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When the lights go down in the city...

Hello my fairest readers,

     Well today it is Saturday, and one of my last days in the capital of Beijing. I have mixed feelings about this city, so much potential waiting, untapped, and so much regret. All in all my experience in one of the most progressive of China's financial behemoths has been terrible. Maybe I'm over-dramatizing, or putting too much of a nasty spin on it, but please hear me out. Firstly, I've described my living situation, and I can't wait to get out of it. How one lives effects the entirety of experiences, because if you had to go home after a long day to plywood beds and prison showers, you would be depressed too. Then there were the classes, 6 hours of them per day, 4 days a week. This schedule wouldn't be so bad if we simply had a good professor. This Chinese man has taken one of the oldest cultures on Earth and turned it into the most dull, lifeless blob of words ever known to man. I know sometimes history can be dry, but this class took dry all the way to the desert, leaving dry wine and dry humor cringing in its ghastly wake. Devoid of life would be a better description, a wasteland of intellectual development. Maybe he's better at teaching in Chinese, but in English...just no. However, in this infinite darkness of terror, there are some points of light to be seen.
     The first point is the Great Wall of China. You know it, love it, and I loved climbing it. It's a rather difficult climb, but clement weather made the day so much more enjoyable. The only thing I'm sad about is that the constant bother of Chinese haze in the sky made some of my photos slightly less enjoyable. None-the-less, this mammoth creation of man was a real joy to experience. You see both young and old working their way along the bricks and stare in wonder at the elderly Chinese braving the steep inclines and tall stairs. As I walked, I had to look at the stones beneath my feet and wonder how many workers had been buried in the name of China. Did this take away from the experience? I don't think so, in fact nothing could make that wall any less cool (amazing, stupendous, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, sorry if I mis-spell).
     We saw other sites in Beijing, but the only other one worth noting is the unfinished TV tower. I may have discussed this before, but WOW! love that crazy engineering goodness. I really want to get some photos up of everything, but alas this is not possible here in Beijing, so I beg patience!!! I got my flickr account back, so I'll probably be posting there starting....soon?
     It's funny, after this depressing experience in Beijing, is it possible that I want to return here? I've now added to my list of options, returning to China to intensively study Chinese language to become fluent. Being a seperate entity here really takes away from the experience, but I'm thinking that if I return and stay for a year as a student, how different will it be? I think it personally will be an amazing time. If anyone has opinions, they are quite welcome. The study wouldn't even have to be here, I think any decently-developed Chinese metropolis would be amazing.
     And that, friends and whoever else reads this terrible prose, is the last of Beijing. Mayhap I will be making another post in Shanghai, if not there, definitely in Weihai, and hopefully on my own computer.

     Zaijian!!

            Patrick