Dinner and a Show in Hangzhou

(Abby)

We're starting to get into a rhythm here in Hangzhou. Nik, Ola and I have completed a five-day school week with our host families, with whom we’ve become more or less comfortable living. I’ve become close to my host sister, Rich, because of her straightforward personality and her superb English skills. While her, as well as her classmate’s, English skills are great, they sometimes make it a hard to practice my Chinese because these students are so eager to practice their English with a native speaker. I’m learning to balance using English with them in return for Chinese lessons in return. My host parents are also using more Chinese with me by telling me what certain words mean in Chinglish, which I appreciate very much.

Since it was Friday, my host family took me out to a dinner performance after school. We were joined by two other families, all of which knew each other because all the dads were classmates in college. It was also one's 45th birthday, which my host dad kept reminding him of because 45 means you’ve officially become middle aged. Dish after dish of roast chicken, steamed whole shrimp, sautéed mushrooms and duck atop glutinous fried rice began to decorate the Lazy Susan in the middle of the table. I also tried corn milk, which I probably won’t be indulging in again.

The performance part of the night consisted of a face changing opera. Our party of people stood atop a balcony that overlooked the ground floor of the dining area where a small stage was set for the performance. A man dressed in Chinese theatre robes descended the stairs behind us and dynamically and dramatically preformed a dance to the rhythm of some upbeat version of a Chinese folksong. During many points in the performance, the man would blink or hide his face behind a fan only to reappear with a new paper-like mask covering his face. Towards the end of the performance, he ran up the stairs to shake hands with Rich and me as well as gesture for me to put my hand on his covered face. The second I did, the mask changed from yellow to red and the man was off again to make his ending pose in time.

The evening lasted well into the night. The dads all had a few drinks and none of the mothers were comfortable driving through the traffic, so drivers were called to the restaurant to drive the families and their cars home. I had never heard of such a service before, but I thought it was nice that this option is available and easily accessible to avoid drinking and driving. I was reminded of when I asked Alisha, our tour guide in Xi’an, about drunk driving rates in China, to which I was just told that drinking and driving is not allowed. Mrs. Li then followed up with me saying that China's roads are barely navigable sober, so an intoxicated driver would not make it very far anyways. I laughed at the trueness of the statement.

I cannot stress again how nice everyone has been at this school. Students are eager to talk with us and are genuinely interested in our passions and lives. Many of our translators often show up to our classroom on days that they aren’t assigned to us and ask about colleges and if there’s anything they can do to help their decision processes. Seven seniors showed up on Friday and listened to all of us talk about colleges (as well as Mrs. Li’s lesson on Hamlet). What surprised us most was that most of these kids applied to 14 schools, yet have not visited with a guidance counselor specifically for the American college application process in or outside of school. They are just now asking about what last minute things they can do to aid their application processes or get themselves off of waitlists. The problem we’ve all noticed is that these students are all applying to the same schools (most are applying to Boston College and Boston University to name two) yet don’t realize the competition they are going up against as being international students from China. I will stop this college discussion here because I believe Ola, Nik, or Mrs. Li will pick up on the subject in later blog posts.

~Zaijian for now!