Beijing Swings!

terpsichorean (turp-si-kuh-REE-uhn, turp-si-KOR-ee-uhn, -KORE-)

1. adjective: Of or relating to dancing.
2. noun: A dancer.
   

[From Terpsichore, the Muse of dancing and choral song in Greek mythology.
The word Terpsichore is the feminine form of terpsichoros (delighting in the dance), a combination of Greek terpein (to delight) and khoros (dance), which is ultimately from Indo-European root gher- (to grasp or to enclose) that's also the source of chorus, carol, choir, garth, court, and garden.]
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To my delight, Beijing has a lively swing & lindy hop scene! Jeremy and I went last Thursday and I went again on Monday. Even though I've been away from swing dancing for a good while, it was wonderful. It was as close to Stanford as I'd seen in a long time - just on a smaller scale, with more Chinese thrown in.

More penguins from East Asia

This time from a bakery near the Beijing World Trade Center.

That Tokyo conference

Since I haven't been at liberty to discuss the conference publicly, I thought I'd post this bit from Knight Ridder:

WASHINGTON - Last month, the chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea wanted to meet privately with his North Korean counterpart, hoping he could persuade Pyongyang to return to talks on eliminating its nuclear weapons program.

But the meeting between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and North Korean Vice Premier Kim Kye Gwan on the sidelines of a conference in Tokyo never took place.

Hill's superiors in Washington forbade him from talking directly to the North Koreans, said three U.S. officials, a conference participant and another knowledgeable expert. All requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

...

Hill, the assistant secretary of state, was urged to attend the Tokyo conference after two senior North Korean diplomats agreed in consultations involving two former senior American diplomats that it would be a chance for him to meet privately with Kim, the North Korean envoy, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions who asked to remain anonymous.

This person and a conference participant said Hill saw it as a chance to persuade Kim to rejoin six-nation talks on eliminating North Korea's nuclear arms program. The isolated Stalinist regime has boycotted the talks since the United States took action to halt what it charges are Pyongyang-run money-laundering, drug-running and counterfeiting operations.

Kim met privately with officials from the other nations - Russia, China, South Korea and Japan - involved in the moribund negotiations, said three U.S. officials and the conference participant.

Speaking at a conference in Washington on Tuesday, Hill insisted that "it was my call" not to meet Kim.

"Is someone impeding me from having bilateral contacts? The answer is yes, and it's the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)," he said. "We are not prepared to sit outside the six-party process and let the DPRK boycott the process and look for favors to get them back."

May Day

This week is a national holiday in China, perfect for some R&R. The umbrella I'm holding is not for rain but to ward off the sun--it was 90 degrees! Here we're standing in front of the entrance to Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace (destroyed twice by foreign troops in the 19th century. Here's the official story)

The construction noise has started again upstairs. Fortunately, it was quiet when our guests came over yesterday. Our Chinese friend, Sarah, had her parents come up from Nanjing for the May holiday. They traveled 10 hours on an overnight train to see their daughter for 2 days! We had them over for a mid-afternoon snack: apple crisp, baked to perfection (Jeremy's expertise), sliced mango, and watermelon seeds. They had never had baked apples before, but they seemed to enjoy it! To my consternation, there were no leftovers.

The infamous Yasukuni Shrine

Interestingly, every Japanese person I spoke to about the shrine told me that the privately-run museum presents a very distorted view of history (see below).

The best bread of my life

These two items, bought at the Ueno subway station, were the best two pieces of bread I have ever eaten in my life, despite the fact that the one on the right was green-colored, with a few sweet grean beans inside. Unfortunately, together they cost me 1900 yen, about 19 US dollars.

Photos from around Tokyo

Even the bathrooms (okay, especially the bathrooms) are gorgeous by comparison.

Kawaii! (cute in Japanese)

This one's for Josephine!

Springtime

The press contingent

Also parked outside the hotel, waiting for some action

Outside our hotel in Tokyo

Outside our hotel in Tokyo, there are riot police stationed... for fear that right-wing Japanese groups will harass the North Koreans.

Background on the North Korea-Japan abductee issue

To Tokyo

I leave this morning for 10 days in Tokyo, to rapporteur for a conference on Northeast Asian security that's been called the "track 1.5 version of the 6-party talks". Pictures to follow when I return!

Fulbrighter

On Friday I got an email with good news: I've won a Fulbright award for next year! All those hours writing and rewriting have paid off.

Old haunts

I thought I swore never to go back to IKEA Beijing. But we did, and despite our exhaustion bought several armfuls of household furnishings, including a bookcase and coffee table. Rather than paying IKEA to deliver the next day, we saved ourselves 10 yuan by haggling with one of the minivan drivers crowding the exit to snag a customer.

Ping pong?

On the campus of Beijing (Peking) University, one of China's finest centers of higher education.

More photos around town

Dancing in the park (our last days near Tiantan, aka the Temple of Heaven). Yes, we did waltz!

Long time gone

Apologies for my long hiatus - these past few weeks have been busy, to say the least. We now live in a new apartment close to campus and new bicycles to school (at least until they get stolen, like two of my past three attempts to maintain a vehicular form of transportation in Beijing). The easy commute and spacious interior more than makes up for the higher rent.

We've had ample opportunity to sample the nicer restaurants in Beijing with successive visits of my family and one of Jeremy's advisors. One in particular features a 50s era red limo that Mao apparently reserved for his exclusive use. This limo is parked outside the restaurant, blocking about a third of the hutong that the restaurant fronts. In fact, to hail a cab after dinner, one of the restaurant employees - probably hired for this purpose - had to run a quarter of a mile just to flag a cab from the main street and convince the cabbie to enter this narrow and winding alley (cliche aside, this is a literal description - we had to wait five minutes on our way in because a little minivan was unloading produce at the local grocer).

Oh, China

It's nearing three weeks now that I've been in China again, time enough to settle in and start missing the comforts and sanity of home. First, I found out upon close inspection that I had been living a dream - those stickers I posted about were actually fakes - "Washinton," not "Washington" apples. That's China for you.

Next, I ate a bad apple and was laid out sick for a day and a half. Just as I was regaining my ability to remain vertical without nausea, Jeremy came down with a bad sore throat. Strep throat? You got it, or at least that's what the doctor proclaimed with 90% certainty. Will we ever know? Not really, since he didn't take a culture but suggested a blood test instead - to "determine the strength of your immune system," he said, so he would know what strength antibiotic to prescribe. Not that I'm any expert, but we were just as happy to avoid the use of needles.

But the day ended happily. I had a productive meeting over in the Jianguomen embassy area, in Starbucks, no less. Sitting in a cushy sofa chair, gazing up at the surprisingly blue sky, and listening to a classic Starbucks mix, I could almost imagine that I was in California again. Cliche, perhaps. To top it off, we had pizza delivered for dinner!


So, to sum up our day, in chronological order:

Snow!

And hopefully the last of the bitter cold.

It's the little things that matter

Like having ready access to potable water. China's tap water isn't drinkable. Even for brushing teeth, bottled water is recommended. Here I am, immensely proud of having negotiated by phone a water delivery service.