国庆节
We have seven days off for China's national holiday (Guo Qing Jie). I spent this week with my host family.
Before I delve into this week though, I'd like to offer some pictures from the whirlwind tour of Shanghai's most famous places, on which my host mom and grandmother took me last weekend. This is me at the oriental pearl and my grandmother and me in front of some flashy Pudong brilliance:
Now for Guo Qing Jie:
The first night I went to the movie theater with my host mom and sister. The movie was called "Amazing" and was in Chinese with some English mixed in which is apparently the norm (the subtitles were in both Mandarin and English). It was about a neuropathically-controlled virtual world game where the computer program goes rogue and develops a virus that starts giving gamers heart attacks, seizures, etc. It might sound a little strange and it was definitely a little dramatic for me, but I was pleasantly surprised at the plot and at the amount I understood. There were really cool shots of Shanghai too and also (kind of randomly in my humble opinion) numerous appearances from NBA and professional Chinese basketball stars.
On the actual national holiday (October 1st), I went to the wedding of my host dad's cousin. It was a simple, traditional-style wedding, meaning it was held at my host dad's grandmother's country estate outside of Shanghai rather than a restaurant or hotel. Because the actual ritual part of Chinese weddings takes place privately in the home, the rest (in which we participated) basically consisted solely of eating. First there's lunch and then dinner, both during which the bride and groom come around to each table to share a toast and light cigarettes (they were kind of surprised when they first arrived at our table to find a random red-haired foreigner haha). There were literally thousands of dishes and we all got so full. I especially liked these yam-filled, sesame-covered balls and drank lots of peanut milk!
After the wedding lunch and before the dinner, I snuck away with my host mom and sister to meet up with some of my sister's classmates and volunteer at a home for mentally/physically disabled children, most of whom are orphaned. We helped harvest edamame that the home uses to generate revenue and played with the children, playing the guitar and sing lots of songs with them. It's definitely amazing to witness how universal music is. It was overall pretty sad for me, but also inspiring.
The first day was filled with lots activity: fruit buying and giving (fruit is a very popular gift here) and visiting with relatives whose Shanghainese I often could not understand a word of. But I also had a lot of fun. I was proud to have a long conversation with an old lady who was visiting from Sichuan (the province of my first Chinese home stay) about urban development and economic change and there was an absolutely adorable toddler who kept toasting glasses with me.
The second day, we worked on homework and then went to the seaside, where my host sister and I rode an intensely spin-y but awesome ride and I got a bracelet with my Chinese name （龙仁爱 "Long RenAi"）on it.
A random tid-bit from that day was that a neighbor overheard my host sister and me talking in the elevator and he asked me if I was from the Xinzhang province (the autonomous Uyghur region in Northwestern China that has lots of foreign-looking people) and was so surprised when I told him that I'm American. Anyway, I took it as a huge compliment.
October 3rd was my host sister, Siqi's 15th birthday, so we went to dinner with her grandparents, aunt, and cousin who was visiting from Nanjing University. We ate a lot (definitely a trend in Chinese celebrations) and I realized I REALLY like Cho dou fu or "stinky tofu". I also reaffirmed my dislike for Chinese cakes (there is a bunch of random fruit thrown into a light angel-food kind of mixture with really fluffy tasteless whipped cream. It made me miss my mom's birthday pound cake and fruit crisps and my dad's spicy vegan chocolate cake).
I drew/wrote Siqi a card, which she said she loved especially since it was kind of unusual (people don't often give presents/cards on birthdays here).
After dinner, we came home and my host mom taught (or tried to teach) me and Siqi how to use the abacus, a tool that everyone used as a calculator when she was little. We also played a card game called 斗地主 (dou di zhu or "against the landlord"). I was surprisingly successful given I am terrible at card games (probably beginner's luck haha).
I spent October 4th mostly with my host mom: cooking, chatting (about everything from the benefits of urban greenery to gender in/equality), doing dishes, and shopping for clothes, fruit, and Chinese medicine and then walking around public parks and squares (simultaneously gathering observational data for my first semester NSLI-Y research project).
That night, my host sister and I got out an old pin-making machine and made some cute pins. She made me one with my Chinese name and I one with her English name. I also made my host mom one with the English name I gave her: Lynn (she didn't like the one she had, which was Linda, and I figured sharing a name with climbing legend Lynn Hill wouldn't be a bad idea). I also made this moon face:
On October 5th, we went to help prepare for another wedding where my host mom grew up.
This one was for the cousin of my host mother. I helped the nainais (grandmothers) make thousands of tang yuan's:
I particularly love the ones filled with red bean paste. They joked that making these (and the dumplings we also made) was like passing the HSK 4 and that the next step for me was to learn how to make zong zi (rice and other things wrapped in leaves) which would be like the HSK 6. For reference, the HSK tests Chinese as a second language and ranges from levels 1-6. We have to take one HSK test each semester this year as required by our school and scholarship program. I plan to take the 4 this December (which is said to be about the same level as the AP Chinese test) and we'll see which one I'll do in the spring in addition to the actual AP. My Chinese culture teacher was telling me that she wasn't even sure how well she'd do on the HSK 6 because of its difficult subtleties though, so I don't know if I'll be taking that one...
Anyway, I also got the chance to see my grandparents' little farm that day. Coming from a family in the States that raises its own chickens and grows a lot of its own vegetables, I couldn't be more pleased with the fact that we are eating home-grown eggs, pumpkin, winter melon, eggplant, etc. everyday here. I also really connect with my host grandparents, who like to live simply and are so sweet and down-to-earth.
Here is a picture of their driveway/orchard and some harvested sesame stalks:
On October 6th, we woke up early to participate in the wedding. In this wedding, we were part of the wedding car procession to pick up the bride at her house. When we got there, she was in her room and the groom had to answer a riddle to enter and then do some other sort of task. He ended up doing 18 push ups before the bride let him put the ring on. They then gave the parents of the bride tea and received two red envelopes （红包） full of money. The bride and groom then fed each other a date and both spit the pits into another smaller red envelope. Then Siqi, two cousins, and I helped the bride get into the wedding car and waited for them to perform a similar ritual at the groom's house. After that, we all went to the hotel, lit fire crackers and ate.
(My host mother's grandma and great grandma with the bride and groom).
That night we returned to our Baoshan house (near the school) so I could work with my NSLI-Y friend Tilden on our Uyghur traditional music presentation for music class. Tilden is a riot: she is from Vermont (going to UVM next year) but lived in Ecuador for two years and is fluent in Spanish. We've gotten pretty close, bonding over liberal politics, feminist poetry, nerdy radio podcasts, and obscure Argentine musicians.
Monday I'll participate in my first all-day model UN conference and then Tuesday we leave for the "military training camp" AKA "team building retreat".
P.S.
I almost forgot!
Last but certainly not least, we received our uniforms!
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