(FINAL POST of 2010 Exchange)Saying Goodbye to a Magnificent Adventure!

(Sandy)

April 10

The last few hours in China! What a strange day…I think we are all feeling a “healthy ambivalence” about getting on a jet to fly home. No doubt, of course we are all missing our families, friends, pets and yearning for normalcy, but it is also sad to say goodbye to a magnificent adventure. Each day brought new insight into the daily living and personalities of those we have met, daring attempts at consuming a pastiche of exotic foods, unbelievable ancient and contemporary sights that many only get to view in books, new sounds of the repetitive city noises and the rural quiet of the farmland, new friends and our homes away from home, and new customs of hospitality that sometime make very independent people a bit uncomfortable…like having someone always wanting to hold your backpack and packages, people always asking if you are tired and need a rest, always being led like a child or being told to “sit, sit!” It is all a bit surreal.

Completing the Beijing Trifecta

(Lauren)

Beijing Day 3

First on today's agenda was a trip to Beijing's famous Temple of Heaven. When we got to the temple, we were immediately besieged by vendors selling cheap children's toys. Surprisingly, the toys were very popular amongst thelocal Chinese. Many of the Chinese elders used the small park in front of the main temple as a local gathering place to socialize and exercise. On our way through the park, we were confronted with the spectacle of old Chinese people dancing to pop music. They were all very good and totally in-sync.

Yes ... I (h)ate scorpion!

(Alex)

Hello America, for the last time in China you will hear from me.

We arrived in Beijing this morning at 6:35 am. The train ride was very nice despite the insane amounts of luggage we all had. I am actually quite surprised we got off the train so easily and quickly, but all went smoothly from transferring to the hotel. We all had trouble letting go of our friends and families and Hangzhou, but it is nice to be travelling one last time before we return to America! At this point we are all craving some good old fashioned American food whether it be cheese or a nice diner burger. The food here has been great (I will get to more of this in a little bit), but I can't wait to have some teryaki turkey and apple pie (mom that's a request please).

Farewell Hangzhou Friends

(Cassie)

Hello everyone. Our last day in Hangzhou...and what a long and eventful day it was! Get comfortable, because this is going to be a long blog.

Today was a day of many lasts . I got up at my usual time to eat my last breakfast with Jiawen - delicious baozi, as usual. I seriously want to attempt to find them when I get home...they re pretty awesome. We were a bit more solemn at breakfast than usual, and Jiawen informed me that she d most likely cry at some point during the day. After breakfast, we wrestled my bags down to the car and loaded them in for my last trip to Hanggao. Once at school, we took my bags to the front building only to find that the bus that was supposed to be waiting for us was M.I.A. I had promised Sandy I would help her get her bags to the apartment, so I left my bags and headed to meet her. We ended up getting a good arm workout out of it because the key to the gate to the school near her apartment hadn t arrived yet. The two Westerners dragging bags down the middle of Silk Street got some pretty weird looks. Unfortunately the bus still hadn t arrived when we got there, but Wu Laoshi was nice enough to less us leave all of our stuff in her office until we could load it in.

Once our luggage was all squared away we went up to the English office to wait to go to our 10:30 farewell meeting. When we got there we realized that nobody d seen Lauren. Her host dad had dropped her bags off and they were with the other luggage but there was no sign of her. I went to her class to find her and she was there...taking a nap on her desk before class started. Apparently this is a regular occurrence. I wish I had her ability to sleep so easily and to to wake up so quickly. With everyone together we sat and chatted with Helen until our host siblings arrived and it was time to go. Everyone s host siblings had little presents for us, as did Liam. My favorite one was an adorable frame given to me by Yin - It looked like a cat. She knows I really like cats. After she gave it to me, she, Jiawen, and I took a picture together so I can fill it when I get home.

We again went to the meeting room where we d originally been welcomed and had met Madame Miao. This time the room was at its most full. We began by hearing a speech from the headmistress bidding us farewell and welcoming us back again (translated for us by Derek). Then, we each said a small piece about how we felt about our time in Hangzhou and what we loved about the experience. Afterwards, each of our host siblings spoke about what they d gained from living with us for two weeks. Each one was very heartwarming, but I was most moved (of course) by my own sisters. Jiawen cried, as promised, and Yin told me she loved me. At this point, it was all I could do not to keep from crying. After a couple more speeches by the administration we got into the bus to go to the restaurant in which we d be having our banquet lunch.

When we got to the restaurant Alaina, Lauren, and I all changed into our dresses and Sandy changed into her jacket. Alex had come prepared...he was already in his vest. We emerged to kind compliments and sat down to a complex and wonderful lunch. My favorites were some garlic mashed potatoes, baozi filled with meat and onions (of course), and congee made with rice and greens. About halfway through the meal we began our speeches. I was incredibly nervous - not only do I dislike speaking in front of large groups of people, but I was also worried I d utterly butcher my Chinese pronunciation. But we were met by laughter and applause at all of the right times, so I think we were pretty successful. I think Ning probably made the funniest comment...when Lauren asked her if she could understand the speech, Ning said Yes...now...may I please have a copy of the speech so that I can read it? . After our speeches we sat back down to dinner. Once we'd finished eating we proceeded to take what must have been hundreds of pictures...we all joked that it was like prom.

We changed again (ironically, it was raining and we didn t want to ruin the silk) and got back into the bus to go back to the school. We had some time to kill, so Alex hung out with Derek, while the girls and Liam went to grab some milk tea and talked about travel dreams of ours. Soon enough our time had run out and we made our way back through the rain to the school.

I ll be frank, the next half hour was pretty miserable. All of our host siblings met us at the first of building of the school. While everyone was attempting to avoid thinking about it, we all knew that final goodbyes were impending. Finally, Derek told us it was time to go and we all made our final goodbyes to all of our siblings. I promised to email both of my host sisters as soon as I got back to America, partook in many hugs, and waved goodbye through foggy bus windows.

We got to the train station a bit early, so we sat amid our many bags and talked with Liam, Derek, Tianle, and Charlie. They had all come to help us get onto the train. All too soon 17:44 rolled around and we made our way onto the train. It was a bit rushed and our goodbyes at the station were hurried, but that was probably for the better as the earlier farewells had been difficult.

The train was quite nice! Each room had four beds and a small table near the large window. We could barely hear the sound of the train as we sat on our beds. The four kids were in one room, while Sandy was next door. From 6 til about 10 (we went to bed early as we knew we had to get up early) we talked, did MadLibs, and ate the snacks we d brought with us. Then we said goodnight and went to bed. I stayed up for a little while to look at the Chinese landscape flying past the window, then fell asleep.

So that s all from me as far as blogs go... It s remarkable that we ll be heading back to the States soon. I ve had a wonderful and life-changing time here over the past eight weeks. Goodbye and see everyone soon!

Disco Rollerblading on the Last Weekend in Hangzhou

(Lauren)

Hangzhou Day 31

For the first time since we have been in China, our group has been separated for a period of several days. Although I think everyone was a little apprehensive about this, I think it was nice to have spent our last weekend in Hangzhou with our host families.

Saturday morning, my host mom and I went to the West Lake to take a bus tour of the scenic sites. (Hongan had to stay home to do her homework). The tour provided a nice overview of the different parts of the lake. It is so huge, I had not realized how much of it I hadn't seen, even though we've been going there every weekend!

For lunch, my host mom took me to a restaurant that served famous Hangzhou snacks. We had "Wawatou" which are little triangular pastries, "hongtang," a type of dumpling soup, and my personal favorite "xiaolong baozi" which are also sort of like dumplings. My host mom was particularly thrillled, because everyone at the restaurant assumed she was my translator, which made her very proud!

After lunch, we went back to one of the scenic spots we'd passed earlier. Gou's Villa, as it was called, used to be the private residence of a partiuclarly wealthy man, and was converted into a tourist site after his death. The villa was made up of several very traditional houses overlooking the lake. As it was not one of the most popular tourist destinations at the lake, we had the place practically to ourselves. It was nice to finally get an appreciation for the beauty and peace that West Lake offers when there aren't crowds of people around!

The next day, my host family and I went back to their hometown for the Qingming Festival. Their hometown, Xin'An Jiang, is a very famous water town. The river flowing through the town is clean and pure, and people could drink directly out of the water (although I'm not sure how sanitary this practice was, considering people also did their laundry directly in the water). Most of China's bottled water supply comes from the river, and my host mom was very proud to inform me that her hometown's river provided the bottled water for the Beijing Olympics!

We went over for lunch at Hongan's grandparents' apartment, where I also met her aunt, uncle, and cousin. After a quick lunch, Hongan's uncle drove my host mom, Hongan, her cousin, and me over to a place where we could ride dragon boats down the river. On our way downstream, we passed a large bridge made up of red arches. My host dad had designed the bridge, and named it the "Rainbow Bridge" after Hongan (whose name translates to rainbow in English).

