Spring/Finals are here

春天到了！

Spring is here!

As the semester is coming to an end and I’m getting ready for finals, I thought I’d take the time to list some things I’m going to miss about Chengdu, and some things that I’m looking forward to when I come home. So here we go, in no particular order:

Things I’ll Miss:

·      Convenience of the city. The inconvenience of driving instead of taking a subway or a bus will be weird.

·      Cheap prices (for most things). Paying in US dollars is going to be painful.

·      The kind people I’ve gotten to know in my time here. My teachers, USAC program directors, and my tutor family are all obvious, but I'll also remember random experience I’ve had with strangers in public.

·      Spicy (麻辣) food. It’s become necessary to live at this point.

·      The pace of life in Chengdu. It’s laid back and feels like no one is in a hurry.

What I’m Looking Forward To:

·      INTERNET. Unrestricted, fast, internet. I’ll never complain that American internet is slow again, seriously. (A side note: I am trying to respond to all of the comments, but loading blogger through a VPN on Chinese internet is torture, and times out 50% of the time. This is my third time writing this blog post because it won’t load. Needless to say, comments will have to wait until I’m back in the US).

·      Food variety. Chinese food is amazing, and I’ve developed some kind of addiction to Sichuan spice, but I also feel like I eat the same things all the time.

·      Being back at MC. I have USAC friends here of course, but the campus environment is just so different here, especially since our campus is mostly made up of graduate students.

·      Not being stared at or getting my picture taken when I’m out in public.

·      Dryers. Like for clothes.

·      Temperature controlled buildings. It’s getting very hot here.

I had more points when I wrote this previously, if I remember them I’ll add them.

Frustrations and Mountain Adventures

大家好!

Since my last post, I went on a trip to Le Shan and Emei Shan (mountains), I’ll put photos at the end of the post.

Today, I’d like to chat with you all about frustration I’ve experienced while abroad. It’s a very general topic, but it’s not something I think I’ve touched on in previous posts. I’d like to share some frustrations I’ve felt, as well as frustrations I’ve avoided.

First and foremost, it’s been frustrating not being with my fellow Pios during the loss of another leadership student, and I send well-wishes to everyone affected by the loss.

Secondly, I’ve felt some frustration handling things at MC from the other side of the world. Don’t take for granted how easy it is to walk into your professor’s office when you need to talk to them, or always being surrounded by people who can get you to the right answer. I am probably much more worried about registering for classes right now than I would be if I were at MC this semester, and I am dealing with this while being exactly 12 hours ahead of everyone.

Mostly, I want to talk about how I’ve been able to avoid other kinds of frustrations while in China. When learning a foreign language, there is quite a bit of uncertainty and risk-taking involved. Even doing simple tasks that would be a cinch in the US can be intimidating in China. For example, I recently got my hair cut and colored in a salon, and it was a nerve-wracking experience. Going to the salon in the US is something I enjoy (despite the awkward small talk), but salon vocabulary isn’t exactly something you learn in a Chinese class, and I was afraid they wouldn’t understand what I wanted. The experience went much more smoothly than I anticipated, and it was at least partially due to my obvious foreignness. People tend to be more patient with me. One of my friends is Chinese, but was raised in the US, and I am in a higher level of Chinese than she is. When we go out together, people usually try to speak to her first and are surprised when I respond to them instead.

On the other hand, sometimes I don’t have to say anything at all. I’m dealing with a bad cold this week, and I didn’t bring any American cold medicine. My program director wrote down the name and brand of Chinese cough syrup on an index card, I walked into the pharmacy and handed them the card and some money, and left without saying anything. (As a side note, the cough syrup is magical and provides instant relief and the US needs to get on this).

I knew  before I came to China that I would stick out obviously as a foreigner, but I didn’t consider any advantages that would have, so I wanted to take the opportunity to share my thoughts with you all.

Anyway, here are some photos of the Le Shan Buddha and views while hiking Emei Shan:

好久不见

Hello, readers!

I apologize for the lack in posts – my already poor Wi-Fi decided to go out this week and won’t be fixed until sometime next week. I’m writing this post from a cute Tibetan café with lots of plants and overpriced coffee.

 

Since my last post, I’ve been getting settled into the routine of classes. I’m only taking 13 credit hours, but the program I’m using only offers intensive language courses. So basically, I’ve already finished all of the content that the CHIN 302 class at MC will learn this semester, and it’s only week five. I have a final exam this week, then we're jumping into two more semesters worth of content. Needless to say, I’ve been very busy with work, and I haven’t done anything horribly exciting.

 As I get more and more settled in here, things in general are less exciting. I’ve gotten used to some things about Chinese culture that used to bother me. For example, lines are a rare thing here. I get genuinely surprised when I go into a store to buy something and there’s a line-up at the register. Most of the time, there’s just a crowd of people and whoever puts their goods on the counter first gets to pay. A few weeks ago, this really bothered me, but I’ve grown to kind of like it, or at least not mind it.

I’ve also gotten a job since my last post, tutoring a twelve year-old girl in English. She’s getting ready for her junior high interview, and needs to work on her writing and vocabulary, so I go to her house once a week and help her for an hour, then they feed me dinner. She lives in a wealthy neighborhood, in an actual house, with her mom, sister, and their nanny. It’s been quite the experience getting to know them. A general rule is that the more Western something is, the more expensive it is. For example, Western food costs about 10-15 USD, which doesn’t seem too bad until you remember that you can eat Chinese food for 2-4USD. The neighborhood they live in is very Western, and they live in a Western style house instead of a Chinese apartment, so you can guess just how wealthy they probably are. I don’t think the neighborhood I live in (Wuhou) is bad, but it just doesn’t compare to the glitz of their neighborhood (Tongzilin), and I do walk past a Maserati and Ferrari dealership on my way to their house. How exciting.

This weekend we took a field trip to the Jinsha museum. Jinsha was an ancient civilization that was discovered when trying to dig the foundation for a new apartment complex in Chengdu. They stopped the building of the apartment complex and instead turned the area into an archeological site, then built the museum around it. When you go through the museum, you get to see the actual site, which was unlike any museum I’ve been to in the US. Some of the object they discovered included sacrificial animal bones and tusks, which were preserved from being buried. These objects would decay if they were removed, so the archaeologists reburied them. The Art History nerd in me had an awesome time here, and I plan on visiting other Chinese museums while I’m here. Pictures of the museum are below.

An elephant tusk preserved in silicone

The Modi River

Cong - these represent the Earth.

The archaeological site.

A burial site - the Jinsha people were buried, but without coffins.

The symbol of Jinsha, a sun surrounded by birds.

As always, I look forward to reading any comments and answering any questions you might have!