A Very Icy Weekend

But in the best way possible! Over the weekend, Kie, Sibei, and I went to the Cup of China figure skating competition held here in Beijing every fall. It's part of the Grand Prix of Figure Skating, which is a series of six competitions held around the world each fall, where the top international skaters compete for medals and money, but also to qualify for the Grand Prix Final, which is also being held in Beijing this year (I miss it by five days, darnit!)I was really excited to be here for the Cup of China, though- I'd never gone to a major international skating competition before, and with the conversion rate, tickets were really cheap! To go to every event, the cost was $50, and that was for the best seats. Had we wanted to buy the nosebleed student tickets, we could have gone for only $10. To go to the Grand Prix event in the US, Skate America (which is next weekend, I think), would cost $100 for the cheapest seats, so this was quite the deal!

The competition was held at Capital Indoor Gymnasium, which is only about 15 minutes away from Renmin. It's also where the Chinese national skating team practices, and was a location for the Beijing Olympics. (What it hosted, we're not sure - it was kind of a small venue)Walking in, I was surprised by the size - having watched youtube videos from last year's competition held in the same place, I was expecting it to be bigger. All the better to see the skaters, though, and we had seats right behind the judges, which was great. The skating itself was fantastic, but I won't go into massive analysis of it - but one of the US's men and a pairs team were on the podium!

The best part, other than watching the skating, was getting to cheer on the US skaters in a foreign country. Had we been in the US, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun, since everyone else would have been screaming just as loud. Here, however, the audience's response to non-Chinese skaters was...lukewarm, at best. Whenever one of our skaters took the ice, we screamed when they were announced, we yelled in unison, "Go !!!!". Several of the skaters looked at us and smiled after hearing their names, and the audience surrounding us tended to look at us, too.

Over in the corner of the arena, we saw a few people waving an American flag, and during one of the breaks went over to say hi. They ended up being the officials and parents with the skaters, which was cool. One of the pairs skater's moms told me, "You have no idea how nice it is to hear an American accent!" and I said, "Oh believe me, I do!". Her daughter ended up winning bronze, and we watched/cheered at the medal ceremony with her. The other parent who was there is the father of Ross Miner, one of our mens skaters. He told us to make sure we made lots of noise, since Ross hates the silence. Having been encouraged to keep screaming our hearts/lungs (?) out, we yelled when Ross was about to get his scores, "We love you Ross!", and he held his hands up in a rock start pose in response. We yelled it for our other mens skater, Brandon, too, but he was busy talking with his coach. After finishing his program and getting changed, Ross came up and said hi and gave us all a hug (He said, "You guys said you love me, we gotta hug it out!). Getting to meet him was a lot of fun, and he stuck around for awhile and talked skating with us.

That was the best part of cheering, getting to see the skater's responses, whether it was actually coming up to say hi or just a smile. That was something that I think is unique to going to a competition abroad as opposed to one in the US - like I said, in the US everyone is screaming. Getting to meet the parents, team doctor (also from Chicago!), and other officials was one of the highlights of the event, and would probably be less likely to happen in the US. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend, and I'm looking forward to getting back to working on my skating tomorrow. :)

Oh, and there was one other person we yelled for while they were waiting for the scores. Mirai Nagasu, our National Silver medalist, is coached by Frank Carroll, who in the sport of figure skating is legend--wait for it--DARY. An absolute god among skaters. So while Mirai was waiting for her score, we yelled, "We love you, Frank!". While he did not respond with a rock star pose, the brief smile on the normally stoic coach's face made my night. :)

Clearly I'm Doing Something Exciting...

Seeing as I haven't updated since October! Sorry for the lack of updates again! My best intentions of writing several posts over the weekend was thwarted by skating, procrastination, and schoolwork. Unfortunately this week has been insanely packed with a couple internship/scholarship applications and a paper worth 50% of my grade due, so I've been busy. This weekend is packed, too, but with something far better than schoolwork – the Cup of China skating competition, which is in the ISU Grand Prix Series, which means the top skaters are in Beijing this weekend, AND I'M GOING TO SEE THEM! Two classmates and I are going tomorrow for the short programs, and then a classmate and I are also going Saturday for the long programs. Thanks to the exchange rate, we got row 15 tickets for both days for roughly 40 USD, cheap by American skating standards. I'm so excited I could burst!'Course, that means this paper needs to be finished tonight....

