So, right now, I'm procrastinating. Well not really, this needs to be written but I still should probably be studying. I have another test tomorrow. We have one every Friday. Next week is Mid Term. I find it so hard to believe we've been here so long already. So I should be studying but I need to write this and I wouldn't be able to concentrate anyway. I'm at the grandparent's house because our apartment is getting cleaned. (My room is in decent shape I think as long as they don't open the wardrobe. I have a little pile of dirty clothes there because I never have time to wash things or when I do have time, someone else's laundry is in there. Or they might find my secret stash of American chocolate. It was supposed to be a gift but then they completely melted on the plane. It's a small little bag of Lindor truffles but I don't want to offend my host mother.) I'm sitting by my host sister in a little room and the window is open. All I can hear is this extremely annoying tapping sound as the rain hits the trashcans in the street below. I can't concentrate, but I also can't close the window because it is so hot.
I'll start with the pool. I think I've made it very clear just how hot China is and if I haven't think Florida without the opportunities to go in water or have air conditioning. I was so excited to get out of the heat for at least a little while. My sister leant me a pair of leaky goggles and a cloth swim cap but I got to swim!
When I saw the vouchers, I was slightly disappointed. The pool was in a hotel. I thought that it might be like so many American hotel pools, incredibly small and packed with people. To my surprise, it was wonderful. An Olympic sized pool with lane lines and everything. The water was cold too. My host sister would complain about the temperature, but I was just so happy to not be sweating. I think I would welcome winter at this point. I'm not sure how much more I can take of this heat.
This post is mainly going to be about wai guo ren moments. Wai guo ren literally translates to mean foreigner or person from outside the country. Now, China isn't all that diverse. It's 92% Han Chinese, and so when they see someone who doesn't look like them, there tend to be some interesting interactions. Most of the times, it's just stares or someone will ask to take a photo, but all the interactions seem so odd. I mean, Xi'an is an internationally known city. People come from all over to see the Terracotta Warriors. I've heard British, American and Australian accents. I've heard French, Russian, Korean and a whole tour bus of people speaking Italian. I don't see why people are still so amazed by foreigners but they are.
At the marvelous swimming pool, everyone is given a special pair of slippers to wear. They're either pink or blue depending on gender, or at least that's how it's supposed to work. I'm tall which means I have big feet. Most definitely bigger than the dainty little pink slippers they were offering me. That was interesting thing #1 about the pool. Interesting thing #2 was in the locker rooms. Everyone is naked. I mean strutting around and having long conversations in front of the mirrors while not wearing anything. I've swum for a very long time. There are early morning practices at the YMCA in the summer when we'll walk back in to find some old lady showering naked, but this was completely different. Everyone except me was willing to fully strip in front of strangers.
Interesting thing #3 was that despite the fact that it was an absolutely magnificent pool, there weren't really any swimmers there. Okay let me rephrase that there wasn't anyone who could swim very well. There were a few middle aged and older people swimming laps, but they were going agonizingly slow. People would stop what they were doing and stare at me as I swam. It was most definitely a wai guo ren moment. They were surprised by how fast I was going. My host sister, Candy, wanted to know why I wasn't on the American National team. I was both simultaneously flattered and indignant on behalf of the actual American team. I mean I'm nowhere close to Missy Franklin or Michael Phelps. I've swum for a really long time but that doesn't mean I'm really all that good.
My next wai guo ren moment happened on Tuesday. After culture class (this week it was Chinese calligraphy or shu fa), we walked to a supermarket and were given a scavenger list with limited time to complete it. We were supposed to ask the locations of stuff. Here's something you should know if you ever find yourself in a Chinese supermarket, you can't bring your bag in. They have a guard standing near the entrance that will redirect you towards some lockers.
So after depositing our bags, my groups began searching the supermarket for the things on our crazy little list. We had to find everything from bananas to yoga mats to ear buds to Bamboo chopsticks. Occasionally people would stare. One little girl in a pink and yellow dress started jumping up and down yelling "Wai guo ren! Wai guo ren!" when she saw our group (just the small group of the three of us). I'm sure it didn't help that we were spread out all over the 3-story supermarket.
Sometimes when we asked people questions, we would be met with blank stares but one woman who wasn't even a clerk was especially helpful. She brought us right up to the cotton swabs we were required to find and led us to our next item as if we were competitors on the Amazing Race.
