The past few weeks in photos

The past few weeks following midterms have been a bit of a blur....I'm not sure why. During the midterm week I managed to go see a couple screenings of short student films at the Beijing Film Academy. Here are some pictures of the directors at the post-screening Q&A:

I was really shocked at how mean the audience could be when they weren't enjoying a film. They would start yelling "Hao, hao (good, good)" loudly and laughing, but it was obviously sarcastic. I wouldn't have been able to handle it if I was one of the directors.

After midterms I went on my own to check out the Olympics buildings. It was fine, pretty much what I expected. Here's the Bird's Nest as it looked from the subway station:
Here's a random guy from Hunan. I approached him to ask him to help me take a picture but he didn't move and his friends obviously wanted some "Look at me with this foreigner!" pictures, so I got a picture with him too. I can add it to my "Look at me with this Chinese person!" collection of pictures. haha.

Here's the water cube before the sun went down, with no lights on.

I believe the building with the green lights is the media building. Dunno what the one in the foreground was.

There was a stage and lighting set up in the middle of everything. They were playing music loudly and it sounded interesting, but it was surrounded by a wall. As far as I could tell, it was some kind of promotional activity put on by a bank or investment company, but it was only for bigwigs I guess. I joined a huge crowd craning their necks and trying to see something, but it was a fruitless effort.
Here's the water cube lit up.

And the bird's nest lit up:
Here's a pic giving you an idea of how close the two buildings are to one another.
My shadow:
Later the next week I went to a school-organized kungfu show which was among the weirdest things I have seen. It was in English and was entirely geared towards the foreign tour industry. I liked the promotional stuff outside of the theatre....I bet the Nobelists loved it:
One of the kungfu kids entertained the patrons before the show....
Last week I spent going back and forth between Beijing and a place called Songzhuang, about two hours by bus and subway from where I live. There was a film fest taking place there and I had a fabulous time. I felt lame pulling out my camera to take pictures of all the cool directors and artists there, so I only took a few pictures outside to give an idea of what the place was like. It was in the countryside....here's the road to one of the galleries where they were showing films:
There were some other galleries on the way, and a lot of private, fortress-like villas which apparently are owned by some incredibly wealthy, famous contemporary Chinese artists.
The other place in the village where films were screened was here, the Songzhuang Art Gallery. Kind of a weird building. The path in the pictures above is behind this building.
The barren-looking path behind the art gallery:
And finally, tonight Zoe and I went to Carrefour and bought a few things to decorate for Christmas. Here are the rather underwhelming results, but they make me happy.
What says Christmas more than the water cooler, bucket and tree trifecta?
Here we are with our miniature tree: