Tailoring the End of the Week, Too!

(Terry)

Our morning today began with some unexpected free time, as our papercutting teacher had to attend a meeting. After a few forays around campus, we found ourselves snacking on chocolate cake provided by the boys, then heading off to the gym to work off those calories in PE. Our express hopes for badminton were fulfilled, and birdies soared at the flick of a wrist (much to the potential dismay of my old tennis coach, who would blanch to see this.) You all should expect some accomplished young players to return to the States, clamoring for a badminton set at home! Our gym teacher then finished teaching us the last portion of the kung fu routine he'd begun last class. We all really do enjoy the challenge, though try as I may, the flow of the moves from one position to the next is just not happening gracefully yet! Our entrance into the lunch room surprised us: the usual complement of individual servings was replaced by a huge spread of eleven different dishes laid out in banquet-style array on the lazy-Susan at the table's center. A locally famous soup, an eggy soft-tofu custard, beef and broccoli, breaded fish (boneless, no less!), vegetables galore, topped off by a flan-style dessert and a sweet bean-paste-filled steamed bun. Darned little was left after our crew finished up! We also said goodbye to Lujia, who'll be returning to Toronto this weekend, at the end of his spring vacation here. After two weeks, we'll miss his cheery self as our extra translator-and-pal during the morning round of classes!Plans for the afternoon have been adjusted on the fly over the last day... We'd initially expected to meet the tailor at 2:00 p.m. for a final review of our vests/dresses, but Cui Hongxiang (Helen) received a call that the buttons were not finished, and the tailor wouldn't arrive until 5:00. Host brothers and sisters were kind enough to shift late-afternoon plans without grumbling over the delay (it also turned out that we could have spoken to our originally-planned classes after all...) Instead, papers were written, emails sent, websites visited, books read; a quiet bustle of activity in the English office. Third period, Emily and Nick were able to visit a year-one class with me. This proved to be the chattiest class of the two dozen I've seen, with no need for us to "lecture about America" before the next question popped up! Afterwards, everyone headed in different directions for a bit until the tailor's sister arrived bearing the long-awaited creations. The guys had an easy time of it, but the qi paos for Emily and Cady needed to be taken-in here and there. The overall effect is smashing for all four, though -- China Banquet, here we come!

Twelve Days and Counting ... Reflections

(Cady)

Hello one and all,

Twelve days. We have only TWELVE days left in China. That thought is absolutely astounding to me. That's less than two weeks! It's funny because the time has gone by so incredibly fast, while the same time, I feel like I've been in Hangzhou for ages- like I've known some of the people here for years. I was thinking about the whole China experience today, and I'm just as sure as ever that I have no regrets. Although I missed the musical and two months of senior year, I wouldn't trade the time I've spent in China for even the most perfect two months I could have ever experienced at Dover-Sherborn. That's not to say anything against DS. What I mean is that I (and I think that others would agree) have had such a truly profound experience on this exchange. Sure, we've had our ups and downs, but throughout our trip in this crazy country, we've learned a whole lot about our crazy selves. Am I sounding sappy yet? I think we've all, at the very least, learned how to stretch and adapt when put into new surroundings. I've found that, more and more, I am able to brush things off and just laugh at myself. Even if I'm in a bad mood, I am much more able to smile and be friendly to everyone (which usually ends up making me genuinely happy). I guess what I'm really saying is that interacting with the people of China- guides, teachers, students, host brothers and sisters- has ended up warping me for the better. I'm not crying "epiphany!" or "self-evolution!" I'm simply noticing that I'm the same, old Cady with some slight alterations, maybe a few improved traits, and a bit more world experience. Maybe it's just me, but I think that's pretty cool.

Anyways, back to life in Hangzhou. I've fallen into a good routine with my new family- up at 6:20, ready to eat by 6:40, finish breakfast and hit the road by about 6:55. That, by the way, is very impressive when compared to my mornings back in Dover where I don't generally rise or shine until about 6:50. Doris lives a lot farther from the school than Eve did. At first I was a bit dismayed to find out that I would be taking the bus home after school. These are not school buses, mind you, these are public city buses which tend to be jam-packed at that hour. I've gotten used to it though, as with all things, and don't find the rides very irritating or unpleasant. This morning we had Chinese first with Gao Li. We were all a bit skeptical, seeing as how we spent the entirety of our last class learning the Chinese translation of Captain, O my Captain by Walt Whitman. Don't get me wrong- it's a great poem. Learning it in Chinese was a bit tedious and exhausting though, so naturally we wondered what today would bring. Another poem! Only five lines though, about cherry blossoms in the spring. It was entirely appropriate because Hanggao is having a "literature festival" on Sunday to celebrate the blooming cherry trees. So, we spent part of class learning the poem, and part of it outside by the actual cherry trees reading the poem TO them. It was all well and good, and the class only lasted half a period because our teacher had to go prepare for said festival. Actually, the students here have some really cool traditions that correspond with the blooming of the cherry blossoms. Everyone writes his or her wish on a piece of colorful paper and they all get tied to the trees around the cherry trees while the flowers are in bloom. It's supposed to be good luck, and I suppose if you're super lucky then your wish will come true!

After Chinese we had Calligraphy with one of our favorites, Mr. Yang! We were working on our "masterpieces," as Baker says. Yang Laoshi wrote out four characters for each of us to learn and write out on nice, white calligraphy paper. Naturally we were all incredibly intimidated. I got the most difficult set (yikes!) which translated into Chinese-American friendship. Em's was something about a beautiful mountain. Drew's was "sun and moon shine brightly in the sky" and Nicks meant roughly "a thousand mountains, ten thousand rivers." Basically they were all little sayings that are made with particularly beautiful characters. I'm not sure that we always do the characters justice. But hey, we try. After Calligraphy was lunch. Yum. Then English corner. Yay. Then class where I journaled and pondered much of what I wrote about in my first paragraph of this entry.

During our second period of the afternoon, Drew and I went to help out Terry with one of her English class "presentations." Generally we get up in front of a class, talk for a long time about Dover-Sherborn, the college process in America, our families, things like that, and then take a few questions from those who are brave enough to ask. We were lecturing a particularly giddy and outgoing class today though, and the questions started coming right away. It ended up being a lot of fun because the group was so enthusiastic. What is your town like? Do you have buildings as tall as in Hangzhou? We've heard that Americans don't really get homework, so what do you do after school? (we try to kill THAT rumor as much as possible). Those are just some examples of questions asked. Very successful presentation, I'd say. After that, Drew and I went to the gym to join my PE class. Everyone had to practice badminton techniques, except for us foreign kids (me and Drew) who were allowed to just play a game on one of the nets. Twas a vicious match. I've found that I have greatly improved in the area of badminton from when I first arrived in China (see!? personal improvements!). After that was the period during which everyone goes to whatever club they belong to. All of Team China ended up going to the English Club that just watches "Friends" every Thursday. Good stuff! Derek, my English teacher, is having his students do scenes from the million pound bank note. So, he has made Nick and I actors in this little production that we are apparently performing next Wednesday. We had a meeting with him and the other students in the "play" after school today. We're practicing tomorrow after lunch!

Well, that about sums up today. We're quite excited because our dresses and vests should be ready tomorrow! I think the most important thing at this point is to enjoy our final week in Hangzhou. Ohh, it's Ella's birthday on Monday, so for anyone who remembers her- don't forget to send a HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLA on facebook! See everyone soon.

A Day at Hanggao - Calligraphy to Badminton

(Emily)

hello all.

the past few days have flown by- i have no idea where the time's going (maybe narnia?). anyways, today was no exception.

the day started off pretty much without a hitch. miao tells me to be ready by 7 yet at 6:50, her mom and her are waiting for me to get out of the bathroom (i was combing my bangs!). so tomorrow, i'm going to try extra hard to be ready at 6:45 just in case her parents want to leave early again. the ride to school is uneventful. her parents like to listen to talk shows (we ride with both of them- her mom gets off at our school and takes the bus to where she teaches, which is at the experimental school on wulin street) and miao likes to look out the window/nap so talking isn't really an option in the morning so i've taken to putting on my ipod and zoning out for the 20 minutes.

this morning we had calligraphy and hangzhou history. in calligraphy, we got sparkly sheets of rice paper with what i believe to be mica embedded into it. mr. yang told us to do masterpieces and write ri, yue, and two other characters which, when combined, meant 'the sun and the moon shine brilliantly' or something to that effect. he demonstrated and made it look like the easiest thing in the world. i, on the other hand, made one of the characters look like 'it is sleeping with one of its legs out of the bedroom door' according to mr. yang. mr. yang also has this 'what is this' shrug that he does with the best expression on his face. he also told us that good zen comes with calligraphy because a person has to regulate their breathing in order to truly make the brushstrokes work. i can vouch that this somewhat works; when we were practicing writing our names small for our 'masterpieces,' i wouldn't breathe in between characters. i felt sorta sick after that but it was worth it seeing my name legibly written in chinese. i even merited one 'very good' from the laoshi himself.

