The Great Banquet

(Drew)

Well this is probably my last blog entry in China. Just the realization of this is making me sad. It depends how busy we are in Shanghai but i doubt ill have time for another blog entry because it would be on the day we leave. So updates on my travels. Our morning classes have been going great. We finished our "masterpieces" in both Ccalligraphy and Chinese Painting. Our body and Kung Fu classes keep us in shape while we stuff our faces with Chinese food. When i get back i might take a little time off from dumplings and noodles though. This week we have given all our teacher gifts out to show appreciation to all the teachers who took time to teach an extra class in the morning. My abilities at Ping Pong, Badminton and Running have all seen dramatic improvement over the last 5 weeks. I wish we played more badminton back in the states, its sort of the Chinese equivalent to Tennis. Everyone plays.

ooo... host dad brought me an apple (peeled), gotta love the hospitality in this place.

Today i got up a little earlier than usual. "Usual" has turned into 10 minutes before i leave in which i gobble whatever i can on the table before heading out the door. This morning i had a little more time to prepare for my day. I got to school (safely i might add, each day adds new perils to my trip to and from school) and did the normal routine, checked up on e-mail and chatted with team china before our Chinese class. We dedicated today's Chinese class to translating small scripts we wrote in English into Chinese. Today was the day of our going away banquet, which went very successfully (ill get to that later). After Baker the Bread maker helped us translate, we spent the rest of class practicing the actual speaking to each other, i knew it would be a train wreck if i didn't. Our second class today was calligraphy, but we already finished our "masterpieces" and didn't really have anything to work on. Yang Lao Shi said that we could take home the brushes we have been using as gifts. Yang Lao Shi is definitely one of Team China's many favorite teachers. We spent most of the class working on other constructive things, reading and writing etc. as well as practicing our speaches. First period in the afternoon was gym for Nick, Emily and Me, they played badminton while i spent the time practicing my Ping Pong with Joe. Second period i had to run home and get my silk vest for the banquet that i did not realize i would need because i assumed we had time between school and the banquet. I took a quick shower and changed as well, it was very warm today (over 70 degrees). Last period we had a farewell meeting just like the one we had at the beginning of stay in Hangzhou with all the administration at the school and all our host brothers and sisters along with various other teachers. We said our final thoughts about our stay and gave our deepest thanks for our trip and the hospitality they showed us while at Hanggao. We exchanged gifts and took many pictures.

After about 20 minutes we set off for the banquet. The banquet was massive. We had 5 large tables completely filled with people. Our list was just about 50 people which included all people who were related to the exchanged, our entire host families, our teachers at Hanggao and of course Patrick. Team China loves Patrick. Each of us got a table with both of our host families. At my table i made many toasts to my host families and to Patick, Ella and Baker who were all at my table. I thanked my host families for everything and had lots of fun chatting with them. My two host fathers did toasts to each other every couple minutes and proceeded to chug a small glass of wine each time. Team China made many toasts including Lu Naichuan and Madam Miao. We took lots of photos of all the different groups of people, we had lots of fun. The banquet was a great way to wrap up our stay in Hangzhou, we celebrated our stay rather than mourned our departure.