Beijing 一天 （Day 1)

Our first full day in Beijing was full of surprises. After being awakened by the pounding jackhammers working on some sort of Olympic facility nearby, I witnessed what was possibly the coolest event that I have seen thus far. All of a sudden music blasted from a loudspeaker directly outside our windows and hundreds of kids come pouring out of a school. They all lined up in formation and saluted and clapped upon their teacher's instruction. Eventually four kids came out holding a Chinese flag while the Chinese National Anthem began to play. By the end, everyone was in perfect formation saluting the flag. They then slowly filed out back into the school. It was a totally unexpected event that began my first real day in China. A few of us then embarked on our mission to find some food before the language placement exam. Eventually we went into We Mei (the Chinese equivalent of Wal-Mart) since everything seemed to be closed. We even tried to get into a 24 hour restaurant but it seemed to be closed. I ended up finding some tasty sesame rolls.

After the impossible language exam and finally seeing everyone on the program, I got to sit down with 王老师 (Wang Laoshi) who taught at AU last year. Then we went to lunch and talked with Beida students for a while. I discovered that the event that I witnessed at the school is commonplace throughout Beijing and thought of as showing honor to China. Later in the day I witnessed my first bike crash when two bikes collided head on. Good thing they weren't going fast and no one got hurt. We also saw 西门 (West Gate), on which Mao Zedong drew by hand the characters above the gate, one of the most famous symbols of Beida. Later on we met some Beida students just to make some contacts and build more guanxi (relationships that will someday benefit me). Tomorrow is the beginning of the language pledge in which I signed away my right to speak English for the next 8 weeks. In the words of Dr. Sun, the program director, "We saw, we studied, we conquered." This is what we should all think of at the end of the program. I guess we'll wait and see what happens. **SOME PICTURES ARE UP SO CHECK OUT THE LINK SECTION.