Schools in China
In the morning we visited the kindergarten school for kids that were two year old up to seven, it was certainly something the chinese should be proud of. The kids started learning English at two years old, and keep on studying. They played games while resiting English poems and raced and talked in English. This was all at a montessory school, where pictures of maria Montessori hung from every where in the room. It utr an amazing site, and we had just read an article in the Chinese news paper talking about and eleven year old girl who worked in a fire cracker factory just to get enough money to go to school.
Hana
From the reversed headshot to a Chinese interview
As some of you might know, during Christmas I went to Texas and shortly after the attack where a tiger was involved at the zoo, shortly after that incident we were visiting the zoo with my cousint. We were put on tv, a perfect shot of the back of our heads, and now later the legend continues, of course when the Chinese saw us they murmured three words, reversed headshot, Texas before a throng of brown eyes and dark haired people surrounded us, our parents were pushed backwards, and a lady stepped forward she spoke in quick Chinese and in seconds it was translated they wanted to take a video of us for the news on Saturday, of course we could not say no so we were pushed forward and I had my first ever interview in Chinese on tv, and it would be broadcasted to 1.5 billion people. My interview was thus, Hi, my name is hana, I am ten years old, I go to fifth grade. I like watching the Chinese new year celebrations. This is my little sister Julia, she is seven and is in 2nd grade. Then Julia spoke in English a bit, for about to words and afterward everyone pinched her cheeks, since I was older, everyone pinched Julia’s cheeks yet I was the one that got the camera time!
Hana
The day
After the morning looking at schools and eating fresh yo tiao, we came back and my mom took a nap as we ate and read, then we were ready for lunch. We were to meet a Chinese administrator who spoke English, rainbow, and we went off to her favorite restaurant, there were three courses in all, blended in to one. There was porridge first, then you could go and look at the dishes there were and buy them and get the dessert all the prices marked and then you can take it back with you. After that experience there were muddy alleys and shop vendors scrambling to try and sell us things, it ended rather abruptly as Julia started to fall asleep while she was walking and we got a cab home. Before having to struggle not to sleep.
Hana
Sorry I wrote this badly, I was really tired when I wrote this and I just wanted to go to sleep!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
A Day Containing surgery
Our day started out fairly normally. WE woke up, me and by day were ushered out the door to get some money, then we were wheeled off to our physical test, whoile my mom and dad took about six different tests before we finally were allowed to leave, by then we had wasted our whole morning. We quickly came back to our apartment and met with some of the professors, before quickly going out to search for a restaurant with pictures and good prices. We found a crowded place that had a few pictures with we pointed and grunted at, and they got the message, we were the stupid americans who could not even speak chinese. Let alone read it! Then we ate food, one of which was too spicy, another that was too salty, and a nother that was perfect. WE left and went home to have a short coffe break, our coffee break lasted two hours. Then we went to the park. It was partly like a fair as well with super UNsafe ride, such as a few roller coasters that plunged strait down. Of course we were followed by whispers in chinese of, She is so cute to JUlia, just like a doll! And to me, so beautiful! Then of course they asked us to buy something from them. IN te end we were not allowed on the budgy jumping because we would not have any control at all, or that was what my mom said. So instead we went on a bouncy ride and a log ride and a boring pedaling ride. It was pretty fun, butnext comes the interest part, the operation and fifth-day-of-chinese-new-year-celebrations. Which meant a haze of fireworks being thown under you feet, and a haze of smoke that surronded everything. Oh and I forgot we had a fabulous dinner that was better then lunch and three times as cheap. But back to the chinese new year celebrations. It was more exciting then the fourth of July celebrations because these were constant, during the chinese new year[ which lasted for a month, no one was going to give you time to think!] My parents thought they worked with the death cats, the cats that meowed the whole night in an annoying fashion, they took shifts, there were three of them, but either way the chinese firecrackers arenot pleasant to look at, instead of letting out a beautiful display of colors they are just loud and every person in Xian seemed to set off three of them, the celebrations last the night, each person takes there turn to set off fireworks. The other inportant thing was the surgery, julia had stables in here head and now it was time to take them out and we had to do it ourselves. We already at two out, done in a haze of shouting and screaming, but i was not allowed to watch, now this time i wqas allowed to watch, only for the blog food, so that i would type it all out. This was harder to do, it took about at least thirty minutes, Julia screaming each time someone moved and my parents turning away, and me watching open mouthed for a while until i decided that looking at fire crackedrs go off was a little more interesting. Father made each cut slowly and meticulously slowing torturing Julai, even though it was not on purpose, either way it ended in a fit of screams and crying and tears and a bowl of burnt popcorn seasoned with salt we had stolen from mcdonalds. ANd now at eight o clock i am still hoping that they will stop the fireworks, so someone can get some rest.
