Wai Guo Ren Moments

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 18^th 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). 

 

Sad News

I haven't been feeling like writing much lately, haven't really felt like doing much of anything.  Early Saturday morning (Friday evening in Minnesota), I was woken up by a phone call.  My grandpa had passed away after a stroke.  My family was with him and he's in a better place now, probably tagging along on my great big adventure, but it's difficult without him. 

He made me promise to come back safe and sound with lots of pictures so I could show him everything. 

I'm taking it as well as to be expected.  It was very hard the first day.  My host family was unaware of the situation.  It wasn't that they were insensitive.  It's just some things got lost in translation.  I tried to explain to my host sister after I broke down crying again.  We had been looking at pictures, hers and mine.  I was stealing glimpses of Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Shangri-La, but I couldn't get my mind off what was happening back home.  

Apparently, stroke is not a common word here.  She didn't seem to think it was a big deal.  She even asked later if he had a cold.  How do you explain a blood clot in the brain to someone in another language, when the only word you know that might help is brain?  I didn't even know how to say death in Chinese.  I knew it sounded like four because you aren't supposed to give anything in multiples of four because it means your wishing death on them.  It just wasn't a word I expected to need to know. 

(And I'm sure that a lot of the people reading this already know this information.  Most of you are family.  But this is a sudden change in all our lives Grandpa was always such an active lively person, I can't carry on the blog without mentioning this.  Thanks to everyone who has sent me messages.  They're much appreciated even if I haven't responded.  I just can't force myself to respond right now.)

Anyway, I made lunch Saturday.  It wasn't anything fancy.  I cut up and sautéed an onion using some of my limited butter supply and added a bit of sketchy marinara sauce to some pasta (okay not sketchy but it was in this pouch like thing and I only picked it because it was the only brand I recognized).  I also added some extra cheese because that's how Sarah likes it.  They ate every last bit of it.  I'm pretty sure if someone set up a restaurant here where they actually made American food the way it's supposed to taste like (pizza is not microwaved soggy cardboard), it would be a huge hit. 

Afterwards, the family took the customary after lunch nap.  I couldn't really do that so I sat down with my computer and looked at pictures while playing my American music as loudly as I dared without headphones (so the music was basically nonexistent but still comforting).  I'm not sure how I feel about the midday naps.  I mean I haven't actually slept during one yet. 

My family decided to makeup for the fact I was sick on Excursion Day.  Basically every Friday, our class visits a touristy site in the city.  One of our teachers also forces us to present a fifteen-minute presentation in Chinese on one of the places, in pairs thankfully.  (And although ours might have been close, she doesn't really expect them to be fifteen minutes either.  She also let us explain some things in English so our classmates actually knew the significance of the new places.) But anyway, Fridays are kind of a big deal and I was sick for the first one.  My classmates visited the City Wall, the Drum and Bell Tower and the Forest of Steeles (Bei Lin, the museum that holds the most ancient Chinese tablets in the entire world, over 3000.  Can you tell which one my presentation was on?)

I wasn't really expecting much.  I mean I was excited but I wasn't nearly prepared for the visit I got.  I forgot one little detail.  My family is definitely fairly well off.  They arranged a private tour on the city wall.  We got to go into normally closed off areas to view the drainage system that doubled as protection against intruders.  We had a guide rapidly talking and answering questions all the time.  She even made an effort to speak English some of the time so I could understand. 

The coolest part of my visit to the city wall was definitely the entry gate.  I mean the entire wall is massive and pretty awesome (the starting point of the Silk Road began in the western markets right inside the wall).  There are these little tram buses, most of them stuffed to capacity, but ours held only my host family, the guide and me, that can drive side by side on top of the wall and there are bikers everywhere. 

Still, the coolest part is one of the many gates.  It's called the Peace Gate and many famous people walk the same steps I did.  Michelle Obama was here only a few months ago and President Bill Clinton too just a while before that.  The spot is one of the prominent places the Chinese government meets foreign delegates.  It was unbelievable to walk those steps and then be given a private tour as if I was one of those famous people too.  

The Drum and Bell Towers were used in ancient times to tell the time.  One was sounded at 6 AM.  The other at 6 PM. I would hate to be the person to wake up and have to sound the alarm. 

I only went up in the Drum Tower but it was very interesting.  I have some really awesome pictures that I'll post when I'm back.  It's the largest drum in the world and the view is also incredible. 

Dinner was actually the different varieties of street food.  Sweet sticky rice is very good.  The vendors compress it using these cone shaped things and you get this flat little rice patty on a stick with sesame seeds and some seasoning on it.  I also tried this stuff that I'm not actually sure what it was.  It was spicy, but the texture was almost like someone had fried up chunks of fat.  Needless to say I wasn't too impressed. 

