Putting the "study" in study abroad

Classes have started!

And now begins my formal education in China. Last week Tuesday, after two weeks of settling in, we finally began classes. I was really glad when we got started because a big reason I’m here in China is to dig into the language as much as possible. The first few weeks here I heard a lot of Chinese but wasn’t able to absorb or practice very much of it. It was all a little overwhelming and very easy to rely on people in the group who knew a lot of Chinese. Now with classes I’m more motivated to try out more Chinese.

A big challenge has been getting over the anxiety of saying things incorrectly. I tend to not say anything if I’m not sure if I can say it right. My host family in the Netherlands teased me that I didn’t say much of anything in Dutch until I started speaking in completely full and correct sentences. This was pretty much the case. I really wanted to observe and grasp the language as much as possible before jumping in. Now I’m doing my best to jump in a little earlier so that I can learn from my mistakes. As a rule, no one really enjoys learning from mistakes, but I’m hoping for good results. Also, I am hoping for a lot of very patient Chinese speakers. --- Just wait for it…I will eventually reach the end of the sentence.

Language classes span the week from Monday to Friday, from 8:00 to 11:30. On Tuesday our class is in the afternoon instead of morning. I was put in level 1.5 after some placement tests. The oral exam was short, but the written exam made my brain ache after four months of school-free summer. My brain is fine now, and its contained Chinese knowledge was pretty well matched up to the right level. Our first week of classes has been moderately intense review of many characters and things I learned in last year’s beginning Chinese. We’re reviewing the goodies like greetings, introductions, money, family, and food. I have to work the most at remembering the characters that go along with the words we’re learning. We have three different teacher: for comprehensive Chinese, listening, and speaking. All of our teachers are Chinese women who are really very nice, but mean business. Our comprehensive teacher isn’t opposed to giving extra homework to those late for class. She is very good at explaining grammar points though and noticed the day that I had a bad cold and kindly told me to drink lots of water and rest. Our speaking teacher is a ball of energy whose voice could break through the walls. There’s no way we miss the tones of the words when she’s talking. We got to introduce our family with a picture in class the other day, and she was so amazed how handsome and beautiful (shuai, piaoliang) everyone in my picture was. She has a way of saying things with her eyes almost as big as her voice that makes “so beautiful, so handsome” very funny.



While classes have just started, we actually have a little vacation coming up. Next week is a week-long national holiday, which is when most in China will get out of school and work and go visit family and travel. We are having school Saturday and Sunday this week to make up the vacation time. Our group, however, leaves Saturday night for Beijing! As comes with the Central China program package, we are spending a week in Beijing. We leave by train Saturday night, and will travel for about 14 hours. The agenda for the week includes the Forbidden Palace, the Great Wall, the old and new royal palaces, and a great restaurant where we’ll have some Peking duck. I’m not sure what to expect, but I’m sure it will be an amazing, exhausting, scenic, and incredible trip. Actually, those adjectives probably sum up my time in China so far. Now, as I continue with classes, I should probably add “educational” to the mix. What’s a study abroad without a little studying?

Picture time!

Today is a day off. As we've scooted around town the past few days, it is very nice to have this Sunday to relax. Yesterday was a different kind of day. After trying out a new Szechuan restaurant for lunch and enjoying the food and low cost, we headed back to our dorm. We realized we hadn't left much time before we had to meet for our outing and we had to buy our books before we left. Thankfully, most of us did find our books and bought them in time. It was amazing to be able to buy all my books for about twenty dollars instead of hundreds of dollars. No ridiculous markup here!

After book buying, we took off for a tour of the Xixi Wetlands. Our tour was put together by people who work for a local English-language magazine about China and Hangzhou called InTouch. They shuttled us to the wetlands in buses and even gave us some drinks and moon cakes for the occasion! This weekend is Mid-Autumn Festival, where families get together to celebrate and eating different kinds of moon cakes is very important. They are pretty tasty; they are dense pastry cakes filled with nuts, bean paste, egg yolk, or even meat. We arrived at the Wetlands Park and we were provided with umbrellas since it was raining. We all laughed at how wet we were becoming on our wetlands trip. We then took a boat tour around the wetlands. It really is a pretty big area and we saw some birds and one flying fish. The strange thing about our tour was the photographers and cameramen that followed us and recorded our tour. InTouch magazine did the tour for us for free and apparently, it was a pretty big publicity opportunity for them. So, much of our night was recorded and we were quite spoiled with attention.

