December Ramblings

A few weeks ago it was my Thai friend’s birthday, so she invited me and some other exchange students over to her host family’s house for lunch. After lunch we drank tea in the traditional Chinese way. I had never experienced a Chinese tea “ceremony” (I’m not really sure you could call it that), so it was an interesting experience for me. First the tealeaves were washed, and then tea was poured over the tea set a few times. The tea set consisted of a pot, cups, brushes (no idea what they are for, as they were not used), and they all sat over this box type thing which had space at the top for tea to drip down into. After all of that washing and tea spilling, we finally drank the tea! Fun fact: black tea is called “red tea” in Chinese.

Later that day I went over to my other Thai friend’s house, and she cooked some Thai curry. It was actually the spiciest thing I’ve ever eaten, but it was of course still delicious. Her host mom then showed me their oven and was like, “Tomorrow you come over and make American food! We have an oven.” So then the next day I was eating lunch and I got a call from her daughter who told me, “I heard you’re coming over to make potato soup. Meet me at the bookstore.” Shopping for American ingredients was an interesting experience. We had to go to a Japanese grocery store, but we were able to find everything after looking for what felt like ages. Then we returned to their house and I made baked potato soup and cookies. They both turned out decently. The soup was a little bit burnt, though.

A few days after that food experience, it was my host brother’s birthday. We didn’t really do much except for eat noodles and cake. Chinese people eat really long noodles on their birthday, which symbolizes a long life.

At the beginning of December I FINALLY (after three months of waiting) got my school uniform. I had heard they were coming in the first week of December, and so one day after a friend and I finished eating lunch he turned to me, mouthed, “Let’s go,” and we were off. We then explored a part of the school I had never been to, and finally ended up in some random space between two buildings next to a really old, beat-up van. There was this gigantic crowd surrounding the van and a guy selling uniforms. I am now wearing it, and it is gigantic, ugly, green, yellow, and white.

I also started playing badminton the first Friday of December. One day after school I was about to go home until one of my classmates approaches me and goes, “Let’s go!” I had no idea what was going on and my classmates just kept saying, “Fifth floor. Fifth floor!” After about five minutes we ended up in the attic of our school, which I had no idea existed. There are a bunch of badminton courts, but it has to be the weirdest place to play sports. Now every Friday I have badminton class after school. Chinese people are INTENSE when it comes to badminton. I’m already at a disadvantage because I can’t really understand the teacher’s instructions and tips on how to play well (I really need to study badminton vocabulary!), but even if I did understand, they’re all so good that there’s practically no hope for me anyway.

I got a haircut two weeks ago. I was way way overdue to get one (I hadn’t had one since before coming to China in August). When I got to the salon, they put my coat into a locker and gave me a key. That was really different for me. The only other differences were they washed my hair before and after the cut, and the wrapped my neck in toilet paper (any ideas why? I have no idea).

Christmas is coming up, and so I hope to make a post about Christmas in china within the next week. Until then, Happy Holidays!

Heat

I promised myself that I would do an update after Tianjin turned on the heat. They turned it on about a week ago, but unfortunately my Internet is broken. I am writing this and hope to post it when the Internet is fixed. Not everyone in China gets heat. Everyone south of some river (perhaps the Yellow River or Yangtze River? Or are those the same?) doesn’t get heat; everyone North of said river does get heat. Tianjin is north of the river, but individuals cannot control their own heat. The whole city turns it on at the same time, and so even though I was frozen for about one month, there was not much I could do (other than wear my whole wardrobe at one time).

During the earlier, unexpectedly cold, heatless days of November, I got sick. It was just a cold, though. I didn’t get to experiment with Chinese medicine, although a few of my classmates did suggest it. I did, however, eat frog. I got home one day and wasn’t feeling well, so my host family motioned me to the table and said, “EAT FROG NOW.” They then placed five whole frogs onto my plate and expected me to eat them. I have no idea how to eat a whole frog, and when I asked my host dad for instructions, his response was just, “eat it like it’s a chicken!” They weren’t particularly delicious, but not bad either.

The weekend after I got sick I went to an aquarium called the Tianjin Ocean Park with some Chinese friends. None of them had ever seen penguins, and they got so excited when they saw them. We also went to a buffet (my second buffet in China!). This time it was surprisingly calm and civilized. There was an unlimited self-serve table of Chinese beer and baijiu (literally “white alcohol,” baijiu is some sort of Chinese liquor that is known to have an exceptionally high amount of alcohol). I feel like that could potentially be extremely dangerous, especially with Chinese men.

