The next installment of my (notorious) catch-up posts
…which reminds me, I had a short conversation with my Literature professor during our Thanksgiving celebration about traditions in America. Speaking in English— he is Chinese, though he teaches us in English so his language skills are fairly good— I told him how relatives often “catch up,” because they live far apart. I don’t really know how to translate this into Chinese, so I stuck with 聊天 (to chat, make small talk). I thought he understood what I said, until he mentioned that “catch up” has multiple meanings. So then I tried explaining how catch up can also be if you literally catch up to somebody, as if they are ahead of you and you run up to them. I remember using 赶 to try to explain it, but I’m not quite sure if that’s accurate. Anyway, then he looked more confused and said something to the effect of, “And it’s what you can get when you go to KFC.” I was confused for a second and then it registered in my head that “catch up” and “ketchup” sound very similar. After laughing for a bit at this pun my teacher (I think unintentionally) made, I explained to him that these words have nothing in common despite sounding the same.
But returning to the correct order of events. Since I lasted posted, we’ve had two weekend activities and a Thanksgiving celebration. (This first weekend of December we don’t have a weekend activity because we had two small field trips; they will occupy their own post that I hopefully will add soon.)
陕西文化中心
Our weekend activity for the second week of November was the visit a rather interesting section of Xian. The entire square was dedicated to the folk customs of Xian and Shaanxi province and remembering former glory during bygone dynasties. There was even troupe of who appeared to be high schoolers practicing for a performance of some sort of drum dance.
The store/ museum/ workshop we toured was dedicated to the folk arts of Shaanxi province, and we especially toured the shadow puppet section. These are not the shadow puppets that we (Americans) often make in the shape of an eagle, a spider or a dog with our hands; rather, these are ornately carved and painted thin sheets of leather with movable joints to enhance the performance. Before the popularization of modern gadgets such as the TV, these shadow puppet troupes were rather popular and seemed to have a reputation similar to the travelling circus in the United States. Interestingly enough, as they’re carving the leather, they don’t move the blade across to cut, but rather turn and move the leather. I tried for a bit and made a very rough curve after a lot of effort.
After our short tour of the shadow puppet workshop, we were given a performance of a “folk opera.” There are multiple forms of opera that are regionally popular in China—the most famous is the Peking Opera, which was created around Beijing as a combination of a few other forms. This was absolutely nothing like that. There were various musicians scattered on the stage with a variety of more traditional Chinese instruments, like the erhu, and some more “creative” instruments, the most memorable being the bench. Yep, a man was hitting a bench, sometimes with his hands and other times with smaller wooden blocks, to make music. A few of the musicians also “sang” as they played – though it sounded a lot more like screaming and making of random noises. One of our assistant directors, Li Shaohan, who is Chinese, commented that even she had no idea what they were saying or what was going on. She is from a different province, so there’s just a glimpse of some of the regional differences in China.
A postcard that more or less portrays what the folk opera looked like
After the musical performance, we saw a shadow puppet performance. They were acting out a story of a turtle and a crane. The crane was being loud and obnoxious (and trying to eat the turtle); the turtle gets fed up with the crane is eventually able to sneak away, only to return and, at the very end of the play, grab the crane in his beak. It’s unclear if the turtle ate the crane, merely killed it or just caused it pain, but either way the crane had it coming.
Afterward, they let some of us go behind the screen and try our hand at moving the shadow puppets. I didn’t play puppeteer because I wanted to watch, but I heard it was extremely difficult as each puppet had multiple sticks (one for each movable part), often times requiring multiple people to control a single puppet, which obviously makes moving fluidly much more difficult.
My finished "puppet" who came with a nice display case
汉阳陵
Our next weekend trip brought us outside the hustle and bustle of Xian and into more of the outskirts. We visited the burial grounds of the fourth Han emperor, Emperor Jing. He, like the more famous Emperor Qin Shihuang with his Terracotta Army, had a rather complex burial tomb complete with an “army,” although his consisted mostly of miniature court officials and animals to serve as food in the afterlife. Each person was constructed with movable arms, which have now rotten since those were wooden, had identifiable genitalia (and thus males and eunuchs could be differentiated!), and were robed in silk, which has also unfortunately rotted away.
The tomb has been preserved because the mausoleum is a pyramidal mound of earth and all of the chambers were thus buried deep underground. Like the Terracotta Army, this mausoleum is an active excavation site and museum.
过感恩节
The week of Thanksgiving we did not have a weekend activity because we were all invited to our Resident Director’s apartment for dinner. We also had Thursday and Friday off from classes, so we had a lot of relaxation time before our final month of classes.
