同学和朋友

Last night Xu Rungui came over to study. We had an assignment to make and memorize a dialogue due the next day. So I thought he’d come over for like half an hour just to write it. But we wrote it and practiced it, and then he just got out his other books and started studying. It was good though, because it forced me to study too. He ended up staying over for about 4 hours, just studying and hanging out. At one point he took out his mp3 player and speakers and started quizzing me on KPop songs. He’d play one and ask if I knew it, and when I got excited and started singing along with it he’d always shout “啊!你是哪国人??!” which roughly translates to “what country are you from??!” Along with knowing the songs, I also know parts of most dances, so I’d start doing part of it in my seat, and he’d start doing it too. And when “Tell Me” by Wondergirls played, without even saying anything we both got up and did the whole first dance section, hahahaha. It was really fun. I’ve never really had a friend who I could really chat about KPop with. Though I guess it’s pretty normal for Koreans to know about their own pop culture, so it’s no surprise that he knows all these songs and dances too.

I’m also becoming better friends with the other people I sit by in class. Xu Rungui always sits next to me, and then in front of us are Kim Wuram and Han Jinghao. All three are Korean, so they often talk to each other in Korean. I nicknamed Han Jinghao “小탑” (Little TOP) because he looks a lot like my favorite celebrity, TOP. When I told him that he was really surprised and denied it, but he really does look like him! So I told him to rap for me, and he looked down for a second, thinking. And then he looked up and did the signature TOP finger-wiggle move. Then he got all embarrassed and had to look away. Haha, silly shy Koreans! I also nicknamed Kim Wuram “Agi Oppa”. Agi means baby in Korean, and “oppa” is a term that Korean girls use when referring to guys who are older than them. The reason I chose “baby” is because there’s a Korean movie I liked called “Baby&Me” where the baby’s name is Wuram. And he’s Korean so of course he knows of the movie, so he got the joke. And then I named Xu Rungui “小孩子” which means “little kid”. I don’t really remember why, but it has something to do with something I misheard him say yesterday.

Today me, Abby, and Tina went to that supermarket place with the massage chairs again. I always forget what it’s called. I stocked up on some instant noodles, since the only “cooking supplies” we have is a fossit in the laundry room that we can get hot water out of. Abby and Tina wanted to buy a crab, since apparently Adam and Josh have been keeping a pet crab in their bathroom (what the random??) and they thought he needed a friend. Hahaha. I guess they got theirs for 3kuai, so we assumed the one we got wouldn’t be more than 6. But then after we got it bagged and weighed, as we were walking away Abby asked how much it ended up being. Tina looked at the bag and saw that it was 36kuai. So we they were like “WHAT DO WE DO?” because we didn’t want to buy a 36kuai crab. So they took it back. Abby tried to explain why they didn’t want it, but the guy was really confused trying to understand. So finally she just said “我不要。”(meaning “I don’t want it”) and he was like ohhhhhh, no problem. So we bought our stuff and took the super crowded and smelly bus home. I stopped at the little corner restaurant and got some chao mian for dinner, while Abby and Tina ate the bread they got. It’s becoming much less stressful to order food, now that I’ve learned a little more food-related vocabulary, and am just over-all more comfortable with Chinese.

中秋节

Yesterday was 中秋节(Zhongqiujie), China’s Mid-Autumn Festival. We didn’t have classes, so we decided we needed to go out and do something fun. Me, Abby, Adam, Josh, Tina, Brett, and Gidianny went to the Temple of Heaven together. I didn’t really know what to expect. I hadn’t even seen pictures of it really. So I was blown away at how big it was. It had a few different sections, and the path to each section was a beautiful walkway. At one point, we got attacked by some nationals demanding to take pictures with us. So we got stuck there for a few minutes until Adam forcefully dragged us out because we needed to move on before we lost the daylight.
When we got to the next section though, a small group of older people wanted a picture with us as well. But that one was much quicker. In that section, we decided it would be cool to take some jumping pictures. So we went to a building on the side and jumped off of the wall, while Brett crouched next to the wall and angled the camera so it got the really pretty building in the background.The next section was the Echo Wall. It’s a circular wall and you can stand at one side while someone else stands on the opposite side (probably like 75m away?) and talk and hear each other. Then in the next section, Tina and Adam wanted to teach us how to polka??? So they taught us all, while all the Chinese people watched us and laughed and recorded us and took pictures. And then after we learned, we went up to the top part and Tina, Josh, Adam and Abby danced in the middle of everyone while I recorded. The people around us weren’t quite sure what to think…
On the way out, we ran into a guy who was training to run a marathon. It turns out he’s run the Great Wall marathon before. Josh and Adam decided they wanted to race him and his friend, so they did. So random! But so funny, I love it! Josh won and Adam came in second. Then we just made our way home. We stopped at 勿美(wumei), the local store, to buy some 月饼(yuebing) Moon Cakes. It’s tradition to eat them during 中秋节, and we’re Chinese now!
Classes have been really good. In the beginning, I teased Xu Rungui about his pretty sister. But now he teases me about my boyfriend. I used to say “徐润闺的妹妹挺漂亮的。”(Xu Rungui’s sister is very pretty). But now he says　“文凯丽的男朋友挺帅的。“ (Kayli’s boyfriend is very handsome). And today we were learning how to use “什么的” which basically means “etc”. When it was my turn to give an example I said “冰箱里咖啡，茶，可乐，什么的都有” (Inside the fridge, there’s coffee, tea, soda, etc.), and the teacher was like yay that works, good job! And then it was Rungui’s turn, so he said “文凯丽的脑子里男朋友，男朋友，男朋友什么的都有” (Inside Kayli’s head, there’s boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, etc). I laughed soooo hard. But the teacher was like …no that doesn’t work. Hahaha.
Just a few minutes ago our cleaning lady came in. We never really talked to her before, but Abby decided to ask her name. Her name is Hai Yan, and she’s 21 years old! I thought she was much older. We chatted with her as she changed our seats. She was very talkative once we got her started. I was surprised though how much I was able to understand, and was actually able to respond most of the time. When we ride subways and things, I’m always too scared to talk to anyone because I don’t think I’ll be able to understand them. But having classes that are completely in Chinese have really helped me to catch the jist of what someone is talking about. So even if I don’t understand everything, I can usually catch key words and piece together the subject. I’m so happy to be learning!

District Conference

I guess it’s been about a week since I last updated. Once classes started up, I stopped going out and doing much. Most of my days just consist of class, studying, and keeping caught up with people back home.
On Friday though, my class all went out to lunch at a place called Big Pizza. It’s like an American buffet, and it was really good. Apparently we might be making class lunches a weekly thing, because we have tests every Friday, and Xu Rungui wants everyone to celebrate finishing the test haha. It was really fun to hang out with everyone. I love my class!

Later that day me, Abby, Josh, Adam, Ben and Kurt went to a big Walmart like supermarket. I forget what it’s called though.
The reason people wanted to go was because of the amazing massage chairs. I was a little reluctant to believe how great they were, since most of the massage chairs I’ve been in were uncomfortable and painful. But these were more gentle and felt super duper nice. So we all just parked it in the chairs for like twenty minutes.

After the supermarket, we came back to the dorms. Josh, Adam and Ben came to our room and we all watched the Green Lantern. I’d seen that movie like an accumulated million times before, so I was easily distracted with other things (like talking to Chris ^^).
It was a really fun time, though. We were helping set Abby up with hotspot shield and helping Adam set up a blog. Abby was really tired though, and she started acting like a drunk person. We had a lot of fun teasing her, and she was really funny.

And then on Saturday night, we went to the adult session of district conference. Sam, Amber’s Muslim friend, came with us. Earlier in the week, he had taken a bunch of people from our group to see a Mosque, but I had class during the time they went so I couldn’t go.
The conference was good. One of the members of the 70 told a lot of really funny stories about funny things his kids say. It’s a little frustrating though how long it takes to get to the church building. Taking the subway route, it’s an hour and a half each way, so getting to church and back eats up three hours of the day.

