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