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