Happy New Year! (Chinese style...)

Turns out I'm a terrible blogger.  Somehow life has gotten in the way of my updating this blog, and many of you seem to have noticed.  Apparently people actually read this! J

 

So I'm going to try to catch you all up on the last month of my time here in China, and then stay up during the remaining several months.  However (not to make excuses, but…), I still don't have internet.  Seriously, I have not spent more than 10 minutes on the internet at one time in more than a month.  And once you add in the fact that my "brother" here who usually lets me use his internet is leaving at the end of the week, I really don't know how I'm going to stay connected.  But I promise I'll try.

 

Where to start?  I suppose I'll start with the freshest thing in my mind.  How many of you like fireworks?  Let me tell you, you have never experienced fireworks until you've experienced the biggest holiday in the country that invented fireworks! 

 

Most traditional Chinese holidays are based on the lunar calendar, not the solar calendar we're all accustomed to.  So that's where the concept of the "Chinese New Year" comes from: it's the change of the year on the lunar calendar.  And for those of you who are not up on your dates according to the lunar calendar, Chinese New Year is today (January 26).  Like celebrating the normal new year in the U.S., people stay up the night before to ring it in.  The difference? In the U.S., we nonchalantly celebrate on December 31 and January 1.  In China, they passionately celebrate the Chinese New Year for three weeks!   

 

Sunday, January 18 (the 23^rd day of the last month on the lunar calendar) was the official beginning of the holiday season.  Although there's no recognized English name for the day, the literal translation is "Little New Year."  From what I've gathered, there is nothing particularly special about the day, except that it marks the beginning of the season.  Therefore, fireworks are shot off and people start making their preparations for the main holiday, Spring Festival (a.k.a. Chinese New Year). 

 

I was in Dalian on Little New Year, which is a city about 4 hours by train from where I live in Shenyang.  Since I'm not particularly in the habit of paying much attention to the lunar calendar, I actually didn't know it was a significant day.  Until, that is, I was waiting in the train station for my train back to Shenyang, and fireworks started going off all around the city.  I had a beautiful view of some from one of the windows, and actually met a Chinese girl with very good English who explained what was going on. 

 

The week between Little New Year and Spring Festival is an experience in itself.  Imagine: 1.3 billion people all trying to prepare for major celebrations, all shopping for tons of food, all stocking up because everything will be closed for three days, and all traveling back to their home cities to be with their families.  Yeah.  It was crazy.  I made the mistake of not doing my own shopping until Saturday afternoon, the last day before everything closes.  Haha. Oops.  I spent thirty minutes in line to check out of the store, not because the cashiers were slow or that there weren't enough (all 30+ lines were open), but because of all the people.  Crazy. 

 

The week was also marked by an increase in noise and a decrease in taxis.  Neither of which I was particularly fond of.  The noise was caused by all the fireworks and firecrackers people were setting off.  The decrease in taxis I suppose was caused by taxi drivers taking time off and the increase in people trying to use them, thus making it nearly impossible to grab a taxi anymore.

 

But the increase in noise and the decrease in taxis during the past week was only the tip of the iceberg.  Sunday afternoon, the equivalent of New Year's Eve, I went to my normal fellowship.  It took us a while to get a taxi, but then to our surprise, it only took us 5 minutes to drive all the way to our building! Usually it takes 15 minutes or so (more in heavy traffic), but the roads were nearly completely empty!  No cars, no taxis, no people.  It was actually quite creepy.  Coming home after fellowship was a similar experience, and our typical habit of going out for dinner afterwards was obviously interrupted because no restaurants were open.

 

So I got home, made myself some dinner (using the ingredients I had so brilliantly stocked up on Saturday), and then just hung out waiting.  I had been warned that it would be futile to try going to sleep before midnight, so I just waited around.  And that advice proved to be correct! From 6:30 p.m. when I was coming home until sometime after I fell asleep at 2:00 a.m., fireworks were going on constantly.  I'm pretty sure there was not a single 5 minute period where I didn't hear the sound of fireworks.  And the highlights?  From 11:45 – 12:15, there were solid fireworks in every direction! Anywhere you looked, all you could see were fireworks.  I stood at my window and watched fireworks literally everywhere I could see.  Wow, it was intense!

 

Seriously, any fireworks fans out there need to see the fireworks on Chinese New Year in China sometime.  Nothing compares.

 

There was just one other thought, though, that crossed my mind as I was watching the skyline disappear into the smoke of the fireworks: it's no wonder that the air pollution here is as it is.

