China Censorship

So up until now I haven't had a problem accessing websites through the Great Firewall of China, because of my VPN from UCI. However, someone seems to be onto me, because I can no longer access  youtube, wikipedia, or anything related to google, except, weirdly, the search engine and some parts of blogger if I access it directly from google+. I am currently accessing the editing page of blogger through the Google UK website. Facebook, however, weirdly enough, seems to be working fine.

So anyway, just don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for awhile.

Some photos around the university.

The fish in this pond were fun. They go on excursions away from underneath the bridge, always following each other in a line.

Ziwei at the West Gate entrance. (aka the publicity photogenic entrance.)

I just got back from a 3 night trip to Anyang and Xingtai, about 1-2 hours south of Beijing by high speed train. Anyang was the ancient Shang dynasty capital, and we got to see an archeological dig sight and the museum of chinese writing.

There are tons of photos, so get ready.

Ticket for the train! Dong laoshi has better handwriting than I do...

These gateway lions re everywhere. Here's the guy in front of our hotel.

Entrance to the archeological dig sight.

Much of the earliest writing samples in China were found on turtle shells and bones. This fountain replicates the turtle shell oracle writings.

Sacrificial kitchen tools. One of the victims says hi.

I know this is what you guys are really here to see. Ancient alcohol cups.

One of the earliest examples of chinese script on an oracle bone. You can barely see it, but there's writing at the very top left, and down the middle of the left white part of the bone. (The bone is sideways, the whiter part is the top. Or bottom. I can't tell.)

This is how the modern script looks like.

And this is the same in ancient script.

You make the water jump by rubbing the handles of the bowl. Pretty fun.

Delicious.

The dig sight.

Oracle library, with the librarian buried with it. That's some dedication.

There were too many cool examples of comparisons between the ancient script and modern, so I picked two to show you guys. This character means book.

This one is "ting" to hear or listen. See the modern character on the right in red.

Lady general Fu Hao. She was one of the emperors concubines who became a general in the army and was famous for fighting and drinking.

I tried to take a picture of what we call the "ladybug spider thing" for Anna, but I couldn't find the micro setting.... Still getting used to my new camera.

Outside of the National Museum of Chinese Writting.

Where these guys pretty much own the place.

Really cool ancient chinese in pottery.

Yes, they used knives as currency at one point.

Like this one.

Xingtai was really interesting too. Most of the trip was characterized by a reeeeeally long hike that we took the first day through the Xingtai Gorges, where an outlaw peasant army in the Tang dynasty had its base. I'm still sore.

The route to the gorge was really scenic.

Well I'm glad someone agrees.

 

Time for a break. 

So many stairs...

Finally made it to the top, after about 5 hours of rigorous uphill climbing. Time to head back down again...

Made it to the gondolas! We don't have to walk all the way back!

Good thing too, we might never have gotten to lunch otherwise.

Pretty much everyone died on the bus ride back. RIP.

When we finally got back to the hotel we had a free night, which was spent by a lot of us going to KTV, which is karaoke.

Yeah... kinda sucky camera quality. Still working on it.

Finally we got up the next morning to another chinese breakfast, and went to a daoist temple and a memorial to a famous Chinese scholar/inventor who was about 200 years ahead of western science, including advanced irrigation systems, the calculation of pi, the invention of a super awesome and accurate water-based clock designed to look like a traditional chinese lantern because it was going in the hall of the emperor... basically he was an all-around genius.

There were a lot of different gods, many of them with their own shrine. Daoism has a lot to do with balance, so  things were organized according to that idea. For example, the god of health was right across from the god of pestilence.

The more animals that are on the corners of a rooftop, the more important the building is considered. This is quite a lot of animals.

The entrance to the park where the memorial is.

This is the awesome water clock. (A representation anyway.) A little figure would come out on the hour playing a different instrument for every hour, so you could tell what hour it was by listening to the sound. 

Part of the inside of the park where the memorial was.

After that we hopped on the train back to Beijing. Tomorrow's a late start day, and all we have is one lecture in the afternoon. It'll be nice to sleep in for once. We have a few more field-trips throughout the week, but this is the last week of non-PKU courses. I'll be starting official classes next monday, including the Chinese language course, which I have found I desperately need. China is a lot more fun when you can get around semi-independently and be able to talk to the people around you. Let's hope I'm able to learn a thing or two by the time I get back.

再见！