Harbin - Go Go Go

For those of you that are reading this post, you haven't given up on me. Thank you! I really don't have much access to a computer, and when I do, it takes a long time to upload any pictures. We are also so busy, that it's been hard to send updates.

Since my arrival here in the city of Harbin a little over a week ago, I have been almost constantly doing something or going somewhere new and exciting. Although it sometimes feels like a lot, I am thankful that I was lucky enough to be placed with a family that has given me an opportunity to really explore and appreciate Harbin for the great city that it is. Not everyone in our group has been placed with a homestay family that is able to provide the same opportunities to explore. Fefe, my homestay sister, is exceptionally good at English, and the fact that my homestay mother is an English teacher does not hurt either. Although I am always trying to practice my extremely limited Chinese, their knowledge of English helps to make it easier during those challenging times when communicating with each other in Chinese has proven difficult. My homestay father on the other hand knows almost no English at all and whenever I attempt at a conversation with him, it is often the most interesting. Thankfully he is incredibly understanding, and when my pronunciation may be horribly off, or I may answer a totally different question than what he asked, he is kind enough to only let out a little chuckle and correct me.  Although I still often struggle and most likely will, even after years of learning a language as complex as Chinese, there is no doubt that my Chinese has been improving immensely.

Everyday Monday to Friday I wake up early (even earlier than I do for school during the year) and I am at the school by 7:20 every morning, ready for class to begin at 8:00 am. We are split into beginner, intermediate and advanced classes. Myself and the other 6 kids who just began their Chinese studies this summer, are in the beginner class together. Class goes until 12:00 when we have lunch. In the afternoons we have culture class. Each afternoon, volunteers from Harbin No.1 High School (the school in Harbin hosting our program) come into our class and run a lesson on the culture of Harbin and all of China. Some examples have been presentations on Chinese cuisine, field trips to museums, paper cutting classes, Chinese calligraphy lessons, and much more.  

This picture is of my first paper cutting design. Today a professional paper cutter came into our class and taught us the secrets to master the art of paper cutting. We were each given a zodiac animal design randomly, and I of course was landed with one of the hardest designs. It took me a solid 2 hours but I finished with a product I am very proud of.

Having the volunteers with us, has really added a lot to our group. They have been studying English for years and know enough to be able to help us translate what we want to say from English into Chinese. They are also there just for us to get to know regular Chinese students our own age. I have had many long conversations with some of these volunteers, most which include a lot of hand gestures and acting out words.

       Each Saturday we take full day field trips into Harbin to explore many of the attractions which make Harbin special. This picture is of Fefe and I standing in front of the Sophia Church. It is a Russian Orthodox church, now a sect not found commonly in China. The Sophia Church is in the center of Harbin city and has become more of a landmark than a church.

Each Sunday we spend the days with our families. In my case, that usually means that Fefe and I go out into the city on our own, to do something entertaining. Fefe is friends with many of the other homestay siblings of my American friends within our program. I am often getting together with other people and spending the day or evening together. The first Sunday we went out, Liza (another American girl in the program) and Rose (Liza's homestay sister) joined us. The four of us have done many things together. In Harbin there is a huge Russian influence. Russian can be seen almost everywhere and many of the older buildings do not have the traditional Chinese style, but rather a more Russian dome design. This picture shows Fefe, Myself, Rose and Liza in front of a statue of traditional Russian dolls.

This picture is of Liza and me in the center market area at the bank of the river.

This past Sunday, we went to the Harbin amusement park followed by watching the new Transformers movie. Although we are all working on our Chinese we seized the opportunity when we were offered to watch the movie in English. The only place that movies in English are placed at that theater, was in the VIP room. The movie itself was good but the seating was notable. The seats were really big and comfortable, like living room furniture. With the exception of Chinese subtitles, the movie made us all feel like we went back to America for just a few hours. Seeing an American movie together with my Chinese sister, also gave me the chance to talk a little more about American language and culture to my new Chinese friend.

Harbin - here we come

After two busy days and nights in Beijing we boarded a long 12 hour trip by train up to Harbin to meet and live with our home-stay families for the next 3 weeks. The train was really small, and we only had beds, no seats. It turned out to be a lot of fun. We were able to hang out more with each other and even rest.  

