Weekend

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August 20th 2007

Published: August 20th 2007

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SF Girl

Chinese Class

I'm one of two Chinese-Americans. The rest are Korean, Japanese, Thai, Norwegian. French and Denmark guys didn't make the photo.

So I have a few free days next week and I'm considering going on a Chinese tour group to Guizhou, a province in China. Guizhou is one of the more poorer provinces, and not typically a vacation spot for foreigners. Guizhou is known to be home for a lot of China's ethnic minorities. Do you know there are 56 kinds of Chinese people? Anyway, I'm a little weary about hanging with a group of locals, probably OLD people! However, I came to China to learn Mandarin, understand Chinese people/culture, travel and just have a good time! The worst that can happen is that I don't have fun.... but I'll get to practice Chinese for 4 days and experience how locals might vacation! I think I might sign myself up. 😊 I'll bring a thick novel to hedge my bet. It's 2100 RMB for the trip, including airfare. Affordable, but not cheap. Travel in China is not as cheap as I thought it would be... airfare, hotels, transportation is reasonable. Next month my friend CL from home is coming to visit! I've known CL since 7th grade and I've never been traveling with her!

I had a nice weekend -

Nanjing Lu by day

Lots of people

Friday I met up with a friend's friend's college friend. I'm getting used to randomly meeting people. It's a bit awkward at first, but everyone I meet I find something in common with.... afterall, we're all in China! It's fun to share experiences and I find relief in conversing with someone familiar (aka in English). Saturday I volunteered in the morning. A bit tiring to teach - especially because I have to talk in Chinese! I wish I could volunteer teach more. I think it would be more meaningful to teach English after I have better Mandarin. I think I could relate to the students more. One of the guys in the class told me he makes 850 RMB a month. Such a different group of students. Typically only highly educated (aka rich) people have the opportunity to learn English.

Saturday evening I went to People's Square and Nanjing Rd to meet some Shanghainese friends. We walked around and they wandered into an arcade and got pretty excited. haha. We had Macanese food for dinner with some of the girls' friends. We were chatting, and their friends (boys) kept asking me about questions about America. Then the girls said,

Nanjing Lu by night

"This is dinner, not an interview!" haha. After dinner we walked around the metro mall and one of the girls helped me negotiate in Shanghainese for some hair clips I wanted. When the vendor found out it was for me, the vendor got mad that she was haggling for foreigner. I got my hair clips for cheap, at least. I could get a better price if I used Shanghainese. Darn.

Sunday I met up with a family friend. After months of trying to get together, we finally had brunch. We had Western style food. Phew. I was glad I went to hang out with her - she lent some great perspective. What impressed me most was that she is perfectly fluent in both Chinese and English. I was walking back and remembered that Sunday was Chinese Valentine's Day! Check out the line at Pizza Hut!

Err... I studied in between my meals. I have to hurry up and study a bit more before my test! 😊

Here are some pictures from the week.

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