Week Eight: The Seminar Begins
So It Begins
This is it. The event that my entire summer has been working up to - the Global Leadership Seminar on Child Protection. A two-week event in which eighteen people from sixteen countries come together to discuss the latest successes and pitfalls of child protection initiatives in their home countries. Five interns were tasked with writing blog posts, taking minutes, and helping with facilitation and discussion. At 9:00 on Monday morning, the participants in the seminar began to filter into the large meeting room on Zhicheng's second floor. The room was quiet, with everyone just sitting in anticipation of what was to come. In the morning, we were presented with a short overview of what the seminar entailed, as well as a warm welcome from Director Tong, who explained the theme of this year's seminar - Building a Dynamic Cooperative Platform for Global Child Protection.
Lawrence and I were responsible for running ice breakers, which was a little bit like herding cats. However, we got done what needed to get done and soon we were diving headfirst into the content of this week. Having the opportunity to meet such a wide range of people has been so amazing, since it provides an amazing range of perspectives that I never would have experienced had I not come to Beijing this summer. There are representatives from Russia, Kenya, Bulgaria, Tanzania, Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam, and nine other countries, each with different legal systems and cultural views so the discussions almost immediately became lively. People shared the struggles their countries faced, and things that they hoped to discuss and learn as the seminar progressed. On top of the seminar beginning on Monday, a fresh face arrived! Emily, from Australia, was our newest addition to the intern team. Just having her here lessened the work load considerably, and it certainly helps that our group seemed to become fast friends. She (shockingly) also studies law at university, and I'm excited to have another perspective on the legal (and all other) topics we find ourselves conversing about.
More Tea!
After work, a majority of us (minus Siyi, as she unfortunately had a dentist appointment the following morning) headed over to a mall off Line 1 for dinner and a beer. The mall was another grandiose affair of light shows and kiddy slides down from bridge walkways, as well as mini karaoke booths, claw machines, escape rooms, and dozens of bars and restaurants. We (after multiple tries) won Anna a stuffed animal from one of the claw machines, and almost did an escape room until we discovered it was entirely in Chinese and there was a water obstacle involved - none of us wanted to risk our electronics when only two members of our group could speak Chinese well enough to navigate the clues. Instead, we ended up at my favorite place in all of China. You guessed it! HeyTea! Lawrence, Aryaman, and Emily had never had HeyTea before, and Anna seemed to want some, so we traipsed off in anticipation of waiting in another ridiculously long line for some cheezo and/or tipsy drinks.
Ordering the HeyTea was quite the experience, as two of our group spoke absolutely no Chinese. Anna coached Emily through her order, which turned out fine, all things considered. I wasn't so lucky. I attempted to coach Aryaman through his, but ended up ordering for him anyway. A non-issue, of course, but I was a little sad my teaching methods weren't as effective. I got the same thing as always, 之之莓莓 (strawberry cheezo tea). This time, the wait in line was even shorter than the last few times I'd gone! Instead of waiting over an hour, we waited maybe twenty or thirty minutes total. In the meantime, we talked, laughed, and plotted how we would spend the rest of our night.
After wandering around for a while, and successfully winning Anna a stuffed animal in one of the claw machines (while it was a team effort, I was the one who succeeded in the end, if I recall correctly), and trying to find somewhere to eat, we finally settled on a restaurant that claimed to have a "world beer bottle museum". While the selection of beers for some place touting something so impressive was a little disappointing, I was on top of the world. Why? Easy, they had cider. I generally dislike beer, so living in a place where beer and 白酒 (baijiu - a liquor made out of fermented sorghum) are generally the only options has been hard for me. Cider is my go-to drink in the United States so I was over the moon to have found something so familiar. Unfortunately, it just tasted like fizzy apple juice, but I'll take what I can get. We headed back home, and again, I found myself falling further in love with Beijing and my job.
