Check off "Attend a Business Dinner in China"

(Nick)

We have already been in Hangzhou for more than 2 weeks! Time sure does fly here.

Yesterday was Raven's 16th birthday! I was originally supposed to stay with Raven for the second part of the exchange, but he told me that he wanted to celebrate his birthday with me so that is why I stayed with him first. Two days ago we went to a really good bakery called Free Mori to order a cake, and we picked it up yesterday. We went to a restaurant across the Qiantang River Bridge that was a little sketchy looking on the outside, but according to Raven, is the only restaurant in Hangzhou that still has the traditional Hangzhou cuisine! In the front, they had many different tanks of various aquatic animals - catfish, turtles, shrimp, and eels! Immediately upon arriving, four catfish were taken out of the tanks and taken to the kitchen for us! After a great meal, I sang happy birthday to Raven (Zhe ni shengri quai le) and gave him two CDs that I had bought during lunch break (Maroon 5 and Gorillaz). Later that night, we lit candles on the delicious raspberry pudding cake from Free Mori. We sang happy birthday (in English this time, his parents are trying to learn more English since Raven is coming to America next year). Before Raven blew out the candles, he spent a good 5 minutes with his eyes closed, praying (I guess its the Chinese equivalent of making a wish before blowing out the candles!). The cake was delicious and it was so great to be able to celebrate Raven's birthday while I'm here!

This morning we had Chinese and Calligraphy. In Chinese, we translated Walt Whitman's poem, "Oh, Captain! My Captain," (Chuan Zhang! Wo de chuan zhang!) into Chinese. Our teacher, Gao Li, had to leave early and attend a meeting, so we spent the remainder of the period playing ping pong. We got our daily fix of milk tea at our usual spot (the two guys who work there now know who we are and have memorized what we order each time). We had calligraphy next (which we have grown to love). Each day we have a competition for who can get the most "very good"'s from our teacher, Yang laoshi...they are hard to come by! Towards the end of each class, he sits down and "grades" our calligraphy sheets....there are the rare "very good"'s, the occasional "OK"'s, and the ever so frequent grunting noise as he draws a line across a line of characters and then says "NO!" He is so funny and his rather blunt grading system has helped us get a lot better at calligraphy.

After classes, we had lunch (which of course included our chef coming into our room, inspecting our reactions to his meal, and then laughing with us). Patrick and Ella came in as usual and because it was raining, we went to a classroom for English corner. Emily, Drew, and I left early, though, to go silk shopping (for the second day in a row). Yesterday, as you may recall, we got silk for our vests/dresses, and today we wanted to do some silk shopping for family and friends. Silk street runs parallel to Hangzhou High School (talk about a great location...in comparison, Dover-Sherborn High School runs parallel to, well, NOTHING). I bought silk scarves for my mom and grandmother, and a silk tie for my dad. Both Emily and Drew also made many great purchases! In P.E., the badminton kids were watching a movie but Michelle, a girl in Cady's class, managed to convince the gym teacher that we didn't have to watch the movie and we could play a game of badminton...so we did...on the wet badminton court outside. Cady, Raven, Nolan (Raven's friend), and I enjoyed a (slippery) game of badminton.

Derek (English teacher) invited Cady and I to come to English club last period to teach two songs. We taught them "Let it Be" by the Beatles and "Good Riddance (Time of your life)" by Green Day. We typed out each song on Derek's laptop, which was projected on the board. Cady and I sang each song first, then we spoke each line and had the class repeat it, and finally we sang it altogether. "Let it Be" seemed to go fine but the Green Day song was a little difficult lyrically and melodically for the class. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun to teach them and I think they really enjoyed learning the songs! After English Club, Derek and Michael asked me if I want to help out with a sort of musical revue that they are planning at Hangzhou High School. They want me to choose talented people to be in it! I am looking forward to it...considering I had to miss my senior musical at DS, I am always up for anything theater related.

After school, my host mother, Raven, and I walked to the Zhejiang International Hotel and met up with my host father for dinner. Once we got there, my host father said he would have to eat separately with his business partners, so it was just my host mother, Raven, and I at the table. (Speaking of which, it took me about a week and a half to realize that yes, my host father has a job (he is a businessman), and no, his job is not being a mom). Then my host father came out and said that his business partners wanted to meet me so we can eat in their private room. We went into the room and 4 of his business partners were there (only 2 wives were present). I shook hands with all of them (hand shakes in China last SO much longer than in America). One of my host father's business partners told my host father that i was "sui" (handsome) and he then proceeded to make a tost to the "handsome American boy." Now that was just the beginning of all the tosts...it felt like each person made a toast to every single person in the room, individually. All of my stereotypes of Chinese business dinners ended up being true....lots of alcohol and lots of cigarettes. Each businessman must've smoked at least a pack of cigarettes throughout the whole meal. The actual meal was delicious....goose liver, crab eggs, baby squid, and eggplant! At about the middle part of the meal I found out that the business partner sitting directly across from me was "the boss." So, of course, I toasted the boss of the company! I also found out that although all of these men were Chinese, they came from all over! The one who spoke the best English (and gave a toast to the "handsome American boy") lives in Germany, and another lives in Tokyo, Japan! They asked who I supported for the upcoming presidential election, and I told them Obama.....and then I said "George Bush...bu hao, bu hao" and they all laughed. They asked if I had heard about the New York governor who recently resigned (they sure are up to date with their U.S. news), which I had. Even though I don't know that much Chinese, I could actually understand a surprising amount of what they were talking about....or at least I got the gist of what they were saying. The meal lasted a couple hours so by the end I felt like I was about to pop! Once all the men took out their papers/portfolios (and actually started conducting business...) my host mother, Raven, and I decided to take a taxi home. I said goodbye (zaijian) to all the men, and shook all their hands (once again). They all seemed like great guys and I was glad to have gotten the chance to meet them. I can now check off "attend a Chinese business dinner" off of my list of things to do in life. It really was a sight to see!

Life in Hangzhou is going so well. There is SO much to say but unfortunately, it is late, and I need to sleep. Tomorrow we switch host families which is going to be very hard. Not looking forward to saying goodbye to my host family! But I can't complain - I've got a second host brother and family who are ready to host me, and who knows what is in store for the second portion of our Hangzhou adventure!

Wednesday: Tailored to Please!

(Ms. Luskin)

My day proved to be quite a departure from our usual Wednesday…

I’d been asked to speak to Hu Kun Lin’s (William’s) year-two English classes during the first two periods, so I knew that I’d miss the early class for Team China today. I’ve really enjoyed chatting with these classes, and find they quite enjoy a mixture of stories about America interspersed with my responses to questions that they are brave enough to ask eventually. These young people hang from every word when I talk about student life at DS: class length (long); lunch time (appallingly short!); passing time (almost unthinkable, since the kids here stay in the same classroom for most of the day, but do expect their customary 15 minutes free between classes!); the wide variety of club and sports activities (astonishing!). Every classroom has had its own topics of interest, but student dating, the upcoming Presidential election, and US university admissions are recurrent themes. All the students are remarkably attentive; I’d anticipated a polite lack of yawns, but these kids are completely engaged in what we Americans have to say! (After lunch yesterday, Team China accompanied me in pairs to speak with two eleventh-grade classes, which changed the classroom dynamic quite a bit!)

Overhead projectors here are “old technology” now, and rarely have worked in the classrooms I’ve visited, so while one of my photos zigzags down the left aisle, a similar photo makes its way down the right aisle. Eventually, the pictures travel forward again, while kids chuckle and point out this-and-that in the pictures. Fun to see them relax from their earnestness, too!

After the English classes, I headed back to the English office to drop off my photos, only to find that my box from the States had arrived at long last, more than five weeks after it was shipped! Naichuan has been bickering with Customs, who wished to charge a goodly amount of additional duty on this package, so I was delighted to find out that he’d prevailed upon them to knock the price down considerably. (Who knew you could bargain with a government??) With Cui Hongxiang’s (Helen’s) help, and to my unending relief, I unpacked the box and brought a load of gifts safely to my apartment around the corner. (I’d been a bit tormented by nightmares of the box remaining in limbo while we headed home, bereft of American thank-you gifts to share with our friends here!) This happy task took us right up to lunch time; in our lunch room: the familiar wide variety of food, the familiar visit from our chef, the familiar chatter of all the young folk. As the kids headed to English Corner and I ran off to get a bit of emailing done, we agreed to meet at 2:00, since Cui Hongxiang had volunteered to take us silk shopping. Woohoo!

