My Trip To 中國

BLAAAA

2009-05-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

MING IF YOU LEAVE FOR BJ ON THE FOURTEENTH THAT MEANS I ONLY HAVE ONE DAY TO SEE YOU. so not cool.

p.s. the pictures are of some pandas and me at a Giant Panda research base north of Chengdu, in Sichuan province. Our spring trip was to Guizhou and Sichuan provinces. I was in Chengdu on my birthday at a Chinese cooking school learning how to make some delicious Sichuan food!

Really quick post about Hong Kong

2009-04-01T02:45:00.000-07:00

I have absolutely no time so this blog is going to be quick. Last week I flew to Hong Kong (4 hour flight to the southern edge of China) to visit my dad. A few ways to to describe Hong Kong: hot, humid, modern, more capitalist than the rest of China, free, international, home of 7 million residents, full of courteous people, and gorgeous at night. By far my favorite city in China, although most Chinese people I've spoken with don't look at Hong Kong as genuinely Chinese, but rather a far away, ridiculously successful "special administrative region" (SAR, of which China has two: Hong Kong and Macau). It is its own little world, exempt from many of controversial laws and policies the rest of China has. Chinese people have to have a visa to go to Hong Kong, so most haven't been, but they all speak of it as if it was heaven. I have never heard a Chinese person say a single negative thing about Hong Kong. Anyway, here are a few pictures. The night one is a view of Hong Kong Island from across the harbor, in Kowloon.

Yunnan Part 2

2009-03-04T02:09:00.000-08:00

This will be a short post since I have overwhelming amounts of homework. After we left the village in the last post, we headed to quite a few other really small towns and villages. There was a four day period where nearly all we did was hike 5-7 hours per day up and down terraced rice fields (i'll include a picture), and that was mildly unpleasant because of the heat (in the 80s everyday). On one of our last days of hiking we ended up at a place overlooking nothing but terraced fields (which, because it is winter, are currently flooded with water) and mountains. It may have been the best view I have ever seen, but unfortunately that happened to be the one day I left my camera on the bus. Stupid me.

I forgot to mention that right leaving Kunming we explored a small town where I saw two women with their feet bound. In 9th grade World Civilizations I was taught that there was no one alive today with bound feet, so I asked my Chinese history teacher about it, and she said that although foot binding was banned in the early 1900s, the practice still went on until Mao laid the smack-down on it in the early 1950s. I found that very interesting and almost didn't believe that I was looking at bound feet at first.

Skipping ahead... in the beginning of our last week in Yunnan we rafted down the Mekong River, which made my mother very nervous even though I assured her we were A. Not in Vietnam and B. Not anywhere near the Mekong Delta and C. Not living during the time of the Vietnam War. The rafting was fun, and we got to have "water wars" with the other boats. The sun was shining, a few clouds in the sky, and the temperature was in the low 80s. A perfect day.

We got out of the river at a small village and spent the night. That night I got up in front of the whole village and told a joke in Chinese, which was pretty nerve racking. But I survived. We stayed three more nights in villages (you can only imagine how disgustingly dirty we all were, since we didn't shower for 4 days), and then returned to the capital of the southern most prefecture in Yunnan, Xishuangbanna. The capital's name is Jinghong. It was a sizable town (big enough to have an airport, but not big enough to have a Mcdonalds), and we stayed there during the next five nights. During the daytime, we went to school with Chinese students at the Jinghong Number 1 Highschool. This was by far the my experience on the trip, but i'll have to save that for my next post. Until then... bye bye.

苏娥俐

p.s. 1st pic: a chinese teacher and me writing my joke. boys in the background playing basketball with the locals (who all love basketball).

2nd pic: rafting on the Mekong

3rd pic: terraced rice fields through fog

4th pic: chilling with the local children

5th: a gramma with bound feet: proof that 9th grade world civ has failed me.

Yunnan Province Trip: Part 1

2009-02-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

Last week I arrived back in Beijing from a 3 week trip to Yunnan Province on China's southern border. It was a really long trip, but still quite fun, and allowed us to escape the cold weather for a bit. We first flew into Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan. It was in the 70s during the day and 50s at night - almost perfect weather. Kunming is a city of approximately 2 million and reminded me very much of a Chinese Florida. Palm trees lined the roads, flowers were in bloom everywhere, and the street food was delicious. It was surprisingly modern, which seems to be the case with every city I have visited in China with a population of over a million people. Mcdonalds, KFC, and even Best Buy had snuck their ways into the city, and we happily ate our last meal in Kunming at Pizza Hut, before heading into rural Yunnan to stay at a Dai Village for one night. Yunnan is famous for the large variety of ethnic minorities that live within its borders. Among them are Dai, Akha, and Yi. We visited a total of 5 villages, each of which was inhabited by one of these ethnic minorities. China treats the minorities specially, allowing some families to have 2 children. In the last year of high school, each student in China takes an enormous test to qualify them college. The minority students have 20 points added to their scores so that they can more easily be accepted to college. Anyway, at the first village, a group of about 30 lady dancers gave us a traditional Dai dancing performance. We were told that each of their outfits took 2 years to complete. Many of them had been to America to perform even - which is obviously extremely unusual for rural China. They were very hospitable people, and besides having an extremely bad cough that kept me half the night, our stay at the Dai village was pleasant. The pictures are of the Dai dancing ladies, a view of the Dai village, Tulips blooming in Kunming, a sidewalk in a park in Kunming, and a newspaper article in Chinese about Obama that I saw posted on a bulletin board in Kunming. All Chinese people know about Obama, It's very interesting. My host mother even knew his entire family background. That's more than most Americans can say about Hujintao. Most people reading this blog are probably wondering who Hujintao is. I'll post another segment about the trip tomorrow! Toodles.

