My apologies for not updating in a while. Needless to say, I have that much more to blog about as a result.
Where to begin? I think there are two things that have been utterly lacking in my posts thus far.
1) What I do during the week when I am working.
2) What I do during the weekend when I am not working.
The reason I am here is through a program called CETI which stands for China . Every year roughly 30 MIT students are sent to China to either "wave the flag" for Open Course Ware or the MIT iLab project. People either go to universities or high schools and typically teach various subjects that are not solely aimed at teaching basic spoken English.
I'm on an iLab team with Xiao Xiao and Michael Chi-Heung Yeung. The iLab project is centered around the iLab architecture which, in brief, enables universities to share educational experiments over the internet. The idea is that if one institution invests n thousand dollars in some experimental setup (e.g. earthquake simulator, polymer crystallization lab, electronics something or other) then why should several other institutions have to spend n thousand dollars on the exact same lab if it can be shared over the web? This idea makes even more sense when you realize that most equipment is only used a small fraction of the time, normally right before an assignment is due. Another big perk, is that it allows students to do lab whenever and wherever they want. Hurray computers!
Once the architecture is setup whomever is setting up an experiment only has to do a small amount of work to put it on the web, allow certain people to use it at certain times and all the relevant tasks.
Where me, Michale, and Xiao Xiao fit in is the setting up of the architecture. Unfortunately its a bit complicated and still has some bugs, so we need one of the software developers to help us get parts of it up and running. Thus, we are often forced to work at 10 in the morning or 10 at night so that we can talk with people back at MIT. For those of you that know of it, it's probably no surprise we use Skype. And for those of you that don't know about it, Skype is a pretty good piece of software. As its semi-relevant, my Skype username is bcharrow. Shoot me an e-mail and we can setup a time to talk!
I'm gonna break these posts up. My next one will contain info about nightlife, I swear.
I must admit I feel theneed to mention some of the more interesting things I've read recently.
Flatterland is a wonderful book that accessibly discusses, what seems to me, be about a bunch of visually oriented mathematics.
I found this to be an interesting article on China and the way some parts of it function.
Probably a bunch of you have seen this one on some link website or penny-arcade, but it's worth a read if you have the time. The code snippets require no programming knowledge and I recommend reading them.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Pictures!!!1!!1
Well, it may have taken me too long, but here, finally, are some of the photos I've taken. I assure you that there are many more than these, and I will be more than happy to show them to you, personally I might add, upon my return to wherever you are.
I'll begin with some pictures I took in Beijing and then artfully and gracefully segue into pictures from Dalian.
Actually, I lied to you. The first two pictures were taken in Dalian Never the less, I wanted to get the point across that just about everything here is different. Yes, yes, China is globalizing and you can find many Western brands here (e.g. KFC, Gillette razors, shampoos/conditioners, toothpaste, TV, etc). However, there are still quite a few differences. For example, take a look at the top of this coke can!
A crazy coke can from the top
The crazy way it opens
Nutrition facts (notice what they use instead of Calories)
It seems that most places in Beijing are abuzz with preparationts for the upcoming Olympics. There were posters and advertisements absolutely everywhere. Walking around it also looked like many parts of the city were being torn up and rebuilt to look nicer. The city's efforts at cleanup don't just extend to razing buildings and sidewalks, I read that the city police recently burned some large number of kilograms of illicit drugs (cocaine, heroine meth, etc.) as a "symbolic act" to show their resolve at "making the city drug free for the games." The burning has further symbolic meaning by mimicking the massive opium burnings of yesteryear.
Ad near my hotel.
Sidewalks being torn up. It was like this all over the city. There are large teams of people that then re-tile everything.
Just a pretty church that I happened to walk by.
Naturally, the church attracted a large number of skateboarders.
The view from one of the places Yuan Feng took us.
Same place, this time facing to the right
We also got taken to a park that had all of these weird giant models of various animals. Among these were squid, whales, giraffes, penguins, seals (or water leopards as they are called in Chinese), and a bunch of others. It was actually kind of neat. Plus, I got to ride on a giant turtle!
Look! I'm on a giant turtle!
I have absolutely no idea what breed this dog is. It is quite pretty, though.
Although my white skin makes me stand out quite a bit, every once in a while I come across a place where I blend right in:
In closing, the dog was pretty, the parks were pretty, the food is delicious, it's easy enough to meet and talk with people, all in all it's been fun thus far.
I'll begin with some pictures I took in Beijing and then artfully and gracefully segue into pictures from Dalian.