After the tour we had a great supper with lots of dishes we couldn't name right away. We ended up with twenty-some dishes at our table...way too much food than we could ever eat. I tried abalone for the first and last time. Then, we were given a very nice Chinese tea set as a gift for coming. And then, our entertainment started up. Two craftsmen starting working in our room and made gifts for us. One man could make figures out of reeds and I got a very nice dragonfly from him. He basically made it in three minutes. We watched the other man for a long time. He made clay figurines on sticks, which doesn't sound impressive, but we were mesmerized. He could make the most ornate figures in 5-10 minutes without any problem. His hands and figures worked so fast that sometimes I looked away and all the sudden a figure he had been working on would suddenly have full arms and legs. The most fun thing was that he could take requests and make anything you could name without hesitation. People in our group got dragons, a bear, rhino, tiger, and turtle. I asked for a panda and got a very cute panda holding some bamboo. We were quite amazed by him and ecstatic with our free gifts!

I've been taking lots of pictures these past few weeks and thought I'd share them for all those who are not on facebook. These links should work for sharing. The pictures and comments will probably fill in the nooks and crannies of things I haven't fit into my blog yet. Enjoy!

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2002433&l=719e8&id=1181220088

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2002468&l=4c89f&id=1181220088

Up, Down, All Around

Saturday has come and another week in China is wrapping up. Classes haven’t started yet and this has given our group lots of time to see some sights in Hangzhou. The past week we’ve been going on half-day outings to see some things around the city.

On Sunday, we went down to a crafts market where lots of Chinese handicrafts are sold. The market was a bustling place and was full of authentic antiques and some cheaper, less authentic items. The Chinese really have a lot of special traditional crafts and goods. We looked for a long time at a small shop that had paper cuts. While the name “paper cuts” doesn’t bring up very positive imagery, they really are beautiful. Paper cuts are basically designs cut out of really thin, usually red paper. The designs are more intricate than you could ever imagine cutting with a scissors. This tradition of paper cutting goes back thousands of years to the Han Dynasty and the designs are most often used as decorations around the house. The paper will be cut into Chinese designs or characters such as the one for fortune.

Some other crafts include woodcarving, silk, jewelry, fans, and paintings. The paintings are lush watercolors with village scenes or dragons or tigers. Wherever you look around the crafts market, there are a lot of colors and textures. It was really interesting to notice the change that occurred after we went to eat and came back down the street at night. There was a lot more music and lanterns and smells that came out. It’s funny how a certain place can have an entirely different personality at a different time of day.

Another highlight from the week included the Lingyin Temple. We hopped on a bus to go to this site of many Buddhist temples. We walked through lots of grottos where all different buddhas were carved into the stone. Then we walked through all the temples where more ornate shrines were built. The temples were tall and incredibly decorated. Many people seemed to be just passing through as tourists, but many others would kneel on the pillows by the shrines to pray to the Buddha. The smell of incense started to get to me after a while, but it was an interesting walk-through.

It was interesting to consider the importance of the temples to the Chinese. I couldn’t help but wonder how many looked on the temples as a historical building, a spiritual site, or simply a beautiful structure. Obviously from my standing, the building were really ornate, beautiful, and historical, but not much more. As I looked around at some of the Chinese, I couldn’t tell what they thought about it. I would imagine many to be proud to see such a cultural beauty from there country. Some might not be Buddhists at all but feel the desire to pray to the statues there out of a sudden feeling of spirituality. I’ve studied a little about Christianity in China, but not much about Buddhism so I can’t make too many guesses.

One of our last outings this week was a visit to the Tiger Spring and Pagoda of Six Harmonies. It was an interesting day. The Tiger Spring is where stories say that two tigers dug up a spring and the water that came out was the best water for a special kind of tea. After we saw that spring, some of our group decided that they wanted to go through the hills to get to the Pagoda of Six Harmonies. This meant a two-hour sweaty hike up and down and across the hills. It’s still quite warm and muggy in Hangzhou, so needless to say we were a little tired and uncomfortable. I’ve never been a big hiker so I did my best. My best including a lot of panting and sweating and occasionally dropping to sit on a flat rock. We made it however and the scenery was incredibly gorgeous as we hiked. Then we climbed to the top of the pagoda and got a 360 degree view of Hangzhou and the big river that divides the newer part of town. We were quite proud of ourselves, or at least I was, for surviving that far. Sometimes, it takes a lot of feeling awful to get to the point where you can feel good about accomplishing something. A nice view at the end doesn’t hurt. As the semester continuing to pick up speed, valleys, and hills, I hope the view at the end is a great one.

