Classes, KTV, and Chinese Roommates

So, I've had two weeks of classes so far and things are going great. My Silk Road class is really interesting. I especially like when we look at how the construction of history affects modern identity and politics (someone in an earlier semester actually did a capstone on how history is taught in China, which sounds really interesting). We had a discussion on the Terracotta Warriors and how aspects of this popular Chinese symbol might have actually originated from the Western world (Alexander the Great), and, of course, how this idea challenges the notion of Chinese history as a very centralized and continuous development of culture that has had little or no influence from the rest of the world. Which kind of ties into stuff I learned about last semester, but I don't want to ramble on too much.

My history class is great too. As is Chinese. I had my first test yesterday, which I think I did well. I think. I'll find out I guess.

Then, I got to meet my roommate!! Although I did not know I had met her initially. Let me explain; Darren introduced us to all the roommates at once and said that he was not going to tell us who our roommates were until after KTV (karaoke). Of course, Crystal is the only other girl here, so I had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing the right roommate. Anyway, I just started talking to Xie Miao (who did end up being my roomie), though she had to leave for class instead of coming immediately with us to KTV. I really like her though, she's from an area famous for hot springs and said we should look for some good ones around Xi'an which sounds realllyyy good to me.

So, KTV was interesting too. Generally, I think of it as an evening activity but we went in the afternoon. Ah, well. Anyway, the singing was...well, let's just say I'd heard enough from people singing in their rooms to know how things were going to go down. I mean, I thought I was pretty off tune but...haha, I didn't sing much (because of how few pop songs I actually know) but I did join in on Bad Romance (Lady Gaga) and Yesterday (Beatles). And Vertigo (U2) although it doesn't make the best KTV song.

After everyone had sung a bit we played Mafia (love that game!!!) and then roommates were introduced. Everyone seems really happy with their roomies, which is great. Actually, some of them seem quite destined to be together. Upon their introduction, Sean's roommates opened the bottle of beer Sean had offered him with his teeth. I've never seen anyone do that successfully. It makes me wince every time someone tries it. It could end so badly..

Anyways, Malcolm's (or Marshmallow, as he's been renamed by Angel, a Chinese roommmate from last semester) roommmate has turned out to be a guitar genius, which is awesome (Darren purposely put the two guitar players together). He played a local song in the Xi'an dialect and it was amazing!!

We had dinner after KTV and I stuffed myself, of course (the food was good and free). Then played UNO in the hotel hallway. I won the first round. Sean won the second. And then we started the most horrible, longest game of UNO in history. It just wouldn't end. I actually ended up with about twenty-something cards. We eventually just let Chris win because he had the least amount of cards.

We also went out to a bar that night. Played Mafia (I'm so glad this group is as obsessed with that game as I am...this reminds me of the Poland days!). Then walked back, found out we had been locked out of our normal gate. So Chris, Sean, Joe, and Malcolm climb up over a broken up part of the wall. Crytal, Mi Ting (Crystal's roommate), Gao (Chris's roommate), Patrick, and I decided it was best not risk breaking our necks and just walked around. We found an open gate far sooner than I thought we would, so it worked out okay.

Today, we're going to the Muslim quarter. I'm very excited!

元宵节 Lantern Festival

Yesterday was the Lantern Festival. It was kind of like New Year's Eve in the sense that fireworks and firecrackers were going off everywhere. The difference was, this time I was in a city.

Everything was absolutely crazy. People were setting off fireworks in the middle of the street and cars just went driving by. From my balcony (my room is on the tenth floor and I have a balcony - it's awesome) I could see fireworks going off all over the city:





This just looks like the building is exploding...

Also, I have some video here, which Chris took when we were standing at a street corner watching fireworks being set off about thirty or forty feet away. At one point, one of the fireworks mistakenly went off in our direction (the part with a bit of an explosion on the side and the camera is turned down as Chris runs away). Flames from the fireworks were coming down all over and I admit I hightailed it too. It was pretty scary. Coming back to the dorm was a bit like working our way through a war zone but we made it okay. :)

雷鋒 Lei Feng

Yesterday I bought some notebooks for my classes. Although slightly different, both notebooks have an image of a cute little stuffed animal (I'm not really sure what it's supposed to be) with a red star on it. Both notebooks also have the following written on them: "雷鋒".

