Sunny Skies and Winding Down!

(Allison) 

Ok, so time is really starting to fly here in Hangzhou. Fortunately, this week – it stopped raining!! We had a few beautiful days! But then rain returned yesterday…oh well.

Last Friday was National Women’s Day here in China!

In the morning….we had Hangzhou history class – Our history teacher Zhao Yi Bin is a wonderful man.  I cannot remember if I have blogged about him already. He is very interested in ancient history – and also knowing more about how history teachers teach in the U.S. I really wish that I could speak Chinese so that we could chat.

Then off to the gym for Kung Fu class – Mark, Li and Alex are working on perfecting their series. Our teacher, Liu Laoshi, also attempted to teach us some Tai Chi. He told us to clear our minds and imagine that we were standing on a beach facing the ocean.  After our sorry attempt at Tai Chi…Li and Mark decided to play ping pong. Bruce, Alex, Liu Laoshi and I played an intense game of badminton. Our teacher taught me how to properly serve…between my serve and his skills we beat Alex and Bruce – twice!

Because it is National Women’s Day ….all of the women teachers at the school received the afternoon off to go to a tea house. Rose and I rode our bikes down Fengqi  Road (a very busy road that the school is located on.), towards the West Lake, and arrived at the tea house. The tea house was very large; we walked up to the second floor. In the middle of the second floor, there was a huge buffet of all sorts of Chinese food.  On each side there were little rooms with a big table and comfy chairs. We found some seats with some of the math teachers from Hanggao –we ordered tea – I had flower tea - Rose had green tea, and then went out to the buffet.  Once again, there was an insane amount of food. I tried some sort of famous Hangzhou snack – a flour cake with shallot and sauce.  We spent the afternoon drinking tea, snacking and relaxing. Then we rode back to the school…I met up with Lianna, Star (Li’s second host sister), Mark, Tao Tao, and Bruce…and we headed out to get something to eat and do some shopping..

On Saturday, we traveled out to Wu Zhen! It was fantastic. Derek, Ms. Zhu Wei., and Mr. Pan (both administrators at the school) accompanied us.. Wu Zhen is a well preserved historic town about an hour and a half outside of Hangzhou. Because it was Saturday, and not raining – there were a ton of people there... we meandered our way through the swarms…and explored. The town is absolutely picturesque…lined with canals, classic Chinese buildings, humpback bridges…Lianna described it as Lijiang meets Plymouth Plantation..  soo nice…. We took the bus back to the school…snacking, listening to music and napping...

Derek and I took a taxi over to the section of Hangzhou-- where he and Susan attended university. This area of Hangzhou reminded me so much of the strip of Com. Ave. near BU… college students everywhere, shops and all sorts of places to get food. We met Susan at the Curry Bistro. When we arrived she had milk tea waiting for us…mine had these little black pearls in the bottom that were made out of sticky rice!

Sunday

I do not have a cell phone here in China. It is nice…but it does cause me a little bit of anxiety … and it makes making plans rather challenging. People just say -- ok meet me here at this time¦and I just have to trust them.

Star (Li’s current host sister) called me in the morning, (I do have a phone in the apartment) and told me to meet Mark and Tao at the school gate at 1:30… I walked to the school – the sun was shining!! Tao Tao’s mom drove us over the Baishan Road – the road that runs along the north end of the West Lake… We were meeting Bruce, Star, Sue, Lianna, Harry, Alex and Sonny to hike up Bao Shu Shan pagoda. Once everyone arrived – we were off. We climbed up Bao Shi Hill and reached the pagoda.  There were people everywhere up there! (six million people live in the city and greater Hangzhou area) Just past the pagoda are all of these rocks that you can climb.…Bruce, Harry, Sonnny and Alex climbed up a very large rock..

We strolled around and hung out at the top for awhile..and then walked down the hill along a path…there were various people selling things – some of them were selling stinky tofu…it is these small squares of fried tofu…but it smells soooo bad-horrible...we picked up the pace. At the bottom -- we walked along Beishan Road once again -- people everywhere along the lake…and walking on the Bai Causeway.. The students all decided to camp out at a Starbucks¦ I decided to walk along the east side of the lake for awhile. I discovered a statue of Marco Polo – in his writings he said that Hangzhou was the most beautiful and splendid city in the world! On the way back to the apartment, I decided to check out some of the Hangzhou clothing stores…

Monday

A beautiful, sun shining day! In the morning, we had calligraphy and Chinese…after lunch with Bruce, Tao, Star and Sunny –we went to broadcast club! One of my friends from English Corner..Brianna or Chen Yun…has been asking us to come to broadcast club for a few weeks now….we finally committed to a day! During the lunch break, a few students put on a radio show...they mostly play music, but some times they interview people. Brianna asked us various questions about our lives in the U.S. and our experiences in China.

After broadcast club we went to English corner... Joe one of the students coming to DSHS this year – showed up!

After having dinner at the school, I decided to ride my bike down to the Bai Causeway…there were too many people there on Sunday to walk it. I rode down the very scenic Beishan Road … and then back over the Bai Causeway… the West Lake is so pretty and relaxing at night...

This morning -we had Chinese painting class! I love this class. Our teacher is a very talented artist.  Today, we were joined by a delegation from Athens Academy – that is located in Athens, Georgia - 10 students, a high school history teacher - Beth, and their headmaster – Robert. They had traveled in Beijing for a few days and arrived in Hangzhou – Monday afternoon. There school is possibly going to set up an exchange similar to the DS one…

Our teacher presented the new students with some paper cutting, a Chinese folk craft.  Mark and Li attempted some advanced paper cuts... Alex and I decided to paint.  I painted a fish...and then something between a shrimp and a lobster -then I attempted to paint a duck...