 

An International Christmas

'Tis the season.

I remember a few years ago my family had a very international Christmas.  We had presents under the tree from the "Japanese Santa," the "Hong Kong Santa," the "Malaysian Santa," etc.  (Funny how all the Santas represented under our tree corresponded to places my dad had been that year.)  But this year I'm having another sort of international Christmas. 

Today was our Christmas service at my fellowship.  It was marvelous!  I was blessed to be able to join the choir, and have had a great time in the last three weeks going to choir practice and getting to know many others in the fellowship from the other schools.  But let me give you a picture of how international this Christmas service was...

We started with a bunch of carols.  That wasn't particularly international compared to usual here, but the praise team still consisted of people from at least 6 countries.

For the message, we had four people each speak about five minutes.  Of those four, two were American and two were African.  I was actually honored to be asked to be one of those speakers, so I talked about Luke 2:17-20.  Specifically, I talked about Mary's reaction (as compared with the shepherds') and asked if we are each pondering the meaning of this season.

After the message(s), we got into the "program" that had been put together just for today.  A Sri Lankan dance. The Sunday school choir.  A Filipino Joseph, a Nigerian Mary, and an Indian wise man.  An African dance.  And a choir full of Africans, Indians... and one white girl. 

It was marvelous! 

And I really enjoyed singing Silent Night with a beat.  I guess that's what happens when the choir director is from Guinea Bassu.

Since I'm not entirely sure what my plans are for the rest of the Christmas season (i.e. for Christmas day itself), I'll refrain from telling you about that until after the 25th.  But in the meantime, it was such a blessing to be able to celebrate the season with brothers and sisters from around the world today. 

Class

Imagine you are sitting in your college class one day when your teacher asks "Who is planning to take the final exam?"  Now imagine that class is a foreign language class, and the question was not asked in English, causing you to question whether you actually understood the teacher at all.  What? Why would the teacher ask who is going to take the final?  Doesn't everyone take it?

 

Apparently not if it's a Chinese language class in China.  Turns out since I'm simply taking these classes for my own benefit (and to pass the language exam I will have next year in the U.S.), there is no compelling reason for me to take the exam.  In fact, the teachers are encouraging us to NOT take the exam if you don't need to.  Strange.

 

So I will not be taking any exams this semester.  What a great way to study!  Study for myself and not for a test.

 

The nice thing about not taking the finals is that I have an entire extra week off for the winter break.  Classes will run through December 31 (with no days off for Christmas...), the first and second will be off for the holiday, and then exams will run the following week.  But I will simply be done on the 31st.  And when do classes start up again, you ask?  March.  Yes, I literally have two months off.  How sweet is that?! 

 

Before you all start thinking that the Chinese have such an easy educational system, though, let me explain.  In the U.S. schools usually have 2 (or 3) weeks off for Christmas/winter, and maybe 10 weeks for the summer.  In China, the winter and the summer breaks are both 6 weeks long.  So after I start classes in March, I will be in class straight through until July (with exams, which I won't take, finishing around the 15th of July).  So it's just a different schedule, not necessarily an easier one.

 

So enough about the academic schedule.  What about my classes themselves?  I have had several very entertaining classes recently.  In fact, I can say that I'm enjoying my Chinese classes now more than ever.  We've gotten comfortable with the teachers, and the students who don't really care are no longer coming.  Which does mean that my class of 15-20 is often only a class of 5-8 now, but I'm okay with that.  In fact, Friday we only had four.  Just more chance to practice and learn! 

 

In my listening class the other day, we had an incredibly entertaining conversation about zoos.  Our teacher is approximately my age, still a masters student here, and she was saying that all zoos are essentially the same.  So my Czech friend and I tried explaining to her how zoos in different countries can actually be incredibly different.  We were hysterical over the truth of dog petting zoos in China and our experiences of goats eating our maps in the petting zoos elsewhere.  But I think the most hilarious was when my Czech friend didn't know how to say "ape" so she simply explained what she meant... "almost-a-person monkey."

 

In my reading class recently, we learned that there actually is grammar in Chinese.  I've spent four years studying Chinese already, but it wasn't until last week that any of my teachers actually admitted that there is grammar and a set of structures to the language.  It really would have been nice, though, for my first few teachers to have explained such things.  They could have used English to help us understand!  It's not easy to learn Chinese grammar using only the Chinese language to explain it. 

