Chao Tian Men (朝天门）

Before hitting the museums yesterday I went with my English teacher and his other English teacher friend to the spot where the Yellow river and the Yangtze river meet. There were many vendors and boats.

The People's Concert Hall

Gate to the hall

The hall itself

Main dome

Entrance

(above: Stage)

There is nothing much to say about this building. Other than it was only just built in 1954, and it's gorgeous! It reminds me of Spirited Away (even though that is Japanese). I love it! When we were inside there was a rehearsal for the Chongqing International Fashion Carnival (yes carnival...but I think they meant show) so we were able to see some modern Chinese fashion. It was okay...not the greatest but not the worst. It was definitely something to see while enjoying the plush seats and aircondtioning.



Opposite The People's Concert Hall is the Three Gorges Dam Museum.

Three Gorges Dam Museum

The Three Gorges Dam Museum (above)

Model of the dam (above)

Yesterday I went with my school's Spoken English teacher and his other Spoken English teacher friend to a few historical Chongqing sites....



The Three Gorges Dam Museum was a very interesting stop on the list of sightseeing spots in Chongqing that I wanted to see. I wanted to see how this "great achievement" in engineering was portrayed to the people throughout China...or at least how the government wanted it to be portrayed to the people throughout China.



The museum was better than I expected and actually had exhibits on other events and time periods rather than just the dam itself. They had a hall on The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Sino-Japanese War, Mao, etc. Everything was very visual and occasionally there were English descriptions but it was mostly at the beginning portion of the exhibit.



In the first exhibition hall there was a big globe displaying the largest rivers in the world (one of them is the Yangtze). A little boy and his parents were examining it and it was obvious that we wanted to have a look to, the mom told the boy "Come on, let's go! These foreigners want to see the map too!" Not wanting to look like I was pushing a kid out of the way for some dumb globe I said "I am sorry! He can keep looking, but you know how foreigners like maps." She automatically said "No problem." Suddenly her mouth dropped and she realized that these words were coming from a foreigner.



We continued to talk for about five minutes about me, where I came from, how long had I learned Chinese, what did I think about China, whether or not I was used to the cuisine etc.

They left and then this other man in a blue shirt came up to my side and started asking me the same questions...except he didn't stop after five minutes and began delving into more personal things like where I lived (I wasn't dumb enough to actually tell him), where did I go to school.

Finally that was over, phew, and we moved on to the next exhibit hall.



When we got to the exhibit hall I noticed the same man in the blues shirt was there and he was pretending to be looking at something while staring at me from the corner of his eye. When we moved on to the next stone tablet, painting or whatever, he did too. I began to get nervous.

I told my English teaching friend that the guy was following us. He told me to just ignore him for now and that if he started to pester me we could leave.



Right after he said that the man approached me again. This time he asked me what the best way to learn English was. It took me several tries to understand him because I was feeling very scatter-brained. I simply told him to watch movies...I walked away. He followed. "But how did your Chinese get so good if you only studied it for 2 years? I have studied English for 9 but I can hardly say anything!" I told him that I watched movies. And then I said "Excuse me I have to go."



Trying to throw our middle-aged stalker off for a while we had a bathroom break. He was nowhere to be found after that so we headed into a very perculiar room...I noticed the sign said Foreign Art Room. We ventured in and were immediately greeted with English "Hello, please have a look around." Except the art in the room was all Chinese art...and it was for sale. A few minutes later we discovered they were fake. Then I heard a familiar voice, this time protesting. "But this is my country's art? Why can't I come in??" It didn't take me long to figure out that it was the blue shirted man. And apparently this was a room for foreigners only.



The art was mostly reproductions, and not even painted reproductions at that. The prices were out rageous too. 250,000 yuan for a reproduction! What!? So this must be where they fool foreigners into buying "authentic" Chinese art. And at first glance they seem real enough, and you're buying them at a museum to boot!



(Dana & John I saw the exact same silk embroidery piece that is hanging in your dinning room in that museum store. The same exact one! I kid you not!)



I think the reason it is only open to foreigners is because Chinese people would quickly realize that the pieces on sale are fakes.



We left bemused by the fact that only foreigners could enter. Unfortunately the entrance was also the exit and that same man was waiting for us. He was still engaged in a heated argument with the attendant as to why he couldn't enter the store. But as soon as he saw us he accepted defeat.



