Holidays

October 1 is the Chinese version of the 4th of July in the U.S., which means we have several days off (again) coming up.  I'm finding it interesting, though, to see how China approaches their holidays in terms of vacation time.  The government has given three days off to everyone: Wednesday through Friday, October 1-3.  Conveniently, Friday leads into a weekend, so essentially there are five days off.  So far that makes sense... that's how it would work in the U.S., too.

 

But five days is not enough.  So the government has apparently urged everyone to treat the Saturday and Sunday before the holiday as a Monday and Tuesday, so that Monday and Tuesday could be a weekend.  By putting two weekends with the three days off, we have a full week!  The down side was definitely going to class seven days in a row last week... but today (Monday), I'm just as glad to be free for a full seven days! 

 

Seven days off is definitely enough time to do some traveling.  Furthermore, the weather is already starting to change, and I'm not sure how easy travel will be come winter.  So, as I've already mentioned, I leave tomorrow for Inner Mongolia.  [Just a side note: Inner Mongolia is not the same as Mongolia, which is a country.  Inner Mongolia is a province in China.  I won't be leaving the country for this trip.] 

 

But today?  My plan was to hang around in the dorms and "get things done" (i.e. do laundry, study, pack, etc).  Of course, plans hardly ever go as planned, especially when living as a college student in a foreign country.  So I ended up at Wu'ai Market, the largest market in Shenyang.  It's the authentic Chinese kind: walk in and be bombarded with hoardes of merchants all trying to sell you all variety of items.  But the three of us who went today did very well.  One pair of warm wool slippers, one handbag, a few hangars, and a pair of sheep's wool long underwear later, I walked out of the market spending far less than I expected.  That's always a good feeling!  And I enjoyed practicing my Chinese... especially my "tingli" (listening) as I tried to understand what all the merchants were saying about us.  My favorite was when I was bartering with a merchant - totally in Chinese - and the merchant's coworker started telling her to charge me more because I was a "rich foreigner."  Why she thought I didn't understand her Chinese - as I was using Chinese - I don't know, but it was comical.  She was surprised when I confronted her to say that I wasn't a "rich foreigner" at all.  Needless to say, I got a good deal on that buy.

 

The other surprising part of my day was getting a phone call at 7:30 a.m. from one of the teachers in the internatioanl culture center here at my university.  He asked me to come in to talk with him today.  Starting after the holiday, I will be helping them out with some of their English language students.  Ideal times, a convenient location, and nice reimbursement! 

 

The three of us going to Inner Mongolia don't know yet when we'll be coming back.  Most likely I'm going to miss at least one day of school after the holiday, but somehow it seems appropriate.  Spending 44 hours on trains is hardly worth it if we don't take our time there.  But the biggest factor will be finding a train back that has seats available.  Needless to say, though, I'm not expecting to have internet connection while we're gone, so this blog is probably going to be pretty quiet for the next week or so.  But you can look forward to lots of stories and pictures when I get back!