Food is...

Food is so many things at one time. In health magazines, they say you should just think of food as fuel and an energy source for the next workout. How can it be that simple though? Food fills in so many aspects of living. Food is a comfort; smells, tastes, textures evoke the desire to settle into memories of the familiar and linger there just a while. Food is a past time; I don't think I am the only one guilty of eating when I'm bored. Food is a social activity. Sitting elbow to elbow, people are brought closer by the food they eat together. Lastly, food is a physical need. No one can do without it for more than a few days.

Seeing as food presents itself in so many parts of life, I am encountering a new kind of eating lifestyle in China. Food here has been filling in the many needs of my life. As with all new lifestyles, it has required some bravery and adjustments. All in all, I've liked the food so far. It's funny to think about the Chinese food that I'm eating here and the Chinese food that I often had in the States. In some ways, it's very different but in other ways it feels like I should have fortune cookies at the end of every meal.

There are a few staples that I am enjoying quite a bit. Of course, I have been eating lots of rice. I'm becoming used to having this as my daily staple instead of bread. Still, I like to have some bread with peanut butter in the morning for breakfast. The interesting thing about rice is that in restaurants it is brought out a long while after the main dishes. This is customary because the restaurant doesn't want you to think that it is trying to fill you up with rice and be too full to try its dishes. It's a matter of pride and goes back to an old tradition of rice being for the lower classes.

Along with rice, tea is a must. I am really enjoying drinking lots of tea and trying some really good varieties. I'll have instant coffee every once in a while, but since tea is so much more Chinese, I'm trying to make the switch. We haven't gone to a tea house yet, but I'm excited to see more of China's tea culture. Tea houses require a big time commitment since it's expected that you stay for three to four hours just talking, drinking tea, and eating from complimentary buffets.

Along with rice, we have also been eating a lot of noodles. There is a noodle shop down a few streets from our dorm that we have visited a few times. The bowls are huge and we can really get our fill there. Plus, it's not very expensive. This is true for most restaurants around the city. Unless it is really fancy or Western-style, the food is very cheap. We have a meal stipend of about five dollars a day and this is pretty reasonable to stick to. In our dorm building's cafeteria we can have a drink, entree, and fried rice for less than two dollars. Such a good feeling for those of us who are Dutch!

I have tried a few new foods that I would consider strange. Many of our meals we order small dishes for everyone to pick at and share so that is a good way to try new things. I have had some very good duck a couple times, but I am looking forward to trying it in Beijing where it is most famous. Also, we went as a whole group to a 100-year old restaurant that was famous for its lamb. The lamb was extremely tasty and the ten of us finished two legs in a matter of minutes! Also, I have tried tofu made a few different ways. I am still deciding what I think about it. Lastly, I have eaten some snake and eel. The snake was fried and served with shrimp, which I liked until someone started talking too much about the snake when it was alive. I really enjoyed the eel which was served in a salty sauce with eggplant and onions. Tonight we found a Taoist temple by West Lake and on the way back we stopped for some supper. As we walked in, the restaurant owner greeted us and we asked what they served. He reached behind him and picked up a figure of Donkey from Shrek. We were a little confused at first, but he assured us that all foreigners loved their restaurant's donkey dish. So we had some donkey for supper!

As the weeks go by and we hop from restaurant to restaurant, I hope to try many more new things. I'll keep you posted with my favorites!

Lingering on West Lake

While classes are coming up soon and we'll have to start learning vocabulary and characters, right now I am learning to enjoy the sights of Hangzhou. So far I've learned that West Lake is gorgeous. Anyone who goes to Hangzhou inevitably ends up seeing the sites of West Lake and would be unfortunate to miss the opportunity.