We met the rest of the American students at the tea/coffee shop inside the building. (The building is some four stories. The supermarket is inside the building but only takes up three of the floors. There are a whole bunch of other store surrounding the supermarket. There's even a mini ride for younger children. ) The place was called Coco and it had some incredibly wonderful stuff. Trying to read the menu was a bit overwhelming. I mean there's English written on the signs, but the lady behind the counter did not speak English and we couldn't read all the Chinese. Mainly we ordered by pointing. Our group got a lot of wai guo ren stares at that, but I think mostly because we were taking up almost the entire hallway. (On a side note, Coco is really good. I had some iced tea type drink and it was absolutely delicious)
After the shopping experience, I had to walk from the school to the grandparent's house. My host mother and sister were in Beijing for two days. She's going with other students from the Shaanxi province to the United States for two weeks in August. She leaves a day after I do. She had to go to the U.S embassy in Beijing to make sure her paperwork was filled out right. So basically I had to find my way to their house again, except this time I had the address and some specific instructions. I walked part of the way with a NSLI-Y girl named Summer. She's pretty awesome. She'll be a freshman next year at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (I keep joking that I'll stop in to visit, but that might actually be fun, especially if we keep in touch after this is over) and she's from Wisconsin. I find it rather funny that the people I'm closest to on this trip are from Wisconsin, Chicago (Alex is a genius kid in my class. We do all our group projects together) and Virginia (Colleen). It's almost like I'm trying to surround myself with people that live near me. (Colleen's a special case. We were roommates in DC and she's the only other Catholic on the trip.)
Summer is kind of the reason for the central focus of this post. We started talking about our wai guo ren experiences. Summer has vibrant red curly hair (think Merida) and although she had lots of pointing and staring, no one had asked to take her picture. She told me about her bus rides to and from school every day. The day before, the bus had stopped at her stop but no one would move so she could get off. Despite trying to push through (and probably being deemed an awful rude American), she still missed her stop. And despite shouting like any other person would for the bus to stop, the bus kept going. Typically when this happens the entire bus will shout until the bus driver stops. It's only because Summer was a wai guo ren that it didn't. So you can thank Summer and our discussion on the long way home for today's insight into the difficulties of standing out in China.
And yes it was a long way home. It would have been fine about a half hour, but I took a wrong turn. Or more I missed the turn and continued heading straight. Luckily I had a lot of time to work with. I thought school would be over around six because of the whole supermarket thing but it was really done closer to four, so I had roughly two hours to find my way to my grandparent's house. Instead of turning around and trying to figure out where I went wrong, I just kept walking. It sounded like the best plan. I just needed to find the da yan ta (wild goose pagoda, which should actually be called the wild swan pagoda. Sorry we went to the History museum Friday, and they have a statue of the goose the pagoda is named after and it's clearly a swan.) was and the da yan ta is one of the most well-known tourist attractions in the city. It's also fairly tall.
So instead of taking forty minutes, the walk took an hour and forty. It was all right though. I like exploring the city.
The walk had another wai guo ren moment though. I'm not sure if it what the reason was, if I looked lost or frustrated, but two college aged men asked me in English if I was lost and needed help. I mean I had been indirectly following them for a while. It wasn't that I was trying to, just that I saw the da yan ta and I was trying to direct my way towards it. They happened to be going there too. I hastily shook my head no, said I was fine in Chinese and turned to go in another direction. So, I guess not all wai guo ren experiences are bad; they're just slightly unnerving.
On another note, it's a novelty to see another wai guo ren outside the NSLI group. In the words of another NSLI student, "It's just plain weird." We were at the museum at the time. Our excursion Friday was to the Shaanxi History Museum. It's really famous with 375,000 artifacts dating all the way from Neolithic times (with one really awesome fossil skull) to the 1840s. It's also free, so you'd think it would be a huge tourist destination. Someone in our group (a girl named Makea) saw some more foreigners and we all whipped around. It's funny how a group of high school/freshmen in college can get excited over people we saw for only a few seconds before they entered the museum. I'm not even sure if they actually were wai guo ren.
A lot of the tourists that come to Xi'an are from other parts of China. So there are large bunches of people completely unfamiliar with the city but still not wai guo ren. It makes asking for directions very difficult. Well, it's difficult already but harder. You have to scope out the proper person to ask: either a person of authority, a teenager with a backpack (and/or school uniform. But school during the summer is literally banned by the government in China. It's also enforced pretty heavily. I think it's to not give anyone an unfair advantage on the Gao Kao, but anyway school isn't considered in session technically if the students are not wearing their uniforms. So I can't use that as a sign any more. I could probably do an entire post on the Chinese school system if anyone is interested) or a mother with elementary aged children. These people tend to a) know what's going on b) be trustworthy c) be willing to help and d) know a few words in English if need be (especially the teenagers).
