Harry Potter and the Chocolate Factory

Where do I even begin today’s blog?

I guess I’ll start with some interesting observations about the Chinese that have been working with us since we’ve been here. Many of them choose American names because their Chinese given names are literally impossible for us to pronounce. The names they pick, however, are ones that are pretty uncommon in the States, e.g. Cindy, Henry, and Harry—these are the ones we have encountered so far. Two of our university hosts wanted the name Cindy and started arguing about who got the name. A little awkward. The Chinese pronounce Harry and Henry the same, so today we thought we would have two Harrys on the bus, however, the second Harry was as in ‘Harry Potter’. So funny.

Not only is communication difficult between ourselves and the other universities we’re with and the Chinese, but also amongst the different people of the country. There are ten different dialects in their spoken language. Very interesting.

Today was the first of our three-day sightseeing adventure courtesy of BOCOG. You won’t even believe what our first stop was: a water sewage treatment plant. Yep, and I have the pictures to prove it. It was very different from anything in the US (from what little I have seen of these type of places) in that they had incorporated little gardens and landscaping with bridges and ponds—full of clean water. They followed our group around the entire day with a video camera and photographer, and we even saw coverage on the news tonight. They want to show us all of the excellent facilities being used for the Olympics. Personally, I can’t tell the difference between a good sewage treatment plant and a bad one… They even had us sign this poster that said “Happiness” in Chinese, like we were celebrities. We were saluted by the government workers at the facilities, which felt a little awkward and unnecessary, but I guess it was their way of showing us respect.

To add to the celebrity feel, we had a police escort to the rural village which was our next destination. No joke, the closed down the interstate that we were on. I was in complete disbelief. The town we went to, Xiang Tang Cun, was dubbed ‘most beautiful town in Beijing’ in 2007 and is one of the places designated for tourist visits during the Olympics. We saw the art of calligraphy as well as a tai chi (slow martial arts) demonstration.

I am stuffed after the fantastic lunch and dinner we had today. Lunch was various chicken, beef and fish dishes with all kinds of vegetables. When they eat fish here, it is usually the whole fish, as in head, tail, eyes and all. It is good, though, especially if it has sauce, then you can’t see it so much! My favorite thing was probably the orange chicken (which tastes SOOOO much better than orange chicken from a US restaurant) and these green veggies which tasted like they’d been charcoal-grilled. Yum! Then, for dinner we had the traditional Peking duck (Peking and Beijing are interchangeable names for the city, and our guide referred to the duck as a Beijing duck). I will just stick with Peking. All of the courses of the meal involve the duck, and they use everything. My favorite way to have it was to dip a few pieces into a soy-based sauce, put them on a thin tortilla with endive and some other green that I couldn't identify, then wrap it all up using chopsticks and a spoon-- no hands allowed! It was kind of like having lobster; a lot of work for a small bit of food but well worth the effort. I had never had duck before, and this was a real treat. The skin tasted like bacon and was oh so tasty. I think I may have eaten the equivalent of a whole duck, it seemed like. I am going to sleep good tonight. Tomorrow, Traci and I are going to try for a run before we head off to the Great Wall. I am anxious to see how this will go with the air quality being so different than home.

Note: I have more thoughts about this excursion that will have to wait until after I get back to the US.