03-31-2016

I didn't take any other pictures today, but even if I did I honestly wouldn't be able to help myself. These things get me every time. 

$20 to whoever can tell me what these shirts mean.

03-30-2016

One of my classmates offered to sell this paper dictionary to me today because he bought the English version instead of the Russian version. I don't have an immediate need for it because I'm not in the HSK 4 course, but I bought it because it can't hurt to have and it didn't cost much. For those who don't know, the HSK is a Chinese proficiency test.

And speaking of HSK, oh lordy please prepare yourself because here's my take on the Chinese courses here so far.

I've probably mentioned this several times already, but my classmates are WAY better at speaking and reading than me. As far as I am aware, they have all also studied Chinese for a single semester prior. However, I think they all began their courses in China, which is advantageous because the teachers are native Chinese speakers that pretty much talk only in Chinese (at least now they do, I'm sure it probably wasn't like that in the very beginning) and because they were constantly exposed to the language and characters in the city from the start. 

Of course, different people have different reasons for taking the language and thus different goals. This leads to certain objectives being prioritized over others. I only know about my level so this may be wrong in considering the department as a whole, but it seems to me like the goal is to get students to pass the HSK test (specifically the HSK 4 for my level - this baffles me because I've heard/read that HSK 4 test takers have generally mastered around 1,200 characters, and I definitely don't even know half that many).

One reason I feel this way is due to a comment made by one of my teachers - she said that reading and speaking are the most important skills in passing the HSK, you don't need to know how to write.

Honestly, every time I hear her say that (which has only happened maybe twice so far) I get sad because that doesn't feel right to me. I believe part of this is due to the fact that I am much better at writing than speaking (even in English). The other part is that this is not how I originally learned Chinese. At Southwestern, the course truly felt more comprehensive in that we learned vocabulary, reading, grammar AND writing, all the facets of language, at the same time. We moved slower, yes, but each time we progressed to the next lesson I felt decently comfortable with the characters and grammar of the previous. (Also, I don't know if this is how class is handled now Ren Laoshi, but I really liked the structure of learning two lessons and then having a review week). Here in China, we cover one lesson a week but there's never any time to recover or review - we're always moving forward. 

I feel like writing is important. Maybe not as far as the HSK is concerned, but it's definitely a skill which indicates one's level of fluency. Concentrating on writing and especially stroke order has helped me gained a greater understanding of both the process of writing and the characters themselves.

Maybe I'm biased, but I feel like the best way to learn characters isn't to throw them all in front of me. In a way, it's kind of like friends - even if you meet a billion people, it's not likely that you really know all of them. Spending time with each of them individually is what helps you familiarize yourself with others. I like learning about why characters look the way they do and identifying the radicals and phonetics (essentially smaller components of a character). Once, I was studying with a classmate and I got super excited when I realized that the character 篮 (lán - basket) has the radical for bamboo in it (the two identical looking components at the top of the character) because you can make baskets from bamboo, and thus the logic for why it's in the character makes sense! He just looked at me like I was strange. 

This all isn't to say that the historical aspects of the characters trump learning Chinese as a whole. Not only do I find that aspect interesting, but it helps me learn the language - as I mentioned before, rote memorization is silly to me. When I was taking Latin in high school and we had new vocabulary words, I would draw pictures that depicted the meaning of the word and use these to aid in memorization. Also, all my friends know that I love index cards (probably too much).
And this also isn't to say that the Chinese teaching system here is flawed or bad. Every strategy has have its ups and downs, and these strategies may work for some people while not for others. For me personally, it's been a bit of a difficult adjustment, but I definitely have made improvements. I'm not as fazed by the constant lecturing in Chinese and can understand my teachers and classmates better than I could two weeks ago. I believe my vocabulary is expanding as well. No matter how I compare to others in my class, I am learning so I'm content with that and my progress.
So the main thing I'm worried about at this point are finals because I have no idea how those will be structured (we haven't had any tests/quizzes, and I don't know if we even will!) and I would like to pass my classes.
If you seriously read this whole thing, I applaud you - please go get yourself a cookie or something.

03-29-2016

I had a super filling lunch so when dinnertime came around, I wasn't too hungry. I decided to go to a nearby fruit seller to buy bananas and have one for dinner. Originally, I bought five bananas but I only had three at the time that I took this picture.