韩国隔壁的人

Last night, a big group of us went to a really cool performance. I’m not sure what to call it, but it was like Chinese ballet. It was so incredible. None of us really expected a whole lot, we only went because the ward got us a bunch of free tickets. But we were all completely blown away. It was a story about the Flower Goddess, a Poppy, and a Peony. According to Seth (a history major), it was an allegory about the Opium Wars, with the Peony representing China, the Poppy as Britain, and the Flower Goddess representing the struggle for peace. It was an absolutely beautiful performance.

Amber had invited a guy from her class to come along with us. His name was Sam and he’s from Iraq. He’s been in Beijing for 4 months, so he was able to lead to us to theater.

After the performance, about half of the group split off to go home. But I was super starving, so I went with the group that wanted to get a late dinner.

Rather than taking the subway back, we just took a bus the whole way, which was much more relaxing because it was so late at night that we could actually sit in seats. At one point, these two guys got on, and one of them was super drunk. He sat across from me, and after a few minutes, opened the window and started vomiting like a waterfall. I was surprised one person’s stomach could even hold that much liquid. It smelled like pure alcohol as well, you could smell it really strongly. It didn’t really bother me to see, but when I looked around, all of the girls in the group looked totally horrified. I thought about offering him a piece of gum, but decided he would probably just throw up again and lose it.

We got home just past midnight. Abby was already asleep, but I stayed up a few more hours talking online.

Today we went to our neighbors’ dorm room for lunch. We met them in the hall yesterday and they invited us to eat with them. They’re all Korean and don’t really speak much English, so we have to communicate with each other in Chinese. It was really interesting. I was surprised how well we were able to communicate! They even gave us Korean names, and we gave them English names. They named me Kim Sarang and Abby is Kim Hanneul. And we named them Ginger, Jane, Melanie, Hannah and Julie.

So we had Korean food with them and it was super yummy.

Afterwards, I came home, studied a little, took a nap, and then did my homework.

中文课

I’ve got a few days worth of classes under my belt, and I’m finally feeling confident. The first day went completely over my head. I was out of practice with Chinese, and the teachers ONLY spoke Chinese, no English whatsoever. So it would go completely over my head.
But now I’m remembering what I learned before, and adding on the new things that we’ve been studying. I’m getting used to hearing Chinese all the time, and I’m learning how to piece things together more effectively.
Also, I’ve been making friends. Well, I haven’t really made new ones since my last update, but the bonds are growing! I’ve been sitting by Tina (she’s with the BYUI group) for the last two days. Federico usually sits behind us. And Xu Rungui usually sits near us. Whenever I see either of them around the campus, we always say hi. The first time that I sat by Rungui (Elric), we had to ask each other questions in Chinese, and then introduce each other to the class. He showed me a picture of his little sister, and she was super pretty. So while everyone else was introducing their partners, saying their name, where they were from, etc, I introduced him as “这是徐闰圭。他的妹妹非常漂亮!””This is Xu Rungui. His little sister is extremely beautiful!” It got a good laugh out of the class, and now we all kind of tease him with it. Today we were learning to use the sentence structure 挺。。。的, which means something is “quite” something (hard to explain in English). The teacher was asking for example sentences from everyone, so for my turn I said “徐闰圭的妹妹挺漂亮的。“ “Xu Rungui’s little sister is quite beautiful.” I started something, and it’ll probably stick with him for the rest of the semester :P

Brandon and Theo (from BYUI) transferred into our class. They were originally in 一本上，the lower level. So they came to 一本下, the upper level (the one I’m in). So now us 美国人 all sit together. We kind of talk a lot, which probably isn’t a good thing. But at least we always talk to each other in Chinese, so the teacher can’t yell at us for speaking English. It’s really fun to sit by them, as we all tease and make fun of each other in Chinese.

