Jocelyn Writes:
We are in Beijing and it is our last day before returning home. So much has happened so quickly. These last few weeks have been so sad as the impact of the earthquake becomes fully understood. We have not had a chance to fully process these experiences and our final goodbyes to friends and host families.
Below is Gavi's final blog entry written before our trip to Guilin and the earthquake.
Our internet access has been limited. We are looking forward to seeing you all over the coming weeks and sharing our stories with you first hand.
Gavi Writes:
Only once before has an approaching event made me feel so excited and yet so depressed at the same time.
When I arrived here in China four months ago, I was doing everything I could to try to hold on to pieces of the life I had left behind. I listened to familiar show tunes and American pop songs and looked at pictures of the familiar faces of my friends. These and the knowledge that I would soon return home were what kept me going my first weeks here.
Now, with the end of our trip approaching much too fast I am again resorting back to my music and pictures. However, this time the music is Chinese pop and the pictures are of people here in Xi’an. And, I can no longer resort to the reassurance that I will soon return. Though I believe I will return to Xi’an someday, I cannot be sure that I will see my Xi’an friends again. These people who have taught me so much about China and Chinese culture; who have been so helpful and understanding, so gracious, selfless and loving. My friends at school, who have openly accepted me as one of them and have willingly made the hard and frustrating journey over language and cultural barriers with me. The laoshi's, our amazing Chinese teachers, who have gone above and beyond to make us feel at home. They not only taught us Chinese and Chinese culture but also took us out and about and allowed us to experience it first hand. Leaving behind all of these people I have come to love so very much will be one of the hardest things I have ever done.
However there is one thing helping me to get through this transition that I didn’t have before. I left Brookline with my family and 8 high school students. I will be leaving Xi’an with only family. But my family has nearly tripled in size. Though I no longer have the same reassurance that I will soon be returning to the place I am leaving, I now have 8 of the best older siblings anyone could ever ask for; siblings who are going through the same transition, dealing with the same pain, and experiencing the same excitement as I am. This is immensely comforting and I know it will do so much to help me board that plane back to the US.
Today, I as left the Gao Xin #1 middle school for what could be the last time in my life I looked back at the faces of two friends waving goodbye with tears in their eyes. As I made myself walk away I was reminded of a scene not too long ago that was very similar to this one. It was two different faces, and a different school that I was leaving. But it was the same type of tears and the same overwhelming feelings of love and sadness. As I left Gao Xin, my sadness was pushed aside to make room for the excitement of once again seeing those faces of my friends from Brookline. And though I knew the depression and sorrow would soon push its way back in, for the time being I couldn’t have been happier.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Last Day of School for Ben, Ayden and Gavi
Ben says:
"Even though I didn't always like school, I was sad that I had my last day of school today. The kids gave me presents and they said they would miss me. My mom brought in chocolate cupcakes and a picture of the class for each student."
Ayden Says:
"Today was my last day of school and saying goodbye to all my friends and teachers was so hard. I had my last morning exercises and my last eye exercises. My mom brought in little cupcakes for all my classmates. My classmates appreciated them. All of my classmates were disappointed that I was leaving their school. The class has been so nice and welcoming. Next time I am in school I will be at the Rashi School!
Love, Ayden
"Even though I didn't always like school, I was sad that I had my last day of school today. The kids gave me presents and they said they would miss me. My mom brought in chocolate cupcakes and a picture of the class for each student."
Ayden Says:
"Today was my last day of school and saying goodbye to all my friends and teachers was so hard. I had my last morning exercises and my last eye exercises. My mom brought in little cupcakes for all my classmates. My classmates appreciated them. All of my classmates were disappointed that I was leaving their school. The class has been so nice and welcoming. Next time I am in school I will be at the Rashi School!
Love, Ayden
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Thoughts of Home and Xi'an With the Davoudgoleh's
Jocelyn Writes:
Could it really be that we are less than three weeks away from returning home????
We have all started to remark that this is "probably our last time doing ....." as we live out the last week of our Xi'an life in China. As Ayden will tell you below, we were visited by the Davoudgoleh's this past weekend. After sharing Xi'an with Marilyn (four weeks ago) we felt like Xi'an experts as we traveled back to some of our favorite spots with Sherri, Ira, the kids and Sherri's parents Karen and Stan. It was fun to visit the Terracotta Warriors one last time. All of us never seem to tire of visiting them and thanks to the support of Madame Jiao at the Gaoxin School we have purchased a 3/4 size kneeling archer that will be joining us permanently at 66 Lawton street!
We leave for Guilin on Friday. Our adventure in Southern China begins (and ends!) with a 28 hour train ride in a soft sleeper car. Wish us luck!! We return to Xi'an on May 18th and have two days to pack, party and pack some more and then we fly to Beijing for 4 and a half days of sightseeing. On May 25th we board our Continental flight to Newark and are hoping to arrive in Boston at 10:00 PM for a good nights sleep (hah!) so we can celebrate Ariana Weinstock's Bat Mitzvah on Monday morning at 9:30 AM.
We'll be staying at Carol and Toms till the first of June and then we move back into 66 Lawton street!!
We will try and blog before we leave..... Fondly, Joc
Ayden Writes:
On Thursday and Friday my school did not have class, because it was May holiday. I don’t really know what May holiday celebrates so I can't tell you. Instead of us going to school, Goldie and her family came to visit. A couple weeks before, we went to visit Goldie and her family in Shanghai. Goldie came with her parents, her brother and her grandparents. Goldie’s grandparents don’t live in Shanghai with Goldie; they just came from Boston to visit her family.
My family has been to most of the places in Xi’an. So when we went to those places they weren’t new. Looking at sights when they are new and looking at sights for a second time is different. I have already been to the terracotta warriors two times. The first time everything was new and amazing but the second time I started to notice things that I had missed noticing the first time. For example, some of the terra cotta warriors have no hair; and some terracotta warriors have numbers written on them. I also noticed how different each one was. I think going the second time to a sight is more fun than going the first time.
Goldie, Goldie’s family, my Mom and I all went to a phenomenal show. The show had a lot of dancing and gymnastics involved. From a ten-year-old perspective the show was absolutely phenomenal. From a 40 year olds perspective the show was good. The performers in the show were doing things like Chinese dancing, playing music and acrobatics with yo-yos. One of my favorite things I did with Goldie and her family was going to that show. When Goldie left I was sad because my English speaking friend was gone
--Ayden
Could it really be that we are less than three weeks away from returning home????
We have all started to remark that this is "probably our last time doing ....." as we live out the last week of our Xi'an life in China. As Ayden will tell you below, we were visited by the Davoudgoleh's this past weekend. After sharing Xi'an with Marilyn (four weeks ago) we felt like Xi'an experts as we traveled back to some of our favorite spots with Sherri, Ira, the kids and Sherri's parents Karen and Stan. It was fun to visit the Terracotta Warriors one last time. All of us never seem to tire of visiting them and thanks to the support of Madame Jiao at the Gaoxin School we have purchased a 3/4 size kneeling archer that will be joining us permanently at 66 Lawton street!
We leave for Guilin on Friday. Our adventure in Southern China begins (and ends!) with a 28 hour train ride in a soft sleeper car. Wish us luck!! We return to Xi'an on May 18th and have two days to pack, party and pack some more and then we fly to Beijing for 4 and a half days of sightseeing. On May 25th we board our Continental flight to Newark and are hoping to arrive in Boston at 10:00 PM for a good nights sleep (hah!) so we can celebrate Ariana Weinstock's Bat Mitzvah on Monday morning at 9:30 AM.
We'll be staying at Carol and Toms till the first of June and then we move back into 66 Lawton street!!
We will try and blog before we leave..... Fondly, Joc
Ayden Writes:
On Thursday and Friday my school did not have class, because it was May holiday. I don’t really know what May holiday celebrates so I can't tell you. Instead of us going to school, Goldie and her family came to visit. A couple weeks before, we went to visit Goldie and her family in Shanghai. Goldie came with her parents, her brother and her grandparents. Goldie’s grandparents don’t live in Shanghai with Goldie; they just came from Boston to visit her family.
My family has been to most of the places in Xi’an. So when we went to those places they weren’t new. Looking at sights when they are new and looking at sights for a second time is different. I have already been to the terracotta warriors two times. The first time everything was new and amazing but the second time I started to notice things that I had missed noticing the first time. For example, some of the terra cotta warriors have no hair; and some terracotta warriors have numbers written on them. I also noticed how different each one was. I think going the second time to a sight is more fun than going the first time.
Goldie, Goldie’s family, my Mom and I all went to a phenomenal show. The show had a lot of dancing and gymnastics involved. From a ten-year-old perspective the show was absolutely phenomenal. From a 40 year olds perspective the show was good. The performers in the show were doing things like Chinese dancing, playing music and acrobatics with yo-yos. One of my favorite things I did with Goldie and her family was going to that show. When Goldie left I was sad because my English speaking friend was gone
--Ayden
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Bracelet Making With Caroline
A few days ago, my mom, my brother, Caroline (one of the Brookline high students) and I made toothbrush bracelets. Toothbrush bracelets are bracelets made out of toothbrushes. To make bracelets from toothbrushes, you have to be very talented and strong. Caroline the exchange student had already made toothbrush bracelets and was really good at making them. Caroline was going to teach us how to do it, and she did. It takes a lot of time to make toothbrush bracelets.
How you make toothbrush bracelets is odd. First you take them out of their package (of course!). Then you take pliers and pluck the bristles out. After you are finished taking the bristles out, then you put the toothbrushes in boiling water. The reason why is because the toothbrushes will get softer and easier to bend. Next, to finish up your bracelets, you bend them. That is the hard part. For the bending, you have to be strong. Making toothbrush bracelets is really fun.
For my birthday, Caroline made me toothbrush bracelets. One day I wore them to school and all my friends liked them. So I decided I wanted to give the girls in my class bracelets. Well, because I have 60 people in my class and thirty of them are girls, I couldn’t really make 30 bracelets so I just made 12.
Making toothbrush bracelets is very exciting and fun. I had a great time and I can’t wait to make more.
--Ayden.
PS I am coming home in 21 days (about three weeks)
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Tuesday's Hike to Ciu Shan
Ayden Writes:
Two days ago I went on a hike. The reason why was because the Gaoxin High School where I live was having exams. The principal arranged for us to go with the Sharon High School students (the other High School group in Xi’an). It took us about an hour to get where we were going to start our hike. My mom and my sister didn’t go on the hike because my sister was sick. When we arrived at the mountain, I had to go to the bathroom. The first thing that struck me was the smell, but then I realized that there weren’t any doors in the bathroom. By the time I got out of that bathroom I had promised to myself that I would never use that bathroom again.
The hike was really really tiring because we were going up and because gravity was fighting against us. We had to walk up so many stairs. When we reached the top we ate some lunch. For lunch we had many different things. First, the waitress brought out five dishes, then the waitress stopped bringing out dishes. I asked my dad if this was all we got for lunch, and of course he didn’t know. After a little bit the waitresses brought out about 20 more dishes. After lunch, we headed down the mountain and our hike was finished.
--AYDEN YAEL MALLORY
Two days ago I went on a hike. The reason why was because the Gaoxin High School where I live was having exams. The principal arranged for us to go with the Sharon High School students (the other High School group in Xi’an). It took us about an hour to get where we were going to start our hike. My mom and my sister didn’t go on the hike because my sister was sick. When we arrived at the mountain, I had to go to the bathroom. The first thing that struck me was the smell, but then I realized that there weren’t any doors in the bathroom. By the time I got out of that bathroom I had promised to myself that I would never use that bathroom again.
The hike was really really tiring because we were going up and because gravity was fighting against us. We had to walk up so many stairs. When we reached the top we ate some lunch. For lunch we had many different things. First, the waitress brought out five dishes, then the waitress stopped bringing out dishes. I asked my dad if this was all we got for lunch, and of course he didn’t know. After a little bit the waitresses brought out about 20 more dishes. After lunch, we headed down the mountain and our hike was finished.
--AYDEN YAEL MALLORY
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Back from Shanghai!!
Jocelyn Writes:
Hello all!!
The kids and I have returned from a great visit with our friends the Davoudgoleh Family in Shanghai... Spending time with Goldie, Jacob, Sherri and Ira was fun ...a bit like Club Med as they live on the grounds of the Shanghai Raquet ball and Tennis Club. They welcomed us, toured us around the Bund, Pearl Tower, Shanghai Museum, the water town of Qibao, took us on shopping excursions to the pearl and fabric markets and fed us American food (a welcomed break), took us for kabbalat shabbat services at the Shanghai Chabad House and taught us about how to prepare and host a Persian seder. The kids enjoyed seeing their buddies, swimming, preparing for and celebrating Passover!
Shanghai is quite international and therefore so different from Xi'an. We have a few pictures posted...and Ayden's blog below.
Ayden Writes:
Last week I went to Shanghai to visit Goldie, my friend from Rashi, and her family. My mom, my sister, my brother and me were all going to Shanghai but not my dad. We had to wake up at four o’clock in the morning so that we wouldn’t miss our seven o’clock flight. I was very excited on our way to the airport. When we arrived at the airport, the driver helped us check our bags. Then we thanked our driver and he left. After we checked our bags, we went through the security check. When we had all gone through security, we boarded our plane to Shanghai.
The plane to Shanghai was a very pleasant flight, that is to say that no one got sick. When we arrived in Shanghai, the Davoudgoleh’s were on the way to the airport. When they got to the airport, the Davoudgolehs greeted us with a great welcome, and then we went to the fabric market. The fabric market is a market where you can get clothes designed especially for you. There were three floors in the fabric market; we walked through all of them. By the end of the trip to the fabric market, I bought two skirts and one cashmere jacket. My sister bought a Chinese dress, two shirts and a cashmere jacket. My mom just got a jacket. I decided that going shopping in a big store with many people is very tiring.
Driving home from the fabric market, I was very excited to see Goldie’s house and to have American food. When we arrived at her apartment, we went to the second floor then unlocked the door and… it was beautiful, and everything seemed amazing. It was a warm, cozy house. First, Goldie showed me her room, which was a nice room. Goldie had a bunk bed and a regular bed. I was sleeping on the bottom bunk. For dinner, we had a delicious chicken. It was so good I couldn’t wait until breakfast the next day.
On Friday we went to the Shanghai Museum. The museum was very interesting for my family but the Davoudgoleh’s got alittle tired of the museum. They had already been there a couple of times. We only went to two floors (there were four) because my brother was also getting tired of the museum. My favorite room was the room with the coins. The room with the coins had all different kinds of coins from different places and different time periods in Chinese history. Another one of my favorite places was the calligraphy room. Calligraphy is when people write things in Chinese and draw pictures. My favorite picture was a tree with little flowers on its branches. Goldie’s class had made a little museum from what they saw at the museum (they went on a field trip). Goldie made a gorgeous coin. Even though the museum took a long time to get all the way through I still had a good time.
Friday night we went to the Chabad temple that the Davoudgoleh’s belong to. It took about a half an hour to get to their temple. First they had services. It felt so weird to be singing the songs we sing at Rashi and at HBT (my temple in Boston). After the service, we had a kosher Shabbat meal. First, we had some vegetables. Then the caterers brought out a whole other bunch of food that I didn’t try. Usually my sister doesn’t eat meat unless it is kosher, so she was really happy when the brought out the meat. The temple in Shanghai was not that different then my temple at home because the service was in Hebrew and they sang the same prayers and songs.
This week was Passover and the Davoudgoleh’s had two seders. I was at both of the seders with my family. The first seder was really fun and short because the adults knew that the kids could not sit for a long time. My mom made a Passover Jeopardy gme and we all played. The second night I knew one family because they had come the night before. The dinner at the seder was so good. Usually Passover is not one of my favorite holidays, but this year I had a lot of fun.
On our way back to the airport there was a lot of traffic because a couple of cars got in an accident. Someone was repairing the car in the street. My mom was scared that we were going to miss our flight to Xi’an. And we didn’t…and I am still here to tell the story.
Hello all!!
The kids and I have returned from a great visit with our friends the Davoudgoleh Family in Shanghai... Spending time with Goldie, Jacob, Sherri and Ira was fun ...a bit like Club Med as they live on the grounds of the Shanghai Raquet ball and Tennis Club. They welcomed us, toured us around the Bund, Pearl Tower, Shanghai Museum, the water town of Qibao, took us on shopping excursions to the pearl and fabric markets and fed us American food (a welcomed break), took us for kabbalat shabbat services at the Shanghai Chabad House and taught us about how to prepare and host a Persian seder. The kids enjoyed seeing their buddies, swimming, preparing for and celebrating Passover!
Shanghai is quite international and therefore so different from Xi'an. We have a few pictures posted...and Ayden's blog below.
Ayden Writes:
Last week I went to Shanghai to visit Goldie, my friend from Rashi, and her family. My mom, my sister, my brother and me were all going to Shanghai but not my dad. We had to wake up at four o’clock in the morning so that we wouldn’t miss our seven o’clock flight. I was very excited on our way to the airport. When we arrived at the airport, the driver helped us check our bags. Then we thanked our driver and he left. After we checked our bags, we went through the security check. When we had all gone through security, we boarded our plane to Shanghai.
The plane to Shanghai was a very pleasant flight, that is to say that no one got sick. When we arrived in Shanghai, the Davoudgoleh’s were on the way to the airport. When they got to the airport, the Davoudgolehs greeted us with a great welcome, and then we went to the fabric market. The fabric market is a market where you can get clothes designed especially for you. There were three floors in the fabric market; we walked through all of them. By the end of the trip to the fabric market, I bought two skirts and one cashmere jacket. My sister bought a Chinese dress, two shirts and a cashmere jacket. My mom just got a jacket. I decided that going shopping in a big store with many people is very tiring.
Driving home from the fabric market, I was very excited to see Goldie’s house and to have American food. When we arrived at her apartment, we went to the second floor then unlocked the door and… it was beautiful, and everything seemed amazing. It was a warm, cozy house. First, Goldie showed me her room, which was a nice room. Goldie had a bunk bed and a regular bed. I was sleeping on the bottom bunk. For dinner, we had a delicious chicken. It was so good I couldn’t wait until breakfast the next day.
