(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!
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!
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