Research, Activity Day

Sunday I spent most of the day in the library again, getting some good reading done. It's funny about non-circulating books: even though you think you're losing a lot of time by taking notes by hand and such, you make up for it with added diligence. If you can check the thing out, you're likely to bring it home, toss it on a shelf, and never look at it again. If you have to make a special trip to the library for it, you're sure as hell going to read it while you're there! The picture is part of a decoration in the library atrium. I'm not sure whether to call it a mural or a sculpture or an engraving. Anyway, it's striking if not exactly beautiful!

I took a break for lunch because the reading room did. I should add that it's funny how Sunday is a much more regular day here than in the States. I think even the post-office is still open, and the reading room is open from 9-12 and 1:30-5. I think in the States there would probably be no morning hours. Anyway, I had lunch at the "Art Garden" 艺园 cafeteria, which I thought might be fancy but was actually really ghetto. Food came in mushy cardboard containers that were clearly recycled and recyclable. If you didn't eat fast enough, the liquid from your food soaked right through. Also, at the clearing station, I saw a decrepit old man who was sorting the food actually open one of the containers than had meat leftover in it and eat some. That's good I guess, but it was also kind of gross. (No, I'm sorry, I didn't get a picture!)

In the afternoon, I went most reluctantly to a Communication Association activity day. I went late on purpose, and planned to duck out early, but it actually turned out to be somewhat entertaining. We played a sort of complicated game of tag, as well as having performances (singing and dancing) and another game a bit like a bi-directional game of telephone. This game was quite interesting and to me showed the pitfalls of transmission. It involved sending a query up the line and getting a response back down the line before passing the thing on and repeating. But things were going in both directions, so you had to send things both ways, and everyone was so concerned to keep the whole thing going by watching other people that they often forgot their specific parts and actually did more harm than good. Also, where the things crossed (see picture at right) things got extra-funny and confusing. Two different little girls who were hanging out in the green with their families requested to join the fun and were accepted. They were much better at the games than we were. Sorry I didn't get any good pictures of them. But more pictures of the impromptu "talent show" below.



When it was getting dark and starting to threaten rain, the activities broke up and I fell in with my little tutor Valerie and another girl who turned out to be a Japanese graduate student studying Tang and Song poetry. The Japanese girl didn't really speak English, so I actually got to hear my tutor speak Chinese. We three had dinner together at the Art Garden again, a funny coincidence. It was ghetto but jolly. The Japanese girl didn't speak much Chinese either, but we had a lot in common, and if we get confused I can always try Japanese. She gave me her card, so I will hopefully get to talk to her more in the future.

While at the library, I had written so much that I'd run my pen out of ink, and my fountain pen wasn't working even though it had ink in it. I suspect cheapo Chinese ink to be unsalutary for it. So I bought some expensive imported ink (Quink--more than $3!). Then I rinsed out the pen really thoroughly, which incidentally made some beautiful ink patterns in the water that I had to photograph. After being refilled with the Quink, I am pleased to report, the pen works much better.