Sichuan

The anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake was yesterday, which reminded me of an interpretive dance one of the elementary classes did earlier in the year representing China's initial state of peril when the earthquake struck and subsequent recovery. This clip is from the end of the dance. The students have grabbed their backpacks, and by working together, have overcome adversity and paved the way for a better tomorrow in Sichuan.

Hello Madda, Hello Fadda...

This morning I woke up earlier than usual. My host family does not consist of morning people, and I guess my mom sets multiple alarms every morning to help her wake up. The snooze, snooze, snooze, roll-out-of-bed method. Her first alarm was Alan Sherman’s “Camp Grenada.” My jewish, American grandparents would be very pleased.

Jingshan Park

Yesterday, Hannah and I went to Jingshan Park. Jingshan’s main feature is a man-made hill created from the dirt dug up when the Forbidden City was built, constructed to enhance the emperor’s good fortune (having mountains to the north creates good fengshui).
Jingshan is my favorite spot in Beijing. The park surrounding the hill is beautiful, there is a delicious bread stand across the street from the east entrance and the view of Beijing from the top of the hill is unparalleled – that is if it’s a clear enough day.

View of Southern Beijing:

风水

Feng shui is certainly an ancient practice in Chinese culture; the earliest evidence of feng shui dates back to the Hongshan culture (ca. 3500 - ca. 2500 BCE) (indobase.com). Feng shui thrived for centuries in China. Geomancers were called in to asses the land before a house was ever constructed. People even used feng shui to decide the site of a family member’s wedding and funeral. Up until 1949, the rich and poor alike followed the principles of feng shui – to the extent their income would allow.
With the invasion of European countries and Cultural Revolution, the practice of feng shui was drastically undermined to the point where centuries of history were discredited practically over night. In 1949 Mao Zedong forbid feng shui from the People’s Republic of China, denouncing it as a “feudal superstition.” Although the Chinese government no longer forbids the practice of feng shui, the effect of Mao’s decree is still apparent today. I received a resounding “No!” from my classmates when I asked them if they or their parents believed in feng shui. My host family even laughed when I told them we were learning about it in English class. “But nobody believes that anymore,” Molly said, bewildered. “Why would you study feng shui?”
Interestingly, in areas where the Cultural Revolution didn’t reach, feng shui continues to thrive as it did in the third century BCE. In Hong Kong, no one would think to build a public or private housing development without first consulting a geomancer to discuss its location and architecture. Failure to consult a geomancer can cause uproar.
Oftentimes, following a geomancer’s advice proves to be extremely costly, yet, in areas where feng shui is still practiced, architects believe the cost is worth the benefit down the road. The Hopewell Centre in Hong Kong, for example, sports a round swimming pool on the roof. A “pool of water,” actually, would be a more accurate description. No one swims there. The pool was built because the geomancer believed this round, multi-storied building resembled a candle too much for its own good. The building was destined to catch fire, he said, unless a pool of water was placed on top to prevent “the wick” from burning it down. There are so many such cases of feng shui forcing architects to add interesting structures to a building that the Hong Kong Office of Tourism arranges a daily tour of downtown Hong Kong’s many feng shui examples.
Although feng shui is much less common in Beijing than in Hong Kong, it is not inexistent. Teacher Gao Ying just completed a wooden deck in the south of her apartment. As a finishing touch, Ying and her husband decided to add a fish pound, fitting with feng shui principles. They had some extra money, so why not? But that is about the power feng shui currently holds among citizens of Chinese mainland -- a mere luxury, not even really worth striving for.

Promiscuous t-shirts

Today a kid in tenth grade, we call him Chipmunk, wore a shirt that read:
WORK
HARD
LIKE
YOU
BLOW
ME
BABY
In all caps, in large letters, on the back of his shirt. The front was a drawing of a naked, hairy, white man, with his pants around his ankles. Hello Kitty was on her knees giving him a blow job. When Becky asked him if he knew what his shirt meant, he smiled and placed his pointer finger over his mouth, "shhh."
I wonder if someone would be suspended at South for wearing that shirt.

Swine Flu

Today, after our weekly flag raising ceremony the nurse gave an announcement warning students and teachers about Swine Flu. She told Jingshan to pay more attention to any signs of sickness than one would usually, and not to hesistate reporting symptoms to one doctor or the nurses at school. Also, people should remember to shower and wash their hands often.
Last night, Hannah's host brother asked me to edit something he wrote about mainland China's prevention of Swine Flu. He said that mainland (he stressed mainland) China has learned from past epidemics like SARS and the Avian Flu, and that the government is constantly making steady progress in its prevention of future epidemics. He was not surprised that no cases of Swine Flu have reached mainland China, and that he did not believe any will. He trusts his government to protect China. If the government fails, however, "it is unquestionable that the Chinese people will unite and face the music," he wrote.