This past Saturday I went to my Thai friend’s house for an American Thanksgiving party. I was expecting it to be a small party of about ten people, but there were so many people, and this HOUSE (the first Chinese house I’ve been in) was GIGANTIC. There were quite a few Americans and other foreigners. I have recently been getting really giddy when I’m around other Americans. It’s a really strange feeling, but maybe it’s because I don’t interact with Americans that often. About thirty minutes into the party the hostess called everyone over and said we had to play a “game.” I was hanging out with all of the exchange students, and none of us could understand her directions in Chinese or the “translator’s” (random man’s) English (or rather, Chinglish) directions. Everyone was given a piece of paper and a pen, and we were supposed to write our name and something else on the paper and put it in a jar. We had no idea what to write, so we all wrote random stuff and went on doing our own thing. After everyone was finished, some random little kid started pulling papers out of the jar. It turned out that we were supposed to read what was on the paper if our name was called. Of course my name was called second, and I was put in front of a crowd and expected to give a small speech when the only thing on my paper was “Happy Thanksgiving!” I had no idea what to do, so I just stood there and awkwardly talked about Thanksgiving for ten seconds. Then I got a prize. It ended up being an electric massager.

After the “game” I was standing around talking to friends and there was this Chinese girl across from me that looked really familiar. She approached me and was like, “Hi, I know you.” I then freaked out and realized that I had met this girl a few months ago at a YFU orientation in Chicago. She was an exchange student to the Chicagoland area last year, and we had talked a bit at the orientation. It was a very “such a small world” feeling. Later I met a foreign girl that spoke perfect English, so I just assumed she was American. When I asked her where she was from, she told me she was German but had gone to Illinois as an exchange student a few years ago. I thought I misheard her and had to ask her to repeat herself a few times. It turns out that she had exchanged to a town pretty close to my hometown. As we were talking about that, a man overheard us, came over, and said “Oh you’re from Chicago? I’m from Chicago.” He is from a town even closer to my hometown. After that I decided I should avoid people with connections to the US for the rest of the night.

The food at the party was interesting. There were two turkeys that had pink meat, lots of fried chicken and fish, cornbread that I was told isn’t actually cornbread, dumplings, cake, and pie! The guy that carved the turkey had absolutely no idea what he was doing and it didn’t taste like turkey, but it’s the feeling, right? Overall, I have to say it felt like a pretty real thanksgiving. Little kids running around practically dying from being stepped on, half of the guests spilling their drinks, a fight in the kitchen, great gossip, intense miscommunication (this time being between like seven languages), and awkward encounters that nobody should have to live through.

On Sunday eight other exchange students, two host siblings, and I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1! If you don’t know me, you should know that I am an unbelievably huge Harry Potter fan. Originally everyone in China told me that the movie would come out sometime in 2011. I was devastated that I would have to wait a few extra months to see the movie. Completely devastated. But one day at the beginning of last week, I got a text from a Chinese friend saying “I was wrong. I just called the cinema and Harry Potter will be here this Friday!” That’s all I talked about the rest of the week. I couldn’t go on Saturday or Sunday, but at the Thanksgiving party some other exchange students invited me to go with them on Sunday. Of course I said yes. There were nine of us in total: three YFU students  (Thailand, Germany, me), five AFS students (Germany, Italy, Thailand, USA, Venezuela), and two host sisters. In China the cinema gives customers assigned seats, and I actually liked this a lot. Customers get to pick where they want to sit when they buy the ticket, and then that seat is officially theirs. Of course all nine of us had to get McDonald’s before the movie, so that made us thirty seconds late. Despite the fact that I missed those very crucial thirty seconds, the movie was phenomenal. Go see it. After the movie we ate Thai food and went shopping on Binjiang Road, one of Tianjin’s busiest pedestrian streets.

Yesterday I was invited to “电灯泡,” or “be the light bulb” by one of my classmates. She and a guy I briefly met a while ago just started being “boyfriend and girlfriend” this past weekend. First of all, Chinese high school relationships are sort of ridiculous. Half of the time “couples” avoid each other everywhere in public, and the other half are just awkward. Anyway, my classmate asked me if I was free to go out to dinner with them after school. Unfortunately (no, I’m not being sarcastic) I was not free and had to go home, so I didn’t get to awkwardly tag along on their “date” to McDonald’s (romantic, eh?). This morning my classmate asked me if I knew what “being the light bulb” was. I didn’t and so she explained it to me. Often times Chinese couples don’t feel very comfortable going out alone, so they need a friend to tag along and “be the light bulb that guides them in the dark.” Next time I am totally not passing this up.

Today my class welcomed a new student. All went well until English class, where the American teacher asked her for her English name. She said her English name was “S-T-I-T-K-E-Y,” but for five minutes the teacher thought she said “Sticky.” He went on and on for five minutes about why that was a weird name, and then of course someone finally corrected him, “Stitkey is what she said, not Sticky.” Well, you readers can judge for yourselves, but both my teacher and I thought that was just as weird. His response: “Can I call you Ashley?”

I wish all of you a very happy American Thanksgiving and am of course thankful for you if you’ve read this far. 感恩节快乐！

长城

I took an English test a few weeks ago at my school here. I got an 85%. Woops. There was an excerpt from Twilight juxtaposed with a Pride and Prejudice excerpt. Classic.

