Last Day in Tianjin/ Last Weekend In Shanghai

This week was the culmination of language classes and the end of the program all together.

We had our final examination of the language class (Lu Jie Ting rocked the house on it)

Me with the Dean receiving my certificate with my grade




Me with Wen Lao Shi and Zhang Lao Shi.... They think they're hilarious giving me bunny ears.


I'm going to miss the language classes a lot. I really enjoyed going to them everyday and I learned a tremendous amount. I am definately going to continue my study of the chinese language in some form. I really hope I can visit China again.


I was very sad leaving Nankai.


After Tianjin we has a 10 hour train ride to Shanghai (hooray........ another train.....)

The first day in Shanghai we saw an international Chinese language school, beautiful garden, a jade budda temple, and the waterfront.




Argh! (Me behind a statue in the garden)


One of the classes in the school we visited. They were native english speakers who were learning chinese. This class was about the same level I studied at, but this little kids woulda whooped my butt in chinese.
The school was run by a company and I was tremendously impressed by their efficancy and the atmosphere in the school.

On Saturday we went on a 3 hour bus ride to Hanzhou. This was an ancient imperial capital. Here we met Dr. Liu's brother and toured his factory. He got us all gifts and treated us to a very nice lunch (The best on of the trip). We also took a boat ride on this big lake.

The trip to Hanzhou was alright. We spent a lot of time traveling. I do feel like I didn't get to see that much of Shanghai.


Me on the waterfront in Shanghai on our last night in China.


This trip was amazing. It was a lot of work. I did not mind doing the work because I did learn a lot and I had a lot of fun.

Again I think it was an amazing experience and I am extremely glad I had the opportunity. I learned way more than I ever thought I would and I ended up falling in love with China (except for the whole communism thing. I can't wait until they get democracy, I hope I don't have wait to long because it would be exciting to see China become the largest democracy in the world. Anyway thats a sidetrack and a dream of mine and something I can research as a government/political science major)

I cannot wait for opportunity to go again. The experiences I had and the memories I made will last a life time.

I'd like to thank Dr. Liu for setting up the trip. Like I've been saying, I learned so much and have been inspired to continue learning about Chinese language and culture. Thank you for the opportunity.

Now I do have 1 more blog to post to meet the requirements but I am going to wait till I've been back in America for a couple of days. My last post we be overall impressions of China and my favorite parts of the entire program.

Until then, Zaijian!

-Justin

Spending America's Birthday in Xi'an

Independence Day in Xi'an (That's the date up on the board)

We just got back from our weekend in Xi'an--- It was a really good time. Let me first explain what that super flamboyent looking picture is on the right.... It is our group all dressed up in Beijing Opera costumes. I'm the dude with the beard 4th from right. I look damn good.

The highlights of the trip before I describe the pictures. We took a 2 hour flight from Tianjin to Xi'an. It was quite a turbelant flight. We arrived in the evening and had time to walk down a Muslim street and saw some old bell and drum towers before we went to dinner (I got to smash a giant bell and drum which brings me good luck). 6% of the population in Xi'an is Muslim. We also visited a muslim temple on sunday. We then had dinner at this roast duck restaurant. The next day we ventured off to see the Terracotta Warriors. It was a beautiful day. Both days we spent in Xi'an were perfect clear blue skys. The Warriors were pretty cool. The had these big buildings covering the sites were they dug them out and then had hundreds of them reconstructed and placed back like they would originally had been. If I remember correctly they found none in tact because they were raided by another dynasty's army thousands of years ago and burned and destroyed. Each soldier was hand crafted and the detail in them is incredible. They each have their own face based off sketches of the emperors actual soldiers. The lines in the hands are also all different. Of yea and they are all life size.

To the right is a picture of the weather.

Picture of me standing with my platoon of terracotta warriors.

After the terracotta warriors musuem we went to this imperial bath house that was famous because of the legendary 4 beauty's of China used to bath there. She was the concubine of an emperor. It was really beautiful there right in front of a mountain with lakes and pogadas and stuff.

The Bath house

That night we ate dinner at this dumpling restaurant were they served us a whole variety of different flavored dumplings. It was pretty good.

We also got to witness an exhibition of Tai Chi that Dr. Liu set us up with. It was very interesting. Their brand of Tai Chi was a lot more powerful then the one we practice every morning. And it was interesting to see the 83 year old grand master still able to do the forms.

