The Story of You Pt.2

The story lives on

2010-03-17T14:40:00.001-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.48 The story lives on

[At my work]

I ended the last episode of this essay almost a year ago. I ended it with saying “This is it. This is truly the end”. I lied again. It wasn’t intentional at all, because at the time I really meant to conclude there. I really didn’t foresee that I would add this little episode almost a year later. It just randomly came to my mind today that I should write something about China once again. Just for one more time.

This episode is for those whom I miss, and for those who miss me and those who miss China.

Almost eight months have passed since we left China. But it still sometimes surprises me that it hasn’t been a year yet. In other words, I can’t believe a year ago I was still in China. It seems so far away in the past, almost years and years ago. But what’s more amazing is that memories of China still loom over my life.

Whenever I eat “baozi” at the cafeteria here, or overhear someone talking in Chinese on campus, watch a Chinese movie, read news about China and so forth, I recall memories of my journey. Sometime I recall memories of people I met in China such as my tutor, EAP friends, Korean friends, local Chinese friends and even random people I just encountered on streets. Other times, I recall memories of places in China, trips that I went and stuffs I learned there. I even recall memories of thoughts I had there.

[Kimchi]

[Berkeley as usual]

I knew this at that time but denied. I knew that I would miss China once I left, but at the time I desperately wanted to get out of there so that I refused to believe the fact I would miss there. What I am missing is of course not this physical geographic location called “People’s Republic of China”. What I reminisce is the people, life, and surroundings of the past. I know one of my articles from the essay was titled “living in the present”. I’m not contradicting with myself. I am living in the present for the most part. My current life is actually caught up with the businesses of every day. It is only for short moments like on my rush to the next class or when I take a break from hours of studying that I think of my past journey.

Yet, I really did not foresee I would think of China this much when I am back. I truly underestimated the stickiness of the memory from EAP. When I just got back from China, one of my friends in Berkeley told me that I would feel nothing had changed and I would have a smooth transition to my ordinary life in Berkeley. She told me that one year of experience abroad would not change my life and how I think in any profound way. She was partially right. Yes, I made an easy transition to the hectic life in Berkeley and more importantly I don’t think I have changed that much since I left here. But that does not mean that the year-long experience in China has not changed anything.

It does have a profound impact on how I act and think. It is very strange how that’s even possible. There are some trips in your life that you think of it time to time? Let’s say your first trip with friends to Yosemite or something. My year-long experience in China is just like that. The whole year experience seems to me like one big trip and I keep thinking of it time to time. Everyday in China was like an adventure. I think because everything was so fresh and novel to me, that everything I experienced in China left unforgettable impressions (I have to admit this is a very Chinese like sentence).

I am back in Berkeley and of course there is no spectacular adventure here. The life here is dull and soundless. I am not complaining of that, but what I am saying is that because of such dullness I reflect about my past experience of China a lot.

Whenever my desktop shows the pictures I took in China as background, I start to recall my memories back. I feel like the memories of China have created inertia and formed a life of its own. It continues to live on. I don’t know if you guys can understand what I mean by this. If you guys watched the movie A Beautiful Mind, the memories of China are like those imaginary friends who keep appearing to John Nash. Of course, I am not saying I am becoming a schizophrenic. What I want to say is that even though I do not deliberately think of China, the memories just come to my mind naturally.

The story continues even if the main actors left the stage. The memories live on. However, I need to stop writing about it. There is no point of me keep holding the past. If it becomes a creature of its own, I will let it go—hence I let myself go.

I do plan to go back to China in near future. I might go on a trip, before I join the army in Korea. This is only a plan, but yet a very plausible one. However, if I do, that will be a beginning of another story, not a continuation.

Dear friends, seriously, this is it.

The story of you

2009-07-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

The Last.

Ep.47 The story of you

Saturday, June 27, 2009, I am writing this last episode of my essay, The Story of You Part Two in Korea while watching TV. I once thought I would write 100 episodes over the year, but failed. I also promised to write at least fifty, but again failed. I can, if I really want, but I know when to stop and this is the time.

Know when to finish, but actually don’t know how to. Where should I start?

[I picked the memorable pictures taken during the year and put them here in a counter-chornological order. The most recent picture in the front and the oldest one in the last. Please enjoy my last entry on this blog: the picture of my backpack for the 21 days-long summer trip]

[In Guangzhou, with five goats]

[Delcious breakfast in Guangzhou, uhmmmmmm]

[looking down HK at the Peak]

[The symphony of buildings, the most memorable 30 mins of my entrie summer trip]

[Gloomy HK]

I should start with a quick catch up before I begin the epic closing for my essay. After writing the previous episode in Hangzhou, I got really sick. I fainted as I was checking out of the hostel in Hangzhou. It was deadly. I thought I got H1N1 or something. I really feel regretful that I didn’t get chance to say goodbyes to my friends in Beijing because I was really ill. It sounds stupid but I really thought I would die there or I would never be able to come back to Korea. However, I made it and I am back in Korea where I started the journey a year ago.

Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of my trip to China. A year before, I took off from Korea and landed in Capital Airport of Beijing, China. I know that it already has been a year because both of my Flickr account and McAfee one year account are expired.

I decided to end this writing before I hit fifty and before I get back to the States, because I feel there is no more substance to write about. Everything doesn’t seem fresh to me anymore. When I first arrived at Beijing a year ago, everything was new to me. Everything, I mean, if I just walked out of my dorm, it was a whole new world and fantasia. I love that feeling. I love the feeling that I am where I’ve never been in my life and become a perfect stranger. Over the year, that feeling of excitement and freshness gradually had become the feeling of dullness and familiarity. When it happens, I naturally lose interests. Actually it is same with meeting people. I love to meet new people but I soon lose interests as I become close with them (doesn’t mean I stop meeting them or anything). I lost interest and have nothing to write, so I decided to stop writing.

[The road to freedom in Xiamen]

[I lost my flopflop at Xiamen. That's one left]

[Smiling Buddha]

[Impressive Hangzhou West Lake that made me to visit the same place a year later]

[The Lake at night]

[Jinling, the friend whom I met at the Shanghai youth hostel]

[What are you looking at, boy?]

[the Chinese breakfast]

[Yangzi River Bridge built by the glorious communists]

[I still can't believe I climbed there on the most humid day in the history of Nanjing]

I am not in China anymore, so there is no point of me keep writing this blog. However, I will continue to write something. That can be a short story, fiction, or essay like this one. I cannot guarantee that I will share it with you guys because it can be super personal and private. Nothing is decided for the moment and that is always the case I guess. Something has to hit me and make me to write.

I cannot wait till I get back to the States. There are so many people I want to see right now. I am also a bit afraid but shouldn’t be. I am afraid because I have so many things to do in one year. I am facing my last year in the States. That’s so overwhelming. That’s even tougher than living in China for a year. I believe studying abroad in China was only a preparation for what was coming up. I really want to have a wonderful last year in Berkeley, and in the States, but don’t know how to. I’m confused. I really need a time to think about it. That might be the topic of the next writing.

Ending this journal, I want to comment few words on my writing. I love writing and believe myself is somewhat talented at this. However, writing in English wasn’t always easy for me. I always had a trouble expressing my feelings with more appropriate words and with more adequate expressions. I was always unsatisfied with the fact that I couldn’t articulate my words more fluently and expressively. However, I am satisfied with overall contents and writings of this essay, and there are few episodes that I particularly like.

[The club in Nanjing]

[After swimming at the beach in Qingdao]

[One of my best pictures taken during the year]

[Joe, my future roomate, and Pedro randomly visited China during the Olympics]

[My summer tutor and tutor mate and me]

[At the archery match, Koreans]

[We won the gold medal!! I almost cried as I was singing the national anthem for Korea]

[Korea!!]

[The boxing match]

One year experience of studying abroad gives a different meaning to everyone. After one year, someone realized the importance of home. Other found the place where she wants to live for the rest of her life. Still others got different meanings from the same experience. June 28th of last year, one hundred and twenty students from the States including me landed in China expecting something novel and fresh. One year passed and everyone headed home; but a group of new explorers have arrived. Will they see the same China and go through the same route that we went through? My guess is no.

When I first started this, I told you guys: “I am writing stories because I regret” (quoting from the first episode of the essay). Do I stop writing this because my regrets are all gone? Yes, most of the regrets I once had are gone, yet I still do regret about things. Reading the past entries of this essay, what I realize is that regrets also come and go. In the end, regrets are generated not because of the past, but because of the present. Since I am unhappy with the past now, I regret. It means as my mind changes, my view on the past also changes and regrets naturally fade away. So, the greatest truth of universe I found is that if I enjoy the present, I won’t regret about the past. People think they regret because they did something wrong in the past. That might be true, but we know that we can’t change the past. What we can do is to live the present.

[The grassland of Inner-Mongolia]

[The fireworks and party in the grassland]

[Amazingly beautiful]

[So peaceful Mongolian yurt]

[The buddhist monk enjoying Pepsi and ipod]

[The best picture taken at the desert]

[At the 798, young Chinese artist]

[This picture just makes me sad. My only daughter, OCK]

[The library at Beijing Normal University]

[the GREAT wall]

[The people who made me start to like China. Thank you guys]

[Stars over Red China]

[The temple we visited on the way to the Great Wall, but don't remember the name]

[Another my favorite picture from the year]

[you guys are having fun, huh?]

[Bye, Mao, your China's over. New China's coming]

[Rainy Mao]

[The magic show we watched at the Tea House]

[Old Beijinger in old Beijing with Waiguorens]

[Me with my summer roommate]

I want to end this epic journey that once seemed never ending by telling you another short anecdote. I was on the plane heading Korea. I was really sick that time and didn’t feel well. I was sitting on the aisle side and one Korean lady was sitting on the window side. I had to fill out paper works, so borrowed a pen from the lady, which initiated our conversation. She told me she went to China to visit her sister and where she works now and stuff like that. We ended up exchanging our facebook names and she is now my facebook friend. I might see her again while I am staying here in Korea. That is random, isn’t it? I was almost dying and still met someone on the plane and made a new friend! This may seems trivial and insignificant. However, through this and my experience in China, I learned that life is full of unexpected confrontations. China was worse than what I expected but I also never expected I would meet so many awesome people there and have a wonderful year. I didn’t expect that I would get sick on the day before I leave China so that I wouldn’t get a chance to enjoy my last days there. I didn’t expect my one year long journey would end like that. However, that’s not a real end. Another story just has begun as I was stepping on to the plane for Korea. Although my story in China ends, I will still meet unexpected happenings and thus the story of you will continue.

Lately I am reading this book by one of the most famous and respected Buddhist monk in Korea, titled “一期一会” (Yi Qi Yi Hui). It is an old Buddhist idiom, meaning “this moment is the only moment in life and this encounter is the sole destined meeting in life”. This simple but prudent saying might have different meanings, but I think it fits pretty well for my closing. All the moments I had had in China won’t happen again, and all the persons I had encountered in China were meaningful to me. I cherish all the moments and all the encounters.

[My room during the picture, I took this picture as I arrived at my room on the first day in China. My roommate was out at the moment. Looking at this scene, I didn't know what was coming at the time]

[The first meal in China. Fried Rice. Didn't know how to order, I just pointed the picture]

This is it. This is truly the end. Thank you guys for reading my flawed writings! I sincerely appreciate the feedbacks you guys gave to me and just daily interaction with me, that really inspired me to write this much. I already told you guys that this isn’t the story of myself living in China. It was and is the story of you and it will be. Even my story ends here, yours won’t.

The Story of You, Part 2

Fin

Defining C-H-I-N-A

2009-07-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

I need to tell you two things before I start. First, unfortunately, previous two episodes didn't make it to this blog, because they are too personal. One is a letter to someone and the other one is about that letter's recipient. I decided not to upload. You might wonder why I show some letters on this blog and others not. I really cannot tell you why, sorry.

Second, it is another bad new for you guys. This episode is the second to the last episode, so I try to upload some memorable picture from the past year. They are endless, so it will take a lot of time to load on your webpage, I apologize for that. The pictures are counter-choronologically ordered, so the most recent picture is the first one. To make it conveinent for you guys, this time I am not going to mix the writing and pictures. Aright, enjoy reading!

Ep.46 Defining C-H-I-N-A

Once I go back to the States, everyone without a single exception will ask me this question: “How was China?” Then I will hesitate to answer first, and will try to recall all the memories of the past year and try to answer the question with some insightful and descriptive words. Although it seems so simple to answer, it indeed isn’t. It won’t be easy defining this huge country with over 13 billion people, various friends I met here, and a year long experience in few words.

I don’t want to describe China in the same way as how other people describe it. I want to tell people about my China, not someone else’s China. In this episode, I will try to prepare myself for the question by looking back the past year.

I guess I have to start with China and its economic development that everyone talk about. It’s absolutely true that China is rapidly developing and has developed a lot since 1970s. However, I don’t like people exaggerating Chinese economy. I think people often get confused “developing” with “developed”. “Developing” country means it hasn’t developed yet and it is still poor. There are some marvelous buildings and shopping malls in Beijing that that almost make me to believe that China is becoming a rich country, but if you just walk out of that shopping mall, you soon realize that you are mistaken.

China is not a rich country, only small fraction of it is. Yes, today’s Chinese middle class is much better off than how they were 30 years ago, however this so called “middle class” is also only tiny fraction of 13 billion Chinese people. Some people might not agree with me, but I am still doubtful that China is today’s economic super power. I visited almost every major metropolitan in China. Even those super developed Chinese cities cannot be compared to that of developed nations in many aspects such as road pavements, public transportation system, cleanness, and etc. I won’t even bother to mention how underdeveloped other small cities are in China.

However, whenever I go to supermarkets that are similar to Safeway or go out eat at nice restaurants, I feel that economic development is truly a blessing for all Chinese and it should continue. Considering living conditions of Chinese people decades ago, although it is only fraction of whole, due to the economic development, lots of Chinese people enjoy higher standard of living. I hope it continues so that more and more Chinese people can enjoy it as well. I guess it is a very capitalistic and American ways of thinking, but let’s forget about the enormous gap between the rich and the poor, let the Chinese middle class grow.

I think it is enough of me talking about Chinese economy. Let’s move on to the next topic—politics. Don’t worry; I am not trying to give you guys a lecture of Chinese political system or anything. I will just say my views on Chinese political system from my own experience.

When I found out that my first blog (Wordpress) was blocked in China, I was really surprised that censorship is really prevalent in China. Now my second blog (Blogspot) is also blocked and Youtube has been blocked for almost 6 months. I also wrote articles for this booklet that my Korean student association publishes every year, and I wrote this one article about “Chinese Democracy”, the new album by Guns n Roses. However, just because it had the word “Chinese Democracy” in it, we couldn’t publish the booklet. We had to take out the article in the end.
It was interesting to live in a country where the political system is completely different. You wouldn’t think that it would be that apparent, but as you see my trivial experience with internet, you see that you can actually feel it in daily life (maybe because I am always conscious about those things).

Whenever I talk about this topic, I always bring up the story of my Chinese friend who majors in Polisci. He always asks me interesting questions. On June 4th, the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square incident, he called me and asked me to send him some articles about the protest happening in HK from foreign mass media because he doesn’t have access to them. He once asked me, “was there really a tank when it happened? Is it really true?” He heard about the notorious Tiananmen massacre but was never sure about it because of accumulated education and propagandas he has received. His question really surprised me and I was disappointed at myself unable to provide more detailed facts in answer. I wished I could tell him more, but I couldn’t because I didn’t know well about the incident enough.

It is actually amazing that he questions. I thought that because he had received so many years of education under the Party, he would just accept what the Party says. However, it is human nature that we question and we ask. It was curiosity that led Adam and Eve to bite the forbidden fruit. Thus, I firmly believe that the Party and its rule cannot last forever because people won’t stop questioning its government. Many Chinese people including my friend all know that there is something wrong with the current political system in China, but they just accept that fact and do not think about fixing it. That’s my final obtainment from the year long experience and contemplation on Chinese political system. I cannot blame them because myself cannot think of a solution too.

I am also a bit disappointed at myself because over the year I found myself always looking at things with westernized point of view. I was always critical of whatever I see, rather than being understanding and tolerant. I am really regretful about it.

Let’s ask the question form a different angle then: did I enjoy living in China? Yes, I did. I was a bit disappointed when I first arrived here because it was a lot different from what I expected. I do complain a lot, but never regret coming here. Because sometimes things were completely out of my common sense, it had frustrated me a lot. I really cannot see myself living in China for the rest of my life; however, I definitely want to visit China again as a tourist. The best part of living in China was actually travelling.

I already told you guys this before that I cannot generalize “China”. It’s not the same as you say the banana is yellow. China is a vast country with billions of different people. Yes, you can say some general features about them but you cannot say “China is this” or “Chinese people are like this”. That’s just stupid.

What would I miss the most about China? That would be cheap and delicious food here. I will also miss the people just how I told you guys I would miss the people from Berkeley when I was leaving a year ago. I will miss the casualness of daily life in Beijing. I will miss hanging out with so many Korean people and having Korean foods regularly. I might also miss myself being so special just because I can speak English (that will never happen once I go back to Berkeley). I will also miss the feeling of being in a different culture.

To be honest, I am still not ready to answer the question. I know if someone asks me, “how was China?” I will answer “it was great”, but don’t know how I should answer further than that. I might tell you guys all the stories I wrote in this essay, or I will tell you some of them, or I might not tell you any of them. It doesn’t matter what I tell you guys or how I tell you guys, I believe my one year experience in China already has changed me in so many ways that you guys would see the differences and that might answer to the question: “How was China?”.

below are pictures with captions and dates.
I tried to pick pictures that I didn't show before but the most pictures are already showed in this blog.

[6/18 My journal from the summer and winter trip. I tried to record money I spent that day and my feelings on the book. This is one of the last pictures that I took in China]

[5/30 It was a beautiful day in Beijing. I just walked to Wudaokou Station with my camera. This is the place I always hung out with friends]

[5/30 the same day, I went to Weiming Lake and this is my current background picture for my computer. lovely pic]

[5/3 It was at the Temple of Heaven. My two closest Korean friend from the language school. They are roommates]

[4/30 My Chinese class went on a field trip to the city near Beijing. We visited the kindergarten and he was the cutest]

[4/30 the same day with my classamtes from the Chinese class and a puppy]

[4/27 one of my few Chinese friends who majors in Polisci. He is the one I always mentioned in my blog, at the lake]

[4/27 the same day, I was working all day taking pictures that will be the cover for the booklet published Korean Student Association. I was pretty tired that day, btw this picture didn't make it to the cover]

[4/5 I went to Datong with my tutor!]

[One of the most amazing place I have ever been in China, Datong]

[3/31 it is from the EAP spring trip to Jingdezhen. I love the candid expression from Junia, the girl in front]

[3/30 from the same trip, we climbed to the misty mountain! unforgettable beauty]

[3/29 will miss you guys]

[3/28 it was before we left for Jingdezhen. Another casual picture for EAP that I love]

[3/22 I climbed the Tiger Head Mt. with my tutor on the random weekend]

[3/22 This is my tutor, you can see my hair was still permed at that time. haha]

[2/16 It was snowing that day, and as soon as I woke up and found out it was snowing, I ran out with my camera to take pictures. I promised to myself that I would take picture at this famous West Gate, but I never did]

[1/14 Now it is pictures from my winter trip. This is the famous Yalu River]

[1/14 If I cross this small stream, I can enter North Korea!]

[1/13 In Shenyang, I was so happy to find Mao! Yay]

[1/12 at the boarder city, Tumen. I was sitting there and looking over the land of North Korea]

[1/12 cannot cross this bridge, the boarder is clearly demarcated by white snow]

[1/12 love this hat]

[1/10 In Haerbin, gorgeous and freezing at the same time!]

[1/10 the Church of St. Sophia]

[1/10 cannot forget the coldest place on the earth, Bingdengjie!]

[the most unforgettable meal for my entire winter trip: hotpot!! with friends]

[1/1 with my Chinese teacher for the fall semester and Japanese classmate. It was the first day of 2009 and our last meeting!]

[12/31/08 on the last day of the year, I was just passing by and saw this glowing tower]

[12/19 It was at the farewell dinner for the fall EAP friends, and took a picture with my old roommate]

[12/13 at the frozen lake, randomly went out and took pictures of random graduates]

[11/29 It was from my 2nd trip to Tianjin, the city near Beijing. At the random street market]

[11/29 I went with my tutor again. haha we went to lots of places together!]

[11/21 at my friend's place, and my friend with my shoes... don't know what to say. but it was one of the memorable moment over the past year]

[11/21 at the same place, same day, my another friend. she was really nice]

[11/20 the classmates from my Chinese class in Fall. I don't remember why I brought my camera to the class on that day]

[11/15 from my 1st trip to Tianjin, the tower]

[11/15 on the same day, with friends. miss you guys too]

[10/27 from the International Culture Festival at PKU. my coworkers from the KSA, it was taken everything was over...I was so tired!!]

[10/27 cute couple displaying the traditional Korean wedding. I got to know the girl later through my polisci class]

[10/27 on the same day, with hot thai ladies. ... don't know why I am so happy in the pic]

[10/26 from the Xian trip...which I went on my 21st Bday!!]

[10/24 on my 21st bday, on the train heading Xian, we were playing card games]

[10/24 my birthday dinner at Korean BBQ place. She is really into cooking that meat... haha]

[10/24 My birthday morning, I had a class (polisci) in the morning. It was an 8AM class... That guy sitting in front of the black board is my professor]

Lost and Found

2009-07-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.43 Lost and Found

One of the most worthy accomplishments I achieved in China, besides improving my Chinese, is definitely losing lots of weight. I already talked about it many times in previous episodes. I failed to achieve my original goal for the semester—losing 40 pounds—but I succeeded on losing 24 pounds. I overall lost 46 pounds this year. I don’t want to show off or anything but I am pretty proud of myself.

I am going to end my one-year-long diet very soon before this semester actually ends. I am very happy to see the end of this brutal war on fat, but I know it is only the beginning of even bloodier war of diet. I am planning to continue the diet when I get back to the States. I think I will be satisfied with losing 20 more pounds and getting into some kind of shape by doing weights. Actually I am very excited to continue my diet and experience another myself.

[On May 17th, the Korean Student Assoc. organized "the sports day" for Korean students]

[girls trying to steal each other's hat]

Before this year, I never tried such thing like losing weight or doing diets. I never enjoyed any sports activity in my life and still do not feel any amusement from physical activities. I just don’t understand people enjoying sweating or getting tried. Since I found out that playing sports is not my thing, I didn’t bother doing any sports activities that make me physically tired.

I also never hated my body or anything. I was never unsatisfied with my figure. Frankly speaking, I sometimes have felt sad about my body because I couldn’t wear some clothes that I wanted wear. That could be one good reason why I started dieting this year. Anyway, what I want to tell you is that until this year I never had felt that I needed to lose weight.

[eating contest]

Then why did I start this bloody war on diet in the first place? I already mentioned the main reason. I met this high school friend in Korea who was as fat as me during the high school years and last summer I couldn’t recognize him because he lost so much weight. He definitely inspired me to lose weight starting last summer. That, of course, couldn’t be the only reason. I was a bit interested in losing weight before too but never actually tried. I started to go to the gym in the first semester of my 2nd year in college, but soon gave up, then, I never imagined that I would lose 45 pounds.

Of course, losing much weight not only has changed my appearance but also other things. Although I want to end my diet and want to get back to my previous life style, I just can’t. I can’t help myself worrying about gaining weight. It’s actually more annoying than you think. I check myself every morning through a mirror whether I have gained weight or not. I thought I could eat as much as I wanted once I ended dieting. But I was mistaken.