 

My speaking class is the "worst" of my classes, in the sense that our teacher doesn't actually understand that he should have us speak in class.  But now that we usually start the class with only me and the Czech girl there, it's getting better.  And we had fun learning all sorts of computer terms the other day.  Again, a little bit difficult, since some of the terms I don't even understand if I hear them in English!

 

Finally, my jingdu class is great.  (Jingdu is a term for critical reading, but the class functions as the basic grammar class.  This is the class we have most often, and the jingdu teacher is our primary teacher.)  Last week, our teacher was telling us that since she has been teaching Chinese to foreigners for 12 years, her Chinese has deteriorated.  I could totally relate!  (What can I say, my English has... lowered.)  Her stories about hanging out with her friends and using very basic Chinese were hilarious and all too familiar.  But the even more hilarious story she told us a week ago was about how she had gone out the night before with her friend and had 6 beers, without eating anything except one peanut.  It's not every teacher who will admit to her class that she still has a hangover!  But we were sympathetic... we told her we should just end class early. :)

 

 

The holiday season

It's the holiday season!  One of my favorite things to do around the holidays is to think back on all the previous years and how I have celebrated in the past.  For example, every Thanksgiving I remember that one year my family celebrated Thanksgiving in a castle, the year we ate a free turkey-less Thanksgiving dinner in Key West, and the year my mom spilled the turkey grease all over the floor of the kitchen.  (Sorry Mom.)  Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone, and now I have one more in the books to look back on: Peking Duck in Shenyang with 130 people.  This was certainly the largest T-day dinner I've ever participated in!

 

But one of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is that the Christmas season follows it.  I have recently been thinking back to the last time I spent a good portion of the Christmas season in China, that time in Beijing.  I remember that Christmas being very bizarre, because I had basically no "season" before the 25th.  If I hadn't had a calendar, I probably could have spent the whole season in Beijing without ever realizing it was Christmas!  Remembering how disappointed I was to miss out on the thrills of Advent, I've been much more particular this year about recognizing the season. 

 

Since the first week of Advent, the music in my room has been set to one thing: a certain oratorio by Handel that just seems to fit the season.  To make things even cheerier, though, I successfully decorated my dorm room yesterday.  I spent 30 kuai (about $5) on a 1 meter tall tree and all the decorations to go on it.  Seemed like a good deal to me, and with a room as small as mine, just a simple tree can effectively change the dynamics of the entire place.

 

I am also excited to have joined a choir for the Christmas service at my fellowship.  We've only practiced one song so far, but it's been fun to actually learn the alto line to Silent Night.  (Well, okay, it's not actually the traditional alto line for the hymn, since we're singing a jazzed up version.  But it's fun anyway.)  Saturday afternoon we have choir practice at the Medical University, and I'm looking forward to the hours of singing Christmas carols and spending time with many of my friends. 

 

The most touching part of the season thus far, though, was definitely receiving a package from my "family" in DC.  What a joy and blessing!  Not only are all the Dutch treats and hot chocolate ridiculously tasty and enjoyable, they also make great decorations under my tree.  And somehow they also seem to attract people to come hang out with me in my room. :)

 

Speaking of Dutch things, many of you might know of the Dutch holiday that precedes Christmas: Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas Day).  Certainly, growing up in a Dutch-American community meant I learned about Sinterklaas in school and occasionally "celebrated" that day.  This year, however, I happen to have a lot of Belgian friends who all celebrate Sinterklaas regularly!  It was terrific amounts of fun to be able to celebrate the holiday with them this year. 

 

For those of you who did not have the privilege to learn about Sinterklaas growing up, let me explain how one would celebrate the holiday.  Sinterklaas is remarkably similar to Christmas.  There's a guy named "Sinterklaas" (St. Nicholas) and his helper Black Pete.  They have a white horse.  The night before, children all across the Netherlands and Belgium place their shoes outside the door, and leave a carrot or something of the sort for the horse to eat.  During the night, Sinterklaas and Black Pete come through and leave presents (usually candy) in the shoes.  But if the children have been bad, they are taken away in Black Pete's bag.  That's certainly stronger motivation than simply not getting a gift from Santa Claus!

 

So how do three Belgians and two Americans celebrate Sinterklaas in China?  Wow, we had fun.  We decided to play a game: we all put our shoes outside our doors, and over the course of 36 hours everyone had to put something in everybody else's shoes.  The catch? You couldn't get caught.  The punishment for getting caught was having to make dinner for the group of us on the 18th (the night before the one girl will go back to Belgium... sad!). 

