Okay so today you get two posts for the price of one. Other wise this is going to get incredibly lengthy and dull. This post is everything that has happened prior to midterm. I've had an eventful week and parts of it were absolutely brilliant. I wish posting pictures worked.
I briefly mentioned Friday night in my last post. It deserves so much more than that. I had so much fun and it started something that has since carried over to the rest of my time here. My host sister and I now go on a walk every day after dinner. It's either at huge park across the street or at the much smaller park in the apartment complex. Both are wonderful, but I like the outside one better. The apartment complex park is beautiful with fountains and Tang dynasty style architecture little house things. It's cool and incredibly relaxing to walk around at night with Candy.
I however like the park outside the gate much better. It's huge. I don't even think I've seen all of it yet. On Friday, Candy and I wandered around after leaving her Uncle to play basketball with the other men. He's actually really good. It was also interesting to talk to him. He actually knew the Minnesota Timberwolves. I mean of all the teams. It felt nice to be able to talk to someone who actually knew Minnesota as a place, without me having to say, "It's close to jia na da" but then of course there would be a communication error and then they would think I'm Canadian. I would then have to correct them. "Bu dui, wo shi Mei guo ren."
This trip has really changed me idea of being American. I mean it means so much more now. I love my country. I love how they're always different types of people talking about different types of things. I love how we see each other as individuals without seeing all the relationships attached. In America, I'm just Laura, not Laura, my mom and dad's daughter, Melissa and Sarah's sister, my grandparent's granddaughter and my host family's exchange student. Everything here is completely interrelated. Relationships are so important. I also miss American food. I mean it's not like America really has specific foods, but I miss things like grilled cheese and real yogurt. They all drink suan nai (pronounced like swan nigh) which is supposedly yogurt but it isn't. I mean it's too thin to be yogurt, too thick to be milk and smells weird.
There's just this camaraderie between the NSLI-Y kids that despite coming from all over the country, (New York, Utah, West Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Kentucky, Georgia, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota. I think the only duplicate states are New York, California and North Carolina because He Lao Shi is from NC) we're all still American. We just understand things sometimes. We all were going to come to school on the Fourth of July in red, white and blue because we actually knew the significance of that day.
I once admitted to one of the other girls that I crave the NSLI kids only time, because I just felt so comfortable then. She of course didn't seem to get the point and started complaining about how we spend too much time together and not enough time integrating with the locals. It's like I'm sorry, but no one's stopping you and school is out of session, it's not something the school can push for. You can be like Ben if you really wish. Ben's host brother is 3 years old so his parents basically let him run free. He's gone exploring all the historical sites in the city (especially the temples). He's made friends with some college students he met at one of the temples and occasionally goes over to their house for tea. He's living proof that you can still interact with other people.
I'm sorry I got slightly off track. It's just when the girl said those words earlier. I felt like she didn't even understand what I meant and was a little angered by that. She's one of those people that don't really let anyone else talk and she frustrates me more often than not. But she's a friend of Colleen's so I put up with her.
I'm actually surprised by how much all of us have in common. Almost my entire class (of seven, so Xiang Mao Ban) are swimmers. There's literally only one who isn't. Half of us have birthdays in December all within a week of each other. I almost wonder if this is like one of those Malcolm Gladwell things. Malcolm Gladwell is the author of the book Outliers, among other things. It talks about the different advantage different people have in certain situations. I'm sure Ms. Nicholas would be very proud of me for mentioning it. It's also a pretty neat book.
Okay back on topic, I have a lot to cover and not a lot of time to do it. Candy and I spent a lot of time playing in the brilliance that is the park. The playgrounds in China are vastly different from American ones. Everything is exercise equipment and you'll see 80-year-old men doing pull-ups. It's like everyone is training for the Olympics. My favorite park is this ropes course thing. Candy and I ran through it so many times. It was so crowded Friday night, but occasionally I'll stop on my walk home and do it. I mean I have to pass through the area anyway, might as well make it fun. Of course then, I'm running it in an isolated park because everyone in China sleeps for an hour at one. It's a truth universally acknowledged. Wei Lao Shi mentioned that when she worked in China one of her colleagues kept a cot right in the office.