Once we had finished the tour, Hongan, her cousin, and I went to the park. There were bumper cars at the park, so we rode them. I don't think I've ever ridden bumper cars before, but I was surprised to find how violent they were. The seatbelts were particularly poor - I can't help but think that a company with the same standards in the U.S. would be regularly sued for whiplash!

We left the park and decided to go rollerblading. Naively, I assumed we were going to a skate park. Actually, we were going to a club. The large room where we rollerbladed was lit with three disco balls, the Chinese equivalent of disco music was playing, and the entire room was smoky. It was very funny to watch other people rollerblade. The boys especially knew a lot of cool tricks, but they'd seemed to have forgotten to learn basic ones such as "turning" or "stopping." Therefore, people were constantly crashing into each other (or into walls or pillars).

We rollerbladed for a while, then went out to dinner with Hongan's parents and some of their friends. Hongan's mom's friend's son came later to practice his oral English. I thought this was going to be somewhat disastrous (many people ask to practice, few want to speak), but when my host mom took him, Hongan and I over to another friend's house, he opened up somewhat. The other friend's daughter also wanted to practice English, so the four of us went down into the basement to play Poker. I didn't know how to play Poker, but I caught on fairly quickly. Then my host mom decided to join the game to "help me," but kept accidentally revealing all my cards instead! I didn't win many games, but it was a lot of fun anyway!

After Poker, we went back to the hotel and went to bed. Tomorrow, we will be saying our goodbyes to everyone in Xin'An Jiang and heading back to Hangzhou. I can't believe I have only one more day left with my host family! I have really enjoyed being with them and will miss them a lot.

Until next time!

Kites, KTV and "Finger Food"

(Alaina)

Wow, I can’t believe it’s April! I feel like just yesterday I was marveling over it being March.

Today started slowly before rapidly picking up the pace. Yimei had classes in the morning, so I slept until 9:30 (I can’t sleep any later! I bet my parents can’t believe it) and lounged around being lazy for a couple hours (that they can probably believe). Yimei came home with a friend named Lucy, and the three of us were dropped off along the Beijing- Hangzhou canal. We met up with three more friends, and after a bit of searching and miscommunication, finally found Alex, David, and several more of their posse. I wasn’t expecting a large group activity, so it was a nice surprise. Though I hadn’t met any of the other kids, they were all outgoing and very friendly so I enjoyed talking to them. The plan was to take the “river bus” down the canal, but first we had to kill an hour or so before the boat came. We did so by buying kites and flying them while everyone got acquainted. Thanks to the wind, there were another dozen kite-flyers in the same plaza. I don’t think you’d ever see teenagers and adults flying kites in the middle of the city at home. I love that whenever I look up, the sky is dotted with swatches of darting color.

Most of us got on the canal boat while a few had to take taxis because there wasn’t enough room. It looked just like a train inside, with a narrow isle and seats on either side. The ride wasn’t particularly noteworthy. When we got off there was some confusion and lag time before we decided to head for KTV. (It seems that plans are never well organized. I often feel that communication skills are lacking.) It took us a 30 minute bus ride to get to the KTV building, where we got a private room that was similar to the one we had earlier in the trip. Students are always surprised that this form of KTV is not popular in America; I’m not sure if it exists at all. Alex and I sang a song together and somehow managed to escape solo embarrassment. The most interesting singer of this round was Jungle, who I suspect Alex has mentioned in previous blogs. He’s extremely outgoing and apparently a class clown, as evident in the jumping included in his songs. Once again, I was amazed by how great most of the voices were. How do they all sing so well??

After KTV Alex and David left the group to meet up with Derek while the rest of us went to Pizza Hut for dinner. Okay, I realize that every time I write the blog I’ve just eaten Western food, but I swear it’s not actually a usual occurrence!! This is the first cheese fix since my last Shanghai blog. Admittedly, I did thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the stuffed crust pizza and potato mushroom cheese gratin. It was interesting to see how surprised and slightly taken-aback everyone was to hear that the fries, pizza, and chicken wings we ordered would all be eaten by hand in America. This is particularly interesting because in most ways I think Chinese eating customs are far less polite and orderly than those in America. Everyone slurps drinks, reaches across the table, eats straight from the serving dish, holds bowls right up to the face, eats noodles by the dangling mouthful, and spits things back out. Personally, I’m perfectly happy to accept a downgrade in manner regulation, as it makes eating much easier. Conversely, the Chinese students were clearly not comfortable eating food with their hands. I did convince a few brave souls that finger food is meant for the fingers, but most continued to attack the pizza and fries with fork and knife.

At this point most of the group dispersed while Yimei and two boys named Bear and Island continued to search for entertainment. (I’m starting to like their use of real words as names. It's fun!) We walked to a movie theater, but there were no English movies playing anytime soon. Luckily, there was an ice cream shop to make our walk worthwhile. I’ve found that it’s (shockingly!) common for kids here to not like desserts. Island didn’t get ice cream because it’s “too sweet.” Blasphemy!!!!

We continued to wander the streets for a while and when we couldn’t find anything of interest we walked to Bear’s home. I wish I had met him earlier because he was great to spend time with. Boys have been especially shy around me, and though Bear is soft-spoken, he is also confident. He introduced us to his mother and ushered us to the sofa where Mr. Bean was promptly selected as the evening’s entertainment. It was perfect because there isn’t much speaking, and we could all chuckle at his expressions. Before we left, Bear’s mother presented me with a gift of two blue china tea cups that were probably pulled right out of the cupboard. I get too many gifts!!! All I did was walk into her house and watch movies with her son for an hour, why do I (and none of the other guests) deserve a gift?! Anyway, from there Yimei and I got picked up and here I am now, ready to go to sleep!

Ah, but the topic of gifts reminded me of someone I should introduce you to. About two weeks ago I helped with the student radio show that Sandy described earlier. The girl asking questions asked about movies, so I told her Tim Burton was my favorite director. We could barely finish the interview because she also loves Tim Burton / Johnny Depp movies, and is just as well versed in them as I am. I think we were both so excited to share such a specific interest given the huge difference between our lives. Rinka (her English name) and I began talking about movies and plots, from Edward Scissor Hands to Sweeny Todd, which broke that initial ice and let us find even more in common. Since then she has come to every English Corner. We get along perfectly. Gifts reminded me of her because on Thursday she gave me a gift that is definitely the best I have received so far. It’s a Chinese children’s book called “when we are together” and Rinka put a post-it on each page translating the words. In a long and incredibly sweet note, she said that she loves it though the story is simple. To give you a taste, here are a few pages: “a little girl, a crocodile, a gray bear, a giraffe, a piglet, and a lion are all friends. They paint together. They have fun on the moon together. When the feel tired and have a rest, they still stay together. Even in their dreams, they are still best friends.” Awww!! There are a few kids I’ll really miss. Actually to be honest, since we haven’t known each other long it’s not exactly that I’ll miss my new friends. It’s really that I’m sad we won’t be able to develop the great relationships that we would given more time. I’ve met some people who I know I could become very close to, and though I’ll always remember and absolutely try to keep in touch, we can’t continue to build our friendship in the same way. This is the bittersweet element to making friends abroad.

This time next week we’ll be on a plane!!!! WOW. I’ll save those thoughts for my last blog.

Mkay thanks for reading!

Last Day at Hanggao

(Alex)

Good evening all!

As we approach our final week in China, we are all cramming in last minute activities and plans. Our time has flown by and we can't believe that today was our last day at Hanggao! We had our final aerobics class with the dance teacher and Liam today, and though it may not have been the most fun class, the act of poorly dancing and jump roping will be missed. Liam and I tried our hardest to maintain a jump rope today with the teacher, but she was way too fast! The teacher just giggle at our attempts to keep up with her pace, but we all gave it our best try. After the class we all headed to our final meal with Chef Wang and were very glad to see he prepared us pizza, ribs, chicken wing, and chocolate covered peanuts (my favorite)! We all enjoyed the meal very much and will miss the living daylight out of Chef Wang and his amazing and extremely funny personality! Soon after, English Corner time was arriving, and today we had the biggest crowd yet. Word had spread that it was our final day of school so even people that we have never met before showed up! It was surprisingly big for us, but we all loved the company so much. Joe and Kitty showed up along with Alaina's friend, my two pals named Vapor and Little Bread, and a ton of other students wishing us the best travels and safe ways. It was here that we all truly recognized how much a part of Hanggao is in our lives and how much our stay here has affected Hanggao. The students and teachers alike are all so awesome and friendly and they will be missed dearly and we are so grateful to have had the pleasure of their presence.

