Mid-Autumn Fesitval

Today in China, is the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is one of China's most important holidays. My apartment complex has decorated a little for it.

Here is a link if you want to read more about the holiday. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

For the holiday, I get Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off. But I have to make those days up on Saturday and Sunday. Also, from October 1st-7th we have off for China's National Anniversary.

Last night, I went with my Chinese friends to our friends work party. We had Chinese hors d'oeuvres, tea, watched some operatic performances, and listened to Chinese Folk Music. It was really interesting to experience. I also got tour an apartment that is selling for 30 million RMB or about $4 million USD because my friend sells apartments like that to rich Chinese people.

For me though, what was really noticeable about last night was that, in this apartment complex of three buildings, there were a total of 5 lights on in the buildings. There are so many high-end buildings but few people to live in them and owners have no incentive to lower the price of apartments because in China, there is no property tax. In the US, if you can't find a tenant at the price you want, it is better to lower the cost of the apartment, so that you can at least cover the cost of the property tax. But in China that doesn't happen and since many people see buying apartments as the safest investments in China, anyone with money buys one, and will only sell it at the price they want. So property prices in Beijing have climbed 12% since last year and it is becoming hard for poorer people to even afford the worst apartments.

Today, I also had my first meeting with my tutor. She is amazing, and I learned so much from her in just one day. The plan is to meet three times a week, two hours at a time. Combining my time in the class room and with my tutor and not including my homework and other studying, I will be studying Chinese 22 hours a week! This much studying should give me conversational Chinese in just a few months and this time next year, I should be fluent!

想家 "Home Sick"

There is a poem by one of China's my famous poets, Li Bai. The poem is about being home sick, in Chinese they call it 想家 or "wanting home" and even though at this moment I am not home sick, I thought I would post the poem because the time when I home the most is usually at night. For me, this poem really captures those times.

So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed --
Could there have been a frost already?
Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight.
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.

Cultural Differences

Here is a mini-series from CCTV about the differences between Chinese and Western cultures. It is about the only thing in three weeks that I have enjoyed watching on CCTV. It is five parts.

Part 1 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100907/100068.shtml
Part 2 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100908/100238.shtml
Part 3 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100909/100295.shtml
Part 4 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100910/100159.shtml
Part 5 http://english.cntv.cn/program/crossover/20100915/100078.shtml

Snacks full of Calories

I just wanted to write a quick post about my snacking habits here in China.

In the past two plus weeks, I have spent much of my free time snacking on chips, ice cream, soda, and fried Chinese snacks. Many would think that I would be gaining so much weight, well not quite. Partially, do to some unfortunate stomach problems, I have estimated that I have lost close to 10 pounds and I think that is a conservative estimate. Even without the stomach problems, I think I would probably have lost around five pounds.

There are also a few ideas that I have come up with to write about through talking to other foreigners about their experiences, and one will include details about the food here and what my daily meals look like.

Lots of good posts coming, and more pictures of the surrounding community.

Ok, now back to my Pringles can and pineapple soy milk.

Classes

Today was my first day of classes. It was quite uneventful and included only the very basic level of Chinese. The class was three hours long with three small breaks in between. Basically, we went over numbers, greetings etc. Not to much homework either, but there is plenty of stuff to review and preview for tomorrows class.

Besides learning Chinese, the thing that I love the most about studying abroad is the different people you meet. In my class alone, there were three Kazaks, a few Russians and people from Japan, Botswana, Jamaica, Mongolia, and I think two of the girls were from some South East Asian countries.

Apparently I have a very good Chinese name, because my teacher and everyone else really seem to like. I think I mentioned this to my parents but not on here, my Chinese is 孔泽华, pronounced Kong Ze Hua. The father of the family I was staying with gave me the name, and I must say its better then my last name, which made me sound like a migrant worker. The reason for the name goes like this, Kong is the last name of Confucius in Chinese, Ze is from Mao Ze Dong and Hua is how they pronounce George Washington's last name. The reason those were picked were because, Confucius and Mao are very big in China, and I am very tall to Chinese people and since I am American they decided on the character of George Washington's name.

The other night I went to dinner with a friend in Zhongguancun, which is the Silicon Valley of China and only a short bus ride away from my apartment, we came across a Christian Church. Here is a picture of it.

Tonight was the first night that I could cook on my own, since I finally bought a hot plate. Ah, it was nice to make have pasta for dinner!


Tomorrow, I also begin my language exchange with the daughter of the family I stayed with. We are going to meet on Tuesday and Thursday, one day I help her with her English the other she helps with my Chinese. I have also been spending a lot of time with her and her friends. They are young, trendy, upper-middle class urban kids. Quite similar to who you would run across in NYC. One owns a smoothie, fruit and dessert shop (which is amazingly fresh and tasty), another sells multi-million dollar apartments. The others are all in school but appear to come from pretty well-off families. The are a ton of fun and love to have a good time and they always pay for me when we go out and I can't do anything to stop them! Its a Chinese custom to be generous to people you first meet.

Have to go finish reviewing for tomorrow and go buy some dish soap to clean my pan from cooking. Bye.

Apartment

First Day of Classes

Tomorrow is my first day of classes. My schedule looks like this, Monday through Friday 8 AM-11:30 AM, with classes in listening, speaking and reading and writing rotating throughout the week. It is essentially equivalent to a full class schedule of a US college student, and all in Chinese.

Also an update on my bathroom situation, it wasn't that I couldn't flush toilet paper but that there was a back-up in the line (not sure why they would tell me that I couldn't flush toilet paper but alas they are Chinese). Also I am not sure if this whole situation is because it is a new building and not all the kinks are worked out or what, but all is good on the flushing front!

I also bought a hot plate today, so now I can officially cook in my apartment. In case I didn't mention it before, my apartment doesn't have gas, so all cooking has to be done with an electric hot plate, and when I was signing the lease with the landlord I didn't realize I needed that, so I didn't have it put into my contract, thus I had to buy it on my own.

Have class early tomorrow, so I will put my photo account information tomorrow and everyone can get a closer look at my apartment. I will also have all the details about my first day of classes.