Vacation

I will be traveling to some smaller cities and rural areas west of Beijing during the National Day / Mid-Autumn Festival vacation. I will not have access to the blog until my return on October 10, when I will post photos of the trip.

Terror Pigeons

China has ordered that all pet homing pigeons in Beijing be locked up in advance of the National Day parade.

Dong Jingbei, president of the Dongcheng District Carrier Pigeon Association, said he understood China’s desire for flawless festivities. But he wondered what shape the pigeons would be in.

“This is totally unfair,” Mr. Dong said. “This is like locking up an athlete in a tiny little room. When they finally let them out on Oct. 1 at Tiananmen, they won’t even know which way is north!” ...

Still, he said, they understood that for a flawless parade day, no detail could be overlooked. Even the pigeons were undergoing security checks.

“I don’t know what kind of stuff you have in New York,” Mr. Dong said. “But people could strap all sorts of minibombs to pigeon legs.”

Booksellers

Several streetside book vendors serve the Wudaokou area. The sellers devote up to half of their carts to counterfeit English-language titles, which provide a glimpse into the reading preferences of Chinese university students (who vastly outnumber foreigners).

Biographies of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are very popular, as are mass-audience books on economics and social science, such as Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers.

Harry Potter is always available, though I have yet to see a cart with all seven volumes. It is also easy to find modern fiction classics like Catcher in the Rye.

The asking price is typically 10 RMB (about $1.50) per book. Discounts can be obtained.

Pink Slips

And yellow slips. And white slips.

Some Chinese forms and receipts are woefully archaic: handwritten, duplicate or triplicate carbon copies, and stamped with a red ink chop.

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Classes began on Tuesday. I have been placed in the highest level of elementary Chinese, which begins about where I left off (Chinese 102 at Princeton). So far it seems to be a good fit.

National Day Approaches

Central Beijing is getting into lockdown mode for the 60th anniversary of communist rule on October 1. Streets downtown have been closed for parade rehearsals and fighter jets are practicing their fly-bys. Tanks, mobile missile launchers, and patriotic floats roll past Tiananmen.

To the northwest, the university district is much more subdued. The police presence around the nicest mall has increased. Some restaurants and clubs are checking passports and canceling open bar nights. Multi-hour lines spill out of train ticket offices, as Beijingers prepare for trips home or nice vacations.

International Students

Tsinghua attracts a wide range of foreigners. South Koreans are the most numerous — enough study here to support a small but thriving Koreatown outside the main campus gate. Kazakhstan, Britain, Germany, Australia, and the United States are well-represented. I have also met students from Burma, Mexico, Malaysia, Israel, Brazil, and South Africa. Few Japanese or Indian students come to Tsinghua, due to the strained relations between their home countries and China.

English is the default language for conversation, since most international students are not yet proficient in Chinese. The common draw for foreigners is a desire to better understand China as its role in the world continues to expand.

Photo: The Grand Auditorium, one of the oldest Tsinghua buildings, is modeled after the Rotunda designed by Thomas Jefferson for the University of Virginia.

Swine Flu Strikes

Tsinghua has raised its H1N1 flu alert level after several students contracted the virus. Although flu prevention is a serious concern on a campus of 31,000 students, the precautionary measures in place are rather humorous.

Dormitory staff check the temperature of arriving students with cheap laser-gun thermometers aimed at the forehead. These malfunction routinely, sending the young women at the front desk into fits of giggles when someone registers a fever of 300°C.

Posters in the elevators give helpful and dubious tips for staying healthy. Washing hands and avoiding sick friends sounds reasonable. But leaving a window open to the Beijing smog "2-3 times daily for 30 minutes each time" seems counterproductive. Also amusing is the photo of a Chinese woman lifted from a skin cream advertisement.

Fast Food

In addition to Chinese dining halls and a halal eatery for Muslim students, Tsinghua boasts its very own bootleg McDonald's.

QingQing Fast Food (清青快餐) serves up a typical menu of hamburgers, fries, chicken, soda, and milkshakes. You can also get some more exotic dishes, such as shrimp burgers and octopus pies.

Campus

The Tsinghua campus has a lot of nice parks and gardens, such as this tree-lined canal.

Air pollution is relatively low right now (as you can see from the blue sky). Internet restrictions, on the other hand, are worse than ever. China has managed to block popular VPN (virtual private network) software, which in the past could be used to skirt the Great Firewall.

North Korean crisis (and resolution)

As I entered my dorm suite last night, I noticed a small North Korean flag taped to the door. Inside, the common room was strewn with plastic buckets, water cooler jugs, and bags of Korean rice. Also quite a few rotting vegetables. It seemed that a very sloppy North Korean student had been living there but had left in a hurry.

In the morning I knocked on the other bedroom door. Nobody answered. A quick chat with the front desk confirmed my suspicions:

Will I have a roommate? Yes. Is he Korean? Yes, from North Korea. Where is he? He went back to his country. When is he coming back? I don't know.

I then went to the housing office, where I explained why an American with an interest in working for the U.S. government could not live with a North Korean. It took some time to express this in Chinese, but the office was happy to change my room. I have switched into a new suite with no mess and, for now, no roommate.

Hong Kong Airport

Waiting for my Beijing connection.

Going Back to Beijing

Tomorrow I fly to Beijing, where I will study Mandarin at Tsinghua University for two semesters. I plan to post updates and photos on this site throughout the year.

The picture above shows Tiananmen Square last summer, a few days before the Olympics.