One last wai guo ren moment wasn't one anyone really called attention to. The words "wai guo ren" weren't even spoken. I just felt like an outsider. Wednesday night, my host family took me to a bookstore. Let me preface this, I love bookstores with all my heart. They're some of my favorite places. I even liked this one. It was huge, three stories, and right in the center of the downtown section of the south part of the city. There were also rows and rows of books crowded together that made it feel like one of those specialty bookstores in movies. The bookstore did however make me feel like an outsider, because absolutely everything was in Chinese. I mean on translated book there would be a little tiny blurb with the title in English or the native language, but otherwise everything was in Chinese. I couldn't just pick up a book and flip through the pages. Well, I could but then I would have no idea what was going on. I would occasionally ask my host sister to translate the title of certain books with interesting covers.
It turns out my sister likes spy novels and Sherlock Holmes. Although he isn't called Sherlock Holmes here. He's called something that isn't quite western and isn't quite Chinese either. I thought it would be like a sound translation like my American Chinese teacher did with all our names. She just found words that sounded close enough. On another note, I have a new Chinese name because my old name made no sense what so ever. It meant something like pulling creepy vines. So definitely not an ideal name. My new name is Pan Shu Yue and it means something along the lines of Happy and Books. It's also a pretty standard Chinese name. There's apparently a kid in my host sister's class who has it. But back to Sherlock Holmes. His name makes sense apparently in Chinese but sounds nothing like Sherlock Holmes. It also has four characters instead of the very standard three. I guess I just found this interesting.
I did however in the bookstore complete one of my unspoken goals for the trip. I have this odd idea that you are fluent in a language when you can read a Harry Potter book in that language. I also just like international Harry Potter books. I should start a collection. I have a copy of the Philosopher's Stone From the U.K. and one newly purchased Chinese copy of the Goblet of Fire. I was going to get the first one but they were sold out. So I got my favorite one instead. It's absolutely gorgeous. Well, I think it is. The cover is identical to the American version except for the fact the title and stuff is in Chinese. There's even a little lightning bolt on one of the characters. The Chronicles of Narnia books have some really awesome cover Chinese cover art so if I see them again, I'll try to buy one. I didn't have enough money on me for both. I hardly ever go anywhere where I need money, or when I do I know in advance. I mean I never leave the house with less than 10 yuan (enough money to buy a bottle of water, a a bus ride and an ice cream or alternatively one drink at Cocos) but still my beautiful Harry Potter book was 38 yuan (so roughly $6. I both love and am very confused by the exchange rate) and all I had was a 50 yuan note. My money philosophy may sound weird but it actually makes a lot of sense. I don't ever really need to buy anything and carrying too much money makes you a target for pickpockets (or at least that's what was drilled into our heads at orientation. Orientation was actually so bad Alex was expecting so uncivilized crime ridden packed to the brim with people city.)
This post has covered the past week and some of the many wai guo ren experiences. I'm sure there will be many more, but that's just what I get for being a 5'10" Caucasian female with light brown hair.
In another post, I'll try to cover some of the fun I've had today (Saturday) and yesterday. (Yes you can see I started typing this Thursday and then finished it Saturday. I had the test and then I was absolutely exhausted Friday after an adventure with my host sister). The NSLI crew had two birthdays this week so we had a bit of a celebration Thursday after school. That was definitely entertaining and I have some great pictures of everyone goofing around in our office. Friday, my host mom's younger brother was in town and so he took us to "play basketball". Unfortunately, we didn't get to actually play, as there were already too many people, mainly middle-aged men. So Candy and I went for a walk around the rather large park and played at a few different playgrounds. All the playgrounds in China are mainly exercise equipment. The best one was basically an obstacle course. Then Saturday, I had a whole bunch of fun at a KTV place with the rest of the NSLI kids to celebrate one of the girl's 18th birthday. It was incredible. I've essentially just given you a rather brief synapsis of my next post.
The next post will probably also include something about tomorrow's adventure hiking. We're going up in the mountains, because my host mother had to reach a compromise with Candy after she wouldn't let her go to the KTV because of too much homework. We're also going to see the grandparents that live out in the country. I have my fingers crossed for more jiao zi (dumplings).
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