Amanda's Adventures

My Agricultural Paper- Feeding or Fueling China

2008-07-20T01:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Agriculture Class and Volleyball

2008-07-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Our Tour Website

2008-07-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

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/

Hey there!

2008-07-13T16:41:00.001-07:00

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

Amazing Agriculture and Finding a Church

2008-07-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

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.

The Brewery, Crab Island, and Refugees

2008-07-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Environment and Education Class and "Hollywood"

2008-07-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

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.

The Beijing Zoo (Pandas) and the Underground City

2008-07-13T16:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Things I want to remember forever...

2008-07-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

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.

If I ever come back to China, this place will be on the list!

2008-07-05T18:34:00.001-07:00

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.

U.S. Embassy, Birthdays, and a Party!

2008-07-03T23:57:00.000-07:00

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.

A Big Day of Class and Hosting the Chinese Students for American Games

2008-07-02T23:31:00.000-07:00

June 26, 2008- Thursday

Again today we went for our morning run, got ready for class, and listened to the many wonders of Mrs. Mao. She showed us a picture of the American’s who helped the Chinese fight the Japanese invaders. She explained that when they crashed a plane, the farmers were rescued by some farmers. They walked the countryside and someone who knew what they needed wrote in Chinese on their backs where they needed to go so that people along the way could direct them. It said, “Help us fight the Japanese.” She also talked to us about western religion influence in China. She said that now there are more than 10 million believers who believe Jesus Christ died for them. She said that the churches are open to the public and they have communication with other countries-whatever that means. I am guessing it has to do with missions. She said that government people at all levels are believers and that Christians help the country by offering money and taking care of kids whose parents are incarcerated. She said that the believers go help these children and persuade them to believe. She said although she doesn’t believe, she has three bibles in her home that she has received as gifts and there are two teachers that she knows of at the school that do. She said some young couples get married at the church and that people go to church to sing and praise. She said she knows of at least seven churches in Beijing. She informed us that those who live in the countryside mostly believe in Buddhism. Although Mrs. Mao is not a believer, she did an excellent job telling us of the presence of what she called, “Western Religion” in China. I hope though that she doesn’t think that all people from the Western Hemisphere and specifically America are Christians. If so, there are plenty of poor images being broadcasted.

I think that the beauty of study abroad is that not only do you get to see a country with a tour guide, but you get people to actually explain to you in academic terms what is happening there. You live there. You operate there. You learn there. It is a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week learning experience. Even when you are sitting in class you are having knowledge poured into you! Mrs. Mao talked to us about pandas and how they are such a huge part of China’s character. She didn’t pronounce panda right saying, “pander,” but it added to the effect of her talk. (She has also said a few other things in pretty funny ways, for example she says, “Jimmy Cart” when speaking of Jimmy Carter.) As you may have heard on the news, many of the “panders” are from the Sichuan providence, where the earthquake occurred. For this reason, may have been rescued and taken to Beijing Zoo. We will be going there this weekend to see the “panders” for ourselves. She said that it is common for pandas to drink too much water and then not be able to walk and that usually they are quite calm, but every April they fight to win the love of the female pandas. Currently, the panda is the first rate of China’s precious things. Her quote was, “Last year 30 panders were created by human being,” as she referred to artificial insemination of pandas. She said that it is very difficult for panders to give birth and that if they have twins they usually only take care of one and disregard the other. For this reason, scientists try to find the other panda and take care of it with frozen panda milk and milk from other animals. She told us of times when hundreds of pandas were found dead from disease and that Nancy Regan sent money to help.

She talked to us about the earthquake that occurred in Sichuan in May. We heard that 79,000 were killed. She said that they will have to rebuild democracy in that area. They will have to decide who will get what house as they are being built and allocate food, goods, and materials that have been sent. She said much money has been sent from other countries including 23 million from America. She said that it has strengthened the spirit of the Chinese, bringing people together for ones own salvation and helping people treasure all human life. From now on they will educate children on disaster relief. Many of the schools and universities collapsed while the government buildings stood tall. The people are up in arms about this. They have learned their lesson from this earthquake and the experience of other nations. They will put more money into structures and research on forecasting earthquakes.
She gave a solid explanation of the impact the Olympics will have on the city of Beijing and the country of China. Many people from all over the world will have the opportunity to see the country with their own eyes. She said that not only will 70 world leaders be here, but a lot of ordinary people will come as well. She said the success is not simply built on how many gold metals China will win or how many political leaders will come. She said that China will deem themselves successful if they are able to spread the Olympic Spirit and improve the human race. As a harmonious society, China would like to be a responsible player in this world. They want to have a responsible and active role in building a peaceful and better world.

Later in the class, one of her students came in to report on significant happenings in China since 2000. He said that on July 13, 2001 the Olympic Committee announced Beijing as the Olympic City for 2008. He told us about this year’s Olympic seal which is a Chinese character that looks like a person who is exhibiting energy and charm. He said that they have built 11 new facilities and there are 37 venues in total. The Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube is the most famous. One World. One Dream.

She told us about the importance of martial arts and tia chi to the Chinese people. She went on to talk about the highly regarded, older generation, of Chinese culture. They are very well respected. Confucius said, “If a person forgets his parents his is not a real mature man.” She said that old couples spend their time in the parks together. I have seen this first hand when I visit the nearby park in the mornings after we run. I don’t see couples but there are plenty of 70+ people over there utilizing the exercise machines, doing dances, saying chants, twirling ribbons, walking around, and doing all sorts of stuff. This is a way to start their day for so many! It is great to see! The older generation also joins clubs and plays games and learns things. She said no matter where you go in China, you will find the old people in the parks. They all gather together just to participate and be with each other. She said that for the granddaughter or grandson (remember, there is only one) the weekends are very busy because they go to see the grandparents on both sides. She said her son gets annoyed by this and she promised him that when she gets old and he has a child he does not have to come so often. We laughed. She went on to explain that it is respectful to hall the older generation of a family by, “Old (insert last name here).” Sometimes in class she will say, “Old Bush” or “Young Bush.”

The end of her lecture brought us to discuss Chinese mass media. She said that she can read articles on the internet and that some American and British articles about China are one sided and that is not fair.

Today was our turn to host three hours of introducing ourselves, American culture, and games to the Chinese similar to what they did for us the day before. Each of us agreed to prepare a power point on ourselves and some aspect of American life. We still weren’t finished with these after class and so instead of going somewhere for lunch, we headed to our rooms to eat our snacks from the store and crank out the power points. This turned out to be really beneficial not only for the Chinese students, but for us OSU students as well. We learned a lot about each other. Although, Ashley, Jessica, and I had similar power points we all hit on different topics. Ashley talked about what people in rural America do for fun. I talked about the availability and content of agricultural education to high school and junior high students in America. Jessica explained the concept of 4-H. We all talked about our families, church, friends, and all of the things we like to do for fun. We showed pictures of football games and various travel. They were fascinated by our pictures of our large families since they have only one child per generation. They enjoyed looking at the things we do for fun such as football games, weddings, and spending time with family and friends. I showed pictures of the blizzard we had last winter at OSU and of our Dominican tour group in front of the waterfall. I showed pictures from class and school and living on a farm. I also talked about how in America it is important for college students to have internships and career experience. They liked hearing about this as they are in a never ending fight to prepare themselves to get the best job. I had a few more slides on American Agriculture, but I knew I was going over my time limit so I stopped there and thanked them for hosting us!

Jessica taught them the song “Singing In the Rain” and we played Simon says. We asked if a Chinese student would like to lead Simon says. A couple of girls tried, but they couldn’t talk fast enough to get us. Paige, who is so sensitive to other people’s needs, jumped up and said, “How about we do this together?” So, they took turns giving a command every other one. We asked them to play speaking only in Chinese and we would watch. They talked so fast. We quickly caught on that they were not playing Simon says, but they were playing a game where you do the opposite of what the leader says. SO for open your mouth you’d close your mouth and so on. It was tons of fun to watch. We played another game where everyone sits in a chair in a big circle and one person stands in the middle. We pushed the tables back to make plenty of room for our group of thirty-some people. The person standing in the middle was to give a description saying something like, “Anyone wearing glasses.” At that point, anyone wearing glasses had to get up from their seat and run to another empty seat. The person in the middle went after an open chair too. The person left without a chair would be the next one to call the description. The Chinese loved this. They said some pretty funny things and so did we. One girl said, “Anyone wearing long trousers.” That made us laugh. One of our people said, “Anyone with blue eyes.” The person in the middle and Jessica switched spots as no one else in the whole room had blue eyes. When we said, “Anyone with brown eyes,” not all of the Chinese moved. They said, “We have black eyes!” We have never heard of anyone with black eyes. Sometimes they weren’t so easy to understand. For example, one said, “Anyone who wear glasses,” and I thought she said, “Anyone who wear dresses.” Some of us really laughed when boys got up and moved around on that one.

After the fun and games with the Chinese students some girls invited me to play ping pong in the recreational area with them. The students here are only allowed to play on the basketball courts, soccer and volleyball areas, badminton courts, and ping pong tables after 4:30 in the afternoon. This is because it might be too loud and distract others from their studying. Studying is for sure important here. All of the students were asking me about the fun in America that we explained in our individual powerpoints. They said that they didn’t have any time for fun because they had to study so they could pass the examination and get into a good college so they would have potential to get a job. They asked if it was easy in America to get a job. In a round about way, I explained that of course you have to have credentials, but it is much easier than how it is in China. With 1.3 billion people living here, there is tons of competition for jobs. The girls talked to me about hteir boyfriends and how they would be furthering their education beyond the master’s degree they are working on now. They are fascinated to hear that I am getting married next year and were really a fun group to talk to. I hope I get to spend more time with them on our Saturday student led tours.

For supper, we just ate at the Blackwell and then went to our rooms where we worked on burning CD’s of American music to give to the Chinese students at the party tomorrow night. Before coming we collected a song title and artist from each of the students and Melissa to put on a music CD. Ashe, Jess, and I made CD cases complete with a thank you note and a list of the songs in order. We brought the CD’s from home to burn. Everyone worked together to crank out the CD’s from 12 different computers. We made about 45 and it worked out great!

