The Li River

My friend Laura and I decided to take our last day together and travel to a small town and take a boat ride down the famous Li River. Our plan was to take a boat to another town and from there Laura would take a bus back to Guilin and I would take a bus to Yangshuo.

On the way to the first small town we met a family that was planning to take a boat to the same town so they asked if we wanted to share a boat. We agreed and then they helped us find a boat. The boat we ended up taking was this little bamboo raft that had bamboo lawn chairs on it to sit, a small covering, and then a small prop engine on the back.

It was a beautiful boat ride because we saw all the tall mountains that have been in so many Chinese paintings. I was in heaven because it was the first mountains I had seen in China aside from the Great Wall. Even the fog was beautiful. (It wasn't great for photos though.)

Laura and I knew that sometimes the boat men would drop people off early than normal in order to avoid having to pay the toll at the destination town so we weren't surprised when we were dropped off in what seemed like the middle of no where. What did surprise us is that twenty minutes of walking went by and we still saw no sign of a town. It was wet and the road was muddy the whole way. I enjoyed the walk in the countryside, we just hoped we were actually headed in the right direction even. In the process we saw two guys on a motorcycle slip in the mud, falling over into the muddy road. After a significant amount of time we finally ran into the REAL drop off spot and got a little rickshaw the rest of the way with a group of people.

We then got to town and ate some lunch and went our separate ways. Laura was off to Hong Kong and I was off to continue my travels the day after by heading to a friend of our's home. I went to Yangshuo by myself and stayed the night in hostel. Yangshuo was by far my favorite town that I visited because it was as if the western world had never touched it even though it is one of the most well known tourist spots. The buildings were built in a more ancient fashion in the middle a mountain area.

A Step into the Past

While we were in Xi'an we stepped outside the city gates only to find that we had stepped back into Ancient China. We found him just sitting on the side of the road looking just like that.... well, kinda. What actually happened was that we ran into him and several other normally dressed Chinese people walking across the street. They had a video camera with them. They walked past us, paused, then came back and asked if we would help them. The "director" told us to ask him questions. So we did, and he gave us a look of "uh, I don't understand anything you've said, and I'm in shock that you're standing in front of me." It was hilarious. They of course recorded it, and we of course drew a crowd of curious onlookers wanting to know what was up with the Americans and the man dressed up as an ancient soldier.

McDonalds! Wait, what?

McDonald's delivers! This picture was taken in Shanghai, China while traveling with Dani and Alana. I expected to see pizza delivery or even random Chinese restaurants do takeout, but to see McDonald's do take out was very unexpected! So as a result this poor unsuspecting hard worker became the victim of tourist curiosity, and will forever be immortalized as the McDonald's bicycle delivery man. Can you imagine wearing that uniform to work?!

Our time spent in Shanghai was brief, but fun. My aunt and uncle had put me in touch with a lady that they had hosted while living in California. She wanted to meet us and take us out to dinner so we did. She was very kind and took us to a nice restaurant near downtown Shanghai. It was great to get to know her especially since she had history with my family.

This trip to Shanghai was especially significant, i think, to Dani and I because both of us had been there once before. In high school we each went our senior years for two weeks to visit a sister school of our high school. We both had a great experience. My experience in particular was what made me fall in love with China. So this time in Shanghai was a mix of new exciting experiences and old memories.

It is crazy how different Shanghai is from other cities. Even the language is different. While at a restaurant here a lady corrected my Chinese saying, "We don't call it that here." Also the street hawkers sell different things. People must like watches and purses around here because everyone came up to us trying to sell watches and purses. Once we tried to say we only spoke Spanish because we wanted the guy to leave us alone. We picked the wrong guy though because he was super persistent anyways.

A Picture and a Story

I've decided that I am going to forget all my China stories if I don't write them down so I am going to start writing a story that goes with the pictures that I have.

Where are we? Well, we are on the Silk Road of course! Dani, Alana, and I found the spot on our Xi'an map and got so excited about seeing a dirt road that headed out to the west that we hopped on a couple buses and walked for a couple miles just to see this dirt road. Unfortunately, we were all stuck in the past and this statue of camels is about as glamorous as it got. I think we were at least expecting it to be a tourist spot, but this statue and little mini park were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, as far as we were concerned. We did have some fun climbing on it though.

My favorite part of the story though was the walk there. It took us FOREVER to get to this place. We definitely had misjudged how far away it was, and we of course felt adventurous so we walked most of the way. On the way though we passed a Home Depot, which made me so excited because it was a piece of home, and I had no idea that those stores existed in China. We decided to take the bus back to center of the city where our hostel was instead of walking, a wise choice on our part. Fortunately Xi'an has a huge city wall that has bus stops at the gates in the wall, otherwise I would have had no clue where I was taking us because I only knew where the bus stops that said gate in them would be!

What a little bird taught me....

I wrote the following last fall while I was in Harbin. I didn't post it because it talks about God and I wanted to be careful with what I posted online while I was in China. I had completely forgotten about it, and while looking for an assignment in my documents, I stumbled across it again. It is amazing what God will teach you in a time when you don't necessarily need the lesson, but He will remind you of what He taught you in a time when we really need the encouragement. Enjoy :)

Sitting in a café watching a small bird trapped inside try desperately to reach the outside by going through a glass window started me thinking. This small bird is so directly focused on getting outside that the sight of the outside makes it believe that the window is the only way out. It does not know that if it were to turn around and fly the other way it would find an open door. Observing this bird I caught myself thinking how unintelligent this bird is to continually try to fly through a window when every attempt is met with failure. Me being much larger, I am able to see more of the surrounding circumstances than the bird. I can easily see that the other side of the café has an open door that the bird should really be trying to go through. I want to help this bird reach the outside, but it keeps flying around and it does not trust that I just want to help it.

