10 Weeks Later...

...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!

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!

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 repeating 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!

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 embarrassing 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 to 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 relaxing 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 tough 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 walked 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!

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 airport 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/hair 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 kill 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 works. 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!

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.

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!

Home Visit Weekend

This past weekend was our home visit program. Each American student was supposed to go home with their roommate so that we could experience a Chinese family. Well, most of the girls' roommates lived too far away, and all of the guys have American roommates, so everyone actually ended up going to someone's house in town just for dinner. But my roommate, Lu Ye, only lives 30 minutes away so I went to her house for the weekend.

On Saturday afternoon I left the dorm to head to the train station. I first had to stop and buy some fruit, because it's considered very rude if you show up to someone's house empty-handed, and the typical gift is fruit. So I head to the fruit stand and told the fruit lady I wanted something good, but not too heavy because I had to take it on the train, etc. She suggested leechee fruit, so she filled a bag and I'm pretty sure she ripped me off but oh well. Next I got a cab and rode to the train station. I hate the train station for several reasons: 1) It is one of the most likely places you will get robbed 2) There are so many people everywhere it's constant chaos 3) Many of the people are from the country coming in and haven't seen many foreigners, so they stare like whoa 4) Chinese people don't believe in lines so you literally have to push and shove your way to get on the train. So I was pretty anxious about going to the train station by myself and getting on the right train. But I left in plenty of time (mainly because I wanted to get some KFC first). So I got a little lunch and then went to eat it, and this beggar woman came up and was all up in my space begging and I was just trying to eat and everyone was staring. I got so frustrated so I just left and went into the train station. Thankfully my waiting area was near the door, but almost all the seats were taken up. Finally I found a seat and sat down to wait for my train. Everyone is staring at this point at the lone foreigner in the train station. And kind of rightly so, because I'm wearing my backpack on the front (less chance of someone slitting it open that way), holding onto my purse with both hands, toting a bag of leechee fruit, and trying to drink my KFC cup of Sprite without a straw. But I mean I was just trying to not get robbed.

After a while it's time to "line" up for the train. Basically it's a mad push and shove game to see who can get to the platform first. Then once we get to the platform, everyone is rushing around trying to figure out where they should stand so that when the train arrives you are in front of your right car. Everyone knows there's only about 2 minutes to get onto the train, so you'd better be fast about finding the right spot to wait. I was in car 10 so thankfully I didn't have to go too far down the platform. The train came, I got pushed on and landed in my seat for the 30 minute ride to Chang Zhou.

Once I got to Chang Zhou my roommate was meeting me at the train station. Walking out of the station I was just laughing because it was a sea of Chinese people and I didn't even know where to start looking for Lu Ye. But then she broke out of the crowd waving, holding a bright pink polka dotted umbrella and ... wearing a WIG!! Her chosen hair style for the day was long curly hair with a tint of red. It actually looked really good. She was really excited to show me her town on the aboveground subway ride to her house.

Once we got to her house I gave her mom the fruit then the three of us sat down to eat some watermelon and talk. Her dad works in another city so is rarely home. After a while it was time to make the jiao zi (dumplings) for dinner. They taught me how to put the right amount of filling in and then wet my finger to seal the skin of the dumpling and then fold it just right so it looks like a flower. (Actually I didn't think it looked like a flower at all but that's okay). So we made about 60 of those and then her mom went to the kitchen to make dinner. I assumed we would just be eating the jiao zi...wrong. Her mom brought out one plate of food and told me to come eat. I went to the table and it was this steak-ish type thing and some kind of egg. If you don't know me well, I am not a fan of eggs and I am very picky about meat. But what can you do? I said a prayer and took a bite and it actually wasn't too bad. I don't think it was all the way cooked but that's okay. They also didn't have a knife so I just did my best with a pair of chopsticks and a fork. It was really considerate of them to try to cook something Western for me. So after I ate all of that meat (I still shied away from the egg), they brought out all of the jiao zi. I was already kind of full but kept eating. I had about 15 jiao zi and they were still insisting that I eat more. That is another cultural thing I have a hard time with: if I say I'm full, it means I really am full, not that I would like to eat 12 more.

