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