A Look Back at the Past Few Days in Beijing

After returning from our two day trip to Yu country in Hebei Province this afternoon, it is crazy to think that our program will be ending in just two short days. Tomorrow is our last full day here in Beijing, and I'm not sure if any of us know exactly where the time has gone. For the past three weeks, we've had adventure after adventure and reflection after reflection. With all of the action that's been going on around us each and every day, it's been challenging to find time to keep up with blog posts. In an attempt to catch everyone up and give everyone a glimpse at what we've been doing before it's time to leave Beijing, here is a post looking back at some of the highlights of the past few days. 

On Saturday the 23rd, we had the chance to listen to a guest lecture about the history of finance in China given by a Chinese finance professional and personal friend of the CIEE in Beijing interim director. The next day, we all got to go out on the streets to actually see that history for ourselves. The lecturer, James, led a walking tour of the main banking and financial district of Beijing, where some of China's earliest and most famous banks can be found.  

After touring the banking and financial district, the students had the opportunity to choose one of two activities to do in their free time. One group of students took a trip to The Pearl (Hongqiao) Market, a huge indoor market selling all sorts of goods and souvenirs. The market is especially known for selling pearls, which is how it got its name. The pearls sold there are genuine river pearls and can be bought at very cheap prices. The students who went shopping at the market had plenty of opportunities to practice their newly learned haggling skills (in Chinese as well as English) and walked away with several good deals. Students were able to drop prices by a couple hundred yuan on average!

The second group of students took a trip to The National Museum, which is located right across from Tiananmen Square. There, they got to have a personalized tour in which James, who grew up in a part of China famous for its history (Xi'an), shared his knowledge of the Chinese dynasties and their distinguishing features. The interim director of CIEE in Beijing, Yuke Jiang, and us program leaders also shared what we had previously learned about Chinese dynastic history. Additionally, the students who went on the museum tour had studied the dynastic history of China in school and were able to contribute some great insights and facts to our discussions of ancient and modern Chinese history. 

The next day, the students got to visit The Lama Temple. The Lama Temple is one of the most famous Tibetan Buddhist temples in China as well as Beijing. The temple and artwork within the temple are a combination of Han Chinese (the major ethnic group in China claiming about 90% of the population) and Tibetan styles. It is both an active, functioning temple and highly popular tourist attraction.

We gave the students the chance to walk around the temple grounds in small groups to really observe and take in the Buddhist culture of China. A handful of students walked around the temple with me as well so I could share everything that I knew about Chinese Buddhism and Buddhism in general with them. 

After the students finished exploring the temple grounds, we set off on an exploration of old Beijing and its famous hutongs, or alleyways. Inside the hutongs, you can find old-style houses and shops as well as new and modern cafes, stores, and restaurants that draw on the aesthetics of the old-fashioned alleyways. In my opinion, a trip to Beijing is simply not complete without a visit to the old part of the city and a little getting lost inside the hutongs. 

When we got back to Minzu University (the CIEE study center) from lunch at a cafe inside a hutong, the students learned how to make DIY air purifiers. They tested out their air purifiers using a particle measuring device to see how dramatically the purifiers reduced the number of bad particles in the air caused by pollution in the city. They also got to take a two-hour tai chi class, which they couldn't stop talking about for the next couple of days.

After dinner at the school cafeteria that same night, we all headed back to the hotel to pack up for our excursion to Yu County in Hebei Province, which was a fresh, peaceful break from the hustle and bustle of Beijing. More importantly, it was an excellent learning opportunity that allowed students to see how people live in rural parts of China compared to how people live in megacities like Beijing.