Needless to say, Thanksgiving in China is not quite the same as in America, if for nothing else than China doesn’t have turkeys. Also, Chinese people obviously don’t celebrate this American tradition, so we were often asked by our teachers to explain the origin of Thanksgiving and our modern ways of celebrating. Too many of us had fun making jokes in English – so hopefully our teachers didn’t completely understand – mixing the entire American history somehow relating to Native Americans, such as when Abraham Lincoln bought the Louisiana Purchase and Sacagawea helped the Pilgrims survive the winter by bringing turkey and smallpox… not accurate in any sense. After our meal, our Resident Director asked someone to explain the actual story of Thanksgiving, in Chinese no less. After some laughing and no volunteering, I was “asked” … I don’t really quite remember how it happened, but I know I didn’t volunteer. I actually had wanted to try, so I guess my Resident Director has psychic powers. with some help for unfamiliar terms such as "Indians" 印第安人 and "cranberries" 蔓越莓, I was able to provide a fairly accurate and understandable story (I also explained a little my own family's tradition as an explanation for my formal attire). We then shared why we were thankful in Chinese, a little bit of which was recorded, so hopefully I can upload the video to the blog…
Thanksgiving dinner was, obviously, extremely different than I've ever had, but it was still really enjoyable. We had hotpot (火锅), and they thoughtfully made a "non-spicy" pot for us less-adventurous students. Beside the American students and our Resident Director, his girlfriend, our two Assistant Directors, Literature teacher, Anthropology/ History teacher and his girlfriend and our four Chinese teachers were all in attendance. It was odd to see them not in a classroom setting at first, but since we're all fairly similar in age (all the teachers except the Literature professor are under 30), we quickly all got into the "party" mood. After the explanations of Thanksgiving and everyone sharing what they were thankful for, we all ended up splitting up into smaller groups and had normal conversations which whomever we were sitting by. Some were in English; others, Chinese. I talked a bit with our Resident Director’s girlfriend, who is from Chongqing, and learned some more reasons why I should visit there the next time I come to China. A few of our classmates had bought a cake and as we were passing it out, somehow or another, a “cake fight” started in that everyone started smearing frosting on each other’s noses, somewhat similar to the messy cake sharing between the new bride and groom at a wedding reception. I think alcohol might’ve played a role in this starting. I had luckily already gotten my cake and avoided this sillyness, though it made my Chinese teacher question if I really had eaten any cake yet, as my face was clean!
It was odd to celebrate Thanksgiving without family (and without playing football!), but I have to say I very much enjoyed everyone’s company. I suppose now is about the time when children start hanging out much more with their friends than family for holidays, so I guess this is good preparation.
Video of the first three thankful students
How to eat hot pot, as demonstrated by (L-R) Orion, Li Shaohan, Qin Laoshi, and Joe
The cake fiasco begins :P
Almost all of the "non-student" guests
My teacher is in the very front
Miscellaneous
I attended another event put on the International Cultures Club (the people I did belated pumpkin carving with). This event was centered on Korean culture – mostly making kimbap (紫菜包饭 in Chinese, or “Korean sushi” in English). After a brief demonstration by two Korean foreign students, each table set out to make our own rolls. Karen has made sushi herself and has some experience working at a Chinese restaurant back in Minnesota, so she was very helpful in making our rolls. For whatever reason, all the girls at our table (I was the only guy) thought that Karen and I had experience making this dish. They were only 50% right.
After making and then eating our delicious creations, we played a game. I don’t remember what it was called, but an odd number of people walk around in a circle. After a call-and-response between the people in the circle and a caller, the caller names a body part. Everyone then must find only one partner and have both persons’ named body part touching. Whoever is left without a partner must undergo a “punishment,” which this time around was eating a wedge of carrot or cucumber with wasabi on it. As I have a particularly strong aversion to wasabi, I made sure I never lost. They were having difficulty getting volunteers for the game, so even though my knowledge of body parts in Chinese is limited, I figured I’d give it a try. I thought, “What’s the worse that can happen?” (We didn’t know the punishment at the time.) Well, I am happy to say I never had to taste any wasabi, except when Karen tricked me into eating some. We played four rounds. We first had to touch elbows, then hands, then ankles and finally butts. It was a pretty fun game.
Next they showed a short clip from a popular Korean show (I can’t remember if it is from a drama or a movie) about a girl dancing silly to a song about a panda family. They, naturally, then tried to solicit someone to come up and perform the dance and sing the song. No one volunteered. Then they decided the foreigners should try. After trying to get another American girl, they asked for any foreigner to sing a song from their country. Well, I apparently was in a volunteering mood, as I raised my hand. I convinced Karen to come up with me and sing Telephone by Lady Gaga… this song has proved itself extremely effective at getting me to act ridiculous in front of people in China. I would sing Gaga’s part, and Karen would do Beyonce’s. However, as soon as we got up, they wanted us to both sing a cappella and dance. I didn’t have much problem with that, but it threw Karen off a little bit. We did it anyway and they all seemed to enjoy it. Karen’s roommate recorded the beginning on her cell phone, so the quality isn’t the best but gives you a hint of what I do when I dance to Gaga. Afterward, I actually had someone compliment me on my dance moves, who was surprised to learn that they were my own moves I had choreographed and not Gaga’s that I memorized!
After our program ends in mid-December, I will be going to Hong Kong for a few days since I don’t know the next time I’ll be in the area (aka East Asia) and be able to see Hong Kong. I also have a very good friend from Hong Kong, who though currently is living in the United States, was maybe going to be able to meet up with me for these few days. However, she is unable to make the trip, so I’ll be exploring the city by myself / with accompaniment of some of her close friends.
During these past few weeks, I had some complications with booking airline tickets and hotel rooms. I had used www.ctrip.com to book my flight to Hong Kong, as the site is dedicated to flights to, from, and within the Chinese territories. However, there were some mix-ups with my credit cards which led to some odd phone calls with their representatives, the oddest of which revolved around if I were a student or not. I thought that since I am currently a college student, as even have a Chinese university ID, I qualified as a student. Apparently, for these tickets, it only counts if I’m a student at a Hong Kong university. So, I switched to a normal adult ticket. What seemed pointless about the whole thing was that both the student and normal adult tickets were the same price… The point being, I will be in Hong Kong and plan on making at least one blog post about my mini-adventures there, so stay tuned even after the semester ends!
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