Halfway

I don't even know where to begin. I haven't updated in a while because I had midterms last week. Which meant that I had to:
Write a 1200 word speech
Memorize it
Write three 800 word speeches
Memorize them
Write four essays
Take a four hour long test

The speeches and test occurred on the same day- Thursday. At 11:30 Thursday night, we boarded a six-hour long "overnight" train to Datong in Shanxi province. I thought it couldn't get creepier than an overnight from Krakow to Budapest, but apparently, it can....and it does....thousands of times each night in this beautifully... chaotic country.

We arrived in Datong way too early in the morning, ate breakfast in our hotel, and commenced a full day of site seeing. I was so tired that I wanted to die, but with a little help from Oreos and Amy's Ipod, I made it through. Datong itself is kind of a piece of shit, as it is surrounded by coal mines, and it's population is so disgustingly small (aka 1 million-ish). The sights near the city, however, are wonderful.

We first went to a thousand-year-old timber pagoda. If you can't read the fine print of this sign, it says "a small match may destroy a thousand-ear-old timber pagoda." Wouldn't you feel like such an asshole? After the wooden pagoda visit we went to see the hanging monasteries- also very old.

Oh yeah, after all of that, we climbed a flipping mountain. It was so worth it though- not because of the joy of reaching the top, or whatever romantic thing I'm supposed to say, but because their was a drag queen singing and dancing on a stage at the foot of the mountain. He quickly became my hero.





The second day of site seeing included "the grottoes" (aka really old shrines carved into caves). We met some Tibetan kids there and had lollipops and watermelon popsicles. We also saw some pretty big Buddhas. One of the best experiences of the trip, however, was that night's dinner. Lidan, Hupeng, Jieming, Shafa, and I went to Datong's "a mosta famurse hot pot restaurant." Our waitress was the Chinese Sharon Osbourne. No joke. She went ape shit when we wouldn't let her sneakily order bird claws and pigs feet for our pots! Then she demanded that we take a picture of her.... which I thought was weird because we used my camera, and so she will never ever see the picture that she made us take. But maybe she knew I would post it for all of you to enjoy:

About an hour after this picture was taken, we got back on an overnight train and arrived in Beijing at five in the morning. Life has returned to school and breathing only. Hopefully I'll have something to update about soon!

-Megan

ACC, what do you want from me?

Needless to say, my grades haven't been as rosy as they were at the beginning of the program. I've almost given up all hope of getting an A in my "changing faces of modern china" class, but I've still got a shot in my Media class (it's not a media class by our standards; we really just read old, formal essays etc...). I've become a bit disillusioned, but I'm still enjoying myself. My tones are improving a ton, and that's one of the main reasons that I came here.

David and I met up with our host family yesterday. They cooked a feast. Our papa took us to the antique market afterward, and it was glorious. I wanted to buy everything, but there would be no way for me to get it all home-- not to mention the fact that I have five more months in China. Also, my host mom is a total badass (see the second picture) and
easily one of the coolest people I've ever met. The only problem is that our host family isn't particularly skilled when it comes to striking up conversation, so we sit in silence a lot of the time.

Amy and I found the Beijing Sanrio store last night. I've come to terms with the fact that the sole reason I am a Chinese major is because people over here don't think it's weird when I wear hello kitty clips in my hair or use a hello kitty wallet etc... I was probably born on the wrong continent, but whatevs.

On Friday after our test, the fourth year students went to the Lu Xun museum. It was so awesome! I'm so happy that I had a pretty good background from East Asian studies with Howard and Frost because I'm not quite as lost when we read his short stories. The Lu Xun museum is built around where he lived with his mother and wife in Beijing for a while in the 1920s. I might go back some time if I ever have any free time.

Speaking of free time, I'm going on vacation next weekend! http://wikitravel.org/en/Datong Super excited! We are taking over night trains there and back, and that frightens me a tiny bit. I've done the overnight train thing in Europe, but something tells me China will be a bit different. This vacation marks the halfway point of my summer program. Crazy. After ACC finishes, I'm planning on taking a trip to Nanjing to see Cooper and Richard before heading to Kunming for the fall semester. I'm ridiculously lucky and spoiled.

Love you all!

So you can get a better picture

Me versus Me on Chinese. For realz.

woowoot

I finished my weekly essay by midnight, and now I refuse to do anymore work until the morning...but China breeds insomniacs, so here I am, writing in my blog.

