Hangzhou Happenings ... and The Great Wall!

(Molly)

So much has been going on, I keep forgetting to write!

Our time at Hangzhou High School is going really well. The weather is especially great – if anything, it’s too hot and sunny! Our favorite teacher is our Calligraphy teacher. He gave us each names and then acted them out. Steve’s was “strong and great man,” for which he flexed his biceps. Mine means “accomplished girl,” which was a hilarious action – I’m not sure if he was flopping, dancing, or what. He often motions for us to dance during our breaks, which is also a great motion. The only English words he’s used to us are “OK,” “no,” and “disco.” I suspect he knows a little more, but he doesn’t use it. Our Chinese teacher is also very good. His English is surprisingly good, seeing as he teaches Chinese at the high school. He has been teaching us how to buy things, what the school buildings are all called, how to describe the weather, and how to describe our trip to Beijing. I really like one of our gym teachers, but resent the other because she makes us work too hard! Also, she is in such good shape, and we have to do the whole workout facing a mirror. I get so self-conscious. We were all sweating and aching after the last aerobics class. It turns out, however, that I am a pretty good badminton player J A lot of the boys here are killer at ping-pong. I have a table at home, so I am really ashamed when I see them playing – they are fantastic. Our paper-cutting teacher is sweet. I generally enjoy the class for the first hour, but I am not a very patient person, so after that I get really fidgety. Our classes are each two hours long. Next week our paper-cutting teacher will teach us how to make Chinese knots or macramé! Our Hangzhou History class continues to be awkward, as our teacher speaks to us in full paragraphs of Chinese and we stare blankly back at him. It would be pretty comical if it weren’t so pathetic.

The English Corner has also been going pretty well. We have lots of customers every day. Yesterday Steve and I talked to someone who plans to apply to school in America, so we gave him some advice about which schools to check out. Another girl comes to us with a sheet of questions every day.

I got a haircut here. It is the most Chinese thing ever, and I love it. I have side bangs and hair that is short on top, long on the bottom. I am the most Asian one.

Our weekends have been busy. We went to the West Lake Museum (a little boring), the West Lake itself (several times – very pretty), climbed a few hills. One of the hills had rocks that Steve climbed on – he was in heaven! I was walking down the path at one point when he suddenly leapt across in front of me from one high rock to the other, just like a monkey. My favorite day so far was spent with two of the students who came to America three years ago, Yang and Jackie. They took us first to the West Lake, where we rented a dingy. We got tired of rowing really soon, so we mostly just drifted and sunbathed. Yang and Jackie are very good friends, and for our benefit did all their playful sparring in English, so we had a very amusing ride. Jackie’s ringtone is “Beautiful, pick up the phone!” Yang English is phenomenal. He is going to restart college in the fall in San Diego. Then we went to a Starbucks on the lake. Starbucks + beautiful day + pretty view = very happy Molly. We went back to Hefang Street, with all the cool shopping, for a bit so that Yang could buy Steve’s family a porcelain tea set. Yang bargained a watch for me down from 85 to 45 Yuan, because we were actually serious about walking away and she yelled at us. For dinner they took us to a Japanese restaurant. It was awesome. I think I am getting to be a much more adventurous eater here – I rarely eat raw fish at home, but I took one of each kind on the plate. After dinner I finally got my Kareoke! We went to KTV, and got our own room. There was a couch along three sides, and a TV on the fourth. For someone who hates Kareoke, Yang was singing a lot. It’s one of Jackie’s favorite things to do. Steve loved it but can’t admit it now that we have left the room. He says it’s in the MAN-ual.

One Saturday we went to the Wansong School. According to the legend, a boy and girl (who was dressed as a boy – girls couldn’t go to school back then) fell in love there, and were forbidden to marry so committed suicide and turned into butterflies. Now it is a gathering place for aunts and uncles with nothing better to do to come and set up dates for their single nieces and nephews. It was insane. There was a clothes-line with classified ads hanging from it, and all around us our hosts could hear old men and women saying “my nephew has a good job,” and “my niece is very beautiful.” Steve was offered the choice between one man’s 30- and 40-year-old daughters.

This past weekend we went to Beijing! We took an overnight train (6:30 PM to 7:30 AM). When we got there we were swept away to have breakfast and then run off to a Museum. It was actually the nicest museum we have been to, but we rushed through it because I wasn’t feeling well, and maybe he could tell that none of us are crazy about museums generally. Maybe it was so good because we didn’t have time to get bored. There was a big event going on in the lobby, for the 504th day to the Beijing Olympics… don’t even ask. They’re obsessed. There were teams of adults and children wearing t-shirts in the five Olympic colors. Half were painting a huge banner that went all the way around the room, and half were sitting in the ring formation on the floor.

Next we went to a Lama Monastary, which was pretty neat. The buildings were beautiful. In one building was a huge standing Buddha (or Sakyamuni) maybe 50 feet tall, made out of a single sandalwood tree and painted gold. Steve and Jill both bought Buddha statues at the temple, and then got them blessed. Now that they are blessed, they can’t say that they bought the buddhas, but that they “invited” the buddhas from the temple.

The food in Beijing was awesome. We ate at the same place for lunch and dinner on the first day, because our dinner reservation was overbooked. That was fine, because the restaurant was great. The noodles were good, and we had pear with caramelized sugar all over it (pineapple like this is my new favorite food, I think).

