...we're heading back to the U.S. I can't believe how fast this summer has gone! This whole experience has definitely been the most incredible summer of my life! At times I wanted to give up, a lot of times I wanted to come home, but honestly I wouldn't go back and change anything. OK except maybe the rash I had for two weeks. But aside from that, I loved this whole program and I'm actually sad to be leaving it.
I will miss all of my friends. We've bonded so much: through our similarities and common passions, and also through all we've experienced together this summer. We have so many funny and fun memories I know I will never forget. We plan to have reunions to see each other, and I really hope we do because I really love these girls. Without them this summer would have been dull and I'm thankful for the way the Lord provided such good friendships for me.
I will miss speaking and learning Chinese all of the time. We did take a lot of breaks in English, but even with those breaks I was speaking Chinese for a majority of the time. I love Chinese! I will really miss learning it every day and having people around me to explain new words and grammar patterns and Chinese idioms. I need to find some Chinese friends in Lynchburg ASAP to practice with regularly.
I will miss being in a stimulating learning environment. I really love learning, and besides learning Chinese all the time, I've learned a lot from all of the people I've spent this summer with. Everyone is so smart! Even though I am SO glad to be done with college (yay!), I will miss academia because learning is just so fun!
I will miss living in a city. Suzhou is crowded and polluted but I like the convenience of cabs and buses and walking most everywhere we need to go. Lynchburg is so small and I'm kind of nervous about living there for the next four months with not really any kind of established life there. I'm sure it will be fine, I just need to get used to not being super busy in life.
I will miss China. Sometimes China and I don't get along, and sometimes a lot of things about China bother me, but I really do love China. Mainly I love the people. I will miss my teachers and my roommate and our assistant directors. They are all so fun to talk to and we've become good friends whom I love interacting with.
Time to finish getting my stuff together and lug it down four flights of steps. I will be traveling for the next 25 hours! That is not very appealing but I am so excited to be coming home!
Friday, August 14, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Tuesday
Oh I do not like waking up for 8:10 class. Thank God for reason #21 I love China: iced coffee juice boxes for 50 cents! Today in our social issues class we talked about unemployment of college graduates in China. Not one of our more interesting topics, but that class is my favorite because it's discussion based. I also think it's really helped my Chinese the most because I've had to learn how to articulate my opinion on all these different topics, and then explain why I disagree or agree with other people's opinions. The vocab has been really practical, and our weekly tests are essays so it's been a good balance of spoken and written Chinese. After that class speaking class was again on house reform. Soo boring. I get the basic gist that there's three types of housing in China: market housing that people can buy if they have the money, and then the government housing that'spretty cheap and is available to those in a certain income bracket, and then other government housing that's really small and outside the city that is for really, really poor people. Beyond that I was a little lost. Oh and she gave us a political cartoon about housing prices in China. Political cartoons sometimes confuse me in English; I didn't even know they had them in Chinese! Reading & writing class was a little better today because we just talkeda bout how American companies in China are doing, how they change their products, how they are doing post-economic crisis in the U.S., etc.
I wasn't feeling that well during class and I thought about skipping my one-on-one class but then I decided I could handle 50 more minutes. The laundry people came today so I dropped off my lunadry, and on the way back to my room my teacher called, saying she was busy and couldn't meet at our regular time. I was thinking great I wanted to cancel anyway, but then she wanted me to come up with another time to meet and let her know. Yeah right I did not want to do that. So I came back to my room and ate the rest of my sandwich from last night, and then laid on my bed and watched a movie. It was so nice to do nothing and relax (especially since it was raining) since I usually study all afternoon. This week we don't have weekly tests so there's not as much pressure to get studying done. At 2 I went to meet my teacher and tell her there was no time for me to meet and haev class, since I was leaving at 2:30 to go to Starbucks (to study and use the internet, since ours was still broken). But she didn't even like listen to what I said and said I could join her and Faith for their one-on-one time. I don't know why but the whole thing made me so mad. I think because she disregarded what I told her, she was the one that canceled on me so that's her deal, and how weird is it to just join someone else's one-on-one time? That's the whole point of the class. Anyway I joined their session for just 30 minutes because I was still going to Starbucks and didn't want to be in that class any longer.
When I got back to our room our internet was fixed but Melissa and I just wanted to get out of the dorm so we got a cab and went anyway. Going out in the rain is probably one of my least favorite things to do, but for a frappuccino it's worth it. We got our drinks and then actually walked across the street to Coldstone because their internet is free. We took turns using my computer and got a lot of studying done. We were kind of waiting for the rain to slow down because we left, because it was lightning and I refuse to use an umbrella when it's lightning. Coldstone just smelled so good we really wanted ice cream. But neither of us had very much money with us, because at Starbucks we both ended up buying coffee mugs. So we were too poor to buy ice cream, so we just bought a waffle cone for 3 元 and split it. Then I told the guy working we were poor students so could we just please have a sampler? I love cake batter ice cream.
We got a cab to this side street near campus where we planned on picking up dinner. We love sweet and sour pork so we ordered two plates of that and then three things of rice. The total was 39 元 so Melissa and I get out our wallets and discover between the two of us we only have 29 元. Yikes. The rice was only 1 元 each so that wouldn't have made a different, and we definitely wanted 2 orders of pork so we didn't know what to do. All the Chinese people around us were getting a kick out of the two white girls who didn't have enough money to buy dinner. So we're both scrounging through our purses and backpacks, and finally come up with enough random change to make 33 元. Melissa was like "if only we had gotten tall frappuccinos instead of grande! We would've had enough money!" Oh well. I love me some Starbucks. So we finally just asked if we could come back tomorrow and bring 6 元. Thankfully they said yes so we waited for our food. But while we were waiting we saw our friend Chen Long and he graciously lent us money so we could pay the whole bill. Then we went back to the dorm, ate dinner, and I went to my room to finish studying for my quizzes. Then I called my mom and talked to her for a while before I went to Bible study.
I invited O Ye to Bible study and she came with me! There were six of us altogether. We sang a few worship songs in Chinese and then started discussing 1 Peter 4: 7-11. There were a lot of new words for us so we had a vocab list of Biblical terms so that was helpful. Halfway through Bible study Luke was in the hallway calling me name so I went out to talk about our plan for going to visit the garden tomorrow. After we worked everything out I went back to Bible study but I just felt distracted. Sometimes Bible study is really a challenge because we all have such different backgrounds and different expectations for what a Bible study should look like. And without much structure it sometimes turns into random tangets. Besides the fact that it's hard trying to discuss a passage of Scripture in Chinese! I am so thankful I have had Christian fellowship this summer, but it has been difficult at times, just like all relationships. I can't wait to go to church at home. After Bible study I showered and went to bed early again. Well, midnight to me is early anyway. It's so nice being able to catch up on sleep!
I wasn't feeling that well during class and I thought about skipping my one-on-one class but then I decided I could handle 50 more minutes. The laundry people came today so I dropped off my lunadry, and on the way back to my room my teacher called, saying she was busy and couldn't meet at our regular time. I was thinking great I wanted to cancel anyway, but then she wanted me to come up with another time to meet and let her know. Yeah right I did not want to do that. So I came back to my room and ate the rest of my sandwich from last night, and then laid on my bed and watched a movie. It was so nice to do nothing and relax (especially since it was raining) since I usually study all afternoon. This week we don't have weekly tests so there's not as much pressure to get studying done. At 2 I went to meet my teacher and tell her there was no time for me to meet and haev class, since I was leaving at 2:30 to go to Starbucks (to study and use the internet, since ours was still broken). But she didn't even like listen to what I said and said I could join her and Faith for their one-on-one time. I don't know why but the whole thing made me so mad. I think because she disregarded what I told her, she was the one that canceled on me so that's her deal, and how weird is it to just join someone else's one-on-one time? That's the whole point of the class. Anyway I joined their session for just 30 minutes because I was still going to Starbucks and didn't want to be in that class any longer.
When I got back to our room our internet was fixed but Melissa and I just wanted to get out of the dorm so we got a cab and went anyway. Going out in the rain is probably one of my least favorite things to do, but for a frappuccino it's worth it. We got our drinks and then actually walked across the street to Coldstone because their internet is free. We took turns using my computer and got a lot of studying done. We were kind of waiting for the rain to slow down because we left, because it was lightning and I refuse to use an umbrella when it's lightning. Coldstone just smelled so good we really wanted ice cream. But neither of us had very much money with us, because at Starbucks we both ended up buying coffee mugs. So we were too poor to buy ice cream, so we just bought a waffle cone for 3 元 and split it. Then I told the guy working we were poor students so could we just please have a sampler? I love cake batter ice cream.
