Chengdu Week 11 - Ending

Nov. 13, 2014

    Class was in a different classroom, due to ours not being unlocked. Things don’t always go smoothly. Lunch was with Andrew and it was actually pretty filling, I was in the mood for a family style meal. I also ate pretty much the entire plate of chicken. The restaurant we went to has the best gengpaoji (kung pow chicken) I’ve had in Sichuan. History class is beginning to turn into a joke, not because our teacher is unable to teach, but more along the lines she isn’t used to teaching students who actually know a thing or two about Chinese history. She always treats us like we have no idea and often misunderstands what we say and misconstrues it into something that fits her image of what she understands Americans to be. For example, I made the comment that one of the temples in Xian reminded me of my time in Japan. This is because the simple, elegant temples in the Tang dynasty were exported to Japan and Japan continued that very specific tradition into modern times. However, Laoshi took that to mean that I thought Japan had influenced Chinese architecture. It was weird because she was seemed really pleased I had made this grievous error and announced it to the class today. I interrupted her and told her no that’s not at all what I meant, it made class mildly strained until break. Then after break she once again talked about the possibility of curses and Fengshui being admissible reasons for things happening. Which is fine, but that’s not historically admissible in academia. The class will be over soon and I will take her class next semester for audit instead of credit which will keep it interesting without needing to write a paper.
    After class there was another odd moment. A woman was wandering around, standing in people’s doorways but not saying anything. I tried to speak with her but she went too fast. I got Cassid to help me understand, we’ve had people in our dorm looking for someone. It turned out however, she was a migrant worker looking for money. She vented to Cassidy and I. We later found out she was likely trying to get into people’s rooms to steal things to sell. It was a weird moment. But we got through it together. Then it was sword fighting in the hallway (Jesse misses fencing) and dinner. We watched Princess Mononoke and holy crap my Japanese is getting bad. I don’t use it so I guess it’s getting lost. It also doesn’t help that when I look a characters the Chinese reading pops up instead. Such is the nature of learning languages and not using them. Tomorrow will be interesting, I am going with a few dorm mates to a grand opening for Wentao.

Nov. 14, 2014

    Today was a little bit different. The USAC students had been invited to an elementary school for an International Art exhibition (It was actually a field day for an elementary school but it had a really official sounding title). Myself, Sean, Eric and Ashley (or Meifeng) waited for nearly 45 minutes for the car that was meant to pick us up. Apparently it had gone to Sichuan University instead of our university. We almost didn’t make it due to traffic and having to juggle between Wentao’s calls, as she tried to figure out what was going on. So we finally arrive just in time for the opening ceremonies. Alright, let me explain this job. The four of us were there essentially to make the school look more diverse. That they actually had access to foreigners ,who spoke English. We got up on stage waved some flags, the got off. We then waved another round of flags and we were done. This was only done for the pictures, so that school could post them on the website and attract more students. Then the children dispersed for games.

Erik as a computer

Sean High-fiving the Children

    All of us opted to stay for the games. It was fun playing with the children, I think they liked having other people besides their teachers. After the games we were taken inside and we watched some traditional Chinese entertainment, string and giant top tricks. It was actually very interesting, I really enjoyed it. Then there was a brief magic show, which was specifically designed for kids. It was all good fun. Lunch went swiftly enough, I chatted with a few of the actually teachers at the school. Apparently it’s a very very rich school. Then I had to go back to school, I had calligraphy at two. Calligraph was quite fun, it was a smaller group, people opted out of going. I feel like I actually did well in the class, even though my talent for calligraphy is minimal.
    Corey made dinner for all of us, chicken breast sandwiches.They were quite tasty, I did dishes instead of paying which was really nice of the man. Jesse, Corey and I then recluses into the room and watched two movies. It was nice just chilling after such a long day. Tomorrow will also be long, I have to tutor Cindy and go work at YMCC. Hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Nov. 15, 2014
    My Saturday was a day of work. First, I went with Cindy for her two hour English lesson. That was actually quite fun, games of hide and seek and long with combing my hair made the time fly by. Then it was back to the dorms for some food and a nap. I left the dorms again for work at YMCC. Today wasn’t as fun, it was a review day and so everything we did went really quickly. That left myself and Lily struggling to come up with relevant games for the kids to play to pass the time. We managed through it though, but I was happy for the day to be over. It was payday, which always blows my mind a little bit. The spending power of the RMB is actually quite high, particularly for essentials such as food. So as long as I work and don’t go crazy with spending money, I will not need to pull money out of my account in the US. Yay for not returning as a broke student. I went to dinner with Corey and Jesse and then it was back to the dorms for some movies. We somehow have gotten into the habit of winding down the night with movies and I really like the tradition. Tomorrow is the start of new week, let’s see what goes on.