On Friday we went to the Shanghai Museum. The museum was very interesting for my family but the Davoudgoleh’s got alittle tired of the museum. They had already been there a couple of times. We only went to two floors (there were four) because my brother was also getting tired of the museum. My favorite room was the room with the coins. The room with the coins had all different kinds of coins from different places and different time periods in Chinese history. Another one of my favorite places was the calligraphy room. Calligraphy is when people write things in Chinese and draw pictures. My favorite picture was a tree with little flowers on its branches. Goldie’s class had made a little museum from what they saw at the museum (they went on a field trip). Goldie made a gorgeous coin. Even though the museum took a long time to get all the way through I still had a good time.
Friday night we went to the Chabad temple that the Davoudgoleh’s belong to. It took about a half an hour to get to their temple. First they had services. It felt so weird to be singing the songs we sing at Rashi and at HBT (my temple in Boston). After the service, we had a kosher Shabbat meal. First, we had some vegetables. Then the caterers brought out a whole other bunch of food that I didn’t try. Usually my sister doesn’t eat meat unless it is kosher, so she was really happy when the brought out the meat. The temple in Shanghai was not that different then my temple at home because the service was in Hebrew and they sang the same prayers and songs.
This week was Passover and the Davoudgoleh’s had two seders. I was at both of the seders with my family. The first seder was really fun and short because the adults knew that the kids could not sit for a long time. My mom made a Passover Jeopardy gme and we all played. The second night I knew one family because they had come the night before. The dinner at the seder was so good. Usually Passover is not one of my favorite holidays, but this year I had a lot of fun.
On our way back to the airport there was a lot of traffic because a couple of cars got in an accident. Someone was repairing the car in the street. My mom was scared that we were going to miss our flight to Xi’an. And we didn’t…and I am still here to tell the story.
Monday, April 14, 2008
A Sports Meet at Ayden & Ben's Primary School and a Video too!!!
Jocelyn Writes:
Hello everyone!! Today's blog entry (written last Friday) focuses on the sports activities that took place at Ayden an Ben's primary school last week. In addition to Ayden's written description of the activities, check out the video of Ayden and Ben teaching English at morning exercises below after Ayden's blog entry!
Gavi, Ayden, Ben and I leave to visit our friends --Sherri, Ira, Goldie and Jacob Davoudgoleh-- in Shanghai tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM. Ayden and Goldie were in the same grade at the Rashi School (from Kindergarten until they moved to Shanghai last year). We will be with them for a week or so including both of the Passover seders. We are so excited to see them and celebrate Pesach Persian style in China!!
We think that we will be out of touch with our blog until our return so take care and to all our readers who celebrate Passover--a chag sameach (Happy Holiday!)!!
Ayden Writes:
Last week my brother accompanied me for the skits at morning exercises. The skit was about a sports meet. For Ben and me the skit didn’t make sense, but who cared --we were the only students who could understand it. This week we found out what it meant. Our school was going to get together and play some sports. I didn’t understand how the whole school could fit into one small part of the campus. The sports meet took place on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning.
First thing on Wednesday morning everyone went out and sat around the play ground at our school (it is big). Then a huge group of students came on to the playground and started marching around it. There were students dancing, students playing the drum and students dressed up as people from the Olympics. Then the kids started to race. My teachers wanted me to race, but I didn’t want to so I didn’t. My brother was going to throw some balls like in baseball but, that was in the afternoon and we are only there for the morning.
Instead of everyone sitting on the ground, the school provided us with little chairs. They were so small that I had trouble sitting on them. The chairs were so uncomfortable that I had to sit on the ground. At the sports meet, a student who was sitting next to me had a bottle of coke. The student shook his bottle up. I don’t think he knew what that does because he opened his bottle, and the coke went shooting out of his bottle and on to me. I was so annoyed with the student that I went to sit somewhere else. Even though the chairs were small and I was soaking I still has a good time.
--Ayden
Hello everyone!! Today's blog entry (written last Friday) focuses on the sports activities that took place at Ayden an Ben's primary school last week. In addition to Ayden's written description of the activities, check out the video of Ayden and Ben teaching English at morning exercises below after Ayden's blog entry!
Gavi, Ayden, Ben and I leave to visit our friends --Sherri, Ira, Goldie and Jacob Davoudgoleh-- in Shanghai tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM. Ayden and Goldie were in the same grade at the Rashi School (from Kindergarten until they moved to Shanghai last year). We will be with them for a week or so including both of the Passover seders. We are so excited to see them and celebrate Pesach Persian style in China!!
We think that we will be out of touch with our blog until our return so take care and to all our readers who celebrate Passover--a chag sameach (Happy Holiday!)!!
Ayden Writes:
Last week my brother accompanied me for the skits at morning exercises. The skit was about a sports meet. For Ben and me the skit didn’t make sense, but who cared --we were the only students who could understand it. This week we found out what it meant. Our school was going to get together and play some sports. I didn’t understand how the whole school could fit into one small part of the campus. The sports meet took place on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning.
First thing on Wednesday morning everyone went out and sat around the play ground at our school (it is big). Then a huge group of students came on to the playground and started marching around it. There were students dancing, students playing the drum and students dressed up as people from the Olympics. Then the kids started to race. My teachers wanted me to race, but I didn’t want to so I didn’t. My brother was going to throw some balls like in baseball but, that was in the afternoon and we are only there for the morning.
Instead of everyone sitting on the ground, the school provided us with little chairs. They were so small that I had trouble sitting on them. The chairs were so uncomfortable that I had to sit on the ground. At the sports meet, a student who was sitting next to me had a bottle of coke. The student shook his bottle up. I don’t think he knew what that does because he opened his bottle, and the coke went shooting out of his bottle and on to me. I was so annoyed with the student that I went to sit somewhere else. Even though the chairs were small and I was soaking I still has a good time.
--Ayden
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Video: Zhong Guo Hua
Jocelyn Writes:
Dear All-
And now for a cultural moment....
I am attempting to post a video of our group (adults included) performing a dance to the song Zhong Guo Hua for the "Welcoming Assembly" organized by the Gaoxin School (see Gavi and Ayden's post entitled The Gaoxin Welcoming Ceremony). The name Zhong Guo Hua literally means "The Chinese Language." The song is written and sung by the Chinese Rap band S.H.E. (the singers are all women!) and tells the story of how after many years of having to "twist their brains" around English, Chinese people can take pride in the the fact that "the whole world is finally learning Chinese..."
Our performance opens with Ayden doing cartwheels... , Ben does some break dancing (but doesn't break!!) and Gavi, Bruce and I are background dancers. Our buddy Jonathan Flash-Inbar created and adapted the choreography loosely based on a music video by S.H.E.
Access to our video is below on this blog entry, I think that after you click on the ">" below, the video may take a few minutes to load. Let us know if this works!!!
In addition to our "home grown version of Zhong Guo Hua, check out S.H.E.'s music video version of Zhong Guo Hua on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEZKP5RNdCI . For anyone interested in the lyrics, you can find a translation and pinion version at http://www.chinesemusicblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=33679
The song is cute and starts with a Chinese tongue twister (that makes little sense in translation)....
And stay tuned...I will be trying to post Ayden and Ben at Morning Exercises later today...
Much Love, Joc
Dear All-
And now for a cultural moment....
I am attempting to post a video of our group (adults included) performing a dance to the song Zhong Guo Hua for the "Welcoming Assembly" organized by the Gaoxin School (see Gavi and Ayden's post entitled The Gaoxin Welcoming Ceremony). The name Zhong Guo Hua literally means "The Chinese Language." The song is written and sung by the Chinese Rap band S.H.E. (the singers are all women!) and tells the story of how after many years of having to "twist their brains" around English, Chinese people can take pride in the the fact that "the whole world is finally learning Chinese..."
Our performance opens with Ayden doing cartwheels... , Ben does some break dancing (but doesn't break!!) and Gavi, Bruce and I are background dancers. Our buddy Jonathan Flash-Inbar created and adapted the choreography loosely based on a music video by S.H.E.
Access to our video is below on this blog entry, I think that after you click on the ">" below, the video may take a few minutes to load. Let us know if this works!!!
In addition to our "home grown version of Zhong Guo Hua, check out S.H.E.'s music video version of Zhong Guo Hua on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEZKP5RNdCI . For anyone interested in the lyrics, you can find a translation and pinion version at http://www.chinesemusicblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=33679
The song is cute and starts with a Chinese tongue twister (that makes little sense in translation)....
And stay tuned...I will be trying to post Ayden and Ben at Morning Exercises later today...
Much Love, Joc
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Digging to China
Ben Says:
Hi there everyone this is Ben. For todays blog, I will tell you what I know about digging to China. If you live in the USA and dig through the planet you would end up in a very cold ocean near antartica. Antipode means the opposite side of planet Earth. The antipode of Shanghai, China is Concordia, Argentina. If you dig from Concordia, Argentina through the Earth, you will end up in downtown Shanghai. The distance from Concordia, Argentina to Shanghai is 12,445.17 miles through the Earth.
I researched the Earth's structure. There are five different layers. The Earth is made of a crust on the outside like bread. The crust is solid. The next layer is the upper mantle which is between solid and liquid. Then there is the mantle which is between solid and liquid. Then there is the outer core and the inner core which are solid. The inner core is hotter than the sun.
It has a temperature of 13,000 Farenheit.
I hope you enjoy this!
Me and my mom researched this using the internet. We read articles and watched a video on Youtube.
ben
Ayden Writes:
Yesterday I made pottery. It took about fifteen minutes to get to where we can make pottery. Our tutor, Wenyi, met us at the pottery place and then she showed us two different kinds of pottery we could make. One kind was the type you do on a wheel and the other kind was the one you do by hand. I chose the kind you do on the wheel, so did my brother. We had to wear aprons that went around your legs and your shirt.
First, the lady who worked at the pottery studio asked us what we wanted to make. I wanted to make a plate, and my brother wanted to make a mug. Next we put our foot on a pedal that made the wheel spin. Then the lady pushed on the clay, which made it into a bowl. Next I was supposed to push the clay down so it made a plate. For Ben’s (my brother) cup he just had to hold the clay in a special position so it didn’t tip over. I had to start over six times.
When we finished, we had to choose what colors we wanted on our pieces of pottery. We were allowed to paint our pottery ourselves, but the kind of paint we could use did not let us get the piece wet when it was finished. But if we wanted to use the piece, the people at the pottery studio painted it for us with a special glaze. Both Ben and I wanted to use our things so the people at the pottery studio painted ours. After pottery, we went to a couple DVD stores. We found a few more movies that interested us. Then we took a taxi back to the Gaoxin school.
--Ayden
Hi there everyone this is Ben. For todays blog, I will tell you what I know about digging to China. If you live in the USA and dig through the planet you would end up in a very cold ocean near antartica. Antipode means the opposite side of planet Earth. The antipode of Shanghai, China is Concordia, Argentina. If you dig from Concordia, Argentina through the Earth, you will end up in downtown Shanghai. The distance from Concordia, Argentina to Shanghai is 12,445.17 miles through the Earth.
I researched the Earth's structure. There are five different layers. The Earth is made of a crust on the outside like bread. The crust is solid. The next layer is the upper mantle which is between solid and liquid. Then there is the mantle which is between solid and liquid. Then there is the outer core and the inner core which are solid. The inner core is hotter than the sun.
It has a temperature of 13,000 Farenheit.
I hope you enjoy this!
Me and my mom researched this using the internet. We read articles and watched a video on Youtube.
ben
Ayden Writes:
Yesterday I made pottery. It took about fifteen minutes to get to where we can make pottery. Our tutor, Wenyi, met us at the pottery place and then she showed us two different kinds of pottery we could make. One kind was the type you do on a wheel and the other kind was the one you do by hand. I chose the kind you do on the wheel, so did my brother. We had to wear aprons that went around your legs and your shirt.
First, the lady who worked at the pottery studio asked us what we wanted to make. I wanted to make a plate, and my brother wanted to make a mug. Next we put our foot on a pedal that made the wheel spin. Then the lady pushed on the clay, which made it into a bowl. Next I was supposed to push the clay down so it made a plate. For Ben’s (my brother) cup he just had to hold the clay in a special position so it didn’t tip over. I had to start over six times.
When we finished, we had to choose what colors we wanted on our pieces of pottery. We were allowed to paint our pottery ourselves, but the kind of paint we could use did not let us get the piece wet when it was finished. But if we wanted to use the piece, the people at the pottery studio painted it for us with a special glaze. Both Ben and I wanted to use our things so the people at the pottery studio painted ours. After pottery, we went to a couple DVD stores. We found a few more movies that interested us. Then we took a taxi back to the Gaoxin school.
--Ayden
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Gaoxin School's Welcoming Ceremony
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about the welcoming ceremony. Last week a group of kids from Sharon came to Xi’an. The Gaoxin School (the school I live in) prepared a performance for us. Usually the welcoming happens is when the exchange students arrive; but we had to wait for the Sharon High School kids to get to Xi’an. The Chinese students put on many different acts. All of the acts were phenomenal.
First there were a couple of speeches, then there was a chorus singing. The chorus sounded so so good. After the chorus, we watched a few dancers doing Chinese dances. The dancers were wearing really funky traditional outfits. After the dancers, a student did Kung Fu. He was so amazing at Kung Fu that he scared me. Next the kids from Brookline High School read a poem in Chinese. Then the kids from Sharon sang a song, they sang Edel Weiss.
We were the last ones to perform in the welcoming ceremony. We did a dance. Usually the Brookline High kids do something lame, but this year they decided to do something better. I thought the dance was great and everyone else thought so too. The dance was to a song all about how “everyone” now is learning Chinese. The Chinese people had to “to twist their tongue” to study English but now it our learn to “twist our tongues”. The song we did the dance to was called Jungo Hua ( which means “the Chinese language” ). It was really fun learning the dance. Even though the song was in Chinese, we did a super job.
Gavi Writes:
Hey Everyone,
Today was pretty much a normal day. I went to Chinese school in the morning. Then I came home and had a quick lunch and hung out with the Brookline High students. Then we all went up to my parents dorm room to watch the tape of our Zhong Guo Hua dance that we preformed at our belated welcoming ceremony. The dance was basically most of us doing “background dancing” which was a bunch of simple moves repeated over and over again, while Jenna, Mickey and Joe went crazy throwing themselves around in front. We had a blast actually watching what we looked like. After watching the dance we watched the first hour of “China a Century of Revolution” which is a PBS documentary that covers everything we have studied in Chinese history for the past two months. Then we all had these Chinese desserts that Feng Lao Shi (the teacher who came to Boston) brought back for us from her hometown on the countryside. They were buns made of flakey dough that had, what tasted like, nuts and cinnamon sugar inside. They were absolutely delicious! After the movies we went back downstairs and had Chinese class. Then we had our first kung fu class with our new uniforms. I defiantly felt 100 times more powerful in my bright blue, silk outfit then I do in my usual jeans and t-shirt!
So overall, it was really just another day here in Xi’an.
More later,
Gavi
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about the welcoming ceremony. Last week a group of kids from Sharon came to Xi’an. The Gaoxin School (the school I live in) prepared a performance for us. Usually the welcoming happens is when the exchange students arrive; but we had to wait for the Sharon High School kids to get to Xi’an. The Chinese students put on many different acts. All of the acts were phenomenal.
First there were a couple of speeches, then there was a chorus singing. The chorus sounded so so good. After the chorus, we watched a few dancers doing Chinese dances. The dancers were wearing really funky traditional outfits. After the dancers, a student did Kung Fu. He was so amazing at Kung Fu that he scared me. Next the kids from Brookline High School read a poem in Chinese. Then the kids from Sharon sang a song, they sang Edel Weiss.
We were the last ones to perform in the welcoming ceremony. We did a dance. Usually the Brookline High kids do something lame, but this year they decided to do something better. I thought the dance was great and everyone else thought so too. The dance was to a song all about how “everyone” now is learning Chinese. The Chinese people had to “to twist their tongue” to study English but now it our learn to “twist our tongues”. The song we did the dance to was called Jungo Hua ( which means “the Chinese language” ). It was really fun learning the dance. Even though the song was in Chinese, we did a super job.
Gavi Writes:
Hey Everyone,
Today was pretty much a normal day. I went to Chinese school in the morning. Then I came home and had a quick lunch and hung out with the Brookline High students. Then we all went up to my parents dorm room to watch the tape of our Zhong Guo Hua dance that we preformed at our belated welcoming ceremony. The dance was basically most of us doing “background dancing” which was a bunch of simple moves repeated over and over again, while Jenna, Mickey and Joe went crazy throwing themselves around in front. We had a blast actually watching what we looked like. After watching the dance we watched the first hour of “China a Century of Revolution” which is a PBS documentary that covers everything we have studied in Chinese history for the past two months. Then we all had these Chinese desserts that Feng Lao Shi (the teacher who came to Boston) brought back for us from her hometown on the countryside. They were buns made of flakey dough that had, what tasted like, nuts and cinnamon sugar inside. They were absolutely delicious! After the movies we went back downstairs and had Chinese class. Then we had our first kung fu class with our new uniforms. I defiantly felt 100 times more powerful in my bright blue, silk outfit then I do in my usual jeans and t-shirt!
So overall, it was really just another day here in Xi’an.
More later,
Gavi
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Back At School in Xi'an
Jocelyn Writes:
We reluctantly said "goodbye" to our friend Marilyn yesterday. What a fun time we had hanging out with her in Xi'an and its environs! The highlights were a bike ride around the top of the ancient city walls (9 miles) successfully completed by Ben, Ayden, Gavi, Wen Yi, Marilyn and myself on two bicycles built for two and one single bike (pictures to follow) and a hike up the East Peak of Hua Shan a mountain in the Chingling Range outside of Xi'an. We did the first 5000 ft on a cable car and the last 1000 ft or so on foot (see the pictures to the right!!).
We are trying to work our way back into a blog writing groove....Gavi has rejoined us (yeah!!!) and has some great stories from school and Ayden has been observing what people wear both here in Xian and in Yunnan. We are still working on Ben.