We got a cab to this side street near campus where we planned on picking up dinner. We love sweet and sour pork so we ordered two plates of that and then three things of rice. The total was 39 元 so Melissa and I get out our wallets and discover between the two of us we only have 29 元. Yikes. The rice was only 1 元 each so that wouldn't have made a different, and we definitely wanted 2 orders of pork so we didn't know what to do. All the Chinese people around us were getting a kick out of the two white girls who didn't have enough money to buy dinner. So we're both scrounging through our purses and backpacks, and finally come up with enough random change to make 33 元. Melissa was like "if only we had gotten tall frappuccinos instead of grande! We would've had enough money!" Oh well. I love me some Starbucks. So we finally just asked if we could come back tomorrow and bring 6 元. Thankfully they said yes so we waited for our food. But while we were waiting we saw our friend Chen Long and he graciously lent us money so we could pay the whole bill. Then we went back to the dorm, ate dinner, and I went to my room to finish studying for my quizzes. Then I called my mom and talked to her for a while before I went to Bible study.
I invited O Ye to Bible study and she came with me! There were six of us altogether. We sang a few worship songs in Chinese and then started discussing 1 Peter 4: 7-11. There were a lot of new words for us so we had a vocab list of Biblical terms so that was helpful. Halfway through Bible study Luke was in the hallway calling me name so I went out to talk about our plan for going to visit the garden tomorrow. After we worked everything out I went back to Bible study but I just felt distracted. Sometimes Bible study is really a challenge because we all have such different backgrounds and different expectations for what a Bible study should look like. And without much structure it sometimes turns into random tangets. Besides the fact that it's hard trying to discuss a passage of Scripture in Chinese! I am so thankful I have had Christian fellowship this summer, but it has been difficult at times, just like all relationships. I can't wait to go to church at home. After Bible study I showered and went to bed early again. Well, midnight to me is early anyway. It's so nice being able to catch up on sleep!
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Monday, Monday
This is my last full week in Suzhou (ah!) so I thought I would write a post about what I do each day this week so I can remember the details of my life here. So it's already Thursday and I'm just posting what I wrote about Monday, but hopefully I'll get the other ones up soon. Here goes:
I stayed up really late last night watching the Bachelorette season finale (thank God for whoever illegally uploads the episodes to the internet!), so I slept until 9 this morning. I love Mondays and Wednesdays when class doesn't start until 10. I caught up on some email and then started going over my one-on-one lesson for today. Monday is usually the day the laundry people open shop for our program, so before class I lugged all of my laundry down there, but they were closed. Then I had to carry it all back up the four flights of steps, then go back down to go to class. I guess I shouldn't complain though, since climbing steps has been the extent of my exercise for the summer. I was a little late for class but reading & writing class is usually boring so I didn't mind. And today didn't disappoint...it was pretty boring. I was so tired from the weeknd I don't think I said anything all of class, which is unusual. Our chapter this week is on China's economy. ok so macro was my worst class in college, so I'm obviously not excited about trying to learn economic terms in Chinese. She went on and on the entireclass about foreign investment in China and all these other things I don't even think I can explain in English very well. Finally that class ended and speaking class started. We got our teacher to talk to us about our weekend at the beach for like 15 minutes so that was a good tangent. Then this chapter was on housing reform in China. Whoa even more boring and complicated than China's economy. It's too bad I picked a language that's Communist so all of these types of topics are super confusing to learn about.
After we listened to her explain Deng Xiao Ping's hosuing plans and I got distracted thinking about how his wife died last week at age 93, class finally ended and we walked to the restaurant across from the main campus gate for our Chinese table program. Every Monday the program pays for us to eat lunch at this restaurant with all of our teachers so that we can practice our Chinese with them outside of the class. And surprise surprise, the food was the same as every other Monday this whole summer. Monday's lunch for me = lots of eggplant and rice. Have I ever even eaten eggplant in America? I don't think I have. After lunch we bought ice cream cones and then I went to my room and discovered our dorm's internet was broken. Not okay. I was upset because internet is the only way I can communicate with anyone and without I really feel like I'm on the other side of the world. The internet truly brings our world closer together.
At 1:00 I reluctantly walked to one-on-one...not my favorite class. For the first 25 minutes we talked about our trip to the beach and just chit chatted. Talking about random things is the only redeeming quality of one-on-one, because the textbook is lame. The lesson this week is on "Chinese flavor" aka Chinese souvenirs that are either 1) ugly or 2) useless. But that's just my opinion. I guess they might be exciting to some people. Once that class was over I went back to my room and got a lot of studying down for the three quizzes I have tomorrow. Not having internet makes me more productive.
At 3:20 Melissa and I walked to the other side of campus for our taichi class. This is our last day of extra curricular class!! Last week we finished learning the routine he was teaching us, so all day today we kept re
peating the entire thing to practice since we have to perform in front of everyone next week at our graduation ceremony. It was so hot out and no wind, so thankfully our teacher gave us lots of breaks. I just get so hot and sweaty while we're doing taichi, which is weird since taichi is probably the slowest thing I've done in my entire life. I really do like our teacher though; he's laid back, amazing at taichi and kongfu, and really enjoys talking to us. Finally at 5:00 we finished practicing and Melissa, Rachael, and I met up with Jocelyne, Jenni, and Meg to go buy 病沙 [frozen fruit drinks that are perfect for hot Suzhou weather...and they only cost $1]. This is the highlight of Mondays for us, especially since we're so hot from taichi. Passion fruit is my favorite. Then we walked to Yang Yang [one of our favorite restaurants here, coincidentally also recommended by Lonely Planet] and ordered a ton of dumplings, broccoli, and sweet & sour pork. It was so good and I ate a lot, as usual. After dinner we went and bought some DVDs and I went to this Indian store and bought some pretty jewelry.
Then I walked back to my room and talked to O Ye [my roommate's nickname] and studied some more for my quizzes. Melissa had a really bad day today because she spilled water on her computer and it broke. So she came into my room around 8:45 saying she needed to get out and do something. I agreed because sometimes I feel so cabin feverish in my room because it's either hot or raining so that rules out going outside, and I always have homework and studying to do. I am a prisoner of my room. Actually that's a bit dramatic, I do enjoy being in my room. But anyway we decided to go to the Drunken Clam to study for our quizzes. But the gate we needed to go out closes at 9 so we had to halfway run across campus to make it out in time. The menu looked really good so we ordered sandwiches and had a second dinner. Whoops. But we saved half our meal for lunch tomorrow. We had enough of studying after a while, so we walked all the way back to campus the long way and on the way I convinced Melissa to buy ice creams with me. 越来越胖 [as time goes on I get fatter]! But really Melissa and I talked about it and this summer has been so hard, so we're okay with maybe gaining a little weight as a result of taking breaks to eat Western food. Or ice creams.
After we got back I showered and was feeling tired so I actually went to bed at 12. The past four weeks I've gone to bed at 2 or later every night. Not a good idea. I'm so exhausted. From Chinese and this summer and this experience and from the past three years of trying to work 15 hours a week and take 18 credits at the same time. Whoa I need a break. And it's coming soon! Only one more Monday in China!
I stayed up really late last night watching the Bachelorette season finale (thank God for whoever illegally uploads the episodes to the internet!), so I slept until 9 this morning. I love Mondays and Wednesdays when class doesn't start until 10. I caught up on some email and then started going over my one-on-one lesson for today. Monday is usually the day the laundry people open shop for our program, so before class I lugged all of my laundry down there, but they were closed. Then I had to carry it all back up the four flights of steps, then go back down to go to class. I guess I shouldn't complain though, since climbing steps has been the extent of my exercise for the summer. I was a little late for class but reading & writing class is usually boring so I didn't mind. And today didn't disappoint...it was pretty boring. I was so tired from the weeknd I don't think I said anything all of class, which is unusual. Our chapter this week is on China's economy. ok so macro was my worst class in college, so I'm obviously not excited about trying to learn economic terms in Chinese. She went on and on the entireclass about foreign investment in China and all these other things I don't even think I can explain in English very well. Finally that class ended and speaking class started. We got our teacher to talk to us about our weekend at the beach for like 15 minutes so that was a good tangent. Then this chapter was on housing reform in China. Whoa even more boring and complicated than China's economy. It's too bad I picked a language that's Communist so all of these types of topics are super confusing to learn about.
