The Time Has Come to Say Good-Bye...

I have to say thank you to all those who have helped me get to this point.

Firstly, to Debra, for suggesting IES. When I admitted that I might not spend my entire junior year abroad in France, Amberle suggested I speak to you about IES ‘cause you had a great experience. Even though I sometimes regret choosing IES, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Next, Amberle. Thanks for telling me that my Chinese doesn’t suck massively…even when it did. Mostly, thanks for the encouragement while here. You can tell all the embarrassing stories you want at my wedding.

To the MHC’ers, esp. Caty, Sarah and Julie. I cannot Baaahhh enough. Your encouragement and gossip have kept me going! And don’t worry Caty, you will always be my number 1 roomie!

To Zach, my favorite “pseudo cousin” ever, and most frequent comment-leaver. I’ll see you soon enough…just lock up Chico beforehand!

To Lynn. Your constant “non-support” has made me smile for the past 2.5 years, and you haven’t let me down in the past 4 months either. Thanks for the calls/emails…bring in Lucy this week!

Most importantly, to my parents, thank you for accepting my decision to come here. Throughout the times that I’ve wanted to give up Chinese (or anything else for that matter), you both have been there reassuring me that I’m doing a fine job, and then giving me the extra kick in the pants that I need. I love you both so much (...though would love you even more if you bought me a puppy...)and am happy to becoming home to you.

And to everyone else, just because I don’t mention you doesn’t mean I don’t think of you every day. Thanks for reading, writing, and supporting me throughout this journey. I can’t wait to see you, and tell you all of the stories that didn’t make the cut in person.

I am undecided if I will update this blog again. It’s been fun, but I’m not sure where my life will lead me. No matter where it does, I’ll be sure to keep in touch.

Thank you all so much. I will definitely miss this.

Affectionately,

michelle

I spend 4 hours a day with these kids...

...and I will miss them very much.

(No, I don't have class with the 23 of them everyday...our biggest class (appropriately named "big class") of the day has 12, then the rest of the day is spent with a total of 6 of us in small class.)

Starting to stroll down memory lane...even though I haven't left yet. Sigh.

Hello There: (A Brief) Photo Collection

Hello There, Prawn Head. Sorry about this. You tasted good though!
Hello there, Mr. Duck. I'm not quite sure why you have a Bindi.
Hello There, Nan. I like you more than your cousin, Mr. Pizza.
Hello There, Mr. Famous Chinese Authors. Thanks for playing along with Jackie and I.

Less than a week to go...AAHHH!!!

It's the Final Countdown

So in 1 week and 1 day from now, I will be en route to New Jersey.

How does this make me feel? Sad.

It's hard, I really came into this just expecting to be OK being here for 1 semester. I thought China was still going to suck, I wouldn't really be into it, but I'd learn the language, make some friends, and be able to come back for business.

Well, uh, I guess things didn't really turn out like that. Of course I made friends, and I learned the language (to the best of my ability - hey, I bet I can speak Chinese better than the majority of you reading this blog). But put it this way: I don't want to come back for business, I want to live here and do business. I love China.

I know. It's a shocker.

I don't want to live in China forever. But I really think I want to live here in Beijing, at least for a couple of years. Going to Shanghai really made me grateful for choosing to study in Beijing, and as much as I gripe about the pollution or the toilets, I really like living here. I enjoy being able to speak Chinese; to most people, it comes to no surprise that I speak French. But Chinese, that is a skill. And I love surprising people when I speak it.

I love surprising myself when I speak it. It is becoming more and more often that I can eavesdrop on people's conversations on the bus, overhear teachers in the hallways, listen to my roommate on the phone and actually get the gist of what they are saying. I surprise myself when I can berate a cabbie for taking me the long way back to campus, or when I can speak to a vendor about the benefits of speaking Chinese (haggling is the number 1 benefit, obvi).

I am going to France next semester, as most of you know. Am I looking forward to it? I guess so. I'll continue to take Chinese - in French, that'll be fun...- and get my French back to fluency that I once had (China's kinda taken my French to shit). And I'll get to travel and see Amberle and Ali and just have a great time, without being scared of saying something in the wrong tone.

There will never be another time abroad like the one I am having right now. Even if I came back next semester to IES, it wouldn't be the same as this semester. But as I finally hit my stride, as I finally look around my classroom and realize how much I enjoy my Chinese class, and how our Chinese has finally gotten good enough to let our personalities show through, it is now time to pack up and leave.

I'm happy I've had this experience here; I'm happy I let myself admit that I did want to study here and not just in France; I'm happy I'm happy.

I will be ready to leave China next week. But after a month at home, I'll be ready to come back here. And knowing that that isn't an option for atleast another 5 months will be a hard to swallow.

The Newer, Better Model

So after my first roommate left, I got Nini, who has been a joy to live with (even if only for 3 weeks). Today I spent time with her and her family. She is an only child (like everyone else my age in China - thanks 1 Child Act!), but her cousin (who she calls MeiMei - younger sister) was there too, along with Nini's parents.
This was the view from the temple we went to - very pretty. The sky was blue, the birds were singing...so maybe not that last part, but it was very pretty and peaceful. If the weather was better, we would've seen Beijing down in the valley.Happy Buddha! Many Buddhas are not as happy as this one - and not many of they are this fat, either. Behind him are good wishes from visitors - you write your name on one of the prayer flags, then tie it behind him.

Oh please, don't tell me you're surprised.MeiMei got into it too. Side Note: MeiMei was a lot of fun - speaking to kids is the best way to know if you are speaking the language properly or not, because they will honestly tell you if they don't understand. Yes - we ran into a few bumps, but all went well. MeiMei also told me that I looked like Snow White. Hey, who doesn't like being compared to a Disney princess? ...although my hair is totally the wrong color...)

After the temple we went to lunch (hot pot) and then after lunch we went back to Nini's house (they live in suburb-Beijing - I didn't know it existed either) where they promptly told me to take a nap. And I did.

In the evening, we went to NiuNiu and YeYe's house (that's Nini's father's parents - the names for grandparents change depending on whose side they are on. It's the biggest pain EVER.) where we made jiaozi (dumplings). Below is the video.

The ugly, misshapen ones are mine...

But as my grandmother says (My LaoLao - she is my mother's mother): they all come out the same end!

Finally!

So yesterday, while Skyping with everyone at the Thanksgiving table, I read my Chinese essay that was the basis for yesterday's oral examination. (It was about how technology doesn't always bring people closer together.) While I was reading, I realized how much better I sounded.

So, after speaking to everyone, I went back upstairs to complete the oral and debate w/ Emily about technology.

At the end of the debate, Lu Laoshi turns to me and goes (in Chinese, obvi) "Mingxin (my Chinese name) your pronounciation has made so much progress!"

I swear to God I came out of that room feeling sooo much lighter and happier and just thrilled! It's so nice that the time I spend wanting to die in pronounciation class actually pays off!!

GanAnJie

So several weeks ago, a wrote to a friend asking if she thought it was possible to make turkey without an over (there are no ovens in the dorm). The response: "What drugs are you doing over there, Michelle?"

(Thanks, Heather)

No need to worry, IES had a Thanksgiving dinner for us, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie (not as good as the pumpkin cheesecake you bring, David), stuffing and more - and price tag of 135 RMB (that's A TON OF MONEY, by the way). As tasty as home? No. But it was nice to have a celebration here, although I'd obviously rather be home.

So, Happy Thanksgiving from my side of the world to yours.

Emily and Michelle Do Shanghai: A Photo Montage

Well known landmark - its the TV tower, if its a nice day out you can get great views. Despite the photo, it was really disgusting out when we were there.
Looking at Puxia from Pudong, across the Bund.
Soup dumplings. Sooo good and so insanely expensive.
Eating soup dumplings. Jealous yet, parents?
Standard.
Shanghai is hosting the World Expo, which is kinda of the consolation prize for Beijing getting the Olympics. What's a trip without me posing with some type of mascot?
Fook. Hehehe
A form of soup dumplings...yummy...Cathy and Frank took us out to them. (More that below)
That's chicken blood, congealed in a soup form. It was eh.
This is Frank, Emily, Myself and Cathy. Cathy has been one of my mother's friends since Cathy translated for my mother at one of the Shanghai candy shows. I was very excited to meet her and her husband Frank, and a great time was had by all.

Yea, I guess there are no photos of Emily. Oops.

Anyway, it was a really nice trip, the hotel was amazing and the breakfast was to DIE for. I am happy I live in Beijing though, more stuff to do and see.

Less than 3 weeks left...oh my goodness...

Off to See the Wizard

Leaving tomorrow for Shanghai, just a head's up to those who don't know.

Other news:
Got a new roommate yesterday evening and she seems pretty legit.
Zhong Laoshi told me that she and Gao have both noticed improvement in my speaking. (woo-hoo!)
Should probably start studying for tomorrow's test....

So, life's dull for the moment, here in Beijing...will update once I'm back from Shanghai!

Someone has the case of the Giggles!

And that someone would be me. 2 times, in 2 weeks.

The first time, we had to tell an awkward story about someone else in our class. So I told one of Emily's awkward stories, and she told the class one of time.

Her story went off without a hitch.

Mine on the other hand, not so much.
I managed to draw this photo:


And I was done. Emily's story wasn't even that funny. I just lost it. Zhong laoshi took it pretty well.

Then then the giggles hit again today.

For those who have not experiences, Michelle had the Giggles, it's kinda funny and awkward at the same time. Funny, because when one person laughs, everyone else has to laugh too. Awkward because when I laugh, I don't stop. And I start choking too. I'm just that cool.

Gao didn't take it too well today. It wasn't even that anything was funny...I was just tired and fed up with class and I was talking about the world's greatest inventions so I started naming things like manicures and dryers (which there are none of in China, thanks very much). Ehhh...it was awkward.

I just had to share...

Shuo Zongwen!! (Speak Chinese!)

So if you noticed in the video below, we were all speaking a combination of Chinese and English. Why? Well, in theory, IES has a language policy. We are supposed to speak Chinese all the time. Why just in theory? You can see that we all speak "Chinglish" - we use English grammar patterns and words and then throw in some Chinese now and then. That's our version of the language policy...chabuduo...

What happens when you don't keep the language policy? Well...your language policy grade goes down. Like mine does, on occasion...and when I say on occasion, I mean it's finally starting to go back up. The language pledge grade is a farce really...but I could just be bitter. Everyone knows that we don't keep the language pledge and while most people are ok-ish with it, some people are not, and speak Chinese 24/7. Those people are normally shunned because we thing it's pretentious to talk in Chinese amongst one another. These kids are also the ones with 100% language pledge grades. Bu hao.

So, one Monday, we come back to class with this posted on the bulletin board:


For real. Well, we all assumed it was one of the teachers doing...but no! It was one of the girl's in my level, Becca's doing. If you'd like to know, she is not one of the hardcore language pledge keepers...she just likes playing tricks on us! We all found this sign very assuming.

Why, you might ask? I mean, besides for the obvious, all the teacher's knew something was funny...but none of them knew what corporal punishment is!! So explaining the sign to them was quite a blast. (The teachers have very good - I assume - English reading and writing skills. Or at least most of the time...instead of saying cat fight, Gao has said "cat fat" and instead of hippie, Zhong has said "huppie". I know...I shouldn't complain...my Chinese is still worse than their English...I think...)

By the way, the word for hippie is "xipi", and the word for a cat fight would be "chao" - that means to quarrel but it's close enough for my purposes.

How do I learn enough vocab words to conduct conversations in Chinese? Besides for the 60+ vocab words a night (tonight we have 78) I have a tutor who I meet with for about 4-5 hours a week, plus a language partner who I found on my own.

The language partner is really great, because she not only speaks Chinese and English, but French as well! It's pretty great. I'll have a blog post on her and my tutor soon-ish.

Another added option for improving one's Chinese is the roommate. I say "option" because I came back on Wednesday night to find my roommate moving out of the room. I still do not have a new one...but that story will not be posted on my blog...mainly because I don't want to get killed by the Tibetan government (half joke-half not...)...but e-mail me if you want the full details! It really is quite the story!

Did You Know That Instead of Saying Cheese for Photos, the Chinese say Eggplant?

As per the Title, the word for eggplant in Chinese sounds similar to the word for Cheese in English...so when we all take photos we say "qie" (trust me...it sounds like cheese...)

At Cooking Club several weeks ago we make eggplant and a corn/pepper dish. Cooking Club is basically us watching the Laoshi's cook. The left hand video is of Zhong Laoshi (carry-in-your-handbag-laoshi) cutting eggplant. The right hand video is Lenore cutting eggplant. Zhong Laoshi is older, and therefore has more eggplant cutting experience...let's chalk it up to that.




The corn and pepper dish tasted like corn and green peppers...No surprise there...

Ick

Today is not a cloudy day. Yesterday was not a cloudy day, either.
(This is an old photo, btw, of Xizhimen - an area near when I live, it's were I get the train. Today you can't see the sun.)

