Xin Nian Kuai Le

Happy New Year, written in Chinese on a window at Abashi's in Dalian. Where it is doesn't matter, all that matters is there's pretty lights.

Happy New Year!

Photo of the Day: 东北财经大学

The main building of 东北财经大学, or the Dongbei University of Finance and Economics.

The Chinese language students were only in there for the 'opening ceremony', the Chinese studies building and international dorm was a few hundred feet to this building's left.

Photo of the Day: No Exploding Cars

One of my favorite signs. Chinese below it translates to "urban area."

Taken on my daily 8 am commute to class; bus stop was behind me and Dongcai is just ahead on the left.

An interruption post about volleyball

I know I'm behind on National Holiday and my subsequent trip to Shanghai, but today was amazing and deserves its own post while I'm still reveling in it.

The Chinese language department had a volleyball tournament between all the classes over the last couple weeks, and my class had been doing pretty well. I always went home right after class so I never checked it out, but today Leanna had another class so I agreed to step in for her just for the first half hour because the rules stated every team needed at least two females.

Well turns out one of my classmates is actually a volleyball coach, and three other students (two Korean and one Russian) were also really good. I played on a team for two years, but that was like five years ago, so only basic skills like underhand serving and passing/setting really remain. I was more backup; but the coach and one of the tall Korean guys set up a set and spike almost every single volley, I was very impressed with our reaction times and strategic movement.

Our first two games we beat the other team 25-21 and 25-23, then the next two they beat us 25-18 and 25-20 (or something close to that). So going into the last game the refs (just young Chinese students) said we were only playing to 15 points...we ended up neck and neck the entire way, and the game finally ended with a tense 19-17. In all the games I played on a team I never was so into a game, nor did I enjoy winning a game so much. We ended up winning the Final as well after that, though it wasn't as much of a challenge.

It was fun as well because they mixed rules; you could use any part of your body- meaning you could kick the ball, bounce it off your head, etc...I made an incredible save by bouncing one off my shoulder.

I was impressed, I think every one of my classmates made it out to see the match by the end. So I got to interact with them outside of the classroom, and am now fully convinced we are the best class ever, we have the greatest personality and energy. They were all waving around trash bags making noise and the most enthusiastic la la dui (cheerleading squad), even when it started to drizzle and the sky started darkening at 4:30. My listening and intensive reading teacher even showed up. I'm so glad I decided to stay and experience the Chinese university life for once instead of going back to my apartment and lounging about on my laptop like I always do.

Four hours after we'd started, we finally finished taking pictures, getting our prizes (giant 'premium containers' of Nescafe) and congratulating each other, and we all went our separate ways...but I still get to see them tomorrow morning! As if leaving Dalian in two months weren't hard enough, now I'm in love with my class....

Starting Over

I don't know why exactly I stopped writing. In fact, so much has happened in the last three months that I wouldn't even know where to start, were I to catch up from April 24th on.

What I do know, however, is that I have missed blogging. I read through my old entries and wish I'd kept with it, if anything just to laugh at my predictions for the future. The only excuse I have (and it isn't much of one at all) is that so much was happening, so fast, that I felt overwhelmed by it all and eventually gave up on blogging about it and focused on just surviving life in Dalian.

SO! I have decided to bring back the blog. I am spending another semester in Dalian, another five months in China altogether starting on Monday, and my first step in the grand scheme of my life is to outline some goals. (Hey, baby steps.)

1. In the next five months, I want to update at least three times a week (when internet access is available)
2. I want to focus less on making money and socializing and more on becoming proficient in Chinese.
3. I want to seriously consider taking the HSK.
4. I want to NOT know exactly what I want to do, but perhaps do research into grad schools or other career paths post-graduation.
5. I want to spend no more than 500 kuai a week (~70 USD)
6. I want to talk to my sister at least once a week.