When I made the purchase, I was confused because I understood the numbers the seller was telling me but there was also a word that I didn't understand. I heard '4' and '5' and the number on the scale read 44.80, so I thought that was the price and handed over ¥100. He didn't seemed too fazed, and gave me a 50, a 20, two 10s and 5 for change. I said thank you and walked away, feeling slightly confused. I don't know why it took me so long to realize that something was off. At first I thought, 'wow, bananas are expensive..' and calculated that each banana was roughly ¥9, which is actually ridiculous but I justified it by recalling an experience where I felt that I paid too much for strawberries. Then I remembered, 'wait, he gave me A LOT of change..'. I went through the bills he gave me in my head and realized he had to have given me at least ¥90. I actually verified the change once I reached my dorm building, and figured maybe he misunderstood the price and accidentally gave me extra money. I figured I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't go back and verify the transaction with him, so I did.

Turns out it was ¥4.5 total for all 5 bananas. Needless to say I will be back for more (bananas, not mistakes, but I guess I'll accept mistakes if they happen ☀).

03-28-2016

Last Wednesday, there was an event at my school for foreign students to practice Chinese with local students. I talked with one girl who gave me her phone number so I could add her on WeChat later as I didn't have my phone on me at the time. I spent Sunday night catching up on my blog and I realized that I hadn't yet added her, which I did even though it was around 1am (so I guess technically it was Monday). Surprisingly, she accepted my request within a few minutes and asked if I was interested in joining her for lunch later that day (we had spent a good deal of time talking about food). I accepted and was really happy about the invitation because I figured I would be eating alone that day. She took me to a Korean restaurant across the street, a little farther from the school than I usually venture (she told me that she invited her roommate, who declined because she said she didn't want to walk that far). In her opinion, it's the best Korean place close by. This is a picture of the inside of the restaurant, which I thought was really cute. Lunch went well, but I feel bad for not trying to talk in Chinese more because I know how it feels to try to communicate in a language I am not comfortable with and figured she might feel that way after talking in English for so long. I'll try harder next time.

03-27-2016

Even though I already sent this to my high school squad, this was the only picture I took today. This shop was near the night market that I've posted photos of before. I dedicate this to Mallorie 'x3' F., Chavana (ok but please don't tell him thanks), and most importantly, 黄昕童! hehehhehehehee

03-26-2016

Food! I had lunch with my official Chinese family today. Everything was good as usual. The yellow things are kimchi pancakes ( ♡♡), and to the right and below those is braised meat (one was pork and I don't remember what the other was). The light colored meat pieces were some sort of fish-flavored sausage looking things. They were my favorite out of everything (though the pancakes come pretty close). The plate closest to the camera has some sort of wings. I resorted to using my hands because I have no idea how one manages to eat those with chopsticks. And the rest of the plates are veggies, with the peas plate containing meat.

There was also rice, and dumplings when they were finished cooking. I helped them to make the dumplings today! Here are some pictures of that:

They took the dough, cut small pieces, and flattened them out to make the outer part of the dumpling. We added a little bit of meat and corn (the bowl holding these can be seen in the picture below) to the inside and then sealed them up. The dad (sitting across from me in the picture below) folded them up rather nicely, so I was attempting to mimic his technique. All the while, the kid next to me in the picture seemed to prize speed over aesthetic ('We're just going to end up eating them'), so he kept telling me 'just do it like this! see? and then you're done!' and frequently asked how many I had made ('I've already made 7! You are on 4?')

As I mentioned before, the dad of the family was seated across from me. The girl with the headband and glasses is the daughter. She is ten years old. The rest of the kids are her friends (there was another boy present, but I guess he wasn't hanging around the table when this picture was taken). The mom was the one who took this picture. I had a really good time, and can't wait to spend more time with my family in the future. ☀

03-25-2016

I apologize because I've been really bad about taking pictures lately. This is from maybe a week ago even though I actually had something like this for dinner last night. I guess this might be part of what you might call a 'night market' - basically, there are a bunch of stands set up selling various snacks/foods. They only open in the evening, and once when I walked through this area during the day, I was struck at how empty and lifeless it seemed.

With this type of stand, you can pick out what skewers you want (you can see part of the collection in the first picture) and then they're cooked for you. They also add some sort of seasoning, and spice if you ask for it. I've never tried the spice, but maybe I should do that soon.

03-24-2016

I had the television on before I took a nap and woke up to a show similar to a Chinese version of America's Got Talent. It was actually pretty entertaining and distracted me from my homework for a little bit.

03-23-2016

Since I didn't get any pictures today, feast your eyes upon these lovely flowers seen on my campus. I took these pictures on Saturday while waiting for my teacher to pick up my classmates and I from school so we could go to the mountain.

03-22-2016

Today's topic may be somewhat shocking...electricity! Sorry, I couldn't help myself (special shout-out to Gabe since he loves my puns ♡).

