On the road again

Good Morning America!

Sorry, I know that was lame, but I love the time difference. It's so cool to me. So last week was a full week of studying!!!! Only to be followed by having a paper due tomorrow! So exciting. I took my first Chinese test this past Friday which I actually think I did quite well on. I'm really starting to see my speech improving. While there are many things I can not communicate, my listening has improved tremendously. I like listening. No chance to mess up there. Anyways, following our test on friday we all went out to celebrate! That consisted of going to bars where others drank in excess while I danced... Pretty typical! A new twist to this common equation is that a friend of mine taught me a bunch of salsa moves! So hopefully by the time the semester is over I'll not only know Chinese, but I'll also be able to swoon any woman off of her feet with a bit of salsa. The following morning I went to the zoo with two other friends. They had like ten pandas, more types of tigers than I've ever heard of and way too few penguins to quench my Happy Feet and Surf's Up thirst. Deet, I took plenty of close ups of the Pandas and will upload them soon. Later that day we had "text" study and a native came!!! It was so awesome!!! We're having to move "text" study because of that now, but that's okay! The next morning we had church which consisted of listening to broken english, singing in the choir, and spending 30 minutes trying to get a cab to take us less than 2 miles from where we got off the subway. Oh, I also didn't mention I watched the Dawgs lose at 3 in the morning.... sad day. Well, we leave for our two week trip this wednesday and I can't wait. North Korean and Russian borders here I come!!! When we get back my friends and I are going to go to a really pretty city in the south called Huangzhou too!!! Well, so long for now!!

- Colton

Excitement!!!

Hey!

So I'm currently preparing for my first Chinese test. The test is on Friday... I can't wait to get that over with. Anyways enough with the bad. Now the good!!!! I am preparing to leave for a two week trip around Northeastern China. I will get to hike near the North Korean border, camp, see a bunch of awesome scenery, and go to Harbin where I will see the ice festival when I come back in January. In preparation I bought a winter coat from the silk market today. I got a waterproof jacket with a fleece on the inside that can be zipped off, for about $73 - 500 kuai. In hindsight, I regret not haggling the price down even more. The trip to silk market was a very interesting one. I have never seen people fight for business as hard as these people did. At one point a woman tried to pull me into a store and only after a fifth time of saying "Bu Yao" ( I don't want) the fifth at about a yelling tone, was I released. After taking the subway back and getting my bike fixed I saw two guys hitting baseballs in a batting cage near my house that has been vacant every day I've passed it for the past two weeks. I really miss playing baseball so I stood and watched them right next to the cage. After watching one of them take many uncoordinated hacks at poorly thrown baseball's by his friend, they asked me if I'd like to play. I said of course and I'm fairly sure my enthusiasm probably could have been seen a mile away. After taking some swings, the guy who was throwing to me asked if I would like to play with them when they play games. I said of course. So hopefully I will get the chance to play some ball while I'm over here!!!! When I got home I showed my mom my purchase and asked her if the price I got was expensive or not. She said it wasn't, but I think she may have said that to make me feel good about it. Later at dinner I found out my older brother is getting married next month!!!!! He said I could come to the wedding too!!! The only downside to this is that he will move out... Well, I better go study, and there's only one more thing I want to say.

GOOOOO DAWGS!!! SIC' EM!!!

Pictures!!!

Hello Friends!

I haven't updated in I guess like a week or so, meaning I have a lot to say. haha School has hit full throttle and I now have a Chinese test looming this thursday and a paper due in a week and a half. I started my business class here and it is incredibly interesting. This week our business teacher highlighted Chinese business etiquette. In China, business cards are handed out like phone number, but they are not in any way taken lightly. Business cards must be handed out and received with two hands, and then once you have received a card you must take the time in front of the person you just exchanged with to analyze the card, maybe ask them a question or two about the information on the card, and then store it in a very safe place (not your pocket) in front of them. I've also learned more about two ideas that dominate culture. Those two concepts are guanxi and face. Guanxi means relationship. The concept of guanxi within a business setting is that you are expected to give gifts and even do some things for free in business relationships. This translates into Chinese daily life in the style that they eat. Literally any time the bill comes out, every person at the table fights to pay the bill. I have not really experienced this first hand because when I eat out with my friends from my program we go dutch like all college students do. haha Face is another very interesting concept. Essentially face is like your own pride. It is your image to others, or what others think about you. In Chinese culture, you never want to do anything that will cause another person to lose face as the person that you cause to lose face will remember and your gaunxi with that person has been damaged, potentially permanantly.

I've gotten to know my family a bit better this week. The language barrier is still quite significant so I have trouble communicating, but it's getting better. My older brother is a teachers assistant at a nearby college. My sister is an army doctor, and my mom loves going to the summer palace and is an avid stock trader. She spends at least an hour every day looking at the market. I got to go play badminton and ping pong with my older brother this past week on wednesday night. He said that I should come with him every wednesday night, and I really hope to do so. It was really fun getting to compete a bit with people speaking in a different language in a different country, but unfortunately I was heavily outmatched. Hopefully, I will get better.

On Friday my older sister took my friend Ryan and I out to a bar on the other side of town. The place was really nice! There were couches, tv's, lights, lasers, and all kinds of stuff all over the place. It was there that I had my first drink ever. hahaha So while my friend, sister, and her friends threw back beer after beer I stuck with little sips, finishing two on the night. hahaha It was a really cool experience!!! On Saturday two of my friends and I got our home stay families to go to the summer palace with us. It was so cool to see the parents talk an interact even though I had no clue what they were saying. The summer palace is so beautiful. The old Chinese style architecture is so stinking cool. Later that day my family took my to KTV which is karaoke. The big difference between karaoke here and back home is you rent your own room with whoever you're with instead of being out in front of a bunch of people. Also in between all of this my family tried to instruct me on why not to give to beggars. They apparently found out about me and a friend helping the man from last week get to church and were a bit concerned that I was giving to beggars. It was very frustrating because I don't have the language capabilities to explain my cause. My sister said that the Chinese government takes car of them, but I'm skeptical of that having seen the conditions many of them live in when we helped the get to church last week. I want to do some research on that. After that I watched UGA get they're first win of the year at 12:30 at night here. haha

Today I went to a different church than I did last week. This one was much smaller and worship was ran by a guy who is a student with my program. He had me sing in their choir team! hahaha They need as many english speakers as they can get to sing because there aren't many people who read English very well at the church and they do most of their songs in english.... So there was no pressure for me to sing well, reading English was the only requirement!!! hahaha

So this is the last bit. I'm just going to start listing funny stuff at the end of my posts.

- I've become strangely okay with the Chinese driving motto that other people will avoid me. haha

- A rickshaw driver tugged me and two other friends, a total of about 500 pounds, on his bike

- The use of lines is entirely foreign to the Chinese, cutsies is entirely okay

My homestay...

A lot has gone on in just the last two days here. I got my homestay. They're all so sweet, but I'd say I undertsnad about 5% of what they say... haha I'm not gonna lie I'm pretty frustrated right now. It's very hard knowing what you want to say, but having absolutely no clue of how to say it. I really wish I could just fast- forward a couple weeks to when I can start carrying conversations with them. My immeadiate family consists of an older brother of 29 and a mother of over 60. Then I have aunts and uncles around a lot and an older sister from a different family ( I guess she'd be my cousin). Her name is Kou dan. It sounds almost exactly like my English name. My first night with them they took me out with the whole family for Hot Pot. It was really good, but some of it was super spicy, like make me sweat burn my tongue spicy. hahaha But it was good! I told them one of my favorite things to do was dance. So, Kou dan convinced the whole family to go to a club together.... I danced with my 60+ mother in a dance club. hahahaha It was an absolutely priceless moment. The whole night I had to refuse drinks and I felt bad because I couldnt really explain why very well. I really hope they don't think I'm rude. This morning I woke up early met Lisa and we went to pick up the man we met the other night. He showed us where he lived and then before we had left for church had bought us drinks and fruit. This man lives in complete poverty and he absolutely insisted upon treating us to those things. Want a lesson in giving? Take that one. We then headed out for church. One the way Lisa realized that I would most likely be the only white person in church and I was carrying a bag of fruit... I think I drew enough attention to myself. The whole service was in Chinese but they had translation on like a broadcasted station. So I listened to the service on some earphones. hahaha They sang Come Thou Fount, in Chinese, so unfortunately I couldn't understand or really sing along, but it was really cool to worship in the same place with other people speaking a different language. I think I'm past my honey moon stage with the study abroad thing because now I'm starting to get frustrated with stuff like not being able to speak well, having to bathe with a washclothe, and not being able to flush toilet paper. Little things... but I'm just a bit frustrated.