Because it took so much effort to lose weight, now I don’t want to gain anymore. It’s like actually owning something. If you own something precious, you don’t want to lose it. If you don’t own it, you won’t care about it. That’s called being obsessive of something. It’s ironical that losing weight is same as gaining something.

Through this one-year-long diet, I found something new about myself. Redefining oneself is actually quite amusing; it’s like enlightenment! I am really glad to know that I can achieve something physically (that sounds a bit awkward). I always have thought that I am good at using my brain but now I know that I can do something other than using brains. I guess what I found is confidence in myself.

I am definitely continuing my diet when the fall semester starts. This time my goal is 20 pounds which is doable. I also want to start weight training and get some muscles which I have never done in my life. So I am very excited for the fall semester for many reasons. I am also planning to take a PE class for swimming in the spring.

When I first started this journey to China and started writing this essay, I told you guys that through this journey I not only wanted to learn Chinese and understand Chinese society, I also wanted to find myself—you can check the early writings of this essay. I believe I definitely found something new about myself. This newly found aspect of myself, of course, won’t directly help me to get a job or plan my future. However, I am happy that there are still unexplored frontiers to be uncovered in myself; what’s more important is that I have the power and passion to explore those frontiers.

This is my story of lost and found. I cannot describe precisely what I actually lost and what I found, but I know that doesn’t really matter because I believe I will find what I lost and I will lose again what I found. That’s just how things work!

Dear Yereum

2009-07-01T05:29:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[This is the building of the School of Government where I took polisci classes at PKU for year]

Ep.42 Dear Yereum

Dear my beloved tutee

Hello, how are you doing there? I hope you did well on your final exams. It has been a year since I met you for the first time and it’s been a semester since I started tutoring you English. Throughout this semester, there was no one whom I met as regularly and as often as I met you. I guess this is my first as well as the last letter for you. I have so many things to tell you that I don’t know how long this letter will be. It is also our last class for us, so please listen carefully.

I’m writing this letter to tell you something that I think is very important for one who’s learning English or learning anything in general, but haven’t been able to emphasize enough during our class time. However, I know that a lot of things that I’m going to tell you right now are something I already told you many times before. It might be that I’m just repeating myself, but there is a reason why I’m doing this and hope you know of that. I apologize in advance if you expected something more touching rather than this boring one.

[my tutee on the right]

Firstly, and most importantly, please don’t stop memorizing words. I cannot overemphasize the importance of widening one’s vocabulary. As you know too, vocabulary is the cornerstone of all. Conversational English or grammar, you can learn them fast once you start to live in Australia. There are so much English grammar structures that people use in daily life. In other words, it is very limited. If you read a lot and listen carefully how native people speak, you won’t need to worry about your grammar. It’s same with conversational English. Of course, it takes a time for one to speak freely with natives, but after a year and so, you will eventually get that level. You just need to go out and meet many people and your conversational English will be naturally improved.

But, it’s a whole different story for vocabulary. There is no definite end for the journey of memorizing vocabs in English. Of course, there are some limited numbers of words that we usually use on daily basis, but even that limited numbers are not small. So you really need to put efforts to reach the level, in which you won’t have any difficulty expressing your feeling with appropriate words. As for me, when I read books I still have many words that I don’t know. To be honest, or you might already know that, there were some words I didn’t know very well when I was tutoring you. My grandma who worked her whole life as an editor of Korean English newspaper still memorize words and idioms as she reads books in English.

[me and my tutee]

Secondly, I hope you keep in mind that the best way to improve your conversational English is just talking to more people. As I compare you with Soogeun, your weakest point seems like your oral English. To be honest with you, you speak relatively slow; I think it’s because you are not confident enough. I know that someone is just naturally good at speaking in foreign language and someone isn’t. I belong to the latter like you, but don’t worry; you can change it if you try hard enough. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes when you speak. Your grammar is perfect, and even if it’s not, they will understand what you are saying as long as you speak it clearly. Just try your best to express your feelings through words that you know, that’s all. Also, just try to listen to other people talking and you will soon pick up some useful expressions. Learning a language is just a process of being passive to active. First, you need to be passive which means you just need to listen and read a lot and remember them. Establishing that first, then you can make things you read and heard your own, and try to copy them through speaking and writing; that means you are becoming more and more active.

You might already know this stuff because you already went through the painful experience of learning Chinese. Please excuse myself if I’m just reiterating things that you know, but hey learning a language is also a process of repetition! What I mean by that is you cannot master English just studying it once. You should do it over and over again. Unfortunately, you will soon forget the words you memorized with me, but don’t be despaired because you forgot them all; it’s very natural. If you memorize them for the second time or the third time for that matter, you will eventually make these words yours completely. Given that, I think you need to be exposed to many words as possible first. It doesn’t matter whether you memorize them all, it matter you are just exposed to them, so when you see them for the second time it benefits you to memorize them.

[random statues at my school]

I think it’s enough of me telling you what is important in learning a language, but there are few more words I need to tell you about studying abroad. I’m sure you know also well about what you need to do when you study abroad because you already have lived and studied in China for many years. The biggest thing I want to tell you is this: go out! You are not just going to Australia to learn English, but also experience the world, that’s far different from China or Korea. I’m sure you will come to realize how immense the world is and how different people think at the opposite side of the world you have lived. Nonetheless, if you don’t go out and are not willing to go on an adventure, you will never fully understand it. Meet as many people as possible. Go to as many places as possible. Experience as many things as possible. It might be boring to hang out with people when you first get there because you hardly understand what they are saying, but don’t just lock up yourself in the room. Just go out with them and listen to them and see what they are doing. It is also very helpful for your English to be improved. If your friend asks you to go somewhere you are not very interested, don’t hesitate to go with him/her. Please cherish your opportunity being able to study abroad and face the world.

One more thing is that you need to prioritize your goals. You need to set your goals that you want to achieve while you are there and think which goal is more important and which one is less. For example, if you think learning English well is your foremost goal of studying abroad, I recommend you to meet as less Korean friends as possible. Less Koreans you meet, better your English will be. However, your most important goal isn’t learning English, but experiencing the world, making Korean friends in Australia and hanging out with them wouldn’t be a bad idea. You might think it is not that important setting your goals and prioritizing, but you will regret after a year if you don’t. Don’t start too late. Start planning right now.

[The School of Government at PKU]

[My tutee with my gift for her "adult day" in my room]

Tutoring you for how many weeks, I know it for sure that you are a smart and industrious girl. I believe you will do well in Australia or wherever you go. You will succeed, so don’t worry about it too much. You will have some ups and downs and surely will have hard times that you might want to run away. Whenever you feel like running away or giving up, remember that you are enjoying a privilege that others are dying to have and you shouldn’t waste that opportunity. If you try hard enough, it will pay off.

Now, it’s really time to say goodbye. I had some difficult times writing this letter, I don’t know why though. Maybe it was because I had so many worries for you and didn’t know where to start and what to tell you. I hope it wasn’t a waste writing this long letter for you—please look up all words that you don’t know. I hope when you come back, you can point out all grammatical errors of this letter and speak better English than I.

Someone said, “Man is born to live, not to prepare for life”. Don’t worry too much about the future and just enjoy now. Live in the present! Whether you are in China, Australia or Korea, whether you are studying or working, be genuine to yourself and the time you are in right now. That’s all I want to tell you. Hope I didn’t bore you too much and wish best of luck for your study abroad in Australia. Of course, we will keep in touch and we will see each other again.

Sincerely,

Your tutor, brother, and friend

Jay K.

ps. actually she never got this letter personally, because I was too busy during the finals. I hope she reads this through this blog and know that I really love you as my student!

Living in the present

2009-06-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Before I start, I want to tell you guys that this episode was written about 2 months ago, but unfortunately couldn't be updated becuase CCP blocked blogspot in China. Now I am back in Korea, so free from the Big Bro, will update all my episodes written in China including the last episode of this journal/essay/blog. Please enjoy.

Ep.41 Living in the present

There are more than six billion people living on this planet Earth, but I wonder how many people are actually living in the present, not in the future or past. One of my closest friends in Beijing asked me the question of how one can live in the present. My first instinct reaction was: “What’s so hard about living in the present? I am living in the present.” But more I think about it, I realize that it is not that simple matter.

I am a person who likes to live in the past or the future, but tries to restrain self from escaping from where one actually lives. I love to think about the past and often spends hours recalling memories. That’s also a part of the reason why I like to take pictures. I started to like photography because I liked to document the present and doing so I can remember it forever. How about the future? Few days ago I was just thinking what I should say to my family in my graduation dinner—I am serious. I am not trying hard to escape from the present, those thoughts just come to me naturally and I simply cannot resist them. Why?

[It was a beautiful day at PKU]

My life in Beijing is getting busy and crazy as it gets closer and closer to the end. I am having some problems here and there and they push myself from the present. In other words, I am just complaining that the life is so hard that I want to run away to somewhere. I have too much work to do that I have hardly time for myself. I hate to waste my time for someone else and being nice. I hate to break my own rules and become someone whom I don’t want to be… It will be endless if I tell you every problem I have. These are the reasons why I can’t live in the present, but want to live in the past or the future.

But, if you think about it, was there any time that you didn’t have any problem? No, there wasn’t and won’t be. We can’t live without problems. The life is meaningless without them, although we always try to run away from them. In the grand scheme of things, the problems I have right now are so tiny that it wouldn’t matter at all. Let me ask you. Do you even remember what you worried about a year ago or even six months ago? Problems come and go. For now, it seems that if I don’t resolve it right now it might kill me. However, everything will clear out itself and you don’t need to worry about it too much. Don’t even try to escape to the future of to the past because you fear the problems of the present. They are always there, so you might just as well face them in the present.

You, then, might ask me this: “Yes, the problems of the present might don’t matter, so should I just not worry about them and wait until they go? Isn’t that also not living in the present but is living in the future or somewhere else?” I guess that is a very good question. Of course, I am not telling you to do nothing and wait till everything works out. What I want to say is that if you don’t appreciate the present, the future or the past will never be as valuable.

The past is not as nostalgic and as beautiful if you didn’t have any problem or if you didn’t try anything to solve that problem in the past. You reminisce the past because they are the memories of hardships and your overcoming of them. You might disagree with me and say that your memories of the past are only full of happiness without any worries. If then, you are seriously mistaken. I already told you the fact that problems were always there, it’s just that you erased those painful memories for your own defense mechanism.

I don’t want to get too technical here. I am just saying that you feel the past were more beautiful than the present because you already overcame all the difficulties of the past. I will give you an example to make you understand better. Now I think back of my high school years, I feel it was really nice and relaxing. Yeah, there were some hard times, but it seems to me that in overall it was very pleasant. I feel in this way because the biggest problem during my high school years is resolved in the present: getting into college. I know it is very personal and subjective way of looking at the past, but hey it makes sense.

How about the future? I always tend to live in the future sometimes because it is very tempting. It just seems that the future will be simply so much better than the present. The future seems so bright and hopeful. I cannot help myself thinking about my return to the States and my 4th year in Berkeley. I am sure I will have so much fun there. But I shouldn’t forget that the future is just continuation of the present. What I mean by that is the so-called bright and hopeful future of the past is just the present. Are you having that promising life today, which you dreamed in the past? I am not being cynical here. I am just making a point. If you don’t enjoy now, you will never enjoy anything, because the future you are longing now is only extension of the present.

Unfortunately, the great mankind hasn’t invented a time machine, so you cannot just jump to the future and live in the future. Even if we have, I am sure it will just disappoint you greatly.

I want to tell you a story like how I always do. I guess it was just a year ago. I was set to come to China and I was just waiting for the semester to end and come to China. To be honest, I was having some problems in Berkeley. They weren’t any serious problems. I was just bored living in the same place for two years and I was also skeptical about my current relationship with my friends in Berkeley. I just wanted to run away from the present. I thought, if I left for a year and come back, everything would be naturally solved. I regret that I didn’t enjoy the end of my 2nd year more, because now I miss it a lot. When I get back, some of friends won’t be there anymore because they will graduate this year. I regret that I didn’t spend more time with them.

I haven’t answer to the question yet: how one can live in the present? I am not saying that you shouldn’t think about the future or the past at all. That’s not even possible. It is human nature to fancy the past or the future. But you shouldn’t try to escape from the present. Face it, and enjoy it. Don’t forget that you are not only living in the present, but at the same time, you are also living in the past and the future. The present you are living in right now will be the past in the future and is the future of the past. Despite how troublesome, difficult, and disappointing the present is, you should muddle through and enjoy the craziness of it. Many people are doing something now for the future’s sake. It is true that you need some preparation for the future, but don’t live the present only for the future. Just do it because you feel like it now, not because you are thinking about what will happen later.

I guess this is a long and also short answer for you and for anyone who’s reading this. Are you guys living in the present? If not, please come back. It isn’t that bad to be here; it is quite entertaining actually.

Time to say goodbye

2009-05-02T05:35:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.40 Time to say goodbye

I cannot believe there are only two more months left until I leave this country. I am planning to leave China at the end of June, and stay in Korea for July and get back to the States in August. As far as this essay goes, I hope I can write ten more episodes, and finish with fifty stories in total. Though only two months are left, it seems far away to me, because I still have many tests left until I finish this semester.

I know it is a bit early to talk about my departure, but I learned from my past experience that it is always late if you start to think about it right before you leave. Nevertheless, today, I am not going to talk about me leaving, but talk about something that left me.

My electric bike broke. It broke again. I already mentioned about my electric bike many times in this essay. It was a part of my body. I guess I need to first clarify our relationship before further discussion of it.

[The birth place of my bike!]

I met him (I guess it is a guy) two weeks after I arrived in China. I desperately needed him because China was so huge and I needed someone who could take me around. Of course, it took time to get used to him. It was very hard to control him first, and I slowly learned how to handle him. I told you guys already how I met my daughter and him at the same time. I had to let my daughter (Orange Chicken the kitty) go, but he stayed with me even after she left me alone. After, I got more and more dependent on him. I couldn’t go anywhere without him. There are so many memories with him. I went to so many places with him.

I rode it to classes every morning. I rode it to get breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I rode it to meet friends, to take tests, to take pictures, and to shop. My feet were hardly on the ground because of it. I took so many people on my back, they were mostly girls, but some guys too. I think roughly 20 people rode on the back of my bike. I was really happy to take so many people on my back although it seriously caused the breakdown of my bike in the end.

I also carried various things in my bike basket. I often carried my lunch and books in there. I also had carried my daughter, flowers, and extra-large pizza.

[My bike is running!!]

It gave me freedom, democracy, and feeling of China. I really liked the feeling of wind touching my chin warmly and when I felt the wind, I slowly closed my eyes. I also liked how it always thrilled me to drive on the roads of Beijing. The bike gave me the power. I don’t know how to describe that feeling. It is a feeling that you are almighty and inconvincible. It is a feeling that you are faster than any other. It is a feeling that no one dare to stop you.

Of course, there were some rough times with it. I got the worst stress ever whenever it broke on me. I was really stressed even though I knew that it could be fixed. I also had to worry about getting it stolen whenever I parked it off-campus. These stresses and worries were all because I owned it.

I think that’s why I decided to let it go. It got broke down few weeks ago, so I did the usual drill. I took it to the magician (the repair-man) and he fixed it without any difficulty, but it broke again within a week. I felt that it was a sign, a sign that it is a time to say goodbye to him. I know if I take it to the repair man again he can fix it, but that will make it last only few more weeks.

[My bike at night]

I believe that you ought to let something go, if it needs to go. If you keep trying to hold it, that’s you being selfish. You shouldn’t be greedy. You need to know when to give up, and when to let someone go. There is an old saying, “It is never late to say sorry, and it is never early to say goodbye”. I have to say goodbye to my dear electric bike and let him rest forever. That’s how I felt seeing my bike kept breaking down.

I promised myself to bike to Tiananmen Square when the weather gets warmer, but I guess I waited too long. I am really sad that I never can bike again. I know that nothing can last forever; everything is temporary in the end. You can say that I am being too sentimental and emotional about the mere bike. But you need to know that it was a very important part of my life in China.

So, it has been more than a week since I started to live without him. I am still not used to it, and often get upset at the fact that I don’t have the bike anymore. However, breaking down of my bike also gave me the opportunity to see what is about me. I think it is a good transition since I have only two more months in China and I can see and experience more of Beijing by walking.

The bike, of course, had made my life so much easier and convenient; for example, because I could move from one place to another in a very short time, I could meet more people and could go to more places. However, because of that, I think the pace of my life had been too fast. It is time to slow down. I don’t want to meet more people and go to more places. I want to see people whom I got to know last semester more and want to have deeper relationships with them.

I need to stop talking about my broken bike now. It is time to let him go and it is time to say goodbye.

[The first night that I got my bike]

Test myself, lose yourself

2009-04-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Last week, I went to Datong, Shanxi with my Chinese tutor. All pictures are from Datong]

Ep.39 Test myself, lose yourself

I just took HSK yesterday. I mentioned this test in my first post of this semester. It is the Chinese standardization test, which measures your Chinese ability. Of course, it cannot be a perfect measure for one’s fluency in Chinese, however, it gives a pretty good sense of where one’s standing in terms of language ability.

Many Korean and Japanese students take this test because its score can be used in their resume and it is a good proof that you can speak Chinese. However, as for me, I don’t need that “proof”. I am not planning to get a job in Korea like others (I am planning to take a test and become a civil servant, in which I don’t need a resume), and even if I do, I don’t think I need a proof like this. I can just tell them I am able to speak Chinese. Then, you might wonder why I even bothered taking this notorious HSK.

As I told you before, I invested my whole weekends to attend this private HSK school for a month. The tuition was around $100 and the test itself cost me $60 (it is even bigger investment if you consider my monthly allowance is only $300). I didn’t tell my dad I am taking this test, so I paid them with my own money. So many sacrifices and investments for this stupid test!

[Datong is famous for Yungang cave, where more than 52,000 Buddha statues are carved in twenty different caves]

I can say I took it for fun. More honestly, I took it to challenge myself. It was my way to improve my Chinese quicker than others. I thought taking Chinese classes is not enough to improve my Chinese as fast I want, so I started to take regular college courses. However, that is also not enough to me. I decided to take HSK, so as I study for the test, I can try harder to learn Chinese.

Taking test, regardless of what kind of test you are taking, gives you stress and pressure. That pressure helps you study hard. It is not the same as you are studying for some class or studying with a language partner. The test gives you the clear result that corresponds with how much you studied. Of course, Chinese that you learn from studying for the test is quite different from Chinese you learn from talking to locals—that’s the point. As I study for HSK, I can learn different parts of Chinese that my Chinese classes cannot cover. I don’t know if I am explaining this clearly. I am not saying that studying for a test is the best way to learn one language: it is not, it might be one of the worst ways to learn the language. What I am saying is that, even that worst method can add a little to my studying and improve my Chinese.

This little theory of improving one’s language ability through taking a test is what I learned when I was studying English in the States. When I just got to the States, I was in my end of sophomore year which meant I would become a junior soon and need to take SAT. I first needed to learn conversational English to survive. I also needed to study for high school classes and at the same time I had to study for SAT. SAT verbal English was surely not my level. Nonetheless, through studying for SAT and due to the pressure of college entrance issue, I improved my English fast. You can say that I am trying to copy exactly what I did when I was learning English.

What I want to emphasize is that learning a language is a multifaceted process. There are conversational (speaking and listening) and written (reading and writing) parts of the language. There are also the slangs and formals. There are also words that are used in daily-life and words used in a professional world. There are also words that are only used in literature or in old (or historical) form of the language. I am not saying they are all different from each other. These different parts of one language are indeed all connected. So leaning one part of the language helps improving the other parts. One needs to figure out where his strongest is and his weakest is and develop one’s own strategy to improve language proficiency in every aspect.

[The Nine Dragons]

Actually, I did a good job of studying Chinese through preparing for HSK. I went to prep classes every weekend and try to memorize words with flash cards and stuff. I stopped studying for HSK because of Jingdezhen trip and Datong trip and started again two weeks before the test. I solved a hundred practice questions every night for a week. I was pretty proud of myself, but unfortunately, I got sick after the first week of hardcore studying. I was sick for the whole second week, and I was even sick on the day of the test. I failed to manage my health and therefore lost my chance. I really regret that I didn’t take care of myself better. I could do much better on the test if I wasn’t sick, but that’s also a part of the test, I guess.

Surprisingly, the test itself wasn’t very hard, but I didn’t do well on the test. I did fine on the first three parts (listening, reading comprehension, and grammar), but not so well on the later two parts (speaking and writing). The problem was that I was too nervous. I mumbled a lot during the speaking part and forgot to write some simple characters on the writing part.

After the test, I was very disappointed at myself. I thought I was better than that, and I found out that I wasn’t. It was a very humbling experience. I realized that I still have a lot to study. My Chinese is still poor and I have so many areas to work on. I don’t think I can achieve my original goal, 10th level, and I might take the test again in June.

Today, it just happened to be that my Chinese teacher talked about learning foreign language. She told us that we shouldn’t give up, but keep studying and studying to achieve one’s goal, that is attaining some level of proficiency. She also told us to go crazy studying Chinese (yes, it sounds ridiculous). But I actually agree with her. Sometimes, you need to lose yourself if you want to get something. You don’t get anything if you don’t lose anything. In other words, you can get more if you are willing to lose more. I recommend you guys who are studying a foreign language, or pursuing anything that is important, to test yourself, and lose yourself.

[My friend's tutor and me]

Big Two and Big Daddy

2009-04-09T17:46:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Me]

Ep.38 Big Two and Big Daddy

So I was on the trip last week and the week before that. I went to Jiangxi with my fellow EAP friends and went to Datong, Shanxi with my Chinese tutor. When you go on a trip with other people, there is one thing that you should take with you: a deck of playing cards.

It is really useful for killing time on train or something. You can play the Mafia, poker or drinking game with friends. Today I want to introduce one of the popular card games to you guys and my stories related with that game. However, it is not easy to tell you the name of the game, because there are so many different names for one game!

It is usually called “Big Two”, but it was also called “Pusoi” in my high school, and I recently found out there is one of the Chinese versions of Big Two called “Fight Against Landlord” (what a Chinese name for a card game). There are also other Chinese names for this game. I actually googled Big Two in order to know more about this game. It is surprisingly originated from China. And Pusoi is a Pilipino name of the game. I don’t want to explain all the rule of the game, but basically you just need to remember the 2s are the strongest cards in the game.

[We climed this famous Taoist Mt, Sanqing Mt]

[So Misty!]

I used to play this game a lot during my high school years. I played it almost every day during lunch time. I had this Taiwanese friend who was good at this game and that Taiwanese friend, Ave (whom I mentioned in the previous episode), and I always played together. I learned how to play that game from him. Because I played it every day, soon I got good at it, and I still consider myself pretty good at this game.

I also played Big Two when we were in Inner-Mongolia grassland yurts. We also played the game on the way to the Great Wall. I won so many games that my friends accused me of cheating. I really like this game, mostly because I am good at this game. Also, playing this game, you don’t need to depend on luck entirely, nor you need to lie to other people like when you play poker.

It was that first summer in the States. I had to attend summer school because I need to catch up. It was the first and last summer school in my life. I carpooled with that Taiwanese guy and another Taiwanese girl. None of us had a car and all of our guardians were too busy so they had to rotate giving us rides.

