Living It Up In Beijing

A tumblr to remember my last few months living in Beijing, and to celebrate the wonderful time I have had here for the past six years.

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In August 2013 I was out at Barcamp when I ran into Mari and En there. They mentioned they were starting a women’s group and asked if I wanted to join. The idea intrigued me; after having devoted 4 full years of my extra time to Ultimate Frisbee I had been looking to diversify my interests, and with me just starting my education business, I needed to expand my network, so I said yes. I showed up to my first Lean In Meeting that coincided with Sheryl Sandberg giving a speech at Peking University, and I haven’t looked back since.

I joined with no expectations or understanding of what Lean In was but the ladies I met that day were truly wonderful. I was at first shy and unsure, but felt they could be my friends, so I kept going to meetings after. I felt their passion and enthusiasm, and inspired by their ideas and desire to make change for themselves and those around them. Over the years I haven’t been the most engaged member of Lean In, but something keeps me going back. I can give a long list of reasons and examples of why I like my Lean In group of friends but I think doing so would do it no justice, because they are special and special can’t be explained. Joining Lean In Beijing has been special, it has been important, and if it weren’t for them, I’m not sure I would be leaving Beijing in a month and I wouldn’t be looking forward to what lies ahead in my future.

This past Sunday, 5 July 2015, we celebrated our 2 year anniversary. Virgi and Charlotte did most of the organization (kudos to them) and along with Allison, Chao, Ginny and I, we shared what joining Lean In has meant to us and what we have learnt. I’m so happy that I had the chance to share my thoughts -- for starters, the me two years ago would have shied anyway from public speaking and anything that made me sound full of myself, the me one year ago made a speech at Bei Wai and I was so nervous that I forgot a lot of what I wanted to say, but the me three days ago felt like it was a breeze. It isn’t that being in Lean In has helped my public speaking in direct ways, but it has helped me better understand who I am and what my strengths and weaknesses are, and with more clarity to who I am, it’s easier to stand in front of an audience and communicate that. I mentioned in my speech that joining Lean In has been about self-discovery for me, and it came at a time when I most needed it. Joining Lean In hasn’t solved all my problems, but it’s given me a channel for me to think them through from different perspectives, knowing that I’ll be supported. It’s given me the ability to look beyond myself, to think about what I stand for and what’s important to me. Two years of joining Lean In has coincided with big moments in my life: being a captain of Big Brother, trying to figure out my life plans in my 30s, dealing with a painful breakup, being an entrepreneur (and not very successfully) ... I come out with more clarity and maturity, and strength to face what lies ahead.

Two years ago if you asked me, “Who is Alicia Lui” I wouldn’t really know what to say. Today, it’s still difficult for me to answer, but at least now I know what I’d like to have accomplished in my lifetime. Generically speaking: within 5 years, have climbed Mt. Everest and K2 (I gotta start acting on this soon!). But more importantly, I do want to come back to China eventually, and start an organization that can incorporate what I care about in life: sports, education and women’s empowerment. I have vague ideas that need to be flushed out but I’m hoping my time at NYU-UCL will help me do so. And now that I’ve said so in this tumblr, please someone, keep me accountable for this! 

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I’ve been a major slacker in updating this tumblr the past few weeks. It hasn’t even been that I’ve been busy. I’ve just been on a “binge” of all sorts.

It started with me being in Hong Kong for almost a week in the middle of June, where I binged on food. I think I ate something like 3 big meals a day plus two snacks in between. Not to mention the countless desserts, fruit and summer drinks.

Then there were a few days after I came back from Beijing where I binged on museums. Yes, museums. I went to something like 6 museums / tourist sites in the span of three days. I know, it doesn’t sound like much, but as a Beijing resident, I don’t often visit tourist likes. Like Mao’s Mausoleum, or the National Museum, or Confucius Temple + Guozijian (which by the way, is lovely and a must-see). For 30RMB, buy a ticket to enter, sit in the courtyard under the giant cypress trees and read, or watch the other people (though there aren’t many) walk around. I’m not sure why no-one had ever recommended this place to me. Now that I know about it, if you’re reading this post and haven’t been ... find some time to do it!

The past few days I’ve binged on The Americans, the TV show. To the extent that even though it’s been blue sky days and under AQIs of 50, I’ve barely left the apartment except to go to work and workout. Thankfully I do have work though. And I happened to go into the Yale Center Beijing a few days ago when a thunderstorm struck in the middle of the day. The result being ... a gorgeous rainbow in the backdrop after. 

