For those of you that don't speak Chinese, and I don't know why you wouldn't because it is really a fun language to speak, the title of this post says...Hello! My name is Lin Ke Xi...that is my name here. I am slowly getting used to it. After about 27 hours of travel on three planes, two cars, and one bus I arrived in Hangzhou, a city in China's southeast near Shanghai on Wednesday night around 9:oopm. Since then it has been a rollercoaster with me at times feeling like this was the best thing that I could ever chosen to do and feeling really confident in my ability to communicate, and other times thinking, how could have a chosen to do this, what have I gotten myself into, I don't understand anything that is going on around me. But overall, at this moment I am really happy to be here. My Chinese roommate is great, she is very patient with me and takes care of me and makes sure that I don't get hit by buses, taxis, bicycles, or motorized scooters. It has only been two days but I feel like it has been much much longer. We have had a few orientation meetings (at which we are allowed to speak english) but otherwise it is Chinese all the time. No english music allowed, no english movies, not even english Karaoke...this is serious business. Today we split into teams and what on an extremely long scavenger hunt all over the city and then we had a performance tonight where we sang Chinese pop songs, recited Chinese tongue twisters, and reenacted funny skits from the day. We have two more days of orientation and then classes start monday.
It's crazy to be here, but at the same time I don't even have time to think about that because I am too busy trying to communicate and understand what is going on around me and not embarrass myself anymore than necessary. I have also been eating a lot of rice. Meal times are confusing, I usually don't really know what I am eating, but that is part of the fun. Also, my chopstick skills are getting better at every meal.
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2 comments:
Dear Lexi,Great to hear from you and about your all-Chinese adventure. Good luck with those chopsticks! We just started classes this week, and I can't believe how fast the summer went. The Dems finished their convention last night, and my unbiased view is that it was terrific and that Obams is pretty amazing. McCain announced his VP pick today - a very conservative, relatively young (even younger than your parents and aunts and uncles) and inexperienced woman who is the governor of Alaska. She's very opposed to the right to choose and doesn't seem to care about global warming, even though her state will be hurt before the rest of us. I hope people see from this what bad judgment McCain has. Curious what you may hear about all of this in China. Hope you have a good weekend, and stay away from those motorized scooters!
Love, Aunt Maxine
it's an honor that you chose the name you current use now. i met your teachers today and they still address you with your old name. tutoring without you isn't fun and i may choose to do sth. else.
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