I realized that we are sometimes just like this bird. In life we have our sights set on a goal or a certain path and no matter how hard we try we can’t get there and we can’t make it happen. What we don’t realize is that if we just slow down and go the other way we will be met with success. I kind of compared this to the difference between us and God. God is so much larger than us that He knows the past, present, and future, and all the paths that you will and could take. I imagine God looking down on us, his small finite children, trying so desperately to go the wrong way. This could be anything from walking in sin, to trying to do things on our own strength. When we try to do things on our own and we come against an impossible obstacle we often cannot see that the way to go is right behind us and that our Father is longing for us to stop and turn around and let Him lead us to the right path. We are so small and finite and we cannot possibly see everything that will happen and every option we have. God is so much bigger than us. Like my ability to see the way this small bird should go, God can see better than I what way I should go. The only thing is that I have to stop resisting and stop trying so desperately to go the wrong way on my own. I must calm down, stop and follow my Father trusting that he will not lead me astray.

Sunshine, lilacs and more sunshhine

In the midst of -15degree F temperatures, snow, and lack of heaters, I never thought that summer would come. However, I was thankfully proven wrong. It has been absolutely beautiful here lately. Unfortunately it did take until May before it got nice. The end of April it started to be nice, but it hasn't been until recently that it has been in the upper 70's /low 80's. I do kind of think it a little odd though when I see people still wearing long sleeves and sweatshirts. I myself am still a little afraid that when I walk outside it's all of a sudden going to start snowing, but I have at least started to wear some summer clothes. An interesting observation I have made is that the girls will carry around an umbrella when it's hot and sunny. In China having white skin is the equivalent to having a tan in America and I guess they take it as far as carrying around a parasol of sorts to stay white. The campus is currently absolutely beautiful. I never realized how many flowers they have on campus. There is an extraordinary amount of lilacs and they are all in bloom right now. It smells sooo good!!

Overdue....

It has been far too long since I have given you all an update on my life here. I apologize for not keeping you all in the loop. A lot has happened since I posted last, yet at the same time nothing is terribly new. Live for me still mostly consists of studying, eating and sleeping. It's getting more difficult to come up with fun stories because I've gotten so used to everything here now. I had my spring break a couple weeks ago, and my family was able to come to China to visit me. My dad, mom, sister, grandpa and grandma all came to China to visit me. It was great to have them here, and to have them see where I have been living. It's very hard to actually explain to someone what living in China is like when they have no frame of reference for it, so I feel very blessed that my family was able to come see me.

For the first three days of my spring break my family spent time with me in Harbin, seeing where I spend my time and touring the city of Harbin. After that we all took a train to Beijing and spent another three days there. While in Beijing we went to the Great Wall, saw the Olympic center, visited Tiananmen, and did lots of shopping. On the last night that my family was in China, we all celebrated my grandpa's and my birthday, his being on the 11th and mine on the 12th of April. It was quite the blessing to have them here to celebrate my birthday.

I enjoyed having the chance to act as the tour guide of sorts for my family, having them try the good, authentic Chinese cuisine, and showing them how to travel on China's public transportation, etc. If you want to know what my family thought of their trip, you'll have to ask them about there impressions, but as for me I really enjoyed it.

It's down to almost five weeks until I head home, and I'm finding myself continually conflicted. I'm on one hand very very excited to go home after almost eight months here, but on the other hand I've spent eight months here, and I've finally gotten adjusted to living here, and I've made friends that I will be sad to say goodbye to. I am actually very happy that it will be difficult to leave because that means I enjoyed myself, and that it was a good experience. At the same time though I'm still counting down the days. :)

Oh, and spring is finally here!!!

Thoughts...

I've been living in China for more than 7 months. I go home in almost two months. I am beginning to wonder what it will be like to go back home, how my experiences will affect being back at home, how being at home will affect my experience, etc, etc. In some areas I think life will just go back to normal, but in many ways I know it will not. Living in a foreign country, especially one like China, is very difficult to explain to people to a point where they can understand what I have experienced. I can tell people stories and I can show off my skills in speaking Chinese, but much of what I have learned here and much of what has shaped me will never be able to be expressed to a point where people will understand. Only if you have lived or visited China will you ever understand what it means when people talk about the amount of people, the pollution, the standard of living, etc. Most people will not actually be able to understand both the good and the bad about this country. Before I got here and actually lived here for more than two weeks, China was just a place on a map and culture that I knew a lot of the history about. Getting here was a whole different experience. Most of what I ever studied never really had anything to do with modern China, most of it was all before Deng Xiaoping's Gaigekaifang, or Opening and Reform policy. Living here I have experienced and seen so much of what China is today. Yet at the same time it is still very illusive to me. As a foreigner there are some things that I don't get to see because we are presented with the part of China that we are wanted to see. However, it is the same China that most of the nation sees as well. Anyways, it will be difficult to tell people all of this and have them understand it on a truly understanding level. I'm afraid of getting back home and being unable to give people an accurate representation of my experience here. It is not something that can be summed up into a few sentences. I have a feeling that it will be something that will have to just come out in stories, course I'm not the best story teller at all. I'm afraid that when I go home my experience in China will be a year that just becomes missing in my life. A period of time where I will talk about every once in a while, but that is generally ignored in the large scheme of life. Which is right in it's own sense because we shouldn't be living in the past but rather in the present.

