Ni Hao B!tches

Wow, it's so strange to think that I have less than one week left in China, less than one week until I'm back in America. I mean I realized that the one-week-'til-RI mark had passed this morning (I fly from NYC to Boston and then drive home on the next Sunday) but it really hit me earlier tonight when I began to attempt to pack my suitcase. It's packed full and probably weighs more than 50 lbs yet I still have a week-ish woth of clothing to stuff...somewhere.
I refuse to buy another suitcase. I'm going to shut the suitcase that I already have even if I have to jump up and down and sit on it. Stupid presents.

Now, moving on to what I've done this weekend. Don't expect awesome descriptions today- it's late and I'm exhausted.

Saturday:
I actually managed to sleep in, for once. I didn't get out of bed until about 9:30 when the amount of sunlight in my room finally became to annoying to attempt to ignore. At first I was content to laze around on the computer, but then Lois announced that she, my aunt, my cousin, and my grandmother would be making a shopping trip to this giant mall called Loochow (I'm attempting to spell phonetically, in reality it's probably not spelled like that at all) and I decided to join them even though I suspected that I would just end up buying more presents for people.
And of course I did. Buy more presents, that is. At this point I'm just spoiling my American family members. It's rediculous.

After that extremely long expedition and a shorter visit to another mall (gigantic shopping centers are practically on every street corner around here) we returned home to meet up with my host parents. The whole reunited family proceeded to walk down the street from our a apartment complex to a freshly opened Japanese restaurant.
I've never had Japanese food before, not counting the occasional bit of sushi, and this was definitely a good introduction. Not only was our food delicious, but it included steak, potatoes, and salad, which I haven't had in at least the last six weeks. The only downside? I had to eat cow's tongue. And I was not a fan. Not at all.

Sunday:
After sleeping in late again, showering, and doing laundry, I forced my host sister to call several different movie theaters because a few of us Americans had decided that we would like to go to the movies and I wanted to know if Lois could find us an American movie. Or at least any movie with English subtitles besides After Shock, the Chinese movie that a bunch of us (I once blogged about it) have already seen.
Even though I've seen at least three movie theaters nearby to our home that have posters for American movies, Lois claimed that there are no theaters actually playing any of these movies. Our only non-Chinese option was Adelle, a movie from France which Lois told me would most likely have English subtitles.
While we had originally planned to meet at school at 12:00 and then go to the movie theater together, Lois changed her mind and said that we should all meet there at 11:00. So I had to frantically call everyone and tell them about the change of plans. Joseph and Ben were easy enough to get a hold of, but of course Luke and Paul weren't answering their phones. So I had to awkwardly have Lois call Luke's host brother to contact him. And by the time I was ready to leave my house there was still no word from Paul.
Fortunately for him, right after the rest of us showed up at school (plus Chloe, who came with Luke) Paul saw his phone's missed calls and rushed to meet us.

First off, we ate an amazing lunch at McDonald's, Mcflurries all around! I would just like to say that over the course of the last 6 weeks I've eaten more McDonald's than I do in an entire year in America.
As we were leaving McDonald's, Paul and I went to get juice from a nearby kiosk. Two old, female beggars happened to be nearby my juice venue of choice, and Paul gave one of them a 1 yuan coin. Big mistake. For the next 5-10 minutes we were chased around and harrassed by the other beggar lady, whose grabbing hands forced me to hide behind Paul while my juice was being mixed...The crazy old beggar lady wouldn't go away until Lois finally came over to rescue us, reprimading the lady in Chinese and giving her several coins. Paul and I couldn't have done that ourselves because we didn't have change and I wasn't about to shell out an 100 yuan bill.

So, the movie. Not only was it dubbed over in Chinese, but there were no subtitles!!!!
I guess you could say that the movie was a comedy, because everyone around us was laughing. And I guess I know what the basic plot was. But I paid 45 yuan for those two hours of confusion. Lois neglected to mention that she hadn't been paying attention during the fourteen times when I asked her to ask the movie theater workers if this movie would have words in English at the bottom.
After the movie had ended we wandered into Dairy Queen and continued to act like fat Americans. I enjoyed a Blizzard, even though I'm well aware that it's the no. 1 calory-tastic drink in America. While my Georgia Mudslide Blizzard was awesome, the best part of Dairy Queen was that one of the men behind the counter had "Satan-X" as the name on his name tag! When we tried to awkwardly take a picture he pointed to the sign on the wall which shows a camera with an x through it. Then he went into the back of the Dairy Queen and came back out with the "Satan-X" part taken out of his name tag, seemingly embarrassed for reasons that he couldn't even understand.

Conveniently located beside Dairy Queen there was a Walmart, so of course you know that we just had to wander around in that. It wasn't really much like American Walmart as far as the array of products offered goes, but it served the same purposes.
After that we all went out separate ways. While I contemplated trying to find a regular bus stop with Bus 6 listed or a BRT stop with B12 listed, I decided that I was too lazy to deal with that and just walked home. And I've gotta day that I was pretty impressed with my navigational skills, considering that I was nowhere near home and it was a far walk.

Once back at home I cooked penne pasta with basil tomato sauce for my host family. It was kind of a pain because none of their pots were quite big enough and they didn't have a strainer, but I eventually managed to cook a few bowls of the pasta. It wasn't spectacular, seeing as how I hadn't bought any beef to fry for the sauce and I couldn't find any suitable cheese at the supermarket, but it was pretty good nonetheless. I'm not sure that my host family members and Lois's friend loved it, but they didn't hate it either. Or at least if they did I couldn't tell.
But still, it made me reminisce about good pasta with more veggies and meats and cheeses. One week.

I'm definitely going to write a blog about pros and cons of going back to America and another blog about a typical school day in my Chinese life before I leave.
I've been hearing that NSLI-Y people in other cities are getting sick of each other, arguing and separating into cliques. And I've got to say that I'm pretty happy that we're all nice to each other here in Changzhou. I mean I know that I hang out with some people more than others, but we're all chilled out as a group and nobody drives me crazy. I can really only think of one confrontational moment, and it was just over something stupid and minor. I'm really going to miss the other thirteen when I go back to the USA.

-Christina

While I frequently complain about Changzhou's obscene Southern heat spells, I've got to say that it's in a really convenient location as far as visiting awesome places in China goes. There are just so many tourist traps within a few hours of Changzhou. For example, Shanghai is a two hours bus drive away from Changzhou. And for that reason I got to see the World Expo!!!