Hana
Hana
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Coping thoughts
While it is easy for us to post a blog, it is not always easy to view/read it. Already, I have developed a coping attitude about life here: be patient (it will happen, the line will be get shorter), it doesn't matter that much (like assuming that by 8:30 tomorrow morning we'll have 4 passport photos, about $200 in cash and an array of other documents for our "physical examination" for residency) or it will just work out (by god, everything is here and everyone else manages, getting 4 passport photos is not so difficult).
And this is just the attitidue one needs with interacting with the internet. The Atlantic Monthly had a great article by James Fallows, something like the Great Firewall that did a good job explaining the censor process in China. As an American, I guess I had not given that much thought to censoring. Despite my 2 year stint in Poland, I had forgotten how sophisticated censoring could be. In China, there are a few ways the governments makes sure you are not reading sensitive information and the bottom line, is that you can always find a way around the system systems/channels...but it takes a while and you get frustrated or punished..and then you are less likel to risk reading that report, articles, or going to that website. So, when we try to pull up our blog, we are likely to get "a cannot reach this link/website" message and then we have to go back, forward or reload to get it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
We went downtown, which has a lot less meaning here, given that everything is everywhere, and instead of watching the Chinese dancers celebrate the last day of the New Year celebration, the audience turned to our girls and rapidly a crowd formed. The two Westerners, who they initially thought were Russian, became the center of attention. They were asked about China, Xi'an, the New Year's celebration, food. The girls were naturally shy and Julia, surprisingly more so than Hana probably because they see Julia as a real live doll and most have no problem touching her excessively, pinching her cheecks, they just can't get over how cute this doll is...or that's what they say. At one point, as Hana was doing her interview in Chinese, an elderly woman picked Julia up for the crowd to see and adore. Jeff and I were pushed aside; as parents of the dolls, we were significantly less important. All I could think is that the dancers, elderly woman with ribbons, had lost their crowd and boy, I bet they were sad. Yet, as I looked at them, they too were focused on the blonde girls, hoping for a peek.
The girls did ok, but left the scene as quickly as they could get away, with one elderly woman following hoping she could take Julia into the crowd so everyone could pinch and squeeze her. We rushed off, hoping that they would not follow for long.
And this is just the attitidue one needs with interacting with the internet. The Atlantic Monthly had a great article by James Fallows, something like the Great Firewall that did a good job explaining the censor process in China. As an American, I guess I had not given that much thought to censoring. Despite my 2 year stint in Poland, I had forgotten how sophisticated censoring could be. In China, there are a few ways the governments makes sure you are not reading sensitive information and the bottom line, is that you can always find a way around the system systems/channels...but it takes a while and you get frustrated or punished..and then you are less likel to risk reading that report, articles, or going to that website. So, when we try to pull up our blog, we are likely to get "a cannot reach this link/website" message and then we have to go back, forward or reload to get it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
We went downtown, which has a lot less meaning here, given that everything is everywhere, and instead of watching the Chinese dancers celebrate the last day of the New Year celebration, the audience turned to our girls and rapidly a crowd formed. The two Westerners, who they initially thought were Russian, became the center of attention. They were asked about China, Xi'an, the New Year's celebration, food. The girls were naturally shy and Julia, surprisingly more so than Hana probably because they see Julia as a real live doll and most have no problem touching her excessively, pinching her cheecks, they just can't get over how cute this doll is...or that's what they say. At one point, as Hana was doing her interview in Chinese, an elderly woman picked Julia up for the crowd to see and adore. Jeff and I were pushed aside; as parents of the dolls, we were significantly less important. All I could think is that the dancers, elderly woman with ribbons, had lost their crowd and boy, I bet they were sad. Yet, as I looked at them, they too were focused on the blonde girls, hoping for a peek.