history, while perhaps not a class that i look forward, was amazing today. easily up there on one of the best classes i've had here. we got into the classroom after taking a break and saw that our teacher had set up the powerpoint (we usually have powerpoint presentations given to us in chinese then translated by lugia or baker). oh dear we thought. he started talking about wushan temple and in one of the slides, he talked about how the manchus and the tibetans share the same buddhist beliefs in that they believe sakyamuni was very fierce and war like (there was a manchu carving done of sakyamuni owning his opponents). i asked an off topic question about what he thought of the lhasa riots (because the manchus are apparently related to the tibetans) which spurred a whole conversation on tibet. he had some really good points; he argued that what the westerners see happening in tibet, they don't understand because they don't know the full story. he told us that the tibetans weren't peaceful and were in fact, quite barbaric before the ming dynasty, when china assumed control of them. he said that they were feudal and used human skin to make leather and that the chinese helped them and set up the control of the dalai lama. he also compared tibet to the south in america; the south wanted to separate from the north, but the north wouldn't allow it and put it down with militant force (war). he said that the tibetans were like the chinese because they were from similar family trees 2000 years back and that china made tibet what it was today. while i took this with a grain of salt, a lot of the points he made were very valid (the cynics in the peanut gallery will have to take my word on this- i can't condense the hour long conversation that we had into a few sentences). after talking about tibet, we then went on to talk about tiananmen square and what he thinks of mao. he was really eager to answer our questions and wasn't offended when we (respectfully) challenged his position. if anything, he was fascinated by our opinions. his responses, while maybe in line with the party line, were well thought out and backed up with a plethora of facts. after today's class, my respect for him has skyrocketed and being in that class and talking about the cultural revolution and great leap forward made us all think of modern china with viz.

lunch was excellent. there was tomatoes and eggs which were very very good as well as peeled mango and coca cola. we were all happy campers. after lunch was english corner where team china: the musical was put on. at random points in our conversations with people, we did the hokey pokey, the chicken dance, and the friends theme song, among others. talking to the chinese kids is so much fun. they've become less intimidated by us and now we even have a regular group that comes to english corner daily. team china looks forward to it everyday and the conversations are always different.

my afternoon was pretty boring- i worked on math with terry for most of the afternoon and then went to 'balls' (what penny calls it) with drew and nick (cady's class had class meeting apparently). drew ran while nick and i played badminton by the track.

and now, i am here, at miao's house. you may think i don't talk to her that much since i really haven't mentioned her in today's blog but fear not- we're getting to know each other and she's so cool and nice. last night we were talking about the kids in her class and she told me that the girl she sits next to got a really short haircut by accident and she asks miao everyday if her hair has grown; miao dutifully tells her that it has even though she can't discern a difference. my host mom is really adventurous-she loves traveling and usually goes alone since miao's dad doesn't like to travel and miao usually stays at home. she's been to all over china (including tibet-be jealous, mom) as well as europe and when miao comes to america in the summer, my host mom will travel around america while miao's at camp. she's also insanely skilled at badminton and is no.2 in the hangzhou teacher's league. my host dad is really good at cooking and made a dish with a pink broth, which he then put over my rice to make magenta rice. it was very pretty- i took a picture of it.

that's all for now! bye!

Hammering the Beggar's Chicken

(Nick)

On Friday night, as you probably know, we switched host families. My first host family drove me (and my bajillion bags) to my new host families home. I said goodbye to my host father and gave him a hug, and then my host mother took me into my new host families home. We sat down with my new host family and my first host mom talked with them about me and what i like to eat (chie zi...eggplant). Then I said goodbye to my first host mom and Raven...which was really sad...we were all crying as they were boarding the elevator. I felt bad crying because i didn't want my new host family to feel inferior, but at the same time, i really was sad at the prospect of not seeing Raven and his parents all the time anymore. Hangzhou is a city of 6 million, not of 4,000 like Sherborn and 6,000 of Dover, so its not like I will see them around....I will see them at our farewell banquet though! Raven and I are emailing each other daily. While I was staying with my first host family, Raven, his mom, and I would always say "bu hao" when his father smoked. I told him that I want him to quit so he can be healthy. Well, now that I left, according to Raven (in his emails), his father has made a vow to quit before Raven comes to America in September! Raven and I are quite pleased.