苏娥俐

The Chinese New Year, authentic Chinese style

2009-01-29T09:27:00.000-08:00

Sunday was arguably the most important day of the year for Chinese people - Chinese New Year's Eve. At about 4 in the afternoon my entire baba's family came over. He cooked a huge meal and everyone ate ungodly amounts of utterly delicious Chinese food. At about 8 I went outside our apartment building with my sister, baba, two cousins, and an uncle to light fireworks. The Chinese New year is interesting in that it is like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July mashed together into one enormous holiday. There is gift giving (not quite as much as Christmas), excessive food consumption, and an insane amount of firework lightage-offage (definitely not a word). So... we headed outside, lit off our fireworks, and then went back inside to watch the CCTV New Years show that broadcasts throughout China. My sister mentioned that at midnight the sky would light up with more fireworks than I had ever seen before in my life, but I truly did not comprehend the enormity of what she tried to convey until I saw it myself. At about 11 pm my dad's family left, and we began cleaning up and getting ready to go to my maternal grandparent's house for the rest of the night (apparently no one sleeps on New Year's Eve/ New Year's morning). At 11:50 we piled in the car, and raced down the fourth ring road towards my grandma's house. Sure enough, at midnight, the sky exploded. It literally cannot be described with words. Front, back, left, right - every possible place you could look had fireworks exploding in every color imaginable. It was AMAZING. And what's even more - the government had nothing to do with it. Every firework in the sky was lit off by private families. My sister says every year the same phenomenon happens. I have to say, I think this is something that every person should see before they die, because it is truly mind blowing. And for some reason it made my sister and I giddy and happy. So anyway, we got to my mom's parents house and had the second huge feast of the night, then the adults started playing a classic Chinese game called Majiang. It is a fun game, but moves at an uncomfortably quick pace and forces your brain to use math skills incessantly. At about 3 AM, I conked out on my grandparent's bed. My mom, aunt, uncle, and grandpa continued to play. I woke up at 7 to the sound of the adults still playing Majiang (they played continuously for 6 hours, not kidding). My family has a tradition of going to the Lama temple (a huge Buddhist temple in Beijing) every New Year's morning, so at about 7:15 we stumbled sleep-deprived into the car and went to the temple. After walking through a hutong for 40 minutes and waiting in multiple obnoxiously large crowds of people, we got into the temple, made our wishes, bowed three times to the Buddha, witnessed a pick-pocket being taken out by the police, and left. From what I hear, Chinese belief is that if you make a wish at the Lama temple on New Year's morning, It will really come true. We'll see. At noon that day, I finally got to climb into bed and promptly conked out until 6pm. And that was my New Year's Day:)

I'll write more in 3 weeks. Until then, toodles.

Madre In China

2009-01-24T21:20:00.001-08:00

This post will have to be short because today is the one of the most important days in China- Chinese New Year's Eve. I won't be sleeping for the next 25 hours or so because of all the festivities. Anyway, I just wanted to put up a few pictures from when my mom came to China. We stayed in Beijing and I took her to the Forbidden City, the Zoo (to see pandas of course), the Great Wall, etc. On New Year's Eve we went to a modern area of Beijing called Sanlitun to eat and get our nails done. The Chinese don't make a very big deal out of New Year's Eve but at midnight they had a countdown and confetti:) Twas a jolly time, and I had a hard time not getting on the plane with her and flying back to America when she had to go. Haha.

In 5 days I will be leaving for Yunnan province (in the southernmost part of China, bordering Vietnam and Myanmar) where I will be for a three week Winterim trip, so no internet or blog posting. I will be sure to blog about it when I get back.

The first picture is of my dad at Tiananmen Square- I forgot to include it in the last blog and thought it was mildy humorous. The rest are of my mom's visit.