I promise to be more diligent over the next few months, as I’m nearing the end of season two of The Americans. Aside from work, I’m starting to pack-up some of my things and selling certain belongings. I thought I would be sad about this, but truthfully I’ve been quite unemotional about it. Yesterday I shipped out frisbees that I’ve accumulated in my time in Beijing; rather than feel sad that I was letting go of all these memories and what these frisbees represented, I felt lighter, especially as some were sent to new teams that didn’t always have the funds to buy new discs. I’ve been reading posts about the art of decluttering (which has garnered quite a following in media lately) -- I can attest to the fact that it’s healthy to do every now and then!

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Sometime towards the end of 2010, the Accenture Beijing offices moved from SK Tower to World Financial Center (WFC). I had been staffed on a project in Shenzhen at the time and when I came back from this particular project in April 2011 to a role that required less traveling -- which meant I was more permanently based in Beijing -- the new office was already up and running smoothly. 

The new offices were nice and really there was nothing to complain about, except that eating around the immediate area was more expensive than eating around Jianwai Soho; unless of course, you count the 7-11 at the Vantone Center just across the street. The perk of course, being right across the street from Central Park. Instead of the 7-11 lunches that I used to buy when I first joined Accenture as a poor intern, I used to head over to Pekotan for their deli lunch boxes, or once in a while, Obentos for their healthy light Japanese Bento Boxes. Everything was more expensive, but here in Central Park, walking around I was more often surrounded by people dressed in suits, and moms and ayis taking children for their midday walks. Being a high-end residential complex in the middle of the CBD, Central Park naturally attracted a wealthier clientele and it was apparent in the setup and atmosphere of the place. If I had the money, I’d try and live in Central Park, though at night there’s a dearth of taxis.

On beautiful days (as captured in the first photo), it was easy to find an excuse to take a longer lunch break and sit outdoors in any of the cafes. Sunglasses were out, smiles were on peoples’ faces and kids kicked balls on the grass as parents picnicked with their friends. It’s difficult not to enjoy Beijing on such days.

Today, 11 June 2015 was another one of those days. For weeks and weeks I’ve been meaning to go back to Central Park on a blue sky day to take pictures and hang out. I hadn’t had a chance, but yesterday, Tao asked me to join him for lunch at Obentos. The restaurant had recently run a competition to win 500RMB worth in meal voucher and I had told our team to enter. Tao was lucky enough to be one of three winners and to “reward” me for telling him about the competition, he took me to lunch. It turned out to be perfect weather as the AQI hovered in the 30s all day long. I happened to be going to the Yale Center Beijing in the afternoon for work anyway, so as I headed over to work from Central Park, I captured a few other photos of the day / sky in Beijing. And then of course, the view of Beijing from the Yale Center Beijing itself. Gorgeous, no?

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I’ve just come back from a two-day hike at ZhangJiaJie in Hunan Province. My parents had gone a few years back and told me how pretty it was; since then I’ve always wanted to go and finally took the opportunity of competing in my last tournament with Big Brother at Shanghai Open 2015 to make a pit stop at ZhangJiaJie on the way back to Beijing. 

In my six and a half years of living in China, I’ve had the opportunity to visit a number of cities and places. I haven’t been to as many as I’d like and I haven’t been to destinations such as Yunnan, Xinjiang or Tibet (all three I will have to go to sometime in the future), but I have been to plenty. Of the places I’ve been to, I’d definitely recommend ZhangJiaJie for it’s spectacular views of rock and cliff formations. Even with hoards of Chinese and Korean tourists, if you’re willing to hike (i.e., not take the cable car and the bus transports) the mountain range offers many beautiful hikes and walks.

I was lucky enough to arrive on a day where it rained in the morning. Rather than make the walking difficult, it added to the natural beauty as a layer of mist clouded the skies and cliffs. It was picturesque and the photos I have captured really do not do the mountains justice. More specifically, I spent two days hiking around the mountains of WuLingYuan: YuanJiaJie, YangJiaJie and TianZiShan and I wish I could have had one more day (and money) to see TianMenShan (which is privately operated with different fees to WuLingYuan). 

Listening to my music as I hiked / walked, I’m pretty sure I had the biggest grin on my face. Growing up in Hong Kong, I’ve always loved hills (and mountains) and hikes, and being surrounded by trees and nature. Though I’m not fond of insects and anything that buzzes or flies too close to me, I do love the tranquility of being surrounded by no-one and hearing the natural stream of water as it flows from mountain tops to below. I tend to lose track of time as I walk, lost in my own imagination, taking step after step. After two days of tournament, I should have been physically tired, but being in the mountains was enough motivation for me and I must have hiked / walked at least 10km each day. It helped that I had many memories from two days of tournament to relive as I went through all the moments that meant something to me. I’ll save Big Brother post and Shanghai Open for another post. 

