The Pursuit of Happiness

Last Sunday (the 20^th yes I'm that far behind), my host mother, Candy, Katie, Dian Dian and I went for a walk in the awesome part nearby our house.  The park is named Nan Hu Gong Yuan by the way.  I just learned that yesterday but I figured it was important.  It was a fairly standard thing.  Candy and I always go on a walk after dinner.  The sky for some reason was really pretty.  Candy has a fascination with the sky that in this case I was thankful for because otherwise I would have missed it (We had a real in depth conversation one day about our favorite nature things.  Mine were the stars, clouds and lakes/rivers.)

 

There was a movie playing in the courtyard of the apartment complex when we got back.  I was expecting some Chinese movie.  It definitely wasn't a Chinese movie.  The movie was dubbed so all the characters were speaking Chinese but it still seemed like an odd choice.  The movie was The Pursuit of Happiness.  Right when we walked in they were at the part where Will Smith was questioning how Thomas Jefferson knew to put the phrase "the pursuit of happiness" instead of just happiness.  (In actuality, Jefferson didn't come up with the phrase.  He had something similar but Benjamin Franklin changed it because pursuit of happiness sounded better.  Jefferson was always bitter about that and from then on whenever someone asked he would send two copies of the Declaration of Independence, his and the final.)  For some reason, this touched me.  I stopped and thought for the first time in a long time if I was really happy.   I mean I'm in a completely different culture, only understanding things a very limited portion of the time and I was now sharing my host family with another student. 

 

It didn't take long to realize, that although at times I may be frantic and confused I was happy here in China.  I really love Xi'an.  It's the type of place that after I'm fluent I would come to happily.  It's also a quiet enough city that I could almost imagine myself living here at some point.  (And plus I'm not sure I'll be able to give up some of the food.)  I also know that I've had so many marvelous experiences here.  I've eaten a Chinese sugar candy horse during the year of the horse.  I've watched a Chinese Lion Dance in China.  I've played two traditional Chinese musical instruments.  I've made dumplings and climbed one of the most dangerous mountains in the world. 

 

Okay, I'll amend that. I've climbed part of one of the most dangerous mountains in the world.  Hua Shan really is incredible.  Our day started bright and early with the bus leaving at 6:50.  I was absolutely exhausted.  Besides the whole getting next to no sleep before midterms, I was up later than I wanted to be Friday night.  First Katie and Wei Lao Shi were there.  Wei Lao Shi stayed a long time, and I couldn't very well go to bed with her there.  And then I had to empty out some of the drawers to make room for Katie.  In my room, there was a wardrobe and two bedside tables.  Katie's room is traditional Chinese style, which meant the bed is rock hard and there are no drawers.  So I cleared all my stuff out of the two bedside tables.  It isn't like I'm messy (although Wei Lao Shi might have a slightly different impression as I was cleaning out my backpack when she came into my room.  I might be messy at home but everything here is very specific.  The house is spotless and I'm still a guest). It's just everything has gotten very spread out in the three weeks that I've been here.  So it was a late-frustrated night. 

 

Dian Dian really cheered me up on the car ride to school.  It took her a while to warm up to me, but Saturday she got in the car and hopped right on my lap so she could stick her head out the window.  Katie looked slightly jealous.  She's an only child but has two sheep dogs. I'll admit it, at the time, I felt a little smug.  It had taken Dian Dian forever to warm up to the idea of me, but now I was part of the family and Katie was the outsider. 

 

I like being around Dian Dian.  She doesn't expect anything except someone to rub her tummy.  She doesn't care if I mix up verbs or forget how to say certain vegetables.  She just accepts it.  Of course I still have to speak to her in Chinese if I want her to listen to me, but I'm more than happy to do that. 

 

On the two-hour bus ride, I talked a little bit to Summer, but mainly I slept.   When we finally got to the mountain.  There was a bit of confusion.  There was a mix up with our tickets and so we needed to give them all our IDs.  I had a photocopy of my passport but others didn't have nearly as much.  We were lucky everyone was able to pull out at least a school ID.  (Lucky because we were specifically told to always have our passport photocopy on us but never any other American identification.)

 

After that fiasco, we got on our second bus of the day.  It was a small little bus and the driver drove like a maniac up the narrow mountain roads.  It was like our own personal roller coaster.  There was lots of screaming and a few kids thought they were going to be sick.  I actually really liked it. These drivers drive up the road roughly 30 times a day every day and there aren't any accidents I can see.  It's fairly safe.  I even tried to videotape the ride back, but that driver was very calm.  The footage of the mountains is still good though. 