After we listened to her explain Deng Xiao Ping's hosuing plans and I got distracted thinking about how his wife died last week at age 93, class finally ended and we walked to the restaurant across from the main campus gate for our Chinese table program. Every Monday the program pays for us to eat lunch at this restaurant with all of our teachers so that we can practice our Chinese with them outside of the class. And surprise surprise, the food was the same as every other Monday this whole summer. Monday's lunch for me = lots of eggplant and rice. Have I ever even eaten eggplant in America? I don't think I have. After lunch we bought ice cream cones and then I went to my room and discovered our dorm's internet was broken. Not okay. I was upset because internet is the only way I can communicate with anyone and without I really feel like I'm on the other side of the world. The internet truly brings our world closer together.
At 1:00 I reluctantly walked to one-on-one...not my favorite class. For the first 25 minutes we talked about our trip to the beach and just chit chatted. Talking about random things is the only redeeming quality of one-on-one, because the textbook is lame. The lesson this week is on "Chinese flavor" aka Chinese souvenirs that are either 1) ugly or 2) useless. But that's just my opinion. I guess they might be exciting to some people. Once that class was over I went back to my room and got a lot of studying down for the three quizzes I have tomorrow. Not having internet makes me more productive.
At 3:20 Melissa and I walked to the other side of campus for our taichi class. This is our last day of extra curricular class!! Last week we finished learning the routine he was teaching us, so all day today we kept re
peating the entire thing to practice since we have to perform in front of everyone next week at our graduation ceremony. It was so hot out and no wind, so thankfully our teacher gave us lots of breaks. I just get so hot and sweaty while we're doing taichi, which is weird since taichi is probably the slowest thing I've done in my entire life. I really do like our teacher though; he's laid back, amazing at taichi and kongfu, and really enjoys talking to us. Finally at 5:00 we finished practicing and Melissa, Rachael, and I met up with Jocelyne, Jenni, and Meg to go buy 病沙 [frozen fruit drinks that are perfect for hot Suzhou weather...and they only cost $1]. This is the highlight of Mondays for us, especially since we're so hot from taichi. Passion fruit is my favorite. Then we walked to Yang Yang [one of our favorite restaurants here, coincidentally also recommended by Lonely Planet] and ordered a ton of dumplings, broccoli, and sweet & sour pork. It was so good and I ate a lot, as usual. After dinner we went and bought some DVDs and I went to this Indian store and bought some pretty jewelry.Then I walked back to my room and talked to O Ye [my roommate's nickname] and studied some more for my quizzes. Melissa had a really bad day today because she spilled water on her computer and it broke. So she came into my room around 8:45 saying she needed to get out and do something. I agreed because sometimes I feel so cabin feverish in my room because it's either hot or raining so that rules out going outside, and I always have homework and studying to do. I am a prisoner of my room. Actually that's a bit dramatic, I do enjoy being in my room. But anyway we decided to go to the Drunken Clam to study for our quizzes. But the gate we needed to go out closes at 9 so we had to halfway run across campus to make it out in time. The menu looked really good so we ordered sandwiches and had a second dinner. Whoops. But we saved half our meal for lunch tomorrow. We had enough of studying after a while, so we walked all the way back to campus the long way and on the way I convinced Melissa to buy ice creams with me. 越来越胖 [as time goes on I get fatter]! But really Melissa and I talked about it and this summer has been so hard, so we're okay with maybe gaining a little weight as a result of taking breaks to eat Western food. Or ice creams.
After we got back I showered and was feeling tired so I actually went to bed at 12. The past four weeks I've gone to bed at 2 or later every night. Not a good idea. I'm so exhausted. From Chinese and this summer and this experience and from the past three years of trying to work 15 hours a week and take 18 credits at the same time. Whoa I need a break. And it's coming soon! Only one more Monday in China!
Monday, August 3, 2009
on beaching in China
This past weekend was our group trip to the Zhoushan islands. It's a bunch of islands together but the one we went to was the most popular, also called the "Jamaica" of China. I've never been to Jamaica, but I feel like it's probably a lot nicer than Zhoushan. ok so Friday they canceled two of our classes and had us take our tests on Thursday so that we could leave Friday morning. We left around 10:30 and drove for about four hours. This was the one trip that all of our Chinese roommates were allowed to go on, and they had planned a bunch of games for us to play along the way. Well the games were not a hit with the American students, because it involved a plastic blowup lamb being passed around and if it landed on you when the music stopped then you had to do something embarra
ssing like sing a song or make scary faces. Most of us wanted to just sleep since we had just finished a long week of classes. Once the games ended, the ride was pretty uneventful. We did go over the longest bridge in the world - 35 kilometers - that connects the Shanghai area to Zhe Jiang province, so that was cool. After we drove four hours we got to Ningbo, where we got on a ferry boat to take us to the cluster of islands. The ferry was nasty and crowded and the water was super dirty and polluted. We rode the boat for like an hour then drove for another hour or two until we got to our hotel. All of our rooms overlooked the ocean which was really nice. Here's a view of our hotel from the beach.
They gave us an hour before we got back on the bus to go to a fishing town for dinner. Fishing village in my mind is a rural village with fishing shacks on the side of the ocean, lots of tiny stands with seafood and poor kids running around. This place was basically a small city. The friends I was with don't really like seafood, and on the way to the town our tour guide had told us to be careful with the seafood because we might get laduzi (diarrhea). Oh gee, can't wait. So we hung back from the rest of the group and quick darted into Winner Pizza when they weren't looking. A lot of times people give us a hard time if we decide to eat Western, so we were trying to avoid the judgment this time. Winner Pizza ended up being a great choice - good pizza and excellent waffle fries. After we ate we met up with another friend walked around for a bit. We wandered into a mostly empty bar and with an entirely empty stage, so we took that as an invitation to get on the stage and dance. The people in the bar loved it and we convinced some of them to join in with us. After 20 minutes we had to meet up with the rest of our group so we headed out. Once we got back to the hotel we hung out on the patio playing Uno until late.
Saturday morning I woke up to this view out my window. I love how there's the sand and the water and then these beautiful mountains. It was definitely a different kind of beach than I've ever been to. The group met at 9:30 to head to the beach. We got out of the bus and it started raining: awesome. First we had to go t
o this little building and get our VIP beach passes made. They to take a picture of each of us before they could issue our passes. It was quite a hassle. Finally we made it through the gate, walked the 10 minutes past the vendors, and got onto the beach. On the way we bought innertubes for $1.50 which ended up being the best purchase of the day. Since it was raining, we obviously weren't going to tan, and the sand was wet, we just went far out in the ocean with our tubes and floated and talked. There are basically no waves so we could go out further than all the Chinese people dare to go. (Most Chinese people can't swim). After an hour or so of floating Melissa and I went and got our one Chinese friend who wanted me to teach him to swim. We spent the next 30 minutes trying to teach him how to tread water, do the doggie paddle, and float. He was really nervous and tense so it was kind of difficult, but eventually he caught on. It's really hard trying to teach someone to swim in Chinese! But we had a good time. Then we headed back to the hotel to eat lunch. The food was pretty good I thought- rice, eggplant, kongpao chicken, french fries, shrimp, green vegetables, etc. They actually brought us two of every dish because the tour guide calculated the number of people incorrectly. After lunch we decided we wanted to head back to the beach because it looked like the sun might come out.
We walked back down and as we were walking the sun did come out! We were so excited we were practically jumping up and down. We ended up having almost an hour of good sunshine before it got really cloudy again. But in that hour we laid out and I ended up getting burned. Laying out in China is not as relax
ing as the U.S. though. Chinese people don't really give you space and people kept kicking their soccer balls over to our heads and hitting us. Some people would just walk up, stare, and take pictures/videos. The beach was so incredibly crowded and loud, people were smoking and throwing their cigarette butts and trash in the water. Some kids don't wear bathing suits and some adults just swim in their clothes. Chinese men wear speedos, and the whole experience is just not as enjoyable as relaxing on the beach at home. I was getting really fed up with the crowd and noise and people trying to sell me watermelon so we got our floats and went back into the water. I think it was probably because the tide was coming in, but the nice clean water from the morning was gone and was filled with brown algae plant things. And it wasn't like a chunk here or there, it was a you get out of the water and look like a furry bear covered in brown crap over your entire body. Pretty disgusting, but being in that for an hour was better than the crowd on the sand. We got out of the water around 4 and had our fill of the beach so we headed back to the hotel. We showered and relaxed for a couple of hours before we met with the group to go barbeque.
We got to the gate of the beach and stood there for an hour waiting to go in to have our cookout. Then they said there was some sort of problem, so we got on the bus and were going to try another place on the island to cookout. In the mean time it started lightning so the weather was looking less than desirable for a cookout. Finally they decided to can the cookout idea, move it to Sunday's lunch, and have dinner in the hotel. All of this took an hour and 40 minutes, so it was almost 8:00 by the time dinner was going to be served. My friends and I were not too excited about having the hotel food, since it would more than likely be the same as lunch. So we got a hotel service car to drive us 20 minutes to the town's McDonalds, wait for us while we got take out, and drive us back. All of us are pretty ready to come back to the States and sometimes we just can't handle another Chinese meal. We brought our food back to the hotel and then hung out in our rooms all night talking. It was really fun.
