Valentine's Day seems to be a really big holiday for people who are dating, but less so for the rest of the world. For us, it's usually an exchange of cards, flowers and sometimes chocolate for me, and some type of event for us -- special dinner, a show, whatever. Most of all, lots of extra "I love you"s, shmoopy texts, kisses, and hugs.
This year, we decided to get tickets to Shen Yun. We went the weekend before last and it was an experience. The dancing was amazing, and we each had favorite pieces (my husband liked the Tibetan drummers, I liked the yellow blossom dance), but we were both very surprised that about 2-3 of the 12-15 dance vignettes seemed to be very anti-Chinese government. We were totally clueless walking in! The website has details about how the performance company believes China's government is trying to make the company fail (and the Chinese government's opposition to Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa)). But we didn't know any of that going into it, we just expected a 2-3 hour dance performance. Anyway, politics aside (not that I'm sweeping any issue under the rug, I just know it's quite complicated), the dancing was lovely and it was nice VD celebration for us to be all dressed up and out together, whispering in our box about propaganda, whether we were being recruited, memories of when we were in China...
So when it got to be Sunday night this past weekend, my husband asked what we were going to do for the actual day of VD. Since that meant we had no reservations, I suggested he come to a spin class with me. And he agreed! He usually hates working out at night, and while he loves biking, he's not big on spin, but in the interest of making me happy and ensuring we got to do something together on the actual night, he packed up his biking clothes.
So I went to my second spin class of the year (also second spin class of the last 5+ years), on Valentine's Day, with my sweetest.
Why spin? Well, it's being taught by the great Megan Lyons! At a fun studio, Grit. If anyone can convince me to spin, it's Megan. She's a great instructor and I might stick with it on at least a somewhat consistent basis (at least a couple classes per month hopefully) (of course it's very easy to say that since my work travel doesn't start for another month...). Anyway, my first class was solely an effort to survive. Megan's sister had given me some tips and I mostly kept the tension off and just tried to move my legs. But for the VD class, I actually tried harder. I'm not going to deny that there were multiple times my RPMs were below what she had set as the floor for the class, and I'm sure I always had the tension lower than it should have been, but baby steps! I managed to get 13 miles in during the course of the class!
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Thursday, June 5, 2014
25 years
Wow, can you believe the Tian'anmen Square standoff was 25 years ago yesterday? I heard that on the news and it was surprising. I wasn't exactly politically aware at the time, but it was maybe the start? It's definitely one of the first events on the news that I remember.
Other memories of significant news events before I really started paying attention: Oliver North's testimony (my parents watched a lot of it), the Challenger explosion (I watched live in elementary school), the Berlin Wall coming down (I was babysitting and it was on the front page of the paper sitting on their coffee table, and it was on the news when I turned on their TV), and obviously OJ.
I paid some attention to the news in junior high since my history teacher gave us quizzes about current events, but not much of it stuck with me. Regardless, I remember that on June 4, 1989, I was slowly starting to understand more about the broader world.
This is what the Today Show said about it on Wednesday morning to mark the anniversary:
Per The Atlantic:
And that Atlantic article I linked actually has some really amazing photos if you have a moment to check them out.
Two sides to every story? I don't know. I have very complicated feelings about China now, more complicated actually since we visited. Things seemed much more straight-forward sitting in the US and thinking about theories.
But one thing that remains crystal clear to me is that the remarkability of the fact that apparently most people in China today do not know what the image of the man standing before the tank signifies when shown photos. Students in the universities today and young adults particularly have no knowledge of these events. It's amazing how much a free press and free speech can do in terms of preserving a national recollection of significant events. The concept of having those search terms blocked really boggles my mind in ways. Given the new EU laws about "erasing" parts of the internet for individuals, coupled with our reliance on the internet, makes me wonder how easily we could go down this path of altered history ourselves, particularly as Holocaust survivors and now their children pass away. That's another tangent completely.
Any memories of June 4, 1989? Other big news events memorable from your youth? (I'm usually not one to pose questions directly as those who comment generally have something interesting to say without a prompt, but I'm particularly interested in this!)
In honor of the anniversary, some of our photos of Tian'anmen Square from our trip there in 2012, to date, one of the most interesting trips of my life, fully recapped on the blog in the fall of 2013 I think.
