Day 7

So sorry it's be a while... things have been smooth the past week.  Just adjusting, getting used to the family flow and whatnot.  Tomorrow is the first day of classes, so I'll let you know how that goes.  For now, I'll list off a few things, tell a brief summary of it, and we'll go from there.

Host Family

They are great.  Mama is a retired factory worker who loves to sing karaoke, play piano, dance, and try to guess what foods I like and don't like.  She always says "americans don't like this", but then I tell her I am different... that I do like a lot of "those" things, and it confounds her.  She doesn't seem to believe me, but I eat it, and I think she's slowly getting used to it.  haha..

Baba works about 9am-7pm at one of the local universities.  I reckon my university is English focused, and the one he works at is Russian focused.  So he speaks Russian.  Which he told me, obviously does us no good...haha...

Gege (brother) is a manager at a computer company.  Works from 10am-8pm or so sometimes later.  He loves American Movies... and video games.  Pete would like him...ha

The thing that I like most about them is they aren't overwhelming.  The other homestay kids say their families cook huge meals every night, and shower them with stuff.  My family: very chill, haven't had a meal with more than 1 person at a time, no over feeding, no showering of stuff... exactly what I hoped for.  I reckon the guy they had last semester was said to know chinese, but they told me he spoke next to no chinese, and it was difficult.  He loved sitting in his room watching US movies that he bought for cheap on the street, so they assume I love it too.  I don't watch any movies.  They also assumed I love to drink beer, and that I hate Fensi (粉丝, a type of noodles), which happens to be my favorite (it's the clear kind...).  But they are getting used to me.  Mama is comfortable with my chinese now, and Baba is still not convinced I understand anything .... haha... He hasn't met an american who speaks any decent amount of Chinese.  But I understand most of what they say.  I also translate a lot for the other homestays.  I am the only one who speaks enough chinese... most don't know any.  So some random host mom will come down and ask "Lu-keh, what is he saying!?" and I'll intermediate... it's fun.

Interviews for Internships

Have been alright.  In the least, I've had to figure out how to get around Shanghai all on my own.  The company I think I'm going with is Student Quest, who basically recruits Chinese University students to work summer jobs in the US as part of a English/culture experience.  I like them mostly because their office is right in the middle of a popular part of Shanghai, the metro lets off right at the foot of their building, and they are on the 11th floor with a great great view of the city, and I might get to travel around China with them for presentations and whatnot.

Food

Again, it's all tasty, but so so much oil.  I love the food at the small restaurants, get a meal for $1.20 USD.  My host mom and dad say... "you are young, and so need to eat more."  I say... I'm honestly full enough.  If I eat too much, I'll feel sick.  And other past homestays say they gained a ton of weight, which I don't want to do... ha...  Also, another logic thing that isn't so much related to food, but along the same lines as "if you don't eat more, you'll be hungry...": they keep telling me I'm not wearing enough clothes, that it's too cold in the house.  But I'm a warm blooded kinda guy.  I'm fine.  I feel hot with my sweatshirt on, but they aren't convinced even when I tell them "I'm too hot, so I'll take off my sweater..."

That's all for now.  Need some sleep!  Oh, and my class schedule is great: 10am-3pm, Mon-Thurs.  12-1 we have lunch, so yeah.  

明天再聊!

Adventure from Day 1...

Basically what happened, was I needed to get my electronic dictionary fixed. For some reason, it was doing fine for the 1st several weeks of my owning it, but then it would either not turn on, or it would turn on to the 'welcome' screen, but not let me use it. Yep.

So I explained all that to the lady (who works for this electronics place) in Chinese, and she was messing with it, and she eventually says "it's probly the battery, go to 'this' place and you can find one for cheap." I tell her... "ok, where is 'this' place?" She says, "don't worry, I'll take you there."

Very kind and not normal. She goes to the back, takes off her work apron, tells a few people she'll be back in a little bit, then we start walking. 5 minutes later, we get to this battery stand, and she starts explaining things and trying out batteries... really helping me out a lot, taking care of the situation. Granted, we finally come to the conclusion that the issue isn't the battery, it's my dictionary that has the issue, so yeah, no need to have made the trip but oh well.

We walked back, I thanked her (a ton...) and she kept saying "oh, it's no big thing, don't worry about it!" So I learned some strangers will help and they are honest. Fun, and totally 100% in Chinese.

