problem.
One option China is pursuing is ethanol production. Henry Ford suggested at the beginning of the automobile age, "ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future." (Addison) Since then, people all over the world have been looking for ways to fuel their vehicles. Globally, petroleum based fuels have become less and less economically efficient. The decreased availability of natural resources combined with the increased demand for fuels, has caused the price average of gasoline to more than triple from 1998 to 2008. In some locations it has quadrupled. (Perrins) Partially for this reason, there has been a good deal of hype regarding renewable fuels. In the United States, agricultural lobbying and high oil prices led to the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) passage in 2005. This will require the use of 7.5 billion gallons of biofuels for transportation purposes by 2012. (The Globalist) Ethanol is one answer to fulfilling this plan for use of biofuels. There are many different aspects to consider when analyzing the use of ethanol fuel. The costs and benefits of the product to the various crops ethanol is derived from, and economical effects that production of the fuel has on a country all have to be taken into consideration. (Mendelson-Forman)
Ethanol is a clear, colorless, alcohol fuel that is made from the sugar in grains such as corn, sugarcane, wheat, barley, potatoes, rice, and sugar beats. Corn is the major grain product used for ethanol production in the United States because it is the most accessible crop within the country. Because corn is being used for ethanol in the U.S. it cannot be used for production of sweeteners or animal feed. Farmers are planning more corn, therefore not planting soybeans which are sent to China at an enormous supply. As corn is being used for ethanol production and not livestock feed, that void is being replaced with soybeans. Corn provides sweetness for cereal, candy, soft drinks, and other supermarket staples. It also is the prominent feed for hog, poultry, dairy, and beef production. Even though there is a by-product from corn based ethanol production called, “dry distillers grains” and many ethanol plants are located near feed lots purposely so that the “mash” can be fed to cattle, the boost in the demand will inevitably drive the price of corn up. (King)
Ethanol can be used to replace the gasoline that vehicles normally run on and therefore, reducing any countries dependency on foreign oil. Today, many states in America encourage use of E-10, which contains 10 percent ethanol mixed with 90 percent gasoline. (Institute for Energy Research) All cars manufactured in the United States since 1982 have fuel systems that are E10-compatible. (ILTA) The type of ethanol mixture that has recently become very popular is called E85. It is a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and only 15 percent gasoline. Automobiles, called Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFV), are made specifically to run on E85. These automobiles can utilize any form of the gasoline-ethanol mixture, up to 85 percent ethanol. The Flex Fuel vehicles have the capacity to run on both regular gasoline as well as the ethanol blends. For many years now, all car manufacturers throughout the world have approved coverage of ethanol blended fuels in their warranties; in fact, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler all recommend ethanol fuels for their vehicles. (Addison)
China is in no way lagging behind in the race to fuel the world. In 2006, Beijing’s plan for infrastructure construction took their share renewable energy consumption from one to four percent by 2010. For all of China the plan was to have renewable energy at a level of 16% by 2020. (DuVergne Smith) The Chinese also plan to expand natural gas use by ninefold by 2020. Furthermore, the Chinese government planned to have the 2008 Olympics be “green” to showcase the nation’s embrace of renewable energy. (Yang) Regardless of these efforts, China’s energy needs are expected to double by 2020. (DuVergne Smith )
Despite the need for grain to be fed to animals or turned into human food another way, China is one of four countries that have developed significant ethanol fuel programs. The others are Brazil, Columbia, and the United States. Until recently, China was using grain as its primary source however, due to concerns over food shortages; they are exploring new alternatives including sweet potatoes, cassava and sweet sorghum. (ILTA) By 2010, the Chinese plan to output 5 million tons of ethanol derived from many sources. (Jing)
China’s corn based ethanol capacity is at about 1.3 million tons compared to the United States which is 19.8 million tons. As a whole, China produced 750,000 tons of bio-ethanol last year. The Chinese have stopped all new projects involving grain based ethanol and the U.S. Plans to have 110 million tons of biofuels by 2020. At the G8 summit this July, Zeng Xiao’an said that China will not develop biofuels at the cost of grain security. The government will not approve any new biofuel projects involving grains. They do plan to work toward creating biofuels form agricultural waste such as wheat straw, corn stalks, animal feces, and non-grain farm produce. There are about 100 million acres of land unsuitable for grain production in China that could be used to grow other plants useful for fuel production. China produces about 3 billion tons of animal waste and 700 million tons of agricultural straw. By the end of this year, 31 million homes in the rural areas will use methane for cooking and heating. For years, the Chinese farmers have used straw, grass, animal wastes, and husks to create a friendly fertilizer called biogas. (Jing)
China is also turning to other energy creating options such as gigantic windmills. Just on July 7th of this year, an announcement came from Tanti group, that they and the investor bank, Arcapita will invest two billion dollars to develop a 1,650 megawatt group of wind farms in Inner Mongolia by 2012. Currently Honiton, another energy group, has 50 MW installed and 100 MW in development. This group secured the 2,244 square kilometers of land required to reach the 1,650 megawatt goal. Overall, China was set to have 6,000 MW of wind energy by 2007. (Tanti Group)
As I have studied here in China, I have gained even a stronger sense of concern for ensuring there is enough food to feed the world and finding better ways to efficiently provide energy to our needs. No matter if I continue to take advantage of the flex fuel option, assist in securing better yields through my family’s operation or my career in grain seed sales, or if I simply become more aware of my energy consumption and work to improve it, I know my attitude of energy needs and consumption has forever changed. I look forward to applying my newly acquired knowledge of world wide agriculture to my lifestyle and discussing these topics with fellow agriculturalists in America.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Agriculture Class and Volleyball
July 3, 2008- Thursday
Today we got up even earlier than usual to hit the trail (okay, it is a bunch of streets and sidewalks full of people and we go on a different path everyday, but I’ll call it a trail) because the girls wanted to go to Starbucks before class and get on the faster, wireless internet. They wanted to get on one of the chatting mechanisms. I usually stay out jogging longer than they do because I think it is a waste to sit in the room idle while waiting for my turn in the shower so I came to Starbucks after and quickly uploaded a few pictures and checked my email.
We arrived at class early, and the rest of the group wasn’t on time. Melissa reminded us of the importance of being respectful to the teachers. The class was taught by Nia (I have since found out that her name is spelled Nie) and dealt a great deal with agricultural economics. She told us about the difference between the invisible hand where the market regulates the supply and demand which as an effective way of resource allocation and the visible hand which entails government intervention on the market. She talked about market failure which is when the market fails to perform such as providing public goods, making income distribution relatively equal, conserving the natural resource and protecting environment and how sometimes government intervention is necessary.
In Chinese agriculture, because of small scale, they have a low educational level and high risk, and more poor people engaged in the industry, the government intervention is very important. I wondered if we have highly uneducated agriculturalists. I wondered how so and if not, why. She said the major government functions are stabilizing agricultural production and the markets. Agricultural production faces two kinds of natural risks (i.e. floods, droughts, pests and diseases etc.) and market risk (fluctuation).
Since China is a transition country, ag faces another risk due to policy. Policy makers make policies not suitable for the situation, damaging the farmer’s welfare. For example, in 1998 when some leader was in office the price for food was higher and the government wanted to control this so they only allowed the farmers to sell their product in their own province. In the Sunan province the price was lower because they had a lot more supply and they weren’t allowed to go to other provinces. The police would check each car on the road for grain. Experts argued about the number of police men and the number of farmers was not equal at all. There were not enough police to stop them. Experts wrote to the central government and said this doesn’t work for the price. The minister of agriculture gathered experts to come up with a conclusion, they decided that this kind of regulation, keeping the products in the provinces would not work.
The price of grain from last year is up here in China- an increase of 20-30%. They are still waiting for a higher price to get more income. The policy this year has limited the corn to export. Now, all the corn has to be sold in domestic market. The price of corn has increased, but it is lower than the international market and the price of rice has decreased. It decreases around the spring festival because the rice is highly consumed. (This doesn’t make sense, but that is what she said.)The train transports other goods such as meat which is consumed on special occasions. She also said that the storage if full of rice already- making more supply than demand. More middle class people are eating protein, therefore consuming more grain that it takes to feed the animals, and less rice. Sometimes rice produced that is not suitable for humans is fed to animals, but most of the time this doesn’t occur.
She said that the main function of the state is to guarantee the farmer’s income and consumer welfare by reducing price fluctuation. The most common measures are budgeted- financed purchase of excess farm products for reserve or exports and release them in lean years.
She said if you want to help a farmer, the only thing you can do is give them information. Public goods can’t be provided by individuals or they might be provided, but not efficiently. “The public goods” may differ by amount certain countries and regions. Irrigation and drainage system along rivers in China are public good in poor villages, but individuals are able in invest in some places. A small farmer cannot be efficient with is operation since he cannot afford machinery. The government subsidizes so that rural communities can afford machinery.
Research and extension in agricultural are invested by government reform of research and extension in China is market-oriented in some extents. The government investment didn’t increase as agricultural grew.
Another function of the government is conserving natural resources. This is true for all countries. Food security and safety is also a concern. There is a trade off between “efficiency and equity” in the past, equity first with low efficiency. All students were assigned a job after college; you didn’t go find your own. People were provided with their own house, they didn’t find their own. After the reform, they had high efficiency with low equity. It was efficiently because people gained what they earned. Income disparity creates a need of redistribution by taxation. Now they have people who are earning more money than they know what to do with and people who are extremely poor.
Despite enormous economic progress in agriculture and rural area- especially after 1978, a majority of the poor live in less developed remote and rural areas in China. Government takes an important role in poverty alleviation.
After class we headed back to the mall that houses the starbucks (a five minute walk at most) and grabbed Subway (yes, they have everything here) and then utilized our time on the internet. We didn’t have to report back to campus until 4:00 p.m. when we were supposed to be playing ping pong as an organized activity. It was extremely hot and it didn’t take long or most people to get sweaty in the recreation courtyard where the ping pong tables and badminton courts are. At first we were dressed in comfortable clothes and flip flops, but after hitting the volleyball we brought around for a little while, we went back to our room to put on tennis shoes. We just hit it around in a circle for quite some time with some of the Chinese students. Some of them were really good and really went after the ball. Eventually, we moved to the courts where they have a volleyball net set up. We played a couple of games before heading in to shower. I don’t know if it is from the pollution or the texture the court is made out form, but the court is DUSTY. We were all covered in dirt from being sweaty and then hitting that dirty ball around.
For dinner the entire group walked down to a restaurant we’d walked by many times before and ordered several dishes which floated around on the lazy susan. I don’t remember what we hard, but it was probably a few meat dishes like bits of pork, beef, mutton, or chicken and some vegetable dishes. After dinner we just hung out in our rooms, did laundry, worked on our journals, and went to bed.
Today we got up even earlier than usual to hit the trail (okay, it is a bunch of streets and sidewalks full of people and we go on a different path everyday, but I’ll call it a trail) because the girls wanted to go to Starbucks before class and get on the faster, wireless internet. They wanted to get on one of the chatting mechanisms. I usually stay out jogging longer than they do because I think it is a waste to sit in the room idle while waiting for my turn in the shower so I came to Starbucks after and quickly uploaded a few pictures and checked my email.
We arrived at class early, and the rest of the group wasn’t on time. Melissa reminded us of the importance of being respectful to the teachers. The class was taught by Nia (I have since found out that her name is spelled Nie) and dealt a great deal with agricultural economics. She told us about the difference between the invisible hand where the market regulates the supply and demand which as an effective way of resource allocation and the visible hand which entails government intervention on the market. She talked about market failure which is when the market fails to perform such as providing public goods, making income distribution relatively equal, conserving the natural resource and protecting environment and how sometimes government intervention is necessary.
In Chinese agriculture, because of small scale, they have a low educational level and high risk, and more poor people engaged in the industry, the government intervention is very important. I wondered if we have highly uneducated agriculturalists. I wondered how so and if not, why. She said the major government functions are stabilizing agricultural production and the markets. Agricultural production faces two kinds of natural risks (i.e. floods, droughts, pests and diseases etc.) and market risk (fluctuation).
Since China is a transition country, ag faces another risk due to policy. Policy makers make policies not suitable for the situation, damaging the farmer’s welfare. For example, in 1998 when some leader was in office the price for food was higher and the government wanted to control this so they only allowed the farmers to sell their product in their own province. In the Sunan province the price was lower because they had a lot more supply and they weren’t allowed to go to other provinces. The police would check each car on the road for grain. Experts argued about the number of police men and the number of farmers was not equal at all. There were not enough police to stop them. Experts wrote to the central government and said this doesn’t work for the price. The minister of agriculture gathered experts to come up with a conclusion, they decided that this kind of regulation, keeping the products in the provinces would not work.
The price of grain from last year is up here in China- an increase of 20-30%. They are still waiting for a higher price to get more income. The policy this year has limited the corn to export. Now, all the corn has to be sold in domestic market. The price of corn has increased, but it is lower than the international market and the price of rice has decreased. It decreases around the spring festival because the rice is highly consumed. (This doesn’t make sense, but that is what she said.)The train transports other goods such as meat which is consumed on special occasions. She also said that the storage if full of rice already- making more supply than demand. More middle class people are eating protein, therefore consuming more grain that it takes to feed the animals, and less rice. Sometimes rice produced that is not suitable for humans is fed to animals, but most of the time this doesn’t occur.
She said that the main function of the state is to guarantee the farmer’s income and consumer welfare by reducing price fluctuation. The most common measures are budgeted- financed purchase of excess farm products for reserve or exports and release them in lean years.
She said if you want to help a farmer, the only thing you can do is give them information. Public goods can’t be provided by individuals or they might be provided, but not efficiently. “The public goods” may differ by amount certain countries and regions. Irrigation and drainage system along rivers in China are public good in poor villages, but individuals are able in invest in some places. A small farmer cannot be efficient with is operation since he cannot afford machinery. The government subsidizes so that rural communities can afford machinery.
Research and extension in agricultural are invested by government reform of research and extension in China is market-oriented in some extents. The government investment didn’t increase as agricultural grew.
Another function of the government is conserving natural resources. This is true for all countries. Food security and safety is also a concern. There is a trade off between “efficiency and equity” in the past, equity first with low efficiency. All students were assigned a job after college; you didn’t go find your own. People were provided with their own house, they didn’t find their own. After the reform, they had high efficiency with low equity. It was efficiently because people gained what they earned. Income disparity creates a need of redistribution by taxation. Now they have people who are earning more money than they know what to do with and people who are extremely poor.
Despite enormous economic progress in agriculture and rural area- especially after 1978, a majority of the poor live in less developed remote and rural areas in China. Government takes an important role in poverty alleviation.
After class we headed back to the mall that houses the starbucks (a five minute walk at most) and grabbed Subway (yes, they have everything here) and then utilized our time on the internet. We didn’t have to report back to campus until 4:00 p.m. when we were supposed to be playing ping pong as an organized activity. It was extremely hot and it didn’t take long or most people to get sweaty in the recreation courtyard where the ping pong tables and badminton courts are. At first we were dressed in comfortable clothes and flip flops, but after hitting the volleyball we brought around for a little while, we went back to our room to put on tennis shoes. We just hit it around in a circle for quite some time with some of the Chinese students. Some of them were really good and really went after the ball. Eventually, we moved to the courts where they have a volleyball net set up. We played a couple of games before heading in to shower. I don’t know if it is from the pollution or the texture the court is made out form, but the court is DUSTY. We were all covered in dirt from being sweaty and then hitting that dirty ball around.
For dinner the entire group walked down to a restaurant we’d walked by many times before and ordered several dishes which floated around on the lazy susan. I don’t remember what we hard, but it was probably a few meat dishes like bits of pork, beef, mutton, or chicken and some vegetable dishes. After dinner we just hung out in our rooms, did laundry, worked on our journals, and went to bed.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Our Tour Website
For some reason, I keep forgetting to tell you all about the AMAZING website our Resident Director, Melissa has set up. It is complete with all sorts of pictures and we each have uploaded blogs on there. It is well worth taking a look at. Below is the site!
http://china.cfaes.ohio-state.edu/
http://china.cfaes.ohio-state.edu/
Hey there!
Hello blog readers!
Thanks for reading. I'll try to update this thing more often. We are going on a week long trip to Inner Mongolia starting today so I don't know for sure when I'll be able to update, but thanks for reading! Hope all is well!
Amanda
Thanks for reading. I'll try to update this thing more often. We are going on a week long trip to Inner Mongolia starting today so I don't know for sure when I'll be able to update, but thanks for reading! Hope all is well!
Amanda
Amazing Agriculture and Finding a Church
July 2, 2008- Wednesday
Today was a good day. We started out in the morning with a jog around the area, took showers, and headed straight for class at 8:30. Our first class was for our demographics portion of the trip and the lecturer covered population, urbanization, land resources and food balance in China. He had excellent English as he lived in the United States for over 10 years. He showed us a map of the arable land in China. It didn’t seem like there was near as much land taken up by urbanization as there was by mountains or not arable land. He told us many stories of his hometown as it pertains to agriculture. He talked a great deal about double cropping as if it was a very innovative idea. He said that they have to get the corn off early while it is still wet so they can get the winter wheat planted. He said they dry it directly on the ground or on rooftops of home rather than using electricity.
He again hit on the fact that water is a major issue facing China as a whole and specifically agriculture. I asked him about Three Gorges Dam which is a very controversial dam of The Yangtze river in 2003. This is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world and is controversial because 1.3 million people lost their homes when the river rose up. They built this to drive the water up to the 13 million people that live in Beijing.
He told us that custom harvesting is very common in China and explained once the grain is harvest, it is stored at the farmer’s home. We looked at pictures of grain storage facilities that looked like huts on stilts. He explained to us that there are many people in China who are classified as the “floating population.” They go to the city to find a job, work there until the job is done, and then go back to farming.
Another interesting fact he hit on was that in China there are 110 men for every 100 women and in some places the ratio is as high as 130/100. In the U.S., it is 100 to 100.