This weekend was fun. Friday night Amy and I went with a classmate to Sanlitun to meet up with a guy from Ole Miss who is studying at Beiyu. We ate Mexican food, and I must admit that it wasn't bad, and the margaritas were strong. Getting to Sanlitun, however, was one of the most ridiculous experiences of my life. It was rush hour. It was pouring down rain. We waited over half an hour for a cab, and then we finally gave in to a rickshaw driver's pleading. Rush hour in one of the world's largest/most chaotic cities+pouring rain+rickshaw= awesome. Our driver would not stop trying to convince us that, although he's just a rickshaw driver in Beijing, that he is very knowledgeable of the world around him. We discussed Lee Kuan Yew's policies in Singapore as well as the prospect of me potentially marrying the driver's 26 year old son. By the time we got to Sanlitun, we were drenched, and more or less shunned by people working in the clothing stores nearby.

Our trip home wasn't anywhere near as exciting as our rickshaw encounter, and I pretty much crashed immediately upon returning to the dorms. I have begun a new tradition, though! I sleep until four o'clock in the afternoon every Saturday, apparently. So there was my Saturday, and then Sunday I met up with DAVID BU!!!!! We hadn't seen each other since the day we graduated from high school, but we somehow managed to meet up in Beijing two years later? Strange things happen in this country.

Anywho, my one-on-one class is slowly becoming less and less awkward. The subject matter has switched from ugly people getting plastic surgery to international relations and history etc... (at least in my debate class)-needless to say, I'm pleased. Tomorrow's lesson, however, is about blood testing children to see if your wife had an extramarital affair. Almost as entertaining as the lesson that taught me that Taiwanese people "ignore gangsters ruining their surroundings until not even the chickens and dogs are left alone, and that this situation gives the book's author a feeling of nausea." Also, apparently Taiwanese women are ignoring the pollution in their area because they are all "stupidly dreaming of the day that their unborn child will graduate from college." As a result (according to the book), "Taiwan's numerous brainless fetuses will be (literally) blind sacrifices." Ridiculously morbid/overly political textbooks were made for me, or at least it feels that way.

Unfortunately, I don't have any new pictures to post, as I've been studying or sleeping continuously since my last post. I'm lucky to be able to bother Richard and/or Cooper anytime I need help with essays or something along those lines.

I should go to sleep, but first: I had dairy queen today, and it was glorious. (especially considering the fact that I can't get dairy queen in my hometown)

Wish me luck debating the morality of blood testing your children to find out whether or not your spouse has been lying to you!

Chinese Family and the Fourth of July

I met my Chinese host family last Friday night, and it was one of the most hilariously awkward experiences of my life. ACC assigns two students to each family, so it was zhongguo mama and baba, me, and a flagship student from Indiana named David (also, he's 华裔-soooo not fair). The school provided us with "refreshments" and made us take our families to our dorm rooms where we awkwardly sat on beds together and exchanged phone numbers/life stories etc... I'm just stoked because I finally have a gege!

Since this picture was taken, I have been continuously studying, save a short trip to KFC on the fourth of July. KFC in China is disgusting, but hey, it's all about the experience, right?

This weekend I'm planning on meeting up with a few of my friends from high school who just so happen to be in Beijing. It's a really small world. On that note, the guy wearing the sunglasses in the KFC picture went to French camp in Minnesota with me in the summer of 2004. Now we're both in Chinese Flagship programs...

I had my first pronunciation class today. Apparently my fourth tones need work. The teachers have specific sheets of paper that are full of sentences for people who have trouble with fourth and first tone, or third and first etc... Basically, it felt like the first time I had to read aloud in first grade. It's cool though. When I was in elementary school I thought I wasn't cool because I wasn't in speech therapy (Iris, Caroline, Lindsey) and had no friends to hang out with on Tuesday afternoons.

My teachers are great, but I'm tired of talking about plastic surgery and pollution. Every day in my one-on-one class, my teacher asks me what America's beauty standards are and whether or not I think it's okay to get plastic surgery. Seriously, Chinese people talk about plastic surgery as much as they talk about 拉肚子。My first test went well, and I'm preparing for my giant presentation on Thursday. What's the topic? Yep. It's about an "ugly" girl getting plastic surgery (not my choice).

I'm looking forward to the weekend. I'll be making jiaozi (dumplings) with my host family (big surprise!) one day. No matter how many times I sit around a table making jiaozi with a bunch of Chinese people, I still suck at it. My dumplings look more like the meat pies they used to serve for lunch at Country Day. Regardless, I <3 hanging out with old Chinese couples and teaching them how to say English words such as "building."

I'm obviously writing this blog entry because I don't feel like learning how to write the chengyus that I've been avoiding all afternoon. It's almost one o'clock though, so I should probably get moving. I think that we get to talk about Taiwan's gangster cab drivers tomorrow, so class should be pretty interesting.

Cheers,
Megan