The girls did ok, but left the scene as quickly as they could get away, with one elderly woman following hoping she could take Julia into the crowd so everyone could pinch and squeeze her. We rushed off, hoping that they would not follow for long.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
A Long Ride, A new Idea, My first Day
A Long ride
After being stuck in CHicago for an extra day we were not in a good mood! And our modd did not increase as the day went on, while my mom took a nap we [me and my sister] stayed up watching what coujld be the last chinese we would see in english for a long time. WE forgot to take a nap and that put us in a bad mood. Later we visited friends and our journey was cut short because of us, we traveled back to our hotel and by the time we reached there it was already ten O'clock, we slept, waking at five hurried to the airport, where we stood in line for thirty seconds to change oour tickets from Beijing to Xian. THen we waited as our tickets were corrected for over two hours. Now we were hurrying we would have to skip breakfast so we could catch this flight, we had to make it this time! We reached our gate and were greeted by a stream of stares, already we were being stared at TOO much or not for julia! But toooooooooooooo much for me. While we stood in line my mom hruried to use the 70 dollars we had because the other flight had been canceled. Then we were ushered on to the plane, everyone acted as if we were in a big rush but as soon aws we got on they another we had a monor leak and we would be off the plane within moments. We waited three hours , they kept on telling us it was almost over then there would be aother leak and we were still stuck in Chicago, but finally we kicked off and headed for Beijing! I will not go inot much detail of the occurances in Beijing but i will tell you this, the two hours waiting to make sure we had secured a place on the flight to Xian was to of no avail, we did nt have a ticket and we had already missed our flight other flight. But this was a communist government and so we did not have to wait as long. Only an hour, before we were sent to someone else a nd in seconds we had the ticket, we were almost there! We reached XIan safely!
Hana
A New Idea
My new idea came to me the night we reached Xian and met up with my dad. I was writing down the problems that had occured with our travels and that was when i decided, I would not be writing a boring journey entry, instead i would make this into one big story! SO I am just telling you that to warn you and tell you that you do not have read all of the journal entries pasted here.
Hana
My First Day
My first day started out with me waking up at 3:00 in the morning. We were all up, we were all jet lagged, but we were also tired. I walked into our living room, where already my family was up, and we read my parents slept so more and typed and so on until it was light enough out to go for a ride to [wall mart that was fathomed to be right across the street from our apartment. As it turned out it was more than a few miles away, however we were tired at all there was too much to see to be tired. By the time we reached wall mart we were ready for an adventure,walking through pavement lined with garbage was not enough of an adventure for us! An adventure was certainly what we got! This wall mart had everything there was in any other wall mart, but it was chinese oriented and almost everything was also three time as cheap! I got sandles for a mere forty cents. ANd a fabulous chinese book for ten. ALthough there was a slight misunderstanding at the candy store where we thought it was two dollars for every candy, other then that we were amazed by the small prices! As it turned out it was two dollars for every five hundred grams, there were thirty grams per candy bar, you could get a lot of candy for two dollars. After we had completely explored the first floor we continued onward to the second floor where it was like, well the farmers market yet inside. Except of course the food was so much more UNIQUE. There were meat dumpling that had any meat you could imagine storedinside them, encluded their infamous recipe for dog. They also the fine slices of chicken toes and the feet [the bone, the actual toes] of the chicken. But they did have god pastries there were dishes that had hardened sesame seeds on the outside and were filled on the inside with rice and beans, there was miracoulous dumplings, only the vegtable and tofu that you could get three for a dollar. There was fruit, peeled and ready for you take with you