Hustle and Bustle

I have come to the realization that the longer I'm here, the less differences I'll notice. The things that seemed very peculiar in the beginning are now part of every day life. So I'm going to blurt out a few things before I forget:

• Smoking everywhere (people smoke in and out of buildings, vehicles, etc.) -- I personally don't enjoy that part, but it's definitely something different.
• Street sweepers (there are always street sweepers sweeping the roads and sidewalks) -- It's really great to feel that sense of cleanliness.
• Kids with slits in their pants (kids have a gap in their pants by the rear end, so that they can just squat and take care of business wherever) -- not too fond of this and it is the Yang to the street sweeper's Yin.
• Bikes/Tricycles/Scooters/Motorcycles - It's a big thing here and they will be frequently riding through the sidewalks honking or ringing their bell at you.
• Dust - there's a whole lot of dust. After the first day of kicking the soccer ball around, it looked like it was months old and had been used for a while. 
• No Tipping - you don't need to tip. Not in restaurants, not in taxis, etc. That means a whole lot of money saved! On the other hand, quality could be less since they aren't working for anything extra (but it's not usually the case).
• Style/Fashion - Gao (my roommate) he told me about some of Chinese fashion -- one major thing that most people know about are the eye glasses frames. They wear the frames without any lenses which struck me as well as many other foreign students as odd, but it's a style. Maybe you'll wear it because it goes with your outfit or something.
• Chinese view of Americans - Gao said that online he saw that Americans are known for their: Zippo lighters, sunglasses, and Harley Davidsons. They also expect Americans to be blonde haired pale people (when I teach the preschoolers, they never believe that I'm American).
• Riding in cars - it's a scary thing (compared to America, people drive like crazy people) but everything more or less flows well without a hitch. Also, in the vans and taxis, seat belts usually aren't accessible... (may be true for America too, but there's been many times where I reach for the seat belt and nothing is there).
• Wearing the same clothes - Chinese people wear the same clothes maybe 3-5 days in a row. It's convenient, you don't have to wash your clothes as often, and you are easily distinguished since people will know what you wear. I spoke with Gao about this and I think it is derived from the fact that they don't usually have dryers here (everyone hangs their clothes out to dry). Also they never wash socks and underwear with the rest of their clothes (maybe due to diffusion of germs?)
• Books in China are also really cheap. Gao showed me a couple of his books that he had to get to study with for his exam - they were maybe 60-70 kuai total between the two books which is way different than that in America.
• I'm not sure if I mentioned this already, but the education system in general here is different. Students study really hard to get into the schools that they want to get in. They are graded on a Midterm and a Final and that is it (no homeworks, no classwork, etc.). I just though if they are bad test takers (like me) then they may not be able to do what they want to do. Gao was telling me that students work really hard when they are children to get into a good university, and when they finally make it to the university, they kind of live their childhood.

Here are some links to the videos that I referred to from my last post:

• Shaolin Temple performance:
  Patrick and I looking awesome (...not really)
• Monkeys at the temple:
  MONKEYS! 

Now onward to the past couple weeks (I would like to apologize in advanced for not having any photos up... for some odd reason, it's not letting me):

March 14 (Monday) - We had our first "Chinese Table" aka we go out to lunch treated by Alliance with our teachers and we only speak Chinese. The food was great, and I think I learned a lot just from the lunch. Also, the teachers are all pretty fun outside the classroom as well, so all in all it was a great success!
After lunch, we went to teach the preschool class. The kids were good and I pretty much just read books to them ("There are all kinds of people," "There are all kinds of fears," and "WALL*E"). Afterwards we grabbed dinner with a few of the preschool teachers. The company was great and so was the food!
Sean had previously bought some balloons so that he could do a lesson with them for his preschool classes, but he ended up using maybe 1 of the 100. So later this night a few people blew them all up and we had a blast in the hallway.

March 15 (Tuesday) - For lunch, I grabbed some baozi because they are delicious, filling, and cheap! I think one baozi costs maybe 10 cents!
For history class, we went to the Shaanxi History Museum here in Xi'an between our campus and the South Gate (maybe 10-15 mins by bus away). It was pretty cool, we went to the section that focused on the Neolithic and Bronze ages.

