Not My Circus. Not My Monkeys.

Now that you've had the master post on everything that's been going on over the past week, I'm going to touch on more recent stuff.  Midterm was today and I'm completely exhausted.  I mean I know why.  I didn't really get a lot of sleep last night.  I fell asleep with my contacts in and when I woke up to take them off I couldn't fall back asleep.  So there I was at 3:40 AM with the lights of the city basically shut off (I mean all the annoying blinking signs outside my window are apparently not on at 3 in the morning.) and I could not fall back asleep. 

 

All I could think about was that test.  My class as a whole hasn't been doing very well.  We're the least experienced class.  I mean we still have a girl who lived in China for eight years in our class, but we're the least experienced.  Our teachers however haven't really grasped the fact that there's still a good portion of the time when I don't have a clue what's going on and the tests are nearly impossible.  Last week I almost would have rather taken the AP Calculus test again which is really saying something as Calculus makes me want to cry.  The highest grade on last week's test was an 82%.  I repeat the highest grade.   The NSLI-Y program is full of hardworking students who always put in so much more time and attention into their schoolwork then strictly necessary. It's a program full of kids who want to learn desperately.  These are by no means usual grades for anyone.  And it's frustrating to know that as hard as you're trying it isn't working.

 

So what did I do at 3:40 AM?  I studied. 

 

The test was actually so much easier than I could have ever hoped for.  There was no essay.  No overly complex vocabulary.  A couple questionable punctuation marks in the blank spaces that the teacher than fixed (and I then automatically knew the answer).  We even had a word bank at one point.  I walked out of the test smiling and relieved. 

 

It was amusing to sit on the steps outside the classroom, waiting to go in for the speaking test and watch the other classes freak out about their grades for once.  I'm not trying to be cruel.  It's just we were all convinced that if we didn't improve drastically, our entire class was going to be sent back to U.S.  We had an emergency study session and He Lao Shi made a special study guide off my notes, which are incredibly detailed.   I write down absolutely everything, so we figured if it was taught it was in my notes.  And while we were freaking out and studying like our lives depended on it, some of the students in the other classes were walking to Coco or Starbucks everyday. 

 

But our class made a pact that we wouldn't say a word about how easy the test was.  It wasn't even all that easy.  We just expected one killer test.  We said things like "Well, it definitely wasn't like any of our other tests" or "The stuff I studied wasn't even on there."   We commiserated with the other classes, but celebrated the fact that we finally had a test one of us might have actually done well on.

 

We're hiking Hua Shan tomorrow.  The mountain has one of the most dangerous hikes in the world, but no worries we're not going anywhere close to that trail.  We have to be at the school tomorrow at 6:40 and go on a three-hour bus ride before finally reaching the mountain.  We're taking a cable car up and then walking around one of the easiest trails.  But of course it's China, so the path is going to be difficult to navigate just because of the sheer numbers of people.  I think it's going to be so cool.  (Side note on the word cool: I never realized how often I said it until I was in China.  My host mom looked at me like I was crazy the first time I said it but now Candy says it all the time) Hua Shang is one of the sacred Tibetan Mountains and so there are so many special Buddhist sites and temples.  There are also a lot of merchants selling unique Chinese wares. 

 

So tomorrow will be interesting.  This post however is about a bit more than just my Midterm.  I'm a particular fan of a Polish proverb.  It translates to "Not my circus. Not my monkeys."  Basically it means it's not my problem.  It's not my fault.  I like the phrase better though, because it also creates an interesting idea at least in my mind.  A circus is something you can't ignore no matter how you try.  There's been a situation in China that definitely can't be ignored.  Some of the other students are having problems with their host families. 

 

I have never been more thankful for the host family I have.  I have my own room, Wi-Fi, air-conditioning, a Western toilet that doesn't really have any restrictions, loving parents and a sister who's always willing to help me or talk to me in both English and Chinese.  I have an incredible apartment that is about a half hour walk from the school, but I'm still driven most of the times.  My apartment is incredible.  It's huge and the complex has a little gated park with a couple waterfalls.  There's also a much bigger park just outside with a huge hot air balloon (which is useful in not getting lost.)  My sister and I walk there almost every night after dinner and play on the playground together.  I have a dog, who despite not completely trusting me yet and having the weirdest sleeping schedule ever, (She's always wide-awake.  This morning she was sitting outside Candy's room ready to play.  I scratched her tummy for a little bit to calm down before going back to work) is actually a really comfortable presence in the house.  I'm happy to be here. 

 

Some of the others haven't been so lucky.  There are three students who have/will switch families.  The first was simple enough.  She was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no air conditioning and she was sharing a bed with her host sister who would punch her in her sleep.  The family also had a much larger apartment that had been checked by NSLI, but the family lived in the one bedroom closer to the school.   Because one girl left for personal reasons, there was a family ready to accept a student with the mountains of paperwork already filled out.  The girl is so much happier now and is living with a host sister who is teaching her kung fu and a father who's going to teach her how to make Chinese noodles. 

