Final Post

I've been home in New Jersey safe and sound for about a week now. To be honest, I thought it would feel strange to be back in the States, but it feels like I never left at all -- like the last six months in China were just a dream. Everything feels just like normal, except now I'm fluent in Chinese. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to continuing my studies next semester. But now I'd like to go back, report to you all about my last few experiences in China, and give some concluding thoughts.

First off - the Japanese restaurant I wrote about in one of my last entries was so good that my friends and I went back. This time, we brought a much bigger contingent. Kelly: The restaurant is called Tairyo Teppanyaki. There are five branches in Beijing, but we went to the one in The Village complex at Sanlitun district. 200 kuai - unlimited everything on the menu - steak, fish fillets, fried rice, sushi, sashimi, dessert. Save room... it's so so worth it.

Next came Zhongwen Zhiye, the end of term talent show, similar to the one at the end of HBA. I have to say, for a semester program, ACC's show was no where near as thought-out, varied, or entertaining as the show at the end of HBA. I was one of the MCs of the night (Here I am to the right with my fellow MCs. We were dressed in traditional outfits of Chinese minorities. I did not have any other acts.) The preparations for the show felt very rushed. At HBA, each grade level put on a skit (second year's Romeo and Juliet skit, starring yours truly, was by far the best one.) In any case, hosting was pretty fun even though we wrote our scripts an hour before the performance.

I also have a video of my final oral exam: a talk show where we discuss what factors are most important when considering who to marry.



It's really remarkable how much I changed while I was away in China. Firstly, I became fluent in Chinese. I knew it would happen (I even mentioned it in my first blog post), but it still amazes me. Back when I was a first year student, I used to search for videos on Youtube of foreigners speaking Chinese... seeing a non-heritage speaker speak fluent Chinese gave me something to strive for. One girl in particular really impressed me. I understood almost none of what she said in her videos, but she spoke so confidently and fluidly that I didn't question her language skills. Now I watch her videos and catch her tonal and grammar mistakes as well as her sometimes awkward word choices.

I used to memorize Chinese characters by forming pictures and inventing characters in my head. For example: the word "humorous" (yōumò). The first character became a set of bleachers filled with cheering fans. The second character is composed of, on the left, an alien baby sitting on coals, and me on the right smoking a pipe. I don't think I'll ever forget how to write "humorous" in Chinese.












As the semester went on, I relied less and less on silly pictures. As I learned more characters and the meanings of different radicals, I began to "feel" inside me whether I had written a character correctly. Instead of just learning by rote, for example, that 火 means "fire," I now look at that character and can't help but to associate it with heat, machinery, industry... fire. It might still take me a while to read a paragraph in Chinese. But the characters make a lot more sense now. I just wish my English were a little bitter so that I could express this all clearly haha.

With that, I say good bye to Beijing, my home for the past half a year. I think I did a lot of growing up over in China. I cannot thank the Light Fellowship donors and staff enough for the amazing opportunities they have given me. I'm excited to see what life has in store for me next.

Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year.

Things That I Didn't Like Before Coming to China

But that I like very much now:

1. eggplant
2. lamb - No night out on the town is complete without a few lamb kabobs bought on the street. These things are absolutely delicious. Holy cow.
3. Japanese tofu: Actually, this is kind of a cop-out... "Japanese tofu" here in China isn't actually tofu; it's made from eggs
4. Big Macs: What can I say? We have McDonald's delivered to our rooms when we're too busy to go out for dinner
5. Karaoke: Karaoke in China isn't like in America. Back at home, a big book is passed around. People choose their song, wait for their names to be called, get on stage in front of the audience, sing their song, and go back to their seat. Here in China, groups of friends rent out private rooms at a karaoke establishment called KTV. Waiters bring in drinks, snacks, and instruments, and everyone just dances and has a good time while singing in a group.
   
6. Green beans: Before coming to China, I never really saw vegetables as a main dish. They always just complemented a meat. But in China, vegetables are giving just as much attention. Too bad Chinese restaurants back home don't make green beans like they do here.
   
7. Yogurt: Chinese yogurt isn't any better than American yogurt. It's just that I drank so much of it out of concern that I wasn't getting enough calcium in my diet. Now I have it for breakfast almost everyday.
8. Kanye West: I've been listening to him for the past month. His new album is amazing.
   
9. Giving presentations
10. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches: I keep the ingredients in my room so I always have a relatively healthy snack available. According to my calculations, I think I have eaten about 175 of these bad boys since June.
    

Inner Mongolia

I had considered going to a city like Qingdao or Chengdu over break but opted to accompany my roommate and three other friends to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.


The really friendly workers at our hostel helped us plan and even accompanied us to our two activities in Inner Mongolia: the grasslands and the desert. I knew it was going to be cold in Hohhot, but I had no idea that it would be as freezing as it was. I'm pretty sure it was the coldest I've ever been. I had bought long underwear back in Beijing, and was wearing four or five jackets, two pairs of gloves and three pairs of socks and it was still freezing.

