starting a column in Beijing Daily

The first probably will be published next week!I am going to start a column in Beijing Daily. I guess writing is my thing of communication. While maintaining this blog as some private thoughts to myself, the column is about a revised me that I want people to know. I will tell all my friends and relatives about the newspaper and the link soon. Here is the preview.

Beating a Lake

If you are obsessed with your own popularity as much as I am, you probably search your name on “google” three times a day, hoping your own homepage come on top. Well, it might work for you, but I have no match with a lake called “Songhua Hu” as well (in Chinese, “Hu” means lake). I figure that starting a column in a newspaper might help me jumpstart my popularity that even the super search engine “google” has to recognize.

Without a doubt, life is a popularity contest, starting when you are young. Take a summer camp for an example. I was a counselor for the dance camp last week. Fifty-seven kids of 13-16 years old, converging from all around the nation, took modern dance and hip-hop classes in my university for a week. Their raging hormone made them energetic and tireless, but it also led to a craving for attention and an ego bigger than the hill behind my campus. However, my favorite dancers are always those kept their cool and poise. They often hid on the back corner, moving on their own rhythms with grace. When you spot them, you suddenly realize that, beyond all the popularity contests, ones who do not care eventually win.

In the middle of the camp, Harry Potter book came out. Campers began to read it like maniacs. One of my fellow counselors, Nicole, finished it in two days by sacrificing some sleeping time. Younger kids were even more into it. They would leave the lobby immediately when Harry Potter topics came up, afraid that the discussion would ruin their enjoyment of discovering the plot on their own.

At night, we played games and watched videos. The game I love the most is called “Catch-Phrase”. The rule is that you have to describe something without saying the exact word. For example, when you say something like, “a rectangular thing you sleep on”, the other players guess what you have just described. Whoever shouts out “bed” wins the point. A non-native speaker of English, I have the natural advantage of making up silly descriptions. Kids laughed at me when I described “sea” as “a big chunk of water” or “comb” as “something to sort out your hair”. Of course, sometimes I just intentionally made mistakes to crack them up. My favorite is to guess “the scientific name of spit” as “vomit”. We all laughed like kids. Well, they ARE kids, and I just pretend to be one of them.