So, how will this experience affect me? I guess a better question would be, what do I want to take away from this? Well, most importantly I want to take away everything God has taught me. He has taught me a lot about living in the present, and not in the past or the future. He has taught me that the journey with Him is not easy, and just because you leave America does not mean that it is any easier to seek Him everyday. I learned how much of a blessing and how important fellowship is to your walk. I have learned that I do not have enough friendships with people who are not Christians. I have spent my life in a bubble, and I want to start taking Jesus outside of the church walls. Now, that doesn't mean that I want to abandom my morals and that I want to live a heathenistic life, but it means that I want to make relationships with those people who are lost. It means I should go to them, not expect them to come to me inside the church. Jesus did not stay inside the synagogue and did not spend his time with the religious people of his time; instead, He spent his time building relationships with those outside of the synagogue walls, those who needed saving. He never went alone though, I do not think it is in His will for any of us to go out into the field alone. When Jesus sent his disciples out to preach and heal in his name he sent them out in pairs, not by themselves. I think when missionaries go out by themselves without anyone to back them up or support them in the field it becomes a dangerous spot and they can begin to struggle (I watched this happen to two different people). I have experienced God's care as he provided kind people to take care of me during my travels. I have experienced God's divine appointments as he allowed me to encourage a brother I had never met before in my life and will probably never meet again, and by allowing me to meet some amazing Christians along my travels that were such an encouragement to me. I have learned that I can do nothing on my own, without God's help I am nothing. I realize that I need to depend on His guidance and leadership throughout my life. I have had the privilege of witness God bring people to Him and watching how he has grown a meeting of 7 foreigners and one Chinese to a meeting of about 20, being about half foreigners and half chinese. It was not a result of anything we really did, God just blessed it and brought people. He has shown me that there is a need and a thirst here. Reading the heavenly man while being here also has really changed my perceptions and attitudes towards things. It is hard for me to express what I'm really thinking when it comes to God and church. When I go back home I'm afraid that i will get caught up in religiousity and forget all that I have experienced here. Yet at the same time, I know that fellowship with the believers will help me in my walk.

What am I looking forward to at home? I'm looking forward to seeing everyone that I have missed so dearly. I'm looking forward to being home. Although I have lived here in China for many months it is still not home to me. I'm looking forward to western food, food without a ton of oil. I look forward to having space, and not continually being surrounded by people. I look forward to being able to drive my car again, fresh air being fresh, understanding a culture, being able to have friends that I can tell what is on my mind, green grass, clean streets.

“幼儿园” (you'er yuan) Kindergarten!!

Today I got the chance to go back to kindergarten! CET had all of us go visit HIT's kindergarten so that we could practice our Chinese and interview the kindergartners. I have to say it was QUITE the experience. Definitely the opposite of our visit with HIT's elderly. When I heard that we were going to visit a kindergarten I had imagined in my head visiting a class, playing with a bunch of cute kids, and easily asking them the list of questions I had for them. I expected them to be cute, adorable, quiet, and willing to answer my questions. In fact, they were actually very cute and adorable, but as for being quiet and willingly answering my questions, they were far from it.

Two classmates and I walked in a class of about 20-30 kindergartners and were immeadietly each given a group of students. I proceeded to my table of kids and sat in my chair fit for a kid 1/4 my size. At first they really didn't know what to do with me! They didn't know whether to speak English or Chinese, and when they found out they couldn't speak English to me that had no clue what to say to me. One kid just looked at me and said in Chinese "foreigner" and then put his head down unwilling to talk to me. The teacher encouraged them to say their names, etc, but they were pretty shy and needed a bit more encouragement. The teacher then decided to have them all recite the 成语 (cheng yu), or idioms, that they had been memorizing. So my table started to recite their 成语 and they gradually got louder and louder until it was practically a yelling match between tables. After that the teacher tried again to have them introduce their names, and as they introduced their names I did my best to understand what they said and repeat it back. If I said their name wrong they were definitely not afraid to tell me I was wrong. I then tried to get them to all write their names for me so that I could see their names. This got them all really excited and they started pulling out paper to write, and they were all fighting for my attention to show me their name. A couple of the kids decided to take out their books and have me read the book to them; so I ended up spended quite a bit of time reading Spongebob Squarepants to them in Chinese. I thought it was pretty funny to see how excited they were to have me reading their book. They were all crowded around me so they could see the book too (one kid was practically in my lap), and they were quick to correct my pronunciation. After an hour or so in the very noisy classroom, my time came to an end and I had to say goodbye to my new "small friends", but it was an experience that I don't think I will forget very easily. I don't know how I forgot how noisy and spirited little kids can be. I have to say though, I have no clue what I'm going to tell my teacher on Friday because I didn't get a chance to ask any of my questions...

Classes have been going well. It is weird to realize that I have been in China now for a little more than six and a half months. I'm now having to start getting things ready for next fall semester, which makes it hard to wait to go home. I've certainly been enjoying my time, and I'm slowly making more and more friends here. I have been blessed while I have been here in more ways than one. I do think I'm starting to come down with a case of senioritis though.

Oh, and it is still very much winter here. I'm watching it snow outside right now, and it started snowing five hours ago.

China Life

I realized that I never really gave a detailed description of what it is like to live in China. I've decided to describe some of the differences that I have been experiencing here and have in most cases adapted to.

Well, for starters, I have gotten accustomed to washing my face in a wash basin. Normally I would just use the warm water out of the sink and wash my face in the sink, but our sink does not have hot water and Harbin is just a little too cold to use cold water to wash my face. So every night I borrow my roommates wash basin and pour hot water into it and use it to wash my face. The lack of cold water in the sinks in our dorms (and most sinks in China) makes me very appreciative when I come across a sink that actually has hot water. Not only does hot water in a sink make it easier to wash your face, but also your hands and your dishes too.

I can officially say that I am used to using a squatty potty. Granted it's not my favorite thing in the world to use, especially when the floor is wet, there are cigarette butts in the toilet and no toilet paper, but I've definitely gotten used to it. Most of the public places here have squatty potties and you need to provide you're own toilet paper.

The Chinese kitchens are a lot different than I'm used to. I have never once seen an actual stove. I have seen a stove (with no oven) every once in a while, but most of the time people use hot plates to cook on. The kitchen in our dorm consists of a microwave, a rice cooker, an oven about the size of a toaster oven, a hot plate, and refrigerator. They also don't refrigerate their eggs here, or their milk and yogurt.

I have gotten used to using taxis and public buses as my main means of transportation. Most people do not have personal cars here. The main methods of transportation are public bus, taxi and walking. The few personal cars that people do have are generally very nice. I see a lot of Audis and BMWs.

When I take a shower, I always have the toilet and the bathroom sink for company. There is no separate partitioned area for the shower. The shower is water heater on the wall with a shower head connected to it. The shower head is just on the wall of the bathroom and the entire bathroom just looks like a shower, except that the toilet and sink are there too.

