Taking the Bad Along with the Good

What do Bodhisattva Guanyin, the Jade Emperor, Matsu, and the Maitreya Buddha all have in common? They're all popular deities from traditional Chinese religion.

....And they all seem to be cursing me and my electronic devices for some inexplicable reason. What I did to offend them, I can only guess.

As I explained in my blog a few weeks ago, I had a nasty accident with my laptop, where its' screen was cracked, and I was MacBook-less for a few days as it was being fixed in the Apple Store here in Beijing. Then, about a week or so later, some sand from the Gobi Desert finally worked its way deep into my camera, causing the retractable lens to jam, and forcing me to take it to the nearest Canon Service Center (where I had to pay to get it fixed, unlike with my MacBook, which had Apple Care Insurance). 

Well, finally, the next casualty has been claimed. As it turns out, my electronic razor couldn't handle all the voltage it was receiving, even with the voltage convertor I was using with it. Now, the poor thing is working at only one-tenth the speed and just sputters weakly, as if on its very last breath. To be quite truthful, I don't expect it to survive the semester, leaving me alone to battle my facial hair with just a regular razor. 

Ah well, it happens. Besides, that inconvenience though, things have taken quite an interesting, and also very unexpected turn this semester. As it turns out, this fall is TBC's "Second Decade Celebration," the tenth anniversary of its founding in 1998, when it was nothing but just nine students with a dorm room serving as their classroom and another dorm room serving as both the TBC office and library. So, in celebration, they're hosting a symposium with the help of several other universities on Westerners at the Qing Court. So, for the next three days, they'll be having panel sessions with various Sinology experts at Renmin (People's) University, the Old Summer Palace, and TBC. 

To start it off though, on Thursday they had an opening ceremony at an auditorium in the Ningyuan Building on campus, with welcome addresses from the Party Secretary of UIBE, the Chairman of the Board of TBC, the President of Loyola Chicago, and Father Ron Anton, director of TBC. Then, everyone in the audience was treated to a keynote address from Nicholas Standaert, S.J., one of the world's most renowned Sinologists, with a lecture called "Imagery and Art in China" (about contacts and the trading of artistic styles and concepts between the east and west during the Qing Dynasty.)

Afterwards, everyone there piled aboard two or three buses and traveled to a nearby restaurant for what I personally felt was the best part of the day - the Second Decade Grand Luncheon. Ironically enough, the only Asian-style options on the menu of the gourmet buffet were the fried rice and spring rolls, while everything else was undeniably western-style food....and absolutely delicious food, at that. There were three types of salad (Mediterranean, tossed vegetable, Greek), minestrone and chicken noodle soup, grilled vegetables, mashed potatoes, sauteed broccoli, Italian sausages, spareribs, grilled marinated chicken, and several other dishes, with fresh fruit and an assortment of desserts to top it all off. Of course, I felt I had no choice but to stuff myself silly like any self-respecting Staysniak would when provided with a free meal (while using a fork literally for the first time since I've left the states.)

For the rest of the day, there was an option to all visitors (an assortment of scholars, folks from Loyola Chicago, etc,) had the option of a tour of the Olympic Park later. Once we all arrived back at UIBE after lunch, I just stumbled back to the dorm to get some work done, and to spend the rest of the day pretty uneventfully. 

Well not completely uneventfully. Good news, for today I'm a true American! ! I finally managed to mail out my absentee ballot for my first presidential election...after constantly forgetting to do so for several days now. I lost it for a few days in the room, actually, because instead of sending it out ASAP, I first wanted to figure out where the American Embassy was. You see, according to my ballot, I'd be able to send it free of charge by mailing it from an embassy. Unfortunately, the embassy is actually moving to a new location in the city, and the directions they e-mailed back to me were downright confusing. Finally, I gave in, and trudged across the street to the nearest post office, ready to pay an arm and a leg for postage. 

Total cost for mailing a letter - six yuan. Not even a single American dollar. 

....Well....guess that makes me a bit of a stubborn nincompoop.