Aha! Greenery has emerged from the dusty dirty city that is Beijing! It is hard to believe that this same day's morning was possible one of the worst pollution days since I've been here, then it quickly turned into a very blue sky. Then a few hours later, got really windy and I think was a minor sandstorm. (Apparently common in the spring time because there are no trees left dividing the Gobi desert from Beijing, so the wind just continues blowing and picks up more and more dust and sand.) The leaves coming out on the trees and flowers blooming has definitely improved my mood and made it a little easier to study.




View from a very tiny park on the campus. The building on the right behind the trees is the library and I'm not sure what the red building is.






























Houzi Dawang! (Monkey King), the villain of the opera.










Wife of the general in the opera. She offered to kill herself to allow her husband to not have to worry about her while he is at war.










Alas, the right to speak English freely is so close and yet so far...only two weeks of classes left, but too much to do in those two weeks. However, contrary to my joy after finishing our semester long project presentation, we've just been assigned another 20 minute presentation on our favorite movie and why it's our favorite and such and such. Last Wednesday all the third year students had to present their duli baogao (independent project). It was set up like a research symposium, with three classroms simeltaneously having students present. We could choose which presentations to attend, and it was really interesting to see the topics people had chosen (the role of modern art in Beijing, recent trends in Chinese adoption, Americans' views toward the "Chinese Threat", Hutong's current role in Chiense tourism, etc.). My presentation went pretty well, aside from being nervous about speaking Chinese straight for 20 minutes and tryng to speak smoothly.
As one of my friends, who is also abroad said, it feels like I've just arrived in Beijing, but when I think back to last semester at Colby it seems like ages ago. I think my Chinese speaking abilities have improved a lot, but I can't really remember what my vocabulary and grammar level was when the semester started. Strange.
On Friday, we all went to the Peking Opera. I think this particular opera was directed at tourists because it contained very little dialogue and lots of kung fu action. And, not surprisingly, almost the entire audience was composed of waiguoren from various countries. It was probably the largest concentration of non-Chinese people I have seen in one place at one time since coming to China.
I also (a while ago) found half papayas for about 50 cents each. Mmmm.

Also, I think one reason Chinese people are so healthy in this almost toxic environment is because they non-stop drink green tea- always have a tea jar at hand.