Though we were originally supposed to go to the World Expo on a Friday (today), it was randomly announced that we would be leaving one day early, visiting the Expo on Thursday. So we left from our school at 7:00 AM (on a bus devoid of table seats ), arriving at the Expo at 9:00 AM. Zhong lao shi told us that we would have approximately 10 hours at the Expo. As long as we got back to the bus by 9:30 PM we could split up and go wherever. One might think that 10 hours is a long enough time to see the World Expo, but sadly 10 hours doesn't nearly cover it. The Expo is friggen enormous. Many tourists dedicate multiple days to visiting the World Expo, but obviously we would only have one.

For anyone who doesn't have any clue about the World Expo, it's essentially a giant display of wealth, cultural quirks, and pride that originated in London at the Crystal Palace in 18-something-close-to-1900 because the English basically wanted to show how they were more idustrialized and fancy with their trains and misc. machines than any other country. Back in 18-something-close-to-1900 many tourists from around the globe came to see England's innovative technology and countries such as America, France, etc. were invited to put on displays of their own. The tradition of the World Expo has travelled around the world ever since then, inspiring hosting countries to build impressive structures such as the Space Needle thingy in Seattle. What one sees when one walks around the World Expo is an array of pavilions, buildings of (typically) abstract design which vary in size and fanciness, for almost every country in the world. Regions such as the Carribean, Central and South America, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and an array of -stans, for example, each have their own giant pavilions with areas set up for their individual countries inside. There are also restaurants with themes from many different countries and stores which sell both official Shanghai Expo merch and merch imported from foreign lands. It is also important to note that the pavilions are arranged geographically in 5 zones: A, B, C, D, E. Most people buy World Expo "passports" so that they can get stamps at every country's pavilion, proving that they have visited them. Conveniently enough for us, everyone working in pavilions at the Expo speaks English in addition to Chinese and their native languages. I could be wrong about some things but that's my basic understanding of the whole thing which I gleamed from my AP Euro class and my experiences yesterday.

Anyway, my group for the day consisted of Holli, Joseph, Ben, Fernando, Paul, and Paul's host brother. After going through a surprisingly short line and security to get into the Expo (many people were already inside by 9:00 AM and there are many entrances) we began to wander around, taking pictures of the outsides of numerous pavilions but feeling too lazy to actually wait in their entry lines. As a general rule, the more expensive-looking the pavilion or more renowned the country, the longer the entry line. Since we entered the Expo near Europe, the lines were for the most part pretty long. The group wandered into the Czech Republic's pavilion just because it didn't have much of a line but still looked cool from the outside. So that was our first pavilion. It was just kind of eh on the inside. It had faux-grassy slopes and emphasized its country's science programs more than anything else.

Next we walked across the park to a pavilion that me and Holli had been especially excited to see- the African pavilion. And it was awesome! While I didn't get stamps from most of the countries that I visited in the African pavilion I did get a stamp from Liberia and a faded stamp that I cannot identify from somewhere else. Aside from the actual country displays, most of the countries in the African pavilion sold products which were made in their country at a couple of markets at the back of the pavilion. I got three leather bracelets from a table of Malawi goods and Holli got a beaded bracelet from a Mali table. However, the funniest part of being in that pavilion was definitely being hit on by African guys after Holli and me seperated from the American guys in our group.
A man from the Mali table who couldn't have been younger than 50 asked me and Holli how old we were after determining that we were Americans and that he has visited North Carolina, which is where Holli is from. We are sixteen. He told us that that is not too young for him at all and that we must give him our numbers so that we could meet up later...We just kind of excused ourselves and left. After walking only six steps away from the Mali table we were confronted in French by a man from Cameroon and a man from the Ivory Coast who assumed that we were German. After awkwardly conversing for a minute or so they said "you give us your numbers so that we can meet up later." Anddd so me and Holli awkwardly excused ourselves again. It's tough being a white girl in China.

After reuniting our little group we left the African pavilion through its back doors and discovered a small cafeteria full of supposedly "African" cuisine. Everyone ordered ostrich wraps just because they were the most interesting options in the cheap floor of food. Well, I shouldn't say everyone; Holli and Joseph stuck to beef.

I know that this is all very monotonously detailed, but I'm too lazy to write a journal for myself and don't want to forget anything. So you get to suffer every part of the whole day if you read this haha.

Anyway, ostrich was pretty good. It just had some mayo and lettuce on it. It was served on pita bread. And it seemed like something that I could have bought at many American restaurants but oh well.

Post-lunch we moved on to the Central-South American pavilion, where I accumulated stamps from the Dominican Republic (where Fernando is from), Paraguay, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. That being said, I pretty much saw all of the countries represented there even if I didn't stop to try to get their stamps. These pavilions were inexpensive and not particularly exciting but I enjoyed speaking Spanish with a guy from Bolivia so it was all good for me.

Next stop, the Caribbean pavilion. This place managed to be cheaper than the Central-South American pavilion, meaning that the stalls for different countries did not have much in them. Ironically enough, Haiti probably had the nicest stall in the whole Carribean pavilion. I just had to wonder who paid for that and why they wouldn't put that money to better use fixing the decimated island but oh well. I guess I wouldn't want to be left out if I were Haiti... In the Caribbean pavilion I was stamped by the Bahamas, Haiti, and Barbados. Many of the islands in this pavilion didn't even have stampers to stamp with...

At this point we collectively decided that only going to the big buildings without lines wouldn't get us anywhere exciting. And since Ben had been repeatedly saying that he had to see Israel (he's Jewish and has been to Israel before) that was the first pavilion with a line that we stopped at. Even though the line for Israel looked pretty long, it didn't take us more than 30 minutes to get into the building, which was kind of shaped like a giant egg; one half looked like sand, the other half was a watery blue. According to Ben, this represents how Israel was built where marshes once stood, requiring the water to be sucked out and leaving dry land and more desert. At the front of the entry line Ben spoke to a young Israeli man from the pavilion in Hebrew. Apparently if we had just gone to the VIP entrance (every pavilion has one) and had Ben speak Hebrew and say that he was a Jew we could have gone in as VIPs. Ugh. Somehow I don't think that being American would allow us to skip the zillion hour long line to our pavilion...The main attraction in Israel's building was this pretty cool, round theater that I'm not really even sure how to concisely describe. A film played in impressive clarity on one wall; it was very interesting and mostly noted connections between Israel and China as well as various technological developments made by Israelis in various fields. And of course Einstein was thrown in there too. After collecting our stamps Ben asked an Israeli woman if there were any Israeli restaurants around- no such luck.