In Harbin we will attend Chinese class for 4 hours each morning, we will spend our afternoons exploring and learning about the city of Harbin, while doing community service work. Then each afternoon, someone from our home-stay family will be there to pick us up so we can continue our evenings at our home-stay homes, doing whatever activities they have planned.

I am so incredibly grateful for this opportunity. I'm looking forward to meeting my host family, exploring Harbin, meeting my Chinese teacher, and going to the Chinese No. 1 High School. 

Wo jia zai Harbin. I now live in Harbin.

More adventures in Beijing

We finished our first busy day in Beijing with a trip to the Olympic Village. How amazing that we had just visited one of the worlds oldest landmarks in the morning, and then in comparison, we saw the architecture of the buildings in and around the Olympic Village, which were as new and modern as you could imagine. Most people are familiar with the Birds Nest and the Water Cube from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but all around the area were buildings with incredibly modern designs. Designs that I never would have even dreamt of before. The picture here shows one of the tallest office buildings in the area, one whose design stood out to me specifically.

 

Day 2 in Beijing was a rainy and pretty dreary day, but on the agenda was both Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city. Although it was raining on and off for the majority of the day, even the worst of weather could not hide the immense beauty of these world landmarks. While exploring both Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, there were several things that really caught my attention. Tiananmen Square boasts a giant picture of Mao Zedong, former chairman of China.  Mao's legacy does not end there. All over the city, there were books, pictures and even statues of Mao for sale. It is hard to understand how much this entire country worships this one man.   

The other thing that I found absolutely stunning that day, was the unbelievable vastness of the Forbidden City.  The reason it is called the Forbidden City is because during the time of the emperors and dynasties in China, only the emperor, his family, and his immediate advisors were even allowed into the city. It was hard to imagine how so few people (likely less than 100 people), could ever be able to use or even benefit from that extreme amount of luxury.  

Each evening in Beijing we were given the freedom to sign out with Jing or Tian (our Leaders) and explore the city at night. An entire world existed all within a mile radius of our hotel. There were many big commercial stores and brand name shops, but my favorite part of this shopping area was a small narrow side street that looked as if it came right out of the movies. It was a street called Wanfujing Street. 

It was exactly what one would imagine a small busy bustling street in China to look like. It had lanterns hanging over the sky, foods at every vendor, lots of shopping and every color of the rainbow everywhere. These small streets ("xiao che") or snack street are also known for their exotic and obscure foods that many native Chinese do not dare to try. Some treats included scorpions, seahorses, starfish, beetles, bugs, tarantulas, lizards and almost anything else you can imagine! I did not dare to try, but a friend of mine tried both the scorpions and a tarantula, and he liked them so much he went back for more the following night! 

It is also on this street that I perfected my expert bargaining skills. Since nothing has a price, and everyone is expected to bargain for the ideal price. Bargaining the price is almost as fun as shopping itself! One American dollar is equal to 6.5 yuans. In other words, everything is really inexpensive. I left Beijing with many great deals and it was a great way to practice my new Chinese skills!

Getting to the Great Wall

Everything here in China so far has been new, exciting, and definitely different.

Standing in front of Chinese custom in Beijing.

Beginning with the very first step in our journey things did not go quite as planned. As soon as we got to the ticket lines in the Bangor Maine airport, our itinerary was changed sending us to a new city connecting to Beijing. After passing security, we were ready to board our plane to Detroit, but were confronted with an hour and a half delay from the original 12:20 departure time. Once we were finally getting on our plane destined for the Detroit airport, we then faced a thunderstorm on the ground in Detroit preventing any planes from landing. We were rerouted to Cleveland to wait in the Cleveland airport for a little over an hour only to board the same plane, headed for Detroit. After finally reaching Detroit we were then forced to fly in circles around the landing strip for about an hour while we waited our turn to land. Luckily there was scheduled a long enough layover in Detroit that we did not miss the next leg of our trip to Beijing. It was smooth sailing from there on out, in the 13 hour plane ride to the lovely city of Beijing. So I guess you could say the journey has ALREADY been interesting. A lesson in patience was definitely there for the taking.