Mrs. Mao's house for Lunch, Chinese Games, and Wal-Mart!

2008-07-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

June 25, 2008- Wednesday

After getting up early enough for our morning run/workout and showers, we headed to Mrs. Mao’s class. She discussed Tibetan culture with us pretty extensively. Tibet is an area with low air pressure, and therefore not a pleasant place for people to live because they get arthritis. It is so severe that pregnant women have to go to the inner areas to give birth, because of the climate. It is in South West China- 4000 km high. She said that there is heavy snow in the winter, one should only go in the summer. Local people in Tibet made sacrifices to heaven of animals, and the alters are found near many of the lakes now. This was before they believed in Buddhism.
In Tibet, people think that people’s spirits exist forever. They think that after a period of time a person’s spirit will be reborn in an other person. When someone dies, they cut up the dead family member and take to a certain place in the mountains for the eagles to take to heaven. If the eagles do not come, that means his spirit will go down the hill. Another way to is to put it on a float down the river and someday it will sink in to the river which they think is sacred. They say hello by putting their tongue on each other’s nose or touching their ears because it is too cold to open their mouths. In Ancient times, they would only take a bath when they are born, married, and after death because a bath will wash away good luck. Mrs. Mao told us about Lamaism which is a branch of Buddhism- it is known as Tibetan Buddhism. She also mentioned two familiar words “dalai” means vast sea in Mongolian and “lama” means teacher. She informed us of many Tibetan customs such as their costumes of color of ornaments and jewelries. Tibet women have a head gear decoration and they dress kind of like Eskimos.

Mrs. Mao has been taking students to her home for lunch everyday this week. Today it was my group’s turn to go. Juan, Deryck, Johanna, Greg and I walked with her home from class and up the stairs to the fifth floor of her apartment building. Mrs. Mao did a fine job making it up those stairs. She told us that she has lived there for twenty years (so she’s been in good shape for quite some time) and that her complex was really nice when she started living there. Now, her actual apartment is really nice, but the outside and the stairs to it look pretty worn. Her apartment consisted of a small, small encased by glass balcony area, a small living room/office, a small dining room, a small kitchen, a small storage/pantry area, a small bathroom, a bedroom for her and her husband, and a bedroom for her son. We sat and talked with her son in the living room while Mrs. Mao made lunch. Her house was neat and tidy; she had no room for clutter. She made us some delicious sandwich type things made out of a pita type bread with your choice of beef, tofu, or sausage inside. She served sides of cucumber salad, red sweet corn (it didn’t taste too good), cucumber salad and pepper and onion salad, and chicken. It was all really good and really hit the spot. She also cut up a “Thousand Year Egg” for us to try. Thousand year eggs are the eggs placed in some sort of chemical for two weeks that last in a greenish black “hard boiled” state for up to a year. After eating, we thanked her for everything and headed back to class.

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week we are spending the afternoon class time conducting activities with the Chinese students. On Wednesday the Chinese students are in charge of the events and on Thursday we are in charge. Upon arrival to class, the Chinese students gave us a few presentations on China. They talked to us about how China is one of the oldest nations in the world and there were nearly 600 emperors in China’s history. They reminded us that China has the largest population it he world at 1.3 billion in 2007. Chairman Mao once said, “More people. More power.” I guess they took that to heart. They talked to us about the famous basketball player, “Yao Ming.” They hit on the fact that each woman is only allowed to have one child and that the children have 9 years compulsory education. They told us about many famous places in Beijing that we will be visiting and the history of the school we are staying at.

After their presentations we played a game somewhat like, “Hot Potato.” One of the students had a water bottle with rocks inside that she would turn around from the group and shake. We passed a stuffed bunny around until she stopped. Whoever had the bunny was required to do something like tell a joke, sing a song, show a dance move, or anything you can imagine. As you might have guessed, passing the bunny got pretty violent as people tried to quickly get it out of their hands. Many of ours students showed different types of sports actions while others sang songs or told jokes. Some of their students showed Tia Chi moves, sang songs, and just acted down right shy. We have noticed here that many of their students are very young acting. They giggle a lot act really dependent of each other. I have asked a few how old they are and they are anywhere from 23-25 years old. They are in graduate school, but for some reason their culture acts differently at this age. It could be that we are just reading them differently because they are speaking their second language and they might sound childlike, but they definitely have some youngster actions.

It is becoming harder and harder to make plans to do something here. Someone comes up with an idea and people fiddle around before deciding if they are going to go or not. It is difficult to make sure everyone is included and happy. Tonight we just decided to split up for our outing. Paige, Ashley, Jessica, Juan, and I had asked a Chinese student to write down, “Wal-Mart” on a piece of paper in Chinese so that we could show it to the taxi driver. We all walked out of the hotel and there was already a taxi there. We showed him the paper and all piled in, but he wouldn’t leave because he motioned that we had five passengers and we could only have four. After trying for a while to get him to take us anyway and no avail, Paige and I jumped out and told the others we would meet them there. We were skeptical to do this because the last time we split up to go somewhere we ended up in different places and we had heard that there was more than one Wal-Mart, but there was nothing we could do. After walking about ½ mile to the main street to get a taxi, we found one. He looked at the paper and pointed in a direction to ask I think if that was the Wal-Mart we wanted. The other girls had already been by there, but Paige and I had no idea where we were going so we just guessed that he was right and agreed. He drove us a short distance, clearly a distance we could have walked, and we saw Jessica and Juan waiting out in front of the building before we saw the big, “Wal-Mart” sign. Ashley was waiting on the other side incase the taxi driver took us that way. After reconvening all together, we took a picture in front of the big “Super Wal-Mart” sign and headed in.

I know you are probably thinking, “You can go to Wal-Mart right there or here in Mercer County.” The reason we wanted to go was to see the main differences and similarities with the store. Let me tell you, you could definitely tell it was a Wal-Mart, but there were things there I have never seen before. On the way in the store there was a display of some pictures of Sam Walton and some history for one’s reading pleasure. In the electronics section they were playing, “Backstreet Boys,” a 90’s American pop group rather loudly. The place had three floors with big sidewalk-style sloped escalators leading customers from one level to the next. They had the big white signs with changeable black numbers that had the man with the smiley face on top. I assume that in Chinese it said, “Always Low Prices, Always Wal-Mart.” Wal mart- and supper there. They had books, but they were all written in Chinese. They had a bakery section where they were displaying a big cake with Olympic characters and other Olympic stuff on. They sold weird stuff like “1000 year old eggs.” They had normal snacks like crackers and chips, but weird stuff like dried eel meat. They had whole chickens hanging from a rope and they were chopping up red meat out from behind a counter with a big cleaver. They had live turtles, crabs, and fish for sale near big elaborate displays of frozen fish. They were selling all kinds of clothes, including Beijing Olympic items as well as all of the normal American toiletries. The girls looked through a big pile of tee shirts that would have cost $1.00 that had English words on it. Most of the sayings did not make any sense, but they were real funny to read.

There was a Nike store within the Wal-Mart also, but the prices were just like they would be in the United States. Most everything we bought was similar in price or lower to how it would be in the United States. I bought several items for about five dollars. We bought gummie bears, iced coffee drinks since they do not sell coffee at the restaurants on campus and we do not take the time to go get it outside before, potato chips, cookies, dried fruit, nuts, almonds and juice drinks. Of course, nothing too healthy was in our carts. When we finished milling around, we got in line to pay. You know, everywhere we go there are TONS of people working with little responsibility. For example, at the grocery store one time we saw about six people working on a small display of cereal. Nevertheless, at Wal-Mart, they seemingly have not adopted the practice of hiring way to many people. There was a big line for people to check out, but maybe that was a result of not enough computers.

We ate at the restaurant that was right there in Wal-Mart, which was a type of Chinese fast food. We looked at a picture menu on the wall and then told the manager, who spoke good English what we wanted. She then conveyed that to the cashier, who rung us up. We sat down and when the food was finished they brought it to our table. I had some garlic rice that was yellow and a pork chop. It was pretty good, but the pork chop was pretty small and had a lot of bone to it. The others got a spaghetti type stuff that they really didn’t like.

Right when we walked out of Wal Mart, there were plenty of taxis waiting to take people home. We got in the taxi and showed the driver our business cards that had in Chinese where we were to go. She drove us right home and it cost about $1.50 total for the while ride for all of us to split. It shouldn’t have, but that whole excursion really wore us out, so we worked on our journals for a while and worked on our power point presentations we are to show about ourselves tomorrow and then went to bed.

Chinese Basketball and Suman Relatives in CHINA!

2008-07-02T03:57:00.000-07:00

June 24, 2008- Tuesday

We woke up early enough this morning to go out for a jog. Ashley lead us past where Mrs. Mao lives and we went and did our normal “around the block” route. It is so interesting to be outside in the early morning like that. People are all over the place as always, but they are greeting the day in full force. Some are ridding their bikes to work, others are walking. Many of the elderly are out exercising. From what I’ve read, crowds of elderly people gather in Beijing’s parks and indulge in tai chi. Although the discipline has its origin in martial arts, for most people it is about making sure your joints don’t seize up. Some people are practicing aerobics. Others are merely walking around. Some are using wands, swords, and flags to practice movements. I think the whole point is that they are just getting out and doing something. Staying limber, so to speak. And, from what I have heard, after they do their morning exercise, they stay in the parks and hang out. It seems like a neat way to embrace life if you ask me.

Our first class for the day was Mrs. Mao’s. She talked to us about different types of Chinese art and tools used for it such as silk paper that is supposed to be able to last for up to 1000 years. She told us what different types of paintings are meant to embody and lots of art history. She also told us about the infamous Beijing Opera and tried to prepare us for what we will be seeing when we visit there later in the trip. One of Mrs. Mao’s students joined our class at the end and talked to us about what happened in China in the 1980’s like when Proctor and Gamble came to China in 1988. She said this brought many jobs to China and that many students want to work there after college.