The entire square is surrounded by massive buildings like these two below. The square was build in the 1600s, but enlarged to its current size in the 1950s. The "Ten Great Buildings" along the square were also built then. It reminded very much of the National Mall in DC, with the massive Smithsonian museums set off along the boundary roads. It also reminded me a lot of Red Square, but bigger. I believe Tiananmen Square is designed to accommodate more than 500,000 people at once. Can't remember what the first building I photographed around the square is, but the second is the National Museum of China:
I didn't get to take any pictures inside Mao's tomb, which is also there at the square. Here is a shot of Mao's mausoleum. Hard to see among the crowds and from this distance, but there is an hours-long line all the way around the perimeter (some scamster who wanted (and got) money from us after helping us get to bag drop and through security, snuck us in toward the front of the line, so we only had to wait about half an hour to see Mao's preserved body, but we bypassed at least 75% of the line):
Plenty of pictures/busts of Mao in the immediate area however:
And a couple pictures just to show the scale of the flowers, buildings, length, towering floral columns:
Other memories of significant news events before I really started paying attention: Oliver North's testimony (my parents watched a lot of it), the Challenger explosion (I watched live in elementary school), the Berlin Wall coming down (I was babysitting and it was on the front page of the paper sitting on their coffee table, and it was on the news when I turned on their TV), and obviously OJ.
I paid some attention to the news in junior high since my history teacher gave us quizzes about current events, but not much of it stuck with me. Regardless, I remember that on June 4, 1989, I was slowly starting to understand more about the broader world.
This is what the Today Show said about it on Wednesday morning to mark the anniversary:
"Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Tian'anmen Square massacre and there is heavy security in central Beijing. As tanks rolled in on June 4, 1989, Chinese troops opened fire on student protesters. More than a million demonstrators had gathered in central Beijing in the lead-up to the incident. Video of a lone protestor standing in front of a line of moving tanks became one of the 20th century's most powerful symbols. The exact death toll is unknown but is widely believed to be in the hundreds."
Per The Atlantic:
Twenty-five years ago today, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) violently cleared Beijing's Tiananmen Square of protesters, ending a six-week demonstration that had called for democracy and widespread political reform. The protests began in April of 1989, gaining support as initial government reactions included concessions. Martial law was declared on May 20, troops were mobilized, and from the night of June 3 through the early morning of June 4, the PLA pushed into Tiananmen Square, crushing some protesters and firing on many others. The exact number killed may never be known, but estimates range from several hundred to several thousand. China's censors are blocking Internet access to the terms "six four," "candle," and "never forget," broadening extensive efforts to silence talk about the 25th anniversary of China's bloody June 4 crackdown.
And that Atlantic article I linked actually has some really amazing photos if you have a moment to check them out.
Two sides to every story? I don't know. I have very complicated feelings about China now, more complicated actually since we visited. Things seemed much more straight-forward sitting in the US and thinking about theories.
But one thing that remains crystal clear to me is that the remarkability of the fact that apparently most people in China today do not know what the image of the man standing before the tank signifies when shown photos. Students in the universities today and young adults particularly have no knowledge of these events. It's amazing how much a free press and free speech can do in terms of preserving a national recollection of significant events. The concept of having those search terms blocked really boggles my mind in ways. Given the new EU laws about "erasing" parts of the internet for individuals, coupled with our reliance on the internet, makes me wonder how easily we could go down this path of altered history ourselves, particularly as Holocaust survivors and now their children pass away. That's another tangent completely.
Any memories of June 4, 1989? Other big news events memorable from your youth? (I'm usually not one to pose questions directly as those who comment generally have something interesting to say without a prompt, but I'm particularly interested in this!)
In honor of the anniversary, some of our photos of Tian'anmen Square from our trip there in 2012, to date, one of the most interesting trips of my life, fully recapped on the blog in the fall of 2013 I think.
The entire square is surrounded by massive buildings like these two below. The square was build in the 1600s, but enlarged to its current size in the 1950s. The "Ten Great Buildings" along the square were also built then. It reminded very much of the National Mall in DC, with the massive Smithsonian museums set off along the boundary roads. It also reminded me a lot of Red Square, but bigger. I believe Tiananmen Square is designed to accommodate more than 500,000 people at once. Can't remember what the first building I photographed around the square is, but the second is the National Museum of China:
There was a heavy uniformed police presence standing guard, marching about, and mingling with the visitors. And I got the sense there were plenty of official personnel not in uniform as well. Of course I took pictures of the guards, which are perfect to show today (well, technically the anniversary was yesterday, but it's my recap post):
There were also these huge floral displays in the square. Huge. You can kind of see a little head down in the corner (if we'd walked directly into a cutout of the display, I'm guessing my head would have been somewhere in the red swirl of flowers on the base), and I'm bad at guessing size, but I'd guess this one was at least two stories tall:
Plenty of pictures/busts of Mao in the immediate area however:
And a couple pictures just to show the scale of the flowers, buildings, length, towering floral columns:
Apparently (according to Wiki), only 5 photographers were able to have their photos smuggled out of China and published in the aftermath of the protests and the standoff with the tanks. One photographer had a French student smuggle the film in a cannister of tea. One hid his in the toilet and sacrificed two rolls of film showing wounded protesters when the police searched his hotel room. Crazy stuff I tell you.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Dumpling Fest
In addition to all the trip planning we did this past weekend, I spent Sunday in a bit of Chinese immersion.