The last few days have been pollution days, worse than others. When you wake up in the morning, and right before going to bed at night, you often can see a film around lights. It's kind of shimmery, looks a bit like dust particles...but it's pollution. Pollution that you can feel, that you can touch.

Pollution sucks.

I have 1 month left here; actually, in 1 month from now I will be on an airplane back to NJ. I am really trying to soak up everything that I possibly can. And when the weather is like how it's been for the last several days, it's hard. It's depressing. No one likes polluted days.

But I've seen Beijing with blue skies, you might say. Well yes, this is true. Hell, I've even posted pictures of blue sky days. But why is the sky blue?

I'll give you a hint: it's not because of physics.

We received this email several weeks ago from one of our teachers:

"Everyone notice the beautiful sky in Beijing today, Friday.

Political process -> economic structure -> weather effect.

Chinese are hosting big EU-Asian summit. As always when they have big int'l event, night before silver nitrate rockets are fired into clouds to make it rain black and voila, beautiful blue skies for all the international visitors who become experts on China's environment after three gorgeous days in Beijing.

Enjoy it while it lasts...."

No joke. I wonder when Chinese children will start being born with excess appendages...

Welcome Back, Mumsy

In honor of my Mother coming back from the UAE and from Paris (work + seeing Ann. Hi Ann, Alain, Claire (Josh), Eva (Alex)!!) I decided to post my most recent test grade, so she has something happy to come back. Not saying that coming back to BaBa isn't happy...but you know...this will make it even happier...!

Oh yes, that is a 91.1; you can call me a genius anytime now...

Oh Yeah...Class...

I know this might be hard to believe, but I do go to class! Surprise!

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, we have 4 hours of Chinese class. Everyday we have a dictation, and then on Friday's we have a large test or a presentation. It's pretty brutal. Yes, my Chinese is improving, but it comes at the sake of my soul. Sigh.

I've written to a few of you about my current issue: I am at a plateau. I am coming to the end of this plateau, but it's been hard. Basically, I've been understanding A TON, but cannot find the words to vocalize what I want to say. Additionally, when I do vocalize what I want to say, my tones are off.

All of you know that Chinese is a tonal language - if I'm off a tone I can say "hemp" instead of "horse". I might even be saying mother, instead of saying horse. We all know how important the word horse is in my vocabulary!

So I have enrolled myself in optional pronunciation classes. Yesterday, I described this class to my father as "anal rape". No, I don't know what anal rape feels like, but I assume it's as painful as this class. 15 minutes turned into 40, one-on-one with my Chinese teacher, Zhong Laoshi. We call Zhong Laoshi the cute Laoshi. She's in the 2nd photo, on the left wearing a red hoodie. This photo does not show her cuteness, but trust me, we all want to put her in our handbags and walk around with her. She is cute. But I digress; she was riding me like I would ride Kohe - everything I did was wrong. My tones were off, I couldn't say anything right...it was pretty bad. (But hey, I didn't burst into tears! Side note: I once had a hellish 10th grade French class where I cried afterwards. No joke.)

Anyway, that was yesterday, and today started a new day. Today's small class (we have a big class with 12 people for 1.5 hours, then the rest of class is small class with 6 people). Jia Laoshi taught small class. She's in the 2nd picture, next to Zhong Laoshi. Jia Laoshi is also cute. More lenient that Zhong Laoshi, and kinda lets the class walk over her. Oops. Anyway, the class kinda dissovled into a free for all, and because she doesn't have an English name, my class came up with one for here: Juliette. We like Julie originally (Hi Julie! I miss you!!!) but Julie Jia doesn't sound too good...

The top picture is Liu Laoshi, by the way. We all LOVE her. She subbed for us one day because Lu Laoshi (really, it's hard for us to keep track of their names, too) is on a trip with the other section of IES kids. She's posing with the vocab sentances. Oy.

The video below is a mock job interview did one day in class. That's DJ and Sebastien infront of the camera; the female voice is me talking in Chinese. Yes...this will be the first and probably last time you will ever hear me speak in Chinese. Enjoy it while its lasts....


ps - in the scheme of fairness, I do have one more teacher, Gao Laoshi, and in the sake of fairness I will also say she is cute. And she has a really pimp pair of eyeglasses that I wish she'd wear more often 'cause they are really cool looking....