For lunch, Ashley, Juan, Lauren, Johanna and I went to the sushi place on one of the big streets nearby. This is about the third time in my whole life that I have had sushi, but I love it. Oh the little wonders of study abroad! This particular place has a bar of seats and a conveyer belt of sushi choices that pass while you are eating. Ashley and I tried a few different types. We tried shrimp, salmon, and California rolls as well as some other sea food balls. It was really good and very inexpensive. I think we paid about $4.00 each, and for what we got, that is a sweet deal compared to American prices. We learned in class that the Chinese like to make their food really elaborate looking. A beautiful fruit dish passed by on the conveyor belt and we tried that also.

We had agricultural class that afternoon. Nia talked to us about how most farmers only graduate form middle school and only a few graduate from universities. She eluded that government investment in agriculture is not enough. She told us the Agriculture is the foundation of manufacturing and commerce. Her statement was, “Food is the God of people.” Agriculture supplies people with food and industry with raw materials. It is also a source of foreign exchange which she said is very important. Since December 2007, China has imported a lot of pork from the United States as well as other agricultural products. Ag is the employment and income of 60% of China. We learned about some history of the country like how in 1969 professors were sent to the countryside to have some “political education.” This was because in 1968 urban youth were sent to the countryside to “learn from the farmers” and therefore, there were no students to teach. They were allowed to return in 1977. In 1978-79 the rural reform began, transforming central planning to household decision making. This stimulated farmer incentives. In 1982-1983, the commune system was abolished. The commune system was where farmers worked for a union or a commune rather than their own operation. They were paid the same no matter how productive the land was so they had no incentive to work hard or any ownership in the process. This class went on for 3.5 hours before it was finally over.

After class we were to play a scheduled basketball game with some Chinese students. They provided us with five jerseys to share amongst our group and when we showed up on the outdoor court they had a score board set up with a scorers table and refs. They also brought out a office type water system. We played two twenty minute halves rotating in most of us, but Mark stayed in the whole time. We stayed right with them, but ended up losing by two points. Mark told us to play zone defense and once when we were on offense, Johanna wasn’t moving to the ball and when someone asked her about it she said, “I am playing zone defense!” We all laughed. The Chinese were really impressed when a girl would make a shot and they would basically move out of the way when a girl went up for a shot, like they were afraid to block her. They didn’t have any girls on their team until half time when Helen came out. They really cheered for her when she did well too. I guess it is not common for girls to play sports here.

When we finished basketball, DongFang told us that we had a message from our relatives, Mick and Nora Suman, who are missionaries here and we had contacted about meeting up with them. Ashley had been emailing them, and ironically they are heading to the states on Wednesday for seven weeks. They are working in a province far enough away from here (yet still in China) that they had a connecting flight in Beijing. Ashley had given them DongFang’s number and they said they would call when they got in their hotel. Since we were in basketball, DongFang told them that we wouldn’t be available for an hour or so. When she told us they had called after the basketball game was over, we rushed around and took showers. DongFang had given them our hotel room number to call, but they didn’t so we took turns waiting with her by the front desk phone as she tried to reach their hotel. Ashe was with her when they finally got a hold of them. They said we could come to their hotel and DongFang wrote down in Chinese the name of it so that we could show the taxi driver. Mick was really impressed with DongFang’s English and asked how long it would take for us to get there. DongFang said it would probably take an hour by taxi to get to the hotel they were staying at by taxi. Mick acted concerned about us coming because the area was somewhat bad and it was already 8:00 p.m., but we hurried and finished getting ready and left.

It did take about 45 minutes to get there and the taxi driver dropped us off in the middle of a street and pointed to a hotel. We thanked him even though he didn’t understand us and we didn’t’ understand him. The street reminded me of many roads, streets, and adventures we went on in the Dominican Republic. Beijing is a modern city and we have seen so much business, commerce, and modernization that I had almost forgotten what it must be like in the slums. I think that our trip to Inner Mongolia during the fifth week will expose us to more of the third world life. We walked in to the hotel he had pointed at and showed the lady at the front desk our slip of paper that said the name of the hotel in Chinese. She made a motion to go out the door and around the back of the hotel. We did just that and did the same thing at the next hotel. At first they thought we wanted a room, but luckily someone spoke some slight English and we were able to explain that we only wanted to visit some friends. As they did at the hotel where we stay, they checked our passports and eventually showed us to their room. We knocked on the door, and there they were.
We sat and talked to them for about an hour and a half which was really nice. They talked to us about their sons who are both in New York and that they were going to go visit them for a long while when they got to the United States. They also asked about our parents, grandpa, and other family members who are in the Willshire area. They told us about their experiences teaching English at a school in their providence. We asked them how they cooked/found American food in China and Nora said she has been able to do some pretty creative things. She said she makes everything from roasts to pizzas. The told us about some of the work they have been able to do, like teaching their students about Christmas and Easter in conjunction with teaching them English. They said that right now they live on the fourth floor of a high rise apartment building so they are in good shape, but next year they will move and have an elevator. They explained that in the different Chinese provinces they cook different things and that they were excited to get some Beijing Chinese food. They asked us about our program here in China and the different types of things we were doing and seeing. We even talked to them about how they met and the fact that they have been married for 37 years. They wanted us to go out on the road and get a pop, but we said that we should probably head back to campus since it was pretty late. They walked us out to the street and after waiting a while we were able to flag down a taxi driver who was willing to take us to the address we showed him on the card. We said good bye and hugged and they encouraged us to meet up with them in August when they are in Indiana

We are starting to recognize the surrounding area really well. As the taxi driver got within a short distance of campus we were able to tell him where that we needed dropped off soon. He pulled up right next McDonalds and since we hadn’t had dinner yet, we decided to have our McDonalds adventure then. We went in and I just wanted to get some French Fries and a drink. The cashier pulled out a sign that allows you to just point to what you want. I pointed to a picture of French Fries and a drink at the medium level. What I got was a pop, a smaller drink, and French fries and it cost me more than what Ashe and Jess got with their cheeseburger value meals. Mine was 19.50 yuan which is about $3.50. Oh well.

On our way back to our hotel we passed many people out and about as we always do. One particular group of people was clearly Chinese but we heard them speaking impeccable English. Before we could comment about it to each other, they had already said, “Hey guys,” and came over to us. We talked to them for quite a while. They asked us what we thought of China and we said that everyone is so nice and they said they wished the outside media depicted it that way. Two of them had studied in Canada and one in Australia so they were totally up on the language. They gave us their phone numbers and told us to call them if we had any questions. I think these people could teach us a lot and show us more of the country more easily than us listening to any teacher could.

Bargaining at the Market and a Long Taxi Ride

2008-07-02T03:48:00.000-07:00

June 23, 2008- Monday

There is something to be said about the pollution levels in this city. Beijing is huge, 13 million people, and there is so much pollution as a result. Most days, we do not see the sun because there is too much pollution filling the air. On a real humid day, walking outside makes one feel like a layer of grunge is resting on them. There are often odd smells coming from buildings. We think this is either trash or food, not pollution, but it just adds to the effect. Jess, Ashley, and I have been trying to exercise, even just for a little while, in the mornings. We noticed on Sunday that our chests were starting to hurt and we felt short of breath while doing just normal breathing. We thought that it may be from the heavy breathing we do while jogging- sucking in that dirty air, but we asked the rest of the group and they are experiencing the same thing without the running. We did go for a bus ride that day, where we all rode in the top part of a double-decker bus with all the windows open. I do not know if the air moving quickly through that bus contributed to the breathing issues we were feeling, but it definitely could be. I look forward to going into the countryside in a couple of weeks when we head to Inner Mongolia, a province of its own, but still part of China. Someone equated it to what Puerto Rico is to us.

Our only class for the day was with Mrs. Mao and she taught us about the historical great man, Chairman Mao and what he did for China when on October 1, 1949 when he declared the People’s Republic of China. She also explained to us a reform that occurred for farmers in 1978. From 1958 until 1976 the land was owned by the People’s Commune, a union that the farmers worked for. They got the same pay no matter how hard they worked. Many read the newspaper all day and didn’t care about the production. Since the production was so minimal, the union could only afford to pay the people a small wage. In 78’ the land was divided for rent amount the farmer’s and it is owned by the state. Farmers are only allowed to have a certain amount and they are all equal. The size depends on the number determined by the state. Of course, since they do not own the land, the cannot sell it to others, but they are able to sell whatever they produce off the land. For this reason, they have more interest in production efficiency and earning as much money as possible. They are far better off than they were before, working for the union.

She also explained how young farmer’s do not work in the countryside anymore, they come to the city to find construction work. She also explained that city kids are required by their school to go to the farm for 1 week and see what it is like to work on the farm. She mentioned that they have agro tourism here too. People can go and pick vegetables and fruits from a farm and it is fun for them.

After our three hour class with Mrs. Mao was over, some of us headed to the restaurant in the hotel that we call the Blackwell to eat. It is one of the three places where we can use our meal plan so we wanted to try to use some of it. We ordered sweet and sour pork to share, snow peas, a potato and sweet potato dish we had had before, and sweet rice. The sweet rice was way too sweet. It tasted and looked like it had a thick layer of sticky liquid sugar on top of white rice.

We had the rest of the afternoon off so we decided to take advantage of our time. One thing Beijing is famous for is the Silk Market. It is a place where you can buy all kids of inexpensive (fake) designer purses, silk, and other souvenirs. We wanted to go there. We asked DongFang to write down in Chinese the silk market and mark it on our maps so that we could show the taxi driver. Finally, after everyone decided if they were going and how many cars we would need to take, we headed downstairs to split up. A taxi came, and in the pouring down rain, Mark, Ashe, Jess, and I climbed in. I showed the taxi driver the slip of paper and the map, and without either of us saying anything since we couldn’t speak each other’s languages, we were off. We rode for about forty minutes or longer until he dropped us off. Our plan was to meet up with the rest of the group at the entrance at a designated time. Well, that didn’t work out. We walked around the building that he dropped us off at and all of the above ground floors had clothes, fur coats, and shoes in very small rooms with curtains as doors that you had to open to see what was inside. It was extremely odd. We walked into one shoe shop and tried to tell the guy that we wanted the other shoe since only one was on display and we think he told us that he only sells one shoe. It was crazy. There had to have been some miscommunication. In the basement they sold a modge-podge of stuff.- all kinds of jewelry, purses, electronics, and other stuff. You are supposed to bargain with the people on the price you want to pay. I found a purse that I wanted to buy so I asked the saleslady how much and she said “180 yaun” which is about $25.00. Ashley was whispering in my ear, “say $20.00.” So I said 20. The lady EXPLODED! She said “20 is no good price.” Ashley, Jessica, and I started laughing. Then she really got mad. She said, “it is no joke,” and ripped it out of my hands. We scurried out of there.