First, I had lunch at a neighbor's house. She and her husband were performers with us at our other neighbor's church's Chinese New Year's celebration. She travels to China very frequently for work. Her husband is ... eccentric. He's really nice and he plays bongos, but he's just so unlike many of my other friends. Let's just say I could never imagine him going to law school. I think that's a good thing. Well, she decided to host us all in honor of the Dragon Boat Festival. Our neighbor who is actually Taiwanese had her cousin visiting, so the cousin and our China-traveler neighbor went shopping at a Chinese market, and bought the fixings for dumplings. They also bought these little packages of stuffing (red bean paste in some, seaweed in others, mushrooms in others) wrapped in sticky rice, wrapped in bamboo. The dumplings were homemade and delicious. They made a bunch of vegetarian ones just for me.
Fruit skewers that I made to contribute (and the crystal bowl I left at my neighbor's, ugh, it was my grandma's and I hope she's careful with it):
I learned a little about the Dragon Boat Festival, which is actually celebrated today. Our neighbor said it's one of three main festivals (New Year's, Dragon Boat, and Mid-Autumn or Half-Moon in October). 端午节 is how it's called in Chinese. Next year it will be on June 20. The holiday's backstory is that a cadet was banished for opposing a new alliance. While banished, Qu Yuan wrote lots of poetry, and many years later, he was captured and committed suicide by drowning in a river. The local people admired him for his poetry so they raced their dragon boats into the river to try to save him or to save his body. They couldn't find him or his body, so they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so the fish would eat them instead of the body. I must say, if the drops of sticky rice were filled with red bean paste and tasted like the one I had for dessert on Sunday, lucky fish.
You can see the bamboo rice packages of sticky rice as the top dish in this picture:
From the dumpling lunch, I went straight to Chinese class. My second class.
Chinese class was different -- I was the only student to show up, so I got a private lesson! When I showed up for the first class, it turned out they were on lesson 10. Ugh. Fortunately, I remembered a fair amount from my studies before our trip there in 2012, so I was able to limp along. But this past weekend, since it was just me, we did lesson 1. Basic introductions, etc., which was great.
The instructor spends part of class going over a lesson in the book, which is usually about 10 lines of dialogue on a given subject. We spend time doing pronounciation, vocabulary, and a bit of the roots in some of the written characters. That seems to take 60-90 minutes. And then for the rest of class, another 60 or so minutes, we learn about something more conversational -- sometimes with writing. For example, we learned how to say i-phone. Since it is a loan word, it sounds pretty much like i-phone (a bit more like i-fung). But we got to learn about the written characters, which I loved. I-phone is comprised of two characters, one for each sound. I, or ai, which means love. I knew that one since I often say that to my husband as "I love you" (wo ai ni) was one of my first Chinese phrases, though it did not prove useful in China country. Anyway, the second part of i-phone is fung, which means crazy or insane. And when we learned about the written character for fung, it has two parts -- one that means disease or illness, and inside of that, wind (the blowing weather kind, not like winding a watch). And then the lightbulb went off for me (about a millisecond before he espressly explained it) -- a crazy or insane person is like someone with a disease of having wind in their heads. Oh I love it!
Among the words I was happy to learn:
husband (3 forms: my mister, my old man, and my husband)
younger brother
i-phone
left, right (and how to march, left, left, left, right, left, which I loved and practiced with my old man!)
to want
to like
help/rescue in urgent life-threatening sense
help in a non-urgent, I dropped a box or this is heavy sense
First, I had lunch at a neighbor's house. She and her husband were performers with us at our other neighbor's church's Chinese New Year's celebration. She travels to China very frequently for work. Her husband is ... eccentric. He's really nice and he plays bongos, but he's just so unlike many of my other friends. Let's just say I could never imagine him going to law school. I think that's a good thing. Well, she decided to host us all in honor of the Dragon Boat Festival. Our neighbor who is actually Taiwanese had her cousin visiting, so the cousin and our China-traveler neighbor went shopping at a Chinese market, and bought the fixings for dumplings. They also bought these little packages of stuffing (red bean paste in some, seaweed in others, mushrooms in others) wrapped in sticky rice, wrapped in bamboo. The dumplings were homemade and delicious. They made a bunch of vegetarian ones just for me.
