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New city!! There's internet here too, but everytime we go somewhere new it's going to be somewhat of a guessing game. So, if I stop sending things out that's why. We're in Tianjin, a fairly large city two hours from Beijing. My dad was right; they're working hard to fix things for the Olympics, and I guess they're booting homeless people out of the big cities.
We met up with one of our professor's colleagues yesterday who works in sociology. We went in small groups to speak with regular Chinese families about their lives, with a Chinese translator. They were middle class; apparently the government forbids foreigners talking to or meeting the poorest of the poor. Crazy. Anyways, it was interesting...... cool to see how everyday people lived. The familial structure, although we've all heard how it's different, is nuts. To live with 4 or 5 generations under one roof is cool, but bizarre at the same time. Not many had cars even though they were well off. Both people my group spoke to were 60+ and do daily exercise, which is amazing. They looked really healthy & fit. The first gentleman had been a soldier in the Liberation Army; how neat. He thought we were quite funny. There were many miscommunications with the translator, which was hilarious, and I'm still wondering exactly what came across either way & how different the conversations were in reality. They offered us boiling hot water & fruit as a sign of politeness... awkward since we can't eat the fruit; we all juggled it around & shoved it in purses. Wow.
After that... we were allowed to explore! Sorry mom & dad... we went with groups, me rachel ellen & amanda, and looked around the marketplaces, the mall across the street.... and the mcdonalds. i didn't buy anything out of principle ha ha 😊 The marketplaces were craaaazy & we had several near death experiences with bikes & cars. No fatalities. Found some interesting stores (some of you will hear more about this later, family not so much), some neat clothes, and just people watched. The little kids here, at least some of them, just wear pants with slits (also maybe just the boys) and they are literally held into the street to defecate or urinate. We saw this happen first hand last night, and convulsed in laughter unfortunately no picture was taken in time.
The food is getting tiring... we have the same thing lunch and dinner. While there haven't been any fish or chicken heads in a while, it is getting old. It seems that we're going to go on progressive decline away from western food/lodging as we go from city to city, which is interesting.. but hungry & sometimes dirty. ha. Amanda said we're staying in 9 different hotels the entire stay, wow. The toilets are disgusting everywhere, even in nice hotels. It's gross. It's also still tough to remember to brush teeth from bottled water.
Wellll I'm off to go to an art museum, and then who knows! How fun. Tomorrow we travel to Tai'an or something like that. I might write again tomorrow, but not sure. This may be the last time I have internet until Shanghai at the verrrry end of the trip, so if I fall off the face of the Earth please don't panic. Love, Steff.
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aww so glad your having fun!!
sounds pretty neat steffy!! I'm glad you're having fun and doing many new things!! FYI Jenna and I both got the waitressing jobs, so that's exciting! But thats pretty much all the news I have for you. Oh, I grilled teryaki chicken on my new grill tonight....you would have liked it!! Sorry the food is gross, I wish I could send you some!! haha, love you!! Keep up the positive attitude!! love and miss you mucho!!