Later in the day as we began to hand out our gifts to teachers, we found each one of them and individually gave their gifts. Every teacher was very stubborn about accepting the gifts, but it is all part of the Chinese culture. William had plans for us to go out to Zhejiang University to see Bob and a few others, so we met him and Ivan at the English Corner well at 3 pm. From there we all drove thirty minutes to get to the University to see the Team America 2008 students for the last time (minus Alice). Bob showed up with friends including Sam (the boy from 2008 who had the astronomy competiton that could not make it), Tony, and Rough. Rough speaks outstanding English, and he lived in the US for a year with his father nine years ago. We talked about University life whilst taking a tour of the college on a golf cart. Bob was our guide so of course things could get out of hand. After the short tour, we all sat down next to the river that runs through campus and played an intense series of Uno. We couldn't play San Guo Sha because the game is all in Chinese and the rules are too complicated, but Uno was so fun and funny to play. It was Sandy's first time playing, and she completely swept the first round of cards, setting up the next few rounds to be really heated. At one point, four people at once had Uno and that was quite a moment, but after Uno something hilarious happened walking back to the cars. To begin, Lauren's head is a magnet for sports balls to hit. She has been hit by ping pong balls, a birdie, and a basketball all in the course of a few weeks, and a second basketball just added to the list. Rough brought a basketball with him to play with later, but Bob hijacked it and started fooling around with it. He was playing and he accidentally bounced it off the back of Lauren's head and it went bouncing and rolled into the river. It was hysterical with everybody laughing including poor Lauren! We spent the next half hour trying to fish the basketball out of the river with a long piece of bamboo, big rocks, and tons of branches. After finally getting the ball, we made sure that Bob never touched that ball again the whole night and we all headed off to dinner.

At dinner, we all talked about our stay in China the past 2 months and reflected on our experiences. While that was fun, somehow movies got brought up into the conversation and that took the main topic of the night. William loves movies as much as Derek and I do, and Bob was writing down all the movies we were talking about to go see later. The dinner was a great unofficial close to our stay in Hangzhou, but the night was not over. We all went back to William's house to play guitar hero and to meet his family. It was the girls first time meeting Emma (Hu Xiao Ai) and they all fell in love with her! She is extremely cute and hilarious too. During Guitar Hero, she would get up and dance to the songs and hug William's leg during his guitar solo. We played for an hour and a half, and then we departed ways. I said bye to Bob and Ivan for the last time that night and I will miss them too much! It had been two years since I had seen them, and it could be even longer until I see them again so I really enjoyed this night. Tomorrow all of us and our host siblings are supposed to get together so I hope that works out, but for now I leave you all.

See you in a week!

"Til Next Time"...

 (Cassie)

April already! Happy April Fools Day everyone.  Before I get into my blog, I just want to say that unlike St. Patrick's Day the Chinese do celebrate this holiday.  I was tricked! But more about that later.

This morning, Jiawen and I began our day a rather unusual breakfast.  I'd mentioned to my family (haven't learned my lesson about that yet) that I miss peanut butter, so yesterday Jiawen and I went to the store to pick up a jar of Skippy and a loaf of bread.  So breakfast was half a peanut butter sandwich, half a sweetened condensed milk sandwich (which is better than it sounds), and half a ketchup sandwich (I gave that half to Jiawen).  Jiawen eats more slowly than I do, so we walked out the door while she was still munching her condiment sandwich.  It was suspiciously overcast (although the forecast said clear skies) so I made sure to grab my umbrella.  And sure enough, it began to rain around 9.  The weather forecasts are remarkably inaccurate here.  At least they're consistent!

My first class of the day was Chinese along with the rest of the DS delegation.  For the first half of the class we read a Chinese version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" called "Long Lai Le" (a wolf is coming).  By the time we'd finished we could manage to read through the whole story without pinyin...I was pretty proud of this achievement as there were many new words.  During the second half of the class we worked with Qiu Laoshi (our Chinese teacher) and Derek to translate our speeches for the banquet.  We owe them...we certainly couldn't have managed it and if we'd tried it would've sounded like a mess.  They both took our speeches with them at the end of the class, and even finished them before the end of the day.  Talk about awesome!  After Chinese we had calligraphy.  As we've had so few classes (this was only our third) the teacher told us we should continue to practice and he would write out some Chinese sayings for us so that we could take them home with us.  The writing was beautiful.  Mine said that "A good person loves others".  He even completed them with his official seal. 

As Liam was sick today, Michelle (another Hanggao senior applying to American schools that we know) stepped in and acted as translator for us.  She and a friend came to lunch with us.  By this time it was pouring, so we didn't have English corner; however, we were joined by some of our friends in our lunch room.  One Year 2 student of Alaina's even gave her a short children's book (which was adorable) that she'd translated herself.  Before the end of lunch we took a field trip to the observatory, which houses the school's ginormous (the biggest in Hangzhou) telescope and is where the astronomy club meets.  Although we couldn't use the telescope in the rain the view from the observatory was still stunning.  It's on the fifth story and is higher than any of the other school buildings.  We stayed and chatted with some of the students in the observatory for a bit until the bell rang. I headed back to meet Jiawen at her classroom. 

I stayed with her for two periods (Chinese and history).  She regaled me with a longwinded explanation of her terrible math test that morning, and I did KenKen puzzles (math puzzles similar to sudoku but with arithmetic).  Then at three I went to meet everyone at the English office.  Helen had offered to take us suitcase shopping as all of our bags are no longer be under the fifty pound weight limit for flying (lots of gifts).  The place we went to was an indoor labyrinth of small peddlers selling everything from books to fake flowers.  I'm very glad we didn't attempt to go on our own because A) we would have gotten very lost and B) as soon as any of the vendors saw us they jacked up their prices.  We all managed to find bags that were at a good price as Helen helped us bargain.  Bags in hand, we then went back to Sandy's apartment to eat cookies (yum!) and get all of our gifts for teachers and administration wrapped.  When 4:45 rolled around I went back to meet Jiawen at school.  She'd and her classmates had just come from an awards ceremony in which students received accolades for academics and outstanding performance in a teenage organization run by the goverment.  This organization is called Gong Qing Tuan - it's name is the China Communist Youth League in English.  Jiawen received an award for playing a particularly good role in this organization.  I'm not sure exactly what her role in it is, but she says she enjoys it.  On our way out of the school a Year 2 student (who later introduced herself as Lynn) offered me a "biscuit".  Being gullible, I was slightly surprised but I smiled and took it.  I opened the wrapper to eat it as she watched and saw...a piece of green chalk.  I ended up a bit embarrassed and with green chalk all over my hands, but we laughed and I could tell it made Lynn really happy that she'd managed to pull off her trick, so I really didn't mind it.  Plus, Jiawen ran to another friend and got to reuse Lynn's trick. 

After this we made our way home.  Her father came to pick us up so that we wouldn't have to walk through the rain.  We had a tasty dinner of mushrooms, along with a dish potatoes, carrots, and beef, congealed duck blood and tofu soup, stir-fried noodles, and bokchoy greens.  After dinner, Jiawen, Jiaming (her cousin), and I took a walk.  I ended up going to buy lollipops for my class as tomorrow is my last day of class at Hangzhou.  When we got back I showed Jiawen's family all of my pictures and they in turn showed me pictures of their vacation to Xinjiang and Beijing two years ago.  It was a lot of fun. 

I can't get over the fact that we leave in five days!  As I've said before, our time here has flown by!  I'm really going to miss the people and culture of Hangzhou when I leave.  This is my second to last blog, so I'll be saying "'til next time" for the last time today. I'll talk to you after we've left Hangzhou! 'Til next time...

Winding Down...

(Sandy)

Getting up and walking to school every morning has morphed from a new adventure into my usual routine...a very pleasant one. This morning I "taught" two classes, normally a one-hour time limit.  Today the second one  lasted over two hours! The kids did not want me to leave and their politics teacher was fine with the extended time...so I continued to answer questions. Obama, Google, the Dali Lama, Ivy League schools, SATs, family, teenagers vs. parents, music, movies, Sports teams, starting up your own small business, the differences and similarities between Hangao and DS and their students, uniforms and not being able to curl or color your hair at Hangao were just some of the topics. There's never a dull moment in class!

In the afternoon I had the pleasure of being escorted around West Lake by Naichuan (Ms. Viz's counterpart at Hangao) and William (the young teacher who came to DS two years ago) . We went for a boat ride to one of the islands and strolled around the beautifully manicured park. Cherry and plum blossoms were beginning to appear and lots of petunias were adding an abundance of color to the very green spring grass. Even though it was the middle of a work day, there were plenty of people enjoying the pleasant weather and the serenity of the park. After returning from the island, Naichuan and William took me for tea at what they told me is Ms. Viz's favorite spot. We climbed the stairs to reach the top floor of the 200+ year-old teahouse that overlooks West Lake. It's name is something like, "Mansion Overlooking the Lake". The structure is made of dark wood which is carved, scrolled, latticed, and highly designed. Beautiful and highly decorated Chinese lanterns drop from what looks like a suspended 5"X8" pieced tile ceiling. It was a lovely afternoon sipping Hangzhou green tea and nibbling on dried berries, mango and cashews.

After tea, Madame Miao, Principal of Hangao, hosted a dinner for us at a very nice restaurant. Alex, Alaina, Cassie and Lauren and all their host siblings were in attendance as well as some school officials. It was a very nice evening with lots of different seafood dishes and many toasts to a variety of things...some of which I did not even understand!! Along with watermelon and pineapple, there was a fun little dessert that looked like a puffed ball of Cool Whip...sweet, sticky and lip-sticking. Another busy day in beautiful Hangzhou..."a little piece of heaven on earth" as they like to say.   

