2nd Week In

Cool moments happen when you don't expect them too.

It's 5:30 on a Thursday and I'm biking home from school after martial arts class. The traffic is heavy, the sun is too hot and I feel people's heavy stares as they watch a foreigner in a typical Chinese high school uniform struggle to keep her bike upright. I am tired and have a backpack full of work to be done for tomorrow that will surely guarantee another late night. Wearily I pedal until I hit a stop light and wait to cross. As I sit waiting, I notice one particularly interested stare coming my way. I look over and a man, about 60, is smiling over at me, exuding genuinely good vibes. So, I smile back. Then in rapid fire Mandarin with a heavy Beijing accent the man asked me if I went to school around the area (that's what I assumed he said anyway) and I told him about SYA with my fragmented Chinese. The light changed but our conversation did not end. We dodged cars, swerved around people, and avoided other bikes all while chatting in mandarin. After about 3 minutes of this (a long time for me to hold a conversation) we went our separate ways and he wished me good luck. I will never see that man again but he made my day.

That's the kind of thing that makes all this work worth it. I have mountains of homework and everything here adds new stress because of the language barrier and I miss everyone, but when things like the bike conversation happen, none of the other stuff seems very important.

So, here are some of the other interesting things that happened this week. First, early this week I tried my hand at calligraphy. I have always seen the beautifully drawn characters and wished i could recreate them, but as soon as I had the brush in my hand I knew it was not going to be easy. The first issue is that I have horrible handwriting in English and that quality transfers to my Chinese writing thus making my characters look rather ugly and distorted. The second issue is my teacher. He is about 5'4", 65 years old, and is possibly the funniest man I have ever met. He has huge bottle cap lens glasses that magnify his already protuberant eyes, and he wears a little blue french style barrett that bobbles up and down as he gushes about the beauty of the characters. His chinese is impossible to understand because of the thick city accent and he shouts words at us as he tries to correct our simple mistakes. The reason he is a problem is that every time I look at him I laugh so hard that I can't hold my brush straight.

So many little things happen in a day, I find it hard to keep track of them all. I'll just list a couple. Today a lady tried to convince my friend and I to come to her store so she could take pictures to model her clothes which was highly entertaining. Monday I went to the most beautiful park I have ever been to with my family and had an amazing time. Thursday I tried martial arts and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Wednesday I had weird food and got sick. On Tuesday I made friends with my neighbor's dog and now every time I go inside he follows me. Lots of craziness basically.

Tomorrow I am going to the changchang, Great Wall, for a four hour hike. Wish me luck!
Until next time,
Julia

Song of the day:
Hallelujah by: Jeff Buckley