Sunday morning we had the option of riding a boat or sleeping in. Hmm that's a t
ough choice...NOT. We've been on like 13 boat rides this summer and I've had my fill. So I slept in and it felt great. Then we met to go have our cookout. I was a little skeptical on how it would be, but it ended up being a lot of fun. We had little firepits and cement tables and stools for all of us, and then we just grabbed the food we wanted to cook and threw it on. We had potatoes, corn on the cob, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken legs (those were mainly for the Chinese), onions, green peppers, and s'mores!! Everything was SOO good and we all ate a ton. It was kind of funny that everything was kind of all cooking at the same time, as you can see us roasting our marshmallows over all the other food. We had a really good time, and I'm actually glad we ended up doing it in the daytime because we could see the ocean too.
After we finished eating we were dying of heat from both the humidity and also all of the smoke and heat from the fire, so we w
alked back to the ocean to take some pictures. We ended up laughing so much and getting some really great pictures - it was a great end to our time at the beach. We then headed back to the hotel, gathered our stuff, and got on the bus. We boarded the buses at 1, didn't leave until 1:30. Less than an hour later we were sitting in traffic. All of the cars and buses were also waiting to get on the ferry to take us back to the mainland. We sat in traffic for over TWO HOURS. Then, when we got to the place to board the ferry, we sat in the parking lot for over 30 minutes waiting to get on the boat. Needless to say, all of us were not happy. It was raining and we just wanted to go home. While we were in traffic I really had to go to the bathroom but they said there was nowhere to go. A little later they pointed to a tiny blue building on the side of the road and said I could use that. So about six of us girls climb out of the bus, make our way through the traffic, and go to the bathroom. Chinese bathrooms are sick, let alone ones on the side of the road, so I opted to just pee in the grass. Melissa and I took turns holding the umbrella up to block the view, but Melissa ended up touching the blue building and stained her hand with blue paint. Then we look up and see our buses have actually moved in the traffic and are now quite far away. So all of us are dying laughing, in the rain with no umbrellas, a blue hand, and now running on the side of the road trying to catch up with our buses. We finally found then, jumped the guard rail, and pushed through traffic to get on. It was good comic relief. Finally we got to the boat, got on, played some cards while we rode to the mainland, and got back on the road. The mood in the bus was definitely sour. This was one of the tightest buses I've ever been in. I'm not that tall, but sitting up straight my knees were hitting the seat in front of me. All of us were super uncomfortable because the seats were made for Chinese people. We stopped later on and picked up KFC, which the program paid for, which we were very grateful for. We kept driving and driving, stopping every now and then to go to the bathroom in a Chinese rest stop. I don't know about the rest of the bus, but my friends and I were literally going crazy. We finally got back to our dorm at 10:30. A trip that should've taken 5ish hours took 9. It was out of control.
Even though the trip ended up kind of a bad note with the long, uncomfortable bus ride, it was a fun weekend. The weather was kind of a bummer, but that can't be helped. The beach was super crowded and not as relaxing as I hoped, but I still got some sun, played in the Pacific, and had a lot of fun with my friends. It was weird knowing that was our last trip of this program. We're coming home in 11 days!
ssing like sing a song or make scary faces. Most of us wanted to just sleep since we had just finished a long week of classes. Once the games ended, the ride was pretty uneventful. We did go over the longest bridge in the world - 35 kilometers - that connects the Shanghai area to Zhe Jiang province, so that was cool. After we drove four hours we got to Ningbo, where we got on a ferry boat to take us to the cluster of islands. The ferry was nasty and crowded and the water was super dirty and polluted. We rode the boat for like an hour then drove for another hour or two until we got to our hotel. All of our rooms overlooked the ocean which was really nice. Here's a view of our hotel from the beach.They gave us an hour before we got back on the bus to go to a fishing town for dinner. Fishing village in my mind is a rural village with fishing shacks on the side of the ocean, lots of tiny stands with seafood and poor kids running around. This place was basically a small city. The friends I was with don't really like seafood, and on the way to the town our tour guide had told us to be careful with the seafood because we might get laduzi (diarrhea). Oh gee, can't wait. So we hung back from the rest of the group and quick darted into Winner Pizza when they weren't looking. A lot of times people give us a hard time if we decide to eat Western, so we were trying to avoid the judgment this time. Winner Pizza ended up being a great choice - good pizza and excellent waffle fries. After we ate we met up with another friend walked around for a bit. We wandered into a mostly empty bar and with an entirely empty stage, so we took that as an invitation to get on the stage and dance. The people in the bar loved it and we convinced some of them to join in with us. After 20 minutes we had to meet up with the rest of our group so we headed out. Once we got back to the hotel we hung out on the patio playing Uno until late.
Saturday morning I woke up to this view out my window. I love how there's the sand and the water and then these beautiful mountains. It was definitely a different kind of beach than I've ever been to. The group met at 9:30 to head to the beach. We got out of the bus and it started raining: awesome. First we had to go t
o this little building and get our VIP beach passes made. They to take a picture of each of us before they could issue our passes. It was quite a hassle. Finally we made it through the gate, walked the 10 minutes past the vendors, and got onto the beach. On the way we bought innertubes for $1.50 which ended up being the best purchase of the day. Since it was raining, we obviously weren't going to tan, and the sand was wet, we just went far out in the ocean with our tubes and floated and talked. There are basically no waves so we could go out further than all the Chinese people dare to go. (Most Chinese people can't swim). After an hour or so of floating Melissa and I went and got our one Chinese friend who wanted me to teach him to swim. We spent the next 30 minutes trying to teach him how to tread water, do the doggie paddle, and float. He was really nervous and tense so it was kind of difficult, but eventually he caught on. It's really hard trying to teach someone to swim in Chinese! But we had a good time. Then we headed back to the hotel to eat lunch. The food was pretty good I thought- rice, eggplant, kongpao chicken, french fries, shrimp, green vegetables, etc. They actually brought us two of every dish because the tour guide calculated the number of people incorrectly. After lunch we decided we wanted to head back to the beach because it looked like the sun might come out.We walked back down and as we were walking the sun did come out! We were so excited we were practically jumping up and down. We ended up having almost an hour of good sunshine before it got really cloudy again. But in that hour we laid out and I ended up getting burned. Laying out in China is not as relax
ing as the U.S. though. Chinese people don't really give you space and people kept kicking their soccer balls over to our heads and hitting us. Some people would just walk up, stare, and take pictures/videos. The beach was so incredibly crowded and loud, people were smoking and throwing their cigarette butts and trash in the water. Some kids don't wear bathing suits and some adults just swim in their clothes. Chinese men wear speedos, and the whole experience is just not as enjoyable as relaxing on the beach at home. I was getting really fed up with the crowd and noise and people trying to sell me watermelon so we got our floats and went back into the water. I think it was probably because the tide was coming in, but the nice clean water from the morning was gone and was filled with brown algae plant things. And it wasn't like a chunk here or there, it was a you get out of the water and look like a furry bear covered in brown crap over your entire body. Pretty disgusting, but being in that for an hour was better than the crowd on the sand. We got out of the water around 4 and had our fill of the beach so we headed back to the hotel. We showered and relaxed for a couple of hours before we met with the group to go barbeque.We got to the gate of the beach and stood there for an hour waiting to go in to have our cookout. Then they said there was some sort of problem, so we got on the bus and were going to try another place on the island to cookout. In the mean time it started lightning so the weather was looking less than desirable for a cookout. Finally they decided to can the cookout idea, move it to Sunday's lunch, and have dinner in the hotel. All of this took an hour and 40 minutes, so it was almost 8:00 by the time dinner was going to be served. My friends and I were not too excited about having the hotel food, since it would more than likely be the same as lunch. So we got a hotel service car to drive us 20 minutes to the town's McDonalds, wait for us while we got take out, and drive us back. All of us are pretty ready to come back to the States and sometimes we just can't handle another Chinese meal. We brought our food back to the hotel and then hung out in our rooms all night talking. It was really fun.