Molly

I have been living in Beijing for the last three months, studying and teaching at one of China’s most prestigious high schools during the day, exploring the city in the afternoon, and struggling to communicate with my host mother in the evening. My Chinese vocabulary and pronunciation has skyrocketed – I now feel like a total idiot for not paying attention to tones in Chinese class sophomore through senior year. Living with a host family has provided me unparalleled access to Chinese society. I have traveled throughout the country, and been teased for my “Beijing accent.” I have mastered the art of morning exercises and wear my Chinese school uniform proudly. I have eaten cocoons. In case you were wondering, you eat the crust and spit out the bug.
Never have I enjoyed day-to-day activities so much: uncovering new dumpling restaurants, chatting with the men and women at newspaper stands while recharging my cell phone, learning to navigate the bus routes, and shocking taxi driver after taxi driver when I catch and correct them – all in Chinese, of course – trying to cheat me of a few yuan by taking a longer route than necessary to the intersection outside my apartment. On the flip side, I have also never been so frustrated: sitting through class after class where not a single student raises his or her hand to ask a question, passing by the new exhibit on “China’s peaceful liberation of Tibetan serfs” where 100 Chinese are lined up to take pictures of panels preaching how Western media are not to be trusted, and being denied access to certain articles on nytimes.com.
But ups and downs like this were to be expected. Although there was no way for me to know all the specifics, for example, that eggplant would taste 20 times better in China than in America, that I would teach friends in class how to play Knock Out, that hatred for the Dalai Lama would be so immersed into Chinese culture, or that a sixth grader would introduce himself to me with the English name “Busdriver,” I knew I was signing up for the opportunity to live something new, and that’s exactly what I got.
What I didn’t realize until about a month ago, however, was that along with providing a new lens with which to examine the world, this exchange also provided me with a new family. More specifically, this exchange provided me with a new sister. It never occurred to me that my exchange experience actually began when Molly, my host sister, landed in Boston this September, rocking her emerald green travel pants plastered with a pink and yellow floral print. Looking back on the exchange, the only thing I’m going to regret is not realizing that this program had something to offer me the moment Molly and I met. My mind was so focused on all I would observe and experience in Beijing that I never stopped to think of everything Molly and I could offer each other. Over our sixty or so bus rides to and from school everyday the two of us have become closer than I ever dreamed of. I’m the only one she talks about boys with and that bizarre feeling of having butterflies in your stomach, and she calmed my nerves before I heard back from colleges.
In 20 days I will be back in Newton. I am ready to go back, but it will take some time for me to call Newton home again. Lucky for me, Molly is going to boarding school in one of Newton’s neighboring cities in September. I expect that is when it will start to feel like home again.

WWE?

I am currently updating my blog at Hannah's house. Her dad is sitting across the room from me watching WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment, used to be WWF, I think) videos he downloaded off the internet. This is at least the third night this week he's done this.

Gobi Desert

Day 4:

Today we "played," as Chinese people like to say, in the Gobi for a few hours and headed back to Huhehaote to catch the overnight train back to Beijing. The Gobi was impressive. The dunes were a workout to climb.

Ghengis Khan

Day 3:

We did (practically) nothing on day three besides drive from Huhehaote west to Erdos, the nearest city to the Gobi Desert where we could spend the night.
Genghis Khan is everywhere in Inner Mongolia; the people of Inner Mongolia view him as one of their (and China’s) greatest heroes and savior. You see his face around Inner Mongolia as often as you see Jesus’s face in a church: portraits in restaurants and stores, statues, painted on sides of buildings, etc.

Hey Huhehaote

Day 2:

There’s not a whole lot to do on the grasslands, so to plump up our itinerary Amy and Kristen’s travel agent in Beijing said we would wake up to watch the sunrise over the grass surrounding our yurts. When we asked our guide about this she stared back at us, clueless. After Kristen explained that it was on our schedule, the guide told us we could wake up around 5:30 a.m. and reminded us to “look east.”
Well, I woke up – more like I was up at 5:30 a.m. anyway cause it was too cold in the fake yurts to get any sleep – but when I stepped outside it was cloudy out and appeared the sun was already up. A few hours later we (excitedly) packed up our stuff and headed to Huhehaote for the day.
When just driving through, Huhehao te seems kind of dull: a place one would stay because the were stuck more than out of choice. As with many places, however, Huhehaote seemed exponentially better after taking the time to wander and explore.
We went to a mosque in the Muslim Quarter of town, tucked away behind food stands run by Hui (one of China's 56 nationalities, distinguished for their practice of Islam) people. The mosque was unique in how much its architecture took after East Asian temples, with four building forming a courtyard in the center of the complex. Fun fact: In 1949 when the PRC was founded, this mosque's minaret was the tallest building in Huhehaote.


Later, Becky and I found a temple with beautifully painted designs and a building on the north side with multi-tiered pagodas on each corner, well worth the 35 元 to get in. On our walk back, we passed a park that looked like it would be pretty if enough rain would fall to turn the grass green. We bought colorful hammocks from a woman also in charge of collecting fairs for the parking lot outside.

Welcome to the Grasslands

Inner Mongolia Trip, Day 1:


Around 7:35 a.m. we pulled into Hohot’s, the provincial capital of Inner Mongolia (Nei Menggu, 内蒙古), train station. If you tell a Chinese person you’re going to Hohot, however, chances are they will have no clue what you’re talking about because its Chinese name is Hohehaote. I’m not sure why we don’t just use the pinyin … to complicated for white people to handle?
For breakfast we popped into a fast food restaurant adjacent to the station where they were serving two-foot long fried dough sticks. Most people were dipping theirs into a white soup, but we couldn’t figure out how to get some, so we dumped sugar on top and chowed down.
Next, we drove out over a super winding road into the grasslands. Our driver must have been determined to make it in record time because we were swerving in and out of trucks, budding into the opposite lane, the whole time. As we hopped out of the bus onto the grasslands, we were greeted by people dressed in traditional (Inner?) Mongolian attire atop their jeans and Nike sweatpants. When that was over, we quickly dropped our luggage off in our respective yurts and headed to the pig pile of horses so we could take a tour of the grasslands on horseback. Our tour consisted of view after view of semi-grassy plains, a stone yurt, an attacking goat, a “lake” that resembled more of a puddle and Swan Lake, which much to our dismay, was dried up. Yay Nei Menggu!

Cow dung to come to Boston!

I am happy to announce that the shit on a stick fad from new years is still going strong in Beijing. Today, I came across a stall in a market selling shit on a stick paraphernalia: stuffed animals, key chains and stuffed shits on a stick that play music when whacked against something. I bought the latter! He's wearing glasses, smirking and has a pink kong fu band around his head (if you can say that Mr. Cowdung has a head).

Update

Updated "Sui yue zhan fang qing chun xiao rong..."

April resolution

To start writing my blog more!
Hannah and I are in Yunnan now with my parents for the weekend. We are leaving on a three day hike tomorrow. I am keeping notes to blog from when I get back to Beijing!

Sui yue zhan fang qing chun xiao rong...