The kids love your comments about the blog (both written and verbal) so keep sending them either on our page, via email or telephone.
Much love, Joc
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about what people wear in China. The clothes people wear in the city and the clothes people wear out of the city are a little bit different.
What people wear at my school is basically the same thing that I wear. My school has a uniform. Usually the kids in my class wear the uniform once a week. My uniform is red. My brother’s uniform is blue. My sister’s uniform is white. I can’t exactly figure out how the students keep a white uniform clean. Many schools have white uniforms I don’t really understand why.
If I am walking down the street in China the people are wearing the same king of clothes that people wear in America. Some people are wearing traditional clothes but not often. When I was in Yunnan province there were many Bai people wearing traditional clothes. The headdress had two flaps. If your headdress has two flaps it means you are looking for a husband. If your headdress has one flap that means you have a husband but are waiting for a child. If you have no flaps it means you have a husband and a child. I think this is a funny way of telling people that you need a family.
Sometimes in Xi’an, I see people wearing clothes with English words on the shirt. When ever I read their shirts, the words don’t make sense. These English words that don’t make sense on peoples’ clothes are called “Chinglish”. Sometimes shirts says things like “sky happy together we are”. I have a bag that says “Flower Spring”. I haven’t really figured out what it means. The non traditional clothes in China look the same as the clothes in America.
--Ayden
Gavi Writes:
Hey Everyone,
Monday was my first day back at school after our exhausting trip to Yunnan Province (see Ayden’s blog). I was greeted back with a very culturally educational day!
Our friend Marilyn arrived for her week long visit on Sunday and because my mom wanted her to be able to easily reach us I lent her my cell phone. However, my mom didn’t want me to walk to and from school without a phone so I borrowed my dad’s phone. Half way through the school day it rang (luckily it was on silent) I checked to see who was calling and it was my mom. I knew that my mom knew I had my dads phone and that I was in school so I got a little worried. In America, you can get into a fair amount of trouble if you are caught talking on your cell during school hours without permission, so at break I went to ask my classes head teacher if it would be okay for me to make a quick call to my mom. It took 15 minutes and 3 translators to get the message across, and even then she seemed confused about why I was asking her. In the end I called my mom and she had just forgotten that I had my dad’s phone.
After school, the teacher was talking to out class about the homework when all of a sudden she started talking really fast and it seemed like every other word was Gao Wei (my Chinese name). Then a student, who had helped me translate earlier, stood up and did the same thing. Then everyone turned to me and started clapping furiously. I tuned to Annie, my buddy, confused. She explained to me, in much slower Chinese, that the teacher was so impressed that I had asked to use my phone in school that she was telling everyone to be like me. The student had been explaining the entire story from start to finish. I found it so wild that in China, where students have to do 30 pushups for being a little out of synch during morning exercises, I was being applauded for asking permission before making a call on my cell phone during class.
And for the record…
Today was probably the best school day I’ve had so far. During our trip to Yunnan Jonathan was finally able to successfully teach me how to solve a rubix cube. It has served as great self-entertainment the past three mornings when I got really bored in class. Today, my desk mate finally figured out what I have been doing under the desk and got very excited! The next break we had she announced to the class to come look and before I knew it there were 20 7th graders less then an inch from me and the cube waiting for me to amaze them. I started solving the cube as fast as I could hoping that I wouldn’t completely mess up a combination like I had done so many times before. Luckily, I successfully completed the cube with only one minor mistake, which was easily fixed. Everyone was very excited!
For reasons unexplained to me, our next class was basically a free block. We all went outside and sat on the curb, I brought my cube in case the conversation with Annie didn’t really work out, which was very common. However, to my surprise when we got outside Annie pointed to my cube and said “I try?” “hao (okay), yea” I replied, handing her the cube. She was unsuccessful and looked really upset. I quickly solved the cube for her and then made it so that the center of each side was a different color than the outside (a much easier trick then solving the cube). “Wa!” she exclaimed. “Kan (watch)” I said, I then did the trick 3 more times very slowly and then handed her the cube. Then I lead her, in Chinglish, through the steps. Her smile when she did it was completely priceless! I returned the smile “fei cheng hao (excellent)” I exclaimed. Then I pointed to the cube and said “again.” This time she did it all by herself. “Can you teach more?” she asked. I smiled, “hao, sure” I replied smiling. For the rest of the period I taught her tricks with my rubix cube and for the first time we were actually talking and having fun together, despite the language barrier. After class, she handed me the cube “xie xie! (thank you)” she said with a smile. “bu ka xi (no problem)” I replied. It was so great to finally feel like I connected with someone at school, and all it took was a little cube with different colored sides…
More later,
Gavi
We reluctantly said "goodbye" to our friend Marilyn yesterday. What a fun time we had hanging out with her in Xi'an and its environs! The highlights were a bike ride around the top of the ancient city walls (9 miles) successfully completed by Ben, Ayden, Gavi, Wen Yi, Marilyn and myself on two bicycles built for two and one single bike (pictures to follow) and a hike up the East Peak of Hua Shan a mountain in the Chingling Range outside of Xi'an. We did the first 5000 ft on a cable car and the last 1000 ft or so on foot (see the pictures to the right!!).
We are trying to work our way back into a blog writing groove....Gavi has rejoined us (yeah!!!) and has some great stories from school and Ayden has been observing what people wear both here in Xian and in Yunnan. We are still working on Ben.
The kids love your comments about the blog (both written and verbal) so keep sending them either on our page, via email or telephone.
Much love, Joc
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about what people wear in China. The clothes people wear in the city and the clothes people wear out of the city are a little bit different.
What people wear at my school is basically the same thing that I wear. My school has a uniform. Usually the kids in my class wear the uniform once a week. My uniform is red. My brother’s uniform is blue. My sister’s uniform is white. I can’t exactly figure out how the students keep a white uniform clean. Many schools have white uniforms I don’t really understand why.
If I am walking down the street in China the people are wearing the same king of clothes that people wear in America. Some people are wearing traditional clothes but not often. When I was in Yunnan province there were many Bai people wearing traditional clothes. The headdress had two flaps. If your headdress has two flaps it means you are looking for a husband. If your headdress has one flap that means you have a husband but are waiting for a child. If you have no flaps it means you have a husband and a child. I think this is a funny way of telling people that you need a family.
Sometimes in Xi’an, I see people wearing clothes with English words on the shirt. When ever I read their shirts, the words don’t make sense. These English words that don’t make sense on peoples’ clothes are called “Chinglish”. Sometimes shirts says things like “sky happy together we are”. I have a bag that says “Flower Spring”. I haven’t really figured out what it means. The non traditional clothes in China look the same as the clothes in America.
--Ayden
Gavi Writes:
Hey Everyone,
Monday was my first day back at school after our exhausting trip to Yunnan Province (see Ayden’s blog). I was greeted back with a very culturally educational day!
Our friend Marilyn arrived for her week long visit on Sunday and because my mom wanted her to be able to easily reach us I lent her my cell phone. However, my mom didn’t want me to walk to and from school without a phone so I borrowed my dad’s phone. Half way through the school day it rang (luckily it was on silent) I checked to see who was calling and it was my mom. I knew that my mom knew I had my dads phone and that I was in school so I got a little worried. In America, you can get into a fair amount of trouble if you are caught talking on your cell during school hours without permission, so at break I went to ask my classes head teacher if it would be okay for me to make a quick call to my mom. It took 15 minutes and 3 translators to get the message across, and even then she seemed confused about why I was asking her. In the end I called my mom and she had just forgotten that I had my dad’s phone.
After school, the teacher was talking to out class about the homework when all of a sudden she started talking really fast and it seemed like every other word was Gao Wei (my Chinese name). Then a student, who had helped me translate earlier, stood up and did the same thing. Then everyone turned to me and started clapping furiously. I tuned to Annie, my buddy, confused. She explained to me, in much slower Chinese, that the teacher was so impressed that I had asked to use my phone in school that she was telling everyone to be like me. The student had been explaining the entire story from start to finish. I found it so wild that in China, where students have to do 30 pushups for being a little out of synch during morning exercises, I was being applauded for asking permission before making a call on my cell phone during class.
And for the record…
Today was probably the best school day I’ve had so far. During our trip to Yunnan Jonathan was finally able to successfully teach me how to solve a rubix cube. It has served as great self-entertainment the past three mornings when I got really bored in class. Today, my desk mate finally figured out what I have been doing under the desk and got very excited! The next break we had she announced to the class to come look and before I knew it there were 20 7th graders less then an inch from me and the cube waiting for me to amaze them. I started solving the cube as fast as I could hoping that I wouldn’t completely mess up a combination like I had done so many times before. Luckily, I successfully completed the cube with only one minor mistake, which was easily fixed. Everyone was very excited!
For reasons unexplained to me, our next class was basically a free block. We all went outside and sat on the curb, I brought my cube in case the conversation with Annie didn’t really work out, which was very common. However, to my surprise when we got outside Annie pointed to my cube and said “I try?” “hao (okay), yea” I replied, handing her the cube. She was unsuccessful and looked really upset. I quickly solved the cube for her and then made it so that the center of each side was a different color than the outside (a much easier trick then solving the cube). “Wa!” she exclaimed. “Kan (watch)” I said, I then did the trick 3 more times very slowly and then handed her the cube. Then I lead her, in Chinglish, through the steps. Her smile when she did it was completely priceless! I returned the smile “fei cheng hao (excellent)” I exclaimed. Then I pointed to the cube and said “again.” This time she did it all by herself. “Can you teach more?” she asked. I smiled, “hao, sure” I replied smiling. For the rest of the period I taught her tricks with my rubix cube and for the first time we were actually talking and having fun together, despite the language barrier. After class, she handed me the cube “xie xie! (thank you)” she said with a smile. “bu ka xi (no problem)” I replied. It was so great to finally feel like I connected with someone at school, and all it took was a little cube with different colored sides…
More later,
Gavi
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Touring Xi'an with Marilyn
Jocelyn Writes:
Marilyn Shapiro, our friend from New York, is visiting us in Xi'an this week. Ayden, Ben and I have had the pleasure of revisiting some of our favorite spots with her on Monday and discovering and exploring new ones on Tuesday. Gavi joined us Tuesday too (and will be rejoining the blog shortly...) ALSO Ayden updated the blog entry on Yunnan Province--scroll down and take a look!
--Joc
Ayden Writes:
This past weekend my mom’s friend came to visit us in Xi’an, China. Her name is Marilyn, and she arrived Friday afternoon. We went out to a Peking Duck restaurant for dinner. Marilyn brought four jars of peanut butter, books, 2 bathing suites, nuts and dried fruit. I was very glad to see her. We picked her up at her hotel and brought her back to our dorm room. We showed her what a Chinese dorm room looks like.
The next day we went to the peasant farmer painter’s village. The peasant farmers are a group of people who paint pictures. The peasant farmers work out of the city, it took us about one hour to get there. When we got to the peasant farmers’ studio, it seemed like a part of their house. All of their paintings are beautiful. They paint pictures of things that they see. I was allowed to get one painting for my room in America. It was so hard to choose a painting. Finally, I chose a picture of flowers with a few birds. I had a lot of fun at the peasant farmer painters’ studio.
After the peasant farmers, we went to a Taoist temple. This was my sixth temple since we arrived. Six temples is enough for me. We also went on horses part way up a mountain.
On Monday we went to the Big Goose Pagoda and the Little Goose Pagoda. The Big Goose Pagoda I have already been to, but it was my first time to the Little Goose Pagoda. I didn’t go to the top of the Big Goose Pagoda because I was too tired. I did go to the top of the small pagoda. Climbing was really tiring, when I got to the top it was SO beautiful. We also went in a museum that was all about Xi’an. I had an amazing time at all of these sights.
Marilyn Shapiro, our friend from New York, is visiting us in Xi'an this week. Ayden, Ben and I have had the pleasure of revisiting some of our favorite spots with her on Monday and discovering and exploring new ones on Tuesday. Gavi joined us Tuesday too (and will be rejoining the blog shortly...) ALSO Ayden updated the blog entry on Yunnan Province--scroll down and take a look!
--Joc
Ayden Writes:
This past weekend my mom’s friend came to visit us in Xi’an, China. Her name is Marilyn, and she arrived Friday afternoon. We went out to a Peking Duck restaurant for dinner. Marilyn brought four jars of peanut butter, books, 2 bathing suites, nuts and dried fruit. I was very glad to see her. We picked her up at her hotel and brought her back to our dorm room. We showed her what a Chinese dorm room looks like.
The next day we went to the peasant farmer painter’s village. The peasant farmers are a group of people who paint pictures. The peasant farmers work out of the city, it took us about one hour to get there. When we got to the peasant farmers’ studio, it seemed like a part of their house. All of their paintings are beautiful. They paint pictures of things that they see. I was allowed to get one painting for my room in America. It was so hard to choose a painting. Finally, I chose a picture of flowers with a few birds. I had a lot of fun at the peasant farmer painters’ studio.
After the peasant farmers, we went to a Taoist temple. This was my sixth temple since we arrived. Six temples is enough for me. We also went on horses part way up a mountain.
On Monday we went to the Big Goose Pagoda and the Little Goose Pagoda. The Big Goose Pagoda I have already been to, but it was my first time to the Little Goose Pagoda. I didn’t go to the top of the Big Goose Pagoda because I was too tired. I did go to the top of the small pagoda. Climbing was really tiring, when I got to the top it was SO beautiful. We also went in a museum that was all about Xi’an. I had an amazing time at all of these sights.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Our Trip to Yunnan Province
Jocelyn Writes:
Well we are finally getting caught up in blog entries.....Below is Ayden's piece on Yunnan Province--stay tuned for Gavi's entry...
Ayden Writes:
Last week I went to Yunnan Province. Yunnan is in the south of China. The plane ride to Yunnan was not very long, only about two hours. When we arrived in Yunnan, a tour guide picked us up, then the tour guide brought us to a hotel. The next day we went to the stone forest. The stone forest is a forest that instead of there being trees there are stones everywhere so it looks like a forest of stones.
The next day we took a eight hour over night train ride to Dali. We slept on the train. There were three levels of bunk beds. I slept part of the night on each of the bunks. When we got to Dali, we went straight to breakfast. After breakfast we went to a pagoda. The pagoda was different because there were mountains in the background. On the way to the pagoda we went past the area that Cheng Ho was born. For the people who don’t know who Cheng Ho was, Cheng Ho was my explorer this year in social studies class. Cheng Ho went on 7 voyages in the China Sea. When we arrived at the pagoda, my first thought was this is beautiful. We were not allowed in the pagoda but we were allowed to get really close to the pagoda. We also saw members of the Bai community who were wearing funky head dresses.
The next day we drove to Lijiang. It took us three hours to get there. When we got there we went to Snow Dragon Mountain. The Snow Dragon Mountain is a huge mountain in Lijiang. It is over 10,000 feet high. We didn’t go to the top of the mountain, but we went pretty far up. When we got to the mountain a bus drove us to a spot on the mountain that we could hop on a cable car and go to the half way mark. When we reached the half way mark we started to hike. We hiked for about an hour, then we went back down on a cable car because some students had trouble breathing.
On the second day in Lijiang we went to the old city. We spent the whole morning there. The old city is a shopping area. Then we drove back to Dali, where we hopped on a train then a plane that brought us back to Xi’an. I had a great time in Yunnan Province.
Well we are finally getting caught up in blog entries.....Below is Ayden's piece on Yunnan Province--stay tuned for Gavi's entry...
Ayden Writes:
Last week I went to Yunnan Province. Yunnan is in the south of China. The plane ride to Yunnan was not very long, only about two hours. When we arrived in Yunnan, a tour guide picked us up, then the tour guide brought us to a hotel. The next day we went to the stone forest. The stone forest is a forest that instead of there being trees there are stones everywhere so it looks like a forest of stones.
The next day we took a eight hour over night train ride to Dali. We slept on the train. There were three levels of bunk beds. I slept part of the night on each of the bunks. When we got to Dali, we went straight to breakfast. After breakfast we went to a pagoda. The pagoda was different because there were mountains in the background. On the way to the pagoda we went past the area that Cheng Ho was born. For the people who don’t know who Cheng Ho was, Cheng Ho was my explorer this year in social studies class. Cheng Ho went on 7 voyages in the China Sea. When we arrived at the pagoda, my first thought was this is beautiful. We were not allowed in the pagoda but we were allowed to get really close to the pagoda. We also saw members of the Bai community who were wearing funky head dresses.
The next day we drove to Lijiang. It took us three hours to get there. When we got there we went to Snow Dragon Mountain. The Snow Dragon Mountain is a huge mountain in Lijiang. It is over 10,000 feet high. We didn’t go to the top of the mountain, but we went pretty far up. When we got to the mountain a bus drove us to a spot on the mountain that we could hop on a cable car and go to the half way mark. When we reached the half way mark we started to hike. We hiked for about an hour, then we went back down on a cable car because some students had trouble breathing.
On the second day in Lijiang we went to the old city. We spent the whole morning there. The old city is a shopping area. Then we drove back to Dali, where we hopped on a train then a plane that brought us back to Xi’an. I had a great time in Yunnan Province.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
March 18: Trip to Xing Xing Park & We are Off to Yunnan Province
Jocelyn Writes:
We have been "thin" on blog entries this week... I think the kids have been feeling tired of our routine--such that it is.... and are experiencing a bit of homesickness. In a timely-sort-of -way, we, the 5 Mallory-Gordons and the 8 BHS students, are all heading to the airport on Sunday, March 23, 2008--to spend five days in Yunnan Province--that's southern China near the border with Vietnam.
Our group will be visiting Kunming--the City of Eternal Spring, Dali --where the regional population is Bai and the city of Lijiang capital of the Naxi kingdom (another Chinese minority people). According to our itinerary, we are also going to climb some part of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (5600 meters above the sea level). We'll be out of touch till our return on Friday, March 28th, 2008 (Happy Birthday Mom, Zimra, Aunt Judy and Cousin Steve!!!). Our friend Marilyn Shapiro arrives in Xi'an on the day of our return--We are sooo looking forward to seeing her! Safe travels Marilyn! Happy Purim and much love to all!!