 Best to all, Sandy 

My Feelings on "Paper" ... ?

(Lauren)

Hangzhou Day 26

A quick summary of recent events before I talk about today...

Going back to school on Friday after having two days off was pretty painful. The only good thing about it was having the opportunity to sit through many of Hongan's classes, which meant meeting more of her classmates. The most interesting class by far is history, though it comes with a certain degree of stress. Because Hongan and Ning have the same history teacher, he felt perfectly comfortable including me in the lesson. To be fair, he had included me a little bit when I was in Ning's class, but at that point they were studying the Great Depression and Roosevelt, so the questions were fairly straightforward. Unfortunately, Hongan's class was studying the history of paper-making (and no, I have no idea why two classes with the same teachers had such a wildly differing curriculum). The first question out of the teacher's mouth was, "What are your feelings on paper?" This question was followed shortly thereafter by "Do you know what the four greatest Chinese inventions are?" (yes, thank you Ms. Viz!) and "What did the ancient Europeans write on before the Chinese invented paper?" I had absolutely no idea how to answer the questions. Fortunately, Hongan didn't understand any of my answers, so hopefully everyone assumed I had said really intelligent things - so intelligent, they were untranslatable!

After school, we stopped to watch Cassie referee a soccer game (she did a great job) and went to the movies, which was a lot of fun.

On Saturday, after our group activities were finished, Hongan and I helped my host mom make dumplings for dinner. I felt very satisfied at having made my own meal. But then I actually tried some. Let's just say I was really, really bad at making the dumplings. For some reason, I found it very difficult to stick the two sides of the dumplings together around the meaty filling, so the majority exploded when they were boiled. Then, I accidentally drowned them all in vinegar and soy sauce. Fortunately Hongan's mom took pity on me and made proper ones, which were excellent. Clearly, I don't have a future as a gourmet dumpling chef.

Sunday morning, Hongan's family and I went to the Xixi National Wetlands Park. According to Hongan's mom, who is a history teacher, Hangzhou was once almost entirely under the water. The area where we live was only manually filled in within the last hundred years. The government has taken care to make sure that some of this history is preserved. In the park, many smaller lakes and ponds are connected, forming a vast waterland that stretches the entire length of the city. Hongan, her mom, and I got in line for the scenic boat tour, while my host dad waited for us in the car. I was surprised to see such a long line a mere forty minutes after the opening of the park! I was pleasantly surprised, however. While a line of a comparative length in America would have meant waiting at least three hours, in China, lines move very quickly. Within forty minutes, we were on the boat.

Xixi has four main islands that are within easy access. We stopped at one of them, and saw the view of the park from an old pagoda. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see the others, since we had to be at Alex's house by one.

We spent a pleasant afternoon with Alex and his host family, although we missed Sandy, Alaina, and Alaina's sister Yi Mei, who were fishing. It was especially nice to see Steve Landy again, and for Cassie and I to have the opportunity to meet Bob, Alex's former host brother. After eating dinner with Alex's family, Hongan and I returned to our apartment.

Last night was especially memorable for me. My host dad was able to end his work day a bit earlier than usual, so he and I practiced Taichi. I really enjoyed it, considerably more than I anticipated! Watching my host dad do the moves, I thought Taichi was very beautiful, but couldn't believe such easy movements counted as exercise. Doing it myself, I was pleased to find that the moves really were as easy as they looked, so I was able to perform them reasonably well reasonably quickly. The difficulty with Taichi is the exaggerated slowness of the movements. Although each individual movement is simple, and most are quite comfortable, the slow transition from one position to another makes it very difficult to hold. I didn't realize from watching just how long I would have to hold each position for. I got tired much more quickly than I anticipated, but it was incredibly satisfying (much more so than the dumpling fiasco).

And now, on to today...

Our only class today was Chinese painting. As our regular teacher was at an important meeting, Liam introduced us to Mrs. Zhu, the substitute. Mrs. Zhu began the lesson by demonstrating the proper techniques for painting traditionally. After spending three weeks trying to learn this ourselves out of books, everyone appreciated Mrs. Zhu's practical demonstration. Alaina and Cassie produced very beautiful work, and Alex showed a lot of talent for someone who claimed he had none! I'm still unable to paint anything that looks traditional, but both our regular art teacher and Mrs. Zhu have been fascinated and amused (or bemused, sometimes it's hard to tell) with the psychedelic line designs I have made. Apparently, there is a particularly famous Chinese artist who paints in a similar style...

After painting, we headed over to the cafeteria for lunch (delicious, as usual) and then went to English Corner. There, we met one of the girls who will be coming to DS in the spring. Her name is Alina for the moment, but will probably be changed as she thinks it sounds too much like "Alaina." She seemed very nice, if somewhat shy.

In the afternoon, we decided to head over to Sandy's apartment to sort out the various teacher and administrator gifts for the banquet. While it took several hours, we were very satisfied with our final decisions, and felt like we had had a productive afternoon. Alaina introduced us to a donut and milk tea shop she had been to, and so we stopped for a quick snack before heading back to Hanggao for our respective class meetings.

Hongan's class had planned several games for us to play during the meeting. First, we played musical chairs. In the first round, I was one of the last two standing, along with one other boy. It was hysterical: whenever the music would stop playing, we would look at each other and then look at the seat, but neither of us wanted to get the other out! I suspect the boy felt awkward about trying to beat me. He got over his awkwardness after a couple tries, though. Then, various members of the class sang songs. One boy had brought in his guitar, and played music from the Backstreet Boys. He was an excellent guitar player - and of course, all of the kids who got up to sing were fantastic singers! I have no idea how it's possible that everyone in China is so musically talented.

After the meeting, Hongan and I headed back to the apartment, where we spent a quiet evening. Tomorrow, we look forward to dinner with Madame Miao! 

Urban Fishing

(Alaina)

Hello!

On Saturday I had a great evening with my host parents. After the school-organized events, they picked me up and took me to a new part of Hangzhou along the river, where a large theater is located. It was a gorgeous day and the whole area was beautiful, particularly noteworthy for the innovative architectural design. The main courtyard was scattered with people flying kites and also enjoying the nice weather. We had a lovely time walking and lurching through conversation. My host father speaks enough English that we can usually communicate everything to each other with the help of many gestures and a tiny red dictionary (at first I thought he was toting Mao’s Little Red Book!). He is so good humored and enthusiastic in his efforts to ask questions and give information. Interestingly enough, he’s the first person to ask me what I don’t like about China; I appreciate that his curiosity runs beyond the typical pleasantries and factual basics. (My answer was the structure of high school and the university entrance process... in simplified language of course.)

We walked to a great dinner at a restraint overlooking the river. We got fried dumplings with pork and vegetables, eggplant and snow peas, potatoes in a dark soy sauce (they ordered those not me!), sweet “beauty soup” with watermelon and little clear jelly things, extremely spicy beef and peas, and lotus root in a sweet honey sauce. Not only was the food great, but in the next hour I ended up laughing so much my life span must have increased by at least five years. For this, I have three things to thank. First: one of the menu dishes was translated as “Fire man is a bowl of beans.” Enough said. Second: I was having extreme difficulty picking up a bloated dumpling with my chopsticks so after significant fumbling, I snatched it with my hand and plopped it onto my plate. Three young waitresses were standing nearby watching and all three absolutely cracked up. They literally ran away to conceal their blatantly laughing at me, and for the rest of the night they avoided the table and cracked up while serving. I was very amused that they were so embarrassed that I had seen them making fun of me (someone should’ve told them it happens regularly), so I exacerbated the matter by making faces and speaking kindergarten Chinese. Finally, the most epic of the comical moments: my host dad walked into a pool. The restaurant was built above the river, so in several places the floor turned into clear glass we were able to walk over. It got dark while we were eating, so when we left the restaurant I was excited to see that the large decorative pool, which was perfectly level with the ground, was lit from underwater with multicolor lights. The water was so still it looked like an illusion similar to the glass we walked on earlier. I ran up and pretended to step on it, saying that it was very dangerous because the water looked like glass. My meaning was clearly lost, because my host dad then strolled over, made a big show of raising his leg... and actually walking right into the calf-deep water! If I’ve succeeded in conveying even the smallest degree of the true hilarity, you will be laughing out-loud right now, as I currently am. He and my mom genuinely laughed too, so no worries. He also thought it was funny when we were heading home and I told him I was scared he would drive into a lake.

Speaking of lakes… on Sunday we went fishing. I’m not exactly sure why, as all the students I shared the plan with agreed that only old men go fishing. Nonetheless, Yimei had assembled a posse of 6 kids and Sandy to go with us. I always enjoy meeting people in settings that let us get to know each other better, so it was really the good company that made the day enjoyable. Hong Ye came along (it was funny to note the distinct awe with which the first years regard her) and a second year student named Dawn who will be coming to America! They were both excellent to talk with.