I did try quite possibly my new favorite drink in all the world.  It's orange-colored soda and its English name is Ice Peak.  It was orange flavored, but it also had a tangerine and possibly a mango taste to it.  It's one of those things I would gladly pack bottles of into my checked bag, so I could bring home and have everyone try it.  Or more likely they would be hidden somewhere in my room for my enjoyment only.  Both situations are unfortunately not going to happen as Ice Peak comes in old-fashioned glass bottles.  As brilliant as it is, I'm not willing to have glass all over my suitcase, and orange soda all over my gifts.  

I know this post doesn't nearly cover everything.  I had yang rou pao mu for the first time Sunday.  I need to find a proper recipe so I can eat this in the U.S.  It's definitely my favorite food in Xi'an.  And I can drink tea now to my heart's content.  My host family has finally figured out that I love it and are more than willing to make it, although we never have it to drink at meals. I watched the Belgium-Argentina soccer game, because at least I can understand soccer, even if I have no idea what anyone is saying.  There are no English channels here or even an option to have English subtitles.  I also went swimming in an absolutely marvelous 50-meter pool that was inside a hotel.  All these experiences deserve their own post, but I felt it was necessary to post something now, just so everyone knows I'm coping and your kind thoughts are appreciated.  

A Week of Firsts

I have now spent a week in China.  It was definitely a week of new experiences.  I would have posted this earlier except Friday was another first, this one slightly unfortunate.  I got a cold. I basically slept the entire day.  It was almost frustrating though because my host family kept putting their hand to my head checking for a fever and then saying "Oh you're okay."  I think they finally understood that I was sick when I didn't eat anything until eight o'clock at night.

 

I'll start with talking about the sick thing before moving on to my adventures the rest of the week.  I woke up around 4 AM Friday morning with a churning stomach, a runny nose, a pounding headache and the feeling that I was very cold.  I know for a fact that it was as hot or hotter than it had always been as I had myself wrapped in a pretty thick blanket.  I was able to sleep fitfully for two more hours before waking up again.  This time I knew it wasn't going away and so I called my resident directors.  They said that it was around the time when everyone gets sick and that when my family got up to have one of them call my resident directors.  (I've decided that I'll use my resident directors' Chinese names.  Despite their encouragement for all of us to keep a blog while abroad, I'm pretty sure they'd rather remain fairly anonymous.  My RDs are Wei Lao Shi and He Lao Shi. They're really wonderful people.) I have always liked the fact that my family slept late until yesterday.  I sat at the kitchen table, waiting, for what felt like a really long time but was really only about 40 minutes.  After that, I just slept so not really anything interesting there. 

 

Monday was the first day of school and it was very confusing. That's about the only way to describe it.  The morning lessons were fine, a little stressful, because there were times when I didn't know what was going on but it was fine for the most part.  We did one of those getting-to-know-names games where we all stood in a circle and called "Dūn (our name). Dūn (our name). Dūn wán (someone else's name)."  Dūn means squat so every time we were called on we would have to squat.  We would then call the next person with the phrase Dūn wán which effectively means I'm done squatting it's your turn.  Besides the game, it was a lot of question and answer with the students.  The teachers would ask things like "What's your favorite season?" or "What's your favorite animal?"  Now, I had never covered animals in my school in the U.S. so I was confused when that question came around.  Luckily one of the other students explained dòng wù meant animal, but the only animals I could remember were dogs, cats and horses.  I'm not sure if the others in my class had covered animals yet either because a disarming percent said dog. 

 

Our teachers Tóng Lao Shi and Zhuāng Lao Shi speak almost no English. They know a couple words, but vocabulary was mainly pictures of things and actions in hopes that we would understand.

 

Lunchtime was the first and unfortunately the last time all the NSLI-Y kids sat together at lunch. Each and everyday now we're required to intermingle with the Chinese students.  I mainly sit with my host sister and her friends.  I can only remember on of her friends name and the name I do remember is the English name. I'm supposed to be talking with them and making friends, but really I'm just sitting there and listening.  I don't know enough Chinese to actually have a conversation.  It's frustrating.  I know I'm not going to learn anything if I'm not immersed, but the silences (or the rabid Chinese interspersed with my host sister explaining something in English) is going to drive me mad. 