There was nothing man-made on this land other than our host family's tiny house. We walked around for a bit and saw wild horses (my friend said that the horses weren't actually wild... but I prefer to think that they are.) We were going to go horse-riding later that day, but we had to wait until the next morning. Not having much else to do, we stayed in the house and played a Mongolian game similar to jacks that involved tossing and picking up small sheep bones. For dinner we had Mongolian pie (similar to empanadas), sheep liver and intestines, and an array of vegetables. I tasted one tiny piece of liver to say I had tried it, but I filled myself on rice and veggies and had a PB&J later. That night we slept covered in a thousand blankets inside of a yurt (we were offered a heated room in the house but decided the yurt was a more worthwhile experience.) Horse-riding was so much fun, and it was made even better by the beautiful surroundings. It's something that I'll never forget.

I'm actually not sure which I enjoyed more, horse-back riding in the bleak tundra or camel riding the next day in the Gobi Desert. Thankfully the weather was much nicer in the desert - it was actually kind of hot. After riding around on my camel, which I named Jay-Z, for a couple of hours, we went sliding down sand dunes. I didn't even feel like in China. Even though we were only an hour-and-a-half plane ride away from Beijing, I felt like I was in a totally different world. Like this blog post, the trip to Inner Mongolia was long overdue. I needed the rest and I had an incredible time. I'll be home in two weeks to the day!

In other news, Thanksgiving this week was strange to say the least. Our teachers took us to an "American" restaurant for a buffet. Unfortunately I wasn't very hungry and did not eat my 80 kuai worth of food. Turkey is expensive and relatively hard to find in China, but ACC provided four large roasts for us, along with mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce. While the food was just so-so, the next day I went with some friends to a Japanese restaurant in Sanlituanr. I can't express how amazing this restaurant was. We paid 200 kuai each (about 30 American dollars) for unlimited steak, sushi, red wine and sake. So amazing.

Sexual Culture and Masculinity in China

Last spring I spent ten days in the outskirts of Santiago, Dominican Republic. One of the most shocking cultural differences I encountered between the United States and the DR is the value that the Dominican people place on machismo, and the overtly sexual nature of people's everyday interactions. The members of the community where my group and I lived threw parties for us three nights in a row, and every night the girls in my group dreaded being pressed up against and passed around by the Haitian and Dominican young men who lived in the Batay. Even more shocking, children as young as seven years old danced more provocatively than I have ever seen at any college party. We made friends with many of the young men during our stay, but I met no girls other than my host sister because they stayed indoors all day cooking and doing housework. One of the guys in the town said children there usually begin sexual activity under the age of ten.

While preparing for that trip, I read somewhere that the Dominican Republic's "machismo" culture is unmatched. In addition, I saw during my trip to Paris last summer that the stereotype of the flirty, googly-eyed and whistling Frenchman is not entirely without basis. But standards of masculinity also prevail in American culture, where a guy can earn man-points for "getting with" a lot of girls, having a muscular body, playing sports, etc.

I've learned during these past five months in China that this might just be one of the areas in which East and West differ the most.

(Note: This picture, found on Google Images, is actually of a Japanese man. But his hair is close enough to what I've seen here in Beijing.)

Perhaps most obviously, Chinese men's fashion choices would be considered "feminine" in the US. Some (not most) guys have long, razored and often dyed hair. Men's clothing is often fitted, colorful, and embroidered with zippers, chains, and sparkles. Men and their girlfriends often wear his-and-her matching T-shirts, and more often than not a guy will carry his girlfriend's heavy purse for her. Girls in China will frequently hold hands or hang an arm around one another while walking down the street to show that they're friends. Men are not this affectionate, but they do walk close enough to each other that I often do a "double take" to see if they are actually holding hands. (They never are.)

Lest you think that this clothing and behavior indicate social progressiveness, the Chinese are still for the most part pretty conservative. You see, to the Chinese, these characteristics aren't feminine at all - they're every bit masculine. An ignorant Westerner might accuse these men of being "gay," but that couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, most Chinese people are against homosexuality. It isn't talked about in polite company or shown on TV, and the mention of it in class is sure to elicit a giggle from the teacher.

In any case, young people in China do not date until after college. Their parents and teachers actually forbid them from having a relationship during school because it would distract them from their studies. When guys and girls dance at a bar or club here in Beijing, they dance very innocently, with little touching. Growing up, every time I saw my cousins from Ecuador they inevitably asked me about my history and experiences with girls and the like. American guys and the Dominicans in the Batay were the same way. But I've hung out with groups of Chinese boys here, and to my surprise they do not ask these kinds of questions. Those topics are personal.

Obviously, there are plenty of men in China that fit American standards of masculinity, like this body builder. But one of my teachers told me that Chinese girls are more attracted by a good-looking face than muscles or height. I wish America were a little more like this — that would definitely take pressure off of skinny guys like me!

