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！