We walked into another building which was full of shoes. At this point we were pretty much frustrated because we were clearly in the wrong place. We never found the rest of the group. We walked down a couple of side streets, looking for where we were supposed to be but all we found were shop after shop of fur coats and some small sport shops mixed in. We milled around for a while and finally decided to get a taxi and go home. We road through horrendous traffic clear back to campus, and were pretty proud of ourselves for making out and back without any Chinese. It cost 100 yuan for the trip there and back which is about four dollars each.

Back at the hotel, we decided to eat at the Blackwell again and got almost the same meal that we had for lunch except we had some completely vegetable spring roll type things dipped in balsamic vinegar instead of snow peas and some chicken that tasted like KFC dipped in some sort of sauce. Before going to bed, I made use of my phone card on Melissa’s cell phone to call Seth and played cards.

The Places You'd See on the Travel Channel

2008-07-02T03:45:00.000-07:00

June 22, 2008- Sunday

Today we had a field trip to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, two major icons of China and Beijing. This is basically the historical and governmental focal point of the country; much like Washington D.C. is to America. We traveled with the Chinese grad students to the area. First we walked over to the busy street nearby, used the walking overpass, and waited for a bus. We could tell then that it was going to be quite the adventure and that it was going to be one of the hottest days we’d ever experienced. It was partly smoggy, but the sun was still beating through the smog. After several other buses pulled up to the stop and pulled away, the correct one came and the Chinese grad students told us to get on. This was a double-decker bus so we climbed the stairs to the top floor. I sat with a Chinese grad student in the front pair of seats. The windows were open on the bus so the air was moving through, but it was thick, hot, and muggy air.

After about a half an hour or more of driving through the city, we arrived at Tiananmen Square and hopped off the bus. Although there were still people piling off the bus, the bus driver must not have noticed because he started to drive away. We got him stopped, got off, and the grad students led us to an underground tunnel to cross the street. We arrived to the other side of the street and started to look at the magnificent buildings. There were people all over the place. It was so crowded. Lots of Chinese women walked around with umbrellas, shielding themselves from the sun. We had split up into small groups so the Chinese students only had to keep track of a few of us. Paige and I were matched with two guide who we quickly figured out were boyfriend and girlfriend. The girl had an umbrella and started to use it and wanted me to stand under it and I said that I didn’t need it and that I liked the sun. Looking back, I feel bad because her boyfriend told her to put it away and I feel like she really wanted to use it. I think that as Americans we should try to do what they do as they work so diligently to welcome us to their city.

We walked and looked at several buildings. People from all over the world were there. The Chinese students kept offering to take our picture in front of building after building, they did this all day. We saw a big electronic countdown to the Olympics. We saw their Chinese national museum, the building where Mao was preserved and on display, their equivalency of the capitol building, and much more. We walked through a tunnel under another street to see the Forbidden City. According to my travel book, Tian’an Men Guangchang (the Square of the Gate of Heavenly Peace) is the place of Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum and the bloody climax of 1989’s pro-democracy demonstrations. Chairman Mao proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949 from the massive Ming-dynasty gate, where his portrait still hangs. Mao is encased in a crystal casket and raised from his refrigerator for twice-daily public viewings. There is a flag there that is raised each day at dawn and lowers again at sunset. There is a monument to fallen soldiers also. Our guides told us that it was like a “Tomb of the Unknown,” but the guide book doesn’t mention that.

After walking all around the square, we headed to the Forbidden City. We got pictures under Mao’s head milled around outside for a while and then walked in. There was building after building full of intricate detail. This complex is a grand monument o the 24 emperors who rule from its halls over a period of almost 500 years. The symbolic center of the Chinese universe, the place was the exclusive domain of the imperial court from its completion in 1420 until the last of the emperors was force to abdicate at the beginning of the 20th century. The modern world intruded in 1949, when the public were finally admitted through the palace gates. Just inside the first part, we had to get in line to buy entry tickets. They cost us 60 yuan which is about $10.00. I felt bad for the Chinese grad students who had to pay to get in also, and before we came we were informed that they make about $30.00 per month. It worked out a little better though because they had student ID’s so they were able to get in at a discounted rate. Still, this was even a big deal to our guides to come there as one of them had never been there before.

We walked through building after building and courtyard after courtyard taking in this empire. It is the largest and best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China. We have been told many times that the Forbidden City should be at the top of ones to do list for Beijing. This walled compound in the was once the impenetrable heart of the empire. It was once so separated from mortals that those who worked there were rarely permitted to leave. Within the Forbidden City there are 980 buildings and over 9000 rooms. It was huge. It seemed like a person could spend several days there. It was extremely hot that day, so after a few hours we were worn out and sweaty. We wanted to go home. The guides could have stayed all day. He even told me that he plays basketball for two hours a day and so he is in healthy shape. There are many museums within the building such as clocks, ceramics, copper, and other items that were in the city when it was in use. We looked at rooms and houses of the many wives of the emperor. There was a gigantic courtyard said to hold 100,000 people in imperial times.

Eventually we decided to “have a rest” as the Chinese say it. We ran into Rob, Mark, and Deryck nearby and sat with them and their leaders. Their leaders brought them some crackers with lemon filling; the boys must not have got the memo to bring your own snacks. I had brought a six pack of peanut butter crackers and I ate that, but it was so hot, I hardly felt like eating. My leaders brought green tea to drink and got out a famous Chinese food called, “Thousand Year Old Eggs.” These are raw duck eggs that have been put into mud, chalk, and ammonia and left, not for a thousand years, but for more like two weeks. When retrieved the egg is hard boil and the white has turned to greenish black. Mind you, they were carrying this around in a plastic grocery bag in 95 degree heat. When they offered it to me, I politely declined. I felt bad for not trying it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it in that kind of heat. We walked over to a small shop and we Americans bought bottles of water to drink. Later when we were walking, with sweat pouring down our backs, the girl leader got in their bag and got out a bag of liquid that had a screw top opening. She opening it and started drinking it. There was a picture of a cow on the side of it and I asked if it was milk and she confirmed that it was. Not only did she eat those oddly hard boiled eggs in the heat, but she drank milk that had been in that grocery bag and outside for over six hours. Later, we sat down again and they offered Paige and I a slice of bread. I did not want any just because it was almost too hot to eat outside, but looking back I feel bad for not taking one. I didn’t want to act like their food was not good enough for me, I just didn’t want any.

After a while more of milling around the Forbidden City, we headed out of the area and walked a short distance to the subway. We paid two yuan for a subway ticket which is about 30 cents. I had been warned that the subway would be crowded and that it would be important to watch your stuff while in there. We watched as one subway pulled up and just like you may have seen on the news, people pushed others into the car to get more in. Luckily, that was not the line we wanted. We got on the correct car, and although it was crowded, it wasn’t wall to wall people. I held my bag tightly over my shoulder and under my arm. After changing cars, we finally arrived at where we were to exit and find a bus. When we got above ground, we walked for a while before we found the bus stop we were supposed to be at. We were walking toward to bus stop when the bus we needed passed by. Our leader told us we needed to run so we ran to catch the bus, paid our 15 cent fare, and after a couple of stops, found a seat. We rode the bus for about five minutes before it dropped us off right near our campus.

While walking into the campus, Paige spotted a man wearing a Franklin Graham Crusade shirt. She asked him about it and asked him if there are any churches around here. He told her of a couple, so maybe we will go there sometimes. Walking away, our Chinese leaders asked us if church was free. Whoa! What an open door to tell about our religion. I asked the girl if she had any religious beliefs and she laughed and said no. I said that we believed in Jesus and that he died for us. She still kind of giggled. I wonder how people who are missionaries really reach out to these people. I can completely understand why they have English tutor schools to develop a relationship with them before a person could witness to them. Upon arrival at our hotel, we thanked them graciously for everything they did for us and headed up to our rooms.

We found that some people were already back and others were still out and about. People took showers and then we headed on a quest to find some pizza. We were going to go to Pizza Hut, but Dominos came first, so we ate there. They only served coke so we got that and four pepperoni pizzas. It tasted just like home, if not better. After dinner, I came back and took a shower. Our water heater, which is right in our room with us, wasn’t working, but it is back in action now. I then did a load of laundry. I’ll tell about the laundry system later, but it is something for you to look forward to. After a couple hours, we went back out and got ice cream at Dairy Queen. Yep, they have DQ here. Everyone was looking forward to a blizzard, but it turned out they only had a couple of kinds so some people got sundaes.

"One World. One Dream." Beijing Olympic Theme 2008

2008-07-02T03:42:00.000-07:00

June 21, 2008 – Saturday

We didn’t have to be ready to go on our fieldtrip until 10:00 a.m., so at 8:00 a.m. Jessica and I went for a short jog. The first thing we noticed when we came outside was that it was sunny!!!! This is something we have not seen since we arrived here. There is so much smog. Sometimes it is down to the level of our seven story building. It almost always completely blocks the sun. Since today is a Saturday, most of the manufacturing places are not operating and of course not near as many of the cars are on the road creating the dirty smog. I would say maybe we ran two miles. It felt so good to be in the sunshine.

Our water heater, which is right inside our room, seems to be broken. Dang nab it. We are operating with really cold showers. I can’t complain though, as I have mentioned before the place where we are staying is more accommodating than the Dominican. I will forever love the dorms at ISA in the Dominican and would enjoy staying there again if ever given the chance.