P.S. It's official; I'm going to Inner Mongolia on Wednesday for my fall break!

The Elephant's Trunk in the Room

Today at our weekly lunch with the Chinese teachers, I posed to the teachers a question that I've had for a while: A lot of Americans find some of the things Chinese people eat to be "weird"... do Chinese people feel the same way about some American foods or customs?

Not really answering my question, one of my teachers (whom I like a lot) said, "Yes, your nose is weird! It's so big!"

The other students at the table immediately went silent. I immediately turned red and felt more embarrassed than I had in a very long time. I couldn't believe what she had said; it was possibly the most offensive things she could have said to me. She hadn't said that, in general, Westerners have larger noses; she had said that mine was. We all have our insecurities I guess, and that has been my own since middle school. In retrospect it sounds kind of silly. But her comment ruined the rest of the meal for me and I remained upset well into the afternoon.


Obviously, Jiang Laoshi hadn't meant to offend me. In fact, earlier in the day she had complimented me on my smile and a few weeks ago she told me that I was the best student in my grade-level. We told her that in America, making a comment like that was extremely impolite, and she brushed it off, saying "Ooh I see," and not appreciating that her words had actually been hurtful. Then another teacher said that Chinese people believe that if a person has a large nose, it means they have a lot of money, "but that it's not en exact science."


I considered accosting her after lunch and telling her how she had made me feel but didn't. I'm not sure if I'll mention it to her again. Chalk it up to cultural differences I guess.

Victory!!

Congratulations to my father, New Milford's newest councilman!

Being in China didn't stop me from voting. I'm so proud of you and happy your hard work paid off! I wish I could have been at the celebration.

A Huge Undertaking & An Unplanned Rant

According to an article I just read on Yahoo! News, China kicked off the national census today. My teachers haven't mentioned it to us, so I totally forgot about these signs I saw over the summer:


True to form, these banners for the census emphasize the harmony it will bring to China. I'm pretty sure the census takers are looking to count every foreigner living in China as well, so I'll be included in the count. What a cool thing to be a part of. Apparently the Miss World competition was also in China just a few days ago (Miss USA won), but unfortunately the beautiful contestants did not visit the Great Wall on the same day we did.

After I read the article about the census, I scrolled down to read some of the comments. I don't know why I do that to myself; it just causes unnecessary stress. People can be so frustratingly close-minded and just stupid!

Posted by Kathy 39 minutes ago:

"What this articles does not mention. If you don't answer the questions, you go to jail. If the census worker finds out you lied, you go to jail. If the census worker or your neighbor doesn't like you, you go to jail."

Good ol' patriotic Golden Eagle had this to add:

"Are they including our census!
Accuracy going to be like ours!
False
Impossible to count correctly when most foreigners live on top of each other.
Known Fact!"

And of course Carty had to go here....

"At least China doesn't have 30 million illegal immigrants from Mexico that don't answer their door for the census. Only time they come out is to send their kid to school for free, or take them to the emergency room, for free. (or shoot someone)"

What the hell? I love America to no end but comments like these make me not love Americans so much.

Kind of related:

This summer I realized that it's difficult and insensible to characterize the Chinese people, or the people of any single country, because you can't help but use your own upbringing as a gauge of normality. In addition, there are so many things that you might never even realize about a place because you so expect certain results that you are blind to everything else.

Every once in a while I read other Light Fellows' blogs and I am surprised at how their accounts of China and Chinese life differ. One student wrote that to his surprise, Chinese people didn't eat very much rice at all, while another student wrote that he was already sick of all the rice he's been forced to eat. Another student was delighted with how friendly and attentive the waiters and waitresses in China are, while another student wrote that the service here stinks. I've written often about how the pushing, shoving, and cutting in line here KILLS me, while another girl remarked just the other day that the Chinese are so respectful.

Were these people all in the same country? It's remarkable how everyone who visits here gets a different impression and formulates different opinions. I know I've complained about certain things in China before - real juice is expensive and hard to find! People here don't eat cheese! There's terrible air pollution! But I love China. And when I get back to America I'll definitely have complains now that I know how things in China are. People are way way way too materialistic! Our population is fat and bad at math! People eat dumplings with soy sauce instead of vinegar!

Anyway, our textbook over the summer had a chapter on how Chinese people are "polite" while Americans are "blunt," so the problem clearly exists on both sides. It was great for teaching us new vocab words, though.

Other things:

• I tried donkey meat, cow stomach, and rabbit the other day! I wish I could say they were all delicious, but the donkey was much too fatty, the stomach was tasteless and uncomfortably chewy, and the rabbit was exactly like chicken in every way and so just made me feel guilty about eating a cute animal.
• I'm trying No-Shave November this year.
• Our fall break is next weekend and I'm currently planning where to go. Maybe Chengdu, Harbin, or Inner Mongolia.
• Got A's on both my midterm and oral midterm.
• The leaves here are turning bright gold. It's beautiful.
  