--Jocelyn
Ben Says: I lost a tooth!! (Ed. Comment: bottom front!)
Ayden Writes:
Yesterday I went to a park where you can see birds, ride boats and do many other things. The first thing we did was ride on a paddleboat. I was really scared at first but when we got out in the lake I decided that I wanted to steer the boat. The view from the boat was gorgeous. On the other hand the lake was not so pretty. The lake was full of dirt. It looked like the Charles River.
After the boat ride we went to look at birds. When we walked in, someone gave us a bag of stuff that we can feed to the birds. First we saw many pigeons. We also saw parrots. The next kind of bird we saw was a peacock. There were two different kinds of peacocks, the first kind was the regular kind that most of you know, the next kind was a white peacock. We saw many different kind of birds. I am sorry but I don’t know the names of the birds.
We also saw a bird show. It was really cool. I’m going to tell you about some of the really special acts. In the first act, a bird took a few pieces of paper and put them in the right order, then the bird held it up. My translator told me that the words meant “welcome”. In another act, a person who works with the birds took a bird and held it up. He told the audience that if someone wanted to hold up two kinds of money that the bird would choose the bill with the greatest value. The act was really entertaining to watch because the bird would always choose the bill with the higher value. The last act was a bird walking across a tightrope and didn’t fall off. I bet I could tell you a bunch more but that would take ages.
We have been "thin" on blog entries this week... I think the kids have been feeling tired of our routine--such that it is.... and are experiencing a bit of homesickness. In a timely-sort-of -way, we, the 5 Mallory-Gordons and the 8 BHS students, are all heading to the airport on Sunday, March 23, 2008--to spend five days in Yunnan Province--that's southern China near the border with Vietnam.
Our group will be visiting Kunming--the City of Eternal Spring, Dali --where the regional population is Bai and the city of Lijiang capital of the Naxi kingdom (another Chinese minority people). According to our itinerary, we are also going to climb some part of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (5600 meters above the sea level). We'll be out of touch till our return on Friday, March 28th, 2008 (Happy Birthday Mom, Zimra, Aunt Judy and Cousin Steve!!!). Our friend Marilyn Shapiro arrives in Xi'an on the day of our return--We are sooo looking forward to seeing her! Safe travels Marilyn! Happy Purim and much love to all!!
--Jocelyn
Ben Says: I lost a tooth!! (Ed. Comment: bottom front!)
Ayden Writes:
Yesterday I went to a park where you can see birds, ride boats and do many other things. The first thing we did was ride on a paddleboat. I was really scared at first but when we got out in the lake I decided that I wanted to steer the boat. The view from the boat was gorgeous. On the other hand the lake was not so pretty. The lake was full of dirt. It looked like the Charles River.
After the boat ride we went to look at birds. When we walked in, someone gave us a bag of stuff that we can feed to the birds. First we saw many pigeons. We also saw parrots. The next kind of bird we saw was a peacock. There were two different kinds of peacocks, the first kind was the regular kind that most of you know, the next kind was a white peacock. We saw many different kind of birds. I am sorry but I don’t know the names of the birds.
We also saw a bird show. It was really cool. I’m going to tell you about some of the really special acts. In the first act, a bird took a few pieces of paper and put them in the right order, then the bird held it up. My translator told me that the words meant “welcome”. In another act, a person who works with the birds took a bird and held it up. He told the audience that if someone wanted to hold up two kinds of money that the bird would choose the bill with the greatest value. The act was really entertaining to watch because the bird would always choose the bill with the higher value. The last act was a bird walking across a tightrope and didn’t fall off. I bet I could tell you a bunch more but that would take ages.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
March 17: Our Weekend Away & Gavi's Monday
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about what I did this weekend. This weekend I went to Luoyang. It took five hours to get there in a minibus. When I looked out the minibus window, I saw fields with crops and farmers planting crops. It was 12:00 AM when we arrived in Luoyang.
We stayed in a fancy hotel in Luoyang. The next morning we went down to the breakfast buffet. The first thing I saw was corn flakes. My eyes lit up because I have not had American cereal in a while.
After breakfast, we got into the minibus with our tour guide. We drove to the White Horse Temple. It is a Buddhist temple. We saw many Buddha statues. Next we went to the Shaolin Si, the Kung Fu school. We watched the Kung Fu show. My favorite part was when a warrior monk took a piece of metal and broke it with his head. Another cool part was when another warrior monk took a sewing needle and pushed it through a large glass square and popped a balloon with the needle. The glass was left with a hole the size of a sewing needle. After the show, we walked to the Temple at the school and saw basically the same things we saw at the White Horse Temple.
On Sunday we went to a costume museum, it had exhibits of what people wore and wear in China. We were going to see a shadow puppet show but the Museum had no electricity so the show was cancelled. After the Museum, we went to the Longmen Caves. We saw many Buddhas at the caves. Many people wanted to take pictures with me and my brother and sister. Taking pictures with Chinese strangers felt a bit odd and sort of fun. After the caves we took a boat back to the main entrance. We then hopped into our minibus and went to lunch. After lunch, we went home. It was a really fun trip.
Gavi Writes:
Hi Everyone,
Today was pretty much a normal school day for me well, as normal as they get here. I was a little late to school because my dad accidentally locked me out of the room with my shoes, backpack, and cell phone before going down to breakfast. So I had to walk down-stairs and then outside to the dining hall in my sister’s slippers which didn’t fit at all and get the keys. The students and school guards, who usually stare at me because I am Caucasian and have curly hair, which is rare here, gave me even more weird looks then usual. I am starting to get used to people staring at me everywhere with looks of amazement on their faces but these looks weren’t ones of amazement, just confusion.
Once at school I had English class, then Chinese, then we had flag raising, then Math then English again. After Chinese school, I went back to the high school campus to eat lunch and then play soccer with the BHS students. After lunch we had a history class and Jennifer did her presentation on the chapters she was assigned from Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China. Then I had my Chinese class. Today instead of having the usual sit down Chinese class, Zhou Lou Shi and I went outside and just talked in Chinese. He was really surprised to hear that I wasn’t allowed to bike in China because of the lack of helmets. His response to my telling him that most people in America always wore helmets was that they must not be very good at riding bikes.
For cultural class today we had Kung-fu. We used swords again today and learned a really cool routine. It consists of a lot of swinging the sword around your head and then trusting it forward really fast. It was really fun to do but many people came very close to getting hit. After cultural class I went back up to my room and did a little homework. Then, because it’s my parent’s anniversary, we all went out for hot pot. We were fairly successful in ordering what we intended to order however the waitress did at one point bring us a platter of entire fish on sticks which I don’t believer we ordered, but you never really know. After dinner we all went back to the dorms and I did more homework. So to sum it all up it was just another day here in Xi’an China.
More later,
Gavi
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about what I did this weekend. This weekend I went to Luoyang. It took five hours to get there in a minibus. When I looked out the minibus window, I saw fields with crops and farmers planting crops. It was 12:00 AM when we arrived in Luoyang.
We stayed in a fancy hotel in Luoyang. The next morning we went down to the breakfast buffet. The first thing I saw was corn flakes. My eyes lit up because I have not had American cereal in a while.
After breakfast, we got into the minibus with our tour guide. We drove to the White Horse Temple. It is a Buddhist temple. We saw many Buddha statues. Next we went to the Shaolin Si, the Kung Fu school. We watched the Kung Fu show. My favorite part was when a warrior monk took a piece of metal and broke it with his head. Another cool part was when another warrior monk took a sewing needle and pushed it through a large glass square and popped a balloon with the needle. The glass was left with a hole the size of a sewing needle. After the show, we walked to the Temple at the school and saw basically the same things we saw at the White Horse Temple.
On Sunday we went to a costume museum, it had exhibits of what people wore and wear in China. We were going to see a shadow puppet show but the Museum had no electricity so the show was cancelled. After the Museum, we went to the Longmen Caves. We saw many Buddhas at the caves. Many people wanted to take pictures with me and my brother and sister. Taking pictures with Chinese strangers felt a bit odd and sort of fun. After the caves we took a boat back to the main entrance. We then hopped into our minibus and went to lunch. After lunch, we went home. It was a really fun trip.
Gavi Writes:
Hi Everyone,
Today was pretty much a normal school day for me well, as normal as they get here. I was a little late to school because my dad accidentally locked me out of the room with my shoes, backpack, and cell phone before going down to breakfast. So I had to walk down-stairs and then outside to the dining hall in my sister’s slippers which didn’t fit at all and get the keys. The students and school guards, who usually stare at me because I am Caucasian and have curly hair, which is rare here, gave me even more weird looks then usual. I am starting to get used to people staring at me everywhere with looks of amazement on their faces but these looks weren’t ones of amazement, just confusion.
Once at school I had English class, then Chinese, then we had flag raising, then Math then English again. After Chinese school, I went back to the high school campus to eat lunch and then play soccer with the BHS students. After lunch we had a history class and Jennifer did her presentation on the chapters she was assigned from Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China. Then I had my Chinese class. Today instead of having the usual sit down Chinese class, Zhou Lou Shi and I went outside and just talked in Chinese. He was really surprised to hear that I wasn’t allowed to bike in China because of the lack of helmets. His response to my telling him that most people in America always wore helmets was that they must not be very good at riding bikes.
For cultural class today we had Kung-fu. We used swords again today and learned a really cool routine. It consists of a lot of swinging the sword around your head and then trusting it forward really fast. It was really fun to do but many people came very close to getting hit. After cultural class I went back up to my room and did a little homework. Then, because it’s my parent’s anniversary, we all went out for hot pot. We were fairly successful in ordering what we intended to order however the waitress did at one point bring us a platter of entire fish on sticks which I don’t believer we ordered, but you never really know. After dinner we all went back to the dorms and I did more homework. So to sum it all up it was just another day here in Xi’an China.
More later,
Gavi
Thursday, March 13, 2008
March 14: Outdoor Market, Dancers and Chinese
Jocelyn Writes:
Well, we have the whole nuclear family involved today... We will be off line this weekend because we are heading out of town on a nuclear family adventure (I bother with the word nuclear because..."family" on its own has come to mean Gavi, Ayden, Ben, Bruce, Caroline, Jenna, Emily, Mickey,Kile, Jonathan, Joe and Jennifer).
Bruce, the kids and I are off to the area around Luoyang to see the Longmen Caves and the Shaolin Si. "They say" (whoever "they" are) that the Longmen Caves are a spectacular parade of Buddhist figurines and reliefs (stay tuned for pics). There are 1350 caves, 750 niches and 40 pagodas....I am expecting we'll manage one or two. The Shaolin Si is a Buddhist Monastery and the birth place of Kung Fu--- we'll be watching all sorts of KungFu demonstrations. Stay tuned for the report...
Take Care,
Joc
Ben Says:
Today I went to an out door market with my mom. I scootered there on my new scooter. I didn’t go to school because my parents said I could take a day off. At the out door market, first there were a lot of motorcycles then there was a lady selling spinach. There was a lot of meat. The men were chopping up pork and beef. It was really disgusting. We came to a person who was selling mangos and tomatoes in baskets. Then I saw big pile of mops. There was an apartment with two little dogs playing in front of the door. I don’t think there are big dogs in China. You never see them.
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry I will be writing about what I see on my way to school. First I usually take a cab to school, but I see many different things when I am in the cab. When I am in the cab, I see all of these dancers on the street dancing. Everyday I see something different. When I’m riding to school I usually see about two or three different dances. Each one is very unique. I will describe two for you.
The first one I see on my way to school is a slow kind of dance called Tai chi. The people doing the dance all have the same outfit. It is a dark, reddish pink velvet. The dancers put their hands up and then they move their feet. This all takes place really slowly. Sometimes I see them doing the same dance with swords. They do the dance over and over. It is kind of fun to watch.
The next dance that I see is a dance that involves fans. The dancers wear the same outfit that the people Tai chi wear. All of the people doing the dance are lined up perfectly straight in rows. The fans they use are very big and colorful. The dancers start by taking their fans and waving them around, then they wave the fans to themselves. This all happens really quickly. This dance is a lot more interesting because it is faster. All of the dances are a lot different from the kind of dance in America.
Gavi Writes:
Hi Everyone,
Last week I started actually being tutored in Chinese. My teacher’s name is Zhou Lao Shi (pronounced Joe) and he is also one of the three teachers that the BHS students have. Compared to the other languages I have studied (Hebrew, Spanish, English) Chinese is definitely the hardest. For one thing, many of the sounds are very similar to each other and if you say the wrong one you are saying a completely different word.
Then there are the tones. These are what really throw me off. There are four tones, rising, falling, flat and falling then rising. If you use the wrong tone on a word, even if you got the right pronunciation otherwise, you could be in big trouble! For example, the word “ma” with different tones can mean mother, horse, and can denote a question. As you can see, if you’re not careful you could easily end up calling you mother a horse which probably wouldn’t end very well.
Chinese writing is also an extreme challenge for me. Unlike other languages I have studied, Chinese has no alphabet. There are different characters for each word and you just have to memorize them. Zhou Lao Shi gives me about seven of these characters to memorize a night and the first night it took me over an hour to remember all of them. However, now I can do it in about 15 minutes. I’ve figured out that if I write the character over and over again while thinking the word to myself the character gets built into my muscle memory and my brain associates it with the word. Though it’s a little tedious it’s the only way I can figure out that works.
Reading Chinese can also be hard and frustrating because if you don’t recognize a character there is no sounding it out and looking it up is almost impossible. So really, the only thing to do is to ask someone who does know. This can be rather problematic when you are the only person in your family who can read any Chinese at all. However, although Chinese is extremely hard and exhausting to learn, I am having a lot of fun using it. It’s amazing how even after just a week of studying Chinese I can communicate much better with my desk buddy in school, and with people around town such as taxi drivers and store clerks. I think its so much more fun learning a language in a place where people actually speak it because there are so many opportunities to practice.
More later,
Gavi
Well, we have the whole nuclear family involved today... We will be off line this weekend because we are heading out of town on a nuclear family adventure (I bother with the word nuclear because..."family" on its own has come to mean Gavi, Ayden, Ben, Bruce, Caroline, Jenna, Emily, Mickey,Kile, Jonathan, Joe and Jennifer).
Bruce, the kids and I are off to the area around Luoyang to see the Longmen Caves and the Shaolin Si. "They say" (whoever "they" are) that the Longmen Caves are a spectacular parade of Buddhist figurines and reliefs (stay tuned for pics). There are 1350 caves, 750 niches and 40 pagodas....I am expecting we'll manage one or two. The Shaolin Si is a Buddhist Monastery and the birth place of Kung Fu--- we'll be watching all sorts of KungFu demonstrations. Stay tuned for the report...
Take Care,
Joc
Ben Says:
Today I went to an out door market with my mom. I scootered there on my new scooter. I didn’t go to school because my parents said I could take a day off. At the out door market, first there were a lot of motorcycles then there was a lady selling spinach. There was a lot of meat. The men were chopping up pork and beef. It was really disgusting. We came to a person who was selling mangos and tomatoes in baskets. Then I saw big pile of mops. There was an apartment with two little dogs playing in front of the door. I don’t think there are big dogs in China. You never see them.
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry I will be writing about what I see on my way to school. First I usually take a cab to school, but I see many different things when I am in the cab. When I am in the cab, I see all of these dancers on the street dancing. Everyday I see something different. When I’m riding to school I usually see about two or three different dances. Each one is very unique. I will describe two for you.
The first one I see on my way to school is a slow kind of dance called Tai chi. The people doing the dance all have the same outfit. It is a dark, reddish pink velvet. The dancers put their hands up and then they move their feet. This all takes place really slowly. Sometimes I see them doing the same dance with swords. They do the dance over and over. It is kind of fun to watch.
The next dance that I see is a dance that involves fans. The dancers wear the same outfit that the people Tai chi wear. All of the people doing the dance are lined up perfectly straight in rows. The fans they use are very big and colorful. The dancers start by taking their fans and waving them around, then they wave the fans to themselves. This all happens really quickly. This dance is a lot more interesting because it is faster. All of the dances are a lot different from the kind of dance in America.
Gavi Writes:
Hi Everyone,
Last week I started actually being tutored in Chinese. My teacher’s name is Zhou Lao Shi (pronounced Joe) and he is also one of the three teachers that the BHS students have. Compared to the other languages I have studied (Hebrew, Spanish, English) Chinese is definitely the hardest. For one thing, many of the sounds are very similar to each other and if you say the wrong one you are saying a completely different word.
Then there are the tones. These are what really throw me off. There are four tones, rising, falling, flat and falling then rising. If you use the wrong tone on a word, even if you got the right pronunciation otherwise, you could be in big trouble! For example, the word “ma” with different tones can mean mother, horse, and can denote a question. As you can see, if you’re not careful you could easily end up calling you mother a horse which probably wouldn’t end very well.
Chinese writing is also an extreme challenge for me. Unlike other languages I have studied, Chinese has no alphabet. There are different characters for each word and you just have to memorize them. Zhou Lao Shi gives me about seven of these characters to memorize a night and the first night it took me over an hour to remember all of them. However, now I can do it in about 15 minutes. I’ve figured out that if I write the character over and over again while thinking the word to myself the character gets built into my muscle memory and my brain associates it with the word. Though it’s a little tedious it’s the only way I can figure out that works.
Reading Chinese can also be hard and frustrating because if you don’t recognize a character there is no sounding it out and looking it up is almost impossible. So really, the only thing to do is to ask someone who does know. This can be rather problematic when you are the only person in your family who can read any Chinese at all. However, although Chinese is extremely hard and exhausting to learn, I am having a lot of fun using it. It’s amazing how even after just a week of studying Chinese I can communicate much better with my desk buddy in school, and with people around town such as taxi drivers and store clerks. I think its so much more fun learning a language in a place where people actually speak it because there are so many opportunities to practice.
