Almost Home

My last week in Beijing was incredible, so much happened and I was really busy! I presented my Chinese Medicine Seminar on arthritis, I visited the pharmacy department at the Peking University Third Hospital, took my finals, attended the 90th Anniversary Performance of the Communist Party, and we preformed in our own Anniversary/ going away party performance. I was about to say that the visit to the hospital was the highlight, but the the the 90th Anniversary Performance of the Communist Party was really special as well. I learned a lot doing my Chinese Medicine Seminar presentation.

Visiting the pharmacy department at the Peking University Third Hospital was impressive. We visited the sterile compounding department, the outpatient pharmacy, the Chinese medicine pharmacy, and the surgical department pharmacy. I was very impressed with the equipment at the hospital and the actual practice of pharmacy. The pharmacist is really relied on to provide drug information and counseling to all patients when they come to the pharmacy, which I witnessed in the outpatient pharmacy. In fact, the pharmacist is the person who interacts with the patients at the pickup window, there's even a machine that brings the medication to the window via a conveyor belt, and there were lots of stools to sit on! It was also very impressive to see how both Chinese medicine and western medicine are practiced along side each other in the pharmacy. Our tour guide, Wei, was fantastic as well. She was able to get me a Chinese Medicine ointment I was interested in because it is good for muscles and popular among athletes, especially during the Olympics! I also purchased some Tongrentang Chinese medicine products this morning to bring back to the USA.

My finals went well, my Mandarin final consisted of a skit and my class and I performed a Chinese cultural song we learned. It was actually fun performing the skits and song. In my skit I was the teacher, 天老师. The song we sang is called Dong Fang Hong, it's about the Chinese revolution, I'll have to sing it for you when I arrive home! We were initially going to sing Dong Fang Hong in the 90th Anniversary Performance of the Communist Party, but it was a very large event (~1000 people) and we were not good enough to preform there, and that was just as well. We still went to the performance and it was amazing, we definitely would have been out of place if we sang there. My Mandarin professor's linguistic department (who we were going to sing with) sang beautifully and performed a well-know skit involving Mao, and they finished in 2nd place! I'm really glad we attended the performance because it was a very special cultural opportunity. I want to come back for the 100th anniversary just for the music! Since we could not sing at the actual 90th Anniversary Performance, our Mandarin professor, kindly arranged a small, fun, going away party/ show for us where we got to sing Dong Fang Hong in front of an audience, I performed my skit, and lastly, we sang America the Beautiful. The event was lovely and I felt humbled that it was arranged in our honor. 谢谢丁老师！ (Thank you Ding Laoshi! Ding Laoshi was our Mandarin professor). I had a great Mandarin professor and I really enjoyed his smiling face and learning the language, although I still have a lot to learn! I hope to continue studying Mandarin at UConn next year. Also at the going away party/ performance, we saw Chinese martial arts and Mongolian dancing.

Last night, our last night in Beijing, was lovely. We had a dinner and almost all of the professors we had throughout the trip, the Dean of the PKU School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and our wonderful TAs, Jack & Michelle, attended. We presented gifts to them and it was a great opportunity to say 再见, which is translated to "goodbye" in English, but it literally means see you again. I like the literal meaning of see you again much more, because I hope to see everyone again. After dinner we sang Dong Fang Hong once more and did the opening segment of taiji for everyone.

I had a truly amazing experience in China. I am so excited to see my family and friends from home, but I didn't want to leave China. I definitely plan on returning to China in the future. Hopefully I can return for a Chinese medicine pharmacy rotation or internship! I was not expecting for this trip to be life changing, but I definitely feel changed. I'm still digesting how I've changed though, I think I just have a whole new perspective that I gained from the rich Chinese culture. In a nutshell over the past 5 weeks I explored one of most rapidly growing cities- Beijing, I began most of my mornings with taiji, learned about Chinese medicine, I studied Mandarin, I visited a Chinese hospital, I went bungee jumping (!), and I attended a lecture from a world-class pharmaceutical scientist, Dr. Benet. I don't think I could ask for much more!

Peking Duck

Apologies for posting this so late!

On Wednesday we treated ourselves to Peking Duck at one of the two most famous Peking Duck restaurants in Beijing, Li Qun. It was a delicious meal that I will never forget. The restaurant was nestled in a hutong, that was a little difficult to find. Hutongs are essentially old Beijing neighborhoods that look like small concrete/ stone structures. They are filled with rich Beijing history and culture. The Chinese government destroyed many hutongs in the process of modernization, but my understanding is that now their cultural and historical value is recognized so the remaining hutongs are preserved. Fortunately, I brought my friend, Gloria along who is a PhD student as the Peking University School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and obviously speaks perfect Mandarin Chinese, so she was able to ask people and help us navigate our way to the restaurant.

Once we were close to the restaurant, there were very cute drawings of ducks on the hutong walls that led us the rest of the way. As typical tourists we were taking pictures next to the walls. It had started to rain as soon as we left the subway station, but when I arrived at the restaurant, I was instantly warmed by a fire roasting ducks and the delicious smell of roast duck greeted me. We ordered two ducks, a duck gizzard dish, and all the fixings, including the delicious hoisin sauce. Peking Duck is traditionally cut into about a quarter inch thick slices and one puts it in a pancake with hoisin sauce, white scallions, and cucumber. I'm not sure if the duck or the hoisin sauce is more tasty. We devoured our duck quickly. When initially asked if we would like to take our duck carcasses home with us we said no because we did not have a refrigerator to keep them, but after eating the duck so quickly and enjoying it so much, we changed our mind and asked for the carcasses to take with us as a snack.

I hadn't realized it when we initially entered the restaurant, but as I took a walk around after eating I noticed that all the dead ducks both cooked and raw hung by their in plain view with their heads in tact. Let's just say it's a good thing I already ate my duck. It was so delicious though, I would go back to Li Qun and have it again in a heartbeat.

When we left the restaurant we walked by Tiananmen Square on our way back to the subway. I had not seen the square at night, but it was beautiful and I was happy to stumble upon it on one of my last nights in Beijing. It was empty except for a lone guard standing in between the Chairman Mao Memorial and another equally ornate building. The square and surrounding buildings were lit up with a yellow glow of lights. Since it had just rained, everything seemed to glisten. It was a very magical end to a delicious meal.