Tuesday morning, I spent most of my time working on the corporate responsibility project I'd been assigned to work on the week prior. About halfway through that, I was called back into the meeting room to help take notes during group discussions, but was quickly pulled away from that as well. Instead, I ended up helping Lawrence organize data gathered from a survey that the seminar participants had taken the week before. The data was so horrifyingly unorganized it made me want to cry a little, but I was so happy to be working with numbers and Excel that I couldn't really complain. It was almost like being back in a science lab, except none of the data had anything to do with an experiment and it was all qualitative data. The only numerical task involved was converting that data into something qualitative that we could graph. But! Beggars can't be choosers, right?
That afternoon, after helping take more notes during a small group session, I stepped away from the seminar to do some transcribing. Lawrence had spent the last two hours typing out an audio recording of the morning session, and I figured that he could probably use a break. Thankfully, I got the easy last half where the audio feedback was significantly less awful, and the only disrupting noise was the occasional burst of too-loud clapping that always made me yank my headphones out of my ears. Lawrence and I had tentative plans to stay late or go to a cafe and work on our presentation, but that quickly backfired as we were invited to dinner with the seminar cohort at their hotel. The food was wonderful, as was the conversation, and it was a wonderful opportunity to get to know people better. I was a little concerned about not getting any work on the presentation done, but in the end, I'm pretty sure it was better to eat dinner with them than spend time holed up in the office after hours working on a presentation that was still days away.
More Stinky Tofu
Wednesday, Lawrence and I finally got the chance to step out of the seminar and work on our presentation. We started the research (though Aryaman and Siyi had contributed earlier), and began to discuss how exactly we were going to lay things out. Not only did Lawrence seem to have a good idea as to how he envisioned the presentation going, but even more helpfully he encompassed what I had pictured for the presentation as well. Getting on the same page so quickly made the work a lot easier, since we didn't need to waste time arguing about nit-picky details. I was also able to finish up the data analysis I had started the day before, and it was nice to be able to get some significant work done. The seminar is an amazing experience, but it also quickly pushed the rest of our work to the wayside, which made me a little anxious in the beginning.
In the afternoon portion of the seminar, we began to watch a movie called 'The Last Emperor.' It's the only movie that has ever been shot within the Forbidden City, and the portion that I saw was pretty good. Instead of staying for the whole thing (it was about two and a half hours long), Lawrence, Siyi, and I all went to the nearby mall to grab some Hunan noodles. I don't remember exactly what I got, but I believe it translated to something like "scholar noodles". Either way, it was delicious. The sad part was, if Siyi had brought her 户口 (hukou - a form of residence registration, to make a long story short), we could have gotten 15% off since she is from Hunan. Both Siyi and Lawrence got 臭豆腐, but I once again passed, since I still just cannot get past the smell. Friends like these make the stench worth it, though.
As I've gotten time to adjust to having more people in the office, I've realized one of the things I've missed the most is sarcasm. It's really difficult to convey sarcasm to someone when English isn't their first language (you just sound rude), and to me, being sarcastic in Chinese just sounds like I'm just being mean. It's been a relief being able to slip back into my standard dry, bad-joke-centric humor. Siyi, Lawrence and I have also started a "sticker sharing" chat in WeChat, dedicated entirely to sending each other stupid WeChat stickers that we happen to find. As a result, my collection has swelled and now I find myself frustrated by the fact that I have too many stickers to choose from, as opposed to not enough.
More Dumplings
Thursday was my first day taking notes. We have a set rotation, where each intern spends specific dates taking notes on the seminar and turning them into a blog post at the end of the day. I was lucky, my first blog post was for a day we had a field visit, which meant I got to tag along (so did the rest of the interns, but at least my place was solidified). We spent the morning at Beijing Chaoyue Adolescents Social Work Services Agency, a social work services, temporary care, and legal aid center. The day started out with a presentation from their Vice Director, Li Han, who explained the history behind Chaoyue, and how it grew to the organization it is today. After the presentation, we all went around and introduced ourselves with one of the interns, Tony, translating for the Chaoyue staff. Following the round of introductions, there was a more in-depth explanation of how Chaoyue functions, as well as the steps they had to follow in order to become a legal NGO in China. The best part of the morning, however, was the question and answer portion. Ms. Li's presentation on the work Chaoyue does spurred some fascinating questions that demonstrated not only cultural differences, but also some surprising cultural similarities that the participant's home countries had with China.
