24

I have been in China for six months! 

No better way to celebrate this landmark than to start our second semester at the High School Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University!

The first day back we had tests (as all the Chinese students do). We tested in comprehensive Chinese, listening and speaking. They weren't bad at all though; I had done all of our winter break review homework and it's convenient that just living my daily life ("on break") happens to be great for language practice and improvement. 

Regardlessly, everyone actually seemed excited to get back into the swing of things.

Our schedule is pretty much the same as last semester, with comprehensive Chinese, speaking, listening as well as culture, computer technology, art, music and PE classes. We're all excited though because this semester we have a free period before lunch. Although we are encouraged to use this time to meet with teachers, it'll also give me some extra time to read, do yoga, play guitar, make art and do other things that often get pushed aside because of the busyness of the school week. 

We're also excited to welcome two new Korean students to class 1 and Maike, who moved from class 1 into my class (2). 

On Monday, Maike and I decided to do some collaging. I decorated the notebook that I use for sketches and poetry (which I also used the last time I was in China):

In our Tuesday music class, we found out that we'll be working on a musical this semester. Because our music teacher hadn't decided which musical yet or prepared the materials, we watched the filmed version of the musical Cats, which I've heard SO much about but had never actually seen. It was quite interesting... but I am still excited to do a musical anyway. 

In our comprehensive Chinese class on Wednesday, we were to give a short speech on the customs we've found to be different between our Chinese host families and our own. It was an interesting exercise because arriving in China as someone who was already pretty open culturally and after living in this country for six months, I feel like I've definitely become accustomed to almost everything. Sometimes when people (like my Hangzhou host family did) ask me how things are different in the States, it takes me a while to think of things... Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the things I talked about here--

1) Exchanging outdoor shoes for slippers as soon as you enter anyone's house. Although in the States, my family doesn't require guests to take their shoes off at the door, my family normally does (so that's something I am used to). However, living in a warm place, I don't usually find it necessary to wear slippers and am definitely a barefoot person at heart (I often walk around the streets of my neighborhood barefoot), so the constant wearing of shoes outside and inside was something I had to get used to. 

2) Eating family style meals: in China, a variety of shared dishes are placed in the center of the table and throughout the meal, everyone takes little bits of what they want and puts it in their individual rice bowl. I was pretty used to eating the staple foods of rice, tofu, and vegetables when I got here, but I was definitely used to the American style of serving everyone their individual portions at the beginning of the meal. Now, I don't have strong feelings one way or another and definitely see positives and negatives to both; I guess I feel like it's best to do whatever the norm is where I am. 

3) Not drinking beverages with meals: this is something I have gotten used to, but not something I'll likely adopt when I return home. I did, however, prefer hot or room temperature beverages (the norm here) before I came and will continue happily drinking that way, even if people think I'm weird when I ask for water with no ice at restaurants. 

4) The intense/continuous study habits of my host sister and other Chinese students: I knew Chinese students were very focused on their studies, but the idea of staying in one's room the entire weekend studying was something I had to wrap my mind around. My host sister definitely takes breaks to play games on her iPad, etc. and I take the weekends to go out and explore the city, but as a very active, outdoorsy person, sometimes I feel a little cooped up (basically I miss hiking and climbing in the mountains). 

5) Not using a heater in the house: this makes sense in order to save energy and I am totally fine wearing my snowboarding coat around the house, but one thing I have found is that although I can bundle up as much as possible, my "fragile desert" hands have developed something called 冻疮 (dong chuang) where basically my fingers swell and experience intense blistering from the continuous exposure to cold inside and outside. I've been trying to wear gloves as much as possible and am utilizing lots of coconut oil, but regardlessly, I look forward very much to spring!

Thursday I went to the post office to send off some postcards and to get steamed buns (包子). We also went to a vegetable/meat/tofu market just to explore and had some cute conversations with some of the people at the stands (they wanted to tell us all about their different kinds of tofu: the extent of which IS pretty impressive). 

I'd like to go exploring off campus a little more during the week this semester, because it's definitely a great education in itself.

Saturday, we went on a NSLI-Y excursion to the art museum. There was an awesome exhibit where they digitized one of the most famous Chinese painted scrolls, so you walk through a room where the painting literally comes to life with video and sound and you feel like you're part of the scene. 

It was also cool to see in other exhibits some of the different influences of Western Romantic, Post-Impressionist, Cubist movements played out in a Chinese context.

Afterward, I finally went back to the Yayoi Kusama (草间弥生) exhibit 「我的--个梦」("A Dream I Dreamed") at the museum of contemporary art in People's Square. The line was even longer than when I went before but since I am moving to the suburbs with my host family next weekend, I didn't think I'd get another chance. There were even a group of people selling their place in line. I stayed away from them and I waited two hours but the exhibit was totally worth it; it was terrific! And I even made friends with a cute couple who are both art students in Hangzhou, to boot! 

Two last things:

1) We got our "formal" uniforms this week.

None of us are impressed with the incongruously beige skirt and I'm not sure when exactly we are supposed to wear this outfit, but as someone who has never experienced uniforms, I still find it quite fun. 

and 

2) I wanted to share this poster that the school is using to advertise the international language program:

the picture is of Keiondre, Reo, Maike and me and we all find it kind of hilarious because even though they took and retook our picture about a hundred times, it still turned out super strange (怪怪的).