The Unabridged Story of the Lost Cell Phone

2009-01-07T04:37:00.000-08:00

Saturday December 27, the second day my mom was here, I lost my cell phone. Or, more specifically, I left it in a cab. This was bad for numerous reasons: I had no other way to communicate with people (save for Facebook), I had an enormous amount of minutes on the phone at the time (China has no cell phone plans, it is all pay-as-you-go), and I had plans to go to the Great Wall the following day with my friend Kara, her mom, and my mom. Since it was after midnight when I lost the phone (I had been out Karaoke-ing, hehe), I decided the best thing to do was simply return to the hotel where I was staying with my mom, and worry about everything in the morning. Jumping back in time a bit, when my dad first arrived in China for business a week before he came to visit me, his company lent him a chinese cell phone to use for business purposes. When he left China, he gave me the phone and the address of his business associate's office, and asked me to mail it back to the company. Now jumping forward in time to 11:30 A.M. the morning after I lost my phone, I remembered that I still hadn't mailed the phone, and in fact, had it sitting in my backpack. So, needless to say, I whipped it out, went online to Kara's facebook, got her cell phone number, and called her. Turns out, she and her mom were already on their way to the Great Wall, but it was at least good to call her and let her know what had happened to my poor little cell phone. There was, however, still one thing that needed to be taken care of. My host sister was expecting a call from me to let her know when my mom and I would like to go out to dinner with the host fam. Which brought me to my second predicament: I didn't have my host sister's number. I only had it saved in my phone, which was long gone. I was also a wee bit scared to admit to my host family that I lost my cell phone, because I knew they would be slightly irked by my stupidity. So... I'm not sure when it was, but eventually I realized that I had my host sister's number written down in my room back in my host family's apartment. I finally gathered up the courage to tell my sister that I had lost my phone on Tuesday, which was the same day I was supposed to call her regarding the family dinner. I returned to the apartment, found her number, and called her from the host fam's home phone. Upon learning that I had lost the phone, she was surprisingly nice, and promptly announced that she had lost a total of 7 phones in her life. That made me feel exponentially better. Anyway, she told me that we could go out to dinner that night, and that we would worry about the lost phone then. Here's where the story gets a little more interesting. As we were walking into the restaurant that night, my sister told me that we could get all my minutes back (300 kuai's worth), and have the cell phone company save them for my next phone. She wasted no time, and as soon as we had been seated, called the phone company. The service person at the other end of the line was unhelpful at best, and after my sister bickering with him for quite some time (I didn't catch much, but I did hear her say in fast, slurred Mandarin, "I think you have a listening problem" and "Give me your manager. YOUR MANAGER. Do you know what a manager is?"), she hung up and announced that I couldn't get the minutes back unless I had the pin number of my cell phone, which had been given to me on a small card when we had bought my cell phone and first round of minutes (literally the first night I arrived in China). So at that point I began to think that this whole ordeal wasn't worth it... I had no clue where the card with the pin number on it was, and I knew I would never see my cell phone again. But my sister was adamant that we keep trying. In addition, while she on the phone with the phone company, my mom called my cell phone number and SOMEONE ANSWERED. And my mom said "Hello? is this your phone number?" and the person said "yes" and then conversation went on for about another 30 seconds before my mom announced that she was the owner of the phone and the person on the other end hung up. Before the mystery person hung up, however, my sister managed to shout across the dinner table that we were going to call the cops if they continued to use the phone. And i've got to admit, my sister can be pretty intimidating at times, so I thought she might have intimidated the "robber" at least somewhat. After dinner, I returned to my host family's apartment to look for the questionably legendary pin number card. And miracle upon miracles, I found it sitting in my desk drawer. My sister called the phone company and this time had success removing my minutes from the lost phone. She also told me we could go online and find out who the people who were using my phone had called. Although I was tired from all this excitement and would have preferred to return to the hotel and get some sleep, she insisted that we go online to find the outgoing phone numbers that my phone had called after I lost it. Large predicament number three: After we had typed my phone number and pin number into the website in order to view the numbers my phone had called, a notice came up saying that the phone company was sending a password via text message to my phone, and we needed to type that in to continue. That, of course, did us no good. So we got offline and my sister said that she would take care of everything tomorrow. I was content with that. The next day, wednesday, I went to a movie with her. Here's where this excruciatingly long story actually starts to pick up a bit... on our way to the movie, my sister whipped out the extreeeeemely long list of every number I had called in the month of December, and told me that she had gone to a China Mobile store earlier that day and used a pretty clever method to get the list. Here's how she did it: In China, every phone has a SIM card. It is what gives your phone identity and holds every piece of information you have stored on it, from your phone number to your contacts to your text messages. If you put your SIM card in someone else's phone, and then turn his/her phone on, that phone will now have your contacts, your texts, and your phone number. If people call your number, It will now ring on their phone. My sister got my phone number and minutes taken off my SIM card and put on a new one, and then put the new one in her phone so that when the company sent the verification text (the one we needed the night before when we were trying to find my phones outgoing calls online), HER phone would receive it. Pretty smart, actually. And while she had my new SIM card in her phone, someone called my number. She answered, and discovered that this someone was a coworker of the person now in possession of my phone. She didn't realize they were a coworker of the "robber's" at first, so she asked them who they were, and they said they were Mr. Wang, and that they were the day time driver of taxi number suchandsuch. She thought it was peculiar, but didn't know exactly what to say, so she told them this was her number, and hung up. Now jumping ahead in time to when we were on the way to the movie... we were taking a look at this mile long list, trying to figure out exactly when the first call was made after I lost the phone, when suddenly my sister said "wait, I recognize this number...". And what do you know? The first number the "robber" (presumably the taxi driver who drove the taxi I left my phone in, coworker of "Mr. Wang") called after getting my phone was the same number that called my sister when she had my SIM card in her phone. Using our FBI minds, we concluded that this number was probably important, so my sister called it right before we went into the movie and a lady answered. My sister asked if she knew a Mr. Wang and the lady said no. And then my sister went into hard-core mode and began being a little less friendly to this stranger lady. She told the lady how she had gotten the number and what the situation was, and then announced that she would be promptly calling the police if the lady didn't cooperate and tell her what she knew about the situation. Then my sister said thank you (in mean voice, of course) and hung up. Meanwhile, I was sitting in the backseat pretty much astounded at my sister's detective skills and determination to get my phone back. The funniest thing is that my sister viewed this whole thing as kind of fun, like a game. She sounded mad when she was on the phone with the lady, but as soon as she got off, she looked back at me, smiled, and laughed. I love having a big sister. So anyway, after we got out of the movie, my sister got a call from the 北师大 (the university my school is associated with, near my house) security police saying that someone had brought a phone in and told them to call this number.

And just like that, I had my beloved phone back.

P.S. My sister later got an angry text from the lady saying "You got your phone back. Happy now?"... hehe. We had a good laugh over that.

Winter Break

2009-01-04T04:28:00.001-08:00

Oh dear... so much to say! I'll start with the beginning of Winter Break. My dad arrived in Beijing on the 18th of December. On the 19th was the annual SYA Christmas dinner to kick off winter break. It was very enjoyable, but unfortunately, all the I have no pictures because they are all on my dad's camera. The first Monday of break, my dad and I flew down to Shanghai for a little vacation. Shanghai is much larger than Beijing, and is modernizing extremely rapidly. From the airport to our hotel near the Bund, 95% of the cab ride was on a raised highway that twisted through a mess of skyscrapers and old apartment buildings. I thought Beijing was sprawling, but it is nothing compared to Shanghai. Our hotel room overlooked the Yu Gardens, Huangpu river, and Pudong district (across the Huangpu from our hotel). At night, Shanghai was a blaze of neon lights. One entire side of a citibank skyscraper lit up into an enormous advertisement. The Bund (the Lakeshore Drive of Shanghai) was under huge construction, presumably in preparation for the 2010 World Expo, which will be held in Shanghai. We went up into the Pearl tower, which is roughly the height of the Empire State Building and looks kind of like a needle sticking out of the ground with glass circular rooms for people to look out of. Its appearance is hard to describe, so I'll just include a picture. I found Shanghai slightly dirty than Beijing in places, but it definitely has a more energetic feeling to it. I guess I would also describe as a little bit more Western. A couple downsides about Shanghai were that most taxi drivers were rude, and the traffic was pretty atrocious. Other than that, though, I found Shanghai to be very enjoyable and am glad I was able to visit a new place for Christmas. I will post about my adventures with my mom in a couple of days.