We talked about grain production in China. The yield has gone up steadily since 1975 and the prices has fluctuated hitting highs in 1990, 1995, and 2008. When I ask why he said that the price of grain in China is driven by the salary growth in urban areas and the consumption increase from the increase of people. Currently, as we know in the U.S., the price is one the rise again. He said that half of the Chinese soybeans are imported and when we visited the USDA last week they told us that 38% of the China’s soybeans are imported. People in urban areas consume more meat, oil crops, medicine crops, and fruits than people in rural areas. One reason is because they have no way to store it in the rural areas. Another reason is because the people in rural areas eat almost only the food they grow such as vegetables. They really do not have the space to grow cash crops such as cotton, oil crops, fibers, sugars, and tobacco as they. Currently there are 1.3 billion people in China and they expect to have 1.47 billion people by the year 2050. Of that number 75% of them are expected to be in the urban population. Since 1992, China’s GDP per capita has grown almost 25 times and in the United States we have only grown 3 times. Also, in China you could pay for the same amount of food with $50.00 as you could with $100.0hat 0 in the U.S. By 2050, the net import rate for food is expected to be 6.98%. I think that means that they will import a total of 6.98% more agricultural products than they export. Currently they are at a net import rate of 3.77%.
The lecturer wrote a book on urbanization and food consumption. He said that grain is transported by railroad and water from the North to the South in China and that it is too expensive to transport it by truck. He said the gas prices in China are similar to ours in the United States and that the government subsidizes the taxis to keep them at the same prices. I have noticed that it is nothing here to see count ten cars on the road and have eight or nine of them be taxis. When I asked him the inevitable renewable fuel question, he laughed out loud and said, “China needs to feed the mouths not the cars. In the U.S. you are burning the food, we’d like to turn into human feed.” He thinks that they have higher corn yields in certain areas of China than Iowa because of irrigation.
He showed us many pictures of all over China. He told about areas in China where farmers must walk four hours one way to sell their products at a market. He said one particular ethinic group is just lazy and that is why they are poor. They spend there government provided fertilizer money to buy guns because they’d rather go hunting than raise their food. We have noticed people who come to the city and sell random things like peaches, vegetables, cut up cucumber salad type things, and other stuff straight from a cart. I guess it is just like us and our mums, you have to sell your stuff somewhere! He showed us pictures of some really poor people that never even owned a pair of shoes during their whole life. He also showed us pictures of clear plastic on the ground around vegetables that keeps the moisture end. He told us that the Olympic complexes used to be farmland and other areas of Beijing such as the brand new railway station that will be the number one in the world and will support trains that will run 200 m.p.h. and the new airport terminal at the largest airport in the world has taken up valuable farmland.
Wow! After that information filled class, we headed to “The Blackwell” (again, this is named after our nice hotel with a nice restaurant at OSU) for lunch. We got some spicy beef sandwiches, sweet and sour pork, white rice, and some other stuff that I cannot remember and paid for it with our meal plan cards. I walked over to the market to buy some camera batteries as I smoked (literally, I had smoke coming from my rechargeable batteries charger) my charger yesterday after I tried it without an electricity converter as Ashe blew up our converter when she tried to use an American hairdryer on it. There must have been enough wind to blow away the smog because it was unusually sunny outside. I think I will be pretty pale when I come home. I purchased batteries, some souvenir chop sticks, and some rice cakes and chocolate snacks. I also saw some men setting up an information shack for the Olympics along the sidewalk. There were about 10 people dressed in blue “Beijing 2008” volunteer shirts. I am curious to know why they have a shack like this set up where we live because we are really not all that close to the Olympic venues. I guess there will be TONS of people converging on the city so they will be really spread out and help will be needed all over. When I returned, Ashe and Jess were asleep and I woke them up to head to our next class.
We had another three hour lecture on agriculture. This time it was our normal agricultural teacher, Nia. She asked us our topics for our final paper in her class. Most of my classmates are not really agriculturally literate so they are struggling to find topics they have a solid foundation with. I have decided to do mine on the impact that renewable fuels world-wide has on China. Paige picked Genetically Modified Organisms and the fact that China says they do not use them. Jess went with the evolution of machinery use in China and Ashe is thinking about protein consumption as it relates to where people live and the money they have.
She threw out the number that 10% of the arable land feeds 22% of the world’s population. She talked about the need for many different varieties of rice, corn, wheat, and beans, but said that China does not use any genetically modified crops except for cotton. She also said that she does not use soybean oil because she is afraid it might be genetically modified. She said that in 2000, 65% of all farmed areas were cultivated, 26% were planted, and 19% were harvested by a machine. She showed an interesting picture of lots of combines on the highways as they move from the south of China to the north doing custom harvesting. She said that for harvesting rice, it takes 120 Yuan per mu (a mu is 15 hectares and a hectare is about 2.5 acres).
We talked a little bit about GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in China. She kept calling all GMO’s Bt. I know that Bt corn is made to resist corn borer and I assme that cotton would be made to do something similar. She said that only cotton is grown Genetically Modified and that corn and wheat are only in tests, but I don’t believe her. I think that if they are going to be feeding all of these people and over half of the world’s pork, they’ve got to be as productive as possible. She said that Bt rice is only allowed in India and that some people say Genetic Modification is harmful to human health. She said that she and most of her friends use peanut oil because soybean oil comes form the states and they say they don’t allow genetic modification into those products, but you never know. I thought of our (from our farm) food grade beans that go to Japan and wondered of they are made into tofu and soy oil or not. She mentioned that a common crop in China is rapeseed, which is grown in the Sichuan province, the area where the earth quake occurred.
She talked about how big of a deal biotechnology is and listed companies such as Pioneer, Monsanto, and John Deere. She said that Monsanto has their own extension staff that goes and sells to the farmers and does test plots to show the difference. They have organizations to teach and train the farmers. She said that the research institutions have extension stations in the township that are manned by the ministry of agriculture and connects people with knowledge.
We then talked about grain productivity. She said that total grain productivity has declined and the arable land has decreased. She said they lose a million mu each year. A mu is 15 hectares. Also the land quality has declined due to increase of pollution and decrease of organic content. Natural disasters have increased by more than 60%. Research and development has weakened. Incentive for farmers to grow grain has fallen. She said it is okay to grown grain in Inner Mongolia (we are going there during the 5th week) because there is not much pollution or factories.
Next she told us about international competition. She said there are big gaps in high quality products, food processing, technology innovation, and extension. The share of cereal pricing is 70% in the developed countries and 10% in China. She said that although their land is extensive, they do not have the advantages of international markets. They have some advantages in products that require extensive labor, but their quality cannot meet the standards of some countries. She said the export vegetables to Japan and South Korea and that they are the largest exporter in the world. They cannot export their poultry to the United States and they eat a lot the parts of the chicken that we don’t. She said that if we had free trade with them in poultry they’d eat the feet and we’d eat the breasts. Her quote was, “I really like the chicken feet and the head. In one setting, I could eat at least four chicken feet and have a nice glass of wine. I also like the feet of pig. I like all the feet.” Ha. She said that most Chinese do not like the chicken breast, most like the wings and legs. They do buy pork from the United States, but no beef because of BSE.
In the U.S. 19 cents of every dollar spent of food goes to the farmer. The rest goes to transportation, advertising, processing and other costs. The range for that number in China is 10-20 cents, so similar. She talked about how the USDA has the best agricultural website in the world. She said it is a great place to find out projected outlooks for certain products. She said that every year in February they have an ag outlook conference put on by the ministry of Ag. She said that experts give reports on certain crops. Usually there is a surge in the market prices for cereal grains in the U.S. around about this time. I wonder if this meeting has anything to do with that.
She said that in the area of food quality, most countries do not trust them and that in food processing China is behind because most of their food is quickly consumed. They makes some jices and jams, but not too much else. She talked for a while about research and development and told us that most of the Extension staff are low educational level, only having 66% with atleast a vocational degree or below. Of the 100,000 staff in the Agricultural Institute, only 1/3 of them have graduated from the University. She said that extension budget is less than $1.00 per farmer.
After class, some of the tourmates went to DangFong’s for supper. All of us will go at some point, but she said she likes to take just a few at a time. A few made plans to go with Andy, one of the Chinese grad students to an electronics market and a mall where they would have Olympic-Beijing 2008 shirts for sale. The three of us girls wanted to go, but we wanted to chill out a little bit before hand. We asked Andy if he would write down the name of the place in Chinese so that we could just show the taxi driver when we were ready to head that way. He did just that and it worked out perfect. Having had no internet for a few days, we decided to venture out and find some wireless. We hit up Starbucks first, and it looks like we found our new hang out. Mark, the only other “farm kid” on the trip had the same idea and was in there also. Jessica’s computer has a virus so we traded off and on while I read a book until were satisfied with our internet consumption. When we decided to leave, we told Mark our plans for going to the mall and he said he’d come with us.
We took our computers back to the hotel and headed to the street to get a taxi. The taxi dropped us off about two miles from our hotel in a HUGE complex. I mean there were probably fifteen really tall buildings in a 360 degree radius around us. We walked into what looked like the mall and found the grocery store that Andy had told us to walk through to find the Olympic Souvenirs. The mall was HUGE and most of it was completely underground. We knew that we needed to find the big “Wal-Mart” type place called Carrefour and walk through it to the other side where the Olympic store would be. We probably could have figured it out on our own, but we showed our slip of paper to a stranger, hoping he’d point us in the right direction. As always, the friendly Chinese nature in this man came out. He used his best English to try to tell us where to go and then said, “I’ll just take you.” He walked us clear though the mall to the Olympic store. I really don’t think an American would do that for a group of Chinese kids. We’d probably just wave them in the general direction. We each of us bought a couple of Olympic shirts and figured out what size we needed in the 160-190 size range.
We got money out of an American ATM and then walked around the mall for a while. The place was huge, but we didn’t buy anything else aside from the Olympic items. We eventually headed outside in pursuit of something to eat. We walked around and looked at all of the huge buildings and read the signs on them. There were American and Italian restaurants and even a buffet, but we just kept walking, looking at more and more stuff. Eventually we saw a big sign that was lit up saying, “Christian Church” in the distance. We walked toward it, wanting to check it out. When we got up close, it was big and seemingly elaborate. We walked around it looking for a posted sign of meeting times, but didn’t find anything. We walked to a nearby Chinese restaurant to eat. We picked pointed to a few items in the picture menu, ate, and took a taxi home.
Today was a good day. We started out in the morning with a jog around the area, took showers, and headed straight for class at 8:30. Our first class was for our demographics portion of the trip and the lecturer covered population, urbanization, land resources and food balance in China. He had excellent English as he lived in the United States for over 10 years. He showed us a map of the arable land in China. It didn’t seem like there was near as much land taken up by urbanization as there was by mountains or not arable land. He told us many stories of his hometown as it pertains to agriculture. He talked a great deal about double cropping as if it was a very innovative idea. He said that they have to get the corn off early while it is still wet so they can get the winter wheat planted. He said they dry it directly on the ground or on rooftops of home rather than using electricity.
He again hit on the fact that water is a major issue facing China as a whole and specifically agriculture. I asked him about Three Gorges Dam which is a very controversial dam of The Yangtze river in 2003. This is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world and is controversial because 1.3 million people lost their homes when the river rose up. They built this to drive the water up to the 13 million people that live in Beijing.
He told us that custom harvesting is very common in China and explained once the grain is harvest, it is stored at the farmer’s home. We looked at pictures of grain storage facilities that looked like huts on stilts. He explained to us that there are many people in China who are classified as the “floating population.” They go to the city to find a job, work there until the job is done, and then go back to farming.
Another interesting fact he hit on was that in China there are 110 men for every 100 women and in some places the ratio is as high as 130/100. In the U.S., it is 100 to 100.
We talked about grain production in China. The yield has gone up steadily since 1975 and the prices has fluctuated hitting highs in 1990, 1995, and 2008. When I ask why he said that the price of grain in China is driven by the salary growth in urban areas and the consumption increase from the increase of people. Currently, as we know in the U.S., the price is one the rise again. He said that half of the Chinese soybeans are imported and when we visited the USDA last week they told us that 38% of the China’s soybeans are imported. People in urban areas consume more meat, oil crops, medicine crops, and fruits than people in rural areas. One reason is because they have no way to store it in the rural areas. Another reason is because the people in rural areas eat almost only the food they grow such as vegetables. They really do not have the space to grow cash crops such as cotton, oil crops, fibers, sugars, and tobacco as they. Currently there are 1.3 billion people in China and they expect to have 1.47 billion people by the year 2050. Of that number 75% of them are expected to be in the urban population. Since 1992, China’s GDP per capita has grown almost 25 times and in the United States we have only grown 3 times. Also, in China you could pay for the same amount of food with $50.00 as you could with $100.0hat 0 in the U.S. By 2050, the net import rate for food is expected to be 6.98%. I think that means that they will import a total of 6.98% more agricultural products than they export. Currently they are at a net import rate of 3.77%.
The lecturer wrote a book on urbanization and food consumption. He said that grain is transported by railroad and water from the North to the South in China and that it is too expensive to transport it by truck. He said the gas prices in China are similar to ours in the United States and that the government subsidizes the taxis to keep them at the same prices. I have noticed that it is nothing here to see count ten cars on the road and have eight or nine of them be taxis. When I asked him the inevitable renewable fuel question, he laughed out loud and said, “China needs to feed the mouths not the cars. In the U.S. you are burning the food, we’d like to turn into human feed.” He thinks that they have higher corn yields in certain areas of China than Iowa because of irrigation.
He showed us many pictures of all over China. He told about areas in China where farmers must walk four hours one way to sell their products at a market. He said one particular ethinic group is just lazy and that is why they are poor. They spend there government provided fertilizer money to buy guns because they’d rather go hunting than raise their food. We have noticed people who come to the city and sell random things like peaches, vegetables, cut up cucumber salad type things, and other stuff straight from a cart. I guess it is just like us and our mums, you have to sell your stuff somewhere! He showed us pictures of some really poor people that never even owned a pair of shoes during their whole life. He also showed us pictures of clear plastic on the ground around vegetables that keeps the moisture end. He told us that the Olympic complexes used to be farmland and other areas of Beijing such as the brand new railway station that will be the number one in the world and will support trains that will run 200 m.p.h. and the new airport terminal at the largest airport in the world has taken up valuable farmland.
Wow! After that information filled class, we headed to “The Blackwell” (again, this is named after our nice hotel with a nice restaurant at OSU) for lunch. We got some spicy beef sandwiches, sweet and sour pork, white rice, and some other stuff that I cannot remember and paid for it with our meal plan cards. I walked over to the market to buy some camera batteries as I smoked (literally, I had smoke coming from my rechargeable batteries charger) my charger yesterday after I tried it without an electricity converter as Ashe blew up our converter when she tried to use an American hairdryer on it. There must have been enough wind to blow away the smog because it was unusually sunny outside. I think I will be pretty pale when I come home. I purchased batteries, some souvenir chop sticks, and some rice cakes and chocolate snacks. I also saw some men setting up an information shack for the Olympics along the sidewalk. There were about 10 people dressed in blue “Beijing 2008” volunteer shirts. I am curious to know why they have a shack like this set up where we live because we are really not all that close to the Olympic venues. I guess there will be TONS of people converging on the city so they will be really spread out and help will be needed all over. When I returned, Ashe and Jess were asleep and I woke them up to head to our next class.
We had another three hour lecture on agriculture. This time it was our normal agricultural teacher, Nia. She asked us our topics for our final paper in her class. Most of my classmates are not really agriculturally literate so they are struggling to find topics they have a solid foundation with. I have decided to do mine on the impact that renewable fuels world-wide has on China. Paige picked Genetically Modified Organisms and the fact that China says they do not use them. Jess went with the evolution of machinery use in China and Ashe is thinking about protein consumption as it relates to where people live and the money they have.
She threw out the number that 10% of the arable land feeds 22% of the world’s population. She talked about the need for many different varieties of rice, corn, wheat, and beans, but said that China does not use any genetically modified crops except for cotton. She also said that she does not use soybean oil because she is afraid it might be genetically modified. She said that in 2000, 65% of all farmed areas were cultivated, 26% were planted, and 19% were harvested by a machine. She showed an interesting picture of lots of combines on the highways as they move from the south of China to the north doing custom harvesting. She said that for harvesting rice, it takes 120 Yuan per mu (a mu is 15 hectares and a hectare is about 2.5 acres).
We talked a little bit about GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in China. She kept calling all GMO’s Bt. I know that Bt corn is made to resist corn borer and I assme that cotton would be made to do something similar. She said that only cotton is grown Genetically Modified and that corn and wheat are only in tests, but I don’t believe her. I think that if they are going to be feeding all of these people and over half of the world’s pork, they’ve got to be as productive as possible. She said that Bt rice is only allowed in India and that some people say Genetic Modification is harmful to human health. She said that she and most of her friends use peanut oil because soybean oil comes form the states and they say they don’t allow genetic modification into those products, but you never know. I thought of our (from our farm) food grade beans that go to Japan and wondered of they are made into tofu and soy oil or not. She mentioned that a common crop in China is rapeseed, which is grown in the Sichuan province, the area where the earth quake occurred.
She talked about how big of a deal biotechnology is and listed companies such as Pioneer, Monsanto, and John Deere. She said that Monsanto has their own extension staff that goes and sells to the farmers and does test plots to show the difference. They have organizations to teach and train the farmers. She said that the research institutions have extension stations in the township that are manned by the ministry of agriculture and connects people with knowledge.
We then talked about grain productivity. She said that total grain productivity has declined and the arable land has decreased. She said they lose a million mu each year. A mu is 15 hectares. Also the land quality has declined due to increase of pollution and decrease of organic content. Natural disasters have increased by more than 60%. Research and development has weakened. Incentive for farmers to grow grain has fallen. She said it is okay to grown grain in Inner Mongolia (we are going there during the 5th week) because there is not much pollution or factories.
