"Zhong qiu jie kuai le!"

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 

 

Sunday was a major Chinese holiday, called the Mid-Autumn Festival.  Traditionally, everyone tries to go home to see their families, everyone eats moon cakes and jiaozi, and everyone looks at the full moon.  How it can be called the Mid-Autumn festival when autumn seems to just be starting, I don't know.  But I enjoyed the time off of school, the moon cakes (which actually aren't as good as you would expect - it's just a thin flavorless pastry around a whole lot of some sort of filling, but most of the fillings aren't very tasty), and the full moon.  Mostly the time off of school. 

 

Besides having Monday off (because the holiday fell on the weekend), Tuesday was LiaoDa's 60th anniversary so we had a second day off.  There was a ceremony Tuesday evening in celebration, but I decided going out to eat with three Italians and three Africans would be more entertaining than the ceremony.  From the sounds of it, I was right.  I was told it was "so typically Chinese... everyone looked like some kind of fruit, insect, or alien... it's a bit over the top."  Yeah, I enjoyed my tasty meal at a fancy Chinese restaurant. 

 

Of course human beings are all procrastinators, so from finishing class at noon on Friday until Tuesday afternoon, I did not study any Chinese.  Oops.  At least, I didn't study from any Chinese textbooks.  I did find myself using quite a bit of Chinese out in town, so I suppose that counts for something.  But needless to say, the other good thing about skipping the ceremony Tuesday night was having time to prepare for class on Wednesday.

 

Lest you think it is now totally back to the grindstone for me after having those two days off, I must tell you about the rest of the week.  Wednesday I had class.  Uneventful, but I'm sure I learned something.  Thursday?  I'm skipping.  All the new students like me are being taken to the police station to get our residency permits.  Given the hours of the police station, we have to leave at 8:00 a.m.  Obviously, that makes it difficult to be in class by 8:30.  (Let's be honest, this is China.  Most likely the bus won't have even left yet by 8:30.) 

 

And Friday?  I know we don't have class.  And I know there is some sort of sporting event going on.  But either my Chinese is not good enough to have understood why a sporting event means we don't have class, or the logic of it has simply escaped me.  Either way, I won't complain about another day off of school. 

 

So what have I been doing with all my spare time, since I haven't been in class or studying?  Besides moving into my new room and trying to creatively (and cheaply) decorate, I've been teaching a few English classes, exploring more of Shenyang (primarily near LiaoDa), and hanging out with the many new friends I'm making.  Sounds fun, eh?  Yeah, it is.

 

Although I won't lie.  Holidays that are all about family are hard when you can't be with your family.  Even ones that you don't traditionally celebrate.