March 16 (Wedenesday) - Today we had our first Calligraphy class which was pretty interesting. We learned a lot of philosophy stuff and technique review before actually getting started, and we only learned two strokes, the horizontal line and vertical line. Though the class may be a little slow, I'm excited for when we hopefully will be able to write some awesome looking characters! Spent the rest of the night preparing for the Silk road course the next day (reading the articles -- which was a pretty tough read) and preparing my Capstone research project abstract, research methods, and bibliography.

March 17 (Thursday) - For the Silk Road class we visited the same museum again, except this time we looked into a different exhibit. We checked out stuff from the Tang Dynasty today and saw some pretty neat statues, tools, etc.
Afterwards, we all went to an Indian restaurant for dinner - supposedly the best in Xi'an (the prices reflected it) but it didn't disappoint... too much. They got a few of our orders wrong, but the food was great nonetheless.
I spent the rest of the night studying with a few others for our big exam tomorrow!

March 18 (Friday) - We took the exam in the morning... I thought it was difficult because some of the stuff on there wasn't exactly part of the lessons. How I did on it, I have no idea, but I'm keeping my expectations low just in case.
Afterwards, we jammed out a bit in Malcolms, I tried rocking my ocarina ostrich egg flute thing, but I could only really play maybe 2 notes well right now.
We then celebrated Mery's birthday by going to Fantasy which is a club here in Xi'an with a bunch of the Australian and Canidian hotel-mates.

March 19 (Saturday) - Not much to report -- it was just a lazy day. Skyped with the family for the first time in a long while. Did a lot of sleeping, etc. Noticed the proxy that I've been using doesn't work anymore, so that's why it may take me a while to put up this blog post.

March 20 (Sunday) - Sean and I went to a western cafe to try it out (Sculpting in Time). We ended up running into Haley, a Canadian who was going there too, so we went collectively. It was raining so getting there wasn't that fun, but once we got there, it was great! I liked the smell of it (coconut flavored scent?), the warmth, they had a couple of other cool things like a book shelf with a lot of reading material, and the food was delicious! (omlette with mushroom, bacon, onions, and maybe provolone cheese? complete with croissante, and coffee). The price was a little high like all western restaurants, but it was a good change (the meal was I think 28 kuai = 4 to 5 USD).
Afterwards, Haley showed us a good place to find dictionaries and in return we offered to help her find fireworks.
Thus our quest began at the old man's hole in the wall convenient store which I saw fireworks at around the lantern festival, but he didn't have any more. We then went out the other side of the university to a couple of stores asking various owners/managers if they knew where we could find fireworks. They all pointed in various directions, and we just followed their gestures. We began asking random people on the street, and finally, we found out that fireworks aren't allowed to be sold in the area (in fact firing off the fireworks during the Lantern Festival is actually illegal - but everyone still does it). We then made our way back to the hotel to rest after a long and moderately disappointing defeat.
This didn't keep us from going out again. We then went out to get some music instruments. It was Mi Ting (Crystal's roommate), Margaux, Sean, Joe, and myself. We were lucky that Zhang Li Ping (Malcolm's roommate) had some connections and memberships so he pointed out some good places for us to go to.
Joe got some pretty sweet bongos at the first place. We then went to the store where Sean and I finally got our ukuleles that we had been waiting to get for a while. We then headed back and grabbed some dinner at a noodle place which was really delicious. They were spinnache noodles? (they were green), with some potatoes, and some beef or lamb. The sauce was good with a little bit of spice, and it was topped with a fried egg.
We finally returned to the hotel for the day and jammed out on our ukes while studying. (when I say jammed out on our ukes, I mean play horribly on our ukes -- we didn't actually know any chords or anything or how to tune it) Eventually, I looked online and tuned them up so we can learn Somewhere Over the Rainbow before the night ended.

March 21 (Monday) - Class went well today. Afterwards we had our "Chinese Table" (the Alliance students and the teachers go out to lunch and only speak Chinese) which went well. We went to a Korean restaurant and the food was tasty! The Chinese Tables always end up doing a good job at making me feel a little more confident about my Chinese speaking.
Afterwards, we went to teach the preschoolers. I went to the new school this time and taught. It went well, since I had slides prepared already for it and Malcolm and I switched off classes halfway through.
After dinner, (at the normal restaurant [I could never remember the name]) we jammed out in Malcolm's room with our ensemble of new instruments. I'm just thinking that we may have a future as a band... (maybe not now, but maybe one day we all could jam out and sound amazing).

