01 Beijing

I would like to start that this Middle Kingdom (中國) is really an extraordinary place. (Please do not misinterpret my meaning in my former blogs ending.) My passion and curiosity for China, the mother and center of Asia, will stay as long as I know. But it is just that this trip was very different from all my former trips that I have made in the past few years, and, thus, my effect after the trip turned out to be different too. In the past I have visited Beijing before to do the major toursites- Tiananmen, Forbidden City, The Great Wall, ext-, or for a conference at one of the CBD(Central Business District). So of course, the image of Beijing I had before was completely positive, rich, and large. And having visited twice, I naively believed that I knew China quite well. Er. Completly wrong. In the next three weeks during my stay in Wudaokou, the region in which most of Beijing's top university exist, I meet Beijing, China again. But this time he was different. Now looking back, I think this was the real China.

00 China

So I have been telling people that I will update soon about my month trip at Beijing, and, alas, after a month of delay I am here at last. One excuse I would immediately like to point out would be that, oh since I have started school, I have been very busy to keep myself updated with my summer adventures. Which is in some sense true, but I feel like some greater part of me had intended to delay this step - writing about China. It was not going to be easy.


Despite the fact that China has been a country that I have always known and learned about all myself, and even as a student studying Chinese and East Asian studies, there has been something about China that is making me become more careful and cautious. Not only is China the big new thing that everyone talks about -whether that is politics, economy, culture, religion, or language-, but also China itself as a nation has rapidly marketed itself to the global community. It seems like the word "China," though the message and meaning differs to different people, simply excites everyone - I mean literally EVERYONE. You name anyone, anything and they will all talk, "oh yes, China, the big player."

As a student who is studying Chinese and IR, of course, I was eager to find anyway to learn more about China. I would search through my University to find any ways I could practice my Chinese. I would look up in the Internet to search any opportunities of studying abroad or working abroad in China. And after more than a year worth of research, I have finally made myself back to this country, this central place.

But what did I saw there, and felt? Well, lets just say that I am no longer in the rush to seek China as I was earlier. Do not ask me why, because that is what I hope to understand too.