About a week later I got into my first Chinese car accident! I was with my host brother and a classmate in a taxi on our way home from school at about six at night, and all of a sudden there was this really loud noise and we stopped moving. Right when I realized we were in a car accident, I got really excited. I’ve heard great things about getting into taxi accidents in China. I’ve heard stories about the driver blaming the incident on the passenger and viewed pretty heated arguments between drivers from the side of the road. Fortunately, this was not the case. Our taxi driver just stepped out of the car and kept saying “sorry, sir!” to the other driver. While this was happening I made sure to question the others in the vehicle about Chinese traffic accidents involving taxis. My classmate said he had never been in an accident while in a taxi before, and so we were just cracking up. When I ask my host brother if this had ever happened to him before, his response was “usually.” So, this “usual” accident only lasted about five minutes, and it seemed to be very simple. It resulted in our driver giving the other driver 100 RMB (about 15 US Dollars) since we rear-ended him.

On October 24 I went to the Great Wall with a bunch of YFU students. Many of the students from the South were visiting Beijing, and the Northern students were given the opportunity to visit the Great Wall with them because it’s a bit out of the way for us to get to. The Great Wall was really amazing, but we had the worst weather since August. Even so, it was fun to climb (and you really have to climb, not just walk, which I was not expecting), and the rain actually gave the Wall this ethereal, scenic look.

After the Great Wall we went to the Olympic Village where we saw the Bird Nest and Water Cube. Both were cool but kind of useless. I did really enjoy getting to walk around and talk with all the other students I had not previously met.

Happy Halloween! There was absolutely nothing Halloween related here in China. I almost forgot about the holiday, actually. Today I don’t have school, though, because this week is exam week. I think I am running out of things to talk about, so if you want to hear about anything (does anyone even read this anyway?), feel free to comment and let me know. Also, does anyone have any ideas of what American food I could cook my host family? We don’t have an oven or cheese.

National Holiday

October 1^st to October 7^th was the National Holiday in China. October 1^st is National Day, and so the government orders a week of holiday. I had a weeklong break from school. On September 30^th I was told by my teacher not to go to school (for reasons unknown…), so I just stayed at home all day. When my host brother and mom got home at about six in the evening, they were just like “Okay, it’s National Holiday. Let’s go to Hebei.” Ten minutes later we were on our way to Hebei Province.

Traffic was absolutely horrible. China’s National Holiday is known as one of two “Golden Weeks” in China. Because so much of the country is on break, many people take the time to travel. This results in extremely horrible traffic. I’ve heard that travel by train is a complete disaster during this time.

We only stayed in Hebei for one day. We went to the same town that I had previously visited. This time I found out the name, though. I think it’s called Tangshen (that could be totally wrong, though.). The town is nice, but it’s sort of gross because it’s really polluted. This time I got to explore part of the town a bit. We went to some random, uninhabited house, but it was really cool because I got to see a typical Chinese garden. There was a lot of Chinese cabbage (which in Chinese is called “white vegetable,” even though it’s green). One of my host aunts and both of my host grandparents spent a lot of time picking vegetables and cleaning them. Later that day we took some home and have been eating them since.

The rest of the week was kind of boring. I didn’t do much. I tried Chinese “Italian food,” which wasn’t very Italian. I also went to a Chinese buffet, which was quite the experience. It was very similar to those Brazilian steakhouses that are kind of trendy in the US. They had a bunch of people carrying around different kinds of meats on trays and carts, and they would just come to your table and plop it into your plate. They even had pizza that they just threw onto the table. What was even scarier was the buffet portion. They had a pretty large buffet of random Chinese dishes, pastries, fruit, and beverages. As you should known by know, Chinese people like to eat a lot, so people were taking massive quantities of food from the buffet. It was unbelievable. They even had roast duck as part of the buffet, and it would empty really quickly. Whenever a new tray of duck would pass by on its way to the buffet, half of the restaurant (which was gigantic, by the way) would suddenly rush to the buffet and start pushing each other out of the way in order to get the duck.

I had to go to school today (Saturday) to make up for one of the days of the holiday. I think that is now the third Saturday where I’ve had to go to school.

中秋节

I apologize that I haven’t posted in a while. This post was originally written on Wednesday, September 29. My host family’s Internet was broken for quite a long time, so I haven’t been able to make any posts.

Last Wednesday, September 22^nd, was the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival). There was no school that day, and so I woke up to a pretty boring morning. I really did nothing all morning until all of a sudden at about noon the doorbell kept ringing. My host family had apparently invited guests over for lunch. A family of three plus a friend of the son and my host father’s friend ate with us. I had previously met my host father’s friend before, but I had not met this family. They were seriously one of the nicest families I’ve ever encountered. Exactly three seconds after I met them they gave me a really nice gift. It’s a book of what people keep telling me are called traditional Chinese “paper cuts” in English, but I don’t think that’s the actual name. I would look it up, but the Internet is currently broken (hence the huge gap between the time this was posted and the post before it). After I got this gift my host father’s friend also gave me a gift. He gave me this really fancy box of China’s “National Treasure” from Nanjing. There are four rocks inside the box, and I have no idea what any of it says, but I’m just going to trust that it’s a good gift because it looks nice. Anyway, at this point I was really embarrassed because I was given two awesome gifts, and I had absolutely nothing to give to them in return. Well, actually, I have a few Lady Gaga CDs with me, but I felt that those weren’t an appropriate “thank you so much for the gift. I have a gift for you, too!” type of gift.

