29

春天终于到了！Spring has finally arrived!

The weather has been absolutely stunning this week; even on rainy days, it feels warm and sweet. 

This Monday was the final soccer game of the tournament! Our boys took first place (4-0) in a gallantly played match against the Xin Jiang team. 

Maike's Thai friend Yok who was in town came to visit the school that day. She is so sweet and cute! 

On Thursday, I signed up for the HSK (the language level test required by my program). It'll take place May 10th. 

I decided to take the HSK 5 rather than the 6 (the highest level) because I would be the only one doing it and although I think it would be possible for me to pass the 6, I'd have to spend the next month studying my buns off. So I decided I'd rather do swell on the 5, be with my friends and and enjoy other aspects of this experience during the last couple months. 

Additionally, the HSK is only really used in attending Chinese university or getting jobs in China and since it expires after 2 years and I'll be at university in the States for 4, there's no point to stress over it just for bragging rights. Finally, the AP Chinese test (which I'll take May 7th) is actually more important/useful to me because Stanford will take it as a language credit! Anyway, it seems I just have the final academic hurdles of the HSK, AP, finals and research presentation in May left! 

Friday we went to the Shanghai botanical gardens, which was not as impressive as I was expecting (a tad bit too manicured for my taste), but was pretty splendid all the same (especially since I am slightly obsessed with plants). 

Saturday, I went back to my host family's apartment in the suburbs one last time to say goodbye. 

Due to a variety of complicated factors, I am unfortunately having to switch host families. It makes me quite sad, but honestly it's best for everyone involved.  I am so grateful to them for opening their home up to me this year and know that we'll still maintain a good relationship into the future. 

The plan as of now is that I will meet my new host family this week and go home with them next weekend (which is actually a long one because of the tomb sweeping festival or Qing Ming jie 清明节). 

There is apparently a sister (who is in the IB department and plans to study abroad for college) and a younger brother! They live very close to my original host family's old apartment (about a 10 min walk from school and a 5 min walk from the metro station). 

I look forward to spending these last couple months with them and having more access to all that the city has to offer during the weekends.

28

On Monday, after grocery shopping at Tesco and going out for sesame sugar bao zi with Sara and Megan, Maike and I hit up the huge knitting factory that we stumbled upon last week behind the metro station. We bought some yarn and needles to start knitting some sweet scarves! 

The third soccer game of the tournament was this past Tuesday. Our team totally ruled and won 4-0. 

The final competition will be next week against the Xin Jiang students' team, which will be a close match! Those students are all brilliant athletes. 

This Friday we had our 月考 (monthly tests) in comprehensive Chinese, oral Chinese and Listening. I feel pretty good about all of them! 

I stayed in the dorms this weekend, so Friday after school I went with Maike (who was also dorming it) to a famous street where they film lots of movies just a few metro stops away. 

We then got our nails done and ate some delicious Xin Jiang spicy sour cabbage fried rice (酸辣白菜炒饭). It was a nice night out on the town. 

Saturday morning, we went to an absolutely rad barcamp "unconference". It was kind of like a mini TED conference: a free-for-all where Shanghai locals and foreigners from all walks of life could give talks and share ideas on a variety of subjects (mostly related to technology and innovation). 

I went to a load of interesting and inspiring talks. There was one on the real time web that was cool. Another was on using the Internet to create networks of girls in privileged/unprivileged communities to build creativity and leadership by helping each other learn math/science/language. I thought the aspect of emphasizing equal exchange between communities was pretty neat: instead of it just being the privileged girls tutoring the less-privileged girls, they both learn and help each other simultaneously; girls in a rural Chinese village can teach American girls Chinese as they learn math or girls in Shanghai and Ghana can tackle a computer science program together, for example. I also thought that the idea of using these grassroot club networks to encourage the development of extracurricular confidence, creativity, and entrepreneurialism in Chinese school girls was a meaningful endeavor. 

Some of our own also decided to give on-the-spot talks! Maike got so inspired that she decided to give a wonderful talk on the way that writing can change the way we perceive the world. Keiondre also decided to give an awesome talk about utilizing today's technology in the language learning process. 

The last talk I went to in the afternoon was given by Sven, the Shanghai regional director of the burning man festival (who was actually present at the first burning man). He showed a video about the original Nevada burn, talked about the principles of the festival as well as alternative art and technology in general. He also discussed the upcoming satellite burn that they are planning to hold on an island a couple hours away from Shanghai in early June (actually beginning the 6th, the day I return to the States). I really look forward to going to the festival in the States someday and found it really interesting to see the way that they are trying to adapt the ideas here to attract a Chinese audience. 