Leaving the Israeli pavilion, we decided to visit pavilions of countries that we, as Americans, would never be able to visit safely. On to the Middle East!

By on to the Middle East I mean Iran. Which didn't really have much of a line at all but was pretty crowded on the inside. By the door to the pavilion an old Iranian man asked Paul where we are from. Paul said America and the man gave him a small piece of candy. I personally was raised with the belief that I should not take candy from Iranian strangers, but Paul being Paul went ahead and ate it even though I repeatedly warned him that there was a very good chance that he might keel over and die on the spot.
So then Paul being a jerk decided to pretend to choke after he had eaten half of the candy. So not funny.
Apparently it didn't taste particularly wonderful, but the candy was not poisonous, in case anyone was wondering...
There was some live music performed by men wearing purple robes, carrying drums as well as many models of oil boats and platforms. And there were many signs proclaiming Persia as one of the oldest civilizations.
We opted not to mention to any of the Iranians that Ben was a jew or that we were just coming over from the Israeli pavilion, which is conveniently located very far away from the Middle Eastern pavilions...

Guess who had a pavilion adjacent to Iran! North Korea, of course! So we didn't even have to go far to find the next country that we won't be able to visit at any point in the foreseeable future.
Ben called this row of pavilions the axis of evil.
Also line-free, North Korea was not particularly exciting on the inside. I mean it mostly just had pictures of random, pretty places all over the walls and a little bridge crossing blue-painted floor. Then there was a small fountain that looked more Italian than Korean. My favorite part of the North Korean pavilion was at the end where Kim Jong Il's books/various propagandizing literature were for sale. I bought a green, hardcover book entitled Answers to the Questions Raised by Foreign Journalists, hoping that it would be sassy and directed towards democratic Western journalists. But, sadly, its answers are primarily for socialist and communist peoples. However, that being said, I would like to quote an enlightening bit of the very first page "Our people are very happy that here at our capital city of Pyongyang where the Anti-US World Journalists' Conference was held 14 years ago, another global meeting of progressive journalists has been convoked to oppose imperialism, safeguard peace and strengthen friendship and solidarity among peoples." And by briefly flipping through this section I got a vague sense of North Korean opinions regarding Americans, hinted at by lines such as "They should make a concentrated attack particularly on US imperialists, the main force of aggression and war and the heinous strangler of peace and independence."
So that was a lovely pavilion. I got my stamp and left satisfied.

We randomly wandered into Maldives and then went into a pavilion dedicated to the history of the expo which was somewhat interesting with its old film rolls and pictures from the last one hundred plus years.

Next we tried to find Iraq, which would really just complete our collection of unfriendly places, but it was elusive. We only realized where it was after getting on a bus and driving past it. I'm thinking that's a sign that we weren't meant to go inside...

The bus took our exhausted and lazy selves across the expo and back to Europe, where we stopped at an Italian restaurant and I almost cried because I was so happy to see authentic pizzas and pasta dishes as well as tiramisu. Ben, my designated pizza splitting buddy from the last few weeks, split a rather plain but delish pizza marguerita with me. Then I had vanilla and chocolate gelato as well as a mango smoothie. It was heavenly. Indescribable. A prelude to the damage that I'm going to do to myself when I get back to America...

After rolling around on the ground outside of the restaurant and just generally being exhausted we finally found the energy to go to the Russian pavilion, our last stop for the night.
Fortunately, Russia was also the best. Its line only took about 20ish minutes because it was moving so quickly and we found a man from Chicago with whom we passed the time chatting.
The outside of the Russian pavilion and the inside had absolutely nothing in common; the outside was white and looked like it was made of intricate paper cut-out designs. But then the inside looked like a colorful, awesome recreation of Alice in Wonderland. I felt as if someone should have handed us shrooms on our way through the door. So that was fun and I took so many pictures of the pavilion's two levels of non-Russo awesomeness.
The best part of the Russian pavilion for the guys was the gift shop at the end, for in the gift shop there were five young-ish, blonde and lovely Russian women who prompted discussions about appreciating Russian women that lasted for at least ten minutes on the bus. Can you marry a hot Russian chick if she's named Olga. Russian chicks age fast. But not as fast as their alcoholic men. What if your Russian woman is taller than you? Yeah there are just so many things to be said about the logistics of marrying a Russian chick. I told Ben that he should create a Russian Women Appreciation Club once he gets to Wash. U.

So yeah, that's all I have to say about the expo.
We stayed at a hotel that was about 30 minutes away from the expo. Out of all of the hotels that we've stayed in so far, this one was definitely the nicest (the one in Beijing was the worst).

After waking up and walking across the street to have pancakes and coffee at a McDonald's, we got on the bus and drove an hour further away to Wuxi. Our destination: world's biggest Buddha statue and accompanying palacial temples!

During our bus ride the hotel called our tour guide to tell us that a camera and a passport from the Expo had been left in one room. I would like to say that the only reason that I managed to leave my camara behind was that while having fun I let someone use my camara and then proceeded to forget about picking it up from wherever they placed it. I suspect that Ben has a similar excuse for having left behind his Expo passport.
At any rate, the tour guide went back to retrieve our forgotten possessions while we were walking around the site.

Well, to be honest, myself, Paul, Holli, Joseph, Ben and Luke did not do much by way of walking. While everyone else actually went in and out of the three different sites at this Buddist place we found a bench in front of the giant Buddha, near people who were burning incense and bowing repeatedly, and proceeded to sit around doing nothing for several hours. When it began to rain we made a monumental move over to a different site and then sat underneath a little covered walkway that was adorned with a dragon who greatly resembled Mushu from Mulan. When it was time to leave we walked again. Back to the bus. I think it goes without saying that we were pretty tired. On the bus ride back I pretty much tuned everyone out by intently listening to the Earth Sings Mi Fa Mi, aka best album of all-time, but then couldn't nap because I was too intent on listening to the music.