March 22 (Tuesday) - Today, we pretty much had class the whole day (or 6 hours of the day). But afterwards, we were able to finally relax and take a breather. By this point, I think I may already be starting to annoy people with the constant uke playing -- but it's very addicting.

March 23 (Wednesday) - Had our weekly one on one sessions with our teachers as well as our calligraphy class (shu fa ke) which went by really quickly once we started painting (we practiced painting maybe 4 different characters and after running through two pages, it was time to leave). Afterwards, I went to the street stand that sells wanton soup and baozi with Patrick and we soaked in the scene while enjoying our meal.

March 24 (Thursday) - Today after classes (another 6 hours), we went to the Starfish Foster Home (click here to check our her site) which is north of the University. It's a little ways out, but it was really cool. The lady that runs it, Amanda, is a foreigner -- white from South Africa that studied in America and then went to China where she accidentally started her orphanage to watch after the children ranging from maybe 1 month to 3 years old. It's amazing what she has done, where she's started from, and her success. She now has 55 children that she's looking after at the orphanage. We were able to unpack some boxes for her with a whole lot of donated baby clothes from a local French company.

March 25 (Friday) - After class today, we had another Tai Ji class. For dinner we went to hot pot (33 kuai for all you can eat and drink). It was pretty fun, and the food was delicious.

March 26 (Saturday) We had a group trip with the roommates and a few others to Hu Xian which is a Village which is South West of Xi'an. There we explored the village that was slowly becoming more industrialized. Additionally, we went to a local elementary school which was interesting to compare to America's elementary schools. We then went back and learned how to do some paper cutting and "peasant painting" from a local and very famous artisan. I'll see if I could eventually put up a video of her cutting out some butterflies or painting a panda.
When we got back, Xie Miao, Joe, Wang (Patrick's roommate) and I went to play some ping pong. Wang turned out to be extremely skilled since his father is a gym teacher and trained him in ping pong and badminton.
Later that night we went to see Zhang Li Ping perform at a bar in Xi'an. Unfortunately, getting there was difficult. The cab driver took some of us for a ride to up the service fee. But when we finally got there, we were not disappointed because Zhang and his friends stole the show. People were moshing and crowd surfing. I'll eventually try to put up a video of one of his songs as well.

March 27 (Lazy Sunday) - Nothing to report, it was a catch up day essentially.

March 28 (Monday) - Today was like a normal monday. Class, then Chinese Table (at a spicy noodle place this time) and teaching the preschoolers. I taught them "nature" vocabulary along with anatomy and animals once again. We then in the teacher's lounge made some tie dye like paper snowflake things for the classrooms I guess. We also got our paychecks so our cost of living improved a little bit more.


March 29 (Tuesday) - Today, we had a test in the history class, but I think I did pretty well. We got out early and then Sean, Margaux, and I spontaneously hopped on the first bus that we saw (...well the third bus because it wasn't as crowded) and decided to wait ten stops before getting off.
We then explored this area of Xi'an and passed the Small Wild Goose Pagoda as it was closing up. We also walked through one of those busy streets full of people and vendors which was really neat. And then we stopped to watch two older gentlemen have at it in a game of Chinese chess. It was the most intense game I've ever seen.
We then went back to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, got some Subway and Dairy Queen before heading back for our weekly meeting with Darren.

March 30 (Wednesday) - Today, we (Patrick, Margaux, Crystal, Darren, and myself) woke up early to go to the track and field day for our department. The others slept in a bit and came later. When I first heard about this event, I was pretty excited because I saw a race earlier with the Chinese students and they ran in jeans and unconventional excercise apparrel. I was confident that I could at the very least keep up with them. Later on I found out that a lot of foriegners were competing too since that was pretty much our department. This included the Australians studying sports science, so at that point, my enthusiasm dropped a little.
I was signed up for the 800 meter race and Crystal was signed up for the 400 and hopped into the 100 as well. All of us were signed up for the fun events after the races (potato sack race, "harmony motor train", three legged race, etc.). In the 800, I ended up coming in 2nd place with a time of 2:13.5 which I'm not too disappointed at (I thought I'd be maybe closer to 2:20). I ended up getting a tea leaf jar as a prize for coming in 2nd place.
We ended up coming in second for the potato sack race and last for the harmony motor train. The three legged race was hilarious to watch (especially Sean and Zhang Laoshi).
Afterwards, we grabbed food, headed back and then headed on out to a couple of hours of KTV (kareoke). It was Gao, Xie Miao, Dodo, Patrick, Margaux, and I and much fun was had.
For dinner a large group of us (mostly Australians) went out to the same all you can eat hot pot to welcome Mery's friend who is staying in Xi'an for a week.