MSNBC via the Internet! Modern Wonders

Yes, we did watch the election here. Grumble, grumble, grumble.


Watch the video, it's actually kinda funny.

Hot Fuwa Messes

Do you know what a FuWa is? They are the mascots of the Olympics. They are cute, cuddly and loved by all. So we decided to be FuWa's of Halloween. They also spell out, BeiJing Huanying Ni! (Beijing Welcomes You). Everyone loves FuWa's. Expect our FuWa's turned out to be dirty, hooker FuWa's (Not on purpose!). All of the dresses we would were too short and we just looked like hookers.

This is an edited pic. Why? Because I looked fat and gross and all of our dresses hit just below...well...they were shortThat's Lenore, Caitlin, Emily, Sharon (Caitlin's Roommate) and me. Obvi.
The staff got totally into it; That's Josie as the Monkey King. They got professional make up done...so that's where all the money goes... John was a former Investment Bankers. The top line says Wall Street in characters, then next lines in Chinese (what is above the crossed out Lehman) is "Give me money".

Dante, Chris and Tim (plus Sebastien, not pictured) were the Jamican Bobsled Team. Those are 2 of the 3rd year teachers; all of the teachers were dressed in full garb. Actually, I didn't recognize my teachers until they came up and started talking to me. And then it was awkward...'cause I still didn't really know who they were cause I couldn't hear their voices properly...but Halloween was a success (particularly the after party) and I can't believe it's November already!

I Need a New Top Entry....

As much as I love the Photo Contest...well...it's a bit tacky.

So before I go to class in 20 minutes and give a 10 minute presentation (kill me. Why did I drop German again?!) I thought I'd say Happy Halloween and also bitch about the 3 mosquito bites on my face.

Yes, it's 50 degrees here, and I have 3 mosquito bites. ON MY FACE. Damn you BeiJing and your insects that won't die.

Also, just because I've stopped passive aggressively complaining about my roommate doesn't mean I no longer have issues with her. Au contraire. .

Anyway, will update more tomorrow, assuming am in good enough shape after tonight's Halloween party.

:)

The Winner goes to....

Congrats,
Julie from Mount Holyoke College.

The Winning Caption:
"That's Ain't a Pussy...it's a Puppy?"

Contest Time!

It's time to play Caption This Photo!

...kohe ain't got nothin' on him...
(enlarge the photo)

Leave your comment (or send me an email)!

This is Where I Would Quote My 7th Grade Teacher - But She Doesn't Want To Be Quoted. Wimp.

I knew this trip would be a success when I saw the vocab words they handed out before we got on the overnight train from BeiJing to QingDao. We were all very excited to see that we would buy dark beer in QingDao - it's quite hard to find in BeiJing.

We got off of the train, and went to a Chinese/English pre-K. We had not started drinking yet - but it was 9 am, so the day was still young.
The kids were very excited to see us. I really liked the one with the weird animal on his head. I appreciate his fashion sense.
I haven't ridden in about 8 weeks. Times were getting desperate, until I saw my faithful steed, named "Plastic Kohe"...this is were I was preparing for my canter pirouette. Plastic Kohe was not too thrilled.
Group shot with the Kiddos. The drinking started about 1/2 hour after this photo was taken.
Posing with statues, as per family tradition. I had been drinking for a while.
Holler to BaBa!
It shows that I had been drinking for hours.


Maybe this kid had been drinking, too. He seemed very happy.The next day, we went to the beach. I'm on the far left.
We saw this dog. When we asked his owner what his name was (the dogs) he said "Animals don't get names." We tried stealing the dog. No luck.
Then we visited a wig factory. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.
We also saw a park. It's name is LaoShan. That means Old Mountain. Who said that names have to be original?
No park visit is complete without me posing where I shouldn't be.

Overall, Qingdao was a lot of fun. We got to eat a lot of seafood (with minimal GI distress!!) and the beer was pretty good. (No, IES did not pay for any of our drinks, thanks very much.) I was happy, as always, to get out of the city and into fresh(er) air. I would love to come back in 5 years - I'm sure the city will be totally different. Not sure if it will be positive change...but it will be a vacation destination for sure.

BaBa's Back!!!!

(That's a screen capture of my father and me talking)
My father has been in Burma for the last 2 weeks, cycling with friends, and he came back this morning.

So I wanted to say WELCOME HOME BABA!!!

Will update on Qingdao tomorrow....