Boring News

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

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

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

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

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

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. 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. 

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

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

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

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

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