My new host family situation is quite a bit different than my last! This time around I have grandparents! Jerry lives in an apartment with his grandparents, and his parents live in a separate apartment on another floor. His mom visits frequently for meals, but his dad seems very tied up with work so I only see him on weekends. I really like the concept of living with grandparents...it adds a whole different perspective. They are basically like real parents to him though, as he calls them baba and mama. He told me to call them Wai gong (for my grandfather) and Wai po (for my grandmother) which I have started to use a lot. Their apartment is really nice. Not nearly as western as my last one...a lot more Chinese feeling, but still very comfortable. I have a plasma television and brand new computer in my room, as well as a heated queen-sized bed...it doesn't get much better than this. My new home is located in downtown Hangzhou, about a 10 minute walk from Hangzhou High School. In the morning my host mother drives us to school and then we walk home in the afternoon (or should I say evening, school gets out at 5 PM!). My host parents work in the same building but they drive to work separately - my mom in her Toyota Camry and my dad in his Audi A6 (yes, I am aware that I am a car nut). Jerry said that their hour's vary...sometimes they will come home at 7 PM and sometimes at 2 AM, because they are out with clients playing mah jong! So my grandparents are the ones I see the most. Since they don't work anymore, they do all the cooking and various house jobs. I come home everyday and my bed is freshly made, and my clean laundry is folded neatly on my bed. I could get used to this! Jerry is really cool...and pretty goofy like me. His English isn't as good as Raven's though. He walks around with a pocket electronic English dictionary and whenever he can't remember how to say something, he whips out the dictionary. I never thought someone would take longer than I do to get ready in the morning, but Jerry sure does! In the time that I spend showering and eating breakfast, Jerry is applying his hair gel. It is definitely a confidence booster, I guess! Jerry and Joe (Drew's host brother) are good friends and they are hilarious together...always playing tricks on each other.

On Sunday, my host family took me to the Xixi National Wetland Park in the outskirts of western Hangzhou. It is a beautiful park and we spent a couple hours on a wooden boat cruising around the wetlands! After some beautiful scenery we drove to Lou Wai Lou restaurant, perhaps the most famous in Hangzhou. Present at the meal was not only Jerry, my host parents, and grandparents, but also Jerry's cousins, aunt, and uncle. When my host parents asked what I wanted to drink, I said Sprite. The waitress then proceeded to pour sprite in everyone's cups...oops! Jerry's father asked if I wanted beer and wine, which, considering I just made a room full of mostly adults get served sprite, of course i did! It wasn't really a big deal though..we all had 3 glasses each of sprite, beer, and wine respectively.The meal was outstanding (as to be expected)...dongpo pork, Xihu (west lake) fish with vinegar sauce, and yes, beggar's chicken! It takes four or five hours to cook, and they cook it in a clay shell. The waitress brought it out and my host father told me to go over to her. She handed me a hammer which I used to break open the clay. Jerry told me that I will now have good luck since I hammered the beggar's chicken open! The intense cooking process is so worth it - the beggar's chicken was delicious.

This morning wai gong woke me me up at 6:20 and i showered, ate a delicious breakfast of fried dumplings, hard boiled eggs in vinegar, and oatmeal. My host mother drove us to school as usual but the traffic is so bad, and even though we are close to school, we were a bit late. This morning we had Chinese painting! I think we all agree that it is our favorite class. We have it for three hours and it is so relaxing. Our teacher is such a talented artist, though, so it is sometimes embarrassing to paint while she is looking over my shoulder. Today I painted a cherry blossom tree, Drew and Emily painted sparrows, Cady painted a pumpkin and Terry painted flowers. My cherry blossom tree came out pretty well considering I am a horrid painter, but then of course, with my luck, as I was writing my name in Chinese characters, it made one big black blob. Laoshi to the rescue! She made my ugly black blob into a beautiful sparrow...i really envy her ability to transform even the ugliest thing into perfection. Terry is rather good at painting flowers and the teacher is always really impressed with her work. Drew just makes all of us look bad. In the middle of our three hour painting block we had a half hour break which we spent getting nai cha (milk tea) and then we bought some cheap iPod speakers in the market across from Hanggao...so we can listen to music during classes like Chinese painting!