We were to meet the guy who was going to take us to the Olympic baseball field at 10:00 a.m. There must have been some miscommunication, because our guide, Jeff, who was an American did not think he was going to be talking us to see and have a tour of a baseball field. The miscommunication turned out to be EXTREAMLY positive, because he took us all over the city and showed us most of the Olympic venues! We didn’t get to go inside any of them but we saw the outside of LOTS of them. We were gone from the university for two and a half hours while on the tour.

Let me give you the play by play. First, he told us some history about himself and how he got in this position. He is on the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad within the Beijing Olympic Media Center. He is the only native English speaking person in his office. He has been living in China for the past nine years and has been a sportscaster for several Olympiads. He is a writer and worked for two presidential campaigns right out of college. He explained that 7000 writers will be coming to cover the Olympics and he is in charge of them. His perception of everything that is happening here and knowledge of the Olympics was impeccable. We are SO lucky to have had him give us a tour. He was pretty rude to DongFong when she didn’t give good enough direction to the bus driver in appropriate times on the pretty busy roads and he was pretty arrogant about his credentials, but he knew so many interesting details about the Olympics.

He explained to us their process for controlling the pollution before the whole world converges on this city. The Olympics start on August 8 and he said that all of the construction must be done by July 20. He repeated several times that it will be completed by July 20. He said it will be finished or covered. Starting on July 20th and until the Olympics are over, half the cars will be removed from the roads as they can only be driven the days of the last digit of their license plate, either odd or even. Also, heavy trucks will not be allowed to be driven at night. Also, there will be an Olympic driving lane on the freeways and if you do not have a pass and drive in those lanes your car will be impounded. The pollution here is outrageous, and it has to be minimized a great deal before all of those people come. He said that 13 million people live here and the city is growing by 11% a year. With all those people, they are making a huge ecological foot print. He answered a question that I have had for quite some time, telling us that wherever there is a big crane in the middle of the road, that is a where is a subway is being built. He told us about how the city of Beijing has matured since they lost the Olympic Bid to Sydney, Australia by 2 votes in 2000. Somewhere in his very informative rambling, he told us that there is a subway that was built to go all they way to the mountains so that people could escape a nuclear bomb from the Russians. Now the city is so built up that the subway comes in to good use. Although he is an American, he is a strong advocate for China and Beijing. He said that Beijing will not stop becoming better after the Olympics. The Chinese believe that this is their century. He told us that they are having double-decker buses come in on freight cars to handle the multitudes of people that will be all over the city.

Jeff explained to us since most of the local Chinese people are too poor to pay for a ticket to an Olympic game, they are building “Cultural Corners.” These festival areas of sort will be areas filled with fun stuff for the local people to do and widescreen TVs showing the Olympics with Chinese subtitles. Ever since we saw the world of China outside of the airport, we have noticed tons of trees, supported by enormous teepee braces. I asked him about this and he said they have planted trees all over, including a forest the size of central park to make the place cleaner and greener.

The first venue we went to was the baseball diamond which was built right next to the basketball arena. This was the only venue we thought we were going to see. Boy, were we wrong. He said that it is just a temporary field and it as well as the softball diamond will be demolished and have an entertainment, shopping, and hotel complex built on it to support basketball. Next year, China will have it’s own NBA. Also, this is the last year the softball and baseball will be part of the Olympics as it has been voted out. We parked the bus and Jeff told us to just act like we knew what we were doing despite the fact that we did not have Olympic badges. I thought to myself, “This is what study abroad is all about.” We walked down a dirt road path through all kinds of construction to an open field area where they were driving bulldozers and construction equipment around without hard hats or safety glasses. From this area we could see the baseball and softball diamonds and the basketball arena in the background.

Jeff explained that the people working to build the fields and the surrounding areas were migrant workers who worked for a company hired by the Olympic Committee. He said there are 100,000 migrant workers working in preparation for the Olympics right now. We have seen them all over. They are planting flowers in the medians and cutting grass in the what little side ditches there are as well as building venues all over the city. The company provides temporary housing for these people and they get paid the equivalency of $20.00 per day. They have people working around the clock and as with everything else in this city, business does not stop on Saturday and Sunday. The people come from all over the country and when they are not preparing for the Olympics they are building dams and stuff like that. The baseball stadium will seat 12,000 people. The outside of basketball arena has been sprayed with a chemical to cool it form the outside in. He said it is also currently on lock down and no one will be allowed in until it is checked by dogs. That was when we were walking back down the path to the bus. He said, “We are here illegally because we look official.” Melissa, our advisor from Ohio State, corresponded with a man named Murray who I think is an alumni of our turf department to make this day happen. In fact, we thought that it was going to be Murray that was giving us this tour and were going to see only the baseball stadium that he worked on. We were definitely pleasantly surprised.

Not all of the Olympic venues are in Beijing although it is the major host city and everything says, “Beijing 2008” on it. There are many co-host cities for specific events. For example, a lot of the water events are in cities near to the water. I am not exactly sure of Jeff’s explanation, but he said that a Chinese person actually owns the Olympic buildings and they are only the property of the Olympics during the games. Afterward, they will be in the hands of the Chinese. Tiananmen Square is a major focal point of the city and country much like our Washington D.C. and there were originally thoughts of having the sand volleyball tournament in this area. The decided against it, but it would have made one heck of a location for TV viewers to admire. We looked at the “Water Cube” which is where many of the swimming and diving events will occur. It is a rectangular building that looks like a bunch of big bubbles. The bubbles are made of plastic and the cube has a moat around it so that no one can just walk up to it and bust the plastic. It is going to be made into an indoor water park at the completion of the trip. The glass (plastic) looks like a sky blue most of the time, but can be turned into any color and is a deep blue at night. He said that at night they can play movies on it. There is going to be a piece of the walls at certain locations throughout the city so people can walk up and touch it and see what it feels like.

Along our tour there were several shack type buildings that Jeff said was temporary housing for the migrant workers. He also showed us temples from the Tang Dynasty that will be remolded in time for Olympic visitors to tour. He pointed out to us the media building, the electronics for computers and various other electronics storage and repair, the new science and technology museum that is right nearby, and the Olympic green. Also, every Olympiad city has to produce a book about that year’s Olympics. He will be the editor of the book. He showed us some Olympic practice fields and a sponsor pavilion for companies like McDonalds to hang out. He pointed out some new and impressive street lights that look pretty neat.

One of the venues is in the shape of a bird’s nest and is call just that, “Bird’s Nest.” This stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, all of the track events, and the soccer finals. He pointed out to us some things sticking out from it that will suspend people during the opening ceremonies on August 8th, 2008. He also showed us the spot where the torch will emerge from. I guess it is a rule that the torch has to emerge from the north side of the stadium and it must be visible for 30 feet. The building is covered with two sections of plastic and the rain water that it catches is recycled. This is not your grandma’s Olympics. At the opening ceremonies they are going to shoot off fireworks. These will be a special kind of “cold fireworks” so that they do not come back down and burn the plastic venue. I cannot wait to watch. There is underground parking for 1000 cars at this location. There will be a red zone area during the game where there will be no driving. We were driving in that area at the time. The birds nest has read and white seats that change slowly in color from the inside out. They broke ground for this on Christmas 2003.

Throughout our whole trip we have noticed tons of workers working all the time. They were planting flowers on the side of the road on a Sunday morning at 1:00 and any other time of the day or night. There are thousands of them preparing for this event in full force. Jeff told us that they will be done by July 20. No exceptions. He reminded us that every major head of state will be there and the Chinese will watch to see if “Young Bush” will greet the leader of China.

He showed us the main press center and the Olympic Village which is 68 hectares (170 acres) of 42 buildings complete with a jogging track, pools, and hot water made by solar heat for the coaches and athletes. The condos are already sold for after the games. It has an international center with 33,000 different types of food available (it will seat 5000) and a courtyard where locals will be leading Tia Chi (a famous Chinese exercise system) in the mornings and inviting participants and their families to participate. There will be all sorts of security for this including dressed and plain clothed officials. He reminded us that the security cannot be compromised and referred to Eric Rudolf who planted a bomb that injured 100 and killed 1 at Atlanta. There will be a temples and churches for athletes to practice their religions. This area will also have a general store selling things like shampoo and DVD’s. They built and Olympic forest park of 600 hectares as a legacy by the Olympic Committee for China.

As you can tell, the details coming out of this man were endless. Hold tight, just a little more. He showed us a permanent bowl-shaped building that holds 10,000 people for tennis. He pointed out lots and lots of brand new landscaping and told us that there will be English and Chinese drivers from various bus stops in the area. There will be approximate 500,000 foreigners and 2-3 million Chinese people converging on the city and they are ready. After the Olympics, there will be a Paralympics in the same locations for people with disabilities. They will call that event “Dream World.” The Olympic theme is “One World. One Dream.” He told us that July 13, 2001 at 11:00 p.m. is when the Chinese knew that they would be having the 2008 Olympics.

When we returned from our amazing Olympic tour, we were hungry so we went to the Sichuan (Sichuan is the Chinese providence where the earthquake occurred) restaurant which is right on campus. The food from Sichuan is known to be spicy, but we found some things that were pretty tasty. We almost always eat white rice. We also had sweet and sour pork, a beef and tomato soup that is somewhat like chili and they serve in a pot with a lighted candle type thing underneath, soybean type things, soup, and French fry type food. Most of the dishes have peppers in them, but we worked around them.

Eventually, we decided to go to an electronics market that we had seen from the bus. On our walk we saw many things including Chinese women using umbrellas to shield themselves from the weekend sun. The sun shines more on the weekend because of less smog. We live on an agricultural campus that is in the middle of a big city so we saw the very few test plot fields that our school has. People were working in the fields which consisted of mostly wheat and soybeans with a little corn. There was a man out flying a kite in this area since it is the only local area with a big open space. We walked about a mile or so to a big warehouse type building full of electronic supplies. It seemed like the products were divided by type and then by company. The rows went on and on. They had everything there from big screen tvs to washing machines to digital voice recorders. Mark was in the market for a camera since he unfortunately dropped his and Ashe wanted to buy a hair dyer. Despite the communication gap, they were both able to buy these items for similar prices to the United States. After the electronics market we walked farther down the road to another big mall-type store. It consisted of several floors of small 8’ x 8’ shop selling all sorts of stuff. One guy had Ethernet chords on display as well as the connectors and jacks. We wanted to got a splitter so that we could have two computers on the internet at once in our rooms so we had him make us two chords and bought a splitter. He did the whole deal-used the wire cutters to cut the chords and connected there wires where they need to be. We should have known then that it was a little sketchy cause when we got home and plugged it in, it didn’t work and made my computer go crazy.