The class was from Monday to Thursday, four hours per day. I took a geometry class that summer. It was of course super easy for me. My classmates were all younger than me and one or two grade lower than me. They also liked to play Pusoy. Whenever we have a free time in class, especially after taking a test or something, we played Pusoy together. Remember that it was only 3, 4 months after I came to the States, which means my English wasn’t very good. All of my classmates were pure Americans.

The only tool of communication between me and classmates was playing Big Two. As you guys know, you really don’t need to speak fluent English when you play the card games. I was really good at the game and won the game almost every time. The classmates all thought that I was really smart. And, somehow they all started to like me. I was called Big Daddy, because first I was bigger than them, secondly because my last name is Kang sounds like Kane, the last name of the famous rapper: Big Daddy Kane. To be honest, I liked that nickname, too.

Whenever I think of my early days in the States, I think of that summer and of that summer school. It was a good experience for me. I learned a lot through communicating with the classmates. It was also very relaxing because the class was very easy and every day I just chilled with my classmates playing Big Two.

The first year in the States, as I told you guys before, gives me a very bleak and gloomy image. However, that summer was very brilliant and fresh in my vague memory. It was a really nice vacation for me.

[The china market in Jingdezhen]

I went to another trip with my Chinese tutor to Datong last weekend. We played “Fight against Landlord”. The rules are a bit different from Big Two, but the main theme is the same. Of course, I will remember the marvelous sceneries of Datong but I will also remember the games we played.

I think this episode is about one of the most insignificant stories on my blog, but you should remember that even something trivial like the card game can give you one of the most unforgettable memories in your life.

to see more pictures of my trip, please visit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/sets/72157616338030471/

Why am I here?

2009-04-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[The train to Jiangxi Province]

Ep.37 Why am I here?

I am on this wobbling bus heading where I don’t know. I am on another EAP organized trip; it will actually be the last trip for our year program. I am on this random road that I would never come back to in my life. I don’t know if you guys understand what I mean by this. It is a feeling that I often have when I am on a trip. When I was travelling during the last summer, I walked through some small back streets of some random small cities in China. Walking on those roads, I wondered whether I would ever be here again in my life? Probably not.

Many experiences in China were like this. I will never have this kind of experience once I leave here. Now I have only 3,4 month left until I leave here, I started to think about some questions that I didn’t have when I first arrived here. When I first got here, I was so overwhelmed with new culture and environment that I couldn’t afford to think about these questions. One question that I am recently pondering on is this: why am I here?

[me]

[A beautiful scenary of Chinese countryside]

[Clothes of buddhist monks]

Few days ago, the word “yuanfen (缘分)” came up in the discussion in my Chinese class. In English, it can be translated into “destiny” or “fate”. It is a supernatural concept, which means things happened for a reason. For example, there is a reason why my mom met and married my dad who was just one of ten thousands guys in her school. There is also a reason why I met you guys and we became friends. My favorite translation for yuanfen is actually “meant to be”. It meant to be happened like that.

I usually think about this “yuanfen” when I make friends. I just run into some people coincidentally for no reason, which makes me to fee that we are just meant to be friends. But some friends, even if I make appointments to meet them, every time for some reason it doesn’t work out. Then, I just think it’s just not meant to be.

A. Park was just like that. He is my good friend from high school. He is a Korean and he came to the States 4, 5 months later than me. In my high school, there were only two Korean students (excluding Korean Americans). So it was a pretty big deal if a new student came from Korea or even nearby Korea such as Taiwan or Japan. I heard the news from my ESL teacher that one Korean guy from Korea came to our school and would take classes with us. I was very happy and really wanted to meet him, but every time I went to a classroom to meet him, he wasn’t there. For a whole week, I couldn’t see his face. At that time, I thought it wasn’t just meant to be. So I just stop looking for him. But, fortunately, it was the end of that week when I went to my church on Sunday and met this random looking dude. He was just Ave. We became a friend after.

[Jingdezhen, the place we went, is famous for making porcelins]

However, “yuanfen” is not only about between people and people, but is also about between people and place, job, or anything. I think I am meant to be a polisci major. When I was young, my grandma went to this Korean traditional fortuneteller. The fortuneteller told my grandma that I would become a great politician. At that time, I wanted to be a comic artist or writer. I thought that fortuneteller is a quack. But as I grow up, I became more and more interested in politics.

I am not superstitious or anything. I am an atheist. I don’t believe someone up there arranged these happenings, but I believe every meeting between people is special.

Now, let’s come back to my question: why am I here? “Here” I mean China. Am I just meant to be here? Why did I decide to come here in the first place?

I don’t remember why I decided that. To tell the truth, I even don’t remember when I decided that. I started to think about studying abroad in my first year of college. Actually, I started to think about it when I came to the campus orientation. During the orientation, I found out that there is such thing as studying abroad for the first time. After that, I decided to go studying abroad on my third year, and so naturally I decided to come to China.

[Rusty knief]

[Will this person who carved his name on the bamboo come back to here again?]

Why China? It isn’t easy to answer that question. It just became a fact that I was coming to China. I wasn’t into any of Chinese pop culture. Obviously, I am not a Chinese American who wants to know about my ethnic background. I am not a business person, so growing Chinese economy didn’t attract me at all. I didn’t have a Chinese girlfriend or something. I am also not a communist.

The only reason I can think of is the trip with my mom. It was 7 or 8 years ago. My mom took me to Japan when I was in the 7th grade, then she took me to China when I was an 8th grader. I guess she wanted to show me the world. She was also planning to send me to study abroad in China. That plan didn’t work out well but, she was seriously considering it. At that time, I didn’t know what “studying abroad” meant really. Then, I was just a typical Korean boy who spent his whole life in Korea. Studying in China sounded interesting to me at that time.

It was the cold winter when we came to Beijing. Back then, of course, I didn’t know that that trip would be the last trip that I would ever go on with my mom. I didn’t know that. The trip was fun even though I only remember parts of it. I remember the places we went. China was so huge to a 14-years-old boy who grew up in Korea for all of his life. I still remember walking through the Forbidden City and was amazed by the scale of that palace. I also remember the meals weren’t good except the last meal when we ate the Peking duck. I was young then. I couldn’t imagine that I would study Chinese and come back there 8 years later.

[I was speechless!]

Last night, we were on train and played games till 1 or 2 am. We started to ask some personal questions and one of the questions was: “who do you want to bring to China right now”. To be honest, I don’t have anyone particular I want to bring here. I thought of my dad, because he was supposed to come but decided not to come. I thought of Cindy. I thought of Danny, my best friend from high school. Nonetheless, I told everyone I want to bring my mom here right now, because I want to be with her. Oh, now I don’t want to write this.

Back to the question; I don’t think it’s because of my mom that I came to China. It’s just meant to be like that. It was just meant to be that my mom and I came to China 8 years ago; I was also just meant to be that I came here for studying abroad 8 years from that trip. I don’t know if you guys know what I mean by this.

It’s so weird. Eight years ago, I visited the Summer Palace, one of the famous tourist sights in Beijing. At that point, I didn’t think I would ever come back to that place again. But eight years later I visited there again. As I was walking around the lake of the Summer Palace last summer, I just realized I was on that exact spot eight years ago with my mom. It’s so weird, isn’t it?

I am sorry for you guys and for myself that I cannot give a conclusive answer for this question. I don’t know why I am here. It can have many reasons, or it can have no reason. I should be satisfied with the answer that I was just meant to be here.

to see more pictures, please visit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/sets/72157616425157448/

Learn to be an Excellent Teacher; Act as an Exemplary Person

2009-03-18T07:23:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.36 Learn to be an Excellent Teacher; Act as an Exemplary Person

It’s been a while since I wrote the last episode (or letter). I’ve been busy lately. I am taking five courses this semester; two from the school of government and other three from the language school. I’m also taking a HSK prep school on weekends. It takes a whole weekend because the class starts at 10am and ends at 5pm for both Saturday and Sunday. I am so glad that the four weeks program will be over this weekend, but I will be still busy on weekends for different reasons.

I am not actually busy because of these classes. I am busy meeting people. I am happy that I made lots of friend last semester so that I have so many friends to meet this semester, but I have to say that it is tiring sometimes. The only problem is that sometimes I don’t have time to go to the gym or to study because of meeting people. So I decided not to make more friends this semester and just try to keep friendships that I found last semester. Of course I am not going to reject people…

[I went to this park in Chaoyang District last Saturday]

Another thing keeps me busy these days, which is also my topic for this episode. I started to tutor a friend who is a year younger than me. I got to know her in my political science class. She is a Korean international student at PKU. We meet three times a week for 2 hours. This is only the second week that I started tutoring her. Actually, I was supposed to tutor her tonight, but she canceled it because she got sick. It pays me pretty well, but not because price/hour is high but because I do 6 hours a week. I tutor her English.

I am also tutoring another friend but not getting paid for it. I might also tutor another friend on weekends when my HSK prep school’s over. I don’t know why I started to tutor so many people all of sudden. I just want to help friends who want to learn English and I personally like to teach. Moreover, I believe as teaching English to them, I think I will better my English too.

I am not a native speaker, so things I can teach are limited. Nonetheless, I think myself is adequate enough for teaching them, because first their English level is not that high and second I also have experience learning English as a second language so I know what difficulties they have.

The tutoring is going fine actually; sometimes I have hard time explaining some stuff and I sometimes don’t know some words, but for the most time I am doing well. Tutoring my students English actually reminds me of my own tutors.

[This is a luxurious outside shopping mall in China]

“学为人师、行为世范” was the precept of Beijing Normal University where I took a summer school last summer. It means in English: “Learn to be an Excellent Teacher; Act as an Exemplary Person”. Beijing Normal University was used to be a specialized college for training teachers. I’m sure in every country there is an old saying that stresses the importance of having a good teacher. I am actually lucky having awesome tutors in my life.

If you are a junior high or high school student, it is very common to get a tutor or go to a cram school in Korea. I didn’t go to any cram school when I was in Korea, but had few tutors. I had an English tutor right before I was coming to the States. Then, I didn’t know that I would come to the States. I just studied high school English with my tutor. I wasn’t really interested in studying English at that time because it wasn’t any fun. Before I didn’t know why I need to learn how much an American quarter worth.

If I look back, I actually learned a lot from that tutor. She taught me basic pronunciations and grammars that were so useful once I started to live in the States. Because I learned so much during the first year of studying in the States, I often overlook the importance of what I learned before I came to the States. Perhaps I could learn fast in the States because of her, my tutor. She was a truly good tutor. I regret that I lost a contact with her as I was leaving Korea. I really want to meet her again and show her how much better my English is now.

The tutor I met in the States was also an excellent tutor. His name is Ronald, and he is a Chinese American. Ron was preparing for a med-school and he is actually in med-school right now. He is a really nice person. He taught me not only English, but also many life lessons. I had hard time when I first came to the States. I had some tough family problems that first year, and he helped me through many ways. Of course, he was paid to tutor me, but he wasn’t paid to take me to the museums, restaurants and so on. In other words, he wasn’t paid to be my friend.

Ron was not a tutor—he was a mentor for me. The first year in the States, what I needed was not only learning English, but also finding mental peace. I don’t know how to thank for this and how to express how much I owe him. He also helped me a lot academically. He helped me with homework and writing college applications. If it wasn’t him, I am sure I could’ve not got into Cal. I was really lucky to have him as my tutor.

I don’t even want to bother mentioning other school teachers who helped me a lot during the first year. It will take forever to thank them all through this essay.

I also met a good tutor here. Her name is Sandy. She is really nice, but only problem is that she doesn’t want to study. She just wants to hang out with me, which is also fine. I am sure I don’t know what I’m learning right know from her, but later I will realize later.

Being a tutor myself, now I understand my tutors a bit. I hope that I also become like my tutors. My student will study abroad in New Zealand later (that’s why she is learning English from me). I hope when she goes there she remembers what I taught her and thanks me. But I know that I am still not good enough in many aspects to be a good tutor. I guess I still need to learn to be “an excellent teacher”!

to see more pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/sets/72157615555077578/

Dear Cindy pt.2

2009-03-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.35 Dear Cindy pt.2

[Welcome to the PKU's night!]

Dear Cindy

Hey there. I am writing this letter in this café in Beijing. This café is very westernized; so many westerners come here, drink coffee, chat or study here. I also love to come here, but it’s just too expensive. One meal at the school cafeteria is about 5~10 RMB, but a cup of coffee costs more than 20 RMB here. It’s almost American price. I actually miss many good cafes in Berkeley. I love to write in café. It is such a good atmosphere to write.

You might think, “Oh Jay, you wrote that super long letter, and you still have more to say?” Yes, I do. I hope you don’t get sick of reading my letter. I hope it entertains you and helps you.

I want to tell you more about “recognizing challenges and facing them”. I am not clear about what you meant by “recognizing” challenges, but I will tell you my story anyway. Since I’ve moved to the States, I love to challenge myself and push myself out of my comfort zone. Taking challenges: That’s how I got into Berkeley and could improve my English faster than others. That’s also why I am here. I know it’s a good thing. It really gives you more opportunities and makes you better. That’s what I learned from challenging myself for last four years.

[Going home after playing basketball]

Of course, taking challenges also brings many failures and disappointments. I experienced many bitter failures and they made me to challenge more and push myself further. Many people ask how I can take regular Chinese polisci classes in Chinese. They think my Chinese is really good, but actually I am not that good. I am just challenging myself again, because I know if I do this, my Chinese will get better in the end.

I regretted a lot this winter break: “why did I decide to come to China?” I could have so much fun in Berkeley. Why did I come here for a whole year? I asked myself that a lot and the answer was simple: to be better.

Actually, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m tired of me challenging myself. I just want to stay back in my comfort zone and never come out. I will tell you a story. I started a diet last semester and I lost almost 22 pounds. You know how much I love eating. But during that diet, I ate a piece of cucumber for whole day and didn’t eat anything else. I did that for 2,3 days and ate a little and repeated it again for 2,3 days. Of course, I also went to the gym almost every day. I called it the “to be or not to be” diet for myself. I was a bit disgusted at myself, being able to push myself that further.

[The dormitory]

It was just because of “proud”. I can do this. I cannot forgive myself giving up. I should keep challenging myself. Trying what you think you can’t do is a good thing, but doing what you can’t do and you don’t want to do is not a good thing. I don’t know what I am doing is right. Sometimes I want to step back, but at the same time, I think it is still not enough. I am still on that diet but because my ankle is hurting, I stopped going to the gym for last few days. I actually feel anxious now.

Maybe it isn’t really related to what you meant by “facing challenges”, but I just want to share my thoughts.

Lastly, I want to tell you my life in China. I am doing fine here and you know you can check my blog for more stories. Adapting to a new culture is something that I am good at. I really didn’t like China when I first came, and I really hated living here. I slowly started to like here and now I got used to many things here, but I don’t see myself living here more than 1 or 2 years. Some people really love China. They really enjoy being here and want to live here forever. I don’t like it that much. No.

[My Awesome Bike]

I think you also can do it. You also did a study abroad in France! I don’t know what kind of stereotypes you have on Chinese people. I am pretty sure stereotypes you have actually exist and are mostly true. The stereotypes I had before coming are all found to be true. People spit on the streets. There is no order or anything of that sort. People are really influenced (or brainwashed) by the government. Many of freedoms that you believe to be basic are restricted. However, what I also found out was that my understanding of China and its people was very minimal and limited before I was coming to China.

That was actually true about the States too. I didn’t know much about the States before I was coming to the States. Meeting so many different people, I realized that not all Americans are arrogant and support Iraq War (actually I didn’t believe it in the first place anyway). Anyhow, what I want to say here is that there are so many different types of people that your stereotype does not apply to the whole body of the people. If I go back to the States, people will ask me about China and its people. I know I will try to generalize them, but it will be hard.

I don’t know whether you are thinking about coming to China or not in future. If you are, I will say you should come and try. I am sure you can get some interesting jobs here. It’s just a suggestion; you might not like here.

[The West Gate]

I think it is all I have to say for now. You are welcome to write back or not. Oh, I just want to know if you are graduating this semester because I want to send you a graduation gift but it won’t be any good if you decided to take one more semester or something. The same applies to Kathy and Tranee but I will ask them later.

It’s interesting that your new roommate is from HK. I already have some stereotypes in my mind about HK people. I visited there once and met some HK people here. I want to visit Tyler, but it’s too far south. I hope he visits Beijing one day. And I am really jealous you guys went to Disneyland together. It’s ok. I went to Disney’s Ice City in Haerbin during the winter break. I wish I can hang out with you guys when I get back. Please update me with your life when you get a chance.

PS. Sorry again for this ridiculously long letter

Best,

Jay K.

Dear Cindy pt.1

2009-03-04T03:46:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Everything was white when I looked out the window that morning]

Ep.34 Dear Cindy pt.1

Dear Cindy

Thank you for the card, Cindy! I really didn’t expect to get it in the morning, and it just totally made my day. I read it during my Chinese class and it made me smile through the whole class. I love the card; it is actually very cute, a bit random though.

It was snowing crazy last two days here in Beijing. I woke up in the morning and saw the beautifully white campus through my window and just ran out with my camera—you know me. It was really nice for the first day, but it kept snowing and I slowly realized how annoying these white stuffs are. I heard this snow was actually artificial, which means almighty CCP controlled the weather and made it to snow because there was serious drought in northern China—just how they made it to rain before the Olympics so it could clean out the air. Seriously, anything can happen in China.

You told me it is a semester of tremendous change for you. I bet it is, because it is the last semester for you. I still remember when I was talking to you in your dorm room one evening. If I remember it correctly, I think it was the first time that we had a “deep” conversation. I remember you were debating with yourself about your major and what you wanted to do in future. Your parents wanted you to do business and you didn’t like that so much. I as an ignorant freshman gave you an advice: do whatever you wanna do. Time goes so fast, it is already your last semester and you will graduate soon. I don’t know the last three years and half went just how you imagined and wanted them to be.

[The White World]

I don’t know what kind of challenges you are facing right now. I really want to have a talk with you like how we did that evening in your room, but I know we can’t, so I am writing this long letter. You know I just write how I speak, so there won’t be much difference. I assume that challenges you mentioned in the letter are related to your future, precisely after you graduate.

I’m sure you have many promising options in front of you and you don’t know what to choose. What I want to tell you is the same as what I told you that evening: do whatever you wanna do. Don’t think about challenging yourself or anything. Also, take your time. You still have lots of time to consider and think. You will graduate in May (or might not), but that’s not the end of the time. Life will still go on after you graduate and you have more time to think about it. As you said, it’s different from going to high school after middle school; you don’t have to make a decision right away, you can take a time as long as you want. Graduation is not an end, it’s just a beginning!

[The West Gate]

As for me, I am also afraid of graduating and moving into the “real world” as people say. But I have plans and I will tell you my plans for the future; it might help you. So I guess I will graduate in May of 2010. I will go back to Korea and take a test to join the armed force as an interpreter officer in November of 2010. I don’t know I can pass the test because it is pretty competitive. I preferably want to become a Navy interpreter officer, because it is more prestigious than an Army officer and also because it is easier than to become an Air Force officer.
I will serve my country as an officer for 2 or 3 years depending on which force I will join. Let’s say it will be 2 years. I will finish my service in January of 2013. I will then start to study for the diplomat test. I think I told you about it. It is extremely hard to pass the test because they only select 14, 5 people in the whole country every year. I will study for the test for about 2 years (hopefully I will pass this in 2 years). Then I will become a diplomat in 2015 or 16. After that I will finally start to make some money. After I become a diplomat, I will move around the world. I might work in some random African country or luckily in European country for another 2, 3 years.

Then I want to continue my study in the States and my country will pay me to study! My dream school for now is the Kennedy School of Gov’t, but I think any decent graduate school is fine. Maybe I will be back to the bay area. I plan to get my Master’s but I am also interested in getting Ph.D or J.D. When I finish my school, it will be around 2020 and I will be in my mid thirties (that’s depressing). I don’t know my ultimate career goal now. It can be a professional politician, professor, or writer.

[The guy is throwing salts on the ground to melt snow]

It might sound ridiculously specific and idealistic. I think so too. I don’t have any backup plan yet, I should make some. I am not telling you this to persuade you to make a super detailed plan for your future. I’m just telling you what I’m thinking right now. I made these plans to convince my dad and myself. I have to convince my dad that I have “plans” for my future and I won’t be a jobless person. I also need to convince myself who is afraid of his own future. I am just like you. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, so I make these plans.

You mentioned “the capacity for failure”. I guess no one is free of that. I am still debating whether I need to study for the diplomat test or not because I am afraid that I won’t pass the test. I am also scared of failure. I don’t want to waste 2 years of my life or more for nothing. You might be thinking something similar.

Let me tell you a story about my senior year. I worked at Panda Express in my second semester of the senior year when I was waiting for accepting letters from the colleges. I got off from the work around 10 or 11pm and I had to walk back to my house, because I couldn’t drive and there was no bus running that time. I think about lots of things every night as I was walking back from the work. At that time, I worried about two things for the most: one was regarding college apps and the other was senior prom. I worried what if I don’t get into Georgetown, my dream school. My fear became a reality in the end. When I got a rejection letter from GT, I was really depressed for many days but it wasn’t the end of my life. I luckily got into Cal and I also got my prom date.

[As I was looking for beautiful spots to take pics, I coincidently discovered this: "An American Friend of the Chinese People". He is a famous American journalist who travelled throughout China during the Red Revolution. I read his book before I came here. His last name is Snow]

[Hey there]

What I want to tell you through this stupid anecdote is that don’t be afraid of failure. It is always better to try and fail than to not try and not fail. If you try, at least you won’t regret. I am really afraid of not passing that diplomat test and wasting my time, but I will probably take it because I don’t want to regret it later.

I will tell you one more boring anecdote. It is about my dad. He went to Michigan Law School and met my mom there. But he didn’t like law, so he became a CPA. He wasn’t also very happy with working as a CPA, so he went to MBA school and now he is working at a nice American firm where he gets paid loads of money. He really likes his job now. He started to realize in his thirties what he wanted to do. He tried many different things and finally found the right one. That actually applies to his marriage too. He didn’t get along with his first wife, my mom, and now he lives happily with his 2nd wife. So, I am not afraid of wasting few years in my twenties trying different things.

I don’t know these stories work for you. Hopefully they do. This letter’s getting too long. I want to apologize for that. The funny thing is that I don’t remember anything about academic schedule of Berkeley. What’s going on there now? I don’t know whether you are in amid midterms or not, but I know you are in school right now. I hope this long letter doesn’t distract you from studying. I will send the second letter shortly; actually I am going to write it right now.

Best,

Jay

The 2nd Entry

2009-02-20T07:07:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep33. The 2nd Entry

[In Korea]

I am back in Beijing. I promised you guys last time that I would write an entry before I leave Korea, but I couldn’t. It’s because I didn’t do much in Korea other than resting. That was my only goal going to Korea and I successfully accomplished that goal. I saw my grandma again and hung out with some friends. For the most of the time, I tried to stay at home watching TV or reading books.

Three weeks passed quickly. It was sweet and refreshing. I told you in the last episode that I didn’t want to come back to China, but I had to. So I am here again for another five months. I didn’t want to be back because I was tired of living here. I am just being honest. It wasn’t easy adjusting to the new culture and I had many difficulties. I expected it but expecting and experiencing is actually different.

You can say I am just waning, maybe I am. I was really busy last semester and tried hard to push myself out of my comfort zone which is a good thing. It was similar to my first semester in college—it was the toughest semester in my life. I remember after that first semester when I went back home for winter break, I really didn’t want to go back to the school.

