So Dialogues on CCTV9 aired last night. To tell you the truth, I didn’t see it. (Watching myself on TV wigs me out. There’s a reason I want to be a newspaper writer and not a broadcaster!)

Luckily, I’ve got some amazing readers who caught the episode and filled me in on how I did! Here are a few of those comments:

From Kien Voon, my new e-pen pal who found my blog from Beijing:
“Even though a bit nervous at the beginning but overall you are doing great. I purposely deferred all my schedules in order to watch you in CCTV and  I am impressed. We Chinese sometime believes in fate.....getting to know you its fated..hahaha...well its true in a way.... I got to read your blog by chance while searching for other information, then I sent you an email and you replied then you appeared in CCTV 9, what a chance!”

From an anonymous Dallasite:
“I am from Dallas and am in Poland on business. I am watching CCTV this afternoon and there you are! Nice to hear a voice from Texas! Thank you. Good Luck in China.”

Click (more) for more comments!
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Went to an amazing dumpling place for dinner tonight! I’ve wanted to try Baoyuan Jiaozi since I found it on The Beijinger, and it was well worth the wait. Click (more) below for directions, in case you’re ever in Beijing and have a hankerin’ for some dumplings!

When you don’t speak the language, it’s hard to order dumplings in China. They all look the same! You can tell there’s something in that little white dough pocket, but it’s impossible to tell what. Unless you know the Mandarin words for “meat” or “vegetable,” it’s a total guess what’s inside your dinner.

At Baoyuan Jiaozi, the menus had English translations of what came inside. For less than 10 RMB (a little over $1), you could order 6 dumplings packed with your choice of pork, egg, and a huge list of vegetables.

And the best part? They dye them! For an extra 6 RMB, you can have your dumplings custom dyed purple, orange, blue or green. How fun!

There were four of us at diner tonight, and for about 20 RMB ($3) each, we got 6 purple pork and cucumber dumplings, 6 orange pork and celery dumplings, 6 regular egg and leek dumplings, lemon walnut chicken, steamed broccoli, two bottled waters and tea. Delicious and cheap!
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I did Chinese karaoke last night! And it was nothing like what I expected.

Karaoke is huge in China, definitely something a group of young people would do on an average weekend in order to “get to know each other better,” as my Chinese friend told me today. It’s really different than Western karaoke, where one person stands at the front of the room full of strangers and belts a power ballad.

Here, groups get a private room for karaoke, so you and your 15 closest friends go together, the way teenagers go to movies in the States. At the front of the room are several TV’s: one for the performer and some for the audience. That way, the whole group can sing along, but if the person up front really good (or really bad), everyone can still tell.

Click (more) to read about the karaoke bar where we went!

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Beijing is covered in strange smells: some good, most bad, and some just uniquely Beijing. So our trip to the Llama Temple, one of the city’s most beautiful and impressive Tibetan Buddhist temples, was a welcome change. The streets on the way to the temple are lined with colorful incense shops so people can burn their offerings inside the temple.

I didn’t burn any incense offerings. I just tried to stay out of the way. I felt very intrusive taking pictures and acting like a tourist in a temple where monks live and people are worshiping, but no one seemed to mind. Being in such a holy place for so many people was very centering and peaceful.

We also stopped through the Confucius Temple, just down the street and complete with interactive computer games for the kids. The Confucius Temple was more a museum (a very Western one, at that) than a temple, but there were still people kneeling in prayer in areas.

Click (more) for pictures!
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This is how I personally judge the air quality:
A) How blue is the sky?
B) How far can I see?
C) How easy is it for me to breathe?

For the last few days, the air quality has been awful. The sky’s been brownish white, and smog obscures the view of anything more than, like, 50 yards away. This is despite all Beijing's efforts to clear the air, like fewer cars, fewer factories and more subway lines.

When the smog is this bad, the heat becomes oppressive. I mean, when it’s hot in Texas, at least you can feel the sun on your skin! Here, it’s hot, but you can’t even see the sky. All of Beijing turns into an oven trapping heat from days before with smog from years before. I sweat constantly, even when I’m not hot.

