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Published: March 14th 2010
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naomi with a shirt she got when she was in mnThe flight to Shantou was my 9th time using the Beijing Airport, so I guess I’m pretty much an expert now. Everything went smoothly, I took public buses to get there because I had all day this time. It took about an hour and a half, and it only cost about 50 cents, not bad considering I went all the way across Beijing.
The flight was a little less than three hours. When I got to Shantou it was just stairs to walk off the plane and basically through a doorway that went to the parking lot, very small. Naomi was waiting for me outside the door. I didn’t check anything so we went right to the car where her parents were waiting. I was pretty nervous because they don’t speak English. Although I can communicate pretty well with people in Beijing, southerners are a whole other story. The southern accent, especially Guangdong province, where I was, is hard for even Chinese people to understand sometimes. I did my best to communicate and by the end of the week I understood most of what they said, as long as they didn’t get too complicated. When we got to their apartment
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her friend got her these from the US...she didn't know what it meant so that was pretty funny for me I was surprised at how nice the complex of buildings was, it was even nicer than the place I’m staying in Beijing. The tradition on the Chinese New Year’s Eve is to watch the national TV program, so most families stay at home and watch together. After New Year’s Eve, the program is played over and over again all throughout the next 2 weeks; even now I periodically see it on the public bus in the morning.
After watching the program her mom made us a night time snack, which would become and almost every night affair, obviously no complaints there. Usually she made dumplings but a few nights were other food, I’m not sure what the other things were called, or even consisted of, but it was all delicious. I was always a little worried about troubling her to make us food, but if I said I didn’t need to eat she was worried I was too hungry, so I usually ate, after all I’d hate to cause her anxiety, right?
The next day we went to meet Naomi’s Grandpa. In China when you go to a family get together you always say hi to the oldest
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at shannon(middle)'s house person first, in this case, Grandpa. It is very important to show him respect, which I think is really cool. Of course I always give my grandparents in the US respect, but Chinese grandparents basically live like kings, everyone around them does everything for them. Everyone watches out for Grandpa, holds his arm when walking, holds his things, I was impressed. Grandpa was very nice, he had me sit by him and Naomi’s funny uncle and drink some tea, it was a fun experience, but a little awkward being the only foreigner surrounded by a bunch of curious Chinese people who all knew each other. Although it was a little awkward at first it still felt good to be surrounded by family again, even if it wasn’t my family.
After talking to Grandpa, or attempting to talk to him, I talked with a little girl who lives with Grandpa. She is 3 and she’s really cute. She is a distant relative of Grandpa’s and she’s from a village near Shantou. She and her grandma live together with Grandpa, in return for their company Grandpa pays for the little girl’s school and I’m sure he spoils her once in a
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at the park while. I thought this was a really cool thing he was doing for the little girl, and in turn, he doesn’t have to live alone. The little girl could say a few words in English, in addition to being able to speak the Shantou language, and Mandarin Chinese. Naomi had taught her how to say “good morning” last time she was home, and the girl still remembered. She kept saying “good morning!” to me over and over, so I nicknamed her Good Morning. I also talked a little with the cousins, 4 girls, one of which is the girl I nicknamed Yingwu (parrot) when I went to Guangzhou last semester. The other three are younger than me, Shannon 18, Sherry 14 and Tina 13. They were very nervous to talk to me in English and were even too shy to speak Chinese. However, Naomi told me they had never-ending questions about me when they were talking to her. As the week went on the questions eventually started to come out. They had never had much close contact with foreigners before so it was an exciting opportunity for all of us.
Grandpa is Buddhist, so for lunch we went to
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vincent running to take pictures a vegetarian restaurant. The food was a little weird but I really enjoyed it, very unique and no meat. Not much else to say about that. The cousins started to warm up to me at lunch and we talked a little bit. I also talked with Yingwu’s boyfriend Vincent, who was also in Guangzhou when I went last semester. It was good to see him again, since we had a lot of fun last time we were together.