Anyways, we have to pay for electricity separately of our initial boarding cost. We were given an electricity card which we then had to put money on. To do that, you have to visit a counter at another building on campus. It's not too far from the international student dorm, but it's a bit inconvenient if you especially need power. Afterwards, you walk up to the appropriate sketchy closet in the dorm hallway (I say appropriate because there are multiple of these closets but as far as I know only two per floor house what I'm about to show)..

...open it and find your room number. After you've located which card reader is yours, you open the door to this container..

..and then on the right side of each machine is a thin slot for you to insert your card. Once you do that (and assuming you have money on your card), you now have electricity, yay!

The first time I entered my room, the lights didn't work and the student that showed me to my room mumbled, "Oh..." after which he followed the appropriate steps here at this closet while I spent the duration watching him and wondering whether what he was doing was legal. Other than this unintended tutorial, no one (meaning student helpers or staff) explained the process of getting electricity. Luckily, there's a girl who lives down the hall that studied here last semester and she guided me through the process.

So why did I mention electricity today? This morning I was very fortunate to randomly wake up around 3:30am only to realize that my heater (which I turned on before going to sleep) was off. Sure enough, I tried turning on the room light, and nothing. I went back to sleep since I didn't need to worry about the problem just yet (not that there would be anything I could do about it anyway).

The main problem with not having power in the morning is the bathroom (the lighting in my room was fine since it was about 7am when I woke up and I have a window) because it's in the interior of the building and therefore pretty dark without the light. I wanted to take a shower before going out - thank you, flashlight app, for proving your worth to me.

So while it wasn't a big deal that running out of electricity occurred, it certainly made my morning more interesting than usual.

03-21-2016

I didn't get any pictures today, and I know I already posted pictures of my room, but this is noteworthy news! On Wednesday, 3/16, I was in a rush to get to class in the morning which of course is the perfect time for things to go wrong. I attempted to move the front wardrobe door too quickly and I guess it came off its tracks because it became stuck and I could not move it. I wouldn't have cared too much had it not been for the drawers which the door was blocking where I keep my clothes. I could only open the drawers about an inch and was able to retrieve some. I also already had some out, but the rest of my wardrobe was rendered useless for this period of five days. I finally got around to turning in a maintenance form so that it could be repaired (a classmate and I had already tried to move it and it wouldn't budge - we decided it was best for me to turn in a report so that I wouldn't have to pay in case we broke something). Yay for being able to wear more than just the same three shirts over and over!

03-20-2016

I forgot to mention this before, but on Thursday there was an event for international students to get paired with Chinese families that was, in my opinion, poorly run. First, students and families gathered into a single room where there was a microphone and podium. As they wished, individuals and families could go up to the podium and talk about themselves/what they wanted or were seeking from the pair-share experience. Since that was conducted on a casual as people felt comfortable basis, I think this went on for too long. At the same time, not everyone had a chance to speak, which seemed unfair on the basis that families would not know what to expect from those who did not talk (in my opinion, this portion seemed to favor those who like talking about/marketing themselves, and those who are okay with impromptu events). It might be surprising to some, but I actually went up and introduced myself. I think it's funny because it seemed that the most memorable thing I said was that 'I like to eat Chinese food'. I'm fine with that, though - it's not like that's a lie.

Afterwards, we were led into a different room with tables and snacks where students and families could talk to each other face to face and on an individual basis. Later I was told that although each student could only officially have one family, you were allowed to accompany/hang out with others if you were invited. After the lady I had been talking to for the majority of the time (whose family is to become my official Chinese family) left, another lady came up to me and invited me to her parent's house during the weekend. I accepted the invitation and she left as well after she added me on WeChat. Her English name is Gloria, and her immediate family consists of her husband and a four year old daughter named 笑笑 . 

She didn't invite me until Saturday evening, before which I had planned to relax all day on Sunday, but I figured this was an opportunity I shouldn't pass up. We went to Jing'an, about an hour outside of Nanchang. Gloria's parents still live in the town where she grew up, so it was cool that she got to introduce her hometown to me. She took me out to walk around (and her four year old daughter wanted to go with us to stay with her mom, but Gloria told me, "I don't want to take her, she's too noisy", so she messaged me on WeChat when she was ready to leave so we could go out secretly).

The river is close by to where her parents live. According to Google Maps, this is the Beilao River.

The town still felt more like a small city than a village, but there were still aspects that were reminiscent of simpler and less technologically advanced times. There was a fisher by the river that appeared to be hand-fishing, and we briefly passed by this man weaving his bamboo crafts (which I was told are essentially large plates). Gloria asked him if I could take pictures before the fact - otherwise, I would not have done so.