More on Day 2 coming soon...!

Day 1

  

It's begun.  (technically, yesterday...).  We went through orientation, which was basically a 3 hours talk on alcohol.  Very dissapointing us "Americans" have to be lectured on this so much... They played us a video of a bunch of Chinese students on campus, asking them questions about American students.  They said we like to go out to bars, and are normally "strong-willed and spontaneous", which I took to mean "noisy and reckless".  Hmm.

I like the staff.  All very nice and professional, they speak Chinese to us (when appropriate... a lot of kids here don't speak much Mandarin).  After introductions and the alcohol talk, we were split up into groups of 7.  My group was me, Ken (Penn State), and 5 other girls.  They're all very nice, talkative (but not excessive), and we've all been bonding in our experiences here sofar.  Granted, I'm used to the Asian-ness of things, like traffic and food and whatnot, but it's still fun to see them wide-eyed about it all.

Our group went to a homestay to eat food, as did every group.  I was the only lucky one of the homestay students, cuz we ate at my homestay!  Joy.  My host mom was the only one there though, with her friend, but she's very nice and oh so excited to have us over.  I reckon she had a student last semester, whom they said 'spoke some chinese', but she said he didn't speak any... and she was so surprised I could speak, so she talked my ear off about the house and 'do you like your room?  is the bathroom big enough, cuz if not you just come and use the big one in our room..." etc... haha...  But yeah, I move in tonight or tomorrow... she says tonight, the program schedule says tomorrow.

My room, btw, is sweet.  At least as big as my hotel room here (2 person room).  Got a bed, lazy boy chair, big closet, a tv, speakers, a great view... I'll take some pics and you'll see better...

Speaking of which, here are some photos of our hotel room (I'm rooming with one other homestay, Matt from Lawrence, NY.)

Next we went to this huge 15 story mall, Zhongshan Park Mall.  Spent 2 hours buying phones....er, waiting for others to buy phones.  Finally, time to go home, I take Matt and this other IU girl to eat at a local small place, help them order chinese food, and it was delicious.

Not much more than that... one adventure to tell from yesterday, but I must be off.

下次再聊！

一，二，三，开始！

Hey everyone.  It's been a while, but now I'm in Incheon Airport waiting to get on a 1hr 50min flight to Shanghai. Great weather sofar in Korea, maybe 40-50 degrees out.  Sept for today, in which case it snowed.  It also snowed the day I arrived in Korea, so... a sign?  haha...

My time in Korea was good, though not much to report about.  Parents went to DC for interviews and such, so I was alone for a week.  Pretty much just go up, went for a run, went out to one of the local pastry shops, got some coffee and ate breakfast while studying chinese, get home, make lunch, make some music on the computer, teach piano after school, go somewhere for dinner, and the day is done.  Not too much venturing, but it was a good time.  No school, no stress.

It feels like I'm used to Asia now.  I hear "10,000 won" and it's no biggie (10,000 won is about $7.50 US right now...).  So I'm not super excited for Shanghai.  I'm ready to be there, to get things going, but I'm not bouncing off the walls or anything.  I just hope my mandarin is doing ok... I've been studying a lot, but not speaking a ton.  I mostly just watch Shin Chan in Chinese, and it's amusing.  I understand everything they say now.  So yippee.

I hope I get to move in with my host family today.  Living out of my suitcase in the dorms doesn't seem so great... but I'll keep you posted.  Once I get some internet, let you know what's up.

Till then, 再见!

老师好！

I've been home since last Wednesday, and boy does it feel good.  No stress, mom cooking, snow, and central heating.  I enjoyed Hefei, don't get me wrong, it's just things really are different between a US military base and some not-completely-modernized-China-city.  For now, I'd like to share my internship experience.

Basically, my duty was to come up with activities and lesson plans for kids.  That's all the instruction I got when I arrived.  Originally they were going to do an english class focusing on furniture, but then bagged that for something more fun and made by a "native English speaker", aka moi.  Really, no direction, but no worries, I was prepared for something like that.  I knew things in China tended to be a bit less directed, with lots of phrases coming from my Chinese counterparts that sounded like, "yeah, sure, sounds good, whatever you think, that'll be fine...what do you think should happen?" and so on.  Nothing negative. 