Turning the Tables

Near our hotel in Xi'an was an outdoor marketplace that my classmates and I visited almost everyday to buy souvenirs and have dinner. At night, the main street by the market place became three or four times as crowded as dozens of vendors of snacks and knick-knacks set up shop and tourists came out to answer their call. I saw things for sale on this street that I hadn't seen anywhere else in China, like fried quail eggs on a skewer and the extremely long kites that I mentioned in my last post.



One night after dinner, my friends and I were walking along the street when we came across a couple of teenage girls selling wooden frogs of various sizes that, when stroked with an accompanying stick, let out a loud, realistic croak. I had seen the frogs at other stands and didn't think very much of them, but these particular vendors were selling an especially huge frog, so I approached one of the girls and asked if she could let us hear what the big one sounded like. She joked that I couldn't hear it unless I bought it, but actually they didn't even have a big enough stick. Feeling gutsy, I picked up one of the frogs on her table and asked, "Do you mind if I help you sell these?" She said it was okay, and soon enough my classmates joined me behind the table, playing frogs of varying pitches like we were a symphony orchestra.

(Mostly Chinese) tourists flocked to our table as soon as they saw a stand manned almost completely by foreigners, and in turn we shouted out things like, "Give it a try!", "These things are so fun!", "Get one for your kids!" and "The bigger they are, the better sounding they are!" and people thought it was a hoot. As expected, dozens of people took our pictures, and thankfully we even sold a bunch of frogs. Our boss told us that our addressing customers as "handsome" and "pretty girl," while acceptable in Beijing, was impolite in Xi'an, and said that if we appeared too eager to sell our wares than people would become suspicious. Apparently mellow salesmen make the best salesmen in Xi'an.


It was especially fun to call out in Chinese to tourists who obviously spoke English. We spent about two hours at that stand, laughing the whole time and interacting with our customers who were amazed that we foreigners could not only speak Chinese, but had "jobs" at the marketplace. A few customers even tried to haggle with us, to which we said things like "No, no, friend, I'm giving you a great price here, trust me," and other things we had heard a thousand times. We didn't earn wages for our time working, but at the end of the night our boss offered us a discount on the little toys. I and a few of my friends bought some as reminders of what was one of my fondest experiences in China so far.

The City of Western Peace

A few days ago if you had asked me to predict what Xi'an would be like, I'd have guessed my time there would be pretty mild. Xi'an's Terracotta Warriors were kind of cool, and so were some of the other landmarks we went to, but to quote my friend Dan, they were basically "go see and say that's amazing take some pictures and then leave" kind of places, which, unlike the Great Wall, the Catacombs of Paris, the Batays of the Dominican Republic, or some of the other amazing places I am fortunate enough to have visited, were exactly as I expected. But our stay in Xi'an definitely was not mild, unless that's the word you would use to describe my and my friends' being encircled by thousands of rampant Chinese nationalists waving "Death to Japan" signs before attacking a police car and setting fire to a nearby store.


That's right, I was lucky enough to witness a Chinese protest first-hand. Let me explain. One of the coolest souvenirs I saw in Xi'an were these really, really long kites (just wait till you see pictures... these kites are so long), so yesterday morning I decided I wanted to buy one before we left for Beijing later that afternoon. In the hotel lobby I ran into my friend Xiao Mao, who said, "Let me guess, you're going to go watch the protests." I had no idea what he was talking about, so he took me outside. The enormous crowd of people I saw when I stepped outside was nothing at all like what I imagined. The crowd of people stretched farther than I could even see.



Outside, my roommate and I ran into some other ACC students who had come across the marches after doing some sightseeing. We don't know exactly what caused the uproar, but it certainly wasn't random--vendors nearby were selling flags and stickers, and the police were watching closely but not interfering. My friend guessed that the protest might have been caused by disputes over ownership of the Senkaku islands near Taiwan.

Obviously we decided to get closer. I was nervous that the crowd might not be very welcoming, given that the United States is supportive of Japan (this fear was not baseless... some nearby people even shouted out that my friend's camera was a Sony), but two of the girls with us bought some small China flags to show our "support," and we were fine. In fact, we were more than fine. People absolutely loved us. We must have had hundreds of pictures and videos taken of us. At one point were completely surrounded by Chinese youth taking our pictures and asking for our contact information. But the weirdest part of it all was when one Chinese guy asked my roommate, Taylor, to help him hold up an anti-Japanese banner (one that read, "Take Out Your Knives"). Taylor didn't think it was a very good idea to refuse, so he took hold of the banner and the crowd went absolutely wild. The people erupted in applause and shouts of gratitude. What appeared to be TV cameras ran towards us to film the scene. I very halfheartedly chanted "Zhongguo, jiayou" along with them, but I was definitely uncomfortable.

Afterward, the crowd noticed a Japanese athletics store nearby and people stampeded forward, banging the glass and throwing things at it. That was our cue. We ran away, but not before seeing smoke coming from the store.







The crowd surrounding us.