Next she told us about international competition. She said there are big gaps in high quality products, food processing, technology innovation, and extension. The share of cereal pricing is 70% in the developed countries and 10% in China. She said that although their land is extensive, they do not have the advantages of international markets. They have some advantages in products that require extensive labor, but their quality cannot meet the standards of some countries. She said the export vegetables to Japan and South Korea and that they are the largest exporter in the world. They cannot export their poultry to the United States and they eat a lot the parts of the chicken that we don’t. She said that if we had free trade with them in poultry they’d eat the feet and we’d eat the breasts. Her quote was, “I really like the chicken feet and the head. In one setting, I could eat at least four chicken feet and have a nice glass of wine. I also like the feet of pig. I like all the feet.” Ha. She said that most Chinese do not like the chicken breast, most like the wings and legs. They do buy pork from the United States, but no beef because of BSE.
In the U.S. 19 cents of every dollar spent of food goes to the farmer. The rest goes to transportation, advertising, processing and other costs. The range for that number in China is 10-20 cents, so similar. She talked about how the USDA has the best agricultural website in the world. She said it is a great place to find out projected outlooks for certain products. She said that every year in February they have an ag outlook conference put on by the ministry of Ag. She said that experts give reports on certain crops. Usually there is a surge in the market prices for cereal grains in the U.S. around about this time. I wonder if this meeting has anything to do with that.
She said that in the area of food quality, most countries do not trust them and that in food processing China is behind because most of their food is quickly consumed. They makes some jices and jams, but not too much else. She talked for a while about research and development and told us that most of the Extension staff are low educational level, only having 66% with atleast a vocational degree or below. Of the 100,000 staff in the Agricultural Institute, only 1/3 of them have graduated from the University. She said that extension budget is less than $1.00 per farmer.
After class, some of the tourmates went to DangFong’s for supper. All of us will go at some point, but she said she likes to take just a few at a time. A few made plans to go with Andy, one of the Chinese grad students to an electronics market and a mall where they would have Olympic-Beijing 2008 shirts for sale. The three of us girls wanted to go, but we wanted to chill out a little bit before hand. We asked Andy if he would write down the name of the place in Chinese so that we could just show the taxi driver when we were ready to head that way. He did just that and it worked out perfect. Having had no internet for a few days, we decided to venture out and find some wireless. We hit up Starbucks first, and it looks like we found our new hang out. Mark, the only other “farm kid” on the trip had the same idea and was in there also. Jessica’s computer has a virus so we traded off and on while I read a book until were satisfied with our internet consumption. When we decided to leave, we told Mark our plans for going to the mall and he said he’d come with us.
We took our computers back to the hotel and headed to the street to get a taxi. The taxi dropped us off about two miles from our hotel in a HUGE complex. I mean there were probably fifteen really tall buildings in a 360 degree radius around us. We walked into what looked like the mall and found the grocery store that Andy had told us to walk through to find the Olympic Souvenirs. The mall was HUGE and most of it was completely underground. We knew that we needed to find the big “Wal-Mart” type place called Carrefour and walk through it to the other side where the Olympic store would be. We probably could have figured it out on our own, but we showed our slip of paper to a stranger, hoping he’d point us in the right direction. As always, the friendly Chinese nature in this man came out. He used his best English to try to tell us where to go and then said, “I’ll just take you.” He walked us clear though the mall to the Olympic store. I really don’t think an American would do that for a group of Chinese kids. We’d probably just wave them in the general direction. We each of us bought a couple of Olympic shirts and figured out what size we needed in the 160-190 size range.
We got money out of an American ATM and then walked around the mall for a while. The place was huge, but we didn’t buy anything else aside from the Olympic items. We eventually headed outside in pursuit of something to eat. We walked around and looked at all of the huge buildings and read the signs on them. There were American and Italian restaurants and even a buffet, but we just kept walking, looking at more and more stuff. Eventually we saw a big sign that was lit up saying, “Christian Church” in the distance. We walked toward it, wanting to check it out. When we got up close, it was big and seemingly elaborate. We walked around it looking for a posted sign of meeting times, but didn’t find anything. We walked to a nearby Chinese restaurant to eat. We picked pointed to a few items in the picture menu, ate, and took a taxi home.
The Brewery, Crab Island, and Refugees
July 1, 2008- Tuesday
Our personalities are starting to come out. People are expressing their opinions and we are starting to learn the backgrounds of each individual. Thus, we have learned what each person will bring to the group and to the trip. We are all starting to miss certain things about home. Whether it be the convenience of the internet or food that you don’t have to eat with chopsticks, today we were all saying, “I would give anything for a ….” Don’t get me wrong. We are doing great and we love it here, but this is a key point about study abroad-there’s stuff you just have to work through.
We had to report to the bus at 7:30 a.m. this morning for a day long field trip. Since this was an hour earlier that usual, we opted not to run. We rode the bus for about an hour and a half to the YangJing Brewery. On the way there we saw some small fields of corn that we had heard about in class. They really did look like they couldn’t be any bigger than a front yard of a city home. Beijing has six outer belts (like Columbus has the one 270) and we drove out to the sixth ring to get to our destination. We were able to see a lot of greenery on our way there as the sixth belt is fairly new and the area between the fifth and the sixth is not completely taken over.
We have heard a lot about YangJing since we’ve been here as we have seen it all over and it is a major Olympic sponsor. The word YangJing is the former name of the city Beijing. They opened in 1980 out in the countryside near Beijing by the White Yang River. Now, due to urbanization, YangJing is very near to the edge of the city. They have always been number one in sales and profit of all the beer companies in the China. Their beer is exported to over 20 countries and they say it only took them 20 years to grow as fast as other companies grew in 100 years. They have 85% of the Beijing market share. Nationwide, there are 36,000 employees, 10,000 of which live in Beijing. Currently, their whole process is done with computers and machines imported from Germany. Eighty percent of the grain they use is imported from Canada, Australia, and Germany and 20% of it comes from China. None of their grain comes from the U.S.. The mixture they have includes rice, barley, enzymes, and water. They said the mixture is 30% rice and 70% barley.
When I worked at GM, they spoke of the company in China that was making their new machines and said that most of the people working at that company lived in dormitories right on the factory grounds. I asked if they had any dormitories at this location. They said they did, but only a few since most people in Beijing rent their own apartments. There are 38 companies affiliated with this main company such as the people who make the bottle caps and recycling companies for the bottles. This provides more jobs to the employment needs of China. Within their company, they also make medicine and research different types of biotechnology. Ashley asked what they did with the distillers grain and the lady who seemingly did not want to be there giving the tour said it went for animal feed. Good question, Ashe. I asked if they work three shifts, 7 days a week and she said they did 24 hours a day from April to October which is the busy season for beer. She didn’t say how long individual employee shifts last though. The other months of the year they do not work weekends. Sometimes they hire temporary workers or young people and they live in the dormitories as they might be moving from place to place or not want to live with their parents. I can’t imagine temporary workers in the United States staying on the grounds of their employer practically 24/7. We looked at the seven vats they had where they boil the beer and the 80 vats where it sets and ferments.
I asked if they get their grain in China from a specific farmer or of it comes from a company. She said they get it from a company who provides specific farmers with seed and a contract to sell to them at the end of the growing season.
We boarded the bus and road another interesting place, Crab Island. This place was similar to a BearCreek Farms sort of operation, complete with all kinds of farm animals, several entertainment complexes, hotels, and restaurants. We went here as this study tour program is based on agriculture and this is a major form of Agritourism. Ashe, Jess, and I had a hoot listening to some of the comments our classmates were making. Frankly, I decided that this being our first farm field trip, they would have never made it in the Dominican where we went on amazing, adventurous field trips everyday and I look forward to seeing their reactions when we go to the farmland of Inner Mongolia in two weeks. DangFong said she would order our lunch and that we should walk around the complex for a while until it is ready. Oddly, they had two stalks of corn growing in several pots right outside of the restaurant. I was taking a picture of it since it was so weird and Deryck, one of our tour mates from New York City, said “Ah, bamboo.” I said, “That is not bamboo. That is corn.” Geepers creepers! We walked around and looked at several decorative fish ponds, a well that you turn a crank to pull up a bucket of water, some more plants, and a pretty walking bridge. We saw a beautiful couple getting wedding pictures in the pretty scenery.
When we came back in for lunch we waited for just a little while before the endless amounts of food started being placed on the lazy Susans at our tables. In the following order, they brought out these dishes one at a time: sausage sliced into diagonal pieces that was rather fatty, bean curd bites that tasted like pizza flavored dog food, boiled cabbage; a dish with all sorts of starches including: sweet potatoes, sweet corn, and a couple types of bread; a big hunk of tofu in soy sauce, small bits of beef still on the bone in sauce with garlic, steamed broccoli and mushrooms; raw cucumbers, radishes, and onions with plum sauce; two different kinds of crab that we had to work really hard to dig out without the nutcracker tools, beef and spinach sandwiches, bread rolls with spinach inside, and finally some real tough steak. When you eat Chinese like that, you know from the beginning only to take about one bite worth of each dish. Also, before we started eating, they brought out a bucket of LIVE crabs and had us look at them to decide if we wanted them or not. They passed our inspection and were pretty good when they came back cooked. Ha! DongFang said this meal was part of our program fee, so we didn’t have to pay and we headed outside to go on our tour of the facility.
Outside of the restaurant, there were two donkeys with carts waiting to take us on our tour. The reason we visited Crab Island is because they use the grounds as a means of agritourism. They show many aspects of farming and agriculture to people who normally do not get to see stuff like that. We all climbed up in the carts, sat on the benches, and were off on our big adventure. This facility is very self sufficient. They process human and animal waste at a water treatment plant on the grounds. They utilize the waste as fertilizer and generate power as well through methane gas. We took pictures and tried to understand the process they utilized to make use of the animal waste they had several vats labeled with signs. DongFang translated what the tour guide was saying, but about all I got was something about a sedimentation pond. It seemed as if they drained moisture off at one vat and then processed that liquid into another level of clear ness and kept going. I guess I could google it if I really wanted to.
The donkey carts took us from place to place all over the grounds. We saw some beautiful ponds with some neat looking lily pads and flowers. There were some big, dirty cages full of chickens that had laid eggs in some baskets. You know, that is pretty cool to the people from the city of 20 million. There was also a big cage of probably 200 ducks that were extremely dirty. There was a whole bunch of celery hearts thrown in there on top of the mud, I guess for the ducks to eat. It was not a pretty sight. There were baskets available and you could pay to go gather eggs from either the ducks or the chickens. We didn’t participate. There was also an area that had kiddy rides and a pretty man made water fall.
One building was full of animal specimens in formaldehyde. I mean they had everything from monkey embryos to sharks. The place was weird. They also had all sorts of stuffed wild game in there including a hedge hog. One area had a petting zoo of sorts. They had a bunch of monkeys and it was really fun to watch the mother monkeys carry around her baby. There were pins of pigs, goats, and sheep as well as a whole bunch of pens of different types of big dogs. The whole place was dirty and pretty much sad. It did not showcase a quality picture of agriculture to the city folk. There were cows, deer, ostriches, and camels all in fenced in areas. They had barns they could go in, but most of them were out showing face to all the eager visitors
One area was pretty neat. They were all set up to make pottery; complete with wheels and kilns, but no one was working in there. Sorry, Jaime! I took pictures of the facilities they had though. The donkey ride took us all over. We were in the second car, so we didn’t experience the wrath that the lead cart did or we were better able to prepare ourselves when we heard the others moan and groan. At one point, they went over a big curb. Our driver decided to just have us get out and walk. We walked down a long lane and looked at several green houses with brick fronts. They were growing tomatoes, squash, and peanuts among other things. In between the green houses, they were growing other items such as corn. We were able to see the clear plastic ground coverings we had learned about in class that help keep the moisture in the ground.
On our way out we saw another couple getting wedding photos. We have seen this several times throughout the city. They are all dressed up in their wedding clothes getting pictures. It looks really fun and they always look adorable. After taking a bunch of pictures of the beautiful lily pads, DongFang led us to another area of the grounds where they were making tofu. It was a dirty room, but they were grinding soy down and had a big block of tofu lying out. He wasn’t in the act of making it so it was difficult to see what he was doing, but we all wondered if what we ate for lunch came from there. After that we looked at an example Hutong set up where there are four houses that are placed toward a central courtyard. We toured the homes and looked at the courtyard, trying to imaging what it would be like for four generations to live like this and then headed to look at the area where they raise the crabs and fish. There were several in ground pools of fish in a big barn type area.
When we finally boarded the bus to come home DongFang handed out rice cakes for a snack. They had a sugar coating and weren’t too bad. She said, “These are good because they make your mouth happy and you don’t get too fat.” I don’t know if it was this time or not, but she has told us that in China when your child goes away for more than a month you check them over upon their return to see if they how well the person did taking care of them. She said that she did not want us looking like refugees when we get home. She has said this several times and every time it makes me laugh.
Our personalities are starting to come out. People are expressing their opinions and we are starting to learn the backgrounds of each individual. Thus, we have learned what each person will bring to the group and to the trip. We are all starting to miss certain things about home. Whether it be the convenience of the internet or food that you don’t have to eat with chopsticks, today we were all saying, “I would give anything for a ….” Don’t get me wrong. We are doing great and we love it here, but this is a key point about study abroad-there’s stuff you just have to work through.
We had to report to the bus at 7:30 a.m. this morning for a day long field trip. Since this was an hour earlier that usual, we opted not to run. We rode the bus for about an hour and a half to the YangJing Brewery. On the way there we saw some small fields of corn that we had heard about in class. They really did look like they couldn’t be any bigger than a front yard of a city home. Beijing has six outer belts (like Columbus has the one 270) and we drove out to the sixth ring to get to our destination. We were able to see a lot of greenery on our way there as the sixth belt is fairly new and the area between the fifth and the sixth is not completely taken over.
We have heard a lot about YangJing since we’ve been here as we have seen it all over and it is a major Olympic sponsor. The word YangJing is the former name of the city Beijing. They opened in 1980 out in the countryside near Beijing by the White Yang River. Now, due to urbanization, YangJing is very near to the edge of the city. They have always been number one in sales and profit of all the beer companies in the China. Their beer is exported to over 20 countries and they say it only took them 20 years to grow as fast as other companies grew in 100 years. They have 85% of the Beijing market share. Nationwide, there are 36,000 employees, 10,000 of which live in Beijing. Currently, their whole process is done with computers and machines imported from Germany. Eighty percent of the grain they use is imported from Canada, Australia, and Germany and 20% of it comes from China. None of their grain comes from the U.S.. The mixture they have includes rice, barley, enzymes, and water. They said the mixture is 30% rice and 70% barley.
When I worked at GM, they spoke of the company in China that was making their new machines and said that most of the people working at that company lived in dormitories right on the factory grounds. I asked if they had any dormitories at this location. They said they did, but only a few since most people in Beijing rent their own apartments. There are 38 companies affiliated with this main company such as the people who make the bottle caps and recycling companies for the bottles. This provides more jobs to the employment needs of China. Within their company, they also make medicine and research different types of biotechnology. Ashley asked what they did with the distillers grain and the lady who seemingly did not want to be there giving the tour said it went for animal feed. Good question, Ashe. I asked if they work three shifts, 7 days a week and she said they did 24 hours a day from April to October which is the busy season for beer. She didn’t say how long individual employee shifts last though. The other months of the year they do not work weekends. Sometimes they hire temporary workers or young people and they live in the dormitories as they might be moving from place to place or not want to live with their parents. I can’t imagine temporary workers in the United States staying on the grounds of their employer practically 24/7. We looked at the seven vats they had where they boil the beer and the 80 vats where it sets and ferments.
I asked if they get their grain in China from a specific farmer or of it comes from a company. She said they get it from a company who provides specific farmers with seed and a contract to sell to them at the end of the growing season.
We boarded the bus and road another interesting place, Crab Island. This place was similar to a BearCreek Farms sort of operation, complete with all kinds of farm animals, several entertainment complexes, hotels, and restaurants. We went here as this study tour program is based on agriculture and this is a major form of Agritourism. Ashe, Jess, and I had a hoot listening to some of the comments our classmates were making. Frankly, I decided that this being our first farm field trip, they would have never made it in the Dominican where we went on amazing, adventurous field trips everyday and I look forward to seeing their reactions when we go to the farmland of Inner Mongolia in two weeks. DangFong said she would order our lunch and that we should walk around the complex for a while until it is ready. Oddly, they had two stalks of corn growing in several pots right outside of the restaurant. I was taking a picture of it since it was so weird and Deryck, one of our tour mates from New York City, said “Ah, bamboo.” I said, “That is not bamboo. That is corn.” Geepers creepers! We walked around and looked at several decorative fish ponds, a well that you turn a crank to pull up a bucket of water, some more plants, and a pretty walking bridge. We saw a beautiful couple getting wedding pictures in the pretty scenery.
When we came back in for lunch we waited for just a little while before the endless amounts of food started being placed on the lazy Susans at our tables. In the following order, they brought out these dishes one at a time: sausage sliced into diagonal pieces that was rather fatty, bean curd bites that tasted like pizza flavored dog food, boiled cabbage; a dish with all sorts of starches including: sweet potatoes, sweet corn, and a couple types of bread; a big hunk of tofu in soy sauce, small bits of beef still on the bone in sauce with garlic, steamed broccoli and mushrooms; raw cucumbers, radishes, and onions with plum sauce; two different kinds of crab that we had to work really hard to dig out without the nutcracker tools, beef and spinach sandwiches, bread rolls with spinach inside, and finally some real tough steak. When you eat Chinese like that, you know from the beginning only to take about one bite worth of each dish. Also, before we started eating, they brought out a bucket of LIVE crabs and had us look at them to decide if we wanted them or not. They passed our inspection and were pretty good when they came back cooked. Ha! DongFang said this meal was part of our program fee, so we didn’t have to pay and we headed outside to go on our tour of the facility.
Outside of the restaurant, there were two donkeys with carts waiting to take us on our tour. The reason we visited Crab Island is because they use the grounds as a means of agritourism. They show many aspects of farming and agriculture to people who normally do not get to see stuff like that. We all climbed up in the carts, sat on the benches, and were off on our big adventure. This facility is very self sufficient. They process human and animal waste at a water treatment plant on the grounds. They utilize the waste as fertilizer and generate power as well through methane gas. We took pictures and tried to understand the process they utilized to make use of the animal waste they had several vats labeled with signs. DongFang translated what the tour guide was saying, but about all I got was something about a sedimentation pond. It seemed as if they drained moisture off at one vat and then processed that liquid into another level of clear ness and kept going. I guess I could google it if I really wanted to.