For now though, if friends ask me about travel destinations within China and they only have a few days, I’d definitely recommend ZhangJiaJie.

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06.03.2015

It’s true in life that sometimes the best things happen when you least expect it. I’d just returned home around lunch after work in the morning when I received messages from Luci and Tim asking me to join them for a swim at the East Lake (东湖别墅) pool. I had originally anticipated working all afternoon on a project, but that didn’t materialize, so with a few hours to spare, breezy weather, decent blue skies and some flexibility in my schedule, I said, “sure!” And that proved to be a wise decision. In all my three years of living in my current apartment next to East Lake, I’d never used their pool – okay, I had to pay 100RMB to get in but it was well worth it – and now I’m left thinking I should do this more often!

I had baked a red wine chocolate cake on Monday with leftover Bordeaux from a Yale Center Beijing event I had worked at last week, and bringing that with me, along with iced water, a book (The Lover’s Dictionary) and sunscreen, I was set. For four hours, the three of us leisurely swum, read and suntanned. Mostly though, we were conversing about life, friendships, relationships, life goals and creativity… it couldn’t have been any better. I finished the book I was reading (which I highly recommend), Luci taught Tim some synchronized swimming techniques, we ate the cake … and as we left the building, Luci and I each got a croissant from Comptoirs as part of their buy-1-get-1 deal on baked goods after 6pm. 

We stopped by the pond and I couldn’t resist taking some bread out to feed the ducks. This past weekend I had hung out with my friend Allison; she’d mentioned that she often wakes up early in the morning to head out to Beijing Zoo to feed the fish and ducks. It had never occurred to me to do that but as she explained how soothing it is, the thought had come across to me I should try it one day. Well, today I didn’t have to go far to feel the little joys in life that are as simple as feeding ducks. And of course the little joys of being in the company of friends with no time constraints and expectations of each other.

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05.31.2015: I didn’t think much of today, not until now (10pm at night) that I realized today was my last real Big Brother practice. For six years I’ve consistently gone out to practice and played with Big Brother, and in about a weeks’ time, after our tournament in Shanghai, my time with Big Brother will come to an end. It’s weird acknowledging this today. I feel I’m not ready to give it up but I suppose there’s always an expiration date on anything good. It’s been a really good run and no matter what, I’ll always be able to look back fondly on it. I wish I had recognized this earlier, otherwise I’d have taken pictures of our practices, but sadly I didn’t. Instead I post pictures from the last three tournaments that I have played in with the team.

When I moved to Beijing in February 2009, the only two people I really knew were Doc and Candice, who were both players on Big Brother. I had moved here not really intending to play but I was soon caught up in the scene. Ultimate Frisbee has a way of engaging people, no matter where you go and that happened to me. Soon I was traveling to tournaments with the team and the players became my core group of friends here. It was easy; I found a home and many comforts in the team. I loved it. And that kept me going, and it still keeps me going. I love my ultimate community.

Aside from the people though, the competition is really what motivates me. I’ve always had somewhat of a competitive streak when it comes to sports and in many ways that translates to my life outside of sports when I strive to improve myself, challenge myself, and learn more. When I played in Hong Kong with Junk, I was a decent player, known for my defensive skills and for my speed but didn’t have good throws; not having a good throwing coach was part of the reason why my throws hadn’t improved as much as I wanted to. But in Beijing I found many players who were both good coaches / mentors and were knowledgeable on strategy. They coached me, they challenged me, they nurtured me, they taught me new skills and new strategy, and my overall sense of the game has been dramatically raised. Playing with my teammates on Big Brother was motivation enough for me to improve my frisbee skills because I wanted to contribute to the team in a bigger way. So I kept looking for ways to get better, setting myself targets to achieve. I would say playing with Big Brother has made me a more well-rounded player and I’m really grateful for this opportunity.

About a year ago, I was fortunate enough to be nominated and voted to be one of three captains of the team. Simply being a player on the team was easy as I could focus all my attention on the game and my own playing; being a captain was different as I had to be more big picture and consider the emotions of my team, while leading my example. I know I haven’t been a perfect captain, but I have done certain things well and I like to think that my effort has translated into improvements in the team that has culminated in some recent wins. Being a captain has taught me a lot of things: more patience, to be more encouraging and positive, to be more considerate, to be less hesitant to speak my mind, to be a better listener and take feedback less personally, and even to think about what my own leadership style is. I’m not sure if Big Brother has benefitted from having me as a captain, but I certainly have benefitted from being a captain. It’s been an absolute honor and privilege. 

I wish I could be captain for longer. I wish I could still play with Big Brother. But a big part of me also wants to put this period behind me and have the best memories etched into my mind. I want to leave this community and my love of playing on Big Brother on a high. If I were playing in the US, I’d be playing at a Master’s Level by now, and I want to play with new teams and in a new environment. At the same time, playing frisbee has been a time commitment, one that I’m not sure I’ll have time for when I start my Executive MPA. I love the sport, but I also recognize it’s taken time away from me to do other things in life. I want to have the openness to explore new hobbies and the freedom to see where living in New York City and London will take me without being tied to a particular group of friends or activity. So who knows what will happen going forwards?

For now though, for the next few days, my entire focus is on the tournament in Shanghai. One day at a time. One step at a time.

[livingitupinbeijing]

This past weekend, 23 - 24 May 2015, I had the honor and luck to finally win China Nationals in Beijing. It was the 8th tournament (out of 9 so far) that I attended, and the only one I have ever won. I am so grateful and happy to leave Beijing with this win because this tournament has always meant so much to me.

I had attended the first ever China Nationals that was held in 2007 in Tianjin. Never did I imagine back then that this would become a highlight tournament of the year among Chinese Ultimate, and never did I imagine back then that I would have the chance to be a tournament director for two of them, back in 2011 and 2012. In fact, in 2007 when I left Hong Kong for business school, I thought I was going to retire from Ultimate; little did I know then that moving to playing ultimate in Beijing from 2009 to now would prove to be one of the best things so far in my life!

I’ve always played with Big Brother since I moved to Beijing with the exception of a few tournaments, so I’ll spend a whole post writing about the team in another post. This past weekend I was lucky enough to be invited by 梁壮, a former Tianjin Speed alum, to play on his team called 十年 (Ten Years) comprised of mostly other alum from the same sports university to celebrate the tenth year founding of their team. I couldn’t be happier to be extended this invitation because over the years I have watched many of their players grow from inexperienced beginners to elite experienced players. I’ve become friends with many of them and I know many of them respect me for my contribution to ultimate in China.

Which brings me to briefly mention my involvement in China Nationals... When I moved to Beijing in 2009, integrating into the Ultimate community was easy and the players quickly became my family and best friends here. By 2010, I had taken over some organizing responsibilities in Beijing Ultimate, including the organizing of weekly pickups. Through that involvement, I also became involved in organizing China Nationals, first in 2010 helping Jeff Orcutt, then in 2011 as a co-tournament director with Tao and 2012 as the main TD. Being a TD subsumed my life for about 3 months out of the year leading up to actual event. I always enjoyed having China Nationals in Beijing because I felt there was no better place than Beijing -- the capital -- to be hosting and it seemed many in the Ultimate community felt so. For this reason, the tournament was always a big deal and teams from around China would always earmark it on their calendars. This made it (and it still is) the biggest domestic tournament within China and it was always so exciting to see teams from across China finally congregate in one spot and get to know each other since many of the other local tournaments were more regional. I hope this tournament can both continue to be held in Beijing and attract more and more teams to participate!

A month or two ago Matt Sheehan asked me who I thought had made the biggest contribution to Big Brother and that question got me thinking what my biggest contribution to ultimate in China is. Leaving China having been TD twice, has to me, been one of my bigger contributions to China Ultimate. It’s given me the opportunity to get to know many of the players around China, and I can honestly say I’ve witnessed how far it’s come and I can’t wait to see how much farther it can go in the upcoming years with more local players becoming heavily involved and growing the sport! 

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It has been a while since I last posted, but I haven’t forgotten this tumblr! Life just has a habit of sometimes getting in the way, as I’ve been just preoccupied with some ultimate frisbee tournaments this season. Being a captain takes up a lot of my time; even when I’m not actively doing something related to it, subconsciously I’m still thinking about it, and somehow, every sports, emotional intelligence or human behavior article is related to my leadership style or my teammates or how I can motivate my teammates to physically and mentally prepare ourselves for a big tournament in Shanghai in a few weeks.

For the past few days, I have been on the road in Henan, my first time in this province. Prior to coming here I didn’t have good impressions of this place, as I was told it’s unsafe, people are unruly and the cities aren’t that beautiful. I must say I have been pleasantly surprised! Zhengzhou itself was just another Chinese city, but I spent the weekend in XinZheng, at the Sias International University and boy did I have a good time. Not because of the city or the school itself, but because of the people I met and why I was there: as a participant to a women’s symposium. I had the opportunity to meet many wonderful female college students and their facilitators and I cannot empathize enough how honored and humbled I am to have had this opportunity to attend this symposium. I want to go again in the future, to be more actively involved and I hope I will have the chance. As I reflected on this event, in my head I had many things I wanted to write, but time has past and I can no longer express my feelings from that time. I say this though ... I feel so lucky to have grown up in the circumstances that I did, and a little ashamed that I don’t value my family as much as some of these students do. I suppose having received a Western education my whole life, I am more individualistic and this creates a lot of tension between my parents and I, and a lot of stress on myself. 

Since the symposium ended I have been at the Shaolin Temple on 05.18.2015, including a hike up to the Dharma Cave (my guess about an hour’s hike up a thousand steps ?!) and another from SanHuangZhai up to the top of the mountain, about 1500m high which took another 1.5 hours up another thousand steps or more. The view was well worth it though and the sky so blue! As I walked past the wushu academies, I couldn’t help but feel awed by the hundreds of students working in their groups of twenty or so. It’s no wonder that Chinese are so good at putting on shows requiring hundreds and thousands of performers working in sync: because from a young age some of them are made to work in teams to do the same motion! I sometimes wonder why we in the west like to say that the Chinese are bad at team sports, when the reality is that they are good working in teams. Because if they weren’t, how can they work in sync (example Beijing Olympics opening ceremony) which takes communication and timing and reading each other’s body language. 

 Today was spent at the Longmen Grottoes and the surrounding area. It is no surprise that this area is considered a UNESCO site and the carvings of the buddhas from the stone and quartzite cliffs are very impressive. If anyone is thinking of a trip to China, I’d say stop by for two days - it’s worth it! 

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More photos from LiangMaHe, this time taken on 05.11.2015. I realized as I strolled along that I’d never been in the direction going from Dongzhimen towards the 3rd Ring Road along this strip after the Xindonglu part. Since I live so close, I’m not sure why I’ve never thought of going along this part of the river, but I’m glad I finally did. The weather certainly helped!

I had actually seen a car parked by the banks of the river and the owners barbecuing next to it with their children (and a few others) running around nearby. As I snapped a photo, a guy shouted, “hey, don’t upload this to Weibo!” I’m guessing what he was doing was illegal.  Their kids were certainly having fun though.

Speaking of fun, sometimes I find it rare to see young child having innocent fun by themselves without adults being around. I was commenting on this a few weeks ago with some friends as we discussed the state of education in China and the lack of social trust. When I go to the park or playground I often see children being watched or hands held by adults (usually grandparents or an ayi); rarely are they encouraged to run around and roam freely to explore and touch things. Children are told not to touch other children, and if they misbehave, their guardians are frantic. I believe it’s because adults are afraid of children hurting each other and don’t want the repercussions of dealing with it. But if children aren’t encouraged to play with each other from a young age, how do they learn social skills or to function in society where they have to deal with other people (and their shit) every single day? It’s no wonder that sometimes it seems like the Chinese children I have met seem to lack social and problem-solving skills compared to their peers overseas.

[livingitupinbeijing]

The Hyundai Motor Tower on Xiaoyun Lu has housed my “office” space since the summer of 2013. When I left Accenture in April of that year, I left to start Prep Beijing, with the intention to run coaching programs that would help Chinese students looking to study in the US for boarding school better transition to their new life overseas. I had already been thinking of this idea since 2012, but in 2013 I -- in some ways impulsively -- took the plunge into entrepreneurship. 

I can’t say I’ve been very successful as an entrepreneur. For many reasons that I don’t even know where to begin (so I won’t), but I don’t regret a single moment. I’ve learnt more about myself in these past two years than I had my whole life, or at least in business school. When I leave this coming summer, I leave with no intention to keep Prep Beijing going in the future, but I leave it behind with a much clearer idea of who I am and what my strengths and weaknesses are. I loved spending one year at INSEAD, but I don’t think it fully equipped me to become an entrepreneur, partly because I never envisioned myself becoming an entrepreneur within five years of leaving INSEAD. Another big part of my failure as an entrepreneur is that when I get it into my head that I want to do something, I just go and do it without fully thinking of or planning the consequences. Despite what my friends around me think, I’m not a good planner (but I am structured in how I approach things sometimes; which I believe are two different skills) and that makes me reckless sometimes. Having said this though, my recklessness does make life interesting for me, and it’s in many ways what keeps me moving forward and looking for change and new challenges all the time. 