Out of curiosity, I looked up the characters. Apparently, 雷鋒 (Lei Feng) was a soldier from the People's Liberation Army. After his death in 1962, he was used in a lot of propaganda in a campaign called "Learn from Lei Feng" and to this day his name is pretty much synonymous with being selfless and a good person. And now he's on my notebook.

There's even a video game today called Learn from Lei Feng Online. Win, and you get to meet Chairman Mao. And get his autograph. LOL.

There are more characters on the notebook but I can't read them all. Something about how many years...or something...about can (people) remember me? Dunno. Anyway, I did not expect something so, well, cute to be propaganda.

Fountain Show Photos

I just had my first Chinese class this morning and it went great. I really like our teacher and the other students are pretty much at the same level as me.

Here are some photos from the fountain show:

lol. Chris is happy.

Orientation in Beijing, Arrival in Xi'an

A lot has happened these last few days (almost a week, actually). Orientation started in Beijing. I arrived at the dorm at about noon, and came across the directors (Darren and Han Bing) and some of the students in the lobby. Darren is the coordinator for my program. Almost all the students were part of the Beijing program, which was being led by Han Bing.

We had lunch together in a Muslim restaurant, where one of the Beijing students, Jade, told me all about the Xi'an program (she had done this program last semester). Then we went to the airport to pick up the other students. There are seven students (including me) in the Xi'an program: Sean, Crystal, Chris, Joe, Patrick and Malcolm. There were a lot of students in the Beijing program, and I had trouble remembering names, although a lot of them seemed really interesting. We might get to see them again later.

That first night, I went out with some of the Beijing students. We ended up at a club called Propaganda, which is the same club that I went to my last night in Beijing the previous semester! It was weird being there without the SIT group.

We went through a lot of orientation talks, none of which are particular interesting to recount (however important they were). The Xi'an group got good pizza at Pyro Pizza (and a giant, warm gooey chocolate chip cookie with ice cream on top - I'm taking advantage of the free orientation food while I can). Crystal and I also went to the donut shop in the mall. I love that place.

We also went to the Great Wall. I was a little...meh, about it at first. I'd already gone twice (one of the times being only about two months ago). Still, it's not like I could skip. And I'm so glad I didn't! It was amazing. We took a van way outside of Beijing and stopped at a farmer's house, from which we hiked about an hour or two to the wall. Sure, it was freezing, snow everywhere, and my shoe ripped open midway (that was NOT fun) but it was amazing to see. I don't have photos unfortunately. Hiking up that hill with the SLR would have been a very bad idea - I fell over at least ten times on the way back. It was part of my descent strategy.

Then, we ate at the farmer's home and the food was so good! Green beans, mushrooms, donkey, beef, and lots of other yummy stuff. Also, tang yuan, which I recognized as being the same stuff that I made and ate for New Years (the little balls of...stuff with sugar inside). They also gave me a dry pair of clean socks, which was really nice. Mine had completely soaked through (what with the giant tear in my shoe...) and it was really cold.

That night (Saturday) we took a train to Xi'an. It was a hard sleeper, but honestly not too bad. I was in the middle bunk and slept fine. But I sleep on almost anything. And I really, really like sleeper trains, which kind of lull me to sleep.

We arrived in Xi'an on Sunday and checked into our dorm, which is actually a hotel. And it is very, very nice. I feel very fancy. There's heating! And my very own bathroom with it's own shower stall! Yay! I have the room to myself for about a week before my Chinese roommate moves in. As much as I enjoy the space and privacy, I can't wait until I meet my new roomie.

Our first day (Sunday continued) we saw the Wild Goose Pagoda and a fountain show with lights and, of course, epic music. For dinner, we had hotpot that was a little different from what I'm used to but still so very good. Lots of mushrooms. Love mushrooms.