The donkey carts took us from place to place all over the grounds. We saw some beautiful ponds with some neat looking lily pads and flowers. There were some big, dirty cages full of chickens that had laid eggs in some baskets. You know, that is pretty cool to the people from the city of 20 million. There was also a big cage of probably 200 ducks that were extremely dirty. There was a whole bunch of celery hearts thrown in there on top of the mud, I guess for the ducks to eat. It was not a pretty sight. There were baskets available and you could pay to go gather eggs from either the ducks or the chickens. We didn’t participate. There was also an area that had kiddy rides and a pretty man made water fall.
One building was full of animal specimens in formaldehyde. I mean they had everything from monkey embryos to sharks. The place was weird. They also had all sorts of stuffed wild game in there including a hedge hog. One area had a petting zoo of sorts. They had a bunch of monkeys and it was really fun to watch the mother monkeys carry around her baby. There were pins of pigs, goats, and sheep as well as a whole bunch of pens of different types of big dogs. The whole place was dirty and pretty much sad. It did not showcase a quality picture of agriculture to the city folk. There were cows, deer, ostriches, and camels all in fenced in areas. They had barns they could go in, but most of them were out showing face to all the eager visitors
One area was pretty neat. They were all set up to make pottery; complete with wheels and kilns, but no one was working in there. Sorry, Jaime! I took pictures of the facilities they had though. The donkey ride took us all over. We were in the second car, so we didn’t experience the wrath that the lead cart did or we were better able to prepare ourselves when we heard the others moan and groan. At one point, they went over a big curb. Our driver decided to just have us get out and walk. We walked down a long lane and looked at several green houses with brick fronts. They were growing tomatoes, squash, and peanuts among other things. In between the green houses, they were growing other items such as corn. We were able to see the clear plastic ground coverings we had learned about in class that help keep the moisture in the ground.
On our way out we saw another couple getting wedding photos. We have seen this several times throughout the city. They are all dressed up in their wedding clothes getting pictures. It looks really fun and they always look adorable. After taking a bunch of pictures of the beautiful lily pads, DongFang led us to another area of the grounds where they were making tofu. It was a dirty room, but they were grinding soy down and had a big block of tofu lying out. He wasn’t in the act of making it so it was difficult to see what he was doing, but we all wondered if what we ate for lunch came from there. After that we looked at an example Hutong set up where there are four houses that are placed toward a central courtyard. We toured the homes and looked at the courtyard, trying to imaging what it would be like for four generations to live like this and then headed to look at the area where they raise the crabs and fish. There were several in ground pools of fish in a big barn type area.
When we finally boarded the bus to come home DongFang handed out rice cakes for a snack. They had a sugar coating and weren’t too bad. She said, “These are good because they make your mouth happy and you don’t get too fat.” I don’t know if it was this time or not, but she has told us that in China when your child goes away for more than a month you check them over upon their return to see if they how well the person did taking care of them. She said that she did not want us looking like refugees when we get home. She has said this several times and every time it makes me laugh.
Environment and Education Class and "Hollywood"
June 30, 2008- Monday
We woke up and went running before our environmental class. We have been eating peanut butter and bread sandwiches for breakfast and sometimes getting a popsicle or ice cream bar from the little shop across the way from the hotel during the breaks. We don’t feel like eating Chinese food for breakfast and we really don’t want to use our meal plans on it either. We are completely satisfied with good ole fashioned peanut butter and have deemed it as God’s gift to the earth.
Our fist class today was on the environment of China. We had a guest speaker and he talked about how most of the major rivers are in the Southern part of China, which makes water distribution very unbalanced. The government has worked to transfer water from the South to the North through a variety of ways, one being the Three Georges Dam. The Three Georges dam is a damming of the Yangtze river and it is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. It was finished in May of 2006 and 1.3 million people lost their homes as a result. It is very controversial.
She showed us pictures of a dust storm that occurred in Beijing in 2005 due to lack of water and soil erosion. She asked us our individual opinions of the Beijing environment and we told him that it is so smoggy all the time. You can never tell if it is going to rain or not nor can you ever see most of the buildings. She hit on the climate change and the things the world needs to do to combat those problems.
She talked about surveying six villages and gave us a list of the factors that impact farmer income which include: cereal price, planting area, disaster, ability to sell, feed price, fertilizer price, and others. She explained that a lot of farming communities have to adapt to drought through diversification of crops and work activities, specialization such as livestock breeding, changing crop types, rain water harvesting, and using soil moisture conservation methods. The soil moisture conservation methods were very interesting; she showed a picture of clear plastic film covering the grown to protect the earth from drying. She said that dispite having ideas and options some rural communities have a more difficult time adapting than others due to location, economic development, transportation, education, gender of leaders, poverty, and age. She said that some people depend on recycling for their living and we have seen many people collecting plastic bottles at tourist attractions.
She also talked a great deal about China’s natural resources. Arable land loss is a big issue since China is operating with less than 10% of the world’s land and feeding more than 22% of the world’s population. In 2003 they lost 2.53 million hectares (a hectare is 2.5 acres) to construction, disaster, ecological safeguard, and transfer usage. We talked for quite a while about lack of water and the steps they are taking to provide more where needed. At the end of the class we did a group debate on controlling fertilizer pollution with one group being the farmers (Ashe, Deryck, Mark and I), another group being the government, and another group being environmentalists. It didn’t get too heated, but it was interesting to hear the responses of most groups. We had a whole list of good ideas, but for some reason after hearing form the other groups she didn’t solicit our answers. We said they could rotate the crops so certain nutrients are put back in the ground, collect water vial tiling, collect and use waste from animals as fertilizer, improve irrigation systems for waste management, use hybrid crops that are drought resistant, not tilling the land, fertilizer needs to be available to the farmers, combine the smaller farms for more efficient use, educate the farmers, and make sure they don’t use too much.
During lunch we just went to our rooms and ate snacks we had from the store. I worked on some emails and the girls napped. We usually have time off from 11:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m..
Our afternoon class was on the education system and was taught by Dr. Lee, a very good English speaking man who is very interesting. One real interesting point about the Chinese education system is that in the 1970’s all of the students were sent to the countryside to learn from the farmers during the Cultural Revolution. This is because the existing education system was questioned and criticized and the National Entrance Examination was abolished. All of the universities were actually forced to closed and university teachers were sent to the countryside for “re-education.” Students who wanted to go to school after the reform had to be recommended by their factory leaders or the people in the countryside they had worked with. Dr. Lee highlighted the fact that in Sichuan, where the earthquake was, the school buildings collapsed, but the government buildings stood standing. This shows the lack of investment in the schools.
He talked about how the children are under so much pressure to perform well in school since there are so many people competing for university positions that lead to actual jobs. He said that children in preschool are happy because there is no pressure. He said that preschool lines out the basics, only occurs in the rural areas of China. The tuition for preschool is 6000 yuan, which is about $800 and the fee doesn’t include food or lunch.
China has a nine year compulsory system of education and students start school at the age of six. He talked of his granddaughter who has a very heavy load of homework every night. He said that richer families send their children to private tutors and lessons on Saturdays and Sundays so they can do better on college entrance exams. The higher schooling entrance exams are something we hear about often. Many schools offer practice exams and they have a test between middle school and high school and high school and the university. The whole process is important because if you do well in primary school, you are able to go to better middles schools, and then better high schools and then better universities. He says that some students have way too much homework and they never have time to go to an interesting museum or park. As a professor, he says that some of his students do not have quality English and they are not getting the basics in their former schooling.
They do have special education and vocational education, but it is very minimal. He said that a lot of young people learn by chatting on the internet and discussion on discussion boards. He said that most students learn English as their second language, but with the onset of the Olympics they are looking for people who speak other “small” languages to act as volunteers.
He said that unlike the United States, undergraduate students get little help from academic advisors because there are too many of them, but graduate students may get some direction.
He also opened up to us saying that all of the positive things happening in china like the up in the GDP and the building of all of the Olympic venues do not help the small peasants in the countryside. I wondered to myself if we have anything similar to this in our American countryside. He said the big cities are the so called “windows” to China, but they do not show the interesting things. China is a big country; a country in transition. You can see lots of interesting things on the rail roads (and we will when we ride a train to Inner Mongolia in a couple of weeks) or on the subway. The cities are great, but just beyond the boundary things are different. This reminded me of when we visited Mick and Nora Suman at their hotel during the first couple of weeks. That area was on the edge of Beijing, near the airport and it reminded me of the poor communities we saw when I traveled to the Dominican Republic during winter 2007. He said that just 100 km from this big, booming city that is going to be showcased to the world in about a month it is very poor. They have no good roads, no water, and poor people living in terrible conditions. He said the central government (I guess he means “the party”) looks at big ideas not the rural communities. Agricultural economists go to the rural communities and see how rural people live. He said New York is similar to Beijing, but the countryside’s of China and the U.S. are not similar at all.
This is when he went on a rant about how he hates how people waste water. He said that in Beijing there are about 7 million dogs. I’d believe it because we’ve seen lots of them with people out on walks. It is amazing to me that people can walk their dogs in a big city with no leash and have no problem. He said it is a complete waste for all those dogs to have all that water. He said pet food requires more leashes and resources. He thinks there should be a tax for having dogs. Now, I don’t know if I agree with him on this whole shebang because a lot of these people are only able to have one child and their dogs are part of their family, but I see his point. A lot of older people have dogs as their child may be living in a far away area or not around at all. He also thinks that the government officials should not have their own cars. He went on about spending oodles of money one Olympic venues, signs, landscaping, and everything else, while the poor people are suffering.
After that very interesting class, we were all pretty hungry and we knew that we wanted to do something quick since we had an early field trip on Tuesday. Johanna and Greg had found a couple of restaurants in the basement of the shopping mall that we live really, really close to. We all walked over there as a big group and scoured the menu. We went to a restaurant called, “Hollywood.” It took a long time for the one waitress to take all of our orders, but eventually we finally got through to her. Some people got cheese burgers, others got Philly steak, and others go Chinese. I got the French bread pizza. It wasn’t that good, but it tasted like home, nonetheless. After eating, we all milled around the mall for a little while. This mall had separate stores, but they weren’t separated by a wall or anything. The New Balance store butted up right next to the Puma store. The clothes were neat looking, but not any cheaper than something you’d find at home.
After walking around for quite a while, we eventually came home and worked on our journals and just hung out in our rooms.
We woke up and went running before our environmental class. We have been eating peanut butter and bread sandwiches for breakfast and sometimes getting a popsicle or ice cream bar from the little shop across the way from the hotel during the breaks. We don’t feel like eating Chinese food for breakfast and we really don’t want to use our meal plans on it either. We are completely satisfied with good ole fashioned peanut butter and have deemed it as God’s gift to the earth.
Our fist class today was on the environment of China. We had a guest speaker and he talked about how most of the major rivers are in the Southern part of China, which makes water distribution very unbalanced. The government has worked to transfer water from the South to the North through a variety of ways, one being the Three Georges Dam. The Three Georges dam is a damming of the Yangtze river and it is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. It was finished in May of 2006 and 1.3 million people lost their homes as a result. It is very controversial.
She showed us pictures of a dust storm that occurred in Beijing in 2005 due to lack of water and soil erosion. She asked us our individual opinions of the Beijing environment and we told him that it is so smoggy all the time. You can never tell if it is going to rain or not nor can you ever see most of the buildings. She hit on the climate change and the things the world needs to do to combat those problems.
She talked about surveying six villages and gave us a list of the factors that impact farmer income which include: cereal price, planting area, disaster, ability to sell, feed price, fertilizer price, and others. She explained that a lot of farming communities have to adapt to drought through diversification of crops and work activities, specialization such as livestock breeding, changing crop types, rain water harvesting, and using soil moisture conservation methods. The soil moisture conservation methods were very interesting; she showed a picture of clear plastic film covering the grown to protect the earth from drying. She said that dispite having ideas and options some rural communities have a more difficult time adapting than others due to location, economic development, transportation, education, gender of leaders, poverty, and age. She said that some people depend on recycling for their living and we have seen many people collecting plastic bottles at tourist attractions.
She also talked a great deal about China’s natural resources. Arable land loss is a big issue since China is operating with less than 10% of the world’s land and feeding more than 22% of the world’s population. In 2003 they lost 2.53 million hectares (a hectare is 2.5 acres) to construction, disaster, ecological safeguard, and transfer usage. We talked for quite a while about lack of water and the steps they are taking to provide more where needed. At the end of the class we did a group debate on controlling fertilizer pollution with one group being the farmers (Ashe, Deryck, Mark and I), another group being the government, and another group being environmentalists. It didn’t get too heated, but it was interesting to hear the responses of most groups. We had a whole list of good ideas, but for some reason after hearing form the other groups she didn’t solicit our answers. We said they could rotate the crops so certain nutrients are put back in the ground, collect water vial tiling, collect and use waste from animals as fertilizer, improve irrigation systems for waste management, use hybrid crops that are drought resistant, not tilling the land, fertilizer needs to be available to the farmers, combine the smaller farms for more efficient use, educate the farmers, and make sure they don’t use too much.
During lunch we just went to our rooms and ate snacks we had from the store. I worked on some emails and the girls napped. We usually have time off from 11:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m..
Our afternoon class was on the education system and was taught by Dr. Lee, a very good English speaking man who is very interesting. One real interesting point about the Chinese education system is that in the 1970’s all of the students were sent to the countryside to learn from the farmers during the Cultural Revolution. This is because the existing education system was questioned and criticized and the National Entrance Examination was abolished. All of the universities were actually forced to closed and university teachers were sent to the countryside for “re-education.” Students who wanted to go to school after the reform had to be recommended by their factory leaders or the people in the countryside they had worked with. Dr. Lee highlighted the fact that in Sichuan, where the earthquake was, the school buildings collapsed, but the government buildings stood standing. This shows the lack of investment in the schools.
He talked about how the children are under so much pressure to perform well in school since there are so many people competing for university positions that lead to actual jobs. He said that children in preschool are happy because there is no pressure. He said that preschool lines out the basics, only occurs in the rural areas of China. The tuition for preschool is 6000 yuan, which is about $800 and the fee doesn’t include food or lunch.
China has a nine year compulsory system of education and students start school at the age of six. He talked of his granddaughter who has a very heavy load of homework every night. He said that richer families send their children to private tutors and lessons on Saturdays and Sundays so they can do better on college entrance exams. The higher schooling entrance exams are something we hear about often. Many schools offer practice exams and they have a test between middle school and high school and high school and the university. The whole process is important because if you do well in primary school, you are able to go to better middles schools, and then better high schools and then better universities. He says that some students have way too much homework and they never have time to go to an interesting museum or park. As a professor, he says that some of his students do not have quality English and they are not getting the basics in their former schooling.
They do have special education and vocational education, but it is very minimal. He said that a lot of young people learn by chatting on the internet and discussion on discussion boards. He said that most students learn English as their second language, but with the onset of the Olympics they are looking for people who speak other “small” languages to act as volunteers.
He said that unlike the United States, undergraduate students get little help from academic advisors because there are too many of them, but graduate students may get some direction.
He also opened up to us saying that all of the positive things happening in china like the up in the GDP and the building of all of the Olympic venues do not help the small peasants in the countryside. I wondered to myself if we have anything similar to this in our American countryside. He said the big cities are the so called “windows” to China, but they do not show the interesting things. China is a big country; a country in transition. You can see lots of interesting things on the rail roads (and we will when we ride a train to Inner Mongolia in a couple of weeks) or on the subway. The cities are great, but just beyond the boundary things are different. This reminded me of when we visited Mick and Nora Suman at their hotel during the first couple of weeks. That area was on the edge of Beijing, near the airport and it reminded me of the poor communities we saw when I traveled to the Dominican Republic during winter 2007. He said that just 100 km from this big, booming city that is going to be showcased to the world in about a month it is very poor. They have no good roads, no water, and poor people living in terrible conditions. He said the central government (I guess he means “the party”) looks at big ideas not the rural communities. Agricultural economists go to the rural communities and see how rural people live. He said New York is similar to Beijing, but the countryside’s of China and the U.S. are not similar at all.
This is when he went on a rant about how he hates how people waste water. He said that in Beijing there are about 7 million dogs. I’d believe it because we’ve seen lots of them with people out on walks. It is amazing to me that people can walk their dogs in a big city with no leash and have no problem. He said it is a complete waste for all those dogs to have all that water. He said pet food requires more leashes and resources. He thinks there should be a tax for having dogs. Now, I don’t know if I agree with him on this whole shebang because a lot of these people are only able to have one child and their dogs are part of their family, but I see his point. A lot of older people have dogs as their child may be living in a far away area or not around at all. He also thinks that the government officials should not have their own cars. He went on about spending oodles of money one Olympic venues, signs, landscaping, and everything else, while the poor people are suffering.
After that very interesting class, we were all pretty hungry and we knew that we wanted to do something quick since we had an early field trip on Tuesday. Johanna and Greg had found a couple of restaurants in the basement of the shopping mall that we live really, really close to. We all walked over there as a big group and scoured the menu. We went to a restaurant called, “Hollywood.” It took a long time for the one waitress to take all of our orders, but eventually we finally got through to her. Some people got cheese burgers, others got Philly steak, and others go Chinese. I got the French bread pizza. It wasn’t that good, but it tasted like home, nonetheless. After eating, we all milled around the mall for a little while. This mall had separate stores, but they weren’t separated by a wall or anything. The New Balance store butted up right next to the Puma store. The clothes were neat looking, but not any cheaper than something you’d find at home.
After walking around for quite a while, we eventually came home and worked on our journals and just hung out in our rooms.
