Six Weeks In China

Today we finally made it out to Peking University. We were served an extravagant lunch in the university restaurant and given an extensive campus tour. It is, as promised, really huge. Most students live on campus, and the housing is pretty basic. The campus near the president's offices is really quite beautiful, and there are many more trees there in general than in Beijing at large.

We also finally got to meet our Peking University counterparts. They are all chemistry students, and it makes me curious about how they were chosen for dialogue interaction. It's not as though I don't think chemistry students wouldn't be interested in social justice dialogue, it's just that it seems as though sociology or psychology students would be more thoughtful about the things we plan to talk about. I wonder if they are prepared for what we are prepared to do.

I talked the most with a second-year student named David. He was very nice, thoughtful, and we commisserated about the perils of getting into graduate school in the United States. He says he would most like to go to MIT or Stanford, and was surprised that I was studying philosophy and wanted to get my PhD in information science. I guess it is a little surprising, but it was nice to get to meet these guys finally!

One thing that did surprise me was how fixated David seemed to be on binaries and heterosexual norms. I know that things are not as accepted here, but he read my gender cues as female and was surprised to learn that I identify as a man. I don't think he was quite with it enough to ask about details, but I continue to wonder about my safety and how the Chinese in general view someone in my position.

I am feeling pretty shaky and exhausted from the campus tour, and really the past few days. Greg, my roommate, passed out as soon as we got back to the hotel. I did, too, but then got up to meet our team down in the lobby to go to dinner. I chose not to go, considering how tired I am, but I kind of feel like now I can't go back to sleep. I came downstairs for some whisky but it's not sitting well either. I'm really having a hard time sleeping, which is kind of a disaster. I really need some good rest.