Today, we had more orientation stuff (like goal setting: memorize tones more effectively, pick a capstone project that I am passionate about and will have fun doing, be prepared for senior year - among others). Then, we had lunch with our language teachers, who seem really nice. We went to a Yunnanese restaurant, which I was really excited about but unfortunately it did not have erkuai (nobody even knew what it was...Xi'an really is completely different from Yunnan). The teachers asked me, "你喜欢辣字吗?" (Do you like spicy food?). 我非常喜欢辣子。(I really like spicy food). So I was ordered a really hot bowl of noodles. It was so spicy and so good! I thought my mouth was going to burn off. Everyone kept saying my face was getting really red. Chris got the spicy noodles too and sweat started pouring down his face.

That's all for now. More stories, more adventures but I'm tired and classes start tomorrow. Just got my books and a new sim card a few minutes ago from Darren. Also, just got thin mints from Sean. Ahhh, I've missed girl scout cookies. Yummy.

成都－北京火车

The Chengdu - Beijing Train

So...at first, there were issues. With me and getting on the train. Weirdly, the number on my ticket did not match the number on my passport (apparently, they're supposed to). I was brought to a higher ranking...person around. She asked me if I bought the ticket. I said I did and I did not know why the number was wrong. I bought the ticket there (pointing at the ticket stalls) and I used this passport and it was me, not someone else and it totally wasn't my fault the number was wrong. Holding my ticket, she asked me how much I paid for it, which was easy to remember because I hadn't been expecting to pay so much (1045 yuan). She gave me back my ticket and let me go. Whew.

My fifteen hour train ride ended up being really nice and comfy. There was a TV at the end of the bed! Everything was new and shiny...I heard they just started using the fifteen-hour trains from Chengdu to Beijing in January, so that's probably why.

I shared my cabin with a family (father, mother, and toddler son). They were pretty nice, from Chongqing (which I really want to visit at some point). The mother was watching TV and laughing a lot, so I looked up to see what she was watching. And I totally did not expect to see La Grande Vadrouille. It's one of my favorite movies. I used to watch it every summer in Verton. Of course, this time it was dubbed over with Chinese, which was...kind of weird to watch. And some of the jokes got lost because some characters speak English and German in addition to French, although I pretty much know the movie line by line...like this:

Augustin: You come with me to pick up Peter.
Stanislas: No, you come with me to pick up MacIntosh.
Augustin: No, no, no...you - oh merde alors comment on dit ca...
Stanislas: Comment ca 'merde alors'? but alors you are French!

hahaha....I love that movie. And I totally still have a crush on MacIntosh.

Anyway, they played a lot of good movies and I ended up watching part of Roman Holiday and A World Without Thieves. Gregory Peck and Andy Lau. Good combination.

I got to Beijing at about 7:30 AM and almost didn't get let though (again...) because I'd misplaced my ticket. Oops. That was kind of my fault. I actually found it later but they let me go through anyways.

Took the bus, walked a loonng way and finally found the hostel, which was hiding in this little street, out of sight...I only found it because I saw a sign that said 宾馆 (hotel). Hmm, this is supposedly the international youth hostel that only people who can read Chinese characters can find (most hostels seem to scream Western Haven with all the English everywhere). Or if you just look at the google maps entry more closely next, I realized later.

Anyway, I dumped my stuff, put up some photos, and then went to 五道口, where there's a mall and restaurants. On of the way there, I realized that the mall was right next to BLCU (Beijing Language and Culture University), which is where the orientation for my Spring semester begins.

I walked around the mall, which really made me miss the SIT group - we went there in December, at the end of the program. I saw a woman in a red coat and a white hat - for a moment I almost called out "Ellie!" Also, all this traveling alone might had some negative side affects on my behavior...ahaha, I've kind of taken to talking to myself.

I decided to try and find my future dorm for orientation, seeing as I'll have to go there on Wednesday. I figured it'd be better to know where it is so that I don't have to lug my stuff all around the gigantic campus (especially with the risk of bad weather - today was nice, not too cold, but Beijing can't trick me, I know how evil this winter can get...I'm not letting my guard down).

Anyways, I wandered around for so long. I was looking for dorm number #17. I knew it was gray. That was about it. I found number #16. I found #18. I found #19. I did not find #17. I asked three different people for directions. Nobody knew. Possibly because they weren't students (everyone is home, really - it's still New Years break). Then I found another #16 and got the feeling I was going about this the wrong way. Especially when I found a building that said #17 but was not gray. Argh. Was I looking at the wrong thing? They obviously weren't all dorms...but how else did people find buildings if not with the numbers they were marked with? No signs. No maps. Until I did find a map (about a second after I gave up). It had every dorm listed, except for dorm #17. Why? Then I heard two people pass behind me talking in French, and well, I couldn't resist just asking them by chance. And they knew!!!!

"They" being Diallo and Yacouba, two young men from Mali. They are enrolled in a business Chinese course at BLCU. They showed me where the dorm was - right around the corner, of course. Only a day and half before I go there for real!

Hmmm, I'm thinking Silk Market tomorrow. I want to get some of that yummy gelato they have there, which goes perfectly with the extreme heaters they have. I hope it's not all empty because of the New Year. Speaking of which, there are firecrackers currently going off right outside. Does it never end? Actually, yeah, does anyone know when New Year celebrations technically end?

Sichuan Photos Part II

New Years = Lots of Lights, Lots of Noise, and Lots of People

DT, on our way to the hostel bar

Crazy Big and Crowded Mall

Mao Statue with a fountain and Very Epic Chinese Music (yes, it deserves caps) and everyone taking photos (I feel like every Chinese city has a Mao statue like this...or is it just me?)

Cosplayers in the People's Park (yes I kind of creeped on them...but I wasn't the only one - there were crowds gathering around these kids...oh, and I almost accidentally pulled off that girl's purple wig)

People's Park...so relaxing

Last of Chengdu...for now

Today is my last day in Chengdu. I leave in a couple hours for Beijing, but I wish I could stay longer! At least I know I'll be back here during the summer.

Thursday I finally managed the catch up with DT. I got a little turned around in trying to find him, but it worked out in the end. We had tea together, and then went to get dumplings at a Tibetan restaurant. For any SIT readers, Dakpa is doing great, crazy busy as always with a ton of different projects and a business course. He said he misses everyone very much!

We were going to go to a nearby pedestrian-only street with bars, but they were charging people to enter (for New Years) and it was way over crowded (like pretty much everything the last few days). So we went to a hostel instead where DT had some friends and they talked in Chinese mostly. There was a nice little fire. I liked that. And a very beautiful woman in a minority costume walked by - "A man," said the girl sitting next to me. No. Way. She was too pretty!

I took the bus back to the hostel - I'm very proud of the fact that I have not used a taxi once so far. (oh wait, there was that one time...but Jin Rong instigated the taxi usage and so it Does Not Count).

Friday morning I overslept awfully...ugh. I think I was catching up all the sleep I'd missed the pass few days. I ate street food for lunch, walked through a gigantic shopping mall, relaxed in the people's park (which was awesome by the way - thanks Jake!), and then started the long walk to Peter's Tex Mex.

During most of this period of time, I had also been trying to text DT about when to meet to up to buy prayer beads (I'd bought some in Zhongdian but lost them...). DT always has new (and expensive) prayer beads and knows where to get the "good" ones. When I saw him, he showed me some that he'd bought for...what was it? 6000 yuan? (about US $1000) A LOT. And then he almost dropped them in the fire, haha...thankfully not.

Anyways, my phone would not work and I did not understand why. I had just put about 100 yuan on the phone, so that couldn't be the problem. But is was. Because apparently using my phone outside of the area that I bought it in (Yunnan) makes using it very expensive. And the China Mobile shops closed before I realized this. So no prayer beads. And no Peter's Tex Mex, because I still haven't had my fill of Chinese food (it's only been a week - I'm not sick of it yet). I can always try Peter's Tex Mex some other time, whether in Chengdu or Beijing.

And now I really, really need to pack. And put some more money on my stupid phone. Hmm, does anyone know if I can keep the phone and just get a different number in Xi'an? I don't want to keep paying this much...a 100 yuan per week is a little pricey.

Photos...tomorrow?

Sichuan Photos Part I

新年快乐！

Happy New Year!

