Macalester is wonderful. Two days ago, I woke up and was prepared to go through another day of wandering the streets. Just as I was leaving, my Chinese tutor, who is a 北京人，knocked on my door. I was so excited to see him after the previous day’s mishap. Tida, the Thai Macalester student in my program, had him pick her up from the airport and he took it upon himself to help us get oriented in the city. We went and got groceries and then took the subway throughout the city. He was extremely helpful and explained a number of things that I wouldn’t usually understand.

We went to a number of stores which were directed at foreign people. The particular place we went was seven floors of knock-off clothing, jewelry and DVD’s. The girls we were with, Tida, a Macalester grad named Jennifer, and a girl from my program, enjoyed the shopping while Yan and I walked through the tourist trap quickly and tried to avoid all of the pestering salespeople. After we were done, we still had to kill some time before the scheduled rendezvous with the girls. I was going to sit down on a step outside, but Yan scoffed and said that it was dirty. His disgust at the proposition of sitting on the dirty street was somewhat prudish, however this prudishness is not unfounded. Everything in Beijing is dirty. If a bike is left out for more than a day it is covered in dust. Sadly, this leaves the city with a drab feel. This is supposed to improve after a rain, and I have heard some students say that city stimulates clouds to rain before major holidays. Supposedly there is a way to do this.

Cell phones here are very cheap. One of the students bought one for forty dollars. Minutes are extremely cheap. The variety and low price of the phones lead me to believe that the American market for phones and services is unduly expensive. However, this could also be the result of the Chinese development of cell phone infrastructure.

We walked with Yan through his old neighborhood, which he said has changed markedly since the last time he had visited. On one corner, there was a string of three barbershops. Yan told me that these shops were likely a prostitution front. Through the glass windows of each shop, I could see three or four pretty girls sitting on a bench supposedly waiting for a haircut.

When we returned from our visit, a number of students had arrived. We went out to eat in a big group. There are many types of students at my program and they are all academically intense, as you would have to be in order to involve yourself in something this ridiculous. However, everyone's motivations for learning Chinese seem varied, as some are well aware of the history and politics of China and are able to reference all of the articles they’ve read about contemporary culture. Some seem to lack that knowledge, but are well aware of the economic future of China and have internships lined up for the summer.

Yesterday, I went with another student to the military history museum, which was really interesting. After seeing the exhibit at Macalester concerning the massive doctoring of photos by the Chinese government, I could recognize which picture had been altered. Naturally, many of the photos had been altered and the touchy historical events had a twist to them.

After that, we went north to a beautiful park where people were ice fishing and old couples were going for walks. There are a number of urban parks in Beijing, all of which are used by tons of people. Mostly, it is old people just hanging out and doing things. We walked some people doing water calligraphy, which is writing Chinese characters on the stone terraces using huge brush-sponges soaked in water. We were at first just watching one of the old guys doing it, but westerners rarely go unnoticed and one of the water calligraphers eventually talked to us and asked us to write our names. Naturally, a crowd of about 20 developed in order to see the 老外 (foreigners) butcher their language. However, everyone applauded our childish efforts. After we had written our names, the old man did the same thing except much prettier. He then called on his friend, who wrote our names in two beautiful cursive scripts. Everyone asked us what we studied at school. When I couldn’t properly pronounce 哲学 (philosophy), a man asked me in perfect English what my major was and then informed everyone, which led to a debate that seemed like it is not unlike the usual debate resultant from mentioning philosophy in public discourse. However, I could pick out parts of their discussion, which was centered around one man’s belief that Chinese philosophy was boring.

In China, they have to read Marxist-Leninist philosophy as well as the thought of Mao and Deng Xiaoping. This is taught in schools and it must be impossible to teach it to high-school students who don’t care about it.