Trip to Beijing and the Great Wall

The "Bird's Nest"Olympic Stadium 奥运鸟巢馆

Olympic Village 奥运选手村

1994, I spent three days in Beijing with my family. However, this city has changed so much that I hardly can recognize it. Just imagine a humongous city, which needs 6 beltways to regulate its traffic. This year, of course, all the emphases is focus on the Olympics.

The local people said that Chinese government has put in enormous amount of money to make all the cities, which host Olympic games in August, a face lift. I am glad that although I won't be able to attend any Olympic game, I witnessed the effort how China has tried to show its best side to the world.

Our students also visited the traditional tourist site, such as Tiananmen Square (天安门广场), Mao Mausoleum (毛泽东纪念馆), the Forbidden City (故宫、紫禁城), and the Summer Palace (颐和园) 。

The Structure of the Forbidden City impressed our students enormously

故宫建筑让我的学生叹为观止

A Dragon Turtle in the Forbidden City 故宫里的龙龟

The Mao Mausoleum 毛泽东纪念馆


The Summer Garden 颐和园的神牛

Tiananmen Square 天安门广场

The second week

The students survived another week of hard work. Their day starts with Taichi practice at 7 AM, then with language classes in the morning and cultural classes in the afternoon until 3 PM. On each Wednesday, we have a class meeting for cross-cultural discussion.

Last week, students toured Tianjin City and visited the famous " Cultural Street" (文化街), two blocks full of small shops selling Chinese painting, jade Jewries, Wu-Shu weapons... etc. We also ate dinner in a restaurant within the "Food Street" (食品街), a mall with more than 50 snack shops and restaurants. I bought a good sword and fan for my own Taichi class in the Cultural Street and got a pretty good deal.

This week students participated in a Chinese painting class to learn the differences between Chinese and western oil painting. They also tried their hand with pain brush and drew crabs and lobsters.

Trip to Shan-Dong

In the first week, students had language classes for five days. In addition, they learned TaiChi, Chinese Opera, and Wu Shu.

After a week of studying with textbooks, the class traveled to Qufu (曲阜)- the birth place of Confucius (孔子) , ZouCheng (邹城)- the hometown of Mencius (孟子), and Mount Tai (泰山) during the first weekend in China.

Qufu was full of tourists because Confucius (551 - 479 B.C.) was the most influential scholar, educator, and philosopher in the Chinese history. His tomb, temple and residence showed us how highly he has been respected by all the emperors from Song (宋) through Qing (清) dynasty.



ZouCheng, in comparison, is not as well visited. We had difficulties finding the site because the signs were not as clearly displayed to direct the tourists. Nonetheless, I am glad we went to Mencius home town. The relationship between Confucius and Mencius is like that of Socrates and Aristotle in the Western civilization. It is also similar as Mendelssohn revived J.S. Bach's music in music history. Without Mencius's effort, the Confucianism won't be as widespread as it is today.

One of my students said that Mount Tai (1,545 m. above sea level) took his breath away and that as he sat above the clouds he came to realize why Tai Shan is world renowned.

There are abundant scripts written into the boulders by famous scholars or emperors.

The incense sticks are especially long for faithful people, including our students. On our way up, I talked to a woman who sat next to me in the bus. She said she couldn't have children after getting married for five years. So, she climbed the 6,600 stairs of Mount Tai to pray to the Goddess 22 years ago. Her daughter is now studying in a college in Kansas, USA. She (the mother), who lives over 600KM away, came back to thank the Goddess. Apparently, lives of Chinese people still associate with superstitions.

Nan Tian Men (南天门) has been seen as the gate to heaven. It took us about 30 minutes to climb to the top of the mountain from this point.

After a week of Tianjin smog, we really enjoy breathing the fresh air on Mount Tai!!!

The first week

Greetings from China!

Life in Tianjin is not as hectic as in Maryland. Here, I only teach in the afternoon, so the lax schedule allows me to take private Taichi and Chinese Medicine lessons every morning and practice as much as I want.

Nankai University has a rather big campus. Walking from its West Gate to East Gate takes over 30 minutes. Famous people like Zhou En-Lai (周恩来), Wen Jia Bao（温家宝), famous mathematician Chen Xing Shen （陈省身), respectable poet Ye Jia Ying(葉嘉莹) all graduated from this university.

Since this is the first cooperation between Nankai and the University of Maryland, our group received a very warm welcome on the first day. Both the Dean of the the College of Chinese Language and Culture, and the Director of Confucius Institute at the University of Maryland attended the Opening Ceremony on Monday, June 16.

In addition to teaching, I hope my Taichi will improve under a professional teacher's correction and instruction. The air pollution is rather serious in Tianjin, because everywhere is under construction to prepare for the Olympics. The soccer games will take place in a newly finished center in Tianjin, called Water Drop (水滴).

Students in our group attend Chinese class the entire morning, and one cultural class each afternoon. We also enjoyed two city tours so far. This weekend, the group is going to Shan Dong (山东) Province to visit Confucius birth place (孔子故居) and the Tai mountain (泰山).