Puppy!!!!!

I know it's been three years since I last posted, but don't worry, I'm alive and well and surviving despite the hazardous levels of smog sitting outside the apartment. This won't be too extensive of a post, as not much has happened in the past two weeks.

Soo my host mom did up getting me a dog, for some godforsaken reason. Well, a good reason is that she knew that I liked dogs, but she sure as heck doesn't and neither does Billy. Fortunately, they seem to like the little Jack Russell terrier, which Billy named Alex. I had JUST sat down to do my homework when I heard my mom repeatedly calling my name, telling me to come out of my room. Annoyed, I opened my bedroom door only to have turned my mood around and see little Alex resting in my mom's arm. When I held him, he was shaking a bit, but as soon as I put him on the ground, he started manically dashing about the house. Here's a picture:

This was one of two pictures that turned out well, because the energetic thing could not seem to hold still. Here is a series of the graceful attempts:

He's three months old and kind of precious. He sleeps with me on my bed, because if I put him anywhere else he creates shrill yet heartbreaking noises until I cuddle him again. I really can't complain.

Last weekend, I went to the Bird's Nest with my family to watch one of the more unusual gargantuan mechanical animal performances I've seen. It was called "French Mechanical 'Longma' [dragon horse] Performance in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Establishment of China-France Diplomatic Relations." It was right outside the Nest in the Olympic park. Hundreds gathered to watch a giant mechanical spider walk through fake snow which battled a mechanical dragon horse for about 5 minutes. I didn't exactly see the significance of the two animals and France and China, but it was somewhat entertaining. The dragon horse disappeared and we mostly saw the giant mechanical spider doing weird things with its legs while it snowed bubbles for about a half hour.

I don't think the French nor the Chinese thought the performance out too well because, to the horror of many Chinese people surrounding me, the fake snow started seeping under the banisters and many people left halfway through the performance in hopes of keeping their feet dry.

I stayed a little longer because I didn't care about getting my feet a bit damp, but we left early anyway.

I also had my first solo excursion to a different district. For history extra credit, students were to go to the place where the last Ming Emperor hung himself. It sounds eerie, but it happened around 300 years ago so anything that happened that long ago isn't scary. I had to find my way from the subway to the park where the memorial was. It took me 45 minutes to walk a distance of about 2 miles. I couldn't have done it without the help of the 11th person I asked for directions, a middle aged Chinese man who happened to be going the same way as I was going. He didn't really understand that I knew how to speak Chinese until about five minutes into our walk, when he figured it out and stopped silently pointing where to go and started enthusiastically telling me about the history of the area where we were walking by until he sent me off into the park. 

Every year, SYA students have a tones competition, which is this competition among all the students to write the correct tones on phonetic Chinese words. This year, me and four other students wrote all the tones perfectly. I wasn't that surprised about winning because of my incredible advantage over everyone as being a native speaker without an accent. I'm still happy because we got cool shirts that we can wear with our uniforms, as well as an unspoken superiority over everyone else because of our shirts.

Jon and I wearing our prizes. They read, "Zhùyì shēngdiào," or "watch your tones.

By the way, my hair isn't that long anymore. I got a haircut and cut off about four inches, which, in my mind, is basically the equivalent of a foot. It was a 68 kuai haircut, or a little over $11, and I got my own private room which had a tv in it.

I think I'm going to try out for the cheer team at Westfield High School next year. The tumbling is significantly more serious than it is at Salinas High, as at SHS I was the only one on the team who had a back handspring while everyone on the WHS team has a back handspring, the majority of them having a back tuck. If those terms make no sense to you, just google them. I would try out by sending in videos of me doing whatever they want. I hadnt practiced any tumbling in the past year or so, so Jon (who is extremely enthusiastic about me trying out and decided that he is going help me practice tumbling with me whenever I practice, as well as learn the routines I need to know for tryouts) and I went to the soccer field to practice. We practiced on the turf even though there was a full blown soccer game going on with the Erfuzhong students, who never complained once.

