It’s hard to believe that my time here in China is almost half over! It has definitely gone by very fast. So here’s a quick update on what I have been up to lately:
I've mostly gotten adapted to my lab here in Beijing and I work with one other student from the program, PJ. We normally just have group meetings on Mondays and then work Tuesday through Friday. To give you a brief overview of my project, I am working on these things called polymer grafts, which have a lot of bio-medical applications. The grafts lot basically like mesh made out of nino-fibers of polymers (plastics), which living cells can then grow on/around. There are many uses for these grafts; for example, on a basic level they can be used for burn victims and to strengthen bones. In the future, they could be used during brain-surgeries to prevent clotting and as a basis to make organs for transplants out of a patients own cells. The basic idea is that the polymer grafts would be used to make a model/frame for the cells to grow on, thereby producing an organ for transplant (sorry if that doesn't make the most sense!) PJ mostly works on the synthesis of these grafts and then I do a lot of characterization tests, including SEM (scanning electron microscope - used to look at the grafts at the nano-scale level), testing the electrical properties (mostly for brain applications), and more.
On Friday (June 24), we just had a normal day of work and then we had a lab dinner as a "good-bye" to two students from the lab who were graduating and a "welcome" to PJ and I who just joined the lab (2 weeks ago, but it's the thought that counts). The dinner was excellent, plus we got to try Peking duck for the first time, which was delicious!
On Saturday (June 25), we decided we wanted to see the Lama Temple (which we were originally scheduled to see our first week here, but never ended up happening), one of the largest Buddhist temples in the world. Of importance, Lama = high priest in Buddhism, not llama, like seen below! (Sorry...I couldn't help myself. Unfortunately, we did not see any llamas, as this picture was stolen from google)
I know absolutely nothing about Buddhism or its traditions, so I was quite surprised by many of the things in the temple. The Lama Temple was actually composed of 5 buildings in a straight row, all of which were symbolic of some part of Buddhism. In front of the first building, there were a lot of people burning incest before entering the temple. Of course, like 99% of all buildings in China, there were two lions, a male and a female, at the gate.
The first building of the temple had four large statues which, honestly, kind of creeped me out a little bit. The statues were probably about 15 feet tall and looked very menacing. Unfortunately, I only got pictures of two of them because we supposedly were not allowed to take pictures in the temple. However, only the foreigners were being told not to take pictures, which we thought was strange (even though the natives were being obnoxious about it and using flash).
The next building had a statue I did recognize! The Happy Buddha :)
The next two buildings had three female Buddhas in a row. As we went from building to building in the temple, we noticed that the size of the statues got bigger and bigger until we finally got to the final building (which is called The Pavilion of 10,000 Happinesses). Inside was one of the largest statues I've ever seen. In addition, the fact that it was inside this very cramped building made it look even bigger. The statue is about 90 feet tall and, as I discovered later, carved out of a single piece of wood (another Guinness World Record)!
In addition to the main temples, there were also smaller buildings that had more statues, most of which were very interesting. Some of the most interesting can be seen below.
I'm still not sure why they had statues of blue cows with 15 hands and feet but, hey, who am I to judge?
On Sunday, everyone in the program (saying "everyone" makes it sound like a bigger crowd than just the four of us...) was inviting to a going-away party for a colleague of Professor Coppola who had been working at Peking University for three months. It was a fun time plus we got to talk to Professor Coppola for the first time in a week about how everything was going because he has been in Hong Kong.
So that's about it for now. We're currently planning a large trip for the end of July because we have a week off of work. Right now it's looking like we're going to go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Bangkok, Thailand! I'll keep you posted!
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