When we got to the fishing destination I was disappointed; it wasn’t a real lake!! I shouldn’t have been surprised by the large manmade rectangle of murky water, crisscrossed by docks full of people fishing. We rented poles and sat for a while, watching other people catching fish, before tiring pretty quickly and calling it quits. While wandering around I was interested to see pits of giant snapping turtles, ducks, chickens, and a pond teeming with hundreds of painted turtles. Turns out, of course, all the animals are born and bred to be eaten, a fact that caused me to revoke the names I had begun assigning to the turtles. We ate at a restaurant in the complex, the lobby of which included bins of frogs, red eels, and many more turtles. I enjoyed the vegetable dumplings (and redeemed my chopstick skills!).

I want to update my impression of my host sister Yimei. I am very impressed by her. The two attributes that stick out most are extreme motivation and a strong faith/pride in the larger forces of her life, including the government, the school system, and Chinese culture. She is extremely busy. On most days she goes straight from school, to dance class, to extra school, and she spends most of the weekend in classes. What confuses me is that she doesn’t seem to enjoy any of the things she works so hard for. Her dance class, for example, revolves around competitions, but from what I’ve witnessed it only stresses her out and degrades her confidence. Regardless, she chose the competitive class because the competitions force her to “be the best.” She even likes homework because it makes her improve and “be the best.” Her most definitive career goal is to get a PhD, though she hasn’t decided in what yet. I am in awe of her steadfast work ethic. I’ve realized that since I normally choose my friends, it’s very rare for me to get to know a person with whom I share little in common. It has been interesting to spend so much time with someone whose motivations and goals differ greatly from my own.

Today (Monday) was not particularly noteworthy. This is our last full week in Hangzhou and I can feel the clock ticking. I know this time will fly by. Today started with Technology, during which we made tiny flutes out of bamboo. This was my favorite project, probably because it’s my first product to function correctly. After lunch we had Chinese, when we learned about foods and holidays. The teacher, who usually teaches advanced Chinese literature, tries so hard and we really appreciate his efforts. The class has been a challenge for us all. The five of us then took some time to plan out the speeches that we’ll make during the “thank you” banquet we throw before leaving. These speeches must be made in Chinese, so we’ll have them translated first. I’m nervous that no one will understand my pronunciation.

At English corner we met another girl who will be going to America! I was quite stunned to find out that her English name is Alina, which she pronounces just like Alaina! Aaahaha!! She immediately decided to change it… I was going to protest, but it really would be too weird, particularly if she ends up in my house! We started suggesting names, and the favorites were Lea and Sophia. She seems to like soft sounding names especially that end in a’s; any suggestions?? Oh! Also, Hong Ye wants an English name that’s related to leaves or trees because her Chinese name translates to “leaf.” She’s looking for the perfect name, since she’ll be coming to America long-term. She would really appreciate some help! Willow is the best I’ve come up with. (Come on mom, you should be good at this!)

Today we also picked up and tried on our silk garments! Some alterations will be made, but I think all in all we’re happy. While it’ll be fun to wear once or twice, sadly Traditional Chinese may not be my best look. We did all choose blues and greens, so our impeccable matching pleases me very much. As no one actually wears traditional silk clothing anymore, the students are generally perplexed and amused by this endeavor; I expect there will be significant exclamation when we show up to the banquet all decked out. It’ll be fun.

Hm, I seem to be out of things to say.

Thanks for reading!

Basketball in "Hollywood Hills"

(Alex)

Hello once again America!

As we approach week 7 we are beginning to realize how fast time is flying. It seems as if we just got off our long delay to Ninbo and were just meeting the school faculty for the first time, but we still have one week left, and we will make it count for sure! This week we begin preparing for our banquet by writing a speech and helping Wong Shifu (our chef) pick a restaurant to have it at. Expect to hear more about this topic from the others as the week progresses, but today was really fun and beautiful.

The weather was magnificent and this morning Tianle and I played basketball together when the doorbell rang. Turns out his three cousins, aunt, and uncle came by to spend the day with us. His eldest cousin is very good at basketball and showed me up on the court today, but I displayed my badminton and rugby skills to him. I taught him and Tianle how to properly throw a rugby ball and so far they are both getting surprisingly good at it. Also today, William, Bob, Bob's friend Lilian, Steve, and all the girls except Alaina and her host sister came to hang out. Alaina and Yimei were fishing today, but we missed them. We all played sports in Tianle's backyard and had snacks while talking and catching up on life. I finally gave Bob his long awaited Celtics shirt I brought him and he tried it on as soon as I gave it to him. It seems that wearing this shirt either makes you play like Ray Allen, or Bob is excellent at basketball...I think it's combination of both. Bob in return gave me a specially crafted Chinese seal made from a renowned Chinese art professor at a fine art institute. It had a personal message for me and I can't thank him enough for it. I am going to miss Bob so much when I leave Hangzhou, but hopefully over the next three years I can visit him in Hong Kong for a short while, or perhaps he could come see me in Boston.

It was also great to get to meet Steve formally and spend the afternoon with him. When I was a freshman at DS I wasn't very involved with the exchange program so I did not have the opportunity to get to meet him. We all talked about our experience so far in China along with his and the 2007 group's. I feel very lucky to have a previous exchange student willing to spend this much time with us to help in anyway, and Steve definitely deserves recognition for doing so.

Throughout the afternoon we all played basketball and passed around the rugby ball with a little badminton in between. The host siblings decided to do some homework together because sports were getting a bit tiring to them, but me, Steve, Cassie, and Lauren all passed around the rugby ball talking about college majors and topics. Bob, Lilian, and William all had to leave a little early, but everyone else stuck around for dinner at a very nice resort close by Tianle's house.

We walked about ten minutes to the restaurant and sat down at a very nice table with a view overlooking a small lake surrounding the resort. The community in which Tianle lives is called Liangzhu, and has been nicknamed the Hollywood Hills of Hangzhou by yours truly. Everyone was surprised by how far away he lived from the city and how nice his community is (I still am myself). William was telling me how lucky I am to be able to stay here, and I agree, however there was something about Charlie's apartment that made me feel like I had been there before. I don't know if I will ever feel that again, but both of my host families have been too nice to me and I can't thank them enough for that. As a matter of fact, Tianle's mother discovered I love a Chinese food called "ai qing tuan si" a Chinese breakfast/snack that is flour mixed with a plant and red bean. I have been known to devour any red bean given to me because I fell in love with it as soon as I had it here. I can be a picky eater sometimes, so it is good that the parents know what I like and don't like to eat. Next Friday we are all supposed to get together with William to have a big dinner, and I hope it all plans well. It also might be the last time I see Bob for a while so I want it to work that much more! Keep checking to see how our last week of Hanggao goes. Good night.

Tea, Silk, MTV and the NBA...

(Cassie) Hello everyone! Today is the two week mark...we return home in fourteen days, and we only have one more week of school in Hangzhou. Time has flown! And today was no exception; it was a fun day and it went by so quickly. Jiawen and I woke up and had breakfast out of the house for the first time this morning. We walked down the street to a local restaurant, where I had some dumplings and some sticky rice and she had a dish similar to an omelete wrapped in a thin pastry. Not quite as good as our daily baozi, but tasty anyway. After eating, we walked about down the block to a busier street to catch a taxi. It was tough, as there were many people vying for very few taxis, but we got one just in time. We arrived at the school only five minutes before our departure time. When we got on the bus, Jiawen said goodbye. She was given a ton of homework this weekend and needed to go to the library to take a chunk out of it. Our first stop was the Hangzhou tea museum. We didn't end up spending too much time in the actual museum, as much of it was under construction, but we did spend some time in the beautiful grounds surrounding the museum. We were all particularly enchanted by a small grove of cherry trees. Right now all of the cherry blossoms are blooming spectacularly, and these trees were no exception. Around us there were people sitting eating and talking, while children rolled down a nearby hill. All in all an idyllic area. After walking around the small park for a bit, we went to lunch at a restaurant called the Green Tea restaurant. It was awesome! The restaurant itself was beautiful...all of the walls were made of small panes of glass seperated by thin pieces of wood, with wooden tables and teacups to match. We all sat at a long table and ate lots of delicious food, including chunky tomato soup with bamboo shoots and broad beans, a slightly spicy curry potato and beef dish, and other great dishes. The dessert was just as appealing. It included four heaping bowls of peanut and mango ice cream as well as a small mountain of sweet ice with red and green beans on the outside covered in honey, and cube-shaped loaves of warm bread with vanilla ice cream. Unsurprisingly, there was quite a bit left over when we'd had our fill. When we'd finished lunch we made our way to our second museum of the day...the silk museum. As Lauren had already been to the museum twice so rather than going through the exhibit, we were instead brought to a special area to make our own Chinese-style tie-dyed handkerchiefs. The style of tie-dying wasn't too different from the usual except that a tightly wrapped string was used instead of a rubber band. Lauren's was particularly interesting - she ended up with a cool pattern of rings all over her blue silk handkerchief. When we'd finished, we jumped on the bus to go back to school. Jiawen met me at the school when we arrived. After saying our goodbyes at the Hanggao gate, we turned for home. Jiawen was hungry from her long morning of studying (she hadn't had lunch) so she grabbed some food when we got home. Then we watched the Chinese version of MTV, which is called Channel V. After some TV watching and singing (on Jiawen's part) we both settled down to read a bit before dinner. Dinnertime rolled around and Jiawen, her brother, her mother, and I walked down the street to the family's favorite restaurant to meet her father. At dinner we were met by two of her father's friends as well as one of the friend's son. Dinner was fun as I spent most of it teaching Jiawen obscure food names such as seaweed, ketchup, pumpkin, and snail. She kept making me laugh because she couldn't seem to remember ketchup and was getting somewhat frustrated. She'd always get the same look of concentration on her face when trying to remember it. We went home to meet two of Jiawen's cousins while the adults remained in the restaurant to chat. When we got to the house her cousins Jiaming and Jiayi were there. The names of her cousins are a bit confusing because they all have the same family name (Ling) and the first syllable of their given names are the same (Jia). So Jiawen calls the whole group the Ling Jias. Jiawen, her brother, her cousins, and I spent the rest of the evening listening to music on the computer and watching NBA highlights. Jiawen loves Jason Mraz...she's already memorized "I'm Yours". Her brother and Jiayi are both big basketball fans. Jiayi is a Celtics fan (I told him it was the way to go) while Jiashang really likes the Lakers. We went to bed pretty late. It was a very fun day followed by a very fun evening. I can't believe we'll be in Beijing soon! I'll be sad to leave Hangzhou a week from Tuesday. That's all for now. 'Til next time...