If you’ve ever seen last year’s blog, I’ll tell you that our experience was quite the same. At the silk warehouse, there were numerous samples from which to choose, but many colorways of a pattern proved not to be in stock. In the end, people winnowed their preferences down to one each: a silvery-grey-and-white happiness symbol for Drew, a classic ink-blue dragon fabric for Nick, a lovely green tone-on-tone pattern that haunted Cady through several compare-and-contrast pairings, and a stunning plum blossom (in plum!) with a gunmetal background for Emily – oh, and a peacock blue plum blossom pattern for me. Next, we trekked off to the marketplace across the street from school for lining fabric, and then found that our tailor happened to be in her shop there as we passed by, so the measuring began! We don’t yet know the timing for delivery, but soon enough, the guys will have their vests and we womenfolk our dresses, each with of the details we requested from out tailor. Look out, prom night, here comes Team China!

Wanted: A Weekend Time Machine

(Drew)

I had a great weekend. It began on Friday with going out to KTV with our host brothers and sisters and one of my new friends from school Michael. Michael wants to come to America for College so he is taking a four part test with reading, writing, speaking and listening. Although i forget the name of this test its all in English and tests to make sure kids could get by in an American university setting. Michael is allowed to write something up for his spoken part of the test and asked me to help edit it with him as a native speaker. Saturday the school took us to a pottery museum/factory. We all made our best attempts on a pottery wheel making what sort of look like pots. We got a little frustrated, and the pottery master had to re-center our pots several times. Later on Saturday i had supper with my family which was followed by Eve and Cady coming over for movie night. It really ended up being just me and Cady watching Across the Universe because Eve and Mark just worked on homework. Sunday morning Eric, one of my classmates, took me sightseeing in Hangzhou. His mother is English who works several hours outside Hangzhou so she doesn't come often. His mom has never spoken to a native speaker of English before so her spoken English was probably not representative of her actual knowledge of English. Her English was still very good.

We went to Li Feng Pagoda on the south shore of West Lake (Xi Hu). We took a bunch of pictures of our trip with Eric's I-phone. I didn't realize that it was an I-phone until today when he had it in school. It was a perfect day for seeing the Pagoda. There are five floors to the pagoda each one has artwork all around the walls. The wood carvings on the first floor were absolutely amazing I'm regretting not bringing my camera. The view from the top was gorgeous (no not resembling a gorge). You could most of west lake which still had a layer of mist around it because it was still before noon and the sun had not scorched it off yet. We also walked through the hill adjacent to the pagoda which was very tranquil and shady, again regretting not bringing my camera. After the pagoda we drove through a park near by before heading back to my house.

For lunch we went over to Eves house where Cady had made us pancakes. Slightly lemony but still good, and all was well because they had a jar of peanut butter. Everything is good with peanut butter, that should be one of Newtons laws actually. I was very full from lunch and had only a few minutes back at the house before i set off with mark and two of his friends to a nearby agricultural university that had ping pong tables you could rent out. Marks parents also showed up to exercise. I ended up playing marks dad in ping pong for quite some time. I played ping pong for about 4 hours straight. I'm addicted. Although i think I'm getting pretty good at ping pong i was playing next to a kid (I'm estimating to be 9 years old) who could barely see over the table and I'm pretty certain i would not be able to score a single point on him.

Ive found that everyone in China loves sports, although in Hangzhou high school i don't see a lot of talent besides in ping pong and badminton. Those are the two sports that everyone can play in China. Hangzhou High school along with many others in China are big fans of the NBA more specifically the Houston rockets with Yao Ming and Tracy Macgrady (T-mac as I've heard him referred several times).

My running after school is going well. I think our private gym classes are awesome for keeping us in shape. We do yoga type stuff that improves our flexibility and strength. We also have done a lot of core exercises which is important for a runner, like me :).

Monday English corner we met many new people, English corner is growing exponentially it seems. By the end of the trip the entire school plus some random strays off the streets will be attending. Monday we met the four kids that are coming to D-S. I already like them naturally. They all seem very friendly. I also met two junior girls, one of which had gone abroad last year for six months to Washington state. If she hadn't told me that she had been to America i probably would have guessed because the way she talked was very Americanized. I found we speak with many expressions and not proper English in every day conversation. When you speak to your average Hangzhou student they use proper English. The girl i met talked very much like i do with my friends and used expressions just like us. She also just arrived at the school this semester and seems not to follow the rules such as no pierced ears and wearing a uniform, what a rebel. Many seniors don't wear uniforms either, they always use excuses such as it is in the wash or its lost. We have already been asked many times what we are doing next weekend, its quickly turning in a problem only having two days on the weekend. I want to see so many people and do different stuff with my various friends i need some sort of time machine to do everything.

Another awesome blog post to keep everyone back home entertained. One last quick note. They finally gave me a chair in class, YES! so comfortable... until now i had a little stool with no back. And i can lean back in my chair because I'm in my back row (sorry mom).

Ants in Pants?

(Cady)

Hello everyone!

So, today Nick figured out that we leave Hangzhou exactly three weeks from yesterday. Wow. It's amazing to me that we've already been in Hangzhou for over two weeks, and even more astonishing that we are leaving in what now seems like a very short amount of time. We're switching host brothers and sisters this Friday too! It's very bitter-sweet I think. I'm going to miss Eve a lot. I have now taken to calling her Pinky because she's rather cute and small and in love with the color pink. On the other hand, I really like my second host sister, Doris. I haven't had the chance to spend a lot of time with her yet, even though she's in class five with me. Actually, I'm the only member of Team China that's going to be in the same class for the entire exchange which also has it's good and bad points. I'm happy with the situation though because I'll still be able to see Eve every day and I'll be able to become closer with the classmates I'm already friends with. Not to mention there's still some kids in my class that I've never even talked to. That may sound ridiculous, but keep in mind that there are about fifty kids in each class, and not all of them are outgoing enough to just come up and talk to me. I'm making progress on that front though, never fear.

I think the weekend has been thoroughly covered, seeing as how Em did the blog for yesterday and we spent pretty much the entire day together. Although it was just a weird coincidence that we both had pancake disasters on the same morning. I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this, but we did make it to KTV on Friday night, which was lots of fun. We'll definitely be back for Ella's birthday and possibly sooner if time allows. It's pretty much the perfect night out, well for Nick and I at least. Seriously, a private room where you hang out with your friends and sing all night long- what more could we ask for? Anyways, Em ended up sleeping over last night so this morning was one big getting ready for school party. Since we had a "guest," we ate breakfast at home instead of on the road, which ended up making Eve late to school. I mention this because it's really quite funny what happens when someone is late to Hangzhou High School. There are class meetings every Tuesday during eighth period where the kids who were late to school throughout the past week have to sing songs for the class. It's really very funny, though some kids are very embarrassed by the ritual. Eve says that since I was late today too (even though it's not on record) she's going to make me sing with her tomorrow. So be it. Speaking of Eve, she just came running up to the third floor with a large cup of milk tea for me that her little brother brought home. It's like my prayers being answered!

Anyways, our first class this morning was Chinese. We focused on shopping, which would have probably come in handy before going yesterday with Emily and Ella, but better late than never. Then we had private PE which turned into another day of cheerleading. Hey, I thought it was pretty fun. As I may have said before, we're all pretty good at laughing at ourselves when it comes to that sort of a thing. Then we used some weight training equipment, did an ab workout, and finished with some strength training on the mats. I told our gym teacher that we're going to bring her back to America so that she can whip us into shape every day. Lucky for us, lunch was next- we always feel very ready for lunch after private PE. Then English corner! There were actually a lot of kids waiting for us today when we got there, which was naturally very exciting. As Em mentioned, we met the kids who are coming to America. They all seem very curious and outgoing so I think that they'll find socializing at DS only minimally scarring. Oh, I'm only kidding, I know they're going to have a blast in America. We'll make sure of it. "Team America" (not to be confused with the film), as we informed them they would be called from now on, is made up of Ivan, Alice, Sam, and Bob. Two girls and two boys- sound familiar? A group of girls from my class came to English corner too, including both of my host sisters. Crazy Michael who refers to everyone, including Terry (though we informed him today that only Team China could speak to her that way), as "sexy" showed up too. Good turn out today- hopefully it continues to grow.

