The anticipated Xi'an

After an extremely late night flight, we arrived in Xi'an, ready for about 3 hours of sleep, before we began the Xi'an blur. We were lucky to have a tour guide for the two days of our stay, so our schedule remained structured, and we were able to see and be informed about some of the highlights of Xi'an.

Our first day began with the City wall of Xi'an which raps around the old city.

Xi'an's history dates back 3,000 years ago. At that time, the wall surrounded the city. The more modern Xi'an has expanded and grown, so the wall now really just goes right through the city.

That morning when we got to the wall, we all paid 20 yuan (about $3) and rented bicycles to ride the 14 kilometers (9 mile) long wall. It was completely flat making for an easy and fun ride.

The afternoon of that same day, we were off to see the Bingma yong, the legendary Terracotta warriors, and the landmark I've anticipated most on this trip.

We first went to the Terracotta warrior factory, where we were able to see not only the making of full size replicas of the real soldiers, but also the process showing the exact way these soldiers were made thousands of years ago for Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. This was all part of the Qin Dynasty tomb.

There are estimated to be about 8,000 clay warriors buried with this emperor. These were found along with the bones of approximately 3,000 real people buried with the emperor as well. All of this was discovered by a few farmers working their fields only about 40 years ago in 1974, totally unsuspecting of “the Eighth World Wonder” below them. There were 3 pits in the Terracotta museum, but we learned that there were many more that remained uncovered. These other uncovered pits are intentionally kept hidden, to both preserve their beauty, and to protect them.

The physical danger of uncovering them is serious. Along with thousands of clay soldiers, chariots, and horses, there were also real people, like officials, musicians and more. The Emperor also wanted to bury "rivers of gold" in his tomb. To do so, tons and tons of concentrated mercury was buried with him. If the warriors are uncovered, this huge well of dangerous mercury would also be uncovered, which could have serious effects on the entire city of Xi'an and potentially the greater area.

I found this entire Terracotta experience more than fascinating.

Goodbye Harbin, Goodbye Xi'an, Hello Kunming!

Duibuqi, That means, I am sorry in Chinese. In the mist of trying to really delve into the language and culture of my Chinese family, it has been challenging to make computer time a priority. Blog posts have no doubt fallen by the way side. Since my last post, so much has happened. I have said my sad farewell to my host family in Harbin, literally ran through Xi'an, which now leaves a lingering blur (separate post to follow), and I have said hello and been welcomed by my new host family in the city of "forever Spring", Kunming.

So a little about our Harbin farewell...

Feifei and I in Harbin No. 1 High School

Tears were shed and emails swapped as we left Harbin. Even now as we look back, Harbin was definitely a special place. I think I can speak for the entire group when I say "We loved it there!".

It's hard to imagine that after only 3 weeks, it was so terribly difficult to say goodbye to my host sister and family.

My host father, myself, Feifei and my host mother standing in front of the school

As much as I would like to see them again, China is not exactly nearby. My next trip to China is not yet planned, and could possibly be far out on my horizon. The internet certainly cuts out the distance until we figure out how to study and learn together again.

We left from Harbin No. 1 High School after many pictures were taken. We boarded the bus to get ready for our next adventure. We were now going to study in Kunming, where we would be in a University setting.

Not quite Tigger the Tiger

Today being a Saturday, it was field trip day at Harbin No.1 High School. We had been anticipating our trip to the Harbin Tiger Zoo for a while, or as the Chinese call it, Hu Yuan. The bus ride over was buzzing with excitement the moment we heard it was a safari style zoo. The entrance to the zoo had many tiger statues to greet us. 

Without delay, our entire group boarded a bus, that actually looked more like a cage. The bus was surrounded by steel cross bars. We drove around through the different areas where the tigers were living. There were hundreds of tigers in this zoo, but thanks to the physical vastness of it, it didn't look like they were over crowded at all. It is the largest natural park for wild Northeast tigers in the world. We were told there were over 500 tigers there, but only about 100 that were visible to travellers.

As we drove, most of the tigers seemed unphased by our presence there at all. It was clear they were used to the routine buses. When a few wandered over toward our bus to say hello, it was definitely exciting to see them close up. They were something to see too. These cats are HUGE. The safari ride ended by delivering us to the start of these tunnel-like passage ways that looped in and around different tiger cages. We walked up and down and all around those passage ways, some actually going over the Tigers.

On a passageway over the Tigers

While in the passage ways above the tigers, there were different places where you could buy food in which to feed the tigers. As opposed to animal feed, or maybe even a strip of meat that you would buy at an American zoo, the food that was available to feed the tigers here, was LIVE chickens, ducks or even cows. There were cages filled with chickens and others with ducks. 
 
