The Wild Goose Pagoda, Qing Tang Hu Lu and the Chinese Countryside

Okay so the past few days have been a little hectic.  Saturday turned out to be a pretty good day after the test.  One of the requirements for the weekend was to find a map of Xi'an (a di tu). 

 

In the process of getting this map, I got to see more of the city.  Or at least my little corner of it.  My host family lives fairly close to the Wild Goose Pagoda Temple (da yan ta).  This structure is pretty magnificent by itself but all around it is this park.  The park is a nice change of scenery.  There are trees and plants and no tall buildings.  All the buildings in and around this park are meant to look like they're from the Tang dynasty, just like the Pagoda. 

 

It's a really cool walk and I highly encourage it.  There are also a lot of vendors on the side streets.  I'm not even sure what half of the stuff is but it looks pretty cool.  There's lots of jade and there was this one shop that sold clothing that looks like it's from ancient times. 

 

China puts a lot of emphasis on history.  But not just any history, their own history.  My host sister said she has never taken a history class that isn't about China.  She was surprised to learn that in America we study World History, not just American history.   I mean Chinese History is a lot more complex than American history.  It's longer and the dynasties all have different significance.  Apparently 13 dynasties have made Xi'an their capital.  I didn't even know there were 13 dynasties.  Bolin made history so easy (so did the AP World History textbook, but everyone who has taken AP World at my high school knows that Bolin is really the one to clarify everything.)

 

Right by the Wild Goose Pagoda is the largest fountain in all of Asia.  It's really cool.  (Side note: Cool is a slang term that does not translate well.  I accidently said it when trying to explain something and my host mother was very confused) It plays music and the jets of water are coordinated to the music.  I definitely want to watch the fountain again. 

 

Saturday was the first day I tried street food.  I know all the booklets said you shouldn't but my host mom bought it for me and so I couldn't really refuse.  Plus it was in/right outside this mall so everything looked pretty clean.   I tried qing tang hu lu and cho dof.  Qing tang hu lu is actually pretty good.  It's fruit on a stick that has a really sweet candy coating.  It reminds me of candy apples except I think it's pears.  I'm not really sure I just think pears because after I told my host grandparents who live in an awesome Chinese village, my grandfather got me this sickly sweet drink that had pears on the label.

 

Cho dof on the other hand is the vilest thing on the face of the Earth.  It is absolutely disgusting.  Cho dof is smelly tofu from Shanghai.  I literally started gagging after one piece (well one bite but I was polite and finished eating the small piece).  I explained to my host mother that my stomach was still settling from everything.  That Cho dof was very different from everything I had ever tried and I didn't like it (wo bu xi huan).  I can honestly say that Cho dof has been really the only food I have hated in China. 

 

Saturday was also the first day I was asked to take a picture because I was American.  I actually took two on my outing.  The first was some mother who had her little girl take a picture with me.  I really didn't mind.  She was sweet and asked in Chinese if she could take the picture, where I was from and that one day her daughter was going to go to America to study.  The girl was shy and a little embarrassed but she smiled and gave me a high five.  My second experience was not nearly as fun.  I had been enjoying the fountain when a man pointed at me and made a camera motion with his hand.  It was awkward as he refused to acknowledge my attempts at conversation and he smelled a little bit. 

 

As my host mother and I were walking back to the grandmother's house for dinner, we stopped at the art museum.  We only walked around the first floor but I enjoyed it.  There was a whole section of Vermeer paintings.  I particularly enjoy his paintings after I read The Girl with the Pearl Earring.  It's a pretty good historical novel.  The more interesting parts of the book are the descriptions of Vermeer painting.  Each painting in the book gets so much detail.  It was incredible to finally see the paintings in person (and the originals too). 

 

After dinner, I got home and promptly crashed.  I sat down on my bed with everything around me and was asleep almost instantly.  I woke up at two and realized it was probably a good idea to take out my contacts.  My classmates have been complaining about difficulty sleeping but I'm not.  I'm just tired. 

 

On Sunday, I got to go to a Chinese village.  It was brilliant.  We had to go pick up my host sister who was visiting her grandparents because her grandmother was sick.   We also stayed for lunch, the best dumplings I have ever eaten in my entire life.  It's also probably the most I've eaten at a meal since I arrived. Which is really saying something because all of my host family keeps insisting that I need to eat more and I don't eat enough.  No I'm already full. I can't eat anymore.  It also doesn't help that for some reason I'm never hungry.  I'm going to blame the time change, but I never really need food.  I'll eat it when it's there but I don't have a proper appetite. 

 

The grandparents have a little field that I thought was awesome.  They grew corn so I was reminded of home. I actually took a lot of pictures of the Chinese village so later when I'm not lazy and plug in my camera to my computer, I'll upload them and explain more.  I felt more at home in the village than I did in the city.  It wasn't picturesque or anything but there were less people and everything was calmer. 

 

The family also had three dogs. So now I don't have to worry about them accidently serving me dog or something similar.  The dogs were adorable and definitely welcome.  They would follow my host sister and I everywhere when she showed me the village.  One kept insisting on jumping off the piles of dirt.  It was the funniest little thing.  If you can't tell, I really miss my dog. 

 

I really miss my family too.  I kind of broke down on the phone. I had been fine before but suddenly it hit me just how far away I was. I think that might have been the reason that later my host family took me to a supermarket in this huge mall that had imported good.  I resisted a little bit but I'm so glad now.  I had bread with butter this morning for breakfast and it was absolutely heavenly.  I'm sure butter has never tasted that good before.  I'm not even that big a fan of buttered bread.  I eat it but it's not my go to snack or anything.  I hate to think what I would be like if I ate pizza or something else I really like if I feel like I can wax poetry about my buttered bread. 

 

After the international supermarket, I tried hot pot for the first time.  If you ever go to China, find a hot pot restaurant.  It's absolutely delicious and a cool experience.  Everyone is given their own personal pot of boiling water (or at least I think it's water it's got some spices and stuff in it already) and you take food off the conveyor belt to put into your boiling pot.  Hot pot is so good although it's also a struggle if you're bad at using chopsticks.  My host father would have to pull stuff out of the pot and put it on a side plate so I could eat it.  Also, potato noodles are absolutely perfect despite the fact that they're extremely slippery and nearly impossible to pick up with chopsticks. 

 

It's getting late so I think I'll save the first day of school spiel for tomorrow.  (I'm writing this at night I'll post in the morning.)