Never in my life did I ever think I'd sing, let alone be asked to sing in front of 1,000 people. Twice.
But, hey, you're only a tone deaf, English-speaking high school student in Beijing once, right? Hence, what better time to be asked to sing a Chinese song in a cultural festival than that.
This year Jingshan decided to hold a cultural festival in the Forbidden City Concert Hall. A week before we were told we'd be singing "Beijing Huan Ying Ni" with our host siblings. Saber somehow removed the voices from the track on her computer, shortened it, and assigned us all parts to sing.
It went better than expected. I'd say that for every word of the song, at least half the Americans knew what to sing.

"Sui yue zhan fang qing chun xiao rong ying jie zhe ge ri qi" was my line. Try saying that five times fast! I'm not positive what it means. Something about the sun and flowers blooming, I think.

They even did our make-up!




A class from the elementary school did a dance to a famous Chinese folk tale that looked a lot like the "I'll huff and puff and blow your house down" American story (I'm forgetting the name), only with a herd of sheep, two wolves and no houses. But the wolves were trying to eat the sheep!

Guilin

Two weeks ago (Sorry, I've been very busy!) I went to Guilin and Yangshuo with AJ and his family. Guilin is known for being the most beautiful place in China. It is a three hour plane ride south of Beijing.

北京欢迎你！

Jingshan took us to the Olympic Park this morning. Carolyn, Rebecca, Hannah, Becky and I arrived around 8:20 a.m., 25 minutes before we had to meet, in hopes of grabbing some McDonald's breakfast (a few big hash browns!) and 星吧克 (Xing ba ke, a.k.a. Starbucks) beforehand. We trekked past the school (where we were supposed to meet everyone), all the way down the street aaaaand around the corner to the Wangfujing Mall, where Starbucks in located, only to find it was closed until 10 a.m. A slight difference from the U.S. We all settled with hot chocolate from MickyD's. A side note: I never ate McDonald's in the States, but 40 cent ice creams and fries are so tempting when haven't eaten all day and you walk out of school around 4 p.m. -- The McDonald's is RIGHT next to our school.
I was interested in seeing the Olympic Park, not so much so I could see the inside of the Bird's Nest or Watercube, but so I could gage the crowd's level of excitement. The Olympic symbol is everywhere here. Everywhere. On cell phones, billboards, banks, stores. It's bordering on pathetic; 10 years down the road, even two years, China can't be celebrating that the Olympics were once here.
I had high hopes going to the actual scene. I didn't get to watch much of the Olympics last summer, but I had heard such great things about ceremonies and buildings. The watercube was made to sound as awe-inspiring as Michael Phelps's eight gold medals, and people are still talking about the Bird's Nest. I was just talking to a friend online and one of the first things he asked me was, "Do you do a lot of visiting? Have you seen the Bird's Nest?" I told him we'd actually gone this morning.
"You did!? Was it as it looks like on TV?"
I don't exactly know how it looked like on the TV, but I would assume it wasn't how it looked in real life. In all fairness to the Park, it is winter, so wooden boxes topped with green clothe stood in lieu of flowers. The "forest," about a mile down the walkway from the Bird's Nest and Water cube looked more like a pike of dirt with scattered pines on it. Maybe the mound was at least green in summer.
The place was fairly crowded. There were lines to get into both buildings and a fair amount of people use the promenade as a place to exercise. Some were speed skating on roller blades, a few were running and speed walking. The place is miles and miles long, so on beautiful days it must be nice to and just walk. I don't think that much open area exists anywhere else in Beijing. Speakers line the walkway and shuffled through three songs: "Beijing Huan Ying Ni" ("Beijing Welcomes You," 北京欢迎你), "One World, One Dream" and some song all in Chinese I couldn't understand.
People use the Bird's Nest as a place to picnic and were scattered over the fake grass. A larger list of songs were blasted from speakers inside, which the Beijing Olympic mascots danced to.

Hello, my name is Busdriver.

An assortment of English names we've come across in the last week:

- Lebron
- Ludacris (he sits in the back of class)
- Oprah
- Busdriver
- Shark
- Jack Sparrow

Morning run

When it's too cold to stand in lines and perform morning excersises, but too warm to stay inside and study, the middle and high-schoolers go out and take three laps (depending) around the school. Becky and Hannah's class sprint their three laps, picking up the pace each time. Some return with sweat dripping down their foreheads. My class, on the other hand, takes two laps, and prefers walking to running. Some even stay inside.
Most middle schoolers take it seriously. They only have to run around the track though, whereas the high-schoolers run around the whole building.

Free Day!

Instead of morning exercises, Jingshan holds a flag raising ceremony every Monday from 7:30 - 8 a.m. The whole school stands in columns, except for the elementary school who stay inside and peek their heads against the windows while the national anthem blasts. Middle schoolers in their green uniforms and high schoolers in our blue ones stand on separate halves of the court. Each class forms two lines, one for boys and one for girls, with the exception of class four (the special class for the best math and physics students). Girls and guys stand together otherwise the girls line would be far too small and the boys unproportinally long in comparison to the rectangle formed by the rest of the school. Announcements always follow the flag raising. Today, the speaker praised a student for returning an 100 yuan bill he/she found on the ground. Acts such as this help the harmony of the school.

In English, students started to present their "My Dream Festival" projects. The first kid to go called his festival "Free Day!" Free Day is essentially like any Friday afternoon or Saturday in America, with some added bonuses. It's a day when students can totally relax and not worry about or be assigned any homework. They can hang out with friends or "special ones," meaning boyfriends or girlfriends, all day long. Unique festival perks include the possibility to assign teachers homework, instructing teachers how to dress "better and more formal" and calling up your teachers and telling them everything wrong with their class ("You assign too much homework," or "Your class is boring!"). He carefully went through the year's schedule and decided that there are two adequate days a term, further enough from vacations that they're useful and mid-terms that kids can actually relax. His presentation was accompininied by the best powerpoint I've ever seen complete with his own animation and music.
When he finished the teacher turned it over to the class for grading. Everyone said he deserved an 100, but the teacher gave him a 95 because he didn't make enough eye contact with the class.
What would you do on your Free Day!?
I'd make jiaozi and baozi and eat them!