After dinner we took the subway to the other side of town to visit a park. Once we got off, Lu Ye decides to tell me it's not very safe so a friend is meeting us to protect us. But he didn't have a cell phone with him so we were just kind of hanging out for 10 minutes hoping he showed up. He finally did, and we walked to this really pretty park with pagodas and bridges and water and old buildings. I hadn't been feeling well that day, so I was really tired but it was nice to just walk and talk. At first her friend was speaking really, really slowly which was kind of annoying, but he finally got the hint that I can understand pretty much all of normal conversation. I also found out that he was the guy whose parents would not allow him to date Lu Ye because she has hypothyroidism. Weird, I know. Everyone at the park was staring at me a lot again and I was really starting to get annoyed. I don't think it matters how many years I spent in China or how many times people stare at me, I just don't understand why it is THAT weird to see a person with white skin or blonde hair. It's not like they've never seen a Western movie or TV show! So yeah that is one of the biggest cultural things that is grating on my last nerve this time around. I kept asking if I could borrow her wig but she refused to take it off in public. After we walked through the entire park we got a cab back to her apartment. I was still not feeling very well so I decided to shower and head to bed. She showed me the bathroom and for some reason she thought I had a towel in my stack of clothes. I looked around the bathroom and didn't see any towels to use, and felt too awkward to go back out and ask for a towel, so I just got in the shower anyway. I was obviously soaking wet at the end, so I had to resort to using the really rough paper-towelish type things they use instead of toilet paper to try to dry off. It was not an easy process and then I ended up smelling like recycled paper instead of my vanilla body wash.

Sunday after a breakfast of rice ball things, we went to this more upscale mall to window shop. Everything was really expensive, even converted to USD, so neither of us bought anything. I was really dying for some coffee, but I thought it would be rude to suggest we stop in Starbucks really quick, so I refrained. My throat was still hurting and I just felt so exhausted I could've gone for a caffeine kick. But instead we went to this Chinese cafeteria type of place for lunch. I had a huge bowl of fried rice, and some other kind of dumpling things and this round fried bread thing. It actually all was pretty good, but again I was full and was encouraged to continue eating. It was getting too hot to be outside anymore, so we went home to have a rest. We started looking at a lot of pictures of her growing up and trips they've taken, but I was getting so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open. They were gracious enough to let me go take a nap and I slept for two hours! When I woke up we finished looking at the pictures and then went for a walk in their apartment complex. Little did I know that we were going to have a full-blown photo shoot! We just walked around and her mom told us how to pose and then she took pictures of us. Thankfully she also took all of them on my camera. I was laughing so much in each picture because we were doing such Chinese poses. But it was also cute because every time they saw a friend they were really excited for them to meet their American friend. One time this person goes, "Look! An American! Let's give her our child!" I love Chinese babies, but I politely refused the offer. After our walk we had dinner and then it was time to head back to the train station.

This train station was even more crowded and crazy. They announced they were checking tickets for our train and all of a sudden people were coming out of nowhere with tickets and pushing and shoving and jumping over seats. Once we got to the platform and the train arrived, so many people were trying to get both on and off the train, I literally didn't have to move my feet because the crowd just pushed me onto the train. The ride back was fine but once we got to Suzhou the train station there was a madhouse also. The line to wait for a taxi was probably 200 people long, so we opted for the bus. To get to the bus stop though, you have to wade through all the illegitimate cabbies trying to get you to ride with them. They were being super rude - grabbing onto our arms and yelling at us. I was pretty firm with them and we finally made it through and waited at the bus stop. Once our bus came, everyone at the stop had to get on and once again it was a shove-your-way-on deal. Thankfully we both made it, and after a 30 minute ride going like 5 mph in the non-AC bus, we finally made it back to campus.

It was a very long weekend, but it also was a lot of fun. I really enjoy my roommate and the times just walking around and traveling were talked a lot and laughed even more. I feel comfortable with her so I'm glad that it was her I went home with and not someone else. I still felt pretty sick Sunday night, and after talking to my dad and looking in my throat we realized I probably have strep. So that explains why I was so tired and easily agitated over the weekend. I've been taking antibiotics but still have been feeling pretty crummy. My throat hurts really bad and it makes me very unmotivated to speak Chinese. But hopefully the meds will kick in soon and I will be back to normal. We have midterms this week, so it's a pretty stressful and inconvenient time to get sick, in my opinion. But I'm trying to remain joyful in all circumstances!

Reason #11 Why I Love China

Cheap massages.

Last night a few of us girls decided we wanted to go get massages. Across the street from the restaurant we had dinner in was a massage place with signs in the front saying "Strain is Restored" and "Blind Person Manipulation." Even though the English was pretty bad, it didn't look as sketch as just a random door behind a fruit stand, which was our other option. So we headed in and they had all four of us lay on the bed things in one big open room. For one hour they give us "tui na" which is Chinese massage. My guy worked my shoulders and back a lot, and then my legs a whole lot. Some of it was pretty painful, and when I would tell him it was hurting he would say "It hurts now but it won't hurt later!" so I just dealt with the pain. Some of the time it was really ticklish so I was laughing a lot and then he wanted me to teach him the English for hurt and ticklish. He kept forgetting how to say it though, so finally he pulled a voice recorder out of his pocket and had me say it for him to record. Because my face was down in head opening, I didn't realize until half way through my massage that he was blind. His picture was on the wall so I think he's the main guy at that place. He was pretty chatty which was fun but it was also nice to not talk some of the time so I could just relax. They ended with a nice face/head massage which helped my headache a lot. Then he cracked my back for me and we were done.

My one hour massage was $7. He asked if I would come back every day. I said no, but really? $7? I'm thinking about it.

Zhouzhuang & Nanjing

I realized I never wrote about last weekend's academic travel to Zhouzhuang and Nanjing. My bad.

We left Friday afternoon around 3:00 to head to Zhouzhuang. Zhouzhuang is one of the most famous water townships in China. There are 14 stone bridges throughout the town, and some of the bridges are famous and are the symbols of Zhouzhuang. On the bus ride there, I read some of an English book which was a nice break from Chinese, and talked some to others. I was pretty tired so it was nice to rest for a little while. Our tour guide rode on the bus with us, so he narrated some about the city we were going to, etc. I could understand some of what he was saying, but then it got to be too much of me not understanding so I kind of just tuned him out. We got checked into our hotel rooms and then had dinner in the hotel as a group. Most of the girls' Chinese roommates accompanied us on the trip (but mine didn't), so we had a huge group. After dinner we toured the well-preserved ancient residential houses. Zhouzhuang is a pretty small town and the streets are narrow along all of the waterways, but then these houses keep going on and on! It was hard to tell where one house ended and another started, but all of them seemed to have many rooms filled with lots of furniture. I kind of made up my own stories about the houses because I couldn't understand what our tour guide was saying. After we explored all of the houses we split up and took boat tours. The lady that was poling (is that a word?) our boat along sang some songs for us in the local dialect which was pretty cool. After we rode up and down several waterways we had free time to do whatever wanted.

The town was really small and was basically a bunch of shops selling the same stuff. I discovered a freezer of Magnums and had my first one in over a year...it was delicious. I introduced my friends and they were all fans. We walked up and down the streets and then some of us went into a small grocery store for some reason. It ended up being really fun because we were reading all of the English labels on stuff and we were laughing so hard. We heard some music so we went to discover the source and found this concert-type thing. Of course we didn't have tickets to get into the park/square, but when six American girls walk up to the guard, he didn't care and just let us in. There were all these weird blow up animal shapes, so we stopped to take pictures with them first, so the concert/show thing was over when we went to check it out. Then we went back to the hotel and a few of us played cards. We played some game I think it was called Palace that I had never placed before, but I won each time so I really like the game now!

The next morning we had breakfast and then got back on the bus to head to Nanjing. Nanjing was the capital of China in 1368 and then again for the Taiping Kingdom and then again under the KMT. It took about three or four hours to get there, which was kind of a long morning. I listened to some worship music which was really great and for a lot of the time just looked out the window. It was good to just spend some time being quiet. Once we got to Nanjing we went to this huge famous restaurant and had lunch. I wasn't a big fan of the food so it was a good thing I had eaten a granola bar in the bus. After lunch we headed to the hotel and we were all excited that the beds were comfy.

We left the hotel 10 minutes later to head to the Presidential Palace. 600 years ago it was the mansion of the Prince of Han in the Ming Dynasty and again of someone else in the Qing Dynasty. In 1853 the Taiping Rebellion conquered Nanjing and established their regime known as "The Kingdom of Heavenly Peace", and the palace was enlarged, but then a Qing military commander defeated the Taiping army. In 1912 Sun Yat-sen was elected the Provincial President of the Republic and changed the west garden of the palace into the Presidential Palace. Then in 1928 the palace became the admin office of the republic government. The Palace is now the China Modern History Museum. There were many rooms filled with furniture and pictures and paintings, but it got too overwhelming to read all of them. Outside there were some nice gardens and rocks to look at, but it was pretty hot. We wandered around there for a while and then headed to the Nanjing Massacre Museum.

In 1937 the Japanese invaded Nanjing and carried out mass executions and also did research on humans. The total death toll isn't exact, but they think it's between 200,000 and 350,000. The Memorial Hall was built in 1985 to remember those lost. There was a lot of empty space with walkways and little stones, and then this huge wall with the estimated number of victims. Then there was another massive wall with name after name of those killed in the six to eight weeks of Japanese occupation. There was also a big room where they had excavated many skeletons and displayed them, describing how each person had been tortured and then killed. It really hit me that many of those people's souls were probably in hell. It's hard to think about.

Saturday night they gave us free time, so a bunch of us girls found an Italian restaurant and ate dinner. Then we walked to a Dairy Queen for blizzards (yes, we were majorly craving Western food). Afterwards we went to this really crowded mall kind of place. It was a bunch of really small shops selling clothes, jewelry, etc. The ceilings were really low and it was super crowded and kind of dark...it looked pretty sketch but I guess it's legit. I bought a pair of earrings but that's all. My headache was pretty bad, I think from all of the heat that day, so I wasn't much in the mood to barter a lot and shop a lot. We decided to head back to the hotel, so we were walking to get a cab and a couple of Nigerian guys came up to us and started talking. They suggested several times that we hang out with them, but we told them we were done for the night and going back to rest. Then they called their friends and two more of them came over and they all kept saying no we all need to go hang out, oh your names are beautiful, it's only 9:00 we need to hang out together (it was 10:15). We started getting a little nervous because they were being so pushy and there were four big Nigerian guys that definitely could have taken us four American girls. Then they wanted our phone numbers and wanted to come visit us in Suzhou. Finally I said I felt sick and we really needed to go and we got out of it. It made us glad that we had stayed in a group for the night.

Sunday morning we got back on the bus and headed to Sun Yat Sen's Mausoleum and the tomb of the first Ming dynasty emperor. To get up to Sun Yat Sen's mausoleum we had to climb 392 steps. It was so incredibly hot and humid outside we were sweating before we even gave the people our tickets to get into the place. We had a lot of time at the place and all you really do is climb up and look at it, but I guess it was cool. One famous thing there is the gate inscribed with four Chinese characters that Sun Yat-sen wrote "Tian Xia Wei Gong" which manes "What is under heaven is for all." The tomb of the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty I never really got. We walked through a lot of doors and on paths and all around this place but I'm unsure of where the actual tomb is. This one building looked like it was the jackpot but once we got inside it was completely empty except for one construction worker who was taking a snooze in the corner.

After another stop for Magnum bars we climbed back on the bus and went to lunch. The food wasn't that good again, so we decided the Magnums were a good choice. On the way back to Suzhou most of us slept, I think. Traveling in China is pretty tiring, especially in the heat. I also finished my book and studied some. It was a good weekend of exposure to Chinese history, but it was also just really scheduled and busy.