The pictures are of my dad and I at dinner with my host mom and sister, my dad eating with chopsticks (which is a rare occurrence since he can't use them to save his life), the daytime view from our hotel room (overlooking part of "Old Shanghai", the Huangpu river, and the new Pudong district) a view of the Pearl tower from the ground, and the glowing Pudong District at night (view from across the river). And for some reason they loaded in the opposite order of how I stated them, so looking at them from bottom to top would be a wise idea:)

Migrant School

2008-12-13T07:28:00.001-08:00

To follow up on my last blog, my speech went well (even though I was a little nervous) and both of my Chinese teachers were happy, which was nice. On wednesday, A few classmates and I went to a migrant school (a school for the children of migrant workers) on the outskirts of Beijing. The migrant school is extremely poor and classes usually have over 40 students in them. It was my second time going, and both times I have gone, I have "taught" first grade. I put taught in quotations because I'm nearly positive the first graders absorb absolutely nothing of what we teach them, but they sure do enjoy having foreign teachers. Our kids happen to be the most raucous and worst-behaved in the school, but the experience is enjoyable nonetheless. Basically what we do for 40 minutes is stand at the blackboard and scream english words (and their Chinese translations) such as train, car, plane, friend, home, etc. at the top of our lungs (as to be heard over the extremely loud students). If we're lucky, the students will repeat the words after us, but most of the time, they simply ignore us and keep on talking to their fellow classmates. Because none of their Chinese teachers are in the room when we teach them, they feel a bit freer to do what they please, which makes our job a little harder. In the upcoming weeks we are planning to try to get the students to be a little more focused :) When class is over, they all yell "下课!!!" ("class is over!!!") and run out of the room like bats out of hell. A few stuck around to give me pictures they had drawn during class, and many of them asked if we would play with them in the recess yard. They get extremely excited to have their 外国的老师 (foreign teachers) run around with them and dance like fools.

Although teaching them is utter chaos 95% of the time, it is one of my favorite things to do, and brightens my wednesdays immensely. Also, I saw snow in China for the first time on our way to the school. There were flurries! Which is exciting for Beijing since the weather can't seem to get below freezing here. It reminded me of Christmas and lovely Iowa winters.

苏娥俐

Life for the past two weeks

2008-12-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

I apologize profusely for not posting a blog in so long! Last week (on Thanksgiving day) I was hospitalized because apparently something "collapsed" in my throat, making it extremely hard for me to breath. I was wheezing and coughing excessively, and eventually they decided that I had a bad case of laryngitis. The nurses were extremely nice and my hospital room was very hotel-esque, which was impressive. My friends Sam and Ian came to visit me, and for the most part, the whole experience wasn't too terrible. It was actually kind of relaxing. After a day and a half of being on a nebulizer and IV, I was released. I was given a portable nebulizer and continued to use it for a week at home. I was extremely lucky that my Chinese class studied medical words literally a day before I went to the hospital, and was able to use my newly acquired vocabulary when speaking to the doctors. If things got too complicated I just spoke English because every single nurse and doctor spoke English. Anyway, two hours after I was discharged from the hospital, my mom, sister, and I left for a two day spa and golf resort a little ways outside of Beijing. It was extremely relaxing and enjoyable, and although I got practically no homework done, it was worth it. Last week was very busy with catch-up work and tests, and next week we have a speech festival. Every student must prepare a memorized speech of a specified length (which varies from 2 to 4 minutes depending on class) in Chinese, and present it in front of all students, faculty, and host parents. It will quite possibly be the most nerve racking experience of my life. My topic is Chinoiserie, or in Chinese, 中国艺术风格 (zhong guo yi shu feng ge, literally "Chinese art style".

The pictures I have included are of my sister and me in a salt bed at the spa resort, me in the lobby, us in a little kid's play thing in one of my sister's co-workers rooms house, and a sign I saw in rural fujian on our trip a few weeks ago. The sign reads "loving and taking care of girls starts with me". It is the government's attempt to make rural families appreciate and love girls as much as boys.

I'll write more when I have time- hopefully this week.

Xiamen

2008-11-18T21:11:00.000-08:00

After two days in Chuxi Village, we returned Xiamen. We stayed the night in a hotel on a small island off Xiamen called Gulongyu, which was colonized by the British back in the day, and had some interesting Colonial Architecture. It was an "open" night, which means the time was ours to do whatever we liked. Some friends and I toured the island, then took the ferry to Xiamen for dinner, followed by some aimless wandering around the quickly modernizing city. Although I would have enjoyed staying in Xiamen longer than we did, I don't think I would like living there as much as living in Beijing. Two months ago I couldn't have pointed out a single difference between the two cities, but that night, I found myself noticing small things about Xiamen that were quite different from Beijing. It was somewhere around this time that I began actually missing Beijing. It was quite an odd phenomenon, because I also began missing America. I was homesick for the two strikingly different places I call home. Nevertheless, I greatly enjoyed my time in Xiamen, and was sad to leave the next morning. We were allowed to sleep in relatively late at our hotel on Gulongyu, and after check out headed to the Xiamen Botanical Garden. We had a quick group meeting at which we were instructed to follow a road that wound up and down a large hill (almost mountain) thru the Botanical Garden, and then branch off onto another path which would supposedly lead us to a large Buddhist temple. Then we were let free. I guess all the teachers must have gotten ahead of us, because soon enough I was alone, with the exception of my friend Sam. We must have diverged from the correct path at some point, because after an hour and a half of sweaty hiking, we wound up EXACTLY where we started. There was not a teacher or student in sight, so we laughed ourselves and then hush-hush... decided to be cheaters and take a taxi to the other side of the mountain, where the temple was located. The temple was beautiful inside, but unfortunately we didn't have much time to look around since we arrived late due to our unfruitful expedition to nowhere. I'm off to go start homework, but will write more when I get a chance.

The first 4 pictures are of the Temple, the Botanical Garden, and a view of Xiamen from the Botanical Garden (it was a smoggy day). The fourth picture is a view of Xiamen from the ferry to Gulongyu.

苏娥俐

Chuxi Tulou Village

2008-11-17T01:29:00.001-08:00

This blog will be relatively short, since I have rather massive amounts of 作业 (homework) to do. We arrived in Xiamen, The capital of Fujian, and stayed there in a hotel for one night. The shower I had that night was one of the best I have ever taken. Xiamen could be described as a little Shanghai (still, it has over a million people), with bright lights, new freeways, and signs of modernization all around. I quite liked it, but it lacks the history that Beijing is so rich in. Anyway, the following morning we headed, for the first time, into real rural China. Our destination was Chuxi Tulou village. A Tulou is a huge building in either a circular or square shape that houses many families, and has a large courtyard in the center. It is kind of like the rural Chinese equivalent of an apartment, except they are hundreds of years old (the literal translation of the word "Tulou" is earth building). Needless to say, We kissed our Showers, hot water, and flushing toilets goodbye when we left Xiamen. We stayed in the Tulous for 2 nights. The first day, we just explored the village and fields, and the second day, we traveled to a slightly larger, nearby village to visit a middle school. The chinese students were thrilled to see us and the school even set off firecrackers when we entered. We got to participate in gym and English class. Gym class was fun, but it was extremely hot and we were all soaked in sweat by the time it was over. We had a relay and my team won, so I high fived a couple of boys and they got all excited and ran off to tell their friends. It was funny. Right after gym class, we learned that Obama had won the election, which made most SYA students pretty happy. The Chinese students were completely oblivious to the fact that an election had even occurred that day:) English was rather interesting. The class recited in unison (in a shouting voice) their vocab from the previous night, and then the teacher proceeded to play a tape in English and call randomly on students to answer questions about the material they had heard in the tape. Most were following along, but there were of course those few who were called on, stood up to answer, and had nothing but a deer-in-the-headlights look on their face. I think that undoubtedly happens in every language class on the planet. After we left the school, we headed back to the village and talked to the mayor about how the village was run. It was interesting, and the one thing that stuck with me from his speech was when he said (through Mr. Bissell translating) that the villagers must like the mayor and think that he is a good person, because if they begin to think otherwise, they will find a way to get him out of office. Mr. Bissell asked him how they went about "overthrowing" a mayor they didn't like, but he said he wouldn't tell. He also mentioned that in this particular village, a family may have 2 children if the first one is a girl. After the mayor talked, I went back to my Tulou and took a nap, then went to explore the village more. Later that evening I went with some friends to wash my hair in the river. Probably not the most sanitary thing, but it was fun, and my hair felt exponentially cleaner after washing it. I've got to go do homework, but will hopefully get another post up tomorrow.

The pictures are of my Tulou (pronounced Too-low), A lady and her grandson (she loved having her picture taken and was fascinated with us), A view of part of the village, A building on the campus of the school we visited (with Chinese students peering down from balconies to see us), and My friend Kara and me at the school. Our friend Mike also got in the picture, but we didn't realize that until a while after the picture was taken, haha.

Toodles,

苏娥俐

The Train

2008-11-15T21:49:00.000-08:00

On Friday, I returned from a two week trip to Fujian and Jiangsu provinces. I have decided to describe the trip in segments, as to not make just a single, ridiculously long blog post. So... the first topic will be the train. Our first train ride was a little over 32 hours, from Beijing to Xiamen (The capital of Fujian province). The train itself was relatively clean and comfortable. Sleeper trains like ours are organized into compartments, each compartment housing six beds (2 sets of 3 story bunk buds). It is a wee bit difficult to describe, which is why I have included pictures. Next to the bed compartments is a narrow aisle, and on the other side of the aisle are very tiny fold down seats and tray tables. Lights are turned of at 10:00 p.m. sharp, and on the first train ride, I swear I slept no more than 2 hours. I woke up 1:11 a.m. and couldn't fall back asleep to save my life, so I simply listen to my iPod until about 4:30, when I dazed off for about a half an hour. At about 5, I woke up again and just closed my eyes and tried to rest. Besides the lack of sleep, however, the train ride was quite pleasurable - 54 American teenagers all stuffedon one train car for a day and a half can be quite entertaining. I laughed until I cried with my friends, played cards, listened to my iPod with people, talked, ate train food (not the best cuisine, but passable) and took frequent naps. By the end of the ride, however, the air in the train had grown stuffy and smelly, and I was overjoyed to finally be able to take a shower once we got off. Xiamen was filled with bright lights, and had a modern feel to it at night. But I'll have to save the rest for another blog:)

The First picture is looking down the aisle from the top bunk. The guy is my friend Nick, who also aspires to become an anesthesiologist. Woot! The second picture is of my AWESOME teacher Shen Laoshi, who told me to delete the photo as soon as he saw It. But I told him I couldn't delete it, because I had to show it to my parents in America. Haha. He was horrified. The third picture kind of shows how the train was arranged. The kid semi-looking at the camera's name is Sam. He's a cool kid. The last picture is of a whole bunch of us crammed into one bed compartment. Good times.

I'll write more tomorrow.

