Week 2 -- May 24 - 30

Hey guys and girls, I hope that you had as good of a week as I have had. Let me start off by telling you a little about what I am doing in my classes. We attend classes in the morning and the afternoon. Our morning classes are strictly Chinese language classes. They are split up into three different sections; first we have oral Chinese, second we have intensive Chinese reading, and last we have listening. We alternate these classes each day so each day we are studying a different part of the language. Our oral class focuses on proper pronunciation of the tones. Chinese is a tonal language, there are four tones within the language and even though some of the words sound the same you must make sure that you give the proper pronunciation to that particular word or you could say something that does not make any sense to the native speaker. Our second class is intensive reading and it is very intensive. Reading the characters is the hardest part to the language for me simply because there are so many characters. To be literate a person must only be able to read about 3000 characters but there are many more that 3000 characters within the language, there are more than 50,000 characters within written Chinese. Our last class is listening, we listen to conversations or make conversations of our own and try to follow and make sense of each one. The most challenging part of these classes is that they are taught completely in Chinese so there is very little English spoken while we are in class. Also, there are more than 13 dialects of Chinese spoken throughout the country but if you can read and write Chinese you can communicate in all the dialects. Therefore just by learning the characters you can communicate in 13 different languages at once, this is unlike any other language on the planet. Although it is very difficult at this point I believe this will pay off for me and my classmates. To quote a very good friend, “The only place you will find success before work is in the dictionary.” Now our afternoon classes are culture classes so this means we learn about a particular aspect of Chinese culture. We will be studying Chinese handcrafting, Chinese tai-chi, calligraphy, Chinese songs, and traditional Chinese painting. All of these cultural aspects are taken very seriously here and our teachers for these subjects are masters of their respective subject. Now, this past week my classmates and I have simply tried to get adjusted to our classes and learn how to live here as foreigners. The biggest obstacle that we have face is ordering food. Ordering food seems simple enough but it is not at all simple when the menus are completely in Chinese but luckily enough many of the local restaurants have pictures for the menu so the language barrier is not all that difficult. So in order to eat easily every day we had student ID cards made for us and we can put money on our cards to eat in the student dining hall Also, we have students that attend here that are completely awesome and don’t mind taking us out and ordering food for us. My week started off really slow, just going to class, grabbing a bite to eat, and emerging myself in my studies. I was asked to play basketball by one of my friends here and so I went and played. Now, in the US basketball is played very different than it is here. We play more aggressive than the guys that play here and there is a huge difference in the plays that are run. In the US we tend to move a little more to the outside but here once the ball is passed in the game is pretty much played in the paint. It took me awhile to get used to it. Also, I have been going out and exploring the campus that we are on and the city. I with my classmates have become campus celebrities. Our pictures were place up on a billboard beside the basket ball courts and now it is hard to go anywhere without being stopped but I don’t mind that at all. This gives me a chance to use the language more and more. But, when students here find out that we speak English they only want to communicate with us through English. This has something to do with the history of China. Before the 1980s China was a closed country, whenever China opened its borders to more and more foreigners the people here became more aware of becoming a global citizen. Furthermore, this began a huge call the learn English in China because English was considered to be the language of the world. Now, although our week was mostly classes we were able to experience some activities here on campus. The coolest thing we have done is to attend a school performance. This is kind of like a program where student clubs showcase their skills in a particular area, but it is also about tradition and the history of China. It started off with some of the students showcasing their skills in hip-hop dance. This was absolutely wonderful because the students were really good at dancing. Also, Chinese songs were showcased and acting. The history part came by way of women wearing traditional dress which would have been worn in the Week, Qin, and Tang dynasty which for Xi’an was the capitol of. After the program some of the students wanted to take pictures with us and simply socialize with us. Later, when the weekend came some of the students wanted to take us out to a local park. The name of the park is Qujiang park. It is different from what I would think of as a park. Usually in my mind a park is a place where sports are played but here it is a place where people can gather to enjoy the flora and fauna of china. The park was absolutely massive. At the entrance there was a small amusement park that had rides, games, and food. This reminded me of a carnival of some sort back home but it was not quite the same. Inside the park there were at least 2 large lakes which all had walking trails around and also was the home of some ancient artifacts and museums. The coolest thing about this is that it was absolutely free. So we spent the day walking, talking, and taking many pictures. The architecture of the buildings here are absolutely amazing and enchanting. It seems everywhere you look there are sights that at least I have never seen, I had only read about or seen in movies. After spending all day in the park, and by the way we were only able to see half of it due to its size we stopped at a local restaurant that served barbecue. The barbecue is different here as well as just about everything else. The meat is skewered on metal skewers and cooked over open flame. There were a lot of different kinds of meats including some familiar favorites of mine, chicken wings. After eating and drinking for awhile we were back off to campus. After a rest we later went to the airport to pick up a friend who was coming from Beijing to meet up with some girls that she studied with in America. The girls which I had met at Jackson State had been living and studying with each other for a year in America. This is where I met them. The girl we picked-up from the airport name is Zhang Shi Ling张诗玲. Shi ling and I became friends by accident. When I started to study Chinese at Jackson State I was assigned a language partner and his name was Xucheng, but Xucheng really cared nothing for helping me learn Chinese mainly because his English was very broken so he enlisted the help of his friend Shi Ling. So when I called Xucheng to meet up with me to study he would call Shi Ling and tell her to meet me instead of him. But, luckily enough Shi Ling was very helpful and we learned a lot from each other. I learned Chinese from her and she learned English/Southern English from me. Anyways, after picking her up we went back to the hotel and called it a night. The next day we went around the city sightseeing. We saw the drum tower which is another piece of Xi’an history. The Drum Tower in Xian was initially built in 1380 during the reign of Emperor Hongwu of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and was renovated twice in 1699 and 1740 in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It is a two-storied post and panel structure, 112 feet high and 172 feet long from east to west as well as 124 feet wide from north to south. The architecture style of the Drum Tower is a combination of the styles of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and the Qing Dynasty. However, the Drum Tower also has some innovative features. For example, it should be mentioned that there is no iron nail used anywhere in the Drum Tower. The structure of the building is absolutely amazing and beautiful. Arriving at the Drum Tower there is an arched doorway in the centre of the south and north walls, doorway being 20 feet in both height and width. Visitors can go upstairs to the second floor, and enjoy the views around the Drum Tower. Meanwhile, you will notice that there are twenty-four drums in the north and south sides of the Drum Tower. These drums stand for the Twenty-four Solar Terms which is a kind of weather calendar created by the Chinese ancients in order to guide the agricultural production. In modern times, the Drum Tower is not used as a timer any more, but in 1996 a new drum, covered by a whole piece of cowhide was given a place on the Drum Tower. It is the biggest drum in China at the present time. Also we enjoyed a musical performance in the Drum Tower. These performances gave me some insight to the power of ancient Chinese culture. Well that is about all for this week. I will keep you guys updated farther next week.