[Snow flowers]

[My grandma at the museum]

Last Sunday evening I got on the plane for Beijing. There were many Chinese on the plane and that just started to hit me that I was going back to China. Oh no! I got off at Beijing Capital Airport where I started my journey just 8 months ago. As I was passing the Chinese immigration checkpoint, I realized it was my 2nd entry to China, my 2nd Act just began.

As I was taking a cab from the airport to the school, I felt proud of myself. If you remember, I couldn’t understand a word from my cab driver when I first came to Beijing. I couldn’t tell him where I need to go so I wrote and showed to him. Now, I don’t have problem having conversation with my driver. And, everything was so familiar to me. If you come from the airport you will see lots of sign saying 3环路，4环路 (3rd Ring Road, 4th Ring Road). When I first came here, I didn’t know what they meant. I thought it was like a number of the highway like 101 highway in California. But if you live in Beijing for enough you will know what the ring roads are.

The buildings were familiar and I knew where I was going. In the summer, I didn’t know where the taxi driver was taking me to, but this time I could tell him how to get to my place. Looking at myself capable of getting around in China much better than the last time, I started to have courage to survive here once again. Yes, maybe I can do this.

On Thursday, I took another placement exam which I took before the fall semester. It wasn’t very encouraging, because the test was as hard as the last time and I felt I didn’t do any better than the last time. However, I didn’t get disappointed at that fact, because that just meant I still have a lot to learn. I knew where I would get placed into—the highest level of written and conversational Chinese class in the language school.

[One of the most famous amusement parks in Korea: Lotte World]

[I went to Big Bang (famous Korean pop group)'s concert]

To be honest, I wanted to pass out the placement exam and become a regular student of PKU which many of my other friends did. I still wanted to take some classes from the language school because I just knew that I still have so much Chinese to learn. But at the same time I wanted to take classes in my major department because that was my original goal coming to China and learning Chinese for a whole year is just too much for me.

To make a long story short, I actually achieved both. I didn’t pass out the test unfortunately—5 points short of the minimum score, but I asked the language school to allow me to enroll in the school of government, and they agreed! I think it was because my grades from the last semester were good and I told them I already audited government classes last semester. Also, my score was close enough to the passing score. Usually, if you are enrolled in other department, you are not allowed to take classes in the language school. However, I again asked the school and they also let me to take classes in the language school. Nice!

So I think the situation is pretty ideal for me, since I can freely take classes in both departments. The fact that I didn’t pass the test makes me a bit sad, but it’s fine. I felt lucky getting what I wanted but also proud of myself asking for more. I was seriously thinking about taking just Chinese classes and not even bother about taking major classes, or I was just going to take major courses and stop taking Chinese classes.

[This guy is the leader of the group called G-Dragon]

My schedule for this semester is not set yet, but I am pretty sure what I am going to take. I will take two Chinese main courses from the language school and I will take two polisci classes from the school of government: one will be “Contemporary World Politics and Economy” and the other will be “Public Policy Case Analysis”. They are regarded as relatively easy classes in the department according to my friends, but because they are all in Chinese it will be still tough for me. I am going to take two more electives, but I’m afraid it will be too many classes.

My goal is getting good grades from all of the courses including the courses from the school of government. Another goal for this semester is taking a HSK test (Chinese Standardization Test) and to get a high grade level. I guess these are my academic goals this semester.

I’ve done my 2nd entry and only one exit is left for me—that will be in June or July. Whether I wanted or not, I came back and it is up to me how this semester will turn out.

One day adventure in Shenyang

2009-02-06T00:23:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[The frozen train window]

Ep32. One day adventure in Shenyang

As I told you guys in the previous episode, the last destination of my winter trip was Dandong, but now let’s rewind a bit and let me talk about Shenyang. I was originally going to only visit Ha’erbin, Dandong, and Tumen. The main purpose of the trip was visiting the Sino-North Korea border cities and to think about N. Korea and S. Korea relationship. However, because there is no direct train from Tumen to Dandong, I had to stop over at Shenyang, a transport hub as well as the provincial capital of Liaoning province.

Taking an overnight train from Tumen, I got to Shenyang around 8am and my train to Dandong was leaving at 5pm, thus I had a whole day to explore the city. Even though it wasn’t a part of my original plan, I decided to enjoy a day tour in Shenyang.

Having a breakfast at Yoshinoya near the train station, I first went to see Mao’s statue located at the center of the downtown. You know I love this kind of things: Mao, communism, and so on. Mao was magnificently standing amid the bursting metropolitan. After taking pictures around the statue, I moved on to the imperial palace of Shenyang. The palace was very similar to that of Beijing—Forbidden City, but much smaller and simpler with some Manchu features. It took less than an hour to see the whole palace. I ate lunch at food court inside of the department near the place. It was delicious! I found that place in my lonely planet, my one and only tour guide.

[The Mao statue]

[Imperial Palace in Shenyang]

After having lunch, I took a bus to the North Tomb, burial place of Huang Taiji, the founder of the Qing dynasty. The tomb set in the middle of Beiling Park. The park was very disappointing. There was nothing except pine trees and snow, however it was very peaceful. There were local people enjoying the winter park. The day was almost over when I was walking out of the park. I took a bus again back to the station where I started the day in the morning.

I really enjoyed the day in Shenyang. I didn’t expect much from Shenyang and didn’t get much in the end in terms of tourist sights. However, it was nice to be a stranger and wondering the city for a day. It was like an adventure. I took buses to every place. Sometimes I was lost and sometimes I was proud of myself finding ways to the destinations. I was completely dependent on my lonely planet. I was a complete stranger, but at the same time I was like just another local person; taking crowded buses, eating at the department store and so on.

From Ha’erbin to Tumen, from Tumen to Shenyang and Shenyang to Dandong, I wrote pretty much about everything I witnessed during the trip. Now I need to finish my journal of the winter trip. Quick statistics: I visited 4 cities and 3 provinces in 8 days. I took trains for 55 hours in total. I slept 3 nights on train out of 7 nights; it was rough. I spent almost 300 USD for the whole trip.

What are the differences between my winter trip and the summer one? Of course the biggest difference is the length of the trip. The winter trip was much shorter. I didn’t stay at hostels during the trip, so I made fewer friends than during the summer trip.

I was much more like a local during the winter trip than when I was travelling during the summer. I took a Chinese book and read on trains, thus, no local person doubted that I was one of them until I spoke a word. I was also very used to the train system in China, so didn’t get lost or anything. I knew what to expect. I was also more used to the bus system so I hardly used taxi. Sometimes I was proud of myself being more like a local, but I also realized I still need to work on my Chinese. If I spoke more than a sentence, local people realized I was a foreigner—some people thought I was a Korean minority. Many people thought my Chinese was too poor to be a local but too good to be a foreigner.

[At Beiling park]

What did I learn from this eight days-long winter trip? I achieved what I wanted to achieve. Planning this trip, I wanted to have alone time and wanted to think about the unification of two Koreas. I also saw beautiful ice sculptures in Ha’erbin. To tell the truth, I was sick of travelling when I was on the trip. I was tired of crowded buses, uncomfortable train seats, and freezing weather. I wanted to give up sometimes. I wanted to forget everything and just go back to Beijing and rest.

However, ending this journal, I don’t regret anything—the trip was fun and meaningful like any other trip in my life. Although I had fun during the winter trip, I don’t think I am going to have another trip in China. For the moment, I am tired of travelling—I think I said this after the summer trip too. I am sure you guys are also tired of reading my travel journals.

The trip is over. The journal about that trip is also over. However, my journey isn’t over yet. I am going back to China in a week. I will try to write one entry about Korea and the rest of my winter break before I leave here. I honestly don’t want to go back to China.

[Back to Beijing]

A letter from the Sino-North Korea border

2009-01-31T23:53:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Only the half of the bridge is Chinese territory and the other is North Korea's]

Ep31. A letter from the Sino-North Korea border

I left Ha’erbin and took a 16 hour-long hard seat train ride to Tumen. Tumen is a very small town located at the border of China and North Korea. It was the first town in China where I couldn’t find any McDonald’s or KFC. I was surprised by the fact that every billboard in the town was bilingual of Chinese and Korean. A number of Korean minorities live around this region. I also met lots of Korean minorities on the train. They mostly spoke Mandarin but randomly spoke some Korean words. It was interesting to watch them.

The reason why I visited this small town was to see North Korea. Tumen was one of the border cities that give visitors an opportunity to glimpse the most closed country in the world: North Korea. The most famous tourist spot in the town was the China-North Korea friendship bridge where the half of the bridge is Chinese territory and the other is North Korean. Although the guidebook says because of North Korea, Tumen is a famous tourist city, when I went there I felt I was only tourist in the town that day. Tumen unlike any other city in China was very quiet and not crowded.

[A Chinese visitor and a Chinese soldier looking at the borderline]

[Me at the border]

I got there around 8am and walked straight to the bridge. The bridge was only 10 minutes walk from the railroad station. I soon got to Tumen River which is the natural boundary between two countries. The bridge was of course guarded by Chinese soldiers. I thought I had to show my ID and register to visit the bridge, but however I didn’t need them. I just had to buy the ticket—that was actually funny. I walked on the bridge with other Chinese visitors and soldiers. We stop at the half point of the bridge. There was a line drawn at the half point, however due to the snow, it was hardly visible.

Taking just one more step, I could enter the most closed nation on the world and the territory of the only official declared foe of South Korea. If you are a South Korean citizen, you can get arrested by just visiting North Korea (whether the visit was allowed or not allowed by North Korean). It is the same as how it is illegal to visit Cuba as an American citizen. I just looked over to the other side of the bridge. It was so close from where I was standing. Growing up in South Korea, I thought North Korea is very far away from where I live, but it was right there. It was right there.

After visiting the bridge, I walked along the river. The river was unguarded and frozen, so I could easily cross the border—obviously I didn’t try that. To be honest, I was a bit scared of visiting the border, because there were a number of historical accidents at the border such as kidnapping or murder. However, the border was very peaceful and quiet. It was even beautiful with white snow. To tell the truth, this peaceful border tempted me to crossover.

[Me]

I sat on the river side and started to write the journal. China is so huge that I had to ride a train for hours to get point B from point A. Compared to China, Korea is so small, but why are we divided and fighting for this tiny land? Why is that? Again, there was only a question, but no answer to the question.

I had to walk away from the river reluctantly because I had to leave the city that afternoon to visit another Sino-North Korea border city, Dandong. Tumen is located at the east end of the border and Dandong is located at the west end of the border line. After stopping over at Shenyang, I arrived at Dandong after sunset.

[You can walk over this frozen river, and you can enter North Korea. Tempting!!]

[Everything is bilingual]

[I wrote "The unification" on the snow]

[Looking over North Korea from the Tumen border tower]

The hostel I was going to stay at was unfortunately out of business, so I had to walk around the city looking for a place to sleep. It was the last stop of my winter trip and I was almost out of money. I didn’t bring my bank card because I was afraid that I would lose it. I didn’t have enough money to pay hotel deposit. At last, I found a hotel where I could stay. It was a fancy hotel. It was the most expensive place I stayed during my trip. I slept on train for preceding two nights, so I had a nice and comfortable night at the hotel; it was amazing!

The next morning, I started the day early because I only had a day in Dandong. I first climbed the farthest east part of the Great Wall (namely Tiger Mountain Great Wall) which was 40 minutes away from the city by bus. Chinese government claims this wall to be the farthest east section of the original Great Wall built during the Ming dynasty, nonetheless Korean historians claims this wall to be built by Koreans in order to fight against Chinese invasion. I won’t say who’s right and wrong, I just climbed the wall. It was much shorter and lower than the parts of the Great Wall I climbed before. It was early in the morning, so I was only one who was climbing at the time. It was really nice to breathe fresh air at the top of the Wall.

At the top, I could have a clear view of North Korea. The long wall is stood along the river, which is also the natural boundary between two countries. The name of the river is also well known to you guys who studied U.S. history before—Yalu River. As you guys know, the US and UN troops advanced to Yalu River during Korean War and encountered millions of Chinese red army rushing and had to retreat back.

[Tiger Mountain Great Wall]

[Indiana Jones' looking bridge next to the border]

[North Korea]

[The border]

I walked along the border line. The border was silent. It was also unguarded like the border at Tumen, in which I could crossover. I could, but didn’t. I came back to the city at noon and visited the riverside. Yalu River is wider than Tumen River so that North Korea is farther away. There was a functional bridge connecting the two sides of the river, which is used for trades. I saw few trucks coming from and going to N. Korea. Parallel to that bridge, there was a broken bridge. The bridge was bombed by US airstrike and cut in half during Korean War. The bridge is well preserved by CCP for the historical evident showing that the Americans invaded Chinese territory during the war. It is now a tourist site where you can pay to enter.

I walked to the broken part of the bridge. North Korea was closer at the end of the bridge. When I was crossing the bridge, it started to snow. Dandong was as cold as Ha’erbin whereas Tumen was much warmer. The snow made me to imagine the bloody war that happened here a half century ago. It was also freezing and snowing hard when they were battling at this edge of the Korean peninsula. The Koreans, Americans, Chinese and multinational army were all here and fought to death. Some soldiers died not by enemy’s bullets but because of the unreasonably cold weather.

I also took a boat cruising around Yalu River. I met a group of Korean college students travelling. When I was planning the trip, I thought there would be many Korean tourists at the borders, however there weren’t many, maybe because of the weather. The boat went right up to the other side of the river. Unlike Tumen’s opposite side, the city across from Dandong is considered to be one of the big and flourishing cities in N. Korea. I could have a glimpse of N. Korean people working at the riverside. It was the first time that I was actually seeing N. Koreans.

[North Korea]

[The broken bridge]

[The functional bridge on the left and the broken one on the right]

[I don't know this is the actual bomb that cut the bridge in half]

[Yalu Broken Bridge]

The boat ride was short and I soon had to come back to China. After visiting two border cities and taking a close look at N. Korea, I realized how difficult the unification of my nation will be. I felt that North Korea was geographically close but at the same time the nation was extremely closed so that it seemed far away. I don’t know how to describe this. I felt N. Korea to be very close to me, but also very far away from me. I was depressed thinking about this and walked away from the bridge and Yalu River.

The last place I visited during the winter trip was the Museum to Commemorate US Aggression. It was a memorial museum for Korean War. The museum was full of propagandas saying that imperialistic America invaded Korea and threatened people of CCP. Thus, it was just for China to help N. Korea, but that’s exactly contradictory to what S. Koreans think and what I learned. If China didn’t help, two Koreas could be united easily at the end of the war.

I don’t want to give you a lecture on Korean War and the history of Korea. Anyway, the museum was decent and owned many photographs and other stuff from the war. It was also larger than I thought. I also have visited the Korea War memorial located at Washington DC. The Chinese memorial had a very different atmosphere from that of the States. What I realized from seeing the museum was that during the war China only cared about how it proudly could fight against America and Western imperialists, but it didn’t care about Korean peninsula and its future.

[The two great leaders]

[North Korean working at the riverside]

[The war memorial]

[N. Korean ship]

[N. Korean bulding and the propaganda saying Our Great Comrade Kim Il Sung Will Be With Us Forever (Kim Il Sung is the current N. Korea dictator's father who founded N. Korea, died more than 10 yrs ago)]

[The part of the war museum]

[The city of Dandong: it is very developed]

What is a nation? I had to ask myself again as I was leaving the museum. Why do people fight against each other and why are we divided? To be honest, I am very nationalistic and patriotic, but I know for the better future, it is not a good thing. I hope all boundaries between nations perish one day. I hope in the future, people can be different but at peace with each other. For now, I don’t have any solution for that, but just have hope.

It was getting dark and I had to head the train station in order to catch my train for Beijing. I want to apologize for this lengthy letter talking about so many random thoughts. I will write more about my trip in the next episode. It will be the last one for my winter trip. I am now with my grandma in Korea.

[Mao is saying goodbye to me as I'm leaving Dandong]

What is a nation?

2009-01-31T00:23:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.30 What is a nation?

Yesterday Obama Barak was sworn into the office. He made many promises for America. He will fight for his country, the United States of America. Many people outside of U.S. also celebrated his inauguration together, but in the end, Obama is the president of USA which means he is only accountable for his own country, not others (of course, his policies can affect other countries and sometimes benefit others, but that’s not his ultimate purpose).

What is a nation? The word “nation” is from the Latin word “natio” which is derived from the word “natus sum” meaning “I have been born”. The word “natio” was used when even the modern concept of nation-state didn’t exist. It meant a group of foreigners. Although there wasn’t a simple concept of nationalism among the Romans, yet there were still differences and demarcations between peoples and people differentiated themselves from others on criteria of blood, place of birth, culture or religion.

Why am I talking about this nation shit instead of talking about my winter trip? It’s because the question “what is a nation?” was the question I repeatedly asked myself during this winter trip. I first asked the question to myself when we visited the Japanese Germ Warfare Experimental base, known as the 731 division. During WW2, the Japanese army set up this research base where they could test many germ weapons and other researches on real human subjects—mainly Chinese and Korean prisoners.

[The administration building of the 731 division, now it is a museum]

When this base was uncovered in the 80s, it became a hot issue among East Asian countries. According to the record, over 4000 people were exterminated at this base. I don’t want to describe how disgusting and inhumane the tests were. You can simply think what Nazis did to its prisoners. The 731 division base, which is the museum now, actually looks like a concentration camp. It was really grim and gloomy.

One interesting thing is that I visited this base with a Japanese guy—Zheng chun whom I slept with one the same bed. He is actually one who really wanted to visit this site. He didn’t directly answer to my question why he wanted to visit the base, but he said the 731 division is famous even in Japan although it is not on textbook. After watching the base, I thought, how people could do this kind of stuff on other human beings? So cruel and inhumane. I think it was only possible because they were doing that for their “country”. A single reasonable human being cannot carry this kind of torturing on other human beings, but a single reasonable nation can do this kind of things on other nations. It is called “the mob psychology”. A nation or nationalism is definitely a human invention, but sometimes it goes beyond human control and reason.

I coincidentally visited the Jewish synagogue the next day. The city of Ha’erbin is located right next to Russia, so that a lot of Russians Jews immigrated to Ha’erbin during WW2. The city has the largest Jewish population in China. This old temple is restored by CCP and now it is used for Jewish historical and heritage museum. I wasn’t interested in this museum, but Jeremy, who is Jewish and one of my travel companions, wanted to have a look. We visited the synagogue after seeing the Church of St. Sophia.

[A lunch at a Russian restaurant]

The museum was nice. I think that Jewish community donated lots of money to this museum. Visiting this museum again threw the same question to me; what is a nation? When I visited the museum, the war between Israel and Hamas was still going on. I knew that Jeremy supported Israel. I asked myself, why couldn’t they just stop fighting and live in peace? Of course, it’s not easy to answer that question. In my opinion, it is easy to say who first instigated the conflict between Israel and Palestine and whose fault it was, but nowadays it is not easy to tell who’s right and who’s wrong. There will be no genuine ceasefire until all countries perish on Earth. If there is no country, there will be no war as John said before.

On the last day in Ha’erbin, I was left alone because all of my five companions flew back to Beijing that morning. I also planned to leave Ha’erbin that night in order to get to my next destination. After checking out, I walked to Korean minority heritage museum. The museum was having a special exhibition. The exhibition was on one of the most respected figure in Korea, Ahn Joong Geun.

I was familiar with the city of Ha’erbin even before I came to China. The city has a very special meaning to Koreans and many Koreans like me are familiar with the city. The city is famous because of Ahn, who assassinated Ito Hirobumi, the former governor of Korea which was then colonized by Japanese Empire. Ito was one of the highest government officials in Japan and he was one who led the fascist Japan to the World War. He was regarded as the axis of evil in East Asia.

[The owner is beating his sled dog]

[A sled dog]

Ahn, who was working for independency of Korean peninsula at that time, found out Ito was coming to Ha’erbin to meet Russian officials and planned the assassination. In 1909, exactly a century ago, at the Ha’erbin railroad station, he successfully killed Ito with his handgun. He was soon arrested by the Russians and handed over to the Japanese. He was jailed and immediately sentenced to death by the Japanese.

To the Koreans’ point of view, Ahn is a hero of the country who bravely took an honorable revenge on the enemy of his own people. However, to the Japanese, he was a mere terrorist. The exhibition for Ahn wasn’t very impressive, but it was worth visiting. It also gave me a time to think about the question of nationalism. I don’t agree with Ahn’s method—assassination, but I agree with his cause.

[Ahn]

[The Assassination]

[Snow!]

From the Japanese germ base to Ahn’s exhibition, I kept thinking about the same question over and over again. Ha’erbin which is now a beautiful city of snow and ice has a grim history. I don’t know why there is so much hatred between people. Why do we have a war in the first place? I once wrote a short fiction about that topic, but I still don’t know why. Whether I found the answer or not, I had to leave Ha’erbin and move forward; the question lingered onto my next destination and kept haunting me.

[The Dragon Tower in Ha'erbin]

Welcome to the coldest place on Earth!

2009-01-23T01:00:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.29 Welcome to the coldest place on Earth!

[Welcome!]

On the second day in Ha’erbin, we visited Ice Lantern Festival in the evening. ILF is the main tourist attraction of Ha’erbin today. There were marvelous ice castles and ice sculptures. They were so pretty! The whole city was built on ice! If you think about it, it is only possible because the temperature in Ha’erbin is always below “0 Celsius degrees” which means it is freezing. You can see many other beautiful ice sculptures all over the city.

The second day in Ha’erbin was unusually cold, although local people I asked said it wasn’t that cold. I don’t know how people can live there; I guess people can get used to anything. Tourists won’t come to this bitterly cold city if there is no ILF. ILF’s amazing ice city attracts people from all over the place.

[The main shopping street in Ha'erbin, "Zhongyang Dajie"]

[Ice piano! It's so pretty!]

Actually, ILF was more than ice sculptures and buildings. I didn’t know that ILF was organized by Disney. Yes, that Disney with Micky Mouse and other weird animals. There were ice slides, bumping cars and other fun stuff. I felt I was in an amusement park—a very cold amusement park. It was fun to see how very American culture, Disney, intruded into China. However, it wasn’t same. It had very different atmosphere from Disney in the States.

We wondered that ice city about 5 hours. It was really tiring. My camera couldn’t bear the ridiculously low temperature and almost got broken. If I took my gloves for a second, my hands just turned to red and purple. It was literally freezing that night. I was in the happiest, no, coldest place on Earth. However, it was really beautiful, worth visiting.

[Slide]

[The main castle]

[Crazy ice slide... I actually tried this!]

[Chinese clowns.. waiting and smoking]

[The giant Micky]

[Fireworks]

The next day, we visited the Church of St. Sophia. This gorgeous Orthodox Church was built by the Russians in 1907 and restored by the CCP. I saw many churches in the States, but it was very different churches I’ve seen. It was also fascinating to see how this church was standing in the middle of Chinese urban surroundings. The inside of the church was unfortunately a museum of the city of Ha’erbin. It displayed the B/W pictures of the city history, but it wasn’t interesting.

The Church was pretty so I visited it again that night. It was even more gorgeous at night, even colder. I enjoyed taking pictures of the church in the cold weather.

[The Church of St. Sophia]

[The Church at night]

It snowed in the morning. I think all cities are most beautiful in the morning. The city was white—snow white. It was so lovely! Living in California for the last four years, it had been a while since I walked on snow. It’s so fun to walk on snow, so soft and warm!

