"Air You Can See but Not Breathe . . . " (Dec. 2016)

Yep--Beijing smog makes international news . . .

Last week, we had a few friends over for dinner, and one friend brought his laptop to share with us a little parody of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" that he had received.  The first line went like this:  "On my first Beijing Christmas, the country gave to me, air you can see but not breathe."  The song went on--quite funny (but also sad, because it was all so true . . .)  You may have seen the news stories this week--we were on RED ALERT (and it had nothing to do with communism).  I snapped this first picture from our kitchen window--middle of the day, but you can barely see the sun.  The other pictures were taken around campus--I had to teach, so, yeah, I was out in it . . . (cough, cough!)  I found it particularly interesting that the tennis classes on campus continued in spite of the smog.  Brigg had one student tell him, "Oh, I grew up here, my body is used to it."  Not sure that's how it works . . . .

So . . . . . . . sad week for me.  I had ONE meal at ONE restaurant that I really looked forward to ordering--my "spicy chicken roll" at the Western Restaurant on campus.  Well, they changed the menu (and needed a proofreader, as you can see from the picture).  The spicy chicken roll is no longer on the menu, but at least I could get the "brain steak" or the "magnificent fruit milk residue" if I wanted to (I didn't . . .)  I guess we won't be going there anymore--the end of a (very short) era . . . .

The Hadds had their daughter (and her husband and 9-year-old son) visiting for a few days, so they invited us to join them at the Chaoyang Theater for their acrobat show.  Fun show--but a bit scary for me---no OSHA regulations here . . .  (You'll need to click on the pictures below.)

December 9 is a special day of remembrance here at PKU.  During the Japanese Occupation of China (1937-1945), the Chinese interrupted their Civil War (between Mao's Communist forces and Chiang Kai-shek's KMT forces) to join together for the purpose of fighting the Japanese.  On December 9, 1937, the PKU students took to the streets of Beijing, demonstrating in support of the unification of the forces against the Japanese.  In commemoration, every year the university hosts a choir competition, with each department sponsoring a student choir.  The patriotic musical/dance presentations ranged in theme from "We love peace"-type songs to some very militant, anti-Western themed numbers.  One video presentation included a disturbing image of Uncle Sam that made me quite uncomfortable.  Many of our students were participating, and some saw us there and seemed pleased that we would attend.  I had quite an adventure procuring tickets, which were not readily available to "outsiders."  A student emailed me early one morning and said that she heard the Student Union would be handing out a few tickets between 9:30 and noon that morning at the Student Center.  So I ran over to the school (Brigg was in class) and tried to navigate my way through a very confusing maze of rooms and room numbers in the Student Center.  I don't speak much Chinese, but I know my numbers very well, and I can say "Zai nar" (Where?) and "Shenme" (What?).  Interesting thing, though--the numbers on the rooms on the lower level (basically a basement) began with the number "1."  I was looking for Room 128, so I followed the rooms in the basement from Room 122 to 123 to 124 to 125 to 132 to 133 . . .?  Shenme?????  I found someone who spoke English, and she told me that Room 128 was on the next floor up.  I wandered around unsuccessfully for a few minutes looking for the room when I found another English speaker who told me that Room 128 only had an outside door, so I had to leave the building to enter the room, which I did.  I then learned that the room I really needed was Room 104, which, believe it or not, was on the NEXT level up!  Go figure!  I finally found the room and had to show my faculty card in order to get a ticket.  I then had to do some pretty intense gesturing to explain that my husband wanted a ticket as well but couldn't be there because he was teaching at the moment.  It's a paradox here that most of the students are very fluent in English, but absolutely NONE of the university employees speaks English.  The end of this story is that later than afternoon, one of my students brought me a couple of tickets that she had been able to get, so we had four tickets.  When we got to the concert the next day, we presented our tickets at the door (which we really did need--NO entrance without a ticket!), and the monitor at the door took our tickets, which had our seat numbers on them.  So I gestured (we're getting pretty good at this--charades, anyone?) in an attempt to explain that we needed to know our seat numbers, and he told us to sit anywhere (I think).  Turns out that inside the concert hall there were plenty of seats available.  Sigh . . . . . this is China . . . . . . don't try to figure it out . . . .  (Click on the pictures below.)

Just a couple of last pictures--we really do have friends!  The first picture is of the Hadds and Sandbergs and Dani, who was here at PKU during the fall semester--lived here in the Global Village near us.  Dani is from Bountiful, served a mission in Taiwan, and is now working on a master's degree in Chinese Studies at Oxford University in England.  We snapped this picture at a combined "goodbye/birthday" party we threw for her at our apartment the night before she returned home for the holidays.  "Small world" story-----Dani was looking at some of our family pictures one day when she was here, and she saw Nate's family picture and said, "Is that Diana Gardner?"  Turns out that she was in Diana's student ward at BYU several years ago.  I took the next picture at Dave Adams' birthday party.  We do love our friends!  They are our "family" here in China!