I hang dry my clothes every time I do laundry. Dryers must be a luxury or just not a cultural norm because they just don't really exist here. You always hang your clothes in the window to dry. Most apartments have a sun porch area with a shower curtain rod that you hang your clothes on. Also, if you need to hand wash your clothes, which most of the students here do anyways, you use another wash basin except bigger than the one for face washing.

When you go out to eat it is all done family style. You never order a dish for just yourself. If the group of people is big enough you will find yourself in a separate personal room and the table your sitting at has a big lazy susan in the middle of it. Then everyone share's the food in the middle. You pretty much just take what you want as you want it. There is really no dishing food onto your plate using a separate utensil and then eating what is on your plate. You just use your chopsticks to take food that you want to eat and you eat as you go. Rice is generally brought last and is meant to be eaten if you're still hungry. China also has a custom where one person treats everyone at the table to dinner, called 'qing ke' 请客; however, we often end up just splitting the bill.

These are the things I can think of right now. I know there is more, but I'm always afraid I'll just be repeating myself or that people will already know what it's like. Anyways, I've started school again. I started on Monday, and this semester is so far ten times better than last semester. My level of Chinese is a lot higher than when I first got here so the first weeks of the semester aren't miserable like they were last semester. The group of students this semester is a lot of fun. They are very social and they are generally all around the same conversation level. It is a smaller group than last semester, 20 instead of 27. I also have a new roommate this semester, and she is very sweet. Her name is Xue Yi， 薛艺。 She is a graduate student and a few years older than me. She is very talkative, but talkative in a very cute way. I enjoy that I don't really have to think of something to say, instead she'll end up saying something and then I can respond to her. All in all I'm enjoying this semester, I'm glad to be back to school, and time really has flown.

It's not the places you go, but the people you meet...

I've seen lots of cool places. Places that few people ever get to travel to and people only dream about seeing. I am grateful for the opportunity I have to travel; however, the best part of my travels is not everything I've seen, but it's all of the people I have met along the way. The opportunity to meet people from around the world and share who we are and share our culture with eachother is a once in a lifetime experience. Just the other night my friend Laura and I taught our new Dutch friends how to make s'mores, something they had never heard of before. It was a blast to be sitting at a little charcoal fire using chopsticks, fruit-flavored marshmellows, and cookie-like crackers, sharing a piece of our American culture with friends in the middle of our hostel in Chengdu. In my several weeks of travel I have already met people from Austrailia, Sweden, The Netherlands, England, South Africa, Germany, Mexico, Korea, Norway, even America, and of course China. Meeting these people from all over the world has given me a real understanding of how big and yet small the world is. Having the chance to learn about countries that my understanding of goes no further than where it is on a map, has been something I would never trade. It has made me appreciate how many countries and cultures there are in the world, and that my country is not the only one that exists and of any note.

Most all of the people I have met speak English fluently as a second language and sometimes it is their first language. Each time I meet someone and start talking with them, I discover how each culture influences language and how English can be very different even in places like England and Australia. I have begun to envy all the Europeans that can speak fluent English yet still have their own language that they can speak (and no one else can understand it). It is fun being able to sit and listen to people speak in Dutch one second and then turn to you and start speaking English again. Languages really are a beautiful and amazing thing. They are so complex yet so simple.

In short, traveling has made me appreciate meeting people, making friendships, and building those friendships that I already have, because solely traveling and sightseeing is so empty and void compared to the joy of knowing people.

On Vacation

So, I'm finally on my winter vacation. I finished my semester last week, and had my first graduation from CET. I'll graduate again next semester because they only do things by semesters which means a person graduates at the end of every semester they spend here. The graduation event was fun. They had several people speak about the semester, and they gave certain students awards. After being handed certificates for completing the semester we ate lunch and said our farewells to all out teachers. For me it was a lot different to say goodbye because I'll see them all again in two months. My roommate taught me a custom that students have with teachers to thank them and honor them for being your teacher. What you do is you take your class to your teacher and tell them that you would like to "ganxie" which means to thank, and then you thank them for being your teacher and being patient, etc, and then you "ganbei" or cheers with them. Also after we were given our certificates, we were officially allowed to speak English again. I think my roommate enjoyed finally being able to practice her English after I practiced a semester of Chinese with her. :)

After the graduation I finished packing up my meager belongings and we all got ready to take a train to Beijing. Our train arrived in the early morning, and after having some time to set stuff down I got my first look at some of the touristy stuff in Beijing. I was terribly excited when we went to Houhai, a district in Beijing, because there I got my the first Starbucks I've had in over three months. It was just nice to start seeing some more western places. I tagged along with some people and purused the touristy shopping places. I didn't buy anything because I'm living out of a backpack for two months and I don't have room to put any souveniers in it. After two days in Beijing, the evening of the second day two classmates and I got on a train and headed for Dalian. The train ride itself was quiet and uneventful. However, as we got off the train I experienced my first run in with not so wonderful part of China. It is partly my fault what happened, but it is still unfortunate that it happened at all. As we were preparing to get of the train I was fussing with all my luggage, and had taken my cellphone out of my pocket, probably to look at it, and I placed it on the bed. Then we quickly proceeded to get off the train. I was trying to be quick because people were waiting to unload there luggage. In the process of quickly leaving the train I managed to forget to grab my phone. I noticed that i didn't have it as soon as I got of the train, before we had even gone anywhere, but by the time I had gone to go grab it someone had already stolen it. My classmate called it twice and I even heard it but couldn't tell where it was coming from. Turns out it was in someone's pocket and I heard it as they were passing me. I was, as to be expected, very flustered, angry, and a bit paniced. I managed to find some train attendents and explain to them in chinese that my phone had just been stolen, and they were very helpful in helping me call my phone, then call our hotel to get the address, get us a cheap cab, and she even gave me her phone number to call her if I needed help getting a new phone. So at the same time I experience both the worst and best part of China. I experienced the common occurance of petty theivery, but also experienced the Chinese spirit of being willing to go out of their way to help.