On Top of the World

(Sandy)

Monday March 29

Hi Everyone!!

Today was actually a comparatively slow day for me. I had a few unscheduled hours to use as I wished! So... I will tell you a little about yesterday in Shanghai and my trip to the top of the third tallest building in the world (Shanghai World Financial Center). When I was here 9 years ago, the tallest in Shanghai was the "Jetson Family-looking" Oriental Pearle TV Tower... today it is the third and soon to be the fourth. Construction of the tallest in the world is well underway. The Shanghai World Financial Center is an awesome sight. You gaze upward in disbelief that it is a real building. The Sky Walk is on the 100th floor, 474m above the ground level. I was told that the elevator zooms to the top at eight meters a second....and that it takes only about a minute and a half to reach the top. (I'm not doing the math!!) The Sky Walk offers a trek across an observation deck that is glass on three sides. It has a partial glass floor which is heart-stopping for those who are afraid of heights. Looking straight down 100 floors to the busy streets below one can see the dwarfed Bund, the comparatively short Jin Mao Building (second tallest in Shanghai),and of course the tiny old Pearle Tower.

The other really cool thing that happened to me in Shanghai occurred at an unexpected stop at an art gallery. While I was purchasing a book on paper-cutting, the sales person and I began to chat and I told her that I was an art teacher. All of a sudden she called to another person in the store and Li Shou Bai, a famous paper cutter, showed up at the counter. Through an interpretor he asked if I had some time to spare...and began creating a paper cut of a butterfly. He allowed me to film him at work and then signed and dated the piece and gave it to me! Until I read his bio in a magazine, I did not know of his great achievements and his gold award as "Best Paper Cut Master in Virtue and Skill". He is also the director of a number of impressive Shanghai Cultural and Artist Associations. Li Shou Bai  creates in other media as well. I wish I had had more time to investigate his other work. Time is always an issue here...there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything you'd like.  Best to all, Sandy 

Malling in China

(Lauren)

Hangzhou Day 21/ Shanghai Day 2

Most of the interesting activities that I have done with my host family have already been covered in other blogs, so instead of beginning this blog with a recap of my last few days, I would instead like to write about my impressions of my new family after several days with them.

Hongan, my host sister, is very sweet. She is more a lot more reserved than Ning was, and also tends to be more serious. I would probably describe her as more openly affectionate than Ning, - she's read several English novels and has heard of many classical English authors. Because Ning had a surprisingly small amount of knowledge about most American forms of entertainment, our conversations on those subjects were limited. I am really happy to find someone here who has heard of the author O'Henry and can discuss him to a certain extent, which is something that I would not necessarily expect American students to be able to do! Hongan is very interested in American culture, especially in the ways that it differs from Chinese culture. Although she is still a little reluctant to express strong opinions, particularly ones which I could interpret negatively, I really like hearing about the things that she has seen us do that she finds strange. Sometimes I think I spend so much time adjusting to customs that I find unusual here, I forget that my own habits are seen as equally perplexing!

Hongan's mother is one of the most fascinating people I've met so far in Hangzhou. Because she teaches seventh grade history and geography, she has amassed an incredible amount of knowledge about the historical sites around the city. She is also deeply interested in the differences between American and Chinese education. Although many Chinese students have asked me questions about American schools, I was surprised to find that a teacher held the same inaccurate views - everyone here thinks that Americans don't go to school until nine or ten in the morning, have no homework, and party all the time. We constantly have to explain that they shouldn't judge our entire education system based on Hollywood's portrayal of it!

Hongan's father is the person I know the least in my new family. He doesn't speak any English at all, and works most of the day. But he seems very nice. Because of his rounder appearance and everlasting patience (he was incredibly nice about waiting for us when he was on "chauffeur" duty last weekend) I have mentally labelled him "Buddha Dad." He's really sweet, and loves poker and Taichi (which he wants to teach me!)

Now, on to today...

Because today's weather was much nicer than the previous day's, Sandy and Derek were eager to return to the Financial Center to see the view from the tallest building in Shanghai. Thinking the price was a bit steep, Alaina, Cassie, Alex, and I separated from them and visited the Pearl instead. As that was even pricier, we decided not to bother going up to the Observation Deck, and looked around the square for something to do. Because it was before ten, many stores had not opened yet, so there weren't very many options. Fortunately, Cassie spotted a shopping mall nearby, which she and I visited. Neither one of us had ever been to a Chinese mall before. I think the comparison to America is as follows: Chinese supermarkets = American malls. Chinese malls = absolutely enormous buildings that look deceptively small on the outside, but that can fit thirteen floors, a movie theater, every restaurant/ice cream place known to man, a gym, and a yoga center quite comfortably, and still have plenty of room left over. I think my favorite thing about the mall was how layered it was. Everytime we went into a store, that store led into a subdepartment of the mall that we couldn't have seen from the outside, so we really could have wandered in there forever, never really getting a sense of how many subdepartments there were.

After a half an hour, Cassie and I rejoined Alex and Alaina, and we headed back to the subway to meet up with Sandy and Derek. Because it had taken the two of them a bit longer than they planned, we had to cut our plans a little bit short. We took the subway to Shanghai's famous Nanjing Road for some lunch (Pizza Hut, which is incredibly classy in China). After lunch, we walked around Nanjing Road for a little while, but we had to go back to the subway station to get over to our train back to Hangzhou.

The ride back was uneventful, and we were picked up at the station by the school bus, which saved us the ordeal of trying to find a taxi! Back at the school, we separated and each of us headed back to his or her own host family. I was really glad to see Hongan and her family again - I'd missed them more than I'd expected!

Tomorrow, we go back to our usual school routine. Hopefully, it'll be a laid-back day. The excitement of Shanghai definitely wore us out a bit!

PANDAAAS AND CHEEEESE!

(Alaina)

Hello!

First, a quick note about my week:

I want to mention an unusual interaction I had with my host sister Yimei. We were talking when Yimei unintentionally brought up a political issue (I think its better not to name it specifically or go into details) that I feel strongly about. Though I know she didn't mean to launch a political discussion and didn't realize how heavy her words were, she made a few casual comments that I felt I couldn't ignore completely. I told her that her statements were not necessarily true and asked about her background knowledge on the issue, suggesting that she may be missing part of the story. I was stunned at how quickly she became very upset, particularly since she had made the inflammatory claims and I had only asked for her reasoning. She sounded near tears when she told me that since we have different opinions, we can't talk about it, and since I'm not Chinese, I'll never understand her point of view and there's no use trying. This mentality is what really struck me. I know this sounds epically corny, but I feel like that statement is literally the antithesis of a major American ideal. I told Yimei that no, I didn't yet understand where she was coming from, but I might be able to if she helped me. I told her that I didn't want to change her opinion, just understand it- that's why I'm here in China, to learn things that only Chinese people can teach me. From there the cliches built- it's good to have different opinions, in America we like to talk about them, no one will ever understand without talking, lalala. Somehow my speech actually carried some merit; Yimei believed that I was just curious and let down her guard. She ended up telling me about the things she has read and learned, and the personal opinions she had drawn from that information. When she asked me to do the same it was clear that our facts have a huge chasm running between them. I think we both viewed each other's take on it with skepticism. Though neither of us believed the new revelations, we both found it interesting to compare our versions of the truth, if somewhat bemusedly. The whole thing began as a sticky situation, but in the end I'm glad it happened. The political discussion yielded cultural lessons.

