3rd week

Since my last post a lot has happened. We did make it to the Great Wall and viewed two different sections of this magnificent construction project, which was probably one of the most memorable events of this last week. When I first viewed the wall from afar it looked like an image from a book. It was not until we took the chair lift up to the top of the wall that the realness of the experience set in. It is amazing to think that something as old as the Great Wall, which was build by the Ming Dynasty, has persisted through time to still be around today. We were told that we were very fortunate to view the Wall the day we did, since the sky was very clear (an event that rarely every happens). I hope to upload some pictures as soon as I get new AA batteries.

I also enjoyed the drive to see the Great Wall outside of Beijing, since it allowed me to witness what rural China looks like. The rural towns of China reminded me very much of rural towns I had seen driving through some western states on my trip to Yellowstone Park many years ago, such as Colorado and Wyoming. These rural towns in China, like those in these states, had small shops to attract tourists, a few restaurants, and usually a small gas station. Even though the United States and China are on opposite sides of the world, I witnessed the connectedness that these two countries share even at the rural town we stopped at for lunch, before we visited the Shi-Ma-Tai section of the Wall. Here, we saw three small boys each wearing different NBA jerseys as they ran after one another. It was evident that these boys were up-to-date on what was happening in the NBA western conference finals since one was wearing a Spurs jersey, while another wore a Lakers jersey. The third boy as you might expect was wearing a Yao Ming, Houston Rockets jersey in support of his fellow countryman.

Another memorable moment of this last week was our group’s feast of Peking Duck at the famous Quanjude restaurant. This restaurant was established in 1864 and apparently it has kept track of all the Ducks it’s served since that time, where a certificate is given with every duck to confirm its authenticity. For instance, our duck’s number was 1.15-billion-629451. Eating such exquisite cuisine is truly a great experience since I’m used to choosing foods based on what is cheapest between my classes at U of M. Later that night we went to a Beijing opera not far from the Quanjude restaurant.

The Beijing opera was something I had never experienced before and very unlike the traditional European opera that most of us are used to. It was a story communicated in gestures with no need to understand the Chinese language, which was great since I can only comprehend a few Chinese words so far. During the opera, I was able to witness a culture different from my own convey similar messages of comedy and love. It shows that two cultures are never totally distant, but connected to each other through the expression of emotions. The two most interesting points of the opera were the clothing and the dances: the emperor, emperoress and those of the imperial court wore bright colors with layered wardrobes that appeared to weight them down considerably, especially with all the flips and twirls they preformed. My favorite part of the performance was the scene where the disguised guard to the imperial court who came to protect the emperor fought the emperor in a darkened room, unaware of whom the other was. The choreography of this scene consisted of brushes of the hand/sword to seek out the other. Both men for the better part of the scene would strike in a reciprocal way to as to just miss one another. This continued for some time until they finally contacted another with fist strikes. Even though there was no indication by a prompt that the room in which they fought was dark, one could discover this simply by the action of these two characters.

With the start of our regular research approaching, a group of us decided to pay a little extra and take a plane with Dr. Coppola to visit the city of Xi’ an, where we went to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. However, the tone of the trip was set when Spencer had his #1 ADA recommended toothpaste confiscated by airport security. Although I know it was frustrating for him to lose this item, it made for intriguing conversion as the topic was brought up frequently. After we had landed, we were met by our charismatic tour guide for the trip named Daniel. He provided us with many jokes on our way to the airport, including his joke for how he would remember Justin Lomont’s first name based off a comedy sketch.

When we made it to the Terra Cotta Warrior site, we were first escorted by Daniel to a short panoramic film on the statues. On our way inside we passed the farmer who discovered the first Terra Cotta Warrior artifacts; Daniel told us that every since his discovery he’s been treated as a celebrity. This fact was made clear by the shade he relished under while signing books on the soldiers for 120 RMB a piece. After the film, we all made our way to the Terra Cotta statues inside building number 1. It was incredible to see this vast army encompass a space about a football field in width and a couple football fields in length. We were told that many booby traps had been set in place to deter grave robbers such as bronze crossbows that are thought to remain active in some parts of the excavation. The amount of detail imprinted on these soldiers is what has made them so special. Some of the soldiers still had remnants of paint left on them, even after they are exposed to ambient air. Scientists are still trying to figure out a way to preserve the paint on these soldiers, but have yet to come up with a good method to do this since the paint is soon oxidized with exposure of oxygen. Also, since the soldiers are hollow inside if they were to be encapsulated in an airtight jar to preserve the paint they would explode; this is because there would be an air pressure difference between the jar and the soldiers’ hollow inside. Since our group consisted of all chemistry majors, we debated ways in which preservation might be possible.