After we returned to her house, we had lunch. I think a couple more dishes came out after I took this picture. Everything was so good, and I didn't realize how full I was until getting up to leave the table!

Starting from the top-left, there was a bowl of bamboo and duck, a plate of tofu, and a plate of pig's ears (Gloria thought I was brave for trying it. She told me she purposefully told her mother not to cook anything 'strange' since I'm a foreigner. The pig's ear basically tasted like meat that was somewhat rubbery in texture. I don't understand why people would have any qualms about eating pig's ears, especially if they are already familiar with and eat bacon). The plates on both the right and left of the fish had meat (I think beef but I'm not sure) and obviously the one of the left has peas. I'm not sure what veggies are in the bowl on the right. Finally, the plate closest to the camera is pork. There was also rice and soup with beef and lotus seeds. Everything was very good! 

Afterwards, Gloria drove me around the town so that I could see places which might take a little more time to walk to. We stopped by a public pavilion where restaurant employees were apparently practicing for some competition, and they were shouting loudly as they walked to and fro with steps in sync. Gloria was disappointed because she thought it would be more of a dance performance ("they were shouting so loud, it was giving me a headache!")

When we returned again, Gloria decided to take her daughter to get a haircut, and I tagged along for fun. Her hair got cut pretty short and in a bowl-cut like style. I thought, 'of course her hair would get cut like this' kind of as a joke because it made her look like a picture-perfect Chinese child. It was even funnier to me because Gloria had already realized this: "I'm sure this kind of haircut is what most Westerners see when the think of Chinese children. You can take a picture if you want." I didn't take a picture because I didn't want it to come off as me doing so to comment on her hair. I was also warned that she would cry a lot during the hair cut, but she didn't make a single sound. "It might be because you're here," Gloria told me, "otherwise she might be throwing a fit."

Soon after, we left back to Nanchang. It was an event-filled day and even though the activities from yesterday and today made me feel more tired than rested after the conclusion of the weekend, I don't regret taking part in either.

03-19-2016

今天早上我跟我的中文老师和五个同学去 Meiling National Forest Park 了。(This morning, I went with my Chinese teacher and five classmates to Meiling National Forest Park.) The point was to see 樱花 (cherry blossoms), but there weren't very many trees that had bloomed. Despite that, the scenery was still beautiful and the trip was an excellent form of exercise.

This is a picture facing towards the way we climbed up. Some parts were pretty steep, but I don't think this particular section was too bad. There were people of all ages from young children to older adults milling about climbing on this Saturday morning.

This picture was actually taken by my teacher. She shared the photos she took on our class' group chat on the WeChat app.

03-18-2016

My Friday lunch! I was actually planning to buy 饺子 (dumplings), because there's a street seller who offers them across the street from my campus, but I saw this before I reached his stand. Sometimes it is hard to get street food because I'm not exactly sure what something is or how to order, but today I saw girls getting this made for them, and decided to use the fact that they ordered in front of me to my advantage. For my high school friends, this is the tamale-like textured thing that I was talking about. Specifically, I was referring to whatever breading is under the egg. Meat and vegetables were placed inside the breading and after it was cooked, it was cut up into small pieces as pictured here. Some spice gave it a bit of a kick, but it was still really good! 

(and please ignore my mess in the background)

I know it's hard to see, but here is the cooking process in session! (I'm shy about taking direct pictures because I don't want to come off as touristy, 哈哈)

03-17-2016

 This is the road leading to my dorm from the supermarket. The weather was rainy today, but it's kind of hard to tell from the picture. A lot of the other roads on campus have trees along the side like this, and it's very pretty. You cannot see it here, but my dorm is on the left side of this road a little ways ahead.

03-13-2016

My phone is now flooded with pictures like this since I suppose I won't exactly be getting textbooks (though I didn't know that at the time). On Monday, 3/14, I talked to my teacher again to confirm that I would be getting textbooks, but this time she told me, "We're close to the end of these textbooks, so just keep borrowing them from your classmates and we'll get you the new ones."

But here's the thing - I wanted the old textbook so I could review in my own time the content that my classmates know which I might not know (considering that different textbooks group words/characters in a different order from each other). 

It didn't help that on Wednesday, 3/14, my teacher personally told me, "The best way to improve your Chinese/reading skills is to read passages from the text over and over again." Which I agree with, but what made me annoyed is that such a feat might be easier if I had the textbook! (who would have known?)

Anyways, when we do move to the new textbook, I'm going to ask the classmate that has been letting me use his if I can borrow it for an extended period of time. He seems like someone who wouldn't miss it if I kept it for a while.