The next day we got to ride bikes on top of the Xi'an city wall. This was one of my favorite things from the trip. It was a beautiful day and the massive city wall surrounds what was the ancient part of Xi'an.

We then had to take a excrutiatinly long train ride back to Tianjin..... 不好(no good) We left at 2:30 pm Sunday and didn't get back to Nankai until 10:30 am the next day.......

Ok well as you can tell there was a lot to do this weekend. There are probably some things I forgot to mention but overall this weekend was awesome. My favorite so far- perhaps heavily influenced by the clear skys.

All make sure to keep ya'll informed of what's going down in China. We only got a week left. I'm definately excited to get home but at the same time I'm going to miss China. I can definately see myself coming back here.

Next weekend is in Shanghai and then its back to 美国! (america)

-Justin

Wo shi ni de lao shi (I am your teacher)

My true feelings toward Mr. Mao (as native Chinese refer to him)


We just finished up a culture class on Chinese Caligraphy.


Our Laoshi (teacher) for Caligraphy.

The teacher that spoke to us about Caligraphy was apparently a really good caligrapher and his works are very expensive around the world. He would only make 3 pieces of art for our class- 1 for the teacher and 2 other students got one based on lottery. This guys handwriting is worth 1000 US dollars per square foot...... yea, what?

I don't really understand caligraphy. Yea it looks cool but I guess I don't have the eye to distinguish good stuff from crap (except i know my version of caligraphy was amazing) Apparently it takes a really long time to become very good at caligraphy. But seeing him do it in person it doesn't really look that tough to master. I feel like caligraphy, by itself, has no room for creativity. I like caligraphy in tandem with chinese painting because it combines the creativity of the painting with the culture and beauty of the chinese characters. I can't really tell what makes someones caligraphy that much better than someone elses (that it's worth $1000 a square foot). But what do I know--- It does look cool though.

Next week we our heading out on a domestic plane ride and then a 14 hour train ride back from our destination. We are going to see terracota soldiers and some ancient city wall.

I hope you noticed I got pictures up. I added some to the others blogs where appropriate. My blogs will now all have pictures for now on... hooray, I'm so smart


-Justin

Beijing

We just had our weekend in Beijing.

Here are the things we did:

-We visited Tiananmen Square

-We saw Mao Ze Dong's mummified body--- I can't believe they love the guy so much.
-We went into the Forbidden City (which isnt that forbidden after all)

-We then went to the Summer Palace which is a beautiful Summer retreat for Emperor's
-We then got to see some of China's treasured Beijing Opera, which actually turned out to be cool because they did some sweet acrobatic stuff.

-Then the next day we traversed the Great Wall, unfortunately it was an extremely foggy day and you couldn't see past 100 meters, otherwise I'm sure the views would have been amazing. But like they say in China, you're not a true man unless you have visited the Great Wall.

-We also got to see some of the Olympic venues-- from a far though because they do not let you near any of it. The "Bird Nest" stadium is really funky looking-- it sure lives up to its nickname.
-We also went to this tea store where they pitched us this really cool presentation to get us to buy there tea. We got to taste test a whole bunch and they taught us some tricks and cool facts about some of the teas. I ended up buying a whole bunch, my favorite being this tea cup that the picture on it transforms when you add hot water--- it's chinese magic.


Last Friday night a whole bunch of us went out to a "KTV" bar. (Karoeke). It was a whole lot of fun-- we couldnt sing any Chinese songs, but our friend Jiao serenated us with some sweet chinese tunes. They had a bunch of English songs which we all took part in belting out in perfect pitch and harmony. We had our own private room for the night and were treated like VIPS for less then 20 american dollars each.. It was awesome. We are planning a trip back there sometime this week.

We are halfway through the program. It's been an amazing experience so far and I'm sure there is more to come.

I should be able to get pictures up tomorrow-- I think I just learned how, except I forgot to bring my camera with me to the computer lab.

-Lu Jie Ti

A Little Taste of America-- Ruskie Laces up for the B-Ball Court.

Chinese classes are getting more interesting.. we are no longer using the phonetic writing system and are just using characters. It's like decoding a secret message. I know some characters and then can figure out others. But writing them is pretty hard. I think I got a pretty good handle on the tones and sounds so now its just pretty much memorization of characters with various sounds.