Great and not great.

Great because the pressure of doing things perfect for their standards is eliminated, even though I don't know their standards.  I want to stand out from other interns, but at the same time be me. 

Not great because I'm completely indecisive, not to mention I have no idea if they're really impressed like they say, or if it's just nice words to not hurt me.

Either way, things got going.  Not until about 2 days before (after 1.5 weeks of planning an event I had no specs on, like duration, attendance, ages, English level...), June, my go-to lady, asked, "so how should we do the class?  how many hours?  what ages?  what days?"  Of which I had no clue.  Eventually I got them to give me a list of their clients and kids they thought would come, and divided it all up.  2 parties for kids 8-13yrs old, then 1 party for 14-20, all 2 hours each.  I had several topics and activities lined up, of which I whittled down to 3 activities and 3 topics.  Things worked out to be Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, 2-4pm.

Our topics were "Snowmen and wintery words", "winter clothes", and "winter foods".  The 1st activity with the little kids was cutting snowflakes out of paper after we discussed snowmen.  I'm sure you've all done this; fold a piece of paper a few times, cut designs, then unfold and voila, a personalized snowflake.  They loved it... twas like a magic show when we first introduced it, since none of them had experienced this before.

The 2nd activity was taking pics of animals doing winter activities (cartoony, not clothed), and adding color and clothing.  This was just great fun.  I made my own example, using yarn and different colored paper to make something everyone oohed and aahhed over.   That was just a great time.  They enjoyed being creative and talking about the clothing they were making, what they liked to do in the winter, why choose their colors, etc.  This we did with the older group too, and they thought it was a great way to study English...

The 3rd activity, the coup de gras, was marshmallow snowmen.  Going along with the food theme, and the 1st theme, we took very chinese versions of snacks and made edible snowmen.  We handed out the marshmallows (filled with orange goo), vegi flavored breadsticks, strawberry jam, and fruit rolls, and said "don't eat a thing.  just wait and watch".  There of course was curiosity in the air, what did this stuff mean?  Then I take the 1st three marshmallows and stack them ontop of each other... then everyone erupts in unison into a "ooohhhh....i see!" Then it was off to the races.  This was my favorite activity, since it was very unique, and they hadn't done this before either.  They loved it to.  Go to my facebook and check out the photos.  Fun times.

In addition to that, I prepared and taught the weekly Staff English class, last hour of work on Friday.  This I had no idea.  Twas alright, but the staff turned out to have no english skills.  Could read a little, but I had to translate the entire lesson on the spot...

1st topic was "Fighting the Cold", and was pretty simple vocab to be applied.  What I figured out was they had a small vocabulary, so words to describe were alright to use, but then they also had no grammar training, so the vocab, though appropriate, was not easily carried to everyday talking.

2nd topic was better, I think, and was appropriately titled, "Whadayathink?", or "what do you think?"  This one we explored some adjectives and short phrases that you could link to a feeling or situation, but needed no grammatical skills nor restructuring.  Things like "fantastic", or "who knows" or my favorite, "for some reason".

Overall, I felt it was a learning experience.  Nothing that I really ever wanted to do, but I'm glad I did it.  I don't like being a teacher of English.  It's not terrible, just I either need more preparation time, guidelines.... don't know.  I'm not very talkative, so it's hard to be entertaining.  Luckily, this was a Winter Party, so we did activities along with lecture, so it all worked out.

Alright.  Bedtime.  Oh, and it snowed today, quite a bit.  I'm happy.

我是不是好像悲观主义者？

I fear I'm sounding like a pessimist when I talk about all these differences and such.  However, now that I and you have recognized that, I'd like to talk about a few things that I've noticed over that week.  

Today was good.  Nothing big or too special.  I'm almost done making the invitations to go out, and I'm mostly done with the powerpoint slides, and have a few pages done for coloring activities.  Luckily the other american girl at the office is willing to help.  They want me to change my flight plan to the 23rd if possible, but I'm pretty sure it's set in stone already.

Riding the bus has been fine, but the traffic is just stressful.  I'm not worried or anything, just all the people go as fast as they can till they absolutely have to stop.  And there are no lanes.  People drive where there is open road, even if on the opposite side of the street.... And I am growing tired of all the older people snorting and hawking and spitting.  It's gross and loud.  Even in stores with tiled floors, they'll just spit.  And most everyone talks way to loud on their phone.  At the restaurant this evening, this lady by me was literally yelling in her phone, but she wasn't yelling at anyone, just giving directions... sheesh...