I practically ran away from that store, anything to get away from this overly friendly individual. He ran too. I gave in and about faced, this time looking pissed off. He asked me if I had a phone, I said no (lie), and then he asked me if I had an email. But of course he didn't have a pen. He got one though. I worte down my Chinese name and a fake email address. He complained that I had written it too sloppily and that I should write it again. I told him no. (Being that up front in Chinese culture is extremely rude, if I'd wanted to be polite I would have said something along the lines of "But my friends are waiting for me.") He said ok. And that was the last I saw of him.

Thank god. It was a very scary experience...or to me it seemed to be.



I caught a bus home with my English teaching friends and went to my best Chinese friend's home for dinner. My parents have already left for vacation and this evening I am to accompany my host grandfather by plane to Guilin. It is supposed to be one of the prettiest places in China, and it takes two days to get there by car. Thank god I am going by plane! Chinese people don't use seat belts!



Oh, and the reason for such an occasion is because October 1st is National Day! 7 days of vacation for most people! Yay!

View from School Roof

All four of us AFS exchange students at my school have a special room on the sixth floor of one of the least used school buildings. The room is across the hall from a would-be classroom now turned into a worker's temporary dorm room with bunks and all. It may lack air conditioning and only have a women's restroom in the hall but I like it anyways. Plus it has a huge open air balcony! I like to stand out there and see what I can see. Usually there is a clothes-line with worker's clothes drying on the balcony. And occasionally there is a bird or two.

I enjoy looking off the left side of the building because there is an extremely neglected apartment building. On the roof of this extremely neglected apartment building is a man who raises geese. ducks, and tends a garden. I like to watch him and imagine what his apartment looks like. It sounds strange but it's what I do when there is nothing else to do.

If you look closely you can see the goose on the roof in this picture.

Cotton Candy Audience

When it started to rain during the 70th Anniversary Celebration of my school the audience put on plastic rainslickers and the end result was this.

Chinese High School 70th Anniversary Ceremony

Today my school had its 70th Anniversary celebration. It was very different from what a school in American might do. As you can see above the stage is set like one might be at a concert or some big event that you need to pay for. Actually if was like a concert in a way, because many groups of students gave performances and speeches.

A few groups did modern dances and a few groups did Chinese dances. One group even sang Peking Opera, however I was disappointed to see that they were not all decked out in full Peking Opera attire. They only had fans. An alumni from 1958 gave a speech, I didn't lsiten to a lot of it because I was preoccupied with students asking to take my picture (sometimes they didn't even ask), but I did hear him say in English "Long live China, long live China!" The crowd loved that...I wonder why he said it in English? Would it not be more appropriate to say it in the Motherland's native tongue? Hmmm....

For this grand occasion many older alumni came. These people were divided into two groups, the unimportant old people, and the important old people. Unimportant old people can do nothing for the school in terms of connections so they are not put in the good front row seats. The important people are either company big-wigs, or government officials. They get to have their own wooden desk, chair, and complementary water bottle.

From what I was told at the AFS pre-departure orientation China is all about connections, and sometimes it is made more clear than usual.

This program was given the first prize in most entertaining and cultural school ceremonies.

At the ceremony students wore uniforms. I heard many complaints about these "ugly" and "uncomfortable" uniforms. In the middle of the ceremony it began to rain. Everyone dawned a rainslicker provided by the school. The audience appeared to be cotton candy, because the rainslickers were yellow, pink, light blue, and red.

I will post a picture of that too! It's rather entertaining!

Students were happy to go home at 12 o'clock for lunch (their attendance was mandatory) snd begin the week long holiday for National Day.

Evening Fitness

A group of about 50 women or so, everynight (more or less) meet in this square to dance to popular Chinese and Western music. This is their excercise, and it is fun to watch because they are in sync most of the time. Or maybe they are making a statement by excercising in front of a KFC?

Americanization in Chongqing 2

Sorry, this picture is a little blurry.

I think it's funny that the Starbucks is next to the McDonald's!

