Life out of the “er hua” – 可以
Last week was China’s National holiday so we were off from classes for the entire week. Thanks to some miracles of getting train tickets, we were able to travel to Shanghai and Nanjing for the week and broaden our horizons. I say, “Life out of the er hua, " because the “er hua” is the Beijing accent. Basically in Beijing, everyone adds an “er” sound to the ends of many words. So, one of the coolest things about traveling last week, was how much I was able talk to people. Besides how neat it was to see so many cool sites, I felt like I was able expand my language speaking ability and had so many opportunities to practice.
We began our travels on Monday night, by taking a night train from Beijing to Shanghai. 12 hours. It was just like taking a train to Hogwarts. We didn’t sleep much, but no problem, because the whole week we didn’t sleep much. We arrived in Shanghai Tuesday morning, eager to begin our adventures. Shanghai is near the coast and is the most populated city in China! I’ve never been to New York, but from what I have heard, it’s like New York City on steroids. There are very modern looking, super tall buildings everywhere, with a few splashes of colonial and European architecture. Basically, you don’t really feel like your in China, but you kind of still do because there are Chinese characters everywhere, the street vendors are out, and your walking past Asians speaking Chinese. Although a good amount of the people you talk to there know at least a little English, they are very kind and willing to practice Chinese with you. I feel like in Beijing, being in a very crowded city, sometimes people are more closed off, and you have to initiate conversations and keep them going. In Shanghai, I felt like it was easier to carry on a conversation with people and they seemed to have more of an American mentality, they even dressed more like westerners.
It was kind of nice, in Shanghai, we didn’t have to pay for a hostel. We stayed at a family who are members of the branch. They graciously welcomed us, as well as their two adorable energetic boys! The mom even cooked delicious American food for us while we were there. There were many adventures that happened every day but I will just tell a few.
Tuesday, we saw lots of cool buildings and walked like 5 miles, as we did every day. We came across a fountain on People’s Square, like the one at the Gateway that little kids run through, except for their were no little kids running through it. I jokingly said to Adam, “Hey I dare you to run through it.” He in turn dared me. I don’t know what happened, but five minutes later we were saying, “One, two, three,” and we raced through fountain as fast as we could. About halfway through, there was a whistle blown at us, but there was no turning back, so we finished running through. The next thing you know, 200 Chinese people are starring at and applauding these two soaking wet Americans that are laughing their heads off! The rest of the afternoon I was wet, but it was great.
Wednesday, we set off to see more tall buildings, including an old colonial style, 10 star hotel, with an original elevator from the 1920’s with an old school gate. In our endeavors to find a ferry to take us across a river to see “The Bund” (A area of tall buildings, that wasn’t even there 10 years ago), we managed to get lost, and ended up walking around for a couple hours. While we were walking, we had a contest to see who could say “Guo qing jie kuai le” to the most people. (Wishing people a happy holiday for that week) In order for it to count, the person had to respond. There was one guy who responded to me saying it, and it sparked a conversation. He asked me how long I was going to be in China for. When I told him a total of four months. He like got super excited and pointed to some words on his fan that he was holding, and started saying something to me in Chinese that I didn’t understand. He then, gave me his fan, and parted with the smile. Haha, it was all kind of random, but really nice of him.
We soon, were able to find the ferry that went across the river to “The Bund.” There, we saw the third tallest building in the world, as well as the construction where they were working on what will be the tallest building in the world when they are through. We didn’t go to the top of the tallest building, because it was “Tai gui le.” (too expensive) So we went inside the building that was right next to the tallest building (85 floors) (it’s in the top ten tallest in the world) It was tai gui le to go to the top of that one too. So we decided to go on a little adventure and see if there was another way to go in another part of that building. Of course, there was. We ended up going into the hotel part of the building, took an elevator up to the 50th floor and then another elevator and got all the way up to the 83rd floor. We could see the people that were looking out from the 85th floor. It was pretty sweet.
Thursday morning, we went to a park where we rented 4 person motor boats and rode around on a cute little lake. They don’t go very fast, so the most exciting part about this was ramming into other people’s boats, especially boats with little kids and older folks. Everyone got a huge kick out of it, except for one lady who looked at us like we were crazy and gave us the glare to leave their boat alone. But besides that everyone else in turn came right back to ram into the two boats with the hysterical Americans. It was quite fun.