The city of Ha’erbin, in my memory looking back, is a very cold and icy city, but also a bitterly beautiful city. The city of ice sculptures and snow! The memory of four days and three nights in Ha’erbin will be frozen and left in my brain forever.

Ps. this episode is shorter than others in order to show more pictures to you guys.

Every trip has its own story

2009-01-20T21:51:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Yay, Ha'erbin/Harbin!!]

Ep.28 Every trip has its own story

I’m back in Korea now. I got back from my winter trip few days ago. Now I am going to write a series of entries about my trip. This time I am not going to write it chronically like the last time. I want to focus more on what I thought during the trip, not what I did.

Every trip has its own story like how I am telling you this story about my trip. Every departure has its own reason. No one leaves without a reason.

[Heading north]

I’m lazy; I don’t like to move. I’m bad at directions; I easily get lost. I’m careless; I tend to lose things. Thus, I shouldn’t like to travel, but I do. Why? I like to take photographs; travelling always gives me wonderful opportunities. I like to explore new places; that’s why I enjoyed my job as a photographer in Berkeley. I also like to think; travelling gives me alone time that I usually cannot have.

The most interesting about travelling is, however, not taking pictures or having alone time; it is encountering unexpected surprises. To be honest, I am a person who likes to plan and gets mad easily if something does not work out as I planned. Travelling always makes you encounter unexpected surprises and change your plan constantly. It makes you more patient and tolerant.

As I told you guys in the previous episode, I was originally going to Ha’erbin with my EAP friends, but they failed to get tickets so I had to leave by myself. On January 9th, I finally finished my final in the morning. I left Beijing that afternoon. I was a bit sad to go by myself, but I made my mind to go on a trip by myself. However, at the train station, I met unanticipated companions!

[Hotpot...ummm yummy]

I knew many people were going to Ha’erbin for the winter break, but I didn’t expect to meet people at the train station. I met Jeremy, who is a friend from the same EAP program, and Zhengchun, a Japanese classmate. They were with three other people, all from my school. They were going to Ha’erbin by the same train that I was going to take. I was just going to spend time with them in the train station, but they asked me to come with them for the whole trip, and I gladly agreed. Why not? At that moment, I didn’t know how it would turn out, but I was very excited to travel with people.

[Building the ice city!]

I took a fast train to Ha’erbin, in which it still took 8 hours. I talked to people on the train. I wasn’t even close to Jeremy or Zhengchun, so I tried to get to know them. There were Haihong, a German Chinese guy, Tsubomi, a Japanese Chinese girl and Kiyoung, a Korean girl. They all had interesting backgrounds. And, by an accident, I found out that a crazy drama was going on with this trip. I don’t want to describe it in detail, because it is none of our business and it is not that interesting too.

We finally arrived at Ha’erbin train station. When I was walking out of the train, I expected it to be very cold, but wasn’t as cold as I expected that night. We arrived at our hotel, and I again encountered an unanticipated surprise. The hotel only had rooms with one big single bed that meant I had to sleep with another guy on the same bed. Alas!

We ate a late meal and went to sleep. I ended up sleeping with Zhengchun, a Japanese guy. Although he and I took a class together, I hardly talked to him. He is a very quiet guy, so honestly I didn’t like him much. He is a nice guy, but just too quiet. However, whether I like him or not I had to sleep with him (not sleeping with him in that sense). I never imagined this. Moreover, the hotel’s bathroom was surrounded by glass walls. I don’t what was the purpose of the designer, but you could look through the bathroom when other people are taking their business.

[Five people that I went the Ha'erbin trip with. From the left, Jeremy, Haihong, Zhengchun, Tsubomi, Kiyoung... as you can see, it's so cold!!]

[The "Glass" bathroom]

Around 1am, after a long and tiring day, I went to sleep—with another guy on the same bed. The bed was small for two grownup men. We put our heads on the opposite sides and fall asleep. I was too tired to think about how awkward it was. If you think about it, it is not actually that awkward. I slept with many other guys on the same bed when I was young.

The first night in Ha’erbin was ending like that. The first day was full of surprises. I tagged along with strangers and slept with a stranger. This is why I like travelling. It’s really fun to plan a trip, but what’s even more fun is changing that plan on the spot.

[I love this picture. It was really fun travelling with them!]

Ps. I will upload pictures and stories about the Ice City in the next episode.

to see pictures of the beautiful city, Ha'erbin, please visit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/sets/72157612811823400/

Six more to go

2009-01-08T04:47:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Ready?]

Ep.27 Six more to go

I guess this episode will be the last episode for this semester. I have two more finals to take this week, but I am still writing this. I am leaving this Friday which is right after my last final’s over—I will talk more about it later.

My first semester in China is already over, which means I have only one mores semester to go. Time really goes fast. It passes away like my fully charged electric bike on the road: so fast. At this point, I have a mixed feeling. I feel sometimes that a half of my program is already passed. Some other time, I feel I still have six more months to go. I want to go back to home at the same time, I want to stay longer. I don’t know how I will feel after 6 months, when I really need to leave China.

What did I do over the last 4 months? I think I tried hard in the beginning of the semester, but later I got lazy and I didn’t try enough. Especially, I didn’t try my best to learn Chinese and make Chinese friends. I feel guilty about that. I don’t deny that my Chinese got better over this semester by a lot. It’s just that I believe it could be improved at the even faster rate. My speaking is still very poor, but reading and listening got much better. I just started to read some Chinese fiction for the break and I actually understood everything without a help of the dictionary. I also find myself understanding Chinese people speaking on the streets (of course, I understand only small fraction of what they are saying). I am ready to take the highest level of Chinese class in my school, although it still depends on how I do on the second placement exam.

Besides learning Chinese, I also tried many other things. As I said before, I made Korean friends and actually they are mostly girls. Since I went to boy middle school and boy high school in Korea, I really didn’t have chance to meet Korean girls. In college, I knew only few Korean girls (not counting Korean American). I was a bit scared of Korean girls before, because I thought they are all really cold and shy. However, meeting few Korean girls here, I realized that’s not really true.

I did lots of things for my Korean Student Association, and I expect to do even more during the next semester. It’s really interesting for me to make Korean friends here and watch them. However, I should try harder to make local Chinese friends.

[with my Chinese teacher]

Besides learning Chinese and being a true Korean, another significant thing happened in this semester is my semester-long diet. Do you guys remember that I said I would be on diet after seeing a totally changed high school friend? I tried to lose weights that during the summer, but I was sick too often during the first few weeks. I was adjusting to the new environment, so it wasn’t a good time to start my diet. After my summer program, I was on a trip, so I also couldn’t go on a diet.

After the trip, I moved into my new place in PKU and started to carry out my ambitious diet plan. I joined the school gym and started to eat only half of what I used to eat. It was actually successful, because I lost around 11 pounds after couple weeks. But, after those 11 pounds, it wasn’t really easy to lose more weights. Sometimes, I was sick so I couldn’t keep dieting, some other times I just had too many dinner plans, or still sometimes I had to go to buffets. So, I was not losing any more weight after first 11 pounds, but a week ago I got some motivation to push harder and actually I lost another 11 pounds in a week. So I lost around 22 pounds in total in this semester.

To be honest, I was really encouraged by this although it’s not much. I got confidence that I can do it. My goal for the next semester is losing 44 more pounds: I don’t know it’s actually possible, but I will try. If I even pass losing 44 pounds, you guys will not recognize me when I go back—hopefully that happens. I guess I am too ideal and ambitious sometimes
.
Nothing really happened besides these in this semester. I hope the next semester is more exciting and productive. I guess a more important thing is to be productive.

So, this Friday, I am going to Ha’erbin. I will be done with my final this Friday and I am finally free, which means it’s again time for travel! Actually, this time I was going to travel with friends. I was really excited for that, but you know plans do not always work out as you want. It’s China: anything can happen. My friends couldn’t get the tickets, and luckily I got the only ticket. Thus, I am travelling by myself again.

[the train ticket to Ha'erbin!!!]

Ha’erbin is in the farthest east province of China. It’s right next to the Sino-Russian border. The city of Ha’erbin was actually a Russian-ruled territory. It will be freezing there. You Californians won’t understand what it means. It will be below 30 Celsius degree (-22 Fahrenheit). I don’t know how I will survive there, but I am very excited about this trip. I am also visiting the Sino-North Korea border cities (two different locations). I will have a glimpse of the most closed country in the world. I am a bit scared too, but really excited about it. The trip is really short compare to my summer trip. It will be only a week. After the trip, I will fly back to my country, Korea! And I am planning another trip in China right before the school starts, but that’s not for sure yet.

My winter break is from January 9th to February 12th. It’s short but I will have lots of fun. My next episode will definitely be about my winter trip: you guys can expect a lot of pretty pictures.

[It doesn't look like I lost 22 pounds, because I bundled up for Haerbin. I'm ready!]

Few thoughts on 2009

2009-01-02T03:25:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Glowing Boya Tower at PKU]

Ep.26 Few thoughts on 2009

New Year, the year of 2009, or the year of the Cow, has come. Whether I wanted or not, it has come. Since the last week, I felt I had to write something about the end of the year and upcoming New Year, but I was busy and so procrastinated and today is already January 1st, 2009. To be honest, I had nothing to write. I was going to recapitulate my 2008, but that doesn’t sound interesting enough to write, so I gave up.

When I write an episode, I usually try to write with unified thoughts. If you read my past episodes, you will know what I mean by this. However, today I will just write some random thoughts that I have at the turn of the year.

#1. I don’t feel like the New Year at all

I cannot believe I went to class on the New Year’s Eve. Since the 1st grade, I think it is the first time that I did this. You guys might not know that Chinese still celebrate Lunar New Year, which is about mid-January. January 1st is also an official holiday now, but still it is not the New Year for them. So only many foreign students celebrate the New Year’s Eve and New Year.

However, that’s not why I don’t feel like the New Year. It has been like that since so many years ago. Every new year doesn’t feel like a new year. I don’t know why. It starts to hit me by June or July when the new year is already half over. Is it just me or does every one also feels like me? I don’t know. I feel it is just another day. Nothing really new. Especially this year, because I still haven’t taken my final exams. I am still in school, studying for finals. Nothing really new.

[Wudaokou, the K-town]

#2. Having a Meaningful New Year’s Eve

I was in Korea on the night of the New Year’s Eve in 2004, and watched the Tolling Bell Ceremony, which they do every year in Korea. In 2005, I watched something on TV and just went to sleep—I was in Agoura Hills then. The year before the last year, I went to Times Square, NYC to celebrate the New Year’s Eve, but because it was ridiculously crowded, I just came back before the New Year. The last year, I just went over to the family friend’s house and spent time there.

As you see my past years, I never had a meaning New Year’s Eve. I guess I can say that 2004 was meaningful because I was in Korea. Anyway, so this year, I wanted to have something different, but I ended up doing something that’s even less meaningful.

I went drinking with other international student friends (mostly Koreans and Japanese). Of course, I didn’t drink. I just watched people getting wasted. I think that’s not a good way to spend the New Year’s Eve and celebrating New Year. It was interesting to witness that and experience Koreans’ drinking culture but it wasn’t very meaningful time.

#3. Drama

As I was talking to some of my friends last night and talking to other people some other time, I realized that college students are all the same whether you are from Korea, Japan or the States. All they talk about is relationships (I am exaggerating a little).

#4. I don’t want something new

Last night, around 2am, before I go to sleep, I was thinking this: I don’t want something new. Every New Year, I plan something new and make New Year resolutions. That’s not bad, but it’s just that now I just want something continuous. I am tired of trying new things and adventuring. Last year I was excited for the New Year, because I was going to move here, China. I was excited about the new environment and change (yes, like Obama, I love “Change”).

Now, actually I am tired for that. I know I sound old and conservative, but now I want something continuous whether that’s my work, friends or relationship. I want something that I can expect that to be there for me, what I mean is that I want something doesn’t change and always there.

In a half year, I am going to move back to the States. And after another year I will leave the States and go back to Korea. And then I will join the army for about 2 years. At least for the next 4 years, I will be moving around the world. Honestly, I want to stay at one spot. It’s really stressful to think about saying goodbyes and making new friends: I am tired of adapting to new culture and society. I know I cannot complain because I chose to do this. I didn’t initiate it, but I chose to come to China and go back to Korea after college. I chose to say goodbyes and make new friends again and again.

I am tired. I want a rest. I am lonely. I want to be with someone.

Oh well, it’s 2009. I am again expecting something hopeful.

Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away

2008-12-25T06:08:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.25 Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away.

It’s already the end of the year—arggg, I can’t believe it! In 11 days, it will be the year of 2009!! It is also the end of the semester which means some of my fellow EAP friends are leaving. Some of them are here for only a semester, and that semester is already over. I’ve known them since this summer. Although we didn’t hang out much this semester, I think I saw them at least once every other week.

I was too busy this semester—I guess every college student is busy every semester—so that I always didn’t go out to hang with them. Now I’m regretting. Some of us became really close; I didn’t think we would be this close in this short amount of time. Since we didn’t hang out much this semester, it means that we got really close during the summer, during that 10 weeks program. During that summer, we went to many trips together, and saw each other every morning for four hours in class.

I won’t lie. I will miss them. I will miss them a lot.

I just went to a farewell dinner last night. Noel, Courtney, Alice, and Helen were there. I didn’t talk much last night. I didn’t know what to say. I was just listening to other people. I was bored a little, but at the same time I was sad. I think the summer was long enough for us to get close with each other, but it wasn’t long enough for us to know each other really. It wasn’t at least for me. I sometimes regret that I don’t express myself enough. As you guys know, I am not a talkative guy. So people sometimes don’t know what I think. Because of that, I sometimes get mad at myself. I should’ve talked more.

There are so many words I didn’t say… so many words.

We went to a club after the dinner. I usually don’t go to a club or bar because I don’t drink and I get really tired after midnight. But, last night, I didn’t want to go home early, because it was the last chance to hang out with them in China. The club was extremely crowded—I am in China. The music wasn’t good, but I had fun. I really had fun.

On the way back to home, I was thinking about my first year in college. I remember the last day of the first semester. My floor was completely empty; everyone moved out. Now I think I was really shocked at that time. I can’t forget the image of the empty floor. I wasn’t sad because I would never see them again: I would see them again the next year. I was sad because that same year, that same floor would never exist again. I know how to express that feeling. It’s just that I really had fun during the first year and then I was really depressed about the fact that it would be never the same.

Now, I am used to saying goodbyes. But, last night, it was really hard to say goodbyes to them. I know I will see them again. I didn’t live with them a year like I did with my floormates, but still something just bothered me. So many memories with them! So many words I didn’t say! So much regrets! I think these made me hard to say goodbyes to them.

I guess I am writing stories because I regret. I told you this when I first started to write this essay (that was in May). I am writing this because I regret.

Let’s change the topic now. It’s a Christmas time again, although it’s not an official holiday in China, which means there is no Christmas in China. There are Christmas trees in the department store here and you can listen to carols but it’s just different. It really doesn’t feel like a Christmas here.

I really didn’t understand why people in the States start listening to Christmas carols around this time of year or even earlier. I wasn’t used to that when I first went to the States. But the same me who didn’t understand that last year, bought a Christmas carol CD yesterday. Christmas carols were just lingering around my ears so I couldn’t help myself buying them. I am listening to it right now as I am writing this episode.

My favorite carol is actually Last Christmas. I like that part, “Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it away”. It’s a sad lyric, but I like the first part of that line.

Last Christmas I gave you my heart.

When was the last time I gave my heart to someone? I wonder. Did I ever give my heart to someone? I even wonder more. Whenever I listen to this song, I picture in my head a guy or a girl proposing to his or her special one. How romantic and cute is that? I don’t care if he gets rejected (actually that sucks), he at least expressed his heart. As I grow older, I realized it’s not good to be honest, especially when you like someone. But, at the same time, I just want to be honest and give my heart.

Why am I talking about Last Christmas out of nowhere? You know. I just regret that I didn’t express myself fully to my friends who are living very soon. Like the last night, I regret that I was so quiet whole night. It’s not just the last night, but whole time I was too quiet.

There is a Korean poem that I want to tell you guys. Its title is “I’m asking you”.

I’m Asking You by Ahn Do-hyun

Don’t discard the fire ashes so callously.
Have you ever been that passionate for someone else?

You might don’t understand because this poem is in Korean and my translation is not great, but I think you get the general picture. Give your heart. Don’t save it for one day that never comes. This Christmas, actually I am going to save myself from tears; I am going to give my heart to someone special.

Merry Christmas every one.

Beijing Bicycle

2008-12-23T03:28:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Welcome to the Bicycle World!]

Ep.24 Beijing Bicycle

Like the title of the last episode, this episode’s title is also coincidentally from a movie. I watched the movie Beijing Bicycle when I was in Berkley, in my Chinese class. I personally didn’t like the movie, but I have to say it is well-made. The movie is about a boy and his cherished bike in Beijing. If I remember correctly, the main story is something like the boy’s bike gets stolen and he tries to get it back. In the movie, it is well portrayed that a bicycle is one of bare necessities to survive in the city of Beijing.

I do like using public transportation. I took subway almost every day in Seoul and in Berkeley I regularly used AC transit. The public transportation system in Beijing is not bad too. However, the problem is there are too many people here. Too many! The public transportation here is really cheap and convenient, but just the level of crowdedness keeps me away from using it. There is no rush hour in China, because every hour is rush hour. Also, due to severe traffic jams, it takes a lot of time riding a bus or taxi to go anywhere. Imagine you get stuck in a traffic jam and at the same time you are in a super crowded bus—you know how annoying that is.

[Bicycles on my campus]

[A guy driving an eletronic bike, saying WTF?]

[During the summer]

[In Shanghai, Shanghai bikers]

After few days I first came to China, I decided to buy a bike. Before coming to China, I didn’t think that I would buy a bike here. However, China is a huge country. One block is so long that you need to walk and walk to get somewhere. If you want to take subway or bus, you still need to walk for a considerable amount of time.

It was really hot this summer, and I couldn’t stand walking streets of Beijing. It was humid, polluted, and hot. So I decided to buy a bike, but not a regular bike. It is a little embarrassing to say that I just learned how to bike during the summer of 2006, which means I can’t bike. The city of Beijing is not a good environment for one like me to bike. It is quite dangerous. There are so many people on streets. There are so many cars. And, there are also so many bikes! More importantly, there is no traffic law (to the American standard).

[The guy who sold my electronic bike checking my bike!]

I already told you guys how I first felt when I was coming from Beijing Airport to my school: Fast and Furious; Beijing Drift. I couldn’t imagine myself biking on the roads in Beijing. So I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to walk around the streets, but also I was afraid to bike. After first few days, I found out that there is a brilliant Chinese invention (along with gun powder and paper) that I didn’t know about before. It was an electric bike. It is like a motorcycle, but rather simple. You use electricity, so you don’t need to buy gas. You can just recharge it like how you recharge your cellphone. It seemed to me that riding an electronic bike is a lot easier than riding a regular bike, so even a person like me who is not good at biking can ride in Beijing.

Thus, I decided to buy an electric bike for my own sake. I thought I would feel much safer riding an electronic bike. I asked around and finally found a place that sold second-hand electronic bikes. I got one for 700 yuan which is around $100—it was originally 900 yuan, but I bargained.

[The very night I bought my electronic bike]

Although I bought an electronic bike, I didn’t dare thinking I would ride that on the actual road. I planned to ride it just on campus or very empty roads. I was really scared to go out to the roads. To me, the road outside of the campus was like a jungle: I believed that I would easily get killed.

Riding an electronic bike wasn’t as easy as I imagined too. I practiced every night on campus when there were no people. After practicing a week or so, I gained confidence and started to think: what if I go out to the jungle? I also thought it would be a waste if I didn’t ride it and use it more. I cannot forget the first day I went out with my electronic bike to the jungle. I rode it really slowly. I was scared by buses, cars, and even by pedestrians.

[The guy who fixes bikes on campus]

After few weeks, I became a puma or tiger (something likes that) of the jungle: There was no more fear in me. Now I go everywhere with my bike. From very faraway places to very close ones, I take my bike. There is no “walking distance” for me because I just bike everywhere. I don’t hesitate to ride on the roads with cars, and actually now I enjoy it. I enjoy also going against the current of traffic because it is very thrilling. I know I got to be more careful, because it is dangerous to bike in Beijing. I almost got killed few times, but luckily still alive.

One thing I realized is that a bicycle gives you freedom. I didn’t drive in the States so I didn’t know what driving a car feels like. Now I understand a little. I can go anywhere I wish. I don’t have to wait for people, bus, or anything. I like that part of riding a bike.

What I also realized is that there is actually an unspoken traffic law on the roads in China. I realized a set of rules that states what I can do and can’t do. The roads of Beijing first seem very frenetic and crazy, but actually everyone is so used to that messy traffic so they know what to do.

[This picture I took when I was on the bike]

[So cold!]

When I bike in the city, I feel like I am a true Beijinger. Beijing is truly bikers’ city. There are so many bikers on the roads. Also, there are so many masters of fixing bikes. There is an electronic bike shop near my school. I go there when my bike gets broken. I really get frustrated when my bike breaks because I cannot live without it. There was one time when I got really frustrated. The back wheel of my bike got broken badly that I thought there was no way to fix it. However, this magician, who is better than Harry, fixed my bike without any difficulty on the spot. I didn’t know that fixing a bike is a job that requires creativity. The repairman changed almost whole structure of my bike. He was really skilful. After looking at my bike’s broken back wheel for a second, he immediately thought of the solution. How many bikes would he have fixed in his life to know that? I was truly amazed by his magic.

[The biker carrying glasses]

I can say I am a good electronic biker. I am pretty good at it, and also good at taking people on the back of my bike. I provide comfortable rides to my customers. Some of you guys know that I am good at Mario Kart (I miss playing that), and I am using some of skills that I use in Mario Kart—of course, I am not using any super mushroom or mighty stars. When I feel depressed, I sometimes go out biking at night. I listen to my ipod and do “speeding”. You guys who are in the States will not understand how awesome riding an electronic bike is. It is really fun. I hope I can bring it back to Berkeley and ride it there.

This is it for today, and I hope I can upload the next one on the day of Christmas.

[My bike with newly bought gloves and Korean flag!]

To Live

2008-12-20T17:22:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Me on the frozen lake in my school!]

Ep.23 To Live

We need a quick catch up because it’s been so long since I uploaded the last one. Actually, I wrote two more episodes in December, prior to this one. However, I decided to not upload that one until the time comes. It’s too confidential. Sorry. Anyway, now I have three episodes to upload, and please enjoy reading them.

Today I want to talk about something less personal; so I will talk about ideology this time. After all, I study political science; I like to talk about these stuffs. I always think that theory, a set of proposed principles, is essential for everything in our life. Theory is what shapes people’s thinking and behavior. That includes not only our political system, but also economic system, religious beliefs, and scientific researches. Ideology then consists of a systemic set of these theories. In my opinion, ideology is responsible for many things that happen in this world, from disastrous wars to glorious human progress; I know I am talking vaguely here, because I am talking about political science.

[For the Revolution!]

It is not surprising that China is ideologically different from America. You guys will all know that China is still a communist country unlike America or the rest of Western nation. However, you guys might know that how ideological difference is closely related to our daily life. What I’m saying is that manifestation of ideology is not something that only appears on the textbook or boring scholastic essay, but it is actually visible in our everyday life.

