中国…How I’ve missed you.

So, I’d like to apologize in advance for making my first blog entry so late. It’s just that these past few weeks in China have been amazing. This is the beginning of my third week in Beijing doing research, but actually the fifth week I’ve been in China. I decided to do some traveling on my own for two weeks before I started my research. And I can honestly say that those two weeks were some of the best weeks in my life.

So, I arrived in Beijing on May 28th of Memorial Day weekend and I checked into a youth hostel I would stay at for a few days until I would leave for Xi’an. When my flight arrived in Beijing at midnight, I was disoriented and kinda nervous about being in China on my own. But those fears disappeared by the next day when I was able to explore the neighborhood outside my youth hostel. You see, this wasn’t my first time in China. I had previously studied abroad in Shanghai last summer. And honestly, it’s a cool feeling just being able to walk along the street and take in the sights, and listen to people speaking a language that you’re not fluent in. I experienced that a lot in Shanghai and that feeling quickly came back once I was in Beijing.

While I was in Beijing, I took one day to just get accustomed to being back in China. I spent another day meeting up with Benjamin Zinszer, a graduate student who I’ve worked closely with for the past year, and Tim Poepsel, another graduate student who is also in China on a PIRE grant. The next day, I first went to a site I had wanted to see for many years: The Forbidden City. Walking in an enormous palace that for centuries had been the home of emperors and had been closed off to commoners on penalty of death was an incredible experience. I also had time that evening to see the Temple of Heaven, where the emperor would pray every year in a ceremony for good harvests that was forbidden to be observed by commoners. However, as I said before, I only planned to be in Beijing for a few days. After all, I would have two whole months to explore Beijing. So that same evening, I boarded an overnight train to the city of Xi’an.