Fruit skewers that I made to contribute (and the crystal bowl I left at my neighbor's, ugh, it was my grandma's and I hope she's careful with it):
I learned a little about the Dragon Boat Festival, which is actually celebrated today. Our neighbor said it's one of three main festivals (New Year's, Dragon Boat, and Mid-Autumn or Half-Moon in October). 端午节 is how it's called in Chinese. Next year it will be on June 20. The holiday's backstory is that a cadet was banished for opposing a new alliance. While banished, Qu Yuan wrote lots of poetry, and many years later, he was captured and committed suicide by drowning in a river. The local people admired him for his poetry so they raced their dragon boats into the river to try to save him or to save his body. They couldn't find him or his body, so they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so the fish would eat them instead of the body. I must say, if the drops of sticky rice were filled with red bean paste and tasted like the one I had for dessert on Sunday, lucky fish.
You can see the bamboo rice packages of sticky rice as the top dish in this picture:
Chinese class was different -- I was the only student to show up, so I got a private lesson! When I showed up for the first class, it turned out they were on lesson 10. Ugh. Fortunately, I remembered a fair amount from my studies before our trip there in 2012, so I was able to limp along. But this past weekend, since it was just me, we did lesson 1. Basic introductions, etc., which was great.
The instructor spends part of class going over a lesson in the book, which is usually about 10 lines of dialogue on a given subject. We spend time doing pronounciation, vocabulary, and a bit of the roots in some of the written characters. That seems to take 60-90 minutes. And then for the rest of class, another 60 or so minutes, we learn about something more conversational -- sometimes with writing. For example, we learned how to say i-phone. Since it is a loan word, it sounds pretty much like i-phone (a bit more like i-fung). But we got to learn about the written characters, which I loved. I-phone is comprised of two characters, one for each sound. I, or ai, which means love. I knew that one since I often say that to my husband as "I love you" (wo ai ni) was one of my first Chinese phrases, though it did not prove useful in China country. Anyway, the second part of i-phone is fung, which means crazy or insane. And when we learned about the written character for fung, it has two parts -- one that means disease or illness, and inside of that, wind (the blowing weather kind, not like winding a watch). And then the lightbulb went off for me (about a millisecond before he espressly explained it) -- a crazy or insane person is like someone with a disease of having wind in their heads. Oh I love it!
Among the words I was happy to learn:
husband (3 forms: my mister, my old man, and my husband)
younger brother
i-phone
left, right (and how to march, left, left, left, right, left, which I loved and practiced with my old man!)
to want
to like
help/rescue in urgent life-threatening sense
help in a non-urgent, I dropped a box or this is heavy sense
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Chinese Lantern Festival
It's funny that we took our big trip to China in 2012, but 2014 has been a very "Chinese" year so far.
First, we went to dinner in Dallas's Chinatown -- which is to say, a northern suburb. There are tons of Chinese restaurants there, and our Taiwanese neighbor took us to dinner at one she selected. It was delicious!
Second, we went to a Chinese New Year celebration at a Chinese Catholic church with our same Taiwanese neighbor and two other neighbors, and together, we all performed a Chinese New Year's song. So totally outside my comfort zone, but so much fun.
This little boy (age 3!) recited a poem in Chinese:
One of the deacons at the church set aside some nian gou (rice cake) just for me since I really wanted to try it, and we got red envelopes!
Third, we went to dinner with a good friend and former co-worker who is originally from Beijing and now works in Shanghai. We'd spent a lot of time with him and his wife and son in 2012 when we were visiting Shanghai. They were a big part of why we loved Shanghai so much. He was back in the US for a partners' meeting and spent a few days in Dallas to see some clients (and us!). We went out for dinner and had so much fun laughing about some of our little jokes from Shanghai.
And fourth, finally, most recently, we went to see a special exhibit of Chinese lanterns here. We missed the exhibit last year, but they extended the dates this year so we made a point of going. I had planned on going on Valentine's Day, but we were too tired, so instead we went Saturday night. Some photos:
The dragon boat, perhaps the coolest part of the exhibit I thought:
This resembles a stupa in southwest China:
Up close, it's all made of plates, cups, saucers, and spoons. Amazing!