Actually, I lied to you. The first two pictures were taken in Dalian Never the less, I wanted to get the point across that just about everything here is different. Yes, yes, China is globalizing and you can find many Western brands here (e.g. KFC, Gillette razors, shampoos/conditioners, toothpaste, TV, etc). However, there are still quite a few differences. For example, take a look at the top of this coke can!
A crazy coke can from the top
The crazy way it opens
Nutrition facts (notice what they use instead of Calories)
Ad near my hotel.
Sidewalks being torn up. It was like this all over the city. There are large teams of people that then re-tile everything.
Just a pretty church that I happened to walk by.
Naturally, the church attracted a large number of skateboarders.Those are all of the pictures, for now, from Beijing. Onwards towards Dalian! While looking at a map of China, it's as far north east as you can get while still being a sea-side city.
As many people have said, the sea-food here is absolutely unbelievable. A graduate student in the lab that is hosting us recently finished his Ph. D. and so everyone, including us for some reason, went out to dinner. Like several of the restaurants here, it was what I suppose you could call a "point and eat" place, in that they had rows of food (not unlike a supermarket) where you can look at what you want to order (Unlike a supermarket, though, many of them have silkworms).
The seafood is arranged in much the same way, except unlike the beef, chicken and vegetable dishes, much of it is still alive. They have lobsters and the usual stuff, but there are some differences too. As an example, tonight someone in the party I was with picked out a fish that was swimming around. One of the restaurant employees immediately got a net, caught said fish, and proceeded to slam it as hard as he possibly could into a wall. The fish put up a good fight, though, and had to be slammed into the wall several more times. Once it became sufficiently stunned, the employee placed it into a plastic bag and handed it to one of the chef's. I've decided that "fresh" fish in America has nothing on what I'm eating here.
As many people have said, the sea-food here is absolutely unbelievable. A graduate student in the lab that is hosting us recently finished his Ph. D. and so everyone, including us for some reason, went out to dinner. Like several of the restaurants here, it was what I suppose you could call a "point and eat" place, in that they had rows of food (not unlike a supermarket) where you can look at what you want to order (Unlike a supermarket, though, many of them have silkworms).
The seafood is arranged in much the same way, except unlike the beef, chicken and vegetable dishes, much of it is still alive. They have lobsters and the usual stuff, but there are some differences too. As an example, tonight someone in the party I was with picked out a fish that was swimming around. One of the restaurant employees immediately got a net, caught said fish, and proceeded to slam it as hard as he possibly could into a wall. The fish put up a good fight, though, and had to be slammed into the wall several more times. Once it became sufficiently stunned, the employee placed it into a plastic bag and handed it to one of the chef's. I've decided that "fresh" fish in America has nothing on what I'm eating here.
Aside from good food, the place we're staying at is pretty nice. We've been placed at Dalian University Of Technology's "Guest House for Visiting Scholars" which is about a 10 minute walk from where we work. Right near the campus is a pretty path up a mountain where Xiao Xiao and I went one day (Michael, our other teammate, wasn't here yet).
Path as seen from campus. If you squint, you can see a pagoda at the top of the mountain.
What it looked like along the path.
Xiao Xiao celebrating life?
The city, as we learned last weekend, is also quite pretty. Yuan Feng, one of our hosts, gave us a tour and talked to us about some of the history. For instance, it's a young city (100 years) and known for "shopping, sports, and romance."
Path as seen from campus. If you squint, you can see a pagoda at the top of the mountain.
What it looked like along the path.
Xiao Xiao celebrating life?The city, as we learned last weekend, is also quite pretty. Yuan Feng, one of our hosts, gave us a tour and talked to us about some of the history. For instance, it's a young city (100 years) and known for "shopping, sports, and romance."
Dalian, like Beijing, seems to be undergoing a lot of construction.
The view from one of the places Yuan Feng took us.
Same place, this time facing to the rightWe also got taken to a park that had all of these weird giant models of various animals. Among these were squid, whales, giraffes, penguins, seals (or water leopards as they are called in Chinese), and a bunch of others. It was actually kind of neat. Plus, I got to ride on a giant turtle!
Look! I'm on a giant turtle!Right by the turtle was a beach which had some people with their dogs. Naturally, I went over and introduced myself (to the dogs I mean).
I have absolutely no idea what breed this dog is. It is quite pretty, though.Although my white skin makes me stand out quite a bit, every once in a while I come across a place where I blend right in:
In closing, the dog was pretty, the parks were pretty, the food is delicious, it's easy enough to meet and talk with people, all in all it's been fun thus far.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Visiting and leaving Beijing
Anecdotes:
-After explaining to someone that I'm American:
"Are you sure you're not English? You're awfully skinny to be an American."