==

For those who are interested, a brief recap of the last three months:
-May Holiday was a week on the Yangtze River, and a day in Chongqing/Dazu and a few hours in Beijing, during which I really started to become close with Andy Z and Leanna
-I returned to training with the Dalian Wolfhounds Gaelic Football Team
-Celebrated Cinco de Mayo with Kathleen and some close friends
-Sichuan Earthquake hit on May 12 and while we were about as far away in China as possible, it was extremely impressive how the country reacted
-My expat friends started getting stopped for visas and passports quite frequently
-Went to a housewarming party of another friend...became very social in general
-Went back to Beijing the weekend of the 16-18 with BCA again, met with Etowners
-Cancelled my trip to Shanghai for my birthday and celebrated with friends in Dalian
-However, because of the 3 day bar ban that resulted from the May 12 Sichuan Earthquake the week before we didn't really have anywhere to go after dinner
-Went to Beijing for the All China Gaelic Games June 6-8 => so far, the best weekend of my life
-My father visited the second week of June and after seeing Binhai Lu and Xinghai Square, loved the city
-Started tutoring a Korean student in Math and English for the Dalian minimum: 150 rmb/21.50 USD an hour
-A friend opened up a bar/restaurant called Brooklyn that is doing extremely well among the expats
-Come June, everyone started leaving! Expat turnover in smaller cities like Dalian is constant
-Finals were a mess! I really lost focus the last two weeks of the semester
-Went to Shanghai July 6th, met some friends, left the 9th back to the States
-Since being back in the States, haven't done much, but did go to Cape May, NJ to stay with Andy Z for a few days, then stopped in Philly on the way home to visit Amiekay for a night as well
-Yesterday was my sister's 12th birthday, but my father and I have had huge issues discussing my Future so I am currently living with Lys, Ryan and Nikol in their new apartment and feel bad about not being close to my sister
-Was not wanting to go back to China because of pre-Olympic madness, but since row with father, don't really know where I want to be right now. The US has my friends, but I can't stay at home; while Shanghai is extremely humid and housing is tricky...was going to travel but now don't know since my funds are low and my parents might not want to help me with expenses anymore....

So that's a decent, if not brief, overview of what my life has become in Dalian and the summer so far. I'll write more in the morning, I'm exhausted from the last two days of family drama.

Spring Fever

Spring Fever has hit Dalian. Right after midterms ended, the sun came back out and now everything is in bloom. It's still a bit chilly and windy, but I that's what you get when you live in the north, by the sea.

Everything is now in bloom; it's crazy to think what's happened in the time since I last saw proper flora. I feel like last September/October was years ago- SO much has changed, both good and bad.

F and I went backpack shopping in Victory Square the other day; we walked all the way down and back, and it's a decent half hour walk maybe. While at Victory we saw some Chinese in camo all lined up in three rows, doing drills of some sort. They were counting off, marching back and forth in the square, and overall seemed very disciplined- it was really neat to watch. There were also some Navy people in the small base down at the bottom of the hill who seemed to be running drills as well, and they're fun to watch because they have those tassels hanging off their sailor caps and it looks ridiculously cute for a military officer.

On the way back to Dawai then we saw money in huge silver briefcases being transported into a bank, and the van with the money in it was surrounded by about six Chinese men- two with walkie talkies, two with clubs, and two with guns that looked like they could really mess you up. That was also quite exciting; F and I were like WHOA at the guns haha. I mentioned that I'd never really been that close to a gun before and F goes, "Really? But you're from America."

So now that midterms are over I've basically checked out mentally; everyone has. Lots of people have been skipping class in favor of going outside or catching up on sleep; Leanna and her class even convinced their teacher to take them to Labor Park and ride bumper cars instead of teaching their second class. Although some people have the HSK today, which is the Chinese proficiency test, so they've still been studying.

However, after that, I know everyone is pretty much checked out as well because May Holiday is right around the corner. I don't know how many people are traveling, but I think it's a decent amount just because the Koreans can go home so easily.

Danny, our director, is taking the six of us BCA kids on a six day trip around China: We leave tomorrow morning on a 7:35 flight to Wuhan, from there take a four hour bus to Yichang, board a boat there, spend three days going up the Yellow River and seeing the Three Gorges Dam and get off at Chongqing (most people go from Chongqing to Wuhan so it will be cool to go the opposite direction), tour there and Dazu, fly back to Beijing, spend about five hours there, having dinner at a Peking duck restaurant that's supposed to be really good, then arriving back late Friday evening. We'll be missing Monday and Tuesday classes (Wednesday starts the school break), but there's some sort of school-wide sports competition going on (like Track and Field Day back at Central) those two days so we're not missing much.

Then when we come back, school is still out til the 7th or 8th so we have four or five days yet to relax. So today I have to meet a new tutee from 11:30-1:30, tutor my regular girl from 2-4, then buy a backpack, pack for the trip, and then I'll be all set to go for the next week and a half.

Midterms

Midterms are this week. Or, as F from Australia calls it, Mid-sems. The weather was beautiful all weekend, and then the Sunday it suddenly turned overcast, and has been raining/drizzling since Sunday night. The weather certainly matches everyone's moods; most students are walking around with a kill-me-now look on their face. Both my teachers this morning made mention of the fact that we were all there physically, but none us actually seemed there. [In my head I couldn't help thinking, "Someone's got a case of the Mondaaays!" ...but I would strangle someone if they tried to say that to me.]

I mean midterms are never fun but midterms in another language? And it's a language like Chinese, at that, where you could know the definition of a word but not the character, the character but not the defintion, or the character and definition yet still have no idea how to write it. I'm so glad I quit my job last week; there was no way I'd have any time to study with the commute being what it was.