More later,
Gavi
March 7-9: Weekend Update From Gavi
Gavi Writes:
Hi Everyone,
Saturday morning the Gaoxin School took my family, the 8 BHS students and me to the Provincial Museum. The Provincial Museum exhibits included artifacts from quite a few of the dynasties. It was really interesting to go through and look at all of it in one place. There were a few displays that had versions of the same artifact from different dynasties that were really interesting to look at. For example, there was a display of the decorated backs of 5 or so mirrors from different dynasties. All of which had very different patterns but elements from the ones that came before it.
After the museum, we all went out for boud zi, which is becoming a Saturday afternoon tradition. After lunch, the BHS students and I, minus Emily who had a ton of homework, went to the Muslim Quarter to do some shopping and work on our bargaining skills. I didn’t really need anything but I found Ayden some jade earrings for her birthday, which I got for 20 yuan from about 50. When we finished our shopping, we all went home for dinner, and then went to Jenna’s for a movie night. Though, it wasn’t really a movie night because Mikey, the keeper of the movies, was two hours late. Subsequently, it was a mahjong/ hide and go seek/ movie night. However, it was fun nevertheless.
Sunday night Ayden and I had our joint birthday party. Ayden’s birthday is March 7th and mine March 11th so March 9th seemed like an appropriate day. For our party my parents treated us, and the BHS students to a hot pot dinner. Hot pot is a type of Chinese meal that can be found all over Xi’an. Basically, everyone gets their own pot of boiling fish broth and all sorts of things, such as fish and meat, are put on the table. Each person chooses what he or she wants to eat and then they put it in their pot to either cook or heat up. Then you dip it in sauce and eat it, it tastes amazing! After dinner we had a cake shaped like a panda’s head, which Ayden picked out last week, then did presents and went home.
Monday was pretty much a normal school day for me. I went to Chinese school, then came to the dorms for lunch. After lunch we played ping pong for a while and then had a discussion about the trip we went on last weekend to the country-side. Then, while everyone else was editing journal entries for the WebLab, I did some schoolwork from back home. For our cultural class, we had Kung Fu. Unlike in the past, we got to use swords. It was really fun and cool though, had the swords been real Ben would have probably lost his head 5 times over. After we learned a routine, our teacher took our measurements for Kung-fu uniforms she is having made for us. When cultural class was over I went back up to the dorms to do more school work.
More later,
Gavi
Hi Everyone,
Saturday morning the Gaoxin School took my family, the 8 BHS students and me to the Provincial Museum. The Provincial Museum exhibits included artifacts from quite a few of the dynasties. It was really interesting to go through and look at all of it in one place. There were a few displays that had versions of the same artifact from different dynasties that were really interesting to look at. For example, there was a display of the decorated backs of 5 or so mirrors from different dynasties. All of which had very different patterns but elements from the ones that came before it.
After the museum, we all went out for boud zi, which is becoming a Saturday afternoon tradition. After lunch, the BHS students and I, minus Emily who had a ton of homework, went to the Muslim Quarter to do some shopping and work on our bargaining skills. I didn’t really need anything but I found Ayden some jade earrings for her birthday, which I got for 20 yuan from about 50. When we finished our shopping, we all went home for dinner, and then went to Jenna’s for a movie night. Though, it wasn’t really a movie night because Mikey, the keeper of the movies, was two hours late. Subsequently, it was a mahjong/ hide and go seek/ movie night. However, it was fun nevertheless.
Sunday night Ayden and I had our joint birthday party. Ayden’s birthday is March 7th and mine March 11th so March 9th seemed like an appropriate day. For our party my parents treated us, and the BHS students to a hot pot dinner. Hot pot is a type of Chinese meal that can be found all over Xi’an. Basically, everyone gets their own pot of boiling fish broth and all sorts of things, such as fish and meat, are put on the table. Each person chooses what he or she wants to eat and then they put it in their pot to either cook or heat up. Then you dip it in sauce and eat it, it tastes amazing! After dinner we had a cake shaped like a panda’s head, which Ayden picked out last week, then did presents and went home.
Monday was pretty much a normal school day for me. I went to Chinese school, then came to the dorms for lunch. After lunch we played ping pong for a while and then had a discussion about the trip we went on last weekend to the country-side. Then, while everyone else was editing journal entries for the WebLab, I did some schoolwork from back home. For our cultural class, we had Kung Fu. Unlike in the past, we got to use swords. It was really fun and cool though, had the swords been real Ben would have probably lost his head 5 times over. After we learned a routine, our teacher took our measurements for Kung-fu uniforms she is having made for us. When cultural class was over I went back up to the dorms to do more school work.
More later,
Gavi
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday March 11, 2008: Morning Exercises and Breakfast
Jocelyn Writes:
Hello everyone!! Today Ben has joined our blogging effort. He dictated his entry to me. Enjoy! Much love-Joc
Ben Says:
Today I am going to tell you about morning exercises. We go out to morning exercises in the playground. Then someone says something in Chinese. The music starts and the kids do their morning exercises.
This is how you do the morning exercises:
You pause for a second then squat down for about 9 seconds then you come back up and wave your arms.
Then you cross your arms, turn your body to the right and pat your chest. Then you do the same thing to the left and repeat 4 times.
Then you run in place for 4 times and then lunge forward and put your arms behind back. You do this lunge part 4 times.
Then you put your arms out and then you pull them back in and then put one of your hands like the handle of a teapot to the side and reach your other arm over your head.
Make a fist and bend your arm up by your cheek and then do that with the other arm. Do this 2 times.
Then jump forward and back 2 times.
Put your arms over your head 2 times.
Make a butterfly with your hands and raise your butterfly above your head.
That's all I can remember now.
When I learn the rest I will tell you.
--Ben
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about what people eat for breakfast in China. We don’t live in a house, we live in dorm room; and we don’t have a kitchen so we eat in the cafeteria. Chinese breakfast is very different than the breakfast in America. First of all, Chinese people don’t eat cereal, instead they eat sandwiches. Also, in China we eat hard-boiled eggs, muffins, cookies, flat strudel, corn bread and a lot of other stuff for breakfast. We also have a kind of soup that is called “she fan”, it is a really gross soup made of red beans and rice.
I am going to describe the sandwiches to you. Okay first of all, you only eat them for breakfast. The bread for the sandwiches looks like pita bread and an English muffin. You get to choose what you want in your sandwiches. Some things you put in the sandwiches are peanuts with celery, rice noodles with green seaweed, cucumbers, bok choy and a bunch of other things. I think that the food for breakfast is really good. Breakfast is my favorite meal, because of the sandwiches. I know that in the states we usually eat sandwiches for lunch, but these are much better than the sandwiches my dad makes for lunch.
When we first arrived in China it was Spring Festival school vacation. During vacation, we ate a different breakfast then we do now. At breakfast during vacation, the cooks in the school kitchen tried to serve us an American food, but it ended up looking a lot more like a Chinese breakfast. They served fried eggs, toast, shi fan and green things. Also when we ate, a girl would stand around the table and wait until we were done. At breakfast, we would drink this kind of milk that was sweet—it didn’t taste like milk.
Both breakfasts are very good.
Hello everyone!! Today Ben has joined our blogging effort. He dictated his entry to me. Enjoy! Much love-Joc
Ben Says:
Today I am going to tell you about morning exercises. We go out to morning exercises in the playground. Then someone says something in Chinese. The music starts and the kids do their morning exercises.
This is how you do the morning exercises:
You pause for a second then squat down for about 9 seconds then you come back up and wave your arms.
Then you cross your arms, turn your body to the right and pat your chest. Then you do the same thing to the left and repeat 4 times.
Then you run in place for 4 times and then lunge forward and put your arms behind back. You do this lunge part 4 times.
Then you put your arms out and then you pull them back in and then put one of your hands like the handle of a teapot to the side and reach your other arm over your head.
Make a fist and bend your arm up by your cheek and then do that with the other arm. Do this 2 times.
Then jump forward and back 2 times.
Put your arms over your head 2 times.
Make a butterfly with your hands and raise your butterfly above your head.
That's all I can remember now.
When I learn the rest I will tell you.
--Ben
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about what people eat for breakfast in China. We don’t live in a house, we live in dorm room; and we don’t have a kitchen so we eat in the cafeteria. Chinese breakfast is very different than the breakfast in America. First of all, Chinese people don’t eat cereal, instead they eat sandwiches. Also, in China we eat hard-boiled eggs, muffins, cookies, flat strudel, corn bread and a lot of other stuff for breakfast. We also have a kind of soup that is called “she fan”, it is a really gross soup made of red beans and rice.
I am going to describe the sandwiches to you. Okay first of all, you only eat them for breakfast. The bread for the sandwiches looks like pita bread and an English muffin. You get to choose what you want in your sandwiches. Some things you put in the sandwiches are peanuts with celery, rice noodles with green seaweed, cucumbers, bok choy and a bunch of other things. I think that the food for breakfast is really good. Breakfast is my favorite meal, because of the sandwiches. I know that in the states we usually eat sandwiches for lunch, but these are much better than the sandwiches my dad makes for lunch.
When we first arrived in China it was Spring Festival school vacation. During vacation, we ate a different breakfast then we do now. At breakfast during vacation, the cooks in the school kitchen tried to serve us an American food, but it ended up looking a lot more like a Chinese breakfast. They served fried eggs, toast, shi fan and green things. Also when we ate, a girl would stand around the table and wait until we were done. At breakfast, we would drink this kind of milk that was sweet—it didn’t taste like milk.
Both breakfasts are very good.
Monday, March 10, 2008
March 10: Crossing the Street in China with Ayden
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about how to cross the street in China. Crossing the street in China is very different than crossing the street in America. First of all, the streets in China are much bigger than the streets in America. The streets in our neighborhood have five lanes, four for cars and one for bikes and motorcycles. Also the streets don’t have stop signs. I have also noticed that Chinese don’t have speed limits.
When you are little in America, your parents teach you to stop, look and listen. In China parents teach you to keep on walking across the street. When you are crossing a street in China, you have to keep walking and not stop. The cars will just move around you.
Many drivers in China don’t follow the traffic signals. The drivers sometimes go through red lights, turn when they are not suppose to and much more. It is terrifying crossing a street. But when you get to the other side, you feel proud of yourself. When I am walking on the sidewalk, the cars on the street sort of look like hair that hasn’t been brushed for a while because all of the cars are moving in different directions very close to each other and look like a big knot.. When I get back to America it will be so easy to cross the street.
For today’s blog entry, I will be writing about how to cross the street in China. Crossing the street in China is very different than crossing the street in America. First of all, the streets in China are much bigger than the streets in America. The streets in our neighborhood have five lanes, four for cars and one for bikes and motorcycles. Also the streets don’t have stop signs. I have also noticed that Chinese don’t have speed limits.
When you are little in America, your parents teach you to stop, look and listen. In China parents teach you to keep on walking across the street. When you are crossing a street in China, you have to keep walking and not stop. The cars will just move around you.
Many drivers in China don’t follow the traffic signals. The drivers sometimes go through red lights, turn when they are not suppose to and much more. It is terrifying crossing a street. But when you get to the other side, you feel proud of yourself. When I am walking on the sidewalk, the cars on the street sort of look like hair that hasn’t been brushed for a while because all of the cars are moving in different directions very close to each other and look like a big knot.. When I get back to America it will be so easy to cross the street.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Gavi Catching Up With You All!
Hey all,
Sorry I haven’t written in a while. My schedule here is getting extremely busy! On a normal day I wake up at about 6:30 to be at school (a 15-25 minute walk from our dorms) by 8:00. I’m at school until 11:40 supposedly but, the teacher usually takes an extra 7 or so minutes to finish up. After school, I go back to the dorms to have lunch with the BHS students. When we are finished eating, we usually play a game of soccer until we have to go in at 1:30. At 1:30, I have classes with the BHS students taught by my dad. Depending on the day we have either Chinese Literature or Chinese History. Then, every day except for Wednesdays, I have Chinese tutoring. After that, I have more classes with the BHS students and then a cultural class. On Wednesdays however, I have the cultural class, then Chinese then, class with the BHS students. At 4:30, when I am completely done with school, I have to do Chinese homework, then about an hour and a half of keeping up with school in America and then homework for Ma lao shi (otherwise known as Mr. Mallory or my dad.) I usually am completely finished at about 8:00 pm. So as you can see my free time is limited.
Despite my packed schedule, yesterday, after school, Emily, Jonathan, Kyle, Jennifer, Jenna and I all went to Lotus (the local supermarket/ everything you could ever need store) to shop for notebooks, shoes, clothes, and Jonathan wanted a unicycle. We found everything we needed with ease except for the unicycle. First of all, it was hard to get across to the people helping us what a unicycle was. Though Jonathan knew the official word in Chinese they are very rare in China so not many people know what they are. The man in the bike section finally understood after we said “bike with one” and then mimed a spinning wheel. The man pointed in a direction and said something none of us understood and then walked away. We walked in the direction he had pointed but didn’t see anything so we asked someone else who, of course, took us back to the man in the bike section. The man then explained to us that Lotus didn’t have any unicycles and that to get one we would have to take a 15-minute taxi ride out of town to a different store. This other store apparently had two unicycles in stock that they were selling. We decided that it was too late to go then, and ate dinner instead. After we ate, we went our separate ways.
More later,
Gavi
Sorry I haven’t written in a while. My schedule here is getting extremely busy! On a normal day I wake up at about 6:30 to be at school (a 15-25 minute walk from our dorms) by 8:00. I’m at school until 11:40 supposedly but, the teacher usually takes an extra 7 or so minutes to finish up. After school, I go back to the dorms to have lunch with the BHS students. When we are finished eating, we usually play a game of soccer until we have to go in at 1:30. At 1:30, I have classes with the BHS students taught by my dad. Depending on the day we have either Chinese Literature or Chinese History. Then, every day except for Wednesdays, I have Chinese tutoring. After that, I have more classes with the BHS students and then a cultural class. On Wednesdays however, I have the cultural class, then Chinese then, class with the BHS students. At 4:30, when I am completely done with school, I have to do Chinese homework, then about an hour and a half of keeping up with school in America and then homework for Ma lao shi (otherwise known as Mr. Mallory or my dad.) I usually am completely finished at about 8:00 pm. So as you can see my free time is limited.
Despite my packed schedule, yesterday, after school, Emily, Jonathan, Kyle, Jennifer, Jenna and I all went to Lotus (the local supermarket/ everything you could ever need store) to shop for notebooks, shoes, clothes, and Jonathan wanted a unicycle. We found everything we needed with ease except for the unicycle. First of all, it was hard to get across to the people helping us what a unicycle was. Though Jonathan knew the official word in Chinese they are very rare in China so not many people know what they are. The man in the bike section finally understood after we said “bike with one” and then mimed a spinning wheel. The man pointed in a direction and said something none of us understood and then walked away. We walked in the direction he had pointed but didn’t see anything so we asked someone else who, of course, took us back to the man in the bike section. The man then explained to us that Lotus didn’t have any unicycles and that to get one we would have to take a 15-minute taxi ride out of town to a different store. This other store apparently had two unicycles in stock that they were selling. We decided that it was too late to go then, and ate dinner instead. After we ate, we went our separate ways.
More later,
Gavi
Thursday, March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008: Ayden's Pre-Birthday Blog Entry
Ayden Writes:
Hey y’all
Tomorrow I will not be writing my blog, because my birthday is tomorrow. For my birthday I will be sharing a birthday party with my sister, because her birthday is in 5 days. For my birthday, I got my nails done today. Tomorrow I am getting a foot massage with the high school students. I am going to get to choose a big cake for me and my sister’s birthday party. I am very excited to turn ten. For our party, we will be going to a hot pot restaurant.
Hot pot is a type of restaurant where you cook your own food. You have a bowl that is filled with boiling hot fish broth. You take something (a kind of food like a vegetable or egg or meat or fish) you put it in the pot with the boiling broth. The food takes about 1 minute to cook. It tastes really good. For me and my sisters party, we are going to hot pot with all of the high school students. I am very excited. Thanks for taking your time to read this.
Ayden
Hey y’all
Tomorrow I will not be writing my blog, because my birthday is tomorrow. For my birthday I will be sharing a birthday party with my sister, because her birthday is in 5 days. For my birthday, I got my nails done today. Tomorrow I am getting a foot massage with the high school students. I am going to get to choose a big cake for me and my sister’s birthday party. I am very excited to turn ten. For our party, we will be going to a hot pot restaurant.
Hot pot is a type of restaurant where you cook your own food. You have a bowl that is filled with boiling hot fish broth. You take something (a kind of food like a vegetable or egg or meat or fish) you put it in the pot with the boiling broth. The food takes about 1 minute to cook. It tastes really good. For me and my sisters party, we are going to hot pot with all of the high school students. I am very excited. Thanks for taking your time to read this.
Ayden
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Ayden's Observations
Ayden Writes:
For today’s blog entry I will be writing about my observations about China. My first observation is that everybody in China is short. At school when we get into lines we do it by height. I am always at the back of the line. The line sort of looks like a staircase until it gets to me, that’s when it jumps up. Whenever my class does something, I am usually the last person to do it because I am the tallest.
My second observation is that everyone in China has straight black hair. Whenever I am in line I always see black. That is because if I look up, I see everybody’s hair which is all black. Whenever I am walking down the street I never see anybody with blond hair. No body in my class has curly hair except me.
Next observation is that everybody treats me like royalty. When I am at school, there is always a big crowd around me; and it is hard for me to go anywhere without somebody following me. School is a very hard place to move around, some people want me to talk to them, some people want my autograph. But no matter what, the students just want to be near me. My mom says that they think that I am sort of like an alien and sort of like a rockstar. Everybody I talk to is just so nice and so welcoming to me. And those are my main observations.
--Ayden
For today’s blog entry I will be writing about my observations about China. My first observation is that everybody in China is short. At school when we get into lines we do it by height. I am always at the back of the line. The line sort of looks like a staircase until it gets to me, that’s when it jumps up. Whenever my class does something, I am usually the last person to do it because I am the tallest.
My second observation is that everyone in China has straight black hair. Whenever I am in line I always see black. That is because if I look up, I see everybody’s hair which is all black. Whenever I am walking down the street I never see anybody with blond hair. No body in my class has curly hair except me.
