Hong Lou Meng

Hello again,

Yes, yes, I know that I posted this two days late. However, I did have a reason this time.  This week, we were invited by our literature professor to travel to a site here in the city that pertains to the novel we are reading in our class:  Hong Lou Meng, or The Dream of The Red Chamber.  In fact, this location is where they filmed a TV version of the novel that is still widely watched in China today.  I thought I would wait to post a blog so I could tell you about that, and have some pictures to share as well. :)

However, I would like to save that for the end, and share another event that happened during this week.  That event is that I got sick for the first time in China.  I had dearly hoped that it wouldn't happen while I was over here. I tried to drink water, and I kept eating well instead of snacking on junk food all the time, like I do in the states. :P Alas, it wasn't meant to be.  I am doing much better now, and have started eating regular food again, although in slightly smaller portions.  But it wasn't a fun experience, and I hope it is the only time I have to deal with it.

Now, with that out of the way, I can share a little about this site we visited in town.  It took about a half hour by car for us to reach the location.  The series was originally filmed, I believe, in the 1980's, so some of the locations have gotten pretty run down, and there was quite a bit of renovation going on while we were there.  Even so, it was very interesting to see some of the places that the novel talks about.  Below are two examples, with headings describing what these locations are.

 A garden, in which many interactions take place between the novels three primary characters.

A recreation of the reception hall for a daughter who is an imperial concubine for the emperor.

Our visit lasted roughly an hour, and included some information about the author of the book as well as just seeing where the series was filmed. The book was written by a man named Cao Xueqin.  However, scholars studying the book today believe that he only wrote the first 80 or so chapters of the novel, and that someone else took it up from there to finish the last 40 or so chapters.  And yes, this book has around 120 chapters.  The English version we are reading takes up over 2300 pages, if that gives you any sense of the size of this novel.

 A statue of Cao Xueqin.

A copy of the novel on display.

Overall, it was a fun visit, and a full week. Between being sick, going on the trip, and still having to study and keep my other classes running well, I didn't have much time for anything else.  I plan to keep going to my martial arts class on Thursdays, which will hopefully continue to be fun.  This coming weekend is our trip to Pingyao, a city that still has walls around it. I will post again next week to let you know how that went, and if anything else exciting has happened on the trip.  Thanks again for reading.

Adam

I'm In

Hey everyone,

Update number five here.  I'm thinking that it is probably going to become my habit to always update this blog on Mondays.  Unless something absolutely amazing happens during the rest of the week, I will probably just save everything I have done during the week and share it all at once.  And this week, I learned that saying, "I'm in" when someone asks if you want to do something is a great way to make memories.

I also, unfortunately, learned that one should always take their camera with them if they are going somewhere. This lesson came on Saturday, when I was invited to "a park" by a Chinese woman introduced to us earlier in the week.  Her invitation went something like this:  "I would like to invite you three to a park for eating dinner."  I've been to a couple of the parks here, and so I accepted and didn't bother to bring my camera to a place I could visit any day.

To my great surprise, we were driven almost all the way across town to a water park, where we not only were treated to dinner, but got to meet ten 12-year-old students who spoke better English than I do Chinese.  Heck, they were acting as translators for their parents, who were along for the day.  Not only that, but we got to visit a studio where two men write poems in classic Chinese calligraphy.  One man has written poetry for the current president of China.  The other man is locally famous in our city, and was kind enough to give us each a piece of work he had completed recently.  Free of charge.  We were shocked, as we were told while walking back to the car:  "If you are ever short on money, sell that here and you'll be set."  Needless to say, we all decided to hang on to something that valuable, as that isn't something you can plan to get again.

On Sunday, I was supposed to go on another visit with another Chinese person we were introduced to, but I woke up with a bad cough and feeling very tired.  I ended up staying in pretty much all day that day.  Thankfully, it was just bad allergies from the day before, and I am very well recovered today.  In fact, I was invited to try a calligraphy class by one of my teachers, and to join a Tai Chi class type thing tonight by a group of students here.  After the lesson I learned by saying "I'm in" on Saturday, I said it again twice today and look forward to both of these experiences.

I'll let you know next week how they go, and hopefully there will be some other "I'm in" moments between now and then as well.  Also, my trip to Beijing is coming up this Thursday the 19th.  We'll be gone until Saturday the 21st, exploring places like the Forbidden City and Great Wall of China.  I'll definitely have pictures to share from those places, as well as stories about what all happened during our trip.  Thanks again to anyone that is reading this.

Adam