 

It was so much fun to go buy a few things and have to stealthily put them in everyone's shoes.  Especially since we don't all live in the dorm here.  It was also fun to randomly find bags of goodies outside my door!  (The best was definitely the packet of real American taco seasoning from the American guy! Apparently he's stockpiled but has to get rid of it before moving next month.)  The most hilarious part of the game, though, had to have been when someone actually got caught.  G was standing outside one girl's door to drop a present, but she hadn't put any shoes out.  So while standing there, he called her cell.  Since she was simply inside her room and could hear his voice on the other side of the door, she caught him red-handed. 

 

The down side?  Let's be honest, none of us really want to eat G's cooking.  So we told him he should just pay for our dinner at a restaurant instead. :)

 

So all told, I'm thoroughly enjoying my holiday season thus far.  I even had far more fun with Sinterklaas than usual.  Although I'll admit, Christmas day itself will probably be a little bit difficult...

 

 

 

More things to be thankful for...

8. I'm thankful for my own private western-style toilet.  Seriously.  On a day-to-day basis, I don't think I would mind too much not having it.  I mean, I'm pretty used to using the other variety.  But let me just say that spending all Sunday night in and out of my bathroom throwing up into a western-style toilet (and sitting on a relatively clean floor next to it) was a much more pleasant way to be sick than to have had to use the public squatties located down the hall.

 

9. I'm thankful for friends here studying at the Medical University who are relatively fluent in medical Chinese (since they do their studies entirely in Chinese).  It's comforting to know that if I ever do actually have to go to a Chinese hospital, these friends would be there in a heartbeat to help me, and they'd actually know what's going on. 

 

10. Finally, I'm thankful for the progress I'm already making in getting better, and for not having to go to a hospital anyway (even if I do have people to help me).  Seriously, don't be too worried.  My body just decided Sunday night to get rid of any possible hazards from within my system.  I don't know why.  But by now I'm eating small bits of basic foods (crackers, noodles, eggs, apples), and getting better.  I even attended all my classes today!  So by the end of the week, I'm sure I'll be back to normal entirely. :)

Things I'm thankful for...

This week Americans around the world celebrated Thanksgiving.  My celebration did not include the traditional turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie, but there is still plenty for me to be thankful for.  So here's a list of just a few of them.

1. I'm thankful for the many friends I've made here in Shenyang, both Chinese and otherwise.  In particular, I'm thankful that many of them attended the same Thanksgiving dinner of Peking Roast Duck (hey, at least it's a bird) on Thursday.  I expected that I would know the majority of the 130 people in attendance, but it turned out to be a lot of Chinese people I didn't know.  Furthermore, the organizers tried to have us sit randomly so we would have to get to know new people at our tables.  That's a great idea in theory, but on a day like Thanksgiving, I was certainly thankful to have three of my favorite people here also sitting at my table.

2. I'm thankful for the occasional opportunity to eat Western food.  Last week, G & WT invited me over to eat spaghetti.  Real spaghetti.  Mmm.  And we topped it off with real chocolate pudding.  Yeah, I'm thankful for microwavable recipes of chocolate pudding, too. 

3.  I'm thankful for the opportunity to buy relatively inexpensive clothes here to fend off the cold.  Because it is really cold.  Last weekend I successfully bought a nice red ski coat, which the lady assured me would be warm enough all winter.  I was less thrilled with the lady at that market who pretended to not understand my Chinese, just to try to rip me off, but I refused to buy anything from her and found others who were much friendlier.  (When I walked away from that lady, I heard her tell her coworker in Chinese, "Wow, her Chinese was actually pretty good!")  Also, I'm thankful for the Chinese invention of really really thick nylons.  Superbly thick.  Basically, they're pants but designed to look like nylons.  So right now I can wear them with a skirt to go to fellowship.  Of course, in the worst of winter I won't be doing that, but I'm thankful to have the option right now.  And I'm thankful that option only cost me 20 kuai to buy… about $2.50.