Visiting a Local High School, Eating Sushi, and Seeing a Roehm in CHINA!

2008-07-02T03:40:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2008

I woke up in the middle of the night and got on the internet. At about 7 o clock we went for a short run. We then came back to the room and got ready quickly, so that we could go and get Starbucks. It is probably a half a mile away. We were able to get some iced coffee and head back to class, which was to start at 10 a.m. During our morning runs we have noticed many people out and about. Today when we came back out around 9:30 a.m. it seemed like EVERYONE was out and heading to work. The other day when we saw employees standing in lines outside and the boss giving directions I thought it was really strange. This morning we saw about 50 employees of a department store doing the same thing. I asked the teacher about it and she said that it is an idea they got from Japan and South Korea and they really think it is good. They started doing it in 1995. She said it is somewhat of a pep rally, determining if everyone is on the same page and getting people to realize we can do this and we’re in this together. The way she talked indicated that she thought it was a good idea.

One thing I have noticed about the men here is that rather than sitting on the ground or on some steps to talk to someone, they squat like a monkey with their butt almost to the ground and their knees toward the sky and there chest resting on and between their legs. It is quite the sight. I have yet to take a picture, but I want one BAD!

We thought that we were exactly on time to class, coming right at 10 oclock, but Mrs. Mau had already started. Yesterday, she had us each write down things we wanted to learn about from her as she is our history, customs, and culture teacher. What a great teaching tactic!!! We learned about this in my Agricultural Education courses and during my student teaching last fall. Give the students an opportunity to express what they want to know and not only will they get to learn the things they are interested in, but you can frame the lessons so that they feel like they have ownership in what they are learning- like they developed the curriculum, not you. She touched on each of our questions and said she would discuss them further throughout the time here.

She talked to us a lot about famous landmarks as well as back alleys and the set up of homes. It was rather fascinating. She went over by about a half hour, so we had class for three hours straight, but that is why we are here, to learn. She explained to us that women in the past in China were expected to stay home, similar to the United States. Also, in the fugal society, the parents would select a man for the women to marry. Furthermore, the husbands could marry many different women. Confucius thought that women should stay home and look after the children. She explained that for many reasons it is good when a family has a son. The Chinese are only allowed to have one child and it is common for married couples to move in with the man’s family, so a family with a daughter would basically not see her but once or twice a year after she got married. She said that in the rural areas, if you have a daughter you can have another child in five years. She said in the cities, the married daughter works to visit her parents at least every other week. Her quote was, “A daughter is like clothes in winter to keep parents always warm.” Hmmm.
She explained to us many more things including that in 1966-1969 all people in China were to have chairman Mao’s book and read it everyday. For some reason at that time, all students were free to stay home. High school students were able to travel free of charge from train rides and dinners. Starting in the 1970’s all students after graduation went to the countryside to learn and get experience from the farmers. Those who were recommended by the farmers could go to the university. I think that this no longer happens after graduation, but is part of high school and the farmers do not make recommendations it is just to visit the countryside and see how hard they have to work. Mrs. Mao also told us that she will have us to her home in small groups for a meal to introduce us to some different types of Chinese food. She explained that China is changing everyday in more ways than one. From viewpoints to construction, they want to be responsible members of globalization. She told us about many famous streets and buildings in Beijing.

She also talked to us about a famous characteristic of Beijing-the set up of the alleys. We have been walking on many alleys as we go back and forth from campus to the outside world so we have witnessed some of this stuff first hand. She said that sometimes four houses are arranged together so that there is a courtyard in the center. The houses just keep getting passed down from generation to generation so the family shares the courtyard. She said usually the elders live in the one with the most sunshine. I don’t know if they rotate when the generations shift or how they make it work like that. She said the advantages of this concept are total privacy except from your relatives, protection from the dust and noise, and that it is harmonious, calming, and sensitive. We don’t live near to anything of this concept since we are in a pretty developed area, but I think we are going to see some of this stuff later.

As soon as class was over we headed to the basement cafeteria restaurant. As with many things in China, you have to push your way to the front of a small crowd of people and then communicate to the workers what you want. I pointed to two vegetable type dishes and some rice. Here in China, they give you way too much to eat every time you get something. I went to the cooler and picked out an iced tea then paid for it with my meal card they have provided for us.

After lunch, we prepared to go on a field trip to a local high school! This experience was awesome! The drive there was quite the adventure itself. We had to drive on multiple lane roads and cross all kinds of traffic to get where we were going. The bus is nice and has excellent air conditioning and even though the driver cut a few other cars off and we seemingly had some close calls, we made it there just fine. The principal of the school gave us an excellent tour. At the campus, there is both a junior high and senior high. It has a cafeteria, dorms, and auditorium as well as an amazing display of stuff animals (taxidermy) such as a garaff, lion, and fox. There are 3400 students total, 200 of which live on campus. At lunch time they get 1000 students through every half hour. He told us that lunch time is very noisy and there are two floors of space to eat. The gymnasium was big, but didn’t have much seating room for spectators. Students in China have 9 years of compulsory education and then they go to high school or vocational school. To go to high school they have to pass a big examination. The students all were wearing sweatsuit like uniforms. It was pretty hot that day and I asked if they could wear shorts and they said they could but they wouldn’t want to. The students go to school from 7:20 until 4:00 p.m. We have heard that they are lucky to have this schedule because some schools go from 8:00 a.m.- 8:00 p.m. because they allow the students to go home for lunch and sometimes that takes a while.

The best part of visiting this school was the opportunity we had to speak with the students one on one. Each OSU student was matched with three or four students from the school. Excellent English just poured from their mouths as they asked us TONS of questions. They asked about American movies and American music. They asked about jobs in America and how often we have to study. This was one of the first glimpses I had at how diligently they have to study. They do not have time for much fun because they study so much. Everything is so competitive here because of the large population so they have to be sure to get good grades and learn enough so that they can get a good score on the examination for high school and the University. It is crazy. Since each family is only allowed to have one child in China, they do not have brothers and sisters. I asked them if they consider their classmates brothers and sisters and they said they do. I had my ipod along and so I played some American music for them. They knew more about American music than I do, they scrolled right through my artists and kept asking if I had this or that song. It was nuts. They told me that they like to watch Disney movies and it helps them with their English.

After leaving the school we headed back to campus. Most people were really hungry left right away to go to the sushi place near campus. I stayed behind with Paige and we went to pick up Sarah, world food prize student from Iowa, who is here researching for the summer. We arrived at the sushi place and as I had asked them to, they had ordered me shrimp and salmon rolls. They had most of us sitting in a small private room to eat. The sushi was so good! I hope we get to go back there soon. Even though some people are allergic or do not eat sea food they have other stuff, so it should be a place we can go to often. It only cost us about $3.50 and that is cheap for sushi!

Our next plans were to go to a movie at the IMAX theater near by. We had an hour to kill until then. Some people didn’t want to go to the movie and I was indifferent as long as we did something. We started walking on some busy side roads and found an establishment that looked like it had some Americans at it called Mystica. We walked inside and up to the balcony. There were about twenty law students from Indiana University who were celebrating the last night of their study tour. We told the guy nearest to us that Jessica, Ashley, and I were from the Ft. Wayne area, but in Ohio south of Van Wert. This guy said he was from Defiance. He said that is mom was from south of Van Wert, a town you’ve probably never heard of, Willshire, Ohio. We exploded. He said that is mom was a Roehm. She is Joyce Roehm, sister of Roland and Duane. We told him that we knew the Roehm kids and Betsy. Gamble. Small world, eh? Later, we got a picture with him. We sat around in there for a while, and then one of the law students who was sitting in an awkward position before came over to our table and asked if we had said earlier that we were majoring in Agirculture. She did her undergrad at Purdue in Ag Economics. She agreed with me that it is hard when you are with a group of people who are not interested in agriculture to ask questions, but that it is a priority to go ahead and do it anyway. There is so much to learn. We are sure our tour mates want to tell us to shut up when we ask tons of questions pertaining to agriculture and other stuff. She gave me her info and I am going to add her on facebook. Also, she told me about their program, which sounded very interesting. They go to IUIndy. I also talked to several of them who did there undergraduate degree at IU main campus in Bloomington, which is where I lived last summer while working for GM. One guy’s inlaws are from Bedford.

Eventually, we headed for our hotel. It was so odd, it was about 11:30 p.m. and we were heading home, but hardly anyone was out. In America, the nightlife is just getting started around this time. It does get daylight at about 4:30 a.m. here, but I have no idea why people were inside so early. It is possible that people there is a cerfew. What made us really suspicious of this was when we walked home and were by the gate that is literally 20 feet from our hotel entrance and it was locked. Everyone had to climb over or go through the fence over/gate/door. Ashley and I ended up being one of the last three to cross over along with Juan. Juan started to climb and got scared of the heights. She said she ain’t doin that. She said, “I walk ‘round.” We didn’t want her to walk at night by herself, so Ashe and I went with her. We thought we were going to have to walk clear to the North gate and then all the away around to the East gate. We ended up finding a little bit shorter route, but still were probably walking for twenty minutes before we got back to the side of the fence our hotel was on. DongFong said that only that gate closes at night and that we should be able to get in from the gate on the side near the Friendship Hotel. Everyone had waited for us outside the hotel to get back. I thought to myself, “If these people were going to wait or were so concern for that matter, why didn’t some of them crawl back through the opening of the fence and walk with us three girls? We were not in harms way at all but it was still dark outside and were in a big city. Oh well.

High Cereal Prices and Hover Toilets

2008-06-26T22:41:00.000-07:00

June 19, 2008

We woke up at 6:30 a.m. to go for a jog. While out an about we saw lots of people out greeting the day. They were doing stretches that looked like yoga of some sort. They were throwing a tennis ball type thing back and forth using racquets.

