Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

First story

Lately I’ve been learning a lot about bones.

Specifically about ones that could tell the future.

They call them oracle bones and more than 3,000 years ago they were used by ancient Chinese kings to foretell events.

I’ve been starting to freelance for an archaeology website, and so lately I’ve been visiting Beijing’s National Library of China, where several are on display.

Even as it’s only about ancient bones locked behind glass, the story has been a pretty challenging one.

Note taking in English is one thing, but scribbling on a pad in Chinese is far harder. Feels like it takes three times longer just to jot down all the characters I’ve seen on some of the library’s display captions. Then to spend hours making sure you thoroughly translated them, and researched what it all meant.

Another thing is access. It’s hard to prove that you’re a reporter for a publication, when you only have a student visa, and the publication you’re writing for is not totally well known.

“We can’t let you take pictures since we aren’t totally sure you’re a journalist,” one of the library officials told me as I visited the place. Luckily, he was pretty easy going and let me take a few pictures of the exhibit; it helped that I was dressed nice and lugged around a computer and big camera.

Though I speak Chinese well, I’ve felt quite embarrassed when talking with the library’s PR woman. I’m sure she’s been a bit puzzled/annoyed with my not always perfect Chinese speech. But she’s patiently listened to me, giving me a hardy laugh when I’m not sure if I’m saying something right.

It’s been tough and I’m still working on the article. But the experience has been worth it. I have to say, taking the above picture was one of the best feelings I’ve had as a journalist in a long while. Felt like I got a scoop or something.