Sunday morning we had the option of riding a boat or sleeping in. Hmm that's a t
ough choice...NOT. We've been on like 13 boat rides this summer and I've had my fill. So I slept in and it felt great. Then we met to go have our cookout. I was a little skeptical on how it would be, but it ended up being a lot of fun. We had little firepits and cement tables and stools for all of us, and then we just grabbed the food we wanted to cook and threw it on. We had potatoes, corn on the cob, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken legs (those were mainly for the Chinese), onions, green peppers, and s'mores!! Everything was SOO good and we all ate a ton. It was kind of funny that everything was kind of all cooking at the same time, as you can see us roasting our marshmallows over all the other food. We had a really good time, and I'm actually glad we ended up doing it in the daytime because we could see the ocean too.After we finished eating we were dying of heat from both the humidity and also all of the smoke and heat from the fire, so we w
alked back to the ocean to take some pictures. We ended up laughing so much and getting some really great pictures - it was a great end to our time at the beach. We then headed back to the hotel, gathered our stuff, and got on the bus. We boarded the buses at 1, didn't leave until 1:30. Less than an hour later we were sitting in traffic. All of the cars and buses were also waiting to get on the ferry to take us back to the mainland. We sat in traffic for over TWO HOURS. Then, when we got to the place to board the ferry, we sat in the parking lot for over 30 minutes waiting to get on the boat. Needless to say, all of us were not happy. It was raining and we just wanted to go home. While we were in traffic I really had to go to the bathroom but they said there was nowhere to go. A little later they pointed to a tiny blue building on the side of the road and said I could use that. So about six of us girls climb out of the bus, make our way through the traffic, and go to the bathroom. Chinese bathrooms are sick, let alone ones on the side of the road, so I opted to just pee in the grass. Melissa and I took turns holding the umbrella up to block the view, but Melissa ended up touching the blue building and stained her hand with blue paint. Then we look up and see our buses have actually moved in the traffic and are now quite far away. So all of us are dying laughing, in the rain with no umbrellas, a blue hand, and now running on the side of the road trying to catch up with our buses. We finally found then, jumped the guard rail, and pushed through traffic to get on. It was good comic relief. Finally we got to the boat, got on, played some cards while we rode to the mainland, and got back on the road. The mood in the bus was definitely sour. This was one of the tightest buses I've ever been in. I'm not that tall, but sitting up straight my knees were hitting the seat in front of me. All of us were super uncomfortable because the seats were made for Chinese people. We stopped later on and picked up KFC, which the program paid for, which we were very grateful for. We kept driving and driving, stopping every now and then to go to the bathroom in a Chinese rest stop. I don't know about the rest of the bus, but my friends and I were literally going crazy. We finally got back to our dorm at 10:30. A trip that should've taken 5ish hours took 9. It was out of control. Even though the trip ended up kind of a bad note with the long, uncomfortable bus ride, it was a fun weekend. The weather was kind of a bummer, but that can't be helped. The beach was super crowded and not as relaxing as I hoped, but I still got some sun, played in the Pacific, and had a lot of fun with my friends. It was weird knowing that was our last trip of this program. We're coming home in 11 days!
Monday, July 27, 2009
Weekend in 福州 (Fuzhou)
I spent this past weekend in Fuzhou--a last minute trip that my parents graciously offered to pay for--so that I could visit our old friends from when we lived there. I invited my friend Melissa to come with me, we bought our plane tickets Wednesday, and left Friday.
We caught a cab Friday afternoon to a travel agency and then got on a bus to take us to the airport in Shanghai. It took about two hours on the bus because of traffic, but both of us were able to sleep. We got to the air
port at 6, grabbed some McDonalds, and checked in. About half the domestic flights leaving our terminal were delayed for some reason, so we were wondering if we would even be able to leave that night. While we were waiting for them to announce the time of our flight, we headed down to the lost & found. On the way back from our week-long trip, Melissa left her Chinese electronic dictionary in the plane. She had already called the airline asking about it, but we decided going to the lost and found ourselves would be more effective. 45 minutes later they told us for sure no one found it. We're pretty sure someone found it and is selling it on eBay, but at least we tried. They still hadn't announced anything about our flight, so we headed to a bookstore and I splurged and bought an English book while Melissa checked up on the latest US celebrity gossip in People. Finally we went through security and were able to board. The flight was only an hour but we hit some pretty bad turbulence. We decided it would be super sad to die in a plane crash in China and were thankful we landed safely.
Our good friend Jimmy and his wife MeiYun picked us up from the airport. It was so good to see them- it had been four years! It took a little over an hour to get to the city so the whole way we were able to talk and catch up. My Chinese has improved drastically from when I saw them last and from when we lived in China, and it was so fun to be able to talk to them about anything. It was also really fun to talk about funny memories we have. They took us to our hotel and we checked in and settled into our room no problem. Melissa and I were really tired after taking three tests that morning and then traveling all afternoon and night, so we both crashed.
Saturday morning we slept in a little and then went to Chinese breakfast for a total of 2 minutes before we returned to our room to eat granola bars. (Thank God for granola bars, I've eaten one every day this entire summer.) Then we headed out of our hotel and walked down the street we always used to walk up and down when we lived there. Our hotel was on the intersection of two streets that I was really familiar with, so that was really great. Our first stop was a hair salon to get our hair washed. We laid down on the beds and got a 30 minute head massage/ha
ir wash. It was amazing. It was one of those times that you're so comfortable you just want to fall asleep, but at the same time you don't want to sleep because staying awake is better. It was so relaxing and for $3 we decided we need to find a place in Suzhou and go about eight more times before we go home. After our hair wash we walked to the town square and looked at Mao and then climbed up this hill behind the square. There were some old people hanging around, putting up personal ads for their single children who are looking for spouses, so we chatted with them for a minute. Then this one woman grabs onto mine and Melissa's arms and drags us over to this bench where she proceeds to go on and on about her son living in New York. She seriously was trying to sell him to us - telling us his height, what he's doing, his age, she pulled the picture of her purse, the whole nine yards. Then she started grilling us on our education level, what our parents do, how far away from New York we live, etc. So we're thinking oh geez woman we do not want to marry your son. Then she yanks us off the bench and we march up to this pagoda where she tells this dude playing some ancient Chinese instrument to stop playing so we can have a quiet place to chat. So she continues going on and on about her wonderful son (who is 31 by the way and not that cute) and finally we were like sorry we both have boyfriends (whoops a lie, but I really didn't want to get contracted into an arranged marriage). But really she told us our age was not suitable for her son and she really wants him to marry a Chinese woman living in the States and do we know any such person, particularly working on her doctorate? At that point we were both dying of heat because it was so humid and I was tired of her slapping my leg and yelling in my ear every time we got excited. So we told her sorry no such acquaintances and left. Oh China, funny situations everywhere you turn.
After that ordeal we grabbed some lunch and went back to our hotel where a friend was meeting us. Vanessa has really good English and is very funny, so it was a lot of fun catching up with her. I caught her up on what was going on with our family, and then she asked to see a picture. I showed her the only picture of my family I brought on the trip, and when she saw it she started crying because she misses everyone so much. She asked if she could have the picture so I gave it to her, even though I kind of still wanted it. I'm so glad we were able to see her because I know it meant a lot to her. After about an hour of talking in English we switched to Chinese, which was really good practice for Melissa and I.
After Vanessa left Jimmy picked us up and took us to Deng Yun, the neighborhood I used to live in. We got to see Jimmy's son for a little bit before he had to go to work at the Karaoke place. We had a lot of time to k
ill before MeiYun got off work, so we drove around the golf course, stopping every few minutes to get out of the car to take pictures. It felt so strange to be back in DengYun without my family and our old life there. We drove by our old house and they turned it into a restaurant, which is weird. Even though it felt really strange to be there, it was also fun seeing it again. I picked some flowers on the side of the road just like I always used to do when I would ride my bike and fill my basked with flowers. And DengYun just has this certain smell that just smells like home to me. On the way out of the resort we saw Jimmy's mom and I was glad to be able to see her too. Then Jimmy wanted to take us to this part of town that is being newly developed. It was on the side of the river and a bunch of people were swimming/standing knee-deep in the water with umbrellas since it was raining. Jimmy wanted us to look at the river so we got out of the car and ran up to this pagoda for cover from the rain. Too bad the pagoda was leaking and we got wet anyway. There was this man biking past us selling fish balls, so Jimmy asked if we wanted some. I said no but he had already yelled to the fishball man to stop and bring us a bowl. I think fishballs smell like urine, so I was not about to eat any. The fishball man came running up to us and I was like no thank you, and Melissa didn't want them either. Then the fishball man stuck his hand down the cup/bowl thing to grab the spoon that had gone under, and we were all like gross. Jimmy was like you just put your hand in the water, I'm scared of it, I don't want it anymore. Whew sigh of relief - thanks to the dirty hand and Jimmy's germophobia we were spared from the bathroom tasting/smelling fishballs.
