Photo Scavenger Hunt

eating chocolate fruit skewers

I just realized there are a lot of things I haven't written about on here so I am going to do a little catch up today and tell about our Photo Scavenger Hunt last month with our tutors (our October Tutor event). We met all our tutors at McDonalds (the usual meeting place) and split into groups. Our group was 7 people, 3 foreigners (Pat, Amy and me) and 4 Chinese (our tutors and another guy Pat knew from playing basketball). We got our list and headed off looking for clues!

with people dancing with fans on the street

It was a pretty crazy night as the three Chinese guys really took initiative at getting all the clues! They were so determined but yet not real organized, or actually not at all organized. They would run off in a direction and we would just run along behind hoping there was a clue in the direction we were going! It was so fun though and we really got to know the members in our group. The tutors had never done this kind of thing before so it was really fun to see them laughing at the strange things we had to do and trying not to be too embarrassed. As foreigners we can get away with doing strange things but it is much funnier for Chinese people to do some of the things we were doing!

playing cards with people on street

pictures with people taller than tallest in group

At the set time we met up back at the school to enjoy the fall snacks that were prepared (including some amazing home-made apple cider, actually everything is homemade here!). We sat around playing funny games while waiting for all the pictures to be loaded up onto a computer and then sat back and enjoyed the slide show of all the teams pictures. There were some pretty funny pictures. In the end, our team won the hunt!!! I guess the determination of our guys payed off! We took our dove chocolate bars as our reward and celebrated! The tutors still are talking about our scavenger hunt!

picture with people older than 60

"buying" Beijing 2008 merchandise

more pictures from scavenger hunt at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinamegan

CLUE in Chinese

We try to have a tutor event each month to spend time with our tutors here at language school. We all meet with a tutor one on one for two hours every week day. Because of this we get to know them pretty well during that time but we also like to spend time with them outside of this scheduled time as well. These are often our most significant and important relationships while here studying Chinese. The tutors rotate each month so we also miss seeing our previous tutors.

playing games!

This Friday was our November tutor event. We had a game/movie/video game party at our office at school. It was quite the success. I am pretty sure the number of Chinese friends outnumbered Americans (we also invited any other Chinese friends we have to come as well if they want). We played games in the main room, a few guys played some PS2 and a few people watched Remember the Titans in our listening lab. There were all kinds of games from Uno, Rook, Settlers of Katan, and then our group-trying to play CLUE. The game was in both Chinese and English but the problem (one of them problems) was that it was in traditional characters (not the simplified ones that we all know-the traditional are hard even for many Chinese people to read). At the time I was the only foreigner at the table so I started explaining how to play CLUE in Chinese, of course. It was quite the task-I realized I don't even know an articulate way of explaining it in English but we kept trying. They finally understood the main ideas and we started trying to play. Another hard aspect was I don't know how to say all those weapons and rooms in Chinese and I just called the people by their color (Hongren, bairen, lanren-red person, white person, blue person). After a while we decided it was too hard and not very fun so we swited over to Uno-a great idea. We had LOTS of fun playing Uno and I taught them additional fun rules. By the end of the night we were all great friends and exchanging phone numbers. I made many new friends and got to hang out again with my previous tutor. I am so happy to finally be making more Chinese friends here and excited about hanging out with many of these new friends.

my CLUE table

(An additional fun fact-Chinese people are very interested in asking about our new future president-they all want to know what I think about him and my taxi driver last night knew more about him than me... I decided I need to learn some more political words in Chinese so I can know more what people are talking about!!)

A new president and new realization

So Obama has won. I know there are many mixed feelings about this. As I was telling my tutor today though, the most important thing now is for Americans to start lifting up the future leader of our country to our Father who sets up leaders for his perfect plan. It was pretty nice this year for following the results, just wake up and go to class and after class the results were in. No time to sit around waiting wondering who the winner would be. Although Obama won the US vote, us with my organization took a vote at language school and McCain beat Obama 17-3 with a vote for Ron Paul, a vote for Nick Geinhardt and 2 votes for Big Bird. I'm sure Big Bird would be proud he was only one vote off from Obama...

The other day I was in the supermarket by my house and was thinking I could go for some ground beef to maybe make some chilli. I go to the meat section (which I will admit I am still a big afraid of since there is so many strange meats laying around and all the parts of animals there). I find the "niu rou," cow meat and find some of what I think is ground beef. Except then I remember, oh yeah, I can read a lot of characters now, I'll read the characters for fun. Then I see the character for brain, at least I am pretty sure that is what it was. I immediately put that package of sticky meat down and decide to go for chicken breasts instead. Then I get to thinking...before I could read characters I wonder what I ate... Today in class we learned how to say you are a vegetarian or you only eat vegetables "wo chi su." I start to think maybe that might be a safter route for me...

chicken feet anyone?

how about a head?

Costume Bowling

My bowling team!

This Friday was Halloween so we decided we needed to do something fun-who wants to study on Halloween!? We decided to go costume bowling. My tutor came over to my house early to help me get dressed-I was a TV. She is SO creative and helped me get my outfit together so well. She has been my tutor for the last 7 weeks so we have grown really close. I am sad to have to change tutors next week! (We change tutors every month but last month was an exception for me and my tutor so we got to stay together longer!)

We met at the usual meeting place, McDonalds on Tongzhi Street, at 7.30. It was great arriving and seeing the crowd of Chinese onlookers already gathering. It is not an everyday thing to see a bunch of foreigners and a few Chinese friends dressed extremely strange standing outside of a major shopping area! People were taking pictures, asking us why we were dressed this way and where we were from and complementing our "standard Chinese." (It is culturally polite to compliment us like this, even though our Chinese isn't that good they still complement us-good for self esteem!) We finally all arrived and hopped in taxis to head to the bowling ally inside of a nice hotel (most bowling allys in China are in fancy hotels).

waiting outside of McDonalds

We got four lanes, our snazzy shoes and started bowling. We had so much fun taking pictures and spending time with some of our tutors who came with us! It is so fun to be able to spend almost the whole night mostly only speaking in Chinese, even with each other. Granted my conversations aren't super complex in Chinese but my tutor and I have a great time together and communicate all we need to! It was her first time ever to go bowling so I showed her the basics of bowling pointing to the importance of follow through. She told me she thinks she will be good very soon because "she is very good at sports." Sure enough, she was AWESOME! She had a score in the 80s I think the first game and a 98 the second. We tied! It was a great night with my classmates and with our Chinese friends. Our tutors here are our most important relationships that we build usually so it is good to spend time with them outside of the 2 hours a day of tutoring!

My first tutor's boyfriend-changing the channel! (they dressed as bears fans!)

Look-we both got 98!

My tutor with Pat and Amy McGuin

For more pictures, check out my flickr!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinamegan

Ni zuijin mang shenme? （你最近忙什么？）

Ni zuijin mang shenme (你最近忙什么？）, or "you recently busy what?"

Oh, glad you asked. Here are a few highlights from the last two weeks of what I have been up to.

Friends from afar
Last Wednesday the CLP (our language program) was blessed to get to meet the friends of one of my classmates who came to visit. Two men from America came to visit my classmates as well as bring some encouragement to us here. We all gathered Wednesday night and they treated us to Pizza Hut (a HUGE deal-we miss pizza but it is so expensive we rarely go-especially as students). After we all ate to our content (great content) one of the men shared with us from our favorite book and brought a challenge as well as encouragement. Such a blessing.

Some of the boxes...not all...

Saturday afternoon football
A few Saturdays ago a bunch of us got together for a day of some "american style" football. About 15-20 people came out to play and we split up into teams at a nearby university's dirt field and got into the fall spirit. Most (if not almost all) Chinese people know very little about American football so we had many observers as the big group of foreigners ran around throwing and trying to catch the football. Some of the families also came to watch so there were lots of kiddos running around watching and playing nearby as well so we were quite the interest point for the day. It was so much fun to play and to be able to enjoy the community of language school here. We played for almost 4 hours! (We all then felt the results of playing for that long the next few days as we were complaining about being sore more than our classmates who ran a half marathon that weekend)

Day of Rest
Yesterday the CLP observed a day of rest and reflection. All of our classes and tutor times were canceled for the day. We started the day off Tuesday night with a time of singing and focusing our hearts. It is so great to get together and sing in community. I am definitely enjoying that this year. Wednesday we had a time of community singing and reading of our favorite book and then the afternoon off. We then ended the day with singing some fun songs and then a community soup and bread dinner. I don't know if it was becuase many hadn't eaten in a day or because it was so wonderful but we all thought the soup dinner was amazing! Such a blessing to fellowship with our classmates and staff. I finished off the day meeting with some ladies to work on our Beth Moore study about Daniel!

eating dinner at the CLP

the soup was a success!

Test Time!!!
Today we had our first test here at CLP. It was in our characters class. In Chinese, many of the characters (or pictures as my some friends call them-the words in Chinese) are composed of two parts, the radical and the phonetic. The phonetic side can give you some idea of what the word may sound like (so if two characters have the same phonetic they may sound similar). The radical side can give you some idea of the meaning (like things to do with clothing, or with metal, or birds). In our character class we had to memorize 50 different radicals adn learn about them and many phonetics. We also had to memorize our school address in Chinese and be able to write it. Today we had our final exam for the class. I think we all felt pretty good about it! It is amazing to think that in only a few short months I have learned these 50+ radicals which can help me know meanings to countless many other characters! More about my classes to come in my next newsletter!

study time

For more pictures check out my flickr! (www.flickr.com/photos/chinamegan)

I went to the Olympics...OK, not really, but sports meets are fun too!

So I didn't really make it to the Olympics this year. I was sad to miss them but it would have been crazy. I was in China during some of the Olympics which was fun in itself. However, I was able to be a part of my university here's Sports Meet. Every university in China has a sports meet once a year. Pretty much like it sounds, there are just a bunch of sports competitions I guess. This year was my first time to participate.

The university I am studying Chinese at invited all of the foreign students to come to the Opening Ceremony for their sports meet. So, one chilly Sunday morning we arrive at 7.30 AM and meet up with all the other foreign students (some even dressed up in their country's traditional clothing which was really cool). We all walk over to the sports field together and wait for about a half an hour as we see students coming into the stadium and students marching in step with their departments. They were all wearing matching clothing and in step and looking to together-no wonder China did such an awesome job at the Opening Ceremony! We all felt pretty funny because we all showed up in hoodies and jeans and just wandered in to the stadium!


When it was finally our turn to walk in we came in with balloons and small gifts to throw into the crowd (like candy at a parade). Everyone was waving at us as we walk around the track and then onto the grass field. We actually felt like real famous athletes-it was awesome. When we got onto the field and lined up in lines of two they marched in the flags of the school and China's flag. We then listened to China's national song (and one of our classmates sang along wonderfully as he had learned it) and then the university's song. (Made me think about the one time we sang JBU's song while in college. Schools just don't get as into school songs as they used to!)


After listening to a few short speeches we were set free to go our own ways as they continued with more speeches and who knows what else. I then went with a few friends to get breakfast (this great breakfast of this pita-like bread with veggies, egg, meat and some sauce inside) and sit outside, enjoy the day, and talk about language, US politics and work being done around the world. A good morning in China.

for more pictures, check out my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinamegan

Xiang Li's Wedding

A few weeks ago I made the trek back up to Harbin for my good friend and previous tutor, Xiang Li's wedding. I didn't even know she was dating someone until this fall earlier when she told me she was getting married in September! I was quite surprised but very excited for her! So, after class on Friday, I hopped on a train up to my old hometown of Harbin. That Friday night I was able to meet up with some other foreign teachers who came to China with me as well as some other foreign friends I made while teaching in Harbin. It was fun to be able to catch up with them.


Saturday morning I took my taxi to the church where the wedding took place and arrived a little early so took some time to study some of my flash cards I had brough along with me. After a bit everyone started arriving and Xiang Li and her fiance/husband showed up in their limo. (I am assuming he had already been to her house and found her hidden shoe and carried her out of the house as is tradition.) We all headed into the church and enjoyed the ceremony. It was very beautiful in the church and it was nice to be in a church. It was a very western style of wedding being in a church and with a white dress. After the ceremony we headed to the restaurant for the real party where there was a huge banquet of food and a lot of toasting. It was fun to see old friends at the wedding and be surronded by Chinese people (I was the only foreigner!). It reminded me how much I love being around Chinese people and also made me anxious to be able to speak more Chinese!


After the wedding I went with my good Chinese friend Catherine to get foot massages with my old teammate. It was fun to be with Catherine because she could translate what the massage people were saying. In China, when you get foot massages they can supposedly tell you what is wrong with you and what could be a problem health wise in the future. Of course, if you ask them what to do about it they tell you to come get massages more often! Then to top of the day I got to get together with the whole Harbin city team of teachers for dinner with Dave's parents for pizza. It was a great weekend and very full of great people!

For more pictures check out my flickr site: www. flickr.com/photos/chinamegan