All in all, it was a wickedly sweet day and made me really excited to totally nerd out with rad people in college and beyond!

27

Monday was our first official choir practice of the second semester (there were a few false starts and then auditions for new members). This semester it's all student run, which will be a little hectic but fun all the same. This time we started on "You Raise Me Up".

Megan finally got her wheelchair on Monday as well! We were all so excited that we went off campus to celebrate with sesame sugar bao zi! 

Tuesday, we performed our musicals (The Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Ballad of Ricky Bobby). They were pretty hilarious and now we are moving on to bigger, better and more public musical adventures...

Tuesday afternoon, our boys played their second match of the soccer tournament. We won again (2-1) but this game was much closer and quite rough. Luca and Koki both got a little beat up, although all is well now! Soccer is probably my favorite (conventional) sport to watch and it's a sweet feeling to have an awesome team to cheer for!

On Wednesday, we had a really good discussion in our comprehensive Chinese class about environmental protection. I always love when I find myself having the same kind of serious/philosophical conversations that I might be having in English but in Chinese rather than just the "what are your hobbies?" type. 

Wednesday afternoon, Maike and I went to the graduating IB students' art exhibit, where there were some really excellent pieces, especially those by our friends Miu and Linda who will be studying in Chicago and NYC next year, respectively. 

Miu's work:

Linda's work:

Maike and I also decided to continue our crafty adventures with some poetic corpse drawings, poems and stories. 

I drew the head and feet: 

I drew the torso: 

I'll also share the poem where I started with one line, Maike wrote a line without looking at mine and so on until we filled up the post card on which we were writing:

You taste like sunshine and smell like rain.  

Sweet misery cooks the soles of your feet, footsteps raw and tang-blooded. 

Frozen feet gaggled around tightly-knit mittens, an homage to armless boys who know which path. 

They speak with muted gestures and longing.  

Heavy thunder under worn out clothes, hearts carved out by Mayan doctors and Transhumanist soldiers.  

Why Mr., your hat is grand. And so we began our fedora worship.  

Swinging between can-do and claw footed bathtubs, rooted pianos and throats made of glass. 

Threading beginnings into endings crawling like lizards out of skins yellow eyes and lipless mouths. Hungry ghosts twirl around my lamppost, wrapping themselves into bolts of cloth.  

Our neighbor was a woman with a floating voice and flour-fried hands she sang lullabies you write the lyrics.  

Fingernail tips introducing you to the chocolate ice, we fall again
3...2...1... Blast off  

The atmosphere like a flower unfurls, those watching fold their pinkened hands and weep.  

Stas never looked so beautiful. 

26

This week, our comprehensive Chinese teacher (孙老师: Sun lao shi) gave us the task of asking people who worked at the school (guards, cafeteria aunties/ayis, cleaning ladies, etc) how they saw Shanghai ("你的眼中的上海怎么样?"). It was a fun task and although lots of people were too embarrassed to be filmed (as my teacher requested), I made a lot of friends and I even got to go behind the scenes in the cafeteria to record ayis chopping food!

In our Monday art class, we carved seals with our own traditional character names in them (see my stamp below). Carving them was a lot harder than I expected, but I really enjoyed it (much more than calligraphy, which for some reason frustrates me to no end, that and doing origami, although my Japanese friends have showed me some of the true beauty in both of those arts. I still prefer to watch them do it though). 

Monday afternoon, I went with my American classmates to sign up for the AP Chinese Language and Culture test, which we'll be taking in May.

Our international boys also competed their first game of the school soccer tournament Monday afternoon. Everyone played excellently and we won 4 to 0.

Da Shan, Aya, Yasu, Fernando, Reo, Koki, Yas, Luca, and Aki

Tuesday, we started working on our musical: my group (Saori, Maike, Sara, Maki, Tilden, Eriko, and Megan) are doing a version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" Chinese Opera style with Kung fu, singing and dancing where the wolves and sheep end up colluding to battle and slay the shepherd in the end. The other group is doing "The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" Chinese Opera style. It should be interesting.

Tuesday, we also had a quiz-style competition in our comprehensive Chinese class concerning knowledge of China. I tied with Keiondre for second place (Paris got first), and I got this snazzy wallet as a prize! 