-Street vendor selling water (in Chinese): two yuan, two yuan, two yuan!
(I approach him)
Street Vendor (in English): That'll be five yuan.
Me (in Chinese): Two yuan?
Street Vendor: OK.
-Much like people that wear shirts with Chinese characters on them, many people here wear shirts with English on them. Bear in mind that, on the whole, sex is a much more taboo subject here than in America. I've even heard that participating, and getting caught, can get you expelled from college. Anyway, here are some of the best shirts that I've seen: "F@#$! F@#$ you! F@#$! F@#$! F@#$!"
"I like being on top"
"Surfer's dreams are wet"
"QDADF ADFE ZXCVD QLA" (or something like that, it was just random letters)
Today I decided to visit Tiananmen='Heavenly Gate' square and the nearby gardens. Due to my extensive research and careful planning (i.e. I got lucky), the hostel I'm staying at is only a few blocks away. As I was walking there, I stopped at a restaurant whose menu had no pictures and was printed entirely in Hanzi. As I couldn't read a bloody word of it, I waited until someone near me ordered something that looked appetizing and then told the waitress "I'll have what he's having." I ended up with a large bowl of delicious beef noodles that cost about 2 USD.
Walking around Tiananmen was certainly an exciting experience and I have a couple of neat pictures. What they don't capture is how absolutely massive the whole place is. It's really freaking huge. Anyway. Walking around I met an art student from Xi'An who took me to a show that she and her classmates had put together. She showed me her portfolio which consisted of a variety of oil and water color paintings. As she showed them to me I learned a bit about art (I swear I paid attention!) and what animals are used to represent various things like piety, longevity, good fortune, etc. Everything I was shown was quite beautiful, but unfortunately they didn't allow photographs. (UPDATE: This art thing, as I just read about, was probably a scam. It doesn't matter much as I didn't buy anything, nor had any real interest in buying anything. While my eye is obviously not trained, what I looked at seemed genuine, as in actually painted and not printed by a machine.)
After leaving Tiananmen I got approached by some international trade relation students that were visiting Beijing during their summer break. Truth be told this wasn't a novelexperience. Today alone I've probably been approached by 15 different people, each asking if they could practice their English. These conversations usually began with people coming up to me and yelling an enthusiastic "Hello!" or "Hallo!" It's fun, they get to speak English, and I get to speak what could generously called Chinese. I ended up going to a tea house where they drank expensive tea and I drank cheap beer.
(UPDATE: I didn't mention it, but the tea thing is obviously a scam. However, this time I paid a total of 20 yuan, an acceptable price at a bar here, while the people I was with paid 130.)
Alcohol is actually an interesting subject and as near as I can tell there aren't any laws regulating where you can drink. I know with certainty that there is no "legal drinking age" and have seen kids no older than 7 drinking healthy portions of a 600 ml beer. The drink of choice is undoubtedly Tsingtao, which I must admit I've taken quite a shine to.
The rest of the day was relatively hectic. Upon arriving at the hotel, I realized that I only had about 40 minutes to pack, pick up my train ticket, eat dinner, and get to the train station. As usual, I managed to sprint like a madman and achieve most of those goals. I only failed in eating a complete dinner, but I did manage to ingest a small bowl of rice.
The train ride itself was pretty laid back; I was in a compartment with 4 bunks. My bunkmates all went to bed pretty early, as did I, and next thing I knew the train was pulling into Dalian.
At this point I'm going to take a break because I'm going downtown to hang out with some friends that Xiao Xiao (my iLabs teammate and fellow MITer) and I made last night when we went clubbing. I'll add pictures soon and also describe what life in Dalian as a "foreign expert" and teacher has been like.
Things to look forward to reading about: -Me hitting the town and meeting all kinds of interesting Chinese and ex-pats.
-Teaching a class where many of the students barely understand the language
-Becoming brave enough to eat food from street vendors (no traveler's diarrhea yet!)
-Competing with, and occasionally beating, the Great Firewall of China.
Cheers.
-After explaining to someone that I'm American:
"Are you sure you're not English? You're awfully skinny to be an American."
-Street vendor selling water (in Chinese): two yuan, two yuan, two yuan!
(I approach him)
Street Vendor (in English): That'll be five yuan.
Me (in Chinese): Two yuan?
Street Vendor: OK.
-Much like people that wear shirts with Chinese characters on them, many people here wear shirts with English on them. Bear in mind that, on the whole, sex is a much more taboo subject here than in America. I've even heard that participating, and getting caught, can get you expelled from college. Anyway, here are some of the best shirts that I've seen: "F@#$! F@#$ you! F@#$! F@#$! F@#$!"
