I have become one with the MADNESS that is the Chinese bureaucratic system.
We all applied for a visa in America, but apparently that visa does not actually allow us to live in China for a year. It is essentially temporary permission to enter the country. So now that we are here we have to completely reapply for permission to actually stay if we want to avoid deportation. I have spent most of the last week and a half trying to make that happen.
It started with a trip with my host family and all the other kids and families to the police station to apply for temporary residence permits and register our location with the authorities. That wasn't to bad we just had to fill out the paperwork and our families were there to speak the necessary Chinese.
But that was only the beginning...
Next came the health exam. I did go to the doctor three different times in the US to fill out all the paperwork for the exact health exam. However, that for some apparent reason didn't count. I think all the stuff I did to get to China was essentially a practice run.
They were accommodating and rather than making us all go to the hospital to get the exam the hospital came to ECNU (my school). They were there for two days. We were told not to eat breakfast because of the blood tests and then go to class and wait to be called out. So passed the first day and a half. Right before we got out of class at 11:45 on the second day someone came into my class and asked who needed a health exam. We raised our hands and were given numbers on little slips of paper with somewhat official looking red stamps. We were told to report back and get in line at 1:15 and that we would be taken by number.
Megan and I were in this group. The boys had gone after school the day before, and Kate is only stying for a semester so she doesn't have to go through any of this. Megan was somewhat convinced that the numbers actually meant something but I was still in doubt. So we decided that since we couldn't eat lunch anyway to just sit and wait. I remembered seeing that all the people went into room 101 first for their health test and then into this strange medical bus parked outside. There were two chairs outside room 101 so we sat down to wait.
While we were waiting we talked with two boys next to us. They had apparently gotten there at nine that morning and had not been tested before lunch. They were then given number 82 and 83. Megan and I were 61 and 62. We puzzled over this for a while and then gave up as to how it could have happened. Then we decided to get some homework done. There was a desk across the hall so we dragged it over to our chairs and got some flashcards done.
The door to room 101 opened at 1:30 and a man stepped out. He looked down at Megan and I, and barked "numbers!" We handed them to him, he looked at them and had a woman hand us some more forms. The desk definitely came in handy then. we filled them out signed them and gave them back to the woman. She looked at them and then sent us into room 101. Meanwhile a large mob had formed around the man and the woman with the forms and the man was shouting out numbers sequentially while people waved their arms and shouted.
In the room we went through various paper processing and had our blood drawn. We were then handed a cotton ball and sent outside. They had us sit for 3 minutes and the sent us onto the bus for the rest of our exam.
We were pretty lucky on that front, because we were talking to kids in our class who didn't get to go at all and were told to go to the hospital at some other time.
Next came our attempts to get the new visa itself. That started on Wednesday. We had to go to the foreign student office of ECNU to try to get the originals of our JW202 visa application form. When we got to the office we were told that we had gone to the wrong place. We kept asking them though until we found someone who told us that we were in fact in the right place and gave us our JW202s, a new visa application, and a letter from the university saying that we were attending and would be allowed to continue.
Thursday afternoon we had to go get our medical results, which was surprisingly painless. We were then told to report back on Friday because the police would be coming at 9:30 to process our visa applications.
We came at 8:15 and got in line. We were maybe the 15th people there. by 9 there were probably 100 students in s a somewhat orderly line. 9:30 came and went with no apparent change except for the growing line/mob. At 10 an office worker came to inform us that the police were "on the road."
At 11 someone finally came and sat at the desk at the front of the line. She was apparently there to check our paperwork, of which we had quite a bit. That instantly erased the last semblance of a line and the students became a full fledged mob pushing to hand their paperwork in.
Before we got there we were given a list of the things that we needed; passport, photo, copy of passport, and originals of our JW202, medical form, school forms and residence permit. We had all of these things, however they started yelling over the crowd that we also needed to have a copy of our residence permit. Fortunately I was part of the group of gap year students and we were willing to help each other. We all gave our residence permits to Nate who is a 6'2'' cross country runner who could elbow his way out of the mob and sprint for the copy machines at the CIEE offices and then elbow his way back in.
Finally at 11:15 the police arrived. They all filed into the building and closed the door. Five minutes later someone came out and started handing out numbers. Both Nate and I were 19... At 11:25 the police went to the cafe across the street for lunch. The entire crowd pretty much started laughing at that point. We found out later that the officer in charge of writing receipts had not arrived and thus they were unable to proceed.
Meanwhile, Megan had been pushed to the front, about five people ahead of Nate and I and Jonas was somewhere about five people behind us. I ended up sandwiched between Nate, and another guy who must have been 6'4'' since he was taller than Nate, who turned out to be from Glendale and was really nice.
At 12:15 or so that police returned from lunch and the process actually started. It took me about half an hour to get the 15 feet to the door so I could get my visa. But in the end I did succeed ans did the others...
We get our passports back on Friday, which is the day Megan, Kate, Jonas, and I are leaving for Beijing. So we now get to see if we can go to the visa office in Pudong to pick them up early... The guy in front of Megan set it up that way, but we couldn't quite communicate it.
I am now one with the Chinese bureaucracy in so many more ways than I ever wanted to be.
Yesterday after the Visa fiasco Fung You Ming a.k.a. Bryan one of the CIEE interns took us to a street off of people's square that is famous for stationary, bookstores, and calligraphy. We went to buy calligraphy brushes since we are going to have a lesson from a calligraphy master at some point in the near future.
We also went to Shanghai's largest book store. I bought three children's books with character and pinyin so I can try to read.
I am currently attempting to read a illustrated version of snow white and the 7 dwarfs... IT IS WAY ABOVE MY READING LEVEL!!!!!!!! It is really strange being illiterate.
My tutor was trying to teach me the many grammatical uses of the particle "de" in the Chinese language. She then suggested that I listen to this one song that makes extreme use of de... It is pretty epic how many times she says de in about 30 seconds. Here is the link to the music video if you want to hear it. The song is by 許哲珮 and it is called 汽球.
This afternoon the rest of the gap year kids are coming over to make dumplings... So I have to go help set up. I'll try to post again before I leave for Beijing.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Hey everyone. I've been here for a little more than two weeks so it is about time for another update:
I started class on Friday September 5th. I am enrolled in Chinese 1-2A. It is essentially a Chinese class for foreigners who know a little bit of Chinese but not really enough to do anything. I have two different teachers: Wang laoshi for writing on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Li laoshi for speaking on Mondays and Thursdays. The classes aren't really separate and I learn both speaking and writing in both classes, but I having two different teaching styles is interesting.
What I love best about my class is the students. There are twenty of us in total after all of the class switching that went on last week when everyone was trying to figure out the right level for themselves. It is by far the most diverse class that I have ever been in . Of the top of my head there are kids from the US, Mongolia, France, Italy, Vietnam, Russia, Australia, Scotland, Saudi Arabia and Israel. I love meeting all of the different people.
Megan is also in my class and we are by far the youngest there, but everyone has been incredibly nice. We are learning fast, but I am glad that I am in the harder class becasue I Want to learn as much Chinese as I possibly can.
Foreign student's aren't aloud to use the school gym facilities so the five of us joined a gym near our apartments so that we could work out (running on the streets is simply not an option... we WILL get run down). It is called Mind Over Body Fitness, MOB for short. We have been putting it to very good use. Trying to tell our host families that we are going to the gym has been an excercize in in its own right and with entertaining results. I "go MOB," Kate "goes sport," and Megan "goes" followed by a running pantomime.
Trying to take exercise classes in a different language is a mix of hilarity and mistakes, but it is surprisingly easy to communicate. I just don't plan on taking any classes without an instructor in front demonstrating what it is that they want me to do. I think my favorite class thus far has been what we dubbed "stretchy ball class" I think the actual name is slimming ball workout. We essentially grabbed massive blue bouncy balls and worked out on them it was really fun, though I wont lie, it half the fun was watching everyone fall off while trying to stretch. The spin teacher now calls Megan "States" since she told him she was from the US which is also pretty entertaining.
In that vein one of the funniest things about my stay has been hearing our host families' names for us. My host family has a pretty good grasp on Zoe though the pronunciation is definitely a little bit off. Kat lives on the second floor of my building so when they want to talk about Kate they usually point at the floor. Megan gets a pointed finger across the street or something along the lines of meggie... Jonas is called alternately Janice and Jonessen. Nate who is 6'2'' is either "tall boy" or a gesture with a hand way above the speaker's head.
I was a little bit worried when I was planning to go that any kids who were going to China would be incredibly worldly and sophisticated and essentially not as dorky as I am. Thankfully I was proved wrong on that point. Last Wednesday it was raining and the five of us were walking back through the ECNU campus after lunch. We somehow got to a discussion of our favorite Disney movies and came to the conclusion that we all loved Mulan. We then proceeded to dance down the middle of the main road on campus sing "I'll Make a Man Out of You" much to the amusement of hundreds of Chinese college students. It was great.
We are apparently a musically inclined group because we had another great singing incident. Today Megan, Kate, and I walked into a coffee shop to take a break. AS soon as we stepped through the door we hear that they are playing backstreet boys... So of course there is no choice but to sing along. I'm pretty sure that we were the most entertaining thing that had happened to the staff in years. About half way through "Larger Than Life" They cranked up the stereo, which of course meant we had to start lip-syncing at the table and things escalated accordingly. Lets just say that the CD ended and a new one started and suddenly stopped in the middle so they could restart the backstreet boys CD. The waiter danced to bring us the check.
I am having a lot of fun learning different Chinese games. My host mother is trying to teach me computer mahjong. I am having a lot of fun, but I have no idea what I am doing. The computer keeps offering me options, but they are all in Chinese. I am also learning a little bit of Chinese chess which is like normal chess but harder in my opinion. It is set up like a battle field and there is a river in the middle. The pieces have a lot more restriction and aren't carved shapes. They look like checker pieces with characters on them and the characters are different for the red and the black side. I often forget which piece is which... which can be a problem.
Friday one of the CIEE interns took us to a Kong Fu master he knows for a lesson. It was really fun, but we one again got a chance to be a of entertainment value to the locals. We were in a neighborhood park in the middle of a field with the master teaching us, and we gathered quite the audience.
This weekend is the weekend of Mid-Autumn- Festival, which is a big family holiday. The best thing I can equate it to is Thanksgiving. My host family was planing to go out to the countryside in the morning, but we had to cancel due to the typhoon. I am still Californian enough to think that canceling due to typhoon is kind of cool.
I had a really interesting Sunday, but I am positive that I ate enough for three large men, forget one teenage girl.
We started out with a breakfast of moon-cakes which are special to this holiday. At 10:30 we got in the car to go to lunch. We got to the restaurant a little after eleven and waited while our party gathered. In the end there were twelve of us. My host family, me, my host dad's brother, his wife and daughter, my host dad's parents, and my host dad's brother's wife's parents. I did eventually actually figure out who everyone was. We has an amazing lunch of Beijing duck which went on for two hours of straight eating, but was SO GOOD. We left and went to my host dad's brother's house. We there had Hagen Daas Ice Cream Cake.
Then we went to My Host mother's parent's house. We then had dinner with my host family, my host mom's two sister, their husbands, and five year old sons. Dinner was amazing, but I was not hungry yet since I had just eaten for at least two people. The table started out covered in serving dishes when we sat down, but my host grandmother kept getting up and making or bringing more food so by the time we were done the table was two layers deep in serving dishes.
As part of our orientation activities last week we went on a scavenger hunt. CIEE gave us a lit of around 30 locations and things that we had to find in Shanghai by four in the afternoon using any kind of public transportation except for taxi. They decided that it would just make everything better if it were a race, so they told us to break up into two teams. The boys wanted to do boys v girls, so we split up. We actually had a blast doing it and I now feel like no matter where I am dropped in Shanghai that I can find my way back. Maybe not quickly but I can do it. It was also a great opportunity to preview a lot of different places that we want to go back and visit.
Perhaps the best part of the whole situation is that the girls won. Our prizes were one hour traditional Chinese massages at the Dragonfly Spa. We claimed them this morning and they were absolutely amazing.
I think that is it for now... I will try to update a little more frequently in the future, but no guarantees. My plan is to try to write once a week.
I will wrap up with:
You know you are in China when you think that the Chairmen Mao statue is a completely legitimate on campus meeting spot.
I started class on Friday September 5th. I am enrolled in Chinese 1-2A. It is essentially a Chinese class for foreigners who know a little bit of Chinese but not really enough to do anything. I have two different teachers: Wang laoshi for writing on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Li laoshi for speaking on Mondays and Thursdays. The classes aren't really separate and I learn both speaking and writing in both classes, but I having two different teaching styles is interesting.
What I love best about my class is the students. There are twenty of us in total after all of the class switching that went on last week when everyone was trying to figure out the right level for themselves. It is by far the most diverse class that I have ever been in . Of the top of my head there are kids from the US, Mongolia, France, Italy, Vietnam, Russia, Australia, Scotland, Saudi Arabia and Israel. I love meeting all of the different people.
Megan is also in my class and we are by far the youngest there, but everyone has been incredibly nice. We are learning fast, but I am glad that I am in the harder class becasue I Want to learn as much Chinese as I possibly can.
Foreign student's aren't aloud to use the school gym facilities so the five of us joined a gym near our apartments so that we could work out (running on the streets is simply not an option... we WILL get run down). It is called Mind Over Body Fitness, MOB for short. We have been putting it to very good use. Trying to tell our host families that we are going to the gym has been an excercize in in its own right and with entertaining results. I "go MOB," Kate "goes sport," and Megan "goes" followed by a running pantomime.
Trying to take exercise classes in a different language is a mix of hilarity and mistakes, but it is surprisingly easy to communicate. I just don't plan on taking any classes without an instructor in front demonstrating what it is that they want me to do. I think my favorite class thus far has been what we dubbed "stretchy ball class" I think the actual name is slimming ball workout. We essentially grabbed massive blue bouncy balls and worked out on them it was really fun, though I wont lie, it half the fun was watching everyone fall off while trying to stretch. The spin teacher now calls Megan "States" since she told him she was from the US which is also pretty entertaining.
In that vein one of the funniest things about my stay has been hearing our host families' names for us. My host family has a pretty good grasp on Zoe though the pronunciation is definitely a little bit off. Kat lives on the second floor of my building so when they want to talk about Kate they usually point at the floor. Megan gets a pointed finger across the street or something along the lines of meggie... Jonas is called alternately Janice and Jonessen. Nate who is 6'2'' is either "tall boy" or a gesture with a hand way above the speaker's head.
I was a little bit worried when I was planning to go that any kids who were going to China would be incredibly worldly and sophisticated and essentially not as dorky as I am. Thankfully I was proved wrong on that point. Last Wednesday it was raining and the five of us were walking back through the ECNU campus after lunch. We somehow got to a discussion of our favorite Disney movies and came to the conclusion that we all loved Mulan. We then proceeded to dance down the middle of the main road on campus sing "I'll Make a Man Out of You" much to the amusement of hundreds of Chinese college students. It was great.
We are apparently a musically inclined group because we had another great singing incident. Today Megan, Kate, and I walked into a coffee shop to take a break. AS soon as we stepped through the door we hear that they are playing backstreet boys... So of course there is no choice but to sing along. I'm pretty sure that we were the most entertaining thing that had happened to the staff in years. About half way through "Larger Than Life" They cranked up the stereo, which of course meant we had to start lip-syncing at the table and things escalated accordingly. Lets just say that the CD ended and a new one started and suddenly stopped in the middle so they could restart the backstreet boys CD. The waiter danced to bring us the check.
I am having a lot of fun learning different Chinese games. My host mother is trying to teach me computer mahjong. I am having a lot of fun, but I have no idea what I am doing. The computer keeps offering me options, but they are all in Chinese. I am also learning a little bit of Chinese chess which is like normal chess but harder in my opinion. It is set up like a battle field and there is a river in the middle. The pieces have a lot more restriction and aren't carved shapes. They look like checker pieces with characters on them and the characters are different for the red and the black side. I often forget which piece is which... which can be a problem.
Friday one of the CIEE interns took us to a Kong Fu master he knows for a lesson. It was really fun, but we one again got a chance to be a of entertainment value to the locals. We were in a neighborhood park in the middle of a field with the master teaching us, and we gathered quite the audience.
This weekend is the weekend of Mid-Autumn- Festival, which is a big family holiday. The best thing I can equate it to is Thanksgiving. My host family was planing to go out to the countryside in the morning, but we had to cancel due to the typhoon. I am still Californian enough to think that canceling due to typhoon is kind of cool.
I had a really interesting Sunday, but I am positive that I ate enough for three large men, forget one teenage girl.
We started out with a breakfast of moon-cakes which are special to this holiday. At 10:30 we got in the car to go to lunch. We got to the restaurant a little after eleven and waited while our party gathered. In the end there were twelve of us. My host family, me, my host dad's brother, his wife and daughter, my host dad's parents, and my host dad's brother's wife's parents. I did eventually actually figure out who everyone was. We has an amazing lunch of Beijing duck which went on for two hours of straight eating, but was SO GOOD. We left and went to my host dad's brother's house. We there had Hagen Daas Ice Cream Cake.
Then we went to My Host mother's parent's house. We then had dinner with my host family, my host mom's two sister, their husbands, and five year old sons. Dinner was amazing, but I was not hungry yet since I had just eaten for at least two people. The table started out covered in serving dishes when we sat down, but my host grandmother kept getting up and making or bringing more food so by the time we were done the table was two layers deep in serving dishes.
As part of our orientation activities last week we went on a scavenger hunt. CIEE gave us a lit of around 30 locations and things that we had to find in Shanghai by four in the afternoon using any kind of public transportation except for taxi. They decided that it would just make everything better if it were a race, so they told us to break up into two teams. The boys wanted to do boys v girls, so we split up. We actually had a blast doing it and I now feel like no matter where I am dropped in Shanghai that I can find my way back. Maybe not quickly but I can do it. It was also a great opportunity to preview a lot of different places that we want to go back and visit.
Perhaps the best part of the whole situation is that the girls won. Our prizes were one hour traditional Chinese massages at the Dragonfly Spa. We claimed them this morning and they were absolutely amazing.
I think that is it for now... I will try to update a little more frequently in the future, but no guarantees. My plan is to try to write once a week.
I will wrap up with:
You know you are in China when you think that the Chairmen Mao statue is a completely legitimate on campus meeting spot.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
So it begins...
So, here we go. This blog is going to be essentially a record of my various exploits during my gap year in China.
I left California August 27th at 10 in the morning and after two flight and a ridiculous time change reached Shanghai at 6 in the evening August 28th. I had planned to spend my layover in San Francisco hanging out and drinking coffee thus using up the remainder of my star bucks card before I left... But I managed to end up in the only two airport terminals in the contiguous United States without a single star bucks... So it goes... I have to say that the flight I took may have been the single coolest flight ever. Why? Because for the meal they served ramen. They gave us each a bowl and then came around with boiling water to fill them.
When we reached Shanghai we were picked up by some of the CIEE staff. There were three of us on the flight from San Francisco. Me, Megan, who is from Boise, and Jonas, who is from San Francisco.
Driving in to the city was surreal. We were all giggling and jet lagged and none of us could believe we were really here. Shanghai is an amazing city, especially lit up at night.
At the end of the bus ride we were met by our Host Families. I love my host family. They are wonderful. My new little sister Angel is incredibly nice and very accommodating about translating for me, though it is yet another motivation for me to learn Chinese fast, so that I do not need to depend on a 14 year old to communicate. My host family also has a talking pet bird which currently speaks more Chinese than I do. We have to set language goals, and one of mine currently is to learn more Chinese than Fifi (the bird).
There are five kids total in the program. Besides Megan, Jonas, and I there is Kate who is from Wisconsin, and Nate, from Kentucky. We all get along well and they are a really cool group. It is a relief sometimes to be able to just talk in English.
So far we have been getting a lot of the administrative work done such as registration at the school and residency permits from the police. The rest of the time we have been touring the city.
I went with my host family to visit the Yu Gardens or Chén huáng miào. It is old town shanghai, which has been recreated into a tourist destination. I am usually not a big fan of touristy stuff, but this was really cool with a bunch of different shops and traditional Chinese goodies. We went out to a traditional Chinese breakfast and had shen long which are amazing pork and crab dumplings.
The next day the five of us took the metro down to the huge "fake market" which is where they sell all the knock off products. It was a blast wandering around and we made a couple of new best friends who really wanted to sell us stuff. We finally escaped our most persistent friend by ducking into what turned out to be a massive underground mall that probably ran for miles, I don't know, we turned back after a while.
For all you shoppers I think I found the Mall To End All Malls. My host family took me there to look around and have dinner. It is called Cloud Nine Mall in Zhongshan Park also known as the Shanghai Summit Shopping City. Shopping city is about accurate. It has eight stories not counting the Giant Carrefour (French grocery store) downstairs. You could get lost in there for days easily I am sure.
On the end of my tourist destination litany, today we went to the Oriental Pearl Tower which was INSANE. The architecture was amazing and the weather cooperated so we could see for miles from the top. You could really believe that this city has 20 million people in this city looking out at that view. For as far as they eye could see there were sky scrappers, it was mind boggling the number of people that they could encompass. We had more tourist fun while we were there. The five of us lined up to take a group picture, and the Chinese decided to take advantage of the addition to the usual tourist attractions and lined up so that they could get their picture of the blondness too.
Since it is me we are talking about I have been learning about Chinese food and culture from my host family. Yesterday my host father taught me how to do a traditional Chinese tea ceremony which was pretty awesome. We also made dumplings and I now have some masterful dumpling folding skills.
I have been going to orientation events at my school (East China Normal University) and the campus is amazingly beautiful. There is a river running through the middle and all of these trees. There are also some really fun caves that you can walk through to get to this little pond/grotto thing. It is awesome.
I finished registration this morning, and I will be starting my class: Chinese 1-2, on Friday morning at 8:30. I am really looking forward to knowing enough to at least understand the bird when it speaks Chinese.
I will be putting up some pictures over the next few days, either on this blog or maybe on facebook, it depends on how the uploading works for this blog and such.
So that is pretty much how my first 5 days have gone feel free to email me or skype me or yahoo messenger me or whatever.
On a final entertaining note:
you know you are in China when the shampoo bottle in the bathroom has Chairman Mao on it.
See you all later.
I left California August 27th at 10 in the morning and after two flight and a ridiculous time change reached Shanghai at 6 in the evening August 28th. I had planned to spend my layover in San Francisco hanging out and drinking coffee thus using up the remainder of my star bucks card before I left... But I managed to end up in the only two airport terminals in the contiguous United States without a single star bucks... So it goes... I have to say that the flight I took may have been the single coolest flight ever. Why? Because for the meal they served ramen. They gave us each a bowl and then came around with boiling water to fill them.
When we reached Shanghai we were picked up by some of the CIEE staff. There were three of us on the flight from San Francisco. Me, Megan, who is from Boise, and Jonas, who is from San Francisco.
Driving in to the city was surreal. We were all giggling and jet lagged and none of us could believe we were really here. Shanghai is an amazing city, especially lit up at night.
At the end of the bus ride we were met by our Host Families. I love my host family. They are wonderful. My new little sister Angel is incredibly nice and very accommodating about translating for me, though it is yet another motivation for me to learn Chinese fast, so that I do not need to depend on a 14 year old to communicate. My host family also has a talking pet bird which currently speaks more Chinese than I do. We have to set language goals, and one of mine currently is to learn more Chinese than Fifi (the bird).
There are five kids total in the program. Besides Megan, Jonas, and I there is Kate who is from Wisconsin, and Nate, from Kentucky. We all get along well and they are a really cool group. It is a relief sometimes to be able to just talk in English.
So far we have been getting a lot of the administrative work done such as registration at the school and residency permits from the police. The rest of the time we have been touring the city.
I went with my host family to visit the Yu Gardens or Chén huáng miào. It is old town shanghai, which has been recreated into a tourist destination. I am usually not a big fan of touristy stuff, but this was really cool with a bunch of different shops and traditional Chinese goodies. We went out to a traditional Chinese breakfast and had shen long which are amazing pork and crab dumplings.
The next day the five of us took the metro down to the huge "fake market" which is where they sell all the knock off products. It was a blast wandering around and we made a couple of new best friends who really wanted to sell us stuff. We finally escaped our most persistent friend by ducking into what turned out to be a massive underground mall that probably ran for miles, I don't know, we turned back after a while.
For all you shoppers I think I found the Mall To End All Malls. My host family took me there to look around and have dinner. It is called Cloud Nine Mall in Zhongshan Park also known as the Shanghai Summit Shopping City. Shopping city is about accurate. It has eight stories not counting the Giant Carrefour (French grocery store) downstairs. You could get lost in there for days easily I am sure.
On the end of my tourist destination litany, today we went to the Oriental Pearl Tower which was INSANE. The architecture was amazing and the weather cooperated so we could see for miles from the top. You could really believe that this city has 20 million people in this city looking out at that view. For as far as they eye could see there were sky scrappers, it was mind boggling the number of people that they could encompass. We had more tourist fun while we were there. The five of us lined up to take a group picture, and the Chinese decided to take advantage of the addition to the usual tourist attractions and lined up so that they could get their picture of the blondness too.
Since it is me we are talking about I have been learning about Chinese food and culture from my host family. Yesterday my host father taught me how to do a traditional Chinese tea ceremony which was pretty awesome. We also made dumplings and I now have some masterful dumpling folding skills.
I have been going to orientation events at my school (East China Normal University) and the campus is amazingly beautiful. There is a river running through the middle and all of these trees. There are also some really fun caves that you can walk through to get to this little pond/grotto thing. It is awesome.
I finished registration this morning, and I will be starting my class: Chinese 1-2, on Friday morning at 8:30. I am really looking forward to knowing enough to at least understand the bird when it speaks Chinese.
I will be putting up some pictures over the next few days, either on this blog or maybe on facebook, it depends on how the uploading works for this blog and such.
So that is pretty much how my first 5 days have gone feel free to email me or skype me or yahoo messenger me or whatever.
On a final entertaining note:
you know you are in China when the shampoo bottle in the bathroom has Chairman Mao on it.
See you all later.
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