Anyway. Back to Hyundai Motor Tower. When I first started Prep Beijing with Jenny, my former business partner, we didn’t want to put in the capital to rent an actual school, so we decided on leasing a shared office space on the 17th floor of this building. We probably shouldn’t have rented an office space, but meeting at coffee shops any time we wanted to discuss something wasn’t ideal either. We chose this building for it’s convenience to Sanyuanqiao and Liangmaqiao: easy access on the line ten and in anticipation to meet parents and students who lived in the CBD, Wangjing and Haidian. The many meetings we were hoping to use the space for didn’t really materialize -- simply said, we were not good at marketing ourselves the first year. The office itself was too nice for what we really needed, though at least we could wow parents with the fact that we had an “office.” Hah. And there was free coffee and fast(er) internet! 

After Jenny left Prep Beijing, I still renewed the lease, but reduced the amount of office time, thereby reducing rent. I go in once a week or two for a few hours when I have meetings or need a quiet little secluded space to work in with no distraction. When I’m there, I get into “work mode,” perhaps because I actually am in a real office again. I’ve never been the type to work from a coffee shop alone because I get distracted too easily and end up staring at people and imagining their lives. It’s nice to know I always have somewhere to go to when I need to do some serious work or legitimize what I’m doing as a profession. My rent at this place ends in August, coinciding with when I will leave Beijing and I will miss it a little, even though it was never really a “Prep Beijing office.”

[livingitupinbeijing]

David Whyte on the True Meaning of Friendship, Love, and Heartbreak

"Heartbreak is how we mature... There is almost no path a human being can follow that does not lead to heartbreak." "Words belong to each

[livingitupinbeijing]

For the past year and a half, I’ve been getting a haircut at this place next to April Gourmet’s near ChunXiuLu. The first time I went there I had decided to get a new hairstyle, cutting it short from about shoulder length (or just below). I barely remember what I took like now with longish hair. So when I think of haircuts in Beijing now, I think of this place: it’s been reliable and I haven’t had to worry about the outcome because time and time again after the haircut friends will say they like it.

My first haircut in Beijing was at a hair salon near MingAnXiaoQu. At the time I also had longish hair and had decided to “change” my style. I didn’t know what to get, but had some basic idea, which I described to the stylist and let him do the rest. Poor choice. I ended up with some V-Style stair cut where the back of my hair was shorter than the front closer to my face. I think it lasted for a short while only.

I’m the type of person willing to experiment with different hairstyles and I personally think short hair suits me better than long hair. Since I’ve been in Beijing I’ve transitioned from long to short to long and back to short - long by my definition is a few inches shorter than shoulder length. When I first moved to Beijing I tried a few different hair salons, but never found the ideal place: it was either too expensive or I’d get hair cuts that made me feel too Chinese. I gave up after the first year and a half and resorted to just getting one whenever I was in Hong Kong (which was about once every four months). 

Until I decided to go to Yunya. So now I get my haircut here, and for those of you who want a new hairstyle or want to maintain short hair, I’d recommend you go there too!

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I was at Peking University’s (北大) BiMBA this past Friday as we (Lean In Beijing) were organizing our first Professional Mentorship event and I was co-moderating a panel discussion. The day was beautiful, and as we walked across the campus to reach our venue we passed the lake and Boya Pagoda, it suddenly occurred to me that 北大 is the first university that I’ve actually visited my whole life. Funny that.

I had mentioned in a previous post that when I was 14 and spending my summer in Beijing, my mom’s friend’s son was doing his PhD at the school. That summer, I had been enrolled at an “university” to study Chinese, but really all it was was a building with a dorm next to it. Anyway. One day he took me to his campus to walk around and showed me the lake and pagoda. I can’t remember much of that visit, but we had commented how pretty the campus was back then and how prestigious an university 北大 it was. The 14 year old me had already decided then I was going to boarding school and university abroad, so being at 北大 then didn’t register much to me.

The older me on Friday though, could feel the energy, and knowing more about China’s history and having a much deeper understanding of education, culture and society in China, I felt a much deeper appreciation of it. Of course, it helped that the weather, air and blue skies emphasized the beauty of the campus, but I did feel a certain buzz of energy around. 

