We're in a building on the Beijing Foreign Studies University Campus. Our room is on the sixth floor, so there are lots and lots of steps. We learned about Chinese history, and then the Dean of the law school talked to us about the Chinese legal system. Everything is secondary to the Communist party, and you have to be a member in order to be anyone.
Our classroom building, and our classroom on the sixth floor
Our classroom building, and our classroom on the sixth floor
After class a group of us went to lunch with our professors at a Muslim restaurant. Our professor said that in order to work in Beijing, you have to have a permit because they don't like to have people moving to the city (avoiding outsiders), so there are about five million undocumented people here. If you don't have a permit, you don't have rights (i.e. no police, no schools, no hospital, no right to sue - if you don't get paid, you have no recourse). This is what China means when they talk about "human rights issues," not things like "freedom of speech" (which nobody in China thinks is necessary.
Tonight there was a banquet at the university with Chinese students. We met a girl who's English name is Seven who likes going shopping and going to karaoke. She doesn't like how students here are so serious - she offered to pay for karaoke once and nobody wanted to go.
Chinese telephone booths
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