and really speaking now to how familiar this is to the farmers market they even had the man or the family who sold Ostrich. THe egg, the fur and the meat, my mom was amazed find as she looked up, unsuspectingly and looked strait at the stuffed ostrich. We quickly fled. After that we continued back to our apartment with three hundred dollars worth of stuff that we had got for one dollars. After that we slept before continueing on to our next adventure, going top the park. I will ot go into detail but later when I am more wide awake I wil ltell you of the Animal Abuse center, and the go cart racing however now i will tell you that there was beautiful scenery! That there was a polluted lake that you could ride sail boats down, and that there was a swimming pool that had a ball that you could go inside of and walk on the top of the water, there was something of a forest, which we renamed the death valley, and there were rides that we did not go on now. After that we had a humble eatin g of three dishes none of which we were able to finish because they were all so big, and then tipped the waitress fifty cents, which did not accept it was just tooooooo much money, we got our fifty cents back, noone would take it. We then were stuffed and tired and wanted a short cut back to our apartment, instead we got the third adventure of the day. WE were down a dusty alley filled with garbage, you could hardly walk without hearing your shoes tunnel into the mud and trash, then we came across and open market, smells wafted in front of us, not that they were good smells, they were the smells of cooked meat, meat that we did not want to know whatnkind it was. There were people cuting pieces of meat over an open fire people walking by flames curling on there hair. We avoided that route. Instead we came apon more people selling things, varying from a man making home cooked bread to a person selling jelly beans to a woman selling a puppy. We hurried through we had had to much stimulation for the night, but we still got i n a laugh as we approached a man whos hair blendedninto his beard, he looked like the orangatang that had escaped from the zoo! Either was make an assumption that at seven thirty everyone quickly wen t to bed except for me relaying this important information.
Hana
A Long ride
After being stuck in CHicago for an extra day we were not in a good mood! And our modd did not increase as the day went on, while my mom took a nap we [me and my sister] stayed up watching what coujld be the last chinese we would see in english for a long time. WE forgot to take a nap and that put us in a bad mood. Later we visited friends and our journey was cut short because of us, we traveled back to our hotel and by the time we reached there it was already ten O'clock, we slept, waking at five hurried to the airport, where we stood in line for thirty seconds to change oour tickets from Beijing to Xian. THen we waited as our tickets were corrected for over two hours. Now we were hurrying we would have to skip breakfast so we could catch this flight, we had to make it this time! We reached our gate and were greeted by a stream of stares, already we were being stared at TOO much or not for julia! But toooooooooooooo much for me. While we stood in line my mom hruried to use the 70 dollars we had because the other flight had been canceled. Then we were ushered on to the plane, everyone acted as if we were in a big rush but as soon aws we got on they another we had a monor leak and we would be off the plane within moments. We waited three hours , they kept on telling us it was almost over then there would be aother leak and we were still stuck in Chicago, but finally we kicked off and headed for Beijing! I will not go inot much detail of the occurances in Beijing but i will tell you this, the two hours waiting to make sure we had secured a place on the flight to Xian was to of no avail, we did nt have a ticket and we had already missed our flight other flight. But this was a communist government and so we did not have to wait as long. Only an hour, before we were sent to someone else a nd in seconds we had the ticket, we were almost there! We reached XIan safely!
Hana
A New Idea
My new idea came to me the night we reached Xian and met up with my dad. I was writing down the problems that had occured with our travels and that was when i decided, I would not be writing a boring journey entry, instead i would make this into one big story! SO I am just telling you that to warn you and tell you that you do not have read all of the journal entries pasted here.