After we left the riverside Jimmy drove us to the orphanage where he wor
ks. The kids were all watching a movie on TV so we didn't really get to interact with them much. Most of them are older- probably ages 7-18. We talked to a couple American students who were there teaching the kids English. I had been to the orphanage before but they've since built a really nice, new building. After we hung out there for a while, we went back to pick MeiYun up and go to dinner. We had really good conversation at dinner which was great. They miss our family so much and I know they are so glad whenever they can see any of us. Jimmy especially is thankful for all that my parents taught him by example as he observed them teaching and loving David and me and watching our family interact. It's encouraging to see how the time we spent in Fuzhou is still impacting their lives as they raise their son and make decisions. After dinner Melissa and I went back to the hotel and rested for a bit, and then went to walk around for a little bit. I saw a bakery we used to go to, so we went and bought some cookies and cake. Baked goods are always a gamble here, so the more you buy the better chances you have of something being good. The cake was okay, the chocolate cookies were pretty good, and the butter cookies were even better. It was a success as far as Chinese bakeries go. There was a bar next to our hotel so we went and hung out there and danced for a couple of hours. It's definitely a test of my Chinese to try to understand drunk Chinese people slurring their tones and words with loud music in the background.
We had every intention of sleeping in pretty late this morning, but the banging and drilling in the room above us woke us at 9:15. We were both like really? I called the front desk and told them the construction interrupted our sleep and it stopped after that, but that might just be coincidental. We lounged a little in our room, eating more granola bars and our cookies from the night before. Vanessa was coming back at 11 to take us to lunch. We took a cab to a
restaurant where we met her father and mother-in-law, her two daughters, and her sister-in-law. Her husband was away on business so we weren't able to meet him. Her little girls are 2 and 4 so they are quite a handful. They were very cute there. Most of lunch consisted of us watching them do cute/kind of naughty things and listening to them practice a couple of English words or say funny things. I realized I've only really interacted with either really little babies or older children so it was fun to see a different age. The food we had at lunch was all really good, and it made me miss all of the dinners we used to eat with our friends in Fuzhou. We had shrimp, a crab & noodle dish, sweet & sour pork, Beijing roasted duck, dumplings, cauliflower, another noodle dish, tofu soup (ew I don't eat tofu though), sweet peanuts, corn, and we drank yogurt drink. Yum it was a good lunch. It was really fun watching Vanessa interact with her girls though. She was a teacher and loves kids, and she is such a good mother too. After lunch we said goodbye and headed back to the hotel. Jimmy and MeiYun picked us up and took us to where we could catch the bus to the airport.
Once we got to the airport we both really wanted a blended coffee drink. We went to this coffee shop and the menu said BOGO free coffee and we were like oh great, this place is a rip-off so this deal can make it semi-affordable. But then they tell us that the blended coffee drinks aren't included in the deal, just ice and regular coffee. Well Melissa has no fear, so she proceeded to tell them that that actually doesn't make very much sense, because the only difference between ice coffee and blended iced coffee is turning on the blender. Despite her logic they still told us they couldn't blend the coffee so we didn't buy anything. Once we got through security, we went to another coffee shop who also had ridiculous prices but they didn't have any BOGO deal. Melissa then told them that on the other side of security they had a BOGO deal, why don't you. They didn't feel pity for us poor college students so no coffee for us and we got on our plane. Thankfully when we checked in the guy asked us where we wanted to sit, so we got the front row of coach. Did you know foreigners can't sit in the exit aisle? That was my first choice and he said we couldn't. I hate being discriminated against.
Our flight was again very turbulent and the guy next to me did not know plane etiquette: he was hogging the whole arm rest, kept bumping into my shoulder while I was sleeping, was trying to cross his leg into my leg space, and was doing the pick, roll and flick deal with his boogers. Gross. Once we landed in Shanghai we hurried to the bus station at the airport to buy return bus tickets to Suzhou. We tried to buy them on Friday when we got there, but they told us you can only buy them the day of. Sooo inconvenient. Thankfully they had seats left on the bus and it was leaving in 15 minutes so we didn't have to wait long. Once we got back to Suzhou we went to a late dinner and even stopped in a bakery where they let you sample anything you want. Since we tried 3 different cheesecakes, tiramisu, and 3 other things, we felt obligated to buy something. So we bought a piece of cheesecake to split and brought it home. Yum I can't wait to eat it.
It was a really fun weekend, and I am so thankful I was able to see our friends. It means so much to them and the whole time I was there they kept talking about the next time when I could come back and visit. I hope that one day our whole family, or at least Dave, my parents and I, can go to Fuzhou together just like the old days. I'm also thankful that Melissa came with me. It would have been lonely traveling by myself! She has become a good friend and I'm thankful the Lord put us together on this program! I know I've done such a bad job at blogging lately... my goal is to catch up this week so hopefully it will happen!
We caught a cab Friday afternoon to a travel agency and then got on a bus to take us to the airport in Shanghai. It took about two hours on the bus because of traffic, but both of us were able to sleep. We got to the air
port at 6, grabbed some McDonalds, and checked in. About half the domestic flights leaving our terminal were delayed for some reason, so we were wondering if we would even be able to leave that night. While we were waiting for them to announce the time of our flight, we headed down to the lost & found. On the way back from our week-long trip, Melissa left her Chinese electronic dictionary in the plane. She had already called the airline asking about it, but we decided going to the lost and found ourselves would be more effective. 45 minutes later they told us for sure no one found it. We're pretty sure someone found it and is selling it on eBay, but at least we tried. They still hadn't announced anything about our flight, so we headed to a bookstore and I splurged and bought an English book while Melissa checked up on the latest US celebrity gossip in People. Finally we went through security and were able to board. The flight was only an hour but we hit some pretty bad turbulence. We decided it would be super sad to die in a plane crash in China and were thankful we landed safely.Our good friend Jimmy and his wife MeiYun picked us up from the airport. It was so good to see them- it had been four years! It took a little over an hour to get to the city so the whole way we were able to talk and catch up. My Chinese has improved drastically from when I saw them last and from when we lived in China, and it was so fun to be able to talk to them about anything. It was also really fun to talk about funny memories we have. They took us to our hotel and we checked in and settled into our room no problem. Melissa and I were really tired after taking three tests that morning and then traveling all afternoon and night, so we both crashed.
Saturday morning we slept in a little and then went to Chinese breakfast for a total of 2 minutes before we returned to our room to eat granola bars. (Thank God for granola bars, I've eaten one every day this entire summer.) Then we headed out of our hotel and walked down the street we always used to walk up and down when we lived there. Our hotel was on the intersection of two streets that I was really familiar with, so that was really great. Our first stop was a hair salon to get our hair washed. We laid down on the beds and got a 30 minute head massage/ha
ir wash. It was amazing. It was one of those times that you're so comfortable you just want to fall asleep, but at the same time you don't want to sleep because staying awake is better. It was so relaxing and for $3 we decided we need to find a place in Suzhou and go about eight more times before we go home. After our hair wash we walked to the town square and looked at Mao and then climbed up this hill behind the square. There were some old people hanging around, putting up personal ads for their single children who are looking for spouses, so we chatted with them for a minute. Then this one woman grabs onto mine and Melissa's arms and drags us over to this bench where she proceeds to go on and on about her son living in New York. She seriously was trying to sell him to us - telling us his height, what he's doing, his age, she pulled the picture of her purse, the whole nine yards. Then she started grilling us on our education level, what our parents do, how far away from New York we live, etc. So we're thinking oh geez woman we do not want to marry your son. Then she yanks us off the bench and we march up to this pagoda where she tells this dude playing some ancient Chinese instrument to stop playing so we can have a quiet place to chat. So she continues going on and on about her wonderful son (who is 31 by the way and not that cute) and finally we were like sorry we both have boyfriends (whoops a lie, but I really didn't want to get contracted into an arranged marriage). But really she told us our age was not suitable for her son and she really wants him to marry a Chinese woman living in the States and do we know any such person, particularly working on her doctorate? At that point we were both dying of heat because it was so humid and I was tired of her slapping my leg and yelling in my ear every time we got excited. So we told her sorry no such acquaintances and left. Oh China, funny situations everywhere you turn.After that ordeal we grabbed some lunch and went back to our hotel where a friend was meeting us. Vanessa has really good English and is very funny, so it was a lot of fun catching up with her. I caught her up on what was going on with our family, and then she asked to see a picture. I showed her the only picture of my family I brought on the trip, and when she saw it she started crying because she misses everyone so much. She asked if she could have the picture so I gave it to her, even though I kind of still wanted it. I'm so glad we were able to see her because I know it meant a lot to her. After about an hour of talking in English we switched to Chinese, which was really good practice for Melissa and I.
After Vanessa left Jimmy picked us up and took us to Deng Yun, the neighborhood I used to live in. We got to see Jimmy's son for a little bit before he had to go to work at the Karaoke place. We had a lot of time to k
ill before MeiYun got off work, so we drove around the golf course, stopping every few minutes to get out of the car to take pictures. It felt so strange to be back in DengYun without my family and our old life there. We drove by our old house and they turned it into a restaurant, which is weird. Even though it felt really strange to be there, it was also fun seeing it again. I picked some flowers on the side of the road just like I always used to do when I would ride my bike and fill my basked with flowers. And DengYun just has this certain smell that just smells like home to me. On the way out of the resort we saw Jimmy's mom and I was glad to be able to see her too. Then Jimmy wanted to take us to this part of town that is being newly developed. It was on the side of the river and a bunch of people were swimming/standing knee-deep in the water with umbrellas since it was raining. Jimmy wanted us to look at the river so we got out of the car and ran up to this pagoda for cover from the rain. Too bad the pagoda was leaking and we got wet anyway. There was this man biking past us selling fish balls, so Jimmy asked if we wanted some. I said no but he had already yelled to the fishball man to stop and bring us a bowl. I think fishballs smell like urine, so I was not about to eat any. The fishball man came running up to us and I was like no thank you, and Melissa didn't want them either. Then the fishball man stuck his hand down the cup/bowl thing to grab the spoon that had gone under, and we were all like gross. Jimmy was like you just put your hand in the water, I'm scared of it, I don't want it anymore. Whew sigh of relief - thanks to the dirty hand and Jimmy's germophobia we were spared from the bathroom tasting/smelling fishballs.After we left the riverside Jimmy drove us to the orphanage where he wor
ks. The kids were all watching a movie on TV so we didn't really get to interact with them much. Most of them are older- probably ages 7-18. We talked to a couple American students who were there teaching the kids English. I had been to the orphanage before but they've since built a really nice, new building. After we hung out there for a while, we went back to pick MeiYun up and go to dinner. We had really good conversation at dinner which was great. They miss our family so much and I know they are so glad whenever they can see any of us. Jimmy especially is thankful for all that my parents taught him by example as he observed them teaching and loving David and me and watching our family interact. It's encouraging to see how the time we spent in Fuzhou is still impacting their lives as they raise their son and make decisions. After dinner Melissa and I went back to the hotel and rested for a bit, and then went to walk around for a little bit. I saw a bakery we used to go to, so we went and bought some cookies and cake. Baked goods are always a gamble here, so the more you buy the better chances you have of something being good. The cake was okay, the chocolate cookies were pretty good, and the butter cookies were even better. It was a success as far as Chinese bakeries go. There was a bar next to our hotel so we went and hung out there and danced for a couple of hours. It's definitely a test of my Chinese to try to understand drunk Chinese people slurring their tones and words with loud music in the background.We had every intention of sleeping in pretty late this morning, but the banging and drilling in the room above us woke us at 9:15. We were both like really? I called the front desk and told them the construction interrupted our sleep and it stopped after that, but that might just be coincidental. We lounged a little in our room, eating more granola bars and our cookies from the night before. Vanessa was coming back at 11 to take us to lunch. We took a cab to a
restaurant where we met her father and mother-in-law, her two daughters, and her sister-in-law. Her husband was away on business so we weren't able to meet him. Her little girls are 2 and 4 so they are quite a handful. They were very cute there. Most of lunch consisted of us watching them do cute/kind of naughty things and listening to them practice a couple of English words or say funny things. I realized I've only really interacted with either really little babies or older children so it was fun to see a different age. The food we had at lunch was all really good, and it made me miss all of the dinners we used to eat with our friends in Fuzhou. We had shrimp, a crab & noodle dish, sweet & sour pork, Beijing roasted duck, dumplings, cauliflower, another noodle dish, tofu soup (ew I don't eat tofu though), sweet peanuts, corn, and we drank yogurt drink. Yum it was a good lunch. It was really fun watching Vanessa interact with her girls though. She was a teacher and loves kids, and she is such a good mother too. After lunch we said goodbye and headed back to the hotel. Jimmy and MeiYun picked us up and took us to where we could catch the bus to the airport.Once we got to the airport we both really wanted a blended coffee drink. We went to this coffee shop and the menu said BOGO free coffee and we were like oh great, this place is a rip-off so this deal can make it semi-affordable. But then they tell us that the blended coffee drinks aren't included in the deal, just ice and regular coffee. Well Melissa has no fear, so she proceeded to tell them that that actually doesn't make very much sense, because the only difference between ice coffee and blended iced coffee is turning on the blender. Despite her logic they still told us they couldn't blend the coffee so we didn't buy anything. Once we got through security, we went to another coffee shop who also had ridiculous prices but they didn't have any BOGO deal. Melissa then told them that on the other side of security they had a BOGO deal, why don't you. They didn't feel pity for us poor college students so no coffee for us and we got on our plane. Thankfully when we checked in the guy asked us where we wanted to sit, so we got the front row of coach. Did you know foreigners can't sit in the exit aisle? That was my first choice and he said we couldn't. I hate being discriminated against.
Our flight was again very turbulent and the guy next to me did not know plane etiquette: he was hogging the whole arm rest, kept bumping into my shoulder while I was sleeping, was trying to cross his leg into my leg space, and was doing the pick, roll and flick deal with his boogers. Gross. Once we landed in Shanghai we hurried to the bus station at the airport to buy return bus tickets to Suzhou. We tried to buy them on Friday when we got there, but they told us you can only buy them the day of. Sooo inconvenient. Thankfully they had seats left on the bus and it was leaving in 15 minutes so we didn't have to wait long. Once we got back to Suzhou we went to a late dinner and even stopped in a bakery where they let you sample anything you want. Since we tried 3 different cheesecakes, tiramisu, and 3 other things, we felt obligated to buy something. So we bought a piece of cheesecake to split and brought it home. Yum I can't wait to eat it.
It was a really fun weekend, and I am so thankful I was able to see our friends. It means so much to them and the whole time I was there they kept talking about the next time when I could come back and visit. I hope that one day our whole family, or at least Dave, my parents and I, can go to Fuzhou together just like the old days. I'm also thankful that Melissa came with me. It would have been lonely traveling by myself! She has become a good friend and I'm thankful the Lord put us together on this program! I know I've done such a bad job at blogging lately... my goal is to catch up this week so hopefully it will happen!
Friday, July 24, 2009
O Give Thanks to the Lord
Being away from home is hard. Living in China is hard. Having to get to know 40 strangers and live with them for ten weeks is hard. But all that I am thankful for far outweighs the difficulties and inconveniences that life in China brings. Because I'm obsessed with lists, at random times I've written down things I'm thankful for in this summer program. I've only written down 100 but I know there are so many more things for which I am thankful. From the incredible experience of language and culture immersion to Christian friends and a Bible study to Papa John's delivering when it rains and not having to go to the hospital for my rash, I remind myself to dwell on the truth of all that God has provided and blessed me with. But at the top of the list for sure is God's Word. Because it is His Word that has truly been my source of strength, comfort, encouragement, and motivation this summer. I've been reading through the Psalms, and it has been so awesome to see how the Psalm I read for that day speaks so directly to my circumstances and brings that peace which passes all understanding. Psalm 96:3 says "Tell everyone about the amazing things he does" so I want to share some of the verses that have particularly stuck out to me and encouraged me.
The night before we left the States I was already feeling really homesick and had cried on the phone with both my mom and Jacob. In my devotions that night the first verse of Psalm 90 really spoke to me: "Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!" It was the Lord just telling me Sherri yes this is going to be hard, but I am your home. Not Farfields. Not the United States. It is I alone who will never leave you and who will be your home no matter where you are.
The next day on the plane I was feeling a little nervous because I mean we're on a plane flying across the ocean for 14 hours, and then I read Psalm 91:11 "For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go." I think that probably includes China.
During our quarantine period, jet lag was kicking my butt and I would lay awake most of the night feeling very homesick and wondering why I was here. During that time, I read Psalm 94:18-19: "I cried out, 'I am slipping!' but your unfailing love, O Lord, supported me. When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer." Helloooo! That is exactly how I was feeling, and even now I've memorized these verses and meditate on them often. Another cool story with these verses is when I had my horrible rash on our trip, I would just say these verses over and over to myself because I was so uncomfortable I definitely felt like I was slipping, and I knew the only thing I could grasp onto was the Lord's love. One day my mom tried to text me but it actually never came through so she emailed me instead, but her message was the exact reference of these verses! So cool that I had already been claiming them each day and she thought to encourage me with them, too.