After that it was once again time for afternoon classes. I had to explain the term "ants in your pants" to my desk mate, Garbo, because I was particularly energetic today. I only spent one period journaling because Garbo and I talked all through Geography and History. The first because she, along with the rest of the class, never pays attention during Geography, and the second because we ended up having so much fun during the first. Then eighth period was running class which is where the entire sophomore grade runs two laps around the track and then splits off to have PE. So badminton, as usual. Free Mori with Eve and Drew after school. I have a cinnamon walnut roll for tomorrow morning. Tonight we mixed things up a bit by going out to dinner. Eve's parents took us out to dinner at a fancy restaurant along West Lake. The food was fantastic, and the waiters at this obsessive-compulsive way of filling up your teacup literally the second you drained it. Now that's what I call service. For my family's reference, I had shrimp, scallops, and crab legs tonight all of which I enjoyed very much. Now, I'm a pretty bold eater but shellfish has never really whet my appetite. As Em said this morning though, I am now completely unfazed by anything edible at this point, and I actually enjoy pretty much everything I try. I've been playing with the idea of trying the whole fried scorpions on Hefeng Street because, honestly, what's more badass (can I say that on the blog?) than eating scorpion?

Well, I will leave you with happy thoughts of exotic (and maybe kind of scary) food. As always, I hope all is well in Massachusetts. Is it still a winter wonderland? All I have to say is hah hah. See you all in three weeks!

Women’s Day on (last) Friday!

(Ms. Luskin)

The rhythm of the school week shifted today: no morning classes for the female faculty on Women’s Day! Instead, the women drifted at their leisure to a teahouse a few blocks away from school. This restaurant is quite expansive in layout, with winding hallways and noticeably high ceilings. As we meandered our way to the tables that the school had reserved for us, the flooring shifted: bluestone pavers, glass panels under which goldfish lazed along, a short arched bamboo “bridge to nowhere.” Semi-private eating areas alternated from one side (a screened seating area, perched over a shallow granite-faced rectangular pool)… to the next (a series of small rooms, much like Japanese tatami rooms, with a sunken table embedded in the raised floor and surrounded by seating pillows)… to the next (our area by the windows, with a series of pairs of pillowed benches wrapped around a glistening table, each with a bamboo stand at one end supporting a glass water-pot steaming over a warmer.) Much of the decorating had a very contemporary twist: dramatic lighting, large plant arrangements, various finishes on glass wall panels, small iridescent tiles above vessel sinks in the lav. All this set up a marked contrast with of a statue (of whom??) fronted by a low votive fruit arrangement on a bed of sand, wrapped in glass walls! A puzzle to tantalize our thoughts as we arrived and left!

Cui Hongxiang (Helen) was my companion, and we drank tea, and chatted, and explored the extensive buffet (several times, in fact!) until early afternoon. Full to bursting (and rather pining for a nap!), we made our way back to school in time for her afternoon classes. My afternoons this week have filled up with visits to English classes, where I’ve mostly shown photos of my family and home as a jumping-off-point to talk about life in America. The students have been shy at first, but very attentive, and each time some bold soul has been willing to ask the first question! Today, I’m making a concerted effort to catch up with the emails that stacked up while we were traveling – working on 2/10, now, in hopes of making my way toward 2/23 by the time we leave! My school day ends with a short bite in the now-quiet ding room; then I’m off to read the book Emily lent me, skipping my usual amusement: CCTV’s evening report on the minutiae of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beijing!

The Pancake Fiasco!

(Emily)

hello everyone! saturday started with an attempt at making pancakes. the previous evening, i announced that i wanted to make pancakes for my host family; after all they have done for me and all the great food they've fed me, i wanted to show my gratitude by cooking something for them. pancakes sounded easy enough. i started off trying to get the measurements right....without measuring cups. i looked high and low and there wasn't a single measuring cup to be found.... so i tried to eyeball it. i'm no paula deen or giada, so this in itself was disastrous. not even the butter had measuring increments on it. oh, and the milk was from a box (i.e. juice box...except milk....milk box?). i punched a hole into the box and squeezed what i kinda guesstimated was the right amount. and i measured the flour with a paper cup.... it was a mess. i figured if i could at least get it to the right consistency that everything would be fine. i mean, how bad can you mess up pancakes? evidently, pretty bad. the batter started off waaay too thick, so i added more milk. the batter was a gloppy mess that wouldn't spread out in the pan (it just sat there....looking like jabba the hut). oh, and i was using a wok to fry the pancakes. i couldn't find a frying pan (at the end of cooking the pancakes, my host mom produced a pan out of the bowels of the cupboard). then, i added peanut butter in an effort to make it less gross. bad move. however, they did turn out....mildly edible. my host parents came in and picked at it, making the standard "mmm" noises and trying to pretend that they weren't as bad as they actually were. after eating a couple pieces, i wasn't hungry anymore. this was almost as bad as the time i burned the thanksgiving soup (i believe it was squash and leek for anyone who was curious). all this being said and done, i'm not that bad a baker. i can make pastries and cookies. but alas, many chinese families do not have ovens. to quote eve: "why would you have an oven if you could go out and buy pastries easily and cheaply?for lunch, my family took me out for noodles! i had pigs foot with the noodles (apparently it's good for your skin...it's a little too fatty for me though). at this point i'm pretty unfazed by anything. after trying cicada (it was tasty and a little spicy, but the amount of labor required to get a little piece of bug innards isn't worth it) and blood (like tofu...but red....and...bloody), i've gotten used to trying (almost) anything (i haven't tried stinky tofu yet but richard says he's never had it because of the smell so i don't feel as guilty not trying it). after lunch, i met up with cady and ella for a day o' retail! there, i learned that cady had coincidentally tried to make apple pancakes for her family. it was a similar tale of woe and hearbreak; she added 3 tablespoons of lemon juice instead of the correct 3 teaspoons and her pancakes were rendered lemony deathcakes. but she says that they added peanut butter, which made it a little better. we started off at the intime department store, which sold high-end clothing (like the equivalent of bloomingdales). we then progressed to wulin street, which is known as a women's fashion street. it was amazing. so many cool little clothing shops of all different sorts of tastes. ella took us to her favorite store named 2%. it soon turned into our favorite store. the walls were covered with sweet comic book graphics and the clothes were funky. perfect for cady and i. cady picked out a baggy turquoise sweater with a skeleton on it, among other things. the graphic t-shirts were all unique. cady also got a sparkly superhero t-shirt. i opted for a neon yellow t-shirt that has a knitted pattern on the front. at the very end of our expedition, we found boots for me! surprisingly, they were cheaper than my t-shirt. ella and cady helped me bargain it down from 210 yuan to 120 yuan. after a long day of shopping, we were all pretty hungry. we met ella's dad at a thai restaurant that was on the west lake. ella's dad is really nice and reminds me for some reason of tom hanks (maybe from the way he smiles). cady disagrees and says that he reminds her most of richard because he's so good natured and always smiling, which i agree with. the thai food was delicious! hao chi, if you will. we had mushrooms in a peeled pumpkin, beef with cashews, crab curry, and green beans. my favorite dish was the crab curry. the crab was excellent- probably the best crab i've had on this trip- and mixed with the curry sauce, it was even better. after eating to our hearts' content, we bid farewell to ella's dad and waddled our way into a taxi that then took us to the traveler's bar, where we met up with nick, drew, terry, derek (an english teacher- extremely cool), and his friend rossi. the traveler's bar was very pirates of the carribean (in an authentic way- not hokey), down to entrance door (it had a grate at the top and an old fashioned latch). at each solid wood table there were two little red candles and at the center of the bar was a huge cast iron chandelier which i swear was burning real candles. true to its moniker, there was art hung up from all over the world (we sat upstairs by some egyptian pieces). we were on a balcony, looking down on the stage. the live music was excellent. the people who sang had voices comparable to signed artists. as a backdrop for the stage, there was a mural with famous people in a band. included were osama bin laden, saddam hussein, george dubbya, and yasir arafat. derek treated us to drinks (think ginger ale, sprite, and tea) and popcorn (kettle corn to be exact) and we alternately watched the musicians and watched rossi do magic tricks for us. rossi was extremely good looking in an artsy way (this isn't just me talking- i have terry, cady, and ella to back me up). he had longish floppy hair that was wavy and slighly curled at the end with intellectual looking glasses (very 'i own an art gallery') and very straight teeth (i didn't pick up on this, but cady swears by it). rossi also has a sweet job: basically, he trains the ronald mcdonalds and comes up with new tricks and whatnot for them to do. he was quite a character and his english was really good, so we were able to catch all his jokes and the narratives to his magic tricks. cady and nick said he's like a chinese greg bornstein. he did an array of card, coin, and rubber band trick. but that's not all- he also then whipped out a bag of balloons and started to blow them up and make animals for us. he made monkeys, pigs, bunnies, flowers, dogs, and mice. quite sick. at the end of the evening we were all exhausted an at around 10, cady ella and i bid everyone goodnight and we took a cab back to where cady and eve live. ella lives 5 minutes away, so she was able to take the same cab back with us. i slept over at eve's last night because penny lives further away from the bar, so getting back late in the evening would be a little difficult. i had a fitful night's sleep and here i am, writing to you from the teacher's room. this is emily ahn- you stay classy, ds! p.s. we met the kids coming to america!!! they're awesome but i'll let whoever's doing today talk more about them (i think it's cady).