Today and yesterday were about the most...out there, adventurous days I've ever had the courage to try. Seriously. This was really jumping out into the unknown. Where to begin?

Okay, so I'd known Jin Rong about a day and we got along well. Went to see the pandas. Hotpot. Wrote about that. Anyway, she wanted to go the countryside to celebrate the new year. I thought, why not go along as well?

So, after a four hour escapade of her helping me buy a train ticket for Beijing (I leave the 6th - there were major complications because everyone will be going back to work and the trains are completely full...but I got my ticket), we bought tickets for a train heading to Dujiangyan. We waited in the station for about an hour before leaving. I'd never heard of this place and she had only just learned about it the night before (or the morning of?). Anyway, we knew nothing. Except that it was small, rural and we didn't really know what we were doing. She kept asking me if I was scared. Haha, I fear nothing. Seriously, I started getting worried about how not worried I was.

Anyway, on the train, Jin Rong did what she does best: start conversations with all the strangers on board. Of course, everything started with 新年快乐 (xin nian kuai le, Happy New Year).

Eventually, the conversation she stuck to the most was with the middle aged man sitting next to her. His name was Yang. He was going home for New Years. He works at a factory in Guangdong. He has a wife and a daughter.

Somehow, it ended up being decided that we would spent New Years with him and his family. When we got to our stop, we literally said good bye and happy New Years to everyone in the car. We followed Yang outside. Jin Rong accidentally broke one of his suitcases when she was trying to help him. Oops. We ended up riding in a taxi to his house. By the way, this was about seven o'clock at night, so it was dark.

During entire taxi ride, the world sounded like it was in the process of exploding. There were fireworks going off in every single direction. I do not exaggerate. Every single direction! And firecrackers going off in the street. People everywhere! People everywhere in the middle of random roads in the countryside surrounded by fields! I didn't know there could be so many people in the countryside! All the migrant workers home for the New Year.

So we got to Yang's home and met his family: mother, daughter, brothers and other family members I don't remember (his wife was at work). We ate dinner there, lots of dubious looking meats and what looked like meat but was actually tofu (I should know better by now...) and a yummy bowl of steamy rice which was so good because damn was it cold.

Then Yang, Jin Rong and I went for a long quest to buy firecrackers. Which were surprisingly difficult to find. We somehow picked up a gaggle of children (I don't know who they belonged too..) and we just walked along the main road, kids bounding about as cars swerved around them and the firecrackers being set off everywhere (this totally never would have happened in the US). Eventually we found some firecrackers and Jin Rong bought candy for all the kids. We set them off in the street, like everyone else. They managed to convince me to set off a few, although I don't generally appreciate being near explosive masses that could forever blind me or whatnot. Still, I figured if the eight-year-olds could do it, so could I.

We stopped around midnight and went back to Yang's house, where Yang and Jin Rong set off bigger, scarier firecrackers. Jin Rong tried to get me to set some off and I refused. "Why? You scared?"

Hell yes.

Anyway, we went to sleep at around 1 AM in Yang's daughter's room (she was at her boyfriend's place), which had an electric blanket! Yay! Except Jin Rong has this habit of being unable to stop talking. Two in the morning, I've finally become comfortably warm, I'm dozing off and I hear this: "费舒安？你睡觉了吗？你热吗？我太热。" ("Fei Shu An? Are you sleeping? Are you warm? I'm too warm.") And off goes the electric blanket...

Not that Jin Rong isn't wonderful. Just a tad talkative and sometimes maybe overbearing...but amazing, really. She purposefully speaks very slowly around me so I can better understand and carries around a translator that has proved to be very useful.

We woke up this morning around 9 AM (which is my record thus far, with the jet lag and all). We ate noodles with tofu for breakfast. I was all ready to return to Chengdu so that I could meet up with DT, but alas that was not to happen...

At this point, in the middle of this small rural town, I was kind of fully reliant on Yang and Jin Rong. Unfortunately, Jin Rong was pretty set on staying in the town a little bit longer (AKA: the rest of the day) and I kind of just had to go along with it. Flexibility. Key.

