June 12 to 14, I went to Beijing for the spring camp at the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Since I was already there, I also squeezed in visits to Tsinghua University and Tiananmen Square.
Arriving at the Space Applications Center
On the evening of the 12th, I took Hainan Airlines flight HU7338 to Beijing. The flight also came with what may have been the worst airplane meal I have ever eaten. After landing at Beijing Capital International Airport, my first impression was that the airport felt a bit old. Technically, I had been to Beijing before, when my family brought me there as a child, but I remember almost nothing from that trip.
The spring camp arrangements were actually quite good: they reimbursed one-way travel and provided hotel accommodation and meals. I stayed at the hotel inside the campus, the Beijing New Technology Base.
The next day was mainly for registration and visits. Registration came with a camp T-shirt. For the lab tour, we chose according to research divisions, and I picked the Electromagnetic Technology Laboratory and the Electronic Information Laboratory.
The visit gave a fairly realistic glimpse of the research environment and equipment. It also looked like they were not short on funding. In Building P, the Electromagnetic Technology Laboratory has a forty-meter-high cylindrical tower housing a four-meter microgravity experimental facility. Inside is a vertical track driven electromagnetically, which was honestly very cool. The Electronic Information Laboratory had many dedicated labs of its own.
Most of it involved confidential material, and the teachers had specifically told us not to take photos inside the laboratories, so this was basically the only thing I photographed...
That afternoon there was a very long lecture that did not feel especially useful. In the evening, there was an extremely abstract and exhausting exam that also seemed, somehow, not particularly useful.
The second day was the interview. It was not very long: about five minutes of self-introduction and around ten minutes of conversation. I unlocked the experience of a summer-camp-style interview. The conversation was comfortable enough, and I did not get grilled. The teachers interviewing me were also very kind.
A Sudden Trip to Tsinghua
Going to Tsinghua University was a last-minute decision. I had assumed there was no chance of getting a reservation, but it happened to have opened a campus open-day channel specifically for students. So Tsinghua successfully allowed two dangerous elements to pass through the gate.
There was no complicated plan: just wandering around. Maybe because it was the weekend, there were obviously a lot of visitors who were neither students nor teachers. The environment was also so nice that the campus felt almost like a park. Tsinghua is huge, and it really does feel like a garden. I remain firmly opposed, in my own name, to opening university campuses to the general public.
On the way, I tried using a handheld radio to make contact, but the signal at ground level was poor and the other side could not hear me clearly. Still, I will remember you, BD1DDN — using a Baofeng UV5R-H, 5W power, and a five-element Yagi antenna.
I also visited the open section of the Department of Automation’s campus open day. Strictly speaking, this happened because I randomly walked into the Central Main Building, saw it, and then went in. Inside there was a wall of robotic dogs, two RoboMaster S1 boxes, a pile of all kinds of robots, a dual-arm robotic manipulator, and what seemed to be a graduate student actually working. Because I was wearing a team uniform, a fellow visitor from Beijing Institute of Technology who was chasing his dream recognized me.
Still in the Central Main Building, I went to the door of Tsinghua Amateur Radio Club BY1QH and took a photo, but my social anxiety kept me from knocking rashly. While wandering through the teaching buildings, I also came across a classroom in the middle of an exam. Finals week really is finals week. Dinner was Peking duck, and it was good.
Tiananmen Before Leaving
Before leaving Beijing, I went to Tiananmen Square in the evening. I had made a reservation in advance, but there were still many people even at dusk. My bag had far too many things in it: books, random items, and even a suspicious-looking handheld radio. Security checked it for quite a while, which was terrifying. If you go to Tiananmen, really do put away anything unnecessary or likely to look suspicious beforehand.
I think I also visited Tiananmen as a child, probably in winter. This time, what stood out was simply how imposing it was. I took a lot of photos, but because I had to catch a flight, I left before the flag-lowering ceremony.
The Price of Having Fun
The ending was that I boarded a flight after midnight and rushed toward a Modern Control Theory exam on Monday night. The exam was very hard. I was wrong. I should not have spent the time happily touring Beijing right after the interview.
Written on 2026-06-27.