Then I got back to my family in Changzhou (sans host dad, who is still m.i.a. at 11:00 PM) and was forced to have a large dinner.
In other news, I am officially done with buying presents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now all I need is an extra suitcase to bring all of this stuff that I've purchased back to America and a shirt that says I <3 Beijing (or any other city, really, as long as it's in chinese).
I'm thinking that tomorrow will be a lazy day of intense sleep. I think I've mentioned that I'm tired.
On Sunday a bunch of us are going to go to the movies and hopefully see an American movie or at least something with good subtitles. Whatever's good.
As of yesterday I officially have less than a week left in Changzhou. Then there's the day in Beijing. The day of plane. Then I'll be back in America. Still not too sure how I feel about that. I don't even know if I'm staying in a hotel with a bunch of people who have layovers or if I'll be returning to RI immediately. I guess I'll find out when I get there.

-Christina

I have just had the most traumatic experience of my life. Like 10 minutes ago. Holy. Shit.
Please, if someone ever asks you to go to a swimming pool with them in China, just say no.
And whatever you do, do not enter the locker room or showering area. Naked people. Everywhere.
That's what happened. Unsuspectingly, I walked into a giant sea of naked women all crowded together like sardines.
Changing stalls, personal space, no touching rules, what are those???
And my host sister wondered why I didn't want to go swimming...
All of the people in this country already stare at me enough. Let's not make it worse, shall we, Lois?
She tried to tell me that the people in the pool all had bad eyesight so they wouldn't stare at me. I know I'm a stupid American, but I somehow have difficulties believing that Chinese people instantly become blind upon entering their swimming pools.

So then Lois went to swim all by her lonesome self while I sat at the edge of the pool with all of my clothing still on and had some random fat kid creep on me.

But about an hour later when Lois realized that her pleading was futile because I would not be going in the pool we left and my night improved dramatically because
I GOT COFFEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! FOUR CUPS OF REALLLYYY GOOD COFFEE! THE BEST COFFEE I'VE GOTTEN IN THIS COUNTRY!! And I just got home and I'm so happy about lifeeeeee. Lois's aunt also got us a dish of the most amazing noodle-ish things I've had in my life. So even though I feel really fat right now because I was force-fed two dinners, I'm pretty pumped.
And Lois and I bonded over her hilarious and misguided questions about Americans, some of which were rather politically incorrect..
Samples: Is Rose the most popular girl's name? (Lois likes the Titanic movie. Mostly I think she just likes Leonardo DiCaprio, though) Do you like black people? (Um hello, my president is black, Lois. I told her that the most important American is black so it's not like it's 1900 and most Americans are racist anymore. She obviously thinks that life is still like it was when the real Titanic was around.) Do you like fat people? Was McDonald's made by a man or a woman? Etc. etc.

While I can't wait to get some Italian food and mac n' cheese in America, I will definitely miss Lois when I leave in 9-ish days.

Goodnight for me and the Chinese people; I guess this is good morning for you Americans.
Four. cups. of coffee.
-Christina

Ps. Today Fernando showed me a picture that he had taken of a sign that reads "Big Brother is watching you" in both English and Chinese. Just some random sign. George Orwell was clearly onto something...
Pps. Today's temperature in Changzhou: 98 degrees. With heat index? 105 degrees. Which person from AFS thought that it would be a good idea to send the kid from New England to Southern China in the middle of the summer, where it is at least 96 degrees out every single day?

It's Monday again, which means that I have yet another weekend to recapitulate!

Saturday: On this particular Saturday our lao shi had nothing planned for the American students, so a bunch of us decided to meet up at Changzhou's biggest attraction, Dinosaur Park. Apparently Dinosaur Park is about as close as the Chinese come to anything resembling a Six Flags, so we were all really excited for some badass roller coasters and water rides. Besides, Lois was there. And Lois only wants to be around the Americans when we're doing fun stuff.
Well, who could have guessed that all of the rides would suck. I mean the advertisements for this place show people riding high speed coasters, looking like they're about to pass out because it's just too intense for them and Asians with breast augmentations doing some sort of Hawaiian-esque dance (Fernando was sold by that part of the ad), but as far as I could tell neither of these features were actually present at the park. Dinosaur Park seemed to be notable only for its bad animatronics (least scary dinos of my life), extremely long lines, and depressingly weak rides. Even the water park sucked- lines to get tubes or mats for the two water rides were two hours long each.
But our day at Dinosaur Park wasn't a total fail! I A.) liked the park's rock structures/architecture B.) got to ride an elephant (!!!) C.) acquired more presents for American family members D.) spent more bonding time with some of my lovely Changzhou people, namely Miranda, Chloe, Joseph, Holli, Ben, Sarah, and Luke.
I also got to experience Lois's severe consternation! Well, my host sister, Lois, decided that she would leave the park to go home at about 5:30 PM. She probably thought that I would appear at the door to our home a few hours later at the reasonable hour of 8 PM. But when 9 PM rolled around and I still was not home the unhappy text messages began.
"it's.too.late!when.will.you.go.home??!!" Yep, that's a sample. And then I got to hear it from Lois when I finally made an entrance at 10 PM. But my host parents didn't really seem to care. And Lois got over it in about five minutes. So that was that.

Sunday: The Americans and Koreans were taken for a 20 minute long bus ride to..I still don't know where we went. This place whose name I don't know was a museum/scenic and historic park/shopping area/amusement park. And it was pretty awesome. After arriving at 9 AM we had two hours in which we could wander around enjoying every aspect of the place. So I took lots of pictures of all of the beautiful buildings, peaceful gardens with character-inscribed stepping stones going through streams, giant statues, and amazing artwork, which I will be putting on facebook asap. I snapped pictures of Ben meditating amidst the mist below a giant statue of Confusius, appearing creepily peaceful as well as a picture of Joseph lying open-mouthed on a stone table, looking like a dead bird or some sort of offering to the Gods. They're pretty funny.
After seeing many of the statues and a couple museums, Joseph got a call from Luke, who was on the other side of the park saying that there were some rides so we should go there quickly. And, fortunately, these rides were 200X more kickass than anything in Dinosaur Park. Plus they had absolutely no lines so we didn't have to wait for two hours in order to enjoy them.
First, and against my better judgement, we went on some sort of demented scrambler-ish ride which was basically a bunch of seats attached to two giant crane-arms which toss the chairs in every direction, upside down, sideways and held us in uncomfortable positions, flipping like the spin cycle of a washing machine. Fernando said it was more intense and went on for longer than the comparable ride at Six Flags New England. So now that I've survived that I feel as if I can go on anything.
After that we went on this ride that is like a cross between giant swings rides and the ride that brings you up to the top of a tower and drops straight down. The chairs of the swings on this ride rose impossibly high and spun faster than any chair ride I've been on before. Luke and John (the Korean) were totally nauseous after that one.
Then we got drenched on a flume/white water rafting ride.