On our second day, Saturday, we went to the Forbidden City first. It was huge, but not as breathtaking as I expected it to be. The back, where they kept the concubines, was quite beautiful, but the front all looked the same. The Summer Palace, however, was breathtaking. It has a huge lake, with an island in the middle. There is a cherry tree on the island that was in full bloom when we went, which was very beautiful. The Palace itself is great too, with intricate corridors and pagodas. Along with the Forbidden City, we went to Tiananmen Square, which is not very notable except that it’s huge, and the guide didn’t mention anything about the massacre.

For lunch, we had an Imperial Banquet. The restaurant was set up when the emperor was overthrown in 1911 and his eunichs didn’t know how to do anything but cook for the emperor. We had over 10 courses, and stuffed ourselves silly. Our favorite was Chinese hamburger, which was a little bit spicy!

In the afternoon, Jill and Candice opted to go back to the hotel while Yang took us to visit his school and Beijing University. His school, The Peoples’ University of China, was a dump! No wonder he’s moving to San Diego! There was one nice building, which was MASSIVE – nearly all the classes are held there. We were not allowed to enter his dorm room, but he said 5 people live there, and from the outside it looked pretty nasty. Beijing University, on the other hand, is gorgeous. A prince used to live there. It has a lake that looks like Central Park with cherry blossoms. You can’t even tell that you’re in a city.

On Sunday we drove out of the city towards the Great Wall. First we stopped at a Ming tomb with an underground palace. It was very impressive – very large and all marble – but bare, since the excavators had taken everything out to protect it from the oxygen. The museum about it was pretty neat.

Lunch was not great – it seemed to be the only place around and was full of tourists. They had gelato, though!

THEN WE CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!!!!!!!!! Coolest thing ever. So worth the steep climb (it was quite a workout). It was quite crowded. It was windy but the walking was demanding enough that I was hot in just a t-shirt.

Dinner was Peking duck, which was pretty awesome. You get a whole duck, and then put pieces in moo shi pancakes with sauce. We also got lo mein for the first time in China – it is not really common here.

After dinner we went to the Peking Opera, which was rather hilarious. They speak in REALLY high voices, so when they talk about war it’s ridiculous. “I will fight you fiercely,” they say in a voice two octaves about a regular voice…. The costumes were crazy, but the percussion was really grating. I’m not a big fan of Chinese music.

On Monday, we went to the Temple of Heaven. The structure itself was beautiful but not unlike anything we’ve seen. The park around it was most notable – all around there were hundreds of retired old men and women doing exercises – dancing, playing with a string and spinning weight toy, working out, playing hackey sack, ribbon dancing, even choral singing. It seems funny that they don’t really get a childhood here until they are old.

We went to lunch at a noodle restaurant, which made Candice and I very happy! After lunch we went on a pedicab tour. We toured an old couple’s house, which was rather bizarre… their house is a tourist attraction. Whatever. They were nice, and had a talking parrot.

We flew back to Hangzhou Monday night, and we three kids were picked up at school by our new host families. My host sister’s English name is Lavender, which fits her personality but I don’t feel comfortable calling her because it’s such an uncommon name. I also somehow got it into my head that her name is Jasmine (I’ve had Aladdin stuck in my head, and my Chinese name, Mo Li, translates to Jasmine), so I’m afraid of calling her the wrong name. She is 16, but looks 13. She is very sweet though, if a little immature. Her parents are very nice. Her father is a policeman, and her mother is a businesswoman. Her mother’s mother lives with her, and is hilarious. She fits every stereotype of a Chinese grandmother. She always grabs my arm to make sure I’m not cold, or tugs my jacket to see if I’m hot, and urges me to eat more and more food. She also shows up in my room and tucks me in if I’m sitting in bed with the laptop they put in my room. She tries to talk to me in hand motions, and I never understand. She also laughs at my lack of chopsticks skills. Lavender has a little brother. I wasn’t sure that she was serious at first, because students here tend to refer to their cousins as brothers and sisters, but she actually has a little brother who lives at his school during the week.

One night this week, Lavender took me to see the dancing fountain in the West Lake, which was really neat. The fountain dances to Carmen, the Nutcracker, and some funny Chinese songs. It was impressive, and also really funny because there two rouge spouts off doing their own thing – the two klutzy members of the dance company.

On Tuesday Helen (the English teacher who came to America with Yang and Jackie) took us to buy fabric for the dresses (or in Steve’s case, jacket and pants) that we are getting made. Candice and I are both getting prom dresses. Picking out the fabric was very dramatic. We started by looking at samples. Candice fell in love with one that they didn’t have. I came in looking for purple, and didn’t like any of the purples. I finally liked one, but they didn’t have that either. Then we found a pile of ones we really liked, but it turned out that those were reserved. Then we took to searching through the actual fabric, since the samples were lying. Candice wound up finding the fabric she loved and they had said they didn’t have, and was a very happy camper. I found a fabric that was in the reserved pile, but was black, and Ms. Arkin and Candice talked me out of it, saying that black is not a good color for prom. I finally found a purple in the same pattern as the reserved fabric, that I like a lot. Helen tried to convince Jill to get a hot pink or red fabric, which was pretty scary. She finally found a purple and black one that was really nice. Steve’s choice was not as dramatic – blue and black, pretty easy. We were there for a total of an hour and a half.

The next day, the tailor came to take our measurements, so we didn’t go to class that afternoon either. Lavender kept asking me when I would come to class, saying that they were really anxious to meet me. When I finally showed up on Thursday, the class broke into applause. They are a much more raucous group than my last class – I enjoy it a lot.hhhERz