March 31 (Thursday) - For our Silk Road class we went to the Little Wild Goose Pagoda ironically (since Sean, Margaux, and I had spontaneously passed by it on Tuesday). We went into the museum to check out artifacts from the Tang Dynasty. Afterwards, we went to the Village Cafe and got some western food. It was the first time I had a root beer float in a long, long while (mmmmmmm).


Final thought: All in all, things are getting really hectic and busy, but everything is still really great here and though I'm busy, I'm enjoying every second of it!

Settling in: Listening, Speaking, Learning and Teaching

Sorry for not posting earlier, I have been extremely busy with a ton of different things and updating the blog always ends up eating into much needed sleeping time!

Thoughts so far:
Communicating is becoming easier for me and I am beginning to lose the fear of speaking to people. I'm still way far out from being able to speak fluently, but I can now order things and buy things which is very helpful/useful. It can be discouraging at times though when I try speaking to someone and they give me a mocking smile as they tap their buddy's shoulder and have me repeat my order/question in it's very altered state.
Gao and the rest of the roommates are teaching me a whole lot of Chinese which I appreciate very much.
Things are still going well. Work is overwhelming as well as a few other things... (you'll find out later in this post).
I find it really interesting that cars are parked up on the sidewalks (I mean completely off the road on the sidewalks) and people are running through the very busy streets frogger-ing to the other side. It's really neat though how rare it is to see accidents. I've only seen one so far, but it was just a fender bender if that and not even on the main road.
I just realized today when being shown some photos of Xi'an how different culture is here that I'm kind of not realizing anymore. But from the carts being wheeled around, to the children with splits in their pants for easy relief, to the people all carrying hot water containers (because they can't heat up hot water in their dorms), to the architecture of the buildings and the old fashioned walls, to the street sweepers who get up early in the morning to clean the streets, and everyone operating on a very standard time basis (the common people probably 8am-10pm but no earlier or later [which is a pain if you want breakfast early in the morning or a snack late at night]) to the non-awkwardness of staring at people, to the hocking of lugies at free will, to the smell of the stinky tofu every time you get out to the main street. And though, I listed a lot of things, I barely breached the surface of the differences here. There's just so many things that are different than American culture that I somewhat dread going back and not being able to see some of these that will forever stay in China.


Feb 26 (later on) - We got back and chilled until 9 where we set up some Mahjong (a Chinese tiled game with similar aspects to rummy). It was a really fun time, but it was interesting because we played in a different style that I'm not used to. The other Chinese roommates were also saying how they played differently where they come from, so we just stuck with Darren's rules.


Feb 27 (Sunday) - Woke up late and went out for a small run through Xi'an. I didn't really run that far (after all I'm really out of shape and haven't run in a while), but the scenery was magnificent. I went out of the back gate of my university and ran in the park area between the highway. They have basketball courts, playground equipment (that's actually exercise equipment), and other cool statues and stone structures that are really cool to see. I eventually turned around and headed back to get another one of those Chinese breakfast burrito like things and an apple (which was the best apple I think I have ever had, it was very crisp and not extremely dense, while still juicy and just seemed to make my day a whole lot better.
Ate dinner in the cafeteria with Patrick and Gao. It was pretty good (especially now that all the food sections are opened, there are more people [so food moves faster], and Gao knows which foods are better than others). Gao had to leave early for a meeting so Patrick and I headed back once we finished. On our way back we saw a whole lot of water containers (containers that probably hold a gallon of hot water I'm guessing). There were probably hundreds just sitting around this building. We were both very curious to figure out what it was all about, but our limited knowledge of Chinese rendered us unable to understand what one guy was saying after we inquired about it. We figured that since hot/sterile water isn't found inside of the dorms, that the students had to go down to the building to get the water. And for some reason they leave their containers there (maybe until they are heading back to their dorm?). I think this was later confirmed by Gao, but I'm still not completely sure...
Studied the rest of the night with lots of help from Gao.