"I like being on top"
"Surfer's dreams are wet"
"QDADF ADFE ZXCVD QLA" (or something like that, it was just random letters)
Today I decided to visit Tiananmen='Heavenly Gate' square and the nearby gardens. Due to my extensive research and careful planning (i.e. I got lucky), the hostel I'm staying at is only a few blocks away. As I was walking there, I stopped at a restaurant whose menu had no pictures and was printed entirely in Hanzi. As I couldn't read a bloody word of it, I waited until someone near me ordered something that looked appetizing and then told the waitress "I'll have what he's having." I ended up with a large bowl of delicious beef noodles that cost about 2 USD.
Walking around Tiananmen was certainly an exciting experience and I have a couple of neat pictures. What they don't capture is how absolutely massive the whole place is. It's really freaking huge. Anyway. Walking around I met an art student from Xi'An who took me to a show that she and her classmates had put together. She showed me her portfolio which consisted of a variety of oil and water color paintings. As she showed them to me I learned a bit about art (I swear I paid attention!) and what animals are used to represent various things like piety, longevity, good fortune, etc. Everything I was shown was quite beautiful, but unfortunately they didn't allow photographs. (UPDATE: This art thing, as I just read about, was probably a scam. It doesn't matter much as I didn't buy anything, nor had any real interest in buying anything. While my eye is obviously not trained, what I looked at seemed genuine, as in actually painted and not printed by a machine.)
After leaving Tiananmen I got approached by some international trade relation students that were visiting Beijing during their summer break. Truth be told this wasn't a novelexperience. Today alone I've probably been approached by 15 different people, each asking if they could practice their English. These conversations usually began with people coming up to me and yelling an enthusiastic "Hello!" or "Hallo!" It's fun, they get to speak English, and I get to speak what could generously called Chinese. I ended up going to a tea house where they drank expensive tea and I drank cheap beer.
(UPDATE: I didn't mention it, but the tea thing is obviously a scam. However, this time I paid a total of 20 yuan, an acceptable price at a bar here, while the people I was with paid 130.)
Alcohol is actually an interesting subject and as near as I can tell there aren't any laws regulating where you can drink. I know with certainty that there is no "legal drinking age" and have seen kids no older than 7 drinking healthy portions of a 600 ml beer. The drink of choice is undoubtedly Tsingtao, which I must admit I've taken quite a shine to.
The rest of the day was relatively hectic. Upon arriving at the hotel, I realized that I only had about 40 minutes to pack, pick up my train ticket, eat dinner, and get to the train station. As usual, I managed to sprint like a madman and achieve most of those goals. I only failed in eating a complete dinner, but I did manage to ingest a small bowl of rice.
The train ride itself was pretty laid back; I was in a compartment with 4 bunks. My bunkmates all went to bed pretty early, as did I, and next thing I knew the train was pulling into Dalian.
At this point I'm going to take a break because I'm going downtown to hang out with some friends that Xiao Xiao (my iLabs teammate and fellow MITer) and I made last night when we went clubbing. I'll add pictures soon and also describe what life in Dalian as a "foreign expert" and teacher has been like.
Things to look forward to reading about: -Me hitting the town and meeting all kinds of interesting Chinese and ex-pats.
-Teaching a class where many of the students barely understand the language
-Becoming brave enough to eat food from street vendors (no traveler's diarrhea yet!)
-Competing with, and occasionally beating, the Great Firewall of China.
Cheers.
Friday, June 8, 2007
A day of many firsts
I'm in Beijing now!
What a day. Going across the world is surprisingly tiresome. This entry is going to consist of two main parts: getting to China and then what I did during my first day here. If travel stories bore you, as they do me, skip ahead a paragraph or so.
My travels begin roughly 36 hours ago. I caught the last flight from Chicago to Boston on Wednesday and spent a surprsingly comfortable evening at Logan International Airport. I slept at the terminal for my next flight and awoke to see Anna Goldie, a fellow MITer, walking right towards me (she has an internship in Beijing for the summer). What then followed was a restful flight to Dulles, I slept the whole way, a quick bite to eat, and then our flight to Beijing.
While I've travelled internationally before, this was the first time I've been on a 13 hour flight. As it turns out, that's a long time to be crammed like a sardine next to a woman with an unimaginably high voice. I was thankful no glass was present lest it shatter and fly towards me.
