Brief Sketches

Colin has been here for five days now, and I have yet to write a single thing about that, it seems. Well, on Friday I skipped my Chinese lesson and we just spent time together. I took him to the campus and showed him Nameless Lake.

To our surprise, part of the Nameless Lake was frozen over, and there were people skating on it! But I guess what was odd, was that other parts of it weren't frozen over. Who is confident enough to skate on only a partially frozen lake? But Colin said that if the ice is more than four inches thick, it can old about anything. I want to try skating there sometime. They even rent out skates.

It was such a beautiful blue day.

On Saturday, it was a white day, with an icy wind. Colin was initially unimpressed--he's just been in Chicago after all, and the temperature was still up in the twenties. But once we got to Tiananmen Square and started walking around, even he had to admit that it was pretty darn cold.

We went and saw Chairman Mao. It was a very solemn place, actually, Mao's mausoleum. There was a white statue of him in his chair, where people laid white roses one at a time to form a thick layer, and sometimes the people also bowed and bowed. Behind that was his actual body, or probably a wax copy of it. He looked too good to have been lying there for thirty years, and the preservation was said to have been done badly too…. He was lying as if asleep, looking very good, as I said. One tiny old lady walking beside us waved and waved at him, as if he might wave back. Then we were shuffled past. (Photos strictly forbidden in there, of course. Here's a phallic monument to the people instead, with a very cold-looking guard.)


Back out in the Square there was an Arctic wind. We managed to get some little cups of hot coffee from a tiny stand. Many people tried to sell us hats because we weren't wearing hats. Colin actually did want a hat with ear flaps, but they all looked too small. When we found a stationary stand, he actually tried one on. Too small. "Try this one," the pushy vendor said. "I'm afraid his head is too big," I told her. "Impossible!" she said. The hat perched comically on the very tip of Colin's head. "How could his head be so big!" she exclaimed in wonder as we moved laughing on.

We wandered in through the free part of the imperial city, and Colin took a picture of the "imperial basketball courts," while I took a picture of a faux imperial yellow canopy up on the high wall over the gate. The cold was terrible, and soon we had to retreat. We took the subway home. It was crowded and we had to push our way through. Colin said he felt like a brazil nut among all the peanuts. He does tower over everyone!

It was our twenty-fifth monthiversary, and after we had rested most of the afternoon we went out and had dinner at the fancy vegetarian restaurant in the Disanji building. It was most romantic, and also good not to have to worry about whether something might have little bits of meat in it! (Colin is a vegetarian, in case you don't know him in real life; not an easy thing to be in China!)

Sunday was fairly uneventful, except we went to a café and did a little work. We both have a lot of work to get done, and it's nice that we can work together as we always have. In the evening we went to the Communication Association's "Black and White Crazy Tonight" International Night. I would not say it was a success. It might have been interesting if there had been any actual communication involved, but it was mostly limited to a talent show in which:

The Korean drummers were very loud and crazy! But definitely had spirit. I've never quite understood the appeal of all-percussion performances, but they were interesting enough to catch one's attention anyway, and also it was funny to watch the Chinese people covering their ears.

The magic show was pretty funny, especially the scarves. I am always fooled by magic shows.

The a capella singers were painful, but then both Colin and I are really un-fond of a capella to begin with.

The ballroom dancers were skinny and not naturally graceful, but it was fairly interesting to me just because I knew some of the moves. Also the a capella was not a hard act to follow.

Then there was a "game" sponsored by some cell-phone company, which we ignored, and the beginning of another game, hallmark Communication Association, involving way too many rules, not well explained, and a restless crowd. We'd had enough and ducked out. Colin remarked on how young everyone there seemed! Tell me about it. Mostly undergraduates, I guess, but those undergraduates are getting younger every year.

And yesterday morning we made a pact to do two hours of work. We used to have those pacts, which helped us both a lot, and as usual it was very successful. It reminded me that indeed Colin is more help than distraction, and I would in fact get more actual work done if we were together…

In the afternoon I went to classes. YHz emphasized once again that she would like to meet Colin and have a meal or some such. Colin is willing, but I feel very nervous about it!

I got a lot of errands done between my two classes (post office, library, etc.) but all I could think of was Colin at home and how much I wanted to be with him. Okay, so that was a bit of a distraction.

My last class was fairly interesting but I was tired and distracted, and really happy to head home again, finally arriving around 7. We had dinner at a Yunnan restaurant, which we both found lackluster. I never manage to really like Yunnan food, but everyone else likes it so much that I keep trying, thinking I'll like it better one of these days. Also I found out that in a Yunnan restaurant "entirely vegetarian" still means that you get slices of meat and whole chicken wings. Poor Colin--he is being extra tolerant!

I am so tired, I'm afraid I will have to describe today's adventures later.

Apologies for the lateness of and lack of details in these blog posts. Hopefully I will get back into my good habits soon.


(His head doesn't look THAT big!)