Class, Language, and Meals

We began the day today with a trip to the Starbucks near WuDaoKou. It was a necessary evil, inspired by our professors' penchant for reading the contents of their slide decks verbatim and with little elaboration. Standing on line at the Tech Center 'Bux, we realized how long it had been since we had queued up with a bunch of foreigners for a venti and a scone. It was kind of surreal.

Thankfully, the professors improved their presentation skills a bit today, or at least the material got more interesting. In civil law, the professor got quite a kick out of debating the distinctions between intent and motive in "juristic acts," which is a prerequisite to forming rights in civil law countries. In constitutional law, the professor caught everyone's attention when he alluded to the politics of referring to the Tianenmen "incident" China, as well as the the effect of the "incident" on economic modernization. Let's just say that some of the professors like to Party more than others.

This evening we found ourselves at a Muslim restaurant nestled in the confines of Beijing Language and Culture University. We ate family style, meeting students from Turkey and Kazakhstan, overhearing African-accented French being spoken behind us, and seeing a table of what looked like Jordanians just to our left. And for less than $2 USD, we had a full meal and a great experience.

Tonight, when we checked our email, we received an email from our program administrator. For the first time, I could read all of the characters in her email address, pronounce them somewhat properly (faxueyuan beida), and translate them (Beijing University Law School). So it turns out I'm learning the language.