Next observation is that everybody treats me like royalty. When I am at school, there is always a big crowd around me; and it is hard for me to go anywhere without somebody following me. School is a very hard place to move around, some people want me to talk to them, some people want my autograph. But no matter what, the students just want to be near me. My mom says that they think that I am sort of like an alien and sort of like a rockstar. Everybody I talk to is just so nice and so welcoming to me. And those are my main observations.
--Ayden
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Trip to Xianyang Museum and Zhouzhi Scool
Hey all,
Saturday (March 1) my family and I went to the Xianyang Museum. The Xianyang Museum houses artifacts found in the tomb of Emperor Chang Ling who ruled during the Han dynasty. One of these artifacts is an army of 3 foot tall clay soldiers he was buried with. When you first walk into the Museum, you are in a large room with many different things that were found in the Emperor’s tomb. On the wall are plaques about the Emperor and the time period he lived in. When you go down-stairs, there is a room very similar to the one upstairs. Both rooms have displays of the little clay soldiers. After the museum, we went to the actual tomb where we walked on glass flours above the remains and saw these soldiers in different stages of restoration. It was really interesting to see the actual steps the archeologists took to get the soldiers to the state they are in today from the state they were in when they were found. After going to the museum, my mom, my sister and I all went to get massages. Then, we went to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner and from there back to the dorms.
Sunday was one of my favorite days so far. The Gao Xin School took me, my dad, the BHS students and 20 of their own students to their sister school in the country-side. The Zhouzhi School is about a 2-hour bus ride from the School. The neighborhood that we are living in is one of the most well-off in China; so, it was really interesting and moving to see what majority of the country really looked like. When we arrived at the school we were greeted by about 75 high school students who were smiling and clapping. We were divided into two groups and each group went into one of the two classrooms that were being used at the time. In the classroom I was in, there were many speeches given that I didn’t understand much of. Then, the boy from Gao Xin sitting next to me turned to me and said “ Okay now they would like you to give a little introduction.” So we all reluctantly got up and introduced ourselves and Joe spoke a little about BHS. I personally am still not used to being told that I’m going to have to do something like this minuets before I have to do it. However, it seems to be a very common way to run things here. After the speeches were done, we got to talk a little with the kids from the Zhouzhi School; but, there was a lot more picture taking then talking. Then we had formal picture taking and a few of the BHS students were interviewed by some cameramen for who knows what. After the trip had been documented to their standards, we had some free time. Jenna, my dad, and I played basketball with some of the Gao Xin students and some of the students from the Zhouzhi school.
After the break we had lunch, which consisted of really good cooked vegetables, soup, and bread. Then we were told that we were going to visit a student’s home in the mountains; so we all piled into the bus again. The trip was about a 30-minute bus ride and then an amazingly beautiful hour-long hike. The air in the mountains was much cleaner then that in the city and that in it’s self was really satisfying. But the view was even better. Looking up you could see more mountains above you and looking down there were little cottages spotting gorgeous grass covered hills. When we reached the students home, I realized for the fist time how different the living standards we were experiencing were from those that most Chinese people experience. This boy lived in a little dirt floor hut with 3 rooms, a kitchen, a bedroom, and another room I didn’t go into. There was also a cellar for keeping food cold, and a loft around the top of the house for storing wheat and corn, which the family grew. Going to this boy’s house really put into perspective how well off I really am, and in other ways what I am missing. It really got me thinking about what was important to me. Though this boy didn’t have fridge, or his own bed, he was living in one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. After exploring the mountains a little, we all made the hike down and then piled back onto the bus to go back to Gao Xin School. On the bus ride home Jonathan (one of the BHS students) taught me a never loose way to solve a rubix cube. So now you can scramble it as much as you like and I can solve it! Well… probably.
More later,
Gavi
Saturday (March 1) my family and I went to the Xianyang Museum. The Xianyang Museum houses artifacts found in the tomb of Emperor Chang Ling who ruled during the Han dynasty. One of these artifacts is an army of 3 foot tall clay soldiers he was buried with. When you first walk into the Museum, you are in a large room with many different things that were found in the Emperor’s tomb. On the wall are plaques about the Emperor and the time period he lived in. When you go down-stairs, there is a room very similar to the one upstairs. Both rooms have displays of the little clay soldiers. After the museum, we went to the actual tomb where we walked on glass flours above the remains and saw these soldiers in different stages of restoration. It was really interesting to see the actual steps the archeologists took to get the soldiers to the state they are in today from the state they were in when they were found. After going to the museum, my mom, my sister and I all went to get massages. Then, we went to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner and from there back to the dorms.
Sunday was one of my favorite days so far. The Gao Xin School took me, my dad, the BHS students and 20 of their own students to their sister school in the country-side. The Zhouzhi School is about a 2-hour bus ride from the School. The neighborhood that we are living in is one of the most well-off in China; so, it was really interesting and moving to see what majority of the country really looked like. When we arrived at the school we were greeted by about 75 high school students who were smiling and clapping. We were divided into two groups and each group went into one of the two classrooms that were being used at the time. In the classroom I was in, there were many speeches given that I didn’t understand much of. Then, the boy from Gao Xin sitting next to me turned to me and said “ Okay now they would like you to give a little introduction.” So we all reluctantly got up and introduced ourselves and Joe spoke a little about BHS. I personally am still not used to being told that I’m going to have to do something like this minuets before I have to do it. However, it seems to be a very common way to run things here. After the speeches were done, we got to talk a little with the kids from the Zhouzhi School; but, there was a lot more picture taking then talking. Then we had formal picture taking and a few of the BHS students were interviewed by some cameramen for who knows what. After the trip had been documented to their standards, we had some free time. Jenna, my dad, and I played basketball with some of the Gao Xin students and some of the students from the Zhouzhi school.
After the break we had lunch, which consisted of really good cooked vegetables, soup, and bread. Then we were told that we were going to visit a student’s home in the mountains; so we all piled into the bus again. The trip was about a 30-minute bus ride and then an amazingly beautiful hour-long hike. The air in the mountains was much cleaner then that in the city and that in it’s self was really satisfying. But the view was even better. Looking up you could see more mountains above you and looking down there were little cottages spotting gorgeous grass covered hills. When we reached the students home, I realized for the fist time how different the living standards we were experiencing were from those that most Chinese people experience. This boy lived in a little dirt floor hut with 3 rooms, a kitchen, a bedroom, and another room I didn’t go into. There was also a cellar for keeping food cold, and a loft around the top of the house for storing wheat and corn, which the family grew. Going to this boy’s house really put into perspective how well off I really am, and in other ways what I am missing. It really got me thinking about what was important to me. Though this boy didn’t have fridge, or his own bed, he was living in one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. After exploring the mountains a little, we all made the hike down and then piled back onto the bus to go back to Gao Xin School. On the bus ride home Jonathan (one of the BHS students) taught me a never loose way to solve a rubix cube. So now you can scramble it as much as you like and I can solve it! Well… probably.
More later,
Gavi
Monday, March 3, 2008
Start of Week 4 and Our Foot Massage Adventure
Ayden Writes:
March 3, 2008
Today I went to school. My first subject was Chinese. During Chinese class my teacher was calling out words and the students were writing them down. My next subject was morning exercises. Today instead of morning exercises we raised the Chinese flag. The Chinese flag is red with four yellow stars, three small and one big star. The first thing we did was the raising of the flag. Next three people gave speeches. I don’t know what the speeches were about because they were in Chinese. Then we sang a song. I didn’t know the words so I decided not to sing. After raising the flag, my teacher told me that I would be getting a uniform. The uniform I got is very ugly. When I got back to my classroom my class was having math. After math class we had eye exercises. After eye exercises we had computer class. My next subject was music. We sang a song about spring. After music class, I went down stairs to meet my mom, my sister and my brother. They were all waiting for me. And that was my day at school.
On Saturday in the afternoon I got a foot massage that included back, shoulders, hands and legs. When Gavi, my mom and I got to the massage place, the employees showed us where to go and they gave us outfits to change into. First, they massaged our hands and then our feet. My mom was trying to talk to the employees in Chinese. She tried to ask them if they were students but instead she asked them to get hot water. The massage felt really good. I was sad when I had to leave.
--Ayden.
March 3, 2008
Today I went to school. My first subject was Chinese. During Chinese class my teacher was calling out words and the students were writing them down. My next subject was morning exercises. Today instead of morning exercises we raised the Chinese flag. The Chinese flag is red with four yellow stars, three small and one big star. The first thing we did was the raising of the flag. Next three people gave speeches. I don’t know what the speeches were about because they were in Chinese. Then we sang a song. I didn’t know the words so I decided not to sing. After raising the flag, my teacher told me that I would be getting a uniform. The uniform I got is very ugly. When I got back to my classroom my class was having math. After math class we had eye exercises. After eye exercises we had computer class. My next subject was music. We sang a song about spring. After music class, I went down stairs to meet my mom, my sister and my brother. They were all waiting for me. And that was my day at school.
On Saturday in the afternoon I got a foot massage that included back, shoulders, hands and legs. When Gavi, my mom and I got to the massage place, the employees showed us where to go and they gave us outfits to change into. First, they massaged our hands and then our feet. My mom was trying to talk to the employees in Chinese. She tried to ask them if they were students but instead she asked them to get hot water. The massage felt really good. I was sad when I had to leave.
--Ayden.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Blogs from The Last Days in February. Happy Leap Year!
February 29
Gavi Writes:
Hey all,
Today in school, my last period, I had computer class. However, the fact that we were doing computers took a while for Annie (my desk partner) to explain to me. We all lined up outside the way we do for running in the mornings, two rows of boys and two rows of girls. Then we all marched from the building my classroom is in to another building where the computer lab was. We all lined up outside of the computer lab and everyone took out these big sock-like things, which they put over their shoes. The socks were shaped in a way that made our feet look like elf feet, pointy on both ends. I’m not sure why we were wearing them but it couldn’t have been too important because no one seemed to care that I wasn’t wearing any. I’m not really sure what happened in class, it was all in Chinese as was everything on the computer, however the key-board was English. After class I went back to the dorms to have lunch.
Lunch break today was quite an event. First, while we were eating I noticed that Jenna (one of the BHS students) was missing. I asked if anyone knew where she was and someone told me that she was playing basketball with some Chinese boys in her class. The cafeteria we eat lunch in is right above the basketball courts, so I looked out the window to see if I could see her playing. Not only was I able to see Jenna holding her ground against the Chinese boys, but also what must have been 50 or so other students who had all gathered around the basketball court to watch an American girl play. All of us Americans found this very funny and entertaining to watch.
After we ate, we all went out to the soccer field. Yesterday, Mandy one of the China exchange coordinators here told my dad that the BHS students were in charge of entertaining a bunch of Chinese kids visiting from a sister school in the country-side at break today. And what’s a better way to entertain so many people at once than an enormous game of capture the flag? So that’s what we did. We played a huge game of capture the flag. Joe and Emily, who are the best at Chinese in our group, managed to explain the rules as best they could and then split everyone into teams.
Because there were so many people Joe put red water-colors on one of the teams noses so we wouldn’t have to memorize who was on which team. The game that followed was absolutely insane. First of all, everyone used the weirdest strategies such as --causing a distraction by running the width of the field and back multiple times on out side of line making crazy hand motions to look like we were using some sort of code.
I noticed that when you are hanging out with kids your age form a completely different country its hard not to get into interesting and distracting conversations. So, many times I was talking to someone and all of a sudden someone would wiz past me from the other team while all of my team yelled “GAVI WHY DIDN’T YOU TAG HIM???”. Not all of the Chinese students had fully understood the rules so such as the “free walk back from jail rule”; so many such rules were discarded.
The strangest part for me was that after the game about 20 Chinese kids were going around basically asking all of the American students to autograph their notebooks and give them their e-mails. We happily all gave the Chinese students our emails . After all of this going up to my room to do school work seemed rather dull, but what can you do?
More later,
Gavi
February 28, 2008
Ayden Writes:
Today I did not feel so good. When my Dad woke me up this morning, it took me a while to get dressed. I went down to breakfast with my sister. During breakfast I didn’t eat what I normally eat because I was afraid that it was going to upset my stomach. I decided not go to school.
My Dad took me to the Doctor’s office just down stairs from our dorm room. Our Chinese friend Mandy who helps us with Chinese came to the doctor so we could understand the doctor. First, the doctor asked some questions. Then, the doctor asked me to get onto a table. When I got on the table, she started to push on my stomach, then the doctor pushed on my back and then on my legs. After my doctors appointment my Mom told me that the doctor was using acupressure on me. My Mom told me all about acupressure and how it helped my body.
Everyday we have a cultural class. Today the cultural class was cooking. We made jiadsa. In English, jiadsa means dumplings. Mandy took the high school kids and us up to the kitchen. There we started to make dumplings with the cooks who make our meals. First, we rolled our dough in the shape of a snake. Then we started picking little balls off of our snakes of dough. After we flattened the dough into circles, we started putting cut up vegetables inside. Next we folded our dough in half and then squashed the top part of the dumplings with our thumb. After we were finished with all of our dumplings we gave them to the chef so he could cook them. Next thing to do was to eat them. The Jiadsa were so good!!! Eating the dumplings sure was my favorite part.
--Ayden.
Gavi Writes:
Hi everyone,
Today was my first day at school this week because I have been sick since Monday. I was welcomed me back with familiar applause when I walked into the classroom. The morning was fairly uneventful, though I was asked by Feng Lou Shi (the teacher who came to America with the 8 Chinese students who is also my English teacher) to teach a little bit of the English class. Everyone was very impressed at how well I could ask for, and give directions.
After school we had the usual lunch and a soccer game. Then I had more classes with the high school students. Our cultural class today was cooking. I found it the most fun out of all of the other ones we have had so far. We made Jiadsa which are little dumplings. The first step was rolling out thin little circles of dough. The cooks did this fancy thing with their rolling pins and their circles were perfectly circular and symmetrical. I did my best to imitate them and mine resembled circles, a little bit. After we rolled out the dough we put a tofu and vegetable filling in and closed them up. Caroline, who had done this many times before, had some fancy way of closing up her dumplings and they were really neat and very pretty. The rest of us just folded them in half and pinched them shut. Except for Jonathan who decided that was too difficult for him. He made his hamantashen style. (Hamantashen are a Jewish pastry usually made for the holiday Purim in April.)
After all of the dumplings were made the cooks put them in boiling water to cook. When they came out we got to eat them and though they didn’t look very nice, except for Caroline’s, they were really good!
More later,
Gavi
Gavi Writes:
Hey all,
Today in school, my last period, I had computer class. However, the fact that we were doing computers took a while for Annie (my desk partner) to explain to me. We all lined up outside the way we do for running in the mornings, two rows of boys and two rows of girls. Then we all marched from the building my classroom is in to another building where the computer lab was. We all lined up outside of the computer lab and everyone took out these big sock-like things, which they put over their shoes. The socks were shaped in a way that made our feet look like elf feet, pointy on both ends. I’m not sure why we were wearing them but it couldn’t have been too important because no one seemed to care that I wasn’t wearing any. I’m not really sure what happened in class, it was all in Chinese as was everything on the computer, however the key-board was English. After class I went back to the dorms to have lunch.
Lunch break today was quite an event. First, while we were eating I noticed that Jenna (one of the BHS students) was missing. I asked if anyone knew where she was and someone told me that she was playing basketball with some Chinese boys in her class. The cafeteria we eat lunch in is right above the basketball courts, so I looked out the window to see if I could see her playing. Not only was I able to see Jenna holding her ground against the Chinese boys, but also what must have been 50 or so other students who had all gathered around the basketball court to watch an American girl play. All of us Americans found this very funny and entertaining to watch.
After we ate, we all went out to the soccer field. Yesterday, Mandy one of the China exchange coordinators here told my dad that the BHS students were in charge of entertaining a bunch of Chinese kids visiting from a sister school in the country-side at break today. And what’s a better way to entertain so many people at once than an enormous game of capture the flag? So that’s what we did. We played a huge game of capture the flag. Joe and Emily, who are the best at Chinese in our group, managed to explain the rules as best they could and then split everyone into teams.
Because there were so many people Joe put red water-colors on one of the teams noses so we wouldn’t have to memorize who was on which team. The game that followed was absolutely insane. First of all, everyone used the weirdest strategies such as --causing a distraction by running the width of the field and back multiple times on out side of line making crazy hand motions to look like we were using some sort of code.
I noticed that when you are hanging out with kids your age form a completely different country its hard not to get into interesting and distracting conversations. So, many times I was talking to someone and all of a sudden someone would wiz past me from the other team while all of my team yelled “GAVI WHY DIDN’T YOU TAG HIM???”. Not all of the Chinese students had fully understood the rules so such as the “free walk back from jail rule”; so many such rules were discarded.
The strangest part for me was that after the game about 20 Chinese kids were going around basically asking all of the American students to autograph their notebooks and give them their e-mails. We happily all gave the Chinese students our emails . After all of this going up to my room to do school work seemed rather dull, but what can you do?
More later,
Gavi
February 28, 2008
Ayden Writes:
Today I did not feel so good. When my Dad woke me up this morning, it took me a while to get dressed. I went down to breakfast with my sister. During breakfast I didn’t eat what I normally eat because I was afraid that it was going to upset my stomach. I decided not go to school.
My Dad took me to the Doctor’s office just down stairs from our dorm room. Our Chinese friend Mandy who helps us with Chinese came to the doctor so we could understand the doctor. First, the doctor asked some questions. Then, the doctor asked me to get onto a table. When I got on the table, she started to push on my stomach, then the doctor pushed on my back and then on my legs. After my doctors appointment my Mom told me that the doctor was using acupressure on me. My Mom told me all about acupressure and how it helped my body.
Everyday we have a cultural class. Today the cultural class was cooking. We made jiadsa. In English, jiadsa means dumplings. Mandy took the high school kids and us up to the kitchen. There we started to make dumplings with the cooks who make our meals. First, we rolled our dough in the shape of a snake. Then we started picking little balls off of our snakes of dough. After we flattened the dough into circles, we started putting cut up vegetables inside. Next we folded our dough in half and then squashed the top part of the dumplings with our thumb. After we were finished with all of our dumplings we gave them to the chef so he could cook them. Next thing to do was to eat them. The Jiadsa were so good!!! Eating the dumplings sure was my favorite part.