Americanization in Chongqing 1

the pictures are self explanatory

(open 24hrs)

Night Out

Night on the town (pictured: Wang Xize, Me, Brazilian exchange student)

Last night was a lot of fun. There were many happenings around the area in which we walked. There was some kind of Beauty contest going on outside a department store, old ladies getting their night-tim eexcercise in by dancing to a strange blend of Chinese and Western music. As for us, we went window shopping and finally ended up at this hole-in-the-wall photobooth store.

I have never encountered such a thing.

When you walk in people are sitting down looking at books and writing down numbers, along the walls are curtained areas, you can hear laughing and shouting. Mainly young people. My friend Wang Xize (pictured above) explained that for 5 yuan you pick a set of eight backgrounds from those books for your photos. After writing down the numbers beneath each desired background on a small slip of paper, hand them to the clerk and she will punch in the backgrounds for you. Then the fun begins!!

Each curtained off area is of course a photobooth! We crammed four people into one!

The backgrounds that you select always have a spot where your face(s) should appear, and the photobooth machine automatically centers it for you so you needn't worry about awkward movements within the confined space.

Backgrounds include:

a face space next to a popular anime/manga (japanese comic) character's image

a face space next to a photo of famous moviestars (Chinese and foreign)

a face space that is positioned so it appears that you are on the cover of a magazine

a face space in between the legs of a scantily clad woman

a face space near your favorite hello kitty, morning glory character etc.

a face space in front of famous scenic areas throughout China and the world

(In one picture I took it looks as though I am about to swallow a very famous Tibetan monestary).

And after all the photos are printed by an ordinary household computer you swap photos with friends!

An Everyday Chongqing Lunch

(pictured left to right: Ayi, my friend from Germany, my Chinese friend Zhao-zhao daughter of Ayi, and food!)

I think it is normal in China for students to have two options for lunch: eating at home, or eating at the cafeteria. I don't eat at the cafeteria at all. The food is too spicy, and it just tastes gross. The cafeteria is often crowded and hot. There is hardly enough airconditioning and it smells like children who don't wear deoderant (most kids don't).

So I eat at my friend's house! Her mom makes great food and two of my exchange student friends live there so I know everybody. Usually all four exchange students (including me) will eat there along with a few of my Chinese friends. My host parents can't come home from work for lunch, and my host brother eats at his elementary school.

The person who cooks the food is my 阿姨 Ayi, or Auntie (she isn't really my Aunt I just call her that. It is a term of endearment). She is the host mom of the Brazilian exchange student and the Bolivian exchange student. She is very nice and her husband works far away for his construction company so he only comes home once a week. And her eldest daughter is abroad for a year in Denmark, while her youngest daughter (my good friend) studies often. I think she is a bit lonely. We chat in Chinese and I can understand her perfectly. Now I can even understand her more when she speaks the Chongqing dialect. Before it was unintelligable to me!

Sometimes I cannot understand my host parents very well, even though their Mandarin is good, they have a strange accent. Either that or my brain is just fried by the time I get home that it takes a little while for me to concentrate and understand the Chinese. Probably the latter.

Anyways back to lunch:

Usually there are two meat dishes, one vegetable dish, one soup (however in this picture there are two...leftovers), and of course rice in your bowl! I don't usually have soup because you ladle it into your rice bowl and once I am done with my rice I am full. You eat the rice after all the meat and vegetable dishes are through. If you eat the rice to early people will think you are filling up on rice because you don't like the food.

And don't worry I will never be starved here. On the contrary from breakfast 'til dinner I am at a constant full. It is kind of a problem. I have explained to my host family that I can't eat that much...So they think that I don't like their food. Then they take me to the grocery store which, of course, is mainly Chinese food that I have never had. They ask me "Do you like this?" I say "I don't know because I haven't eaten it before." My host parents then think that I don't like Chinese food. Often I am asked by them if I am "used to Chinese food yet" and I say yes.

I have asked my AFS coordinator at school to intervene so I don't offend them soon. Hopefully it all goes well!

Spoken English Class

(pictured: Spoken English teacher helping my classmates successfully play a word game)

Yesterday was a school day, but a fun school day at that! You know why? Because we had Spoken English Class taught by a foreigner just like me! Well, not exactly, he is British. But his first language is English! I helped him play English-speaking games with the class. One of the games was where we both read a dialogue aloud and the students would have to pick out the English word that was particulalry of British or American English and then give its equivalent in the other style of English. For example one of the words picked out of one of the short dialogues by a student was "rubbish" and then they had to say the American English equivalent.

My class was just giddy to see two foreigners standing on the teaching platform. When I first stood up there next to him many students whipped out their phones and started snapping away with the handy camera feature.

Another game we played was 20 questions, in which I pretended to be a celebrity and they had to ask me questions and then guess who I was....but the game didn't go according to plan at first.

(Mind you everything was explained in English)

Here were the questions asked:

"Are you a boy?"

*roars of laughter from class*

"Yes."

"Are you interesting in China?"

"Uh...yes I suppose I am interested in China..?"

"Are you good at math?"

I looked very confused at this point, and so did the teacher. We both burst out laughing. The class looked confused now too.

"Um, um, I highly doubt I am good at math."

The student who asked this question sat down with a puzzled look on his face.

There was whispering going on in the back row and finally someone stood up and asked the question, students were sniggering.

"Do you, ah, have a girlfriend?"

*tremendous laughter*

"Yes."

*non-stop laughter from the students* (when it comes to girlfriends/boyfriends/dating Chinese highschool students are a tad sheltered and tend to act like little kids on this matter. They usually turn red or just laugh if you mention such a thing.)

Right away the teacher and I looked at eachother and at the same time said:

"They think it's you!" he said.

"They think it's me!"

Thankfully I have enough Chinese to explain the directions to the game we were playing. Once everything was cleared up they guessed pretty quickly that I was Kobe Bryant. One of the most beloved basketball players to the Chinese.

A Different Kind of Bed

Here is my bed!

I sleep on top of that leather mattress and have very light and airy blankets on top. Except lately it has been hurting my back so I put the winter covers underneath to help with the padding issue. The leather is supposed to be cool in the hot weather, and I can actually say that it is!

Classroom Revealed

The teachers stand at the platform for most of the class, they even have students who mark down who has done the homewrok. They only walk down when they are lecturing and checking to make sure people are not asleep.

My Chinese friends have many many many clever ways of sleeping in class without being caught. (Several different "studious" positions. Hahaha!)

This could be the hottest place on earth. Sometimes the students don't turn on the air conditioners and just the fans. Even though we have two air conditioners... and four fans the room is still pretty hot, yes even worse than Arizona. The heat here is wet.

(picture: a student about to erase the board after English class, not a teacher. just f.y.i.)

Bathroom Revealed

This is my bathroom.

The grey thing off to the side of the picture is the washing machine which is really quite modern and it is where I put my big articles of clothing, only. Shirts and shorts etc. The rest of my clothes (underwear and socks) I hand wash in the sink and hang on the hangers above to dry. That little porcelain dip in the ground next to the washing machine is my squat toilet. Which has poor flush power so one must fill a special pitcher with water and dump into the toilet while pressing the silver flush button coming out of the wall. It's lovely. The shower that you see also drains into the toilet and sometimes into the drain...that is uphill from the shower. A small basin is next to the sink and it is specifically used for cleaning rags and washing mops. I store all of my stuff in the cabinet behind the mirror.

Chinese Literature Homework (submitted)

(picture: Chongqing Street Scene)

My poem that I gave my Chinese literature teacher, it is quite true to my current situation. I will provide the Chinese below as well as the English:

路上

我走得很快

很多人盯着看老外

我走得很快

每个人觉得我很奇怪！

On the Road

I walk quickly

Many people stare at the foreigner

I walk quickly

Everyone thinks I am strange!

(in the Chinese version it rhymes!)

Chinese School (one of the best middle schools in Chongqing)

(picture: morning excercises)

Every morning I wake up at about 6:30 to quickly "throw" on some clothes, fix my bedhead, have some boxed milk (Beijing Olympic Gold Medal Brand if I do say so myself) and quickly stuff some bread with apple jam into my mouth, spicy noodles, or fried rice iwth egg (it depends on what my Grandmother wants to cook that morning). After that I brush my teeth, take off my house slippers at the door and put on my tennis shoes. Then I take the elevator downstairs and rush through the small district (like a walk street, except more like an alley and with shops, one of the shops is a bra shop...just bras hanging out for all to see) where our apartment is to get to the main road. Once I am there I choose the safest way to cross the street which is usually by the stoplight...but sometimes taxis and motorcycle taxis don't obey those. I always cross the street when other people do.