I'm having a hard time loading pictures on my blog, but all of them are here

A Quick Thought

As I was comparing the Chinese translation of 1 Corinthians 13 to the English in preparation for Bible study tonight, my eyes caught a verse I had underlined last semester:

"So I run with purpose in every step." 1 Corinthians 9:26a

It was exactly what I needed to read because this experience has been far more overwhelming than I could have imagined, and I was beginning to question my purpose in being here. Our classes are getting very difficult and our teachers are piling on tons of homework and quizzes every day, along with other assignments and tests. I'm starting to feel a little stressed because I do homework and study all day long and it's tiring because it seems so meaningless to study 60 characters a day when I know I will probably forget how to write them in another day or two. This verse reminded me that although I am learning so much, these Chinese classes are only giving me a temporary reward. But this is where God has me and that itself has purpose! Every afternoon I spend studying, every conversation over a meal I have with my friends, every night when my roommate and I talk in our room: all of these situations are filled with purpose.

I'm learning more and more every day about what my purpose here is. My purpose is to be still and know God is God, even when everything around me is in Chinese and I'm tired and can't express my feelings in my first tongue. My purpose is to better grasp the depth of God's love and believe it is satisfying beyond any other love. My purpose is to better showcase that perfect love to those around me. My purpose is to pray for opportunities to share the Gospel with others, so that one day together we can sing

"You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."

Because that is what will glorify God most, and that is my purpose in every character I write and every test I study for and every conversation I have in Chinese.

Glorifying God is my purpose in every step.

On Touring China

We spent all weekend touring two different cities relatively close to Suzhou. I'm too tired now to go into all the details of where we went and what we saw, but this weekend made me realize that there are certain things I love about touring China and certain things I am not big on.

I do not like touring China because:

1. China history is long and complicated, and I never learned enough of it in school to appreciate what I'm looking at. That compounded with not really being able to understand historical terms in Chinese makes pretty boring at times. I think I would enjoy all of the places we went if I at least knew the significance of them.

2. I do not like tour guides. I have nothing against our tour guide as a person, but as a tour guide I was not a fan. Tour guides in every country bother me, but maybe just because I've had more experience with Chinese tour guides they get on my nerves more. Our tour guide carried around a flag the whole time so we could always find him, and he was constantly yelling "tong xue men!" (students!) to get us to follow him every where. Also, he wore a microphone/speaker set that was kind of scratchy and he practically shouted into it. Plus, in his description of everywhere we went, he would always start talking about it and then say, "and why?" or "what does this mean?" and then answer his own question. It got a little annoying since that was usually the only part I actually understood.

3. Most tourist attractions here have such long paths we have to walk on. It's probably like that everywhere, but it seems worse here because it's so incredibly hot you're soaked with sweat looking at all the cement you still have to cover before you come to the end and you just want to quit. Plus, since you have to be ultra-prepared in China and have tissues, antibacterial gel, camera, snacks, etc in your purse, the heaviness of my purse was killing my back.

4. Chinese women do not like being in the sun so they carry umbrellas when they're outside. That's fine and dandy, but because most of them are shorter than I am, all of the umbrella pointy things on the end are right at my eye level. I was constantly having to shield my eyes as we walked through the masses to make sure I still had both of my eyeballs in the sockets by the time we finished the tour.

5. I hate cats, but I especially hate cats in China because I think they're really dirty. There were like 12 cats at every single place we toured this weekend. And all of them were skinny and malnourished and meowing and trying to get up on our legs. ugh it was so gross. I just feel like they reek with disease and filth and I can't stand that they are everywhere.

I realize that this list makes it seem like I hated this weekend, but I really didn't. I'm just really tired and a little culture shocked so things are starting to get on my nerves.

I do like touring in China because:

1. I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to see the places we do tour. Many people in China do not have the chance to travel and see landmarks that are so important to them, and knowing this makes me grateful that we are having such rich experiences here. It makes me really happy when I see an old couple touring some of the sites, because in my head I make up a story that they saved up money for a long time to be able to travel and afford to see it. I guess that's what happens when I'm tired of speaking only in Chinese and just have my mind to entertain myself.

2. Along with that, since it's such a big deal to travel, Chinese people take a ton of posed pictures. Every view of the building, and every cool rock and yet another statue of a lion, they are always posing in front of them for another picture. Half the time I don't know the significance of the thing they're posing in front of, but because everyone else is doing it I just pose and get my own picture taken. It makes it much more entertaining. Plus it's kind of humorous when they try to nonchalantly take a picture of the foreigners and we can definitely tell what they're doing.

3. The way signs are translated into English is hilarious. Stuff like "Environment to be cared by all" and "Only passengers ride who pay for wheel" makes me laugh. It's especially entertaining because when all of us are exhausted from communicating in Chinese, it's so easy to just point at the funny signs and laugh. I love laughing, but I've gained an even greater appreciation for laughter because it spans across all languages. And sometimes I'm too tired to say anything and can only laugh.

4. The first hotel we stayed in wasn't bad, but the hotel we were in last night was great. The beds actually had springs in them, and I slept so well. Plus there were two real pillows and I wish I could've brought the bed and pillows home. The bathroom was also very clean and had great water pressure and temperature. For breakfast this morning they had some chocolate cereal and orange juice and pineapple juice! I was super excited because I can only handle fried rice and meat-filled dumplings for breakfast for so long.

5. When we're very hot and unsure of how good our next meal will be, we can always turn to Magnums. I love that almost every stand or small store in China has an ice cream freezer, and if we're lucky they have Magnums. I already have not kept to my goal of one Magnum per week: I had two Magnums this weekend. But they are so delicious and it was really hot and we figured lunch wouldn't be that good. So it was definitely a necessity.

I will write about the weekend later this week. I'm exhausted.

Classes

Wednesday we started classes. They broke us into eight levels, four advanced and four intermediate, and each level has a speaking class and reading/writing class. I have those two classes every day, and then on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday I have my elective which is Contemporary Social Issues in China. Then Monday-Thursday afternoon I have a one-on-one class. So it's a pretty busy schedule, but it is kind of nice that it's not the exact same every day.

Wednesday my speaking and reading/writing classes were fine. I can understand pretty much everything the teacher is saying which is great. The hard part is if they say something I don't understand or if there's a character I don't know, then I start writing it in my dictionary and by the time I write down the English definition the class has moved onto something else. I've learned to just wait to look things up until after class. Wednesday after class a bunch of us went to lunch at a small restaurant close the south gate of the campus. That side of campus is much nicer; it has the law school and a lot of old pretty buildings. We learned that they are built according to the Methodist style architecture. It's nice to see something other than dirty white buildings.

After we ate lunch four of us went to a coffee shop to study for the afternoon. (It's the first building on the right in the picture, kind of overhanging the water a little. Everywhere in Suzhou has these little canals, it's why Suzhou is called "Little Venice") It was called I Miss You...Fisher Coffee. They had iced coffee which is what all of us wanted, and it was a nice treat. It wasn't the same as Starbucks but it was still good. We studied there for a couple of hours. The studying was fine, but the frustrating part was if we had a question we also had to say it in Chinese to each other. It's exhausting being around people you know understand English perfectly well but speaking only Chinese to them. We were getting restless so we left and went back to the dorms to finish studying. I studied basically all afternoon. I don't know what it took me so long - I was studying for a quiz and doing homework but I guess the thing that takes the longest is looking up stuff in my dictionary. They gave us electronic dictionaries so it's pretty fast to look up something, but after a while looking up many things is time consuming. A few of us wanted to skype in the evening so we didn't go find dinner until around 8. We walked out the main gate of the university until we found a bunch of restaurants with tables outside on the side of the road. It was pretty crowded and loud, but the food was really good and super cheap.

Thursday I had my elective for the first time. It's twice as long as my other classes, which makes it difficult to sit still through. The text book has some more challenging vocab, and then our teacher will use that vocab to ask us questions that I have a hard time understanding. Then she calls on me and I feel flustered and then I can't think of anything and it's just a bad cycle. I'm not a fan of the class, and I would like to switch to the easier level of the same class, but the teacher thinks I'll be able to handle it. We'll see how it goes next week. Thursday afternoon was my first one-on-one session. I thought it was going to be more of a tutoring session, but it has a separate text book and tests and assignments. That was kind of a disappointment but I really like my teacher. Yesterday we spent the hour just talking, because she just wants to spend the whole time listening to my Chinese. It was fun just chatting with someone in Chinese.

Usually on Fridays we have tests in every class, but since we only had two days of classes this week we just had regular class. With quizzes and tests in every class every week it's going to be a busy schedule! Plus next week we add in our extra curricular activities plus mandatory lunches twice a week. We're leaving in a little while to head to a couple of different cities for the weekend. I'll be back Sunday night and maybe have time for an update.

Water, Water Everywhere

Tuesday morning we left the resort at Lake Tai as it was raining. Suzhou is already very humid, and the rain makes it even more muggy. We got on the bus and rode for an hour to China Water Company, the largest environmental project in Suzhou--a response to today's environmental concerns. We went in and heard how they treat water and make it cleaner. The entire presentation was in Chinese so I basically understood nothing. However there was a handy powerpoint that had some English on it. All I can remember from it is that the entire process begins with sewage sauce and only 30 people work at this place. After the explanation, we went outside to look at all the basins of water in the different phases. This is basically what it looked like: tons of cement paths between cement tubs filled with dirty water. The tour got increasingly smelly until we finally passed the trucks squirting sewage out of them. I don't really know why it was necessary for us to walk around looking at sewage-filled water, but we did. One of the ways they test to see if there are any toxins in the water is by having fish swim around in the pools. If the fish die then they know it's not ready for the next phase. I don't know how water treatment plants work in the States, but this tour did not make me feel any more comfortable knowing I am showering in this "treated" water.

After that tour, we went to this great restaurant across from campus and had lunch. It was the best meal we had had so far, and it was nice to finally have some quality Chinese food. We dropped our stuff off in our dorm rooms and then went to a security briefing by a woman from the US Consulate in Shanghai. She also talked a lot about what it's like being a foreign officer, which was really interesting. I have thought about the foreign service, but I don't know if it's right for me. Regardless, her job is fascinating and it was cool to hear about it.

Her talk was a couple of hours, so we had a couple of hours left of free time before dinner. A bunch of us wanted to go to the store and get some groceries and supplies. There's a huge supermarket Auchan a short cab ride away, so we all went there and did some shopping. I am not a fan of Auchan. They have a lot of stuff, but it's crowded and there's 10 million banners hanging from the ceiling and it makes me claustrophobic. Some of the workers wear roller blades to get around, and one of them ran into me as I was shopping. We gathered our groceries and took a cab back to campus. It was still raining which was not fun carrying our stuff from the campus gate to our dorm rooms. We got back late because our group got separated, so we had to throw our stuff in our room and get back on the bus to head to dinner.

Traffic was pretty bad so it took us 45 minutes to get to the restaurant. We went to Korean BBQ which is really good. It's almost all meat, so it was quite filling. All of the flavorings on the meat were really good. We had pork, lamb, and beef. After dinner we headed to the river for an evening boat cruise. Suzhou is famous for the way it lights up old buildings on the river banks at night. It was really pretty, it's just too bad it was raining. After we went on the roof of the boat to get a better view. It was pretty windy and chilly so we didn't stay up too long. But long enough for the umbrella I bought at Auchan that day to break. And it was so windy all of the rain was blowing on to us anyway so I was pretty wet. Not my favorite feeling in the world. I kept falling asleep on the bus back to the dorm. We hadn't done anything too active that day, but the dreary weather combined with lingering jet lag made me exhausted. I showered and skyped my mom for a little while but had to get to bed to get ready for the first day of classes!