Zzzzz...

My class is learning about ancient Chinese tools in history. I can't say I blame them for falling asleep, though I am shocked at the number of students who do doze off. Whole columns of students will be asleep, heads on their desks, for the last 30 of a 40-minute block. Many even remain sleeping through the 10-minute break between classes, all the way until their next teacher begins class.
Chinese students definitely have the reputation of working harder, both in China and in the States, but I’m not convinced that’s true. Their tests are harder and they certainly spend more time on schoolwork than we do. It’s easy to find students who don’t do their homework at South – pick five students randomly from any class and you’re bound to find one – whereas they do not exist at Jingshan. Everyone, from the bottom of the lowest class to the top of the highest, hands in their homework. Students even pay for their homework booklets here!
For most though, maybe with the exception of an instrument, school is the only thing they do. School ends at 4 p.m. If you don’t have an extra class until 6:30 p.m. or orchestra rehearsal you go straight home and work. The combination of no extracurriculars and little to no procrastination on the student’s part, allow them to get to bed earlier, as well.
Yet they sleep more in class than kids in the States do. I wonder if this is because they aren’t stimulated. I’m speaking generally obviously, but they study and study and study, and have nothing to look forward to because everything is resting on the Gaokao, the Chinese college entrance exam, and only contributing factor to which college students attend. All focus is on scores, unlike in the States where focus is also placed on what makes an individual unique.
The kids in my class openly express to me how they have little to look forward to. Someone in Hannah and Becky’s class even called it “hell.” They sit in the same room from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, go straight to their desks to study until 10 p.m. or so and then study and watch TV on the weekends. Molly didn’t leave the house once this weekend, and left the dinner table early every meal to study for an English test, which she must be in better shape for than the rest of class. Same with Gaoyinhua, a girl in my class.
Many kids in America work this hard, but there are vast differences. When I tell Gaoyinhua and her friend (during morning excersizes!) that I frequently got three hours of sleep at home they are in shock.
“Whhaaaa! Why?!”
But I stay up this late because I’m doing things I love: The Lion’s Roar, coaching basketball, spending time with friends. And then doing homework. I had many things to look forward to during the day, all that made school not only bearable, but enjoyable. If all I had to focus on in life was school, I don’t think that would have been the case.
Before China I thought very little of the American education system, that kids were too stressed and didn’t have enough time for rest and leisure. After just two weeks at Jingshan, however, a school known for not only being the best in the country, but the most enjoyable for its’ students, I have no complaints. My politics teacher taught the class the other day that Americans have too much freedom. This freedom, however, is what makes my countless sleepless nights worth it. As an American student I have the opportunity, or freedom if you wish, to spend endless hours at the newspaper and then start my homework. Or for my friend to devote her time after school to theatre and then return home way after dark. Or for another friend to wake up before sunrise and surf before class.
Although we get less sleep, we are stimulated by what keeps us awake long into the night. Stimulated enough, at least, to keep more than 2/3 of class awake the entire 55 minutes.

TOEFL

Molly took the TOEFL on Sunday. She spent the 16 days, even weekends, leading up to it at a prep class from 3 to 9 p.m. On days when practice TOEFLs are scheduled, kids take them from 11 a.m. to 3 and enter class as usual. She said the classes are made so that kids have fun in them, so much fun, that some kids sign up for the 3,000 yuan ($443) class even if they aren't taking to TOEFL. Just a nice way to break up Chinese kids grueling day. The first week of TOEFL class was during the winter holiday so school wasn't an issue then, but the second week of class interfered with her high school. To solve the problem, Molly just left school two blocks early every evening and returned home around 9:30 after six hours of class to start her homework.
This TOEFL prep company is one of the most, if not the most, popular in China. It was started by man who was kicked out of Beijing University, the best university in China (Molly didn't know why he was kicked out). He made it his mission to start an university with a different teaching style than every other school in China. In the interim, he started a TOEFL-prep course, which became so successful he stuck with it. Apparently, kids in his classes do very well on the TOEFL.
Molly loves the classes. She says they're way better than classes at Jingshan, because the teachers understand that kids are busy. At Jingshan, much like at South, teachers tend to act like their class is the only one you're taking. The last day of classes, a day or two before students actually sit down to take the official test, is a day for the teachers to preform to their class and thank them for signing up. Some teachers are famous across Beijing for their scandalous dance performances: http://play.hupo.tv/tvb/424985.html. Others, like Molly's just sing to their class: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/zfcvy2FPHA0/.

Friday

At the beginning of the week I thought Friday would never come. Monday through Wednesday were so long and so boring that Friday seemed no where in sight. Thursday wasn't too bad, though, and then came the end of the week!
Friday started with a Chinese quiz. The teacher didn't waste any time. The quiz went quickly and she continued to read words for the dictation through the bell. I saw one pair of wandering eyes and one kid with a cheat sheet, both sitting in the back of class, obviously. It looked like your everyday American vocab quiz.

Ambushed

Molly is the absolute best. We had that study time again on Thursday because there was snow on the ground. Molly's homeroom teacher took their class out for a snowball fight, She ran into my class, and up the aisle to my desk.
"Would you like to have a snowball fight!?" She jumped a little.
"Can I just leave class like that?"
"Yes! I think it's okay!"
I grabbed my gloves and we ran to the courts, Molly quickly stopping to tell the teacher she's taking me out of class.
At first it was just her class out there, but soon some elementary and middle schoolers came out as well. With every new kid outside the atmosphere heightened with excitement, and before we knew it half of Molly's class was ambushing us (me, Becky, Marcus, Hannah, Rebecca) with snowballs.
"1 ... 2 ... 3!" A wall of snowballs hit us.
"1 ... 2 ... 3!" Another.
We tried to retaliate, but Becky and I were the only ones with gloves, and I gave one of mine to Molly. Unfortunately, Becky's two hands and my one were no match for the 15 or so others pelting us from all sides.

