North Korea Video

This was a video I made last October when I visited Dandong, a Chinese city on the border of North Korea, during the National Holiday travel period. I included some footage from Beijing–the shots of Tiananmen Square, the reverse cars in Sanlitun, the beginning shot of the female student trying to pass the guards to go sit with her friends. I included these shots because they were relevant with both the lyrics and message I…

Continue Reading...

The Chinese Millennials—How a Generation Views Its Country

I am writing this post before I travel during the National Holiday. For those of you who don’t know what that is, the National Holiday is an annual government-sanctioned holiday that occurs every October. Usually the holiday lasts seven days, but the dates aren’t ever clear until about a month before, and this year the government surprised everyone by giving nine days off, not seven. The number of days off supposedly corresponds with how well…

Continue Reading...

The Broken Bridge

Getting a cab back was tricky—we had to downgrade to a three-wheeler. It was probably the jankiest car I will ever travel in. It only had three wheels and the motor groaned when it tried traveling faster than 30 miles per hour. When you are in China, you usually want to avoid these “unofficial” taxis like the plague, but since I was with my Chinese friends I figured I was in safe hands. We arrived…

Continue Reading...

Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea

After visiting the Great Wall in Dandong, we took the bus back to town. The bus didn’t have any seats left, so we sat in the bus-equivalent of a trunk, behind the last row of seats. I’m not quite sure if that’s legal, or safe, but I chalk it up to a “when in Rome” sort of situation. Apparently the ticket taker asked my friends if I was American. Most of the people on the…

Continue Reading...

On the Border of North Korea

We left the hotel to go to the train station to buy tickets to Dalian. We also bought 6 kuai tickets (roughly one dollar) to get to the Great Wall. Dandong is the start of the Great Wall in China, and it was especially cool for me to visit there because 1) I’ve now seen the Great Wall in five different places; 2) I’ve visited the farthest west part of the Great Wall (the fort…

Continue Reading...

Chinese Millennials Reaction to Steve Jobs’ Death

I wrote in my journal one day, “Today is one of those days where I say, ‘Wow, all that really happened?’” That was the day I visited Dandong, a city on the border of North Korea and China. I was travelling with my Chinese roommate and her friends during the National Holiday period—basically a weeklong holiday that occurs every October and is meant to encourage Chinese people to travel and pump some spending money into…

Continue Reading...

Premium WordPress Themes