--Ayden.
Gavi Writes:
Hi everyone,
Today was my first day at school this week because I have been sick since Monday. I was welcomed me back with familiar applause when I walked into the classroom. The morning was fairly uneventful, though I was asked by Feng Lou Shi (the teacher who came to America with the 8 Chinese students who is also my English teacher) to teach a little bit of the English class. Everyone was very impressed at how well I could ask for, and give directions.
After school we had the usual lunch and a soccer game. Then I had more classes with the high school students. Our cultural class today was cooking. I found it the most fun out of all of the other ones we have had so far. We made Jiadsa which are little dumplings. The first step was rolling out thin little circles of dough. The cooks did this fancy thing with their rolling pins and their circles were perfectly circular and symmetrical. I did my best to imitate them and mine resembled circles, a little bit. After we rolled out the dough we put a tofu and vegetable filling in and closed them up. Caroline, who had done this many times before, had some fancy way of closing up her dumplings and they were really neat and very pretty. The rest of us just folded them in half and pinched them shut. Except for Jonathan who decided that was too difficult for him. He made his hamantashen style. (Hamantashen are a Jewish pastry usually made for the holiday Purim in April.)
After all of the dumplings were made the cooks put them in boiling water to cook. When they came out we got to eat them and though they didn’t look very nice, except for Caroline’s, they were really good!
More later,
Gavi
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Trip to the Zoo, Gavi Under the Weather
Ayden Writes:
Today I went to school. I walked up to my classroom by myself. First subject was Chinese. I have no clue what they were doing because it was all in Chinese. Next subject was morning exercises. At the end of morning exercises, I taught the whole school English. Actually, I did a skit with a girl from a different grade and taught the school all of the lines of the skit. I was very scared when I did it for the first time (which was yesterday). When I was on the stage I looked a bit up over the heads of the students and realized that every body had straight, black hair. When I was done with my skit, I went back to my class. The next period was math. After math, we had eye exercises. After eye exercises, we had another class of math. My last subject was PE. During PE my teacher wanted me to read her an alphabet book, so I did.
Yesterday, after school I went to the zoo. It took a long time to get there. We drove out of the city to get there. The zoo was located in front of mountains. When we finally arrived there my mom bought us tickets to go inside. When we got inside the zoo, we hopped on a bus. The bus took us to every part of the zoo. Actually, the bus only took us to the wild animals. When the bus stopped, we started walking through the zoo. We came to an area where you could take pictures with animals. I took a picture with a camel. After our pictures my mom got someone to take us to all of the places we wanted to go in the zoo. First stop was the panda. Xi’an only has one panda and that was the one we saw. Next stop was the flamingos. The bus parked right in front of a spot in the grass that was not filled with trees. We walked down a hill to get to where the flamingos were living. When we saw them, they did not look happy. That is where I learned that the zoo did not take good care of the animals. I felt really bad for the animals. When we got back to the bus, we realized that it is not a good idea to leave a bus in front of an open area because the bus could roll into the area and get stuck. And that is what happened. The bus driver and my mom got into a big fight. After that fun activity, we walked to the front gate. My tutor got us a taxi. Then we rode home.
--Ayden.
Gavi Writes:
Hi all,
I have been sick for the past 3 days so I don’t have very much to report. I will tell you though that Chinese medicine, or at least what I was given, tastes, looks and smells horrible. The nurse gave me little bottles that I am supposed to drink two times a day. The liquid in them is a green-brown that reminds me of bog water and if I had to take a guess at what bog-water tastes like I think it would taste better then this stuff. I don’t even know how to describe the taste but it’s bad. Anyways I don’t have much else to report. Hope everyone is well.
More later,
Gavi
Today I went to school. I walked up to my classroom by myself. First subject was Chinese. I have no clue what they were doing because it was all in Chinese. Next subject was morning exercises. At the end of morning exercises, I taught the whole school English. Actually, I did a skit with a girl from a different grade and taught the school all of the lines of the skit. I was very scared when I did it for the first time (which was yesterday). When I was on the stage I looked a bit up over the heads of the students and realized that every body had straight, black hair. When I was done with my skit, I went back to my class. The next period was math. After math, we had eye exercises. After eye exercises, we had another class of math. My last subject was PE. During PE my teacher wanted me to read her an alphabet book, so I did.
Yesterday, after school I went to the zoo. It took a long time to get there. We drove out of the city to get there. The zoo was located in front of mountains. When we finally arrived there my mom bought us tickets to go inside. When we got inside the zoo, we hopped on a bus. The bus took us to every part of the zoo. Actually, the bus only took us to the wild animals. When the bus stopped, we started walking through the zoo. We came to an area where you could take pictures with animals. I took a picture with a camel. After our pictures my mom got someone to take us to all of the places we wanted to go in the zoo. First stop was the panda. Xi’an only has one panda and that was the one we saw. Next stop was the flamingos. The bus parked right in front of a spot in the grass that was not filled with trees. We walked down a hill to get to where the flamingos were living. When we saw them, they did not look happy. That is where I learned that the zoo did not take good care of the animals. I felt really bad for the animals. When we got back to the bus, we realized that it is not a good idea to leave a bus in front of an open area because the bus could roll into the area and get stuck. And that is what happened. The bus driver and my mom got into a big fight. After that fun activity, we walked to the front gate. My tutor got us a taxi. Then we rode home.
--Ayden.
Gavi Writes:
Hi all,
I have been sick for the past 3 days so I don’t have very much to report. I will tell you though that Chinese medicine, or at least what I was given, tastes, looks and smells horrible. The nurse gave me little bottles that I am supposed to drink two times a day. The liquid in them is a green-brown that reminds me of bog water and if I had to take a guess at what bog-water tastes like I think it would taste better then this stuff. I don’t even know how to describe the taste but it’s bad. Anyways I don’t have much else to report. Hope everyone is well.
More later,
Gavi
Monday, February 25, 2008
Monday Week Three!!
Jocelyn Writes:
Another Monday --and the start of our third week here. We have finally developed a bit of a rhythm to our lives…My daily activities are pretty mundane on their face (taking the kids to school, going to the gym, food shopping, Chinese class with the kids…) but as you might imagine---seeing as how they are all conducted in Chinese, there are aspects to these daily activities (as Gavi and Ayden have described) that are anything but mundane and routine. Gavi was feeling a bit under the weather today so we gave her a day off from blogging.
Take care all—
Fondly, Joc
Ayden Writes:
Today I went to school. My Mom walked me to my class room. All of my classmates greeted me. Then my teacher began class. First we had Chinese. Yesterday it snowed and everything was wet so we didn’t do morning exercises. My next subject was math. After math we had computers. My teacher wanted me to teach English to her teacher friends. It was fun. They asked me how old I was and how old my brother and sister are. I replied “I am nine, almost ten.” They asked me “When is your birthday?” “March 7th” I said. “Would you like us to bake you a cake?” they asked. “I don’t care” I said. “Then, we will!” they said. Then my Mom picked me up from school. We ate lunch in the cafeteria.
After lunch, I had an hour break then my tutor came to our dorm. We studied animals. We played charades in Chinese with the animals we learned. Right before she left, she sang Moli Hua which is a folk song about a Jasmine flower. After that beautiful song, my tutor came into my room and asked my sister if she was okay because she was sick today. And that was all I did today.
--Ayden
Another Monday --and the start of our third week here. We have finally developed a bit of a rhythm to our lives…My daily activities are pretty mundane on their face (taking the kids to school, going to the gym, food shopping, Chinese class with the kids…) but as you might imagine---seeing as how they are all conducted in Chinese, there are aspects to these daily activities (as Gavi and Ayden have described) that are anything but mundane and routine. Gavi was feeling a bit under the weather today so we gave her a day off from blogging.
Take care all—
Fondly, Joc
Ayden Writes:
Today I went to school. My Mom walked me to my class room. All of my classmates greeted me. Then my teacher began class. First we had Chinese. Yesterday it snowed and everything was wet so we didn’t do morning exercises. My next subject was math. After math we had computers. My teacher wanted me to teach English to her teacher friends. It was fun. They asked me how old I was and how old my brother and sister are. I replied “I am nine, almost ten.” They asked me “When is your birthday?” “March 7th” I said. “Would you like us to bake you a cake?” they asked. “I don’t care” I said. “Then, we will!” they said. Then my Mom picked me up from school. We ate lunch in the cafeteria.
After lunch, I had an hour break then my tutor came to our dorm. We studied animals. We played charades in Chinese with the animals we learned. Right before she left, she sang Moli Hua which is a folk song about a Jasmine flower. After that beautiful song, my tutor came into my room and asked my sister if she was okay because she was sick today. And that was all I did today.
--Ayden
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Sunday Trip to Banpo Village and Museum
Ayden Writes:
Today my family and I went to Banpo. Banpo is a Neolithic village from six thousand years ago. It is an archeological site that is in good condition. Banpo is not near the city. It takes about 30 minutes to get there in a car. My Mom hired someone to take us there. When we go there my Mom bought us tickets to go inside. The first exhibit we went to showed us what the Banpo residents used to hunt and to fish back then. The next exhibit was the village that the Banpo residents lived in. The village was meant to be outside but when archeologists discovered Banpo they put a building over it. This building is hard to describe. When we entered the building we saw a lot of interesting things like a big sign that said something like “this is from six thousand years ago.” One of the exhibits was the crafts the Banpo residents made. They made pots out of clay. The next exhibit was a description of how the Banpo residents buried people. They showed a few pictures of how they did it. They buried people with pots. Last but not least we went to an exhibit of Neolithic artifacts that included the bones the Banpo residents used and how.
After we looked at this exhibit, me and my mom went to the bathroom. The bathrooms are a lot different in China. Instead of sitting on a toilet seat you have to squat down and use a porcelain hole. After that fun trip, we went to a gift shop. We didn’t find anything we liked. Then we went home to our dorms.
The weather today was strange. It was SNOWING. It doesn’t snow as often as it snows in America. At Banpo me and my Mom were very cold. On the way home I was looking out the window and all of the palm trees were covered in snow. They looked very odd. I hope the weather doesn’t stray this way.
--Ayden.
Gavi Writes
Hey all,
Today when we woke up it was snowing! For those of you who know me well, you know that this is all it takes to make me a very happy! So, the day started off great! After an early breakfast, my family and I piled into a bus and went to Banpo. Banpo is a 6000 year old village that archeologists dug up about 30 minutes from where we are staying. It was very interesting.
There were a couple buildings with little things such as fishing hooks and such that the archeologists had found. Then there was one big building with the ground that had been the village. We saw what the houses’ floors looked like, though the roofs and the walls weren’t there. There were two different kinds of houses. One was rectangular and mostly underground. There were stairs that went down into the one-room house and in the middle of the house there was a fire pit. There was also a circular model of a house. It had the same basic structure as the rectangular one accept that it was mostly above ground. There were also videos that showed how the buildings were built. We also saw skeletons of humans and animals of the time. It was all very interesting and cool. Afterwards we all piled back into the bus and drove back to the dorms.
More later,
Gavi
Today my family and I went to Banpo. Banpo is a Neolithic village from six thousand years ago. It is an archeological site that is in good condition. Banpo is not near the city. It takes about 30 minutes to get there in a car. My Mom hired someone to take us there. When we go there my Mom bought us tickets to go inside. The first exhibit we went to showed us what the Banpo residents used to hunt and to fish back then. The next exhibit was the village that the Banpo residents lived in. The village was meant to be outside but when archeologists discovered Banpo they put a building over it. This building is hard to describe. When we entered the building we saw a lot of interesting things like a big sign that said something like “this is from six thousand years ago.” One of the exhibits was the crafts the Banpo residents made. They made pots out of clay. The next exhibit was a description of how the Banpo residents buried people. They showed a few pictures of how they did it. They buried people with pots. Last but not least we went to an exhibit of Neolithic artifacts that included the bones the Banpo residents used and how.
After we looked at this exhibit, me and my mom went to the bathroom. The bathrooms are a lot different in China. Instead of sitting on a toilet seat you have to squat down and use a porcelain hole. After that fun trip, we went to a gift shop. We didn’t find anything we liked. Then we went home to our dorms.
The weather today was strange. It was SNOWING. It doesn’t snow as often as it snows in America. At Banpo me and my Mom were very cold. On the way home I was looking out the window and all of the palm trees were covered in snow. They looked very odd. I hope the weather doesn’t stray this way.
--Ayden.
Gavi Writes
Hey all,
Today when we woke up it was snowing! For those of you who know me well, you know that this is all it takes to make me a very happy! So, the day started off great! After an early breakfast, my family and I piled into a bus and went to Banpo. Banpo is a 6000 year old village that archeologists dug up about 30 minutes from where we are staying. It was very interesting.
There were a couple buildings with little things such as fishing hooks and such that the archeologists had found. Then there was one big building with the ground that had been the village. We saw what the houses’ floors looked like, though the roofs and the walls weren’t there. There were two different kinds of houses. One was rectangular and mostly underground. There were stairs that went down into the one-room house and in the middle of the house there was a fire pit. There was also a circular model of a house. It had the same basic structure as the rectangular one accept that it was mostly above ground. There were also videos that showed how the buildings were built. We also saw skeletons of humans and animals of the time. It was all very interesting and cool. Afterwards we all piled back into the bus and drove back to the dorms.
More later,
Gavi
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Lantern Festival & Ayden's Friday (2/22/08)
Ayden Writes:
Yesterday was the last day of Spring Festival. My family, my tutor, my tutor’s friend and the bus driver went to the old city where we walked the wall. The wall was bursting with people because it was the last day of Spring Festival. The last day of Spring Festival has another name, Lantern Festival . I saw more fireworks than you would see in the United States in 500 years. The fireworks made me feel worried because they were happening all around me.
Today I went to school. School was the same as all of the other days this week. Nothing different happened. When I got there all of my friends were waiting for me so that they could start class. My teacher asked me how I was feeling because yesterday I didn’t go to school. I was dehydrated. We started with Chinese class then we had morning exercises. After that, we had math, a break and eye exercises. I don’t know what the next subject was because I couldn’t understand any of it. I think it was politics. Next was PE. We played a game that I never heard of before.
Then I went home for lunch. After lunch, my mom, my brother, my tutor and I went to get cell phones. After shopping for cell phones, we came back to our dorm rooms.
Everyday we have a cultural class. Today it was painting. We painted a loquat on a tree. A loquat looks like a teensy weensy beensy orange. I didn’t want to do one so, I just watched. They came out very nicely. And that was my day.
--Ayden
Yesterday was the last day of Spring Festival. My family, my tutor, my tutor’s friend and the bus driver went to the old city where we walked the wall. The wall was bursting with people because it was the last day of Spring Festival. The last day of Spring Festival has another name, Lantern Festival . I saw more fireworks than you would see in the United States in 500 years. The fireworks made me feel worried because they were happening all around me.
Today I went to school. School was the same as all of the other days this week. Nothing different happened. When I got there all of my friends were waiting for me so that they could start class. My teacher asked me how I was feeling because yesterday I didn’t go to school. I was dehydrated. We started with Chinese class then we had morning exercises. After that, we had math, a break and eye exercises. I don’t know what the next subject was because I couldn’t understand any of it. I think it was politics. Next was PE. We played a game that I never heard of before.
Then I went home for lunch. After lunch, my mom, my brother, my tutor and I went to get cell phones. After shopping for cell phones, we came back to our dorm rooms.
Everyday we have a cultural class. Today it was painting. We painted a loquat on a tree. A loquat looks like a teensy weensy beensy orange. I didn’t want to do one so, I just watched. They came out very nicely. And that was my day.
--Ayden
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Day Three at School
Jocelyn Writes:
Our internet access has been down the last couple of days so I am in the process of putting up descriptions of the kids first couple of days of school (scroll down for the First Day....). The walk to school takes about 20 minutes but we are able to take a cab if we run late. We see so many interesting things as we walk ... I am including pictures of some of them. Though the first day was tough on everyone, the kids seem to be adjusting to school. Everyone is at school from 8:00 AM-12:00 PM. We are not sure how much they are able to learn in their Chinese classrooms but they certainly have been warmly welcomed. We are hoping that after a time, they will start to pick up some Chinese!
Ayden Writes:
Exercises in China
At the school that I go to they do a lot of exercises. Let me tell you what I am talking about. In the morning we do something called morning exercises. Also in the later morning we do eye exercises. Both of them are pretty odd. During PE we do something like morning exercises.
I’m going to tell you about morning exercises. Morning exercises take place every morning at about 9:10. The whole school comes outside for morning exercises. They take about 5 minutes to get in to perfect lines. Then a guy comes up on to a big stage in front of us and leads the morning exercises. To me morning exercises make me feel like I am in the army because you have to keep your body straight and you call out words in Chinese loudly.
We also do eye exercises. Eye exercises are a quiet time to massage your eyes. It takes place after break at about 11:00 AM. The whole school does it. They put on a Chinese tape with music and words on the loud speaker. This is what you do during eye exercises: you take you hands and you put them on your face and move them around your face to relax your eyes. It looks weird. It is very hard for me to do because I cant always get my hands in the right position.
--Ayden
Gavi Writes:
Hi everyone,
Today was my third day of school. The day started the same as the last two. I walked into the classroom, everyone stared; then I walked to my seat, everyone stared; I sat down, everyone stared; I got my stuff out, and everyone stared. The first class I had was math. Math is becoming one of my favorite activities here because unlike most else its familiar and exactly the same as it is in Boston. Well, besides the fact that the teacher teaches in Chinese… After math was Chinese class. I never understand any of this because it’s in Chinese, about Chinese, and I’m really not very good at Chinese. Next we went outside and ran around the basketball courts twice completely synchronized. Well, everyone else was completely synchronized, I, on the other hand, could not seem to get my feet to line up with theirs.