The past few days we've been doing some sightseeing with our group of nine students and program director. Needless to say, we are pretty dependent on our program director at this point. David Purnell lived in China in the 80s and has been here a year and a half. He has quite an extensive history of traveling and has a wealth of anecdotes that he shares with us. Most helpfully, he knows Chinese, Hangzhou, and Chinese culture very well. I'm looking forward to having some linguistics courses with him.

The objective of our past few outings has been to get us used to the bus system and starting to put together a map of the city in our head. Also, any time that we're walking down the street or waiting for a bus, we get some more cultural insights ala Dr. Purnell. The first two days we visited West Lake. West Lake is nestled between the city of Hangzhou and the western hills. Fortunately, our dorm is probably only a half an hour walk from the lake. West Lake is the pride of the city. There are countless poems about the lake and accounts of the lake mesmerizing visitors to the city. One such poem comes from the poet-governor Su Dongpo from the Northern Song Dynasty 800 years ago:

The shimmering ripples delight the eye on sunny days;
The dimming hills present a rare view in rainy haze.
West Lake may be compared to Beauty Xi Zi at her best,
It becomes her to be richly adorned or plainly dressed.

It is said that Marco Polo visited Hangzhou and said that it was "without a doubt the finest and most splendid city in the world." This also illustrates some of the history of Hangzhou. The city has been around for thousands of years and was at one point the capital of the Song Dynasty. Nowadays it is the capital of the Zhejiang province. David has told us that not many foreigners make it to Hangzhou, but it is a very popular place for the Chinese from other cities to visit. He said it is kind of like the Chinese Las Vegas because it has an informal "what happens in Hangzhou, stays in Hangzhou" understanding. Of course, we're not getting into that kind of trouble here in Hangzhou.

Our outings to West Lake have definitely left us wanting more. It has always been hazy when we have visited, but it is still gorgeous. We're just at the end of seeing any lotus flowers on the lake, but there are still the big green leaves everywhere. There is so much to explore around the entire lake. There are many paths and it is very nice to walk the causeways that divide it. There are two very narrow causeways that give a different view of the lake. Last time we walked down the causeway, there were a few people with big kites and tiny butterfly kites. For yet another view, I hope to cruise around the water in one of the many touristy boats.

I'll leave with another verse about Hangzhou from Bai Juyi:

One cannot bear to leave Hangzhou --
Part of the reason -- West Lake.

Settling In...

Sorry to everyone for not hearing from me and not replying to emails for a while! I finally got hooked up to the internet here in my dorm. Turns out the school will not give internet to just anyone. You have to give a copy of your passport and prove that you're a student and then wait until they can give set you up with internet that is far from unfettered. Many sites that I've tried to get to have been "broken links" and will have to work around that. Also the internet isn't so fast. But I'm bloggin' on!

It's hard to sum up the last week in a few words. For the most part, it has been differing stages of settling in. The week started out with the lovely jaunt to Hangzhou which was made a little more stressful because of my two big suitcases and my ignorance to where I was supposed to end up. Also, the farther I got away from the airport, the less English I could count on for help. I feel bad using other people and their English as a crutch, but at this point I don't know enough Chinese to survive on my own. It's still quite hairy in the language department, but I'll write more about that later.

The next couple days I just got settled in to my dorm room and started meeting the other students on the Central abroad program. I have my own dorm room on the fourth floor of the International Student Dormitory. It's not very big, but works just fine for me. It's small, or cozy as I like to call it. The bed is hard but the pillows are soft! I have my own bathroom and shower connected to my room so I am enjoying that. Also I have a TV from which I can imbibe some dizzying Chinese TV. I think I'll have to acquire a taste for the soap operas and movies. They are full of alarming and dramatic moments that mean very little to me at this point in my language development.

There are 8 other students on the same program as I am on. Six of us are actually from Central and there are three others from Drake, Carthage and Austin College. We've been having a lot of fun these days. There's always the awkward first meetings and getting-to-know-you's but we've really bonded through our common experiences here in China. It's nice to have some people to compare thoughts about China with, otherwise you start to go crazy not being able to share all the surprises, frustrations, and enjoyments with people who can relate almost exactly. For example, we have been enjoying the adventures of foods together. It's been a little hard to get used to everything, always having rice and not much bread but we've been sticking it out. We've been eating at the cafeteria in our dorm and various restaurants around campus. It's very affordable. Most of the time a good-sized meal will range from $2 to $4. Of course, we've been trying lots of new things. Some of my favorites have been duck, bamboo shoots, noodles, and plain old fried rice.

