Hong Kong, Day 1 (cont'd)

Hong Kong, Day 1

In Beijing I had a lot of opportunities to learn about things that
were specifically and definitely Chinese. Hong Kong is a crazy polar
opposite of that - it might be the most multicultural town I've ever
been in besides Brooklyn. Maybe.

Here's what I mean by that. Tonight Michelle and I ate at an Indian
restaurant in a mall full of African Muslims, after which we went to
an Australian bar in which a band (composed chiefly of Filipinos) was
playing astonishing, amazing New Orleans ragtime music. A man from
South Africa sang "Basin Street Blues" and did a spectacular
impression of Louis Armstrong.

You know, multiculturalism.

There was also a laser light show somewhere in there, and I saw the
Hong Kong equivalent of the Hollywood walk of fame, complete with
Jackie Chan's handprints and a life-size statue of Bruce Lee. Oh,
also before all of this happened we hiked to the top of this hill and
saw the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. There really were 10,000 Buddhas.

I like Hong Kong.

(PS. That second-to-last picture is of Bowring Street.)

Bei Da Tour

Binping and Guimei took some of us on a campus tour of Peking
University. It was lovely! Binping says William & Mary reminds him
of the campus here.

We randomly happened upon some sort of school-related rock climbing
event, so I got excited about that. Here are some pictures.

After that was a lab tour of their SRF-related facilities. It was
very nice, but I was exhausted. The big red thing is a 6 megavolt Van
De Graff generator - basically a machine that makes amounts of static
electricity that only seem appropriate for mad scientists.

Summer Palace

Towards the end of these conferences, the organizers usually take us
out somewhere cultural and feed us. Thursday afternoon we all got on
a bus and went to the Summer Palace, which is where the Emperor(s)
used to go to get away from the Forbidden City. A sort of Imperial
Chinese Camp David, I guess.

We ended up walking around for maybe three hours, which was great
since I'd been feeling pretty stagnant. And then the dinner was sort
of amazing. I think I had better food in Hohai, but the Summer Palace
had that place beat in terms of sheer fanciness.

So at the dinner I was just stuffing all kinds of food in my face
without really bothering to ask what it was. Long story short, I ate
some jellyfish without really realizing. It just looked like noodles,
but really, really chewy noodles. It tasted ok, but the chewing was
so much work that I just moved on to more efficient food.

Poster Session / Hohai

I was under the impression that after 10th grade my science fair days
were over. Nope!

Beijing Night Show

Photo Credit: Charlie Reece

Here's the basic format of the conference: The shuttle leaves from my
hotel for Peking University at 8 am. I spend the next 9 or 10 hours
listening to powerpoint talks, with an hour lunch break somewhere in
there. Then there's usually some sort of Evening Thing planned,
either by the conference organizing committee or by small groups of
us. It sounds stupid when I say it, but it's hard work to sit and
listen to this stuff for 10 hours a day, and I'm usually ready for bed
by 9 or 10.

Last night they put us on a bus a little early and shipped us off to
the Beijing Night Show. How can I possibly explain the Beijing Night
Show. It was a tourist-oriented exposition of Chinese culture and
history, but it was also dance-themed dinner theater. Mainly it was
people in fancy costumes doing traditionally-influenced modern
interpretive-style dance to incredibly loud modern music, but with
some acrobatics and kung fu thrown into the mix - a sort of
spectacular (in the literal sense) combination of Cirque du Soleil and
Disney World's Frontierland Review show. If it had been described to
me ahead of time I would've probably been pretty dismissive, but I
acutally had a great time.

Ok, so now I've got to sit and listen some more.

... aaaand a few more.

Last night we went and had some *real* Chinese food. It was
fantastic. My tongue went numb from spicy Szechuan green beans.

I've got to say, there's something to all this talk about pollution in
Beijing. The weather has been absolutely beautiful so far, but after
a day of walking around outside my throat felt pretty scratchy. In
"Pattern Recognition" William Gibson talks about different flavors of
hydrocarbons in different cities and I've got to say, I really notice
it here. Beijing has pollution that sort of smells like burning
marshmallows and lighter fluid. Washington DC has its own fair share
of smog, but I grew up in it so I'm less able to describe it, I think.
Anyway, we're lucky to be her in October - it's apparently pretty bad
during the Summer. They've been working on the air quality for a few
years now (relocating factories, expanding the surrounding grasslands,
etc.) and Beijing natives have told me that there's a very noticeable
improvement.

Jingshan Park

This park is right across the street from the Forbidden City. There's
a giant Buddha statue at the top of the hill, but they don't allow
photos of it.

Forbidden City Photos, 10/14

Chiiiiiina

Ok, so I'm here. Heh. I have a lot to say, but I'm posting this
entry during somebody's conference talk so this will be short.

Beijing is a huge, huge city full of huge, huge buildings. There are
some striking similarities between this city and Washington DC -
they're both completely dominated by strong government bureaucracies
and they both have terrible, terrible traffic problems.

The hotel is fine, everybody is friendly, the conference is
interesting, I'm eating well. Now I have to go pay attention.