So i just got home now, finally back in VA, here is what happened these past few days.
After a 13-hour train tide I finally arrived in Beijing. Beijing was definitely a lot different than Changzhou. The weather was the same as it was when I first arrived from America, hazy and humid. The hotel was much nicer than the first hotel though. So that day we had end of stay orientation at the hotel, which was us just reflecting on our goals that we set at the beginning of the program, and I think I pretty much fulfilled most of my goals. So that night I was able to go out a little with some friends and see around the city. I didn’t get to sleep until like 3am. The next day AFS told us we were going to the Forbidden City, but that didn’t happen.
4 hours later the next day, I slept in and missed breakfast. Everyone boarded the buses but some people were still sleeping in so AFS staff had to get those people. Then they told us that the weather was too bad and that we took to long to get on the bus so instead of going to the forbidden city and Tiananmen square we’re going to…. a furniture museum. So that was a big bummer. After that we had lunch and got on our flight, which thankfully was delayed to Newark. Thankfully it was delayed because we definitely would have missed it.
Another 13 hour long journey later we finally got back to the US. It’s good to be back, I feel like I wasn’t gone at all, the past 6 weeks have gone by so fast. America feels so empty compared to all the people in China.
Anyway looking back at the experience so much has happened in the past 6 weeks, it feels like it went by in only a week but I feel like I lived in China much longer than only 6 weeks, if that makes any sense. This summer has definitely been life changing, it was a once in a lifetime experience and I’m very thankful to the Department of State for giving me this great opportunity; and thank you to all the people who took the time to read my blog.
Thanks for reading.
Yeah I know it’s been awhile since i last updated this thing, but I’ve been pretty occupied with other things. So anyway this past week was good, i had a great birthday and i did a bunch of things. Everyday is pretty much an adventure here, every day I’ve been here has been different than the previous.
Tonight I get on a train to Beijing. I bet everyone can tell that I’m not really looking forward to going back to America. My experience here in China has been so enriching and interesting. I learned alot on this trip. So yeah Im sure I’ll be back to China again but never again with the same people. Really its the people that you encounter that determine your experience. I was so lucky to have been given in my opinion the best host family out of everyone elses. Never once on this trip did i have any problems or issues with them, they were perfect and im so grateful. Also the other kids that I met on this trip really made it awesome too, ive made some good friends. Also the people of Changzhou are really friendly too. Really it’s the people in the city that make it what it is and the people of Changzhou are great. I’m sad that my current life style is over. No more waking up to my view of downtown Changzhou and having a fresh dumplings for breakfast. I’m kinda sad the experience is over already but I’m so grateful that it was such a good trip.
Anyway, today i had lunch at a pretty cool restaurant with my host family and the dads side of the family. The restaurant specialized in a type of fish that is only found in a local lake. I feel like it was my last good authentic Chinese food meal because in Beijing we just eat hotel food, which is just not good Chinese food. When i first got the china i was missing American foods but now I feel like I’m going to miss all the good Chinese food. Also I’ve gotten so used to using chopsticks. yesterday at dinner the restaurant only had forks and knives and i had so a hard time eating the food, it just didn’t feel right. Like with chopsticks you obviously pick everything up but with a fork I kinda forgot if i should try to stab it or if i should try to scoop it, it was just kinda off haha.
Yeah so I’ll miss Changzhou and all the people here. And its not like i can come back in the future and everything will be the same as before because all my chinese friends are moving on to college in America and stuff, so its kinda just over.
Yeah last day in CZ. Tomorrow Beijing.
It’s been awhile since I last updated this thing.
Pretty much it’s been the same as usual, exploring the city, shopping, and eating.
Me and some classmates found an awesome music and movie store yesterday. Everything is so cheap and I was really skeptical that they would actually work because they are obviously copied movies so I only got one, but I tried it o my friends laptop and it worked!!! Yeah each movie is about $1.50 and each album is about $5.50. The music CDs are definitely real though.
So yesterday I took my flip around and recorded my day
Last night we had dinner with my friend Nashs rich host family and they took me and 5 other friends out to a nice restaurant. His host family is also really nice.
Someone mentioned my birthday was coming up so they got me some long thin noodles. Its a birthday tradition that symbolizes long life.
So moving on to today.
Today was the Koreans last day here. We had a farewell party for them, which wasn’t really a party it was just all of us sitting in a room looking at a slide show of pictures of us and the Koreans from the whole trip. Then some Koreans said a few words and some Americans said a few words and we took pictures with them and then they left for the airport.
School is going to be so quiet and dead without the Korean students, they were like one big comedy team, seriously.
I got to be pretty good friends with some of the Koreans, and they speak really good English. I got invited by some of my good Korean friends to visit them in seoul sometime in the future, so maybe in a few summers I’ll go and check it out.