After class we had lunch as usual, and then English corner. A lot of my former classmates (from Raven's class) come to English corner now. I've gotten so many presents from them - a Chinese fan with a poem in both Chinese and English written on it as well as a personalized note, a bracelet with my Chinese name engraved on a stone, and a book of Hangzhou postcards. I miss my old class so much....the guys were really funny, and the girls were really sweet and never got too shy around me. We went to classes with our host siblings next. Jerry and Joe are in the same class, so naturally Drew and I are in the same class. Drew finished Angels & Demons and he brought in the 7th Harry Potter for me to read...a big mistake because now I am hooked and I have an 8 page AP Gov position paper due when I get back to America on US/China foreign policy...ahhhh. During the last period we had class meeting. First we watched two Beijing Olympics (propaganda...what? did I just say that?) videos that I guess were intended to get the Chinese students excited for the Olympics...yeah, not hard at all considering they've been waiting since 2000 to finally see August 2008 come around. They cheered really loudly after each video clip. Then Drew and I went up in front of the class and introduced ourselves for 15 minutes...we talked about our activities and interests, high school in America, drivers licenses, and of course, the college process. After, we played a game that was basically like Olympics charades....two teams with two people on each, one person had to act out a particular sport and the other had the guess it. Drew and I dominated.

That is all for today. Time is going by so fast...in exactly two weeks we will be landing in Boston :( Our stay in Hangzhou is just too short! If I could choose to spend an entire year at Hanggao...I totally would. I just know that I am getting attached to so many people here and saying goodbye is going to be awful. Ric sent us an email saying that a former DS China Exchange student, Julia Stevenson (2004) commented on our blog...her words made me realize just how precious are time at Hanggao is. Sure, we can study abroad in China during junior year of college (like her), but we are never going to have an experience like this ever again. I think it is finally hitting home that we are coming closer to the end of a journey that has lasted about a year now in total (Application, interview, Modern China Tutorial, Chinese class, and finally CHINA). Okay, 2 more weeks to make the best of it. Ready, set, GO!

3000 Steps

(Drew)


I've been in China six weeks. It does not feel like six weeks have gone by. Before we left we figured out that 8 weeks is china is almost as long as our summer vacation. Our summer vacation feels like a very long time so, this thought scared me a little but now eight weeks is not enough. There is a chance that I "accidentally" miss my flight back (don't tell Viz she has too much to deal with already).

Well Friday we switched host families. I got last minute goodbyes with Mark and his mom, a few pictures and i was off to my new home. I walked my 600lb suitcase from Marks house to Joes house which is about 10 minutes walk. They live on the same street, which is also the street that the school is located so it makes it simple for my brain to remember how to get home after running. Joe sometimes has afternoon classes so some days he won't even be home when I get home.

My new host family...

Although I'm sad to leave my old host family I think I'm going to be very happy with my new host family. My host Dad just got back from a business trip to Italy. He brought back with him a several books showing Rome and other tourist sites. His trip was well timed to go with the new book I'm reading, "Angels and Demons". Unfortunately the "new book" is soon to be "old book" because I'm so addicted I've almost finished it in several days, tomorrow I'm headed to the bookstore to pick out a new book. One of the books has a DVD with virtual tours that you can look around famous sites in Rome. It really makes my book come alive. My host mother and father both speak English quite well, my host father is slightly bette! r than my mother but he has a thick accent and crude grammer.I can easily understand him but Joe is constantly correcting him. For some reason this entertains me to see Joe critisize his dads english and the banter that ensues. My family seems to enjoy my use of the small amount of Chinese I know because they laugh every time I can say something. My vocabulary in Chinese has definitely expanded since being here and hearing Chinese reinforces the Chinese that I already knew (or was supposed to know for that midyear i took). Saturday I went out with Team China and all our host siblings to Pizza Hut, delicious (hao chi). Joe was getting upset that everyone else was late; he kept repeating "my patience has ended". I couldn't help myself from laughing, I'm not sure if it was the way he said it or how Team China is just too used to each other being late. I also wondered later if he was quoting a video game where one of the characters repeats that same l! ine. Joe seems to enjoy messing with Jerry (it's hard to explain but Joe is a bit of a jokester).At pizza hut Joe had the Cady and Emily convinced that Jerry had a girlfriend and it was Cady's previous host sister Eve (this has been confirmed as not true). After Pizza Hut we met up with my friend Eric from class six along with a few of his classmates and our group friend "Baker the bread maker" who translates for all our morning class. He also translates our orders to the milk tea guy each morning.