We spent three nights in Dalian, and one of my classmates had a friend in Dalian that had formerly gone to WSU for the past two years, but transfered to the UW this year. He was very kind and took us around to all the good places to see in Dalian, helped me get a new phone and number, and invited us to his home. When we visited his home, his mother found out we planned to take the boat the next day but had yet to buy tickets. She said that we were going to have a hard time getting tickets, and quickly called a friend of hers to get tickets for us. She then arranged it so that her son, our friend, would take us the the dock in the morning, and there her friend would meet us, her friend who was a boat captain(I think) then went and found his friend which was the captain of the boat we were taking. The two friends then got us our tickets, gave us a free upgrade to 2nd class to make us more comfortable and took care of everything to get us on the boat. It was quite the fun experience to be experiencing the Chinese networking culture. In China getting things done is all about who you know. The more people you know, the more smoothly things can go for you. So, we had a nice 8 hour boat ride to Yantai, the city we're in right now. We plan to be here for another night and then we hope to head to Qingdao if we don't get stuck here because of snow.

Now for random stories. While I'm traveling I didn't bring a computer with me so in order to get online and use internet, we've been going to 'wang ba' or internet bars. These internet bars are huge rooms filled with rows of computers. You pay by the hour, and the majority of people in these internet bars are men between late twenties and maybe fourties. These people that frequent the internet bars spend HOURS sitting at the computer smoking and playing online video games. To me it's a little digusting, but I suppose a lot of people enjoy it because it's the same in every city I've been to so far. I just wish they wouldn't smoke. :(

When I was in Beijing ever small stall salesperson would try to say some English to get our attention and get us to by something. Normally it was just annoying because they are all so pushy and I just didn't want to be pressured. Sometimes it was a little entertaining. One time a lady said to me, "Hello, sir." The difference about being in cities other than Harbin is that they expect you to not speak Chinese so they try to speak English, but in Harbin it's as if you are expected to speak Chinese because no one really tries to speak English to you.

Dalian, the first city we went to after Beijing, was a very beautiful city. It seemed to be a very rich city and I think had a lot of party people living there. They had a million different squares, and the seaside was gorgeous. It is a seaside city that has mountains, course they don't compare to Washington mountains. Overall it was one of the more enjoyable cities I've been to as far as cleanliness and such go. Yantai is a very small port city, and so far it doesn't seem to have anything too interesting it, but we shall see.

One week to go for fall semester

I have officially had my first Thanksgiving outside of the country. I have to say it didn't really feel like much of a holiday though because I still had class all week and there was no family get togethers, etc. However, my program did provide a very nice dinner at a very expensive hotel. The dinner was an amazing buffet, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, ham, pumpkin pie, and plenty of other amazing foods. Our roommates and teachers were able to come as well so it was a lot of fun to celebrate the holiday with everyone. I had fun explaining to my roommate all the Thanksgiving traditions, and what is generally eaten with what, i.e. mashed potatoes and gravy.

This last weekend my one-on-two class had an activity where we got together with HIT's retired. We had a list of questions to ask them concerning the elderly population in China, and the affect on them etc. It was lots of fun to listen to some of the stories from there life. Particularly from 1966-1976 (google the time period). One of the teachers I talked to was a very accomplished teacher at that time and he was accused of having wrong thinking. He was sent to go work underground in Harbin with everyone else who was accused of the same thing. He said that it was a very difficult time, and that he knew a man who was working underground with him that commited suicide. They were very direct in saying that life now was far better than then. I only wish I could have heard more detailed stories.

I've got a week to go before I'm done with my first semester! I'm thrilled that I've made it this far, and happy to see the amount of progress I've made so far. Next week is finals, and I have to finish writing a 2,500 character essay and prepare an eight minute oral report on the paper for my one on one final. After all my tests are over I will have break for two months. So for two months I pretty much plan to travel to as many places as I can. I'm so far going to 14+ places. I will get the chance to celebrate the Chinese New Year at the home of a Chinese friend of a friend. I hope to be able to post some of the stories from my travels on my blog. Internet will be intermittent though because I don't really know how often I will find internet. I look forward to sharing some stories though.

I'm Getting Closer to the End of a Semester

Sorry, it's been a little while since I've posted. Things have been going well lately. I feel as though I have gotten to a point where I'm actually adjusted to living here. It's too bad that it's taken three months to get to this point though. I am happy though that I will still be here for several more months because I'm starting to get the hang of things. My semester is quickly coming to a close. I have three weeks left before I have to back my bags and leave the city of Harbin for two months. This semester has flown by. Before I know it I will be writing my 2500 character essay and preparing for all my finals. In the three months I've been hear I have learned so much. My language proficiency has definitely gotten a lot better. I've gone from not understanding a word of what people say, to generally being able to understand at least the main idea of what people are saying if not fully understanding. In about a week or so I will start decided what classes I will be taking next semester and getting things for the next semester arranged.

As soon as the semester is over I get a two month Christmas break, where I have an incredible opportunity to travel China and see a lot of the sights. I'm really excited. The plans for where to go and who to go with and for how long are starting to fall together. It's definitely a new adventure though because traveling in China isn't really the same as traveling in the US. Here you can only buy one-way train tickets and you have to be at the train station you want to leave from in order to buy them. Also, for part of my break I will be traveling during China's New Year. It will be excited to celebrate my first Chinese New Year but it definitely makes traveling a little more interesting. I'm hoping to be able to get a chance to post blogs while I'm traveling to keep you all updated.

Winter is officially here in Harbin. It has been snowing for several weeks. It has snowed twice in the past two weeks. The temperature generally doesn't come above freezing anymore, with the exception of today. It's pretty crazy to go outside in November and have your breath taken away because it is so cold. I'm looking forward to the ice skating rink though. During winter here every college makes there own outdoor ice skating rink. I also found out that the Songhua River freezes and you can walk out onto the river.