4. I'm thankful for fun winter activities.  My most recent adventures have included a trip to the "sports center" of Shenyang, where you can buy all variety of sporting gear from the real name brands.  The story of how and why I got there is a bit bizarre, but it worked out.  Two weeks ago, the girl I tutor on Saturdays and I wandered around a nearby store, simply to give us something entertaining to do as we practiced English.  As we passed the athletic gear, I simply asked about where someone would buy ice skates if they would happen to want them.  Apparently that got translated in her mind to me really really wanting to buy ice skates.  So the following week, our outing was to the sports center to find me some ice skates.  I'm thankful, for one, that the ice skates only cost me 95 kuai (since I couldn't very well get out of buying them after she had gone through so much work for me).  I'm also thankful, though, for the option of ice skating this winter.  I actually went today for the first time, and remembered just how much fun ice skating is.  Now I just need to convince some friends of mine that it's fun and that they should get some ice skates, too. 

5. I'm thankful for Chinese families who welcome me into their houses.  Today, the girl I tutor invited me to her house to eat Hot Pot with her family.  Her family is from Dalian, an ocean town, so they had lots of seafood in the hot pot.  Wow, I like shrimp done that way.  And even oysters aren't too bad when cooked in the hot pot.  But better than the food was the fact that I could interact with a Chinese family, see how they live, and even practice my Chinese a bit.

6. I'm thankful for the occasional random opportunity that comes up that I could never have anticipated or expected.  This past week, I had a girl approach me – in English – saying that she is a journalist for a magazine and wanted to interview me.  The following day, we got together and I learned a lot of interesting things from her.  And I believe this is one way that I will be able to improve my networking opportunities here.  Yeah, I'm thankful for that.

7. I'm thankful for all the fun activities that I have going on every day that prevent me from writing any more on this blog.  Like right now.  There is certainly plenty more I'm thankful for, but I have to go… I have dinner plans.

Warning: This post has no theme

Apparently juzi have dropped in price.  Remember a week ago when I bought 5 kuai worth of this tangerine-type fruit, and surprisingly went home with more than 20?  Today my 5 kuai turned into 50 juzi.  Oops.  That's gonna take me a while to eat.

My other new favorite fruit to eat here is something I just discovered: dragon eyes.  (Seriously, that's the name.)  If you've ever eaten a lychee, you'd understand why I like these dragon eyes.  They are very similar, except that the outer peel is thin, smooth(esque), and light brown.  Okay, so from the outside they don't look anything alike.  But inside, they both have that juicy translucent white fruit around a big smooth pit.  Mmm.

The Japanese claim to be a homogenous people.  The Chinese have never claimed such a thing, since officially there are 56 ethnic groups across this vast, diverse country.  Understanding that, can anyone explain to me why every Chinese person gets their hair cut on the same day?  Really.  It's a holiday.  And to make it even more official, it's even based on the lunar calendar!  So, everybody mark your 2009 calendars... the second day of the second month on the lunar calendar we have to all go get our hair cut.  (If only I knew when that day will be...)

Speaking of hair, let me just say that it is incredibly strange to get more compliments on my hair on the days that I don't wash it than on the days I do.  Creepy.  In the U.S., if I don't wash my hair on a specific day, people just think it looks greasy and gross (which is what I think).  But apparently here it's the preferable style.  I get more compliments those days.  But I won't complain; it means those mornings I get no hot water in my room (or even no water at all, which is even more exciting) I don't have to be too self-conscious going out.  But note to self: don't forget to revert back to washing your hair every day when you get back to the States.  Greasy hair is not okay there.

One of my English classes on Monday was telling me that they often play soccer matches against the other classes here at LiaoDa.  Despite the ridiculously cold weather, they apparently play at 8:00 a.m.  That turned out to be great timing for me, though, because I got to go watch them for a few minutes Tuesday morning before heading to my Chinese class at 8:30.  Can I just say, it was so much fun to have an entire soccer team stop in the middle of a game to wave and say hi to me!  I think it made their day that I showed up to support them, even if it was for only a few minutes.

Yesterday was marvelous.  A Korean friend of mine asked me recently if she could give my number to her Chinese friend who wanted to meet an American.  Of course I said yes, that I'd be willing to meet him, even if I might not have time to tutor him or whatever.  So anyway, yesterday we met up.  I'm not entirely sure why he wanted to meet me, because I had imagined it was to practice his English.  Turns out we ended up spending 2 full hours talking (with a second Chinese guy there as well), but 95% of the conversation was in Chinese.  Sweet!  It was awesome to be able to practice with interesting native speakers.  The only down side was that some of the things they talked about, I really really wished I could have understood better.  They were giving me their perspectives on certain issues in international relations and politics, as well as on various cultural differences between the East and the West.  While I understood enough to follow along generally, I really wanted to understand fully.  Oh, to speak this language fluently!