For lunch there were seventeen dishes. Yes, I counted. I can’t even begin to describe what kind of dishes there were, so I’ll just talk about crab. Chinese people don’t take off shells or bones before food is served. When served fish, the head is almost always on, and every single bone is still inside. When a Chinese person goes to eat fish, they just stick it in their mouth and magically spit out the bones. I have sort of gotten used to this. I’ve also gotten used to taking off shrimp heads, tails, legs, and remaining parts of the shell at the dinner table. I thought that I had finally somewhat adapted to eating like a Chinese person. And then I was served crab during the Moon Festival. I was just sitting at the table eating some eggplant, and all of a sudden someone threw a crab into my bowl. A whole crab, just out of a boiling pot of water. I started at the crab for several minutes. I pretended like it wasn’t there. I ate more eggplant. I moved on to eggs. I even de-shelled and ate a few shrimp. Then someone mentioned the crab. I pretended that I didn’t hear them. Then another person mentioned the crab. I pretended that I didn’t understand the Chinese. Then someone pointed the crab and clearly told me to eat it. There was no way out of it. I picked up the crab. I looked at the crab. I put the crab down. I turned it over. I picked up the crab. I put the crab down. Finally I was saved. The woman sitting next to me offered to help me eat my crab. She picked up the crab, and three seconds later half of the outside shell was gone. Keep in mind that this woman had no knife, scissors, fork, or chopsticks to help her. The crab was delicious. She slowly taught me how to work my way around the crab. The legs took a bit of time, but it was definitely worth it considering how good it tasted. I am now proud to say that I am capable of eating a whole crab with only my hands.

About an hour after lunch I got in the car with the family that came over for lunch. I thought we were going to a park, but we ended up at a swimming pool. I have heard many horror stories about swimming pools in China. According to everything I’ve heard, they are extremely crowded, dirty, and full of spit (I guess just like the rest of China?). This was definitely not the case with this pool. It was very quiet, and there were maybe ten other people in the same pool as us. The family’s sixteen-year-old son and I swam for a while, and then I left and went home.

When I got home we ate dinner. This was the first time that I’ve had a smaller dinner than lunch in China. It still tasted great, though. I even disassembled two crabs and ate them. After dinner my host family and I watched a program on TV for the Moon Festival. It consisted of much singing and dancing, and altogether it was pretty well done. While watching we ate moon cakes and some unknown dried fruit. After the show was over, I was told to watch the moon.

Now, to be quite honest, I don’t really know what the Moon Festival is. It falls on a day in autumn when there is a full moon. My host brother told me that the moon on the night of the Moon Festival is the brightest full moon all year. As it says on one of my moon cake boxes, “May we all be blessed with longevity. Though far apart, we are still able to share the beauty of the moon together.” Moon cakes are eaten around the time of the festival to celebrate. The only reason people have given me as to why moon cakes are eaten is because “they are round, like the moon.” In the past two weeks I have eaten too many moon cakes. They’re filled with different ingredients such as eggs, coconut, bean paste, nuts, meat that really isn’t meat, and other fruits. People keep giving me moon cakes. My host father and mother each got a bunch of boxes from their companies, so they gave me many “to experience the culture.” I was satisfied with the amount of moon cakes I was given until I went to school one day where the principal gave me a gigantic box. Once again I was embarrassed because I had nothing to give in return. When my classmates saw the moon cakes that the school gave me, their first reaction was “Wow! Our school never gives anyone anything!” The second reaction was “Wow! Those are the most expensive kind!” Maybe I should bring a Lady Gaga CD for the principal…

On Sunday the 26^th I went to Beijing for a YFU meeting. I travelled with the Thai student living in Tianjin. It’s really easy to get to Beijing and doesn’t take much time. When we got there, we had a little bit of time before our meeting started, so I suggested we do something touristy. We decided to go to Tiananmen Square. We had no idea about whether or not to get off at the Tiananmen East subway station or the Tiananmen West subway station, so we arbitrarily decided on Tiananmen East. When we got off, we did what we always do in China, and that is follow the crowd (and yes, there is always a crowd). So we followed the crowd for about twenty minutes until we were in this courtyard-like area between some really old and pretty Chinese walls and buildings. Finally we reached a gate where you could buy tickets and guides. We were really confused because there is obviously no entrance fee to get into Tiananmen Square, so we just left. On the way out we were just like “Where in the world are we?” until we got to the street and I realized that we had been trying to enter the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square was across the street. Woops.

We went to Tiananmen Square for a bit, and I have to admit that it was a little anticlimactic. Not really much to do or see there. We went to the YFU meeting, and it was really fun to see all of the students again. After the meeting we walked around aimlessly for a bit. The public transportation in Beijing is extremely convenient, so we took the subway to some area where they have a lot of street food. We ate a really tasty and random dinner, and then the Thai girl and I left to return to Tianjin.