So we went to a park, walked around and then went to the house of a friend of Yang's. We made...something that I can't remember the name of. Ah well. It was good. A kind of dough-stuff with sugar in it. I'd had it before in Shaxi.

Then we went to a mountain with a temple on it (I know, I'm big with details and names, aren't I?). It was very crowded because everyone from Chengdu was visiting to pray for an auspicious year. I lit some incense Yang gave me and prayed for Mom, Dad, Julia and Eleonore. Then we went to the tea house and sat on the balcony, drinking tea and eating peanuts. The Chengdu life, even if it wasn't actually in Chengdu...

I have to stress how kind and generous Yang was. He just invited us - two strangers on the train - to celebrate New Years in his home, eat the food prepared by him and his family, and sleep in his daughter's bed (I kind of wondered how she felt about that...). Jin Rong managed to force a gift on him, but he refused to take any money from us no matter how we tried (Jin Rong and him actually had this really funny kind of fight where she tried to shove the money into his hands and he just kind of ran away, pushed her away, hid behind other people, etc).

After the tea house, Jin Rong and I took a bus into the main town area somewhere (you can tell how well I knew what was going on at this point) and found a bus that was leaving for Chengdu. Mind you, the completely wrong part of Chengdu but Chengdu nonetheless. We got there and took another bus across the city, where Jin Rong and I split ways because she wanted to eat dinner and I didn't (I also kind of wanted some alone time for the first time in about three days). It's good to be back in the hostel.

Too tired to post photos, although I have some really good ones. Tomorrow?

Panda Bears and Hot Pot

Sooo, I spent most of today with my only dorm roomie, Jin Rong (otherwise known as Cherry). She is super nice, but doesn't speak very much English so our conversations are mostly in Chinese. Which is really good practice for me, but also a little exhausting, especially since I spent all day with her (and she is very talkative!). But I'm also learning so much Chinese from talking with her. She said she's from Wudang in Hubei. I wonder if it's like Wudang mountain in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? She did say something about kungfu...

We had lunch together at the hostel and then took the bus to go see the pandas. They were adorable, of course. I mean you can't go to Sichuan without seeing the pandas, I guess... Near the end, there were a group of them that were just sprawled out on the ground, eating bamboo. They looked like a bunch of lazy old men with beer bellies, lol.

Then we went to get huo guo (Hot Pot!) and it was soooo good and sooo spicy. Also, the first thing they served to us were the fish that Jin Rong had ordered. They were skewered like shish kebobs except they were still moving! Still alive! I looked at it and was like oh my god, I can't eat that. I told her I don't eat fish, making it sound like I was allergic or something. Ugh. But the mushrooms, lamb, beef, tofu, lettuce, and potatoes were good.

Also, I just found out that DT is in Chengdu! Yay, it'll be my first SIT-related reunion! I'm very excited. Tomorrow is also New Years Eve and I'll be hanging out at the hostel with Jin Rong. She was excited at first because she thought they'd organized an event there for making dumplings (and then eating them, yum) but apparently it's only the eating them part that's happening, which she was kind of depressed about. She wants to do something more exciting for New Years Eve, but doesn't know what to do and is kind of sad about it (I feel so bad! But everything will be closed - this is normally family time in China). Anyway, I've seen so many fireworks and stuff for sale around the city that I kind of feel like everything is going to explode tomorrow. I can't wait... :)

UPDATE: I'm just sitting here on my bunk on my computer and Jin Rong started playing Neil Young. Haha, I sat up was like "这是Neil Young吗? 你喜欢Neil Young吗?" Love this! lol, speaking of music, there was a little girl who we randomly started talking too (Jin Rong finds a way of starting a conversation with EVERY stranger we see) and she started saying stuff in English that she knew: "Hello! My name is Anna. Nice to meet you. Justin Beiber!" lol, just Justin Beiber, thrown into the mix...I saw him on a cover of a Chinese magazine. Why, God?

UPDATE 2: Just talked with Jin Rong about tomorrow - apparently we're going wandering through the countryside in search a nice family to celebrate New Year's with. lol. This is should be interesting...also, I really need to visit this place.