Barely surviving this hump day. This week and the next are mid-terms. I had two papers due today, one being Moses'. First I need to tell you about the ridiculousness that was Moses' midterm paper. Basically we had to take a proposition from a list of propositions about how Chinese politics works written by Lucian Pye, an expert in Chinese politi...

Joanna was the guest speaker for this session. We were there at around 9am and was done at around 11am which then we headed off for some great Beijing Duck!  Although we got the bad news that Chuan2 Ju4 De2 (the hundred-year-old store) is closed for renovation starting the day we arrived, Mr. Zou found a great store to satisfy our stomache....

Following our trip to the Great Wall a massage was in order - so we decided to drop in to the local massage parlour two doors down - having heard from an American it was not a brothel but on the contrary very clean (and cheap - $10 an hour). It felt just great - but it was not like home. It is a good thing we didn't get undressed - as rathe...

I spent the better part of today touring Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City. Before I forget, I love the toddler's fashion here. Children up to about the age of 4 have a slit from the front of their pants to the back, enabling them to squat and do their business at will. As I was walking around the Tiananmen Square, I noticed one little boy...

My first day in Beijing I did positively nothing, just took a bit of a rest. But since then I've been pretty busy... but not with what you might expect. The Far East International Youth Hostel (Or the Yuandong Fandiyan if you prefer) is a rather bit and comparatively "fancy" hostel in one of Bejing's chotong neighborhoods. There are travelers fr...