"So, I live in China"

So, basically, I’m just happy to be here. Living in a foreign country can be hard. Sometimes China frustrates me. But I feel like lately I have been enjoying China so much more and missing America a lot less. I haven’t been to good about updating my blog about zhong guo (china) so far, so I thought I would just make a list of cool things that have happened this week.

· Classes are good and are just at the right level. Except for my kou yu (speaking) class, I feel like I am going to fall asleep sometimes, so I just practice writing characters during class. My teacher is hilarious though. He always wears yellow shirts, talks really slowly, and makes us repeat everything 40 times. He will pause after he says something, and turn his head and smile, and lets us soak in what he said, as if what he had just told us is huge words of wisdom. It probably is. All my classes are all in Chinese, except for his class. He speaks English like a fourth of the time, which I don’t really know why, because there are only 4 Americans in the class, the rest are Italian and Korean, and don’t speak much English. I wonder what it must be like for them trying to learn two languages at once…

· We went to the Beijing Ballet on Friday, because we got tickets from the branch. It was amazing.

· I went to McDonald's and got a mcflurry and chicken nuggets. I don’t even like McDonald's in America. McDonald's in china = heaven. They’re just taking over the world or something like that.

· I went running at a really neat park the other day. Some Chinese guy let me play his er hu (a small string instrument, kind of like a violin/cello). He plays in the park every Saturday. I asked him if I bought a er hu, if he would be my teacher. He said yes. Still looking for a an er hu.

· I held a giant frog. A guy was selling them on the side of the street.

· I found banana bread and something kind of like nutella. Happiness.

· I still enjoy practicing my Chinese on the subway and on buses. One lady told me, “You have a great Beijing accent.” Another person the other day said, “When you go back to America, you should teach them Chinese.” And here’s the best one yet, yesterday I tried to start up a conversation with a guy, and I didn’t understand what he said back to me. I turned to my friend Tina and said, “Do you know what he just said?” She said, “Yeah, he said,“You shouldn’t be talking to me in Chinese, because you have no idea what I am saying back.” Yep, I guess he was slightly right about that one.

· Practicing Chinese with the natives is great. It’s how you get better. I have plenty of embarrassing stories about this, but that’s an entirely different blog for another day.

· I bought a bike yesterday! This story begins on subway. Josh, Tina and I embarked on our hunt to find bikes. While on the subway, Josh told an older lady that her hair looked beautiful. From that point on we became best friends with this lady. Her name is Mei. We laughed, took pictures, exchanged emails with her, and she even accompanied us to the bike shop. The man who we bartered with at the bike shop called her our Zhong guo mama - 中国妈妈 (Chinese mama). We all laughed and she agreed to the title. He said I smiled a lot, so he gave me a good price on my bike. Smiling always has benefits. It was 300 kuai (46 bucks) for the bike, lock and the awesome bell on the handlebars. This isn’t just any old bike, it’s a fold up bike because I am going to take it with me back to America. So, Josh and I ended up buying bikes that day. Tina is still looking. Our zhong guo mama was all worried about us being able to get home. We didn’t understand everything she was telling us, but we assured her we would get home safely. And then we parted ways. So our plan was to just go back the way we came, on the subway, because we had our “fold up” bikes. Well, I guess even when they are folded up, they don’t let you take bikes on the subway! That’s when we realized, that’s what our zhong guo mama was trying to tell us the entire time. So, we sent Tina on the subway by herself (even though we were a little worried about doing so), and Josh and I started riding home on our bikes. Even after asking many people if they knew which direction “shou du shi fan da xue” was (our university), after a while of riding through the streets of Beijing, we realized that we really didn’t know how to get home from the far east side of Beijing. (We live on the west side of Beijing) So, we took a taxi. We made it home… and a couple hours later…Tina made it home. She only got lost a little. What an adventure! I have a red, Chinese, fold up bike, with small tires and an awesome bell.

我现在应该去做我的功课.

The Beijing Ballet

Buses.