After this we went inside and had a ten-minuet break. When I got inside I sat down in my seat and the girl who sits next to me, Yue Lei, sat down in her seat. I asked her to please write down her name for me in pin yin so that I could be sure I was pronouncing it right and the next thing I knew the entire class was around my desk scrambling to be the next to write their name in my notebook. It became very crowded around our desk. Then all of a sudden one girl who was standing behind me reached around my neck and started feeling my face. Then another couple of girls started playing with my hair. Then another kid grabbed my hand and started looking at it. All this time they were all talking in very fast Chinese that I could not at all comprehend. Luckily for me that’s when the teacher came in and everyone rushed to their seats. But, for the rest of the day I was passed sticky notes with names on them.
After Chinese we had Health. I found this very amusing. I had no idea what the teacher was saying but the reaction of the class was all too familiar. Then we had English. I have a feeling I’m doing pretty good in that class. Today we learned about how to ask someone what their nationality is and how to respond. We also learned the names of a few countries such as Russia, India, The United Kingdom, and Australia.
After school my siblings, my mom and I took a taxi back to the high school campus where we all ate lunch and Jenna kicked my butt in a game of basketball. Then we had a class on spoon painting. Mine has a face of some sort of dragon on the bowl and an interesting design on the handle. After the cultural class the high schoolers and I had a Language arts class with Mr. Mallory. Tonight we are planning to go out for hot pot for dinner. Hot pot is when everyone has their own pot of boiling water and you put different vegetables and/or meat in it. In fact I am being summoned now to get ready to leave.
More later,
Gavi
Our internet access has been down the last couple of days so I am in the process of putting up descriptions of the kids first couple of days of school (scroll down for the First Day....). The walk to school takes about 20 minutes but we are able to take a cab if we run late. We see so many interesting things as we walk ... I am including pictures of some of them. Though the first day was tough on everyone, the kids seem to be adjusting to school. Everyone is at school from 8:00 AM-12:00 PM. We are not sure how much they are able to learn in their Chinese classrooms but they certainly have been warmly welcomed. We are hoping that after a time, they will start to pick up some Chinese!
Ayden Writes:
Exercises in China
At the school that I go to they do a lot of exercises. Let me tell you what I am talking about. In the morning we do something called morning exercises. Also in the later morning we do eye exercises. Both of them are pretty odd. During PE we do something like morning exercises.
I’m going to tell you about morning exercises. Morning exercises take place every morning at about 9:10. The whole school comes outside for morning exercises. They take about 5 minutes to get in to perfect lines. Then a guy comes up on to a big stage in front of us and leads the morning exercises. To me morning exercises make me feel like I am in the army because you have to keep your body straight and you call out words in Chinese loudly.
We also do eye exercises. Eye exercises are a quiet time to massage your eyes. It takes place after break at about 11:00 AM. The whole school does it. They put on a Chinese tape with music and words on the loud speaker. This is what you do during eye exercises: you take you hands and you put them on your face and move them around your face to relax your eyes. It looks weird. It is very hard for me to do because I cant always get my hands in the right position.
--Ayden
Gavi Writes:
Hi everyone,
Today was my third day of school. The day started the same as the last two. I walked into the classroom, everyone stared; then I walked to my seat, everyone stared; I sat down, everyone stared; I got my stuff out, and everyone stared. The first class I had was math. Math is becoming one of my favorite activities here because unlike most else its familiar and exactly the same as it is in Boston. Well, besides the fact that the teacher teaches in Chinese… After math was Chinese class. I never understand any of this because it’s in Chinese, about Chinese, and I’m really not very good at Chinese. Next we went outside and ran around the basketball courts twice completely synchronized. Well, everyone else was completely synchronized, I, on the other hand, could not seem to get my feet to line up with theirs.
After this we went inside and had a ten-minuet break. When I got inside I sat down in my seat and the girl who sits next to me, Yue Lei, sat down in her seat. I asked her to please write down her name for me in pin yin so that I could be sure I was pronouncing it right and the next thing I knew the entire class was around my desk scrambling to be the next to write their name in my notebook. It became very crowded around our desk. Then all of a sudden one girl who was standing behind me reached around my neck and started feeling my face. Then another couple of girls started playing with my hair. Then another kid grabbed my hand and started looking at it. All this time they were all talking in very fast Chinese that I could not at all comprehend. Luckily for me that’s when the teacher came in and everyone rushed to their seats. But, for the rest of the day I was passed sticky notes with names on them.
After Chinese we had Health. I found this very amusing. I had no idea what the teacher was saying but the reaction of the class was all too familiar. Then we had English. I have a feeling I’m doing pretty good in that class. Today we learned about how to ask someone what their nationality is and how to respond. We also learned the names of a few countries such as Russia, India, The United Kingdom, and Australia.
After school my siblings, my mom and I took a taxi back to the high school campus where we all ate lunch and Jenna kicked my butt in a game of basketball. Then we had a class on spoon painting. Mine has a face of some sort of dragon on the bowl and an interesting design on the handle. After the cultural class the high schoolers and I had a Language arts class with Mr. Mallory. Tonight we are planning to go out for hot pot for dinner. Hot pot is when everyone has their own pot of boiling water and you put different vegetables and/or meat in it. In fact I am being summoned now to get ready to leave.
More later,
Gavi
Ayden's Second Day at School
Ayden Writes:
Today my friends were waiting for me at the gate. They walked me up to my classroom, where my teacher and all of the other students were eating their breakfast. Then we began class. First we had math. It was pretty boring because it was in Chinese.
After that we went outside for morning exercises. When we came in we started Chinese class. I don’t know what we studied because it was in Chinese. After Chinese we had a break. After break, we came back to the classroom for another class of Chinese. The next subject was English. I was VERY good at this subject. They were learning “I’m” instead of “I am”. They were also learning to say “I’m from China”. We played a game. We had to say our name and say where we were from without messing up. I was very GOOD at this game. After English my friends walked me down to my mom.
Today my friends were waiting for me at the gate. They walked me up to my classroom, where my teacher and all of the other students were eating their breakfast. Then we began class. First we had math. It was pretty boring because it was in Chinese.
After that we went outside for morning exercises. When we came in we started Chinese class. I don’t know what we studied because it was in Chinese. After Chinese we had a break. After break, we came back to the classroom for another class of Chinese. The next subject was English. I was VERY good at this subject. They were learning “I’m” instead of “I am”. They were also learning to say “I’m from China”. We played a game. We had to say our name and say where we were from without messing up. I was very GOOD at this game. After English my friends walked me down to my mom.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
First Day of School
Ayden Writes:
Today I started school. I was very nervous to start a new school. All of my teachers spoke all Chinese and no English. When I got to my school, my teacher was waiting for me. We walked up to my classroom. On the way up we didn’t talk to each other because she didn’t speak any English.
When I got in the classroom all of the students were looking at me. The first thought I had was that my class was huge. My teacher showed me where I should sit. I was sitting next to a girl whose name is very hard to say. When I sat down a teacher (who spoke English) came over to me and told me a little about the class.
The first subject was Chinese. They were learning Chinese characters. The next subject actually it was an exercise. We did morning exercises. The next subject was math. It was pretty easy except that it was in Chinese. The next thing we did was eye exercises. It was very strange. After that we had computer class. We did something like ultra key but easier. Next was music class. We sang songs in Chinese. I just hummed. And that was it for me.
--Ayden
Gavi Writes:
Hi all,
Today was the first day of school after The Spring Festival here in China. It was also me, my siblings, and all of the high-schoolers first day in Chinese school ever. For me school started at 7:50. Grace, one of the coordinators of the China Exchange Program here, met me at the front gate of the Gao Xin Middle School to walk me to my classroom. When I entered the room I was greeted by the first of many standing ovations. My English teacher Feng Lao Shi, who also was the teacher who brought the 8 Chinese students to Boston, quieted the classroom and then told me to read the speech which I had been asked to prepare the day before. I read it as best I could but seeing as it was mostly in Chinese it probably wasn’t very understandable. However, nevertheless I received another standing ovation as I finished. After that Tomas, one of the class presidents (there are four), introduced the fifty some 12 year olds who were to be my classmates. Then I was ushered to a seat in the back of the room, which was also apparently reason for yet another round of applause. The girl who sits next to me said hello and explained in broken English that she had essentially been assigned to help me get around and figure out what was going on.
Once I was settled and had gotten my notebooks out of my bag successfully Feng Lao Shi continued with her lesson. After a very short English class we had math, then a break, then Chinese. During the break all 50 some students were crowded around my desk asking my “buddy” questions in VERY fast Chinese. The most common answers were Gao Wei (my Chinese name) and mei go ren (American). After the Chinese class we went outside and stood in lines while someone spoke over the load-speaker. Tomas, who is Chinese-American and the best English student in the class, eventually was able to get the message across that this was a flag-raising. We must have stood there for ten straight minuets not moving a muscle when all of a sudden my “buddy” grabbed the hood of my jacket and pulled me to turn left as my class along with all of the other classes turned left at the exact same time, then she pushed me forward, and completely synchronized (with the exception on me) the entire school marched back into the buildings.
After the flag-raising I had music class. Everyone sang some song in Chinese that I understood none of and was unable to follow because the lyrics were written in characters, though the vocal warm-ups were similar to the ones I’m used to. Then there was another English class where again and again I was asked to stand and read something off of the board while everyone repeated after me. After English everyone went to lunch while I packed up and headed back to the high-school campus to have lunch and play a very heated game of soccer with the 8 high-school students and some Chinese students who were absolutely amazing at soccer and extremely intimidating. Over all my first day of school was very interesting, and hopefully, by the end of our time here I’ll be able to make out a little bit of what people are saying to me.
More later,
Gavi
Today I started school. I was very nervous to start a new school. All of my teachers spoke all Chinese and no English. When I got to my school, my teacher was waiting for me. We walked up to my classroom. On the way up we didn’t talk to each other because she didn’t speak any English.
When I got in the classroom all of the students were looking at me. The first thought I had was that my class was huge. My teacher showed me where I should sit. I was sitting next to a girl whose name is very hard to say. When I sat down a teacher (who spoke English) came over to me and told me a little about the class.
The first subject was Chinese. They were learning Chinese characters. The next subject actually it was an exercise. We did morning exercises. The next subject was math. It was pretty easy except that it was in Chinese. The next thing we did was eye exercises. It was very strange. After that we had computer class. We did something like ultra key but easier. Next was music class. We sang songs in Chinese. I just hummed. And that was it for me.
--Ayden
Gavi Writes:
Hi all,
Today was the first day of school after The Spring Festival here in China. It was also me, my siblings, and all of the high-schoolers first day in Chinese school ever. For me school started at 7:50. Grace, one of the coordinators of the China Exchange Program here, met me at the front gate of the Gao Xin Middle School to walk me to my classroom. When I entered the room I was greeted by the first of many standing ovations. My English teacher Feng Lao Shi, who also was the teacher who brought the 8 Chinese students to Boston, quieted the classroom and then told me to read the speech which I had been asked to prepare the day before. I read it as best I could but seeing as it was mostly in Chinese it probably wasn’t very understandable. However, nevertheless I received another standing ovation as I finished. After that Tomas, one of the class presidents (there are four), introduced the fifty some 12 year olds who were to be my classmates. Then I was ushered to a seat in the back of the room, which was also apparently reason for yet another round of applause. The girl who sits next to me said hello and explained in broken English that she had essentially been assigned to help me get around and figure out what was going on.
Once I was settled and had gotten my notebooks out of my bag successfully Feng Lao Shi continued with her lesson. After a very short English class we had math, then a break, then Chinese. During the break all 50 some students were crowded around my desk asking my “buddy” questions in VERY fast Chinese. The most common answers were Gao Wei (my Chinese name) and mei go ren (American). After the Chinese class we went outside and stood in lines while someone spoke over the load-speaker. Tomas, who is Chinese-American and the best English student in the class, eventually was able to get the message across that this was a flag-raising. We must have stood there for ten straight minuets not moving a muscle when all of a sudden my “buddy” grabbed the hood of my jacket and pulled me to turn left as my class along with all of the other classes turned left at the exact same time, then she pushed me forward, and completely synchronized (with the exception on me) the entire school marched back into the buildings.
After the flag-raising I had music class. Everyone sang some song in Chinese that I understood none of and was unable to follow because the lyrics were written in characters, though the vocal warm-ups were similar to the ones I’m used to. Then there was another English class where again and again I was asked to stand and read something off of the board while everyone repeated after me. After English everyone went to lunch while I packed up and headed back to the high-school campus to have lunch and play a very heated game of soccer with the 8 high-school students and some Chinese students who were absolutely amazing at soccer and extremely intimidating. Over all my first day of school was very interesting, and hopefully, by the end of our time here I’ll be able to make out a little bit of what people are saying to me.
More later,
Gavi
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Our First Visit to the Muslim Quarter
Jocelyn Writes:
Today we were off early to the Muslim Quarter of Xi'an's Old City. Xi'an is the home of China's largest Muslim community. Islam was first introduced in China by Arab merchants during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AC). As you will read, the kids , Bruce and I loved the visit and will definitely be returning many times...
Ayden Writes:
Hey y’all,
My topic for today’s blog is bargaining. Today my tutor, my family and I went to the Muslim open air market. We saw a lot of stores and stalls. We went to the Great Mosque. After the visit, we went shopping. My sister bought a jade bracelet for ten Yuan. In America, ten Yuan is about $1.35.
Here is how my sister got her bracelet so cheaply. We were walking through the market and my sister saw a pink jade bracelet that she loved. She asked “how much is this bracelet” the woman at the stall replied “60 Yuan.” “No way” my sister said, “40 Yuan then” said the woman. “No, no, no” my sister said. “You chose your price then” the woman said.“10 Yuan” “to cheap” the woman said. Then my sister walked away but not too far because the woman called her back and said “ fine 10 Yuan.” And that is how you bargain.
--Ayden
Gavi Writes:
Hi everyone,
Today Wen Yi, our tutor, took my family and I to the Moslem quarter. Our first stop was The Great Mosque. It was absolutely beautiful. There were 5 courtyards before you reached the actual mosque itself. All of which were gorgeous. There were many buildings in each. All of which had little carvings of animals on the roofs and many other beautiful details. There were also quite a few trees and plants that one doesn’t often see in the states. However, yet again everyone there seemed to find us more interesting.
After the Great Mosque we went to the outdoor market to do a little shopping. Walking through the streets we saw a lot of North Face jackets, Kipling and Coach bags and Calvin Kline underwear (Ben found this very funny). We also saw a bunch of pretty jade bracelets. My mom bought me a pink one after bargaining the price from 50 Yuan (about $7) to 10 Yuan (a little more then $1). I was very proud.
After this we ran into 5 of the 8 of the high-schoolers who had also come to shop for the day. They were in the process of a heated debate over whether the Gucci watch Mikey had just gotten for 100 Yuan (about $14) was a “ladies watch” or not. This topic was only dropped when someone realized that Jonathan had gotten a pair of funny glasses for 40 Yuan when the starting price was 60. He then of course had to be scolded for not bargaining enough and getting completely ripped off.
We then decided that it was time for lunch so we all went out for badsa. Badsa are little dumplings that are very good but nearly impossible to pick up with chopsticks. After lunch Jonathan got even more grief when someone pointed out that lunch for all 11 of us (5 high-schoolers, 5 of us, and our tutor) had cost ¼ of what he had paid for a pair of sunglasses. After this, the high schoolers went back to their shopping and we went back to the dorms. Over all it was a pretty exciting day.
More later,
Gavi
Today we were off early to the Muslim Quarter of Xi'an's Old City. Xi'an is the home of China's largest Muslim community. Islam was first introduced in China by Arab merchants during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AC). As you will read, the kids , Bruce and I loved the visit and will definitely be returning many times...
Ayden Writes:
Hey y’all,
My topic for today’s blog is bargaining. Today my tutor, my family and I went to the Muslim open air market. We saw a lot of stores and stalls. We went to the Great Mosque. After the visit, we went shopping. My sister bought a jade bracelet for ten Yuan. In America, ten Yuan is about $1.35.
Here is how my sister got her bracelet so cheaply. We were walking through the market and my sister saw a pink jade bracelet that she loved. She asked “how much is this bracelet” the woman at the stall replied “60 Yuan.” “No way” my sister said, “40 Yuan then” said the woman. “No, no, no” my sister said. “You chose your price then” the woman said.“10 Yuan” “to cheap” the woman said. Then my sister walked away but not too far because the woman called her back and said “ fine 10 Yuan.” And that is how you bargain.
--Ayden
Gavi Writes:
Hi everyone,
Today Wen Yi, our tutor, took my family and I to the Moslem quarter. Our first stop was The Great Mosque. It was absolutely beautiful. There were 5 courtyards before you reached the actual mosque itself. All of which were gorgeous. There were many buildings in each. All of which had little carvings of animals on the roofs and many other beautiful details. There were also quite a few trees and plants that one doesn’t often see in the states. However, yet again everyone there seemed to find us more interesting.
After the Great Mosque we went to the outdoor market to do a little shopping. Walking through the streets we saw a lot of North Face jackets, Kipling and Coach bags and Calvin Kline underwear (Ben found this very funny). We also saw a bunch of pretty jade bracelets. My mom bought me a pink one after bargaining the price from 50 Yuan (about $7) to 10 Yuan (a little more then $1). I was very proud.
After this we ran into 5 of the 8 of the high-schoolers who had also come to shop for the day. They were in the process of a heated debate over whether the Gucci watch Mikey had just gotten for 100 Yuan (about $14) was a “ladies watch” or not. This topic was only dropped when someone realized that Jonathan had gotten a pair of funny glasses for 40 Yuan when the starting price was 60. He then of course had to be scolded for not bargaining enough and getting completely ripped off.
We then decided that it was time for lunch so we all went out for badsa. Badsa are little dumplings that are very good but nearly impossible to pick up with chopsticks. After lunch Jonathan got even more grief when someone pointed out that lunch for all 11 of us (5 high-schoolers, 5 of us, and our tutor) had cost ¼ of what he had paid for a pair of sunglasses. After this, the high schoolers went back to their shopping and we went back to the dorms. Over all it was a pretty exciting day.
More later,
Gavi
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