Sunday, October 10 update: I am still hoarding moon cakes in my room.

上海!

The train ride to Shanghai was about eleven hours. My classmates and I were put into the first class, soft sleeper beds, which are very nice. I had no problem sleeping the whole train ride and could actually move. Also, the conductor told me “no smoking” maybe ten times in English, and I did not hear her say it once in Chinese.

The purpose of our class trip to Shanghai was primarily to see the Expo. The Shanghai Expo is the world’s 2010 fair. I think I read that there are about two hundred countries represented and fifty corporations. A few of the pavilions I visited were Coca-Cola (did you know that Coca-Cola has a mascot?), the Space Pavilion, SAIC-GM, Norway, Romania, Canada, Australia, Czech Republic, Mexico, Italy, Nepal, Chile, a few more countries that I cannot remember, and a bunch of exhibits on cities. I also visited the United States Pavilion, which seemed to be pretty popular. Many of my classmates told me that this was the only one that they wanted to see. It consisted of three videos all dealing with “the American spirit,” and it was a bit lame. The SAIC-GM pavilion was absolutely amazing (and well worth the three hour line). I saw some really advanced technology that I have never seen before. I also visited a pavilion that contained a lot of historical information, and there were Chinese artifacts from 10000 BC on display. Interestingly enough, my classmates thought it was “no big deal.” All of the pavilions were well designed and aesthetically pleasing, but the lines were outrageous. The line for Saudi Arabia was seven hours. Some of my (very crazy) classmates were brave enough to wait in this line, but considering it was maybe one hundred degrees outside, I decided to skip it.

On the Friday of our trip, my class visited a high school in Shanghai. It was incredibly boring, and no one wanted to be there. It was interesting to see that the school had twenty Ping-Pong tables, though. I had to sit through a random math class, and they were learning vectors. It was horrible. The school also decided to not let us sit in desks, so we crouched on these tiny stools in the back of the classroom.

After visiting the school we were given time to explore Shanghai. Two of my classmates and I went to the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC). The SWFC is the tallest building in China, and it apparently has the highest observatory deck in the world. The elevator ride to the top was much longer than I expected, but as expected in China they decided to pack one trillion people into one square inch. Shanghai is really a gigantic city. The city spans miles and miles in all directions, and the edges of the city are not visible. After visiting the SWFC I walked around Nanjing Road for a bit. I’ve been told that Nanjing Road is famous for shopping. It was fun to explore the area with some of my classmates.

The hotel we stayed in isn’t legally allowed to host foreigners, so every time I entered the hotel, I was supposed to sneak up into my room. Well, one night when I was running up to my room, the man at the front desk spotted me. He started screaming in Chinese, and of course I had no idea what was going on. A few of my classmates started screaming, and then my teachers started screaming. I obviously had to leave the hotel (how many people can say they’ve been kicked out of a Chinese hotel?), and I slept the next two nights on the street. No, just kidding. I found another hotel a whole block away.

Luckily for me, the new (and much cleaner) hotel had an amazing duck stand in front of it. I think I ate a whole duck one night. I also tried KFC, and it was pretty fantastic. I think I’ve now had Chinese KFC more times than American KFC.

The train ride back to Tianjin was exactly the same as the train ride to Shanghai, except I watched the worst scary movie I’ve ever seen with three of my classmates. I returned to Tianjin Sunday morning, and on Monday my first week of school started. I missed a few of my classes to go take a medical examination to complete my residency permit. The medical examination was very strange. They required that I get x-rays and an ultrasound done, among many other tests.

Friday was teacher’s day. They put me in a video because they wanted to get a shot of a foreigner. I had to say some random stuff about teachers in English, and I also had to speak a little Chinese. Apparently the video is going to be shown to the whole school, but considering that teacher’s day already passed and I didn’t see the video, I think they might have been lying.

Today is the last day of a four-day weekend. The World Economic Forum is currently going on in Tianjin, so the government thought it would be a great idea to close down all the streets. With no streets people obviously can’t get to school, so we have these two days off. Unfortunately, I now have to go to school next weekend to make up for these lost two days. This school week (is it still called a week if it’s over seven days?) ahead of me is ten days long. No break.

Random observation: Louis Vuitton is everywhere. Don’t ask me if it’s real or fake, but it’s everywhere. Shoes, suitcases, pillowcases, seatbelt covers, and taxi floor mats… everywhere.

Also, today is my one-month anniversary of being in China! I don’t really know what to say other than I’ve eaten more eggs in this one month than in the rest of my life. I think I’m going to go to the store now and treat myself to some new junk food. Until next time, enjoy your weekend (I won’t!)! 

