on Hangzhou is a beautiful city one hour away in a speed train from Shanghai. It has a lake, where we ride boats, beautiful gardens and is a big producer of green tea, where we had a degustation.
Mr. Zhou singing in Chinese a traditional song:
At the entrance of the Tea House
We visited the Temple of Buda. Was raining but even that we were able to go to all the sanctuaries.
on Shanghai. One of the world’s largest and most important cities, and a global hub of trade, finance, and business. But, just a few short hours from Shanghai lies a secret. Home of one of the world’s largest button manufactures, and perhaps more interestingly, a small walled-in fishing village that was right on the waterfront. The history of this village, Xitang, is an extensive one, with a history lasting several thousand years. It is located east of Shanghai, in one of the more historically wealthier provinces in China. The actual construction of the village is quite interesting, built inside 1 meter thick stone walls that rise about 3 meters in height, with canals snaking through the town that are about 3-5 meters wide in most areas. Over them stretched tall pedestrian bridges, with Chinese gondolas sneaking under. There were hundreds of shops and restaurants, but interestingly they were not built for foreign tourists. In fact, most of the area was developed for domestic tourism, which was a refreshing change after the Great Wall tour. After spending lots of time (and money) there, we retired back to Shanghai for dinner and well deserved rest, with everyone feeling very satisfied from the long day of exploring perhaps of one China’s best kept secrets.
on Wednesday afternoon, the event of the week. The one and only Heibei Tangshan Foreign Language School Talent Show! We had contestants from all parts of the globe, including Russia, Italy, Thailand, Texas, and China! Everybody who performed did a wonderfully job, and was quite lovely.
on I have spent a week in China and it has been very fun. The food is is great and all the people are nice. I am geting along with my host family very well and I like them very much. I love to lay strategy games with them and teaching them some from America.
Monday
Today was our first day attending the school that is hosting us. It is a very big school with about 4000 students. On Monday we got to tour the school. After the tour we went to an English clas and talked to some of the students there. After the class we watched a flag raising ceremony. The ceremony was very organized and well. The school is very organized with its students.
On tusday we went to a few different classes including Chemistry. This was very interesting because we got to do some experement.
Later in the day we whent to a Chinese Tea Culture meeting. We got to dring some good tea and meet some international students.
On Wednesday we went to the Great Wall Of China. It was very beautiful and big. The part we went to was very old and cool. We hiked up one of the mountans. We went to one of the towers and climbed onto the top of it. The hike up and down was very the mountan was very difficult. It is amasing that people built this by hand. I am happy that the place that we went is taking good car of the parts that still stand.
on Every morning begins the same way. Wake up at 5:30 AM, lay in bed for a good 30 min. becuase no one else is awake then go to the bathroom to change. Sit at the table where I eat the same thing Egg, Mayo, and Lettuce as a sandwhich (Not that bad, surprisingly) Then off to school.
On Wednesday, I had to be at school earlier because Lucy had exams that day. But usually I get to school at like 7 AM BUt on Wednesday I got to school at 6:30 AM. I didn’t mind but I was alone for a good 15 minuets where I read my book but since I am American everyone that walked by would stare at me. It was pretty awakward. Wednesday was Math Class, which was awful. I am not very good at math but the whole class was in Chinese and the table I sat at no one wanted to talk to me they just stared. Then we had Chinese class with the AFS Students. That was a lot of fun because our group cheated in the game, “cheated”. The talent show was the best part on Wednesday. The Chinese students are so talented. My favioret was a chinese girl singing Italian Opera. It was beautiful. The end of the talents show was a lot of fun because, we got to hang and I got swarmed by people wanting to take pictures of me. It was wild.
Thursday was the Great Wall part 2. We went to a different part of the wall then the first day it was very different. It was different because this wall wasn’t restored. It was the original wall. It was scary because half of the steps were gone. It was very challenging nad very scary. Friday we went to a primary school where we got a tour from 9 -10 years old. There english was better than mine! There art level was amazing. They gave us so many gifts. It was so sweet. They did a talent show and I was shook. The best was the chinese opera, they did the AFS students song nad Emainel was just like “they did better than us!” It was so funny. After the talent show we played soccer, I wanted to watch but I got swarmed wiht younger chinese students and they wanted my autograph it was so cute. 
on [DISCLAIMER: I am not going to blog about what we did specifically each day. Just some higlights that I liked and my nights with my host family.]
This week was pretty similar to the time I spent at the Tangshan school last year. We did many of the same activities like dancing, martial arts, language class, etc. However, most of the classes I took again seemed different. For example, last year in English class we learned grammar, this year we discussed climate change. The experiance this year was also different because of the foreign students that we spent time with. Yesterday and today we went on field trips with them, which we had not done last year.
The talent show this year was very good. The Chinese and foreign students that performed were very talented. I especially liked the Italian exchange students’ dances. This year I performed the song Riptide on guitar with Cidette singing.
At my host for the first few nights I did not do much with my host family because my host sister, Amiee, had to study for some big tests. However, once that was over we were able to do somethings. We played a game that we had played during the ice-breaking activities for about an hour after diner. The next two nights we watched some movies on the couch. Last night we went out to eat diner at a local resturant.
on Since my last blog I have been able to do a lot of fun and interesting things with my host family and also while at the school. I have continued to see and learn more about the foriegn exchange students staying with my host family thanks to activites such as shared classes, a trip to the great wall, and great lunches together. Along with making friends with the foreign exchange students, I have also made friends with a number of Chinese students here in the Tangshan foreign language school. I have also exchanged contact information with a number of sutdents here and I hope to be able to keep in contact with them once I return to the United States. It aslo makes me wish I was able to stay here longer as I have made a number of friends during my time here in China and it will be hard to leave and return back to the United States. I hope to return to China and meet all of my friends I have met here again.
I have also gained a much greater perspective on wealth and poverty and the disparity between socioeconomic groups during my time here in China and it has given me an improved perspective on life. All of the experiences I have had here in China have been truly amazing and eye opening. I think this could easily be my favorite trip I have taken thus far because of all the fun I have had and all the knowledge I have obsorbed during my time here.
on So many wonderfull things have happened this week! My host family has been very providing in hospitality, and I have tried many new foods and found many great ones. My favorite so far is a snack where there are very soft sweet strawberrys on a stick with a hard sugar shell covering the berrys. I have a some pictures of my host house to share:
. Yesterday we went again to the great wall but at a different location and it was a very enjoyable experience. The wall had began to return to nature and certain parts were just grassy dirt walkways which were raised on a steep hill which had once been the massive wall of bricks. Seeing the massive manmade creation like that made it clear that nature had won over in the end. We walked a considerable distance along (and mostly up) the wall. I wish I could go along the wall for weeks and see all the different parts. I have heard from my host sibling that parts of the wall are completely underwater which if true would be an incredible sight to behold. The entire group has befriended the international students here and they have made our stay very enjoyable. The school has been fun and some of the lessons and the talent show in specific has been a valuable source of exchange. I am very excited to see the forbidden city with my host family and to see what Shanghai will bring!
on I first met Jeff when I first stepped into Tangshan. He was with his mother, another boy named Kevin, and Kevin’s father. We did some ice breaking games to get us accustomed to each other and after about an hour of doing just ice breaking games we went to a restaurant. This whole time felt like it wasn’t a realityt, but rather more a dream. It was really hard to grasp the fact that I am in China, and trhat I will be living with another family for a week or so. At the restaurant I got an idea of what Iwas going to be eating for the next week. A lot of meat, but then I told Jeff that I also like fruits, so now I eat a lot of fruits. The first day was pretty short. Since the jet lag was still prominent, I had some trouble satying awake, and ended up taking a nap. Jeff woke me up about 30 minutes later to go get some food at the market and that we were going to meet up with one of his freinds. At the market they still kept on feeding me until I literally couldn’t eat anymnore. I was tired and full, so I was really ready to go to bed, but it was only 4:30 in the afternoon. However I still ended up tkaing a nap until 9:00 because it would’ve ben impossible for me to stay awake. In that first day, I felt awful. I was really hoping that the rest of the week wouldn’t be like that, and lo and behold it wasn’t.
If you were to compare the first day to another day, like yesaterday, it would be completely different. Although i still have trouble falling asleep and staying awake sometimes, its much less of a hassle. My host family definitely knows tat now I don’t need that much food anymore (thankfully) and I’ve gotten a lot closer with them. Now we usually do homework together, we play games together, and we eat together. The whole expierence has been just been so incredible. Making friedns with people despite the language barrier, living in someones house that I never met before, and going to a completely different school has just been an amazing learning expierence, and a fun one too. I hope that these last days with Jeff and his mother will be the best ones. This has been Fabricio, loggin’ out.
on The day started as usual. For the past week, I had been waking at 6:00AM or earlier, and prepared for the day. The iternerary suggested that it would be an easy one, that we would stay in Tangshan and visit parks and museums. However, that was not the case today, because our teachers had been informed the day before that the museums would be closed for renovations. So, with some quick work and skillful plannning, we had managed to organize another trip to the Great Wall!
Thankfully, it was not just another trip to the same section. This part was in greater disrepair, or really just in more authentic condition, as it had not been heavily renovated to appeal to a foreign audience, or to improve Chinese optics. Still, after a few thousand years the structure was still in good condition.
We started our adventure by piling into a bus and driving for almost three hours, to the ancient Qingshan “castle town”, a small vilage that was built in and around the wall to support the workers and soldiers that lived there. Supposedly, at its height in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, it was home to 1,000 people, and contained a private bank, houses, a post office, a temple, a local government office called a Yemen, barracks, a teahouse and winery, and other buildings.
After touring the town, we started up the Great Wall, for our second climb to become great heroes! (Or at least, that is what a Chinese legend says.)