I can officially say that I'm happy here. The ache of missing home has dissipated, and I've found the good in this place. I've embraced the bus rides to school. The convenience of this getting from place to place in this city is something I will literally never find anywhere else in the world. Hua Hou Gou Apartments and Xinjiekouwai Street are now my home, and I feel more independent here than I ever have. There's something about not having to ask for a ride to go places and only having to pay a few cents for easy and reliable transportation that is comforting. Sure, I'm a little paranoid about having my belongings stolen, but it's highly unlikely that it will happen now that I'm aware of what I need to do to protect them. Also, I've gotten in the groove of schoolwork. I can now do all my Chinese homework and studying done on the way to school and still get 90% and above on my tingxies. As for the rest of my classes, it's been pretty easy to figure out a schedule.

The puppy is crying for my attention now, so I've got to go. Yeah, that's right, I have priorities! 

How am I not dead?

Leaves are ominously falling from trees, thick, grey, hazy smog is filling the air, and people are starting to layer clothes. That's right, it's fall in Beijing!

It was a measure of 470 on the pollution scale yesterday, the max being 500. Here is a series of pictures depicting this absurdity:

The view from our apartment. At first, I thought that the window was just fogged up from condensation, or something. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

You may or may not know that this is the view from the math room. You also may or may not know that beyond the building with the red roof, you can normally see the towering Puslation building. I think that with that information, you can figure out how bad it is.

Apparently the smog gets worse in the winter, too. I can actually smell it. I tried wearing a mask, but I started to feel sleepy which I believe was as a result of breathing my own air, so I'm just going to take the risk of getting pneumonia instead of suffocating. In case my lungs shrivel up and shatter into a thousand shards, it's been nice knowing you all. Thanks for reading my blog. Write your condolences in the comment section. Write comments even if I don't die, though.

It's been over a week since I last wrote, so this might end up being a megapost.

I believe the last place I left off was my day in Shandong. Mom, Shu Shu, and I went to the cousins' house and we all hugged goodbye. I enjoyed getting to know that family, even though I only understood 2/6 of them.

After that, the three of us and Shu Shu's mom went on a two hour drive to the Anhui province, where his sister and her family live. I liked this visit more because everyone spoke the normal dialect, the bed in my hotel room was soft, and because there were dogs!!! In the grandparents' neighborhood across the street from Shu Shu's sister's apartment, there was a friendly golden retriever named Lucky and a German shepeherd named Dian Dian. They were the first dogs that I got to pet since I got to China, and I was ecstatic about it. I also liked this visit because Shu Shu's sister and her husband were easier to talk to, not just because they spoke the normal dialect, but because they didn't act like I was a deaf-mute, like mostly everyone else there. I went to a park with them at night with their precious one year old son. Every night at this park, there's a huge group of women who do synchronised dance routines in rows. It was entertaining to watch these women whose ages ranged between 45-80 dance perfectly in synch to pounding electronic music.

We also went hiking on a mountain, where this time, I was the second most athletic, right behind Shu Shu's sister's husband. I never got the name of the mountain, but it was where an emperor was being hid from being kidnapped some thousand years ago. It was a pretty hike, but not pretty enough for me to ignore the amount of stares and "HALLO"s I received. A little girl ran up to me and walked beside me for a few seconds, never taking her eyes off me. I gave her a little wave and heard delighted laughter behind me, and I turned around to see her mom pulling out her iPhone to take a picture of us. "Qie zi", I said, which means eggplant and is also the Chinese equivalent of saying "cheese", while simultaneously throwing up the peace sign. The mom giggled even more as her daughter scampered off to her side. I felt like a Kardashian! Famous, but for doing absolutely nothing besides looking a certain way.

The 10 hour drive home wasn't nearly as long as the opposite way there because I was thrilled to be going home. Is it weird that I felt homesick not for the U.S., but Beijing? I missed the apartment, and Billy, who was with his dad, even though Billy hardly ever talked to me and still doesn't. I also missed school and all of its stress, riding the crappy bus with Lizzie every day, and having to sit out in the living room in hopes of absorbing wifi. I'm already developing an attachment to this place!! What's going on with me??

Strangely enough, the day after we got back, which was Tuesday, I felt a huge bout of homesickness and a colossal craving for American junk food. I ditched the white rice for a night and walked to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet with Lizzie. I'm not sure if they have any of those in the States, because I think the phrase "all-you-can-eat pizza buffet" is a gold mine in itself, but as soon as I get back, I better see one on every street corner. Seriously, that place cheered me up so much. Sure, it was 60 kuai, which is about 50 more than a typical Chinese, but I simply had to get my fix of Italian cuisine. My homesickness was cured with a full stomach of chewed up bread, cheese, and pepperoni.

The next morning brought forth a brief rainstorm, the perfect recipe for a terrible bus ride. It was the first day back to school. Some weren't thrilled to be back, because no one loves getting up early to walk up six flights of stairs, but I think others, like Lizzie, who went all of break without wifi with a 5 page essay to write, and Sam, who didn't know her parents were taking her camping for all of break therefore only bringing the clothes she was wearing, were happier about it. It was also nice to come back on a Wednesday, because on Wednesdays we only have Chinese class and a math test. I did a horrible job on my tingxie, dictation tests we have every other day in Chinese class, but our history class that was the next day was cancelled, so that was somewhat of a balance.

After lunch, at 1 PM I had my second music lesson playing the Ruan, the Chinese guitar. My teacher is a bubbly 28 year old woman who looks like she's 20. I got her WeChat and she said she would take me out to lunch on the weekends. PSA: PEOPLE DON'T ACTUALLY EAT DOG IN CHINA. My Chinese teacher told me that people are just as freaked out about eating dog as they are in the States. Except in the Guangdong province. The "they eat anything with four legs except a table" rule applies there. After class, Miles and I listened to some Mariah Carey to prepare for the concert because we only knew about 4 of her songs.

I taught my second class at the Deshengmen community center, which is the teaching old people English thing. So far it's been really fun. Christina and I had a class of four students and eventually we split them into two. The younger of my two students was physically incapable of pronouncing her "R"s and "L"s, and it was entertaining to help her try. Does that make me evil?

The women have our next three Wednesday nights planned; we are to go to each one of their houses every week. This Wednesday, we went to Alice's house. Christina and I had dinner with her and her husband, who took out his Canon 5D Mark I, the exact same camera that I use, to take a group picture of the four of us. Alice told me that she is a retired elementary school teacher who taught math, and her husband is a retired calligraphy teacher. He wrote scrolls for the both of us! I have yet to figure out what they say, but I'm going to assume it's something cool and insightful. It was a pleasant experience getting to know the two elders and Christina, who has the same birthday as me and also lived in a foreign country, Brazil, for a part of her life, and speaks a second language fluently, Portuguese. We did have our differences, though. I'm obsessed with pop culture, and she doesn't know who Mariah Carey is. Alice walked us all the way to the bus stop, which was about a mile away from her house. On our way to the stop, we passed a couple grocery stores, a park, and a row of people selling clothes on the street. There was a lot going on where she lived, but in the most pleasant way. I look forward to seeing a different neighborhood every Wednesday night.

Thursday was the due date of the dreaded APES essay and Unit 2 test. I felt nervously while taking it because it was so hard, but I ended up getting an 85%, which is better that I expected, and we get to make test corrections, so I'm not complaining. A lot of us tried speaking Chinese for the whole day for  an SYA immersion challenge, but I think only a couple people lasted.