When someone wanted one, they would reach in, grab the bird by the wings and hand it to their customer who would then drop the live crying animal to its death. 

Man carrying live chicken

I couldn't believe that none of the Chinese people thought this was the slightest bit strange or even sad for the poor birds. Through my experiences here it is obvious that the things which people value here are much different than those that people value in America. No question that animal compassion is valued very differently here than it is in America.

When finally content that we had seen our fill of tigers, we reloaded the bus and headed back to school for lunch.

Jin tian wo qu le hu yuan.  今天我去了虎园   Today I went to the Tiger Zoo.

Exercise or Flash Mob?

Something I have seen in China a few times now, that I never see in America is people exercising together out in the streets. When I first saw people dancing in the streets, and I mean many people, all with such precision, I thought at first that I had walked into a flash mob. Although I was pretty excited about seeing a flash mob in China, after seeing the same dance over and over, I had to think it was likely not a coincidence. I asked my host sister in Harbin about it, and her response was that they were exercising. She left it at that, as if it were the most common thing in the world, which I suppose to her it was.  Here is a short video of a group in Harbin exercising.

Cards Anyone?

My Chinese classes in Bangor (Startalk) before I left were like giant cram sessions, but class here is a bit more relaxed. Over the past few days, we have spent the last hour or so of each class learning different Chinese card games. We have now been tasked with teaching our teachers some American card games. The trick is to teach them using only Chinese! 

In addition to cards my teacher here in Harbin likes to play many different kinds of games with us to reinforce what we have learned. A few days ago we played twister outside the school to help us learn our vocab words. There was a twister board drawn on the pavement with chalk and each of the boxes had words in them instead of colors. It was lots of fun, and it actually helped us learn as well.

           In another class, after we learned our foods, we spent the morning in the giant supermarket across the street from the school. There we played games in the produce section naming all the fruits and veggies that we knew and then we tried to trick the other team by giving them hard words and asking them to bring us that food item. We also raced around the supermarket with our team and had to give our teacher the name of every food item that we saw and knew in a limited time period. The losing team had to buy a snack for the winning team. Unfortunately my team lost, but they shared their snack with us anyway.

My Chinese 1 class standing in front of a memorial by the entrance of the supermarket.

I promise that this supermarket was in China, but it is interesting that the word "Produce" and caption underneath are not even in Chinese at all.

The large round fruit with spikes at the bottom of this picture is called a durian, or as the say in Chinese Liúlián 榴莲.

Most of the food they had in the supermarket, you could also find in any supermarket in America, but not everything.

We are a SPECTACLE!

One thing that has taken our entire group some getting used to, is that we are a spectacle whenever and wherever we go. The big group of American students catches almost everyone's eye. When sitting on the bus, walking the streets, shopping, going into restaurants, and nearly everything we do, you can really feel the eyes of people on you. Most are not discrete, nor do they show any embarrassment about starring either. 

A few days ago, during the culture time of our day, we took a walk to the Zhaolin Park a few blocks from the school. After we had explored and walked around the park, we all got together on a lawn and began to play a Chinese version of duck duck goose, which is significantly more interesting than our old American kids duck duck goose game. Within 5 minutes of starting our game, we literally had people gathered around us in a circle, the way people gather for a show. They had cameras out and were taking pictures and recording our game. It was of course innocent and they certainly meant no harm, but it was at that moment when I realized the amount of attention our group draws. While in Beijing, we were often asked to have pictures taken with us. This happens in Harbin as well, although a bit less. I got used to it quickly, but at first it seemed so strange to me that people I had never met before wanted to take a picture with me only because I was American.

I have also felt this attention just within the home setting. Last night my homestay grandmother came over to visit. It was not the first time I had met her, (last week she taught me how to make dumplings) but even though there was a conversation going on around us, she had her hand on my arm and was just starring at me the entire time. I felt a little awkward to say the least. Then she said something in Chinese and my homestay mother translated it, saying that the grandmother had just told me that I looked like a doll. It was of course meant as a compliment, but it also made me realize how different her view was from mine. I look American, but to her that is what she associated with looking like a doll. It was something that I found very interesting. In Chinese the word for America is Meiguo, which literally translates to meaning “the beautiful country”. America truly is respected all over the world and it makes me so proud to be American.

This picture shows me and my homestay grandmother in the kitchen making vegetable dumplings.

 

This picture shows Fefe and I enjoying those same dumplings.

Until next time....

Zaijian    Goodbye

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