The last three days of the study abroad we stayed in Beijing. Beijing is the current capital of China the original capital was Xian where we stayed the first to weeks. In Beijing, we climb the great wall, visited the Forbidden City, the temple of heaven and the summer palace.

The reason the forbidden city is called forbidden because it was reserved for the empire and the royal family.

Every day for the first two weeks except for the weekends we had a culture lesson. One of the lessons or classes we had was a language class.  We were taught basic Chinese once a week. It was fun and I took lots of note which came in handy sometimes.

We also took a calligraphy class and learned to write freedom, I love China and other things. My most favorite class was the painting class. when Chinese painting you first start with the black ink like paint and mix it with water. Then you paint whatever you planned on painting.  After you finish painting the outline and shadow of your painting, you let it dry. This is very important because if you don’t and keep painting you can rip the paper since the paper is very thin. Lastly, you go in with the color paint and add the color details.

The way you do calligraphy is very similar to painting because you have a brush and ink you just don’t have color. The paper we used is also different it has boxes outlined so you can learn to write the character easier. When writing you write the character up to down.