What I really love about the Psalms is the raw emotion in each of them that I can so easily relate to. It makes me feel like it's okay for me to feel the way I do, since someone in the Bible also felt that way at some point. Plus we serve a God who desires for us to pour our hearts and emotions out to Him. The second week we were here I got to Psalm 102 and I was starting to feel pretty lonely, like verse 7 says "lonely as a solitary bird on the roof". But I had to recognize that as only an emotion and I had to fill my mind with the truth that God never leaves me and will always be with me, no matter how I am feeling.
It's easy to get caught up in classes and studying and speaking Chinese all the time and not see the opportunities around to share Christ's love with my friends here. Psalm 117 was such a great reminder to me that God desires for all nations to praise Him.
This past Monday night I was reading Psalm 121 and was comforted with the verses "He will not let you stumble" and "The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life". I was thinking wow I don't even know what all the Lord has spared me from so far, but I'm glad I haven't had any dangerous situations happen! Then the next day a friend and I were going to the post office and had a guy follow us for about 10 minutes. We repeatedly asked him to leave us alone and not walk with us, etc. I was nervous because he saw us come out of the bank so he knew we had money, he had already flashed us some of his money (don't know what that means) and there were not very many people around. Then he tried to grab my friend's bag and then she screamed and I started yelling at him and we started crying and laughing at the same time because we were just so hysterical and he finally ran away. It was a really scary moment, and I am so thankful that the Lord truly does watch over us and protect us. Also, my mom woke up at 4:20 AM her time praying for me, and that was the exact time this weird robber situation was occuring, because it was 4:20 in the afternoon for me. God is so good!
This is just a glimpse of how the Lord has encouraged my heart with His Word this summer. He is so faithful and when I think of all He has done for me and all He has blessed me with, I am overwhelmed with thankfulness.
The night before we left the States I was already feeling really homesick and had cried on the phone with both my mom and Jacob. In my devotions that night the first verse of Psalm 90 really spoke to me: "Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!" It was the Lord just telling me Sherri yes this is going to be hard, but I am your home. Not Farfields. Not the United States. It is I alone who will never leave you and who will be your home no matter where you are.
The next day on the plane I was feeling a little nervous because I mean we're on a plane flying across the ocean for 14 hours, and then I read Psalm 91:11 "For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go." I think that probably includes China.
During our quarantine period, jet lag was kicking my butt and I would lay awake most of the night feeling very homesick and wondering why I was here. During that time, I read Psalm 94:18-19: "I cried out, 'I am slipping!' but your unfailing love, O Lord, supported me. When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer." Helloooo! That is exactly how I was feeling, and even now I've memorized these verses and meditate on them often. Another cool story with these verses is when I had my horrible rash on our trip, I would just say these verses over and over to myself because I was so uncomfortable I definitely felt like I was slipping, and I knew the only thing I could grasp onto was the Lord's love. One day my mom tried to text me but it actually never came through so she emailed me instead, but her message was the exact reference of these verses! So cool that I had already been claiming them each day and she thought to encourage me with them, too.
What I really love about the Psalms is the raw emotion in each of them that I can so easily relate to. It makes me feel like it's okay for me to feel the way I do, since someone in the Bible also felt that way at some point. Plus we serve a God who desires for us to pour our hearts and emotions out to Him. The second week we were here I got to Psalm 102 and I was starting to feel pretty lonely, like verse 7 says "lonely as a solitary bird on the roof". But I had to recognize that as only an emotion and I had to fill my mind with the truth that God never leaves me and will always be with me, no matter how I am feeling.
It's easy to get caught up in classes and studying and speaking Chinese all the time and not see the opportunities around to share Christ's love with my friends here. Psalm 117 was such a great reminder to me that God desires for all nations to praise Him.
This past Monday night I was reading Psalm 121 and was comforted with the verses "He will not let you stumble" and "The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life". I was thinking wow I don't even know what all the Lord has spared me from so far, but I'm glad I haven't had any dangerous situations happen! Then the next day a friend and I were going to the post office and had a guy follow us for about 10 minutes. We repeatedly asked him to leave us alone and not walk with us, etc. I was nervous because he saw us come out of the bank so he knew we had money, he had already flashed us some of his money (don't know what that means) and there were not very many people around. Then he tried to grab my friend's bag and then she screamed and I started yelling at him and we started crying and laughing at the same time because we were just so hysterical and he finally ran away. It was a really scary moment, and I am so thankful that the Lord truly does watch over us and protect us. Also, my mom woke up at 4:20 AM her time praying for me, and that was the exact time this weird robber situation was occuring, because it was 4:20 in the afternoon for me. God is so good!
This is just a glimpse of how the Lord has encouraged my heart with His Word this summer. He is so faithful and when I think of all He has done for me and all He has blessed me with, I am overwhelmed with thankfulness.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Some Firsts
This week was my first time ever having strep. I can say I am not a fan. I'm very thankful I was able to get the antibiotics I needed though, and I am feeling a lot better. "Not get sick" was on my to-do list for this summer. Whoops. It was also my first time that I was sick and away from home (besides just a cold). That was hard because when I am sick I just want my mom to take care of me, and also the best doctor in the world happens to be my dad! It was also probably his first time diagnosing strep over a webcam...
This week I also had my first hamigua on this trip! It was everything I expected and more. I bought the whole thing for like $3 and took it to the office and shared it with a bunch of people. I will definitely be going back and getting some more.
This week was our midterms week. Whoa Chinese teachers really know how to stress a student out! For my one-on-one class, I had to give an oral presentation in Chinese (my first!). I picked to talk about my weekend visiting my roommate's house, and I had six minutes and had to use certain vocab words and sentence structures. I was majorly freaking out because it wasn't my one-on-one teacher grading me: it was a panel of four other teachers! It was pretty intimidating walking into the room with all of them sitting at the tables with their judge sheets and bottles of water. It ended up not being as bad as I thought though. They thought my stories were funny and I understood the questions they asked me at the end. I am so thankful that is over!
Last night our group went and did Karaoke. I've never gone to a place and gotten a private room and done KTV before - quite an experience! It was fun singing the songs as a group and just hanging out, but I am definitely not one that wants to grab the mic and do a solo! I was really tired after a couple of hours, so I sat on the couch and watched people dance and sing. That was probably more entertaining than singing.
In 20 minutes I'm leaving for our week of travel to Yunnan Province! This will be my first time in Yunnan and I'm really excited! It's supposd to be really beautiful, I just hope it doesn't rain every day like they're saying it will! It seems really weird to me to be going on a "vacation" with this language pledge. Living here, going to class and living with a Chinese person makes sense to speak Chinese all the time, but traveling with all Americans and touring etc? It just seems weird. Oh and I guess maybe it isn't vacation per se, more like academic travel. But whatever we don't have classes for a week so it's vacation to me! I will have limited internet access while we travel. Maybe we'll find a sketch internet cafe to check in, we'll see. Regardless, I can't wait to share my travels when I get back!
This week I also had my first hamigua on this trip! It was everything I expected and more. I bought the whole thing for like $3 and took it to the office and shared it with a bunch of people. I will definitely be going back and getting some more.
This week was our midterms week. Whoa Chinese teachers really know how to stress a student out! For my one-on-one class, I had to give an oral presentation in Chinese (my first!). I picked to talk about my weekend visiting my roommate's house, and I had six minutes and had to use certain vocab words and sentence structures. I was majorly freaking out because it wasn't my one-on-one teacher grading me: it was a panel of four other teachers! It was pretty intimidating walking into the room with all of them sitting at the tables with their judge sheets and bottles of water. It ended up not being as bad as I thought though. They thought my stories were funny and I understood the questions they asked me at the end. I am so thankful that is over!
Last night our group went and did Karaoke. I've never gone to a place and gotten a private room and done KTV before - quite an experience! It was fun singing the songs as a group and just hanging out, but I am definitely not one that wants to grab the mic and do a solo! I was really tired after a couple of hours, so I sat on the couch and watched people dance and sing. That was probably more entertaining than singing.
In 20 minutes I'm leaving for our week of travel to Yunnan Province! This will be my first time in Yunnan and I'm really excited! It's supposd to be really beautiful, I just hope it doesn't rain every day like they're saying it will! It seems really weird to me to be going on a "vacation" with this language pledge. Living here, going to class and living with a Chinese person makes sense to speak Chinese all the time, but traveling with all Americans and touring etc? It just seems weird. Oh and I guess maybe it isn't vacation per se, more like academic travel. But whatever we don't have classes for a week so it's vacation to me! I will have limited internet access while we travel. Maybe we'll find a sketch internet cafe to check in, we'll see. Regardless, I can't wait to share my travels when I get back!
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