Stinky Tofu, KTV and Pottery Making Adventures

(Nick)

All is still going very well in Hangzhou! We have all settled into the school routine nicely (though I guess this is not a very hard task considering our lives are not nearly as stressful as all the students around us!).

Since Terry wasn't at school yesterday (it was International Women's Day), I will talk about yesterday in addition to today. We had our first Chinese handicrafts class! We focused on papercutting - which turned out to be rather difficult! We started out by cutting out a Chinese good luck symbol, which wasn't too hard at all. Then our teacher pulled out a sheet with all the Olympic mascots, and cut them all out. There are five Olympic mascots: Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini - if you put them all together they form - "Beijing Huanying Ni", which means Beijing welcomes you. I chose Beibei, Baker (our translator) chose Jingjing, Drew chose Huanhuan, Emily chose Yingying, and Cady chose Nini. We glued together three different colored sheets of paper, with the mascot on top. Then, we each used exacto knives to carve out our Olympic mascots. It was very hard!!! The mascots have a lot of small, detailed components that are hard to carve out, and you have to push hard with your knife to get through each sheet of paper. We all had trouble with it, but Drew managed to finish his, Cady is almost done, and.......Emily and I had to start over because we totally butchered our mascots. Oh well, hopefully we can get better at papercutting. Our teacher told us that next class we would focus on Chinese knot bracelets which we are looking forward to!

Before our next class, we walked to our favorite milk tea store and bought hot chocolate with oreos in it.....SO GOOD. Our next class was gym. We had a new teacher this time who was great, but we did miss the energetic, smily teacher we have had the last couple gym classes. We started out playing badminton - we did a couple drills and then played games. Drew played against the gym teacher, who is ridiculously good at badminton, so Drew finished the game in quite a sweat. Baker, Cady, Emily, and I had a nice relaxing game compared to the one next to us, which was fine with us! After badminton, we played ping pong. Once again, Drew and the gym teacher had another strenuous game, while the rest of us had normal, relaxing games. Although, Cady and I managed to get a little crazy during our game, to the point where we were hitting the ping pong ball over the room and acting like complete fools. I know...its probably a good thing that we have our own private gym class....and I stress the word private.

We had yet another delicious lunch (when do we not?), and as usual, our chef came in towards the beginning of our lunch and made sure everything was good. He is a really funny guy and is always laughing with us. After lunch, we went to the English "corner," aka the water well near the front gate of the school. It was kind of rainy so there weren't as many kids as usual. The first girl to come is a third year student (senior) whose English name is Cherry, which I got a kick out of because that is my grandmother's name and it is pretty rare. She wants to study Swahili in university, which we thought was SO COOL. Michael, a year 2 student, came as usual. Michael is a huge singer (like me) so of course we sang some quality tunes (we then proceeded to invite him to come with us to KTV, or karaoke, that night!).

After English corner, we went to classes as usual. However, during the first period, Drew and I came to Cady's English class because Cady's host sister, Eve, invited us. Their English teacher gave us a couple of his student's English compositions, which we read and corrected. They were very well written, but the teacher told us that often, their writing is a lot better than their speaking. Drew, Cady, and I then taught the class about the ever so popular five paragraph essay that we use in America (it was literally drilled into our heads at DS during middle school, so this was no hard task for us!). Then we sang some songs for the class: Wonderwall by Oasis and Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The teacher then showed us a song in their English book that we then proceeded to sing to them....Santa Claus is Coming to Town. It was a good time.

My host father has caught on to my incredible love for eggplant. After school, he stopped at the market and bought a ton of eggplant which, along with the bamboo shoots dish, beef dish, and egg dish, made me a happy camper at dinner. My host mother's younger sister (meimei) came over with her son, Raven's cousin, who he calls didi since he doesn't have a real younger brother. They brought along their new puppy, some sort of yappy little white dog that was pretty cute. My host family owns a lizard so we had the two meet, and the lizard ran as fast as he could up the wall onto a tall plant, where he stayed for the remainder of the night. Raven, his cousin, and I then went to KTV (karaoke) and met up with the rest of the gang. Karaoke in China is amazing. We had our own room with a large TV and a couple microphones, as well as a selection of hundreds of both Chinese and western songs. We had a really good time...and spent many, many hours singing.

This morning we met at school at 9 AM. It was raining, so instead of going to Hefang Road first, we went to an interactive pottery museum...the interactive part being that we all got to use pottery wheels! We spent about 40 minutes sculpting our pottery vases/bowls, which we all agreed was a lot of fun. The pottery wheels were a part of the museum, so every so often a group of people would come in and watch us using the wheels (the sight of a bunch of Americans trying to make pottery must've been rather amusing). The pottery we made today will be ready to pick up in a couple days! After, we walked through the museum, which had so many celadon pots and vases from the Song dynasty. The color of the celadon glaze is a beautiful, almost transparent, light green. After the pottery museum, which was very impressive, we went to lunch at yet another (extravagant) restaurant (Hangzhou High School sure does treat us well). There were so many dishes but a couple favorites were the duck tongue (once again), duck soup with bamboo shoots, beggar's chicken, and shrimp. After a fabulous lunch, we took the school's bus to Hefang Road (I'd already been, but for some of the others, this was their first time!). Compared to the rest of modern Hangzhou, Hefang road is really the only glimpse of the "old Hangzhou," and even on a rainy day, clearly people love seeing the old Hangzhou! I hadn't really seen that many westerners thus far in Hangzhou, but I saw many on Hefang Road. There are many differerent shops with beautiful artwork, crafts, instruments, silk, tea, famous foods, nuts, and very old medicine stores! We all split off with our respected host sibling and walked around for an hour and a half. It is definitely a nice break from the bustling, modern city we know as Hangzhou. The old style street with the old architecture reminded us somewhat of the other old towns we've seen in Beijing, Xi'an, Lijiang, and Yangshuo.

Tonight at dinner, my host family made stinky tofu, which is Raven's favorite. I've smelled it many times before, as it is a common smell on the side of many Chinese roads in all the cities we've been to. I even ate it at the opening banquet on our first day. The smell is probably the worst smell I have ever experienced in my life...I can't even describe it in words....it is just awful!!! Well, I ate a lot of it tonight, and although it doesnt actually taste that bad, I could still smell it even when it was in my mouth! I've tried very hard to be open minded about food on this trip, and I think I've done a good job with that so far. But the stinky tofu made me cringe so much that I could not possibly hide it from my host family! They thought it was funny though, and we ended up laughing for a good five minutes about my reaction. In addition to the stinky tofu, I also ate squid eggs, which were pretty good, along with pork, bamboo shoots, and yes, EGGPLANT. My host father is such a good cook....our everyday "meals" look like gourmet Chinese food from a fancy restaurant. I told him that he should move to Boston and start up a restaurant!

