Early during our second week here...

Early during our second week here, all the international students went to the hospital for the physical exam that's required for residency. It was certainly an efficiently-run and interesting experience. I was poked and prodded into different rooms for eye, blood, and chest X-ray tests (which also included a test where they hooked instruments on our wrists and ankles and plugged shocker-looking devices on my chest). There were an assortment of other tests as well. It was definitely my first ultrasound (to check for spleen irregularities)! 

On Wednesday we met our host families and had a ceremony at which I gave a speech representing my classmates in Mandarin! 

My family is so sweet and perfect. My host sister (思骑 / Siqi or Zoey) is a first year at my school. Here we are together at a park: 

During the week, she lives with her grandmother at an apartment just down the road from the school, while her parents live in the Pudong "suburbs" across the river. During weekends the parents come to the Yingao house and during longer breaks (like this one for the Mid-Autumn festival or 中秋节 zhong qiu jie) they all go to the "suburban" house, which is so big and beautiful and has absolutely stunning views of the city and sea from it's vantage point on the 23rd floor. This is the view of the "suburbs" from my window: 

The Yingao house is a similarly stylish 10th floor apartment, where Siqi and I will share a room. 

My host family is originally from Shanghai so the grandparents speak 上海话 (shanghai hua) or Shanghainese, although they can speak accented Mandarin. The parents can also speak Shanghainese but my host sister can't and they use Mandarin except with the grandparents. 

My host father is a manager of a company and travels a lot. My host mother is also a business woman but on weekends she helps her mother (my host grandma) make super delicious meals. I helped her make dumplings (饺子）and she taught me how to make a variety of other dishes. Here she is cooking a tofu dish: 

I tried some new things this weekend in the culinary realm, including crab (which I did not like at all), river-snail (which was actually okay) and a black nutty fruit that's collected off of the tops of rivers and only found in the Shanghai area. I also helped make a dish with a potato-like thing that oozed mucous but which actually turned out to be quite tasty and sweet. A lot of the vegetables (the amazing eggplant and pumpkin for example) were grown on the grandparents land about 40 minutes from Shanghai. 

I am so so happy with my family. I get to speak Mandarin non-stop (teaching them the English words for things like "peanut" and "full moon" here and there). I feel like we're able to communicate really well. There was one funny incident where my host grandfather (who learned Russian in school the way that kids now learn English) tried to teach me Russian in his accented Mandarin. I have no idea why, but for some reason lots of people in China think I'm Russian... 

In addition to teaching me to cook Chinese dishes, my host mother also got really into helping me with my Mandarin, especially beautifying my written Chinese. She gave me lots of cute primary school practice books, helped me learn the meaning of a bunch of radicals that she says will make it easier to memorize words, and took me to the library to attempt to read random books and magazines. I wasn't really able to read much at the library, but I got to read a lot of the Neil deGrasse Tyson and Oliver Sacks books I brought this break. 

In general, we spent the holiday relaxing: cooking, eating, doing homework, playing cards, walking around the nearby parks, and playing badminton (I'm going to be a fiend at that game by the time I get back, so y'all better watch out)! 

They say they are excited to show me around Shanghai (I'm psyched to go to the Pearl!), show me their farm, and take me to nearby places (like Hangzhou, where my sister Xóchitl was on the NSLI-Y program this summer)! 

After these terrific few days, I came to the school for Saturday night study (晚自习 wan zi xi) to get right back into the swing of Chinese school! 

Before I end though, I can't have a post about 中秋节 without including a moon cake picture! So here you go: