"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...