KTV was so much fun, I love having your own room to just hang out with all your friends. I've been taught a new game with 5 die under a cup that you shake. Cady's previous host sister Eve also enjoys playing (I think it's because she can beat me almost every time). I'm getting better though, I can be sneaky too. Our KTV group was so large though, I think I wrote about this problem last time I wrote a blog. Our group of friends is growing so we invite more and more people, but I think 15 people in a small room is probably the limit.

Sunday morning I got up early to shower and eat breakfast before Joe, Lilly (my host mom who is leaving tomorrow on business in Beijing) and I went hiking. We took a taxi to Zhe Jiang University, the 3rd best university in China. We walked through the campus and saw the massive statue of Mao Zedong. I took several photos in front of the statue with my host brother Joe. Our hike began up a staircase with 800 steps. It actually marked off each 100 steps with a small carving. This massive flight of stairs brought us to the trail that contained several thousand more steps that would lead us a few miles around the mountains of Hangzhou. We took short breaks to take in the scenery and to eat some snacks. My host family quickly learned that I will never! refuse a pealed apple. My family also seemed amused at my ability to throw rocks far distances off the mountain. Joe said later that I probably killed someone below us. The trips final destination was the temple on top of the tallest peak in Hangzhou, Bei Gou Fun. The temple was for the god of money, naturally many people seemed eager to donate money to the shrines around the temple and rub the various statues for good fortune. I was exhausted at the top of the mountain. My host family seemed to be in amazingly good shape, they seemed to barely notice our 5 hour journey through the mountains. Instead of taking the cable car we descended a more direct root (the line for the cable car would have taken at least an hour) to the base which took very little time but descending at least 3000 steps in such a short time can be tough on your legs. We took a bus (I have developed an ill temperament toward overcrowded buses) to a nearby KFC for lunch. I love Chinese KFC, they have soft serve ice cream and French fries and chicken nuggets as well as all the normal foods you would find at an American KFC. After telling Team China about my hike on Sunday I think they want to go with me next weekend.

Monday = Year One Class for Me!

(Ms. Luskin)

On this somewhat grey day, I was amazed to find myself among the faculty early-birds awaiting the outdoor opening-ceremonies for the week. It's now my earnest goal that, some AFS day, I'll be first to identify the Chinese national anthem (since I've been able to listen to it so often during our stay.) Fair warning to Vizulis, Preiser and Barrett: Luskin's sharpening her ears! I've been equally amazed to find that the teachers behave as casually as the students do during this ceremony: while we all stand in our formal lines facing toward the speakers on the gym stairs, low -voiced chatter continues non-stop while an administrator or student offers (I'm certain) well-crafted advice. After the ceremony concluded, I had time to grab a bite of breakfast, since Monday's classes begin fat 8:15. My usually solo breakfast munching is warmed by Cui Hongxiang's (Helen's) cheery company today!

And the Monday round of special classes kicks off with Chinese class. We've begun Walt Whitman's "O Captain, My Captain," a poem that my father used to recite to us when I was a kid; I expect that all the military-school guys of his era learned these martial poems. It's proved to be a heck of a challenge for our beginner Chinese abilities to keep the pronunciation, tones and meter coordinated; Gao Li is giving us lots of practice in reading aloud one after the other! But, in fact, these three stanzas are coming together as we find that practice does make (less im-) perfect!

I worked hard to be pleased that I got to speak with year-one (10th grade) English classes next, since it meant that I missed our gym class. No matter what we do in PE, it's always such a good hard workout for this old lady! Ah, well, I'll just have to make time to do something active later in the day. I discovered that I'd be meeting with Cui Hongxiang's husband's classes today; that's wonderful, actually, because it will give me a chance to get to know him a bit more. The students, though, seem so familiar, much like my 10th-grade-Algebra-II people: perky, un-jaded by upperclassman status, and full of questions! The two hours flew by, and I headed over to our lunchroom to meet up with everyone again.

I'm sure you've read the details of the weekend blog, and the changes of host sibling/family that came last week. So bittersweet to know that I'll see Eve, Penny, Raven and Mark much less, even as I soon learn to be just as fond of the new faces arrayed before me: Doris, MiaoMiao, Joe and Jerry. Maybe because Team China are experienced exchange people now, I hear less "getting-to-know-you" informative chat, and more "we're-already-comfy-together" everyday conversation! Either way, I was charmed by Cady's description of her old and new host parents discussing details of her care-and-feeding: "like I was a puppy they were adopting!" How much all these folks have learned about each other in just over two weeks!

