Week 2: June 6-12

Here we are at week two! I feel like I am definitely settling in at Tsinghua and in my room. I am starting to be able to know the streets well enough to explore them, and just tonight we checked out a beautiful lakeside pavilion right on campus. The more I get to know Tsinghua the more I feel like there is to explore here, let alone Beijing!

However, this week was not spent exploring Beijing. In fact, most of it was spent in Shanghai and Suzhou. We had a three day holiday for the Dragon Boat Festival, and took advantage of it by taking the bullet train down south and trying to get a look at the rest of China, however brief. It was really great. We met a lot of really nice and interesting travelers on the road, saw some incredible sights, and ate some incredible food. Shanghai is definitely a bigger, faster paced city than Beijing, and it feels more relaxed and younger. Fewer of the sights have historical meaning compared to Beijing (from what I have seen of Beijing so far), but the modern buildings are unbelievably impressive nonetheless. My favorite moment from the trip was probably going to the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower (one of the tallest in the world). It was exciting to see the whole downtown area at once.

Research is headed in the right direction, as I gain confidence in doing routine procedures and begin to experiment with designing novel processes. My lab group is very close knit, and I have been having a really good time getting to know them. My roommate moved out today, having finished her exams, and is going back to her hometown in Korea. I am sad to see her go, as she was very nice to me and helped me get set up here.

Week 3: June 13-19

For me, this was the week in which I started to feel like this is where I live and work. I have become increasingly confident in my ability to work in the lab by myself and make the necessary judgment calls, although as of right now, I am not particularly confident about the chances of the project itself working. However, there is certainly still a chance, and regardless of whether or not the project works, I am still learning a lot about chemistry, a subject I have avoided thus far at school. It is nice to be able to learn it while I am using it.

I had a really nice weekend- we did lots of tourist things on Saturday, and I worked all day Sunday. However, I had two really interesting meals with really interesting people on that day. The first was in the cafeteria with a girl I just happened to sit next to and strike up a conversation with. It turns out that she grew up in a town where no one could write or speak Mandarin, and that did not have electricity. She is now here getting her Master's degree. What an unbelievable story, especially considering that there seems to be no preferential treatment for backgrounds such as hers in the admission process here. At my next meal, dinner, I got hot pot for the first time with a member of my lab. Delicious and fun food to eat-- so interactive, and so tasty! Very full, I returned to the lab afterwards smelling like oil with leftover sweet pickled garlic in hand to share with others (such an interesting flavor!), and set about making graphene for the first time.

I have been trying to take more time to explore Beijing on the weekdays, because it hit me recently that we do not have much time here after all. Eight weeks feels like a very long time until you are halfway through it! Sometimes I am unable to go out exploring during the week because I work late, but I have also gotten in a few adventures, and met some great people along the way. All in all, I am really enjoying my time here. The people, food, and surroundings are fascinating and wonderful, and I hope that the last four weeks do not go as quickly as the first four!

Week 4: June 20-26

This may have been the best week so far! Here's hoping that I start my next blog post the exact same way. I had some really interesting conversations this week- it has been great getting different perspectives on things. One conversation I had with a Ph. D. student from another lab stands out in my memory-- we discussed America's fear of China surpassing it in political power. He was of the opinion that Chinese leadership knows that it is creating this fear, but reminded me that China too once was "number one" in the past, for a period of time much longer than that enjoyed by America. For me, this made me realize just how much more history this country has than my own, and how little I know about it. I hope to be able to learn more in my next few weeks, and also upon my return to the US. I have also been trying to pick up a few more Chinese phrases and characters. The language still seems very unfamiliar to me so it is going slow, but a few times I have been able to recognize a word on a sign or in a conversation and it has been very rewarding. The Chinese phrases "Let's go" and "Let's eat" have been very helpful- together they help me accomplish my favorite activity in China in a timely fashion.

In lab we have still been working on fabricating graphene, an enormously time-consuming process. However, it should be done within a day or so, and then we can begin experimenting without being constrained by a lack of raw materials. I am getting more invested in the project and have lots of ideas I would like to try. I hope I have enough time!

This weekend we went to visit the Great Wall, an awesome experience. We went to the "wild" section that has not been reconstructed, so it was a very challenging hike that included a lot of scrambling up ruins and rubble . We spent the night at a small village at the base of the trail, woke up in the middle of the night, and hiked up in time to see the sunrise. For me, the best part about being on the wall that early was not the sunrise itself, but seeing the wall change colors as morning turned into afternoon. The wall itself is an incredible piece of architecture that seems to belong to the mountains themselves-- so much so that sometimes I found it hard to remember that people built it.

Week 5: June 27-July 3

Another great week! For me, this week was both when I really started to feel like I fit in here and have made routines, a lifestyle, and friends for myself, and also when the end of the program began to loom. This has meant that I have more and more things I want to do and people I would like to spend time with, and also more and more nights spent late in the lab. I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that I will not be able to accomplish everything I would like to while here, and also starting to think about what it will feel like to leave this place. This is my first experience living in a foreign country, and I think it will be difficult in many ways going back to America. There is something almost overstimulating about being a foreigner, especially one who doesn't speak the language. Suddenly, everything is exciting. Trying to get mail is exciting. Trying to chat with someone about even the most simple things turns into a hugely rewarding experience if you are able to communicate. I wonder what it will be like being back in a place that I have the tools to easily navigate and where outcomes are more predictable. I bet this is why some people get addicted to traveling.

That is not to say that I have not had frustrating experiences trying to communicate. Sometimes I have a very hard time understanding what the graduate student I work with is trying to say. Directions are easy to follow, but when we start brainstorming about potential pitfalls and other strategies, talking becomes much more time-consuming. We have to sit down at a table with a notebook, draw lots of pictures, and make each other repeat what it is the other person is trying to say. Often, I find myself desperately wanting to just tell him that I understand so we can stop the process, but I try to make sure that I stay honest about when I am following him and when I am not. It can be very difficult, but I think the experience is helping me think more about the words I use and how clear my language is.

This past weekend, some of us went to Xi'an. It was a great trip- we did all of the most touristy things, and we had a really good time. The sleeper train was a highlight for me-- what better way to travel than sitting in a bed meeting new people! We also timed the trip to the Terra Cotta Army Museum perfectly, since we were able to see the South Korean president leaving the park after finishing her private tour!

Week 6: July 4-July 10

Wow, we are getting very close to the end here and things are starting to get pretty hectic. I handed in a rough draft of my final report on Sunday and gave a presentation at my lab meeting on Monday night. It seems like it is too soon to be doing these things! Research continues, and although we still do not have too many very exciting results, we are working very hard and have lots of ideas we are going to try in the last two weeks that I am here.

This weekend was one of the most interesting (and best!) that I have had here. Friday night, we saw an acrobat show at Tsinghua (great!), and on Saturday we woke up early to head to Tianjin, the city that acts as the port for Beijing. However, instead of immediately going to the heart of Tianjin, we first went to the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City. It is a new city being constructed on non-arable land designed to act as a practical model for an sustainable urban future, and a strange and fascinating place. Our taxi driver dropped us off in the animation park-- a bizarre industrial zone that features a park full of cartoon characters and some empty office buildings. Finally, we made our way to the main strip of the city (Eco-Valley). It was practically empty, and full of beautifully constructed buildings waiting to be filled, and a handful of restaurants. A man on the street told us that only about a thousand people live there, though many more are expected to move in soon, with an ultimate goal of housing 350,000 people. University students from other cities were standing on street corners trying to get passerbys (what passerbys??) to view apartments. Of course we took one of them up on the offer, and ended up looking at a luxurious apartment whose main selling point was that the air quality would extend residents' lives for up to ten years. We were a little skeptical of the eco-friendliness of the city as a whole, especially considering the amount of greenspace and number of fountains in an area that is supposed to have no water supply. Regardless, it certainly is an impressive and well-funded initiative that I would love to learn more about. After the Eco City we went back to Tianjin proper, where we ate dinner on the Italian Street (left from when there was an Italian concession in Tianjin! Food was still somehow a little Chinese), and walked around the city. A really fun trip, all in all.

On Sunday, Sam and I went to Temple of Heaven park. We thought the temple itself was less interesting than all the people dancing, singing, wrestling, playing cards, and even trying to set up sons and daughters in a "marriage market" where they sat in front of pieces of paper with information about their child such as height, weight, age, and income. I think elderly people in China are much more active than in the US, and I have never seen a piece of public land used as effectively as this park.

Week 7/8: July 11-July 21

Now that it is drawing to a close, it seems unbelievable that I have been here for two months. It has been an incredible experience that has taught me so much about materials science, a different culture, and myself. Highlights of my last week include the final banquets I had with my lab, KTV, badminton, last minute sight seeing, and a whole lot of report and presentation prep. Ultimately, my research project did not work, but I was able to get a fair amount of data and conclude that the device we were looking to fabricate could not be made to the specifications we needed using the materials and methods at our disposal. I wholeheartedly thank the people I have met here for welcoming me both inside and outside the lab. I will really miss this place, and hope that I have a chance to return!