That’s why news stories like this one confuse me. I mean, I’ve had trouble breathing this week, and I’ve seen a lot more Chinese people wearing face masks. But they say the air is better. Maybe the “official” measure of air pollution is different than mine.

When the air is this bad, I get exhausted after just a few hours of being out. So my blogging may not be as constant for just a day or two. Luckily, it’s supposed to rain this week, which usually clears out the air pretty quickly!


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There was a story in yesterday’s China Daily about an official poster put up in touristy areas of Beijing instructing residents to steer clear of “potentially awkward conversation topics.”

How exactly do you do that? Well the poster lists 8 “Don’t Asks” to steer clear of. Beijingers shouldn’t ask about:
1. Income or expenses
2. Age
3. Love life or marriage
4. Health
5. Someone’s home or address
6. Personal experience
7. Religious beliefs or political views
8. What someone does

Hm, looks like I’m going to he having a lot of conversations about the weather!

Click (more) for a list of questions the Chinese asked my grandfather back in 1979.


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So my roommate and a couple friends went at 4 a.m. last night to try to get Olympics tickets. When they got to the Olympics Sports Center to buy water polo tickets, they found a long, curvy line with people camped out in tents. My friends just got in line and planned to wait until 9 a.m., when the tickets went on sale.

“No one knew anything,” my roommate Stephanie Coon said. “There were no guards. It was just a dirt parking lot we were sitting in for two hours.”

Suddenly, 2 hours before the tickets went on sale, the line imploded. With no warning, everyone ran to the front gate grabbing wildly. The people who’d been camping out all night lost their spot at the front because they had to gather their tents before they could run. There were only about 1,000 people there, my friends said; if there had been more, they said they felt like they would have been trampled.

“There’s no way this would ever have happened in another country,” Stephanie said. “This shows how unorganized they really are.”

At one point, an official started yelling directions in Chinese. Apparently, everyone was instructed to line up in order of when they first arrived. Fat chance. As the instructions were translated, my friends watched all the Chinese people sprint to the other side of the parking lot and form a mob where the three lines were supposed to be.

“I can’t believe how third-world it was,” my friend Alex Monnig said. “A fire drill during an actual fire in a building full of hypochondriacs is run better.

“The Western media is going to crush China.”

Click (more) for more of the story.
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Some friends and I were thinking of camping out tonight to get tickets to Olympic events since there are over 800,000 tickets going on sale tomorrow, according to official ticket websites. I'd be happy with tickets to any event, so our plan as of tonight was to leave the hotel at 4 a.m. and see what we could get.

Then a friend sent this email: “Hey guys, good luck trying to get tickets tomorrow if you are going. We just went tonight with intentions of camping out and there are at least 75,000 people there already.  I am not exaggerating. So if you want tickets in the water cube or national stadium good luck.”

Holy crap. Does anyone else have an idea of how to get cheap tickets?

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So the other day, I was getting some rice from a cafeteria. After I ordered, the lady behind the counter held up her hand like my little brother did when he was pretending to shoot a gun – pointer finger extended and thumb up.

I must have just stared at her with a blank face, because she laughed and motioned for me to look at the menu. She pointed to the number 8 and said, “minutes,” apparently telling me to wait about 8 minutes for my food. I nodded and held up 8 fingers, to clarify. She took her time counting the fingers, and then nodded in understanding.

Yesterday, I asked one of the Chinese volunteers at the NIS about it. Why, I asked, did this Chinese woman give me the Texas Tech “Get yer guns up” sign when she was trying to tell me how many minutes to wait? Apparently, the Chinese only use one hand to count to ten, rather than using all ten fingers the way we do in the States.

Click (more) to learn how to count to 10 using your hands the way the Chinese do.

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Another huge thank you to those of you who are reading and posting tips!

Robert Tracy, I used your line today on CCTV. Before the show, the host read my blog post about terrorism. On air, he asked if I thought the bus bombings in southwest China were related to the Olympics. I said that China is a big place and bad things happen every day — almost word for word what Robert posted in the comments section of yesterday’s post. Thanks Robert!
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