Birthday Food: Yes, More Food

It turns out that my first day of school wasn’t actually an official day of school. It was just a day where students receive their textbooks and clean their classroom. I met some classmates who were really nice, and then afterwards I went out to lunch at McDonald’s with my host brother and his friends. After eating we played this Chinese card game (which I won every time), and I was actually inside a McDonald’s for over three hours. Only in China…

This past Saturday I woke up really early and went to the driving range with my host mom. I just sat there while she golfed because it was way too hot. Afterwards she drove to a huge parking lot in between a bunch of traditional Chinese buildings, and I thought we were at a shopping mall. It was actually my first touristy experience in Tianjin (and I took no pictures… oops)! The place was called Tianjin Shi Jia Da Yuan. According to my ticket, it is “the first mansion in the north of China” and “the first theatre in the cnit mansion,” whatever that means. It was a lot of fun to walk around it and see traditional Chinese buildings, though. I also saw a bunch of pictures of Mao and a miniature performance of the Beijing Opera.

On the way home from Tianjin Shi Jia Da Yuan, my host mom bought some patties with meat for me to eat. I only noticed that the paper it was wrapped in said “donkey meat donkey meat” after I had finished. For dinner we went out for hot pot, which I had been dying to try. We mostly had lamb, and it was fantastic.

Saturday was my host father’s mother’s birthday, so my host family and I traveled to Hebei province. It was about a two-hour drive, and I met my host father’s entire family. I think there were about twenty people total, and so I think you readers should know what that means by now. Food. Lots and lots of food. So much food. Too much food. After eating all of this food, everyone napped. Perhaps it was a Chinese siesta?

When we left Hubei, I thought we were on our back home. It turns out I was wrong once again. We went to the Tanggu district of Tianjin to meet my host mother’s sister, husband, and son. At their house we ate more food. My host parents left my host brother and me there, and they just kept feeding us for what felt like forever. On the train ride home an adorable girl no older than four peed on the door two inches away from my foot. Her mother held her there to pee.

Today was my first real day of school! My host brother and I were late (woops), but we somehow managed to sneak into our class’ line in the schoolyard. All the classes stood in lines and listened to different administrators talk, and then they all sang the national anthem. It was really awkward because everyone wore the school uniform except for me.

My first day of school was pretty fun. I enjoyed meeting everyone and seeing different parts of the school. My school is located in a really convenient area; for lunch there are many restaurant options. Some of my classmates and I went to a skewer and soup restaurant for lunch. Unfortunately my class doesn’t do eye exercises (more on this later), so the day just ended after my last class was over.

Tomorrow I’m going to Shanghai with my class. We’re going to see the EXPO and meet another school. We’ll go to Shanghai Tuesday night and arrive Wednesday midday.

Fireworks and Dodging Cars

A few days ago I was just sitting in the living room with my host brother, and out of nowhere I heard something that sounded like cannons being shot. So of course I had to inquire. I asked my host brother if he knew what the sound was, and he just turned to me and said, “Hmm… maybe fireworks?” I opened the curtain and BAM. No more than three feet away from the side of an apartment building, people were launching off fireworks. I asked my host brother what the reason was and he just said, “Maybe it’s their birthday or maybe they are just happy.” He then continued to casually read the book in his lap.

Since my last post I have been fed very much (of course). I’ve tried zhajiang mian, lamb dumplings, and Beijing duck, which was fantastic. Three days ago we went out for Korean barbecue, and I saw another foreigner on the street. I could not stop staring.

I’ve also become an expert at crossing the street. I enjoy crossing the street now. I’ve renamed it “Dodging Cars”. I have also successfully taken the bus to my Chinese classes alone.

Today was the last day of my language class. I previously forgot to mention that my class was at Tianjin Foreign Studies University. Tomorrow is my first day of school. I will get to and from school by bicycle. The first day is a half-day, so I might go out to lunch with my host brother’s classmates after!

On a completely different note, the mosquitoes in Tianjin are deadly. Never come here. You will die.

It’s Not Over Until They Bring Out the Fruit

The last day of our orientation went well. One of the volunteers even gave us a demonstration on how to use a squatter toilet. All of the students living in Beijing got picked up by their host families at about five o’clock. Then all of the other students left the hostel to go to Tianjin. The group consisted of two German girls, a Thai girl, and me.  We had to take a super crowded bus to get to the train station, and the train station was actually across from Tiananmen Square, but I didn’t get to see it. We got to the subway during rush hour, and it was super super packed. When we walked in, we had to put our bags through a security checkpoint, but the person at the checkpoint wasn’t even looking at the screen.  When we finally got to the actual train, we had to wait three times because they were all too crowded, and when we got on the train, no one could move at all. We then transferred trains and had to wait just as long for a less packed train which we couldn’t really fit on anyway. Eventually we got to Tianjin. It’s easy to tell when you get to the city because the air is much dirtier.

My host parents, host brother, and host uncle (my host father’s driver) picked me up at the train station. My host uncle drove to dinner, and on the way my host brother and I talked. His spoken English is actually amazing. I found out that he’s not even planning on taking the Gao Kao because he plans on going to college in the US. On the way to dinner, my host mother showed me the tallest building in Tianjin. For dinner we ate at the Goubuli restaurant. Gobuli (Go Believe in English) is a Tianjin baozi brand. The restaurant was amazing. We had pork, beef, vegetable, and seafood baozi with tofu soup, mushrooms, and some unknown vegetable. My favorite baozi was the one with seafood. According to my host brother, “Tianjin’s seafood is beautiful and diverse.” After eating about sixty pounds of baozi, my host family kept on putting more on my plate. I don’t think I have ever eaten so much in my life. I kept telling them that I was full, but they still fed me. Finally, after eating maybe sixty pounds more, I just refused.

