SUMMER LANGUAGE INSTITUTE FOR AMERICAN YOUTH IN CHINA

My turn for a blog entry! I've chosen, this week, to discuss local flavor and the food we've all been eating. Every morning I see people hitting the local corner store to pick up cookies, chips, drinks, etc. China has so much of the same, yet in different twists. In the past week I've eaten more than 3 different types of pringles. There was a strange meat/salsa flavor, blueberry, and a third I'm still not sure about... Of course they have plain, but it seemed to be hidden behind the others. I find China's snack food the most exciting! Unlike America, there are so many different varieties from store to store. I usually see only a few types shining over the rest at home, yet here it runs very differently.

I have also noticed quite a variation between the old and the new in China. For one meal they serve traditional noodles or rice, yet for another they use cola with chicken to make something close to sweet BBQ wings. Another favorite is something called "rou bing" (meat cake... I admit that doesn't sound appetizing... But it is!) My host parents gave me this stack of triangle bread with some sort of thin meat filling that ended up tasting a little like pizza. It was amazing, and yet looked so simple! I am also enjoying the chance to have so many different kinds of fresh fruit! There are many small shops on the street where I can get everything from peaches to dragon fruit; almost every day I have fresh lichee. In my home town I can buy lichee flavored snacks and ice cream, but never any fresh ones. I think my host family finds it strange that I always have fruit with me when I'm home.

Now that we are living with separate host families, I love coming to school and discussing last night’s dinner with my classmates. Every family has a different way about making and eating dinner. From the Chinese restaurants in America I would have never guessed this is how things actually are in China. I know this blog entry is rather vague and broad, but I encourage you readers (if you haven't already) to talk to us students about the food.  There is so much variation from family to family, like there is in America, that it's hard to cover everything.

I admit it took a couple days to get used to the food, but now I am willing to go out and try almost anything!

China continuously changes. It never seems to stop growing, moving, or transforming. It’s just filled with life. The streets are consumed with never ending cars and bicycles while at the same time, crowds of people walk confidently beside the dangerous road. Sometimes I decide to stop what I’m doing and observe my surroundings. Buildings tower over me and around me. Half naked men and diaper-less babies walk beside me. And just the other day, some flowers sprouted from nowhere in beautiful white pots. Everything that’s around me changes but its all part of their culture. When I look out of my bedroom window, I can see a small poor looking shack down below. It makes me wonder how a shack made of trash is in the center of great tall apartments. How is it that everything beside it has transformed into something grand while this shack just plants its roots there? I’ve never been able to see this in my small suburb back home, but now that I have seen something different I can now base my thoughts upon them. Beijing has offered many sights different to my norms and with that I experience new things.

I am certain that we had all anticipated that there would be astronomical differences between studying Chinese in America and learning the same language in the country where it found its origins, but there is nothing like first-hand experience. Before arriving in Beijing, I thought myself quite lacking in my knowledge of Chinese, but now, after being here for only two weeks, constantly immersed in everyday situations, I now realize that I was and am indeed not just “quite lacking” in the amount I have studied, but rather, absolutely helpless in terms of survival (were I not directed by others, of course). We should accept this, however, and embrace it, because the less we know, the more we have to learn, and the more we have to learn, the more extraordinary the world seems to us.

There are at least two necessary parts of education in a field like language studies, especially in one as difficult as Chinese. These are in-class instruction and the seemingly random but incredibly useful information we learn outside of such a sheltered environment. Our teachers, at least the ones by whom I have been taught in this program (though I am sure this comment is applicable to them all), are truly fantastic. One of the most impressive features of their lessons has been the rapidity with which they teach while still maintaining the clarity and importance of the information one is given in what is usually a much longer time. To be sure, the language classes are anything but easy. I have found myself studying flashcards more than I ever have in such a brief period, taking numerous notes, and doing more Chinese gongke (homework) overnight than my American teachers have ever given me, and though it might be stressful (with good reason), learning so much in such a short time has had an amazingly impacting effect upon me. It is enlightening to simply see how much can be done when one focuses on something, and spending time with a Chinese host family is endlessly encouraging (especially if we really like them!), because it gives us more of an incentive to learn the language, so that we might better communicate with them. I have felt sad that I have not been able to express the emphatic appreciation I have toward my family for everything that they have done for me. It has been remarkably frustrating to only be equipped with as few words that I have at my disposal, because the only thing for which I can frequently thank them for is the, let’s say, “interesting” food they have provided for me. Just think. Doesn’t “Hao chi,” (“Tasty.”) and “Xiexie, wo chi bao le,” (Thanks, I’m full.”) get old after a while? For me, it definitely has. And then, there is always becoming better acquainted with our host siblings, which faces both a linguistic and cultural barrier. Upon my first day meeting my host sister, Wang Yuhan, I accidentally called her toufa (hair), mao (fur), and she replied, “Mao! Mao is for monkeys!” But silly incidents, engendered by inexperience itself, is just what has been most thrilling about studying Chinese in China, because we are bound to make mistakes, which, I have learned, is best for improvement.

Every student and their host sibling went to the Great Wall on Sunday the 20^th. The bus ride out to Jun Yong Guan was an enjoyable part of the trip.  It was fascinating to see the transition from 50 story buildings to being surrounded by empty green mountains in just a few minutes.  Climbing the Great Wall is not as glamorous as it is made out to be.  The heat, humidity and 2 foot high steps make sweat appear on your forehead within 5 minutes.  There were two routes up the wall from the valley at Jun Yong Guan and the whole group split up pretty evenly going both directions.  I was surprised at how many people were on the Great Wall, I knew it was a huge tourist attraction, but there was hardly space to move for the first hundred yards up.  After an hour I reached the top (where the wall was stopped) where the crowds were considerably smaller.  The views from the top were incredible.  You could gaze down upon highways winding through mountains, small villages, and the Great Wall itself stretched all across the landscape.  The exhausted legs were a small price to pay to see that view.