Here is a picture of a man doing simple stretches on a set of bars in the park.

This is a picture of people gathered in a big lot next to the park to do dance-type exercises. I don't know if they are free or if they have to pay some sort of membership, but a person could have just slipped into the back and joined them.

More folks exercising near the parks.

We went to a welcome meeting in a really nice conference room in this hotel. The president of the university spoke and several other officials welcomed us. Melissa, our advisor from Ohio State, said words of thanks and we all introduced ourselves. The people at this university are so welcoming. I can tell already it is going to be a great time. They even had a gigantic sign that said, “Welcome OSU to CAAS.”

Here is Mrs. Mao starting the class.

We had class with Mrs. Mao and she taught us about the types of food that come from each province. She is such a nice teacher. Her English is better than most and she really goes into detail with her stories. She has her students come and do short presentations at the end of her class. She is dividing the information they are to teach us by decade. The girls today talked about the 1950’s. I could tell they were nervous, but they didn’t do bad at all.

After our morning class, we had a big welcome lunch in the Blackwell. The president of the school was there and several other dignitaries. They brought out tons of food and put it on the lazy Susans in the middle of our tables. It seemed like every time we turned around they were rearranging the food onto make more room. The president also talked at this event and made a toast to our group. They are so welcoming toward us. They just kept bring more food and being friendly to us.

The toilets outside of our room are of the hover style. This is where you do not sit down, but you squat like a little kid would to look at a bug and hover over the hole. The toilet is like a hole in the ground. There is nothing above ground but the flush button. I have yet to use one. I think I’ll just hold it.

Later that afternoon, we had our agricultural class. Our teacher started talking about how the cereal price is so high. I asked her if China is on board with any sort of the renewable fuels craze. She said, “American corn is beating the world.” I guess she must be referring to the high food prices that she thinks is a result of the high grain prices. Again for this program we are going to have to write papers. Rather than one big paper we have to write a smaller, six page, paper for each of our classes. I think for agricultural class, I will write my paper on renewable fuels and how it relates to China. She explained that in China, most of the ariable land is a mountain, and that with less ariable land it is difficult to feed all those people. She also said it is common for older people to only eat twice a day because when they were younger there was only enough food for them to do so. She said that rice is produced in the south because there is more rain there. She also said that cereal grains are shipped from the north to the south. She also explained that farmers get very small portions of land- like the size of a classroom to produce their food. She said that the farmers and their households have low educational levels and that most people do not finish middle school because they are needed for working. Even though the fields are small, in some areas there must be some bigger fields because they have custom harvesting here of wheat similar to what ewe have in the United States. She said most importantly, people cannot afford to go to high school. The government provides money to pay for their books. The teacher’s salary is also paid by the government. In China, it is preferred to have a boy because they can do the work since it is too expensive to have machinery. All people living in the country are called farmers, not just people that actually farm.

For supper that evening, we tried to go to the cafeteria in the basement so we could use up our meal plans, but they were closed so we headed to the Sichuan restaurant. The food from the Sichuan province is known for being spicy, so we were careful to order dishes that were slightly the least spicy. It is much easier to eat here than I thought it would be. We are getting good at chopsticks and at restaurants, all we have to do is point to what we want on the menu.

"You are my best friend." - A Chinese Waiter

2008-06-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

People in China wear the same clothes two days in a row and then change. We had this suspicion when we noticed DongFang do this when she picked us up in the airport and the next day, but it was defiantly confirmed by Heor, one of our tour guides from the first full day. Paige, who has been her before, says that Chinese people claim it is easier to remember people and their names that way. Of course, I think many of them look very similar, but I would think they would be better able to tell each other apart!! I guess if it is a common thing, and everyone does it, then no one can feel weird about it. It is just plain common. I wonder if American has any set standards like that that we take for granted and people from other countries would notice we do right away.

We have decided to not eat breakfast on campus and survive with the stuff we buy at the store. The food is not that bad, but the smell of it is less than appetizing. We had a welcome class this morning where several vice presidents of the university came to talk to us and welcome us. Furthermore, the about 30 graduate students each said hello and nice to meet you individually. We then introduced our selves. Every time we would say our names, they would all in unison repeat them. It was hilarious when we got to Gregory; they all just looked at each other and laughed before they tried to pronounce and three syllable word. They make themselves laugh quite often. Even when the children run up to you and say, “Hello,” something they’ve learned in grade school, they run away laughing.

We found out at our introductory course that the President of the school would not be able to come to our welcome dinner this evening because he was going to be on a late flight. Therefore, it was moved to Thursday noon. Since we had the rest of the afternoon off, we headed up the street to find some lunch. We went to a place we were originally going to call the orange place. We split our group up into two tables and a man with very little English came to greet us. He gave us menus and we started to pick some food out. Thank heaven that most places we have encountered so far have picture menus. We are told that you should pick out 1 more dish than the number of people at your table. We have found out that this is FAR too much. We always leave tons of food on our tables. We usually pick out some sort of chicken, beef, sea food, and vegetable plus rice for us to share. It is a lot. When we eat at “The Blackwell” we like the broccoli they make, this day at the Orange restaurant, we ordered snow peas and they were really good. During our meal, the waiter came out with a small slip of paper where he had scribbled, “Is the food to your taste?” We went above and beyond to let him know that it was. Later, he came to our table and said, “You are my best friend.” We are going to start calling this restaurant, “The Best Friend,” since we have no idea what it says in Chinese.

Mike, Ashe, and Greg eating at, "The Best Friend."

These vegetable markets are all over! I bet there are ten within a two block radius of our campus. They have to sell their product somewhere!

We then headed back to the room and eventually walked to the busy street for a little shopping and browsing around. We went to a Nike store they have here. The shoes are about $100, so it would not be worth buy them here. I'll get them at Kohl's for $40.

Ashe and Jess checking out the shoes at the Nike store.

Seth has since told me that this is a dog face, but originally we thought it was part of a cat. Read on.

We saw all sorts of things between the campus and here, including the hide of a cat head. Yes, we saw a cat head. We learned in class that in the Southern area the people are basically uneducated hicks and they do eat cat. What the teacher didn’t say was that they also eat it in Beijing. That is okay, we found out for ourselves!
Exercise is such an important part of the Chinese culture. No matter what their age, Chinese are always out and about doing something. The elderly are on walks or at the exercise parks using the equipment. The young people, of course, ride there bikes and walk all over. We haven’t seen too many runners yet, but I am sure they will appear.

This is a hospital about one block from our campus with a very common exercise park in front of it! We joke that there will be NO BREAKING YOUR LEG IN CHINA! We will not go to the hospital!

At the end of our afternoon, we watched the boys play basketball with the Chinese. The Chinese were really, really good. Mark is so tall and they are really impressed with him. He dunked a few and blocked a few of their shots. They cheered for him even though he wasn’t on their team. They loved to watch him play.

The boys from OSU who played basketball. I bet you can pick out which one is Mark.

Later we walked to an outdoor restaurant behind the Friendship Hotel with our whole group. It was very nice and peaceful. The menu was odd, but the items were written in English.

I ordered cucumber. It came out as five seven inch long, one inch around raw cucumbers. I ate two of them and then sent them around the table.

Ashley ordered barbequed cauliflower. It was on a skewer and had some spices on it, she really liked it. Next time we go, I think I will get some beef and scallions, some other people ordered. Lauren ordered barbequed garlic which was just garlic chunks on a skewer. They came out and asked us if we would like Chinese ice cream. They acted like it was a real big deal. I ordered some and it was not. It looked and tasted like something they would serve in elementary school cafeterias.

Paige ordered chrysanthemum tea to drink and what came back was this! I tasted it and it just tasted like warm water. I'd rather be here looking at this tea pot than a watering pots of mums at home!

We sat out here until way after dark and then headed back to campus via stopping at 7eleven. Yes, they have 7 eleven here.

Back at the hotel we all gathered in our room, asked each other get to know you questions, and chatted the night away. It was a very fun time and I really look forward to getting to know this group.

The People's Republic of China

2008-06-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

China Daily Journal

June 16, 2008

We have finally arrived in China!!! It is about midnight as a type this email, exactly 12 hours ahead of Ohio time. Our departing time from Columbus, Ohio was 8:45 a.m. on Sunday June 15, 2008. After one week off school, we still weren’t completely prepared at midnight the night before. I mostly hold sheer procrastination responsible for this, but also account the fact that Seth and I got ENGAGED (Woo Hoo!!!) for my lack of preparedness. It was just fine with me to be packing that late because I had intended on staying up all night since we had a 13 hour flight from Newark, NJ to Beijing today. Upon finally finishing packing, complete with Dad making a trip to the shop at 3:30 a.m. to get bailer twine for making a clothesline in China, Mom, Dad, Ashley, Jessica, and I departed home. Kevin, Becky, and Jade brought Jessica over to our house at that early hour. The ride to Columbus was fine, except, I really had a hard time staying awake. I woke up to get a fruit and yogurt parfait at McDonalds in Bellefontaine and then when we were on 315 and people were asking if we were going the right way.

At the Columbus airport, I had to shift some of my supplies because one of my suitcases weighed a little over the 50 pound limit. We made it through security okay, except Ashe had to get rid of some toothpaste which was over the 3 ounce size limit. We’ll just share now. We turned around after making it through to see Mom and Dad watching us and exchanging real big waves, we headed to our terminal.

Boarding the plane in Columbus. This was the first time any of us had done an "up the steps" boarding.

The flight to Newark was not bad except there was a crying baby near the front. Ashley and Jessica sat on one side of the aisle together and I sat on the other side. There was a girl of Asian decent with me and somehow we started talking about what we were doing after we arrived at Newark and she said she was also heading to China. Originally from here, she is studying at Marietta College in Ohio and is just home for the summer. I fell asleep on that flight, which made it go pretty fast.