Finally, I ate an icee and bought more presents for American friends and family members.
Overall, it was definitely a successful day.

After leaving the awesome park we went to some giant lake 25 minutes further away and were apparently supposed to take a boat ride or go swimming or something like that. But we actually ended up getting off of the bus, doing nothing, getting back on the bus, going back to the school.

And that brings me to the events of today, Monday.
First of all, we had yet another test on characters that we had not been adequately prepared for whatsoever. I know that I got about 3/4 of the characters which we were supposed to magically be able to recite correct because I crammed the night before and the morning of, but will I retain my knowledge of how to write these things? Hell no. Stupid teacher.
This afternoon we had another "community activity." But this time instead of performing for random unfortunate Chinese people we were dropped off at the local park and given directions in Chinese for a scavenger hunt. Our mission was to take pictures of various signs in the park and find our way to the vollunteers at the end of the Chinese directions. Good thing none of the people in my group spoke any Chinese. And I had been designated the group leader. Which was pretty laughable. None of us could read the directions that would get us to the first location. And thus we called ourselves Team Uh Uh Uh (Stupid Americans). Our team consisted of me, Fernando, Joseph, Sarah, John, and some other Korean who looks and sounds like an orangutan. The other groups had people like Paul and Mikaela and the other Christina, who have all taken Chinese in school. Which is kind of an advantage when someone gives you a piece of paper covered in characters and tells you to follow its directions.
Our team's advantage? We ran everywhere, constantly yelling at the slow Koreans to keep up and hiding behind bushes so that Mikaela's group wouldn't know which paths we were taking. And, because Fernando is loud, persistant, and just generally annoying, he managed to convince some security guards at the park to show us where to go. And that is how Team Uh Uh Uh Stupid Americans managed to win the race!!!
The vollunteers couldn't believe it either...But I have the blisters to prove that we ran across that whole stupid park. Our prize? Nothing. Except for bragging rights and the ability to make fun of the Chinese speakers for not being able to beat our stupid selves. So that was worth something after all, I guess.
Then we went back to our classroom and watched the new Karate Kid, which was alright. I enjoyed being able to understand how realistic some of its depictions were and to pick out aspects that were clearly fake. Such as the little Chinese girl being BFFs with Dre or whatever that karate kid's name was. At least at my Chinese school, girls and guys never mingle. So being best friends is a bit of a stretch. And all of that flirtatiousness? Lois would not approve.
I also found it funny that the Chinese students beat up the American karate kid right when he moves into Beijing. What really would have happened: the Chinese kids would have seen that the American kid was black and would have run up to him screaming "OBAMAAAAAA!!!!!!!!", practically pissing themselves in their excitement.
I base this on my experiences of seeing Chinese people yelling "Obama" at Fernando when he walks down the street in Changzhou. Even though Fernando is Dominican and not in any way African his skin is very dark and they don't see the difference. I can't imagine any of them wanting to beat him up. I mean maybe once they get past the whole fascination with his skin tone...
But probably not.

-Christina

Right now I feel too exhausted to even lift my fingers off of the keyboard. I've just gotten back from walking around shopping with my heavy backpack on for two hours (I didn't buy anything but I feel accomplished anyway because I just helped Ben buy his first ever pair of jeans), and my will to do anything other than collapse into my uncomfortable bed is minimal. Being alive today was not much fun because, with humidity & heat index, the temperature was 104 degrees. So I'm doing this for you, family, friends, and random trolls.

Yesterday night/afternoon I finallyyyy got to go to KTV (a chain of karaoke bars in China)!
Well, first of all, the Americans minus Julie Ann and the other Christina went out to dinner at Pizza Hut. As I mentioned in my blog about Baoding, Pizza Hut is wayy nicer in China than it is in the USA. Ben and I split a New Orleans pizza with a stuffed crust, which basically had mushrooms, tomatoes, chicken, and onions for toppings. The reason that I felt the need to describe the pizza is that in my American past I would never have tolerated having such things on my pizza. But at this point, China has completely expanded my definition of acceptable foods. Yay for cultural immersion..

Then we all went to a really nice KTV and rented a room for 24 yuan per person. In the room there were basically a bunch of leather couches, giant tables, tvs and microphones. Once in the room everyone was able to order drinks. Being able to order drinks in China is awesome for several reasons 1.) No American bartender would ever be caught taking orders and making recommendations for teenagers 2.) It's so very cheap.
But don't misunderstand, we weren't really drinking. I mean it was a Wednesday night and we had to go home to our host families!
But yeah, karaoke was pretty fun even though the staff eventually made us stop dancing on tables haha.

And now: A List of Lies Americans Told Me About China
1. Everyone dresses conservatively. FALSE. Young people in China don't dress any more conservatively than young Americans do and are often more fashionable anyway. While many people wear pants in spite of the heat, I think that has more to do with fashion sensibility because plenty of people wear short shorts and tight shirts.
2. Chinese people are easily offended. FALSE. I'm way more offended by things that Chinese people do than they ever are by anything I do. People here push, shove, spit, walk around with their shirts rolled up (men), disregard personal space, and don't seem to be horrified by any American gestures.
3. I would not be able to survive in China without speaking Chinese. FALSE. I'm around Americans all the time and people in China constantly try to practice their English on me anyway.
4. Chinese parents are over-protective and strict. FALSE. We and our host siblings pretty much do whatever we want. As long as we aren't out too late, it's all good.

Stereotypes that are true? Yeah, their school is really intense and they occasionally have to go to school in the summer in order to hand in and then recieve more homework.
And yes, I get stared at wherever I go and have creepy pictures taken of me all the time. Just today two girls told me that I looked like a movie star, on two separate occasions.