Hana
My First Day
My first day started out with me waking up at 3:00 in the morning. We were all up, we were all jet lagged, but we were also tired. I walked into our living room, where already my family was up, and we read my parents slept so more and typed and so on until it was light enough out to go for a ride to [wall mart that was fathomed to be right across the street from our apartment. As it turned out it was more than a few miles away, however we were tired at all there was too much to see to be tired. By the time we reached wall mart we were ready for an adventure,walking through pavement lined with garbage was not enough of an adventure for us! An adventure was certainly what we got! This wall mart had everything there was in any other wall mart, but it was chinese oriented and almost everything was also three time as cheap! I got sandles for a mere forty cents. ANd a fabulous chinese book for ten. ALthough there was a slight misunderstanding at the candy store where we thought it was two dollars for every candy, other then that we were amazed by the small prices! As it turned out it was two dollars for every five hundred grams, there were thirty grams per candy bar, you could get a lot of candy for two dollars. After we had completely explored the first floor we continued onward to the second floor where it was like, well the farmers market yet inside. Except of course the food was so much more UNIQUE. There were meat dumpling that had any meat you could imagine storedinside them, encluded their infamous recipe for dog. They also the fine slices of chicken toes and the feet [the bone, the actual toes] of the chicken. But they did have god pastries there were dishes that had hardened sesame seeds on the outside and were filled on the inside with rice and beans, there was miracoulous dumplings, only the vegtable and tofu that you could get three for a dollar. There was fruit, peeled and ready for you take with you and really speaking now to how familiar this is to the farmers market they even had the man or the family who sold Ostrich. THe egg, the fur and the meat, my mom was amazed find as she looked up, unsuspectingly and looked strait at the stuffed ostrich. We quickly fled. After that we continued back to our apartment with three hundred dollars worth of stuff that we had got for one dollars. After that we slept before continueing on to our next adventure, going top the park. I will ot go into detail but later when I am more wide awake I wil ltell you of the Animal Abuse center, and the go cart racing however now i will tell you that there was beautiful scenery! That there was a polluted lake that you could ride sail boats down, and that there was a swimming pool that had a ball that you could go inside of and walk on the top of the water, there was something of a forest, which we renamed the death valley, and there were rides that we did not go on now. After that we had a humble eatin g of three dishes none of which we were able to finish because they were all so big, and then tipped the waitress fifty cents, which did not accept it was just tooooooo much money, we got our fifty cents back, noone would take it. We then were stuffed and tired and wanted a short cut back to our apartment, instead we got the third adventure of the day. WE were down a dusty alley filled with garbage, you could hardly walk without hearing your shoes tunnel into the mud and trash, then we came across and open market, smells wafted in front of us, not that they were good smells, they were the smells of cooked meat, meat that we did not want to know whatnkind it was. There were people cuting pieces of meat over an open fire people walking by flames curling on there hair. We avoided that route. Instead we came apon more people selling things, varying from a man making home cooked bread to a person selling jelly beans to a woman selling a puppy. We hurried through we had had to much stimulation for the night, but we still got i n a laugh as we approached a man whos hair blendedninto his beard, he looked like the orangatang that had escaped from the zoo! Either was make an assumption that at seven thirty everyone quickly wen t to bed except for me relaying this important information.
Hana
Day One in China--Julia
Today in the morning we went to Wallmart .We stayed there for the whole morning .Then we came home and took a nap [I took a 3 hour nap]. After the nap, we went to the enormous park across the street. It had sail boats that you could ride around a polluted river. It had swimming pools where there were bubbled that you could run in across the top of the water. After that we tried to travel quickly to the apartment, but we got a little stuck, we got stuck in a mud pile otherwise known as a dirty road. IT was an open market people selling things from jelly beans to meat o n sticks, to puppies. After that we continued on home quickly!
Monday, February 18, 2008
What do you do your first day in China?
Go to Walmarts...of course! Yes, even though we avoid Walmarts like the plagued in the U.S., it was pretty fantastic here. So familiar, yet so very different. I mean, do they have stalls in Walmart selling chicken feet? Endless rows of sausage hanging from the ceiling, a whole isle devoted to oil? It was a shopper's paradise and today, I even enjoyed Walmart. After a few hours and about 100 dollars later, we were in a taxi on our way back to the university guesthouse.
It is a big apartment; I suspect by Chinese standards a mansion...or just plain unfair. Two big bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and dining room. Most would not care for our view -- of other apartments and laundry but for me and Jeff it reminds us of our days in communist Poland. The girls love that we are around the corner from a dozen or so noodle shops, across the street from the university and down the street from a huge park..complete with rides!
All in all, we can't complain..it did take us about 2 days to get here but we are here...w/out a doubt
It is a big apartment; I suspect by Chinese standards a mansion...or just plain unfair. Two big bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, and dining room. Most would not care for our view -- of other apartments and laundry but for me and Jeff it reminds us of our days in communist Poland. The girls love that we are around the corner from a dozen or so noodle shops, across the street from the university and down the street from a huge park..complete with rides!
All in all, we can't complain..it did take us about 2 days to get here but we are here...w/out a doubt
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