Now, on to Wednesday

Spoiler alert: PANDAAAS and CHEEESE.

We arrived in Shanghai around 11am after a comfortable hour(ish) on the high speed train. After several subway lines and a short walk we were able to check into our hotel and begin our Shanghai adventure. And where do all adventures start? The zoo!! We were all resolved to see pandas while in China, and a major incentive of the Shanghai trip was the fact that several pandas have been relocated from Chengdu for the World Expo. The weather alternated between drizzles and showers, and while it wasn't as cold as the psychotic news reports predicted, I was preparing mentally for a potentially miserable trek. On the contrary, the drizzles ended up being an amazing stroke of good luck. The entire zoo was utterly deserted; sadly this meant all the food stands were closed, but that aside, it was much more fun having the place to ourselves. After visiting West Lake on a nice day, I can say that when it comes to tourist destinations, I absolutely prefer a chilly breeze and open walkways to the massive crowds of sunny days. We were worried that the animals would all be hiding due to the rain, but once again, the weather proved to be our greatest ally. When we made our way to the pandas we found that there was an outside enclosure connected to an indoor enclosure, the latter of which was roofed and contained only by glass. Rather than scattered around the large outdoor enclosure as they would be on a good day, all ten pandas were chilling in the much smaller indoor component. They were SO CUTE!! We spent about an hour watching them play, roughhouse, sleep, and look generally huggable from just across the glass. We also watched them get fed bowls of milk (?), carrots and bamboo. I took about 80 pictures, that's how unbelievable it was: a line of 10 pandas drinking milk, a panda hanging from a log, a panda sitting on his butt on a slide, a panda eating a carrot, a panda with a big belly... I swear, it never got old!! It was absolutely amazing to see SO many pandas SO close and with no need to share. The fact that this was possible thanks to crappy weather also adds a nice moral to the story. :)

After saying goodbye to our ten best friends, we visited a few more noteworthy animals. First, we saw a huge lion, also particularly interesting because he was so close and active. Despite the raw power and majesty, I think he was just as unhappy as any kitty to be out in the rain. Unlike other kitties, however, this lion began to growl and roar, seemingly at us. There is no way to describe a full-blown lion roar experienced at close quarters with no background noise or distraction. We also saw a giraffe that was practically knocking its head on the glass, adorable giant-chipmunk-tiny-deer things, elephants, and a silverback gorilla. I visited a major zoo in Bangkok that was not up to my humane-treatment standards, so I was happy to see that the conditions were just as good as the nicer American zoos and it was probably a bit cleaner and less smelly too. I probably should have expected this; as the World Expo is sure to demonstrate, Shanghai is an immensely modern, sophisticated, and international city.

Wow… the zoo was so exciting I didn't really pay attention to the rest of the day. I guess I was still playing with pandas in my head.

Oh, yeah! Food! Unfortunately for those interested in Chinese cuisine, this was not a cultural dinner… but it was VERY much enjoyed. We had driven to a small traditiional shopping street to look around and have dinner. Cassie and I, of course, were very quick to spot a beautiful, shining, majestic… Americann diner!!! They nailed the decor, complete with mirrored walls and leather booths. Cassie, Alex, and Sandy got burgers / fries, Lauren got pesto feta penne, Derrick got creamy shrimp fettuccine and I got an egg / bacon / cheese breakfast burrito with potatoes (breakfast for dinner! True diner style!). To seal the deal Lauren and I also shared cheese fries… withh REAL cheese, not the gross liquid nacho kind. Now, you've got to realize, legit cheese fries are difficult to come by in the US. I was PHYCHED. Ahhh, so satisfying. I've missed cheese! Other than the problematic lack of cheese, it's not that I'm tired of Chinese food itself, just the monotony. I've realized that at home I would never eat the same kind of food multiple days in a row. I miss the variety.

The shopping street was very nice to walk around. Most of us didn't buy anything because it was pricey (stores rather than stalls), but there were lots of neat things to look at. In particular, there were several photography stores displaying and selling gorgeous prints. I was interested to note that almost all employed the same Photophop gimmick, which I thought enhanced some pictures and was very distracting in others.

From the shopping street we met Derek's friend. They tried to take us to some kind of bar, but as all the party spots were full, we ended up in a nice coffee shop. The two quickly supplied all of us with very large frappacino drinks, complete with whipped cream. We tried to protest this addition to the unnecessarily generous food offers, failed, accepted the delicious chocolate yum drinks, and made quick work of them. This seems to be a repeating occurrence.

Uhm, I think that's all we did (the pandas! The pandas in my brain are blocking out everything else!). It was really a great day!

Yeeeeey

Kaybye

Thanks for reading,

Shanghai Here We Come!

(Alex)

Good evening America,

Its a fine Tuesday night over here, and the rain is coming down very, very hard.  The weather today started off mediocre and eventually spiraled into this storm.  It seems like last week's heat wave was short lived, but we can only hope for more good weather for the next two weeks.  At this point, we are all getting acquainted with our new host families and are doing well, but we already miss our old way of life with the first group of kids.  Li Tianle has been nothing but nice, but I miss Charlie and his family so much.  I guess I got closer to him than I thought I had, but its a very good thing I still see him at school, or else....I would cry (kidding).  Tianle lives about a half hour drive out of the city so I am also a bit further way from everyone, but his house is very nice and I am glad to have such luck to be with such a great and welcoming family.  They are all Christian and I very much enjoy the differences of their lifestyle as opposed to mine.  I plan on going to church with my family one weekend and I am really interested in how a Chinese church will be.  Tianle's father is actually building a church in the community for those who wish to worship and that shows his dedication and good attitude both to his religion and his neighborhood.  They are intrigued that I am Jewish, but I am not surprised seeing how very few Chinese are.  I have actually been teaching Charlie and Tianle a little bit of Hebrew here and there and they both love it!  Another shift for me is that instead of waking up at 6:40 am, I now get up around 6 am or earlier!  We live further away and we have to beat the Chang Long (Long Dragon a.k.a traffic) to get to school on time.  I told this to Charlie at school and he just laughed like usual, and I stood there reflecting on my shame...but we both enjoy picking on each other; he truly is my little brother (don't worry Jake!). 

As for the school day, we had our Chinese Painting class today and we began preparing to make our final "masterpiece" or so our teacher called it.  The girls are all excellent artists, so I feel very intimidated when they paint well and I can hardly paint a straight line for my life.  Couple this with the fact that my hands are really big and you have a recipe for destruction!  My first few paintings here were like caveman prints, except mine were just smudges of Chinese ink; it was quite embarrassing.  I feel like I have improved though (no matter how little), and I have begun to enjoy the class more.  When we finish our Chinese painting lesson, we all paint what we feel like or talk to Liam to pass the time, but we all very much enjoy our Chinese painting and calligraphy classes and wish we could have more of them.

Today was also a big day for the Shanghai Five.  We had our first meeting with Madame Miao..  She had been in Beijing for a while at the National People's Conference and was very busy these last few weeks, so it was finally great to meet the woman who clothes-lined our chances of going to Tibet.  She is a nice lady who runs a tight ship over here at Hanggao and takes pride in it.  Derek was there to help translate our meeting and we all discussed how thankful we were to be able to visit the school for one month.  Alaina, Cassie, Lauren, and I all individually introduced ourselves and Mrs. Thibeault gave her all the gifts from America that were brought for her.  I taught Sandy a cool phrase for when giving a gift to a Chinese person (Wo song gei ni) which translates into I give you a gift, but she kept thinking I was setting her up to say bad words in Chinese.  It was funny, but when she said it and it turned out to be an actual phrase I saw how relieved she was.  I love to joke around with Sandy just because she is fun to be around and is very gullible sometimes.  Her reactions are also priceless, however she is learning how to counter me at my own game and she is starting to become the jokester herself.  This is not good for me!  But anyway, after our meeting we headed home with our siblings and the rain began.

Tomorrow is going to be amazing!  Shanghai here we come!  I am very excited about going to Shanghai and seeing the Pandas, the Bund, and all the other cool sites and high rises there.  Alaina and Lauren both have their blog days scheduled while we are away, but they will be unable to write the blog when we are there, so there will be a big update on Shanghai on this Friday, so get ready!  Tianle and I are going to go do work now, but check back soon to hear from the Shanghai Five once we have officially been there!  Derek will be coming with us and help us get around and we all can't wait.  Goodnight America, until next time.     

We Are Sooo Busy!

(Sandy)

Hello Blog-readers!

Let me begin by saying that each day is filled with new adventures and often we are not made fully aware of exactly what they may be until we arrive at "the sight". It is my belief that our hosts know the daily plan so we all just go with the flow. Sometimes, for me anyway, the plan includes being passed off to the next family in the middle of the day. I am forgetting how to think for myself and how to organize a day. We are sooo busy, that I have had no time to sketch...thank goodness for cameras. The hospitality and friendliness is "over-the -top". We are all thinking that it may be difficult to return to reality after being treated like royalty for two months! 