So for lunch today we went out and got japanese noodles, so good. I don’t think very many people showed up for lunch today at the school and I think the chefs got kinda mad, but there’s never any leftovers cause all random Chinese people come in and take it so it’s not like it’s going to waste. Tomorrow is me and mallory’s birthday so we’re getting a cake at lunch tomorrow, yeahhhh!
So tomorrow I’m celebrating with my friends and then on Saturday I’m celebrating with my host family. Tomorrow we’re seeing Harry potter then going out to dinner! Should be a lot of fun
Today was good like usual haha
Nothing out of the ordinary happened today except I did a little hanging out at the downtown shopping area. And I met my bro Yusuf’s 女朋 友。
Then 4 friends had dinner at my place which consisted of kfc chicken sandwiches, bao zi, bamboo shoots, and 鸡肉 汤。
我的 老师 said that she was nervous because she doesn’t think we will do good on the final exam which is written in all 汉字。I don’t care that much because the test really doesnt mean anything but I don’t know very many characters because I’ve been focusing on speaking while im here because i can just learn characters back home, but speaking I can really only learn here.
I also noticed that I have almost completely forgot all my 西班牙语。
对不起，今天 I felt like typing some words in 汉字 。
Yeah I know it’s been a few days since I last updated this, it’s because I’ve been pretty busy.
So Friday me and my friend slept over at one of our Chinese friends house. Everyone from school also went to ktv that night so that was cool.
This weekend we were in Zhejiang province. That province is farther south so it was really mountainous and really beautiful. So on Saturday we all went white water rafting. It wasn’t really white water rafting but thats what they called it. So we went to the top of a mountain and we got in inflatable rafts that hold 2 people and you just go down the river all the way to the bottom of the mountain. So much fun. I thought it was gonna be kinda lame because they were inflatable rafts and you don’t even get paddles, but it was cool because it was really fast and the water was rough and there were points where you could get out of your rafts and swim around in the river. Also it was like a 2 hour journey to the bottom of the mountain so it was definitely long enough.
So today we went to a lake with mountains and we climbed the mountain and i took some cool photos. It was pretty cool but it was really really hot. Then we had like at 4 hour bus ride back to Changzhou.
So that’s where im at right now. This weekend is Shanghai, I’m pretty pumped
Ok I’m really tired so I’m gonna try and do this fast.
Last night i went out to ktv with my friend nash and some Chinese people he became acquainted with and it kinda sucked. Heres why, they are all really good singers. So they turn the real singers volume all the way down so its just your voice when your singing, and me and Nash are really bad singers. We sang bow chica wow wow and baby. Bow chica wow wow went okay. But we just buchered baby, like it was painful. Props to JB cause that song is hard.
Today was pretty normal except I went out with my chinese friend to hang in the mall and I saw some foreigners in starbucks and i said whats up and it turns out they were Americans from philadelphia so that was pretty cool. Yeah today felt like foreigner day or something because i saw like 10 foreigners today which is like unheard of. At the most normally I’ll see one foreigner a week.
Then me my host brother, my friend, his host brother, and our chinese friend joe all went swimming today and that was pretty cool, but they make you wear a swimming cap which is so weird. So i had to buy 1 which was like $1.50. The pool was indoor and really nice though. Then afterwards we went to a noodle shop to have dinner and that was on point and really cheap, like less than $1 for a big bowl of noodles! We also ran into some friends and our volunteer shu at the noodle shop. Then we all went back and chilled in my friend nash’s host families basement because they live in a real house thats pretty big especially for being in the city.
I’m having a great time here i wish I was staying here longer, only 2 and a half more weeks 😦 the Koreans are leaving next week and my Korean friend Jong said that he wants to live in Changzhou, and i really don’t blame him I do too, its a really awesome city, the people are really nice, the food is good, the language is cool, and theres so much to do.
I know for sure though that I’ll come back to China someday.
Oh yeah one last thing i want to talk about. So on the news here often they are talking about this big bullet train crash. So heres what happened it was raining really hard and one of the trains stopped in the track then another train hit it from behind and they reported 35 dead. Crazy right, but here’s the thing really more like 100+ people died but the train company and the government, i think the government owns the public railways, is only reporting 35 deaths because if there is ever more than 35 deaths on a train accident people have to be fired. Thats messed up right? Also the really crazy thing is that my friend joe was actually on that train with his family. They actually got off on the stop before the accident happened. And they were sitting in the section of the train that got demolished. So yeah, very,very,very, lucky.