The first class of the day was politics, taught by my homeroom teacher. He talks about politics, an acropolis, Marx, Mao, the Renmibi (China's currency) and the US vs. China. A kid in Hannah's class told her he was saying that America has too much freedom, and someone else calls him the propaganda teacher.

In between classes, Gaoyinghua, the girl who went to Boston over break came up to me with a new yellow frisbee.
"Sine it broke yesterday I went out and bought a new one!"
Someone in Becky and Hannah's class did the same. It's nice to know they're having as much fun as we are all during lunch.

Everyone had to have their eyes checked in PE. Viviane massages her eyes while in line, but it didn't seem to do much. Based on the amount of Chinese people with glasses and how poorly my class did on their eye tests, I think it's safe to say that Chinese people, on average, have terrible eye sight. On a scale of 1 - 5.3, I received a 5.2 and the class ooo'ed and ahhh'ed, which in China sounds like "whaaaaa."


After lunch my class had our elective English course, taught by a teacher from America who's at Jingshan for two years. Her lesson was on Valentine's day. She started class off by asking what comes to mind when they hear "Valentine's Day."
"Girls," said one kind in the front row. Everyone laughed.
"Chocolate," said another. They laughed again.
Later in the lesson she went over different ways to tell someone you care about them. After providing a list of her own, she asked for suggestions.
"Like Joey," said the same kid in the front row. "How yoou doooin'."
Other suggestions were: "I can't hate you anymore." And, "You're my honey."

Hump day!

English: Class starts with a passage everyone has to read entitled A Sad Love Story. They're given around five minutes to read the one page story before they take a closed-book quiz on what they just read. The book has bolded American colloquial phrases throughout the story such as, "But she didn't turn up," "He thought she would keep her word," "He was not going to hold his breath," and "He would drown his sadness in coffee."
The teacher made a powerpoint for the quiz with those same sentences, only the bolded phrases substituted with another synonymous phrase. Li Fang started walking home, for example, should be changed into Li Fang set off for home. She didn't keep her promise changed to: She didn't keep her word.

Lunch: I brought a frisbee from home today and rallied kids from Molly's and my class to come play with the Americans outside. Most of them had never seen a frisbee before, which was blatant in their attempts to throw and catch, while others seemed like naturals. A circle of 15 or so quickly developed a group of onlookers, some of whom joined us to play. Because it was cold the frisbee cracked, and later broke into 1000 pieces when Elias threw it on the ground (just for fun, not in anger). Three kids asked if they could take pieces home with them as a memento of the afternoon. Mom and Dad, if you're reading this, please send me a few frisbees in my next package!

Music: It's easy to tell when it's an elective block. Kids talk to one another, food and cell phones are either brought out for the first time or brought from underneath the desk, depending on the kid. When the teacher starts singing I guess I'm in music class. Molly has always said that elective teachers are the best, and it's true. Him, the PE teacher and English (not an elective) teacher are the only ones who have returned my ni hao's and acknowledged my existence. He says something and points to me, and the whole class turns and looks at me, smiling. I make a confused face and laugh with them. I think he said something about me singing the ABC's someday. First we watch a movie of a Chinese elementary school chorus singing songs in both Chinese and English, not simultaneously. Every so often the teacher breaks into a high-pitched tune and breaks out Saturday Night Fever-esque dance moves. Viviane says all the kids think he's crazy. Next he turns on a gymnastics tape from the Beijing Olympics. A Chinese girl is one and a group of students in the front of clause burst into applause. Sean Johnson is on next. Everyone turns to observe my expression, but I'm more interested in the fact that they're all looking at me than on what jump or dance move she's completing. The teacher fast forwards until either an American or Chinese is on the screen.
Spiky Hair and other kids to my left are playing Guess What Card Is In My Hand, with a full deck of cards. Spiky Hair has his back to me, allowing me to see when it's his turn to hold the cards and his friends turn to guess. I start writing the card on a piece of paper and showing it to them behind Spiky's back, and what do you know, all of a sudden they guess card after card. He never figured it out.

Chinese: Last block has the same effect on kids here than it does on kids at South. Although the kids I sit with, the kids in the back of class, pass notes and text, they never make noise during core classes. There was a noticeable rustle in class today, however, that was nonexistent yesterday when Chinese at the beginning of the day.

Tuesday

大力 looking a chalkboard that reads, "You Will Be the No!"

There's a down period between when school starts and first period. Students are supposed to be working on homework. Everyone as their books out, but not everyone's workng on them. They boys next to me are passing an NBA magazine back and forth between the trhee of them. They're looking at electronics, though, iphones, samsung phones, cameras, not pictures of Shaq and Kobe. One girl pulls out a poster o some Chinese pop star, checks it out, and tucks it back in her desk. Spiky Hair, to my left, copies a friend's English homework while the teacher is out of the room. Most of the student, though, are actually studying.
It's snowing, so morning excersizes are cancelled; that's why we have this down time.
As soon as the teacher walks in the boys shove the NBA magazine under a desk and turn back to their workbooks. Fifteen seconds later it's out again, and one of them is reading under his desk. Ten minutes later the teacher starts making rounds, and woop, back under the desk goes the magazine.
Geometry was first again today. The teacher started class before the bell rang.
Next is Chinese, the equivalent to our English classes. I'm no longer the only one struggling to stay awake. The kid with the NBA magazine takes out his matalic blue psp.
After second period all the Americans went on a tour of Jingshan. We saw the trophy room, international conference room, billiards, ping-pong and rock cimbing room, the biology labs and the olympic-size swimming pool. When I got back to class a kid who sits in front old me I missed the best part of the day.
"I know! I missed English, that's my favorite class!"
"Not only English." he replies, "We played pranks on kids in the class."
When I ask what kind of pranks they were he says they're too hard to explain.
"Something with language," he says. Hmmm.
The last block was a "class meeting," which pretty much just meant it was time for people to get their new seats for the semester. Here, desks move with the student, so instead of simply standing up and walking a few feet, everyone carried their desk with them, dropping textbooks and pencil cases in their wake.