I have a close friend whose parents both attended 北大 in 1977 (first intake after the Cultural Revolution) but my friend himself grew up and studied in the US. For me, as the first person in my immediate generation of family on my mother’s side (I am not close to my paternal side of the family) to attend university, I suddenly wondered what it would feel like if my parents had attended 北大. I felt a slight pang of jealousy that I would never be able to say in my lifetime that I attended the same alma matar as my parents. In truth it’s not important and there are many children who do not attend the same university as their parents, but a topic I have been pondering lately has been legacy, and I wondered then what our family legacy would look like if I had continued the tradition of attending 北大. I didn’t have much time to ponder this though as we neared our venue and I had to set up for our event.

[livingitupinbeijing]

There’s a saying from Chairman Mao in Chinese that goes, “不到长城非好汉” (Google translation: He who has never been to the Great Wall is not a true man), so I’m glad to say I’ve been a few times before. The first time I went to the Great Wall, I went to a portion along Badaling, which was already fully developed and commercialized in the mid 90s. The teachers at my language program had taken me there on a weekend under the sweltering heat of the August summer. We were there for maybe an hour only and were followed everywhere by people who would try sell me little trinkets and souvenirs. In the subsequent language programs I had attended (in total I spent three summers in Beijing between the age of 14 - 17), I was again taken to Badaling -- I guess it was convenient to because the climb was easier, as well as close to the Ming Tombs so we could see both sites in a day. Once, we even went to Marco Polo Bridge on the same day! I never had a good impression of Badaling back then, and because of it, I never really thought much of the Great Wall. I merely knew it was a Seven Wonder and had read its history and some of the myths and legends associated with it. I guess, to me, on paper it was more impressive than in real life. 

Until, I went to Jiankou in June 2009 with about eight friends. We had rented a van, left early on a Saturday morning, arrived at Jiankou within two hours or so, ate lunch at a villagers home and started our climb towards the wall. The weather was beautiful and the company wonderful as we slowly but surely meandered our way along the hike. This was a completely different experience to being at Badaling. Out in Jiankou, the wall was wilder, the paths less structured, the walls more dilapidated and about 1,000 times less crowded. We soon found the site where we would set up our tents to rest for the night, an area next to a viewing section that also offered enough space for us to set up a campfire to cook our food for the evening. After we had setup our tents we continued to hike for a little while before heading back to campsite to settle in for the evening. As the fire was being started, we sat around bantering and teasing each other, drinking wine, making smores and eating our pasta dinner. We could have been anywhere in the world; Great Wall Beijing offers such a different atmosphere to the concrete jungle of what we usually call Beijing. At night we watched the stars under the crackle of the fire, protected from the gentle breeze by the Great Wall surrounding us, and eased into a slumber. 

After that trip to Jiankou, I didn’t go to the Great Wall for five and a half years. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to -- “life” just has a way of getting in the way and I had other priorities and places to see. But this past winter, I went with Min to hike from HuangHuaCheng (黄花城) to ShuiChangCheng (水长城). It was cold, but not unbearable (I double layered on socks) and doable in about 3 hours with lots of picture-taking in between. The hike was gentler than at Jiankou, but offered more views of a reservoir. This being winter, the water was frozen (as you can see from the pictures), the air crisper and the sky grayer, but that didn’t lessen the majesty of the Wall and surrounding mountains. 

In the past, when friends asked if I wanted to camp at the Great Wall I’d say no because of the time commitment, but in truth, it’s worth going for day trips and there are many parts of the Wall that are accessible now by public transportation. It’s a nice way to take a break from the city without going too far or spending a lot of money. I see more and more development at various parts of the Wall, for example a small mall strip is being built at the entrance to ShuiChangCheng, with charging pods for electric vehicles! (which brings me to mention that the EV industry will take a while to build in China because the infrastructure to support it has just been so slow to setup) I can only hope that in a few years time, if I have a chance to visit the Great Wall again, that this portion will not become as commercialized as Badaling. 

[livingitupinbeijing]

Our usual BCD (”Boozy Chinese Dinner”) place on Dongzhimen Nei is under renovation at the moment. I showed up a few days ago when our friend Zahlen was in town and I was trying to help him book a table for our gr (oup of Frisbee friends. I’m not sure when it will re-open again, soon I hope, but it being under renovation is a reminder that Beijing does undergo change quite often. This restaurant was renovated just a few years ago. I’ll explain what BCD is in another post, hopefully because there will be an opportunity for one before I leave Beijing.

The restaurant to the east of our BCD place is new too. I don’t know when it was exactly opened, but as I do pass by Dongzhimen Nei at least once a month and hadn’t realized this restaurant was open till last week, I would say it’s quite new (and something Mao-themed, given the style). Spring is here; it means the restaurants on guijie start packing up as everyone sits outdoors for their beer and food. It means it’s time to avoid going along guijie after 6pm, risk being stuck in traffic and getting road rage.