 

The second kid was Egg.  Egg has been absent from school almost all week.  He had some really bad bug bites on his elbows.  Or at least that's what we thought.  Wei Lao Shi wrapped his arms up in gauze and he couldn't really move.  The next day, Egg was taken to the hospital.  The "bites" were spreading.  They turned out to be an allergic reaction brought on by his host family arrangements.  He also had an upper respiratory infection.  Instead of letting him rest, his host father gave him books to translate to give him some more practice.  Needless to say for the past two days, Egg has been asleep in the NSLI Office.  A couple of us are going over there tonight to keep him company and watch a movie.  I don't think I'll be able to go, just as I live far enough away from the school that it would be really inconvenient for my host family.  We would finish when it was dark and I'm not walking home at night.  I mean Xi'an is a big city.  Egg still doesn't have a new host family but they're looking through the different back-up families.  The government just has a mountain of paper work for hosting a foreigner so it probably won't be until next week that Egg gets to move in somewhere. 

 

The third case is the creepiest and the most relevant to me.  One girl in our class, Katie, has been having problems with her host sister.  I mean in public, they're fine.  At KTV, they seemed to have the cutest relationship ever.  But in private the sister gets creepy.  She follows Katie around constantly, typically uncomfortably close, and watches.  She's always watching.  Katie said there have been a couple times when this girl would stare into the bathroom.  She also leaves notes all over the apartment and all over Katie's things.  I saw one Wednesday when Katie and I were studying after school with He Lao Shi. It seemed perfectly innocent.  I just didn't know it was one of many.  Some of them were creepy too.  This morning, Katie got up, showered and when she got back, this girl was lying in her bed.  They have bunk beds so Katie also sees her host sister watching her sometimes when she sleeps.  As if all these things weren't enough, the host father speaks a different dialect, the grandmother can't control the girl and the mother is on a business trip.  Wei Lao Shi and He Lao Shi are trying to find a solution but there isn't really a family available. 

 

This is the part where I come in.  My apartment has four bedrooms: the parent's, Candy's, mine, and a study.  My host mother works at the school and had a conversation with Wei Lao Shi.  I don't know how it started, but Katie's situation was mentioned.   Suddenly at home, I'm getting a call from Wei Lao Shi asking if it would be alright if Katie moved in here.  We'd both have our own space and Candy is going to be thrilled at having another Mei Guo Sister.  Of course, I agreed.  I like Katie and no one should be stuck in a situation like that. Plus, Katie and I will be able to study together and she can help me with my speaking, as her skills in that area are much stronger than mine.  Nothing's approved yet.  It still needs to go through the American Councils Office in Washington DC, but I'm already looking forward to Katie moving in.  I've always had two sisters.  It only seems fitting that I would have two here as well. 

 

And just one last note for anyone thinking of studying abroad:  These situations are not common. And this is the first time Wei Lao Shi has ever had to switch anyone's host families (and she's been doing this a fairly long time). Everyone is carefully examined and these situations were things no one could have known about.  A secret smaller apartment, an allergic reaction and a kid who has always acted perfectly well behaved and normal around other people.  A lot of host families are like mine.  They genuinely care about the children's well being.  I know there are so many other kids on the program who absolutely adore their host families.  I'm really hoping that I'll be able to keep in touch with mine after this adventure is over.

 

Update: This night after dinner Katie came over.   She brought her stuff, which really wasn't all that much and officially moved in.  I wish I could say I was happy but now that she's here I'm overwhelmed.  Wei Lao Shi didn't want us to speak English to each other despite the fact that we live with the same family.  But because of that my host family has stopped speaking any and all English.  They also have completely changed the way we've been doing things for the last few weeks.  The worst part is I'm not sure it's because there's two of us now or if I've been doing something wrong the entire time.  Like they told me I had to wash my own clothes and they "taught" me how to use the machine, but now we have bags where we put our clothes for the day and they get washed that night. Luckily I did a lot of my laundry yesterday so I only have a few things that I found around my closet that aren't clean. I probably will sneak a load in when I'm home alone with Katie.

 

Most of all and this could just be the exhaustion talking, I feel like my family is going to like her more than they like me.  I mean she's this little bubbly person who can actually speak and understand Chinese.  I don't know how to compete with that.  Even Dian Dian seems to like her better.  I mean, it took Dian Dian forever to warm up to me and she just started playing with Katie automatically. 

 

Note from the future: This situation works out all right.  I'll have more news next post, but I don't have time now as I have an essay to write and a presentation to prepare. 

The Massive Post

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. 

Here's a blurry attempt of a picture from KTV.  I didn't take it.  The quality is pretty awful and odds are it won't show up but someone was able to share it with me so maybe it might show up.  If not, I'll just replace it with a picture of my own.  This was from we were singing Peng You.

 

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.)

Midterm

I actually have a lot to talk about, but it's going to have to wait. This trip is first and foremost an intensive language study and Midterm is tomorrow. I'm kind of terrified. We've covered so much vocabulary. In the last three weeks, I've learned more words than in an entire school year. We're being tested on anything. If it came up in class, it's on the test. (And we discussed some really random things. We're all required to give individual presentations and one girl did hers on human trafficking, so we had to write the word slave on the last test).

You'll have a lengthy post after the test, but right now I'm off to panic study.

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).