A couple days ago, Ella and Patrick (who is currently in Xi'an taking an exam for a university that will allow him to study Japanese for two years in Xi'an and two years in Japan), took us to a music store during our lunch period to buy some Chinese music! I bought three CDs: Jay Cho, who seems to be the Justin Timberlake of China, Soda Green, a Taiwanese band that is a favorite of Raven's, and S.H.E., a girl band that Zhu laoshi played for us during Chinese class back in the states. It has been very interesting for me (the music lover) to get a taste of what the Chinese music scene is like. It almost feels like China is experiencing what the U.S. experienced during the late '90s. Boy bands are very popular, as well as just pop music in general. One of my friends, who I call Fly (his favorite animal is a fly), went to the Backstreet Boys concert in Hangzhou on Thursday night. He had such a good time and asked me if I liked the Backstreet Boys....I told him that I used to, ten years ago!!! I tried to explain to him that in America, not only are boy bands not very popular anymore, but not many guys listen to boy bands in the first place. Oh well, it is just a lot different here! A lot of my favorite bands (aka Guster) are not known at all here, which is understandable, but I've been having fun introducing them to Raven. I've also played Raven a bunch of songs from my a cappella group at DS (The Rest), which he loves!

One thing I've noticed while I've been staying in Hangzhou is just how much more I think about conserving than I do in the U.S. Even though it is pretty obvious that my host family is well-off, that doesn't exempt them from still wanting to conserve resources. I have found that I am a lot more aware of my use of certain resources here. I have my own thermostat in my room, and despite having the power to leave my heater on all night while I sleep, I make sure to turn it off every night, as it is not necessary. When I shower, i make sure not to spend too long. With electricity, I only use lights if I absolutely need them. There is just such a different attitude here than in the U.S. In America, we have the attitude that we spread "from sea to shining sea," with so much open space, and there is room for everybody to live comfortably. But in China, which is similar to the U.S. in land size, over 1 billion people are, for the most part, limited to eastern China because the geography in the west is pretty much unliveable. This puts a lot of pressure on the land that is liveable, tightening resources. The concept of having an actual house is unimaginable at least in the more urban areas of China. Apartment complexes are the norm here, for it would be impossible for every family in China to have their own house. I have definitely realized just how much we actually have in the U.S., and that is not necessarily a good thing. My family in the U.S. only has three people in it, and we have three cars - one car for each person. My host family, on the otherhand, has one car, yet they manage to go about everyday life in the same way that my family in the U.S. does. There is just such a difference in attitudes between the two countries. People tend to give China a lot of crap for their many environmental problems (which, don't get me wrong, definitely pose many concerns for the future), but when you compare the average Chinese citizen and the average American citizen, the Chinese conserve so much more, while the Americans use so much more. Obviously, population is the main difference between the two countries. I just think it's important not to automatically assume that the Chinese people are responsible for all these environmental problems. From what I've seen, at least, they know that they must conserve for the good of their country. The real problem is the corrupt government officials and factory owners, but that is a whole other topic. Okay, there, the enivronmentalist within me is now satisfied ;)

We have less than a week left with our first host families, and although I love my second host brother, I am not looking forward to leaving. Two and a half weeks is simply not enough time but what can you do! It will definitely be a hard goodbye, as we have gotten very close, and I am in such a comfortable place right now that I don't want to change a thing. Tomorrow, my host family is taking me shopping in Hangzhou, which will be fun. Also, one of the English teachers invited us to hear some live music with him at a club tomorrow night!

Zaijian for now!

Hot Chocolate and Oreos and a Personal Chef

(Drew)

Thrusday we woke up a little late but thats ok me and mark always make good time in the morning. My host mom always makes a delicious and fairly large breakfast for me and mark so that we start the day well. We also ride bikes to school, which gives us an advantage over Cady,Nick and Em haha... oh wait nick gets driven in a car to school woops. So after another class of chinese calligraphy which went well we took our 20 minute break to go get hot chocolate with oreos. Team China has grown quite fond of this drink which i will take credit as the original founder of this unique blend. Calligraphy for characters is very difficult, our teacher Mr. Yang makes it look so easy. It takes a lot of skill with the brush and a lot of patience. The past two days all we have done is work on basic strokes because anything more than that would be beyond our current abilities. Our second class was Hangzhou History which was more of a modern day look at hangzhou through tour guide pamplets. We looked at the layout of Hangzhou and all the places of interest so that the group had a better idea of how to get around. We also located where we all live on the map of Hangzhou. Nick lives so far away! Its too bad because sometimes he can't do things with us because if he wants to come to this part of Hangzhou he needs someone to drive him.

Lunch was delicious as usual. Each day we get a completely different lunch and the chef is so funny. Everyday the chef comes in to see us and see if the food is alright he just laughs as we point and give him the thumbs up and will come up to me and nick and give us hard pats on the back. After lunch it was time to shadow our host brothers and sisters again. Class gets a little boring unfortunately, but its nice to have a lot of free time to draw, read, write or do whatever we need to do for that day. I sit at the back of my class so my activity goes unoticed most of the time. Im making new friends in my class though, everyone is so nice but they are very nervous to speak with me because they are not confident about thier english.

I know many peope around school now which is nice, i get lots of hellos and seeing familiar faces is nice. Some students from my class and the kids who show up for english corner after lunch are always friendly. One senior at hangzhou, his english name is michael, comes to english corner frequently. He is studying hard to come to america for university. He takes a lot of extra classes so that he can score well on the tests he must take to be able to attend school in america and on the SAT's. He told me that the vocabulary for the SAT's is 15000! I take for granted that i already know most of those, it would be so difficult to take them as a foreigner.

I ran again after school even though it was cold and drizziling. I told myself that if i did a good workout i would go to my favorite bakery "Free Morey(sp?)" afterwards (hehe maybe it makes me run faster). Unfortunatly while running i hadnt noticed but i had been kicking mud up onto my school uniform that i was going to wear the following day so i spent about an hour thursday night cleaning off my uniform.

Going home is always so relaxing, i can take a shower put on my PJ's and slippers and curl up reading harry potter until dinner time. I have a new favorite dish that my host parents make. Its simply strips of potatos and carrots that i mix in with my rice and its delicious, maybe ill tell my real mom about this secret recipe so i can enjoy it back in America, of course ill need to keep chopsticks around the house from now on it just wouldnt feel right eating it any other way. We always have other assorted vegtables and meats on the table. Thursday we had clams dipped in vinegear, i actualy prefer the fresh fish that we usually have but it was still good. The most important thing is that i have a full belly at all times, frightfully easy to do. Harry Potter is almost over though im so sad i will be finishing it within the next couple days. Ill have to go to the local international book store and buy some english books to keep me entertained while i curl up in bed. I hear they have the Dan Brown books i never read.

My host family is too nice they feed me so much. Sometimes ill just be sitting down and a plate of fruit drops in front of me, i feel like i never left my house back home. Back in America i have a personal chef (my mom) who knows exactly when i am hungry and always has food ready, nothing has changed. They bought me new slippers because the ones that i had been wearing around the house did not fit, my feet were hanging off the end by a good 2-3 inches. When Mrs. Viz told me that the host families in China are too nice after i had told her about my fears of going to China, i still felt skeptical. Im so glad that she was right (of course she was right its, Viz...).

Ok well my thoughts about Hangzhou so far, sorry about being a little late on this entry. I do have to say that KTV on friday was so much fun even though im not supposed to talk about friday this is a thursday post :) but i really want to go back.

Cady's Class Adventures

(Cady)

Hey all,

So I'm sort of writing this and watching a movie called Once right now. It's a hand-held camera style film that my English teacher put on my flash drive last week when I gave my presentation. There's a song called Falling Slowly in the movie that won the Oscar for best original song this year, or so I believe. Anyways, he put the movie on there so that I could watch it and learn the song because he wants me to teach it to the class. Kind of crazy eh? It's a beautiful song though, and the movie is really nice so far. It's a pretty cool idea on the part of our English teacher I think.