Jumping rope

Dinner has turned into a language lesson for both me and my host parents because Molly's been off at TOEFL class for the last two weeks. I tried to tell them that I played jumprope with the six year olds from the elementary school today at lunch, but it half of dinner for them to understand. My mom thought I was saying I wanted to play jumprope with a six year old living downstairs after dinner because I kept placing my hand low to the ground to symbolize little.

First day of (not at) school

A video from an in between class break!

Everyone is wearing their uniform today. Not everyone is on time; some kids roll into class around 7:26. The last few kids turn in their lunch money. The two boys in front of me -- I am now in my own row in the back of class -- are writing on their money. About 10 minutes into class everyone grabs their coats and head out the door. Two lines are made in the hall; one for girls and one for guys. Then we head out to the concrete quad next to school. It's freezing. I thought my hair had dried from my shower earlier, but my whole ponytail was an ice cube. Each class in in a line; As directed by the principal, the Americans form our own line on the far right. This is the opening ceremony for the new semester. After a few announcements and a flag raising ceremony (three students, a boy carrying the Chinese flag and two girls behind him marched from the front stage to the flag pole to our right), it was time for us to get on stage and introduce ourself. We walked on stage in our attempt at a line, but soon learned that Chinese students are much better at walking in a straight formation than we are. Becky and Elias made a speech and introduced each of us, most of which the school understood. Chen, Elias's host brother, said they couldn't understand the teachers' speech. Points for us! We concluded the opening ceremony and everyone headed back to class.

My first class of the day was geometry. The teacher's young, she can't be over 30. She's wearing a black pea coat, a pink V-neck sweater, jeans and running shoes. She has round, rimless glasses, straight, black hair and bangs cut at her eyebrows. I get the vibe that she's a bitch, although there are points when she laughs with the class. At one point she breaks into a staring contest -- I can't tell if it's with the whole class or just Baggy Pants because they were having an 8-Mile rap off type back and forth a minute earlier. The class turns from laughter to dead silence in no time at all. She's managed one of those silences that feels as though it's lasted a lifetime before she nods her head, eyes still peeled at one point of the class, and slowly walks back to resume her post in front of the white board.
She then gives a long speech, using her arms to form parallel lines. It looked like an overview of the class. She starts a powerpoint. The opening slides have pictures of the world, a watermelon, a coke can, a jewellry box, Stonehedge, the pyramids of Egypt, a pogoda and a skyscraper. The slideshow is cut short by the bell.

Next up is English. After a five minute break, the teacher walks in. "Class start," he says. Everyone stands. "Hello class. Welcome back. You can sit." Everyone sits. It turns out that this is how every class is supposed to start, only in Chinese. I guess Ms. Geometry forgot to do it. The entire class in conducted in English. He expresses his excitement to be back and work with everyone for the semester and then asks how people's holidays were.
One girl had a "very good" holiday. She "went to America to play." Another had a "bad vacation because I went to my home town where it was very cold." The last boy to be called on sits in the front row of class. He had a "good vacation because it was exciting to watch the fire on tv." He later ads, "but nothing else happened." The teacher sums up his statement in less than 10 words, "First it was boring, then it was interesting."
Today's lesson is on festivals around the world. He asks about Valentine's Day. "I am single!" Baggy Pants shout out. "I stayed home all day!" Today's lesson is about festivals around the world. The teacher asks the students to pair up and list the festivals around the world. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Children's Day (?), Thanksgiving and Christmas all make the list. He then gives them a few minutes to read a passage about festivals and answer questions. The passage is broken up into various subheads: Festivals of the Dead, Festivals to Honor People, Harvest Festivals, Spring Festivals. Four exercises follow in the workbook, although they're only asked to complete the first.
This teacher is also young. He's wearing dark, fitted, jeans, a tight, v-neck sweater with a blue, brown and white pattern on the front, topped off with brown shoes that complement the outfit nicely. He walks through the class while the students work, putting his arm around some and helping them out. Viviane's head is on her desk. I can't tell if it's because she finished or if she's just tired. Her English is way better than anyone else in the class I've talked to. After 10 minutes he calls the classes attention and goes over the answers with pictures her prepared in a powerpoint. He calls it a ppt. Not everyone has completed the assignment yet. Their homework assignment is to create their dream festival for a four-minute presentation.

Spiky hair to my left and Mustache to my right are texting back and forth. Another kid passes a note to the kid behind him who reads it and passes it Mustache, who's sitting behind him. He writes something and passes it back to the front of their train. The note jumps columns to the boy up and to his left. And then again to a girl sitting to his left.
There are way more boys than girls in the back of the class.

In history they are learning about the evolution of ancient Chinese tools. A boy's reading Stephan King and shows it to his friend behind him. Spiky Hair drops a sliver of paper on the ground, but it doesn't go far enough. He tries to blow the note to its final destination, but ends up using his foot to slide it over. In the process he notices some dirt on his white, grey and black Adidas and doesn't hesitate to clean it off with some saliva.

