(Emily)hello hello! this email is working (ironically, yahoo is not). ok here's today's blog!
ni men hao! hope everyone is having a fantastic march! spring is starting in hangzhou and things are starting to bloom! not to mention it's warm and all you need is a light jacket! this is fantastic considering there have been some very cold mornings and there is no heat in the classrooms. luckily, we have our gym instructor to keep our heart rates up and our blood pumping with pom poms (see nick's entry for full disclosure). alas, we did not have gym today but we had chinese painting! it takes up both of our two hour morning blocks and while we were a little nervous that it would be boring to have the same class for four hours, it was not in the slightest. our teacher started off by giving us brushes (made from wolf, weasel, and goat hair) and ink. then she basically told us to go do whatever we want for a few minutes, allowing us to try out the different brushes and different water to ink ratios. after playing around for a little bit (my paper basically looked like a giant ink blot test...i think chewbacca was somewhere in there), we were brought to her studio. oh man, she's a wonderful artist. in particular, there was one painting that caught all our eyes- a watercolor of a shawl (some may call it a rug but no, it is a piece of clothing) on a wooden clothes hanger. the attention to detail was meticulous to say the least and we could even see the streaks in the wood and the light reflection on the shawl. STUNNING! and not to mention the actual studio space- sunlight spilled softly in through the open windows, illuminating the works of art lined up against the wall and creating a very romantic effect. it was basically how i envision great art studios. after showing us her studio, our teacher took us to another room where we watched a film of a man painting in the traditional chinese style (basically like bob ross....with less psychadellicness). then, we went back' into the classroom and used the books we were given to start to paint. over the course of a couple of sheets of paper, my work started to look less "ink blot" and more like "abstract" art. i even drew a pretty satisfactory bird that was painted by merging three circles together. now that's progress! drew was naturally amazing at painting (even though he claims that he's no good at western style painting) and even got an "excellent" from our teacher who doesn't speak much english. he drew a bird (that looked like a bird...and a very good one at that) and a tree with flowers that was really pretty. so talented! at the end of the class, we were all really happy and we can't wait until we have our next painting class.
during our break in chinese painting, we were lounging by the well (where previous groups have held their english corner. ironically, there are no corners around the well) and all of a sudden, the nutcracker's 'dance of the sugar plum fairy' started blaring from the speakers and baker (our awesome translator with an aussie/brit accent) was like "and now, the school will come out for morning exercises." and sure enough, students started marching through the campus in columns until they were in straight lines and started doing 'morning exercises.' well, team china just couldn't be sitting ducks and laze around while people around them were doing cool looking exercises. we jumped in-between groups and started to try and follow the morning exercises. what are the morning exercises? that's a good question to which i have no clear answer. basically, it looked like choreographed dance movements with some tae bo and jumping jacks sprinkled in. we must have looked ridiculous to the students around us but we had fun and it was another hanggao (hangzhou hs) experience!
lunch was amazing (per usual) with pork, sweet soup with red bean in it, bean sprouts, celery and ham, and light rice crisps topped with blackberry jam. after lunch, we went out to buy helen (english teacher who came to ds a few years ago) a birthday cake! we had already made her a card, but we decided that in order to be able to sing happy birthday in chinese, we needed a cake to...take the cake? ella, patrick (ella's friend), penny, eve, and team china walked to a nearby bakery and selected a cake with fruit in-between the layers. when we got back, we found out that she had gone home but would be back at two. at two o'clock, we went back to the teachers' room to await her arrival. sure enough, she came and we were able to sing her happy birthday in chinese and present her with the cake. she was really touched and was literally moved to tears. we were happy to make someone who had helped ds teachers out so much so happy.
after school i went with penny, hammah, and a classmate of theirs to a hardware store where they needed to pick up items for their shop class. after, we got cong bao hui (hammah) and dan bing (egg cake- penny and i). it's a bit like a crepe with a breadstick, scallions, sweet and spicy sauce, and pickles in between. we then went to the bus stop and came home to a(nother) delcious dinner. this time it was baby bok choi, chicken, pickled veggies, and celery and tofu.
some more interesting tidbits about life at hanggao: my host sister (as well as the host siblings of nick and cady...i'm not sure about drew's) is a part of the league. the league is the equivalent of the government (i.e. communist) party for adults and is very prestigious (kind of like national honors society?). however, any members have to renounce their religious beliefs. my family used to believe in jesus christ until my host dad and penny joined the party and league (respectively). now that they are in it, they cannot be religious. another interesting fact is that over this summer, penny went to egypt and turkey! i have been fascinated by egyptology since i was a little kid (who am i kidding, i'm still a little kid), so this was a particularly cool bonding experience. it's also really cool being in such a big school where no one knows everyone, which is a lot unlike ds. i didn't know it was possible to not to know all your classmates until i saw how many kids hanggao has.
well that's all for today! bye!
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