Saturday, I went to the KTV for the first time. It was brilliant. I wish we had KTVs in America. Candy had to stay home and do school work. (She actually had an argument with her mom about it. It's been the only argument I've seen in all my time here. And in exchange for not going we got to go mountain climbing Sunday.) Our room opened at 1, but the original plan had been to meet at 11:30 at the school and then we would all walk over together. I missed the change, because I only get Wi-Fi in certain rooms in the house, my bedroom not included. So I showed up nice and early. I discovered the change of plan and spent my half hour exploring the area around the school. There's an international supermarket, a fruit store, a pharmacy and about six banks.
When everyone started showing up, we unconsciously split into gender groups. It was only because all the boys had forgotten to eat before coming.
At 12:30, we walked over to the KTV place together. It was on the side of the supermarket we had explored earlier. There was only a cardboard sign, but the actual place was incredible. We had a huge room and there was a disco ball. The first song we sang was Happy Birthday. Or at least we attempted to have the first song we sang be Happy Birthday. We clicked on one that said it was Happy Birthday but most definitely wasn't. Sarah blushed so much.
I have never listened to more Taylor Swift or more Keisha in my life. The karaoke had English songs but it was primarily just the popular artists and all our host siblings knew Taylor Swift too. A lot of the people on this trip can sing really well but I'll have more on that later when I talk about our trip to the retirement home. And unlike a Chinese karaoke party, we danced. We danced so much. Some, like me, danced only because we loved the music and couldn't keep ourselves from moving. Others were incredible. I have video of Alex and Jade dancing that I might just post when I get back. They were doing all these intricate moves. It looked like they had been dancing together forever and not for the first time.
A couple of our host siblings would sing Chinese songs that we didn't know at all. Katie and her host sister sang the theme song from a TV show called "Ba Ba qu zai nar?" which translates to Dad where are we going? It's a really cute show that we watched during culture class this week. The topic this week was Chinese film and television. The show has celebrity dads and their preschool aged children go on adventures. It's basically the Amazing Race but with babies. All the challenges are also age appropriate so the toddlers got to feed bottles to newborn lion/tiger cubs while the fathers had to go in a room full of huge snakes and extract their clue. It was a neat little show and definitely better than most of the reality TV we have in the States.
I sang Turning Tables with Olivia, Money, Money, Money by ABBA with Aaron and I somehow ended up with a mike for Let It Go. That song was especially cool as Sarah requested it but unexpectedly pushed the mike towards me. They then went and shut off Idina Menzel's vocals and I could hear myself echoing around. I got so many complements after as I tried to apologize to Sarah for hijacking her song.
All of us also sang Peng You, the traditional Chinese graduation song together. It's a song about growing up and that you'll always remember the memories you have with your friends. It was an incredible experience to link arms and sing about never forgetting each other and being around to catch each other when we fall with people I basically just met, but at the same time trust so whole heartedly.
Sunday, I went hiking with my host family. They called it mountain climbing, but it's hiking. It's hiking up a mountain but its still hiking. I had so much fun. I surprisingly was the fastest one. We had to stop fairly often for Candy to catch her breath. We didn't even make it to the top. It just got to the point where it was much too hot to continue. And the path was also almost vertical. I thought it was best to just turn around then because the harder part was still yet. I do not like climbing down mountains at all. The entire time I feel like I'm going to slip and fall and land firmly on my face.
After I was safely back on flat ground, we had lunch at a farmer's house. Apparently that's a thing. People just use their houses as restaurants for the weekend when all the city dwellers come out to climb the mountains.
Then we went over to the grandparent's village to Ye Ye and Nai Nai's house. (Ye Ye means father's father and Nai Nai is father's mother. Names in the Chinese family system are very complex. Cousins who have the same last name are distinguished from ones with different. Everything is also ranked by age. However sometimes cousins or even Uncles and Aunts are sometimes called sister or brother. ) There was some neighbor kid there who hung around most of the day. He was nice, but also kind of ignored me and only talked to Candy. I understood but it was just a long day.
We ended up coming home with a dog. Dian Dian is really a sweet little dog. I was just incredibly confused for the longest time. Candy kept referring to Dian Dian as her dog, but I thought she belonged to the grandparents. It turns out (or at least I think this is what happened) Dian Dian was just staying with Ye Ye and Nai Nai until my family knew I wasn't afraid. She's a spunky little thing, but just adores Candy so much. I feel like she's only just putting up with me.
Monday, school was extra long so we could watch a full Chinese Movie. It was really weird. Basically everyone died. Makea and I kept joking that the only two characters that survived (well besides the Emperor but he was awful and arrogant the entire movie) became involved romantically. Moon and Sky oddly even fit together. But the movie was weird, there was sword fighting which was cool but everything was done very unrealistically.