I will give you some examples that I encountered in real life. The first instance happened in my Chinese class. It is true that every single Chinese textbook has a chapter talking about love and relationships. My textbook isn’t an exception and we were learning a chapter about relationships. We were having a discussion in class about each person’s view on relationships and their own experiences. We asked our teacher about her view on relationship. My Chinese teacher, who is on her mid fifties and grew up her whole life in Beijing, answered to our question: “love? During my generation, it was revolutionary.” Revolutionary? I asked myself, how can love be revolutionary?

She explained further. She read one Russian communist literature during her youth and decided to be a single for her whole life. She wanted to be remained unmarried so that she could devote her life for the country and the mighty revolution. Today, Chinese young people of course do not think in this kind of mindset, but it is very interesting to know that only few decades ago this kind of mindset even existed.

[The Comrade Mao]

One day I was talking to my language partner. He is a sophomore and studies political science like me. He gives a lesson on Chinese politics to me and I introduce American politics to him. Recently we are both busy so not having these sessions. Anyway, one day he told me that he was looking forward to be a member of the Communist Party. He wasn’t joking at all. He wants to be a member because if you want to get into politics in China, that’s the only way. He understands well that the Party controls everything and sometimes it is not fair. However, it seems to me that he accepts the rule of game as long as he is able to play that game. He is willing to play the game of Chinese politics. He is also an enthusiastic proponent of the idea that China is not suited with western democracy. He firmly believes that China has to be governed by the current system.

I also talked about how many foreign websites and youtube videos are blocked in China. As I said above, ideology manifests itself in our daily life. Living many years in America, I forgot how each nation has its own ideology. I remember how I was shocked at ideological difference between Korea and the U.S. Now coming to China, I again realize there are ideological differences between nations and the gap between China and America is especially huge.

[The board that was wrriten during the Culture Revolution (in Qingdao)]

Few days ago I watched a Chinese movie. Many people recommended this movie and I bought the DVD few weeks ago but didn’t watch it for some reason. I finally watched it on Saturday evening.

The movie is called “To Live” or “活着” in Chinese. Karen, a Korean friend I met in China, actually decided to come to China after watching this movie. One of my Chinese friends, who studies film, also regards it as one of the best Chinese movies. The movie is about one family that struggles to survive throughout historical turmoil over four decades. Fu Gui’s family goes through the Chinese Civil War, Communists’ capture of the government, and the Cultural Revolution.

The movie narrates one’s life in a humorous and ironical way. Despite the ideological shifts and turbulences, Fu Gui and his family live on. The ideological shifts actually affect his life—it killed his only son and later only daughter—but he continues to live. The movie shows how China had been a really ideological different country few decades ago. It also shows that even in that radically different society, people are not much different. People still love their family; people still regret and make mistakes; people still forgive others; people still have hopes.

I know that ideology shapes how people think. I’m experiencing that phenomenon here. However, I also know that there are innate human natures that even ideology or theory cannot shape. I think that’s because all ideologies are also based on human nature.

[Yay!]

[the lake is frozen!!]

[people enjoying ice hockey on the lake]

[The time for graduation pictures!]

I don’t know “giving up” (2)

2008-11-16T01:33:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.20 I don’t know “giving up” (2)

The Admissions Committee would like to know more about you in your own words. Please submit a brief essay, either autobiographical or creative, which you feel best describes you:

I cannot forget the day when I first came to the U.S. in February of 2004. It was the year when the biggest change in my life unsettled me. I practically lived in Korea my whole life. I was forced to leave my friends and all that I loved. It was even more difficult because I lost my dearest one, my mom. Adapting to a new country right after the painful event was horrible and depressing to me. To make me more miserable, I needed to prepare for college. How could I go to college in the U.S., if I could not speak English at all? However, time would not wait for me and I was determined to overcome my difficulties for my mom and myself.

Eventually I earned straight “A’s” in my junior year which was also my first year in the U.S. Every “A” on my report card was important to me, but I especially kept my eyes on my English class. I proved to others and myself that I was capable of succeeding in a regular English class.

When I tried to take the regular English class, every one discouraged me from it. The teachers of the regular English and ESL classes thought that I was not ready for taking it and they wanted me to take the lower level English class. However, I knew that if I took the lower level English class, there would be no way for me to go straight into a four-year college. I wanted to give my best effort to take the regular English class, even if it meant failing it. At least then I would not have any doubts about whether or not I could have succeeded in a regular English class. When I received the “D” on my first quarter report card, the English teacher said, “I think you are going the wrong way.” I was depressed when I heard it, but I was determined to show that I was not going the wrong way.

[I went on a day trip to Tianjin, the city near Beijing]

[in front of Tianjin University, with friends]

…I failed many vocabulary tests and I felt like a disabled person, but one thing that helped me endure this was that I could think. I could think as any other American student and try harder to succeed in my English class. There was no reason to feel inferior, since I tried harder than any of my classmates. I could accomplish many things in very short time.

When I came to here, I had to start over from the very beginning to learn English, even though I earned good grades in my English class in Korea. The English I learned in Korea usually emphasized on grammar and reading, but I quickly realized that it was not enough to survive in school in America. Speaking was especially difficult for me because I am generally a shy and quiet person. With something as simple as asking the teacher a question, I struggled with this. When I asked a question to my teachers, they did not understand me because I could not pronounce “question” well. I always had to repeat myself. I needed to ask questions in order to learn and so I practiced pronouncing the word “question” in the shower. As I overcame this simple difficulty, I could improve my English skill and succeeded in classes.

Now, I can say that my junior year was successful, but I still need to make constant efforts to learn English. To study in college will be another challenge for me. I know that my English skills are limited compared to other students, but I am sure that I can handle it well as long as I remember the lessons I have learned from overcoming my challenges and as long as I can think and give my best effort.

[the famous dumpling restaurant in Tianjin, "Goubuli"]

The above paragraphs are from my college application essay (they are actual copies). I don’t know it was for which school. The following essay is for the UC system:

Is there anything you would like us to know about you or your academic record that you have not had the opportunity to describe elsewhere in this application?

The grades and scores on my transcript may show that I overcame many academic difficulties such as my challenges with learning English. However, this difficulty was not the only thing that I confronted when I came to this country from Korea.

Right after my mother passed way, I came to American to live with my aunt and uncle because there was no one who could take care of me in Korea. I had to leave my school along with my friends. I came to this country unprepared unlike most foreign students who have planned from the very beginning to come to America to study. Adjusting to my new surrounding was full of challenges. I was full of sorrow and blamed my situation on the unexpected tragedy…

Even in the midst of my tragedy, I was able to realize that this was another opportunity in my life, but this was not without its challenges. I tried hard in school despite my emotions and family problems…

It was easy to say that I needed to learn English, but it was difficult for me to go beyond my comfort zone and use English everyday with the fears that others may ridicule me. The only way I knew how to overcome these challenges was to find the strength to continue on and move forward. I realized that I needed to try and stand fast to my resolution of not giving up in order to overcome many difficulties. The challenges that I have faced these past two years in America have allowed me to grow and mature in ways that would not have been possible otherwise. Like a boatman who paddles intently when he is met with high waves, I have been able to spur myself on toward success because of my difficulties.

I can say that last two years have been the hardest times in my life as well as the most important. Through the struggles I have faced, I learned the important lesson of determination and perseverance, which I believe will help me overcome the challenge I will face in college. These things cannot be seen on my transcript but it is apparent in my life. Over the past two years, I did not only learn English and American culture, but also the thing that is very essential to life: facing challenges build strength.

The above two essays are talking about very similar things with slightly different focuses. At that time, my tutor helped me to write them. He helped me mostly with grammars and sometime helped me on structures too. My English writing skill at that time wasn’t very good; and still isn’t very good. However, these essays are stories of me with my own words.

I know that I could get into Berkeley only because of my essays. My SAT score was 200 points below than what was minimally required by the school. My high school GPA was 3.8, which was decent, but wasn’t outstanding.

The essays are basically saying that my life sucks but despite of it I try hard and I can do it. I look back now and I think I actually tried hard then. I feel like today I don’t have the same level of determination and whatever you call that made me to do well in school and face the challenges.

I want to talk more about that English class which is mentioned in both of my essays. So, the first year in the States, I had to choose which English class I would take in my junior year. One was a regular English class and the other one was basically for students who don’t want to study hard. The lower level English class was also for American students, but most of these students were not planning to go to a four-year college. That was why I didn’t want to take that class.

My ESL teacher and everyone else discouraged to take the regular English class and told me to take the other one, but I chose to take the regular one. As it was expected, the regular English course was hard for me and I got Ds on my first in-class essay and vocab quiz.

After the first quarter of the semester, the English teacher told me to stay after class. After class, she told me that “I think you are going the wrong way.” She wanted me to drop the class and just take the lower level one. It was really depressing as well as humiliating to listen.

When I was listening to her, in my mind, I thought “I don’t want to give up here. I want to keep trying” I wanted to tell to my teacher. However, at the moment, I forgot how to say “give up” in English. So I couldn’t say anything but just listened to her. After talking to her, I walked to home. It usually took 40mins to get home. I had to walk because I didn’t have a license and I didn’t have any friend who would give me a ride at that time. Imagine walking 40 minutes after hearing that humiliating comments from the teacher.

As I was walking, I remembered how to say “to give up” in English, but it was too late. I couldn’t go back and tell her that. Anyway, as I was walking home, I told myself, “yeah I don’t know giving up, that’s why I forgot how to say “giving up” in English. There is no word “giving up” in my mind. I don’t know giving up, let’s keep trying and trying.”

It was one of the saddest moments during my first year in the States, but also the most hopeful moment.

As my essay for college application describes it, I finally got an A from that English class. For the first quarter of the first semester, I got a D. For the second quarter, I got a C and a B- for the third and B for the 4th quarter of the first semester. I received an A at the end of the year. That was my junior year, in senior year I got A’s throughout the year and got an A+ for the final grade from the English class. I still remember the first book we read in that English class. It was Crucible and I don’t know how many times I read that book by myself to catch up with others.

In the end, the teacher, who told me I was on the wrong way, apologized to me. She told me that she was one that who was wrong. She also wrote a letter of recommendation for my college application. I still thank her for making me to try harder. Thank her for humiliating me and making me to challenge.

Again, I’m not telling you these stories to glorify myself or to show off. I just want to remind myself how hard I tried before and how I am not doing that now. I want to remind myself how hard I need to try here in order to get something out of this one year program. I think it is the time to forget “giving up” in my mind again.

I want to stop here today, and I will continue the story of me in China in the next episode.

I don’t know “giving up” (1)

2008-11-09T05:21:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Gold]

Ep.19 I don’t know “giving up” (1)

I feel like since I started to write about my life in China and in PKU, I only have written about fun parts of my life: my trips, going outs, and so on. Actually, for the most of the time here, I’m busy with memorizing Chinese characters and preparing for the classes. Only 20% of my daily life is something that I wrote in this essay. In other words, only 20% of my life is interesting enough to tell you guys.

I want to talk about some of my classes today, especially classes that I am auditing now. I am auditing two classes in School of Government. One is called western system of civil servants, and the other one is called strategic management.

[The Autumn at PKU]

There are three different majors under School of Government: political science, public administration, and urban management. Western system of civil servants class is a general elective class for all three majors. Strategic management class is under urban management, it is rather like a business class than a political science class.

[The Nameless Lake at my school]

Let me tell you this before I tell you guys anything else: these classes are all taught in Chinese. I decided to audit these classes, first because I am curious about Chinese polisci classes, second to improve my Chinese, and third to prepare for the next semester. When I first started taking these two classes, I understood only 5% of what the professors said. Now, I can say I understand about 50 to 60%, a great improvement!

The western system of civil servants class is about civil servants system of different western countries including USA, UK, France, Japan (westernized country, I guess), and Germany. The class is very dry and sometimes boring although the professor is really good. So far the materials I learned are not that new or profound. For two hours of class, the professor just tells us about the facts—different institutions of civil servants—and stories to help us to understand.

In the strategic management class, we learn how to make a good strategy, the good strategy for firms, or local governments. I never took a business class before, so it is interesting for me to learn a different discipline. The professor for this class actually studied at Berkeley for a year. In lecture, he makes a lot of references to the States and comparisons, which is pretty funny to listen.

Since I’m just auditing them and not taking for credits, I feel less pressure. However, they are still very challenging, and take a lot of efforts to keep up with the lectures. Think about it. I only learned Chinese for two years, so my ability of Chinese is the same as that of elementary students or junior high students. With that level of Chinese, I am trying to take a regular college course: not a science class, but a polisci class, in which the language skill is crucial. It is not even an introductory class for freshmen, but rather a major class for upper classmen. Moreover, I’m not just taking a course at community college or whatever university, but one of the most prestigious universities in China.

I am not trying to glorify myself or anything, I am just stating the facts and difficulties that I am dealing with. Taking these classes actually reminds me of high school years.

In my senior year, which was my 2nd year in the States, I took AP government class. For many of you guys, whose high school GPA were easily over 4.0, AP government might not mean anything. But for me, who recently got used to the system and started to speak English more comfortably, “AP gov” meant a lot.

I really wanted to take it, and wanted to take a challenge. Of course, it wasn’t easy for me. Imagine trying to read Federalist Paper #10 with only one year of formal education in the States (although I took English classes in Korea which is similar to Spanish classes in the States). To be honest, I still have difficulties when I read Federalist Paper today, so how hard would it be at that time? I liked my AP gov teacher and he was nice and different from any other teacher, but he was also a hard grader and teacher. We had to read average 50 pages before every class, things like Federalist Paper and Supreme Court cases.

Then, we had to answer to one or two essay question every class. The essay questions were like following: what is the meaning of “faction” and the problems of “faction” that are addressed in Madison’s Federalist Paper #10, or what is the significance of McCulloch v. Maryland case?

[The PKU campus, beautiful!]

At that time, I barely understood what I read and didn’t have writing capability to rearticulate the reading materials that I read. So, I got D or F on every quiz (he was a hard grader). Later, I changed my tactic. I just memorized important parts of the readings, rather than trying to articulate them in my own words.

I really learned a lot in that AP gov class. It truly prepared me for college courses (specially my major courses). I still write answers to essay questions in a way that I learned in AP gov. It was really hard at that time, but hardship truly paid off later. Without taking that class, my senior year in high school would have been easy and comfortable, yet unproductive and boring: there would have been no progress.

I still have more stories regarding this topic, but today I will stop at here. It’s been four months since I came to China, and I am unsatisfied with the speed of my improvement in Chinese. Maybe I am just being impatient; I still have nine more months. Whether I am being impatient or not, I need to take challenges continuously, and should not be afraid of new challenges. I know that is the one of ways to learn another language fast and enhance your capability.

ps. I am so happy and satisfied with these pictures. :) I took them on last Wednesday, the victorious day for Obama and America, also I skipped a class and took pictures.

more pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/

My 21st Birthday in China

2008-11-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[me and my roommates]

Ep.18 My 21st Birthday in China

It’s been a while since I’ve written the last episode. I am sure you guys are also very busy with midterms, so do I. I’m busy with not only midterms but also with many others things. So, the last Friday (exactly a week ago from today) was my 21st birthday. Yes, I am an adult now, but you know that doesn’t mean anything.

I recall my 18th birthday and that was the funniest birthday in my 21 years of life. The 19th birthday was the most painful, yet memorable birthday of my life. The last year, my 20th birthday, was very plain unlike the other ones. On the last birthday, I just hung out with many friends and I was very thankful for that I had that many friends to celebrate my birthday with. This year, my 21st birthday in China, was the busiest birthday of my life!

If you guys read the last article and remember that I was debating whether I should to go to Xian with my friends or attend International Culture Festival as a member of Korean Student Association. In the last episode, I decided to stay in Beijing and work for KSA rather than going down to Xian. However, the plan got changed. The University changed the date of ICF to Sunday (10/26) from Saturday which meant that I could go down to Xian with my friends on Friday night and come back on Sunday morning before ICF started. And that Friday was my 21st birthday.

The plan was simple enough. The plan is following: on my birthday (10/24), I go down with my friends to Xian (14 hours of train ride) and arrive at Xian in the next morning. I have fun with friends on Saturday (10/25) in Xian and I take a train that Saturday night to come back on Sunday morning to Beijing (10/26) so that I can attend ICF. Now you understand why I call my 21st birthday was the busiest birthday in my life.

I will tell you guys every minute of those three days (not literally, but close enough).

10/23. 6:00pm.

We should first go back to Thursday (10/23), the day before my birthday. On Thursday night, I celebrated my birthday with Karen, a new Korean friend I made here. She is really nice and helped me a lot in the polisci class. She bought me a dinner (of course, we had Korean BBQ!) and we talked about for three hours. She really made me to feel like home. I really enjoyed that time.

[My Chinese classmates at the lunch]

10/24. 8:00am.

Now we move to Friday (10/24), the actual day of my birthday. While economists in the United States were worrying about the new Black Thursday and Great Depression on the 79th anniversary of initial stock market crash (10/24/1929), I went to 8am class as usual in China. Nothing special, the class was boring as usual.

I almost forgot that my grandma called me right before the class started. She is one that always remembers my birthday. I was really touched.

12:00pm.

My class ended at noon. I am the class leader of my Chinese class (meaning I organize simple class activities). That Friday, the class was having a lunch together which I planned a week ago. So I had to lead my classmates to this Chinese restaurant, and make sure everyone was having a good time. It was tiring for me. I was busy taking care of foods for others so I couldn’t eat well. However, the lunch was fun and refreshing. In China, there are lots of class activities. For example, in my strategic management class, the professor bought the students late night meal after class.

2:30pm

The lunch ended around 2pm, but however I couldn’t go back to home. I had to pick up a movie camera that would be used for recording International Culture Festival. While I was doing that, I also called friends for my birthday dinner that night. Oh, I also had to pack for the Xian trip that I would go on the same night.

5:30pm

My birthday dinner was at 5:30, a bit early because we had to leave the campus at 7:50 for Xian. The restaurant was 20 minutes away from the campus so we barely had two hours for dinner. 12 people came to the dinner, which were more than what I expected. It was again Korean BBQ. I really had fun. I was happy that over the last three month I made good friends whom I can have fun time with. Before I came to China, I worried a lot about friends because it was the first year in college all over again. Making new friends is always frightening and tiring.
Everything was very tight and the time wasn’t enough but we had a good time. Of course, I couldn’t help thinking about the last year’s birthday and friends back home, but I cannot always think about the past. I should enjoy the present, because it’s a gift!

In Ratatouille, Gusteau tells to Remy, “Ah, but that is no match for wishful thinking! If you focus on what’s you’ve left behind, you’ll never be able to see what lies ahead”.

After having a dinner, we all came back to campus to get on the bus that would take us to the railway station. The train was leaving Beijing at 9:30pm.

[the stupid card game we played in the train]

[my birthday cake]

[my birthday dinner]

9:50pm

The train left Beijing Railway Station to Xi’An which is located the west of Beijing. It’s really fun to take a train with your friends. We ate my birthday cake on the train and played card games until 1am the next day.

My 21st birthday was passing like that. I was twenty anymore. It wasn’t as sad as my 20th birthday when I was no more a teenager. Every birthday, I try to look at the past and plan the future. I thought about the future and the past right before I went to sleep on the train. I felt everything was moving so fast. Maybe I’m doing too many stuffs that I’m not really enjoying that life. But on the second thought, I am not that busy, so I can’t really complain.

10/25 8:00am

Around 8am we arrived at Xian, the city of history and civilization. Xian is considered as one of the four origin of human civilization. The city was the capital of many dynasties in the history of China including the first unified kingdom of China (Qin).

We first headed to the hotel and had a breakfast. It was really different from travelling by myself. It was fun to move with many people and just hang out. I really didn’t care about sights that we went; I just went all the way to Xian to have a good time with friends.

11:00am

We went to our first tourist site in Xian—the provincial museum. My good friend from Berkeley who now works in Shanghai called me for my birthday. I was really happy to talk to him.

1:00pm

We had a nice lunch together. The trip reminded me of the summer trips that we went together such as the Great Wall trip and Inner Mongolia trip. I missed people who went back to the States after the summer program was over.

[at the Big Goose pagoda]

2:30pm

We visited the Big Goose pagoda, a Tang dynasty Buddhist structure. The pagoda was very nice. There wasn’t any spectacular or magnificent building, but the park around the tower was very nice to walk around. I just had fun taking pictures with friends and walking around the tower. However I kept thinking about the ride back to Beijing. I had to leave Xian in 4 hours.

6:00pm

Because of the traffic jam, we arrived at the restaurant late. My train was at 8:30pm, so I had to leave the restaurant at 6:20 at the latest. That gave me only 20 minutes to eat the supper. I was really sad leaving friends and going back by myself. However, that was what I planned and wanted. I really had a good time in Xian and no regret that I went there although it was super tiring.

[the museum]

9:00pm

I got on my train heading back to Beijing. Actually if you calculate, the time I spent on the train is longer than the time I spent in Xian, but again no regret that I went to Xian. I was really tired so I just went to sleep early around 10pm.

[Xi'An railway station at night]

10/26 7:00am

I woke up early on Sunday. The train was delayed. The International Culture Festival was starting at 9am. I was supposed to get to Beijing at 8am. And around 7:30 am, I got one text message from the editor of KSA telling me that we were meeting at 8:30am. I had to say “Shit” in my mind.

So I arrived at 8:00am at the railroad station. I grabbed a cab and ran back to the campus. I don’t want to bother explaining how tried I was at that time. I came back to my dorm and rested for 10 minutes and after people started calling me. I had to leave my room and start my day again!

9:00am to 5:00pm. The International Culture Festival is the annual event organized by the University. This year was the 5th ICF. It is the event for many foreign students who study in PKU to show their country and culture to other people. You can say there is two parts of ICF; one is the main stage performances, and the other is each country’s booth display. Every country had its own booth where they can exhibit their culture, food, and etc. Korea also has its booth which is the one of the biggest booth due to the large number of Korean students in PKU.

[a group playing Korean traditional instrucments]

[volunteers for the game KSA prepared]

My job was recording the whole event with my camera. I stayed in Korean booth and took pictures for events that our KSA prepared. I also went to other countries’ booths and took pictures. I also went to the main stage where different teams were performing dance, singing, and more. I was very busy for a whole day, but had lots of fun. Especially because I just got back from Xian, I didn’t have much energy to enjoy the festival.

I had lots of fun experiencing different cultures. The foreign students’ community in PKU is very large and diverse. There are Koreans (South and North), Japanese, Americans, French, Germans, Thai, Indians, Bangladesh, Italians, and Chinese (including students from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan).

[Korean B-boy team]

[yay]

[Hola]

[I WANT MY THAI ICED TEA]

[Bangladash girl painting on my friend's hand]

[she was HOT]

[Taegwondo performance]

The festival ended around 4:30pm but after cleaning up it was almost 5:30. However, my day didn’t end at there. The PKU Idol (yes, it is like American Idol) was going on that night and I had to go there to take pictures for KSA.

8:00pm

The PKU Idol is a signing competition for foreign students. You have to sing number of songs and also show your other “talents”. The night was finale of the PKU Idol; 10 people competed for the last one. For the last round, there were three teams left: Korean duet, a French girl, and a Vietnamese girl. The two Koreans guys were really amazing (I’m not saying this because I’m a Korean). Other girls were really good too but the winner was the Korean duet. They won the PKU Idol.

The show ended around 10:30pm. I was really tired after the show. It seemed my day was ending and now I could finally rest. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The next day was Monday, and I had a midterm on that day. Alas! Because I was busy with all these things, obviously I didn’t study enough for the test.

