Watermelon, Animation, and Nanjing! Oh My!

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I know the title for this entry is a little...bizarre, but there really isn't any way to connect everything I'm about to talk about. I have a bit of a back-log of things I've done in the past two weeks, and need to get them published before my Spring Break (starts this Friday!). Some of you may have noticed that the pictures in my previous entry are missing...I know about it. Travelblog.org (as much as I love this website) has, for a second time, lost my photos. I'll admit, I'm feeling a bit lazy at the moment, but I'll upload them again at some point...

The past two weeks have been full of first experiences for me! It all started two weekends ago...Mt friend's Chinese tutor bought a watermelon to give to my friend to share with everyone. The watermelon was delicious and fresh. Somehow, though, the seemingly innocent act of eating delicious watermelon turned into a watermelon eating contest. So...I guess this wasn't really a first experience for me, but for the Chinese tutors it certainly was. The tutor became the pupil and was taught the ancient art of eating a watermelon really quickly, and with no hands. In the end, it came down to the two American guys, who can eat like it's their job.

Last week, under a rare blue sky (!!) my research class went to a local park. This research class of mine is mostly an independent study. We must write a research paper in Chinese, on the topic of our choice. We are also required to write a survey and question people. So, as a class, we got up at 7 am and went to the park so we could jog around and catch the early crowd. Sadly, I didn't bring my camera (because we were running around). There were thousands of older Chinese doing every type of exercise imaginable. As for the survey, that wasn't as fun...Mostly people were just interested in staring at me. So, that really wasn't the greatest experience for me. I mean, I'm not stranger to staring, but our whole class split up and I was alone and surrounded by 10+ people who had no interest in my survey...I was glad when we got to leave. The only person who answered my survey was a professor from the school I'm currently attending! She was very nice and answered some of my questions.

For my Chinese film class, we had an optional field trip last Friday to the Shanghai Animation Studio. It was cool to see the inside workings of the studio. We saw the history of the studio and all of their accomplishments before seeing an example of a recording room. There were sound effects set up for us to play with, and a soundless film clip to work with. After playing around, we saw how the studio used to film cartoons up until 8 or 9 years ago before computers had a big role in the production of animation.

Starting last Wednesday, and now every Wednesday until the end of the semester, I will be volunteer teaching at a local elementary school. It is a school for the children of migrant workers working in Shanghai. Migrant workers present a large issue in big, developing cities like Shanghai. They come from the countryside to fill cheap labor positions in the city-all a part of China's move to employ everyone in China and get the country developing! Unfortunately, their children cannot attend regular local schools, because they are not residents of Shanghai, so in recent years migrant schools have been established. The school I volunteer at is quite nice, and provides a nice education for children. When we volunteer, CIEE basically just gives us a book and throws us in with the children for an hour, so it's up to us to make something of it. The class I teach, along with my friend Priya, is a fourth grade class. Last week (the first week for us) was pretty rough, seeing as we had no idea what to do with the kids and had no previous instruction. It's hard because the semester is half over and the previous teachers went through the whole book already. This week went must better, because candy was involved. We had a little class competition, with candy as the prize. Thank goodness for candy.

This past weekend, myself and six friends went to Nanjing. The trip was organized by my friend's Chinese roommate, who had been saving up for this trip for quite some time. So, he had quite the itinerary of places to see. Our first stop (Saturday) was the Nanjing Massacre Museum. It was very powerful and moving, and oozing Anti-Japanese sentiment. After the Massacre Museum, we went to the Presidential Palace. It was like a maze in there! I have no idea how much of the Palace we actually saw before we left. Finding a cheap hotel was a bit of a chore. We already had reservations, but the hotel wasn't particularly cheap, so after many 'no vacancies' at other hotels, we found a cheap hotel that cost us each $10 for the night. Not bad!

Unfortunately, in sharp contrast to Saturday's beautiful weather, Sunday was drizzly and chilly. But that didn't stop us from visiting the Ming Tomb. The Ming Tomb is surrounded by the Zhongshan Scenic Area-which is a mountain side nature reserve. Also in the Zhongshan Scenic Area is the Sun-Yet Sen Memorial Hall. Our goal for the day was the Ming Tomb, but when we finally got to the Ming Tomb, it was closed due to construction (Murphy's Law at work!). Despite this, Zhongshan Area was a very nice place to walk around. The Ming Tomb trip took up most of Sunday, so after leaving the Ming Tomb, we made our way to the train station and caught the 6:50 train home. Thankfully, the train ride is only 2 hours long. Long enough to nap, not long enough to be bored!!

As I mentioned before, this weekend marks the beginning of our Spring Break. From April 25-April 30, myself and 5 friends will be traveling throughout the Yunan Province. The Yunan Province is in the most Southwestern part of China, and is supposedly gorgeous! Some of the highlights of our trip are: Tiger Leaping Gorge, the Shaping Market, and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. So hopefully I'll get my next entry out at the end of next week when I get back! Look forward to it! And feel free to let me know if you have any questions or comments about anything!!

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Photos

Old School
Old method of animation was to draw thousands upon thousands of pictures, each with a different pose...Yikes!