 

My teacher, Tong Lao Shi is the one in the green jacket.

 

Then we took a cable car up to one of the lower peaks of the mountain.  It was really an amazing ride.  Roughly eight minutes to take in the scenery.  This mountain looks like something out of a movie.  He Lao Shi (she was my group's chaperone) agreed that it easily could have been the site of some Kung Fu movie with warriors running along the bamboo at the base of the mountain. You could also use the eight minutes to see all the stairs you would have needed to climb if you started at the bottom.  There are some 4,000 stairs in total.  Summer and I agreed that one day we want to come back and start from the bottom.  

 

Another thing about the stairs.  All my teachers kept saying we went "mountain climbing." I have to disagree.  We climbed up a whole bunch of stairs.  Everything was just stairs.  While I'm not entirely complaining, it still didn't quite feel like a hike. 

 

Summer and I at the top of Hua Shan.  The hat is my host sister's. I've sort of claimed it.  The sun is so hot and it's not frilly like a lot of the hats sold here.  Plus it's really grown on me.

 

 

Colleen on Hua Shan.  These are just a few of the 125 pictures I took on the mountain.  It was really breathtaking. 

 

The mountain also has a lot of those locks, like the kind where lovers will lock them on bridges (I think it started on a special bridge in France). 

 

 

We were at Hua Shan most of the day, which meant we had to bring a sack lunch.  I wasn't really expecting much.  I had gone with Candy to buy some "hamburgers" from KFC.  I include the quotation marks because in China, hamburger really means chicken sandwich.  To my utter joy, I actually had a cheeseburger for lunch and not only that it had something that tasted like bacon on it.  (I'm not going to go as far as to call it bacon but it tasted decent.)  I never realized how much I missed a good old American hamburger until that moment.  I was so happy, I did the unspeakable.  I took a selfie.  So here it is, folks, Katie, Myself and our beautiful cheeseburgers. 

 

Okay, I've spent a lot of time on Hua Shan and I have an entire week to cover, but it was an incredible trip.  I do however have one last story that I'm going to post here because otherwise I'm afraid I'll forget.  You may have noticed from my pictures, but all the NSLI students are wearing matching t-shirts.  They have English written right on them.  I mention this because one of my classmates, Aaron, saw a very attractive person at Hua Shan and he pretended to be Chinese so he could take a selfie with them.  Aaron looks Chinese and he spoke in painfully awful English.  Chinese people like to take selfies with wai guo ren anyway, so his scheme worked and he walked away before the poor foreigner could realize what had happened.

 

After we got back from Hua Shan, Katie and I went to dinner and had my favorite food, yang rou pao mou. We also took the time that was just us to work through our issues in English and explain everything.  It was definitely much needed. 

 

Sunday, we went to one of my favorite places in Xi'an, the Quchang Hotel Swimming Pool. I think it's a little sad how much I love this pool, but it is a really nice pool.  I was actually there for some three and a half hours.  Candy had to leave for school and Katie had to go pick up her things from her old host family.  It was either stay at the apartment by myself in the unbearable heat or stay at the pool.  Needless to say, I stayed at the pool.  I had some fun too.  Besides swimming laps (and trust me I swam a lot of laps), I had a few conversations with the locals.  The least interesting one was in English with a guy who had studied in England.  He was surprised to see foreigners at the pool.  Katie and I were apparently the first he had seen.  I found that really weird since this is a very nice hotel that even has a Western style buffet.  Shouldn't that attract tourists? 

 

My favorite conversation (and the only one I initiated) was with an older woman in my lane.  It was about kickboards.  I asked what it was called and where I could find one. I walked away from the conversation with some new vocabulary and a kickboard to borrow. 

 

I also had a "conversation" with a bunch of Chinese men.   I understand they were complementing my swimming but not much else.  They didn't speak the standard dialect, so I was slightly more lost than I normally was. 

 

I spoke with an adorable little 7-year-old boy.  He was so nervous about talking to me.  His encouraged him.  I had seen the boy watching me for some time so it was interesting to finally be able to talk to him.  We spoke a mixture of Chinese and English.  I could understand most of what he was saying, but he decided to repeat things in English for some reason.  But really absolutely adorable.  He likes to swim but he won't ever be as good as me (his words not mine.  I rejected the complement and told him that with practice I'm sure he'll be incredibly fast.)  He also likes Ping-Pong, the color red and beef. 