However, it was impossible for me to stay up and study. It was actually impossible.

[Korean traditional wedding that KSA performed. They are actually going out. so cute]

10/27 5:00am

So the next day I got up early. Early I mean 5:00am. The test was at 10am. I had five hours to study, and I studied hard. I really did.

The test was the hardest Chinese test I ever had in my life. The result wasn’t that good. However, the test was over and I eventually could rest for a while. It was the official end of my 21st birthday which started 3 days before.

I took a long nap that day and continued my week after.

[The vietnamese girl who competed in the last round of PKU idol]

[the Korean duet who won the PKU idol, yay Koreans!]

[American team]

[The festival's over!]

This is the story of my 21st birthday. It was long and busy. But I really enjoyed the whole time and made the most of it. I don’t regret that I went to Xian and I don’t regret that I came early for ICF. I don’t regret that I didn’t study for the midterm enough. My birthdays will come again every year, but my 21st birthday will never come again. That is why I have no regret.

more pictures of Xi'An trip and International Culture Festival at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer as usual

Thank you for reading my blog :)

Opportunity cost

2008-10-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.17 Opportunity cost

I cannot believe I already wrote 16 entries. If I write at this pace, I will write almost 100 entries by the end of the program (I don’t know that’s a good thing or not). Quick catch up; I am very busy these days, taking a way over 20 units (semester units). I think I am busier than when I was in Berkeley. I am also still adjusting to new environment, it takes time.

Also, something important happened to me this week. However, I cannot tell you guys what it is. Do you remember when I first started this essay I told you guys that I won’t be honest sometimes? I cannot be honest about this because it involves some confidential stuff. Then, you might ask why even I write about it on here if I don’t want to talk about it. I still write about it because this event is still important to me and to my life in Beijing.

[At the Chinese/Russian Students Art Exhibition, which I went to take pictures for KSA]

Opportunity cost is a very well known concept in economics. I remember when I first learned the concept of opportunity cost in 7th (or might be 8th) grade in Korea. Since then, whenever I learn economics (whether it’s Econ2 at UCB or Chinese econ at PKU) I first encounter that concept. Opportunity cost actually has many implications, but one simple implication is this: you need to give up other things to get something that you want. Simple enough; there is no free lunch.

Why do I talk about this? It’s because I am giving up something for something else. I am giving up Xian trip. Xian is one of the most historical cities in China. My program organized this trip and this is my last chance to travel with my fellow EAP friends. I really, again really, wanted to go this trip. It will be lots of fun, but I am giving this up. It was a tough decision for me. What do I get instead of that trip? I get a chance to join Korean Students Association at PKU. I know that it sounds stupid. I joined KSA and we need to participate in International Culture Festival, which is on the same day as the Xian trip (10/25).

I will take pictures for KSA as a photographer and participate in the festival. It sounds fun too, but Xian sounds far more interesting. Nonetheless, I have reasons for giving up the trip. Xian trip is only for one weekend whereas KSA is for a whole year. I’ve been to many cities in China already (although Xian is a little special). I can travel there by myself in winter if I really want to. I really want to hang out with my EAP friends too but one weekend can’t be that big of deal for our friendship (hopefully not). So, I decided to join KSA and I joined. No regret (maybe a little bit).

[It was very interesting to watch Russian students' performances)

However, giving up Xian trip is not only opportunity cost that I need to pay for joining KSA. Joining KSA implies a lot of other things. First, it means that I will be busy with KSA stuff meaning that I will have less time learning Chinese. More importantly, I will hang out more with Korean people that I will less hang out with local Chinese people.

When I first went to the States, I didn’t have this problem. I lived in Agoura Hills, a white suburb. More than 80% of students were whites in my high school. There were only four Korean FOBs in my school and one dropped out in my senior year. I had only one good Korean friend whom I could speak Korean. That was why I could learn English faster than others. It’s not really that I wanted to hang out with only Americans, but it just happened to be in that way.

In college, I could’ve hung out more with Koreans, but I didn’t. I have only few good Korean friends in Berkeley (here I’m talking about Korean Koreans, not Korean Americans), but most of my friends are Asian Americans or just Americans. I guess I was just used to hang out with you guys. To be honest, I had tried few times to meet more Koreans in Berkeley, but it wasn’t easy. I didn’t like any Korean clubs there. Since I was PoliSci major, it was hard to meet any FOBs in my major classes. So, I don’t have many Korean friends in Berkeley. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy hanging out with you guys (Americans)—I do. It’s just that I needed something more.

After all, I am a Korean (well, you guys all know that). I lived in Korea so many years, not just many years, but many important years. However, I never experienced “Korean college life”. I always wanted to have that. I never hung out with more than two Koreans at one time. It might seem strange to you guys. You might don’t understand it: I wanted to be more Korean.

I always think myself as Korean. There is no identity or nationality confusion, or question for me. There is no doubt that I am Korean. Most of you guys will think me as Korean as possible—yes, I am a FOB. But, to many Koreans who live in Korea, I am not Korean enough. There is no doubt that I will return to Korea after college and live there, but sometimes I am afraid that I won’t fit into the society. I am afraid that I will be too American in Korean society. I fear that. As the day of my graduation comes closer, this fear grows bigger and bigger. I started to question myself: can I really live in Korea? I never asked such question when I was in high school. Never imagined such thing; that’s why I fear about this more.

This is my reason why I am joining KSA. This third year of college will be very important for the rest of my life. I am preparing my return to Korea. I was thinking about studying abroad a semester in China and another semester in Korea just for this reason. I couldn’t do that because PKU only offers a year program and I need to graduate too. I still want to know what I will encounter when I go back.

But, still one might ask me why I’m doing it here in China where I need to learn Chinese and Chinese society. I think that’s a very good question; I asked myself too. It is first because here are many Koreans in China and I got a chance to meet them. I don’t want to deliberately avoid Koreans in order to learn Chinese. I accidentally met many Koreans and want to hang out with them; it’s that simple. And, I will try my best to learn Chinese and make Chinese friends. I will do both. I am slowly meeting local Chinese friends and also through my Korean friends, I’m meeting some Chinese friends too. I am trying to minimize my opportunity cost.

This episode was too serious that I don’t know you guys enjoyed reading it. I actually wanted to have this talk. I don’t know whether I will regret my decision later. I hope not.

Ps. in the next episode, I will write about my life at PKU.

more pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/

Trying to be trilingual

2008-10-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[why are you keep taking picture of me? i'm mad]

Ep.16 Trying to be trilingual

So I am back. The last two episodes were honestly too long, so I will try to keep this one short. The school started three weeks ago, and this week we have National Day break (5 days break). October 1st 1949, the current People’s Republic of China was established. This holiday is one of the two biggest holidays in China (the other one is Lunar New Year). The break is usually a week long. Many Chinese people go back to their hometowns or travel during this break. Since I just got back from a long trip, I don’t feel like leaving Beijing so finally, I found time to write this essay!

[Chinese characters, there are so many of'em]

Many people will be curious what classes I’m taking here, so let me tell you guys: Chinese. I am taking two main Chinese courses—one is writing/reading and the other one is speaking. I am also taking two Chinese electives. I am taking Chinese writing and news paper reading classes. I am also taking Chinese Economy that is taught in English (yay!). Also, I’m auditing two political science courses. I honestly understand only 5% of what the professor says in class. I am taking these classes in order to take my major courses next semester for credits.

Last Friday, I had this 8am polisci class that I’m auditing. It was painful to wake up for the class but I did and went to class. And, I found out that there was no class on that day because the professor went on business trip. The professor told students the week before and only student who showed up were people who missed the last class. That just shows how bad my Chinese is. That’s just sad. My Chinese improved a lot a lot since I got here, but still not enough.

Many people (mostly Chinese people) ask me why I learn Chinese. I sometimes wonder why too. There are many reasons I think. I originally wanted to go study in China when I was in Korea. I also wanted to learn other language. I think Chinese is the pretty language (and I don’t think French is the most beautiful langue of the world). I started to like Chinese after I watched Zhang Ziyi’s House of Flying Daggers. She is so hot, and when she speaks Chinese it’s really pretty. Of course, Zhang Ziyi’s not the only reason why I learn Chinese.

When I came to the States, I took an ESL class and there were two Taiwanese kids in my class. We became really good friends and took a summer school together. We also did carpool that summer. They usually talked to each other in Chinese and of course I didn’t understand anything. Now I think that that made me want to study Chinese. It was curiosity and feeling of helplessness in communicating with people (which also made me to study English hard).

“Trying to be trilingual” implies that I claim myself as bilingual. I guess I can say that. I don’t claim that I am fluent in English but nowadays I feel comfortable using English (unless I’m interviewing in English). I still don’t know many vocabularies, but at least I can ask people what they mean and understand their explanations. For the most times, I don’t have problem in listening (unless they have heavy British/Indian/or any other accents). I want to achieve that point with my Chinese. That’s why I am here; leaving all my friends back home and living in a whole new world. I don’t know whether I can achieve it or not, at this point it’s not that promising. One year later, would I be comfortable using Chinese? Probably not.

My ultimate goal is to be able to speak five languages: Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. These are the languages used in six party talks. I also want to learn Spanish, French and Arab. Why learning languages? One thing I like about learning languages is that I can use it instantly. I learn some new words and new grammar structures and I can just use them in daily conversations. I can have a conversation with someone from a different country. That’s very fascinating. I love to study political science, but I can’t use them in real life (not yet). I can read some news and understand it better with knowledge I learned from PS157 but that’s about it. I even don’t want to talk about how useful Physics and Mathematics are. (They are useful in some ways).

Few days before, my tutor told me about “passive” and “active” words in learning foreign language. When you learn a new language, there are so many new words (obviously). There are words that you only know what they mean, but you don’t use on regular basis—regular basis I mean when you write or speak. These are called “passive” words. The “active” words are the words you naturally use on regular basis. Learning a new language is basically a process of changing “passive” words to “active” words. There are still so many English words that are on my “passive” words list.

I am trying hard to be trilingual. I am taking 6 classes in Chinese, it’s way over 20 units. However, I feel it’s still not enough. It’s very frustrating, but I try not to be. I know it takes time. I already experienced it once. It takes time.

Lately I am meeting a lot of Koreans. There are so many Koreans here. A half of my class is Korean and the other half is Japanese (there are some Europeans and Americans). I joined a Korean club too. I don’t know… I am preparing my return to Korea after college. I will talk more about it in the next episode, because I want to keep this one short as I promised earlier.

I am back, but my mind isn’t

2008-09-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[Title: "Stranger"]

Ep.15 I am back, but my mind isn’t.

Numbers about this trip…

Number of cities that I visited… 8 cities which are two cities less than it were originally planned. I travelled for 22 days, one day longer than it was originally planned.

Number of provinces I visited… 5 provinces.

The shortest time that I spent in one city: 6 hours in Shenzhen which beats 8 hours in Qingdao.

The longest time I spent in one city: 5 days in Hangzhou and Guangzhou

The longest train ride during my trip: 24 hours and 17 minutes from Hangzhou to Xiamen

The total hours of my train ride: 8+15+2+1.5+24+16+2+2+13= 83.5 hours, more than 3 days.. wow I didn’t realize that.

The total money amount that I spent on this trip: roughly 825 USD.

Number of people newly added on Facebook during this trip: Two. It’s Lynne (Noel’s friend) and Anna (a girl I met in Shanghai hostel).

Number of things I lost during this trip: Four. (Passport, Wallet, Flip-flop, and headphone)

Number of movies I watched during this trip: Three. (American Gangster on my laptop, Scent of a Woman in Hangzhou, and Dark Knight in Hong Kong)

The number of pictures I took: 949 (it’s after I deleted all bad pictures)

[In Shanghai]

Hangzhou: the City of West Lake and Tourists

Hangzhou is really close from Shanghai. It only took an hour and half to get Hangzhou from Shanghai. Hangzhou was much more developed than I expected. I just thought it as a city with a beautiful lake, but of course it was more than that.

Marco Polo, the famous Italian traveler, described Hangzhou as the most beautiful city on earth and is like paradise. It is certainly such a beautiful city. West Lake is what makes the city gorgeous. It is a huge lake. It took me more than two days to walk around the lake and see things around the lake. It was very peaceful.

The first night we met Vince from our program. He was doing his internship in Hangzhou. I had some problem that night, and was really mad at him. The reason was that I was too tired and he kept wandering. I regret getting mad at him; I was just too tired.

The Lake was so peaceful and lovely, but I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I can because I was having other problems. I had so many things to worry about such as my camera in Nanjing, I couldn’t enjoy it. I was sad about that. I guess to be happy, what you need is not earthly paradise, but is inner-peace in yourself.

I didn’t get much drama in Hangzhou beside I got mad at Vince. I met two Korean guys at the hostel; they were college students in Korea and travelling China. It was fun talking to them and to listen to their stories. Although this hostel at Hangzhou was one of the worst hostels I’ve been, the hostel always make you to meet new people and I like that.

[Shanghai, in the morning]

[yummy...]

[The Bund, at night]

[The bund during the day]

One day I watched “Scent of a Woman” the old movie with Al Pacino. I watched it a long time ago. It was one of my favorites. I recommend you guys to watch it so I don’t want to tell you guys the story, but the movie actually is about travelling and life. The movie reminded me of what I need to learn in this trip: life.

Unexpectedly, I had to stay five days in Hangzhou, because the reception desk of the hostel messed up my ticket purchase for Fuzhou. I booked it three days before, and the day before they told me they don’t have a ticket. Thus, I had to skip Fuzhou and just go to Xiamen instead. Actually I didn’t mind that but I didn’t want to stay in Hangzhou an extra day, although it is a very beautiful city. On the last day, I visited temples that are a bit far from West Lake.

Hangzhou is the city that is very well organized for tourists. West Lake is the major tourists’ attraction not only for foreigners but also for Chinese themselves. However, it was a bit sad because the city especially the lake side is overwhelmed with capitalism. There are so many Starbucks on the lake side and other fancy shops including Ferrari and Porsche dealer shop and other famous brand cloth shops. It is sad for me because it seems like that this beautiful lake is becoming a place only for riches like many beautiful beaches in California.

[Jinling]

[Watching Shanghai stocks, they don't look happy... it was before American crisis]

[Hangzhou, the West Lake]

September 4th, I am in Shenzhen train station waiting for my train to Guangzhou, which is my last destination of this trip. My 21 days trip is ending soon. I don’t want to lie; I want to go back to Beijing, but I am also a bit sad about it too. I had so much fun travelling China. I don’t know when I am going to have a chance like this one. So many memories … I don’t know what to say… oh, I know; it is speechless. Still five more days are left. I will enjoy the rest of my trip and write about it!

Xiamen: the City of Freedom

From Hangzhou to Xiamen, I had to ride train for 24 hours; yes twenty four hours. No, exactly it was 24 hours and 22 minutes. I got on the train 9:45am and got off on the next day 10:07am. Actually, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. This time I took the “hard sleeper” which means 6 beds in one section, three on each side. I was on the middle bed; it wasn’t that comfortable but much better than the hard seat.

For during these 24 hours, I slept a lot and read my book. Sometimes, I just look out the window and think about whatever (mostly about the rest of trip). I also wrote some parts of this essay, mostly Hangzhou part. I ate hamburgers from KFC that I bought before I got on the train. Honestly, it was very relaxing and refreshing; but 24 hours is actually longer than I thought.

After 24 hours of riding, I arrived at Xiamen train station. Xiamen is not a major tourist city. Xiamen is a small city; however it is well developed due to oversea Chinese and Taiwanese investments. It was one of the major trade ports during 18th century. Japanese and Western powers also had occupied the city temporarily. It has beautiful beaches and a small island, Gulang Yu, right next to it. Also, Taiwan is very close to this city.

[Marco Polo statue in Hangzhou]

The hostel in Xiamen was so nice. It is the best hostel I ever stayed. The interior and exterior of the building is very fine looking. It has a TV and bathroom in the room! I also could have a whole room by myself. The couple who manages the hostel is so nice, too. I just had a great time there. Too bad I stayed there only one night. There wasn’t much to see in Xiamen. I don’t know any of you guys reading my essay will visit Xiamen, but if you guys ever do, I absolutely recommend this hostel.

That afternoon, I reunited with Noel who left Hangzhou a day before. We went to the island of Gulang Yu. It was a charming island with some tourists’ attractions and beautiful colonial buildings. We spent few hours on the island and came back to the city. We also went to Xiamen University, which is established by oversea Chinese fund. The university was huge and very nice. It had a lake inside and blue ocean was right next to it.

[The lake was really beautiful]

[The temple in Hangzhou which has this mountain of budda statues]

On the next day, I walked around my hostel. I swam at the beach next to my hostel. At the beach, I lost my flip-flop. It floated across the ocean. I bought it four years ago when I just arrived at the States. I bought it at a Gap store. If you know me well enough, you should know this flip-flop, because I wear this almost every day during summer and sometimes in winter. I was really sad losing although I was planning to buy a new one soon. I think that my flip-flop couldn’t stand this communist China so escaped the mainland and crossed the ocean to a free country, Taiwan.

Besides losing the flip-flop, I had fun at the beach. No one was around, so I danced and sang. I did whatever I felt like. I actually felt free! How can you not feel free when there is the endless ocean in front of you? I don’t think I will go back to Xiamen ever again, but I wish I can go back.

[Noel and me in Xiamen. This is only picture that we took together]

[playing football with statues]

[goodbye my flip-flop]

[At Xiamen University which was gorgeous]

[This is the hard seat train (on the way to Guangzhou)]

Hong Kong: the City of Confusion

I took a train from Xiamen to Guangzhou in order to enter Hong Kong. Of course, it was the hard seat ride and for 15 hours. I thought it wouldn’t be bad because I already have done it. I was truly mistaken. It was the worst 15 hours of my life. No kidding. It was awful and painful.

Anyway, catching the train to Guangzhou was very dramatic. I entered the train station and I just lost the ticket in the station. Usually, you show your ticket when you enter the station, so I just had it, but one minute later it wasn’t in my hand. The train was leaving in 15 minutes. The only way to get on that train was to buy another ticket. No, I didn’t want to do that. 10 minutes before the train leave, I heard that the railroad office found a lost ticket: actually that’s a lie, I was so panicked that I even didn’t hear it, someone else told me about it. I got the ticket back and finally could get on the train. Now I think that I was really lucky. As soon as I got on the train, it was pouring and thundering crazy like in a movie.

I got on the train, and found my seat. However this old guy was sitting on my seat. He had a standing ticket. I couldn’t let him stand next to me. He was really old and wearing this shirt that was about to fall apart. So I had to let him sit on my seat. I decided to stand for next 15 hours, but fortunately there were other open seats. I could get back to my seat when the old guy got off 4 hours later. The train was packed and very hot, so I couldn’t sleep at all. It was awful. In the end, I didn’t sleep at all that night and got off from the train around 7am.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t the end of the journey. I had to transfer in Guangzhou to go to Hong Kong. Alas! Fortunately, the train was only 30mins later and It was the first class fast train. Let me tell you, it was the difference between heaven and hell: the soft seat and hard seat. After two hours of comfortable ride, I arrived at Kowloon, Hong Kong. And, it was the whole new world!

[Hong Kong]

I called Hong Kong “the city of Confusion”, because Hong Kong was completely different from the rest of China and that confused me a lot. When I arrived at Kowloon, I first had to exchange my RMB to Hong Kong Dollars. I took a cab to my hostel, and the driver sat on the right side; it was so strange. Hong Kong was truly different from the mainland.

The taxi driver couldn’t speak mandarin well. People in Hong Kong usually speak Cantonese and English, but some people can’t speak English too. It was so confusing for me because I didn’t know which language I should speak. I was used to speak Mandarin in other cities, but here I had to start with English and if they didn’t understand, I tried to speak Mandarin. Hong Kong Dollar also looked weird; it’s like a fake monopoly currency. My cell phone didn’t work in Hong Kong. Everything was so expensive too.

[omg, he is on the right side]

[The symphony of buildings]

[me, being stupid again]

Anyway, with all these confusions, I enjoyed Hong Kong a lot. I love metropolitan! The city was so busy and packed with different people—lots of foreigners in the city. Many of Hong Kong business men were well dressed and classy. I wished I was like them. I wished I was successful like them. But to be honest, I don’t want to be rich. I just want to be successful.

My hostel was on 13th floor of Manor Mansion. I heard that there are drug dealers and prostitutes living in the building. The building was really shady, however I enjoyed staying there. I met many international friends. I met a British, Japanese, Irish, American, and Malaysian. Everyone was from different country with different plans, but we all stayed in the same room and became friends.

On the second day, I watched Dark Knight! Dark Knight unfortunately was not showing in the mainland China. I guess Batman is an anti-communist. I really wanted to watch it, and finally could watch it in Hong Kong. I watched in the building that was in the movie (the tall building that Batman broke into in the movie). In HK, I could do many things that I couldn’t do in the rest of China, and I couldn’t do many things that I could do in the rest of China. Again, it was the whole new world.

I am looking forward to go back to Hong Kong, but not as a backpacker or student, but as a successful politician or something like that.

Guangzhou: the Capital of Cantonese

Before I go to Guangzhou, I stopped by at Shenzhen, the most affluent city in China with the highest crime rate. The city rapidly developed after it became the “Special Economic Zone”. I just wanted to see what the SEZ look like. It was just another well developed city like Shanghai or Guangzhou. It didn’t have much to see so I had to leave the city after 6 hours I got there. I was also suffering from zillion mosquito bites that I got from HK. So, I left Shenzhen and headed to the Capital of Cantonese, Guangzhou!

When I was in the States, I met many Cantonese. Cantonese are simply Chinese but don’t speak Mandarin. They are from the province called Guangdong also known as Canton. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong. It has been the major trade port of China since 18th century.

Shenzhen is only an hour away from Hong Kong and Guangzhou is an hour and half away from Shenzhen by train. It was raining hard when I got there—very welcoming. My hostel was very nice but was hard to find so I had to wonder streets of Guangzhou in the rain.

The next day, I met Jinling again. I don’t know if you guys remember her. She is one that I met at the hostel in Shanghai. She was from Guangzhou, and I promised to meet here in Guangzhou. So, I met her. She took me to famous restaurants in Guangzhou. Also we went to Canton Fair also known as Guangzhou Export Import fair. I had lots of fun with her in Guangzhou. She was really helpful in every way. It was really good to travel with someone who knew where to go.

In the afternoon, Andrew Chang came to my hostel. I met him during the summer intensive program. He joined me for Guangzhou trip. I also met Alan Wong from Daily Californian who now works in the city near Guangzhou. It’s so weird seeing old friends from back home in China. Alan, Andrew and I went to this museum and Qingping Street market which is famous for selling exotic animals for food.

[Dimsum is from Canton]

[Jinling and Andrew, I don't know what they are talking about]

[Alan Wong, what a fotog]

And, that was when I lost my wallet. Yes, I lost my wallet in Guangzhou. It was raining hard and I was running around to get a cab. I don’t know exactly where I dropped my wallet, but I am pretty sure it was around that market. I lost my wallet which was a Christmas gift from a close friend. I lost my Cal id. I lost my BNU id. I lost my prom picture. I lost so many memories.

I was really sad about it, but couldn’t do anything about it. I just lost it, and that was it. I was really lucky to be with Andrew. If Andrew wasn’t there, I would’ve stuck in Guangzhou forever. I know I am careless and clumsy. People who know me will know this. How many times I almost lost my cell phone and wallet? How many times I lost my ATM card? How many times I broke my cell phone and laptop? Lotta times.