Alright, not to be a slacker or anything, but I think it's time for me to take a nap.
-Christina

Today I think I'm just going to spew out disjointed thoughts...

Yesterday I went to a Chinese movie theater with my host family where we saw a Chinese film involving gore, sadness (Lois cried 4 times), and questionable acting. It was based on a series of devastating earthquakes that killed 200 something thousand people. Yay for properly translated English subtitles!
This theater claims to be international, hosting American movies. Hopefuly I'll get to see a new-ish American movie while I'm here.

When I came to this country I thought that I would lose weight because half of the food presented to me would be too weird to eat and the Chinese people wouldn't eat as much as Americans do. Of course, I was wrong.
My host family eats a ton of food at every meal. And they don't take "wo bao le" ("I'm full," probably spelled wrong) for an answer. If my host mother or grandmother don't think that I've eaten a sufficient amount from each dish (in China everyone gets their own bowl of rice and shares food from various dishes at the center of the table) they take it upon themselves to shovel more into my bowl. And while the food that I eat here is healthier and more veggie-centric than food that I would eat in America, rice has a decent amount of calories. And they make me eat a lot of rice. The intense snacking that we do at school also does not help my weight situation. I mean I don't look like a whale or anything (yet), but I've definitely gained like five pounds. I'm just holding onto the knowledge that when I get back to America I can lose the weight quickly by eating normally and finally being able to exercise again..

Today I
-saw my first large dog in China. Most of the dogs around here are midgets- stray and owned dogs alike. But today I saw a golden retriever- monumental story, I know.
-met teachers from the militant style English camp at our school and was happy to interact with fresh Americans for the two hours that we cornered them for at the school store.
-had leftovers yet again. We've been eating dinner from the same fish for three nights in a row as well as eating the same spinach, rice, and beans. :[ In my American home I would stage a mutiny over that.
-left school early with some other kids in order to go to the famous, world's largest pagoda that is a less-than-five-minute walk from my house. Of course we didn't realize that we would have to pay just to get to the gift shop and area around it, so we ended up just taking pictures outside its front gate. We'll return another day.
-showed up at my house with a bunch of Americans and John the Korean with hopes of surprising/scaring Lois. Sadly, my host mother answered the door. But at least Lois was still there. That was right before we went to the temple.

I've noticed that when random little shops around here can't think of anything else to sell, they sell mops. Why mops? Who decided that when in doubt, a small business owner can feel certain that people will always be clamoring for mops?? Weird.
Mops and cigars. There are at least four cigar/cigarette shops on my street, along with those stores that prominantly display their mops.
I just wish that I could find some hand sanitizer around here because no public bathrooms have soap and I'm running low..

-Christina

I've just returned home from our two day long, two city tour of additional fun things to do in China with a few more stories and gifts.

On Saturday morning twelve Americans, the ten Koreans, and various host siblings showed up at Changzhou No. 1 High School to get on yet another Conway-esque bus to go to do some more touristy things in two cities, Wuzhen and Hangzhou, over the course of the weekend. Note that there are actually fourteen Americans in our Changzhou group- Mikaela scratched her cornea (she'll be fine but needs to stay home for a few days) and the other Christina (CMJ) who...yeah, I don't know where she was.
After approx. three hours we got to Wuzhen and I finally found out our reasons for going there in the first place. Wuzhen is an incredibly beautiful and ancient city which pretty much looks like everything that a tourist would expect to see in China- like something straight out of a movie with its narrow streets and traditional oriental architecture. Going into the city felt fulfilling because Changzhou is purely a business city devoid of cutesy ancient stuff or tourist nonsense that we would want to see. Within Wuzhen most buildings had been converted into mini museums, which we wandered in and out of, gift shops (these are never as polished as tourist shops in America), and unsophisticated restaurants. I took some pictures, which will be going on facebook as soon as possible.
The day had been lovely, albeit sweltering, and without incident until I stopped to get a fan from one of the litte shops, telling Holli and Chloe to wait for me. I haggled over a price with the grouchy shopkeeper lady until I was satisfied and then turned around to see that oh, great, everyone else has disappeared. And I was just arguing over a fancy fan; it took less than five minutes! So then, with my nonexistant Chinese language skills, I had to attempt to communicate to the shopkeepers who had just been bargaining with my friends across the aisle that I wanted to know which direction they had moved off in. I felt pretty relieved because one of them actually seemed to know what I was motioning about and led me off in a new direction with purpose.
After wandering for about ten minutes and talking to random people I realized that my friends had never actually gone off in any such direction. But Wuzhen is essentially a giant maze, so figuring out where I was or where everyone else might have gone was virtually impossible. Using my camera to point at pictures that I had fortunately taken of various key points in the city, I managed to to navigate my way back to the parking lot where we had gotten off of our bus. And I felt pretty accomplished just to manage that much considering how much ground I had to cover to get back to the bus. It was quite far away.
But then I couldn't figure out which bus was ours and of course there were no Americans out by the entrance. Luckily enough for me, a bunch of the college vollunteers had figured that I would go back to the bus and got the entrance about five minutes after I did. It turns out that the only thing I missed was a less-than-spectacular lunch. So I pretty much thought that the whole thing was hilarious, because I got back onto the bus first and got a good seat by the table. Yeah, we fight over the four seats by the only table on our bus just because we are that greedy for leg room and better positioning for card games.

After seeing Wuzhen we drove an hour further to a scenic lake where we were supposed to take a boat ride. But of course it was raining, complete with thunder and lightning, so we just wandered around taking pictures for 15 minutes and left to find our hotel.

Saturday night was another sleepless night of having fun in hotel rooms. We won't go into detail about that...