Feb 28 (Monday) - Had a great class! I was on fire, and was answering questions and learning a whole lot. It was the best class yet!
It was raining a lot today and of course I don't have an umbrella, (I don't even keep one back at my home school) but Gao, Xie Miao (probably really butchered the spelling of her name [Margaux's roommate]), and Mi Ting (Crystal's roommate) all picked us up with umbrellas. We once again ate at the cafeteria which was less satisfying this time since it was just over crowded and getting good food was difficult because you'd have to fight through a massive group of people, so we ended up getting some mediocre food.
We then went to our weekly Alliance meeting (just the US students) where we talked about meaningful stuff etc etc and saw a very interesting youtube video on LARPing (Live Avatar Role Playing) which was hilarious.
After the meeting, Malcolm, Sean, Patrick, and I headed towards the preschool thing that we signed up for. They wanted foreigners to teach the classes because they wanted the children to hopefully pick up some English through osmosis. I was pretty excited to play with the young (3-6 year old) children there.
It turns out that my expectations were a lot different than what actually happened. I was expecting maybe handling 10-12 kids, but I ended up standing dumbfounded in front of 30ish 5-year-old kids. We were all split up into classes like this. I was with Malcolm at the new school (25-30 mins away from the University or old school). Sean and Patrick stayed at the old school. Malcolm had 40ish 6-year-olds. I started off by trying to sing some Old McDonald, because the kids supposedly loved animals and knew them as well (in English), but the only thing that they seemed to know for sure in the song was the E-I-E-I-O part. I quickly stopped and tried doing some Simon Says. But explaining the rules was difficult (especially when they speak Chinese and only know a few English words). So whenever I said something whether I said Simon Says or not, most of the kids did it. It was a bit frustrating. So I decided to then sing some songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and London Bridge Is Falling Down. One of the teachers was nice enough to even accompany me on the piano. Unfortunately, half way through both songs, I realized that I forgot the lyrics to both of them! Yup, I was beginning to run out of ideas. Next, I reverted to a game called Red Light, Green Light, which I'm sure you all know. The rules are pretty simple, and I think I really got through to the kids when I explained it to them. So I started them off by just having them march in place and stop. They seemed to do really well, so we tried lining them up behind me as we marched around the room continuing to play Red Light, Green Light. But I was foiled again, because the first time I said "Red Light!" all of the kids scrambled in a mad rush back to their seats. This went on for a little bit until the teacher helped me out, told them they were wrong, and demonstrated with me. After this, they finally got the hang of it, and we stuck to the Red Light, Green Light for a long while (especially because I had exhausted pretty much all of my ideas, and this was the first success that I was able to pull off there). After a good bit, the teacher said that "it's okay" and they let me take a break. By the way, there are 2-3 teachers per class to tag team these kids because the kids are easily distracted and the job is very exhausting. During my break, I checked out Malcolm's room and he seemed to be doing well drawing out animals as the kids tried guessing them. In my classroom, one of the other teachers played the piano as the kids sang along. After my 5 minute break, they had me read a book to them. This was probably the best part of the class. I didn't have to over think too much on keeping their attention because the book was displayed through a projector with the pictures. I also liked acting out the book to the best of my abilities so that the kids would follow along. I would read each page twice and have them repeat me after every word. After reading 1.5 books, Robbie (the guy in charge of us at the new school) told me that time was up and I was good to go. After speaking with the rest of the guys, we all agreed that it was brutal and that we'll have to be more prepared for next time.
Got some of those flat noodles again (The Xi'an special called Bian Bian Mien I think) with the rest of the Alliance students. Very delicious.
I passed out afterwards, woke up later and played some Assassin/Mafia. I was finally picked to be the killer and I ended up killing everyone. I then 'studied' -- well sort of, late into the night.