The Skating Regulars

A cold rink, with garish lighting from the children's play area above. A 30 minute music CD on repeat, with the 24 minute mark belonging to Shania Twain's "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!". A sheet of ice, scratched with the tracings of hundreds of blades, with pictures of coaches past and present staring down on it. A slight chill in the air, almost unnoticeable with the movement of skaters, circling endless around the too small surface.   In this setting, skaters come and other skaters go, but a core group of determined souls skate on forever, circling the rink and then leaving, only to return again, observed by huddled parents and the rink staff. And so I present to you, The Skating Regulars:

Twizzles:
One of the coaches at the rink, with Bieber-like hair that he frequently flicks back from his eyes ever so genteely. So named because, in the course of instructing people how not to fall over, he frequently becomes bored and launches into advanced footwork sequences, generally consisting of a series of super fast turns called "Twizzles". And thus a nickname was born. Not much personality evident from a distance, unless admiring one's posture in the rink glass could be considered a personality.


Crazy Dancing Guy:
Skates to the beat of his own drum. Listens to his MP3 player and "dances to it". His moves are not what would fall under the category of conventional skating movements, but he makes it work. He is a skater's worst nightmare, in that he is simultaneously not terribly in control (too much crazy dancing, I'm afraid) and completely unpredictable, swerving as the music moves him. Combined with his frequent haphazard stops in the middle of the rink to change the song, and you have recipe for potential disaster. No camel spins when he's around!

Figckey Guy
Crazy Dancing Guy's figurative cousin (I've seen his hip wiggling and quasi-Irish jigging to "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend was Hot Like Me").  So named because he attempts to complete figure skating moves whilst wearing hockey skates, which both hockey skaters and figure skaters will tell you is impossible. Still, he attempts to spin and jump, and has a fairly decent spiral.

Little Boy Blue
Wears a blue silk shirt to practice every day. Also wears black pants and black padded shorts, which combined with his stick skinny legs makes for an interesting silhouette.   A good little skater with nice stretch, but unfortunately it seems his father wants him to be a figure skater more than Little Boy Blue himself does. This leads to long discussions at the board as the father tells him what to do, dilly dallying tying the skates, and a wrinkly forehead and teary eyes after missing a couple lutz jumps in a row.

The Erudite
A completely unremarkable skater, one of the many older people who comes to the rink to skate around, practice two foot spins and waltz jumps, and get their daily exercise in. However, her knowledge of the Chinese skating is spectacular, and she is more than happy to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of having a national training program, why a former World Bronze Medalist coaches in a private rink, and to tell you where the national team practices are held and that they are open to the public.  A very valuable resource who speaks English.
 

A Day in The Life

{In the spirit of starting classes today, I felt a sample day of what classes and life are like for me was in order. Compiled over a series of a few days during our last session}

(Proof that I actually WAS up that early!) 

6:35 AM – I wake up at an entirely too early hour to go for a run before classes. Asta, one of the other study abroad students, meets me in the lobby, and we head to Renmin University's outdoor track. By the time we get there at 7:00, there's already 40 or so elderly people running and walking, including a group of old guys walking in a group that I see everyday. I think they come to socialize as much as they do work out!

 (Renmin's gym and track - the gym was used as a practice facility for the 2008 Olympics!)

7:55 AM- Back in my dorm, I take a quick shower and then get on skype to talk to my family back home in Montana, where it's 6pm. They update me on how many new calves have been born (7 this week!).

8:45 AM- I leave for class, stopping to buy a package of little bread cakes for 1.2 RMB, roughly 18 cents USD. They go great with the (free!) cup of coffee I'll make at the center!

8:57 AM – After walking for five minutes on the streets of Beijing, I take the elevator to the 20th floor and step onto the University of Chicago's campus. The Center in Beijing is brand new and absolutely beautiful - a UChicago oasis in the midst of bustling Beijing. I make myself a (free!) cup of coffee before class starts.

9:00 AM- First class of the day, which is a lecture on early diplomacy in China with Professor Tamara Chin.

(If it looks a little empty, it's because I took the picture before class actually started)

10:30AM- After a ten minute break, we re-convene for our next class, which is a discussion of the lecture and readings for today. We spend a lot of time discussing marriage diplomacy and the role of ritual in diplomacy, as well as on an extended metaphor comparing a kow-tow to a handshake.

(Again, before class started. Excited to discuss the use of Han princesses as diplomatic currency!)

 11:30 AM- After class ends, I head with a bunch of other students to the dining hall on campus, which has a lot of different selections. They had plain broccoli once, and it tasted so much like it would at home that I hold my breath hoping they'll have it again. No luck, so instead I get a big bowl of noodles with eggs and tomato sauce for 4 RMB (60 cents!)

12:30PM – After lunch, I head to the bus stop, where I take a 355 bus. Beijing's bus system is insane – they have over 800 different routes, and one day I plan to ride them all, but not today. Instead, I head to the ice rink, housed in Jinyuan Shopping Mall, the world's second largest mall. 