When we arrived at my host family’s apartment, they gave me a pair of house shoes. The apartment is located on the fifth floor of a really nice area. I unpacked in my room, and my host mother wouldn’t let me put my shoes into the wardrobe because it’s unlucky. After unpacking I went and watched TV in Chinese that I obviously couldn’t understand. My host family then proceeded to feed me fruit.  I died. And then took a shower and went to bed.

I had to get up at six-thirty the next morning because I had to be at Tianjin Foreign Studies University at nine for my Chinese class, and we also had to drop my host brother off at his SAT class. We ate at a cafeteria-like restaurant on our way. My host mother got me a bowl of rice porridge, two English muffin-type sandwiches filled with egg and ham, and three of these famous Tianjin fried dough sticks. I can’t remember the name of the dough sticks. I died again. There was too much food.

My language class consists of the other YFU students and me. We had to introduce ourselves using “key words” in Chinese, so I said that I am an American student that likes to the play the violin. During the language class we took a bus to the bookstore to buy textbooks. The bus was once again extremely crowded, and it was about thirty-six degrees Celsius outside. The bookstore was over seven stories tall, and I sort of successfully asked an employee where the Chinese books for foreigners were in Chinese. When we returned back to the university, my host mother was there to pick me up.

At home my host mom cooked me a gigantic lunch of rice, vegetables, and shrimp. It was very good, but I obviously wasn’t hungry. I ate it anyway because I didn’t want to be rude. After lunch my host mom took me to the police station to register my residency. I actually have no idea what happened at the police station, but we just sat there for a while and then left. On the way home from the police station, we stopped to buy me a cell phone. I now have a really cheap phone, so if you readers come to China, I can give you my number (which I don’t actually know)! I just sat around the house studying Chinese for the rest of the afternoon. My host brother came home a bit after six, and when he walked in he turned to me and said, “Oh here’s some food. I thought you might like it!” I once again died. Fifteen minutes after that, we ate dinner. We ate some sort of fish, and I learned how to take the head, tail, and legs off of a shrimp. I ate as much as I could, but I was full from the beginning because my host family feeds me every fifteen minutes.

My host mom never lets me help her around the house. I keep telling her that I want to help (which I can now say in Chinese!), but she won’t let me. So instead of helping my host mom clean after dinner, I just talked with my host brother. When my host mom was done cleaning, we went for a walk. I thought I was done eating, but no. We stopped at a place called Holiland (好利来), and I tried something called bingzhou which is shaved ice with fruit and beans. It was really good, but I wasn’t hungry. My host mom bought some different Chinese bread for me for breakfast. They then showed me where Pizza Hut is and what to order because they wanted me to eat there for lunch today.  When we got home my host mother turned on the English TV channel and fed me fruit. This is a good thing. In China, it’s not over until they bring out the fruit. If you ever find yourself in China, please remember this. You don’t need to speak a word of Chinese or understand an ounce of the culture. Just know that fruit is the end.

Today I woke up and had to travel to my language class by taxi. On the way home one of the other YFU students’ host mothers insisted that she drive me. When I got home I was instructed to go to Pizza Hut and order a pizza and sausages. I did not go to Pizza Hut. I did not eat. I did weigh myself, though, and I’ve gained seven pounds.

China!

I arrived in China on Saturday at about three in the afternoon. Since then I’ve been in a hostel with other YFU students. There are five students from Germany, one from Ecuador, one from Hungary, one from Thailand, and a girl from Hawaii. Everyone is really nice, and I feel really special because everyone comes to me with English questions. So far at this post arrival orientation we’ve played some games, discussed expectations, and learned a lot about Chinese culture and family life. I’m still in Beijing, but I haven’t really seen much. Our hostel is in a hutong, and so the surrounding area seems pretty neighborly. There are lots of families eating on the streets together next to local shops.

Tomorrow is the last day of my orientation. I will then take the train to Tianjin where I will meet my host family. I will have a two-week language course, and school starts on September 1^st.

再见

The Internet in Mainland China is highly censored. Websites such as Facebook, Youtube, and Blogger are banned. Many people refer to this as the “Great Firewall of China.” This firewall is blocking my blog, so I cannot post while in China. This is where my friend Stephanie comes in. If you look to the right of my posts and down a bit, you’ll notice that this blog now has two contributors. Whenever I write a post in China, I will email it to Stephanie. Stephanie will then post it on this blog for me.