Next is the bus, which is crowded usually. And rather nasty. But that's alright, Torrance buses are about the same.

After getting off the bus I walk a little ways past health shops, cell phone stores, a bike axel shop, two bus repair stations, a copy machine store, and a few magazine shops located near the main gate of the school.

The main gate of the school is on 24 hour watch by usually friendly security guards. Foreign students (all 4 of us at this school) need not show our IDs because we are so easy to recognize, especially me!!!

On mondays the studentry crowd on to the field for an assembly, which I am usually too tired to comprehend, and to hot. It is extremely hot and humid. And when you are amongst 6000 sweating students it is even hotter. After student-helpers from each class take roll the assembly begins. We about face and watch the Chinese flag be rasied and the rest of the students sing the national anthem. I'm sure I will learn it soon.

When that is all through and done with 6000 of us cram into 4 or 5 buidlings! Ah it gets soooo crowded. When class is in it only takes about 1 minute to get down to the field because everyone is in class. But after assembly, going to morning excercises (which I will talk about later), or coming back from morning excercises, it takes about 10 minutes. Maybe soon I will take a picture so you can get an idea.

In China because schools have so many students the teachers move from room to room not the students. There are 500 teachers at my school. During class the teacher stands on a raised platform with a desk at his/her front and a blackboard at their back. You are reminded when class begins when the teacher shouts 上课 (shahng-kuh) [Class begins] ! Everyone quickly rises and the teacher bows saying 学生好 (shoo-eh shung hao) [Hello Students]！The students all bow back saying 老师好 (lao-shir hao) [Hello Teacher]!

The first week of school class was hot because the air conditioners didn't work, only the fans. But today they worked and I was content.

As you have probably already guessed everything I learn is in Chinese, well, except English class. So I try my best to understand everything, I can't undertsand chinese literature but I go home and translate the poems we learned that day. Today I even handed the teacher a poem, it was our homework and I think he was surprised. It was short but the meaning was relevant to me. I will post it after this one.

Math....eh...difficult. I can understand "plus" "minus" "divide" "subtract" "problem" " a set of.." "mutliply" "x" "a" and "b". But instead of saying "x" my teacher says ""eh-koo-suh."

Chemistry blows over my head because the teacher is require dto speak the local dialect of Chongqing Hua [chong-ching-hua]. There needs to be at least one lesson in the local dialect, and not in Mandarin, so the students feel comfortable. I suppose it would be like if we learned chemistry in American English and had to speak and hear British English the rest of the day.

At 12:30pm class breaks for lunch and I go off campus to my friend's host family's house.

My Brazilian exchange student friend, and Bolivian exchange student friend live there. I think the mom likes the house full because she has one daughter away studying in Denmark and the other one (my friend) is studying at school from 7:20am til 9:30pm (yes you read that right).

I have gotten close to her and I also call her Mama. I also call my other chinese mother figure Mama.

At 2:00pm the rest of the school resumes class. At 2:30pm foreigners (me and my friends) begin 国化课 [guoh-hua-kuh] (Chinese Cultural Class). On Monday we learn Kungfu, Tuesday we learn Chinese Painting, Wednesday we learn Chinese, Thursday we learn Calligraphy, and on Friday we have another Chinese lesson.

Today was Kungfu, but we just got to know the teacher and we watched some of the sport activites going on on the field. The Brazilian exchange student has done Kungfu before so he and the teacher did some forms together. The rest of us watched and talked with the teacher.

I can speak Chinese, and the German exchange student (whose mother is Chinese) can too, so often we act as translators. Which I enjoy very much!! That is what I want to do when I am older!

At 4:00pm school is over for us foreign children. But at 5:45pm the regular students have a dinner break until 6:30pm and then resume a self-study class which is supervised by a teacher at school. However my friends tell me that they have so much homework they can't get it all fone by 9:30pm and often stay up til about 12am. My friend stays up til 3am each night. My school is "hardcore". There are dorms for kids whose homes are too far away but most kids leave for home on the weekends. I only have one friend who boards.

Oh and I forgot to mention morning excercises! After 3rd period we have about 20 minutes to get our blood moving again. After everyone crowds on the stairwells we all line up by class on the field (not unlike monday morning assembly). A teacher stands on a platform near the stairwell and holds a mic, he calls out the rhythm for the excercises. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9..... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10.... A female teacher stands at his side and shows us what we should be doing. She is usually wearing a tracksuit. We mimic her. But I am so far out in the field I just look at the person in front of me. At first I was afraid people would laugh at me for messing up, but it turns out no one cares, because no one really tries anyway.

One time after school my friend and I were swarmed by curious middle schoolers after their afternoon excercises (different schedule) and they asked us all kind of questions and giggled behind their hands. Most of the group talked through 3 students whose English was exceptionally good even though they have never been to an English speaking country. When I spoke Chinese to them they were awestruck, they couldn't believe someone who looks like me could talk like someone who looks like them! It's all very visual here. I mainly spoke Chinese to them, but my Bolivian friend spoke English and they loved it.

Alright more to follow later!

Zaijian! [zai-jen], Bye!

Status Report #1

I arrived yseterday! My host family is great! My dad is an engineer, and my host mom is in finanace. Right now there is a three day holiday in China, it's called the moon festival or the Mid Autumn Festival. When I arrived my little brother helped me unpack all my stuff, all the while commenting on the stuff I brought. Their Chinese is hard to understand, so now I realize how much I have to improve. But when they speak slowly I can definitely understand most of what they are saying. My host mom made a huge dinner for me, and I have attached a picture of this. She was very proud of what she cooked and I was sure to complement her cooking. Because if you don't eat alot and comment on how good the cooking is I could have been considered rude. After that they said that they wanted to buy me a cell phone, so we walked to the cell phone store...it was about a 10 minute walk and it was night so everything in the city was alll lit up. I got stares from people but you just glance at them and they quickly turn away. As far as I could tell I was the only foreigner on the streets. There are police boxes everywhere! China really is a police state. There is even a specific one for our apartment building. And at the hotel in Shanghai guests have to check in specifically with the hotel's police informer so the police can know of your location. I think because we were a big group they already had something prearranged. I was in Shanghai before I met my host family. It was an orientation for the exchange students from all the 22 countries that came to China.
Anyway, almost everything that is sold commercially in China has the seal of the Beijing olympics on it! Even the boxes of milk that my host family drinks! Many advertisements show Chinese Olympians holding something and smiling, you can even buy Olympic tracksuits that are supposed to be replicas of the athlete's uniforms! Oh and if a company want's to make their product sound ultra spiffy they call it a "Gold Metal [Product Name Here]" It's very interesting.
The bathroom that my host family has told me to use is particularly special. It has a squat toilet and a shower with a drain that should be down hill, but is up. The shower is in the room and not seperated by anything so sometimes the qater flows into the squat toilet. The squat toilate is basically a porcelain bowl in the floor that is flushed by a button on the wall. I am scared to use it, but I am sure I will adjust. Also my host family has a special sink for washing socks and underwear, but everything else goes into the washer and is hung to dry on a rail outside the living room window.
It's funny because you'd think that the place I am living is a dump from the outside but the inside of the apartment is actually really nice, the floors in the living room, hall, bathroom, kitchen, and dinning area are marble, while the rooms have shiny dark wood flooring.
Tomorrow school starts and this morning my host dad took me to buy a bus pass and took me on the bus to and from school to get me ready for tomorrow. Chongqing has the craziest drivers! Ah! Let's just say pedestrains don't have the right of way, and drivers love horns more than they love their turn signals. And there are hardly any street lights so sometimes crossing the street is a bit like frogger. Last night crossing the street was the scariest thing of my life!
Public places are filthy, while private spaces are pristine (because it reflects character if they aren't clean). Buses are particularly dangerous because they go a bajillion miles an hour and they are kinda gross.
But so far I am having a really good time. The language barrier is difficult but my host parents and brother make an effort to get their point across, I do to. We use drawings, gestures, sound affects and the little English that can be mutually understood.
I wonder how my fellow exchange students are doing (118 in all of China, 11 in my city, 5 at my school). Supposedly I knew the most Chinese out of all 118, some didn't even bring phrase books or dictionaries! I can't imagine how they can even get by!
Anyways I just helped my brother with is 3 sentence English "essay" which wasn't so bad