March 1 (Tuesday) - The class today wasn't as good as Monday -- I was much less prepared. The history class was still on the Neolithic age, but we finally finished it up.
Afterwards we (Margaux, Malcolm, and I) grabbed some food at the restaurant next to the hotel which was actually a very fancy place. Malcolm and Margaux got KungPao Chicken. I pointed to something on the menu and it turned out to be beef, nappa (a Chinese cabbage), and mushrooms -- which sounds great. However, it turned out to be pretty gross because all of it was bathed in chili oil. When I say bathed, I mean like they gave me a bowl of chili oil with the various food submerged in it somewhere. I think it would have been a whole lot better if they took all of the things of substance from the bowl, drained out the oil, and fried it up or something, but it was just submerged in oil making it not so appealing. Malcolm and Margaux were asking me how much money I would want to drink the chili oil. I said 1000 kuai but that wasn't going to happen. We then went back, met Mery (Mi Ting's friend from Australia) and chatted for a bit before watching Detective Dee in Gao's and My room on my new monitor. It was an interesting movie about a Chinese detective solving a mystery kung fu style with a lot of weird supernatural stuff going on in the background.


March 2 (Wednesday) - had a one on one session going over the mistakes on each of our tests (at least for my class). I ended up being held up an extra 25 minutes (since I had a lot of mistakes probably). I didn't realize the passed time though and missed my meeting with Darren and Andrew (the Silk Road/History course teacher) to talk about my Capstone Project which is a research project that each Alliance student has to do during their time in China. I luckily ran into Andrew on my way back and we talked about potential projects. I didn't have many ideas about what I wanted to do, but Malcolm suggested doing a project on Martial Arts in China and on the Silk Road. After running the idea by Andrew, I decided to do it since it sounds really interesting and the material seems to be ascertainable.
A small group of us then grabbed food on Shir Da Lu (the road that our University is on). We then went to Vangard (the local supermarket/mart) on Changan Nan Lu (the road that Shir Da Lu intersects with). I got a soccer ball and ping pong paddle, while everyone else got peanut butter.
We then headed back and studied a bit. Xie Miao, made some tea in a traditional style (Gong fu cha) with oolong leaves. It was very good! I'm no tea expert, or enthusiast for that matter, but it was really great and it was really neat to observe this type of tea making/serving style.
After studying a bit more, Margaux and I kicked around the soccer ball for a bit at the field in the University before grabbing some baozi, fruit, and onion bread for dinner on the way back to the hotel. All of it was delicious, filling, and inexpensive.


March 3 (Thursday) - Had class pretty much all day, got some baozi from the place adjacent to the hotel. 3 baozi were 1.9 kuai and they didn't disappoint! After class I studied a bit, and kicked the soccer ball around in the hallway as a break before studying some more (the soccer ball was a great investment!). We also had a small jam sesh in Malcolm and Zhang's room. They both play the guitar, and Joe plays the drums along with many singers.
Here's a small clip, it's a bit blurry, but here's a taste of how it was like:
March 3, 2011 First Alliance Jamming in Xi'an Spring 2011


March 4 (Friday) - A couple hours after class we all headed to the Terracotta Warriors. It was about 45 minutes to get there. We watched a small 360degree movie on the history of the Terracotta Warriors before heading to the actual site. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty cool at first, but after a few minutes of checking them out, there didn't really seem to be all too much else to see. I was a little bit disappointed because I was expecting to see a whole whole lot of soldiers, but there weren't nearly as many as I thought there would be. I would go a second time, but probably not a third time. There was a saying that Wang (Patrick's roommate) told Patrick that pretty much said: "If you come to Xi'an and don't see the Terracotta Warriors you'll regret it, but if you do go and see them, then you'll regret it even more."

Despite, the Terracotta Warriors being a slight buzz kill, they are still very interesting in a historical light and I'm glad that I got to see them for sure!

When we got back, we grabbed some food and headed back. A few of us (Malcolm, Zhang [Malcolm's roommate], Zhang's friend, Joe, Margaux, and myself) headed out to billiards and shot some pool for a while. On our way we grabbed some food. Joe and I got these sandwich deep/stir fried snack which was, like everything else, pretty delicious! We then played some Assassin before going to sleep (well a few went out, but the rest of us were pretty pooped).