I went roller skating today with my program. It was lots of fun. I think the last time I went roller skating I was still in elementary school; maybe at the oldest I was in junior high. The only bummer was that they only had skates, no roller blades. It took me a little while to get used to roller skating. I'm proud to say that in a dark roller skating rink that often had traffic jams and people falling, I only fell once when someone ran into the back of me. The people here are all very nice though, because when anyone would fall, or even start to fall sometimes, someone would help you back up. Another interesting thing was that in the middle of the skating rink there were people dancing with disco lights and loud music. It was pretty interesting to watch.

This week I'll get to have a Thanksgiving dinner with everyone else in my program. I'm excited that I will actually be able to celebrate the holiday while I'm here. I look forward to telling you how my Thanksgiving is. The only sad thing is that I don't get a day off for it, but such is life. Love you all. Till next time

I Died More Times Than I Can Count Today...

It turns out that playing lazer tag where you actually are out of the game if you die to many times, has taught me that I have a knack for getting killed. This weekends activity was, of course, lazer tag. When I signed up to participate I was understandably expecting the regular running around in a room with black lights, fog, bright colors, and big bulky vests. Well, I learned today that this is not what Chinese lazer tag is like. When we got off the bus upon arriving, we were greeted by two men in military camis, and they promptly told us to line up in two lines and count off, then we were divided into two teams. After listening and not understanding all the instructions in Chinese, we proceded to go put on different clothes. When I first heard we were putting on different clothes, I was honestly really confused and kinda weirded out. When we walked in the building we were each given a pair of military camis to wear. The pants and belt were hilariously too big, but in the end it all ended up being okay. I was still very confused though as to why we needed to where military camis to run around in a black lit room. I later found out that we actually were going to play outside! So after putting on our issued camis we proceeded to put on the rest of our military outfit, complete with helmet, vest power pack, and huge bulky gun. They were all decked out in camoflauge too. After getting properly outfitted we headed outside to go play a series of military stragized lazer tag games. This was definitely not the run around in a dark room kind of lazer tag. This was like paintball meets lazer tag. This was a hide in the bushes and run crouching close to the ground or even crawl on the ground kind of lazer tag. It was lots of fun and we played several 15minute games, and each game had different rules and different places to play. We were playing in this huge park that had castles and fountains and trees, etc. It turned out to be very useful to be wearing different clothes because you didn't stick out, you didn't have to be afraid to crawl on the ground, and it was just plain fun. Unfortunately I have terrible aim and only averaged about one kill a game, but the last game I was really successful and killed a grand total of four people! :) Granted it was only because I rushed the opposite team and I had 8 lives before I died. So now I know that lazer tag is not the same everywhere you go.

We had Halloween here yesterday. It was fun to see everybody attempt to dress up for Halloween. It is kind of a challenge to find costumes here because Chinese people don't celebrate Halloween so you kind of have to be exceptionally creative. I didn't end up dressing up, but I ended up following everyone to the place everyone ended up hanging out. The place we ended up going had a lot of foreigners and it was fun to see a bunch of foreigners together in one place celebrating a common holiday, even if it was just Halloween. I do miss the corn mazes though. :(

I ate Pizza Hut for the first time since I have been here today. I never, ever thought that I would enjoy pizza so much. It was the most American thing I've had since I got here, and it definitely helped cure my craving for cheese. (They don't eat cheese here normally)

This week was my first week of class after my fall break. In some of the classes they have definitely kicked up the difficulty. It's all of course to 'improve my Chinese' and I am grateful that they care so much to push me, but it does have an effect on my stress level. So safissed to say I have been pretty stressed lately and I don't really know if the stress level will really every go down. If you could all keep me in your thoughts concerning that I would appreciate it. My midterms turned out pretty good and I ended up doing well on all of them. So I think that's it for now. Love you all!

Half-way done!....with half-way

Sorry I haven't posted anything new lately. The creative juices haven't been flowing as of late. This week I am finally on mid-fall break. I just finished up my midterms last week, and I think they went well considering it's all in a foreign language. It strangely actually felt more like finals than midterms because they canceled classes and such because of our tests. It's definitely crazy to know that I've been here for about two months. The time has kind of flown by, but I still have several months here.

Let's see what stories could I tell....

I went to the post office for the first time today. I was pretty proud of myself for mailing a letter all by myself. Mailing a letter, mind you, is much different in China than it is in the US. Here nothing is pre-pasted, and they don't like to do things for you. So they gave me the stamps and had me glue them on myself with the paste they provide, and then when the lady was all finished she had me paste the envelope closed. It was pretty easy to mail a letter, but it was definitely an experience to see things done a little different.

I was mistaken for a Russian the other day. I walked into a restaurant on campus and I was staring at the menu and the waiters proceeded to hand me a menu and turned it to the page with Russian on it. I was kind of thrown off so when I tried to tell him I was not Russian I totally messed it up, but it was okay cause I got a second chance. The other waiter thought I was Russian too and he tried to show me the Russian menu as well. This time I was prepared though and I told him I was an American, but apparently I look Russian.

I learned how to play Mahjong the other day. One of my American friends here invited me to go learn to play Mahjong with two of her Chinese friends that she had met through a series of connections. We went and met them by their school and ate a great lunch and then headed over to the Mahjong hall where you pay a certain amount of money per person to play for four hours, and you get unlimited tea and milk tea and ice cream. It was lots of fun learning to play a game that is a large part of the Chinese culture. Normally when you play Mahjong you're supposed to bet, but because gambling in China is illegal we used poker cards as money. :) So if you win and depending on how you win you get a certain amount of poker cards from everyone else. After four hours I ended up winning in amount of cards.

I visited one of my teacher's homes the other day and got to see what a real Chinese home is like. This home in particular was very small. Everyone in the city lives in apartments and it is not uncommon for several generations to live together. So my teacher's home has four rooms, his and his wife's bedroom, his son and his son's wife's bedroom, his granddaughter's bedroom, and a kitchen. They also have one room that is the bathroom, laundry room, and shower all in one. I don't know if I've mentioned, but here, the bathroom is the shower and the shower is the bathroom. My teacher was very hospitable and gave me two books, one that he had actually written and one he had written an essay in. I was just amazed at how kind he was trying to make me feel at home so that I wouldn't have to miss my mom as much. One funny thing about visiting your calligraphy teacher's home is that it means you have to practice your calligraphy. :) Before I left he made sure that I had practiced all the characters we had learned and I even had an audience watching me write, honestly it was a little nerve wracking to be put on the spot, but I certainly appreciated the practice.