After that experience, we rushed to the Railway station where we were going to take a three hour train to Nanjing. I have never ran so fast through a train station in my entire life, then again, I’ve never had to run through a train station. We ended up barely making our train, like I’m talking like a few minutes, and soon we arrived in the old capital of China. Nanjing.
Nanjing has more old school Chinese architecture, and has a completely opposite feel from Shanghai. The hostel that we stayed at in Nanjing was, well, exciting. And great for under 10 bucks a night! Our beds were basically like a piece of plywood. The funniest part about this was on the door of our rooms was list of prices if you happen to break something in the room. The bed was listed for like 125 American dollars! It costs a 125 dollars to replace a piece of plywood? In China? Haha!
Now, I can’t say that I have eaten dog yet in China, but I can say that we ate wolf at a restaurant on Thursday night. It was kind of gross. After we left the restaurant, five cute high school girls ran up to me. They had never met American’s before so they were really excited. They asked for our picture with us, and I gave them English names. We parted and 20 minutes later, they came and found me again, and handed me balloons. It was so sweet of them.
Oh so while I am thinking about it. Speaking of seeing people, we randomly ran into a family from the Beijing branch in Shanghai, and then saw them again in Nanjing! What the? I know right? Two completely different places in China, seeing someone you know. They were traveling for the holiday as well. Then, one day in Nanjing, we were walking down the street, and all of the sudden there is a group of 7 American’s, one of the girls called out and pointed to the BYU Idaho shirt Adam was wearing, “BYU-Idaho! No way!” They ended up being LDS, and are teaching English through ILP right now in a city right by Shanghai. Anyway, small world.
Friday we went to Zhongshan (He was the father of modern China) park, where we took a lot of jumping pictures. There were a lot of tourists from western China, Jiansu province, and a lot of those people have never seen an Americans before, so every two minutes someone would ask if they could take a picture with us. Kayli even had people handing her their babies so they could snap a picture of her holding their child.
We went to an awesome Confucius temple that day. It’s amazing what you can do for just being American, like we gave a worker an English name, and she in turn let us hit a giant drum that usually costs two kuai to hit. Then Adam and Josh paid a worker an American dollar to play these instruments that normally people aren’t allowed to just play. We walked around a lot that day, so we ended the day with finding a massage place and getting an hour and fifteen minute massage for 9 bucks. Not bad.
Saturday, we went to the Nanjing massacre museum. Back in the later 1930’s, the Japanese invaded China. They broke through the city wall of Nanjing and killed 200,000 to 300,000 innocent people in just two weeks. It kind of made me sick and was really sad to see, but also was really eye opening.
That day we also rode a golf cart on the old city wall. That was exciting. There were so many opportunities to practice Chinese, and by the end of the week, I felt so much more confident with talking to people. But I still had some funny moments with language mess ups. Here is part of conversation with a girl working at a convenience store. We will call the lady, Suzy.
Me: So how long have you worked here for?
Suzy: Just over a year.
Me: Wow, that’s really far.
Then, like 5 minutes later. I’m talking to another lady selling meat on a stick. And ya know, we are talking about the usual: Do you live around here? Where’s your hometown? etc. Then I ask her about the meat she is selling. We will call the lady, Tamika.
Me: So, have you tried all this meat?
Tamika: Yes, of course.
Me: Which one is your favorite?
Tamika: This one, do you want to buy one?
Me: Hmm. Not bad.
And I asked another question.
So sometimes, I don’t catch everything they say, but I try and am getting better. It’s especially hard when they talk fast. I sometimes end up saying, “Ni ke yi shuo man yi dian ma?” (Can you say that all a little slower?)
Saturday night was exciting. We took an overnight train back to Beijing and we had hard seats. The best part was that they packed three times the amount of people on the train that there were seats for, so it was pretty crowded, with people sitting in the isles and stuff. Sometimes, they sat on the edge of your seat. Basically we ended up pulling an all nighter, and just talked to the people around us. Our 4 AM Chinese conversations were the best.
*Video coming soon*
We made it back Sunday morning to a sea of people in Beijing all trying to get home after traveling over the busy holiday. It took us like an hour, waiting to just get on the subway. It was a lovely week, but I am happy to be home now. Monday morning, Kayli and I both slept an hour past our alarm and woke up 10 minutes before class. We were just slightly tired.
上个星期很好玩儿!
0 comments:
Post a Comment