 

Culture class was an interesting first.  Our lessons all week were about Chinese music.  I used to think music was the universal language.  I've easily been proven wrong.  Our teachers give lectures in Chinese.  I get about one word every ten and the words I do understand are like "my" "this"  "music" and "Chinese".  Our first lesson was on traditional Chinese music.  We focused on láo dòng hào zi, ya yuè and mín jiān gē qu.  While the lecture was going on, I was completely and utterly confused.  Luckily, the kids in my class (We're the panda class because panda's are slow and we're the beginner class) were just as lost as I was.  After I got home though, I looked up each word individually and was able to figure out what had been going on.  The láo dòng hào zi is a call and response song sung by groups of men that in ancient times would haul boats into shore.   It's a strong and deep sound.  Basically only one man, the overseer is really singing.  The others are all chanting something like Ho Yeh.  Ya yuè is music that was performed at the emperor's court.  It literally translates to refined music.  It's typically got poetic lyrics and lots of dancing women. I however spent a long time fixated on a couple words from this part of the lecture that literally turned out to be the name of a musical instrument.  I still don't really know what mín jiān gē qu is.  I looked up the words but it translates to basically folk songs or songs sung by nationals, but our entire lesson was on folk songs so I'm still confused. 

 

Monday was also the first time we went on a school-sponsored trip.  Our schedules said we were going to do community service.  Our teachers talked about us visiting an elementary school.  Our bus dropped us off at a University.  The campus was beautiful and there were a bunch of college students waiting with a banner, but it still wasn't the best sort of way to spend the afternoon.  We were given an entire spiel on how the school was International and very good in broken English.  I was handed some sort of business card despite the fact none of the other students were and I watched as the mid to higher level students happily conversed with the college students.  I kind of just sat there and looked through the brochure.  It was just a really awkward experience.  It got even stranger though when one of my resident directors tried to negotiate a program with the school for the school she works for (She works for Harvard.  She actually told my host mother she works at some school in Boston because if people knew she worked at Harvard, she would be mobbed.)   They gave us bottles of stuff that despite having water written on the label in three languages was definitely not water.  The best part of the whole "community service" was the bus ride back to school.  I spent it talking to He Lao Shi and a couple of my classmates.  I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.  Monday was just confusing.

 

Tuesday I rode public transit for the first time.  My host sister and I had to take the bus home from the grandparent's house because the mother needed to go back to work.  It wasn't crowded and we even got to sit.  One of the weirdest things though is the fact that all the toddlers/babies effectively don't wear pants.  They're no diapers and there are holes in the clothes for the child to do their business.  I know this is gross beyond belief, but it's one of the weirdest things I've encountered here and I felt the need to share.  Needless to say, with a little boy sitting across from me, I was extremely happy we were the first stop. 

 

Wednesday I saw my first car accident.  I feel the need to site this because Chinese people are either the best or the worst drivers in the world.  I was seriously terrified of their roads.  (On Thursday, I did the traditional Chinese thing and held Colleen's hand as we crossed a particular busy road during our scavenger hunt thing.) Buses squeeze through tight spaces.  Cars turn whenever. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to anything and yet nothing ever seems to happen.  I mean in my host mother's car, it is physically impossible to wear a seat belt and even in my host father's car, my host sister never wears one.   It's like a strange sort of magic.  All the cars, buses and motorcycles just avoid each other, and pedestrians know that they NEVER have the right of way and just continue on normally. 

 

Wednesday I also had the best ice cream thing of my entire life.  Colleen and I went exploring during our extremely long lunch hour.  We discovered a store behind one of the buildings.  It began as a search for the NSLI-Y office, which actually has air conditioning.  If you learn nothing else from my blog, understand China is hot and humid, and the air conditioning can't really be felt and there's something weird about the filtration that gives you a runny nose all the time.  So anyway, we find this little store behind the school.  We immediately rushed to the little freezer section. There were actually so many different types. I chose to be moderately adventurous and chose a mango popsicle thing.  We walk up to the counter, each with a five Yuan note in our hands and try to buy our ice cream.  Apparently, what we weren't told was that the store only accepted the meal cards that all the proper students had.   Luckily, my Chinese teacher Zhuang Lao Shi appeared right at the moment explained the predicament and bought us the ice cream.  She even refused payment.  (I mean in total it was about 6 Yuan, which is roughly 1 US dollar, but it was still really nice.)

 

I got to play the er hu, a traditional Chinese stringed instrument.   It actually made me miss my cello so much.  It was silly, but I kept holding the bow wrong, because I was so used to my cello bow hold.  I was so irrationally happy because of that little instrument.

 

I also had my first cup of tea.  I have a tea addiction.  There really isn't any other way to phrase that. I can't stand coffee, so tea is my constant form of caffeine. You'd think because my family would drink a lot of tea.  Especially considering we have an entire tea ceremony table set up on the porch.  But my first cup of genuine Chinese tea (not counting the two I had on the plane) was from the school cafeteria. 

 

I now have keys to the apartment.  It really gave me a feeling of independence.  Before I was stuck at home for two-four hours by myself everyday. Now I can go out exploring by myself although I haven't had a real chance yet. 