苏娥利

A Post For Ming

2008-11-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to the one and only Ming Tran, who made my funny little blog his homepage for reasons known but to god. I have been inordinately busy, so have not posted in awhile, and tomorrow we leave for a two week trip to Fujian province in southern China. Mr. Bissell has planned for us to stay in host families in rural Fujian, visit a tea farm, a coke bottling plant, a silk factory, and many more fabulous places that I cannot remember at this late hour of the night. Anyways, Ming, you can expect a wonderful blog in a couple weeks describing my Fujian trip. Until then... toodles.

Elle

Temple of Heaven

2008-10-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the Temple of Heaven with my friend Sam. We rode the subway, which I am becoming more familiar with by the day. The Temple of Heaven is aligned with the Forbidden City and the Temple of Earth on a north-south axis (according to Sam), it being the southern most of the three. The Temple of Heaven is actually a huge park with various Temples inside where ancient Chinese emperors would go to pray for good harvests and such. The architecture was beautiful, like with most ancient Chinese buildings. In addition to the temples, there were very entertaining sights on the sidewalks of the park. The most notable (and hilarious) was a group of middle aged ladies energetically dancing to the music of Pink (for those of you who don't know, Pink is an American "alternative rock" singer who was especially popular at my middle school in Illinois). It was quite a sight to see them dancing, and while we were sitting gazing at them a fifty-something 外国人 ( wai guo ren, AKA foreigner) came up to us and told us we should go dance with them. We smiled and said, "You first":) Anyway, The day was filled with entertainment and we have decided to explore at least one new place each weekend. The picture I have included was taken a couple of weeks ago at a Chinese history museum we visited with school. To the right of me is Marianne and to the left is Sam. They are awesome!

MEATY MEATY MEAT

2008-10-07T05:44:00.001-07:00

So... I just ate meat. On accident.

Sometimes my dad makes these little loaves of bread stuffed with vegetables inside, so tonight at dinner I took one thinking I knew exactly what it was.

I took a bite, and although it tasted a little different than usual I thought nothing of it. The stuffing looked like it always had... just harmless green vegetables.

A few bites later, I reached the conclusion that my seemingly innocent 包字 (bao zi) definitely had a new, unknown ingredient in it. I looked down to examine it more carefully, and saw two black eyes staring back at me. Yup. Two black eyes. Then two more, and two more and two more. Turns out, there were tons of little mini shrimp things in the bao zi. They were colorless and transparent, which explains why I didn't see them the first time.

I reacted surprisingly well. I didn't choke, gasp, or scream. I just set the bao zi down, and ate other things. My appetite wasn't even lost. I actually almost laughed, because I knew this would happen sooner or later, and I have to admit it's hilarious.

Anyway, I guess that was the most eventful thing that happened today. Each day brings a new surprise... haha. I'm going to go do homework now...

Toodles,

苏娥利

Goldfish People!

2008-10-07T04:04:00.000-07:00

I am happily munching on my last few (entirely stale yet still delicious) goldfish right now, and thought it would be an appropriate time to write a little blog entry. My heart is cringing a little, knowing that I will not eat any more of these little guys for 7 and a half months. Sad Face. My diet has been rather bland lately, since I am vegetarian AND cannot eat any dairy products due to the whole "Chinese milk is poisoned with Melamine" thing going on right now. I have to say, reading about a Chinese milk crisis and actually having to deal with one are totally different things. I miss yogurt and cheese like crazy. Actually, I miss all American food like crazy. Chinese food is fabulous, but I would kill for a peanut butter and jelly right now. I ate at McDonald's for the first time here last week, and my mouth was in heaven. I feel guilty, but those fries were heavenly. Anyway, I'm going to stop talking about food and go eat dinner. If anyone wants to sent non-perishable food items, just ask for my address! haha.

Until the next time I get a random desire to blog,

苏娥利

Boring News

2008-09-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

I pretty much don't have any exciting news, so I'm just going to talk about this random semi-boring incident that caught my attention when it happened. It is an exchange between my Chinese teacher, 申老师, and the kid who sits next to me, James. Here is the very basic English translation.

申老师: "What do you get a small child for their birthday?"

Student A: "Toys"

James: "But big kids like toys too"

申老师: "Toys are for small children"

James: "But I like toys"

申老师: (smiling) "You are a small child"

... When put into English, and then presented to English speaking people, it doesn't sound in the least bit funny, but it got the whole Chinese class to crack up. 申老师 wasn't being mean, he is never mean, he was just straightforward, and it ended up being funny. Maybe we all laughed just because we were desperately in need of some humor (we had been speaking only Chinese for an hour and a half, which gets tiring).

Anyway, we went to the Lama Temple and some ancient Chinese history museum on saturday and they were pretty cool. At the Lama Temple, people burn incense and kneel on little wooden stools to pray. The Architecture was very intricate, and in every room, there were three Buddhas. One for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. We weren't allowed to take photos of the buddhas, but I got some pictures of the architecture outside the Temple's rooms, and of us at the museum. There were real Terra Cotta Soldiers at the museum, taken from the army in Xi'an. The picture of the three people are my friends (L-R) Sam, Marianne, and Ian. There was a huge garden of bushes that was fun to walk around in.

THE GREAT WALL

2008-09-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the Great Wall with my classmates. The part of the Wall that we went to was 2 hours away from Beijing, and for most of the drive we were surrounded my mountains and fields. Even from the bus, there were some great views. The hike itself was one of the most physically exerting things I have EVER done. For the first hour, I was in misery. I'm guessing we climbed over a thousand steps in that one hour. Endorphins must have kicked in though, because for the rest of the hike I felt great. We were all sweating like pigs and looked like death warmed over, but I couldn't have cared less. I cannot even begin to describe how incredible the Wall and the views from it are. Neither words nor pictures do it any justice whatsoever. It is absolutely surreal, and every person reading this should climb it before they die. That having been said, here are a few pictures.