On Tuesday afternoon, we started work on a "host family experience guidebook" on which the State Department will be putting their seal and which will be used for future exchange students, host families and gathering funds from Capitol Hill for more of these kind of programs. Apparently it's a really big deal, and we all feel lucky to be the chosen group to make it! 

In our Wednesday PE class, we started learning Taiqi (太极拳 Tai ji quan). I'm not a super patient person, but I've been working hard on my mindfulness practice while in China and it looks like it's paid off because I had a blast! Apparently we'll be getting fans soon to incorporate into the movements, which will be sweet! 

On Wednesday I also had lunch with my language partner from last semester (Yichen). I interviewed her for my research project and she told me about some school rivalries (she is my go-to girl for school gossip, not that I ever seek it out haha). We also talked about our vacations and plans for this semester, including the club she is starting to raise awareness about endangered animals. It was nice catching up and I look forward to continuing our weekly lunches for the rest of the semester! 

Our outlines for our second semester research projects were due Friday. In excited to continue delving into Traditional Chinese Medicine!

25

This week was a little hectic. Megan, my roommate, broke her ankle in gym class on Monday which meant we had to help her brave the quite disabled-unfriendly battlefield that is the Chinese high school (no elevators to our classrooms which are all on the fourth floor, squat toilets, etc). To make it even worse, it rained all week (her cast, which she is going to have to change every week for two months, is totally un-waterproof). 

We have gotten pretty creative using raincoats and plastic bags though, and making the extra 15 minutes it takes to make it to the school as fun as possible. 

I am pleased to act as her willing servant and run out to the post office or hole-in-the-wall shops for delicious noodles and the like. 

One plus is that she doesn't have to attend night study (our daily self-study time in the classroom 6:30-9:15) and I get to stay in the dorms with her to help her with homework questions and keep her company, which is awesome because I was not a fan of night study (I never needed the structure of sitting in a classroom to get all my work done and so although I got the chance to experience an important aspect of Chinese high school, I can now do my work in a cozier environment for the next couple months). 

Despite everything though, Megan is such a trouper, and her endlessly positive attitude and strength is so inspiring. 

In other (less exciting) news, in order to save time so I could escort Megan to school, I switched up my breakfast routine this week: instead of my daily noodles, I started grabbing 包子 (baozi: steamed buns filled with chopped greens, mushrooms and tofu) from the second floor of our school's 餐厅 (can ting: cafeteria). They are actually so tasty and filling and I am happy to mix things up. 

Even though there are countless things about Stanford's dining options that I look forward to, I think I will definitely miss the Chinese breakfasts of noodle soup and steamed buns. 

Another happening: our class started an official rule this week where we are only allowed to speak Chinese (not Japanese or English) when in the classroom. If we are caught doing so, we have to put one 块 (kuai: "Chinese dollar") in the newly-made box at the front of the classroom. 

It won't really be that difficult (although we already have a couple kuai in there). Honestly, I'm not sure why we are just starting this now and not at the beginning of the year (I suppose some of our levels were quite basic at the beginning), but better late then never!

Finally, on Friday I made my first official (two metro lines / two bus) commute from school to my host family's apartment in 南桥 (Nan qiao: a suburb of Shanghai) where I'll be spending my weekends for the rest of my time here. I did so by myself because my host sister had a night class that she had to attend. It took three hours (rush hour of people returning home for the weekend), but I was proud to have mastered at least this basic step of transportation navigation. 

I had dinner at home with my host parents and grandparents for my host granny's birthday. I had some interesting conversations with my host granddad, one in particular about the horrible state of the (factory) farming industry, while being so grateful to be enjoying such delicious homegrown/homemade grub. 

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).

23

Last Saturday, we reunited with our Beijing NSLI-Y compatriots to spend a wonderful week in the lovely city of Hangzhou. 

I was particularly excited about the location for our second week of American Councils winter break programming because it was the site for my sister Xóchitl's program last summer (her resident director D, who is the RD for the kids in Beijing, organized this week's activities and the city, school, teachers and some of the host siblings were all the same for her). Xóchitl is probably the one I miss most in the world and so it was really wonderful to connect with her by spending time exploring her first home city in China. 

The first night in Hangzhou, we settled into the dorms at the Zhejiang University international department and watched the Olympics opening ceremony! I don't usually watch much of the Winter Olympics, so it was fun to be surrounded by people who were really into it and it was really interesting watching it through the Chinese media channels. 