This morning's CCTV9 news station had an interesting piece about Chinese weddings. There was a huge wedding expo held in Shanghai and it appears that weddings no longer reflect those of just thirty years ago when one black & white photo and a ring were the necessities. Now, weddings can cost between 80,000 and 100,000 yuan and bring in 2.5 per cent of the GNP of China. Each year for the last two years, over 10,000,000 registered to get married. During the course of our stay here, we have seen many couples getting their pre-wedding photos taken at some of the picturesque places we've visited. The pre-wedding photos are quite a production with the future bride and groom dressing in many different oufits and posing for what could be a Style or GQ magazine cover...some actually quite provocative!

As I was heading for my morning pick-up at the school's front gate, there were as usual, many many orange-clad workers using their long bamboo tongs to pick up rubbish and to keep the streets free of any unsightly refuse. Sometimes, they are hooded, masked and gloved and resemble a neon Darth Vader! They work hard and do a great job!

Boy have we had some unusual dishes while in Hangzhou and for the most part at least a few of us have tried everything. I definitely have my "never-try- again" list but am glad that we were offered turtle meat and shell, duck tongue, jellyfish, chicken feet, teeny little fish that look like a 2-inch portion of a round shoelace and a variety of vegetables that I have not seen before. My personal favorite food is the sweetened lotus root, bamboo shoots in all it's forms, and a clear gelatinous soup with dropped egg and tiny sweet marble-sized bean-paste filled dumplings...often used as a dessert.

I was asked to participate in the school's noon-time student-run radio broadcast. It was a lot of fun and the girls who run it are quite professional. One in particular wants to be news commentator an I believe that she will succeed. She reminds me of Katie Couric. I was asked to speak about DS, my family, my favorite Chinese foods and....why I think art is important!!! Those of you who know me can imagine my impassioned delight to have to speak about that subject. After they restled the microphone out of my hand...(just kidding)...! I referred them to the Internet, to Eliot Eisner and the Ten Things that the Arts Teach...it was all very interesting. This Friday, I believe Alaina will join me for another radio interview.

Lauren and I and her host family visited the Tie Sha River area...a man-made canal at the sight of the old East Gate of old Hangzhou. There is a replica of the gate that also houses a small museum exhibiting a variety of items from that era as well as the original base structure. The Mom is a history teacher, so there was an abundance of information being disseminated with great energy. The Tie Sha River connects Beijing with Hangzhou and was used by the emporer to visit Hangzhou during the spring and to oversee the planting. We also climbed Jade Emperor Mountain (a guzzillion more stairs) which is the highest peak in Hangzhou and offers a great view of West Lake and the eight-sided planting fields that the emporer visited. We walked all around it and through the gently curved walkway that divides the yin/yang tree-filled design in the center of the fields. The locals and tourists enjoy the park and fields...some future brides and grooms were having their photos taken there...and some children were playing ball over a large replica of the "farming calendar" invented by Wang Zhen in 1313.

We also visited the pottery and kiln museums that displayed the ancient processes as well as both original and contemporary pottery made only in Hangzhou...the Southern Song Dynasty Guan Pottery. Because Jade was and is still admired, the potters attempt to replicate the beauty and characteristics of jade in the pottery glaze. I will end as I began...everyday there are new and wonderful adventures to experience!

Best, Sandy

"The Man in the Egg ... He Was Really Big!"

(Cassie)

Hello all! I'm now writing from my new host family's apartment...as I'm sure you've already heard that we made the move last Friday. My new 16 year old host sister's name is Ling Jiawen, and she lives on the tenth floor of a highrise along with her fifteen year old brother and parents. Her family is from the countryside and thus is able to have two children...the rule is that if a rural family's first child is a girl they may have another child. Although Jiawen's family moved to Hangzhou shortly after she was born, the rule still applied. Jiawen is very energetic and quite fit. She proudly told me that she is the strongest girl in her class, and I'm not surprised. She is a bundle of happy energy. Her English is impeccable; she went to a special primary school, so she has been learning English for three years longer than most of the other students at Hanggao. She has been nice enough to agree to help me improve my Chinese pronunciation if I'll help her with her vocabulary, which she feels "is quite poor" but really is the opposite.

This morning, we began our day with blueberry muffins that we had bought at a bakery yesterday. After breakfast, we walked about five minutes to meet two of Jiawen's classmates and friends who all live nearby and therefore have joined in a car pool. After introductions and several questions about which Johnny Depp movies I've seen (one of Jiawen's classmates is a big fan) we got in the car to come to school.

For the first time since we arrived, the weather was nice enough this morning to have the weekly school meeting. This meeting occurs every Monday before school, weather permitting. The meeting was rather militaristic. All of the students formed single file lines which were seperated by class number and gender. The meeting began with the marching of the Chinese flag to the flag pole and its raising to the Chinese national anthem. Then, the entire student body made an about face to watch the day's speech makers - a first year student and a math teacher. After this the students were dismissed and the five of us went to handiwork class. In today's class, we did needlework. Each of us worked on a small wallet which had a cartoonistic, happy picture on it. Unfortunately, all of these wallets (excpet Alex's, he got lucky) had very small pieces which were quite difficult. For those of you who know me well (and probably some of those who don't), you're aware that I am quite clumsy. It was a wonder that I didn't end up with a needle or a pair of scissors protruding from one of my limbs.

We all managed to make it through the class with all of our fingers and proceeded to lunch. After a wonderful lunch, Sandy left for her radio interview and the rest of us made our way to our usual spot for English corner. Today we had a group of about twelve, and we played what seems to be a favorite game in China. It is a mix of truth or dare and pick a number. Basically, one person picks a number, and whichever person picks that number is the victim of the number-picker. The number-picker gets to ask his or her victim any question he or she wants. If the victim refuses to answer the question, he or she instead must do whatever the number-picker asks. We never get too crazy, but today it ended up that Alex had to climb a tree and I had to carry one of the girls around on my back when we refused to answer questions. As always, it was amusing and triggered lots of laughs. After far too short a time we all went to the first of our afternoon classes.

For the five of us, this meant Chinese. Our Chinese class was taught jointly by our teacher and Liam. Our lesson with Liam consisted mainly of a review of everything we've learned so far in the class and a very strange Chinese story. It was about a giant man who lived in a giant egg, where he slept for 18,000 years before emerging to form the sky and earth. We found it so hilarious that it prompted Alaina to write down a direct quote, which was "the man in the egg, he was really big". Looking back, we may seem nuts for being so amused by something like this, but at the time it was wicked funny. After Liam taught us, our teacher took over to give us some vocab about our favorite...FOOD! We learned some new words as well as some old ones. This class wound to a close, and we all went our seperate ways.

When I met Jiawen, she told me that she had music class. During her music class, we watched a segment from Cats and listened to some Tibetan music. It was very unique; franky, I've never heard anything like it. After the Tibetan music, we heard some traditional Chinese singing. Then, the teacher (who has a very strong, smooth voice) sang some traditional music. It was a very interesting class.

At the end of the day, Jiawen had a free period. We went for a run together. By the end, the heat had us sweating bullets. We ran for about three miles, then went to see Lauren, Hongan, Alex, and Tianle, who were playing badminton. We were also joined by Charlie. After a short time the final bell rang and we headed for home. On the way, we stopped to get some ice cream.

The process of getting home was much longer than I'd expected. It took us about an hour from start to finish. We walked about fifteen minutes to catch a bus. Then, we rode the bus for another fifteen minutes. Finally, we got off the bus to walk for about a half an hour. As the weather was wonderful the walking was quite enjoyable, but I'm not looking forward to doing it in the rain that's predicted for tomorrow. As Jiawen is always so happy, however, I'm sure it'll still be fun. When we got home, I met Jiaming, Jiawen's cousin. Jiaming stays with Jiawen's family during the week because it is far closer to her school than her own home is. Then, we ate a delicious dinner which included soup with mushrooms and pork, tofu and celery, and the omnipresent rice, among other things. Jiawen, Jiaming, Mrs. Ling, and I then went to go shopping at the nearby grocery store, which was huge and very crowded. After picking up some necessities, Jiawen and her mom began to pick out food. I must say, they really have me pinned. It was very funny actually. I'd told Jiawen that I like baozi on Friday; she and her mom proceeded to buy a whopping seven varieties of baozi, despite my protests. I didn't protest too much, to be honest. A) I do really like baozi, and B) they both seemed to be having a lot of fun picking out unusual varieties of baozi. The most outlandish was probably a type which is in the shape of rabbits, complete with little red eyes. After shopping, we carried the groceries home. Then, Jiawen began her homework. She seems to have far less than Yin...either I would guess all of her energy helps her to be very efficient. She had all of it finished by 10:30! Tomorrow, she tells me we will begin to sample the baozi. That's all for today! Til next time...