</rant over>

03-16-2016

This afternoon I had tea with the friend I met on Monday. This was the set up. The plastic container had jelly that he added to the tea, which was a new concept for me. Next to the cup with clovers (mine) is a chocolate that he let me have. It tasted similar to the ones he gave me before, but seemed crunchier. You can hardly see it behind my cup, but that's the can which contains the nutella-like spread. He eats it with the the french fry shaped wafer things in the plastic bag that aren't wafers and actually taste similar to the hard white dairy ball from the previous post. The cookies aren't too sweet but otherwise taste like any other cookies.

03-15-2016

I actually didn't take any pictures today because I've been kind of busy with homework, but I haven't shared this one! I bought a little plant from the supermarket about a week ago because I wanted to. I have yet to name it and am still looking for suggestions! (If you can't tell from the picture, there are three little offshoots, so I thought it'd be fun to give each of them a name that all go together. However, I'm open to any and all suggestions :3).

03-14-2016

On Mondays, I only have one class in the morning so afterwards, I decided to buy a light jacket (which was more complicated than I wanted it to be due to the language barrier). The clothing stores I went to are located in the same building that has the supermarket where I usually buy my groceries. Outside of the supermarket is a food court, and out of curiosity I decided to see what exactly this food court offered. Since most classes finish at 12 for lunch and it was around 11:15 at the time, there was hardly anyone around.

I then decided to eat lunch because why not. I was eating when a guy ordered from the same place I did and soon approached me to talk. I was a bit off-put at first because stranger-danger. He was talking to me in English which was surprising, but I figured he was a Chinese person that knew English.

After a little bit, I realized that I had seen him in the dorm elevator before, which meant he was an international student. Turns out he is from Kazakhstan, and later in the day he invited me to his room to share some snacks with me. That's what the picture is of. Both of the candies were chocolates (and good). I'm not exactly sure what the other two things were or what they are called. The white one was tolerable. He told me it can be eaten plain, but it was really hard to bite into. It tasted kind of like milk or some other dairy product. The smaller thing was... not so good. It had a strong taste which I'm not sure how to describe.

Also not pictured was a spread I tried which reminded me of Nutella, except less sugary. It came in a can and was a lighter brown, and it was pretty good. I feel bad that I have no American snacks for him to try. However, it's understandable that he has a lot of food since he was here last semester and had a chance to go home and bring back food.

And apparently he follows both Barack and Michelle Obama on Instagram. He knows who Hillary, Trump, Rubio, Romney, and Jeb Bush are (and probably others that I didn't list). He's also aware that Ted Cruz ate a booger on national television. It's strange that he knows so many people from my country and yet I hardly know anything about his.

03-12-2016

I noticed that I've been here before and didn't take any pictures, which was a silly decision, so I decided to be a tourist today and change that. This is Bayi Square in Nanchang, a large public square where people...do things. There are usually kids blowing bubbles or people flying kites. Others take pictures with the various memorial structures, like the one pictured here.
For more information on Bayi Square, you can go to this lovely, short Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayi_Square .
For more information on the historical context of Bayi Square and why it even exists, you can go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanchang_Uprising .
The TL;DR version is that here on August 1, 1927, Communists first rebelled against the Nationalist party currently in power. This was one of the earliest skirmishes which eventually led to war between the two factions. (also you have no idea how dumb I felt when I realized that the name 'Bayi' comes from the characters 八一 ('ba' and 'yi') which are numbers and mean '8' and '1' respectively...aaand look at the date that this stuff went down. see it. SEE IT WITH YOUR OWN EYES. FEEL HOW I FELT)

Anyways, I then did the one obvious thing any person would do after visiting a place filled with Chinese spirit - go to Wal-Mart! Specifically, I went to see if I could find deodorant, and needless to say, that search was unsuccessful (I was even prepared to pay the ridiculously high price!). Instead, I spent at least a good half hour in the pen/pencil/journal aisle. 

There are some restaurants in the same center where Wal-Mart is, mostly Chinese. There are a couple of Western ones, like KFC. Also, Cynthia and Elise, I'm not proud to say that I ALMOST went for the Papa John's (I really want pizza :c). Which, speaking of pizza, you know how there are deli display cases in grocery stores? Yup, plenty of those in Wal-Mart, one of which had PIZZA. I was tempted there as well, but actually settled on some other Chinese food, which ended up being quite tasty! It's strange, in America people seem to tend to avoid Wal-Mart if they can, but this Wal-Mart is more like a Super Target, or a big HEB.