Since I had some emails that clamored to be dealt with, I waved goodbye to the kids as they made their way to English corner after lunch. Many young folks have been heading over to meet us there, curious to know more about the people behind the faces that they see in their halls and classrooms. I'll see my American crew again before morning class tomorrow...

Movin' on - New Host Families

(Cady)

Hey everyone!

As you all know, we have officially moved in with our new families. For me the switch happened after dinner on Friday night. Before that though, my host mom came home with silk scarves and longjing tea for me! I was truly surprised, but of course extremely happy. It was sad saying goodbye to Eve. Her mom drove us both to my second sister, Doris's, home where we sat in the living room sipping tea while the moms discussed my maintenance in Chinese. Since Doris had class, I had 45 minutes alone with my new, non-English-speaking host mom. The coffee table in the living room of my new apartment is cluttered with all sorts of sweets because Doris told her mom that I like candy, all of which she proceeded to try to feed me within a very short period of time. I showed her pictures of my family back home and she called her husband, who lives in Beijing right now (he's attending the Party University for a year), so that I could speak to him in English over the phone. Actually, he seemed like a very nice guy and we ended up talking for about twenty minutes. As you can imagine, his English is very good. After Doris came home we shared more photos, and then off to bed.

The following morning was typical of a Saturday- we meet at the school at 9:00 am and from there some teachers take us to a new destination. Oh, before that I had breakfast with Doris and her mom. She actually cooked us breakfast! I say this with such excitement because it was my first experience with being served breakfast by a Chinese mom. In case anyone is interested, I had toast with ketchup, greens, and egg on it, along with a dim sum bun and some bacon. Impressive, right? Anyways, yesterday we went to Wu Village. The village is about an hour and a half away from Hangzhou. The bus ride was fairly interesting because we were all buzzing with the excitement of new host brothers and sisters. Nick and Drew's brothers are both extremely funny, but I'm sure they'll want to tell you about that themselves. Doris and I spent most of the ride sharing my Ipod. We must have arrived at Wu Village at the exact same time as every other tourist, because the place was packed! The village itself is sort of like an interactive museum. Or a lived-in ghost town. There are canals running all through the town, which reminded me a bit of Lijiang and made the area very beautiful. At the same time, it was so crowded that it felt like we spent all morning in one massive line. The part of town we walked through, as I said, has basically been transformed into a museum. The narrow streets led us into buildings where we had our tickets punched and viewed very old furniture (especially beds), costumes, and the special "blue and white flower fabric" for which the town is famous. I really enjoyed the architecture of the buildings and the look of the canals more than the furniture, but that may be because of all the tourists packed around every single piece on display.

Then, of course, came lunch. It was one of those meals where we all got extremely stuffed and then they brought out the carbs. Fried rice and noodles followed what had already seemed like a hundred delicious dishes. After that we had a short, scenic boat ride on the canal, much like the one we took on West Lake. Ah, and let's not forget- we did a bit of shopping. Then it was back to Hanggao where karaoke plans awaited us. The eight of us (Me, Doris, Em, Luna, Nick, Jerry, Drew, and Joe) had dinner all together at the Pizza Hut across from the KTV place. Drew and Nick each got their own pizza... yikes. We went to the same KTV place we'd gone to the first time, so we were all familiar with how it works. Eric, a former classmate of Drew and host for the night, had reserved one of the big rooms. Good thing too, because there were a lot of us there. Eric brought four classmates with him, plus Eve, Baker, and my classmate, Peggy, all came. Needless to say it was rather crowded. In a good way though. Lots of singing and socializing went on until about ten when we all parted ways.

We tried to make hiking plans for this morning (Sunday), but in the end no one rose or shone in time for the 8:00 am time Eric and I set. Well, except for me, but it wouldn't be considered acceptable, I think, for me to hike alone with a boy. Therefore I spent the morning amusing myself in various ways, answering questions for the Focus, and thinking about college. AH! Doris's mom had lunch ready for when she got home from class (Math from 9-11). That was great, of course, and after wards Doris and I went to the supermarket to buy snacks for this afternoon. Since I have a cold, Doris's mom bought me Tylenol and imposed nap-time on me. So I napped. After that some girls from our class came over to just hang out. It was actually a lot of fun. They taught me how to play a two-deck card game and I taught them Spit, which they got pretty in to. We also spent a lot of time just talking and goofing around. Then we made dumplings. After dinner another girl, Doris's old neighbor, showed up bearing a present for me. So she, Doris, Peggy and I sat around talking until they all had to disperse and do homework. Overall, a good day. So that pretty much brings us up to date. My actual day for the blog was Saturday, but I thought I'd include a bit about today since we all went our separate ways.

Hope all is well and dandy in Dover-Sherborn. See you all in two weeks! Whoa, so soon.

Cady

Kung Fu with the Master!

(Emily)

friday:
so on thursday i packed up in anticipation for changing my host families. my host families had arranged it so that my new host dad would pick up my luggage at school friday morning.

friday morning came and we successfully did the changing of the luggage. big yellow was bursting at its seams. i'll most definitely need another bag for returning home to america (and i thought i didn't!). saying bye to my host dad and mom was really hard. i'll still see penny daily though because miao miao's class is close to her's. (note: luna doesn't respond to her english name so she asked us to call her by her nickname, which is miao miao- little tree since she was born on arbor day).

after saying goodbye to my host dad, who drops penny and i off at school each morning, i went to my morning classes. today was paper cutting and kung fu (pronounced more like kong fu). paper cutting was significantly less disastrous for me than it was last week. i actually got a decent papercutting out of the olympic panda that i was doing (after two tries...), although one looks like it could be a member of the happy tree friends....it's missing an eye and an arm. it was very satisfying. of course cady and drew put me to shame with their awesomely more intricate pandas. they've now moved onto more detailed window paper cuts.

kung fu started off with basketball...until the teacher realized that even though we were american, we majorly sucked at making the ball get into the hoop. we really can't even call what we were doing basketball. at one point i said "10 bucks says emily will get hit in the face." sure enough, within five minutes a ball smacked me square on my nose. however, cady and i were quite successful at dropping the ball to the point where we started kicking it around because we were too lazy to pick it up. that's when our teacher (not the cute lady teacher-it's a man who closely resembles a sparrow...and is insane at kung fu and badminton) handed us a soccer ball. we had a great 3 v 3 game (drew, cady, and i vs. nick, lugia, and baker). drew cady and i dominated. slash drew dominated and cady and i just ran up and down the court trying to help out. it was lots of fun. we were all pretty sweaty by the time we took a water break. then, we started to do kung fu. our teacher taught us another sequence that was harder than the first one we learned. it had jumping/punching while simultaneously turning and punching over three steps. my brain could not handle it. that being said, it was still really fun. the amount of grace and control that is mind boggling. our teacher is insanely coordinated and makes it look so easy! i keep mortal kombat running through my head (a la piper and andrea's china movie). it makes everything seem more badass.

lunch was amazing (per usual). english was interesting. the english lessons here focus on.... pracitcal uses? we learned about anorexia today and how to identify it. there was even a listening comp. segment where a woman was telling the doctor what she ate (apple, banana, and bread over the course of the day) and the students had to identify what she had (it was anorexia). the fact that the kids were learning the words for anorexia and protein intake is so in depth- i'm pretty sure not even the ap spanish/french/latin kids know the word for anorexia. it's just not something that comes up in everyday conversations. i was weired out.

after school i bid penny goodbye and said hello to miao miao. her driver was waiting for us and drove us to her house, which is about 20/30 minutes away from hanggao. while we were driving, she told me that the area that she lives in is popular for migrant workers because it is farther away from the center of hangzhou and therefore the housing prices are cheaper. i will admit, i was getting a little mortified. imagine my surprise when the elevator took us to the top of the apartment building and opened up to a gorgeously modern living room (sleek light fixtures included). my jaw dropped. tinkling in the background was a zen water fountain, positioned underneath the spiral slatted wood staircase. at the top of the stairs is a high ceiling study. miao miao's room and a patio where plants that her father grows are next to the study. when miao miao led me to my room i think i let out an audible gasp. i have a queen size bed (a giant box spring- as hard as the beds at yangshuo) with a flat screen tv. very ultra modern furniture. and a massage chair. holy cow. i met miao miao's father at dinner. he's a chinese teacher at a middle school and doesn't speak any english. he's not very talktative but he did say through miao miao some words of welcome. i didn't meet the mom on friday (i have met her though- she's a math teacher in another middle school and is very softspoken and pretty) because i went to bed at 9. i was in bed at 8. i had been fighting a cold for a couple of days and wanted to kill it asap, so sleep was mucho importante.

and this is how my friday went. sorry again for the delay! zai jian!