  We then spent the first two days in China exploring Beijing. We started with nothing less than the great wall of China. I always knew that it was big, but pictures can not accurately describe how incredibly big, long and steep this amazing world wonder really is.  We were all thoroughly exhausted by the end of that day.

Blogspot Blocked

I've tried to access blogspot, but no luck. I guess it's blocked, but don't worry, I have a solution. I'm going to send news to my parents through email, and they will post it for me. So for all of you who haven't given up on me, I will have lots of news to follow. I will even try to catch up a bit. So on to posting...

Tracing my Trip

The map below shows the physical trip that I will begin on Monday. Each star represents a city where we will spend significant amount of time, and each line shows the order in which I will travel between those cities. We will only spend a few days in each Beijing, Xi'an, and Guangzhou, while we will spend 3 weeks in Harbin and 2 weeks in Kunming staying with host families. Both Harbin and Kunming are considered some of China's "small" cities. But just to give you some perspective, the population of Harbin is 10 million and the population of Kunming is about 7 million. In relation, New York City is only about 8 million (not including suburbs) and all of Maine is a little more than 1 million. I am expecting to be overwhelmed by the huge amount of people!

Startalk, Husson University, and preparing with only 5 days left

I am incredibly excited for the amazing opportunity that lies ahead of me this summer, and I want to thank all of you who are following my blog, for joining me in this adventure.

For the past two and a half weeks I have been living on Husson University campus in Bangor, Maine. Husson has been hosting the Bangor Chinese school Startalk summer program for the past few years. Since I have never studied Mandarin Chinese before this summer, I have been learning and studying to prepare myself, so that I am able to communicate with my host families, teachers, and everyday acquaintances in China. The Startalk program is a component of the National Security Language Initiative run by the US State Department. The initiative seeks to expand and improve the teaching and learning of strategically important world languages that are not being widely taught in the US. Startalk programs are taking place all over the United States in a variety of different languages.

Each day we attend class from 9 am to 4 pm, and we study both the language and the culture of China. In my class, we have started from the very beginning. We have been learning introductions, body parts, households items, colors, foods, animals and more. The class is geared towards giving us the tools to become more familiar with Chinese, and to have the basics to get along in China. Although only high schoolers were eligible for the scholarship to actually travel and study in China this summer, the ages at Startalk range all the way from kindergarten to high school seniors. On the first day of the program we were split into Chinese 1, 2, 3, and 4. Chinese 1 and 2 both came with little to no Chinese experience, 1 are younger children while 2 are older middle school and high school kids. Both Chinese 3 and 4 are made up of kids who have been studying Chinese for a longer time, or kids who are of Chinese heritage.

In my class we are working in something called pinyin. Pinyin is basically the phonetic sounds of the Chinese characters written in the English alphabet. I have learned very few characters so far. While I am in China we will continue to study the language for 4-5 hours each day. I hope that during my studies in China I will begin to learn more characters, but I suspect that we will primarily be working in pinyin, since our main focus is speaking and listening. When I share some of my Chinese on this blog it will most likely be in pinyin.

Along with studying the language we have part of our day set aside for culture study. This is easily my favorite part of our days here at Startalk. I find learning about the culture and traditions of other peoples completely fascinating and it is by far what I am looking forward to most in China. The culture in China is so drastically different from America and anywhere else I have ever been, that it was what immediately drew me to this program. During our culture time at Startalk we have done a variety of different things. Some include learning Chinese calligraphy, bringing in and trying out traditional Chinese musical instruments, making our own dumplings, learning to make traditional Chinese tea, and even watching a classic Chinese children's cartoon. The picture on the right is my first calligraphy character. We all got the chance to create our own on special calligraphy paper during one culture class. The character we were supposed to write was ái which means love. But since there were many people sharing one example I ended up creating mine by looking at our teachers example upside down. With one small line in the opposite direction my character instead became chicken feet friends. 

In addition to learning the language I have been preparing for my trip with only 5 days remaining before I fly out of Bangor, Maine headed for Beijing (on a short 22 hour trip). I have been reading about the long and dense Chinese history as well as buying myself a travel journal, and of course making many copies of my passport and visa. My departure date has crept upon me quickly and it still feels surreal that in a short few days I will be traveling across the world with 20 other lucky students from Maine.

Talk to you soon!     Nín de dàolái