I know it’s bad. I know I should change myself and be more careful about my belongings, but I just can’t do that. I don’t even want to talk about how I lost my passport in Shanghai three days after I lost my wallet. That’s just me. I am just thankful that I am still alive. Life still goes on without my wallet, without my prom picture and without my passport. Life still goes on.

Despite the losses, Guangzhou was fun. Everything was very cheap and everything was delicious. I met many people there and went to many places. Guangzhou is where you can get everything you want. You can do shopping, sightseeing, having good foods, photographing, and more. Too bad Guangzhou is so far from Beijing that I can’t visit it often.

I left Guangzhou with Andrew and flew to Hangzhou. I took a train from Hangzhou to Shanghai. I stayed at my friend’s place in Shanghai for two days and took a train back to Beijing. I didn’t do anything in Shanghai for two days, because my trip was officially over when I left Guangzhou.

[Kitties in Qingping market, so cute...]

[My backpack which served me for the entire trip...it was SO heavy]

So this is the end of the story of me travelling around China. I am back in Beijing. It took a while to upload this episode. I am glad that I wrote the most parts of it while I was travelling because I am already forgetting what I did. I honestly don’t know how to end this episode. It was a long trip, lots of things happened over the last 3 weeks. I went to lots of places. Eight cities and five provinces. I saw most of China’s well known cities. I am not claiming that I saw everything in China. China is a huge country and there are much more to explore. However, I am sure that the fraction of China I witnessed during this trip will help me to understand China.

I am not sure I told you guys everything that’s important. I am not sure I did a good job of articulating my awesome trip. Just to make sure, I will tell you guys one more time. My trip was really exciting, awesome, meaningful, refreshing and fun! … but I am not sure I will do it again.

This is really it for my trip. Don’t be sad about it. The story of me living in Beijing is waiting for you guys. My new life in Beijing just has begun.

[Beijing, Beijing!]

Thank you for reading this super long post.

Are We Moving Forward?

2008-09-19T04:07:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[yes, Beijing to Qingdao! 8 hours! Hard Seat!]

Ep.14 Are we moving forward?

Right now I am in Shanghai. This is my last night in Shanghai and I will go to Hangzhou tomorrow. There are still many places to go and many days to travel, but I want to start writing now, because I don’t want to forget things happened during the earlier parts of my trip.

So I started my trip exactly a week ago. August 18th Monday I left Beijing. I went down to Qingdao, my first destination.

Qingdao: the City of Beer and Beach.

I took “the hard seat” train to Qingdao from Beijing. I got on the train around 11pm and got off at 7am. “Hard seat” is the cheapest and lowest train class where 6 people sit together. I didn’t know the Hard Seat is actually hard. It was much more uncomfortable than I imagined. I really couldn’t sleep well. Eight hours of hard seat riding was painful, and at that time I didn’t know I would ride hard seat for 14 hrs on the same day. Alas!

[Qingdao, you easily can find western architecture in the city]

Anyway, 8hrs later I got to Qingdao. The first thing I had to do was to buy a train ticket to Nanjing. My friend from Berkeley, Pedro was coming to Nanjing the next day and I had to join him there. Unfortunately, the only ticket I could buy/afford was the infamous hard seat and this time it would take for 14 hours. The worse is that I had to leave Qingdao at 3pm. It was already 8 o’clock, so I had only roughly 7 hours in Qingdao. I had to say it... “Shit!”

I wasn’t happy about it, but I wanted to enjoy my trip so I couldn’t be sad about it for more than 5 mins. I went to my hostel and checked in. The hostel was much nicer than I expected. It was very cozy and clean. If you guys travel anywhere in China, I recommend hostels. It’s cheap and fun! (I will talk more about hostel later). I took a quick shower and started my tour in Qingdao. At that point, I only had 6 hrs to wonder the city.

Qingdao, also known as Tsingtao, is located at the northeast of China. It was a fishing village until Germans took over and developed it rapidly. Germans built churches and railroads in the city. Also, they built the beer brewery which is now famous for Tsingdao beer. Later, Japanese took a control of the city until China regained it after the World War 2. Despite its historical turmoil and repetitive colonization, the city of Qingdao is very peaceful and beautiful. There are number of beaches that attract many Chinese. I visited one of them and swum! In the city, you also can see much western colonial architecture including impressive church buildings.

[The old man kept diving into ocean, I don't know it was for performance, or for his own hobby]

[the same old man, thanks him for nice pictures]

In Qingdao, I went to the beach and swum, walked around the old church area, climbed Signal Hill (it was used to give military signals) and ate brunch at KFC. I did all these things in 4 hours so that I could sleep for an hour before I leave Qingdao. I was pretty satisfied with my 6 hrs in Qingdao; of course, I wish I could have more time.

Right before I leave to catch my train to Nanjing, I broke my camera! I was cleaning it and I broke it. I did the same thing to my old camera exactly a year ago. I was so mad at myself. But again, I had to enjoy my trip; I didn’t have time to be mad at myself. I just packed up and headed to the train station. I was very afraid of 14 hrs of hard seat riding.

[Tsingtao Beer]

[Me after swimming]

[The Church]

[According to Lonely Planet, this was written during culuture revolution, and no one erased it after. It was very tempting, I could erase it.. but I didn't]

[The fountain I saw on the way to Mushroom tower]

[The Mushroom tower which was used for military signals back then]

Nanjing: the City of Ideology

[I went to clubbing with friends in Nanjing. The club in China]

The second time was much better than the first. Although it was a lot longer, hard seat to Nanjing from Qingdao wasn’t that painful. I met these two Chinese men on the train, let’s name them Wang and Zhang for convenience sake (actually I don’t know their names). Wang was from Suzhou and Zhang was from Shanghai. We talked about lots of things but mainly politics. They started talking to me when they found out that I am a Korean. Wang told me about Korean political situation and history, he was very familiar with them. He told me that he read them on the newspaper. I don’t trust media in China, but I guess it is doing a good job of educating its readers.

I understood only a half of what he was saying. Talking to them was a good chance to realize my improvement and limitation. Wang was very frank about everything. For example, he told me that South Koreans should hate Chinese for helping North Korea because it keeps preventing the unification of Koreas which is true. I asked him about Taiwan and China relationship. He gave me a typical Chinese answer which is that mainland cannot give up Taiwan because then it has to give up other conflict regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet. But, he agreed that Taiwan’s political system (law and order) is better than that of mainland. Including Wang and Zhang, I met many Chinese who know that their government is corrupt. Wang said, the government should correct itself little by little.

The second “hard seat” ride was better than the first, because I met them and it was interesting to talk to them. Also, I was used to hard seat so I actually could sleep this time. I slept at 10pm and when I woke up the train was passing the Yangzi River—the longest river in China. I said a goodbye to Wang and Zhang and got off at Nanjing station around 6am.

[Confucius statue in Confucius Temple in Nanjing]

I met Pedro at the station who was coming from Beijing. We took a cab to my roommate Noel’s friends’ apartment in Nanjing. Noel was also coming to Nanjing that day from Shanghai. Lynne, Noel’s friend, was a very nice person. I really thank her for letting us to stay at her apartment. She was from University of Arizona. We both took a shower first. We both were tired but Pedro was more tired because it was his first time riding a hard seat train (also for 14 hrs). We had to take a nap first before we start the sightseeing.

I don’t want to explain everything that I had done in chronological order, because that’s just boring. I will tell you guys the places we went.

On the first day, Pedro and I went to Confucius Temple. Confucius is one of the most important philosophers in history of China. I read many of his books and really admire him and his philosophy, so I was excited to go his temple. The temple wasn’t as magnificent as I expected. It was more like a temple for souvenir shops and tourists. It was still interesting to visit though. The temple was burned and destroyed several times, but it was repetitively restored by the government and donation from privates, which shows the importance of Confucius in Chinese society.

On the second day, we went to the Purple Mountain, the biggest tourist sites in Nanjing. Many historical sights are scattered over this mountain including Dr. Sun’s Mausoleum, Ming Tomb, and Linggu Temple. It was really a hot day, but we visited all places on that mountain. Dr. Sun is respected by many Chinese regardless of their ideology. He is regarded as the father of modern China. He is often forgotten by people because of two charismatic leaders who followed after him—Mao of the communist and Chang Kai-shek of Taiwan. Since the Dr. Sun’s Mausoleum was built by Kuomintang government, you can see many Kuomintangs’ symbols around the building which is currently on the flag of Taiwan. It is hard to imagine that the symbol of Taiwan is well preserved and displayed in mainland.

[The way to Dr. Sun's Mausoleum, omg]

[The symbol of Taiwan in Dr. Sun's mausoleum]

[the way back]

[Pedro, my good friend from Berkeley]

On the last day, I went to Yangzi River Bridge. As I told you guys already, Yangzi River, also called Chang Jiang in Chinese is the longest river in China and the third longest river in the world. Let me quote Lonely Planet for more details, “Opened on 23 December 1968, it’s one of the longest bridges in China—a double-decker with a 4500m-long road on top and a train line below”. Before this bridge, there was no direct train road between Shanghai and Beijing. This bridge is significant mainly because it signifies the greatness of the CCP.

The construction of the bridge was originally started by Soviet engineers, but Russia pulled out in 60s due to conflict between China and USSR. The CCP continued its construction and finally finished in 1968. You can see the communist slogan carved on one pillar of the bridge saying “The people—only the people—are the driving force behind world history”. There is also a statue of Mao and some other socialist statues.

[This is a local market that I found when I was lost on the way to Yangzi River Bridge]

I called Nanjing “the City of Ideology” because the city is full of ideological marks: Confucius Temple, the remnants of Kuomintang, and the greatest accomplishment of the CCP. I didn’t write here but I also went to the Nanjing Massacre Museum. It was horrible, but the government did really a good job of building the museum. The museum was very modern and everything was well displayed. Anyway, it was interesting to see these places representing different ideologies. Hanging out with friends was also fun in Nanjing, furthermore Lynne’s apartment was very comfortable.

[“The people—only the people—are the driving force behind world history”]

[Chairman Mao statue under the Bridge]

Shanghai: the City of Great Leap Forward

After staying three nights at Nanjing, I and Noel went to Shanghai, which was only 2 hours away from Nanjing by the “fast train”. Shanghai! The city is well-known to foreigners; it is the symbol of rapidly developing China. It can be called New York of China. As I expected, the city was full of sky-crappers. The city was very bright at nights.

There were also many colonial architectural buildings. These buildings were so beautiful and elegant. I particularly loved the small back streets of Shanghai. They were full of people, stores and life! I liked them more than Nanjing Donglu which is glamorous shopping district of Shanghai. The Bund was also very nice; there you can see the brilliant lights of sky crappers across the river.

[Interesting statues on the Yangzi River Bridge]

However, behind this alluring city, there was a dark side. I saw many beggars on the streets, begging money from foreigners. I’m sure there were many of them in Beijing before the government cleaned them for the Olympic. Anyway, I didn’t see any beggars in Beijing so that it was a little shocking to me seeing beggars at Shanghai.

I know what I saw at Shanghai is only a tip of ice berg. China is still relatively a poor country. Only big cities are well developed, many other regions are still starving. Of course, I am not saying everyone in United States is well off. Anyway, I was very disappointed at this point. China is developing, no doubt for that. We, mankind, rapidly developed over the last two hundred years. But, are we really moving forward?

The question stroked me as I was walking the streets of Shanghai. Are we moving forward? I couldn’t answer it. Although our living standard has been improved so much since 19th century, there are so many problems left to solve and new problems are daily produced. It seems like we are not moving forward at all. But it has to be, it has to be moving forward.

I loved Shanghai regardless of this unsolvable problem. There is one more thing to tell you guys about Shanghai. At the hostel that Noel and I were staying, two Chinese girls moved into our room. Yes, finally a drama in my trip! One was Anna, who was kicked out of her school dorm and had to stay at the hostel until she find a new place. She was from Hangzhou—my next destination—and graduated from one of the famous university in China. She was two years older than me.

The other one was Jinling, who was travelling by herself. She was from Guangzhou—also one of my destination—and the same age as me. Jinling was a very outgoing girl. It was the first time she came to Shanghai, and she really wanted us to go with her for sightseeing. We decided to go together, because it seemed fun. Also, she was planning to go to Hangzhou one the same day as we planned to, so we decided to go to Hangzhou together.

After we left Shanghai, Noel said we were very lucky getting these two roommates. I agree so. Jinling and I became a good friend. I am planning to visit her when I go to Guangzhou. About Anna, it is a little strange and ridiculous to say, but I think she liked me. I swear I felt it. Of course, I cannot be sure about it, but I think she did and I hope she did. I am also visiting Anna again, because I left something at the hostel and she is holding it for me. I look forward to see both of them again.

I liked Shanghai not only because of the city itself, but also because of them. This is it for now, I left Hangzhou this morning and heading Xiamen.

Ps. Pictures that I took in Shanghai are not included in this episode, cuz it will be too long. I will upload them in my next episode.

Ps2. More pictures can be found http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/ as usual

Ps3. I will upload the second part of my trip very soon... hopely.

I miss you guys all..

Wondering the Wonderland

2008-08-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

[My train ticket to Qingdao, which is my first destination of 21days trip]

Ep.13 Wondering the Wonderland

Today is August 16, 2008. The program just ended yesterday. Many people left and I am leaving in two days. Throughout the program, I met lots of people. Most of them are from California, different UC campuses. I started this essay talking about leaving people behind and how I will miss them. Now, I met new people and made new friends. Some of them left last night. To be honest, I am a bit sad, but not that sad. Why? I guess now I am used to saying goodbyes.

Lots of things happened over the last seven weeks. I made some close friends; sometimes I was happy because of them, and sometimes I was mad and sad because of them. I wish I was nicer to them. Anyway it is too late. They left, and I will remember them, and we will meet again.
I am excited for the upcoming fall semester. Actually, I’m excited to make new friends. This time, I want to make many local Chinese friends. I have to go out of my way to do that and it won’t be easy.

The program is over, now what? The fall semester starts on September 12th. I have more than three weeks of vacation. I am going on a trip for three weeks. I have my grand plan for this trip. I will visit 10 cities in 21 days. I’m visiting east coast cities including Qingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Fuzhou, and southern cities including Hongkong, Macau, and Guangzhou. I am very very excited for this upcoming trip. Everyone’s saying visiting 10 cities in 21 days will be too tiring and rushed, but I think I can do it.

I don’t like travelling that much—I don’t like “moving” in general. But, travelling is always exciting for some reason. I remember almost every trip that I went in my life. Each trip has different meaning. If you go by yourself, it gives time to reflect yourself. If you go with someone, it usually gives unforgettable memory of that person. Getting away from daily life is always tempting and gives you a fresh restart.

I went on a trip to Yosemite and San Francisco four years ago (yes, ironically). It was right after I just came to U.S. So I couldn’t speak any English—I even couldn’t ask questions like “how much is it?” I even didn’t know how much each coin worth. Thinking about that trip just makes me laugh. I went to that trip because I had time until the school starts. I went with Korean tourists and a tour guide. I saw the Golden Gate Bridge and stuffs. Yosemite was pretty impressive. It was also the first time I tried In’n’Out—it was delicious. It was only 3 days trip, but it was very meaningful and memorable.

Today is August 21st, which means I am already on my trip. I am in Nanjing now, I will write more about my trip in the next episode. This world is so vast, in which almost 99% of the world is unfamiliar to us. Thus, everywhere is the wonderland and we are wonderers of this wonderland. If you think about it, our life is also one long trip that our future is the wonderland. What is really known and what is unknown? In the end, isn’t everything unknown? Even myself or my mind is unknown; it is another wonderland to be wondered.

I want to stop writing here. I don’t know when the next episode will be uploaded. It might be after I finish this 21days trip or possibly before that. I’m travelling right now, so it is hard to organize pictures and stuff, but I will try my best to record my journey and tell you guys the story of you.

This time I organized pictures from this summer, named "People of China"

[The guy who was rowing our boat]

[The waitress mopping in front of the restaurant in lake district]

[Today is pretty slow]

[old bicycle driver]

[taking a break on the high way]

[The buddhist monk who drinks Pepsi and listen to mp3 player]

[Chinese boxer who just won the match getting interviewed]

[The guy at the bicycle shop is fixing my bike]

[Waiting for us to come close to the harbor]

[The guy who was gratifying in art district 798]

[The local peasants who helped us on the Great Wall]

[He is tying the camels to the post]

"People of China" will be continued.

Paradox and Olympics

2008-08-12T05:28:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.12 Paradox and Olympics

As you guys know, 2008 Beijing Olympics kicked off last Friday (08/08/08). Yes, it is getting crazy here. Chinese people waited for 7 years since IOC announced the host country of 2008 Olympics. Since then so many new stadiums were built, so many new roads were built, so many volunteers volunteered and so on. The Chinese government tried hard to clean the air in Beijing, and I think it is successful.

I watched the opening ceremony on TV like you guys. Some people went out to watch it on the streets. I didn’t want to do that, partly because I was lazy and partly because I feared the terrorist attack or something like that. Two bombing attacks happened in Xinjiang (the far western part of China). One American tourist got stabbed in Beijing. Fortunately, nothing happened on the night of the opening ceremony. Beijing is supposed to be the safest place in China. I believe that too, but still anything can happen nowadays.

[The Olympic Boxing Stadium (Worker's Gymnasium)]

The opening ceremony was grand and beautiful. It was fantastic and fabulous. No more adjectives are necessary to describe it. One World One Dream. Everyone was so happy and excited, it seemed like the world was really becoming one. However, at the same time, Russia was invading Georgia (the country located next to Turkey). Tibetan protesters were silently removed by the government. Watching the glorious torch lighting ceremony, we shouldn’t forget numerous protests and conflicts around the world that were caused by the torch relay.

I am not just criticizing China or any other country. I am criticizing us. I don’t like nationalism, because it can bring bloody outcomes. However, when I watch the Olympic games, I am busy cheering for Korea. I am also very nationalistic; I have to admit that. Olympics is the occasion that the world come together and become one, also it is the event that every country compete with each other. How paradoxical is it?

I went to the Olympic boxing game on Sunday. It was an awesome experience. Although I am not a boxing fan, just watching the Olympic game was fun. It was fun to watch people from all over the world: Americans, Irish, Russians, Swedish, and more.

[I didn't go to swimming game, but my friend did and he took my camera]

[He is a Korean swimmer, who won the first gold medal in swimming as a Korean]

[That Korean swimmer also won the silver medal in 200m and of course Michael Phelps got the gold medal]

[Michael Phelps]

[President Bush singing national anthem]

[Watercube]

[USA, China, and Korea]

[Olympic Archery Field]

At the moment, I am very excited. I just came back from the Olympic archery game. I watched the men’s team semifinal and final match. Korea won the gold medal! I was so happy to witness that. It was a close game against Italy. It wasn’t also easy to win against China in the semifinal. But, Korea did it. I know, I am being nationalistic, but hey, I am so happy. I sung Korean national anthem during the medal ceremony with many other Koreans. Over the last four years, I heard America’s national anthem so many times, but never sung it. I never had a chance to sing Korean national anthem in the States. No wonder I was so moved when I sung Korean national anthem.

[face painting]

[Korean crowd in the archery field]

Anyway, all day I am watching Olympic Games on TV. The whole city of Beijing is full of Olympic spirits. Everyone’s busy talking about who got the gold medal and who didn’t. I just want to remember that other things are still going on at this moment. I guess the world is still too large to become one. I hope one day we can.

[yes, I love my counry. I am nationalistic]

Next week is the last week of the summer program. I don’t think my Chinese got improved much during this summer language intensive program. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about China. I think now I am ready to study here for a year. I am actually looking forward for it.

I think that this post is too unorganized and paradoxical, but I guess we are paradoxical animals.

more pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamadreamer/ as usual.

Sickness

2008-08-03T03:40:00.000-07:00

The Story of You, Part 2.

Jay K.

Ep.11 Sickness

It’s been more than two weeks since I uploaded the last episode, “One World One Dream”. As you can tell from the title of this episode, I’ve been sick. I am somewhat still sick, but much better than before. I believe that it is almost inevitable that you get sick when your surrounding is completely changed: everything’s changed such as the food you eat, the air you breathe, the water you drink and so on. I got sick when I first went to the U.S. I don’t remember the exact time period, but I remember it was fatal. I was really sick.

This time too. I was really sick over the couple weeks. It was first flu that almost killed me, and I got an ear infection after. I even couldn’t go to sleep because of the pain from my left ear. The next morning, I ran to the hospital. Because I was too sick to bother with Chinese, I had to go to American hospital which was very expensive. I never had ear infection in my life, and having here in China.

[OC is mad]

The sickness does not only make your body weak, but also your mind. Especially, when you are sick abroad, that is surely the worst. It makes you miss home more than ever. It is the worst because you know that there is no one who will take care of you. You are on your own. No worries. I am certainly getting better. When I get over with this sickness I will never get sick again. Hopefully, yes.

The original title of this episode was “Orange Chicken”. I had to change it because I stopped writing that episode because I got sick. Now, I need to start it over again.

To make the long story short, I adopted a cat here, and had to give it away in the end. I named her Orange Chicken. She was so small, so white and so cute. She couldn’t hear anything because she was a deaf cat. I never had a pet in my life, so she was my first. Taking care of a kitty is harder than I thought. She was only two months old. She easily got scared of me. When she got scared, she ran into underneath of my roommate’s bed. She slept all day and woke me up at night. She liked to play on my keyboard and watch my laptop screen. I had to clean after her; otherwise she got mad and cried. So many memories of her! I don’t want to recall all because that just makes me sad.

[the market near my dorm, I often go here for icecream]

[The symbol of Beijing Normal University, the Bell]

I bought an electronic bike around the same time I got OC. As I wasn’t used to live with a kitty, I also wasn’t used to ride a new bike. I practiced a bit every night, and got better and better at it. By the time I got better at riding my new bike, OC wasn’t with me anymore. I wasn’t allowed to keep a pet in the apartment. I had to give her away.

I didn’t know anyone in Beijing who can take care of her. I was really stressed and upset. I wasn’t upset because I had to give her away. I was upset because I couldn’t manage my own business meaning that things were out of my control. I had to go back the pet store where I got her, and asked them to take her back. The pet store said that they didn’t have any room for her. I felt awful that moment. What should I do with her then?

But, luckily, one tall Chinese guy and his mom walked into the store at that precise moment. They liked her and were willing to take her. I don’t know how to express that feeling, but only can say thank God!

[the main library and office building of BNU, it is huge. It shows the typical grand style of Chinese modern architecture]

Now, she is gone. I still miss her. I only spent a week with her. It was shorter than I expected, But, hey you know “Hui Zhe Ding Li” (会者定离). Those who meet must part. That is even true for a cat. I just hope that she lives a better life with her new family. I really hope that.

After she was gone, I got sick. I don’t know whether she gave me the sickness. I think so. I don’t believe that she gave me the actual virus that made me sick. It is the sadness and emptiness made me sick. There were also other things made me sick. I am just sad that the feeling of the fatal sickness and the memory of OC will be linked together in my head. The memory of OC will fade away as the pain of my left ear slowly goes away.

This is it for this episode. I know it is a bit short considering that I didn’t write for a while. I don’t want to write every detail of my daily life here. That’s just boring. In the next episode, I will write about my trip to Inner-Mongolia.

[The newly built gym for US olympic athlets inside of BNU]

[My new bike! yay!]

[Grafiti art in 798]

[798 is the modern art district in China]