The Weather- What Else Would I Talk About?

As the topic of the weather is one of the most common in converstaions, I thought it might be fitting to start my blogging on this sight with some thoughts about the weather. One of the things that I was looking forward to when I moved to Central Asia was the promise that there were four distinct seasons. Coming from Shreveport, we dont often experience winter snow flurries and summer is best characterized as muggy and hot; so when I was told that my city would be a place where every three months the scenery was changed to accomodate the changing weather, I was very excited. But then I had to move, and I exchanged the four seasons for two. I'm living on the edge of Siberia, and now I live only either in a mild summer or a Siberian winter. Fall and Spring come, but only for two weeks; so basically if you blink you'll miss them. My first winter here was exciting, there was snow, as much as you could ever want. I got a white Christmas, as many snowball fights as I wanted, and access to skiing on a regular basis. Of course, I also got my share of frostbite, colds and flus, and the regular slip on the ice that at best left me bruised for several days and at worst left me laying on the ice hoping for some kind Russian or Kazakh man to help me into a taxi or a bus. Anyway, I for the most part enjoyed the winter last year. Nevermind the only 6-7 hours of daylight or the cold that bit you, even if you were tucked in your bed; I really did enjoy it.



But winter came back last week- with a biting vengence. The novelty has definitely worn off; its just a pain to spend 15 minutes getting bundled up to go out each time you need to leave! On more than one occasion I have found my mind wandering back to the States and to the Louisiana Fall. Taligating with some gumbo for an LSU football game, waking up early to watch College Game Day on ESPN, driving down roads that are covered in leaves that have just turned colors and fallen, throwing that jacket on mostly because it looks really great with the outfit that you're wearing- not really because you need it- thats the kind of weather that I'm longing for. So enjoy the Fall, or the last remnants of summer, for those of us who cant be there to take it all in.



I hope that through this blog you can get a taste of life overseas and maybe even a desire to pack those bags and have yourself a little adventure. I leave you with this picture- be glad you arent this poor guy who has to find his car under the snow and somehow get it working before work!
Paca (Russian for later),
Emily

Tsinghua University

My name is Warner Brown, and over the coming year I am going to be writing about my life studying Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. I'll be introducing a few aspects of my life in Beijing over the next few entries, but some background details may be appropriate here: I was born and raised in Shreveport, and went to Eden Gardens and Caddo Middle Magnet before graduating from Caddo Magnet High in 2002. I became interested in China at Johns Hopkins University, from which I graduated in May 2006. I spent much of the next year doing independent research in Shanghai, and after a brief spell back home, I've returned to China (this time to Beijing) to continue studying the language. Okay, with introductions out of the way, I think the best way to get started is to jump right in, so please see below for my first impressions of Tsinghua University, the 'best university in China'.

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The language program that I'm participating in this year is administered by UC Berkeley, but classes are held at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Tsinghua University is one of the best known universities in China. Mention it's name to any Chinese student and they will breathlessly tell you "It's the best university in China!" They will usually say exactly the same thing, however, about Tsinghua's neighbor Peking University, so I'm honestly not sure which is number one. It doesn't really matter, though, since the two schools divide responsibilities between different fields of knowledge, with Peking University handling liberal arts and Tsinghua serving as China's MIT. When I mention that my university major was history, Chinese friends usually admonish me for not choosing Peking University. This year, though, I've come to China for the best Mandarin education that money can buy, and that's found right here in Tsinghua.

Strolling through campus, one will soon realize that Tsinghua is big. Really big. In fact it's the biggest university campus in all of China. It measures at least a couple of miles from end to end, and it covers all of 395 hectares (a number which would probably sound a lot more impressive if I had something to compare it with). It's also probably worth mentioning that the campus is not particularly car-friendly, and most of the students and faculty walk or bike to work, making traversing the sprawl that much more arduous. It makes for good exercise, though.

Entering through Tsinghua's main gate, you will first see directly ahead an immense structure that is marked on the map as the "Central Main Building" (my translation). It is the largest building on campus, and I've been told that it dates back from the 1950s, when China's best friend on the world stage was still the USSR. To say that this building was constructed in the Soviet style is to do it a disservice; it looks like it was built brick by brick by the hands of Stalin himself. Thankfully, the overbearing, authoritarian atmosphere that it radiates is a misleading introduction to the campus that lies beyond.

The Central Main Building. I cannot remember a day when the sky was actually this clear.

Parts of the campus feel a lot like universities in the US. Compared with the rest of Beijing, the campus is refreshingly green and most of the streets and paths are lined with trees. There are modern-looking physics and mathematics buildings that look just like their counterparts in the US. The northeast quadrant of campus is full of rows upon rows of anonymous student housing blocks, where Chinese students are crowded in groups of four or more to each room. With one important exception, the campus doesn't really have quads as in US universities, although on the western side there is an immense garden park full of winding paths and benches that look out over a large lake. In other parts of campus the utilitarian school buildings will sometimes give way to small patches of green space, landscaped in the traditional Chinese garden style. All in all, Tsinghua is a very pleasant place to take a stroll in.

There is one section of campus that feels particularly incongruous, and it centers around a Rotunda-like structure that would not look out of place at the University of Virginia. The Rotunda opens out to a quad surrounded by old brick academic buildings. On a clear day, walking through this part of campus feels just like walking through JHU or any number of other American universities (albeit ones with large Asian-American populations).

Those are my initial impressions of Tsinghua's campus. Before classes started I alloted a weekend for exploring around, but I still haven't seen nearly everything. I'll append more interesting sights and experiences as they come up.

Crawfishing in Ecuador

Moving from Louisiana to Ecuador, I resigned myself to giving up good seafood - crawfish especially. Last week, however, I was happy to find that during the months with an r in them,* coastal Ecuadorians eat the dirty little things with gusto.

From what I could gather during a conversation with one of my costeño friends named Byron, Ecuadorians fry crawfish tails inside of mashed plantains, making a sort of crawfish cake. They spice the masa (the Spanish word for mashed stuff) with oregano, parsley, garlic, sour orange juice, and something that may or may not be spelled paetaña. The cakes are topped with a kind of tomato paste, lime, and more paetaña.

I explained to Bryon in turn how we do things in Louisiana. He liked the idea of three-hour meals over folding tables covered with newspaper, beer cans and potatoes, but was less impressed with the thought of "sucking the heads."

I also explained to Byron the meaning of the "crawfishing" for which we had to invent a new Spanish word: cangrejeando. The idea seemed to translate somewhat more easily than did the thought of boiling the bottom-dwellers alive without cleaning them first. Whatever - fried, boiled, steamed, grilled - I'm looking forward to Ecuador's cangrejo season however they decide to serve them.

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*September through April.