PE is next. This teacher is older, and decked out in Adidas gear from head to toe. Kids don't take gym seriously in China either. Everone talks through the teacher's speech and are no longer descrete about passing notes. A guy diagonal from me passes me one.
Can you understand what the teacher is saying?
It's written in some of the best handwriting I've ever seen.
No I reply. I heard him say something about swimming and volleyball and a match, but that's it.
I hand it back to him. The train of boys to my right look over what I wrote. I think they are confused with my "match." I can see how my m's would be mistaken for w's. He writes another note, but waits a few minutes before he hands it back. I think he was asking his friends if he used correct English.
Do you speak Chinese? Can you say "hello" and "bye"?
Ni hao! 你好! I write. Zaijian. I don't know how to write that. My Chinese is very bad.
They smile and nod and each goes over my strokes and pinyin and proceed to pass the note to everyone on our side of the room. At one point I hear someone repeat, "My Chinese is very bad." The gym teacher puts on CCTV5 to the NBA All-Star game. Everyone's talking with scattered groups of kids watching the screen. I'm not falling asleep in this class! Shaq makes an and one (sorry, Tom, if that's the wrong sports notation) and a clump of boys erupt in cheers. A second later he stuffs someone and they all crack up.

Three boys conference on what to say to me next. After 10 minutes I get a new note.
Do you like the NBA?
I explain that I like to play, but not watch. 你喜欢 NBA?
Translation: Do you like the NBA? I hope my characters are right, but I think I messed up a bit. A kid with thick-rimmed glasses joins the note party and writes me the next one. All of his friend grab it from him, though, as he passes it to me. Everyone has to read everything before any new moves are made.
Yes, I love it. Last year Boston Celtic won NBA Championship. Did you see that game?
I did. It was a big deal in Boston. People were very happy. Do you play basketball?
I wonder if they understand "big deal."

Lunch is an hour and a half at Jingshan, but most of it is spent playing or studying (depending on your class). Becky and I played jump rope with the elementary schoolers.

The last block of the day was physics. They're learning exactly what I learnt right before I came to Beijing. No wonder Zijian slept through every class and still aced everything. I receive my last note of the day.
Do you have a Chinese cell phone number? Can you tell us your phone number?
School's over. We swap numbers and go our separate ways.

Leftovers

Chinese people waste nothing when it comes to food. We have leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, regardless of if it's dumplings, pigs feet or green beans. Sometimes we have the same dish all week until someone finally finishes it. Tonight I received a bowl of white soup. It tasted like a mix of glue and play dough, not to say that it tasted all that bad. The description makes it sound worse than it was. I asked what was in it. It's the water the noodles we were eating for the main dish were cooked it. They really find a way for everything.

Cupid comes to China

Today is Valentines Day, which I didn't think would be blatant in China, but it definitely is. The young couples -- people in their twenties -- are the ones that give it away. They walk around with bouquets of roses and bouquets of smaller, purple flowers sold on every street corner and in between. Men cary their girlfriends purses, which isn't unique to Valentine's Day here, but was definitely more evident today. Large teddy bears, sold at every major intersection or mall, are also popular. They're about the size of a desktop computer; some even sport a sweater with the American flag on it. Huh. But it looked like if you were taken, but without bear in hand, you might as well be single because any other boy would have bought you a teddy bear today. At least seven girls in my train car on the way home today had a bear. If you're single, I think the thing to do is see a romantic movie. If you're bumming about Valentine's, a romantic movie doesn't seem like the best mood booster, but I guess I'm wrong.
The walk from Chongwenmen, the subway station by my house, to home takes about ten minutes. Tonight, I finally stopped by a grocery store to pick up some bottled water. You can't drink the tap water here because of bad pipes so water's hard to come by if someone hasn't recently boiled some. Anyway, I bought a few bottles of water, but was taking awhile to put some coins away that had fallen. When I looked up again she handed my a pink heart balloon on a stick and smiled. The nice gesture combined with her smile put a pep in my step all the way home.

First day at school

NOTE: This entry was written as I sat in class.

The Americans were split into different classes because there isn't enough room for us in the back of one classroom. There are four classes in each grade: yi, er, san, si. One, two, three, four. Classes are ranked by level of intensity, four being the smartest. I am in senior class two. I think "senior" is equivalent to sophomore year in the US.
Molly and I arrived about 30 minutes before we needed to be in class. We met up with Becky, Hannah, and Saber, but pretty soon I had to go downstairs to find my seat and get settled; I didn't want to disrupt anything on my first. Molly apologized for leaving me alone, I assured her it was alright, and I was on my way. I dallied outside the class a bit, until I mustered the courage to ask some kid where to sit.
"Ni hao. Wo zuo na'r?" Translation: "Hey. Where do I sit?"
Class is noisy, but people are looking and laughing that the boy I asked is talking to a white girl. He shrugs his shoulders. I points to a few of the empty seats until he nods at one, smack in the center of the room. Desks are in rows, I don't think there's a single semi-circle arrangement anywhere in the school. I thank him and head to my seat.
The girl in front of me smiles and introduces herself. She says her name is Viviane; I say mine is Kelala. A few minutes later, a kid, not in uniform, wearing a brown collared shirt under a white and grey Adidas zip-up, baggy Levi's, a funky pair of AirMax, and a lanyard hanging out of his left pocket with his subway pass and home keys attached. I didn't expect the lanyard trend to hit China yet. Everyone cracks up. Apparently I'm sitting in his seat. Viviane assures me that I don't need to move, "He's just a big jokester. He can sit somewhere else."
The teacher walks in. Baggy Pants walks up to the teacher and explains I was in his seat when he walked in; they laugh. I look up and smile. He sits somewhere else. All is good. The class is unfazed by their teacher's presence. One girl's eating McDonald's. One showing her friend a new song on her iPod. Another watches a music video on hers and turns to show the friends sitting around her. The teacher begins to talk. Then yell, but you still can't hear him. One girl walks into class late. Nothing happens. The teacher says it's 8:40 and the class bursts into laughter because although it is 8:40, the clock behind him reads 10:40.
It's quieter now, but people are still talking to one another. A cell phone is ringing. It's no longer quiet; I can't hear the teacher anymore. No one is listening. All of a sudden people whip out their wallets, I'm not sure for what. I'll ask Viviane once she sits back down. This reminds me of collecting money for a pizza party during long block. Only replace $3 with 1024 yuan, $150 per student.
Most kids, but not all, are wearing their uniforms. I wonder if the ones that aren't aren't because this is registration day or because they don't care. It's known that classes one and two are the kids who can't test into Jingshan.
Ten minutes have passed. Another adult is in the room talking with the teachers. Baggy Pants is turned around in his chair, talking to the girl behind him. One girl is writing something on the board. A list of some kind, labeled one through five. She writes vertically, not horizontally.
Viviane's back. The money was for a semester-long lunch pass. There's no off campus here, even though students have an hour and a half for lunch, and I don't think anyone brings their own food. I've heard the food is so bad it's hard to stomach. The teacher has left the room. Another girl walks into class, really late, and casually sits down. No penalty. One kid has his uniform zipped really low with a button-down shirt underneath, top three buttons unbuttoned, chest showing. He has one of those anime haircuts where his hair sticks straight up, almost like a porcupine. Alan, who came to Newton with Molly, also does the unbuttoned shirt thing.
The teachers back. Yelling again, not angry yelling though, just trying to get his voice heard. He makes not even the slightest progress. Girls and guys are talking freely to each other. Three girls in the front of class are holding five-inch stacks of bills. One of 100 yuan bills, one of 50s, one mixed. Viviane and her two friends are watching a cartoon on her iPod.
This uniform rocks. I was worried it would all just be too baggy and uncomfortable, but it's just like wearing pajamas and running shoes to school everyday!
Class is quieting down. I have no idea how the teacher did it.
A minute has passed, people are talking again, but you can at least hear the teacher. He's reading off a schedule. Kids walk in and out of class as they please. Viviane and her friends have their heads on their desk, laughing hysterically about something. Desks are like the ones we had in middle school with a pocket underneath for your stuff, only grey and much smaller.
Kids have stopped talking for the most part. The teacher said something about something being cute, hen keai, and the class let out a light set of laughter. He's funny, it doesn't take much for the class to laugh at one of his jokes. Now he's making fun of one kid to my right for always talking; everyone's cracking up. I'm not sure why he singled him out.

