some observations

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well, it has been an interesting few days here in beijing. there have been many new experiences and i've had a lot of fun. I've been nervous at times and excited at others. Turns out they do celebrate Valentine's Day here, so the conversational candy hearts I brought were not that novel of an idea. Too bad. They liked them anyway. There were tons of people walking around the street trying to sell roses on the main street of my neighborhood. Also, there was a huge line outside Pizza Hut at night. (I think that's where people go for a romantic dinner here.) Wednesday we got our bikes at school. I'm super excited about that. The school actually bought us all new bikes, a first, so we have to be really careful not to break or lose them. They all have baskets. Pretty much all bikes have baskets here. I've realized we don't really ride bikes to get around in the States for the most part. We mostly ride them for sport in the spring and summertime. I want to wait a few weeks for the weather to warm up a little before we start riding our bikes to school. I'm pretty happy getting a ride in the family car for the time being. Oh, at the school when we got our bikes, we had a meeting in the VIP room. I don't think that I've ever been a VIP before, so it made me feel special, even important. We also had to introduce ourselves to the adminstration, which I did not know about, so I felt kind of out of place wearing an inside-out gray tee-shirt while most everybody else was wearing sweaters and suits. It's not so awful here to be underdressed, though. I think because I'm now used to being looked at funny because I am white, I care less about if I am properly dressed. But yeah, we gave our intros in chinese, keeping them pretty short. Hans, one of the students at the school who went on this exchange this past fall, took some of the people in our group to a shopping place where you can bargain and get stuff really cheap. (Despite the name, he is not Swedish. He is in fact Chinese. Don't feel bad. I made the same mistake.) I've been feeling kind of sick with a cold, so I went home pretty early and my host girl made me drink some super bitter traditional chinese medicine stuff. I handled it by chasing the medicine with a white rabbit (a kind of candy that's made from rice maybe). They gave me more medicine later that was in pill form and it made me sleep really well. They tell me to keep taking it, and it's made me feel better, so I think I will listen. Thursday I went with some people to a place across the street from my house. There was one store that sold this gooey stuff that supposedly makes plants grow. Chinese vendors are quite tricky, I must say. This one woman, she came up to us and said "Hi, may I help you?" So we figured she spoke English. When we started asking her questions using english, she looked at us like we were crazy, so she asked if we spoke chinese and we continued in her language. The plants she showed us did not look that healthy, so I'm not really convinced, but it was fun. There's an arcade in that place too, so Nicole went crazy with the DDR (dance dance revolution) machine and showed up some little kids. Oh, then Mrs. Fong calls and tells us that we all need to get two passport photos to bring to school the next day. You have to realize that this takes place at 4 oclock, so we need to figure out where that can be done and do it before the shop closes. Well, luckily Hans was with us, so we hurried over to wangfujin street and got them taken. I think this is just an example of the last minute planning strategy that we were told to look out for in china. Friday was a half day at school. It serves as the day during which students hand in homework they had over vacation and receive their workbooks for the next semester. I was so nervous and excited. We didn't have our uniforms yet, which was a bummer, but we joined in nonetheless. Turns out I'm the only exchange student in my class. When I realized this, I was somewhat disappointed, but then I decided that it was a good thing, since it will give me more of an opportunity to practice my chinese and make friends with the kids in the class. I had to introduce myself in front of the class in chinese. During a break, one kid came over and started talking to me. Hopefully more will follow and I will make some friends in the next couple of months. Sitting in class made me feel like my chinese was very bad, since i couldn't understand most of what the teacher said. I am hopeful that it will get better, but it made me a little disappointed at the time. We got our uniforms after the classes ended. The teacher giving them out told me I was fat and needed an extra large uniform (second time since being in china that somebody has nonchalantly said i was fat). Well, it was straightened out and I went on my way. I went with Stephanie and former exchange student Candy and her friends to chao yang park. she told us that we were going to be doing some community service activities as part of a communist youth group. That sounded exciting. She said we would clean the park and feed some animals. When we got there, we sat down in a restaurant that has a golden retriever roaming around. We ate some western style food and gave the dog some biscuits. I guess that was a help to the community. We stayed there playing little games for a few hours and then some of the students rode on a roller coaster. I was not about to trust a rickety roller coaster in some park in china, so i opted to sit and watch. For dinner, I went out to eat "hot pot" with my family. The restaurant gives you a bunch of raw foods and then you place them into a pot of boiling water in front of you. Then you take it out and dip it into a bowl of sauce in front of you. I think hot pot was invented because of a shortage of cooks or something. The workers at the restaurant don't have to do much. It made me nervous because we had chicken and with the whole bird flu thing, I made sure to leave it in my boiling water extra long to make sure it was cooked. I also tried duck blood. I don't really understand it because it was in a cube, so I think there had to be something mixed with the blood. It didn't really taste like anything. Yesterday, Saturday, we went to karaoke at 8 in the morning. I'd never heard of doing karaoke that early, but apparenly it's super cheap in the morning, so we went for it. We forgot to eat breakfast, so we got some stuff from mcdonalds which was extremely exciting for me because i have not been awake and in the range of a mcdonalds during their breakfast serving hours in a really long time. I got a sausage mcmuffin. Theirs are not the same as ours. What I ate was a hamburger, fried egg, cheese, and ketchup on a hamburger roll. In the states we have a sausage, fried egg, and cheese on an english muffin. It was good, but i pretty much just ate a hamburger for breakfast. We went to meet lao ye (grandpa) in the afternoon and walked around some park for a couple of hours. we also kicked the jianzi around and i made friends with a little girl. my host girl doesnt have an english name, so i am in the middle of choosing one for her. I'll let you guys know how that works out. shes teaching me a chinese song. Traffic lights here turn from red to yellow to green to yellow to red. Drivers can't wait long enough for the green. they need to know when to be ready to be ready to go. also, drivers go during walk lights and pedestrians walk during green lights for cars. all in all people are not very pedestrious here. (shout out to nicole). on the way back from dinner, i started to think that i could see myself living in china. before, i really coudln't imagine it, but i think that was because i was travelling around. i think if i had an apartment and friends around, it could work out. maybe ill try it sometime. another interesting thing i discovered: my english last name (haaland) sounds like the country of Holland. And, in chinese, my last name (han) sounds like the country of korea. i dont know if that was done purposely. if so, props to gao laoshi. and, thank you for making it be the exact same word instead of being spelled crazily so nobody knows it sounds like the country.

yeah so that's all i have for today. i put in some capital letter this time (not even on purpose) so hopefully some people will be happier. school starts tomorrow, so there should be some good stories coming up.

k talk to everybody soon.
maggie

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Photos

stephanie in her uniform
doing the asian peace sign pose

"community service group"
at chao yang park

gladys and my host girl doing karaoke
they really rocked out on that one

family at the park
host mom, grandpa, dujing, host dad

lao ye and me
chilling at the park

Comments

[Jillian]

Apparantly since I have two host sisters I get to choose whose class I want to attend, on any given day. So I guess if you ever decide that you no longer want to be friends with the Chinese kids in your class, let me know :)

[ELliot]

aw, the I's were capitalized until the very end :(

[GlAdYs]

it's me!
I can't believe I found your blog! post more pictures!!!! and I look like a dork in that pic.. thanks a lot Maggie