At the very end of this clip you can see the people begin to clap for my roommate.


The protests made driving in the streets impossible, so when we got back to the hotel all 60 ACC students had to walk two miles, all of our baggage in hand, to the train station, in the middle of traffic. Talk about a 地地道道 experience. I have another fun story about Xi'an but I'll save it for my next post.

Competition and Controversy

Every week here at ACC, we're required to deliver a "kou tou bao gao," or oral report, to our classmates on an assigned topic. Last week, the topic was the severity of Beijing's traffic problem and how we suggest solving it. Of course, there isn't really an easy solution. But because the teachers liked my report, and about five of my classmates', the best, our speeches were chosen to be videotaped and uploaded on some Chinese-learning website. People then vote for their favorites, and the winners get cash and other prizes.

I make a mistake right in the first sentence (I say 自从 (zicong), instead of 自来 (zilai)), and I didn't have my speech memorized since we had only learned about the contest the day before. In any case, here's the link to my video.

Don't worry about actually voting for me... registering to vote seems kind of complicated, and I won't (and don't deserve to) win anyway, given that some videos already have thousands of votes. I just thought I'd share the video though.

In other news, or non-news rather, the Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize win this week has been given no press at all here in Beijing. Most people do not know anything about it, or even know who he is. My friend Gerald actually told me a text message that his coworker tried to send was blocked because it contained Liu Xiaobao's name. I had no idea that was possible. Censorship (or "harmonization," in Chinese, since it ensures China's stability) here is such an interesting thing. One of our homework assignments was to read a passage about American media. At one point, the article said something along the lines of "If an American news crew were to report about Tiananmen Square..." and my heart skipped a beat because for a second I actually thought the author was going to mention the June Fourth massacre. Instead, the sentence, criticizing the negativity of American media, continued, "the news crew would broadcast all of the Square's litter and ignore the Square's beautiful flowers and smiling faces." In my response to the article, I took a risk and wrote "American media might focus on the negative side of things, but the China media wouldn't broadcast the Square's litter at all, given that they've ignored worse things," but the teacher didn't say anything about it. I was kind of scared though... actually, I wrote that part of my answer in pinyin instead of characters, and censored myself with asterisks (Tian*nm*n Sq*are) because I was afraid the Internet police would find my e-mail. Oh, the things China does to your brain.

Going to Xi'an tomorrow! I'll be back on Sunday.

P.S. I forgot the English word for "broadcast" just now and had to look it up in Chinese first.

Wo dui ACC de Pingjia

I've been putting off writing this post for way too long! Sorry about slacking so much. Today in class we filled out evaluations of our teachers and program. I was the last one to finish writing my evaluation because I actually took it very seriously and I had a lot of suggestions to make. So I thought I'd share some of those with you now.

• "Conversation Class" homework always asks us to include in our answers certain grammar points that we haven't yet been taught. Sometimes it's easy to figure how a certain structure should be used, and other times there's a lot of overlap between the ACC lessons and what I already learned over the summer, which makes for good review. But it isn't until after lecture the next day that I can truly understand some of the things we were asked to write on the homework.
• Da ban ke ("big" class, or lecture) is definitely my least favorite class. Sometimes a teacher will ask the class to say a sentence along with her, and because she speaks so quickly the result is mumbled and totally wrong. But the teacher will just say "Hao" and move on.

ACC definitely has its strengths though. Each student has to do an independent research project on the topic of his or her choice. Mine is about the growing popularity and influence of American television on young people in China. It allows (forces) me to interview Chinese people in the cafeteria or on the street and do research online. We write the report in increments with the help of our advisers every step of the way. I'm really excited about it and look forward to the one-on-one sessions every week. Another of ACC's strengths are the daily quizzes, which are harder and include more information than the ones at my summer program.

I also think ACC is every more time-consuming than HBA was... how is that possible? Maybe having a roommate pressures me into putting off work. I stay up very late almost every night, feel exhausted in class the next day, and have to take a nap in the afternoon which just makes me delay my work even more. Procrastination is a disease.

Some students find the time to go to bars and clubs on week nights. I really don't understand how they do it! I wish I could go with them, because I don't feel very close to my classmates here at all. I like my roommate a lot and we usually go out and have meals together, but besides him I don't have "friends" at ACC yet. I am friendly with a lot of people, and get along great with everyone when we go out in groups on the weekend, but no one I'm close to. Then again most of the people who go out during the week speak exclusively in English whenever they're not in a classroom. I guess I'm guilty of breaking the pledge too. At least I my roommate and I still speak Chinese in the room.

I've grown accustomed to life here. It's become routine. I don't want it to be routine. This weekend I am determined to do something new and exciting. At least one Chinese experience instead of instead of just going to the bar districts that are full of foreigners. Maybe I'll try one of the field trips our teachers offer us on weekend mornings. I still talk to my friends from back home often, and I still submit articles and drawings to the Yale humor magazine. I want to make the most of my time here. Next week we have a field trip to the city Xi'an, famous for its terracotta warriors. That'll be fun.