The same day we visited the Terra Cotta Warriors, we went to a dumpling restaurant supplanted by a Chinese-like musical performance. In total there were about 15 or more dumplings to try consisting of pork, vegetables, seafood, and nuts. My favorite of the bunch came down to a tie between the Walnut dumpling and a dumpling with a Pork/Seafood combination. Ironically, at our table sat another couple from Holland, Michigan who came to China to teach English. This occurrence made me question whether the six degrees of separation rule is still accurate, or rather should be reduced. We came to a general consensus among our group that acrobatics portion of the show was the best. In this scene 6 or 7 girls spun a yo-yo like contraption on a string, while they did flips and somersaults in the air; I am sure if I tried to do this I’d find myself in a Chinese hospital. After this show we all went to crash at our luxurious 5-star hotel, it will probably be a while before I stay in a room as nice again.

The next day in Xi’an we visited a Muslim Mosque, which can hold 1,000 individuals at one time during prayer. This mosque is unique because it is the only Muslim mosque designed with Chinese architecture. The city of Xi’an is home to more than 100,000 Muslim, where is due the Tang’s dynasty’s recruitment of Muslims to help them in their civil war. Daniel told us that after the civil war had ended the emperor encouraged the Muslims who fought for him to stay and raise families in the area, which is why the Muslim population is so large here. We also walked along a narrow merchant path on our way to the mosque, which sold many knock-off items like the things we saw for sell at the Pearl Market. Rather than buying anything of material value along this path, I opted to purchase some snacks that were sold in the market near the entrance of this path. I brought some dried Ki-Wi and a delicious peanut snack that tasted much like a crumbling granola bar.

Afterward, we went to a factory that fabricated hand-made rugs from different colors of thread. These rugs were the most intricately constructed rugs I had every seen. We were told that a small 2 ft. by 2 ft. 1000 knot rug took a worker more than a year to make. Since the pattern for this rug was very complicated, workers can only spend 3 hours a day at most constructing them. If the rugs had not been so expensive, where the 2 x 2 rug was 400 USD I may have considered purchasing one. It was a place I am sure both my Grandma’s could have spent all day at.

To end our tour of Xi’an we went to watch an elaborate water show next to the Big Goose Pavilion. This show had a façade of fountain springs that danced to the music of traditional Chinese tunes, where one of the springs reached a height of 60 ft. high. It was fun to watch young kids run through these fountains in swim trunks. If I get a chance to come back again, I’m going to bring a slip-and-slide and set it between two adjacent rows. I could envision something like this being designed at a Disney amusement park. The water show I thought was a fitting closure to the Xi’an weekend before our departure back to Beijing.

Once I arrived back at Wan Liu apartments yesterday, Marko, Tom and myself, tired of all the Chinese food we had eaten, decided we would go get some real American food at Papa Johns for 100 RMB each. Even though this amounted to about 15 USD per, it was well worth it and served as a treat before the commencement of our regular research schedule that began today (the focus of our group’s trip to China).

Today, I met with my research professor, Prof. Liu, and talked further about what kinds of things I would be involved with in the lab for the next two months. As a stated previously, I believe my work will involve cutting and modifying nanotubes with a Titanium catalyst. Tomorrow, a visiting professor from Harvard who is renowned for his research in the field of Nanotechnology will give a talk at the Chemistry building. I am excited for this talk because I hope it will reveal some more real-life benefits that nanotechnology holds, and more so because the talk will be in English. Therefore, I will be able to understand what he is describing, even if I not yet know all the science behind nanotube construction. With that note I think I’ll close this absurdly long entry.
And in case anyone was wondering, I did get to listen to my Billy Joel song on the Great Wall.