Speaking of Western merchandise, it was a bit comforting to see those in store. I would smile to myself as I recognized the brand names...and then frown in disgust when I saw the prices. Western items are expensive! My lunch from Wal-Mart which lasted me two meals was ¥12, but you know, why get that when I can get a bag of Fritos for ¥26? Luckily, I'm not craving chips.

03-11-2016

I took this as a way of remembering my homework instead of having to write it down. Inadvertently, I got the teacher in the picture as well. She's in charge of my speaking class, and she's really enthusiastic and engaging. When I first met her and told her I was from Texas, her eyes widened and she exclaimed, "Texas! I know Texas!" and went on to praise at how technologically and otherwise advanced we are. Then she pulled up a picture of a random couple on her phone (I don't remember who exactly she said they were) and asked if I knew them. Of course I didn't, but I wasn't annoyed at her asking.

I also likes the way she starts class (granted, I've only been to two of her classes, so while this could be a thing she only does sometimes, I think she likely does it every time). She puts a prompt up on the projector, and each person has to respond to it in speech. For example, this day it was 'introduce someone or tell an interesting story'. It's fun to listen to what everyone has to say, but at the same time activities like this allow me to see how much my speaking stinks in comparison to my peers (I'm trying to get over that, though).

This was taken from the middle row of the classroom. There are three sections of seats - the two sections at the sides of the rooms are in pairs whereas the middle has four or five seats. The chairs are not very comfortable and the longer classes don't help my back. In this room (where all but two of my classes are held), there is a window on the side of the room where the curtain is. The door leading out to the 'hall' is on the other side (I put that in quotes because this building of classrooms isn't really enclosed - there are walls all around that have doors which are usually left open, but there is no roof so it's open air. And why the heater which can be seen in the picture is often necessary).

I'm surprised I could talk so much about this picture. I didn't really mean to, it just turned out that way.

03-10-2016

This was my dinner! I have no idea what it was. If I had seen a picture of it before I probably wouldn't have ordered it, but it tasted good. All I understood from the menu was that I would be getting beef and rice. The vegetables seemed kind of like potatoes. Being used to American Korean restaurants where you are almost always given a plethora of sides, it was a let-down to see how little kimchi they gave me, but restaurants seem to skimp on a lot of stuff like that (including meats in the dishes) here.

Also, a lady I'm assuming was a worker or manager of some sort was sitting in a booth to my right. At one point, she started to take a selfie, so I turned towards her to watch. It turned out that she was trying to angle her selfie so that I was in it and she laughed when I noticed. I don't know whether she was embarrassed or not, and I don't know whether she ended up with a picture.

03-09-2016

I finally have a class schedule at my disposal! Luckily, one of the Americans originally decided to take a level just above beginner, so that's how I received this (and that's why there are pencil markings).

I originally took a picture of this yesterday so I could go to these classes today, except...when I checked my phone this morning, it was blurry so I couldn't read it (go me). I was about to sit in the class I attended yesterday when I peeked around all the classrooms in the hall and found a Korean girl from my original class that I talked with about switching to a lower level. Since she told me her class was easier (she wanted an easier class as well), I decided to switch to hers.

But, not only did it still seem difficult to me, both the class and professor weren't very engaging. So I went back to the class I went to yesterday, which turns out is actually the class reflected by this schedule. 

Most of my classmates are from Kazakhstan. One boy in class from there was handing out chocolate bars from his country yesterday, and I ended up receiving one. It's pretty good! I don't want to eat it all too soon (it's decently sized, which intrigues me considering how many he gave out..)

Anyways, I won't be taking all of the classes on here because one in particular, the HSK class, is above my level (I actually never went to it, but I definitely do not know 1,000+ words). Additionally, taking everything else with my non-language courses would be 24 credits, which I'm assuming is not allowed even with study abroad (since the credit ratio between the USA and China is the same, as far as I know). I'll probably only take one of the 6 credit ones, so either Comprehensive or Listening, depending on which one I like better. Luckily, I'll have a chance to experience both of them before the end of the week, which is when our courses need to be finalized (though of course we haven't been told anything official about that except for when we first started classes a week ago).

Hopefully, all this figuring out classes madness will end soon, and I'll get into the swing of things. I also need my textbooks. I keep forgetting about that. I WILL GO INQUIRE ABOUT THAT TOMORROW SINCE I ONLY HAVE ONE CLASS, I PROMISE.

