21

On Monday I met up with Tilden, Paris, Megan, and Megan's boyfriend Brad (who was visiting for a couple days on cheap airplane tickets thanks to his dad working for an airline). 

We went to the famous Oriental Pearl TV Tower (东方明珠: Dong Fang Ming Zhu), which totally exceeded our expectations. There is even a roller coaster in the bottom pearl! It was crazy. 

There were also some really lively Indian tourists who kept asking to take photos with us. It was so sweet! 

And for lunch I got some delicious waffles with whipped cream, sweet peanut butter paste and condensed milk.

 

I also had some cute metro interactions that day (my favorite!) One was with a little boy who kept asking his grandmother whether or not "the foreigner" (me) spoke Chinese. When I gave him his answer he got super shy and peered out from behind his grandmother's legs to smile at me. There was another granny, grandad and their grandson who were also asking Tilden and me whether we were accustomed to different parts of Chinese culture. The grandson even asked us if we were 中国通 ("Zhong Guo Tong's": basically foreigners who are experts in Chinese language, culture, etc) and I said it's something we aspire to someday, but that we're just a couple of ordinary exchange students. Regardlessly, I took it as a huge compliment that he would even suggest that. 

Wednesday, I headed with my host family to their house in Pudong (across the river and in the Shanghai outskirts) to celebrate the new year. My classmate Carmen spent the new year with me and my host family because hers is in Thailand (our scholarship doesn't allow us to leave the country). After helping my host mom with some of the traditional "spring cleaning", Carmen, my host sister Siqi and I went to the nearby park. We made these adorable little plastic/sand paintings! My design reminded me of Shel Silverstein's "Hug-o-war" and it made me feel delightfully child-like. 

Thursday was New Year's Eve, so we went to my host grandparents' farm to prepare and eat lots of delicious food together. 

We first made and then ate lots of tasty dumplings. 

After lunch, I watched my host grandparents kill and begin to prepare one of their chickens. They did it quick and respectfully, which I really appreciated and I think connection to the process of the food we eat is superbly important, but I was surprised given my vegan-heart, how little watching the slaughter bothered me (and how much learning about the chicken's anatomy from my host granny actually fascinated me). 

That afternoon, we went to visit a great aunt who's currently in the hospital and then walked around the town a bit. 

After that, while my host mom, dad, grandma, and great grandma made New Year's Eve dinner, Carmen, Siqi and I played a variety of card games. 

After dinner, my host grandfather lit fireworks with his cigarette. So many people were lighting fireworks and firecrackers that the air everywhere was continuously crackling with sound and smoke.

We continued to play cards and chat for a while and Carmen, Siqi and I all received some Ya Sui Qian / Hong Bao (red envelope money). So generous! 

Finally, we went back to my host family's to watch the New Year tv program (the acrobats and magician were particularly impressive) and stayed up until 12 to great the year of the Horse! There were even more fireworks and from our apartment on the 23rd floor, we had a wicked view. After a while, it felt like we were in the middle of a cloud of light that kept changing color, with lanterns flying by the windows. 

It was certainly a lively and interesting first Lunar New Year's Eve in China! 

Friday we went to a movie called 澳门风云 (The Man from Macau) which didn't have English subtitles; however, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could comprehend all of it (not that the dialogue in raunchy casino action movies are super hard to understand). After the movie we had Korean barbecue, of which I realized I'm not a huge fan. All was well though, and we took the rest of the day to chill: I did yoga, listened to some Freakonomics podcasts, played the guitar and got some homework done. I also helped make more dumplings for dinner and after washing the dinner dishes, I went walking around the neighborhood with my host mom, Carmen and Siqi who then watched me dance with the elderly in the square. We also had some really interesting conversations about sororities/fraternities and phrases in English/Chinese that don't really have good translations in the opposite language. I'm finding that there's so many things in Chinese that I am unable to articulate well in English. 

Saturday we returned to my host grandparents' town and had a huge family banquet at a restaurant for a couple hours before heading across the street to sing some karaoke. I sang my usual "Wo Yi Ran Ai Ni" and my host grandad was particularly into singing, which was super cute. I also had a long and interesting conversation with a young aunt who lived in Taiwan for ten years and has lots of friends in the States before we went back to the restaurant for more dining. Although it was a little tiring and slow at times (I've never read so much of Oliver Sacks's Hallucinations in one sitting or to Justin Bieber and Chinese military songs), all in all it was a great day!