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.
Have you taken any photos? Could you post some of your home, school, family, friends? Do you see many other foreigners around Tianjin?
ReplyDeleteFood ideas: hamburgers, soup, spaghetti and meatballs, chili.
so, i now get your posts directly to my email via rss feed and you've got your own separate little folder, and every time you post, i get a little notification!
ReplyDeletelike.
a.
boss.
basically i died when i read your car accident story. you're pretty much my favorite person ever.
food ideas: french fries! pancakes! CAKE!
I read! Post whatever random bits of brilliance come to your mind. We'll lap it up
ReplyDelete"Twilight juxtaposed with a Pride and Prejudice" Seldom have I laughed harder as far as I can remember. And I certainly do read this, as well as several of my friends I have forced to read it as well.
ReplyDeleteI read! Seeing that you have a new blog post is always a highlight of my day :). How has learning the language been going? My linguistics class was analyzing a Chinese problem set the other day, and I thought of you, btw.
ReplyDeleteFood: french toast, omelettes