The first picture is the view from the ground. Just to get up to the wall was a 20-30 minute uphill hike. The second picture is of two of my good friends Marianne and Ian. The third picture is of the three of us. The fourth one is of a cool view from the Wall, and the fifth is a picture of what we hiked. However, the first quarter-ish of a mile (entirely uphill) is not shown in the picture.

The Week

2008-09-19T03:49:00.001-07:00

This week was an unpleasantly difficult week. We had monday off for a mid autumn moon festival holiday, and the rest of the week was pretty close to hell. I haven't gotten more than 5 1/2 hours of sleep for the past three nights, and all I do is homework. Constantly. I am getting huge blisters on my hands from writing so many characters per night. No joke. It is miserable. I can't even describe it. However, I'm doing well in Chinese, which makes it a little bit worth it. But honestly, I am ready to collapse. Mr. Bissell, our resident director, talked to us this week and said something that was incredibly accurate about adjusting to China. He said "All of you are stressed out, and some of you are falling apart at the seams (for the record, I don't think I'm completely falling apart at the seams). And there's a reason for this. You guys may not be getting any more homework than you would be back in America, and you may be getting just as much sleep, but in America, getting to school each morning isn't a stressful experience. Communicating with people requires no effort. You don't have to adjust to anything". And he is so right. Living here increases my stress level dramatically, even if I don't notice it sometimes. There are so many little things that I do automatically in America, but here I always have to be aware and attentive. Which isn't bad, it's just tiring. I wouldn't call it "culture shock", but the adjustment takes time. And right now, I'm trying to adjust, keep my grades up, not disappoint my family in any way, and enjoy China. And half the time I have a stomach ache for reason, probably because my digestive system is also trying to adjust. Doing all of this stuff is harder than it sounds. But tomorrow we're going to hike the Great Wall, so hopefully that will put me in a better mood. I have been a little bitter all week, but have tried to overcome it and in the meantime, not let it show. I have good friends here too. I'll get some pictures with them at the Great Wall, and post them asap. Until then... toodles.

Elle

Photos

2008-09-14T01:21:00.000-07:00

I was able to plug my sister's camera into my computer, so here are pics from the Zoo and the torch at the olympics!

THE ZOO

2008-09-13T19:08:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went to... The Zoo! It cost 8 kuai to get in, which is just over one dollar. Then it cost another 5 kuai to see the pandas, which is less than 75 cents. The zoo was very clean and pretty inside. Something interesting I noticed is that the children I saw who were visiting the zoo are the only Chinese children I have ever seen misbehaving. Many conclusions could be drawn from that, but I just thought I'd mention it. Anyway, The first Giant Panda I saw was doing the honorable act of eating bamboo. The next one was sleeping. Haha. I love them! And unfortunately, my idiot self forgot my camera, but I'm going to try to get the pictures off my sister's camera onto my computer. One thing I noticed that I have never noticed before Is that pandas have a little tail. its more like a stub, actually, but it's cute. There was a museum thing in the panda area too, and my sister translated a little for me and said that the pandas have faced major problems since the earthquake. One died, and many others had to be relocated and then ceased to eat. Sad face. On a happy note, I got a new stuffed animal panda. His name in "Qiu Qiu", which is pronounced "Chyoh Chyoh". It means ball :). You can see why in the picture. We also saw the bears, and written in very large letters ALL OVER the bear mountain area, it says "do not feed". So what are the people doing? Feeding them, of course. The bears love it, and they are very adept at catching food in their mouths. After the zoo, we went to my maternal grandmother's house, which we do every night of the weekend. And every night I almost fall asleep watching one horrible Chinese soap opera or another in my grandma's bedroom, which is the family hang out area. Today is the mid-autumn moon festival, and as far as I know, the celebratory part of the holiday is giving each other these little things called mooncakes. They are nothing like western cakes, and honestly, most of them taste like crap. The ones with bean paste do, at least. There is one called "Yellow Oil" and that one tastes like peanut butter, so I like it. I'm going to go do homework now. I'll write more when something interesting happens. The Other picture I'm posting is a picture of My family at dinner 2 nights ago. It's my mom on the far left, my grandma and grandpa, my mom's niece and nephew (they are in their 30's), my sister, and my mom's niece and nephew's daughter (she's 14 and the shiest girl I have ever met).

Cheers,

苏娥利

The Paraylimpics AKA Heaven

2008-09-12T02:41:00.000-07:00

This is a post dedicated to describing my experience at the paralympics, but before I tell all, I would like to say that A. I went to the police station to get my residence permit, just like my 53 other classmates, and B. Thanks for the advice about boys, dad, I'll take that to heart. And don't worry, I nipped the texting conversation in the bud. Today I got casually asked out by another one, haha. They just can't seem to stay away. But don't worry, I'm not in China to get into a worthless high school relationship. Moving on. Last night was an extremely long, interesting, and immensely fun night. First, my mom picked me up from school, and we rode the most crowded bus I have ever been on IN MY LIFE to the olympic village. The olympic village is proof that when China puts it's mind to something, becomes creative and spends a few million on a park instead of starving peasants, something mind blowingly amazing results. Everything is planned to a T, if that's how the expression goes. When we arrived, we met up with my sister, my grandparents, my sister's boyfriend, and a guy who I thought was my cousin at the time. More on that later. We first went to "The houses", which are basically large, very modern buildings where major sponsors put up exhibits and advertise their products. We went to the Bank of China building, the Samsung building, and of course, the Coca Cola building (which we waited in line 30 minutes to get into). Each place, people would stare at me like they had never seen a foreigner before (4 people asked to have their picture taken with me), but really, I'm used to it. The houses were extremely modern and well thought out, and I even got a free coke. We spent about 3 hours doing that. Then, as we were walking along, my sister and her boyfriend started yelling at eachother, and then proceeded to engage in a very public, very loud argument. Basically, I have no idea what went wrong, but my sister was royally pissed. The boyfriend began to storm away, but my mom went up to him and convinced him that my sister was being irrational, and coaxed him into coming back. My sister was long gone at that point. And The BF was looking very depressed. We walked on, down the gorgeous path surrounded my fountains, trees, and tons of Chinese people. I was walking with the "cousin" at this time, since he was the only other neutral party in the matter. At some point, I asked him how he was related to my sister, just to make conversation since I thought I already knew, and what was his response? He is our brother! He said that he was younger than my sister, and that he goes to college in Beijing. He did look an awful lot like her. So here are the options... A. my parents paid the ridiculously large fine for having 2 children B. They have different fathers, so no fine was due or C. His English is very bad and he had no idea what he was actually saying. I'm almost sure it's A or B. Anyway, he was very friendly and walked with me since everyone else was uber pissed at one thing or another. Moving On. The bird's nest was AWESOME!!! it looks just as cool from the ground as it does from the sky. And it is positively enormous inside. We saw the men's 400 meter. At this point my sister was talking to me, which I took to mean that her mood was finally improving. Once outside again, my mom pushed my sister towards her boyfriend, and they "made up". Happy face. Oh and by the way, the water cube lights up at night an changes color. It is too cool for words. at 10:00 we walked to to subway and went home. I was exhausted. But I stayed up until 1:30 writing an essay an memorizing characters. My mom stayed up until about 12:30, then came in, patted me on the head, said "Ni you tai duo zuo ye", aka "you have too much homework", and then went to bed. And that's that.

Oh and a special thanks to Dai Laoshi and Mr. Swartwood, for the two lovely comments on my beloved blog. Dai, It's good to know you have faith in my ability to follow Chinese laws, and Mr. Swartwood, thanks to your enlightening advice, i've now got the boy situation under control, haha. Sorry to everyone for such a long blog entry.

The pictures are of me in front of the CCTV tower, me in the bird's nest, The bird's nest from a cool view, My mom, sister and me, and last but not least, me in a room in the coke house.

My Host Family

2008-09-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a little bit of info on the Fam:

My dad looks to be late forties or early fifties, but with Chinese people, you really can't tell. They "wear" their age very nicely. He owns his own business, and it has apparently paid off. I'm not sure exactly what the business is, but my sister says it is something to do with owning apartments, like a land lord sort of. He always makes dinner and can speak a little English because he has been studying it for 2 years. Other than that, I don't know much. He is quiet but seems friendly.

My mom is the most caring. I get the feeling she like being the "mom" figure in someone's life, and since my sister is 22, she has to find someone else to look after. That person is me. She seems very content with hauling me around to the police station, school, and other places I have had to go the past few days. She speaks fast, but most of the time I can pick up the gist of what she is saying. She loves to laugh. She likes to watch Chinese soap operas.

My sister has warmed up to me and I like her a lot. When some weird boy from school was texting me last night, I showed her the conversation, and she and I had a good laugh over it. She works for a company called Atos Origin which is a huge sponsor for the Olympic and Paralympic games, which I will be going to see tomorrow. She has a quiet boyfriend who went to our grandmother's house with us, and he seems friendly. She thinks he has bad acne and wondered if I knew of anything to help it. Bring some Proactiv when you come, mom!

That's pretty much all I can say about them. Yesterday my mom spit out the living room windows onto the street. I don't know why I felt compelled to include that, but at the time it was interesting.

I'll write more later,

苏娥利

MY HOUSE

2008-09-08T01:42:00.000-07:00

These are pics of my house. There are two pics of my room, from different views. The photo of the buildings is the view from my balcony. The living room has 3 couches and a big screen TV. My sister's room is very girly and has a pink wall

THE FOOD

2008-09-08T01:21:00.000-07:00

First of all, I miss you too Jen!!!

And In response to Blake, to food is delicious. I would say the biggest difference between Chinese Chinese food and American Chinese food is the variation in flavors. In America, everything has that classic Chinese taste. You know, like drenched in soy/teriyaki sauce. Here there is so much variety. For example, last night for dinner my host father made: a dish with scrambled egg, tomato, and a lightly sweet sauce; a dish with sliced cabbage, cucumber, walnuts, and a clear spicy sauce; a sweet dessert like soup with god-only-knows-what in it, and some thin almost pita like bread. Dinner was yum.

Grandma, woot is a 21st century version of yay :)

I'll put pics up soon,

苏娥利

MY FIRST DAY IN CHINA

2008-09-06T07:19:00.001-07:00

I have so much I could talk about, but I'll keep this brief. The Flight was long and extremely boring. We got off the plane, and immediately a airport employee's phone rang. The ringtone?Sexy Back (Note to my mom: that's a song by Justin Timberlake). Then we went through Chinese customs and went down to get our luggage. We loaded it on the bus and went to BNU #2, which we call "er fu zhong". We had a short orientation, and while Mr. Bissell was talking, I noticed that my new black jacket was gone. I can live without the jacket, but in the pocket of that jacket was my passport and luggage locks. I almost had cardiac arrest. The teachers called the airport and asked if they had seen it, to no avail. So I called my trusty father (it was 3:44 AM in SF, where he was), and told him to tell my mom to fax a copy of the photo of my passport to China. Mr. Bissell said not to worry, and to just go home and enjoy the night. Then I went out to dinner with my family. I have a 22 year old sister who speaks very good English. The whole dinner, my family either yelling at the waiter, or talking to each other, in Chinese of course. I just sat there and enjoyed the food. We came home and I met the cat and got settled into my room. Their apartment has 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. It is very nice by Chinese (and American) Standards. I have a balcony off my room, and we can see the fireworks in celebration of the paralympic games from the living room window. We are going to see the games next thursday. Woot! Anyway, This morning a girl came up to me and told her she found my jacket in her backpack. Why was it there? No idea. But I am happy it turned up. I'll write more later, but I have to go to bed before I collapse.

苏娥利

2008-07-28T22:12:00.003-07:00

WOOT! I have a blog.