Monday Opening Ceremony

8/29/2011

Today was our opening ceremony. Me and a few others were under the impression that the Chinese spoken one would be at 9am, and the English one would be at 9:40. So a few of us showed up at 9:40 and were surprised that they had already started. It continued on until about 11. Afterwards, some people from our group asked why we were so late. Apparently the whole thing started at 9. But we didn’t learn anything from the hour and twenty minutes we were there, and they said we didn’t miss anything in the first 40 minutes either.

We had a break until 1:30, so I just chilled out in my room. Then we went to our classrooms to meet our teachers and classmates and go over the class structure. I’m going to have class from 8am until 3:20pm on Monday through Thursday, and then 8am until 9:50am on Friday. I’ll definitely be learning a lot.

After, we went to the bookstore to buy our books. I barely had enough to buy mine. I tried to use the ATM, but it said my bank hadn’t authorized it or something. So I’m stuck with about 20 RMB (about $3) until something gets figured out…

After, I had a few more hours to myself. And then a bunch of us went out with Brother Galer to dinner. We went to the same place we went to on the first day, but got different food. MMMMMmmmm, I found my new favorite food. Yuxiang Rousi, fish flavored shredded pork. It’s soooo good.

Then we walked back to our school, and I’m here for the rest of the night.

It was a pretty relaxed day, after the stress of orientation and books and stuff.

Sunday

8/28/11

Today was our first day of church in Beijing. We met in the lobby at 9am. Half of us walked to the subway while the other half took taxis. I wasn’t aware that the other half was taking taxis, I just left with the group who was walking to the subway. Bad idea. It’s about two or so miles from our college to the closest subway station. We’ve walked it before, but that was in tennis shoes. Making the walk in heels or flats is much slower and much more uncomfortable. It was really awesome to walk through the park, though. Last time we walked through it, there wasn’t really much going on. But I guess Sunday mornings are the times where everything happens. There were big groups dancing or doing taichi, there was even a big choir practicing. It was all so cool, and everything so Chinese.

We got on the subway and rode it a few stops, then had to get off and transfer, and then ride that one another few stops, and then get off and transfer and ride that one another stop. Oh my goodness.

It was funny though, at the last station, waiting for our last subway, a lady came up and asked if we were from BYU-Idaho. We were like “Yeah!! What? Wow, how did you know?!” She said we looked like BYU-I students. We were like “whaaaaat?”

She was the branch president’s wife. That explained everything, haha.

They rode with us the final way. The entire trip took an hour and a half.

By the time we got to our destination, my feet were basically torn to shreds ._.

It was so weird to get into the church building. At first it was just a normal building, except much nicer than any of the other buildings I’ve been in here. But then we rode the elevator up, and we were greeted by a bunch of smiling white people. It was like WOAAHH AMERICA. The rest of church went exactly like it would have gone anywhere else in the world. I guess the church is exactly the same no matter where you are. It was the most organized thing I’ve been to since I got here.

After church, we all met back up as a group. Everyone was deciding they were going to take that whole subway system back again. I was thinking there was absolutely no way I was doing that again, and thankfully one of the other girls spoke up and asked if anyone wanted to take a taxi with her. So Kirsten, me, Kurt, and Theo all took a taxi back. And then I got to chill out in the dorm for an hour before Abby got back.

Then we just kind of sat around for a few more hours. Aside from the long walk this morning, it’s definitely been the most relaxing day so far. But I guess that’s the way Sundays are supposed to be.

At 5:30 we met in the school’s cafeteria area for our opening banquet. Brother Galer ordered us a bunch of really great food. Again, I forced myself to try everything. Not everything was amazing, but nothing was really terrible. I sat by the group I’ve been hanging out with for most of this trip, and they were all surprised when I brought up that I’m usually a really picky eater. Adam was like “Whaaat? But you were downing everything left and right at that night market!”

I’m hoping that living here for four months will cure me of my food phobias. Adam was saying that he was also a really picky eater until he went on his mission, and now he’ll eat anything.

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