(maybe that caps lock will help me remember)

03-08-2016

This is the view out of my window today. The emphasis is on this lovely weather - I normally like rain, but this is a little depressing. Not only is it wet, but it's also cold and windy and I have to walk around in this weather to get places (granted, not far - probably not even any farther than I would have to at Southwestern). On the day my neighbor locked herself out of her room, she mentioned that Nanchang had been experiencing nice weather up until that point. "The new people just don't know.." she added (she knows because she also studied here last semester). Case in point, it's not even one day into this, and I'm already grateful that I noted to bring a rain jacket. Though I do keep forgetting that my backpack is still going to get wet without an umbrella - I still have yet to purchase one.

Also, I want to take more pictures around my campus (particularly certain trees or around the water features), but this weather doesn't help with that.

Additionally, I've heard that Texas is experiencing similar weather. Stay safe guys, but enjoy it while you can! 

03-07-2016

This is a picture of my (currently messy) room! I didn't take any pictures today because I've been sick since midnight. I'm currently feeling a lot better than before, but hopefully I'll totally recover soon. I think it was food poisoning, but I don't know what it was that could have made me sick - I didn't eat anything particularly unusual. And the last meal I had was in the school cafeteria, so that's reassuring.

Anyways, I haven't shown anyone around my room and figured I should let everyone see where I spent pretty much all day today! The room feels like a hotel room, and that bothers me. I wish it felt more homey.

The mattress is a bit deceiving because it's a lot firmer than I expected (which may be the norm here, but I'm not sure). It's still a bed, though, so amen for that.

  

I guess appending a panoramic shot including the features of both this image and the first one would have been more convenient, but whatever. The left side is a desk area. You can hardly see it affixed to the wall above the pink card, but I have a television in my room (yes, the shows are Chinese. I've actually only had it on once and that was mainly just for background noise. But the commercials made me laugh - they go by so quickly. Something I've heard about the US is that TV commercials are ridiculously long. That seems to hold true in comparison to Chinese television).

That's the entry-way to my room. To the left before the door leading to the hall is a door that leads to the restroom. Again, it's usually not this messy. However, my neighbor that got locked out of her room lent me cleaning supplies so I could deep-clean my bathroom (I didn't realize how gross it was until I was cleaning it). I also feel bad that she used it while it was in its dirty state because she was locked out of her own restroom. Oh well.

This is the view of my room with the window behind me. There's a cabinet and a closet for storage. Not much to see and therefore I guess an anti-climactic end to the post.

also, congrats on getting semi-rick-rolled. luv u guys

03-06-2016

So this was the only picture I took today. I know it's not exciting, but there is sort of a story behind it. Not a very exciting one, but a story nonetheless.

A few days ago, I went with a group of international students to the phone store so I could get a Chinese sim card for my phone. I struggled getting the original American sim card out of my phone, and I had already paid for the Chinese one. The workers' English wasn't too great so it was kind of a struggle to communicate. They finally told me to just 'take the sim card and try to get mine out by myself' (I want to say three different people not including me tried to get it, and none of us had success). I actually had to YouTube how to take the sim card out, and even then it wasn't the video itself that helped me (I had already done what the video suggested with no success) - a comment on the video suggested using an eraser to slide my sim card out. So that worked, but my phone didn't like the new sim card because I hadn't unlocked it (I had even read about that before getting to China. I obviously plan things very well).

A couple days later, I end up unlocking my phone, and then decide I can finally try to get a WeChat, because that's what everyone uses (even the study abroad office!) even though Xintong told me it's the Chinese equivalent of Tinder (o_o). But there was one problem.

When I bought the Chinese sim card, it came affixed to a plastic square thing which had my phone number.

And, well, of course, I seemed to have misplaced it..

So today, 3/6/2016, my neighbor accidentally locked herself out of her room. That was probably around 1:00pm or 2:00pm, and she was told that the guy who could let her back in wouldn't return until about 6:00pm. She told me that she had taken a nap on a bench in the hallway (!) and I told her she could hang out in my room until her issue was resolved. At some point, I mentioned my phone problem, and she suggested, "Why don't you call my phone so we can figure out your number?" I felt silly that I hadn't thought of that before, and we actually started to make our way to her room to get her phone until we remembered that she couldn't get in.

Anyways, we retrieved my number later. I tried making a WeChat account, but it gave me an error. Someone else told me that my phone number already had a profile connected with it. So that's great. But maybe it's better if I don't have WeChat (even though one of the girls from the US said it's great for long distance calling and that the quality of the calls is excellent).

03-05-2016

I wanted to see the river today, so I traveled via metro and did exactly that (also, today was Saturday, and I figured I should actually do exploring of the sort while I actually had the time). I think it would make me happy to live in a city with reliable public transportation like this.

There were actually a lot of people just hanging out and/or flying kites in the area. You could also walk across this bridge of rocks to get to an island with a similar sandy terrain located near the middle of the river.

Here's what part of that bridge looked like:

I took a picture of a good spot. There were some places where the rocks weren't in a straight formation like this, and they were a bit tricky to traverse. 

Also, there were amusement park rides targeted towards younger kids just off the riverfront, so that was cool to see (Elise and Cynthia, if you are reading this, the rides reminded me of the thing that came to Georgetown with 'The Zipper' but they weren't quite as extreme that).

All in all, it was a good day of exploring. I honestly had no idea what to expect when I got off the metro, but I will say that this was quite a pleasant surprise.

03-04-2016

Today, I got tea after dinner. The sinkers are red bean, which I'm not used to. As much as I like red bean, the texture seems odd to me, but that's probably a result of always getting tapioca before.

Anyways, when I went to the cafe to order, the girl asked me what I wanted to order in [not perfect] English. I asked her in Chinese if she was able to speak English, and she affirmed that she speaks a little bit. She said she is studying the language in school. I will probably go back to that place in the future to talk to her more (and conveniently, it's super close to campus!). I appreciated that she took the effort to try to talk in English in the first place.

When you are talking in English to other international students while out and about, you don't realize how out of place it sounds. I went to the market a couple of days ago, and amidst all the Chinese, I heard something along the lines of, "I'll think about it", and that made even me turn my head. Sure enough, there were other international students at the market (I've seen them around before, but I'm not sure where they're from, I think somewhere in Europe). 

Also, I'm never sure how much local people can understand from my English conversations with other international students. I was told by one of the Chinese student volunteers that studying English is mandatory because it comes up on entrance exams. But other than that, I'm not sure of local student exposure to and general English abilities. Not that this really matters because I'm here to practice Chinese, not English, but it's something that I'm curious about.

On the topic of language, I had my first martial arts class today (maybe the place where we have the class will be one of my pictures in the future) and that was really fun (albeit my not being very flexible). My Chinese partner seemed really impressed with my Chinese even though I can't speak that much. I'm excited to talk to her again next class (and she told me she would work on her English, which was nice of her).

03-03-2016

Today's pictures are of FOOD (#amazing)! I've had a sore throat since yesterday afternoon and was otherwise feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to get soup for dinner. One of my first meals in China was at this place which I went to with a few other international students where you can pick out what you want (and that particular day we all decided that everyone had to get at least one chicken foot to try, but since I did not particularly enjoy that, I passed on it today).

Most of the stuff in the soup is tofu (shout-out to Kenny who knows that his sister loves tofu). When your order is ready, the number on your receipt is called, and I'm embarrassed to say that that aspect had me scrambling onto the restaurant WiFi to figure out how to say 137 in Chinese (granted, if I had figured it out in time I wouldn't have registered it anyway because they say it too fast for me to understand, but knowing that the number would end in 7 [七, pronounced qī in pinyin] was my saving grace).

This is where the magic happens. There's actually another shelf just like this with items to add to your soup, but there were customers there when I took this picture. And yes, you even pick out your noodles. The soup is charged by weight, so the amount you pay varies. My bowl tonight was about ¥17, which is a tad expensive in my opinion, but it was worth it. I almost ate too much but at least my tummy is full and happy ☀☁✰♬

03-02-2016

ISEP food stipend. I'm still amazed by how cheap everything is here. We were given ¥60 for meals per day, which sounds like a lot until you realize that's only about $10. It goes pretty far though - a typical meal usually ranges from ¥6 - ¥20 ($1 - $3) depending on where you go. It's also convenient that food is super accessible. My problem is that I usually can't read the menu (if they even have a hand-copy available) so I'm limited to pointing at random things. I'm hoping to improve my skills though, so I've learned to at least recognize the characters for beef, pork, and fish (牛肉，猪肉，and 鱼 respectively). Hopefully that 'serves' me well in the future (ohoho).

because stuff is cool

I like letters. I also like stuff. I have a couple of addresses on hand, but if you would like to give me stuff or letters or both, here is my postal address!

Valerie Vacek

Overseas Students Residence Building, Jiaoqiao North Campus

Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics

No. 169 Shuanggang East Road, Xialuo, Changbei District, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province

P.R. China

Postal Code: 330013

03-01-2016

My dorm neighbor and I went exploring around campus today, and we found this. In case you can't read it, the sign says 'Museum of JUFE (Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics) History: The Museum of Chinese Tax Receipts'. We wanted to go inside to see these 'artifacts', but the guard didn't let us in. I don't know why - all I understood was that she asked what we were doing, and we didn't know how to respond (we both hardly know Chinese).