Also:

My host family this semester is super nice, and boy are they rich. They live in a brand new beautiful house within a gated community, and took us to see Inception and gave us gifts on the first day. They're in Paris right now on vacation.

I'm also taking a painting class as my extracurricular. It's very mellow. Maybe I should have signed up for a language partner. The language partner I had over the summer wasn't of much use, and seemed like she was in it for the money. I met some Minzu students here, all minorities, and they treated my roommate and me to dinner. I'd like to develop that friendship more.

Lastly, we went to the Great Wall again! We went to a different section this time. The temperature was nice and cool, and I had no problem climbing it. It was a totally different experience.

Until next timeee

The Swing of Things

Talk about building me up just to let me down. Classes started last Monday. Since I placed into 5th Year, I thought that I would probably be one of the best students in 4th Year. That was unfortunately not the case... I was the worst. It took me the entire weekend to do my homework, which was the first indication that I might be in a little over my head. Then, in class, I was able to understand the teacher but I had to focus absolutely the entire time. When I was asked a question, I would stutter and ask the teacher to repeat herself whereas the other students could answer easily. It was the longest class I've ever taken, and I was constantly thinking "Don't call on me, don't call on me!"

Later, during our discussion class, I had an easier time because I could speak freely instead of incorporating grammar points from the lesson... but we were debating the pros and cons of neo-colonialism. Here are some fun vocab words that I found while flipping through the 4th Year compilation of articles and editorials:

村支书： The General Secretary of the Communist Party in a village
特务窝： spy nest
整洁: crux
冥冥之中: inexorably
肠胃炎: enterogastritis
武士道: Bushido
次硫酸氢钠： inferior sodium hydrogen sulfate
渎职： malfeasance

I don't even know what some of those words mean in English. I changed into 3rd Year right after that, which was much, much more suited to my level. I also heard that Ethan, a Yale student who also did HBA and who placed into 5th Year, dropped down to 4th. That means there's only one kid in 5th Year. He takes all his classes by himself... isn't that the saddest thing you've ever heard?

Anyway, the 3rd Year lessons are just challenging enough and actually build upon things that I know. There's a lot of variation among the 3rd Year students, though. Some of them speak painfully slowly (the way I did in the 4th Year class) and as a result, Large Class can be very frustrating. I'm used to the teaching style at HBA, where teachers fired questions at students without warning, everyone was on a similar level, and we would all joke around and tell stories while still using the grammar and vocab from that day. The ACC teachers just aren't as fun.

We had a "debate" in Discussion Class last week, only this time the topic was not as difficult. We were the board of directors at Starbucks, and had to decide whether we wanted to open our next branch in France or in a Chinese village. My partner's spoken Chinese wasn't very fluent, so I had to carry the "team" on my shoulders, and I got 2.5 points on my homework for being the best debater. Thankfully plenty of 3rd Year students also speak as well as I do. It's a shame there isn't a Level 3.5.

In other news I've been getting along great with my roommate and I've met some cool people.

Oh! One more thing. students here don't keep the language pledge nearly as well as at HBA. At HBA, people were great about the pledge for the first two weeks, then started speaking Chinglish (which inevitably became English) when going to bars and clubs on the weekends. At ACC, people started speaking English on the very day we signed the pledge. I'm really thankful that I was paired with the roommate that I have. I think he and I might be the only ones who actually speak Chinese to each other when we're alone in our room.

At HBA, when someone didn't know what a certain word meant, we'd use to Chinese to explain it to them. At ACC, people (including teachers) just spell out the word in English. I don't see how this is any better than just saying the word in English (which in my opinion is sometimes necessary and not harmful to your learning.) Once, when I was talking to some other 3rd year students, someone said the word 博物馆. A girl didn't know what that meant, so I started explaining (in Chinese) "It's a place where you can go and look at art..." before someone else cut me off and just said "M-U-S-E-U-M." Oh well.

Some pictures of my sweet room:

Hangzhou and a Really Weird Start to the New Year

I started my fall program (Associated Colleges in China) this week, so before I get into the swing of things I want to wrap up summarizing the travels I made after HBA ended.

Initially, I wasn't sure where in China I wanted to go besides Shanghai. I considered going to Xi'an, but decided somewhere closer to Shanghai would work better. A fuwuyuan at one of my hostels recommended I check out Hangzhou, and I'm very glad I listened to her advice. The people in Hangzhou were very friendly, and the lifestyle there is very slow and relaxed, which was just what I needed before starting another semester of intensive language study.


Hangzhou is best known for the West Lake. Actually, that's the only thing it's known for. I asked people what else there was to do in the city other than visit the lake and no one had any suggestions. But I'm not complaining; it was very beautiful and I made some nice friends at my hostel, including a clerk at my hostel, a graduate student from Albany, and a film student from Denmark.

