weathered

geez. it got really cold really fast. :(

uneventfulness

Sorry I haven't posted lately. Frankly, there's not really much new. I can't believe it's the last week of September (basically). Classes are really good, though. It's nice to have some routine to my day. Haven't done much outside of classes. I spend a lot of time wandering around Jinan... I'm excited because I think Carey might be coming to visit me in October! Also, I think Professor Rob LaFleur (my minor advisor) is coming sometime in October as well to climb Mount Tai. So, it'll be nice to see some more familiar faces! I'm going to keep this one short; I have some reading to do. Later, gators. 

-m.

life so far

Sorry I haven't posted lately. Been busy. Classes have started; they are AWESOME. :) I finally have a cell phone and an address for mailing post, too! 

Send your love to:

Mandy Lee

International Dorm Rm. # 2625

Shandong University

27 Shanda Nanlu, Jinan 250100

P.R. China

Will post more later! I actually have to go study :(

more.badassery

Another slow Saturday. Classes start in a few days and I'm pretty excited! Today I decided to be ballsy and wander around town by myself, ended up having lunch at a wonton joint, it was absolutely delish and soooo cheap. And it's almost dinnertime and I'm still good from my late lunch! Therefore I've decided to eat a small dinner at the night market tonight that opens up in front of Shandong University's North Gate around 9pm. I am a badass. Today, I've eaten the equivalent of $1 USD: The wonton soup I had was 6yuan, and tonight when I get this chopped pork sandwich, it's 2yuan. SO CHEAP & deliciously filling. 

Also, I have been doing all of my laundry BY HAND.

I'm talkin' several denim jeans, bath towel, delicates, t-shirts, socks, the whole she-bang.

I'm a badass :)

schoooooooool

Lots of stuff to do today. Gotta buy my books for class! I have a schedule now- (finally). I'm actually quite pleased with how I placed. :)

Monday: Class from 8am-12am

Tuesday: Class from 10am-12pm, Class from 2pm-4pm.

Wednesday: Class from 8am-12pm

Thursday: Class from 8am-12pm

Friday: Class from 8am-12pm, Class from 2pm-4pm.

Not too shabby. Fridays are going to be long but they're not killer. I'll make do.

In other news, last night was the Great Britain's last night here in Jinan. Everybody got together and gelled, talking, laughing, reminiscing. I had a really good time with them- they leave tonight at 11pm. Today at 4pm they're putting on a performance, singing songs (in chinese- since they came here not knowing a word of it) and performing skits. Should be hilarious. I'm going to miss them.

Hard to believe I've been in China for a month. I feel a wee bit different, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is. I'm starting to feel more like a student at Shandong U, though. Even though I'm constantly surrounded with international students, I like exploring Jinan by myself when I can, visiting my sites and such. It's absolutely wondrous. More later. Much love.

<3

money.making

Sometime in the middle of last week, somebody knocked on my door. It  happened to be one of the dorm's "fuwuyuan" (which is "serviceperson") and she very politely asked me something about a phone call, some company, a record, and a bunch of other confusing things. I tried to understand her, but I eventually ran down to Andrew's room to get some translation help. After a million awkward questions, we finally reached an understanding:

There is a teaching company who is looking for English-speaking students to record reading their teaching dialogues for Chinese students to listen and study from.

The serviceperson was trying to ask me if I would meet with them. I was like, "Me? Why me?" Slightly nervous, I grabbed Andrew and we agreed to meet them. The service person told us to meet him downstairs in the cafe in about 45 minutes. So we waited, and made our way downstairs.

We meet this middle-aged Chinese man. He introduces himself and his partner, grabs coffee for us, and sits us down. Basically, they wanted to know if we could go to a recording studio and read their dialogues. He pulled out a bunch of textbook scripts and we read through them slowly, alternating the male and female parts. He was delighted. Andrew and I were getting kind of sketched out because it just seemed so random. It wasn't fishy or anything though, my gut said things would be fine. So we made plans to meet again.

Andrew and I were naturally blowing things out of proportion in speculation. OH NO WHAT IF THEY ARE RAPISTS AUGHHHH and the such-like. However, I figured, if anything, they were more worried that we weren't going to show. They wouldn't be able to "hurt" us or anything, seeing as we're Shandong students and there are other students that know where we are at all times, etc. 

Anywho, fast forward a few days, and here I am right now at Wednsday at 3:40pm. I just got back from the last recording session. I also now have 600 yuan in my pocket. SCORE.

Let me tell you, those dialogues were hilarious. To spice things up, we read some of them in silly accents. I don't think they minded too much. Two days of about 5 hours of reading = 600 yuan (roughly 100 USD): 600 yuan goes a LONG WAY. 

