So, after my week of work at the elementary school was done and had bid Jamie a final farewell, I moved across town to my new dormitory. It is really more of an apartment complex, just with really small apartments, each only having two bedrooms and a bathroom. I think it is pretty nice though. The location is not as convenient as where I was recently living (it took me less than 15 minutes to get to the subway), but there are a decent number of shops and restaurants around, and with a bus ride of four or five stops I can get to the subway. My room is kind of big, the floor is made of really nice-looking wood, and I even have a little balcony area for hanging clothes up to dry and storing stuff. One thing I wish our apartment had was a common space, but we only have a little entryway/hallway between the bedrooms and the bathroom. It is like the suite I lived in my junior year, minus the common space and the two singles, with a big fancier appearance. Each of the bedrooms has two people, a CET student and a Chinese roommate. I just met my roommate today, and, like me, he seems like a very 好孩子 (a good kid, a kind of not drinking, not smoking, not often going out to bars to party kind of label). He is also 回族 (hui ethnicity), so he doesn't eat pork, and prefers to go to restaurants that don't serve pork (since a limited number of pots and pans used for cooking would cause his non-pork food to be contaminated by pork). He is not Muslim though, which is interesting. This means that his not eating of pork is not a religious thing, but rather a cultural thing. When we had a conversation about religion, he said he didn't really subscribe to any religion, but he believes in something. (I am paraphrasing, by the way. I don't know how to say 'subscribe' in Chinese) He has also expressed interest in coming to juggling club with me sometime, and having me teach him how to juggle three balls. Cool!
I am also very excited that the CET student in the other room of my apartment in NOT an American! He is Japanese. His English is heavily accented, and he has only been speaking English for two years. He goes to Soka University in California, which seems to stress all the points that Kalamazoo College likes to brag about (high number of students going on study abroad, high number of students pursuing PhDs and graduate school, international students at the school, focusing on creating global citizens), except that Soka seems to actually outperform K in all these respects. I am definitely gonna recommend that place to people. I am glad that there are going to be no bastions of American culture in our apartment. The Japanese guy also had two female friends that also go to Soka who are CET students here. They are all the same sect of Buddhist, so they get together regularly to chant (and maybe other stuff too, but I don't know yet. I've only been living with him for two days). It is nice to have a regular presence of other people in the place. It just makes it feel like more of a community.
Part way through this program's orientation, I have a few impressions. First, the uselessness of most of the orientation to me, since I have been in Beijing for several months already. I am not the only one either. About 8 or 10 students on this program ave already been studying in Beijing, anywhere from 1 to 5 months. Another feeling, because I have been in Beijing for a while already I have a level of comfort with the city (the transit, the food, the places) and the language that none of the new kids have. This means that there is a divide between us in terms of ability to communicate in Chinese (the same way that when I first arrives in Beijing I couldn't communicate very much), which may be hasslesome once the language pledge starts, which is Monday morning. Although I am sure that there will be many times when I have the urge to speak in English, I know that with my current ability in Chinese it will be easier for me than for many of the other students here to get by with just Chinese. A very cool thing I found out about this program though is that I can be reimbursed 70 kuai every week for cultural activities, which can include going to parks, temples, museums, and performances. I am totally gonna make the most of this, starting with getting mostly reimbursed for the 75 ticket for CIPA's Dirty Dancing this weekend.
An exciting thing happened the morning of my placement test (which determines which level of Chinese class I will be in). During the oral portion of the test, my tester was none other than my Chinese language teacher from fall semester: 周老师! (meaning: teacher Zhou). It was really exciting to see her again, so I was really relaxed for my oral test, just telling her about what I did during my vacation in the South, and about my current situation with Chinese girls.
I also bought a badminton set. Playing badminton is a really Chinese thing to do, and I think it is an easy excuse to spend time with people. I am also really excited about having my first set of slippers. It is pretty common in a Chinese home to take your shoes off at the door and put on a pair of slippers that are worn around the home. I was the first person to move into the apartment, so I decided set establish that as the norm. I am the only non-Asian though, so it may have ended up being the norm even if I hadn't!
I am bit worried about time during this next semester. My students at my English teaching job haven't gotten a hold of me yet, but once that starts up it will take a lot of my time. I may have to scale it back, depending on how intense the academic workload is here, and how much free time I want to have for other things. I want to go to juggling club every Monday, and I have not made a commitment to the aikido school I found, but it would be nice to be able to do that (although realistically speaking, I think it is pretty likely that I will not have the time to make a commitment to that). I also want to be able to have the free time to get together with the Chinese friends that I have made during my time here, as there are three of four people who I plan to get together with once they return to Beijing for classes, and whom I would like to see on a semi-regular basis from then on. I also don't want to spend loads of time studying characters, due both to the ability of doing more enjoyable activities in my free time and due to the (extremely) limited use of being able to write Chinese characters. Seriously. Even in Beijing, the capital city of China, it is pretty useless to be able to write characters. The ability to speak or understand the words spoken is of utmost importance, and being able to recognize them when written can be useful for some characters, but writing really never comes up.
I was planning of having a lot longer blog post, but I really can't think of anything else to write! I've updated you all on just about everything.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment