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!

The Start of It All

The first leg of the journey has begun: Pre-departure orientation in D.C. I flew out of Lynchburg (the world's finest airport, of course) Wednesday morning, stopped in Charlotte long enough to run to the farthest gate possible and barely make my flight before getting up to D.C. I was a little sad on the plane but was mostly distracted by the man across from me who insisted on explaining Sudoko to the woman next to him. Out loud. The entire plane ride.

So I wiped my tears, landed at Reagan and caught a cab to the hotel. I hadn't eaten since breakfast so I stopped at Starbucks for some coffee and then started meeting people with the program in the lobby. We had a couple of hours to kill before anything started, so we just sat around making small talk. Then we got our stipend and the program directors welcomed us before they set us free in the city for dinner. A few of us went to California Pizza Kitchen and it was nice being in a smaller group so we could get to know each other more. We wanted to walk around the monuments after dinner but it was monsooning out so I called Jake and went to bed early.

We had meetings all day today. They were pretty helpful- some previous program participants and the program leaders, lots of Q&A time so I guess I feel a little more informed about what's actually going on. We also had the Assistant Deputy (Bureau of Educational Affairs) from the State Department speak. She was recently appointed and brought greetings from Secretary Clinton. We have a little time now before they take us to dinner.

I'm getting pretty nervous about the fact that I'm actually getting on a plane to go to China tomorrow. Especially since they briefed us about H1N1 and the procedures of making sure no one is sick once we get there. I'm praying no one from our group comes up as having a fever when they check us on the plane; if so we will be quarantined in a Chinese hospital! Besides that concern, I'm very nervous about the language pledge. My Chinese language skill has decreased drastically over the past year when I haven't been studying. I hope that it comes back quickly! It will be very challenging not speaking English all summer, but then I remembered today that God is the one who designed languages, including Chinese, and He can give me the ability to understand and speak even though I feel entirely inadequate.

But I'm also very excited about being in China! It's been five years since I was there, and I have a list of things I want to do while I'm there. I love lists! Here it is (in no particular order):

1. Find the Chinese/Japanese movie Lauren and I were in
2. Eat as much hamigua as possible. I don't know the English word, but it's my favorite fruit in the world and I miss it.
3. Be able to do a journal entry entirely in Chinese before I leave. I think that will be a true test of my improvement, especially character writing
4. Learn to chill and not be so schedule-oriented and uptight. I don't really know anything about what's going on so it will be good for me to learn to be more laid back and not such a control freak.
5. Feel the presence of God each moment of the day as I may be lonely and need to continue to lean on Him for strength
6. Eat only one Magnum bar per week, as opposed to 5 a day like last time I was in China
7. Get my hair washed and head massaged at the amazing beauty salons
8. Visit the Garden of the Humble Administrator. It's supposedly gorgeous.
9. Not get sick at all! I hate being sick when I am away from home and I am scared of hospitals
10. Take full advantage of this experience and not slack off because I am tired, frustrated, homesick, or mentally exhausted

I will think of more as the days go by I'm sure. The next time I write will probably be from China! (Even if we get quarantined I will be able to update the blog, because the quarantine clinic is equipped with phone and internet. Isn't that comforting?)

A Very Good Place to Start

So I'm going to China in three days and will be updating about my adventures while there, but I thought I should back up to the beginning of this whole process because it's been so cool to see how the Lord has worked throughout it.

Back in September I began looking at study abroad options for the fall of 2009, knowing I needed to go to China to finish up my Chinese language credits. While doing so, I came across the U.S. State Department's Critical Language Scholarships for Intensive Summer Institutes. They offer language programs in eleven critical need languages around the world, and the State Department pays for everything. Of course I was like sweet I want to do this and immediately created an account to apply for the program. Over the next couple of weeks I worked on the application some, but my excitement began dwindling because of how extensive the application process was and how competitive the selection process was. I tend to be a realist (okay, a pessimist), and knowing that I was up against students all across the U.S. made me realize how slim the chances were that I would be accepted. So I decided to give up and never turn in my application.

Since the beginning of the semester I had been praying about what I should do for the next school year and asking God for direction. Even after I quit the CLS application, I kept praying and continued researching different programs. I wanted to be open to whatever the Lord had in store. The first week of November I began feeling that the Lord wanted me to apply for the summer CLS program and trust Him with the results. It seemed silly because I knew there was no way I would actually get in, and I had done hardly any of the application in September. But I felt a strong pull and wanted to obey. So here it was November and the application was due November 14. I had to go to professors and ask them to write letters of recommendation for me within the next 10 days. Ugh. I was that student. But they were gracious and sent in letters. I finished my four essays and did my best rating my Chinese language skill in every imaginable way possible. I finished everything and submitted the application at 5 PM November 14. Then came the hard part: waiting.