The Georgian students went on a tour of the school…and our teacher took us up to her gallery/office to show us some of her work. She has traveled to Europe, and enjoys painting European buildings and landscape scenes.

Off to lunch...today, instead of our usual round table, the chef and his staff transformed the room into a buffet set-up… because they had to feed the DS exchange and the Athens exchange…

The last period of the day we were invited to Harry’s class for a class meeting/party. Alex went to Sonny’s class meeting/party. We played some English games, and they put on a performance of the Peking Opera and made us join in!

Arcades, Ice Cream and a Chinese Forest Gump

 

(Li)  2/26 and 2/27

Today is Sunny’s birthday! Sunny is Alex’s second host brother. All of our siblings are good friends now (although they didn’t know each other a month ago), so we all hang out all the time. We had Chinese and Calligraphy in the morning. We watched a movie in Chinese. Although the movie was really good, it was kind of disappointing that he showed us a movie. I wanted to actually learn a lot of Chinese while I was here, and I don’t think that has really happened. But anyway, the movie was called “tough guy” or “underdog warrior”… not really sure. It was basically the Chinese “Forest Gump.” In the movie a man is in the army, but he jumps in a body of water to save another soldier. He nearly drowns and ends up with brain damage, causing him to be much like Forest Gump (mentally). The main character is incredibly strong and a good fighter, so he fights in the name of good. He gets tricked by a bad guy and ends up in trouble with the law… but I won’t tell you any more because you should see it. Not much to report about calligraphy, other than that it was good.

After school the three of us, all six of our siblings, and Bruce went to Sunny’s house to celebrate his birthday. We ate pizza, played mahjong, and watched Valkyrie. O by the way, I am really good at mahjong. My host sister taught me how to play. But yea, Valkyrie was a really good movie, shocking that its based on truth and yet I had never heard about it. It was sad knowing the whole time what the ending was. During every scene I wanted the outcome to be different. Sunny’s birthday was really fun.

Friday we were supposed to have Kung Fu, but our teacher was feeling sick and had an injured elbow, so he just gave us free time. He taught Mark and I how to play Ping Pong and we have been practicing every class since then. We are actually getting pretty good, but not good enough to beat Nat. After lunch we went to get the fabrics for our silk dresses and jackets. Mark and Alex each got jackets and pants, while Allison and I each got dresses. I ended up getting 2 dresses because I couldn’t choose between two fabrics and the dresses are actually pretty cheap. We got our fabric and headed to the tailor to get fitted.

After school Mark and I, our current hosts, Sunny, and Bruce, went out for dinner at a Japanese noodle place (Alex and Allison both wanted to go home). Dinner was good and we went to an arcade after. Arcades here are lame, in the sense that everything requires WAY too many tickets to cash in. Where as in America, you can at least get candy regardless of how many tickets you win. So we were sad that we couldn’t get anything… and no, that is not a little kid mentality—almost everybody at the arcade was a teenager or adult. We got ice cream at the arcade and hung out in the ice cream store for a while before going home.

First Days in Hangzhou

(Li) 2/19

I met my host sisters yesterday. They are both really nice. They are in the same class, so I won’t have to get used to a different group of kids or teachers at all. I am living with my sister, Sue, her mom, dad, grandmother, and little cousin. The apartment is pretty nice, but they don’t use heat!... not something I am used to. Today was out first day of Chinese classes. First we had Chinese class. Our teacher, Derek, is an English teacher at the school and he will be coming to America this year. We were glad to find out he is coming, seeing as he is awesome. Derek is similar to William; cool, fun, nice, and young. I also have to talk about Bruce. Bruce is amazing. Bruce is a senior three student (aka our grade. Senior three is the hardest year of a Chinese student’s life). Bruce, however, applied to colleges in the US and has already received acceptance letters, thus escaping the dreaded college entrance exam. He also no longer has to attend classes (amazing, right?). Because he has a lot of free time and all his friends are still in class, he volunteered to be our translator, since most of the teachers don’t speak English. Bruce has become more than a translator, however, he has become a really good friend.

We had Chinese, in which Bruce and Derek taught us basic greetings and random words in Chinese. Not much more to say about that. After a short break, we had Calligraphy class. Calligraphy is really fun. Our teacher is very nice, and extremely helpful. He is a good instructor and can usually communicate with us through body language, although we have Bruce if needed. Our teacher knows how to say “okay” and “very good” in English, unfortunately he doesn’t know the difference between the two phrases (or so it seems). In calligraphy class we also met a 70 year old, former English teacher. He exercises at the school every morning and came to meet us. He is really nice and hilarious, so we enjoy his periodic visits.

We went to lunch, where we had an amazing meal in a small, heated room with our host siblings, cooked by our very own personal chef. Our chef is actually the head of the school cafeteria, so he doesn’t cook the school food, but he is an amazing chef and has been featured on Chinese cooking shows. Not only does he make great food, but he is such a sweet little man.

After lunch we went to classes with our host siblings. Most of the classes were really boring, seeing as they were in Chinese, so I did my own thing. Sue and Star had English though, so I got to participate in that class which was…. interesting. First we heard Ferddy the Frog sing a Beatles song. Then my English teacher, who has actually been to America, Ms. Wang, asked me to read the vocab words to the class for the students to repeat.

After school we went to the grocery store. CRAZY experience, there were 9 of us and everyone was saying different things. The siblings were arguing and trying to figure out what we needed. They were trying to figure out what stuff was, such as loofahs. It was crazy. There was quite a large language barrier between us and our siblings back then. But they have all progressed SO much and they speak English really well now. It’s amazing. Then we went out for dinner… The end

Blog…. DONE