I found my favorite lunch so far today. Its at the local diner and its english name is "baked chicken with tea." It is tremendous. It looks like chicken served on top of potpouri and green and red peppers.

I got pepperoni pizza the other day at "Pizza Hill". It was alright. Its some knock off pizza hut type place. Their motto is cuz they have so much variety is "Can you choice one?"... that's right, Don't choose it, choice it. English spelling errors are very abundent. Chinese people find it fashionable to have english words on their clothing. Many times it is just nonsensical. My favorite so far was a sporty style t-shirt some guy was wearing that only had written in big bold letters on the front of it--- "Balls". That guy choiced well.

We just had a chinese caligraphy/painting lecture. It was interesting to see the differences in western and eastern painting. Chinese painting focus on meaning and is 2 dimensional with black and white as the major colors. Chinese characters are also part of the artwork.

This weekend we are going to Beijing to see the Great Wall, Tianamen square, some royal garden, and some other stuff. Maybe I'll be able to get some pictures up next Monday.

We still have Tai Chi everymorning.... Yup. It's slow moving and pretty boring. If you're old and in danger of breaking your hip I recommend doing it (aka Mom, Dad,..... Jen =P) We did Wu Shu one day which was pretty cool because it was fast moving and powerful-- I felt like Jet Li.

Me and Mike went and played basketball the other day with some Chinese guys. Chinese people love basketball. They were so impressed with how high I could jump. I had some sweet blocked shots against them. I told them Yao Ming aint got nothing on me.

Breakfast here sucks.... I have a yearning for International House of Pancakes for breakfast--- but i dont think its really that international. I miss freedom fries too-- ive had fries here in china but they are saturated with communism, very unhealthy. Taco Bell I'll be back soon-- Mom, Dad, tell Dominick's to mail me a buffalo chicken pizza, Thanks!


Cya later,

-Ruskie

End of Week One

The View From the Top of Mt. Tai

Ni hao!

Just finished week one.

Chinese people are everywhere!

Classes are going good. I'm learning a bunch. Still hard to get the right tones down with the words.

This past weekend we went to Shendong province which was a 5.5 hour drive away from here. We saw Confuscious and Mencius temples and hometown. The temple was interesting. It smelled like a Roman cathedrel. The town seemed kinda poor and some people just blatantly stared at me cause I was a white dude. It made for some hilarious moments. People will just randomly ask for photos with us. People worship Confusicious and Mencius much like Jesus. The temples and memorials are very elabrorate and people are always burning incense and other rituals.

Mount Tai was amazing. It is a place where Emperors used to go to worship. There are temples and also shops at the top of this Mountain. We took a cable car to almost the top then walked the rest to the summit. It takes like 5 hours to walk up all the steps to the top of the mountain that they built the ancient times. It was a beautiful day when we went. It was the first time we could see blue sky and the sun.... and it will probably be the last. The smog in china is ridiculous. Its weird cuz you can see your shadow sometimes but cannot find the sun. Skyscrapers more then a mile away are barely visible. But the pictures I have of Mt. Tai are beautiful, Im so glad we caught it on a nice day (you can only see the sunrise/set about 70 days of the year our tourguide said) so if I can learn how to upload them on here I will do so asap. The mountain smelled amazing too on the busride up because of the flowers and trees.

Me Holding Up a Piece of Mt. Tai--- I'm so strong

It is hot and muggy in China....

We had this tour guide with us the whole time named "Frank". He was hilarious cause he always said "yea shurr (sure)" to everything in a sarcastic tone, but he didnt mean it sarcistically, its just how he talked.

We went to a dance club for a little bit one night. The entire dance floor bounced up and down, which was very weird. Chinese people dance very funny. They do like some form of the twist from like the 1950s but without moving their legs. So they just rotate their upper bodies and shake their hips. THey do that or they kinda dance like cheerleaders with ridicouls arm gestures/movements.

I'm having a good time (im pretty decent with chopsticks now) and I'll try to get pictures up for ya'll but I really am not sure how.


-Ruskie

(heh i can't even read my own blog in China either, they (the Reds) are pretty good at blocking stuff, well I can read it, I just have to outsmart them, which isnt too tough-- Viva America)