A week of birthdays OR scavenger hunt adventures

My first week in Harbin has officially come to a close, and because I have delayed posting for so long, we are well into the second week of classes.  Since, “I was busy” is not an acceptable excuse, I will not attempt to provide one. Let’s just say that CET Harbin prides itself on its homework load. For those of you who are not too familiar with Chinese geography, here’s our lovely map!

We took our language pledge the Sunday before classes and later found out that they had published an article about it in the college’s newspaper/ on their website. Interested parties can check it out here:

http://today.hit.edu.cn/news/2012/09-05/3883159090RL0.htm

For people who can’t read Chinese, it’s still cool to look at the pictures they took (you can see part of my head!) and they explicitly mentioned Grinnell College along with Yale as institutions that had students in the CET program.

The CET program is pretty cool and all students end up learning about a variety of different subjects no matter what your language level is.  Everyone is in a one on two drill class where we work on pronunciation with a teacher and one other student, and there is also a mandatory one on one class in which you research and learn about a specific topic that you have expressed interest in. Mine is about middle school students’ mental health, which will tie in nicely when I start Fulbright research in January. Aside from these two classes you also take two electives. I am taking Chinese modern literature and a newspaper reading class. The newspaper class is definitely harder.

Classes aside, everyone also spent this first week attempting to get to know each other with varying language abilities. The fact that three students had birthdays (and small parities to boot) in that time helped quite a bit, and I now recognize pretty much all of the American students, if not their Chinese roommates. To help us acclimate to the surrounding area, CET arranged a scavenger hunt for our first weekend activity. It was a BLAST! The questions ranged from “Who’s calligraphy was used as a model for the school’s name on the front gate?” to “purchase and bring back a pair of fake eyelashes.” Some other interesting questions included: Where can you purchase a leather Russian style winter hat? How do you ask a cab driver to use the meter? and Find a chicken foot and bring it back; 5 extra points for every member of your team that takes a bite.

We had to find someone who was not from the local province: Heilongjiang

One of the questions asked us to eat lamb kabobs in tango pose.

We had to get a photo of a team member feeding an animal. We managed to find a donkey!

Streets of Harbin, searching for the Sophia Chapel.

Found it!

Group photo.

A bar we had to find.

We had to take a picture with a Wal Mart employee, but when we asked, they said it was against company policy for employees to be photographed....

But not everyone has been coping as well. I think the language pledge has hit my roommate especially hard; she’s often homesick. To brighten her spirits, I gave her a cute little present with an encouraging note and received this in return. It made me really happy.

 

Random picture time!

Grape and peach flavored Oreos. They don't taste very good.

Our walls are covered with these interesting stickers. I decided to pose like them.

There's clearly a likeness

Some delicious dried lemon slices with honey that I use with hot water.  They smell amazing, and I know Michelle would really love them.

Hello Harbin

 A lot has happened since I last posted (it’s been too long, I know!), so I’ll start from now and work my way backwards as far as you and I have the energy to read and write respectively.  I have arrived in Harbin!  The group of us CET students took an overnight train from Beijing which arrived around 6:30 in the morning yesterday. We then spent the rest of the day in orientation meetings, tours of campus, filling out paperwork, and attempting to get settled into this new place without the majority of our luggage (which was being shipped and should arrive any minute!!!).  It was a very long day.  As I have told some of you already, I felt like I had been here for a week already, except for the fact that I had yet to sleep in my bed and did not know my way around. At least one of those things has changed at the current time of writing!  Today we have more placement tests planned along with a longer tour of the surrounding area.

My room!

My bed! It's much softer than I was expecting.

Me in the hallway of our dorm.

 I know last time I posted I was still in Zhangjiachuan.  I know my travels are very confusing, so I’ll give you a brief outline.  Zhangjiachuan -> Xi’an -> Beijing -> Harbin!

My time in Beijing was super short, less than two days in total.  I flew in from Xi’an in the afternoon and met up with other people from my program in the airport.  There we waited for the rest of the students and then went to a hotel.  Traffic was bad, so we didn’t arrive until almost 8pm, and it was probably around 8:30 or so before we felt settled and found a group to go out for dinner.  We found the nearest restaurant and piled in. It was nice, but also complicated to have such a large group. Everyone was at a different level in terms of their Chinese ability and understanding of the culture so it took us awhile to order and get started.  Eventually, I started to take control a bit and make sure all of our dishes had arrived/ send things back once everyone was full. The next day we had orientation meetings than a bit of free time before our train at 6pm. I accompanied some other Fulbrighters to the national museum in Tiananmen, and then went shopping for train snacks. I didn’t have time to meet up with anyone I knew in Beijing, but it was nice to be there all the same.

On the train to Harbin we had soft sleeper tickets.  It was the nicest train I’ve ever taken in China.  That being said it was still quite hot and difficult to sleep, but such is life.

Apologies again for the lack of pictures so far, but I have some from Xi’an!! I spent most of my time in Xi’an eating and wandering around the Muslim district with YM. I also met more of his friends in the city and attempted (unsuccessfully) to help him move into his new dorm at Northwest Polytechnic University, which ranks second in the country for his major. When we arrived, we were informed that new students were not allowed to move in for another two days. One a side note, the university where I am currently studying, Harbin Polytechnic University, is the top rated school. Needless to say YM was a bit jealous.

I guess that’s all for now!  I’m looking forward to starting classes and settling down! Would love to hear from you.

Some delicious food.  This was called Shaoguo.

Me YM and ZDL standing in front of the Bell Tower.

Me and YM in the Great Mosque.

YM looking for someone to hold his suitcases after we were informed that he could not move in that day.  Thankfully we found someone!

ALY! I found you in China.

The Bell Tower lit up at night.