Later I'll have to write some more about our sight-seeing over the past few days. I've learned that Hangzhou as a city around 6 million people can be very hectic as well as very relaxing. The streets are busy and bustling while not too far away, there are many peaceful gardens and paths. I think there are a lot of these kinds of contradictory instances in Chinese culture too. I'm just starting to see glimpses of this as I get settled in. Like with ancient Chinese history and growing modern culture in China, there is a lot of interesting happenings. I'll be sure to keep exploring the city and its many facets!

Point A to Point B

Well, I have arrived.  It's funny because there's really a lot of weight to those words.  I've been getting ready for this trip/arrival/semester for six months now.  There's been a lot of paperwork, research, packing, repacking, visiting with people, and getting mentally prepared.  Now that I'm here in China, even after all that prep, it's surprising to be here.  Stealing the metaphor from my Netherlands days, it's very much like getting ready to jump into cold water and still being shocked.  The fun part is I'm sure I have many more surprises coming my way.  

The trip over here to China went very well.  I am really the most thankful that I could spend so much time with everyone before I left.  It was nice to have enough time to pack as well as get a chance to see everyone.  Christmas is a ways away, but of course will inch closer and closer.  

As for my flights, I couldn't have asked for better.  Everything was timely and low on the stress level.  It was actually pretty nice to have a seven-hour layover in Minneapolis because I got to make a quick visit to our mecca: the Mall of America.  It was fairly easy to take the train 

over to the mall and only cost $3 total.  I thought it was kind of weird when I bought my tickets with a twenty dollar bill and received all dollar coins for change.  I couldn't decide if it was a hassle or kind of fun.  

Actually, I anticipate a whole lot of dilemmas like that coming up.  It 

seems like it's not always a clean line between hassles and blessings.  Traveling in general is 

a good example.  There's a lot of stress, but it can

also be amusing and enjoyable.  Same with a lot of 

cross-cultural experiences (e.g. new foods, language difficulties, riding tiny buses with too many people and a few too many chickens.)  

Getting to go to the mall turned out to be a very big blessing.  I enjoyed shopping and creatively finding ways to pamper myself.  Here's how my advice to making the most of layover time spent in a mall.

1.  Find the massage chairs, quickly.

2.  Go around Bath and Body Works and scrub your hands, lotion up, and use anything else that will make you feel fresher (in other words, not traveling)

3.  Go to Starbucks, get a drink, and wait for the oversized couch.

4.  Try on lots of fun clothes that you would never buy because you carry-on is already a little heavy.

5.  Hang around book stores and read all the magazines. (I borrowed this one from my well-traveled Popsy!)    

6.  People watch.

7.  Go to the Apple Store and check your email.

8.  Go to the cheese store...sample the various cheeses.

9.  Shop in the expensive-looking store that you normally wouldn't go in.

10.  Get back to the airport with plenty of time.

These are the things that I came up with.  I did get back to the airport with plenty of time and was ready for my big 12 hour flight to Tokyo.  This flight actually went pretty fast.  My row of seats was empty except for a guy three seats away.  It was really nice to stretch my legs across extra leg room and and sleep with a little bit more space.  I watched Leatherheads and did sudoku and slept.  I probably should be sleeping now, but I woke up at 5:30 and could not fall back asleep.  (I call it Popsy syndrome.)  When I arrived in Tokyo I only had 15 minutes to look around, but was very impressed with what I saw.  There were some really beautiful waiting areas.  

To wrap things up, I made it to Shanghai, found my hotel's shuttle, and arrived at the hotel finally at 10:30.  I think I was too tired at the Shanghai airport to think too much about being in China or even attempt much Chinese.  I did have a little moment though when I was riding the shuttle.  Airports don't always feel like a certain country, but being out on the road was very different.  As we cruised around the curvy, well-lit roads and listened to Chinese rap, I felt more open to the realization that I was in China.  I still couldn't see much more than the airport and since it was night, everything was a little obscured.  Still, I could see where I was and a little farther to where I was going.  It made me nervous because I had no idea what's coming next.  More so though, it made me smile because it's what I've been waiting for.  Whether it's chocked full of hassles or amusements, I think I'm ready for the coming semester.