Week 1 -- May 18 - 23

Hey everyone! I finally made it here to Xi’an 西安this morning at 9:30 and let me tell you it has already been one interesting trip. For starters, after I kissed Kaci goodbye at the Jackson-Evers International Airport on Tuesday morning I stepped onto the first plane on my journey to the middle kingdom中国 (China). After a short flight to Detroit, Corey, another student here in Xi’an with our group, and I had about a six and a half hour lay-over in Detroit International Airport. The next plane we boarded was a huge Boeing 747 jumbo jet which looks more like a building than a plane. Since this was only the second time I had ever flown I was completely blown away by the mere size of this thing, I mean how does something that big manage to stay in the air for that long? Anyways, after boarding this monster we were off to Japan, and by the way, no matter how many times a person has flown, I don’t believe anyone can ever get used to 12 hours on a plane. Landing in Tokyo, Japan at Narita International Airport I began to experience a feeling of exhilaration and excitement because I knew that I was only mere hours from Beijing 北京. As Corey and I began to wonder through Narita Airport we finally ran into some other members of our group. Following our regrouping we got ready to get on the plane to take us to Beijing北京. Now, some people I talked to and some people I saw on the planes could have slept through the plane crashing but for me being on a plane for so many hours I was never really asleep and also never really awake. I know that sounds very weird, but trust me sleeping on a plane is no easy task for me. So by the time we stepped on the plane to Beijing北京, I had been awake for around 24 hours straight. Landing in Beijing 北京 I was mesmerized by the lights that I could see out the window of the plane, these lights seemed to go on for miles and miles. As we got ready to go through customs I finally realized that I was 8,000 miles away from my home, this is a feeling of excitement but also a feeling of fear. Walking through the airport I told some of the other guys in the group that as we walked through the airport it seemed that every eye was on us and we stick out like a sore thumb. Now, back home in the states when someone who is of a different color or nationality we do tend look at them in wonder but also in the states we are all used to people of many different colors and creeds. But here everyone is Asian and we are the foreigners and no matter how hard we try we cannot just blend in. It is a total flip on the norm for me a least, but interesting to experience all the same. Finishing our time in the customs office, we quickly grabbed our bags and were off to catch a bus to the next terminal. This style of riding buses made me think of Disneyworld in Orlando, because if you stay on Disney property you catch a bus everywhere almost. But in another aspect it is nothing like Disney at all, for one the traffic is all or nothing, and what I mean by that is if you linger in the street too long you will get HIT! After reaching terminal 3 in Beijing Airport we decided to contact some people that we would meet up with that night. Now keep in mind we had been flying since May 18th at 6am until May 19th 10:30pm. So, by the time we reach the terminal and get all our calls out of the way and meet up with our friends it is May 20th 1am. As we started looking for a place to sit, talk, and eat we came across something very familiar, McDonalds. At that instant I thought to myself “I did not fly 8,000 miles to eat at McDonalds” but at 1am in the morning you take what is given to you. After spending the entire night in the airport, which seemed deserted, we began to make our way to our final flight which would take us to Xi’an 西安. Now, although through the night it seemed we were the only ones in the airport, when 5:30 am arrived there was a rush of people that seemed to come from nowhere. Mississippi has roughly 3 million people, so even when it is at its most crowded it fails to compare to the absolutely massive amount of people within the city of Beijing 北京. Everywhere you turn there are huge amounts of people walking, talking, and eating! Stepping off our last flight I felt a very strange feeling, I was so tired I could barely stand. Although I was completely exhausted I was wide awake and little did I realize that our trip was about to become even more exhilarating. The university sent a van to pick us up and transport us to the airport which seems relatively simple, but in a city of around 8 million people you cannot imagine how the traffic is. Although the traffic moves very quickly, it is the style of driving that is crazy. Driving in China is “no holds barred.” There are a huge amount of motorcycles and scooters, along with cars, trucks, and every other form of transportation imaginable. Riding in the van to the university I had my first taste of what China looks like and the very different smells that China has. The smells are interesting to say the least, I think the main reason