The Beijing Zoo (Pandas) and the Underground City
June 29, 2008- Sunday
On Sunday we woke up mid morning and headed to the bank and to McDonalds for breakfast. We were able to use our ATM cards to get money out and by the time we got to McDonalds they were serving lunch. The place was once again packed, but it was worth the wait for some good ole fashioned French fries. When we arrived back at the hotel, almost everyone was up and they were ready to leave. Yikes! We hadn’t expected them to be up for a couple of more hours. We quickly got ready and walked with everyone to the bus stop. Johanna and some of the others had figured out what buses we needed to ride to go to the nearby Beijing Zoo. We paid our 1 Yuan (15 cents) and piled on the busy. There was mostly standing room only, but with all the stops along the way, the ride was only about twenty minutes so it was no big deal. The bus dropped us of at the big bus stop hub across the road from the zoo and we used an underground tunnel to get there. Instead of cross walks at road level they have either underground tunnels or overpass walking paths all over the city. I have only crossed a couple of roads like we normally do and those times were mostly illegal. I think we paid 25 Yuan for the zoo which included our extra ticket to see the Pandas.
The first exhibit we saw was the pandas and it was less quality than I thought it would be. I think we saw about seven pandas and most of them were extremely dirty. They are not the pandas you see on Animal Planet. Some were playing, others were eating bamboo, and some were sleeping. They did have a few in a big nice glass case that seemed to have plenty of room for them to live, but one was outside on a dirty platform. He seemed content to jus lay there. They sold panda souvenirs and Greg bought a big light blue panda umbrella while others brought some tee shits. We milled around the rest of the zoo for a couple of hours. I had read in my guide books that the zoo would be depressing because of how they kept the animals and it sure was. The lions, panthers, tigers, and other cat like animals were in bedroom size concrete rooms. The elephants were in similar captivity, but bigger size rooms. The rhinos were kept really, really dirty. People still milled around and seemingly enjoyed themselves. They’ve probably never been to a zoo that was doing research and keeping an appropriate habitat for the animals. Later, when I was telling Melissa about it she said zoos in America used to be kept that way.
Before leaving, we watched was they gave powerboat rides on the river in the middle of the zoo. People would put on old fashioned, orange life jackets and the driver would zoom them down the river. I guess they don’t have anything like the reservoir we go to with the Koch’s. We didn’t wait in line and pay to take a ride. Our plan was to go to something called “Food Street” after the zoo. We heard it was near the back entrance and that it would be a street full of carts of food. I pictured a miniature carnival type thing. However, when Johanna (she’s a Chinese major and does a lot of our navigating) asked someone to direct us to it, she was informed that the “Food Street” was actually inside of a hotel and not really anything special or cultural at all. Since it was already mid afternoon and we had more we wanted to do and see, we walked out the front gate of the zoo and a few blocks to a bus top.
We road the bus for at least a half an hour before we arrived at Tiananmen Square, the governmental area we had been at the week before. Our plan was to see Chairman Mao. They have him preserved in a refrigerated mausoleum that they raise twice a day. His embalmed body is in encased in a crystal casket and draped in a red flag. We had arrived too late because the guards told us it was closed for the day. Bummer. After that, we decided to walk and find something to eat. We saw a few restaurants nearby, but none of them looked appetizing. We should have just gone to the first one anyway because after a while, they all look the same. Some of our group wanted to go to KFC so we walked toward it. KFC and McDonalds are very, very common here in Beijing. I would venture to guess that there are 100 of each here. We have seen them all over. Upon arriving in front of KFC though the group decided not to give in to our American cravings because we could have it at home and went to the next door Chinese restaurant.
As usual, we split up into two tables worth of people, looked at the menu and picked out four or five dishes that sounded appetizing. (What did we eat?) Lauren and the boys sat at one table and the rest of us sat at the other. They ordered pigeon and Nick ate the pigeon brain.
After eating, we headed back past Tiananmen square in a quest for what is known as the Underground City. At the height of the Soviet Rift in the mid 1960s, Mao Zedong gave orders to carve out a vast network of bombproof tunnels beneath Beijing. Part of this subterranean highway, which was built all by hand is open to the public. The area is said to have all kinds of rooms including a hospital, storage space for food and water, and meeting rooms. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have all of Beijing underground. After walking for quite a long way and asking several guardsmen along the way for directions, we still hadn’t found it. At this point, half of our group decided to turn around, do some shopping, and go home. The rest of us trudged on in hopes of finding it.
Eventually, as many often do, two men driving tricycles that had passenger benches on the back agreed to take us to entrance to the underground city. We had seven people so we needed another tricycle, but one came up as we were making our plans. We bargained with the man for 20 yuan per tricycle, we piled in, and we were off! This ride was absolutely the highlight of the day. They took us down back alleys and past plenty of construction and poverty. These were the “houtongs” we had read about in our guide books. Hutongs alleyways that lead to the dwelling areas of Beijingers that don’t live in apartments. You can peer into the entrance to the home area and see the one or two room homes the people live in. We saw children running and playing, men and women standing around, the entrances of their seemingly one room homes, and a big construction site of what seemed like a road, all from a back alley. When we finally arrived at the entrance, the drivers pointed to a closed door that seemed like it hadn’t been opened in years indicating where the underground city was. We all thought that he should have told us it was closed. Ha! We piled back into the carts and paid another 20 Yuan to get back to the main road. Near the main road a family was selling a bunch of produce from their home. They seemingly had a prime location in comparison to their neighbors. I just wonder what they all do in the winter time when it snows and blows. I mean their homes looked sturdy, but I have no idea how they heat them. I also wonder I they have to dig out the alley with a shovel or if the government goes down those roads. Beijing is huge. They surely do not have time. I’ll have to ask DongFang.
After that little adventure, we walked clear back to the main Tiananmen Square area again via a side road. There were families out playing in the exercise parks, people selling food from little carts in the streets, and people just out and about. We stopped at a few shops to pick up some souvenirs. Again, we bargained for the items. I bought a couple of fancy fans. It seems like more and more the Olympics are becoming of presence in the city. There are now souvenir shops specifically for the Olympics all over and we are seeing signs and such everywhere. Even the TV’s that play on the buses are showing Olympic advertisements. The sponsors are recognized on the sides of buses.
After a long day of adventure, we finally waited at the bus stop for our bus and headed home. We were tired! We talked to the other group about the remainder of their afternoon and prepared for the week ahead by doing laundry, looking over our schedules, and catching up on emails and journals.
On Sunday we woke up mid morning and headed to the bank and to McDonalds for breakfast. We were able to use our ATM cards to get money out and by the time we got to McDonalds they were serving lunch. The place was once again packed, but it was worth the wait for some good ole fashioned French fries. When we arrived back at the hotel, almost everyone was up and they were ready to leave. Yikes! We hadn’t expected them to be up for a couple of more hours. We quickly got ready and walked with everyone to the bus stop. Johanna and some of the others had figured out what buses we needed to ride to go to the nearby Beijing Zoo. We paid our 1 Yuan (15 cents) and piled on the busy. There was mostly standing room only, but with all the stops along the way, the ride was only about twenty minutes so it was no big deal. The bus dropped us of at the big bus stop hub across the road from the zoo and we used an underground tunnel to get there. Instead of cross walks at road level they have either underground tunnels or overpass walking paths all over the city. I have only crossed a couple of roads like we normally do and those times were mostly illegal. I think we paid 25 Yuan for the zoo which included our extra ticket to see the Pandas.
The first exhibit we saw was the pandas and it was less quality than I thought it would be. I think we saw about seven pandas and most of them were extremely dirty. They are not the pandas you see on Animal Planet. Some were playing, others were eating bamboo, and some were sleeping. They did have a few in a big nice glass case that seemed to have plenty of room for them to live, but one was outside on a dirty platform. He seemed content to jus lay there. They sold panda souvenirs and Greg bought a big light blue panda umbrella while others brought some tee shits. We milled around the rest of the zoo for a couple of hours. I had read in my guide books that the zoo would be depressing because of how they kept the animals and it sure was. The lions, panthers, tigers, and other cat like animals were in bedroom size concrete rooms. The elephants were in similar captivity, but bigger size rooms. The rhinos were kept really, really dirty. People still milled around and seemingly enjoyed themselves. They’ve probably never been to a zoo that was doing research and keeping an appropriate habitat for the animals. Later, when I was telling Melissa about it she said zoos in America used to be kept that way.
Before leaving, we watched was they gave powerboat rides on the river in the middle of the zoo. People would put on old fashioned, orange life jackets and the driver would zoom them down the river. I guess they don’t have anything like the reservoir we go to with the Koch’s. We didn’t wait in line and pay to take a ride. Our plan was to go to something called “Food Street” after the zoo. We heard it was near the back entrance and that it would be a street full of carts of food. I pictured a miniature carnival type thing. However, when Johanna (she’s a Chinese major and does a lot of our navigating) asked someone to direct us to it, she was informed that the “Food Street” was actually inside of a hotel and not really anything special or cultural at all. Since it was already mid afternoon and we had more we wanted to do and see, we walked out the front gate of the zoo and a few blocks to a bus top.
We road the bus for at least a half an hour before we arrived at Tiananmen Square, the governmental area we had been at the week before. Our plan was to see Chairman Mao. They have him preserved in a refrigerated mausoleum that they raise twice a day. His embalmed body is in encased in a crystal casket and draped in a red flag. We had arrived too late because the guards told us it was closed for the day. Bummer. After that, we decided to walk and find something to eat. We saw a few restaurants nearby, but none of them looked appetizing. We should have just gone to the first one anyway because after a while, they all look the same. Some of our group wanted to go to KFC so we walked toward it. KFC and McDonalds are very, very common here in Beijing. I would venture to guess that there are 100 of each here. We have seen them all over. Upon arriving in front of KFC though the group decided not to give in to our American cravings because we could have it at home and went to the next door Chinese restaurant.
As usual, we split up into two tables worth of people, looked at the menu and picked out four or five dishes that sounded appetizing. (What did we eat?) Lauren and the boys sat at one table and the rest of us sat at the other. They ordered pigeon and Nick ate the pigeon brain.
After eating, we headed back past Tiananmen square in a quest for what is known as the Underground City. At the height of the Soviet Rift in the mid 1960s, Mao Zedong gave orders to carve out a vast network of bombproof tunnels beneath Beijing. Part of this subterranean highway, which was built all by hand is open to the public. The area is said to have all kinds of rooms including a hospital, storage space for food and water, and meeting rooms. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to have all of Beijing underground. After walking for quite a long way and asking several guardsmen along the way for directions, we still hadn’t found it. At this point, half of our group decided to turn around, do some shopping, and go home. The rest of us trudged on in hopes of finding it.
Eventually, as many often do, two men driving tricycles that had passenger benches on the back agreed to take us to entrance to the underground city. We had seven people so we needed another tricycle, but one came up as we were making our plans. We bargained with the man for 20 yuan per tricycle, we piled in, and we were off! This ride was absolutely the highlight of the day. They took us down back alleys and past plenty of construction and poverty. These were the “houtongs” we had read about in our guide books. Hutongs alleyways that lead to the dwelling areas of Beijingers that don’t live in apartments. You can peer into the entrance to the home area and see the one or two room homes the people live in. We saw children running and playing, men and women standing around, the entrances of their seemingly one room homes, and a big construction site of what seemed like a road, all from a back alley. When we finally arrived at the entrance, the drivers pointed to a closed door that seemed like it hadn’t been opened in years indicating where the underground city was. We all thought that he should have told us it was closed. Ha! We piled back into the carts and paid another 20 Yuan to get back to the main road. Near the main road a family was selling a bunch of produce from their home. They seemingly had a prime location in comparison to their neighbors. I just wonder what they all do in the winter time when it snows and blows. I mean their homes looked sturdy, but I have no idea how they heat them. I also wonder I they have to dig out the alley with a shovel or if the government goes down those roads. Beijing is huge. They surely do not have time. I’ll have to ask DongFang.
After that little adventure, we walked clear back to the main Tiananmen Square area again via a side road. There were families out playing in the exercise parks, people selling food from little carts in the streets, and people just out and about. We stopped at a few shops to pick up some souvenirs. Again, we bargained for the items. I bought a couple of fancy fans. It seems like more and more the Olympics are becoming of presence in the city. There are now souvenir shops specifically for the Olympics all over and we are seeing signs and such everywhere. Even the TV’s that play on the buses are showing Olympic advertisements. The sponsors are recognized on the sides of buses.
After a long day of adventure, we finally waited at the bus stop for our bus and headed home. We were tired! We talked to the other group about the remainder of their afternoon and prepared for the week ahead by doing laundry, looking over our schedules, and catching up on emails and journals.
Things I want to remember forever...
On the bus ride the other day I jotted down some topics that I wanted to be sure and tell people about as well as remember years from now. I am going to try to explain them at this time.
The Olympics
Holy cow! From first stepping off the plane to climbing the Great Wall to going on a bus tour of the Olympic venues, we have definitely seen the impact the 2008 Olympics has had and will have on this city! It is extremely difficult not to catch the Olympic spirit. There are signs EVERYWHERE that say, “Beijing 2008” or “One World. One Dream.” People are constantly working to prepare. We have seen people planting flowers and trees at all hours of the day and night. Seriously, we have seen people planting flowers on Saturday night at midnight. Beijing and China want to showcase to the rest of the world the wonders of their city. There are thousands of trees planted EVERYWHERE and they have gigantic teepee-style support systems on them. There is extensive landscaping that was just recently put in nearly all of the medians. We learned on our Olympic tour that they will be eliminating half of the cars by only allowing odd or even license plate numbers on the road every other day. We learned that they will have everything prepared by July 20th. It seems like just last night they put up more signs all over the city on the overpass crosswalks saying, “Welcome” and the theme. They have also recently put up more actual road signs directing people to the venues. On the inside lane of traffic they have painted big Olympic rings, indicating that starting on a certain date, only cars with Olympic passes can drive in that lane. Even in the subways lanes, we have seen paintings of Olympic Characters on the track walls. DongFang has told us that the prices of tours and special attractions have gone up as well. This city is ready for the Olympics and we are so excited to be here during their preparation. It will be neat to see how much Beijing transforms while we travel to Inner Mongolia next week.
Construction
There is so much construction going on within this city. I am not sure if it is the Olympics or just general growth of a city of about 20 million, but there is always something being built. We see lots of big cranes behind the guardrail fence type things on the side of the road. We have been informed that wherever we see one of those, it is likely that a subway line is going in there. There are skyscraper buildings ALL OVER THE PLACE. Many of them are apartment complexes and others are office buildings for major businesses. Since many of the people from the countryside come to Beijing as some type of migrant worker, they are willing to work all hours of the day and night for whatever money they can get. On the west side of the campus we have watched a big, somewhat elaborate gate being built. It is amazing to see what can be accomplished by lots of people working around the clock seven days a week.
The Economics of It All
1.3 Billion people live here. My main reason for coming on this trip was to learn about how in the world they feed and provide for the needs of all of those people. After being here for a month, I have even more of an interest in studying economics. It is flat out fascinating. Everything here is so cheap. I can’t get over how cheap it is. We go out to eat basically every meal and never spend over $3 or $4 and most times it is more like $1. I realize that most of the people here have very little money so they really cannot pay for too much, but I would think that with so much demand, the prices would have to be higher than what they are. I guess I have never noticed a lack of supply. Everything is available and right at their finger tips. Furthermore, everything any American could want can be found in Beijing. Of course, they have McDonalds, KFC, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Starbucks, plus any other fast food joint, but you can get also whatever you would ever need from stores like Wal-Mart (they have at least one here) or the Nike store or wherever. The place is amazing.
Transportation
The way people get around here is yet another amazing characteristic of China as a whole. Where do I begin? Okay, well first of all, most people walk to a lot of the places they are going. When we go jogging in the mornings we pass hundreds (and I do mean hundreds if not thousands) of people walking to work, school, or wherever. On the main roads they have a designated bike lane that is as wide as a side street in Columbus. People ride half motorized, half pedal, big tricycle-like bikes that they haul everything from flats of toilet paper to big cart loads of produce like watermelons. They ride a smaller, but more powerful tricycle thing to haul big jugs of drinking water and in the tourist areas, people. We see lots and lots of normal bicycles all over the place. People ride those in the bike lanes too and there are often people one or two passengers riding on them. There are taxis available at all times here. All we have to do is walk out of the building or venue we are visiting and look around and we’ll quickly be able to hail a taxi. Most times, the trip only costs an average of 28 Yuan which is about four dollars and when you split that by four people it amounts to a ride across town for basically a dollar. You cannot get that anywhere in the United States. We learned in class that the taxis are subsidized by the government to combat the high fuel prices and that helps keep the price low. Still, the Chinese students rarely take taxi rides as they think it is took expensive. They prefer to take the subway or bus. I’ll talk about the bus first. The busing system is so very vast. There are buses that go all over the city. If you can figure out the routes, it isn’t a bad way to go considering it costs 1 Yuan to get on which is 15 cents. The citizens here carry bus cards that they can add money to, but each time we get on a bus we just pay our money and the lady manning the money booth (yes, they have an extra employee doing this) gives us a ticket. The buses do get pretty crowded and sometimes we have to stand for a whole thirty minute stop and go ride, but it gets us to our destination. When we go on field trips, we see morning commuters jam packed onto buses and I become even more thankful for the nice air conditioned bus China Baba (I am not sure if I am spelling that correctly but Baba means father) drives us around in. I have ridden the subway twice now. That is another interesting experience to highlight. The subway system is complex, but very useful and they are expanding it to be even better. The subways do become rather crowded and you have to watch your stuff for pick pocketing, but that is all part of the experience. On a subway it is extremely rare to get a seat. We have learned from our lecturers and the Chinese students that it is nothing for Chinese people to ride the train for a couple days to get across the country. On Monday we will ride the train for ten hours so we will see how that mode of transportation is compared to the rest of the country. Oh yea, some people have cars too, but it is usually only one car per family.
Guards Everywhere!