Hopefully I'm going to get a proper recording of the polished product to take home. Haha. 

recent.developments

Okay, so some updates:

Registration is finally over! There was a big confusing shit storm over my visa, which apparently is stamped with an "L," which means translates to a "travel visa"- where I needed either an "X" or "F" for a "study visa." When I walked into the registration room and gave the guy my passport, he took a look at it, merely shook his head and said, "No, we cannot accept the travel visa, you have to go back to America."

I almost crapped myself.

Anyways, we figured out all of it. My travel visa is A-OK. Mr. Ren was really helpful in getting me situated and getting my papers in order (since Mom faxed them in.) After registration was over, we had to take the placement test the day afterwards, so I basically sat in my room and talked to myself in Chinese while poring over my old textbook. The test went relatively well, let's face it, there are going to be some parts that you just don't know. It was two parts- written and oral. The written part was fine, some of the vocab they used I didn't know, but that was to be expected. Also, somebody's cell phone alarm was going off quietly the entire time. I thought it was just me that could hear it because it was so faint, but it kept going off for the 2 hours and eventually the professor asked, "Who's phone is going off?" Nobody answered! It was ridiculous. Anyways, after the test, Matt came up to me and said, "Man, that was MY PHONE." I just gave him this blank look- I was kind of ticked. I mean, couldn't you even CHECK? Whatever. It's all over with. The oral part of the exam was alright, I just had to talk to these two women who were really curious about me being an asian-american, speaking a different dialect at home but learning Mandarin in an American college. It was pretty fun. Hopefully I get put in the appropriate level! The worst thing would be to be placed in a class level that would be too easy, or maybe even wayyyy too hard. But I don't think the latter is going to happen, haha. 

I've just been chilling lately. Still exploring the city. Yesterday, the four of us took a taxi to Jinan's HUGE city square, it was absolutely fabulous. It beat Kaifeng's city square. I wish I would've brought my camera. I'll be going back for sure, though. It was so full of all these little events and people just milling about enjoying the wonderful weather. There was live music performances by groups of old people singing songs in the old-style, and even young teenagers with their guitars. There were small children learning how to skate, kite flying, wu-shu rehearsals, old people doing their nightly tai-shi type exercises, shops selling little random things, etc etc. It was bustling and refreshing. I was particularly enamored with the free-running group and the tap dancers! 

Okay, I have to jet- meeting up with a soccer group. Post later!

LATER POST

So, what a soccery day today turned out to be. I didn't know this, but apparently Shandong University has a kind of impromptu intramural soccer (read: futbol- I can't really get used to calling it "FOOTBALL" but it is everywhere else in the world) team, and today, they met up at 2:30pm to go play the Shandong Normal University's team. I hop in the cab because I want to be a spectator, probably throw a frisbee around, and watch a bunch of fit people from Uganda, the French Congo, and Morocco play FUTBOL. The game was so much fun even though we lost. I thought the view around the field was absolutely breath-taking and I am kicking myself in the butt for not bringing my camera. Anywho, after the soccer match was over, word spread that there was actually a professional game going on later that night (Qingdao vs. Shandong). We ended up going, but I forgot to bring my wallet since I thought we were just going to the match and coming back to the dorm. :( It's all good though, we always end up spotting each other so it's not a big deal. We grabbed a quick dinner on-the-go and ran to find a taxi. None of us really knew how to say "stadium" so we had to circum-locute our point. "Soccer... field? Big? Um, place-where-people-play-soccer-under-lights?" He understood. Smart man.

I've never been to a professional match before, but it was awesome! The boys bought jerseys afterwards, it was that good. There was the obvious heckling and jeering from both sides, but the funny thing was- that the cheering coming from the Qingdao side included insults to people's mothers, name-calling, and a lot of very very crude cuss words. Basically, awesome. Sunday Fun-day. :)

blank.faces

I saw somebody die yesterday. 

There was an accident on the street; a huge group had gathered outside the bakery where I was getting dessert with Emily. We had split up from the boys so we decided to wait for them. We actually saw them in the huge group so we went outside to see what happened. There was a police car and an ambulance. Weaving through the group to get to the guys, I saw horrified stares and grim faces. Part of me didn't want to peer over the person in front of me, but I did anyways. And what I saw made my stomach fall. 

Poor woman. Nobody saw what happened; it looked like she had either fallen off of her bike, or maybe she had gotten hit in a hit-an-run. Neither of those make sense though- there was traffic, the car wouldn't have been able to "get away," but it so much too gruesome for just a fallen motorist. When I was approaching, I heard Matt whisper, "No... don't look. She's... gone."

Right after, I left. 

I've never seen death like that before.

connections&failures

Hey everybody. Sorry I haven't posted- I've been busy with a lot of random stuff :). Things have been going well lately, my days are still basically free from any obligation, which means I get to preoccupy myself with whatever I want! Today, my post is titled, "Connections and Failures."- here's the "failure" part, first.

So, get this. Yesterday morning, I wake up tangled in my comforter in like, SWELTERING heat. This is quite unusual since I like to sleep with my AC blasted at like 16 degrees celsius. Getting up to look at my AC, I find that the vents are still open but the power is off. Hm. I guess it might've died sometime in the night. So, I hop out of bed to do my morning ritual (showering, brushing of the teeths, hopping on the internet, the usual). When I turn on the bathroom light, I find... that it doesn't turn on. And neither do ALL OF MY LIGHTS. 

I have ZERO power in my room. No way to charge my cell phone that I use as an alarm clock (which is completely dead now), no way to charge my laptop (which says I will have like a measly two hours), no way to turn on the lights at night (I only remedy this by not going into my room until I absolutely have to sleep... in the pitch blackness), and best of all, no air conditioning in the humid heat. 

Delicious.

Turns out that I should've paid for my accommodations at this other building on Monday, which would've given me 120kw/h for free, and then I could've paid for more electricity if I needed it. (Can you imagine the hotel person's face when I said, "Um, hi, I've been here for 3 days and I'm already out of power.") I actually only used up like 20 kw/h these past few days, and the whole situation with paying for electricity, getting free electricity, paying for accommodations, etc etc is really confusing. I thought Beloit was supposed to be paying for the room and board???? Hm.

But I guess all clouds have their silver lining. Yesterday, I woke up groggy and pissy that I had absolutely no power, so taking a freezing cold shower in my dark bathroom really kind of woke me up. And also, since I (thought) I had no internet, I actually opened up my chinese textbook and studied. Woooow.

That's basically what I did all of yesterday afternoon. I also made my regular breakfast outing with Emily off of campus, through the south gate of Shandong U, making a straight shot down the street into this amazing bakery bun-shop, where I can stuff my face silly with delectable chocolate covered crossaints, wee breakfast tarts, and other assorted goodness. Hahaha. However, things kind of took a turn for the worse. Naturally we decide that the only thing we want after breakfast is nai cha, which is like bubbly milk tea. Yummy? Yes? So we approach the counter of this tiny place and ask for a coffee-flavored milk tea. She asks if we want it cold; obviously, we said, "sure!" As we're chatting about what else the day holds for us, I suddenly hear ice grinding. I freeze up, and I said, "Emily. She's putting ICE in it."

What's so bad about ice, you say?

Long story short, when we had first arrived in Kaifeng, the boys split off one day to get lunch at McDonalds (ugh) and came back sicker than dogs. The girls (Emily and I) got lunch at a food vendor, some steamed buns and stuff. We were fine. The boys spent the whole day on the toilet. The ENTIRE DAY on the toilet. Oh yes. So after a little detective work, we realized what had made them sick. Their cokes had ice in them, and when the ice melts, all the dirty unclean water used to make the ice infiltrates into their drink, making them have severe, uh.. yeah, you get the picture.

Emily says, "ohhh no." And we apologize to the stand person profusely and ask for it without ice. "Sorry! Sorry! OH GOD I DON'T WANT TO GET SICK!" (didn't actually say the last part but that's basically what was on our minds). The stand person shrugs and says, "mei shi" (which means, "No problem") and turns around. Being sneaky-sneaky, eh? Because HE SPOONED THE ICE OUT INTO THE TRASH AND PROMPTLY GAVE THE DRINK BACK TO US.

By now, I'm mortified at the thought of sipping a coffee-flavored laxative. Emily is holding the drink with a cautious (read: disgusted) look on her face. She hasn't gotten sick this entire trip (yet, haha) whereas the rest of us have had bouts of something bad. After some deliberation, we decide, "What the hell, we paid for it, the ice didn't sit in the drink for more than 3 seconds, if we get sick, whatever, it won't be that bad." We drink it.

Fast forward 2 hours.

My tummy hurts. Emily's tummy hurts. We do the business, CURSING the stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid ice. Awesome, I know. No more "cold" bubble tea for me.

---------

As for the latter half of this post, "Connections", all I want to say is that on top of all the other little crappy things that kind of bum me out everyday (missing friends, missing home, not having electricity, drinking cold teas that may or may not make me stay in the bathroom for long periods of time), I'm having a blast meeting some more the international students. In my last post, I mentioned the "American plan" to win over our international mates. Well, it worked. There are so many awesome people here from London, Scotland, Ireland, England, oh, it's ridiculous. They're all here for only about two more weeks. They've been doing this summer intensive Chinese program, and none of them knew Chinese beforehand. It's been awesome going out with them and talking to them about life across the pond. Haha. We all actually went to this Karaoke place (I've never been karaoke-ing before) and it was hilariously incredible. The place looked like a Vegas strip packed into this tiny building with freakin' Call Girls everywhere! It was kind of creepy but it made for a fun night. We were all singing songs in English, eating watermelon, hanging out and talking! Such good fun. I'm going to be sad when they leave :( 

But yeah. Today is a brand new day (sans electricity in my room)- I've got a bunch of things to do today, including registering for classes (yaaaay.), buy more electricity, and study some more chinese!

Cool. I'll catch you guys later! <3