{"id":1846,"date":"2013-09-16T03:54:46","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T07:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crosscultural\/?p=1846"},"modified":"2013-09-17T07:09:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T11:09:00","slug":"dajia-hao-from-nanchong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/2013\/09\/16\/dajia-hao-from-nanchong\/","title":{"rendered":"D\u00e1ji\u0101 h\u0103o from Nanchong!"},"content":{"rendered":"

D\u00e1ji\u0101 h\u0103o (Hello, everyone!)
\nThe sky is bright and I may even see a spec of blue shinning through. Here in Nanchong, when asked what color the sky is, the answer is white. When asked what color the sun is, the answer is red. \u00a0The cause of both of these is pollution. Thus seeing a tiny spec of blue in the sky is a great surprise.<\/p>\n

\"Beihu<\/a>
Beihu Park, downtown Nanchong -Jonathan Drescher-Lehman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We started school this week at China West Normal University<\/a>\u00a0and this is how a normal School day goes:
\n-wake up at 8:00 to shower and eat breakfast (which my host mom leaves out for me because everyone else is already gone for the day)
\n-catch bus 35 to the university (its about a 15 minute bus ride)
\n-2 hours of Chinese language class from 9-11 with a 15 minute break in between
\n-2 1\/2 hour lunch break
\n-Chinese history and religion class for 1 1\/2 hours
\n–Tai Chi<\/a> for 1 hour (I love it! So relaxing)
\n-calligraphy class for 1 hour
\n-get home around 6:30
\n-dinner with my host family every night at exactly 7:00… it\u2019s so funny!
\n-shower, homework, and bed (It is a pretty long day of nonstop stuff, so by the time I get home I’m exhausted and ready for bed.)<\/p>\n

For lunch we have been enjoying street food from this really popular street called yi xu\u00e9 j\u00ede. The food is AMAZING. At first I was kind of sketched out eating food made on the street, but man it\u2019s good and cheap! You can get this huge bowl of noodles made for 5 ku\u00e0i (yuan<\/a>), which is not even $1. And when I say a huge bowl, I mean huge. I never can finish. We also found this awesome bakery on the same street. It\u2019s not like our bakeries at home; it honestly might be better. Oh, and let me add in that it\u2019s so cheap! I got this egg and cheese bread thing (you never know what you\u2019re ordering; normally you can’t even take a guess so you just kind of pick something and hope for the best) that was the size of my face for 2.50 ku\u00e0i. I seriously could go on for days about how cheap stuff is here.<\/p>\n

This past Wednesday, I went to a high school in town and taught 4 different classes English for 1 hour each. I walked away really considering a change in my major at EMU. I fell in love. The kids were wonderful, and so eager and excited to learn. I didn\u2019t want to leave. I was in tears. You could just see on those kids’ beautiful faces how much it meant to them to have me there, and the same for me. I would be so content to stay there and teach those kids for the rest of this trip. I could go on forever. I really loved it. Even though I didn\u2019t totally love the part where they made me sing Taylor Swift BY MYSELF and dance around the classroom. But I got some smiles and some laughs, so that\u2019s what matters! Luckily, I go back every Wednesday for the next 3 weeks!!! YAY! Also, today I went to my host sister\u2019s middle school and taught English to her class. And I signed up to volunteer with this children’s English program they have here in Nanchong as a teacher.\u00a0 So, once a week, I will go there and teach younger children English. I am trying to take every opportunity I can while I have the chance.<\/p>\n

So I have been with my host family one week, and man do they catch on fast. Their English has improved so much in one week, it is crazy and kind of sad considering I am taking a Chinese class right now and haven’t gotten any better. Chinese is hard! Like, no joke! You have to learn tones, words, characters, and p\u012bny\u00ecn<\/a>. It\u2019s insane. I think I will come home with no Chinese learned and my English worse than when I left. I am getting a lot more comfortable with my host family but not so comfortable with the bathroom. When I was teaching in the high school the other day I walked in the bathroom to find myself facing probably 6 or so girls just squatting and peeing. No doors or stalls, just holes in a big open room. They probably thought I was insane because I screamed and ran out so fast I almost tripped on the disgusting pee floor. It\u2019s so\u2014ah I don\u2019t even know what word to use. It\u2019s just different. The showers are too. They are literally just a shower head on the wall with the squat pot underneath you. So while trying to shower you have to try not to fall into the squat hole. Its pretty difficult, I might add. Malika and I have our own room, although we do have to share a bed, but we don\u2019t mind. We live in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment. It overlooks the beautiful park but not so beautiful singing (wait, that was mean. It\u2019s not bad, its just not really what you would consider singing. More like screeching into the microphone but with a pretty band playing behind it). Every day, and I mean every<\/em> day, from 3-6;00, this lady comes all dressed up and sings and dances out in the park. A ton of older people come out and it\u2019s totally fun, but extremely loud. We\u2019re on the 7th floor right beside the park, and from 3-6:00 we have to scream to one another just to hear. It\u2019s pretty hilarious.<\/p>\n

I help my host sister with her English homework every night, and she helps me with my Chinese. It\u2019s pretty great. She is 13 and will be 14 on October\u00a09th. She is in the 9th grade, but in China that is still middle school. She speaks English very well, although she says she is no good. She has grown up learning English because they start them at a very young age. My host mom is the sweetest but speaks no English. Well she didn’t, but she has learned some this week. She is a kindergarten teacher. And my host dad, well, I don’t really know\u2026 he isn’t around a lot. He randomly brings kids by that I don\u2019t know. So, I kind of think he has a second wife, but that\u2019s probably just my too much TV brain playing with me. Our apartment is nice. Nothing fancy. But getting to the apartment and the building is kind of sketchy. I saw a rat in the stairway and about died. And like I said, we\u2019re on the 7th floor, so that\u2019s a workout. Especially when trying to carry my suitcase up 7 flights. I have to wear slippers all the time. Walking around barefoot inside someone\u2019s home or anywhere is considered rude. China is very different than home, but I am really loving this experience. But maybe a tiny bit missing America, American food, and of course all of you.<\/p>\n

\"chopsticks\"<\/a>My chopstick skills are improving so that\u2019s an extra bonus. And if I wanted to, I could learn how to cough loogies like a man. Because everyone and their brother does it here, and I mean everyone. I saw a man spit one right onto the floor in the middle of a nice restaurant. Let\u2019s just say my appetite was gone fast. And for any of you who know my love of clothes, you need to feel my pain right now as I say I am so sick of my 5 outfits and it\u2019s only been 2 weeks. Ah! Especially when everyone here is dressed super nice and wears heels and I\u2019m over here chilling in\u00a0my Chacos, sport shorts, and a wrinkled t-shirt. They probably think I\u2019m a bum. Well I am sure you\u2019re probably tired of reading this ridiculously long post. There is just so much to learn and share about my experiences.<\/p>\n

Z\u00e0i ji\u00e0n (goodbye)<\/p>\n

Hattie Berg
\nGu\u00f3 f\u00fa (My Chinese name. It means beautiful Lily)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

D\u00e1ji\u0101 h\u0103o (Hello, everyone!) The sky is bright and I may even see a spec of blue shinning through. Here in Nanchong, when asked what color the sky is, the answer is white. When asked what color the sun is, the answer is red. \u00a0The cause of both of these is pollution. Thus seeing a … Continue reading D\u00e1ji\u0101 h\u0103o from Nanchong!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4020],"tags":[4025],"class_list":["post-1846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china-2013","tag-emu-eastern-mennonite-university-china-2013-cross-cultural"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1846"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1904,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846\/revisions\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}