And the Word of the Day is QUARANTINE

I made it to China safely! The flight was long and boring: I watched three movies, read some, slept some, talked some, ate three meals, the usual. But I was just thankful that we landed safely after traveling for so many hours! Because of the H1N1 scare I talked about earlier, the health inspectors did board our flight when we landed to infrared everyone's forehead and take our temperatures. It was a fairly quick process, but I'm not going to lie it was also kind of amusing because of the outfits they were wearing. They had to check some people a couple of times, but then they deemed us healthy and let us get off the plane. When we were going through the health inspection before customs, though, they took one guy from our group because he had a cough (a critical symptom). They whisked him away to a quarantine clinic in an ambulance. It was kind of scary; I definitely would have been freaking out if that had been me. The rest of us made it through customs fine and then got on a couple of buses to drive the two hours from Shanghai to our city Suzhou. We got to the dorms and brought in KFC for us because they didn't want us going out into the city in case any of us were going to come down with H1N1 also. We were pretty tired, so we went to our rooms to shower and unpack. My Chinese roommate arrived while I was unpacking so we talked for a while before bed. She is really nice and it was encouraging to be able to speak to her entirely in Chinese.

The next morning we got on a bus to head to a resort at Lake Tai. Although most of our group made it past the infrared temperature check, our leaders thought it would be best to do a self-imposed quarantine. So they were sending us to this lake in the middle of nowhere for three days. It took about an hour to get there, and it was in the middle of nowhere. The hotel was pretty nice, it was built right on the lake so that was cool. The lake was pretty dirty though, and everything was smoggy so there weren't really beautiful views or anything. As soon as we dropped our stuff in our hotel rooms we had to go take our written test. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't an 8 page test! It got increasingly difficult every 2-3 pages, and by the end I was definitely leaving a lot blank. It was frustrating though because I knew I should know the characters but couldn't remember how to write them. I was more familiar with the grammar sections and when we just had to read and comprehend and then go from there. The test took about an hour and a half and then we had to write a 300-500 word essay. That took another 45 minutes but I was able to do it, which was encouraging. All of us were pretty exhausted after that and went to eat lunch. The food at the hotel wasn't all that great, but we could usually find a couple of things that were good.

We had free time all afternoon so we set out to explore the village. There was not much to explore. All there was was a bunch of construction and people selling fruit on the side of the street. We still haven't figured out why people come to this resort because there's nothing to do there! It is a really, really poor place though. All of these canals leading to the lake smelled pretty bad, and a lot of old boats were just floating in them filled with algae. Maybe something exciting and big used to happen in the village, who knows. So the rest of the afternoon we hung out in the parking lot playing hackey sack and frisbee. We had to take turns going in for our oral presentation. I was pretty nervous for it, but it went well also. After another not-so-delicious dinner, we all watched a Chinese movie together. It was your typical Chinese movie - lots of screaming, drama, fights, etc. I was falling asleep during it but then had a hard time sleeping again that night.

The next morning we had our in-country orientation and learned more about our schedule and classes, which was nice. Then we had lunch and went on a boat tour on the lake. We thought we were going to go tour this island, but then once we got to the island our boat driver stopped, we looked at the island, and he turned around. Apparently you had to pay extra to actually get on the island, so we didn't do it. The boat ride was fun though, the wind felt good since it had been so muggy. This is one of the other boats going past our hotel. Lake Tai actually borders four different provinces, which I thought was pretty cool.

After the boat ride several of us got together to talk about starting a Bible study. I had been praying for one Christian friend, and there were seven of us who are in the Bible study! God is so gracious! We talked for a couple of hours, sharing our testimonies and outlining a plan for how we will be able to conduct a Bible study in Chinese with all of us at different levels. It was encouraging and I'm excited to see what the Lord will teach us and also I'm excited to learn some Biblical words in Chinese! Then we went to dinner and after dinner went on a tour of the ancient village across the street. It ended up being like the boat tour: we went in, hovered a little, and walked back out. Kind of disappointing, but TIC (This is China). It was starting to rain some, so a few of us went into one hotel room and a couple of guys took turns playing the guitar and we sang some. It was relaxing. Thankfully that night I slept through the night for the first time! I was so relieved!

The next morning we checked out and got on the bus again for a tour of Suzhou. More on that later!