Tuesday, we went to a retirement home. I really liked it. I had been initially worried because our teachers had told us to bring toenail clippers but we thankfully didn't have to do anything like that. Each class had to give a performance. Our class decided to sing two songs, one in Chinese that we could sing with our host siblings and than a small group of us sang another song in English.
Now, I know vocalists will understand this but I wanted to clarify the magnificence of this accomplishment. Our group of people could actually harmonize together. Well, more like Aaron is probably the best harmonizer I have ever met in my entire life. Aaron, Alex, Jade and I practiced "I'm Yours" the entire bus ride to the nursing home. It sounded absolutely beautiful on the bus. We all agreed that we would definitely have sing more together over the course of the trip.
At the nursing home, it was a bit more questionable because Katie and her host sibling joined in. I'm not sure why her host sibling tried to join in. She knew absolutely none of the words, but I guess she just wanted to be involved. Katie didn't know our harmonies and pushed the tempo way too fast but it was still fun. Our other song, Kan Guo Lai, had the láo ren (elderly people) clapping in their seats. That reaction was incredible.
The other classes weren't quite as well prepared with their presentations. I mean one group didn't even know what they were doing until they were standing on the stage.
After that we talked to the láo ren. Although talked might be the wrong verb. Many of them spoke a slightly different dialect and I'm not sure I could even have an adequate conversation if they did speak pu tong hua. I did however get pulled into a lot of photos. There's just something about being a 5'10 white girl with swimmer shoulders and light brown hair. There were even two old ladies in matching outfits who attempted to give me their fan after I said that I was hot.
Tuesday was also my host mother's birthday. We went to a fancy restaurant with a whole bunch of people I didn't know but apparently they were family. We drove Wai Gong and Wai Po (Wai Gong=Mother's Father Wai Po=Mother's Mother) there and I sat in the front seat (with a seat belt thankfully, the backseats don't have seatbelts) with my host mother, sister and grandparents all in the back.
Most of the party was late, so Candy and I walked around the park just outside. I also saw my first piano since I came to China. I just wanted to rush over and play it, play anything, but there was a woman in a red dress and insanely high heels already playing. The piano was inside the hotel but I saw it on my way to the exit.
The park was so pretty. There was a huge lake with all these Tang dynasty style pavilions. There was even this big stone structure with lots of poetry calligraphy carved into it. I took lots of pictures.
Dinner took forever and we got home close to 10. I still had to do so much homework. I'm not sure if everyone eats more here or if they have some magical trick for taking forever and at the same time trying to get me to eat more despite the fact I'm full to bursting. I also tried this drink that was definitely on the weirder side. It was aloe vera flavored, which meant it was basically water with slimy little pieces floating in it. All the food was really spicy too. There was fish that was literally coated in red pepper inside and out. There wasn't a single space to be seen that wasn't covered in spice. Luckily there was one dish I really liked that had no spice what so ever. It was this rice soup that had some green vegetables floating in it. It had a really subtle flavor, but I still liked it.
Wednesday, the NSLI kids did tai chi after school. I had a lot of fun watching people do tai chi in the park Friday night so I had really been looking forward to it. We were taken up to this ballet studio and one of the teachers, Deng Lao Shi, began leading us through the actions. Deng Lao Shi is the head of the middle class and is actually probably the most hipster person I know. She's got the huge hipster glasses and wears lots of scarfs despite the heat. She also is incredibly short and does little things like wear her backpack backwards when we're in crowded areas like the Shaanxi History Museum. (That place is packed to the brim with people and everyone has earpieces, which make you feel like a spy, so they can hear their own tour guide. When you get too far out of range, you can't hear anything at all. Our guide spoke in rapid Chinese so it's not like I got all that much. Just a couple descriptive words, colors, what dynasty it was from, if it was made out of jade, little things like that. The artifacts were fun to look at though.)
Deng Lao Shi attempted to lead a bunch of awkward high school and freshmen through the slow movements of Tai Chi. It's fun but also slightly unnerving because every action has some significant meaning that I didn't really know because wo de zhong wen bu hào.
Thursday was the day before midterm and I was beyond frantic. We had a special study session with He Lao Shi after school, but after that I almost felt more nervous. I knew we covered a lot of material but it was still unnerving to see it spread out in front of you.
But I'm going to cover the Mid- Term in the next post. You're really not going to be waiting long though. I'm posting them at the same time. (I even finished writing that one first.)
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