At Newark we found our next terminal and spotted Rob and Gregory, two of our tour mates who flew into Newark form other locations. We decided to grab lunch before setting up camp in the terminal. I had a chicken Caesar wrap and the girls went for chicken sandwiches and fries from a place called, “Nathan’s.” It was only after that did we find out that our flight was delayed by two hours, for reasons unknown. We were somewhat worried that we would be late to China and therefore have to navigate our way around Beijing, but figured that since there were five of us, they would wait. We ended up being right, because most of the other students and Melissa, our professor, had delayed flights as well. In fact, Nick is coming yet tomorrow and we have yet to hear from Johanna!! Continental gave out food vouchers for $8.00 and after looking to find something that I could take on the plane and save for later and being unsuccessful, I ended up buying a fruit cup and a bottle of water which was a total of $7.00. Expensive, I know. As we all sat together, waiting until it was time to leave, I know that I zonked out for a while.

Our plane to China! Huge!

Finally it was time to board the plane. It looked huge from the terminal window. Inside we found 42 coach class rows of three sets of three across. There were also large sections of business and first class passengers. I told the attendant that I would be more than willing to move to those sections should she need a volunteer and she said it would be $7,000. I passed. J Jess, Ashe, and I were on the left side of the plane, Ashe by the window and Jess in the middle in the row behind me. I was also by a window. I was surprised to see the diverse crowd that was on the plane. Some were Chinese, returning home, and others seemed to be part of student groups like ours. I don’t think that I identified anyone that I guessed to be heading to China this early for the Olympics which are in August.

The plane ride was not near as bad as I thought it would be. It was 13 hours though!

We saw huge, probably 100 acre, chunks of ice in the ocean or sea that we crossed over. I wonder what causes them to break at all.

Here is the route we took!

We went right over the North Pole. Sorry folks, I did not see Santa. He must be on vacation!

When we passed the International Date Line, some people sang Happy Birthday to a girl. This will be the longest birthday of her life. I think we passed over some deserts also. As we flew closer to Beijing, China did not look like what I expected it to from the plane. The roofs of buildings were not elaborate and square. We saw lots of huge buildings which I believe to be manufacturing facilities. It seemed like every time we turned around they were feeding us. I guess that is what you get for paying about $100 per hour to fly. It could just seem this way because we basically only woke up to answer the lady that was coming through to ask if we wanted fish or steak or what kind of drink we preferred. At one point they came through with small pizzas and a cup of ice cream for each passenger. I got out of my seat and stretched and went to the bathroom once. I turned around in my seat and talked to Ashe and Jess a few times also. I looked at a couple of magazines and tried to start reading a book. Mostly, though, I just slept. It went pretty fast that way. The only time any of us felt queezy was when we were preparing to land. They had just given us a breakfast type meal, with some eggs and stuff. I just ate the bread, but I wished I wouldn’t have.

HEre is Gregory, one of our tourmates, going through Customs.

This is our first glimpse at anything Olympic like. It was on the escalator toward baggage claim.

At the Beijing Airport we walked wait in a long customs line, to claim our baggage, go through security. Then we found a bus to take to the other terminal of the airport where we were to meet up with DangFong, our Chinese tour guide. The first bus we saw looked rather full, but it seemed like the driver was waiting for a few more people to get on it. We didn’t volunteer. We did get on the next bus after stowing our luggage in the underneath compartments. This bus was full but I was much relived when the bus driver started it up and air conditioning came on. At the other terminal Ashe, Jess, and I opted to take advantage of free carts for stacking and pushing our luggage and started the quest with Gregory and Robert to find the McDonalds where we were supposed to meet DangFong. We were on the fourth floor and it took us quite a while to find the correct elevator to get to the second floor, where we were to meet her. We couldn’t take an escalator because of all our stuff and most of the elevators were marked for employees only. I finally asked someone, “Do you speak English?” and she said, “May I help you?” and I said, “We need an elevator to the second floor.” She directed us, but those elevators had large crowds waiting to use them so we found an enormous ramp that had two slopes and used it. It was then that I found out that our carts had breaks. I was practically running to keep up with the cart and Ashe said, “If you’d let up on the handle, that will employ the brakes.” Duh.

A view of part of the Beijing Airport.

We found Michael on the second floor and he showed us the location of McDonalds. Poor Michael, he still does not have his luggage. As we headed toward the McDonalds a lady came up to us and asked us if we were from Ohio State. We said we were and she told us that she was DangFong.

She said she would go looking for Johanna, while we waited on her. Her grad student, who told us we could call her Julia, waited with us. At one point, she said, “Introduce yourselves to me.” DangFong came back with no Johanna and we headed outside what Julia said was a car waiting for us. I was relieved to see it was a bus for the six of us OSU students, our luggage, DangFong, Julia, and the driver. The air conditioning was nice and we peered out the window at our first true glimpse of China.

The girls mischievously read a newspaper found on the bus.

I was unable to stay awake for most of it, but I do remember seeing several restaurants, shops, hotels, and malls, including a KFC and McDonalds. They had these all over in the Dominican, too.

A nice hotel we saw from the bus. It says, "CTS Hotel on it." I wonder if this is any relation to the CTS my mom and aunts worked at. They said her job got shipped to China!

We were utterly amazed at the quality of our hotel, where we will be staying for most of our trip. Ashe, Jess, and I will be sharing a room and we each have our own bed. We have one internet port in the room, a TV, lots of storage space, and a nice bathroom. The toilet doesn’t have that much pressure when it comes to flushing, but it does the job. The shower is nice, but our water heater is right in the room, and didn’t keep up with our three consecutive showers. I am extremely satisfied with our living conditions.

DangFong lead the six of us to the restaurant in the hotel. It was very nice as well. She ordered a host of food choices for us which included some fried chicken drummettes, broccoli, pot stickers with sausage inside, white rice with vegetables and eggs, and other stuff that I cannot recall. She then left to go pick up the others at the airport. There was plenty left over when we were finished. DangFong seemingly had paid for the meal and after we tried to ask the waitress if we needed to pay and she waved us out, we headed up to our rooms. Us girls started talking, but ended up falling into a deep sleep. We woke up to the sound of our room doorbell (yes our rooms have doorbells). We were having a group meeting in Melissa, our professor’s room. There, she distributed our meal cards which are to last us one week, but I think they will go longer, gave us some coursework syllabi and an itinerary. The students who had just arrived went to eat and the rest of us headed to our rooms. We girls unpacked, storing our clothes in the various closet and drawer locations. We took showers and prepared for bed. It took us quite a while to fall asleep.

June 17, 2008

Even though we had gone to bed around 1:00 a.m. we woke up on our own at about 4:30 a.m. We weren’t tired and couldn’t sleep. This is probably because we slept practically all day yesterday. We fidgeted around on the internet; read our tour books, magazines, and novels; and even did a few push ups. Jess and Ashe eventually fell back asleep, but I just read my book until it was time to get up for breakfast.

At 8:30 a.m. we all converged on the hotel lobby. DangFong lead us to another small restaurant type place where we could pick items we wanted to eat and use our meal card to pay for them. I picked a pancake looking like item that had some green stuff inside. It was more like a quesadilla without the cheese with some onion type vegetable inside. It was very difficult to eat with chopsticks. When we went to pay the item cost 1 yin which is about 15 cents. So cheap! We got juice too, which was 4 yin, so a little more expensive.

We then headed back to our rooms where we had some time to kill before we headed out on the tour of campus and the surrounding area. The campus seems very safe. It also seems somewhat small. Although there are gates surrounding the campus with gaurds, it is still hard for me to tell where the perimeter of the campus is. I look forward to getting to know the surrounding area.

Here is a neat building with the elaborate roof tops I was picturing.

Some graduate students lead us through the local markets and showed us some restaurants and stores. This area is totally Americanized. There was all kinds of shops. The supermarket was huge. We saw some really odd stuff there. There was raw poultry that still had the heads on. All over the city there were cars, bikes, and people walking. It was very busy and bustling. We tried to go to a bank where people could exchange American money for Chinese money, but they needed our passports and we had given them to the hotel for check in.

This van says, "The Crazy English." I guess they really do call us crazy!

Here is a strip of shops and such that we passed. MickeyD's really is everywhere!

Some of our group waiting while our tourguides decide where to take us next.

Some poultry at the grocery with their heads still on! Yikes! Won't be eating that!

Some meat in a freezer. I guess you just scoop it out and put it in a bag. Pretty unsteril if you ask me.

The view from the escalator of the supermarket.

A squash type item cut into a big slice. Maybe it was melon. I do not know. Anyway, it is about 60 cents worth of the item.

Eventually we headed back to campus. We saw a few areas that have small exercise items similar to what you might find at a park in America. We have these at Fred Beekmen park and by the trail on campus. Before coming here we heard that these were being installed to help people prepare for the Olympics. I find this hilarious.

We went through campus, clear to the other side, and out the gate to another bank.

There, we waited for a long period of time to take turns exchanging our American cash for yin. The exchange rate here was much better than the one we experienced at the Newark Airport. It took at least an hour for our entire group to meet with the financial officer one by one in the back room. I found it odd that they didn’t have us wait in line like the rest of the Chinese people, but we did have a back office room to ourselves.

We watched out the window at 10 year old (or so) school children played in the school yard. They were so funny to watch. A group of four girls connected their legs together and hopped around in a circle. There were several boys that came over and waved to us through the window. We headed back to campus and some of us ate at the nice restaurant downstairs because the student cafeteria was closed since it was about 1:00 p.m. already. It cost a total of 27 yin which is about three dollars. We were able to pay for this using our meal card. The meal card has 300 yin on it and we can make it last as long as we want. Not bad for six different food items which we were on a lazy susan in front of us and we twirled around to get what we wanted. I liked the rice and the broccoli the best, but some of the spicy chicken wasn’t too bad. I really do not like the pot stickers.

We came up to the room and started to work on our journals. The next thing I knew was that DangFong was knocking on our door. I answered it, thinking it was morning. She said we would meet up later than we were supposed to because she had to go to the airport to get Nick. After much more sleeping (when will this end?) we headed to the grocery with Juan and Paige to get breakfast food. The night life was so hopping. It wasn’t scary at all to be out after dark. There were many lights and people around. There are so many shops out there. We didn’t find too much at the grocery. I got some wheat crackers, some chocolate cookies, and some garbage bags for 11 yin which is about $1.50.