 

Wednesday night, Wei Lao Shi and He Lao Shi came over to the apartment with the assistant principal for a host family visit.  They apparently go and visit everyone, but it was still unnerving, especially because they were all staring at me.  The assistant principal would speak very quickly to me and expect me to be able to answer.  Wei Lao Shi kept telling me to relax, but honestly how was I supposed to relax? 

 

Thursday was actually a lot of fun.  I had my first quiz, which as you can guess actually wasn't any fun, but the rest of the day was pretty awesome. Wei Lao Shi and He Lao Shi took us on an excursion after school.  We were divided up into groups of three, one from each class, and given a list of things to do.  My group was Colleen and at 7 feet, the tallest person on our trip, a boy nicknamed Egg. Our first task was to get on the 701 bus and get to an underground mall.  We crammed ourselves onto the bus and the annoyed faces of the locals were actually amusing.  We may have gotten off a stop too early but I'm entirely not sure, because the mall seemed to be almost right across the street. 

 

In the mall, we were required to bargain.  I've been nervous about bargaining.  It's a very important part of Chinese life.  There's a well-known agreement that merchants are trying to rip you off and you're going to give them a price that is completely unreasonable.  Then you meet in the middle.  I didn't want to start with anything too extravagant so I found a gift for my little sister and decided to go from there.  The woman wanted 30 Yuan, so I offered her ten.  We talked for a little bit.  I would get reassuring looks from Colleen.  I would tell her that it was way too expensive.  The final straw came, when I set the toy back on the shelf and began to walk out of the shop.  She stopped me and offered the toy for fifteen Yuan.  I took it but didn't feel all that great about it until later, when my drink at Starbucks cost more.  (I'll have more on that in a second.) 

 

So the next part of our adventure was to find the movie theater.  Each group was given a different location but they were all around the dayanta (Wild Goose Pagoda). One of the other groups had the Starbucks and we met up with them later to celebrate our victory after nearly two hours of walking.  Once we were in the Pagoda Square I was able to navigate us all the way across to around where I remember my host mother mentioned a movie theater.  We found two places that said movies on the sign, but they weren't what we had listed and they also had bumper cars in them (Needless to say we remembered them because bumper cars will definitely sound good at some point).  The movie theater turned out to be on the third and fourth floor of a mall in a corner.  I'm pretty sure we had the hardest one. 

 

So anyway, after we celebrated our success with Iced Shaken Lemon Tea from Starbucks (and there seriously needs to be a petition to get this drink on the American menu), we all needed to get home for dinner.  I had two options: I could go back to the school with the group and split the bill for a taxi (which would be safe and very effective as we weren't far enough away for it to cost too much but still far enough away that it was a 40 minute walk if we didn't get lost) or walk home which seemed fairly close on my map.  After a while, my group still couldn't get a taxi, so I decided to walk.  I texted my host mother and she told me to go to my host grandmother's instead.  This shouldn't have been a problem.   My grandmother lives very close to the dayanta and I sort of knew the way.  Except, I didn't have her house on my map of places.  School? Yeah.  Home?  Of Course.  Grandmother's House where I am everyday to eat dinner?  Sorry No. 

 

I made my way Art Museum, saw my fourth movie theater of the day and promptly realized I had no idea where to go from there.  I should have been completely freaked out.  I was lost in a city of 8 Million People, except I wasn't.  Xi'an never feels as big as it is.  Sure there are a lot of buildings, but the people are pretty spread out and there is a lot of greenery.   I just kept walking.  Pretty soon I realized I didn't recognize any of the statues.  I simply called my host mother and she said to make my way back to the art museum and she'd give me directions from there.  I did it wasn't all that far. 

 

Then she told me to walk two stoplights east (towards the movie theater) and turn left at the third stoplight.  I did exactly that and didn't recognize the place anymore than I did previously.  I walked back to the third stoplight and called again.  It took forever to explain that I was at the third stoplight at a specific plaza.  A few minutes later my host mother drove up in her little red car.  I was right where I needed to be.  She had meant that it was past the third stoplight a little bit on my left, not to turn let.  Still at that point, I was hot and sweaty and just happy to finally be able to get out of the sun.

 

I know I've been absent for a while.  As you can tell, I'm busy and still adjusting.  Yesterday was fairly interesting.  I saw the City Wall, but I have to go now.  My host family is taking me swimming and I'm ready to jump for joy.   And then we're going to a Chinese buffet with Western and Chinese food.  I'm not sure what to expect.  My opinion of their "Western food" is pretty low.  They suggested I open a restaurant Saturday after I made lunch that consisted of Italian noodles, with some weird sauce from the supermarket, sautéed onions and extra Parmesan cheese.  I've also tried their "pizza" which is most definitely not pizza and is basically microwaved bread with cheese.  But still, I get to go swimming!

 

For some reasons, my pictures aren't showing up.  Hopefully I'll find a solution soon, but if not I'll post them when I get back.