Last post I mentioned that I will be attending the Chinese division of a local school. Right after posting, I found out that I might be placed in the international division for two months to give me a better transition. After two months they would transfer me to the Chinese division and have my teachers talk to me about what grade and class would be ideal for me. It sounds like I will be able to learn a lot of different people this way. Anyway, I leave tomorrow! These past few days I’ve been organizing a lot of my clothes, overdosing on all the cheese that I will not be eating for an entire year, and today I finally packed. I was pretty successful in packing a year’s worth of clothes, gifts for my host family and a few people I will meet throughout my stay, and a portable pharmacy formed by my mother.

I depart Friday morning at seven, and I fly to San Francisco. I then fly to Beijing after a short layover. I will spend two days in Beijing for a YFU orientation, and then on the 15th I will take a train to Tianjin where I will be met by my host family. I will try my hardest to post as often as I can in China. Until then, 再见！

天津

A few months ago I learned that I will be living in a city called Tianjin for the duration of my exchange in China. Tianjin is a coastal city of twelve million people located on the Bohai Gulf and is about 130 kilometers from Beijing and a thirty-minute trip by high-speed rail. It is one of four municipalities governed directly by the Chinese government, so it is essentially its own province. Tianjin is famous for its baozi (Chinese steamed buns) and is home to a famous form of traditional Chinese theatre called Beijing Opera. A fun fact: In the 2006 movie Fearless starring Jet Li, the character Huo Yuanjia is based off the real-life martial artist of the same name, who was actually from Tianjin and is known for having brought great honor to the city.

About a month after finding out my host city, I got more exciting news, this time about my host family. I received a letter from YFU which told me that I will be living with a mother, a father, and their sixteen-year-old son in the Hexi district of Tianjin. I have exchanged emails with my host brother several times, who seems very friendly, but I still know very little about the family. Nevertheless, I am very excited to meet them and am looking forward to living in Tianjin! I also have found out that I will be attending Tianjin Experimental High School, which is also located in the Hexi district. What I have learned about it so far through some Internet research is that it has over 4,000 students (about twice the size of my American high school!) and is one of the city’s top five high schools. Apparently there are two components within the school, Chinese and international, and I will be part of the Chinese component. I will be placed with sophomores, even though I will be 3 years older than them, the reasoning behind this being that juniors and seniors will be too occupied with studying for important university entrance exams to be distracted by an opportunity to socialize with a foreign exchange student.

Anyway, as of today, I officially have 8 days until I leave! Almost exactly a week. I am very elated to be leaving so soon for what will be an awesome once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

大家好！

Hello! My name is Matthew, I am 17 years old (18 in just five days!), and I'm from Illinois. I just graduated from high school, and instead of heading straight to college like many of my peers, I will be taking a non-traditional route by spending a "gap year" in China for the 2010-2011 school year as an exchange student with Youth for Understanding (YFU). YFU is a student exchange organization that gives students like me the opportunity to study abroad as high school students in foreign countries. A YFU exchange student moves to a new country for a school year, lives with a local host family, learns the local language, attends high school, and essentially just discovers a new way of living while being immersed in a new culture.

All throughout high school I was driven to go on exchange and was determined to find an opportunity to do it. I wanted to not only learn creatively, but also to push my boundaries and discover more about the world in which I'm living. I decided that I wanted to go to China for far too many reasons to list, but basically because Chinese culture has always strongly appealed to me. After approaching my school about my ambition to study abroad, I was shut down immediately. I tried multiple times, and every time I received the same answer: no. Unfortunately I never got a chance to become an exchange student any time during high school. As a compromise, my family decided to host an exchange student during my senior year, so I could still somehow get the benefit of learning about a different culture. An exchange student from Japan lived with my family for ten months and taught me much about Japanese culture. This enriching experience of hosting was what led me to discover YFU. After doing a little research, I discovered that I still actually could go on exchange, that I could fulfill my dream of being an exchange student after all. I decided to take a gap year (a year in between senior year of high school and freshman year of college), applied to go on a yearlong exchange to China, and was finally accepted as a YFU exchange student in March 2010.

A few months after this, I was ecstatic to hear that I had received the James Bradley Peace Foundation to China scholarship, which will pay the full expenses of my exchange year to China. Every year, Mr. James Bradley sponsors a few American students to go on a high school exchange to China or Japan, and I am fortunate enough to be one these scholars. Mr. Bradley is the author of Flags of Our Fathers, Flyboys, and The Imperial Cruise, and his father is one of the five men pictured in the infamous Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima picture taken by Joe Rosenthal during WWII. When talking about his foundation, Mr. Bradley said, “For future peace, it is important that young Americans understand their brothers and sisters in this big world.” As a youth ambassador to China, I hope to create friendships between the United States and China. Furthermore, I hope to demonstrate that despite significant cultural differences, we share many similarities as human beings that we can not only bond over, but also work with to create cross-cultural understanding and to foster peace.

I am scheduled to depart for China on August 13, 2010, exactly 3 weeks from today! Since my departure date is not too far away, I am starting to wrap up my life here in the US and am getting myself prepared to leave home for a year to live a completely new and different life on the other side of the world. I will make sure to keep this blog updated before I leave and while I am in China to share my exchange adventures and experiences with all of you!