Yesterday, while I was studying for the tingxie that I failed, my Chinese teacher called me into the office where 3 other Chinese were waiting to tell me that I am being moved from Chinese 2 to Chinese 3. This is a bit nerve wracking in that they know a lot more characters than I do but also a relief because in Chinese 2 I just sit and braid my hair and draw to keep myself awake because the discussion part of the class is far too easy. The Chinese words for Chinese 3 is San Ban, which the teachers kept saying and is also San Benancio Middle School's nickname. Bits and pieces of Salinas seem to follow me everywhere...(shoutout to the SBMS Clutch Crew and Fran, Jordan, Alex, and Sofia, if you're reading this I love and miss you all ok I'm done).

The Mariah Carey concert was at 7:30, but I got to the stadium at 8 because I was rerouted on the subway (okay I got lost). The concert was really fun, despite that our group of 11 knew a total of 5 songs. The concert was the weirdest experience. The stadium was about 1/4 full, and our group was without a doubt the loudest people there.

The pollution made it a bit difficult to see the stage, and it was just about impossible to see Mariah's face because the screens weren't big enough for us to see from where we were sitting. Nevertheless, Mariah was as good at singing as everyone says she is and we had about six rows to ourselves. Yesterday was also Jackson and my 11th month of dating. It's hard to be happy about it when you're not physically together but it's so worth it. It really is

I took the SAT with 5 other fellow students this morning. It was my first time taking the SAT, so I don't think I'll be sharing my scores with anyone else who I took it with, as they all have already scored above 2100. I imagine that that was the most relaxing environment for taking the test. With hardly anyone else taking it, not to mention the people in the room were all people I knew fairly well, I didn't feel as much pressure taking it as I probably would have taking it with 30 strangers. I thought it was easier than expected. It was basically a 4 hour long, more challenging version of the state testing that we've been doing from second to ninth grade. But at the rate I scored every year... that means I'll be scoring around an 1800. I'm choosing not to think about it until I get my scores back!

You know how I said people here don't eat dog? I was wrong.

At dinner tonight, my mom put a mysterious plate of bones in front of me. As usual, I dug in, only to find that it tasted a little strange. "This takes kinda weird, what is it?" I asked.
"I'm not gonna tell you what it is," she responded.
"Is it dog?" I asked, panicking.
"How did you guess?" she said.
With that, took 10 napkins from the napkin holder and grabbed the chunk of meat that was still in my mouth and scrubbed my tongue. I sat there in shock. Before coming to Beijing, I had vowed never to eat dog, and it happened. It was the first time I was angry at my mom. "I didn't want to tell you because I was afraid you wouldn't eat it." I kind of just stared at her with my mouth open and ready to throw up. She tried covering it up by telling me it was horse like animal meat. I asked her if she was kidding about it being dog and she just started saying bushi bushi bushi! It's not, it's not, it's not! But the bones were far too small for it to be any type of horse bones. I've officially eaten a murdered dog. I've eaten man's best friend! I'm practically a cannibal. I think I'll go die now.

Who knew I was athletic?

Correction: I didn't actually go to the countryside. Currently I'm in a hotel room what I'd like to call the suburbs of the Shandong province, which basically means that the buildings aren't as tall and there are probably 25% less people. I did end up going to the countryside, but more on that later. Tomorrow we are headed for the Anhui province to visit Shu Shu's sister's family.

I managed to keep track of everything that has been happening over the course the past three days in Notes, on my phone. I also jotted down some thoughts in the car ride to the Shandong province. 

I found out that my HOST mom's dad was a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. He didn't kill anybody, though. He realized that it wasn't a good thing to participate in the destroying of Chinese culture after the revolution was over, but I guess at the time he got a bunch of free stuff.

Pictures from the Great Wall are on my photo blog, which, if you've forgotten, is linked next to my bio. It took me almost a week to finish posting all of the pictures because people kept asking me to post them and for some reason that always makes me lazier about it.

