Chinese person because you can simply ask them how to read a character or what the name is for an object around you. We discussed everything from World of Warcraft (WOW) and Linkin Park to Shakespeare and the Wright Brothers. Not that I really understand how to play WOW, but he said that different cultures have different ways of playing. According to him, American people like to first play and then chat, Chinese people like to play and chat at the same time, and Korean players like to play together in unknown or lesser known rooms or areas. Before he got off at his stop, he gave me his business card, but not with 2 hands as is customary. I wonder if that was a reflection of changing times or just the informality of the situation (perhaps both!).
After arriving in Tai'an, we were greeted by a huge bust statue of Lei Feng (remember him). We arrived at about 10 pm and took a taxi to the base of the mountain. The mountain didn't open until 12, so at about 12:30 am, we started our ascent. See Wikipedia for a Tai'shan lowdown. There were a ton of little worship places and rock inscriptions of the way up as well as natural beauty (see picture for natural rock bridge). The mountain is most famous because every emperor climbed (or got carried up as I suspect) this mountain and worshipped the gods. Why did we start climbing at 12:20 am? The most famous thing to do on this mountain is see the sun rise. Because of the popularity of this event, there were a lot of people climbing at the same time as us. I was surprised at the number of elderly people and young kids especially that were climbing during the night. A Chinese roommate told me Chinese people believe climbing the mountain and seeing the sunrise ensures you will have good health and helps you prolong your lifespan. Climbing all through the night was definitely an experience. I just kept reminding myself of Laozi's saying " The journey of a million miles begins with 1 step." As we were climbing, we would go through spurts of energy and exhaustion.
When we returned to Beijing, our teacher made a great analogy. Climbing a mountain is like our 8 weeks of intensive Chinese. The first week is excitement and adaptation to something new, the next week is adjustment, the next week you're motivated because you've figured it out, the next couple weeks are just plowing along, and then you realize you're almost done. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel (or in this case the sun rising at the top of the mountain) and suddenly the anticipation of the end makes it really hard. The hardest part definitely was the last leg of the mountain when I was hoping I could just put one foot in front of the other. In comparison, we have just hit this stage in our studies (with about 2 weeks left) and it definitely takes an effort to stay motivated.
So back to Taishan. From 12:30 am to about 5:00 AM we climbed the 6000 steps to the top of Taishan, just in time to find a good place to watch the sunrise. During our last 45 minutes of climbing, we watched the stars turn into blue sky. The sunrise was beautiful and the moon stayed visible throughout the early morning hours. There were hundreds of people gathered on Taishan to watch the sunrise. About 7:00 am we made our way down the mountain, opting out of the chairlift. We walked half of the way down the mountain so we could appreciate the mountain's beauty and see all the worship a
reas and rock inscriptions that we missed out on during the night. On the way down we saw people hoisting wares (see picture) on their shoulders, hired to bring goods up the mountain every day (it reminded me of what sherpas do). I can't imagine climbing that mountain every day! It seems like transporting things by chairlift would be a lot easier, but China definitely relies more on physical man labor. When we reached the halfway point we took a bus the rest of the way down. After making it to the bottom of the hill, Part 2 of our 30 our whirlwind trip commenced.Vocab word of the day: 日出 (ri4 chu1) Sunrise
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