There’s this element of safety that occurs in China. First of all, there are people everywhere so if someone wanted to do something, they’re bound to be caught. We (Jessica, Ashley, and I) go jogging nearly everyday and I have never felt in danger at all. In the U.S., I feel like you have to watch yourself at all times. With all these people around, you are just fine. Also, somewhat similar to how there multiple times more people working than we would have anywhere you go, there are guards and police men everywhere. There are guards at the gates to the campus. There are guards standing by big parking lot entrance arms, manually pushing down on the other end of the lever every time the arm needs to go up. There a guards milling around all of the busy areas. We saw police men at every block when we walked quite a distance one Sunday afternoon. The thing is, these guards to not act completely official or serious like guards in uniform in the United States would. When they march together, they do not always walk in straight rows or separate themselves evenly. They smile, talk, and laugh with each other while on duty. We learned in class that many young men come from the countryside to serve as guards because it is one of the only ways to get into the city unless you make it into the university. It is those people we are seeing posing as guards around the city.
Blonde Hair/Americans
Anywhere we go, we get stared at. People quickly pick us out as foreigners and then watch us and even stop to talk to us. We’ve been many places where they’ve stopped and asked Jessica or Ashley to get pictures with them. Their blonde hair pulls them right in. DongFang told us the reason they do that is that they are likely traveling as well and they want to be able to show their family back home a picture of a real, live American. Specifically at the Great Wall, several families stopped and asked Jessica for a picture.
Spitting
Before coming to China, I’d heard and Melissa had told us about how the Chinese and/or the Olympic committee were trying to get people to quit spitting/hacking before the Olympics. I have to admit, I hardly believed it would be a big deal. Boy, was I wrong. People hack up big wads of spit and let it loose whenever they feel like it. I realize they are breathing in lots of smog and that dusty air eventually gets to you, but geepers creepers, with everyone hacking up a big loogie, you are reminded of the habit at least once an hour. It is not just men that do this spitting either. Women and children of all ages can be found throwing one out. They do it from the bus window, from their bicycle, in the middle of a crowded street, just anywhere. It’s true! They spit!
The Prevalence of English
The children are taught English in school, so many people know at least a few words. However, most people are almost afraid to use it, even if they know it. Some can carry on a conversation with you with no mistakes and then say, “Sorry, my English is poor.” I don’t know if they are fishing for a compliment or what, but they’ve got it. Lots of children have ran up to our group and said simply, “Hello.” Many times, we then say, “Hello. How are you?” They quickly respond back the memorized answer they have from school, “Fine. Thank you.” Lots of the English they learn is of the British style so they often use the word, “quite.” I remember one concern Ashley had before coming here was that we’d see signs all over and have no idea what they said. The thing is, many times where English translations right next to the signs are. Many people at least are able to use their basic numbers to they can say how old they are or how many people work at a certain place and others know a lot more. Some people simply stop us and want to talk to us on the bus or at McDonalds so that they can practice their English. They even have places here called, “English Corner” where people just gather at a corn of a street to practice English with each other. It makes me wonder why the Chinese know so much English, but such a small percentage of Americans know Chinese. I know that it is because the Chinese want to come to America since there is so much competition for jobs here as well as a host of other reasons, but it is for sure interesting to watch their investment in English.
Six Outerbelts
Look at a map of any big city, and it’s likely you’ll find an outerbelt highway going around it. In Columbus we have 270. In Indianapolis, it is 465. In Beijing, they have six of these, and they are called, “Ring Roads.” Square miles wise, Beijing is not that much bigger than Columbus with all of its suburbs, but these ring roads make it easier for people to get around. The first ring is in the center and it goes out all the way to the sixth ring which is nearly in the countryside. I think we live between the fourth and fifth ring.
Space
The people of Beijing have little space in nearly all situations. We have been to Mrs. Mao’s and DongFang’s homes and both are nice apartments. I’ve mentioned before that there are skyscrapers of apartments EVERYWHERE. No where in the city can you look around and not see a gigantic apartment complex. The people have to live somewhere, and they do not have much space at all. Since they do not have yards, they spend a lot of leisure time in the parks, but the parks quickly fill up as well. Always, there are lots and lots of people walking in the streets. Sometimes, when I am running, I’ll tell myself, “Okay, I’ll count until I cross paths with 100 people and then I’ll stop.” That doesn’t take long at all so then I usually have to start over. There is no space on the buses or subway for much wiggle room. Things are just tight. When people buy groceries, first of all they have to walk them or bus them clear home and second of all they don’t have much space to store them, so they don’t buy too many at once. In the countryside, we see every little nook and cranny, being used for growing something. They are even growing corn in the side banks of creeks and ditches.
The Laundry System
Okay, the washing machine is not like the ones we have in the U.S. First, you check to make sure the drain mechanism is on the plug option. This was a difficult concept to figure out at first since all of the labeling is in Chinese. Once the drain is plugged and the water hose is hooked up from the sink to the machine, you turn on the water in the sink and fill up the machine. There is no water heater in that room, so we’re only operating with cold. We’re okay with that, we appreciate what we can get. While it s filling with water, you can add clothes and soap. Once it is all full, you turn it on the “slosh cycle” which turns the load one way and then stops and then turns the load the other way and stops, sloshing back and forth for a period of fifteen minutes. Once that time is done, you drain the water by turning to the appropriate Chinese word. Then you plug the drain again and fill back up to rinse. The drain goes into a Chinese “hover toilet” which is below the machine. The rinse portion needs to be repeated a couple of times to ensure the soap is removed. Next, the clothes are moved from right side to the left side of the machine for the “spin cycle.” The left side of the machine is the size of a small bucket. You pack the clothes in and turn it on. At first, the machine acts like it is going to topple over because it is out of balance, but it quickly balances itself out and then spins like crazy. If you run two, five-minute, cycles of the spinning the clothes are practically dry by the time they come out. We have a big string of twine hanging completely across our room where we hang our clothes for drying and then spray them with wrinkle releaser. It takes less than a day for them to dry.
Gaining Appreciation for Home
It is hard to explain the feelings one gets when leaving home and going to a foreign land for six weeks, but whether we admit it or not, there are things we miss from home. Further, there are things we look forward to and are excited about at home too. Sometimes, I think about coming home and all the things I want to do. I want to go get ice cream with Seth, my fiancé. I want to go see our friends and family. I want to simply get in my car and go somewhere. We are excited about being able to cook something as simple as frozen pizzas since we eat out every meal. It is amazing how a meal of American food perks us up. It is not like we are not having a good time and learning lots, because we are, but having a break from the constant Chinese culture for a cheeseburger and French fries does a group of American kids a lot of good. We miss being able to talk to our friends and family so easily, but we often say how nice it is not having a cell phone and not being with people with cell phones. We are able to focus on what we are doing and who we are with rather than calling or texting someone all the time. Plus, we don’t have to constantly check to see if we have it with us. We have often talked about what we are going to do when we get home. Ashley, Jessica, and I want to stop at a Taco Bell in Columbus upon our return. I am excited about doing anything when we get home. We have all these things we are looking forward to and we talked about how it will make us gain an appreciation for everything. We also talked about how a person could really gain from living life like it is your first day back from a foreign country. It will be exciting to see people for the first time, but what if we were that excited all the time. It will be a real treat to get a quesadilla from Applebee’s, but what if we looked forward to and appreciated stuff like that this much all the time. I know it isn’t possible to keep that level of excitement, but it is something to think about.
Learning!
There is no better way to learn about something than to go see it and immerse oneself in the experience. What a neat way to learn! No matter where you look, there are people who are a prime example of the things we are learning in class. Also, there are always people answer questions and explain the things we are seeing. While here, we are required to write research papers and give presentations about certain topics to our classmates. It will be great to learn from the key points each of us picked out of our research. Interestingly, I have found there is so much information about any topic you could imagine on the internet. Of course, I knew that before, but if a person just took the time to read some articles or research a topic, one could learn so much.
The Friendliness of the Chinese People
We have been in China for four weeks and I cannot recall one time that we have been treated poorly or as undesirable. Everyone has been extremely friendly to us. I realize that in most places all over the world, people are friendly, but the citizens of China and particularly Beijing, have gone above and beyond. First of all, the people at our school, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, have done so much for us. The students take us on field trips every weekend, spending their entire Saturday with us. They love to practice their English and hang on our every word. I know they are interested in our culture and are gaining from being with us, but they are so friendly. DongFang, our coordinator from China, is extremely friendly. She has a motherly element to her, but she is also like a sister or a friend. It is common for Chinese people to put their arms around each other and even hold hands. They are not doing this in any sort of romantic way; it is just a way they show friendly love to each other. I usually sit near the front of the bus and DongFang often puts her hand on mine or on my legs when she is making an announcement or explaining something we are doing. She and Mrs. Mao invited us into their homes and Mrs. Nia took our entire group to lunch. They love to be welcoming. Strangers say hello to us and love to find out where we are from. They smile big when they serve us our Big Macs and French fries at McDonalds and greet us with a knowing nod when we walk into the gates of the campus. We often need someone to write down where we need to go in Chinese and then utilize a taxi to get to the destination. Often the drivers take us right to the place and point to the exact building or entrance we need. If we can’t find it once there, we can show the paper to anyone and they’ll point us in the right direction. Once, we were looking for an Olympic store in a mall and showed the paper to someone and the guy responded saying, “I’ll take you.” He walked us halfway through the mall, right to the store. I don’t think a very high percentage of Americans would do something like that for a group of Chinese kids. The Chinese people are great!
We are having an amazing time and learning so much in China. I know I will reflect on this experience for the remainder of my life. China and the Chinese people affect every aspect of our world and I feel grateful to be seeing their culture and country in person.
The Olympics
Holy cow! From first stepping off the plane to climbing the Great Wall to going on a bus tour of the Olympic venues, we have definitely seen the impact the 2008 Olympics has had and will have on this city! It is extremely difficult not to catch the Olympic spirit. There are signs EVERYWHERE that say, “Beijing 2008” or “One World. One Dream.” People are constantly working to prepare. We have seen people planting flowers and trees at all hours of the day and night. Seriously, we have seen people planting flowers on Saturday night at midnight. Beijing and China want to showcase to the rest of the world the wonders of their city. There are thousands of trees planted EVERYWHERE and they have gigantic teepee-style support systems on them. There is extensive landscaping that was just recently put in nearly all of the medians. We learned on our Olympic tour that they will be eliminating half of the cars by only allowing odd or even license plate numbers on the road every other day. We learned that they will have everything prepared by July 20th. It seems like just last night they put up more signs all over the city on the overpass crosswalks saying, “Welcome” and the theme. They have also recently put up more actual road signs directing people to the venues. On the inside lane of traffic they have painted big Olympic rings, indicating that starting on a certain date, only cars with Olympic passes can drive in that lane. Even in the subways lanes, we have seen paintings of Olympic Characters on the track walls. DongFang has told us that the prices of tours and special attractions have gone up as well. This city is ready for the Olympics and we are so excited to be here during their preparation. It will be neat to see how much Beijing transforms while we travel to Inner Mongolia next week.
Construction
There is so much construction going on within this city. I am not sure if it is the Olympics or just general growth of a city of about 20 million, but there is always something being built. We see lots of big cranes behind the guardrail fence type things on the side of the road. We have been informed that wherever we see one of those, it is likely that a subway line is going in there. There are skyscraper buildings ALL OVER THE PLACE. Many of them are apartment complexes and others are office buildings for major businesses. Since many of the people from the countryside come to Beijing as some type of migrant worker, they are willing to work all hours of the day and night for whatever money they can get. On the west side of the campus we have watched a big, somewhat elaborate gate being built. It is amazing to see what can be accomplished by lots of people working around the clock seven days a week.
The Economics of It All
1.3 Billion people live here. My main reason for coming on this trip was to learn about how in the world they feed and provide for the needs of all of those people. After being here for a month, I have even more of an interest in studying economics. It is flat out fascinating. Everything here is so cheap. I can’t get over how cheap it is. We go out to eat basically every meal and never spend over $3 or $4 and most times it is more like $1. I realize that most of the people here have very little money so they really cannot pay for too much, but I would think that with so much demand, the prices would have to be higher than what they are. I guess I have never noticed a lack of supply. Everything is available and right at their finger tips. Furthermore, everything any American could want can be found in Beijing. Of course, they have McDonalds, KFC, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut, Dominos, and Starbucks, plus any other fast food joint, but you can get also whatever you would ever need from stores like Wal-Mart (they have at least one here) or the Nike store or wherever. The place is amazing.
Transportation
The way people get around here is yet another amazing characteristic of China as a whole. Where do I begin? Okay, well first of all, most people walk to a lot of the places they are going. When we go jogging in the mornings we pass hundreds (and I do mean hundreds if not thousands) of people walking to work, school, or wherever. On the main roads they have a designated bike lane that is as wide as a side street in Columbus. People ride half motorized, half pedal, big tricycle-like bikes that they haul everything from flats of toilet paper to big cart loads of produce like watermelons. They ride a smaller, but more powerful tricycle thing to haul big jugs of drinking water and in the tourist areas, people. We see lots and lots of normal bicycles all over the place. People ride those in the bike lanes too and there are often people one or two passengers riding on them. There are taxis available at all times here. All we have to do is walk out of the building or venue we are visiting and look around and we’ll quickly be able to hail a taxi. Most times, the trip only costs an average of 28 Yuan which is about four dollars and when you split that by four people it amounts to a ride across town for basically a dollar. You cannot get that anywhere in the United States. We learned in class that the taxis are subsidized by the government to combat the high fuel prices and that helps keep the price low. Still, the Chinese students rarely take taxi rides as they think it is took expensive. They prefer to take the subway or bus. I’ll talk about the bus first. The busing system is so very vast. There are buses that go all over the city. If you can figure out the routes, it isn’t a bad way to go considering it costs 1 Yuan to get on which is 15 cents. The citizens here carry bus cards that they can add money to, but each time we get on a bus we just pay our money and the lady manning the money booth (yes, they have an extra employee doing this) gives us a ticket. The buses do get pretty crowded and sometimes we have to stand for a whole thirty minute stop and go ride, but it gets us to our destination. When we go on field trips, we see morning commuters jam packed onto buses and I become even more thankful for the nice air conditioned bus China Baba (I am not sure if I am spelling that correctly but Baba means father) drives us around in. I have ridden the subway twice now. That is another interesting experience to highlight. The subway system is complex, but very useful and they are expanding it to be even better. The subways do become rather crowded and you have to watch your stuff for pick pocketing, but that is all part of the experience. On a subway it is extremely rare to get a seat. We have learned from our lecturers and the Chinese students that it is nothing for Chinese people to ride the train for a couple days to get across the country. On Monday we will ride the train for ten hours so we will see how that mode of transportation is compared to the rest of the country. Oh yea, some people have cars too, but it is usually only one car per family.
Guards Everywhere!
There’s this element of safety that occurs in China. First of all, there are people everywhere so if someone wanted to do something, they’re bound to be caught. We (Jessica, Ashley, and I) go jogging nearly everyday and I have never felt in danger at all. In the U.S., I feel like you have to watch yourself at all times. With all these people around, you are just fine. Also, somewhat similar to how there multiple times more people working than we would have anywhere you go, there are guards and police men everywhere. There are guards at the gates to the campus. There are guards standing by big parking lot entrance arms, manually pushing down on the other end of the lever every time the arm needs to go up. There a guards milling around all of the busy areas. We saw police men at every block when we walked quite a distance one Sunday afternoon. The thing is, these guards to not act completely official or serious like guards in uniform in the United States would. When they march together, they do not always walk in straight rows or separate themselves evenly. They smile, talk, and laugh with each other while on duty. We learned in class that many young men come from the countryside to serve as guards because it is one of the only ways to get into the city unless you make it into the university. It is those people we are seeing posing as guards around the city.
Blonde Hair/Americans
Anywhere we go, we get stared at. People quickly pick us out as foreigners and then watch us and even stop to talk to us. We’ve been many places where they’ve stopped and asked Jessica or Ashley to get pictures with them. Their blonde hair pulls them right in. DongFang told us the reason they do that is that they are likely traveling as well and they want to be able to show their family back home a picture of a real, live American. Specifically at the Great Wall, several families stopped and asked Jessica for a picture.
Spitting
Before coming to China, I’d heard and Melissa had told us about how the Chinese and/or the Olympic committee were trying to get people to quit spitting/hacking before the Olympics. I have to admit, I hardly believed it would be a big deal. Boy, was I wrong. People hack up big wads of spit and let it loose whenever they feel like it. I realize they are breathing in lots of smog and that dusty air eventually gets to you, but geepers creepers, with everyone hacking up a big loogie, you are reminded of the habit at least once an hour. It is not just men that do this spitting either. Women and children of all ages can be found throwing one out. They do it from the bus window, from their bicycle, in the middle of a crowded street, just anywhere. It’s true! They spit!
The Prevalence of English
The children are taught English in school, so many people know at least a few words. However, most people are almost afraid to use it, even if they know it. Some can carry on a conversation with you with no mistakes and then say, “Sorry, my English is poor.” I don’t know if they are fishing for a compliment or what, but they’ve got it. Lots of children have ran up to our group and said simply, “Hello.” Many times, we then say, “Hello. How are you?” They quickly respond back the memorized answer they have from school, “Fine. Thank you.” Lots of the English they learn is of the British style so they often use the word, “quite.” I remember one concern Ashley had before coming here was that we’d see signs all over and have no idea what they said. The thing is, many times where English translations right next to the signs are. Many people at least are able to use their basic numbers to they can say how old they are or how many people work at a certain place and others know a lot more. Some people simply stop us and want to talk to us on the bus or at McDonalds so that they can practice their English. They even have places here called, “English Corner” where people just gather at a corn of a street to practice English with each other. It makes me wonder why the Chinese know so much English, but such a small percentage of Americans know Chinese. I know that it is because the Chinese want to come to America since there is so much competition for jobs here as well as a host of other reasons, but it is for sure interesting to watch their investment in English.
Six Outerbelts
Look at a map of any big city, and it’s likely you’ll find an outerbelt highway going around it. In Columbus we have 270. In Indianapolis, it is 465. In Beijing, they have six of these, and they are called, “Ring Roads.” Square miles wise, Beijing is not that much bigger than Columbus with all of its suburbs, but these ring roads make it easier for people to get around. The first ring is in the center and it goes out all the way to the sixth ring which is nearly in the countryside. I think we live between the fourth and fifth ring.
