Wow, I didn't realize that it had been so long since I posted! Lots of things have happened in this past month. We began language classes about 3 1/2 weeks ago. Because our level of Chinese was so low (um..like level zero) they don't have a class that is low enough for us, so Allison and I are learning from 2 tutors. We still meet in the classroom at the school, but it's just us. We study Chinese for 3 hours a day, 3 days a week, and 2 hours on Friday. I know it doesn't sound like much, but 3 straight hours of Chinese will really hurt a person's brain. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing really horrible with language, but then I'll understand something when I'm out in the city during the day and I get so excited. Like last night when we were in a taxi going home from class and the taxi driver rattled off a nice little sentence in Chinese, and at first I didn't catch it. But he repeated it and I heard "liu xue sheng",( "foreign students") and I got really excited that I knew he was asking! Granted, I didn't understand anything else during the ride home, but it's still really fun to understand something that's being said to you.
I was trying to think of a way to describe what life is like here. I think the best way is to describe situations that have become daily life. For example, I'm standing on the sidewalk waiting for the bus to come and to my left are several people having a conversation which I can't understand, in front of me is a row of stores whose names are in characters which I can't read, and all of a sudden I hear "..and I was like, baby, baby, baby, ohh!". Yep, the Bieb was blaring from the speakers in a store behind me. It's those random things that make me so happy. =) Today I was standing outside the north gate of our school waiting on a friend at around noon. And I am here to report that that particular place, at that particular time, is no place for a lone foreigner. Hundreds of students came pouring out of that gate and I think it's safe to say that about 95% of them spent at least some part of their walk with their heads turned looking back at me. Thankfully they were nearly all smiling, some even said hello, but mostly its stare, smile, giggle. One poor girl lost herself when she saw me and accidentally shouted "mei guo!" and then put her hand over her mouth. My friend ended up being late so I stood there awkardly trying to look friendly and unfazed by the staring.
Something that strikes me as so different here is that it is totally normal to see children riding the bus by themselves. Now maybe it's because I'm from a small town and have semi-overprotective parents (sorry m & d, y'all know it's true), but I can't believe that parents don't worry about their kids riding the public bus alone. It is just their way of life. One of my favorite differences here is how convenient it is to buy delicious, fresh fruit. Our favorite fruit guy sells right outside our apartment gate. The pineapple is divine! On the topic of food, we bought cheese. Real, legit, Land-O-Lake's cheese. I am a happy girl. Oh how I've missed it! We went to an open market recently and among the various meats available there was one option which was both highly unusual and slightly disturbing: dog. Piled up on a table were these dogs, skinned, with mouths open. My two friends (also foreigners) couldn't take it so they went ahead, but I couldn't quite pass up the opportunity so I took some pictures. But they are the kind of pictures you look at later and think, "Did I really have to zoom in so much?" Still, its very much a culture thing so I wanted to document it. I'm still debating whether or not I want to try eating dog (in a restaurant that is). Maybe I'll try just a bite.