So dinner last night was pretty cool I met an American businessman names Jeff who lived in Changzhou for 8 years! But!….he doesn’t speak Chinese haha
The meal was really good we went to a private room in a really nice restaurant. It was just me my host mom, my host brother, and Jeff. My host mom and Jeff work in the same company so they talked a lot about business but it was cool talking about my experience here so far and differences between the u.s and china. Which, when comparing cities there are not many.
I’m really well adjusted here so far, and I’m really enjoying my time here In china. Today I think was actually the halfway point of my stay in Changzhou. I feel like Ive been here so much longer than 3 weeks, it definitely feels like 3 months. But thats not a bad thing, I’ve been enjoying my time here a lot. Whenever I look at the calendar I feel like I’m always surprised at the date. It feels like august 13th is coming so quickly and I dont want it too. I definitely want to come back to china again in college and stay longer and see more parts of the country.
So I said all those great things about china, lets talk about dinosaur park. Dinosaur park was not fun, enjoyable, or even pleasant in anyway. When we first got there at like 11 it it was smokin hot and we had to wait about an hour to get our tickets. Plus it wasnt even a nice day out it was cloudy but still super hot and super muggy and humid. So by the time we all get in there everyone was ready to hit the waterpark but it was soooo crowded. I really felt the density of chinas population. After today I think a no-child policy wouldnt be a bad idea haha jk so anyway yeah it was so crowded that I literally could not breather in the locker room, it was 99% co2 and 1% oxygen. So after that we finally got out to the water park and there was like no water! Every square inch of water was taken up!!!!! It was like a bunch of Chinese people crammed onto a big puddle. So then we went to a different section, the lazy river, it was a horrible experience for the same reason it was way to crowded, its not fun just standing in waist high water getting bumped into by fat people with their shirts off!! So then I was like forget this im getting something to eat, so i get out and it turns out that there is only chinese food available, like wok fried vegetables and stuff, that is not beach food! So then I just chill out of the water and then the person next to me has a seizure!!!! Like she straight up collapsed and started spazzing everywhere. Ok so she was leaning on this monument thing and there was another woman sitting at the foot of it and she fell backwards into her lap so at first i thought she did it on purpose because it was her friend or something and she didn’t even fall hard she just kinda slumped over and fell backwards, but then I noticed that the girl who’s lap she fell into had a weird look on her face like she didn’t know her, so thats when it kinda hit me, that it was probably heat related and she blacked out then she stated spazzing and it was obvious then but Shu, who’s was next to me the whole time was on that so fast, like he was u know making sure she didn’t bite her tongue off, and I started to call for help but then she regained consciousness and got up and walked away. Like ok this occurred in a matter of 4 or 5 seconds. This whole incident. It happened so fast, then it was over and she just walked off. I was kinda just in shock for a good 30 seconds trying to comprehend what just happened. But yeah I was really proud of shu because he acted so quickly without hesitation.
So anyway after that i met up with my friend and my host brother and we got lunch and tried to ride some rides but the it started to rain so they were all closing.
Ok guess how many rides I rode today. I was there from 11:30 until 6.
1 ride.
Yup thats right through rain delays and what not i only was able to get on 1 ride. If any one ever goes to a chinese amusement park, pick on ride before you go then when you go, go straight to that ride and wait there all day and then maaaybe you’ll make it on before the park closes. But I think it was mainly bad luck that I only got on 1 ride, that was a log flume.
So yeah Dinosaur park sucked plain and simple, but then afterwards I went out to a good restaurant with my host family and one of my afs friends, then he came back to my apartment and played chess with my host brother and tried to teach him a few dance moves and how to do a push up. Thats right my host brother cant do 1 push up. Not even with the knees on the ground.
It’s alright though I got some work cut out for me, but I think I can fix him up before I leave.
Yesterday night we had another dinner at pizza hut. I’m really all pizza hut’ed out. Then me met up with some of the crazy English teachers. They are all foreigners that live in other parts of china that come to Changzhou every summer and winter to teach crazy English. They were all in their 20s but it was still interesting hanging out with them. There was a guy from Russia, Kenya. And two women from argentina and Spain. It was also cool seeing them speak Chinese fluently because it’s a rare sight seeing non Chinese people speak Chinese. They didn’t like Changzhou though. They all agreed it is the worst city in China haha but thats probably because they just go clubbing every night in the bigger cities. Changzhou doesn’t have a night life, after 9pm it’s like empty, no cars, no people. There is like one street where there is a few night clubs that has some people on it but that’s pretty much it. Thats not a problem for us though because most of us have to be home at like 10pm anyway.
So today my host family took me to a theme park thing that was like confucious themed. There was a Taoism section,and confucionism section, stuff like that. Pretty much it looked like an amusement park without the rides…we did ride one thing though it was like a huge platform thing that takes you really high so you can see the whole park and the canal thing.
