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.