Sunday morning began with a rather repulsive breakfast at the hotel's dining room and then moved forward with a tragic, one hour long bus ride during which my Ipod severely malfunctioned (Paul figured out how to fix it later haha) and I couldn't sleep because the Chinese vollunteers were playing a very rambunctious card game. They had obviously gotten more than one hour of sleep..
From the point when we arrived at the river in Hangzhou where we would be rafting onwards, Sunday was an awesome day. First, we took oxen-pulled carts (i had never seen beasts like those before- they were pretty sweet) through a bamboo forrest (my first bamboo forrest!) and arrived at the area where we would get onto our rafts, which were long bamboo shoots tied together with small benches placed on top.
At first it seemed like the raft ride would be boring and merely scenic, but then we realized that people on all of the other boats on the river were armed with water guns and pails with which they could fling water onto other boats, and that they were all engaged in all-out warfare.
Being typical, clueless Americans, we hadn't realized that the reason vendors were selling water guns near the entrance to the park was because of water wars on the river. Armed with only water bottles and some pail that we stole from another boat, we jumped around on our unstable and nearly capsizing bamboo vessel, making Indian calls with our mouths and our hands, and yelled intimidating things in Chinglish.
So by the end of that ride, we were completely soaked from head to toe.
And even though the Chinese people with water guns were vicious, I'm pretty sure that I got the most water poured on me by Paul and Fernando. Thanks, guys.

So then we changed clothing, got fed, returned to Changzhou.
At the moment I have just finished eating dinner with my family, which was 2000000X better than hotel meals, and we're going to watch a Chinese movie now. As usual, I'm pretty sure that there won't be any English subtitles.
-Christina

Well I've just gotten home from having dinner at my Chinese grandparents' house where I was consigned to spend a few hours instead of going out to KTV to sing karaoke and get some drinks with the other Americans. Boo.
The trip to visit my grandparents' place would have been pretty uneventful, however, Lois attempted to make my ears bleed by playing Justin Beiber on her newly purchased Ipod and shoving an ear bud into my poor, unsuspecting right ear. I guess she thinks that because I am an American and Justin Beiber is pretty much the only famous American artist she knows, we must bond over his music. Oh, Lois.
I was polite about it, listening to Baby baby whatever, cringing when Ludacris started rapping and sounding like a pedophile, but I quickly changed the topic of conversation to Lady Gaga, the other American artist who Lois knows of. Fortunately for me, I have no issues with most of Lady Gaga's music. I'd say she's a solid 10 compared to Justin Beiber and the Korean pop stars who Lois likes so much. And, to be fair, the Korean pop stars' format could have worked in America in the '90s, during the times of Nsync and the Backstreet Boys, but if anyone from America heard them nowadays..you'd all understand my pain.

Anyway..Wow I did not start this with the intention of complaining about my host sister's taste in music. I'd now like to wipe Justin Beiber out of my mind and move on with this blog..

So today was a day of unprecedented white person sightings! Yeah, I know that kind of sounds bad, but when you stand out like a flashing neon sign that says "EVERYONE STARE AT ME" all the time, you get excited when someone else is around to share the discomfort. It's kind of hard to explain how much I hate being stared at by everyone in this country since in America I tend to dress like a flamboyant maniac 45% of the time..You just kind of have to experience it. Try walking out of your house and down a crowded street naked some day and you will probably experience the amount of pointing and staring and whispering that I face during my daily walk to school (unless a police man or outraged citizen tackles you to the ground and clothes you first).
But back to my white person count. I saw three random white people today!!! Two guys and one woman. Now, when one encounters another beleaguered white person around here, it is customary to exchange waves, say hello, and grimace at each other to demonstrate that you are both feeling the pain.

Speaking of people sightings from today, I discovered that seeing teachers outside of school is awkward no matter what country you are in. This afternoon I left school early because A.) Everyone else was skipping sports time to go to KTV while I knew I wouldn't have time before the family dinner that I was being forced to attend. B.) The supervisor had left our classroom and I saw my chance to escape.
While walking home from school I saw my Chinese teacher and the Korean students' Chinese teacher riding together on a moped, looking overly happy to be on the same moped. So that was scandalous and awkward.

My only pair of flip flops was broken today! And not only were they the only pair of flip flops that I brought to China, they were also my favorite pair of flip flops. Joseph accidentally stepped/fell on me today as Luke was attempting to tackle me to retrieve Ben's phone which I stole and had been sending innappropriate text messages to random girls from.
Wow, look at that run-on sentence ^^^. Anyway, I blame Luke for ruining my shoes even though Joseph is the one who stepped on me. I think I just like blaming Luke for everything..
After my flip flop had been broken I spent the rest of the day constantly repairing the strap of my flip flop, which had ripped apart, with bandaids. So now I have to buy another pair of flip flops. Which is really annoying because I was trying to conserve money for all of the things I still want to buy myself and obligatory presents that I have to buy for other people.

I never cease to be amazed at how much I managed to draw out unimportant stories.

Tomorrow morning I leave on yet another weekend trip. This time we are going to two different places, Wuzhen and Hangzhou. Saturday will be spent in whichever one of those places is a small town, apparently for no other reason than that it is exceptionally pretty. Sunday, in the other place, whichever that is, no one tells me these specifics, we will go white water rafting, which I'm definitely looking forward to. I know that it will probably be exciting because Lois is actually coming with us on the trip just to do that, and she doesn't usually deign any of our activities as being interesting enough to merit her involvement.

That's all for now, I'm being nagged to go take a shower already.
-Christina

First of all: Dear Americans who are trying to text/call my phone: I know that my phone is no longer allowing me to recieve calls. Why is this happening? Maybe it has been dropped upside down a few too many times. I don't know.
Also, keep in mind that international texts cost money. I love to read your messages, but come on, are you really going to spend 50 cents to text me "k"? (you know who you are)..

Anyway, I've decided to write you a list of commonplace Chinese behaviors which would be considered rude in America:
1. Loudly burping/farting at the dinner table/ in the company of others
2. Slurping soups & beverages
3. Honking the horn of your car incessantly as if the car in front of you will be able to do anything about the fact that it is stuck in traffic
4. Coming obnoxiously close to hitting pedestrians with your car/bike
5. Walking around with your shirt rolled up just far enough that your entire beer belly is hanging out (aka pretty much all middle-aged Chinese men, in any social situation)
6. Spitting/hucking a loogie
7. Shoving/knocking into people without apologizing or saying excuse me; this is especially problematic in crowded buses where people deal with their fear of being unable to get off of the bus by plowing through you on their way to the door
8. Yelling "FAT" if you happen to see a rare, obese person
9. Yelling "OBAMA" whenever you see a black person
10. Staring/pointing
10. And, my personal favorite, putting your baby in ass-less baby suits. I guess that this enables the baby to just go to the bathroom whenever without making a mess, but what happened to potty training??

