At the top of the mountain.
Taking a break with Mal.
The waterfall and everyone resting by it.
Wow. Much has happened in Zhuhai since I last updated you on the comings and goings of my life. Mostly these past two weeks I have gotten into a pretty regular routine of going to class, reading for class, helping my friends with their English papers, eating eggplant, tofu, and spinach at every meal, swimming, running, and playing basketball. It's awesome. Without a job and expensive living costs stressing me out, I've really been able to enjoy the college life and smell the roses. :) So here are some of the latest highlights...
So two weekends ago, I went on another hiking trip with the outdoors club. For this one, we climbed another mountain, but the trail ran along-side a mountain stream, so for the whole 5 hour climb up and down there was only the sounds of the wind and the water flowing. At the top, we stopped for lunch (there was about 10 of us on this trip) and during lunch I got some tutoring on outdoor sports vocabulary from Bruce, the head of the club (so good-looking). Also, on this trip I met my newest best friend, Kelsey. She is awesome at hiking and also loves to sing American songs, so the whole way back down the mountain we sang together. I'm posting some pictures of the mountain, and the waterfall we stopped to visit along the way. Also to note, I had my first real-life long Chinese conversation with Long Di (He's the guy crouching behind me in my picture on the mountain.) He's the owner of the campus bakery and doesn't speak any English, and although it might not seem like a big deal that we chatted in Chinese, I was super stoked afterwards...little moments like that remind me why I sit and memorize what often feels like gibberish for hours and hours.
Lets see, the other highlight of 2 weeks ago was the adventure Mallory and I had to go and buy hiking boots. We went with Bruce, and it was awesome. Bruce took us to these little outdoor shops, just like you would find at home, and we both got some intense hiking boots (I'll try and remember to get a picture of me wearing them next trip) and light sleeping bags. I'm now ready for any cross-country trips I might ever need to take, and it was cool to get a cross-city bus tour from Bruce, get to be good friends with him, and find all the outdoor shops...I'm feeling more and more at home.
Then, the weekend after all of that, which was last weekend? Yes, last weekend...I spent Friday night curled in my dorm room watching the sappiest American movie ever. August Rush, it was called. Chinese girls love it. I should have figured it would be ridiculously corny. Haha. But two of my good Chinese friends called ZhongXin and Candy, Mal, and I all cuddled close on my twin bed and watched it. It was cute bonding. :)
The next night, Bruce planned a camping trip. I'm pretty sure it was specifically for me because we talked about camping during our boot trip. For camping we didn't leave until 8 pm and we went to a place only a 20 minute cab ride from campus. It was a little abandoned stretch of beach with an old abandoned board walk along it. It was gorgeous. So we set up camp right in the sand, and found some dried logs that had been brought in by the sea, and had a fire, played some campfire games, drank beer and baijiu, and later laid under the stars. I don't know if I have ever fully explained Baijiu so let me do that quickly. It is a vital part of the China experience that everyone should know about.
Baijiu is the most popular form of hard liquor in China. It is made from rice, and it tastes like nothing I have ever known. It's got a really sweet taste, but not necessarily good sweet. Chinese call it white wine in English, but don't be fooled. It is definitely nothing like white wine. It is really pure though, and a professor at UIC said he drinks it because it is the healthiest of all the hard liquors because it is made with rice. I have only ever seen it drunk in straight shots. It is powerful. I will bring some back, so call me sometime next year for a try. :)
So this camping trip may have been one of the most fun experiences of my life. Highlights were hiking along the sea to our ramshackle camp-site, watching the fascination of my friends while they discovered the great art of roasting marshmallows, having a fencing competition for baijiu shots with my friend Katrina, hearing China traveling stories, seeing all the stars from the opposite part of the world, sleeping on the sand, and waking up to nothing but the waves. Glorious, glorious. :)
So that was last weekend...(I'm getting sleepy, Keep going keep going, I'm telling myself right now.) One more story...
Let's see...last Monday I had my first day volunteer teaching at Jinfeng Elementary school in the Jinding part of Zhuhai. I will put up some pictures. These kids are sooooo cute. So once a week I am teaching 50 second graders English for one hour. Holy Moly it is a lot of kids. Class started at 11 o'clock, so me and my TA Doris took the bus for half and hour, then had a 10 minute walk, and finally we arrived at school. The school is in the middle of the city with buildings all around it, and it is set outdoors with no closed air hallways or rooms, just small two story buildings huddled close together. There's a tiny playground and some open concrete for the kids to play on, but no grass to be found. In order to get in to the facilities you have to get checked in by security and they beep you through the iron gate doors. Security guards are pretty standard almost everywhere around China, but it is still a bit ominous being checked into the school.
Then once inside, all the buildings are white cement and the ground is cement, and all the kids are wearing their uniforms. The setup and uniforms make it different from U.S. school, but I really think the uniforms are a great idea universally. Then, no student knows if their classmate is rich or poor, and kids can't market brand names in school. And they all look so cute in their outfits. :) So right after we arrived, happy music played in the center square indicating that the class period was over, and tons of kids came running out of all the buildings. Then the head of the English language department (who is a super duper nice man who has really poor English) came to greet me and took me to my classroom.
I arrived at the classroom as all of the students were arriving, and they were so excited. They all yelled out "Hello, hello teacher!" with big smiles. So 50 little kids shuffled in to 50 little desks in a sparsely decorated classroom and then I began class. The students already had had English class 3 times a week since the beginning of the school year, but the instruction is so unorganized and underqualified, and their are so many students in each class, that many of them didn't know anything beyond "hello."
So I began my lesson from the very very basics. And they repeated after me a million times. And I tried out some of my Chinese directions. And I let them yell out their names after they said "My name is:" and I'm pretty sure they had never been allowed to yell in class before. When they left I introduced high fives to them and they all had to say "Bye Teacher" as they high fived me. All in all, we had a awesome time.
I have class tomorrow and I have no idea what I will teach them. But I'm not worried because I'm pretty sure they learned more in that first hour with me than they had all school-year. I love kids. They took a few pictures for the UIC newspaper so I will post them to this blog tomorrow. Also, if anyone has super duper easy little kid books laying around I would love to have them for the class. They have no English reading material, so feel free to get my school address from my parents and send them out here.
Alright well my roommate has been singing Japanese pop for the last hour so my brains are ready to pop out, and I am super-duper tired from this weekend, (which I will be sure to tell you about next time I get a second), so I'm going to sleep. :)
Also, I almost forgot, a few quick notes...Hi Grandma Helen, Happy Early Birthday! Hi Grandma and Grandpa Beam! Mary, Sarah, and Elisabeth, I just got your birthday card yesterday. Thanks! And the test was successful, so now I have Abraham Lincoln's face taped on my wall as a souvenir. Haha. David, I hope you liked your new t-shirt, I'm so bummed I couldn't be there to see you guys open them, and tell Jules congratulations times a thousand for me. :)
Miss you all! Take Care!