 

After swimming, we went out for hot pot.  Then we went on the walk I mentioned earlier.  All in all, it was a good weekend. 

 

On Monday, we all went to a Chinese restaurant for a tea ceremony.  It was really cool.  It also fed my tea infatuation.  We tried six different types of tea.  We drank really small glasses of each.  You're supposed to drain the cup in three sips (well not quite drain, you're supposed to leave just a little left, so that you're not rude). 

 

They also gave us food and not just the traditional watermelon either.  I say traditional because watermelon is eaten all the time.  Watermelon is the solution to everything.  You're hot.  Eat Watermelon.  You're thirsty.  Eat watermelon.  You're visiting today.  Eat Watermelon. 

 

We had bao zi and nan guo bing.  Nan guo bing is a type of pumpkin pastry.  They're so good.  They taste a little like a donut but not as greasy. 

I also tried Chinese hazelnuts for the first time.  I'm telling you now; one of the things hidden in the depths of my checked bag is going to be a back of Chinese hazelnuts.  They taste so different from American hazelnuts.  They're sweeter with a richer taste.  I've always liked hazelnut chocolate, but I could eat Chinese hazelnuts for desert every night and probably never complain. 

 

And now because I feel like I've gone on and on about the glorious food, here's a picture of the actual tea ceremony. 

 

Nothing much happened Tuesday.  It was 108 degrees and so we didn't do much of anything.  That was a bit disappointing because we were scheduled to do an activity at a bookstore.  I was looking forward to going back there and I had enough money to buy the Chronicles of Narnia book with the awesome cover too.  The power was out at our apartment so we stayed at the school.  When we got home the power was thankfully back.  Later in the week, we wouldn't be nearly as lucky. 

 

You've already heard about Wednesday.  So I will take the time to mention someone who should have shown up on this blog much earlier.  The NSLI-Y program has a rule for not touching any of the stray animals.  The rule however was not designed with a specific cat in mind.  There's one cat that has sort of adopted all the NSLI kids. He'll come up to us on the way to lunch and affectionately rub himself against our legs.   Makea started out by calling him Mr. Meow Meow.  This is a rather vocal cat so the name made sense. Later, we found out the cat's name was actually Meow Meow from one of the teachers.  So yeah, Makea's psychic.  Recently though, the cat had another name change.  He is now Chairman Meow. It was going to happen at some point.  There are pictures of Chairman Mao everywhere and he's on all the money.  

 

 

Makea being a rebel and petting Chairman Meow.  

Thursday, our class made jiao zi (dumplings).  It was really fun.  Some of mine looked fine, but a few were really lopsided.  I was working at a table with Alex, Olivia and Makea.  Let's just say they weren't so happy with me taking pictures. 

  

 

The jiao zi making process eventually turned into a flour war.  Despite the fact that the room was full of teenagers, it was actually Deng Lao Shi who started it.  Pretty soon the only ones who were flour free were the ones sitting at Wei Lao Shi's table. 

 

Summer hit Alex particularly hard. 

 

I wear my war paint with pride.

 

Michal and Aaron and their flour faces. 

 

The winner of the war would have to be Michal.  She ended up putting flour handprints on the back of Alex's shirt.

We didn't just spend all our time goofing around though.  We still made some delicious jiao zi. 

 

 

Nothing taste better than what you make yourself, even if it's not nearly as pretty as it could be. 

 

When we got home after this exciting day, we realized our power was out again.    This time it did not come on until the next evening around eight.  We got home when it was fairly dark already and there were no candles in the apartment.  Katie and I were home alone because Candy had English class and our host father had some business thing.  I used my computer as a light to study as long as I could.  But finally, I gave up and went to bed.   All things considered I actually did really well on that test.  I even got a dragon fan because I've been improving. 

 

Okay, now I have a favor to ask.  Katie and I are trying to come up with a way to thank our host family.  We were thinking of cooking a big American dinner, because they liked the spaghetti so much and they made mashed potatoes again the other day. (Side note: When I come home, I might want to eat mashed potatoes with chopsticks all the time.  It's so much fun.)  I need some ideas though.  I literally only have a stove with two burners.  We have to plan pretty far in advance if we want to find the right ingredients. If anyone has any ideas (preferably including recipes), please leave a comment. 

 

Also I might be able to get my hands on the recipe for bao zi.  I'm not entirely sure though.