Anyways, I think we've all fallen into a pretty good routine here. Well, during the week, the weekends are always a surprise, which is always fun! (The one weekend we've had so far at least). I get up around 6:30, ready by 6:50, out the door by 7:00. We usually eat on the road now which works fine for me. Every day after school we go to Eve's favorite bakery, the one we got her birthday cake from, called Free Mori. My favorite pastry is a donut filled with sweet red bean paste. In fact, that's what I have waiting for me for breakfast tomorrow morning, so I know it will be a good day. I have given in to my absurd love of apples and started to eat them skin and all. The first apple I had the other night made me think of home because I eat apples so much in the States. Naturally, I liked it so much that I had an apple this morning too... I've started down the deadly, apple-paved path of no return. As, I've said it's about a ten minute walk to school. When I switch homes I'm going to have to take the bus to school, which is the public bus, which I've heard is very crowded. That's fine, but I'll be sad not to walk every morning anymore. You all probably know already, but our classes don't start until 8:00, so we have a half hour each morning to hang out and check email and enjoy the heated teachers' room. Then Baker, our translator, comes and gets us for class. Has anyone written about Baker? Well if not, I'll add my two cents, because he's a character in the Team China saga that you should all know about. He's a senior this year, but he's already into a language university in Beijing to study Arabic, which he's never studied before I guess, so he gets to come hang out with us all morning. He used to spend his "summer holidays," as he says, in Britain, so he has a very, very distinct British accent. When we first met him and had Chinese class, he was describing a Chinese pizza type dish and he said in his perfectly British accent, "It's, well... it's just like a pie!" And that, whether or not you can see the humor in it, or picture a Chinese boy with a British accent saying it, is how I would characterize Baker (whose Chinese name is Yi Kuan Chen in case anyone is interested). We had calligraphy this morning with Yang Laoshi who is extremely serious one moment and then incredibly funny the next. He doesn't speak English other than when he says "no, no!" or "ok, ok" when he looks at the character's we've done. None of us have earned very many "ok, ok"s yet, but we're working on it, and we've learned to hoard and savor the ones we do get. Personally, I like calligraphy. it's relaxing, sitting there making the brush create (poorly drawn) ink characters on the rice paper. Last class we focused on our names, though I think Yang Laoshi realized that we're not quite ready for that, so today we just worked on basic strokes. Some strokes got me a lot of "no, no!"s and I also got a few ok, ok"s. At one point, he just came over, started laughing and speaking Chinese to Baker who told me that Laoshi thinks my strokes look like brooms. Hmm.

After calligraphy we had a Hangzhou history course. Oh, and before that we went out to get milk tea! Actually, it was pretty awkward because everyone was in the middle of morning exercises. That's when all the students sort of fill up the front walkway to the school while songs from the Nutcracker Ballet play over the loudspeaker and then proceed to do a little jig that involves throwing your hands up and punching the air. It's a good time, but instead of doing it this morning we walked through the middle of the rows of people doing it, met by many stares, to get out of the front gate. It was well worth the milk tea though. So anyways, Hangzhou history. We got cool, fold-out maps and guide books that our teacher is actually the author of. We spent a lot of time figuring out where each of us live on the map, and then spent the rest of the time learning about historic spots around West Lake. Oh, Terry wasn't with us because she had a headache, but she did catch up with us right in time to see some very old tablets written by an emperor and other assorted people. The most famous one is about 200 years old, and some of the others are even older. We decided that it's pretty neat to have historic cultural relics at your school. The only relics at DSHS are a couple of the teachers who still reminisce about the days of corporal punishment in schools. Well, what I mean to say is that it's amazing how much history Hangzhou High School has. There, that's a better way of phrasing things. Oh, I've just finished the movie- it was very sweet, I would recommend it. Now I just have the song playing. So after lunch today we held our first English corner. Ella and Patrick were there of course, and our host brothers and sisters. A couple of girls that I like from my class came too, though I found out that they're really very sneaky and wanted to escape an English dictation that they were supposed to be doing during lunch hour. Still, class five is where it's at. One boy, Pizza (yes, that is his English name- I compare it to kids at DS choosing "Nacho" as their Spanish name) told me to come to class at one point. I thought that we were going to tell people to come to English corner but actually he just wanted me to sit next to him during the English Dictation! I didn't have my things though and he, along with those who sit near him, were rather disappointed when I went back to English corner. In the afternoon we had Chemistry, Physics where we did a lab on projectile motion (something I could understand! though not completely remember...), Math, and ball games. That's my favorite because we just play volleyball or badminton the whole time!

After school Eve, Drew, and I got our pastries at Free Mori, then it was back home again, dinner, shower, and now here I am. Let's see, I still don't know my host parents very well, but I understand that they work a lot. As I've said though, Eve is amazing and that's more than enough. She's rather addicted to he mobile phone, as they call them here- she's always either messaging her friends or playing games. Sometimes we'll be standing in a group and she'll start running around the outside in this funny, leaping, bounding sort of way that she has. She's really a character so I think it's kind of perfect that we ended up living together. Today when we got home from school she fell asleep on the couch, and when I told her it was homework time she said, "no! it's only 6:30... homework time today will start at 7:00!" This is rather uncharacteristic of a Chinese student, seeing as how most of them start their homework literally the second they arrive home. Sometimes Penny does her homework when we're out, such as when we were in a McDonald's this weekend taking a break from shopping on Sunday. Well, what my point is, is that I am very happy with my host sister, and I'm sure that I'll stay friends with her even when I return to the States. On that note, I am going to write some more emails and get to bed. Hope all is well with everyone!

Cady

Marching to Sugar Plum Fairies

(Emily)

hello hello! this email is working (ironically, yahoo is not). ok here's today's blog!

ni men hao! hope everyone is having a fantastic march! spring is starting in hangzhou and things are starting to bloom! not to mention it's warm and all you need is a light jacket! this is fantastic considering there have been some very cold mornings and there is no heat in the classrooms. luckily, we have our gym instructor to keep our heart rates up and our blood pumping with pom poms (see nick's entry for full disclosure). alas, we did not have gym today but we had chinese painting! it takes up both of our two hour morning blocks and while we were a little nervous that it would be boring to have the same class for four hours, it was not in the slightest. our teacher started off by giving us brushes (made from wolf, weasel, and goat hair) and ink. then she basically told us to go do whatever we want for a few minutes, allowing us to try out the different brushes and different water to ink ratios. after playing around for a little bit (my paper basically looked like a giant ink blot test...i think chewbacca was somewhere in there), we were brought to her studio. oh man, she's a wonderful artist. in particular, there was one painting that caught all our eyes- a watercolor of a shawl (some may call it a rug but no, it is a piece of clothing) on a wooden clothes hanger. the attention to detail was meticulous to say the least and we could even see the streaks in the wood and the light reflection on the shawl. STUNNING! and not to mention the actual studio space- sunlight spilled softly in through the open windows, illuminating the works of art lined up against the wall and creating a very romantic effect. it was basically how i envision great art studios. after showing us her studio, our teacher took us to another room where we watched a film of a man painting in the traditional chinese style (basically like bob ross....with less psychadellicness). then, we went back' into the classroom and used the books we were given to start to paint. over the course of a couple of sheets of paper, my work started to look less "ink blot" and more like "abstract" art. i even drew a pretty satisfactory bird that was painted by merging three circles together. now that's progress! drew was naturally amazing at painting (even though he claims that he's no good at western style painting) and even got an "excellent" from our teacher who doesn't speak much english. he drew a bird (that looked like a bird...and a very good one at that) and a tree with flowers that was really pretty. so talented! at the end of the class, we were all really happy and we can't wait until we have our next painting class.

during our break in chinese painting, we were lounging by the well (where previous groups have held their english corner. ironically, there are no corners around the well) and all of a sudden, the nutcracker's 'dance of the sugar plum fairy' started blaring from the speakers and baker (our awesome translator with an aussie/brit accent) was like "and now, the school will come out for morning exercises." and sure enough, students started marching through the campus in columns until they were in straight lines and started doing 'morning exercises.' well, team china just couldn't be sitting ducks and laze around while people around them were doing cool looking exercises. we jumped in-between groups and started to try and follow the morning exercises. what are the morning exercises? that's a good question to which i have no clear answer. basically, it looked like choreographed dance movements with some tae bo and jumping jacks sprinkled in. we must have looked ridiculous to the students around us but we had fun and it was another hanggao (hangzhou hs) experience!