On Sunday, it snowed! It was actual record low temperatures for Hangzhou this week (kind of ironic because Xóchitl experience record highs last summer). 

But no matter the weather, we dove right into the week's activities: an exploration of the city's culture in the form of a friendly scavenger hunt type of competition. 

My team was called the Tea Cups (茶杯), which we found fitting seeing as Hangzhou is the place in China most famous for its tea. My group included Keiondre (from Shanghai) and Cameron (from Beijing). We had an awesome time exploring the university and high school campuses as well as the surrounding area: including a meat/vegetable market to complete today's tasks (map making and price gathering). 

After we finished our tasks, we settled into this rad casbah-esque coffee shop with cushions and delicious rose tea.

We ate lunch at the school during which our task points for the morning were counted. After lunch, we learned a rad Mongolian dance from a Chou lao shi (who knew Xóchitl last summer!) and then went on a boat trip on the West lake and to the Yue Fei Temple.

On Monday we had the day to explore the downtown area, which was really neat. 

That evening we went to Mango Thai, a wonderful restaurant that Xó recommended. The spicy coconut vegetable curry was absolutely to die for!

Tuesday we went to the tea museum and beautiful fields!

There was an awesome group of Africans there who are touring Hangzhou on break from a yearlong military training outside of Beijing. They were so sweet and kept asking in French to take pictures with me. 

I learned a lot about the different kinds of tea as well as the tea making process and tasted some delicious tea! 

There was a rather disturbing occurrence when we were heading back to the bus and Paris got hit by a woman on a scooter who then got super angry and almost attacked Paris and wouldn't let go of him because she wanted some kind of compensation (for what I'm not sure since it was obviously her fault and neither she not her scooter were injured). We ended up calling the police and it was all worked out but it definitely shook everyone up a little bit. It was sad because she seemed really desperate, but apparently this is a rather common issue in China; there was even a skit about this very same situation happening on the New Years TV gala where they represent news stories from the year. 

In the afternoon, we went to an old emperor's home (a huge maze of beautiful rooms, walls and even caves)!

After that, we went to a famous Chinese medicine apothecary which was totally rad and walked around and tasted some of Hangzhou's famous treats. 

Wednesday, we had a lecture on Buddhism in China and then went to the famous Lei Feng Pagoda. The view of Hangzhou and the surrounding mountains was astounding.

After lunch, we had a lesson on Beijing opera and got to paint some masks!

Later that afternoon we went to the Ling Yin Buddhist temple which had absolutely gorgeous cave carvings of Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. 

After visiting the temple, we met our Hangzhou host families! Mine was super sweet and took me out to a restaurant called 外婆家 or Grandma's House where we ate all kinds of delicious food before coming home to their apartment where my Hangzhou host sister and I spent a long while sharing musicians/bands that we like.

Thursday afternoon, my host sister Si yue and I rode the bus to the High School Attached to Zhe Jiang University (our host school) for an afternoon learning and playing ma jiang! I learned to play a long time ago, but always feel a little rusty so it was nice to brush up on my skills and interact with all the Hangzhou host siblings! 

That evening, my host family taught me some Hangzhou dialect and my host sister taught me some currently-popular colloquialisms that will help me become more "di dao" (native)! My host sister's head teacher came to make a house call as they occasionally do (not something that happens in the U.S.) so I also got a little time to myself to relax, which was nice. 

Friday, we had a group discussion about innovation in America and China and then prepared for our final presentations, using our experiences this week to discuss the subject of tradition and innovation in Jiangnan culture. 

Everyone did very well and after the presentations, we had the final award ceremony in which my team took first place! 

Because it was officially the last day of the spring festival (元宵节: yuan xiao jie or lantern festival ), I celebrated that evening with my Hangzhou host family by going to the neighborhood where there was a show that included dancing, singing and taiji. We also ate 汤圆 (tang yuan: sesame paste surrounded by a glutinous rice mixture) and guessed the riddles (猜灯谜 cai deng mi) on the lanterns for prizes! 

It was a very lovely way to end this amazing week, because Saturday we headed back to Shanghai for a weekend to prepare for school, which begins again on the 17th. 

It was an absolutely amazing week though. I couldn't believe how stunning Hangzhou is, and I think it's honestly one of my favorite cities in China so far.