I came back to Beijing with a week to kill before ACC started. With that much time on my hands, I did some heavy-duty reviewing for my placement exam. Then I moved into my absolutely beautiful, brand new room, which was actually going to be a four-star hotel before the Chinese government altered the University's building permit or something along those lines. So I'm living in a great dorm, complete with free wireless internet and free laundry (24/7! plus there are machines on every floor!). My roommate is a junior at Bowdoin, really cool, and he and I have hit it off pretty well. I'm super excited for this semester.

We took our placement exams yesterday, and I naturally expected to place into Third Year Chinese, given that I just completed Level Two this summer. Since HBA is such a strong language program, students that enroll at ACC after doing HBA in the summer sometimes skip a year. So I thought maybe, just maybe, I might be placed into Fourth Year.

So when we looked up the results of our exams today, I first checked to see if I had made it into Fourth Year. I looked and looked but couldn't find my name. Okay, I thought, I guess it's Third Year for me. That's even better, I thought, Fourth Year would have probably been too hard anyway. But when I looked at the list for third years, I wasn't there either. Oh no.... was my Chinese so bad that they were making me repeat Second Year? The shame! Again, I looked but couldn't find my name.

Then I saw my name... the very last name on the list. Fifth Year.

Fifth Year.

There were only three students in Fifth Year. That means my exam results were in the top three out of everyone at ACC.... what the heck?! Another Fifth Year student was nearby, so I asked him how long he had been studying Chinese. He said five years.

I've only been studying Chinese for one year. One year ago, I did not even speak one single word of Chinese. And now I placed into the highest level at ACC?!

I should say that I think my results were very skewed because I had reviewed so much before the test. I was able to jam-pack my essay with idioms and advanced grammar points that I knew at the time, but could not easily recall in conversation. Actually, there are some heritage speakers here at ACC, with beautiful accents, and not even they placed into Fifth Year. I met one girl who spoke so well that I thought she was a teacher, and not even she is in Fifth Year. My Chinese might be good, but it isn't good enough to skip two years of crucial vocabulary and grammer. At HBA, the Fifth Year students were all Chinese-American and had been speaking Chinese since they were born. I wasn't even the best Second Year student at HBA - I never won a single one of the reading or translation contests that we had every week, I wasn't chosen as one of the HBA representatives at the speech competition at the end of the summer, I wasn't chosen to give the Second Year speech at our closing ceremony.

So I talked to the head teacher and switched into Fourth Year. Classes begin on Monday.

But, since there were only three students who placed into Fifth Year, all the teachers knew who we were. So when I introduced myself to some teachers at our meet-and-greet this afternoon, they all said, "Oh! You're the Fifth Year!" I explained that I didn't belong in that high of a level, but they insisted my Chinese was very good in any case, and even asked me if I was part Chinese. I asked them, Do I look part Chinese? And they said I could pass for part Chinese. I asked them to guess what I am, and they said French, Italian, or INDIAN. My Chinese family and two people at my last hostel also guessed that my family was from India. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.

Indian?

Shanghai Part 2: The World Expo

I've been fascinated by World Fairs ever since third grade when I read about the invention of the ice cream cone. There's just something about the world's nations gathering to showcase their food and art alongside their technological and industrial innovations.... In fact, it's this very variety of colors and mascots and styles that makes me love the World Cup (even though I care very little about sports), and that, in a way that is too complicated to explain on this blog, contributed to my childhood obsessions with Pokémon, Street Fighter, and the board game Clue. The World Fair even made multiple cameos in the Formation of American Culture class I took last semester, when the class examined how the Fair served to boost America's growing image as an industrial power during the Gilded Age.

Anyway, I had in my head a very romantic idea of the World Fair the night before I visited it. I planned to wake up at 6:00 the next morning to avoid the long lines, but I accidentally slept until 7:20. I left my hostel as soon as I could, and the romantic expectations I had of the Expo were shattered as soon as I stepped foot on the metro to Nanpu Bridge. Hundreds of people (even young children and the elderly) were pushing and shoving to get on the metro, rushing to grab seats, running for the door to be the first one out of the metro station. This is definitely the number one pet peeve I have of this country. Chinese people don't seem to have any patience. It was the same story in the train station from Beijing to Shanghai. I mean, I guess I understand the rush to grab a seat on the metro train, but why are people in such a hurry to be the first one on a sleeper train? After all, everyone has an assigned bed. Whether you get there as soon as the opening whistle blows or a minute before the train sets off, your situation won't be any different. The foreigners I've met in my hostels feel the same way. It gets me angry.

Anyway, as soon as I saw this frenzy I knew that if I didn't act the same way, I'd be waiting forever and a half on lines that day. So I ran, too. I also pushed and shaved and glared at people trying to get past. I may or may not have even tripped a kid. It wasn't a proud day for Paul Robalino.