1:00PM- I greet the staff at the ice rink, who are getting to know my face pretty well at this point. Skating has proven a great way to meet Beijingers; today, I have a three minute conversation (all in Mandarin!) with a little girl who wants to know if I'm a teacher and where I'm from, and a longer conversation in a mix of Mandarin and English with another skater, discussing the pros and cons of China's national figure skating system (great pairs teams, not-so-great single skaters). She tells me where the national team trains, and that practices are open to the public. I feel a field trip coming on... :)

5:00PM- Back on Renmin's campus, I drop my skating stuff off and check email and Facebook, which although blocked in China, is accessible over my Chicago VPN connection. I begin writing this blog post, and then contemplate doing Chinese homework – ultimately, I decide to put it off until after dinner.(yay procrastination!)

(My room, in a picture taken when I first arrived)

 6:15PM – I meet up with a classmate, Kimberly, for dinner in the dining hall. Despite the absence of steamed broccoli, I enjoy my meal of rice with green beans in soy sauce and some kind of meat in some kind of sauce (I opted not to ask) very much. Kimberly recounts her adventures going to get a coat tailor-made for her, and we discuss our plans for the weekend, entertaining the possibility of going to the Beijing Zoo. (They have pandas!)

 (Kimberly with another of our classmates - this picture was actually taken at lunch)

7:30PM – After a quick run to the campus convenience store for chocolate milk (better here than at home, I think), I'm back in the dorm. I settle in to do my readings for tomorrow.

8:40 PM- I read the discussion questions for tomorrow online, and post a paragraph on the discussion board for the readings, getting distracted briefly by skating blogs and picture of LOLcats. I finish up my Chinese homework for Thursday, since we have a test and will turn in the week's homework. Not recognizing a couple of characters, I leave a section blank and finish everything else.

9:30 PM- Having finished everything except that section, I head over to Kimberly's room to get help, since she's in 5^th year Chinese. She recognizes the characters, and I finish my homework. Watching her paint her nails, we end up talking for awhile about studying Chinese and life in general.

10:45 PM – I head to bed, since we have a class trip to the Great Wall tomorrow morning. One of the best parts of studying abroad is the field trips, and getting to hear your professor say that she'll be holding office hours on the Great Wall. :)

Various Sundry Notes

- For those of you you may have found my last post a little bit too contemplative and self  indulgent (I genuinely hope it wasn't), I promise to do something exciting soon, so I can blog about that and not just my own thoughts. :)

- Apparently the China diet works. My hotel room in Xi'an had a scale in the bathroom, and it would seem I've lost somewhere between 7 and 10 pounds. Considering the carb-based diet here, I'm not sure what this says for Dr. Atkins?

- What I mean by class "sessions" : Our classes run back to back, rather than simultaneously, in three week long 'sessions'. After this first session, we had our week break, and now we have 2 more back to back sessions, this next one on Chinese science and medicine, the final one on the evolution of Beijing/Beijing architecture.

- Thanks to the international skating season starting, I've had an enjoyable weekend doing Chinese homework and watching skating on television. (it seems like that's pretty much the summary of my entire life, skating and doing Chinese!). My Chinese vocabulary is now beginning to encompass skating terms, too -  I can now say double/triple axel in Chinese. Useless if I end up working for the State Department, but useful if I ever compete here or coach their national team! (Which both seem equally unlikely) :p

Skating Simon Says

This morning, I went skating, as I often do. (Landing double salchows, for those who care!) I was expecting it to more crowded than usual, since it's mid-autumn festival here, which I believe is a national holiday. (Everyone gets Wednesday - Friday off from work, but then they have to work Saturday and Sunday to make it up, which seems to defeat the purpose?) Fortunately, it wasn't much more crowded than normal; but since there was no school, the average age of those skating dropped significantly.

There were two younger  girls skating who were both working on single jumps and basic spins, although I don't think they knew each other. Anyway, about halfway through the session, I began noticing an interesting phenomenon - whenever I worked on a specific element, all of us ended up working on that element, to  the extent that at one point, the two girls were actually doing synchronized side by side camel spins . Taking note of this strange coincidence, and realizing that I was likely viewed as the most experienced/most advanced/ most knowledgeable-because-I'm-from-America-and-so-is-Michelle Kwan-and-a-million-gold-medalists, I tested a hypothesis.

I did a sit spin.
They both did sit spins.

I did a loop jump.
They both did loops.

I did a lutz.
They both did lutzes.


It continued on this way for most of the session, until one girl left and the other's coach showed up.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. ;)