that it smells so different than Mississippi is that the pollution is a=much worse than in the States. As we arrived at the University we unloaded the van at the campus hotel and headed to out rooms to get settled. After refreshing for a bit we had a dinner with some students from Shaanxi Normal University. This was my first taste of china and let me tell you that the food here is so wonderful. Everything that I ate was very light and healthy. Now I know what you are thinking, is the food in China like the Chinese food in America. And the answer is no, not even close. What we have in the States fails to compare to anything I have eaten so far. The food is served family style. It reminded me of being at my grandmother’s home as a child and eating Sunday afternoon dinner. We sat down and I noticed that there was a lazy Suzan type rotating table on top of the table. The waitresses brought the food out and sat it on this circular rotating surface and then we began to eat. Now in Chinese tradition the oldest person at the table begins the meal. This is a show of respect to the older generations. No one at the table would pick up their chopsticks until the elder had beagn to eat. Also, the meal is not just eating, it is a time of fellowship and conversation so people will eat a bit and then sit and talk. Furthermore, it is customary to give a toast or many toasts. After we toasted to the exchange program we ate. Feeling very full we returned to the room for a break and a few hours later took a tour of the school. The school here has a very large campus with many tall buildings. You also see a large amount of senior citizens here on campus due to the fact that if a teacher retires from a school they then move to that school and live out the remainder of their life. So the school is a school and a retirement community. Now I decided I would get out and explore so I walked a little more and found a local market that is like a small grocery store and fresh market altogether. After our first day I returned to the dorm to sleep, which was the first time I had slept in almost 36 hours. The next morning we got up and gathered for our first class, after the class we ventured outside the campus and into the local city streets to see what it would be like and it was a little overwhelming. Lined down the streets are taxis, scooters, people, shops, food stands, and just about anything else you can think of. We caught lunch at a local spot that was family owned and operated, it had very delicious food or in Chinese we would say 好吃, which is literally good eat or hao chi. After lunch we returned to our class where we practice the traditional Chinese act of paper-cutting. The way our classes are set up is that we have language classes in the mornings and cultural classes in the afternoon. Later that night we gathered with more University students and ate western style food served Chinese style. It was the closest thing I have had yet to American Chinese food. I left the meal early because I was dead tired from the jet lag. The next morning I awoke refreshed. The students here had organized and dumpling party for us. We were to hand make the dumplings and then cook and eat them. The dumplings were wonderful but the really cool thing is that there were about one hundred students waiting on us and everyone wanted to talk us and take pictures with them. I felt like I took more pictures that day than my wedding day, and if anyone reading this was involved in mine and Kaci’s wedding you know that is a lot of pictures. After leaving the dumpling party some students wanted to take us to KTV. KTV is kind of like karaoke but a lot better. You are given you own room depending on the size of your party; you can order food or drink and spend the night if you want. After leaving KTV we headed back to the hotel for sleep. The next morning we decided to go to church, now church in China is a little different than in the States. The church has to be overseen by the government in order for it to operate but the service was almost no different than a church service in my church at home. After church one of the students who has lived in Xi’an his entire life took us on a trip to sightsee around the city. It is a very strange mix of history and modernization here in China. On one hand you can see some building that are six hundred years old and then right next to it see a skyscraper with a one hundred foot LCD screen. The city is absolutely beautiful at night so we killed time by seeing a movie and fortunately enough the movie had English subtitles because my Chinese is not good enough to understand everything within the movie but I was able to understand a lot more than I thought I would. Leaving the theater we headed to a local restaurant and ate. My first week here in China I must admit is very intoxicating and enchanting, the people friendly and forgiving to foreigners. I am adjusting to the culture and surroundings better than I thought I would and can’t wait for the next week to begin and our classes to really get in motion.