So theres this canal thing that was built a long time ago but no one knows who it as built for. Its like a circle within a circle within a circle kinda of thing. It was pretty cool, really beautiful scenery, and sun tzu used to live there, and i walked on the path that he would walk on everyday that inspired him to write the art of war.
Then we got attacked by killer beetle wasps. So my host mom was telling me something then a huge killer beetle wasp jumped on her face, then like 5 more and then she started running and me and my host brother started running and we got swarmed by them. But luckily they didn’t do anything besides land on you and fly into you really fast otherwise we’d be done.
I was asked today if it is hotter here than in my hometown and i said it’s more humid here but not hotter. Then my host mom was like how can you tell the humidity…and I was like umm..you can just feel it. Then she kinda was like oh, ok. Like she didn’t believe me that you can just “feel” the humidity haha
So tonight I’m going out to dinner with my host family and one of my host moms friends who’s a businessman from America.
So today our volunteer shu taught the class and I think he did a better job than our normal teacher, I kinda feel bad for shu because he’s a college student at osu and he just spends his summer volunteering for afs, and its obviously a lot of work, the volunteers don’t get paid at all. Honestly he’s really holding the program together because he’s the go to man for any problems that anyone has involving anything, if you don’t understand some in Chinese ask shu, if you want to ask your host parents if you can go out to dinner with friends let shu talk to them. Anyway today we had a performance from a Chinese band class at the school, they were pretty good, and I got to try out one of the instruments called the shung ma or something its like a violin thing that sits on your lap, extremely hard. Then the little kid that was teaching me started singing michael jackson haha
I’m really starting to feel like I can go pretty much anywhere in the city no problem because I’ve figured out some bus routes and I can walk a lot of places. Today me and some people took a walk to the mall where I bought a dictionary that I badly needed. I saw Harry potter in Chinese at the store, It was really thin because of the characters. Being in the bookstore made me really want to study more characters so i could read stuff.
In order to learn a lot you really can’t be afraid to fail at speaking you pretty much just gotta go up to people and just talk. I definitely dont have a problem with shying away from practicing I know that I’ll probably mess up when Im talking but it doesn’t matter because practicing will make me better. So i went up to the employee at the book store today and i was like. ” ni men mai yi ben dian ci, Han yu he ying yu. I asked do you sell dictionaries Chinese and english?” the guy had no idea what I said so me and some students just started saying dictionary “Dian ci Dian ci” still nothing, then someone there had their own so she pulled it out and pointed to it and said Dian ci!! Still nothing. Then she looks up the word for dictionary in the dictionary and it was “ci Dian” then the guy was like ohh ci Dian!! and finally took us to them.
Yeah shopping is always fun in china even when its for the most average things like dictionaries.
Oh yeah then when i got home my host family had kfc, i didn’t think much of it until the thought just kinda hit me, maybe they got this because of me? So i asked and sure enough they don’t think im eating enough so they thought I’d eat kfc….ok so here was my dinner:
A bowl of chicken soup
Some stinky tofu
A bowl of black rice porridge
A kfc chicken sandwich (which is the same size as in the U.S)
And a egg tart thing they got from kfc.
Then they thought i still needed to eat more so they cut up some cucumber melon things again and tried to get me to eat that too.
I swear they are trying to kill me, or at least make me fat I really don’t know.
So i guess its been a day or two since i last posted. So yesterday was pretty normal but we had chinese opera class instead of tai chi which ended. It was actually a pretty cool culture class because we had a cool teacher. We watched some videos of what it is and we got a brief history lesson on the history of opera. He also taught us some kung fu because kung fu is used in Peking Opera. Today we have Chinese folk song class, sounds really lame but we have the same teacher so it might be ok. Then after school me and a bunch of people went to Pizza Hut for some escargo not surprisingly it was really good and really cheap. Then i went back to my friends house and we played badmitton at an indoor like badmitton gym. Some people there are pretty good, i played an old chinese woman and she destroyed me without even moving. People take it pretty seriously like they have jerseys and stuff. After tht I went over to my chinese friends house and we played ping pong and black ops.
Today the weather is really good, its sunny and hot, but not th humid which is pretty rare for here. Chinese class is still going good im taking it pretty seriously and im studying after school by making flash cards of the characters. My host brother let me borrow some childrens books so my goal is to be able to read most if it. Im kinda planning to alternate studying and going out by each day, because i really want to go out and do stuff but its still important that i spend time with my host family and study chinese.
Anyway this weekend were going to an amusement park called dinosaur park and that should be really cool.
Im excited for next weekend and the weekend after that because next weekend we go on a full weekend trip to another province and the weekend after that we go to Shanghai, but only for a day.
6 Weeks in Changzhou, China 