But I've had a good day.  Talked to a few people in chinese.  Now I'm at this Vienna Cafe.  Kinda expensive, but they let me pick a red envelope hanging off their christmas tree yesterday (i think cuz they like me) and I got a free coffee for today.  Otherwise I'd be at home.

I feel like my Chinese really hasn't seen much improvement.  I can talk to people just fine, but I still feel like my tones aren't clear, and for some reason it's difficult to get the words out how I want.  I don't talk to older people cuz they all talk too fast, and a good chunk of them speak in Hefei dialect, which is incomprehensible.  

That's about it for now.  1st Winter Holiday Party for the kids is more than likely this Friday, so any of you planning to have a chat with God soon, put one up for me.  I have no idea how I am with kids....

China is different than America...

Traffic:

The first thing you notice is traffic.  People in the city drive where they want, no mind road signs, lanes, other cars, etc.  Granted, unlike in Korea, everyone stops for redlights.  People drive in both lanes at one time (half car in each lane), and they even drive on the opposite side of the road if they don't feel like waiting.  Horns blare the whole time, sometimes just to let others know where you are, other times just to help the driver yell at whoever's in the way.  Pedestrians dart out in the road to cross the street, and there are motor scooters and bikes everywhere.  Everyone pays attention though.  Everyone moves out of the way, even when it seems like the other driver is just carelessly changing lanes.  Also, everyone drives really really slow.  Everyone.  So as crazy as it is, I doubt you'd cause any damage if you ran into anyone.

Spitting:

All the old guys spit.  All the time.  Very noisily.  I can't imagine what you'd need to spit out?  Saliva?  It's not that I think I "shouldn't" spit, but personally I can't think of what I need to spit out.  It's not just old men.  Most any person, young or old, guy or girl, spit, just old guys more noticeably.  Also, people don't spit in the traffic, or even on the side of the road or sidewalk.  They just spit right down at their feet.  Even on the walk paths on this mountain we climbed today, there's all the space in the world to spit and not be in anyones way.  But there was still spit all over the path.  ....  ew ...

Smoking:

It seems like everyone but Anna smokes in China.  All public places are fine to smoke in.  Even the elevator.  Maybe not Walmart.  Haven't seen that yet.  But that could be the exception to the norm.

Prices:

Everything is cheap.  Mostly.  My cell phone was around $120 US.  A good example is I bought a washcloth for ¥5 and a travel mug for ¥10.  In US dollars, they were 7 dimes and $1.40, respectively.  Food is cheap too.  In Fuzhou, me and Anna had a plate of Cabbage Hearts, this spicy beef and red pepper dish, and a large bowl of spicy stuff with a big cooked fish in the middle.  Each dish was bigger than what you could get at Applebees for $10.  And the total price for all three was about ¥60, which is just under $9.

Coffee:

Not as available as in the US.  And the prices are quite high.  In the airport in Fuzhou, 1 Caramel Cappuccino is about ¥58,  or just under $9 US.  Other places aren't so bad, but still not so great.  Starbucks is still about $4-5 per cup.  My usual Tall drip coffee is ¥15, just over $2, whereas in the States it's only $1.34.

Food:

All cheap, all tasty.  Though, much too much oil!  I'll take a photo.  So now I feel fat eating so much oily tasties.  I figured out I can eat a good breakfast for ¥2, lunch for under ¥5, and dinner (if I go really fancy) for under ¥20.  ¥27 per day means my 2 weeks here in Hefei is ¥378， or just over $55.  I kid you not, that is on the cheap side of things!  It'll probly turn out to be less than that.  Though, I might buy some Mandarin oranges for snack, which cost about 10 cents in US dollars.

Exercise:

They tell me "don't do it."  Supposedly the air is so bad pretty much everywhere that going running will do more harm than good.  I think I'll go running anyway.  I feel like crap, since I haven't been exercising, and all the food is oily.  Granted, we walk a ton, but that's still not enough for me.

I'll post more things like this when I find the time.  For now, enjoy your clean water and clean air...!!