But once I got to the Expo, things got better. It was awesome! It blew Disney's Epcot Center out of the water. The lines were pretty long, but they moved quickly. Still, I had to be selective about what pavilions I visited. I ended up entering the pavilions of the USA, the Philippines, France, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Colombia, Peru, Hong Kong, and the United Nations, as well as the joint pavilion of Central and South America and a development-themed pavilion called Urban Planet. Most of them were just so-so and had pictures of the country and various cultural artifacts and information. The Urban Planet Pavilion had impressive technology; a lot of thought and money were invested in it.




I thought I would be treated like a VIP at the Ecuador "Pavilion" since I figured not many other Ecuadorians had come to Shanghai to see the World Expo. When I got to the pavilion (it wasn't even a pavilion; it was a large-ish room in the Central and South American Pavilion), I told one of the girls working that I was Ecuadorian and she got very excited and hugged me. Her name was Veronica and we chatted in Spanish for a while before she gave me some presents: a small paper flag, a pin of the Ecuador flag crossed with the China flag, and a sticker. I asked her if they had any latin food but they didn't. So lame! They did have a folkloric (is that a word in English?) band of "cholitos," though. Vero even offered me a job at the Expo. For a brief moment I considered extending my stay in Shanghai for a few weeks and working at the Ecuador Pavilion, but then I changed my mind once I realized that my job would just be to pass out paper flags and stickers to Chinese tourists. She also invited me to go out dancing with all the Ecuadorians that night, but I politely declined.

Although they didn't have any food, I have to say the Ecuador room was definitely the best of the nations represented in the Central and South America Pavilion. I think Panama was the worst. They had a small model of the canal and two pictures on the wall.... that's it. They didn't even have any real Panamanians working there.

I didn't get VIP status at the USA Pavilion, but one of the workers there did let me cut the line. I have to say, it was kind of disappointing. We watched three short films in a row about American values like diversity, teamwork, and optimism, and then we were led into a room where we could learn about the pavilion's corporate sponsors.

I had a delicious lunch in Peru and kept walking around. The China Pavilion, which was supposed to be the most impressive of all, had a sign outside saying reservations were required, so I didn't try to get in (although I heard afterwards that I still would have been able to get in). The longest I had to wait was an hour and 45 minutes for Hong Kong which was also kind of bland. After ten hours of walking around the Expo, I headed back to my hostel - overall, an awesome day.

Last Day of HBA

Before I write about the rest of my travels around China, I want to include some pictures of the last day of HBA, mostly for my mom and the rest of you reading this that haven't seen my pictures on Facebook.

One of the reasons I loved HBA so much was that the teachers were around our age and were extremely friendly, commited, and fun. I'm going to miss them a lot! I actually just went back to the BLCU campus today to get some paperwork and I ran into Zhang Laoshi, one of my teachers. I'm sure I'll go back sometime this semester to grab a meal with some of them.

Here are pictures of me and some teachers at our delicious farewell banquet:


Here's a picture of karaoke later that night haha:


And finally, a sneak peek at just some of the new vocab words I learned this summer:

Shanghai Part 1

The Light Fellowship provided me with enough money to stay in a hostel here in Beijing for a few weeks until my fall semester starts. However, I knew since before HBA even ended that I wanted to leave Beijing and see other parts of China. So, a few days after my summer program wrapped up, I took a ten hour long train to China's economic capital, Shanghai!


My first impression of Shanghai was that it looked just like New York. The buildings and the lights were beautiful and the streets were clean. The taxi was also more expensive.

My hostel, however, wasn't in the center of the city, so I got to see some parts of Shanghai that weren't so cosmopolitan and modern. The streets here were smelly and dirty and there were brothels nearby. Not to worry, though - I hardly spent any time here at all. While I was in Shanghai I would head to the metro station first thing in the morning (I wasn't able to take the metros to "random stops" like I planned to, since you had to select your destination beforehand and pay according to how far you were going... sheesh) and I was able to see a lot of the city.

This is the Shanghai World Financial Center, which houses the highest observation deck in the world. The building was very modern, and I was even able to get a discount on admission by claiming I was 17. On the top level, I even met a French couple, and I offered to take a picture of the two of them "to be nice," although really I just wanted to practice my French and to have them offer to take one of me. These past few weeks alone have transformed me into a cunning selfish animal, I swear. I cut in line and push and shove just like the Chinese people now! I even spit on the sidewalk sometimes just because everyone else does it! I'm a beast!

It was a stunning view. And I was impressed with how futuristic the building was. Even the toilets were electronic:

What an interesting (but not unpleasant) experience that was.

Anyway I mentioned before that not all of Shanghai was modern, and that's definitely true. One day I was walking around trying to find Yuyuan Garden but instead stumbled upon an outdoor market with no other tourists. The people on this street sold frogs and snakes and pigeons alongside "normal" meats and vegetables. I even got to see a big fish hacked to death by a woman wearing Crocs.



This is me on "The Bund" on the last day! The Bund is basically the area line the Huangpu River. The eastern bank has futuristic modern architecture while the western bank has colonial European style architecture.

I'll write about my trip to the Shanghai 2010 World Expo in my next post.