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.