Temple of Heaven: singing

Here's a short video of some singers at the Temple of Heaven Park

Tian Tan: The Temple of Heaven

One of our first weekend excursions was to the Temple of Heaven (Tain Tan). The Temple is amazingly beautiful but also a lot of the fun was going through the side entrance and seeing people enjoying their weekend by dancing, singing, and playing musiic.

Top right: A lady playing with a ribbon in the park.

Top leftt: Man writing calligraphy with water and a giant brush on the sidewalk near East Entrance to Temple of Heaven Park.

Bottom: The Temple of Heaven (and lots of tourists)

The Bird's Nest and Water Cube

One of my classmates told me Beijing is a architect's dream. They can design and build world class projects in relatively short periods of time as compared to other countries. The Olympic stadium and Water Cube are two examples. The day we went there the air quality was poor and it was very hot but it was very interesting actually be there.

Our Dorm

Here's a picture of our dorm. There's 10 stories. We were on the fourth floor and walked up the stairs 3-4 times a day. It was good exercise- and we needed to exercise to prepare for going to the Great Wall. Occassionally we were lazy and took the elevator.

BLCU Classes

We took an intensive class in Chinese language. Hannah was a beginner in Level A3. I started in a "C" level class but dropped to "B4" level the first day because it was too difficult for me. Two days later I dropped from B4 and ended up in B3 level which was just right. Class levels range from A-F and there are intermediate and advanced classes within those levels. We spent 30 hours a week in class and probably another 4-5 hours a day studying and preparing for the next day. We both learned more than 300 new words in Chinese (Average 25 new words a day. Many days we had to learn much more).

This was my second time at BLCU. Almost ten years to the day I was in the beginning level class there. It was fun to go back and see how the University has grown.

Top: Hannah at the entrance to our building, The College of Intensive Chinese Studies. (Making a "V" sign is very popular there when taking pictures. We have fun adopting that pose.)

Top left: My class. Zhao Laoshi (teacher) (blue shirt) is just right of me and Jiang Laoshi (teacher) (white & blue dress), our grammar instructor, is next to her. Both were excellent teachers. We also had two other teachers for listening and conversation classes. Students came from many countries including Sweden, England, Iran, Russia, Japan, Spain, South Korea, and Malaysia to mention a few.

Bottom: Speaking teacher Zhao Laoshi and student. She was very nice and very patient with us as we stumbled over the words and pronunciation in text we had to read outloud. The blackboard in the background is typical of our class work. Zhao Laoshi never spoke English and it was very rare for the other teachers to speak in English also.

China Studies

Yesterday, Hannah and I left Beijing at 12 noon, flew 11 hours, then arrived in San Francisco at 8:30 am the same day. We saw the sun rise and set twice this day. I had to wait at the San Francisco airport until 5:00pm until my plane left on my final leg to Redding.
It is now Sunday, 2:00am and I'm wide awake. There's a 15 hour time difference from Beijing and my body says I should be up - so I am.
What follows are some pictures and video clips from our Language Study trip at Beijing Language and Culture University.

China 2009

On Wednesday, my daughter Hannah and I will fly to China. We have enrolled in Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) for a one month intensive in Chinese language taking place in the month of August. Classes are five days a week, six hours a day. We are looking forward to living in Beijing as residents instead of as tourists.