Space
The people of Beijing have little space in nearly all situations. We have been to Mrs. Mao’s and DongFang’s homes and both are nice apartments. I’ve mentioned before that there are skyscrapers of apartments EVERYWHERE. No where in the city can you look around and not see a gigantic apartment complex. The people have to live somewhere, and they do not have much space at all. Since they do not have yards, they spend a lot of leisure time in the parks, but the parks quickly fill up as well. Always, there are lots and lots of people walking in the streets. Sometimes, when I am running, I’ll tell myself, “Okay, I’ll count until I cross paths with 100 people and then I’ll stop.” That doesn’t take long at all so then I usually have to start over. There is no space on the buses or subway for much wiggle room. Things are just tight. When people buy groceries, first of all they have to walk them or bus them clear home and second of all they don’t have much space to store them, so they don’t buy too many at once. In the countryside, we see every little nook and cranny, being used for growing something. They are even growing corn in the side banks of creeks and ditches.
The Laundry System
Okay, the washing machine is not like the ones we have in the U.S. First, you check to make sure the drain mechanism is on the plug option. This was a difficult concept to figure out at first since all of the labeling is in Chinese. Once the drain is plugged and the water hose is hooked up from the sink to the machine, you turn on the water in the sink and fill up the machine. There is no water heater in that room, so we’re only operating with cold. We’re okay with that, we appreciate what we can get. While it s filling with water, you can add clothes and soap. Once it is all full, you turn it on the “slosh cycle” which turns the load one way and then stops and then turns the load the other way and stops, sloshing back and forth for a period of fifteen minutes. Once that time is done, you drain the water by turning to the appropriate Chinese word. Then you plug the drain again and fill back up to rinse. The drain goes into a Chinese “hover toilet” which is below the machine. The rinse portion needs to be repeated a couple of times to ensure the soap is removed. Next, the clothes are moved from right side to the left side of the machine for the “spin cycle.” The left side of the machine is the size of a small bucket. You pack the clothes in and turn it on. At first, the machine acts like it is going to topple over because it is out of balance, but it quickly balances itself out and then spins like crazy. If you run two, five-minute, cycles of the spinning the clothes are practically dry by the time they come out. We have a big string of twine hanging completely across our room where we hang our clothes for drying and then spray them with wrinkle releaser. It takes less than a day for them to dry.
Gaining Appreciation for Home
It is hard to explain the feelings one gets when leaving home and going to a foreign land for six weeks, but whether we admit it or not, there are things we miss from home. Further, there are things we look forward to and are excited about at home too. Sometimes, I think about coming home and all the things I want to do. I want to go get ice cream with Seth, my fiancé. I want to go see our friends and family. I want to simply get in my car and go somewhere. We are excited about being able to cook something as simple as frozen pizzas since we eat out every meal. It is amazing how a meal of American food perks us up. It is not like we are not having a good time and learning lots, because we are, but having a break from the constant Chinese culture for a cheeseburger and French fries does a group of American kids a lot of good. We miss being able to talk to our friends and family so easily, but we often say how nice it is not having a cell phone and not being with people with cell phones. We are able to focus on what we are doing and who we are with rather than calling or texting someone all the time. Plus, we don’t have to constantly check to see if we have it with us. We have often talked about what we are going to do when we get home. Ashley, Jessica, and I want to stop at a Taco Bell in Columbus upon our return. I am excited about doing anything when we get home. We have all these things we are looking forward to and we talked about how it will make us gain an appreciation for everything. We also talked about how a person could really gain from living life like it is your first day back from a foreign country. It will be exciting to see people for the first time, but what if we were that excited all the time. It will be a real treat to get a quesadilla from Applebee’s, but what if we looked forward to and appreciated stuff like that this much all the time. I know it isn’t possible to keep that level of excitement, but it is something to think about.
Learning!
There is no better way to learn about something than to go see it and immerse oneself in the experience. What a neat way to learn! No matter where you look, there are people who are a prime example of the things we are learning in class. Also, there are always people answer questions and explain the things we are seeing. While here, we are required to write research papers and give presentations about certain topics to our classmates. It will be great to learn from the key points each of us picked out of our research. Interestingly, I have found there is so much information about any topic you could imagine on the internet. Of course, I knew that before, but if a person just took the time to read some articles or research a topic, one could learn so much.
The Friendliness of the Chinese People
We have been in China for four weeks and I cannot recall one time that we have been treated poorly or as undesirable. Everyone has been extremely friendly to us. I realize that in most places all over the world, people are friendly, but the citizens of China and particularly Beijing, have gone above and beyond. First of all, the people at our school, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, have done so much for us. The students take us on field trips every weekend, spending their entire Saturday with us. They love to practice their English and hang on our every word. I know they are interested in our culture and are gaining from being with us, but they are so friendly. DongFang, our coordinator from China, is extremely friendly. She has a motherly element to her, but she is also like a sister or a friend. It is common for Chinese people to put their arms around each other and even hold hands. They are not doing this in any sort of romantic way; it is just a way they show friendly love to each other. I usually sit near the front of the bus and DongFang often puts her hand on mine or on my legs when she is making an announcement or explaining something we are doing. She and Mrs. Mao invited us into their homes and Mrs. Nia took our entire group to lunch. They love to be welcoming. Strangers say hello to us and love to find out where we are from. They smile big when they serve us our Big Macs and French fries at McDonalds and greet us with a knowing nod when we walk into the gates of the campus. We often need someone to write down where we need to go in Chinese and then utilize a taxi to get to the destination. Often the drivers take us right to the place and point to the exact building or entrance we need. If we can’t find it once there, we can show the paper to anyone and they’ll point us in the right direction. Once, we were looking for an Olympic store in a mall and showed the paper to someone and the guy responded saying, “I’ll take you.” He walked us halfway through the mall, right to the store. I don’t think a very high percentage of Americans would do something like that for a group of Chinese kids. The Chinese people are great!
We are having an amazing time and learning so much in China. I know I will reflect on this experience for the remainder of my life. China and the Chinese people affect every aspect of our world and I feel grateful to be seeing their culture and country in person.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
If I ever come back to China, this place will be on the list!
June 28, 2008- Saturday
We got up and went for a jog before our Chinese Student Led field trip for the week. Last week we drew numbers to see what groups we would have and this week we just counted off into three groups of five. Andy (some of the Chinese students introduce themselves using the English name they have given themselves or a grade school teacher gave them- it is far easier that way) and Chang were the group leaders for our group. Jessica, Deryck, Johanna, Greg, and I were in a group(although none of the pictures have Deryck in them because he refused to get pictures with us for some reason) and with the rest of the group we walked to the bus stop. When the proper bus came, Andy told us to get on. We paid 1 Yuan, which is about 15 cents to ride the bus and it was extremely full especially by the time we made it to the Summer Palace. The weather was a lot nicer than our trip to the Forbidden City the previous week and the area was quite crowded. We paid 50.00 Yuan (less than $10.00) for a ticket inside and started our adventure.
The Summer Palace was a seasonal imperial retreat from the stifling confines of the Forbidden City. It was the favorite haunt of the fierce some Empress Cixi, who had it rebuilt twice: once following its destruction by French and English troops in 1860 and again in 1902 , after it was plundered during the Boxer Rebellion. It was absolutely beautiful and will be the place I will for sure return to if I ever come back here. It had elaborate buildings, similar to the Forbidden City and plenty of what I assume to be brass decorations. There were walkways and paths all over the place and they were full of people from all over the world. Greg bought a map and Andy and Chang led us through the whole place. We sat down inside one courtyard area and watched a few artsy performances of singing, dancing, and instruments. The performers were wearing very colorful and exquisite costumes. We walked up and down big flights of stairs looking at all sorts of buildings. We walked up and around paths through a woods area that was absolutely beautiful. Everything right down to the sidewalks was decorated with detail. We had to use our ticket to get into certain parts of the palace. One part was a shopping area that was built for the dynasty years ago and is still for shopping today. There was a huge lake with all kinds of boats on it. In fact, visitors could pay money to go on a boat ride, but we didn’t because Andy and Chang wouldn’t let us pay for them if we asked and we didn’t want them to have to pay to ride it. My favorite part of the whole day was all of the lily pads that were on the lakes. It seemed like they just went on forever and they were absolutely beautiful!
There was a long corridor, which was basically like a never ending gazebo path that has over 14,000 paintings on its beams and ceilings. We walked over a bridge to a center island that has seventeen arches and has a large bronze ox on it from 1755. There are marble lions all along both sides of the bridge. There was also a big marble boat that was paid for by Cixi with funds meant for the Imperial Navy. The entire area was 170 acres and I do believe we walked the whole thing. We were there for six hours total, and I loved ever minute of it. It was gorgeous.
Eventually we boarded the bus to come home, thanked Andy and Chang for leading us, and went into our hotel to relax. Not all of the groups were back yet, but eventually they trickled in. We rested until about 9:00 p.m. and then went to check out some Beijing night life. Getting somewhere is always an adventure here. From the last time we tried to go to the “Silk Market” area, we had two of the four slips of paper that had “Silk Market” written in Chinese. We went to the road and hailed taxis, showing the driver of two of the cars the paper and sending them off and then keeping the two papers for the last two cars. Juan, Nick, and I were in the same taxi and low and behold, the guy took us to the same wrong “Silk Market” that Ashe, Jess, Mark, and I had been separated from the group at before. Juan had been to the correct one so she knew we were clearly in the wrong place. DongFang had the place marked on the map last time, but it is my theory that it is the wrong spot as well because as soon as we got it out, he took us to the wrong place. Nevertheless, we piled out, paid our total of 50 Yuan (less than $10.00 total) and starting walking. We walked past a lot of people out enjoying the night life, but knew we were for sure in the wrong place. We just kept walking.
Eventually, we got to a darker side of town and I told Juan that we needed to get a taxi and try again. Right then, we found 300 Yuan (about $15.00 each). Soon we got a taxi and started be-bopping across town again. Finally, Juan started to notice things that looked familiar. Eventually, she told the driver to pull over and we all piled out yet again. This time we paid about $3.00 Yuan each which is about 45 cents. We started walking toward where Juan thought the people would be. I spotted Ashe and Jess with Paige at the street corner across the road and Juan shouted to them. We all were excited that we finally found each other. The led us to the place the rest of the group was at and we sat at tables outside and marveled at the number of Europeans and Americans that were gallivanting around this area. Eventually, by simply showing the taxi driver DongFang’s business card we all got taxis back home and called it a night.
We got up and went for a jog before our Chinese Student Led field trip for the week. Last week we drew numbers to see what groups we would have and this week we just counted off into three groups of five. Andy (some of the Chinese students introduce themselves using the English name they have given themselves or a grade school teacher gave them- it is far easier that way) and Chang were the group leaders for our group. Jessica, Deryck, Johanna, Greg, and I were in a group(although none of the pictures have Deryck in them because he refused to get pictures with us for some reason) and with the rest of the group we walked to the bus stop. When the proper bus came, Andy told us to get on. We paid 1 Yuan, which is about 15 cents to ride the bus and it was extremely full especially by the time we made it to the Summer Palace. The weather was a lot nicer than our trip to the Forbidden City the previous week and the area was quite crowded. We paid 50.00 Yuan (less than $10.00) for a ticket inside and started our adventure.
The Summer Palace was a seasonal imperial retreat from the stifling confines of the Forbidden City. It was the favorite haunt of the fierce some Empress Cixi, who had it rebuilt twice: once following its destruction by French and English troops in 1860 and again in 1902 , after it was plundered during the Boxer Rebellion. It was absolutely beautiful and will be the place I will for sure return to if I ever come back here. It had elaborate buildings, similar to the Forbidden City and plenty of what I assume to be brass decorations. There were walkways and paths all over the place and they were full of people from all over the world. Greg bought a map and Andy and Chang led us through the whole place. We sat down inside one courtyard area and watched a few artsy performances of singing, dancing, and instruments. The performers were wearing very colorful and exquisite costumes. We walked up and down big flights of stairs looking at all sorts of buildings. We walked up and around paths through a woods area that was absolutely beautiful. Everything right down to the sidewalks was decorated with detail. We had to use our ticket to get into certain parts of the palace. One part was a shopping area that was built for the dynasty years ago and is still for shopping today. There was a huge lake with all kinds of boats on it. In fact, visitors could pay money to go on a boat ride, but we didn’t because Andy and Chang wouldn’t let us pay for them if we asked and we didn’t want them to have to pay to ride it. My favorite part of the whole day was all of the lily pads that were on the lakes. It seemed like they just went on forever and they were absolutely beautiful!
There was a long corridor, which was basically like a never ending gazebo path that has over 14,000 paintings on its beams and ceilings. We walked over a bridge to a center island that has seventeen arches and has a large bronze ox on it from 1755. There are marble lions all along both sides of the bridge. There was also a big marble boat that was paid for by Cixi with funds meant for the Imperial Navy. The entire area was 170 acres and I do believe we walked the whole thing. We were there for six hours total, and I loved ever minute of it. It was gorgeous.
Eventually we boarded the bus to come home, thanked Andy and Chang for leading us, and went into our hotel to relax. Not all of the groups were back yet, but eventually they trickled in. We rested until about 9:00 p.m. and then went to check out some Beijing night life. Getting somewhere is always an adventure here. From the last time we tried to go to the “Silk Market” area, we had two of the four slips of paper that had “Silk Market” written in Chinese. We went to the road and hailed taxis, showing the driver of two of the cars the paper and sending them off and then keeping the two papers for the last two cars. Juan, Nick, and I were in the same taxi and low and behold, the guy took us to the same wrong “Silk Market” that Ashe, Jess, Mark, and I had been separated from the group at before. Juan had been to the correct one so she knew we were clearly in the wrong place. DongFang had the place marked on the map last time, but it is my theory that it is the wrong spot as well because as soon as we got it out, he took us to the wrong place. Nevertheless, we piled out, paid our total of 50 Yuan (less than $10.00 total) and starting walking. We walked past a lot of people out enjoying the night life, but knew we were for sure in the wrong place. We just kept walking.
Eventually, we got to a darker side of town and I told Juan that we needed to get a taxi and try again. Right then, we found 300 Yuan (about $15.00 each). Soon we got a taxi and started be-bopping across town again. Finally, Juan started to notice things that looked familiar. Eventually, she told the driver to pull over and we all piled out yet again. This time we paid about $3.00 Yuan each which is about 45 cents. We started walking toward where Juan thought the people would be. I spotted Ashe and Jess with Paige at the street corner across the road and Juan shouted to them. We all were excited that we finally found each other. The led us to the place the rest of the group was at and we sat at tables outside and marveled at the number of Europeans and Americans that were gallivanting around this area. Eventually, by simply showing the taxi driver DongFang’s business card we all got taxis back home and called it a night.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
U.S. Embassy, Birthdays, and a Party!
June 27, 2008- Friday
We woke up early and went for a run and then prepared to visit the U.S. Embassy. We knew that we were going to be talking to the people from the Foreign Ag Service, but when the two van loads of us arrived there, we were actually at the Foreign Ag Service office building. A graduate student in Agricultural Economics from California was the one to give a presentation on what the FAS office does. She’s been in China off and on for a couple of years researching the issues with water quality. She was fascinating! She showed many power point slides about agricultural issues facing China, America, and the rest of the world.
Our visit to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the United States Embassy gave us some interesting insight into the demographics of Chinese agriculture and foreign trade. The Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Embassy is in all of the key countries and even in other cities in China. They do a lot of background research for the United States, looking at what happens in China and how it will affect American agriculture. The USDA has 45 employees in China and that is our largest overseas presence. There are offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
With all of the arable land in China that can be used, being used, they have to find better ways to feed the people. Agriculture here contributes 11 percent of the GDP, industry is 49.5% and services is 39.5%. Agriculture in China employs 43% of the labor force. Here there are 10 people to feed per hectare of arable land, which is more than twice the world average of 4.4. We have learned in class about the reform that occurred in Chinese agriculture in 1978 when the process went from the commune system to individual farmers. This bestowed ownership, investment, and interest on the farmers causing them to be more productive and benefit much more from their work. Compared to the commune system, where they were paid the same amount no matter how hard they worked or how much was produced, the farmers are in a much better position. Renee said that there are 680 million people farming on those small plots of land. The major challenge comes when those people need to stay satisfied, sustained, and employed, but their efficiency needs to be increased. Her statement was that it is not possible in China to consolidate the small plots of land covering the gigantic landscape. The land is contracted by the provinces to the farmers for 30 years at a time and those contracts will probably be passed down to family members at the end of those 30 years. The state doesn’t just come in and take it; it goes to the next generation. The people cannot afford to buy tools and in rural areas they are starting to encourage farm cooperatives, but people do not go for it. It is starting to work in wealthy areas, but the piece of land each farmer has is the only thing they have. If they trust other people and combine their land, they are risking everything.
Many American companies have market share in China. A key point that our host, Renee, hit on was that water scarcity issues is a main problem for Chinese agriculture. She said that John Deere, an American owned company, is the 3rd largest irrigation systems producer in the world. They are able to sell their irrigation products here and they would like to be able to sell machinery, but with the plots of land being so small, the farmers are not able to afford it or use it practically. Another company she talked about was Tyson foods. She said that with 1.3 billion people to feed, the quality chicken and pork that Tyson produces definitely performs well in the market.
Renee reminded us that for the last ten years, China’s Gross Domestic Product growth has been above 10% per year. This is causing huge growth in the middle class, and as more people start having more money, they are buying more meat. The spike in the interest for meat causes an increase in the need for grain. The people of China would like to produce almost 100% of the food they consume, but it is just not possible for them to produce enough with all of those mouths to feed. Of the Chinese average household income, 66% goes to pay for food consumed whereas in the United States 10% of the income goes to pay for food. Even though China is the world’s largest producer, they are the worlds largest demand by volume of food. As the prices around the world go up, this income percentage for Chinese citizens is even higher. The United State import deficit with China is at 27%, meaning we import 27% less from China than what they do from us. Currently, the country of China says that they do not produce any genetically modified foods. They may have to resort to this measure as they look to increase the amount of food they produce. Many of the soybeans that they import from the United States are likely genetically modified and most of them go to feed Chinese livestock.