After lunch was over we walked to the aforementioned funny uncle’s house. After every big meal they always made us walk around, which actually seems pretty healthy, keeps the metabolism moving. As opposed to in America where we eat a big meal, lie on the couch and take a nap. After walking around his beautiful apartment complex, complete with a beautiful pond and some very rich people’s condos, we went to his apartment. His daughters are Tina and Shannon. He had a very nice house, a big screen TV with very nice surround sound, a beautiful balcony, plenty of space. We sat for a while and listened to Michael Jackson and other music he decided to share with me. After sitting
for a while Vincent wanted to go out and have fun. I was content with relaxing but he was antsy so we borrowed Naomi’s dad’s car and headed to a park. Naomi drove, and she hasn’t driving for like a year, so it was a little scary, but we lived. The park we went to was pretty nice, check out the pictures. The park had some games, like shooting BB guns, which I won multiple prizes at.
That night we went to the oldest aunt’s house, they call her “big aunt” it sounds weird in English but it is an endearing and respectable term in Chinese. We ate some delicious food. They have a tradition in the south to eat goose the week of Chinese New Year, and it’s very good with some vinegar and garlic. They also had squid and fish because Shantou is an ocean side city. We watched Avatar there with Chinese subtitles, and then went back and went to bed.
The next day there wasn’t too much going on; we slept in and then got up and went to have seafood with her father’s side. It was very good in general, but a couple
things were very hard to eat, especially a little crab, he was staring at me the whole time I ate it. After eating we went home and Big Aunt, Yingwu, Vincent, and cousin Shannon, came over to play games. We played UNO, which I had to teach them the right way to say, and bingo, which Naomi really likes since she came to St. John’s and played it there with us. Naomi decided to bet money on Bingo and she won! So I think she cheated 😉
The next morning we got up and went for a walk. Near Naomi’s apartment there is a neighborhood that reminded me of Beverly Hills, a bunch of huge houses in a nice clean neighborhood. Some of the houses were only half finished, Naomi said those people probably made “dirty money” so they tried to spend it right away on a house but they didn’t finish the house before they were stopped doing whatever they were doing. Later that day we went to a nice little park in a village. All the cousins went including the little girl I called “good morning” and also grandpa came too. We walked around a park in
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yingwu and shannon the village and went on paddle boats. It rained a little but was still pretty fun. After the park we walked to a house of a man grandpa knew. There was an old lady there who as soon as she saw me grabbed my hand and started pulling me around, maybe speaking Chinese, maybe speaking gibberish but I couldn’t understand her either way, but she didn’t seem to mind.
After seeing the old lady, we went to a field of date trees. It was date picking season while I was there so I had already eaten a bunch because every family had a bunch, I imagine because they were easy to find at that time. They pretty much taste like apples with a pit; I’ve never had them in the US so I don’t know if we even have this type. We picked a whole bunch of dates and put them in bags to bring home.
After coming home from the village we went to the big aunt’s house for dinner. I was happy that we kept busy every night, especially since I got along really well with the cousins; we had a lot of fun the whole
week. That night we had some glutinous sticky rice stuff that was kind of like sticky jello and you dip it in sweet brown powder, it was very good. For dinner we ate white fish soup, which was amazing. It was a little spicy and they told me it was a really deep water fish. The seasoning reminded me of some kind of soup you could eat in the US, so that was good because it was like a little taste of home.
That night we went to KTV, which is karaoke, and it’s very popular in China so everyone was excited. All the cousins went, along with Big Auntie and Naomi’s mom. The cousins sang some songs, I didn’t really want to sing, but they wanted me to. I sang one and a half Chinese songs that I know along with some other people, but they weren’t satisfied. I spent most of the time talking to the younger cousins, so it was a lot of fun. Vincent and Yingwu kept pouring me beer and toasting with me, but unfortunately for them Chinese are light weights, Vincent got a little drunk but I was fine. The cousins all drank
too, which was a little weird for me, since they’re so young. The mothers let them drink until their cheeks get nice and red, which actually doesn’t take much for Chinese. After the mothers left I sang an American song that has kind of an inappropriate music video, so I’m glad I waited. The cousins loved it and they all danced the whole time. When our time ended we headed home and went to bed.
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