I've decided that the English camp for Chinese students which is currently being hosted at our school is kind of terrifying and cult-like. The students in this camp, who range from middle school to college, walk around in militaristic formations, brazenly shouting phrases like "English will be my weapon" and "I am determined to conquer." They also have signs of this nature all over the campus, which I've been taking pictures of because they're kind of hilarious and scary at the same time.

Today I held the biggest bug of my life (a partially alive cicada) and also took pictures with Holli and a squatter, so look forward to seeing those gems on facebook.

-Christina

Well, it's been a while since I last blogged. Meaning that this entry will probably be extremely long and disorganized. I apologize in advance.

So, about that family power point. Due to laziness, no such power point actually came into existence. I opted instead to share a power point about random American fun facts and bits of pop culture with Joseph. We, along with everyone else, had to present this and other power points to a large group of random Chinese people in a conference room at the People's Bank of China. Additionally, we sang the Star Spangled Banner and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. When it came to be time to do the cha cha slide, I ran and hid. The YMCA was extremely awkward, but I actually stuck around for that. I'm pretty sure that everyone in the room during our demonstrations thought we were/are insane.

In other news, we finally got a real teacher on Tuesday, who came to relieve the college-aged volunteers who had been on American-sitting duty (but who are still around to hang out with us all the time). Our new teacher A.) does not speak English particularly well and clearly partakes in Google translating a bit too much (ex: one power point involved the phrase "Changzhou is lotus moon Casino"..[shenmedaf_ck?]) B.) seems to think that we understand way more Chinese language than we actually do, expecting us to respond to his ramblings and to be able to read random, unfamiliar characters off of the black board. Unfortunately for him, most of the people in Changzhou are like me and do not know any grammatical points or verbs, and who only understand basic food vocabulary and "tai gue la" (to anyone who actually knows Chinese: excuse my pinyin errors) C.) moves at a rapid pace, blowing through chapters without me really remembering anything.
I don't think I really have to say anything else about my school situation..

These last three and a half days have definitely been the most exciting of the last few weeks.
At 6:30 AM on Friday morning my class boarded a bus with a bunch of random Chinese students, beginning the epic 14 HOURS LONG bus ride to Baoding (a city that is one or two hours West of Beijing and the aforementioned 14 HOURS North and West of Changzhou).
And actually, in spite of the sense of torment that my abuse of capital letters may have conveyed, the bus ride was not that bad. We passed time by playing intense card games (pretty much all of which Ben won every time), listening to music, eating an obscene amount of junk food, playing never have I ever, napping, talking etc. It did not feel any more tedious than the 12 hours long plane ride from NYC to Beijing.
I've just realized that I forgot to write our reasons for driving to Baoding! All 49 of the AFS NSLI-Y China summer scholarship kids (not just the 14 of us from Changzhou) were required to attend the 5th Volunteer Conference of CEAIE-AFS (CEAIE= China's organization for international educational affairs, which oversees the activities of AFS in China and probably also deals with the other, smaller organizations who took NSLI scholars to China).

The purposes of the AFS-CEAIE conference seem to be as follows: 1. as a pre-departure orientation for Chinese students who are about to go abroad 2. as a party for volunteers from across the world who do not see each other often (if ever) and who want to make mushy speeches and random performances 3. fundraising 4. as a gawk-at-the-Americans-fest.

The agenda of the American students: 1. reunion-ing!!! 2. shopping and finding good American food (KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut are really the only American options) 3. surviving chinese classes and miscellaneous performances 4. partying/getting absolutely no sleep. Then repeat.
For the record I think that I now own four AFS shirts: one from pre-departure in NYC, one from pre-split in Beijing, one from this conference, and one that I randomly bought. The one that I bought is the only one I paid for. Maybe the fundraising from this conference thing will go towards AFS's extensive t-shirt payments...

During one of our days in Baoding we took a group field trip to go sight-seeing at a Sino-Japanese war site. This pretty much involved a tiny museum, walking through a scary but awesome tunnel, bartering over random trinkets, and getting extremely dusty.
Scariest part of the trip? The boys managed to acquire a taser while bartering at the war memorial.
For the rest of the trip they tased each other and anyone else who would agree to be tased. I got tased twice on my right shoulder. It really just felt like a shock and a hard pinch. The only evidence I have left of these tasings are four dots on my shoulder.

For the first time since my arrival in China, I got sick :[ . It all started with a rank piece of tofu at a truck stop on our way to Baoding which made me barf a few hours later (I had initially been afraid to spit out the tofu instead of swallowing it because of the sheer number of random trucker dudes who were staring at me). Then my diet of the next few days consisted entirely of oreos, iced coffee floats from KFC, misc. ice cream bars, pizza from Pizza Hut, cake, utter sleep deprivation (45 minutes of sleep on Saturday night) and beer (yes, it is common for Chinese people to have a bit of beer with dinner, no matter their ages).
I guess you could say that any ensuing stomach aches which I experienced were well-deserved.
But, in my defence, the university's food was disgusting!!!

Also, I feel fine now that I'm back in Changzhou. Our return trip consisted of an overnight bus ride, which I spent a decent amount of passed out. After showering and eating some bread I'm cured, fine, I swear (this is a message for certain parents with hypochodriac tendencies).

In a little while I'm going to meet back up with the rest of my Changzhou people to go shopping and to find some more pizza (Pizza Hut is a classy gourmet experience in China). I will hopefully get a pair of shorts or pants on this expedition because Chinese stores have way better options than American stores do when it comes to pants. And yes, Auntie Lu, I see your comments and will buy you something. Please note that the only traditional looking Chinese garb to be found in urban areas is trashy and aimed at tourists.

At 5:00 tonight all of the Americans are going to school to start at our new job! We're going to make $15 USD per hour to teach at an English camp for Chinese students, one hour every day. It's probably going to be pretty awesome considering that all we really have to do is make sure that the teachers are using proper grammar and idiomatic expressions and help Chinese kids pronounce words, no lesson prep required.

This reminds me, I should upload pictures of some of the Chinglish attempts that constantly make us Americans laugh. It seems to be fashionable in this country to own shirts that have English phrases on them, yet I feel like no one ever consults a native English speaker before making these shirts. They make no sense at all, often verging on inappropriate and vulgar.

Now I have to go eat lunch with my host family, wish me luck.
-Christina

p.s. I have eaten snake and pidgeon this week, both of which were good!