America for Toddlers

Today in our 口语 kǒu yǔ (spoken/colloquial language) class, the teacher asked for student volunteers from Italy, Korea, and the United States to go to a special preschool attached to Nanjing University and give a twenty-minute presentation on our respective countries.

I'll give you three guesses as to who was among the first to volunteer. 

Our assignment is to prepare a power point presentation that will give the young students a gentle introduction to our respective countries. The teacher suggested that we include as many scenic pictures as possible. After we present, the students will ask us questions about our countries that they prepared at home with their parents. I'm so excited. 

The only problem is... I don't know how cautious I need to be when describing America or American culture. For example, would it be acceptable to show a picture of the Statue of Liberty? Or Mount Rushmore, which celebrates our elected leaders? They're both somewhat important to America's image, and easily searchable on Baidu and Weibo, so it shouldn't be a problem to show them. But there's always that uncertainty. 

I wonder what else I should show them. New York, obviously. Washington, D.C. The Florida Wetlands? The Nebraska prairie? The Rockies, of course. The Bay Area. Navy Pier. The pueblos of New Mexico? Do I dare show them pictures of any of our Chinatowns? Maybe some pictures of cowboys... As one might surmise, I'm still in the brainstorming stages. Suggestions from my ever-loyal audience are always welcome. :)

Halloween in Beijing

Yes, I know, it's December. Yes, I know Halloween is in October. I'm... bad at months, I guess? Anyway...

So... Halloween in Beijing. What to say, what to say? The night was interesting enough, I suppose, but since the Chinese in general don't really subscribe to the holiday, the city was missing the usual excited energy that accompanies Halloween. Also, we weren't even celebrating on October 31st, but rather October 30th as it was a Saturday. A forgivable discrepancy considering the circumstances, I think.

Our little Yale contingent was out in full force, though. Thinking back, I realize I actually devoted the whole of Saturday to Halloween preparation and execution. First, woke up to go shopping for last-minute supplies, including a giant container of glitter. The night before, I had ventured to Yashou Clothing Market in the Sanlitun area to find inspiration. I found it in a black wig, a black pair of angel's wings, and some black shiny boots. Saturday was for last touches.

Giving Thanks in Beijing

I wasn't sure what to expect for my first Thanksgiving in China, what with Thanksgiving being an American holiday. I know the ex-pat scene in Beijing is big enough to support at least a few efforts at Thanksgiving, but since one doesn't normally see turkeys go the way of Beijing Duck, I wasn't sure how much experience Chinese chefs had had with the giant bird. Did they know how to make it just right? Not too dry? Well-done all the way through? What about gravy??? After all, a crucial part of the Thanksgiving turkey is the gravy.

With all these concerns in my head (I obviously take my Thanksgiving meals very seriously), I hopped on a bus with the rest of my program affiliates to head to the Holiday Inn for our banquet. The program had arranged for a Thanksgiving buffet there in conjunction with the Stanford program. We didn't really mingle much with our Stanford colleagues as we were all a little busy stuffing our faces with the AMAZING (if a little crazy) food served at the buffet. Sushi, sashimi, fried rice, sweet and sour pork, pizza of all kinds, roast beef, various fruit, weird yams and..... turkey! Yes, that is right, somehow the Chinese chefs at the Holiday Inn knew just how to make the turkey so that it had that perfect Thanksgiving taste. And they even had gravy!!

Alright, so here's the food run-down:

me with my first round of food

(see how happy I am?!?)

T.G.I. Friday's

I'll elaborate after posting on the Great Wall, promise!

Also, I'm trying to beat Miles. :)

Adios America, Bonjour Beijing

Two weeks of American relaxation came and went, and before I knew it, I was leaving my home for the longest period of time in my life. Since I wasn't leaving for Beijing until Sunday evening, we decided to make a weekend excursion of our trip to Omaha. We also had to pick up Alina, who had returned from her little camp at Stanford :) It was also Ricky's first time out of Kearney, as he flew straight into our little airport from Europe.

The weekend was just what I needed before departing to Beijing again. We spent some time shopping at the mall, getting a few things here and there, including a great book that I read on the flight, Empress Orchid. At Natalia's insistence, we also went to an exhibit currently in Omaha called "Bodies." It was actually incredibly fascinating. The exhibit showed human bodies de-fleshed, preserved, and dissected in ways that one could see just how we work. It's just incredible how complex we really are, and all that develops from the joining of two tiny cells and a few strands of coding.

One month later...

... I'm back on the blogoshpere. Apologies to those who actually follow my blog for letting my laziness and China's dislike of Blogger keep me down. A lot has happened in the past month, so it might take a few posts for me to catch up. Please bear with me.

Now, let's go back to August 14th, the day of my departure from Beijing and the last effort I have at blog posting, right before my flight was called...

Party in the PRC

So... Friday was my 21st birthday. Yep, the big 2-1. And ironically, I celebrated shedding the restraints of many American laws in China, where said laws don't matter at all. But my friends were not about to let that little detail stop them from giving me a night to remember in Beijing :)

First, of course, all the teachers somehow knew it was my birthday (I had told a couple, but I guess word spreads fast), so they kept wishing me happy birthday throughout the morning. Although, I have to say, waking up to a 考试 kaoshi (test) was not the greatest way to start my 21st birthday. But it definitely got better. At our bi-weekly 中文桌子 zhongwen zhuozi (Chinese table), everyone sang me "Happy Birthday" (in Chinese of course), and proceeded to hoist their glasses and 干杯! ganbei! which is the Chinese equivalent to "Cheers!" Given the number of birthdays that have occurred over 中文桌子 during HBA (mine was either the fourth or fifth), Friday lunch has almost become the unofficial birthday lunch.

Happy Birthday 美国！

One: I finally have internet in my room again, which is a serious cause for celebration. I spent the weekend at different cafés buying things like 5 kuai bread rolls then spending three hours eating them.

Two: After returning to Beijing from 内蒙古 Nei Menggu (Inner Mongolia) and updating my blog about all the craziness there, I realized I had completely neglected only one of my best days in Beijing!

The Sunday before midterm week and my subsequent trip to 内蒙古, some HBA friends and I endured an hour-long subway ride to find the miraculous Tim's Texas BBQ. Why, you may ask? While there never really needs to be a reason to eat Texas BBQ, we were actually celebrating the Fourth of July. It was a shot in the dark, as none of us had been to this restaurant, but it was better than nothing.

And as far as shots in the dark go, this one was amazingly on target.  When we got there and saw the wonderful things they had on their menu, some of us (myself included) actually teared up a little. I'm not even kidding. After our difficult weeks of trying to assimilate to Chinese culture, it was literally an incredible blessing to be able to order food that reminded us of home. Now, if someone had told me before I went to China that a menu would bring me to tears, I seriously wouldn't have believed them. But I really underestimated the hardship of spending weeks in a completely unfamiliar environment. I mean, just seeing the words "Tex-Mex" and "pulled pork sandwich" on a menu actually made me tear up!

America Night in Beijing

Miracle of miracles, I was actually able to see the celebrated Toy Story 3 in all of its 3D glory right here in Beijing, and it was even in ENGLISH! I was ecstatic, especially since I thought I was going to have to wait until August, or even (gasp!) December to see "Pixar's best movie yet."

You see, even all the way over here in Beijing, we heard all the hype. Among my classmates, one of the most conversation-generating topics was the fact that everyone's 脸书 lianshu (lit. "face-book") News Feed was covered with comments from home about how Toy Story 3 was the most incredible movie ever. So it came as no surprise that, after our program organizer announced a voluntary excursion to see the movie in English, we nearly overwhelmed her with numbers.