March 5 (Saturday) - Went on the "Hash Run" with the Hash House Harriers (you could look them up online ... but essentially, they're all about running followed by drinking). The run was pretty cool, but also a little frustrating. Part of the whole hash run is hitting a fork (or two arrows pointing in two separate directions) and finding the right path. So if you found another arrow, then you would know that you took the correct route and shout "On On!" so everyone will know which way is right. What made it more difficult though was that the arrows were sometimes a bit faint (maybe by some street sweepers with OCD or store owners throwing water out on the sidewalk) or covered up by cars or massive amounts of people just walking on the streets. The "leader" (AKA the guy who drew the arrows) of today's run was actually the teacher for the Silk Road and History course, Andrew. It was pretty neat getting to see him outside of the classroom environment. He said that the course was maybe 3.5 miles, so not all too bad. I ended up finishing pretty early at the top of the pack and we waited at the end point until everyone else got there. We then did some Hash House Harrier traditions met everyone and ate a whole lot of delicious food.
We eventually made it to a German bar (I think Belgium something?) with the hashers. Later that night we got back and stayed up pretty late just chilling, chatting, and watching Joe's very own documentary "Wisdom Teeth." The last of us eventually fell asleep around 6am.


March 6 (Sunday) - Today I met up with Jocelyn (friend from UMBC who goes to school in Xi'an as well) and showed her around the campus after grabbing some of the Bian Bian Mien (so good!) We studied a bit  afterwards and then grabbed some Ro Jia Mo (Also really good!) She then had to head back to her school which is North West I think? But pretty much spent the rest of the night studying for Monday.


March 7 (Monday) - Today, class went great! Zhang Laoshi had to go over the lesson again since we finished so quickly! After that, we grabbed a quick bite from the underground before heading out to our weekly meeting for the Alliance peeps. Unfortunately, Malcolm, Sean, Patrick, and I were all dreading going to teach the little kiddies (after all, last time was a horror story). This time though, it wasn't too bad at all. Only Malcolm went to the new school this time, while Sean, Patrick, and I stayed at the old school. We started off by going outside joined by all the kids. As music began to play, the children followed the teachers up front as they led in a coordinated dance. At 3:00 on the dot the kids headed back inside and we were sent in to our individual classes to do our thing. This time, I was ready. I had prepared a flash drive with 10 animals on it. We plugged it in and I asked them if they knew each of the animals and what sound they make. It was soon followed by some Old McDonald (I sang it differently then them... so they were a little lost -- but still over all, better than last time). I then was taught some cool games by the teachers to teach to the children which was really helpful. I taught a second class the same lesson, and then got to take a break in the teacher's room with a few of the teachers which was really fun. We went over some of the things that we could do, but mostly just ate some snacks and chatted it up. After leaving, we played some Mafia with a bunch of Zhang's (Malcolm's roommate -- hope I spelled his name right) friends before grabbing some food.
Sean, Malcolm, and I went to the usual restaurant and I finally got the tofu that I had been dreaming about for days. We then spent the rest of the night studying it up.


March 8 (Tuesday) - Lots of class today. When we got out of class, one by one, each of us ended up in Malcolm's room as we followed the sound of his guitar. Some of us sang, and when Joe got back we got some percussion in there. Darren came in too as well as Mery and her fellow Australian friend. I thought it was so great how the power of music could bring everyone together (yeah, that sounded really cheesy, but it was true). Later on, we watched a Hong Kong Comedy, I forget the name, but Gao set it up on his computer. I thought it was pretty funny, not as hilarious as Gao described (probably just because of the language barrier) but it was still really comical. It just goes to show that comedy can transcend language barriers.


March 9 (Wednesday) - Today I slept in, went to my one on one session, it went really well. Then I grabbed lunch with Xie Miao, Margaux, Gao, and a couple of his friends. We ended up going to the "Calligraphy Street" I believe? The street was just inside the South gate of the city wall. It was really awesome because there were a whole lot of street vendors selling things that I'd actually want to buy (calligraphy brushes, jades, seals [like stamps], these cool flute things that may very well be ocarinas [which I did end up purchasing for 7 kuai] amongst many other things). We also stopped into a building/house/museum/art gallery where they had a bunch of Chinese paintings on sale. I thought that it was cool because it was a classic textbook scene. American student goes with his roommate and checks out the Chinese paintings (zhong gua hua) and oil paintings (you hua) and talk about them. Just last week, I was thinking that we'd never use the vocabs, but they proved me wrong indeed.