Goldfish, which I know from Grace's blog, are called yu, which is an auspicious word in Chinese!
Love the pandas and the bamboo:
The seven daughters of the emperor:
And of course, since we're in Texas:
A cool view of the moon as we were leaving:
Kind of fun, glad we got to see the exhibit. Not sure what we will do next to keep our Chinese theme going this year, but we will have to come up with something. I'm actually considering starting formal language classes. It's so intriguing, so different from French and Italian (and English).
First, we went to dinner in Dallas's Chinatown -- which is to say, a northern suburb. There are tons of Chinese restaurants there, and our Taiwanese neighbor took us to dinner at one she selected. It was delicious!
Second, we went to a Chinese New Year celebration at a Chinese Catholic church with our same Taiwanese neighbor and two other neighbors, and together, we all performed a Chinese New Year's song. So totally outside my comfort zone, but so much fun.
This little boy (age 3!) recited a poem in Chinese:
One of the deacons at the church set aside some nian gou (rice cake) just for me since I really wanted to try it, and we got red envelopes!
Third, we went to dinner with a good friend and former co-worker who is originally from Beijing and now works in Shanghai. We'd spent a lot of time with him and his wife and son in 2012 when we were visiting Shanghai. They were a big part of why we loved Shanghai so much. He was back in the US for a partners' meeting and spent a few days in Dallas to see some clients (and us!). We went out for dinner and had so much fun laughing about some of our little jokes from Shanghai.
And fourth, finally, most recently, we went to see a special exhibit of Chinese lanterns here. We missed the exhibit last year, but they extended the dates this year so we made a point of going. I had planned on going on Valentine's Day, but we were too tired, so instead we went Saturday night. Some photos:
The dragon boat, perhaps the coolest part of the exhibit I thought:
This resembles a stupa in southwest China:
Up close, it's all made of plates, cups, saucers, and spoons. Amazing!
Goldfish, which I know from Grace's blog, are called yu, which is an auspicious word in Chinese!
Love the pandas and the bamboo:
The seven daughters of the emperor:
And of course, since we're in Texas:
A cool view of the moon as we were leaving:
Kind of fun, glad we got to see the exhibit. Not sure what we will do next to keep our Chinese theme going this year, but we will have to come up with something. I'm actually considering starting formal language classes. It's so intriguing, so different from French and Italian (and English).
Monday, October 14, 2013
China recap: Zhujiajiao
Since we spent a fair amount of time in Shanghai because I wanted to visit my friends who live there, we thought we should try to squeeze in time for a day trip to one of the nearby water towns. After reading about them, we figured Zhujiajiao would be friend.
Fortunately, our friends were able to join us for the day. We all drove out together (the four of us and their 8 year old son), and then since she had a board meeting that evening, her company sent a car to pick her up after lunch, while the rest of us stayed for the rest of the day.
One of the weirdest things was after our friend Frances had left to work. We wandered and ended up getting lost. And our friend, born and raised in China, lived in the US about 7 years for law school and some work, and living back in Shanghai for 7 years, couldn't ask for directions. There were local people on the street, but he said he couldn't speak to them since they were older and didn't speak Chinese. He had tried a couple times but they didn't understand him. As he's a lawyer and works for one of the biggest firms in the world, I'm confident his Chinese is very, very good, but it was as useless as our English. So interesting!
Anyway, some pictures from the day trip to Zhujiajiao:
Men out fishing:
A very crowded tourist street:
Inside one of the temples:
Fortunately, our friends were able to join us for the day. We all drove out together (the four of us and their 8 year old son), and then since she had a board meeting that evening, her company sent a car to pick her up after lunch, while the rest of us stayed for the rest of the day.
One of the weirdest things was after our friend Frances had left to work. We wandered and ended up getting lost. And our friend, born and raised in China, lived in the US about 7 years for law school and some work, and living back in Shanghai for 7 years, couldn't ask for directions. There were local people on the street, but he said he couldn't speak to them since they were older and didn't speak Chinese. He had tried a couple times but they didn't understand him. As he's a lawyer and works for one of the biggest firms in the world, I'm confident his Chinese is very, very good, but it was as useless as our English. So interesting!
Anyway, some pictures from the day trip to Zhujiajiao:
Men out fishing:
A very crowded tourist street:
Inside one of the temples:
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