lunch was amazing (per usual) with pork, sweet soup with red bean in it, bean sprouts, celery and ham, and light rice crisps topped with blackberry jam. after lunch, we went out to buy helen (english teacher who came to ds a few years ago) a birthday cake! we had already made her a card, but we decided that in order to be able to sing happy birthday in chinese, we needed a cake to...take the cake? ella, patrick (ella's friend), penny, eve, and team china walked to a nearby bakery and selected a cake with fruit in-between the layers. when we got back, we found out that she had gone home but would be back at two. at two o'clock, we went back to the teachers' room to await her arrival. sure enough, she came and we were able to sing her happy birthday in chinese and present her with the cake. she was really touched and was literally moved to tears. we were happy to make someone who had helped ds teachers out so much so happy.

after school i went with penny, hammah, and a classmate of theirs to a hardware store where they needed to pick up items for their shop class. after, we got cong bao hui (hammah) and dan bing (egg cake- penny and i). it's a bit like a crepe with a breadstick, scallions, sweet and spicy sauce, and pickles in between. we then went to the bus stop and came home to a(nother) delcious dinner. this time it was baby bok choi, chicken, pickled veggies, and celery and tofu.

some more interesting tidbits about life at hanggao: my host sister (as well as the host siblings of nick and cady...i'm not sure about drew's) is a part of the league. the league is the equivalent of the government (i.e. communist) party for adults and is very prestigious (kind of like national honors society?). however, any members have to renounce their religious beliefs. my family used to believe in jesus christ until my host dad and penny joined the party and league (respectively). now that they are in it, they cannot be religious. another interesting fact is that over this summer, penny went to egypt and turkey! i have been fascinated by egyptology since i was a little kid (who am i kidding, i'm still a little kid), so this was a particularly cool bonding experience. it's also really cool being in such a big school where no one knows everyone, which is a lot unlike ds. i didn't know it was possible to not to know all your classmates until i saw how many kids hanggao has.
well that's all for today! bye!

An Idyll of Lake and Garden

(Terry)

Even on the weekend, our days are full!

You already know that Team China and host siblings headed off on our glorious Saturday at West Lake – then one teacher and I separated from the younger folks after lunch. Michelle (Shen Liang) and I continued sauntering down the road that bordered West Lake, eventually stopping for a cup of tea; ultimately, we walked back up the road to attend a wedding banquet! William (Hu Kunling) will be coming to DS with this year's group of Hangzhou students, and he'd completely outdone all notions of good hosting by inviting me to join his wedding festivities. I changed out of jeans to a dress, and then Michelle and I watched part of the photo session for William and his new bride (Jiang Yijiao). Little did we know that they'd already spent days posing for a video which looped through most of the dinner, featuring bride-and-groom; this is apparently a feature of modern weddings (rather than the bride being carted about in a tiny sedan chair to her in-laws' home). The couple posed most romantically in a variety of (mostly outdoor) settings, and many heartfelt sayings in English were interspersed among the pictures, since William is an English teacher. The marriage was official once they had obtained their marriage license, but the "host" who acted as emcee for the banquet guided them through an exchange of wedding rings, and invited people to make several speeches offering good wishes to this glowing couple. We ate expansively (when does that ever not happen in China?), chatted much in English, and watched as the couple made their way from table to table: toasting their guests, and lighting a cigarette for the senior male guest at each table, who in return smoked with great gusto (even the non-smokers, it seems!) The bride changed her dress as the evening progressed, from her long white wedding gown with a lovely train, to a fitted long red gown, and finally to a short traditional silk dress (the one every single American female has ordered while in Hangzhou!) Talk about being made one of the family while I'm here!

On Sunday, Rose (Xu Hui, last year's teacher for the exchange) met me at 9:30, and we took a cab to the Hangzhou Botanical Garden. If anything, the weather was even more spring-like than the day before, and we chatted the day away while I sighed over the glorious garden setting. Many plants were labeled with Latin names, much to my delight, and I was able to learn the names of several trees that I'd seen on our travels. Of course, there were plum trees galore to enjoy, along with a koi-and-carp pool, numerous fountains, venerable pavilion structures, and uncountable vistas. Even though we shared the garden with thousands of families young and old, if felt like it belonged to us, too!

"There's heaven, and then there's Hangzhou!"

(Nick)

We have been in Hangzhou for six days now and each day seems to get better than the last! Today we went back to school after an amazing weekend, so I will tell you what my weekend was like (Now that we are not the "Gang of Four" anymore, this trip is a lot more individualized).

On Friday after school, my host brother Raven, three of his classmates, and I played badminton for a couple hours. It was great fun and although they play badminton a lot more often in China than I do in the states, I wasn't half bad. After badminton, we took a city bus to Hefang Road, an old street in Hangzhou known for its many shops and ancient medicine factories. After walking down Hufeng St., we ate dinner at a gourmet American restaurant you might recognize - McDonalds! It is actually not so cheap here and the actual restaurant is much nicer and more modern (compared to the U.S.). After our fattening meal, I'm positive we managed to burn it all off. We walked to West Lake (Xihu in Chinese) and probably walked for almost 3 hours. It was absolutely beautiful at night - all the lights from the many buildings on the other side reflected on the water. One of Raven's friends, whose English name is Samuel, wanted to speak English with me but was really shy and nervous (A common theme that I've noticed thus far in Hangzhou). His friends convinced him to and we ended up talking for the entirety of our 3 hour walk. Samuel is VERY interested in history (according to Raven he knows more than his history teacher), and I, being the history nut that I am, was more than happy to talk about it. Samuel gave me an overview of China's history for a while (and by a while I mean 2 hours...with such a long history, you can't possibly give a "brief" overview), and I gave him an overview of American history (which wasn't very hard, considering China is thousands and thousands of years older). We then talked about our two countries in general - he's not a fan of the Chinese education system and is quite envious of American students. We talked about the reputations of our two countries....I told him how I felt about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the Three Gorges Dam project , and he told me about his thoughts on the war in Iraq. We talked about the upcoming 2008 Presidential election - he thinks it is a very important election for the U.S. and thought it was great that a woman and an African American were both running for President. His English was not the best when we started talking, but by the end of our long conversation, he was a lot more comfortable and his English was rather good! It was a great thing for both of us - not only did he get to practice his English, but both of us learned a lot in the process. After our stroll, we went to a Starbucks near the lake. Raven and his friends told me that Starbucks is quite popular for young men in China, which I was very happy to learn. We sipped our tea and coffee as we talked about a variety of things - sports, music, movies, and even girls (which was rather amusing for me...there is quite a difference in the dating scene here...it is pretty much nonexistent among high school students). It was a great way to spend Friday night, and as much as I love Cady, Drew, and Emily, it was refreshing to be with new friends and completely away from everything familiar.

On Saturday, we took a trip to West Lake (during the day this time) with our host siblings, Terry, Michelle (English teacher), and two other teachers. We walked around West Lake, ate a delicious lunch (including duck tongue!), and then took boats out in West Lake. I'd heard so much before coming to Hangzhou about how beautiful West Lake is...boy was everyone right, it sure is beautiful! As we were out in the middle of the lake, one quote definitely popped into my mind - "There's heaven and then there's Hangzhou." After a gorgeous day on the lake, my host family took me out to dinner at a really nice restaurant. Lucky for us, a wedding reception was happening at the restaurant at the same time! It was very interesting to see but I felt weird watching a total stranger's wedding reception! After dinner, we all saw Atonement in the cinema which was very well done.

