- 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!
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