I post the picture of the post office that I usually go to just across the street from Gongti as another example of encountering change in Beijing -- and the frustrations of how life isn’t always as straightforward or easy. I had shown up to this post office on the same day that I had tried to book a table at BCD restaurant, only to discover that the post office was under renovation until May. So much for going to two places on the same day within an hour to find them both under renovation! The annoying thing is that despite there being a China Post next door (you can see the two signs, side by side in the photo) offering “postal services” -- by that I mean philately services -- I couldn’t mail a document. The closest options were apparently to go to Tuanjiehu or Xinyuanli. I don’t understand the intricacies of the inner workings of postal services, but I’m really not sure why they couldn’t have just set up a temporary booth inside the office that sold stamps, instead of turning away every person who would have shown up to mail a letter or package. In this day and age of technology and modern infrastructure, surely it’s easy to set up temporary postal booths inside a post office! Perhaps I could have checked online, but who goes online to see if their local post office is open before they actually go?

[equalitymattersallaround]

TV & Movies Seem To Primarily Show Either Extrovert Or Introverts Who Overcome Their Shy Tendencies To Form A Group Of Really Good Friends Who They Hang Out With All The Time. Meanwhile, Real Life Introverts Are Left Feeling Like Something Is Wrong With Them. Here’s The Thing: There’s Not.

[livingitupinbeijing]

Yesterday I mentioned that Candice and Doc were my first roommates when I moved to Beijing. Home was on the 6th floor of a 6-floor walk-up  inside MingAnXiaoQu in Dongzhimen. I’m sure many expats in Beijing have at some point or another lived in MingAnXiaoQu, or had friends who live there. A friend who once lived there but moved away a few years ago called it one big ginormous college dorm -- I suppose it does feel like that sometimes. 

Living with Candice and Doc always felt temporary though, mostly because I hadn’t intended to stay for long in Beijing. Candice had to buy a bed for my room but I didn’t get that until about a week after I had arrived. The single bed was purchased off her friend and arrived in our apartment unassembled, so her and Tao put it together one day while I was at school. It held up for a while: they had put together parts of the frame with tape, and one night about a month later, while I was sleeping, parts of the wooden frame that supported the mattress collapsed in. I continued to the use the bed after that though by simply re-taping parts of the bed together. When our friend Babygirl moved in after I left, he got rid of the bed; he was too tall for it anyway. 

In June or July 2009 I moved all of four buildings away, to building one. By then I had started dating Tao, and I temporarily moved into his place because I had no money to afford rent and my internship with Accenture wasn’t paying enough. I don’t anything interesting to say about this place, except a few months later I moved, yet again. And back to my original apartment. As a sign of how things just are in Beijing, when Tao’s lease ended, one of his roommates decided to leave Beijing and Doc was moving to Kunming, so Tao and I decided to take Doc’s old room. He had lived in the loft when we were roommates. 

The loft is the location where I first learnt to play caps sort of skillfully (more on this, when I talk about BCD, “Boozy Chinese Dinner”) and with some appreciation. Caps is a game that Tao claims he brought to Beijing. We spent many evenings in the loft with frisbee friends playing caps: two teams of two sitting about three yards apart, with the objective being to shoot beer caps into your opponents’ solo cup filled with water. Tao, loving stats and competition, would always keep track of personal performances and scores. There was an art to shooting and a special way of holding the cap to enhance the shooting accurately. Games were to 11, but if a team scored zero, they had to do a naked run (I don’t think I’ve ever seen this). Teams could try rebut a successful score, but if not, they had to take a shot of their beer. If you personally scored twice in a row, you were “heating up” and if you scored three in a row “you were on fire” and had the opportunity to keep scoring until you stopped. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a “heating up.” I remember caps fondly because it was such a staple to Beijing Ultimate Frisbee when I first moved here. We were an especially tight group of friends back then, in a way that you are when you’re younger and more eager to go out and drink. Not that we only ever played caps outside of frisbee, but we did play it quite often for a while. If you want a recap of some of our nights involving caps, Tao wrote of a few on his blog. 

But back to this apartment at MingAnXiaoQu. We used to order from this Chinese restaurant (3rd picture) inside the complex at least once a week. After pickup on weeknights, we’d also stop by and eat there. It got to the point where they recognized our voice and phone numbers, such that even after I had moved to an apartment in BeiXinCang, across the street from MingAn, they would agree to deliver to us and we didn’t even have to tell them who we were!