On Sunday, my host family took me to the Thousand Island Lake (Qiandao Hu). We went with my host mother's friend and her daughter, and it took about a 2 hour drive on the highway to get there. First we went to a river near the lake and ate lunch on a boat. The lunch consisted of fish from the river and it was so delicious! My host father kept on putting the most delicious parts of each fish in my bowl of rice and I couldn't resist, but I came out absolutely stuffed. After lunch, we drove to the Thousand Island Lake. My host family just purchased a luxury timeshare in a hotel overlooking the lake, and it is currently being built, so we viewed a model of what it is going to look like. Now I knew my host family must have quite a bit of money after seeing their apartment in Hangzhou, but their new timeshare is going to be incredible. Raven told me that I should convince my parents to also buy a timeshare in the same complex.......yeah, okay, i'm sure my parents would be totally fine spending 1.1 million yuan on a timeshare half way around the world. My host parents did invite me to come visit them over my holiday break next year, since their new timeshare will be ready by then....all I can say is, now wouldn't that be nice! After a tour of their timeshare model, we took out a speedboat on the lake. This lake is HUGE compared to West Lake...I'm pretty sure you can see it on a map of China. As the name infers, there are supposedly over 1000 islands...not sure if it is true or not, but the point is there are a lot of islands! We got off on one of them, named Monkey Island, that is home to probably 50 or so wild monkeys. Raven brought some dried tofu which he threw near the monkeys so they could eat it. They weren't very interested, and took a liking to the oranges that a young couple was throwing towards them. It reminded me a lot of Emeishan, but not nearly as touristy and there were no old women to yell at you if you got too close. There was quite a bit of trash on the beach, though, and the idea of throwing tons of food at wild animals wasn't very appealing to me. Overall, though, the lake was gorgeous and the water was very clear and looked fairly clean (for China standards, of course). We took a ton of photos throughout the day...it felt like every time a photo was being taken, I had to be in it, even a photo of my host mother's friend and her daughter. We drove back to Hangzhou after a beautiful day (Raven and I both took naps in the car - the sun sure does make you tired). Once we were back in Hangzhou, my host family took me out to dinner yet again (I guess eating out is a must on weekends, despite my host father's excellent cooking skills).

Today we went back to school. Monday morning is different from any other morning: there is a morning ceremony before classes, where all the students line up by class and march onto the field/track, watch the Chinese flag get raised, and listen to the Vice Principal speak (since Madame Miao, the Principal, is at a conference in Beijing). A girl from my class, who apparently is the head of my class, also spoke in front of everyone. I felt pretty awkward being the only one in a sea of over 2,000 students not wearing a uniform (besides Cady, Drew, and Emily of course), but luckily we got our uniforms a couple hours later!

Our first class today was Chinese. In addition to our Chinese teacher, Gao Li, we were pleasantly surprised to see that we had an English translator now, a grade three (senior) student who is already into Beijing Language University to study arabic, and doesn't need to be in his classes anymore. His English name is Baker, and he has a British/Australian accent (His mom lives in the UK and he spent his summers when he was younger in Australia). We all love his accent. William, the English teacher who will be coming to Dover-Sherborn this spring, popped into our class and told us that our uniforms were in our cubicles in the English office, along with candy that he left us. We were all so excited to finally get out uniforms! It was our second Chinese class, and a pretty unique one at that! We spent about 30 minutes reviewing the different cities and provinces we've visited and then learned some new food words. Gao Li then took us to a restaurant near campus to eat the foods we had just learned how to say (talk about an interactive way of learning). We ate Hun tun (small wontons in soup), jiao zi (dumplings), and diao zha shao bing (Gao Li described it as a Chinese pizza..it was basically scallion pancakes). We had all just eaten very large breakfasts from our host families, but we managed to eat a good amount of the food that Gao Li ordered for us. It was so nice of him to take us. It definitely brought us all back to our Modern China Tutorial days when we would get Chinese food with Ms. Viz! After Chinese "class," we went up to the English office and got our uniforms, which of course we immediately put on. They all look great and we definitely feel like we are now a part of the school rather than complete foreigners. Now, let's just hope that we don't lose Emily...now that she has a uniform, she fits right in!

After Chinese, we had gym class. We thought that Baker, our translator, was just for Chinese class, but were happy to find out that he is our translator for all of our classes...talk about hospitality! Our gym class is private unlike the P.E. classes that we attend with our host siblings in the afternoon. We have our own teacher, who we don't know the name of yet but we absolutely love. She is so cute, always smiling and very energetic. We started out by doing cheerleading....i know....pom poms and all! None of us are by any means what you would call cheerleaders so we all had a lot of fun pretending to be peppy and spirited. We learned a fairly difficult routine and then did it along to music. It was quite a scene...too bad nobody got it on tape! I'm sure many of my fellow Calculus students back in DS would pay to see a video of Mrs. Luskin cheerleading. Many Hangzhou High School students tried to peak into our room to see us making fools of ourselves, but we were really embarrassed and our teacher finally told the students to stop watching so we could actually get through our routine without being bright red. It turned out to be rather tiring and we only learned a part of the routine, so we will finish it next class. We then moved onto strength and conditioning....we did many different kinds of crunches and bum-strengthening exercises that hurt SO much, but we managed to get through it because our teacher was smiling the whole time. We are all expecting to be sore tomorrow. We finished class by doing yoga (like last class) which was a relaxing way to end the class.

We had lunch next, which was delicious, but we were all stuffed from our Chinese class trip to the restaurant. Kathleen (whom I hadn't seen yet), Ella, and Patrick popped into our private lunch room. We still had almost an hour left in our lunch period so we all sat on the grass near the front gate of the school and just hung out and talked. We all love our host siblings to death but its so nice to have friends that are our own age as well. After lunch period, we headed off to our respected host sibling's classroom. Today, Raven had the Chinese equivalent of industrial technology, History, Politics, and P.E. In industrial technology, we cut some type of metal with saws (I helped out Raven's friends when their arms got tired from sawing). History class seemed to be a World History class, and we watched a movie in addition to viewing notes on powerpoint (Every teacher has a laptop that they bring around with a powerpoint presentation of that particular day's lesson). I couldn't really understand Politics, although we did watch a short clip of what seemed to be about the heavy snow that hit southern China right before we arrived, and I'm assuming it was about the government's response to this natural disaster. In P.E., each class ran two laps around the track. Each class was in two lines, a line for the boys and a line for the girls. Music was blasted as we ran. Then me and some of my friends played badminton for the remainder of the period.

Tonight my host family and I viewed each other's photos and we talked about many different things. They love America and my host parents look forward to visiting next year when Raven is attending high school in Los Angeles. In my last entry, I said that Raven will be there for one year on an exchange, but it turns out that he will be there for the remainder of high school (2 years). His parents think the American education system is very good so that is why he is going. Raven is an only child (well, it is pretty hard NOT to be an only child in China due to the One Child Policy), and he is very close to his parents (Just like me...gotta love only child syndrome). I have grown very close with my host parents despite the language barrier, and I think that because I am so used to being an only child, I am quite used to the constant attention. I do feel bad, however, because my host mother is constantly comparing me and Raven, telling him that he needs to wear his pants higher (like me), wear brighter colors (like me), and do well in school (apparently they think I am smart just because I am into college). I do try hard to remind them that Raven is one of the best English speakers in his class and that Hangzhou High School as well as the school in L.A. that he will be attending next year are both excellent, prestigious schools. My host mother hates the English name that my host brother gave himself, Raven, and its really funny because everyday she will say (Raven...bu hao...bu hao)...and then call him by his Chinese name, Xie Jing Yi. His parents call him Yang Yang as a nickname though, but they can't do that while I am here since my name is Yang Ni Ke! I am so happy with my host family and it is a perfect fit for me. Sure, it is sometimes difficult for us to communicate, but every time I use a new Chinese word my host parents are so impressed and every time they use a new English word I tell them "Hun hao" (very good). They are very funny and we definitely share many laughs.

I will be honest when I say that when I first became interested in this exchange, it was the travel portion that was the most enticing to me. Travel has always been a huge interest of mine and this was the perfect opportunity to see another part of the world at such a young age. But the last six days have proven to me that nothing can compare to actual human interaction. I had a lot of fun during the 3 weeks of travel, but this is so much better! All the anxiety I had about Hangzhou has gone away and I am having so much fun. I learned a lot while traveling, but I have found that I have learned so much more just from making new friends here and stepping out of my comfort zone. I feel so much more accomplished after a day at Hangzhou High School than I did during any of the travel days, no matter how great the city! When I first came into my classroom last Wednesday, I noticed some hesitation and I wasn't sure what to make of it. But I have since realized that the students are just very shy when using their English and they were very scared to approach me. I am probably the least intimidating person...ever...so i found that rather amusing. After a couple days, however, they warmed up to me and began asking lots of questions about my life in America.

After just six days, I already know that this is going to be one hard goodbye. But I can't even think about that right now...I just want to enjoy Hangzhou while it lasts!

Hope everyone at home is doing well!

Take Care,
Ni Ke