One unexpected consequence of flying East to West in a 747 is that the sun never left us meaning that from when I woke up in Boston until 9:00 in Beijing the sun was up. That's about 23 straight hours. I wonder what kind of effect that has on the human body. Any biologists/psychologists/doctors in the group?
The hostel I'm staying at is priced at $8/night and so I was imagining a relatively low scale operation. With a lead up like that you won't be surprised to learn that I was blown away upon entering the lobby. It was air conditioned and sparking clean with some kind of fancy tile on the floor and a rather sizeable fishtank to the side. The rooms, while a bit spartan, are also sparkling and I have found no evidence that dirt has ever existed within the building.
After going up to my room and relaxing for a short while, I went on a stroll through Beijing's evening market. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I suppose it's like a scaled down version of the Taste of Chicago where they only serve Chinese food (i.e. it's a whole mess of kiosks selling food with a lot of people gorging themselves on said food). Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera with me so no pictures for you!
After wandering around some more two Chinese girls approached me, one of them blushing as she said "Hello" and asked if she could pracdtice her english with me. We ended up walking around for a while, me speaking broken Chinese and them speaking comparatively better English. We ended up going to a restaurant and tasting/drinking a variety of unbelievably delicious teas. All good things must come to an end though, and at this particular end there was a rather large bill. Upon seeing it, I thought I had been taken for a clueless tourist/sucker, which I am, but the cousins looked/acted as surprised as I was. We split the bill equally, walked around some more and then parted ways. Some monetary harm, but no foul as near as I can tell.
I'm tired now. That was my day. I'm going to bed.
What a day. Going across the world is surprisingly tiresome. This entry is going to consist of two main parts: getting to China and then what I did during my first day here. If travel stories bore you, as they do me, skip ahead a paragraph or so.
My travels begin roughly 36 hours ago. I caught the last flight from Chicago to Boston on Wednesday and spent a surprsingly comfortable evening at Logan International Airport. I slept at the terminal for my next flight and awoke to see Anna Goldie, a fellow MITer, walking right towards me (she has an internship in Beijing for the summer). What then followed was a restful flight to Dulles, I slept the whole way, a quick bite to eat, and then our flight to Beijing.
While I've travelled internationally before, this was the first time I've been on a 13 hour flight. As it turns out, that's a long time to be crammed like a sardine next to a woman with an unimaginably high voice. I was thankful no glass was present lest it shatter and fly towards me.
One unexpected consequence of flying East to West in a 747 is that the sun never left us meaning that from when I woke up in Boston until 9:00 in Beijing the sun was up. That's about 23 straight hours. I wonder what kind of effect that has on the human body. Any biologists/psychologists/doctors in the group?
The hostel I'm staying at is priced at $8/night and so I was imagining a relatively low scale operation. With a lead up like that you won't be surprised to learn that I was blown away upon entering the lobby. It was air conditioned and sparking clean with some kind of fancy tile on the floor and a rather sizeable fishtank to the side. The rooms, while a bit spartan, are also sparkling and I have found no evidence that dirt has ever existed within the building.
After going up to my room and relaxing for a short while, I went on a stroll through Beijing's evening market. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I suppose it's like a scaled down version of the Taste of Chicago where they only serve Chinese food (i.e. it's a whole mess of kiosks selling food with a lot of people gorging themselves on said food). Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera with me so no pictures for you!
After wandering around some more two Chinese girls approached me, one of them blushing as she said "Hello" and asked if she could pracdtice her english with me. We ended up walking around for a while, me speaking broken Chinese and them speaking comparatively better English. We ended up going to a restaurant and tasting/drinking a variety of unbelievably delicious teas. All good things must come to an end though, and at this particular end there was a rather large bill. Upon seeing it, I thought I had been taken for a clueless tourist/sucker, which I am, but the cousins looked/acted as surprised as I was. We split the bill equally, walked around some more and then parted ways. Some monetary harm, but no foul as near as I can tell.
I'm tired now. That was my day. I'm going to bed.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
An interesting story...
A bunch of people from CETI (the program I'm participating in) are already in China; I just got this e-mail from one such person (Note that 'bu' = 'not/not mine' and 'shi ni de' = it's yours).
Don't let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch I guess.
So I was walking down a street in Shanghai literally 5 minutes ago and a girl in front of me accidentally dropped something. I look down and it's her credit card. So I pick it up and speed up. I tap on her shoulder and hold the credit card out for her to see. She screams "Bu!", slaps me in the face, and starts running. After a couple seconds of being in shock, I scream out "shi ni de" so she turns around and grabs it out of my hand without saying anything.
Don't let one bad apple spoil the whole bunch I guess.
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