I'm pretty sure I could become a millionaire as a translator here. Not like a political translator or anything like that, but one that could translate English words or phrases on t-shirts or mugs correctly from Chinese. Really though, how hard can it really be to get someone who speaks good Chinese and English, at least good enough to make a few English words make sense or have correct spelling? Just this morning, I saw a sign by the elevator that said "IN CASE OF FIRF DO NOT USE ELEVATOR." Yes, firf. Someone did not know how to use Baidu (the Chinese version of Google Translate) or was in a rush. Then again, there is virtually no reason why anyone would need to read that sign, because no one here needs to speak English or is an English speaker. Based on the amount of stares I have gotten, I am probably the only white person that half of the people here have ever seen. Still, I might consider starting a temporary translating business while I'm here just so I'll have a few extra kuai to spend.

OCTOBER 1ST

After a twelve hour car ride that was made up of napping every other hour in the half packed back of a compact Mercedes, we arrived in Shandong. I get my own hotel room here! This is my first experience of living alone, and it's been great! I can play music kind of loudly and watch as much television as I want, both at the same time. I must say that the television here is awful. Well, maybe not. Maybe I'll be able to find myself relating to the characters of Peking operas and Chinese soap operas someday. As of now, I'll stick to translated Spongebob on channel 25, which somewhat compensates for the lack of good cinematography. Once we were moved in, we went to Shu Shu's brother's apartment, taking my laptop with me because Mom insisted that I did because she was paranoid that someone might break into my room and steal it. This became a common thing during the trip. When I walked into the building, everything was dusty and seemingly falling apart. The inside of the elevator was constructed of wood and advertisement posters. That's something else I don't really understand. Every elevator in China has advertisements in them. The 13th floor, where Shu Shu's brother lives, was no better than the first. Mom knocked on the door and a tall, pretty Chinese woman welcomed us into what was the total opposite of what I had expected. Their apartment looked like it came out of a modern magazine, and it was completely spotless. Just another thing to add to the list of things that I don't get about this country.

Shu Shu introduced me to his two nieces, who were around my age and painfully antisocial. I sat on the couch with them and his great aunt, who spoke the Shandong dialect which prevented much communication between us. Actually, everyone here speaks the dialect. So not only am I illiterate, I also cannot comprehend the language. During dinner, I was surrounded by about seven other aunts and uncles who were all trying to speak with me while I sat there helplessly. Fortunately, the cousins warmed up to me and were able to translate, since they learn putong hua, or the normal dialect, which is the primary dialect of China and the one that I speak and understand. 

I'm going to refer to the cousins as "the cousins" throughout the rest of this post, because I find it impossible to remember Chinese names. I feel bad because they treated me so well. They even took me out to the night market and bought me ice cream and some greasy stuff that tasted good, as greasy stuff usually does. I also finally found earrings that I had been searching for, and they insisted on paying for them. The lady who sold me the earrings was giggly, probably because doesn't see many white people, or at least any that speak decent Chinese. It's such a humorous concept for them. Twice that night, I heard "HALLO!!"s followed by guffawing which was directed towards me. It was weird because I had never received that kind of attention before. It was bound to happen sometime.

OCTOBER 2ND

I spent the morning writing one page of my APES paper, which doesn't sound like a lot, but a Chinese standard paper is about 1/4 longer than regular paper. Okay, that still doesn't sound like a lot. I was distracted by the cultural beauty of Chinese Spongebob. Before we left the hotel to go back to the apartment, I Facetimed with Cade for about 20 minutes. That was the first time I had heard any English for 36 hours, and surprisingly, I was doing fine. I think my Chinese has gotten better while being here, or I've gotten good at tuning people out. Me and the cousins went to the mall, where the only money they spent on me (they really wouldn't let me spend any money) was at the arcade, where they bought me tokens so I could play a car racing game. Then we walked to a beautiful garden which had a pond and a large statue of Confucius. Shandong was the homeland of Confucius, okay that's the history lesson of the day.

After the garden, the whole family drove to the countryside to meet up with even more relatives. I slept on the car ride there, so I was a bit disoriented and startled to wake up to the sight of piles and piles of corn. In front of each house was mounds of yellow corn to be sunned and sold at a market somewhere in the city. The cousins took me down a long dirt road to look at the scenery, of which I will post pictures when I get back to Beijing. We stopped at a flat area where instead of crops were large black patches scattered around the fields. I asked the cousins why we stopped, and they explained that the patches were where bodies were buried and the black was where money was burnt as offerings. They felt too uncomfortable to continue on, so we headed back to their grandparents' house. Mom explained to me that in Chinese culture, honoring the dead was more important than marriage.

OCTOBER 3RD

There is this song called "Little Apple" that plays constantly throughout China. It's the on the top of the charts here, and Shu Shu has played it in the car repeatedly throughout this whole trip. Here is the music video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d59boCs31uM

Skip to 1:18 if you care enough to watch and if you don't care for the intro. It's pretty entertaining in that it's just about the most Asian thing you'll ever see.

Today I went on the shortest hike of my life. I am assuming it was supposed to be longer, but my mom and the cousins realized that they do not have the athletic ability they thought they possessed. For once, I was the fastest in the group! Hearing them beg me to stop hiking was music to my ears, as it is usually the other way around with me. People here wear the most inconvenient stuff to hike in. Mostly everyone on the mountain was wearing jeans, and I even saw a man in a dress suit. The hike lasted about 20 minutes, and we spend a good 5 minutes resting. These are my kind of people.

The cousins. They aren't as formidable as they seem in this picture. They are, in reality, very adorable.

One of the cousins has a two year old brother who is almost three. He reminds me of Will and Wyatt, in that his cute, charming side is like Wyatt, whereas his butch, violent side is like Will. Because of this, I constantly felt a sisterly instinct to be around him and act as I would around my brothers, scolding him when he hit me and holding his hand on the street when the whole family went out.

After our hike, we went to go pick fruit. The uncles and one of the cousins were jumping to reach for persimmons, which reminded me of the Thomsens' dog, Ruby, jumping and grabbing persimmons from the tree with her mouth in their front yard back home in California (que homesickness). After, I was dropped off at the hotel so I could work on homework and was then picked up to go to dinner with the family. It seems that people do not realize that I can use chopsticks and that I have been using them since I was three years old because they continue to insist on getting me a fork at every single freaking meal. Tonight I refused to use it and took extra care not to drop any food when I used the chopsticks. My mom complimented me when I was able to pick up a quail's egg, because everyone else had been struggling to pick them up. I pretended to shake off the compliment when on the inside, I was like, "yesssssssss". They also think that I can't handle having spicy foods, but little did they know, I ate Extra Flaming Hot Cheetos before every cheer practice during freshman year, meaning that I can kind of handle spicy foods here.

After dinner, the cousins and I walked about a mile to go to a seasonal carnival. It was 8:45 when we got there, and as soon as we step foot in the place, the lights went out and the music turned off. We were the last people in there, minus the staff, who were riding around their mopeds and closing up. One of the cousins convinced a carny to turn on one of the rides for us. It was one where people were strapped into chairs at the bottom and were vertically sent around and around in giant circles. The staff said they would only allow us three rotations. As we were coming around on our third rotation, one of the cousins started screaming bloody murder and told the carny to stop the ride or she'd throw up!!!!! She got off, and the carny asked where I was from. I told him that I was from the U.S., which I think helped with the fact that we got to have three extra rotations. As we were getting off, he tried convincing us to let him lead us through the haunted house as a bonus treat for the American, an offer that me and the cousin that didn't get off the ride immediately turned down, because we are both terrified of scary things. I think it's funny that the carnies were willing to let us go on a ride even though the park was almost completely closed. They were even making sure we didn't want to go on other rides before we left. This is the opposite of what would have happened in the U.S., where the answer would have been a big fat NOPE. Although when the carny asked if I liked China or America better and my response was America, I think the generosity and sense of community is much better in this country.