Oscar Chun

China has a really convenient 高铁 (high-speed railway) system, which we took to get from Beijing to Ulanqaab. It was a smooth 3 hour ride from 北京南站 (Beijing South Station) to 乌兰察布站 (Ulanqaab Station). The size and coverage of China’s railway system is really impressive. Often it's more convenient (and cheaper!) to take the train instead of driving a car or flying. As a frequent Amtrak rider, Chinese trains are so much more comfortable.

When entering Ulanqab station, something I was immediately curious about were the station’s signs. Most signs were written in three ways: Simplified Chinese characters, English letters, and a Mongolian script called Mongol Bichig. It was interesting to see how the sign designers balanced the vertical Mongolian script with horizontal Chinese characters, usually squishing them to fit.

After we exited the station, our driver, who would be taking us around for the next few days, came to pick us up. Our driver was really friendly, patient, and quite shocked by the number of foreign students he would be driving. We first headed to a grocery store to pick up some snacks and water for our trip, as our first stop, Wulanhada Volcano Geopark, would be about 2 hours outside of Ulanqab’s central city. 

On our way to Wulanhada Geopark, we hit a few bumps in the road—metaphorically and literally. Besides the occasional pothole, we had a bit of difficulty buying tickets to the Geopark because we didn’t have Chinese 生份证 (ID Cards). Since we were using foreign passports as proof of identity, our service representative had to manually input all of our passport numbers. The line was growing behind us, and I couldn’t quite understand what the representative was saying—I later learned that they were speaking Ulanqab’s local dialect—and it was a really stressful situation. Thankfully our driver stepped in and was incredibly helpful with translating bits we didn’t fully understand and got our tickets in the end.

With our tickets in hand, we were finally able to head into the geopark and things were going smoothly…until we got stuck in traffic.

Traffic into the Geopark was rough. The park only had a two-way road, a big difference from Beijing’s 6-lane mega-roads, so we spent quite a long time inching down the path. I’d really like to thank everyone who went on the trip for their patience. We kept the mood up yapping, playing games, and oohing-and-awing at the occasional grazing cattle and sheep. I wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck in traffic with anyone else. 

After a few camel sightings, we finally saw our first volcano! It would be a few more kilometers until we reached the specific volcanoes we were visiting, but it was a really exciting sight.

After snoozing my alarm a few times, I usually get out of bed around 7. The LSA classes have been the earliest I’ve taken in awhile, so it’s been a big adjustment. I like to take my mornings slow, taking the time to relax before the long day ahead. Sometimes I make it to breakfast, but most of the time I sleep in—today was one of those days. I head to class around 7:50.
 

My first class of the day is Chinese with our BNU professor, Chen Laoshi ( 陈老师 ). On the LSA+, we take the equivalent of two Chinese classes at Dartmouth in one term. Students are on one of two tracks, second year or third year, depending on prior completion of Chinese classes. I’m on the third year track, the equivalent of CHIN 31+32 Advanced Modern Chinese because I took CHIN 4 Advanced Beginners Chinese, and CHIN 22+23 Intermediate Modern Chinese during my first year. If you’re curious about the second year track, check out Madison ‘28’s experience in Beijing!

Every week we complete two chapters of our textbook, “New Horizons: an Intermediate-Advanced Course in Chinese (I)”. In terms of testing, we have two vocabulary quizzes a week, one for each chapter, usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then every Friday we have an exam on the week’s grammar structures and vocabulary. In addition, we’re assigned a short composition every other week as practice for long-form writing. This structure is standard practice for Dartmouth Chinese classes, just a little faster paced as we’re covering two classes worth of content in one. 

Following our large, professor-led class, we break into two smaller cohorts, each led by a current BNU student. Our small classes are looser, mainly structured as a review of the lesson just covered in the larger class. Though we often go off on tangents where we learn more about Chinese culture and vocabulary we’re curious about. The other day we were talking about a sick classmate, which expanded into a full lesson on different body parts in Chinese. 小班 is where we learn the parts of Chinese that aren’t in a textbook, from a native Chinese peer.

I felt that the first day wasn’t too difficult. For breakfast, I had a veggie danish at Ramekin, a cafe in Anonymous Hall, before my 9S. For lunch and dinner I ate at FoCo, mostly at Ma Thayers, the classic dining station and Herbivore, the vegetarian station. I loaded up on steamed vegetables and added some seasoning off of FoCo’s spice rack. My favorites at the moment are Momo’s Backyard Blend (a savory and tangy BBQ spice mix) and Shichimi Togarashi (a floral, nutty chili mix). 

I did notice that there was a lot of corn served today—steamed corn at Ma Thayers for both lunch and dinner, deconstructed elotes at Herbivore, and corn chowder at the soup station. Hopefully I won’t be eating corn the whole week.

On day 2 I already lost the challenge. 

I was at Ramekin, deciding what to order for breakfast and decided on a sausage egg and cheese. I even took a bite before realizing I was still being vegetarian for this week. 

Well, that’s strike one. 

There are a few vegetarian breakfast options at the different cafes on campus. Besides the veggie danish I had yesterday, Ramekin has DIY parfaits (dairy or non-dairy yogurt) and bagels. While Novack has scones and other baked goods. Though a majority of breakfast items on campus involve animal products, usually eggs, dairy, or honey, so I think it’ll be pretty difficult to find an enjoyable vegan breakfast at campus cafes. 

I also had lunch at Ramekin today. I tried a sandwich that was made with slices of sweet potato, arugula, mozzarella cheese and sundried tomato paste. It was a delicious combination of crunchy bread, creamy cheese, tangy tomato, and soft sweet potato. Ramekin always has at least one vegetarian sandwich option every day. Some other sandwiches I’ve seen are the brie and apple pita and the vegan patty melt. All of the sandwiches have a cheese component—which I’m not the biggest fan of, so I don’t tend to eat meals at the cafes. But for a quick grab-and-go lunch, the sweet potato sandwich was pretty good!

Day 3 went pretty smoothly. I had a relatively slower day, so I had more time to sit down and eat at FoCo. A new FoCo favorite I’ve discovered are the veggie fritters from Herbivore. They’re savory, fluffy pancakes with extra texture from the vegetables mixed in.

FoCo was also doing a special hot chocolate pop up, featuring marshmallows from a local New Hampshire business. Unfortunately, the marshmallows were not vegetarian because the gelatin was animal-based. But I was still able to enjoy the hot chocolate. 

Food is a big part of the community campus—there’s always a food event going on or free food somewhere (there’s even a GroupMe chat called “FREE FOOD @ NOW”). For example, many club meetings will have free food, such as the Dartmouth Outing Club’s (DOC) “feeds”, which you can read more about in this post by fellow blogger Tao ‘28. This upcoming weekend has lots of events: the annual Winter Carnival, Super Bowl Weekend, and a few more Lunar New Year celebrations, which will definitely involve food. Many events try to have vegetarian/ vegan-friendly options, but this isn’t always the case, so I’m a bit worried about missing out.