I was pretty stressed all weekend due to a combination of factors, so I'm exhausted physically and mentally, but my roommate makes me feel even worse: I'm pretty sure in the last four days, she has spent 70 some hours studying. When's she's not sleeping or eating, she is in our room studying. I woke up at 2:30 this morning to find her STILL at it and made her go to bed because I know that she wakes up at 6:30 every morning. I have also never seen her smoke more than a cigarette a week before this weekend, now I believe she's onto her fourth one today.

I just want to get them over with; once I take the last one on Wednesday I am definitely going to just chill out for the four days we have until we leave for our big May Holiday trip Sunday morning.

The First Month

I've become quite fond of life in Dalian.

My foot is healing slowly. I've been invited to the Beijing Games for gaelic football June 7th and 8th, which would be totally awesome but I have to first play the game and NOT take myself out. Is two months enough? Don't know.

I've been making progress on my Chinese; not as much as I'd like with vocabulary though. If I made a conscious effort to pick that up, then I'm sure I would, but I'm focusing mainly on recognizing characters so my spoken Chinese is still only conversational. And I refuse to pick up speaking errrrrr hua, pronouncing Ws like Vs, and actually saying the H in any word that starts with Sh or Zh. After 15 years in PA who thought I'd actually prefer being a "southerner"? haha.

I should probably hang out with more native Chinese speakers, but
1. there are none my age here since everyone here at Old Dawai is a Chinese language student and therefore...not Chinese
2. that basically means hanging out with Andrew and Caleb, since I think they know the most, but they're actually from Jersey and Baltimore haha
3. hanging with expats is terribly fun. There are few Americans here in Dalian; it's a lot of Europeans and Canadians, which I find incredibly interesting. Plus the expat community is pretty small so everyone knows each other; it's not like Shanghai where you can meet someone and never see them again (that's right, I actually listed a negative aspect about Shanghai haha). Most everyone I've met is around 23 or 24 and is here to teach English, while either learning Chinese or just trying to explore the country because they've just graduated.

I've also been teaching for the past month now at an elementary school every Tuesday and Thursday, on top of my tutoring job on Saturdays. I get only the minimum wage for English teachers here, 100 rmb/hour (14.28 USD) but it's nice to have a little extra spending cash. I was going to quit after my first couple days because it's a 40 minute commute one way, and I don't like children, but my five year olds really took to me and then I couldn't bring myself to quit. Even still some days I go thinking, I really hate this job, but when I arrive, they all start yelling to each other, "Ed-i-na's here!" and come hug me and I can't bring myself to leave.

It's been interesting though observing how the Chinese interact. The teachers can touch the children and it's not considered inappropriate- I can hug them, they give me kisses, we take pictures all the time before and after class. My Chinese counterpart Elva has smacked the kids a couple times when they're not paying attention, or being disruptive. At least once a week she will completely lose it and single out someone and give them a good berating in front of the whole class. Then she'll turn to me and say in a normal voice, "I'm sorry. Continue." And I just stand there like OH MAN and these five year olds are like, whatever. He had it coming.

Elva and I might go out to dinner one night though; I asked to exchange numbers tonight after class (which was me acting like a total buffoon trying to teach the kids the words "fly" "jump" "run" and "swim") and she gave me a hug she was so happy. She's 26 and I think she wants to improve her English, even though her English is decent already. Oh, random sidenote: Our principal studied in London, so when she speaks to me it's with a British accent. I love it!

So the weeks have just been flying by. I mostly stay around Dawai; the only time I go out is for a Carrefour run or when I go to work. The weekends usually involve going out Friday or Saturday, and then always Trivia Night on Sunday at Hopscotch. The nightlife isn't much, but now I think it's kind of cozy actually. Hopscotch is definitely my fave.

Thursday I'm finally going on a trip! Ever since last August, I haven't gone more than three weeks without traveling somewhere (last semester was chock-filled with traveling- I went to DC four times in one month), so being stationary for five weeks in one place has me aching to pack up and go...so I'm visiting Sarah-Laura out in Taiyuan. I've heard it's a horribly polluted city, but I'm excited nonetheless to take that 19-hour bus trip and spend the weekend with her. Plus my grandmother's little sister lives out there; I plan on visiting her as well since Saturday would have been my grandmother's 88th birthday. I'm also doing something else in memory of my grandmother but that's a surprise for now....

I think I've struck a balance between being comfortable, and still stepping out of my comfort zone here. I could manage to put myself out there a little more, but hey, baby steps. I'm having a blast and wouldn't change anything about my experience so far....now back to the mountain of homework I have to finish in order to enjoy this weekend.