Rowing in China

One of the great things about the world we live in is no matter where you come from or what language you speak, there are certain things that bring people together. Whether it's soccer, chess, or Yanni, you and that exchange student from Burundi suddenly aren't as different as you think. You "get" each other. You smile and laugh at the same things, know the ins and outs of your shared passion. Seemingly insurmountable cultural gaps disappear when you both are doing something you love. For me, such an equalizer comes in the form of rowing (赛艇 sai ting).

At the Head of the Charles last October, I had the chance to speak with a few of the members of the Beijing University crew team, who had traveled over 7000 miles (and due to visa issues, sans coxswain) to Boston to compete. With their average height being about 6'3, these guys broke all of my preconceived notions that Chinese people were short. When I told them in my pitifully poor Chinese that I would be in Beijing for the spring semester, they immediately told me that I should come out to watch a practice, and gave me their names, phone numbers, and email addresses.

Well, I kept those digits, and kept in touch with them, specifically a guy named Li Rui. I got an text message from him about a week ago, inviting me to come watch the team take a 2K test on the ergs. Actually, I received his text that day, about 2 hours before the erg test started. So, after making the quick and easy decision to blow off my sociology "field trip" (the majority of which, I was pleased to learn later, was spent sitting in Beijing traffic), I hopped in a cab to Beijing University.

(Zhu Ye: coxswain, TV star, and boat repairman)

The entire afternoon was happily spent watching the team pull their 2Ks (not so happy for them, I'm sure) and chatting with some of them in-between pieces. The team itself isn't very big - only 12 are on the team this semester. I met their coxswain (舵手 duo shou), Zhu Ye, who, according to Li Rui, was one of the top 10 finalists on China's reality TV series to find the next two coxswains for the men's and women's Chinese Olympic rowing teams. The idea itself is a little absurd: the majority of contestants have never even sat in a racing shell, much less coxed one. You can't create an Olympic-material coxswain in one year. Zhu Ye is one of the few who actually has coxing experience, so if anyone deserves to win, it's him.

After practice, Li Rui, his friend Liu Zi Yu (English name: "Rocky"), and another team member invited me to go eat jiaozi with them. Being true to their culture, they wouldn't let me pay for a thing. They all could speak pretty good English (better than my Chinese, at least), so most of our conversation was in English, although I did make a valiant, if futile effort to speak Chinese.

Since I had already made plans to go watch a water practice, I met Li Rui again last Saturday morning to head out to the resevoir , but this time I brought my friend Allie, who rows for Trinity College in CT. We all piled into a taxi and headed north out of town to Changping. One hour, three wrong turns, and 150 kuai later, we pulled up to where the team practices. The place is actually a water-skiing school, but they let the Bei Da rowing team use their facilities when they come to practice. As we came in, the team was already out on the water, but they were heading back to the dock, probably due to the ridiculously strong winds that were making scary-looking whitecaps on the water. So, the rest of the day was spent just hanging out with the team.
As I was looking around at the mountains that surround the reservoir, I noticed something unusual on top of one of the more distant mountains. As I continued to look at it, I realized it was part of the Great Wall. It was surreal to think that these guys row in the shadow of something that ancient. Pretty cool. The oldest thing about where I row back home is the lake itself, which was built in the 60s.

Despite the initial disappointment at the less-than-favorable weather conditions, it was a great day. The team reminded me of my own team - everyone works hard, but they all have fun doing it, everyone has blisters on their hands, and just about every rower I talked to mentioned how much they hate the erg. If you were to plop them right down in the middle of a PSU crew practice, they'd know exactly what to do. I was really glad for the chance to meet and hang out with them. They're a great bunch of guys. I hope they make a repeat appearance at the Charles next fall.

Yungang Grottoes

I just got back from an awesome two days in Datong, Shanxi Province. Caroline, Jake, my host sister Jia Min, and myself wanted to see the famed grottoes of Yungang. After a 6-hour train ride, we arrived in lovely Datong, aka the Coal Capital of China. We checked into a pricey yet very nice hotel next to the train station. Since IES each gave us 1000 RMB to do whatever we wanted this weekend, we thought we'd treat ourselves.

We got up at 6 am the next morning to catch a bus to the grottoes. Despite our early start, however, there were already dozens of tour buses in the parking lot when we arrived at Yungang. After we bought our tickets, we joined the pushing, jostling masses into the first cave. We were greeted by a huge statue of the Buddha that reared high above our heads. Thousands of smaller Buddhas and other holy deities were carved into the walls and ceiling of the cave, painted in different shades of red, blue, yellow, green, and many other colors. Despite over a thousand years of exposure to the elements and the touch of hundreds of human hands, their faded colors were still incredible to behold.


The sacrosanct atmosphere of the cave, however, was jarringly offset by the constant bursts of camera flashes. Not wanting to contribute to the light pollution, I turned my flash off, but the security guard, who had been idling at the cave entrance for a while, suddenly decided to enforce the "No Photo" policy when saw us pull out our cameras. Despite the fact that everyone else around us was unabashedly shooting away with their flashes, the guard came up to us and told us that we weren't allowed to take pictures. Knowing that he was singling us out because we were the only foreigners in the place, we pointedly ignored him. When he told us a second time, Jake calmly asked him (in Chinese) why he wasn't telling other people they couldn't take pictures. The guard looked at him, stunned, then walked away.

We passed through cave after cave, each one different in its own wonderful way. Buddhas ranging from less than 6 inches to more than 3 storeys were arranged in dazzling patterns. While the big, impressive statues were well-protected, many of the smaller statues bore the marks of vandalism and neglect - I saw graffitti carved into murals, and hundreds of Buddhas were missing their heads -they're now most likely adorning someone's desk as a paperweight or hanging in some collector's home. There were no fences or barriers to protect those statues. I guess they decided they were in such sad condition that they weren't worth preserving. I bristled when I saw people touching the statues, and just about snapped when I saw a kid throw a rock into a cave, not knowing what could be in there. I got so angry, I had to leave the cave to calm down.


Despite my anger at some people's blatant disregard for the fragileness of the place, there was a moment a while later that quelled my frustration. I, along with about 50 other people, were standing before the second tallest Buddha in the grotto. Staring up at the huge, benevolent-looking face, the place suddenly got quiet. The only sound was a tour guide describing the features of the cave, but even her voice was quiet in the vastness of the cave. I looked around at the people around me. Everyone was staring up at the Buddha. Their cameras were forgotten for the moment as they contemplated the massive figure before them, the result of deep faith and tremendous hard work. Even after over 1500 years, this place still evokes a sense of awe and reverence from its visitors.