I've been starting to make some Chinese friends here that are outside the CET program. One girl works at a coffee shop near campus and her name is Lulu. She is so cute. She saw me studying my Chinese there and started asking me about it and then just starting talking to me while she was waiting for something to do. So I ended up spending several hours there just talking with her. Then I went again today and talked with her again and she introduced me to a friend of hers who is an English teacher. I ended up talking with this lady as well and now I might end up helping with a winter English camp over my winter break. All the girls I have met are so sweet and I certainly hope that I will get lots of chances to really get to know them.

So I think I'm actually learning how to live in a city. I never thought I would ever catch myself enjoying living in a city, but I guess after you live somewhere for a while it will always start to become home. I still prefer the quite of living out of the city, but I'm definitely seeing benefits to living in a city, you never run out of things to explore.

I think this is about it for this post. Please keep me in your thoughts as I have many opportunities to build relationships with lots of people. Love you all!

Trip to Dandong

So this last weekend I had the chance to go to Dandong with CET. Dandong is on the eastern edge of China surrounded by the Yellow Sea and North Korea. While we were there we stayed on an island named Daludao Island (which when literally translated means large deer island). Getting to and off the island threw a couple wrenches in our itinerary because the wind was too strong to get to the island the first day so we had to wait a few hours. Then the next day when we wanted to get off the island we had to wait most of the day because the wind was again too strong. The free time on the island was fun though. This island is apparently considered one of China's paradises and the writing a bus on the island said it was "China's Hawaii." Now I haven't been to Hawaii to compare at all, but this island was definitely beautiful and peaceful. My roommate and I during our first free time went and rented a tandom bicycle for an hour and had a great time filled with lots of laughter as, me being in the front, I attempted to keep from killing us both. After this excursion we went out with two other classmates and rode in sand buggy, which was rented by the circle, and then we rented an awesome four person bicycle. The four person bicycle was an absolute hoot and we successfully managed to get every person that passed us to stare at the two Americans and two Chinese people. I think they thought we were a bit crazy as we laughed the whole way down the street.
After getting off the island we headed to Dandong and had the night free to get dinner, etc. My roommate and I ate dinner with a large group and I enjoyed my first Korean food at a table where you sat on the floor. After dinner we all walked down to the river and we got our first look at North Korea. My first look was pretty interesting. Standing on the riverside you look across and see...a black abyss. Compared to the lit Dandong with building, street, and even bridge lights. North Korea really did look like nothingness. The most interesting part was how the colorful bridge lights ended at the North Korean half of the bridge.
The next day we made our way to the eastern most half of the Great Wall of China. I was incredibly excited and who wouldn't be excited to climb a wall that was built thousands of years ago. Unfortunately, I wish I had been warned ahead of time that along with climbing the Great Wall comes scaling a mountain! I should have been smart enough to put together that this being "Tiger Mountain Great Wall" it was not going to be any easy day hike. The beginning of this Great Wall is pretty deceiving too. It starts out as a nice sloped incline and then all of a sudden you come to a mountain wall that has stairs, and I think to myself "oh, those stairs aren't too long, this won't be too bad at all" not knowing that I can't really see all of the stairs because they immeadietly turn left and I find myself scaling steps that are abnormally deep and go on for what seems forever. As soon as you come to a landing you look up and see a ton more of steep steps. After a climb that was harder than expected I got to the top and it was well worth the climb. We were able to see North Korea from the top. (A little random thing about North Korea: in Chinese they do not refer to Korea as north and south. South Korea is simply Korea and North Korea is called Chao Xian. ) So after a nice view from the top we make our way back, but we don't go the way we came. We go the other way that eventually lead around the mountain itself and not actually on the wall. It was quite the surprise to first be walking down incredibly steep steps, that made someone without a fear of heights a little nervous, and then to find myself hiking a mountain on a dirt/rock trail that was bordered by mountain cliff on your left and a green fence on your right. The green fence was quite helpful when we found ourselves practically rock climbing. :) All in all it was a great experience and quite the workout all at the same time.
After the Great Wall we got an up close and personal look at North Korea by boat on the river that divides the two countries. Then after lunch we headed back to Harbin. The train ride back was pretty fun because I was succesfully able to learn how to play new card games in Chinese, granted the practice rounds and the showing with the cards helped alot.

I have officially been here for a little more than a month and I am now in my fifth week of classes. It's pretty wild to think that in a couple weeks my midterms will be here and then soon after that my finals. Time is beginning to go a lot faster here as I have gotten into a routine with school. Now I'm at that point where there are so many things I want to do and see around the city that I don't know if I'll actually get to see them all, but I still do have a lot of time here. Anyways, that's all for this update. I love and miss you all.

Nicole

I Learned Something New Today...

So this morning at about 9:00am in my conversation class, we were taking a short break and I began to hear sirens outside. I quickly asked my teacher what it was and come to find out they were air-raid sirens. She proceeds to tell us that today is 9-18 and that in 1937 on this day, Japan invaded China from the north and made their campaign down to Beijing. She said that Japan had come saying they wanted to "help" China, but instead they attempted to take over the country for its resources. So every year on 9-18 in order to remember what Japan did, China sets off their air-raid sirens. My teacher said that if Japan were to apologize, China would stop remembering, but to this day Japan has yet to apologize. I found it incredibly interesting to find out that China and Japan still did not like each other very much. So anyways that's what I learned. I hope you find it interesting.

