西湖 Xīhú (West Lake)

大家你好 dàjiā níhăo  (Hello, everyone!)

Greetings from... my room! After a week and a half, I'm finally legitimately hooked up to the internet. That is, the rare moments when it works. Those of us with 苹果 píngguŏ ("apple," literally) computers have a bit of trouble. Unfortunately, at this rate I'll still be at the mercy of the mysterious, open wireless network that I can only access in the hallway. (as they say in Chinese, "不三不四," which translates to "neither three nor four," a.k.a, "sketchy")

In any case, I’ve settled in and have begun taking classes. After some deliberation, I’ve decided to take a Chinese History class (pre-dynastic history through 1949 in one semester… in Chinese??), an "Everyday Chinese" class, a Hangzhou Studies class (required), and a one-on-one class on Chinese Opera. So far, all of my professors are very good. It will, however, be extremely brutal.

So if you were toying around with the idea of picking up Mandarin, let me say just one thing: DON’T. You’ll either give up after a year or so, or you’ll become emotionally invested and then, guess what! IT’S. TOO. LATE. You’re sucked in and have no choice but to drag your tired, battered brain through endless hours of self-inflicted pain. The more you learn, the more you realize how futile it all is. You’ll never retain all of the tones or characters. And say hypothetically you do, then there are dozens upon dozens of dialects out there waiting to slap you in the face. So now you know. Learning Mandarin is a losing battle. If you’re still interested, then by all means join the clobbered troops. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side. 加油 jiāyóu ("rah rah," roughly)!

(Just kidding. Sort of, but not really. However for better or worse, I still love it).

So anyway, there’s been some highlights; my favorite anecdote thus far would have to be when we visited the school’s “gym facilities” and saw a basketball court that was empty save for a large chicken. I still don’t have a good grasp of Hangzhou since I’ve mostly been on campus. It's a mid-sized city by Chinese standards, but it still feels quite big. It’s very developed, and the downtown area is extremely commercial. However, it’s still one of the greenest cities in China and is renowned for its beauty. This is a bit difficult to grasp until you’ve visited Xi Hu, or West Lake. This huge lake is the longstanding source of inspiration for much Chinese art and poetry. It’s surrounded by mountains, has two islands, two causeways, lotus flowers, and lots of fish (although I haven’t seen any, yet). We went on a boat tour last week, and yesterday we climbed Baoshi mountain, which a nice view from the top. I’ll attach some photos:

View of Xi Hu at Sunset

雷峰塔 (Leifung Pagoda) at Night

View of Xi Hu and Hangzhou from Baoshi Mountain

That’s the big stuff for now, I suspect that I’ll have more news after this weekend. I’m hoping to explore more of Hangzhou this weekend before the heavy-duty work actually sets in. 哎呀 aiya.

Oh yes, and L’shana tova to my fellow tribesmen out there! Sadly, there is 0 Jewish community here in Hangzhou, so please celebrate for me on your end. I’m looking into Yom Kippur in Shanghai with some girls studying there, so we'll see how that goes.