The CLS website said all applicants would be notifed of their application status by late March. In early February I starting logging into my account practically every day, just in case they notified us early. In all those months I continued praying that the Lord's will would be done and that I would be at peace with it. Sometimes I prayed I would be accepted into the program, but mostly I just prayed for direction because I didn't know why God had wanted me to apply for something that I had such a small chance of being accepted into. The applications weer all reviewed by language experts, and then the high-ranking applications (about one-third) were reviewed by a national panel before participants were to be recommended by the U.S. State Department. It was hard knowing the tough process my application was going through, but at the same time I kept reminding myself at least I would get a clear yes or not out of all of it.

March came and I started getting OCD about checking my email and my application status. At this point I just wanted an answer, any answer; I was just sick of waiting. The first day I was in California for spring break I got an email notifying me that I was an alternate for the program. I screamed because I was so shocked, but then I was just disappointed I had to keep waiting. I didn't even know being an alternate was an option. As soon as I read the email I really wanted to be accepted. I was questioning why the Lord wanted me to keep waiting; then I realized that maybe this was His way of letting me know that my application was still somewhat competitive, and that in itself was a blessing from Him. While we were in Cali I was reading through Jeremiah, and God kept showing me verses that spoke so directly to my situation and began taking away the doubts in my mind.

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you..." Believing that God knows His plan for my life, regardless of whether or not I know it, should be enough to give me complete peace in waiting on Him.

Jeremiah 32:40-41 "And I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good for them. I will put a desire in their hearts to worship me, and they will never leave me. I will find joy in doing good for them..." It's difficult for me to believe that God does have good things in store for me, especially when I think I know what is good for me. But the truth is that His plan is good for me, because His plan is perfect. And no matter where I am for the summer or what I'm doing, my desire to should be to worship Him above all else.

Jeremiah 42:3 "Pray that the Lord your God will show you what to do and where to go." I had been praying for four months afte submitting my application, and I still had no answers. But I needed to be faithful to continue asking the Lord for direction.

Jeremiah 42:6 "Whether we like it or not, we will obey the Lord our God to whom we are sending you with our plea. For if we obey him, everything will turn out well for us." Verse after verse was just confirming to me that I needed to continue seeking the Lord and His direction and be faithful in obeying, whether or not it was my plan or my first choice.

I knew I was supposed to find out around April 15 if I had a spot or not in the program. It was a long month checking my email about 95749 times a day. About two weeks after I got the alternate status notification, I decided I did not want to go at all. I am fickle, but I was so relieved that I hadn't gotten in because being gone for an entire summer and coming home for a week before turning around and going back to China for the fall semester did not sound appealing to me at all. But I kept praying for clear direction and a surrendered spirit to obey the Lord. The week before Easter came and I began sensing guidance from the Lord that if I was accepted into the program, I would go. I didn't feel I would be a good steward if I passed up an incredible opportunity like this one.

April 15 dame and went and I heard nothing. I thought for sure I wasn't in, but I wanted a confirmation email. By Friday afternoon I still hadn't heard anything, and I told Megan in discipleship I definitely wasn't going. I took my accountability girls to Lynchburg for the weekend, and as we were hanging out late Friday night I decided to check my email one more time just in case. Bingo there was a notification in my inbox. I clicked, my eyes saw the words "Dear Sherri, Congratulations!", and the tears started flowing. And let me tell you they were not tears of joy. I had told God I would go if I got in, but I still really didn't want to go. I finally got a hold of my parents in Florida and then cried again, saying I would probably go but I didn't really want to.

It was cool how the timing was such that I was home, but my parents weren't, so I couldn't talk things over with them. I had to let the State Department know by Monday, so I didn't really get to talk to anyone about it but Jesus. I had to go straight to Him and pour our my fears and worries and lay it all at His feet, just praying for confirmed direction. Over and over again I thought about Jeremiah 42:6 "whether I like it or not", because I definitely was not liking the idea of going. Finally Sunday afternoon I decided that yes I was going. It was hard because it was the first time I had made a really big decision with just me and God, and not really much input from my parents. But at the same time I had such peace knowing I was obeying God and was sure this was His plan for me.

It was also cool because the whole week prior to find out I got in I had been praying that the Lord would teach me how to be completely satisifed in Him alone. This entire summer I have to speak in only Chinese, which means the only One who I can pour my heart out to in English is Jesus. I know no one going, I will be incredibly busy and stressed with studying, and I will be quite lonely at times, but Jesus will be with me. And Jesus is enough. He really is the only One I will have, and I can't think of a better (although difficult) way to learn how to depend on and be entirely satisfied in God alone.

So that is the story (albeit long) of how I got myself into this adventure. Not all of my posts will be this long, don't worry!