The Chinese have a huge market for pork as 47% of the entire world’s pork is consumed here. However, they are not accepting any pork at this time from the United States because of a feed additive they are concerned about. Furthermore, the Sichuan province which was the one affected by the earthquake, was the largest producer of pork in the country. As the price of pork goes up with the lack of imports from the U.S. and the decrease of production from the Sichuan province, the Chinese will have to further sacrifice their income for food. United States beef has not come to China since 2002 because of their fear of Mad Cow Disease.
The Chinese are able to make some income as a result of some of their exports. They are the largest exporter of aquatics to the United States and although their apples do not come in as apples they do come in as juice. China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of Apple Juice!
Although more and more people in the rural areas and 131 million transit workers in urban areas are consuming more protein, the people in rural areas such as Inner Mongolia do not have refrigerators so they only get their protein one day a week. The Foreign Agriculture Service works to improve agricultural mechanization, post harvest treatment, and distribution to insure better life for the people of China and a better connection between China and the United States. No where else in the world is there a market like China. The citizens are ready to consume more value added products and we as a United States producer of food, need to be ready to be competitive people in the market. Renee touched on the fact that since in China they are only allowed one child per family, the one child is provided with whatever they want and need, causing obesity concerns for the current generation.
In 1995, the Chinese producers were exporting soybeans now they are huge importers. As time goes on, that will probably happen with other grains. Imagine if it does!
As consumers in China become more educated they are demanding Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) and with a large percentage of the Chinese consumer expenditure spent on dining out, there are become more and more regulations on food preparation in restaurants.
When I asked Renee about the Chinese stance on renewable fuels, she said that they started production of corn based ethanol, but capped it rather recently because of the inflation prices. They are looking at other sources such as methanol production from animal waste.
When Melissa asked about their methods of educating the public and the producers on agriculture Renee told us that most of the farmers cannot read so they have a TV channel that shows agricultural news and recommended practices. When a question came up about Sustainability, Renee told us that the public is concerned, but it is pretty challenging since this is the country where everything in the world is produced. Pollution is such a big player in this game of protecting the environment.
Renee gave us her business card so that we could email her with questions as we start to prepare for our final papers and on the way out I asked her if she’d be able to email us the power point if we emailed her. I had taken notes, but I knew I didn’t catch all of it. She said that reminded her she wanted to give us the power point on CD’s and in hard print! Yes!
We came back for lunch and decided to try the Chinese fast food place that isn’t very far from our campus at all. We run by it almost every morning. It was okay. All that I ordered was rice, but the stuff other people got didn’t look that good. For example, Nick got some kind of chicken soup type stuff that still had a foot of the chicken and the head in it. He worked around those items. It didn’t matter how our lunch was as we stopped at a bakery on the way home and snagged some good eats. Ashe got a slice of a strawberry cake and I got chocolate. It wasn’t your normal cake either- it had chunks of fruit in it, but it was good.
Our afternoon class was the agricultural portion of our curriculum. Nia talked about irrigation has the highest return on investment compared to most other agricultural input costs. You know, we hear so many different numbers from different tearchers and field trips, but they are all usually about the same. She said, that with 10% of the world’s arable land, China feeds 22% of the world population. She hit on the fact that intellectual property rights prohibit seed U.S. seed from being sold in China. I am not sure if that is right or not. I know that intellectual property rights prohibit anyone from being able to save seed from their own crop and plant it the next year rather than buying new from a company, but since another teacher told us that companies such as Pioneer and Monsanto are prevalent here, I would think that their seed would be sold here.
Earlier in the day, DangFong said we would be going to a restaurant for Nick’s birthday that night and then informed us that it was also her birthday! She led us down the street from our hotel to a restaurant we had been at before. This is where we had previously eaten the roast duck. We separated into two tables as we had our whole group, DangFong and her son, and Sarah, the World Food Prize student from Iowa who is studying here and going with us on our touristy excursions. DangFong did all of the ordering and once again, platefuls of food came out one right after the next and were placed on the lazy Susans in the middle of our table. Some of the food included: a dish of celery and onions cooked in some sort of sauce, sprouts, a cabbage salad type thing, a couple of different types of soup including an fish one that had the head of the fish in it, some different chicken dishes, Beijing roast duck, and some other stuff that I cannot remember. Another dish that was thrown in there was corn that tasted like corn puffs coated in sugar and served with a sugary sauce. It was great. After we had stuffed ourselves with this food, DongFang pulled out an elaborate box with a big ribbon on it. She instructed Nick to cut the ribbon off and inside we found more food, a cake! It was huge and lived up to the Chinese reputation of exquisitely decorated food. We all ooo and awed over it and then we sang “Happy Birthday” to Nick and DangFong. I think she really enjoyed it. They cut the cake up for all of us and even though the pieces were huge the bakery only provided small serving plates. Also, since they have no forks in China, the bakery provided small little forks you might use to pick up a strawberry with for fondue. It was fun trying to eat the cake that way. Eventually, we resorted to chopsticks. We insisted to DongFang that we pay as it was an American tradition to do so on someone’s birthday and we were not letting her pay for all of that food we just ate. I think she appreciated that as well. She’s great.
That evening we were to go to a party hosted by the Chinese students. Our dinner with DangFong ran over, making us about 45 minutes late to the party, but it worked out just fine. Greg, one of our tour mates, was the representative from our group to MC the event and they had a representative do the same. I think most of us expected the event to be in a similar classroom to the one we had been gathering in and that we’d do similar type things as the previous two days. Boy, were we wrong. We climbed the stairs to the top floor to find a big room filled with chairs around the outer edges and tables covered with all kinds of pop and snacks. There was a stage, dance party lights, and they were blaring “Backstreet Boys,” a mid-90’s American pop music group that we have heard a lot of here. The only thing missing was a disco ball. We walked in, looked at each other, and all thought to ourselves, “Let’s just go for it.” We spread ourselves out amongst the 50-60 Chinese students who were there and let the party begin! One of their students played a string type instrument and another one played a horn of some sort. Two of them sang a duet of the Olympic Theme Song, “Welcome to Beijing.” I will download that song when I get better internet, I love it! One of our girls, Johanna, taught simple ballet moves and it was so funny because the Chinese boys joined in. When that happened, Greg, our representative host, got on the microphone and encouraged the American boys to do the same. It was awesome to look around at their faces.
Paige led them in a popular American dance similar to the Cha Cha Slide, but I can’t think of it’s name. We played a few rounds of musical chairs and a couple of rounds of telephone spacing the Chinese and American students every other spot. We did it in two separate teams. The leader whispered the name of the school into the first Chinese student’s ear and he simply told the American student just tell them it is the name of the school. That is what we did and the info didn’t get messed up. Otherwise, I know we would have never made it. One of their students did some Tai Chi for us and another one did some martial arts moves with some num chucks. The entertainment was endless. The had us cut out Chinese the Chinese character for happiness from lines they had drawn on folded over paper (it was similar to making a paper snowflake). We handed out our CD’s and even though we didn’t have enough (we only had about 45) they agreed to share and seemed really excited about them. One guy asked what they were, which was odd since normally they seem pretty technologically advanced, but after some explaining he knew what to do with the. We did some more dances and the night was over.
We thanked them and headed to our hotel. We hung out in our rooms for a while, but didn’t get too rowdy because we had a big day trip to the Summer Palace the next day, a famous Beijing icon, the next day.
We woke up early and went for a run and then prepared to visit the U.S. Embassy. We knew that we were going to be talking to the people from the Foreign Ag Service, but when the two van loads of us arrived there, we were actually at the Foreign Ag Service office building. A graduate student in Agricultural Economics from California was the one to give a presentation on what the FAS office does. She’s been in China off and on for a couple of years researching the issues with water quality. She was fascinating! She showed many power point slides about agricultural issues facing China, America, and the rest of the world.
Our visit to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the United States Embassy gave us some interesting insight into the demographics of Chinese agriculture and foreign trade. The Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Embassy is in all of the key countries and even in other cities in China. They do a lot of background research for the United States, looking at what happens in China and how it will affect American agriculture. The USDA has 45 employees in China and that is our largest overseas presence. There are offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
With all of the arable land in China that can be used, being used, they have to find better ways to feed the people. Agriculture here contributes 11 percent of the GDP, industry is 49.5% and services is 39.5%. Agriculture in China employs 43% of the labor force. Here there are 10 people to feed per hectare of arable land, which is more than twice the world average of 4.4. We have learned in class about the reform that occurred in Chinese agriculture in 1978 when the process went from the commune system to individual farmers. This bestowed ownership, investment, and interest on the farmers causing them to be more productive and benefit much more from their work. Compared to the commune system, where they were paid the same amount no matter how hard they worked or how much was produced, the farmers are in a much better position. Renee said that there are 680 million people farming on those small plots of land. The major challenge comes when those people need to stay satisfied, sustained, and employed, but their efficiency needs to be increased. Her statement was that it is not possible in China to consolidate the small plots of land covering the gigantic landscape. The land is contracted by the provinces to the farmers for 30 years at a time and those contracts will probably be passed down to family members at the end of those 30 years. The state doesn’t just come in and take it; it goes to the next generation. The people cannot afford to buy tools and in rural areas they are starting to encourage farm cooperatives, but people do not go for it. It is starting to work in wealthy areas, but the piece of land each farmer has is the only thing they have. If they trust other people and combine their land, they are risking everything.
Many American companies have market share in China. A key point that our host, Renee, hit on was that water scarcity issues is a main problem for Chinese agriculture. She said that John Deere, an American owned company, is the 3rd largest irrigation systems producer in the world. They are able to sell their irrigation products here and they would like to be able to sell machinery, but with the plots of land being so small, the farmers are not able to afford it or use it practically. Another company she talked about was Tyson foods. She said that with 1.3 billion people to feed, the quality chicken and pork that Tyson produces definitely performs well in the market.
Renee reminded us that for the last ten years, China’s Gross Domestic Product growth has been above 10% per year. This is causing huge growth in the middle class, and as more people start having more money, they are buying more meat. The spike in the interest for meat causes an increase in the need for grain. The people of China would like to produce almost 100% of the food they consume, but it is just not possible for them to produce enough with all of those mouths to feed. Of the Chinese average household income, 66% goes to pay for food consumed whereas in the United States 10% of the income goes to pay for food. Even though China is the world’s largest producer, they are the worlds largest demand by volume of food. As the prices around the world go up, this income percentage for Chinese citizens is even higher. The United State import deficit with China is at 27%, meaning we import 27% less from China than what they do from us. Currently, the country of China says that they do not produce any genetically modified foods. They may have to resort to this measure as they look to increase the amount of food they produce. Many of the soybeans that they import from the United States are likely genetically modified and most of them go to feed Chinese livestock.
The Chinese have a huge market for pork as 47% of the entire world’s pork is consumed here. However, they are not accepting any pork at this time from the United States because of a feed additive they are concerned about. Furthermore, the Sichuan province which was the one affected by the earthquake, was the largest producer of pork in the country. As the price of pork goes up with the lack of imports from the U.S. and the decrease of production from the Sichuan province, the Chinese will have to further sacrifice their income for food. United States beef has not come to China since 2002 because of their fear of Mad Cow Disease.
The Chinese are able to make some income as a result of some of their exports. They are the largest exporter of aquatics to the United States and although their apples do not come in as apples they do come in as juice. China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of Apple Juice!
Although more and more people in the rural areas and 131 million transit workers in urban areas are consuming more protein, the people in rural areas such as Inner Mongolia do not have refrigerators so they only get their protein one day a week. The Foreign Agriculture Service works to improve agricultural mechanization, post harvest treatment, and distribution to insure better life for the people of China and a better connection between China and the United States. No where else in the world is there a market like China. The citizens are ready to consume more value added products and we as a United States producer of food, need to be ready to be competitive people in the market. Renee touched on the fact that since in China they are only allowed one child per family, the one child is provided with whatever they want and need, causing obesity concerns for the current generation.
In 1995, the Chinese producers were exporting soybeans now they are huge importers. As time goes on, that will probably happen with other grains. Imagine if it does!
As consumers in China become more educated they are demanding Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) and with a large percentage of the Chinese consumer expenditure spent on dining out, there are become more and more regulations on food preparation in restaurants.
When I asked Renee about the Chinese stance on renewable fuels, she said that they started production of corn based ethanol, but capped it rather recently because of the inflation prices. They are looking at other sources such as methanol production from animal waste.
When Melissa asked about their methods of educating the public and the producers on agriculture Renee told us that most of the farmers cannot read so they have a TV channel that shows agricultural news and recommended practices. When a question came up about Sustainability, Renee told us that the public is concerned, but it is pretty challenging since this is the country where everything in the world is produced. Pollution is such a big player in this game of protecting the environment.
Renee gave us her business card so that we could email her with questions as we start to prepare for our final papers and on the way out I asked her if she’d be able to email us the power point if we emailed her. I had taken notes, but I knew I didn’t catch all of it. She said that reminded her she wanted to give us the power point on CD’s and in hard print! Yes!
We came back for lunch and decided to try the Chinese fast food place that isn’t very far from our campus at all. We run by it almost every morning. It was okay. All that I ordered was rice, but the stuff other people got didn’t look that good. For example, Nick got some kind of chicken soup type stuff that still had a foot of the chicken and the head in it. He worked around those items. It didn’t matter how our lunch was as we stopped at a bakery on the way home and snagged some good eats. Ashe got a slice of a strawberry cake and I got chocolate. It wasn’t your normal cake either- it had chunks of fruit in it, but it was good.
Our afternoon class was the agricultural portion of our curriculum. Nia talked about irrigation has the highest return on investment compared to most other agricultural input costs. You know, we hear so many different numbers from different tearchers and field trips, but they are all usually about the same. She said, that with 10% of the world’s arable land, China feeds 22% of the world population. She hit on the fact that intellectual property rights prohibit seed U.S. seed from being sold in China. I am not sure if that is right or not. I know that intellectual property rights prohibit anyone from being able to save seed from their own crop and plant it the next year rather than buying new from a company, but since another teacher told us that companies such as Pioneer and Monsanto are prevalent here, I would think that their seed would be sold here.
Earlier in the day, DangFong said we would be going to a restaurant for Nick’s birthday that night and then informed us that it was also her birthday! She led us down the street from our hotel to a restaurant we had been at before. This is where we had previously eaten the roast duck. We separated into two tables as we had our whole group, DangFong and her son, and Sarah, the World Food Prize student from Iowa who is studying here and going with us on our touristy excursions. DangFong did all of the ordering and once again, platefuls of food came out one right after the next and were placed on the lazy Susans in the middle of our table. Some of the food included: a dish of celery and onions cooked in some sort of sauce, sprouts, a cabbage salad type thing, a couple of different types of soup including an fish one that had the head of the fish in it, some different chicken dishes, Beijing roast duck, and some other stuff that I cannot remember. Another dish that was thrown in there was corn that tasted like corn puffs coated in sugar and served with a sugary sauce. It was great. After we had stuffed ourselves with this food, DongFang pulled out an elaborate box with a big ribbon on it. She instructed Nick to cut the ribbon off and inside we found more food, a cake! It was huge and lived up to the Chinese reputation of exquisitely decorated food. We all ooo and awed over it and then we sang “Happy Birthday” to Nick and DangFong. I think she really enjoyed it. They cut the cake up for all of us and even though the pieces were huge the bakery only provided small serving plates. Also, since they have no forks in China, the bakery provided small little forks you might use to pick up a strawberry with for fondue. It was fun trying to eat the cake that way. Eventually, we resorted to chopsticks. We insisted to DongFang that we pay as it was an American tradition to do so on someone’s birthday and we were not letting her pay for all of that food we just ate. I think she appreciated that as well. She’s great.
That evening we were to go to a party hosted by the Chinese students. Our dinner with DangFong ran over, making us about 45 minutes late to the party, but it worked out just fine. Greg, one of our tour mates, was the representative from our group to MC the event and they had a representative do the same. I think most of us expected the event to be in a similar classroom to the one we had been gathering in and that we’d do similar type things as the previous two days. Boy, were we wrong. We climbed the stairs to the top floor to find a big room filled with chairs around the outer edges and tables covered with all kinds of pop and snacks. There was a stage, dance party lights, and they were blaring “Backstreet Boys,” a mid-90’s American pop music group that we have heard a lot of here. The only thing missing was a disco ball. We walked in, looked at each other, and all thought to ourselves, “Let’s just go for it.” We spread ourselves out amongst the 50-60 Chinese students who were there and let the party begin! One of their students played a string type instrument and another one played a horn of some sort. Two of them sang a duet of the Olympic Theme Song, “Welcome to Beijing.” I will download that song when I get better internet, I love it! One of our girls, Johanna, taught simple ballet moves and it was so funny because the Chinese boys joined in. When that happened, Greg, our representative host, got on the microphone and encouraged the American boys to do the same. It was awesome to look around at their faces.
Paige led them in a popular American dance similar to the Cha Cha Slide, but I can’t think of it’s name. We played a few rounds of musical chairs and a couple of rounds of telephone spacing the Chinese and American students every other spot. We did it in two separate teams. The leader whispered the name of the school into the first Chinese student’s ear and he simply told the American student just tell them it is the name of the school. That is what we did and the info didn’t get messed up. Otherwise, I know we would have never made it. One of their students did some Tai Chi for us and another one did some martial arts moves with some num chucks. The entertainment was endless. The had us cut out Chinese the Chinese character for happiness from lines they had drawn on folded over paper (it was similar to making a paper snowflake). We handed out our CD’s and even though we didn’t have enough (we only had about 45) they agreed to share and seemed really excited about them. One guy asked what they were, which was odd since normally they seem pretty technologically advanced, but after some explaining he knew what to do with the. We did some more dances and the night was over.
We thanked them and headed to our hotel. We hung out in our rooms for a while, but didn’t get too rowdy because we had a big day trip to the Summer Palace the next day, a famous Beijing icon, the next day.
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