I just got pulled out of class to get my textbooks, which are 100% in Chinese, except for the English textbook. When the women handed them to me she said, "Here's your knowledge." When I got back to class everyone laughed at my nine textbooks in hand. It must all be for show. I'm not expected to follow along and complete this work, yet it's still necessary for me to bring the textbooks back and forth from home to school everyday.
The teacher sent a student to tell me I could leave. It's around 10 a.m. Viviane and I talked a bit before I left. She's 16. I told her I've been studying Chinese for two years. The man I thought was our teacher is actually the grade coordinator; our teacher's absent.

Haircuts!

Hannah has been talking about getting bangs when she's in China for at least a month. A few days ago, we finally went and found a place. It didn't take much convincing for me to jump on the hey-we're-in-China-who-cares-if-you-don't-like-your-haircut bandwagon. Before hand, we found pictures online of the cuts we wanted -- mine of Drew Barrymore with hair a bit past her shoulders and Hannah of the girl in YES with long, side-sweeping bangs -- and took pictures of them on Becky's phone. I'd remembered seeing a bunch of places just around the corner from my house. We picked the first one we saw, asked the price and headed on in. I got my hair cut and thinned and washed for 38 yuan, that's 5.6 dollars. The only drawback was my hair ended up shorter than I thought it would, but I guess that's to be expected when you get your hair cut by someone who doesn't speak the same language as you.

3/3 = Shanghai!

Shanghai rocked. We went to the top of that weird looking tower with lots of big pink balls on it, roamed around a bunch of different areas of the city and visited a small town outside the city. Shanghai's only 200 years old so it was really interesting to compare to Beijing. Things were definitely more modern, you could tell that Europeans had been there. About every few buildings there'd be one that was noticeably colonial. There were also waaayyy more foreigners, almost all people working in Shanghai for one reason or another.
It looked straight out of a futuristic movie or something. There are tons of tall buildings, but they're all sort of scattered and don't look good next to one another. Everything is about building a tall building or a building in a weird shape, not necessarily building the more aesthetic skyline. There's also construction EVERYWHERE. Like more construction than the Big Dig. The world expo is coming to Shanghai next year. The group wants to come back for a reunion then. I think I also want to take a semester abroad too Shanghai!
The picture above was taken on Nanjing road, the Wanfujing of Beijing, or Newbury of Boston. A temple was built there a few hundred years ago, but the city has literally popped up around it.

MASH

It's a general rule that Chinese people - 5 years = their should-be age. This only applies to people living in China. Niki, for example loooves matchmaking games. She sat me down on a bed the night we got back from Huangshan and asked me to pick a number. She then had me shuffle and deck of cards and explained that the king of hearts is handsome, king of spades clever, king of clubs powerful, and king of diamonds rich. She did some counting thing based on the number I chose earlier and flipped some cards over. My future husband, she told me, was 20% clever (pronounced clevah), 30% handsome, 50% rich and 80% powerful. A few minutes later whispered in my ear that I shouldn't worry, the cards aren't always right. Her and her roommates play it all the time.
We then taught her how to play MASH. She got a kick out of it, but buried her head into my lap when we told her she was going to have five kids and marry Elias.

Climbing up the mountain

Huangshan has more stairs than a stairway to heaven. It seemed like the entire mountain range had stairs carved into them for people to climb. We took a cable car up and then walked around for six hours climbing different peaks. Making sure to obey the buddy system, Elias and I linked arms and headed up the mountain ahead of everyone. Minus the linking arms part. We'd been immersed in clouds the entire day until we finally reached the top of the second highest peak, above the clouds.


At one point we passed a railing of locks. Couples buy locks to "lock their love" to the mountain.


There were also these funny red lines scattered on random paths telling people where they could and could not smoke.


A Chinese tour group about to climb Huangshan:

The second village

The first village

The next morning we picked up and left for Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), a mountain range in souther Anhui province. We stopped in two villages along the way. It was refreshing to see some of the countryside as we drove and to be convinced that we were surrounded by actual fog and not some smog-fog concoction.

The first village: