The Great Wall, a Confucius Temple and a Trip to the Theater

We finally went to the Great Wall!!!!! I had been waiting for that day for sooo long. On Friday afternoon we headed out to an ancient part of the wall that nobody else ever hikes, so we had that whole part of the wall to ourselves. Not only was the wall really cool, but the scenery was beautiful! The part of the wall we where on was high up on the mountains next to Beijing, so we had a great view of some rocky crags and a few small villages that dotted the countryside. At the same time, it begs the question, why did they build the wall across the top of the mountains in the first place? Aren't the mountains enough of a natural barrier? Oh well, maybe the Huns and Mongols where more advanced than we gave them credit for. And I think the Chinese soldier's legs where exceptionally strong, because climbing that sucker was exhausting. Anyway, the Great Wall was great! Definitely something that I would recommend everyone see if you get the chance.

First view of the wall from the bus

Yep, those are the "stairs" we climbed.

On Saturday, my philosophy class took a trip to a Confucius temple here in Beijing. It was fascinating, partly because our teacher was there to explain stuff to us, but mostly because out teacher brought along a 19 year old british student, who is part of the 79th generation descended from Confucius. Now that was awesome. He was super cool (and pretty cute) and told us lots of neat stuff about Confucius and his family. For example, the Confucian family tree is the longest family tree in history, and his grandfather was tortured during the cultural revolution for being a descendent of Confucius. All in all, it was a really cool experience enhanced by the fact that we got to learn about Confucius straight from one of his descendants.

 James, part of the 79th generation descended 

from Confucius (the person, not the dog)

For the past week or so, every Hanyu (reading and writing) class has been preparing performances for a School of Chinese as a Second Language-wide competition. Each class (by level) has to put on a skit of some sort, and then the judges (who are teachers) choose a winner. I went today (with classes 1-12). Our skit was from the book Journey to the West, which is about a Chinese Buddhist monk who is traveling from China to India accompanied by the "Monkey King" and the adventures they have along the way. Our specific story was The Monkey King Meets the White Bone Demon. Guess who I was. That's right. The White Bone Demon. Before you watch the video below, here's a summary of the story:

Tang Seng (the monk) is traveling with the monkey king and two other companions through the mountains when they decide to take a rest. Monkey King draws a protective circle on the ground and tells the 3 not to leave the circle while he goes to gather food. The white bone demon hears that Tang Seng is in the area and gets excited because if she eats his flesh, then she will live forever. So when Monkey King is gone, the white bone demon turns herself into a beautiful girl to try to lure the monk and his companions out of their circle. But the monkey king returns, sees she is not a real girl and kills her. The white bone demon then turns herself into an old lady who also tries to get her hands on Tang Seng. The monkey king kills her too. Then the demon turns herself into an old man, but the monkey king kills him too. Tang Seng at this point is to mad at the monkey king for killing seemingly innocent people, that he bans the monkey king back to his home mountain. After Monkey King leaves, White Bone Demon finally captures Tang Seng and takes him back to her home. One of Tang Seng's traveling companions runs off to find the monkey king to help save Tang Seng. On their way back, the two run into the white bone demon's mother (who is also going to eat Tang Seng) and another, lesser demon. They easily kill the two demons, and transform into them in order to fool the white bone demon. Right before Tang Seng is killed, Monkey King and the other companion turn back into themselves, fight with the demon, kill her and save Tang Seng.

Now that you know the story, here is a video of us acting out that whole thing.

Aaaaand....we got second place (out of 12)! Wooo! But seriously glad that's over. I was so nervous. That's all for now, I've gotta go to bed. Hopefully I'll have some more stuff to update you guys on soon!