We then went to a street between the wall and our school to find some bikes. It was difficult to find some  second hand bikes, but a couple of us were able to get some (unfortunately not myself).
As they rode back on bikes, the remaining of us walked back and saw some interesting things, such as the silver/golden dragon fish, or the extremely fluffy dog that was way cute.
Eventually we got back in time to go to hot pot, and it was the best hot pot yet! We had lamb (yang ro), beef (neo ro), spinach (buo cai), mushroom (mo gu), quail egg, shrimp balls, noodles, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and fruit (not bathed in the hot pot).

We headed back and played mafia. I was the killer again, and once again succeeded in killing everyone (the feeling is very similar to Death Note which his a bad kind of thrill until it's all over).


March 10 (Thursday) - Woke up at 6:15 to get ready to head out by 7:00 to the bullet train to Luoyang for our extended weekend trip. We caught the train alright and it was pretty cool because I think the train could reach 350 kilometers per hour? When we got there, we were greeted by Joe our Tour Guide who is native to Luoyang. The hotel was very spacious and had a whole lot of TV channels which was different than what we were used to in Xi'an (of course it didn't have the same kind of view like our place and Luoyang's city isn't as cool or traditional as Xi'an), but it was a nice temporary change.

We quickly headed out towards the Longmen Grottoes which was really amazing. There were carvings within the wall of buddahs. A lot of buddahs. From the collossal sized buddahs (a buddah taking on the image of Emperess Wu) to the smaller buddahs sitting along the walls maybe a couple inches tall.

After the grottoes, we went to Dinner at a muslim restaurant that tried ripping us off a little bit in the end. Darren impressed us all by standing up against the manger battling it out in Chinese.



March 11 (Friday) - Got up early to hit up the Shaolin Temple. When we started getting close, we could see a ton of schools congested with  students practicing kung fu. I think they said that there were 50,000 students just in the area studying kung fu.
When we got there, we got to sit in on a performance by a few of the most skilled martial artists in the area. It was really cool!
Anyways, half way through, they had a little competition where they pull up 3 people from the audience to try to imitate 3 different styled kung fu teachers. The winner wins a DVD of the shaolin performances or history or something. Patrick and I both volunteered and were selected to go up with a final happy middle aged looking guy. We had no idea what the spokesperson was saying, but we followed as best we could. The other guy was first and was pretty comical with his moves. I don't remember what style he was doing, but I'm thinking it was tiger. Patrick's teacher was doing the mantis style and he ended up doing really well. My teacher's style was the monkey style which didn't have any cool floor sweeps, high kicks, or cartwheels which I think I could have done. I however prevailed with a kip up and ended up winning the DVD! Sean caught some of the footage for me which I will put up and attach in a later post (It takes me forever to upload videos with my super slow proxy).
Afterwards, I purchased a three-section-staff and Patrick finally got his feiyues. When we got out, we saw a couple of small monkeys that were really cute! I'll put some footage of that post up later as well.

We then looked around and saw some of the stupas (Buddist buildings that pagodas are based off of).
After grabbing some McDonald's, we went to a martial arts school. It was really neat because we got to see first hand what it's like for the students in the school as well as the harsh reality of students sent there at an early age to study. Most end up being sucked up into the world of martial arts without having much of a say in what they want to do. Day in and day out they train and train and train. I always thought it was cool to study the discipline of kungfu like them, but now I realize how much I take the freedom to decide what I want to do for granted.
Four of the top students taught us part of a kung fu form after the tour of the school. It really enjoyed it! It reminded me of wushu back at home which I was kind of itching to do.
When we got back, we ended up going to a big disco bar and danced the night away.



March 12 (Saturday) - We went to see the White Horse Pagoda/Temple (which is supposedly where Buddhism started in China) so very interesting. However, by this point, we had seen many many many Buddha stuffs, so we only stuck around for a bit before heading to the Old Town where we were able to see Luoyang in a candid nature. We saw a nursing home where the elderly reside as well as the streets filled with street vendors selling foods and afterlife money, parents picking up kids from school on their bicycles, and the friendly dogs running around as they please.
We were able to get taught by the second best painter in Luoyang I believe? She is well known for her pictures of flowers. She taught us how to draw the basic flower. Mine didn't come out all too well...but Sean's was good enough for her to touch up and complete for him.

We then rushed out so that we could make it to the Bullet Train in time to get back to Xi'an.

An unfortunate animal was shot down by the bullet train!

Final remark: Things are still awesome here though the work is beginning to pile up, but it's nothing that I can't handle! I'll try to update you guys sooner next time!