4 Months

Its crazy to think that 4 months have passed since I arrived in Beijing. I have spent the last week just thinking of all the memories I have made here and the adventures I have shared with my friends here.  I still remember thinking when I got here” what did I get myself into?” Now that is all but finished I can say I had no idea what I got myself into. In my mind I feel like I have changed so much. I have let go of mistakes and heart ache in my past and have really been able to grow. I wonder if others will see the change or just something in my head.  Im glad I took the chance to come out here. It was the best decision I have ever made. To any who are considering taking a chance in a far off land, I recommend it.  We had a great opportunity to have a dinner with my professors from USU and the president of the business school here at BJTU. It was a great time to experience Chinese culture at the dinner table. My professor said “are you ready to look at everything differently when you get home?” I have been thinking about that ever since. Is he right? Will I look at things differently? Maybe. I know when I look down at the valley and don’t see the smog screen everything will look Hi-definition, haha.  My Chinese has greatly improved. I can speak some but I am not amazing yet. I have learned a lot about myself, love, friendship and that American culture is strange. Even being here defining and learning about so many culture, I still cannot describe ours.  

Off that subject. What the heck is up with so many people getting married lately? I think I wont be able to stay in the states too long, too much social pressure to get married. I don’t even want to date anymore. I just want to go boating, play golf, BBQ, and find adventures. None of those require marriage. In fact im sure they would be harder to do married.

Translation Error

So I have my first embarrassing translation situation this week, but I will save that for the end. This weekend we went to 天津 (tian jin) with a group of foreign students. I had my first chance to ride a high speed train. It was the coolest thing.  It goes 200MPH and is a smooth comfortable ride.  天津 is a newer city then Beijing. There is a lot of western influences. There is sections of the city with Italian, German, Muslin, and American architecture. It gave me a feeling of being home for a second.  We also went to a food market and tried some Chinese snacks. They were not very tasty.  Now to the story I promised. Last week I learned the characters for homosexual and being the mature adult that I am I wrote them down in phone to call Andy by it later that day. After the trip to 天津we went to visit my friend's restaurant to practice Chinese and enjoy so good food. There was a new girl there that night and we started talking to her and getting to know her. I tried telling her my name, but it is not common so I also have it written in my to show people the characters. So without hesitation I took out my phone and pointed at the screen to show her my name Chinese and in my broken Chinese I said“我是，我是/“  (It means I am I am) as I pointed at myself. She gave me a very puzzled look. So checked my phone my phone and on the screen was not my name, but the characters for Homosexual. It was very embarrassing.  I then pulled up the right characters and had to explain to her that I wasn't gay, It was just something I learned that week in class. Hahah

Summer is coming.

Well Blogging has been slow lately. I apologize for that. Things in china are going well. Its starting to get hot and with the hot weather comes bad smells.  Especially on the subway.  There is way too many sweaty people cramped into a small space, but that’s china for you. Every day here I am becoming a little more Chinese. (No, that doesn’t mean my eyes are getting slanted. Or at least I hope not). I did make a new friend the other day. It is a restaurant owner down the street. He is really friendly even though we cannot communicate very well.  His name is Yuan Qing. The first time there I was just walking by and wanted a little snack so I stopped to get a couple of skewers of lamb. (Lamb is the best meat ever). The guy sat me down and started just giving me free tastes of food.  It was awesome. Now he wants to take us out to meet girls haha.  My teaching is going great. I am making good money and get a chance to ask Chinese people questions about the culture. I learned that in southern china you can eat baby soup. Yes made of real baby. It ruined baby jokes for me haha.  I had a great opportunity to face my fear this past week by eating a tarantula. It was gross. It tasted of peanuts and cobwebs. The texture was bizarre. The exoskeleton makes it hard and crunchy. Once I bite into it, it crumbles into flakes and the tastes keeps coming back all night Not cool. Well until next time.

Approaching Halfway.

I am approaching the half point of this journey. I have not been blogging a lot because I things have start to become routine for me. My average day consists of four hours of Chinese class in the morning, Lunch, talk to loved ones online (mainly my mom haha ), then me Andy head to gym for hopefully a hard workout. After that we go to Rainbow House English to teach English (gayest name for a school ever). I take the bus home and once I get home I do homework while watching the Colbert Report. Basically I am living the dream. Haha. It is very interesting living with all foreigners. Honestly sometimes it feels like everyone in the build is just a big family or at least it’s very comparable to my family. Everyone is very different but you still share a bond together and that bond is we’re all far from home. I am very blessed that almost everyone in the build speaks English, but even those who do not are very friendly. We even have role of parents filled in by the阿姨(a yi) . They take your wellbeing very personal. If you miss class they are very upset. I call them my tiger moms. Maybe I think this just because my own family. They are very diverse. I had the blessing of having a mixed family.  So I strongly believe that just because you don’t share the same blood you cannot be family.  With that being said that does not mean I do not miss my own family. I do miss them, but just because I am far away from my home I am still surrounded my family.

Sweeping tomb festival!!!

So I know the sound sucks on these and some you cant hear at all. Its basically me being a smart ass. This was our trip some small farm village outside of Beijing. It was way fun and more pics will be on facebook.

Another day, Another dollar

The past two weeks have been relatively uneventful. I finally have a good routine going out here. I start the day with 4 hours in the classroom learning Chinese, head to lunch and finally go to the gym. From there I head into work to prepare my lesson and do some studying of my own, and then it’s time to go home to watch the Colbert report.  Oh ya I have a job teaching English. I love it. I’m still getting the hang of it, but it is really fun. It is a great chance to really get to know about china and to get to know some of the people too. The job itself is easy. I am provided a short lesson and as a class we go through it and I make up activities. It’s all in English.  The class is focused on teaching them how to carry out conversations in English.  It has very little writing, and I am sure all those who know well can agree that is a good thing. I am good at talking but not the writer ever.  Well that’s the update. I will be bungee jumping next week and also camping I think.  Until next time. Stay classy……..World.

Lama Temple

Another week in the history books.  It seemed like I was making friends from all over the world except from china until this week. I was able to meet with a girl to help with my Chinese and help her with her English and she shows up with two of her roommates. Then when I return home the rest of her roommates have sent me emails saying they would also like to help me learn Chinese or just go out and see the sites of Beijing. So we took advantage of this and visited the Lama Temple. It is the biggest Buddhist temple in Beijing. We go to burn Incenses  and mediate at all the shrines. It was very cool. I took a quick video of one of the court yards. I was not able to get pictures of the shrines because it is very disrespectful to do so.  It snowed here the other day and I think that is something rare. because the Other students were going crazy for it. Everyone was outside in the middle of the night screaming, taking pictures and shooting lasers. I was almost asleep when it began and I was awoken by all the people screaming on the streets. I thought some sort of riot or zombie outbreak had occurred. Well there isn’t much more to report this week.  I did also want to congratulate Nate and Tanner on getting engaged this past week.