Other interesting stuff that I've encountered/come across...
If for some reason you ever decide to come to China, particularly Harbin, and want to take the bus, here is how to successfully survive using the bus system. First, get over any sense of a bubble. This is the most important thing because every single bus is always full to the max and it is squished standing room only. The only limit I've noticed to how many people can be on a bus is if you physically can not get on the bus because there is absolutely no room. (This actually happened to a group of us once.) Next thing to know is that the bus will not wait for you, whether you're getting on or off. If you want to get on the bus you'd better know exactly what number bus, and as soon as you see it you follow it till it stops completely then join the mad dash to get in. You have to be kind of pushy to get on because you don't want the bus driver to leave without you, and you have to be standing by the door with your money ready as soon as it stops. To get off the bus you must make an attempt to move through the sea of people to the back of the bus where the exit is, about one stop before you need to get off. When you reach your stop be sure to move quickly to get off because if the driver doesn't see anyone trying to get off within a few seconds of stopping and there's no one getting on he will leave before you can get off. If the doors do close before you get a chance to get off you can yell in Chinese "xia che" and the bus driver will open the doors. Be careful though, I've observed the bus driver get very upset at someone not getting of the bus quickly enough. Lastly, while riding on the bus be sure to hold on tight because the bus does a lot of jolting and stopping due to the crazy traffic. If you're not paying enough attention you could go flying forward. (This actually happened to me, it was pretty entertaining.) So now you all know how to ride a Harbin bus, and since you all know you should come and visit me now. :)

Classes are still going well, still challenging, but I'm learning lots. I bought a Chinese copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and I'm looking forward to attempting to tackle it. I'm liking the food here, but it's definitely interesting trying new food items because I never really know what I'm eating. I think I've begun to adjust to life here. I still have a lot to learn about how to live in a city though. It's a far cry from the small, quite town of Pullman. Love you all!

Nicole

My First Chinese Holiday

So this Sunday was 中秋节(zhong qiu jie) or mid-autumn festival. It was quite the ordeal and was really fun. For the past month there have been people everywhere selling mooncakes. Mooncakes are these little round bread things that are filled with stuff. The filling can be pretty much anything. So far I've eaten a green tea mooncake, a red tea mooncake, a white lotus mooncake, a sesame mooncake, a coconut mooncake, and a bite of an unknown mooncake. The filling is generally kind of a jelly-like consistency but more just like a mashed up something. The taste is definitely different and some are better than others. I liked the white lotus mooncake the best, but it is still something I would not eat everyday.
In China this holiday is generally a three day break and they compare it to our Thanksgiving in how big of a deal it is. Families are supposed to get together and eat food, mooncakes, drink alcohol, and enjoy the moon. Sunday night my roommate and I and four other people went to a big shopping street that is a pedestrian only street. At night the buildings are lit up. The combination of the lights and the crowds of people because it was a holiday made me feel like I was at Disneyland, along with the mickey ears and minnie mouse ballons that could be spotted frequently. We went there and ate some dinner at a very nice restaurant. Afterwards my roommate and I did some shopping, watched fireworks, took pictures, and enjoyed laughing together. There were a lot of people that were lighting these wishing lamps that had a flame at the bottom so the lamp would float like a hot-air ballon. After hanging out watching fireworks my roommate and I took a taxi back to the campus and bought ourselves some mooncakes. We ate the mooncakes in our room and watched a little TV while I studied. I had school the next day so I had to go to bed earlier than she did. :(

This weekend I was able to get out and see a lot more of the city. I didn't understand how big this city actually is. I've spotted my first and second Mcdonald's so far. I've also seen their Wal-mart. They have a lot of Russian stores here and a lot of Russian looking buildings. I'm looking forward to exploring the expance of the city and finding all the fun places to go and see. The weather is starting to get a little cooler here already. It's cool in the mornings and evenings, but still in the seventies during the middle of the day. We get thunder storms pretty often here, and by that I mean we've had maybe three or four since I've been here. I'm taking a calligraphy class now, and that's been really fun. So far I've only learned how to make a dot :) I like my roommate alot and as my ability to communicate increases we are able to bond more and more. Classes are still pretty challenging, but I've decided it's good for me.
I think that's all I've got for now. I love you and miss you all!!

Nicole

Observations for a rainy day

So this morning it rained a lot, and I made some more observations that I've added to my growing list of cultural observations. I thought I would share the ones I can think of with you.

1. EVERYONE uses umbrellas. I find this one kind of entertaining because coming from a state that supposedly rains the most, we hardly ever use umbrellas. I find this one very practical though and it makes walking in the rain quite a bit less miserable.

2. If you are a foreigner expect to be stared at wherever you go. Walking down the street or minding your own business in a supermarket you are being stared at. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it can definitely remind you that you stick out like a sore thumb. :)

3. They have a Chinese version of pizza here. It's interesting how they have taken the concept of pizza and put very irregular toppings on it. It tastes good, but I never would have thought that a pizza with either curry or corn would taste good before.

4. Chinese people like buffets...I thought that was only an American thing.

5. There is a lot more PDA between couples here than I expected to see, but still conservative compared to what you might see in the states.

6. You can't take your bag with you into a shopping store. They have these giant cubby things with a door on each cubby that you have to put your stuff in before going in to a grocery/supermarket type store. You also can't take any drinks or food in.

7. I have yet to see a Mcdonalds here....I've seen one KFC, but no Mcdonalds yet.

8. They do sell forks and spoons here. I definitely wasn't expecting that, however in the cafeterias they have a giant chopstick dispenser. Kind of like a straw dispenser but for chopsticks.

9. If you are a foreigner you are easily memorable and people you buy from have a high likely hood to remember you.

10. Taxis are cheap.

11. I haven't seen grass, but there are quite a few beautiful willow trees here.

12. They use chalk boards here in the classrooms. It feels like a flashback to elementary school.

13. They sell lots of tea here. :) and bubble tea too for those that like it.

14. It's different being able to walk to class in about two minutes and not have to scale any hills to get there. :) The largest hill on campus is nothing but a slight slope, and I mean slight. I will have to rebuild my cougar calves in a year.

15. There are a lot more buildings on this campus than I thought. They are really close together and it's a little confusing because things look different from a window than from the ground.

That is all that I can think of for now. I hope you all enjoy these few observations. Till next time. :)

Nicole