In the afternoon, the groups returned and did a solo activity that involved mapping out the relationships their NGOs had with other organizations in their home countries, and internationally, and then explaining them to the group at large. That night, with several of the interns off doing their own thing for the night, it was just Emily, Aryaman and I off to get dumplings at Sofly, the local mall. I ordered for all three of us since I was the only one who could read the menu (honestly one of the best perks of knowing Chinese because this way I don't have to order and hope for the best, especially since both of my companions had dietary restrictions), and this was the first time someone complimented my Chinese while I was out and about! I wasn't expecting it so I ended up laughing, which felt rude, but I recovered well with one of the accepted responses to a compliment, "哪里哪里“ (nǎlǐnǎlǐ - you're too kind/you flatter me). The dumplings were delicious, and the waitress was kind enough to walk me through each of the sauces you could pick out to dip your dumplings in, so I didn't have to stand there like a stereotypical tourist, my Chinese - English dictionary pulled up on my phone, painstakingly scribbling each character into Pleco to try and find out what each sauce was.
This is the most I've gone out to eat in a week since getting to China, and it's putting a little strain on my pocketbook, but the food (and friends) absolutely makes it worth it.
Cultural Night and a Farewell Tour to Great Leap
Friday was set up to be an exciting day. While we had a standard day of presentations and small group discussions, that night was what the cohort had been waiting for - culture night. It was a night of performances from people from Zhicheng, their children, and members of the seminar designed to educate each other about some of the more colorful and beautiful aspects of our culture. There would be singing, 'fancy basketball' (think Harlem Globetrotters, but there was only one boy and he was maybe 12), dancing, and even a Sanskrit chant performed by two very young members of the Zhicheng family. Lawrence and I cranked out more of our presentation, and helped with note taking during the small groups again, but I was mostly just excited for that night. During the afternoon session, several of the interns retreated to our offices to work on other projects, feeling bad that the rest of the work we had to get done had been put on hold in the name of the seminar. Of course, that wasn't set to last and near the end of the day, first Lawrence, then the two of us, were tasked with writing up a script for the emcees for the night.
Lawrence, Emily and I all were talked into performing. Emily sang 'Home' by Michael Buble with one of the seminar participants from Indonesia, Lawrence emceed with Cheryl, and I got roped into singing 'My Heart Will Go On' with Cheryl as well (no, as far as I know there is not a video, and even if there was, I wouldn't tell). Everyone was immensely talented, and the night was full of laughter, dancing, and amazing food. I tried pineapple cakes, something that literally translates into "donkey rolling in mud", and duck neck. The duck neck was actually really good, but a little difficult to eat, since you had to pick it off the bone.
After the cultural night was over, we helped clean up and soon nine of us were off in taxis toward Great Leap Brewing. Great Leap has several locations throughout Beijing, but we went to GLB #45, in Sanlitun. It came highly recommended by Lawrence, and had both food and drink so I was happy to go. Three cabs and about a half an hour later, we had finally settled into a long, wooden, cafeteria-style table with menus, waiting to order our drinks. There had been plenty of alcohol at the cultural night, so none of us were planning on staying out too late, but food and at least a couple beers were a must. I believe I mentioned it further up in the post, but I genuinely do not like beer unless it's a stout, so I stuck with what was recommended, the Honey Ma Gold. Lo and behold, the clouds broke and godly rays of light shone down upon the table when I took the first sip. A lighter beer I genuinely enjoyed! Honey Ma is Great Leap's flagship ale, and they describe it as "an easy-drinking ale enlivened by floral Sichuan peppercorns and local honey from an apiary near the Great Wall". Normally, I wouldn't put the description of a drink in a school-sponsored blog post, but this one takes a special exception because of one of the more intriguing ingredients. The Sichuan peppercorn is the ingredient known for creating the ‘麻', or 'numbing', portion of ‘麻辣’ in Sichuanese food, which means that this beer did indeed have a hint of that numbing sensation I talked about a couple weeks ago.
We split several baskets of fries (much to my despair, they had run out of the sweet potato fries earlier that evening), as well as some buffalo wings, and spinach artichoke dip. We talked, laughed, said our goodbyes to Siyi and Aryaman, and simply enjoyed ourselves for several hours. I also discovered that my Chinese is not as bad as I thought, and managed to spend a large chunk of the night either conversing in (still broken) Chinese, or keeping up with the other conversations. I got home at about 2:30 in the morning and almost immediately fell asleep, and it was a much needed rest, because the next day I wouldn't be slowing down.
It's Tea...No...It's Gelato!
Saturday morning I woke up early, but refused to roll out of bed until around 11:00. After messaging back and forth with Emily for a little while, we decided to meet up for lunch, and then head over to the Pearl Market, a famous tourist trap. We went in search of a Uyghur restaurant before remembering that their diet consisted largely of meat and bread, and Emily is a vegetarian. Instead, we settled on 味多美, or Wedome, a popular chain bakery in China. The food was good, though certainly not home-cooked quality, and we spent our time catching up over what had occurred the night prior, since Emily wasn't able to make it. Afterwards, we hopped the subway to the Hong Qiao Pearl Market. The place is notorious for inflating prices for foreigners, so we ended up not buying anything outside of the Miniso within the market. While we were there, however, we ran into the seminar cohort and two of our managers, Anna and Cheryl. We had no idea that they were going to be there, so it was quite the welcome surprise when Bolor, the cohort from Mongolia, tapped me on the shoulder and asked "what are you doing here?"
While the Pearl Market was an interesting experience, I'm not sure I would repeat it. Since Emily and I are both very clearly foreign, we were frequently accosted by overzealous shopkeepers insisting we take a look at their "Gucci" purses (even when they very clearly weren't even Gucci knockoffs, just some random no-name brand). It was a little exhausting, especially because you could guarantee that any price they gave us would likely be several hundred, if not several thousand, yuan more than what they would have given a local. A word of advice, if you're ever in Beijing, bring a local to help you bargain (or at least someone who looks local), and you'll likely get a much better price.
That night, we wandered over to Taikooli, for no other reason than I was adamant that Emily should at least see the Soho portion of Beijing before she left, even if she didn't buy anything. We ended up at a dumpling shop called Baoyuan with absolutely massive (and more importantly, delicious) dumplings, before heading back to Taikooli to discover perhaps the most important thing I've found here in Beijing since my arrival. HeyTea Gelato.
A small food truck was situated outside of the HeyTea Black location in Taikooli, selling gelato. With various flavors, I knew I had to have some, if for no other reason than the aesthetic appeal. When I looked at the menu, my decision had been made. It was likke a dream come true. What did they have on the menu? You guessed it. Strawberry cheezo gelato. Sometimes I feel like I should branch out and try new flavors, but when it comes to my teas, and apparently my gelato, I'm stuck in my ways. Emily and I both got a cone, though hers was the matcha flavor, and took the necessary photos next to the cute little gelato truck. Once that was done, we quickly gathered our things as it was getting dangerously close to raining again, and dug in. I've had gelato on a few occasions, but am by no means an expert. However, this had to have been some of the best gelato I'd ever put my eyes on. The texture was perfect, and it 
tasted exactly like what I imagine the strawberry cheezo tea would taste like if I could mix it effectively with my straw (they used to have a sticker with instructions on how to drink cheezo on top of each of their drinks for clueless foreigners like me, but it appears they stopped doing that in the name of being more environmentally friendly).
The gelato signaled the end of the night, and we both headed to the subway to go our own separate ways. I'm happy to have someone else who shares my love of ice cream, especially since we'd started to get into the habit of buying a popsicle every day after lunch, and the average individual would probably have gotten sick of frozen treats at that point. I had an early start to my day the next morning, however, so I headed to bed, my alarm set for the next morning.
Networking Abroad
This Sunday, I switched from tourist mode to professional mode. Thanks to the SIPS alumni outreach program, and the LLM Admitted Students & Alumni event I had attended earlier in the summer, I had the opportunity to meet up with Kevin, an attorney working at a local IP firm here in Beijing. So I woke up early, put on my networking face (and clothes - but it turns out jeans and a t-shirt would have been just fine) and headed over to 工体 (the Worker's Stadium) to meet Kevin for lunch at a nearby Sichuan restaurant.
One of the best things about eating out with locals is letting them order. While they generally try and take my tastes into account, I really try to encourage them to order whatever they like to eat the most. It's hard being picky in a country where you can only read half the menu, and letting someone order for you is the easiest way to avoid confusion or miscommunication. As a result, I don't really know what I had to eat, but it was all super good. I can tell you there was fish and pork belly involved, as well as another mystery meat and some eggplant. We sat for an hour or so and chatted about the classes Kevin took in his year at William and Mary, and him kindly answering my questions about the Chinese legal system (despite having worked here for two months, the process is still pretty confusing, especially with IP cases, since sometimes they skip the lower courts, or do other weird things).
Afterwards, we headed to a nearby coffee shop that happens to be one of my favorites, {Bracket} (I believe I mentioned it in a previous post). Kevin had never been before, and teased me by saying that I was starting to sound like a local. I laughed it off, replying that the only places I knew about were coffee shops and ice cream parlors, and if you needed directions anywhere else I was hopeless. We ordered our coffee and headed upstairs, and I shot a WeChat to Lawrence to let him know I'd be free to work on our presentation soon. Kevin and I chatted for a while longer, but eventually Kevin had to leave to get some work done, and Lawrence showed up so we could do ours. I introduced the both of them to each other, and Kevin went on his way, with a quick "hope to see you again before you leave!" I agreed readily - talking with Kevin had been a very valuable learning experience, and I hope to keep in contact with him.
Before diving into the presentation, we chatted for a little bit and worked on some of our own stuff for a little while. The presentation was easy to get through in a short period of time, thankfully, and after a few hours we had not only finished our own work, but also the presentation. We present on Monday, and our topic is "Technology's Role in Child Protection". I'll get more into the nitty-gritty in next week's post (have to have something to talk about after all), but the basics are that we're supposed to provide examples of how modern technologies are used by people in the child protection industry to find, protect, and serve children. We lazed about at Bracket for a bit longer, before deciding to head out and grab some dinner. Emily was spending time with a friend, so we weren't able to meet up with her, and we decided on a restaurant that supposedly has the best burgers in Beijing. Unfortunately, I can't tell you if that's true or not, but the menu did tout quite a few awards for their burgers, and it was a really good burger.
So, we headed over to Slowboat Brewery and got our spot in line. With seven tables ahead of us, we decided to mix it up a bit and have dessert first. Not too far from the gelato truck I had gone to the previous night, there was a tiny little corner shop that boasted perhaps one of the best things I've seen since getting to Beijing - White Rabbit candy-flavored ice cream. White Rabbit candies are sweet candies made out of - if I recall correctly - rice milk. They're one of my absolute favorite sweets, so I was incredibly excited to get my hands on ice cream made out of the candies. The walk to the ice cream shop and back was just enough time for us to not only finish our cones, but also eat up our wait time at Slowboat, and by the time we stepped back inside, there was a table ready and waiting for us.
Slowboat, while unfortunately not handicapped-accessible is an amazing four-story industrial affair with welded steel stairs and thick, dark wooden beams. We were sat at a small table on the third floor, and quickly began to flip through the menus. We both decided on the burger that made the brewery famous - The Fryburger. Instead of giving you a plate of fries with your order, they consolidated it all into one huge sandwich with a delicious aioli that was just a little spicy (to me anyway). I haven't had real American food in two months, 
and had forgotten just how heavy most of what we ate is, so I barely managed to get through the entire burger, and finishing took quite a lot of goading on Lawrence's end.
The food left me exhausted and ready for bed, and the subway back out to Fengtai was shutting down soon, so we headed out and said our goodbyes. It was a wonderful night, and I was happy to have some American food back in my stomach, but at the same time it just makes me realize how much I'll miss the food here when I go home.
Stay tuned for week nine, the final week of the seminar!